UN’s role in war crimes

:how Sri Lanka compares to Khmer Rouge?

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(December 06, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The President’s visit to the UK has kept the media in a perpetual frenzy and provided the Tamil diaspora another opportunity to unleash their anger over the war which claimed many thousand Tamil lives.

The TGTE (Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam), BTF (British Tamil Forum) and other organizations in the diaspora do not appear to have mature and intelligent leaders or advisors to lodge their protest over war crimes. If the diaspora is serious in bringing the government to account for war crimes then it needs to take very diplomatic and meaningful steps. Mass demonstrations and countrywide protests are necessary to draw attention to the loss of lives, livelihood and property on a mega-scale perpetrated on the Tamils mainly. But more importantly the diaspora should not become just another incarnation of the LTTE.

There should be a united and meaningful participation of all parties both in countries where the disapora have taken refuge and in Sri Lanka if the government is to be made accountable for its role in the war crimes.

A lesson we should learn from Cambodia is that it managed to convict Kang Gek Iew, a key Khmer Rouge member as recently as July 2010 for war crimes and crimes against humanity as the former commandant of the S21 extermination camp 30 years hence through patient and systematic legal procedures. The key players in his conviction and imprisonment are the United Nations along with several western nations and Japan.

A BBC Correspondent who visited Phnom Penh recently states that a psychologist talked to him about the elders who do not even want to speak of the genocide or even tell their next generations about it. They want to blot out those gruesome years out of their minds and possibly history.

This shocking image was recently received from the Global Tamil Forum, a London-based Tamil political activist group.

There is a greater need to follow up on LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation) Commission and keep one’s ears sharp on the submissions particularly of the ordinary civilians who are the victims of this war. It is also incumbent on international human rights organizations not to let go of the paper trail although they have declined to give evidence before this commission.

The way to obtain redress and compensation for the war victims are twofold. One is to keep the West informed of what the government is doing to rehabilitate and compensate victims and whether it genuinely wants to atone and grant Tamils their rights denied so far by successive governments since independence. The other is the legal channel and this second step is much more crucial and productive than simply demonstrating against the president.

Senior Khmer Rouge member Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, sits in court at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).- File image

The UN panel is also conducting its own investigations and requesting submissions from interested parties. Whichever international war tribunal or Court where both the LLRC submissions and the UN report would ultimately be handed over will also be considering how the minority Tamils are reacting in the aftermath of the war. Starting another insurgency would jeopardize any redress being offered and the country simply cannot take another bloodshed.

The economy as touted by the government is not at all doing well. The talk of being the future economic miracle of Asia is a delusion of grandeur among the ruling dynasty and a big ruse to stupefy the populace into retaining it in power for decades to come. Yet another wave of terrorism would not just cause more misery but destroy the whole island not just cause more division among its ethnic groups as in the past.