The irony of the report is that the Panel found credible allegations that comprise five core categories of potential serious violations committed by the Government of Sri Lanka: (i) killing of civilians through widespread shelling; (ii) shelling of hospitals and humanitarian objects; (iii) denial of humanitarian assistance; (iv) human rights violations suffered by victims and survivors of the conflict, including both IDPs and suspected LTTE cadre; and (v) human rights violations outside the conflict zone, including against the media and other critics of the Government.
by Malin Abeyatunge
(April 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)The three stooges have completed the report against Sri Lanka and handed over to UN Secretary General (UNSG) Ban-Ki-Moon. The Executive summary of the advisory panel appeared in the print media which gives various allegations against the Sri Lanka Government. Firstly, this is a panel arbitrarily appointed by current UNSG without the approval of the UN Security Council or UN Human Rights Council. Hence it will have no legal binding on Sri Lanka but yet a worry of having a completely flawed report of this nature on record staining country’s good image. Secondly, the report is compiled with hearsay, bits and pieces of unsubstantiated biased information gathered from so called human rights organization like HRW, AI, ICG, LTTE websites like TamilNet, Chanel 4 etc. Adding insult to injury the credibility of the panel members namely former AG of Indonesia Marzuki Darusman, South African Human Rights Lawyer Yasmin Sooka and an American Lawyer Steven Ratner is in doubt as they have vested interests in their own field working with their own agenda. I do not want to reiterate the fact as who they are, what their background, who funds them and their ideologies as they are very well known to the world.
Even before the report is out, it was a forgone conclusion that it’s going to be flawed and biased and against Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government immediate response was that the report is flawed and biased. All Sri Lankans irrespective of party politics will stand by the Government’s response. The ultimate goal of the western world is to see that this small country is broken into ethnic enclaves and destabilize the Indian Region and also to propagate Christian hegemony. They were successful in Yugoslavia, East Timor, Sudan and in the past India and Korea. To achieve a division of the country, they are ready to sleep with the remnant devils of LTTE which is rampant in the western world. LTTE terrorists out fit was nurtured and fondled by the western countries, various UN Agencies, INGOs like HRW, AI, ICG and continue to do so and this report is another result of one of those subtle schemes to divide Sri Lanka instead of promoting reconciliation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.
The irony of the report is that the Panel found credible allegations that comprise five core categories of potential serious violations committed by the Government of Sri Lanka: (i) killing of civilians through widespread shelling; (ii) shelling of hospitals and humanitarian objects; (iii) denial of humanitarian assistance; (iv) human rights violations suffered by victims and survivors of the conflict, including both IDPs and suspected LTTE cadre; and (v) human rights violations outside the conflict zone, including against the media and other critics of the Government.
The Panel’s determination of credible allegations against the LTTE associated with the final stages of the war reveal six core categories of potential serious violations: Ii) using civilians as a human buffer; (ii) killing civilians attempting to flee LTTE control; (iii) using military equipment in the proximity of civilians; (iv) forced recruitment of children; (v) forced labour; and (vi) killing of civilians through suicide attacks.
Now, will the panel be able to tell us how they are going to bring charges against the LTTE to face the allegations they have made. Is it Rudrakumaran who is running a non-recognized TGTE (USA), or Emannauel Pillai of the Global Tamil Forum (UK) or the head of the Tamil Forum in UK, Australian Tamil Congress or LTTE leaders in Norway, France, Switzerland ? The six core categories of allegations (conveniently evaded to include massacre of villagers, ethnic cleansing, bombing of religiously sacred temples, mosques, kovils, assassinations of Sinhalese and Tamil political leaders, destruction of public buildings and transport) against LTTE shown in the report is just an eye wash to show the world that the Panel is unbiased knowing very well that the top LTTE terrorists who were creating mayhem are now dead and gone and cannot lay any charges on them. The panel is trying to fool whom?
The Panel has alleged Sri Lanka on 5 core categories. Let us examine one by one.
