 |
The UN's investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict pointed to a systemic failure admitting that the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".
( February 23, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) This column has in the past pointed that the setting up of the LLRC was a cheap tactic by President Rajapaksa to deflect international attention on the focus on war crimes and the humanitarian crimes against the Tamil nation in Sri Lanka, and therefore was destined to fizzle out as the other such commissions of inquiry involving the atrocities against the Tamils. Soliciting international support from China, India, Russia and the US playing one against the other, Rajapaksa made out that the war against the Tamil militants was a war against international terrorism. Having killed more than 40,000 innocent civilians in the process of defeating the LTTE he claimed that it was a humanitarian operation with his soldiers fighting with the gun in one hand and human rights tenets in the other. He expected the international community to believe this as would his constituency credulous enough to swallow such rubbish.
It now appears that in an interview with Xinhua, no less a person than an alleged war criminal in Palitha Kohona himself having sought refuge in the UN as Sri Lanka's permanent representative, while side tracking and giving out some relatively trivial irrelevant statistics of some acts relating to rape by some officers of "the most disciplined army in the world" in an attempt to prove his point has indicated that the internationalization of the reconciliation process, would only result in stymying the progress, particularly since it is a domestically developed process". Perhaps he means reconciliation in the typical Sri Lankan fashion.
It is not strange that the Sri Lankan army, as part of the process of the LLRC, in inquiring into their own alleged crimes have already acquitted themselves of any crime whatsoever. This ludicrous finding coming from the court of the Sri Lankan army is not surprising but coming in the wake of the pathetic defence of the use of heavy weapons, the bombings of hospitals and safe zones and the use of Russian cluster bombs and indeed the Darusman report: "........the "credible allegations" demand a serious investigation and the prosecution of those responsible. If the allegations are proved senior commanders, military and political, on both sides are liable for prosecution under international criminal law".
The Rajapaksa clan made of a racist mindset constituting the Sri Lankan State do not have the political will for reconciliation nor do the apparatuses they control both military and civil possess the integrity, the moral courage and the strength to bring an issue of such magnitude to an equitable and fair conclusion. If at all, they prefer to err on the cautious side towing the line, as it were, lest they face reprisals in the various forms that Sri Lankan State is accustomed to. Under the circumstances, it is only logical that the military court should say: ....."commanders at all times obeyed... the directives from the higher headquarters with regard to No Fire Zones (NFZs) and even when the LTTE terrorists had fired from NFZs, commanders refrained from firing at such NFZs. Taking the argument even further, the Court said: "It has also been revealed that artillery commanders had added 500 m more to the boundaries of NFZs given by higher headquarters thereby extending the boundaries of NFZs by 500 m further." "Evidence revealed that at all stages of the Humanitarian Operation, the Sri Lanka Army behaved as a well-disciplined military force observing the IHL and the law of war and they took all the precautions to avoid civilian casualties and all those who came under the control of the Sri Lanka Army, including surrendered/captured LTTE cadres, were treated humanely observing the IHL to the letter"........According to the court, shocking details of war crimes committed by LTTE terrorists such as using of civilian as Human Shields, summary executions of civilians who attempted to escape to army lines, forced conscription of children for combat purposes etc. were revealed at the inquiry. The Court had also noted that the international community had failed in their duty to stop the war crimes committed by the LTTE terrorists...."
What coincidence. This is exactly the outcome that Mahinda Rajapaksa would have wished. Could there have been a more perfect inquiry and an outcome? This, to say the least, should be viewed in the context of the various justifications and the defences given to the international media such as the Al Jazeera for bombing NFSs and hospitals in order to appreciate the hypocrisy of it all.
Rule of law has progressively been relegated to the status of the law of the jungle. Even senior ministers and public officials are prepared to crawl on all fours to compromise their conviction to the pontificating imbeciles of the Rajapaksa clan. It is a disgrace to the collective thinking of the Sri Lankan nation if at all there is still one.
The UN's investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict pointed to a systemic failure admitting that the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".
The UNHR High Commissioner, Navaneetham Pillai (Navi Pillai), being in an unenviable position, in keeping with her impeccable record of integrity and forthrightness has called for an international investigation in view of the inadequacy of addressing issues raised in the Human Rights Council resolution and the Lessons Learnt and the Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). She has reaffirmed her long-standing call for an independent and credible international investigation into alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, which could also monitor any domestic accountability process. Unfortunately, she thinks she is addressing a set of people who have any self-respect, integrity and above all any respect for the dead to say the least.
More than one hundred and forty human skeletons in a predominantly Sinhala Buddhist area in the town of Matale in central Sri Lanka are being sent to the USA for forensic examination only now after much controversy. This is testimony to what happens in the killing fields. The international community must spare a moment to reflect on the shallow graves in the north and the east and seriously view the unwarranted deaths, maiming, starving of children, denial of medicines to the sick, the old and the maimed in the region of tens of thousands with the view to bringing about a resolution to restore the credibility and the confidence in themselves.
( The writer of this article is the editor of the Eelam Nation, an online journal)
