| by
Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
(
November 18, 2012, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Charles Petrie, a former
UN Official, was mandated by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to review the
conduct of the UN during the last days of the LTTE in May 2009. That report by
his panel in its near final form has been reported on by the BBC. It is ominous
for the government.
The
earlier report by Ki-moon’s Panel on the conflict during which 330,000 Tamils
were trapped on a narrow strip of land, was authoritative. It reported up to
40,000 killed, and called for further inquiry on executions and the bombings of
hospitals and designated refugee shelters by the army. It had dark implications
to our reputation as a civilized country.
At
that time Sri Lanka enjoyed wide support. As Reuters reported, “The U.N. Human
Rights Council passed a resolution [on May 27, 2009] celebrating Sri Lanka’s
victory over Tamil rebels, ignoring Western-led calls for aid for refugees and
political rights for minorities.” The atrocities were perceived as those normal
to the heat of war. Had the state followed up with kindness to its Tamil
victims and some kind of reconciliation, such as by at least implementing the
provisions for devolution that were already the law, the world might have been
forgiving. Perpetrators of war crimes too would have escaped pursuit if Truth
Commissions had been used to effect reconciliation as many had urged.
Alas
no. The state, drunk with the arrogance of victory, lost all good sense. The
President brazenly rewarded those army commanders accused of war crimes with
plum diplomatic appointments as if to say “You did a good job,” and made the
extraordinary claim that his “troops went to the battlefront carrying a gun in
one hand, the Human Rights Charter in the other, food for the innocent
displaced on their shoulders, and love of their children in their hearts.” We
who met and worked daily with people who had been there knew differently.
That
first UN report, Ki-moon, Navaneetham Pillai the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights and that report’s three eminent authors Marzuki Darusman, Steven Ratner
and Yasmin Sooka, were roundly condemned for cooked up faults in an organized
hate-campaign within Sri Lanka as I pointed out (Daily Mirror, 4 June, 2011). The entire Sinhalese communalist establishment
moved like a Juggernaut driving fear into anyone who tended to lend credence to
that report. Many organizations (e.g.,
the Bar Association, Committee of Vice Chancellors and Directors) condemned it.
In the climate of whipped up fear and patronage, officials of the Hindu Maha
Sabha and Tamil Vice Chancellors too lent their names to the attacks. Minister
Douglas Devananda’s EPDP and the army forced people going about the streets in
Jaffna town to sign a statement that no murders happened in battle. Doctors
present at the time who had testified to the atrocities were arrested by July
2009 and paraded on TV where they contradicted their earlier statements, now
saying deaths were fewer than 700. That they were threatened into retraction
became embarrassingly clear to all who believed the prevaricatory government
when the census report in February “put the death toll in the north of the
country during the final phase of the war at 9,000.” The Tamil doctors who deserved
medals for their dedicated service to our civilians under assault by our own
government now stand vindicated and the government shamelessly naked. Given
earlier claims, few believe even this 9,000.
As if
in vengefulness, the army took over all civilian institutions in Tamil areas.
Innocuous meetings of Tamils (such as to preserve old buildings through
photo-archives where I was present) were disrupted. The TNA’s Local Government
Candidates and MPs were assaulted and had dirty engine oil poured on them. A
dog was killed and thrown into a Federal Party Vice President’s well.
The
Provincial Councils set up for Tamil devolution had only the Northern Council
inactive because the TNA would sweep any poll. Even the promise of elections
next September and 13 plus by the President seems to be yet another case of the
government’s now readily obvious good-cop/bad-cop game of prevarication as
presidential siblings root for the cancellation of the 13th amendment, which
would remove the Provincial Councils.
Harim
Peiris, once Adviser and Spokesman for Chandrika Kumaratunga, declared, “The
TNA have demonstrated through several elections now that they are the
democratically elected and politically legitimate representatives of the Tamil
people of the North and East and hence credible interlocutors with the
government regarding the issues of the North and East.”
Yet,
the government imposes its own man, Douglas Devananda – who according to the
Times of India is wanted there to “face a murder trial,” whose cadres too have
been implicated in several murders here – as our representative. For everything
from roads to jobs we have to go to him, a man whose party could hardly muster
any votes at last year’s local government elections. The short-sighted
government simply wants to punish us for voting for the TNA.
To
ward off the seemingly inevitable accountability over its murders, the
good-cop/bad-cop game is being played with the world too. Promises of
reconciliation were liberally made to the US and India. Nothing happened.
Indeed, locally these promises were denied. The world’s patience has grown
thin. In March this year, the UNHCR “adopted a resolution urging Sri Lanka to
investigate alleged abuses during the final phase of war” and “called on
Colombo to address alleged abuses of international humanitarian law.”
Eight
months since then, there is still no evidence of the government having any good
sense. And now the Petrie Report has to be dealt with. While the first UN
Panel’s report was portrayed as a colonial move against a tiny powerless
country by Ki-moon and his three unethical panelists, the Petrie Panel Report
is against the UN and is damaging to Ki-moon himself, saying “Events in Sri
Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN.” It cannot therefore be cast as a plot
against Sri Lanka and will not go away. It accuses both the government and the
LTTE of war crimes. The draft the BBC has seen “very much reflects the findings
of the [earlier] panel.” A large majority of deaths were caused by government
shelling, whereas the government has repeatedly denied shelling civilian areas.
Even without the 2 reports, with the medical doctors’ incident alone, the
entire world knows that the government is a habitual and unreformed liar. As
Frances Harrison, former BBC Correspondent in Colombo says, “The only way now
for Ban Ki-moon to restore the UN’s tattered credibility on Sri Lanka is to
call an independent international investigation into the slaughter of tens of
thousands of civilians in 2009.”
It is
almost certainly too late to avoid an inquiry. But with good sense even at this
late hour and government cooperation with the world, the Tamil community and
our elected representatives, the TNA, perhaps something good for all Sri
Lankans can be retrieved from this sordid mess created by our government. It is
better to critique this government or let it fall than to make Sri Lankans the
horrible laughing stock of the world as we have been made into by denying the
obvious – that murders happened and it is time for amends.
 Charles Petrie, a former UN Offici...){kind=link}