UNHRC should interview war witnesses
| by Pearl Thevanayagam
(February 12, 2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) War crimes are once more on the agenda and Independence Day and tamashas notwithstanding there still remains a serious question. A serious crime committed by the government towards its own population where more than 40,000 civilians were massacred four years ago for no fault of their own except the fact they were Tamils.
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The mantra of the now generation is economy and to hell with human rights. How fast the rights activists with focus on Sri Lank muscle in to fight the Rajapaksa regime will spell out the outcome of a maniacal regime at the UPR of the UNHRC - which not dissimilar to the Nazi regime - determine whether the Tamils are meted out justice although belatedly.
The LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) is a lame-duck no serious investigator should rely upon as has been proven.
Reconciliation, economic recovery and moving on are some of the phrases the government is touting to exonerate itself from the horrendous genocide it committed on its own soil. Just days to go by and the UNHRC hauling up the Rajapaksa regime for crimes against humanity, even Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is toning down his speech and calling for reconciliation.
By God, the man is a serious miscreant in public relations and even though he decries every Western attempt to bring the government to book for the annihilation of a good proportion of ethnic Tamils, he puts both his feet in the mouth and truly and sincerely believes Tamils are vermin and are the perpetrators of terrorism.
He is unsuspectingly bringing more attention to the eyes of the world his brother, the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is a war criminal. Who needs PR officers when you have a stubborn frog-in-the-well brother who cannot see the world is watching.
Could the President and his cohorts be counting bars in the near future in Hague where Charles Taylor of Liberia is incarcerated for war crimes? He is the first post war President to be indicted for war crimes since the Nazis. His lawyers are now appealing against his conviction.
That he was elevated by the US as much as Saddam Hussein was to annihilate Kurds does not cut much ice with UNHRC. Only when Saddam invaded Kuwait which interested US for its oil reserves did he became a pariah. US kept shtum when Turkish Kurds were massacred since Turkey was assisted by the US through IMF and World Bank.
It is no co-incidence that UK and US are on the side of the UNHRC and calling on Sri Lanka to account for its war crimes. To top it all Channel 4 is broadcasting more tangible evidence of war time atrocities committed by Rajapaksa regime in time with the Universal Periodic Review of the UNHRC which is again on the agenda this month.
China and Russia with their abominable record of serious suppression of human rights cannot withstand the might of the UNHRC and justify Sri Lanka’s stance on ending terrorism – read wipe out dissenters aka Tamil freedom fighters - as the government wishes to portray.
India has to look towards its own selfish motives and if it does not back major powers it stands to lose much in the way of economy. It does not give two hoots for the well-being of Sri Lanka although Tamil Nadu is the largest state and has some sympathy for the plight of Tamils.
The mantra of the now generation is economy and to hell with human rights. How fast the rights activists with focus on Sri Lank muscle in to fight the Rajapaksa regime will spell out the outcome of a maniacal regime at the UPR of the UNHRC - which not dissimilar to the Nazi regime - determine whether the Tamils are meted out justice although belatedly.
Remember the South Korean comfort women who were forced to be sex slaves for Japanese warriors are now recognised and Japan has apologised. That was before internet and satellite communications. Now the world is moving faster and justice for war crimes should not take decades. Perpetrators of war crimes need their come-uppance.
(The writer has been a journalist for 23 years and worked at Weekend, The Daily News, Sunday Leader and Weekend Express in Sri Lanka as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal; Washington Bureau, where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)
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