by Rajasingham Jayadevan
(November 26, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) In his response to an article titled ‘War criminal gets a UN job’ dated 21 November 2010, published in the ‘New York Post’, DR Palitha Kohana have come to the defence of Major General Shavendra Silva. His response was published in the ‘Truth First website’.
Major General Shavendra Silva will remain accused until evidence backed transparent judicious inquiry discharge him of his involvement in war crimes. It is common knowledge he is innocent until the claims of war crimes against him are proven judiciously. The evidences against him are systematically suppressed by the state machinery and the government must sincerely untie its undue hold on the evidences against the Major General.
The government effort to investigate war crimes must be equal and proportionate. It is exuberant to dig the alleged mass grave of soldiers executed by the LTTE, it has so far deliberately prevented a fair process to investigate the war crimes charges against its armed forces despite evidences are revealed.
Dr Kohana’s accusation that the said Senior Army Officer defeated the most barbaric terrorist group in the world needs a wider response. The manifestation of the so called barbaric LTTE is the product of the uncivilised conduct of the government forces against the Tamil civilian population for over many years. The LTTE is the baby of the failures of the state in not addressing the root causes politically, that led to the birth of this violent group.
Even after the defeat of the LTTE, the government is not responding in a responsible manner to deal with the root causes, instead trumpeting of its victory and further extending its resolve not to deal with the issues politically. Gloating on its ‘victorious crusade’ and the ‘defeatism’ of the enemy is never ending for the government.
According to official statements, the LTTE has been militarily defeated and are even unable to kill a fly with a catapult. The very same civilian population that lived under the military rule of the LTTE now have to live with the heavy presence of the so-called victorious army and are experiencing difficulties that are not brought to the public knowledge due to the heavy pressure on the media and control of the defence establishment over the Tamil civil society.
Even the All Party Parliamentary Committee (APPC) recommendation submitted to the President prior to the end of the war to amend the constitution to devolve powers to the periphery has been rubbished by the President following the defeat of the LTTE. APPC process headed by the government minister Prof. Tissa Vitharane has been proved to be an effort to undermine the outcry for political resolution to the conflict.
The accusation that excesses of the army are propaganda of the LTTE is unacceptable. Having created the climate for the army to operate in a brutish manner by suppressing the media, the local and the international NGO’s and having rubbished all the claims of war crimes without permitting an independent inquiry, DR Palitha Kohana’s denial stands pathetically weak. Sri Lanka being party to the international protocols and conventions on the conduct of war has failed to accommodate the very same international body that Dr Kohana is representing Sri Lanka to inquire and respond to the war crimes charges judiciously.
Anyone questioning the conduct of the government forces has come under public castigation and even those international organisations that criticised and exposed the LTTE of brutality and international fundraising were not spared for demanding justice. When it suits the government, it will embrace the international NGOs and when they criticise the government armed with evidence, they are being castigated and humiliated. These international human rights NGO’s have been impartial in their conduct throughout the conflict. Unfortunately, the government expects them to dance to its tune all the time and wants them to ignore the brutality it perpetrated in the Vanni front.
In his interview to the Hindu newspaper the President of Sri Lanka gave way by saying ‘We defeated terrorists, not freedom fighters. The whole world is facing this problem. …… The past is past; you don't dig into the wounds. We must think positively, not negatively’. The President who claimed not a single civilian was killed in the war is now appealing to the international community not to ‘dig into the (war) wounds’.
There are compelling and substantive evidence of killing of thousands of civilians in the Vanni war. Some Tamils who experienced the ravages of the war has migrated to many countries. They are unspoken victims of the war and if international efforts facilitates, they will be telling their harrowing stories of wonton killings in the war front.
With reference to the deaths of 7000 civilians claimed by the UN, Dr Palitha Kohana is all out to uphold the UN’s claim of ‘the figure is unverified’. Until the Government of Sri Lanka facilitates the process to verify this bottom line claim, it will not be substantiated. The Government of Sri Lanka has proved itself hostile to any UN efforts to investigate the matter and its stand on UN appointing an advisory committee on the war crimes claim clearly speaks of the negative agenda of the GoSL.
I am sure Dr Palitha Kohana would have watched the rare footages of civilian targets being bombed by the army at the peak of the war. In addition, there were witnesses account of random bombings published in the independent media. As its concerted campaign, Sri Lanka has rubbished all these and has so far ridiculed the witnesses and further did not make any efforts to facilitate an independent investigation to investigate the war crimes charges.
How can Dr Palitha Kohane call the killing of white flag carrying LTTE leaders and their family members a ‘canard’? Is he rubbishing the effort of the President’s brother Basil Rajapakse, UN’s Nambiar, Norweigian Foreign Office, the Times reporter, TNA parliamentarian and an important Tamil contact in the UK to get these men and women move forward and surrender that ended up in the slaughter ‘a canard’?
I am sure, the UN representative for Sri Lanka Dr Palitha Kohana is fully aware of the multi phone link talk between the parties mentioned above and President’s brother Basil Rajapakse giving affirmative direction for the surrender with the white flags. There is substantive and corroborative evidence stacked up on the white flag killings and these cannot be simply rubbished at a stroke to cover up the issue.
The army would have helped (not rescued) over 300,000 Tamil civilians to move to the IDP camps. The 300,000 people are lucky to be alive from the so-called indiscriminate bombings of the warring parties.
There is complete silence maintained on the senior LTTE men taken in bus loads when they surrendered to the army. Minister D E W Gunasekara has claimed that LTTE’s Balakumar and Yogaratnam Yogi were killed in the battle front. But there is sufficient eye witness account of these two men with other senior LTTE’rs were taken in a bus by the army. Whereabouts of these surrendered men are still a hidden secret and is expected to boomerang on the government one day.
The move to appoint the Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) with the restricted mandate and it being appointed by the President of Sri Lanka who is the commander in Chief of the armed forces will not address the wider issues involved in the age long war between majority the Sinhala state and the Tamils demanding accommodation with devolvement of power. The issues involved are painful and the LLRC is only providing lip service for the gigantic issues involved. The birth of LLRC is clearly aimed to undermine the outcry for an independent international inquiry.
I too am longing for the day I can give evidence to an independent inquiry on many issues that affected me personally.
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