War crime revelation - a damning indictment on the Sri Lankan Government

By Rajasingham Jayadevan

(September 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The most important first hand account of war crimes by Keliya Rabwelaukka and Rajiva Wijesinghe are maintaining dumb founded silence, unable to formulate their harangue they have well tuned and specialised in. the Sri Lankan forces revealed by Damilyany Gananakumar invited only little response from the Sri Lankan government. The traditional government breast beating mavericks like Dr Palitha Kohane, Anura Piriyadarsana Yapa, Damilyany Gananakumar revelations are most powerful eye witness account of the final stages of the inhuman war executed by the Sri Lankan forces. Her testimony and many others to be revealed in the future are vital evidence for the international community to act upon to bring peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

Damilyany Gananakumar, unlike many other Tamils, was bold enough to publicly state her first hand knowledge of the brutality inflicted by the government forces on the Tamil civilian population. According to information, TNA parliamentarian Chandra Nehru who had personally witnessed the ravages of the war and escaped the sinister mission of the Defence Ministry to assassinate him has left the shores of Sri Lanka to a safe heaven. He is still to go public about his first hand knowledge in the war front. According to sources, he is fearing to reveal his knowledge of the atrocities committed by the government forces.

When ‘The Guardian’ reported the news headlined ‘Eyewitness to Carnage, the British woman caught in brutal civil war’ (appended below) with the colourful picture of Damilyany Gananakumar on 16 September 2009, there was a surge in the demand for the broadheet in the shops in London. By afternoon the newspaper ran out of stock in many parts of London.

Following the revelations in the Guardian, leading TV channels (C4, Al-Jaseera) telecast interviews of Damilyani and she was forthright in her comments that the Sri Lankan forces arbitrarily bombed and fired on civilian’s targets to score their victory over the LTTE.

The Guardian said ‘now her damning account provides a powerful rebuke to the claims of the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, that the defeat of the Tamil Tigers was achieved without the spilling of a drop of civilian blood.’

It is clear that efforts were made by the Sri Lankan government to put some pressure on Damilyani to maintain silenceby arranging a meeting with President’s brother Basil Rajapakse. According to Damilyani when she was taken to meet Basil in Colombo "He said OK, you went through so much in the country and now you are released you can go and join your family and be happy. He wasn't sorry about it." She was then handed over to British officials.

Happiness could not have come better for Damilyani by remaining silent and her comment that: ‘After looking at the people dying and dead bodies everywhere, it is like nothing threatens me any more, it is like I have had the hard time in my life and I think I am prepared to take up whatever happens in life now.’ This speaks volume of her sincere feeling despite going through the harrowing experience.

The Sri Lankan High Commission in London in their traditional way rubbished her revelations as LTTE propaganda. The High Commissioner Justice Nihal Jayasinghe’s position is becoming untenable as his prior occupation as Justice to the Sri Lankan Supreme Court and his involvement with the War Crimes Tribunal makes his judicial acumen and foresight questionable when he trumpets the wrongdoings of the government.

One of the government’s upbeat propagandists Prof Rajiva Wijesinghe was praised for his forthright comment in September 2008 at a seminar asking the nation ‘Let we forget: the tragedy of July 1983’. His portrayal of the recent massacres of Tamil civilians in the war against the LTTE is more calamitous than the 1983 state backed anti-Tamil violence. He is now the vociferous defender of the appalling mission and is seriously contradicting his stand when he asked the nation to forget over the crimes against Tamils in 1983.

-Sri Lanka Guardian