Commissioner Pillai & the LTTE Terrorists

By Nacholibre

(March 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “There is no point in carrying piece of paper outlining a peace deal and walking towards an LTTE terrorist pointing his gun at you, as he will shoot you dead through the piece of paper that you are holding against your chest for him to see. Therefore, the only way left forward is shooting the terrorist dead first”.

A Colombo newspaper once said the above in its editorial and the editor could not have been more truthful in his assertion. The LTTE is conscripting hundreds of civilians trapped in the war-zone, send them through a crash military training of few days and order them to the front lines to shoot at the advancing army. As Maj. Gen. Jagath Jayasooriya has claimed recently, it does not matter if the shooter is a novice or not, what you get coming out of his gun are live bullets that can kill you if it is your time die. Thus, the only way to neutralize that threat is to shoot and kill the opponent shooter first. He could be a civilian, but the LTTE has made him hold a gun and shoot at you to kill.

The plight of this situation is that the LTTE terrorists are taking advantage of the situation and field hundreds of such forcefully conscripted civilians in the frontlines deliberately getting them killed in the firefights. After these unfortunate civilians get killed or wounded, the LTTE remove their weapons and parade the dead bodies and the wounded to the world as innocent non-weapon carrying casualties of war who have been killed and maimed by the Army. This is the real situation in the remaining LTTE-held area including the safe zone along the Puthumattalan coast in the Mulaitivu district. There is no hiding of this fact, as many civilians who have escaped the war zone as well as NGO personnel working in the war zone have witnessed this brutal behaviour of the LTTE many times over. It is the ultimate strategy of the LTTE anticipating some help from the international forces to save them from being wiped out.

The saddest story is that, out of all places, such help has come for the LTTE from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The inability or the non-preparedness of the current UN High Commissioner’s office to accept the prime involvement of the LTTE in the civilian misery on the ground has given much hope for the LTTE terrorists who were prolonging the human misery during the last three years. Conceding that assistance to the LTTE, Ms. Navanetham Pillai, the UN High Commissioner has claimed that she is adamant that the civilian casualties are the war crimes perpetrated by the State Army. Her office has claimed that thousands of civilians have been killed and the Sri Lankan Government should be responsible for those deaths.

That is being absolutely outrageous and being non-alive to the reality. The UN High Commissioner should know better. The prime culprit of the civilian massacre is none other than the LTTE. They are the terrorist who conscript the children and adult civilians for war in Sri Lanka. If the Sri Lankan Army wanted to win the war at the earliest possible time, they could have carpet bombed the remaining stretch of land and captured it within a day’s time. Yet the State has not ordered such however quick the approach can be in finishing the war and in minimizing own casualties among the State Security Forces.

When forcefully conscripted civilians are killed in combat, the UN High Commissioner can not in a sane mind call it a war crime on the part of the Government. That is seeing things in a lop-sided fashion. The UN High Commissioner, if she is humanely concerned for the trapped civilians, should address the situation by supporting the Sri Lankan State, which is trying its best to finish off the LTTE with minimal harm to the civilians, not by supporting the LTTE who is the prime culprit of the civilian massacre. Ideally, she should give an ultimatum to the LTTE to release the human shield they are keeping. Instead, the High Commissioner’s office takes steps to pull the Government by the leg and tacitly vindicate the LTTE of its crimes.

Her statement sends the following message to the terrorists: “keep doing what you are doing, we will wrap you lightly on your knuckles and at the same time knock the living daylights out of the Sri Lankan Government”.

The High Commissioner Pillai’s biased statements against the State strengthens the course of the LTTE terrorists and their resolve to prolong the human suffering that they are engineering. The LTTE invigorated by the lack of firm resolve against them from the UN High Commisioers office, sees a tacit green light in Pillai’s statement and they would know by prolonging their crimes against humanity, it would be not the LTTE but the Sri Lankan State that would be targeted by the Human Rights Commissioner of the UN.

Thus, by reading the ground situation in a lop-sided fashion due to either the lack of correct information or ulterior motives and issuing biased statements that tacitly safeguard and encourage the LTTE while victimizing the State, the Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillai has ironically sided with the terrorists, thereby siding with the human suffering of the civilians that she says she wants to end immediately. -Sri Lanka Guardian