- Killing of civilians through widespread shelling; This is a completely unsubstantiated statement. I have read these type of unsubstantiated statements in various reports submitted by HRW, AI , ICG, UNICEF and in the Tamil Net Websites and also Channel 4. The Sri Lankan Army was and is a very disciplined army and instructions from the high ups were to strictly maintain zero causalities in their war operations not only during the last stages of war but since the inception of the fight against LTTE terrorists. I would like to reiterate the fact that the Sri Lankan forces defeated LTTE and captured Eastern province from LTTE without a single civilian death. The report appears to be hesitant to mention about it. “Killing civilians of widespread shelling’ is a very vague statement that cannot be quantified and shouldn’t have come from a so called expert Panel. Let me remind an incident that when Sencholai women tiger training centre was precisely identified and was bombed by SL Air Force, various NGOs and LTTE came with lots of theories like it was a school, it was a training camp for students , it was an orphanage and so on. When Sencholai training camp was bombed, without any proper investigations, UNICEF head ms Joanna Van Gerpen (at that time) immediately came with a media release saying that Sri Lanka Air Force has bombed an orphanage/ two day training camp for girls; First Aid camp (all these were as interpreted by LTTE and Tamil Net) and many more likely names. It was learnt that the person who was sent to investigate was Penny Bourne intimately called by LTTE as Penny amma for LTTE who was a staunch supporter of LTTE. However, LTTE did not make a big ha ho or challenged the SL Government which implies admission of the fact that it was actually a training camp for LTTE women fighters and not an orphanage or first Aid Training camp. Like USA lead NATO, Sri- Lanka never used DRONES and killed thousands of Afghan civilians in wedding houses, festivities and schools etc. If Sri Lanka had used Drones, she would have finished the defeat of LTTE terrorist outfit much more earlier.
- Shelling of hospitals and humanitarian objects; Has the panel named the hospitals and humanitarian objects? What is meant by humanitarian objects? The doctors who gave statements to the world print and electronic media that the hospitals were shelled by Government forces later admitted that they were forced under duress by LTTE to lie so. Sri Lanka has recorded statements of the interviews had with these doctors made voluntarily. The panel should have called for proof of these or could have obtained through cyberspace as it is in the public domain. Has panel got the details of those hospitals the Govt forces have alleged to have shelled, the number of patients, staff and the doctors on that day, how many were killed, how many LTTE terrorists have been receiving free treatment in these hospitals etc? Where are the data?
- Denial of humanitarian assistance; THIS IS A JOKE. Sri Lankan Government was the only government in the world who has been feeding the Enemy (LTTE) both in the East and the North. The civilians in the East and north were never deprived of their food, free health, free education and other basic requirements. Unfortunately, LTTE robbed the food, medicine and other materials meant for the civilians to up keep their terrorist fighting cadres. Kids couldn’t attend school as LTTE conscripted even 10 year old kids for LTTE’s child Brigade. There were LTTE fighters who were receiving even Government pension. There were teachers who were receiving Govt salaries but working for the terrorists. The Stupid Panel found that there was denial of humanitarian assistance?. In fact all those food medicines and other basic requirements that were transported to the North and East by ships and road transport for the use of the civilians were robbed by the LTTE to up keep their terrorists alive. So who actually denied humanitarian assistance? It’s LTTE.
- Human rights violations suffered by victims and survivors of the conflict, including both IDPs and suspected LTTE cadre; Sri Lanka did the biggest humanitarian operation receiving 300,000 civilians in a week fleeing from the clutches of LTTE to avoid being used as human shields but resettled almost 90 % within an year. In respect of the suspected LTTE cadre, do the panel want the government to sing lullaby to them who have been at some stage responsible for the thousands of atrocities committed by the LTTE on civilians. The latest data from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs shows how effective we were in handling the IDPs. In fact, suffice to mention here that New Orleans IDPS caused by the Hurricane Catherine are still there as IDPS even after almost 5 years of the tragedy happened. Panel should have worded rightly it as “human rights violations suffered by the victims and survivors at the hands of the LTTE atrocities on innocent civilians”.
- Human rights violations outside the conflict zone, including against the media and other critics of the Government. Some of the so called disappeared media and the critics sprung up in affluent countries like Norway, Sweden Switzerland, UK etc. enjoying a good life. How do you account for that? There are financial fraudsters who are missing but living happily in the western world with the money they have plundered. Disappearance of people not only confined to Sri Lanka it’s happening every part of the world. Murders, kidnaps, extortions not happening only in Sri Lanka, it’s happening in every country of the world. So no big deal.
Let me sum up and say that Sri Lanka should treat this report made by three stooges of Fun-Ki-Moon a load of crap and throw it to the bin.
And also, Mr. Ban-ki-Moon, the UN donor countries may wish to know how much of dollars spent on this project and paid to the panel members to come out with this crap.
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