| by Somapala Gunadheera
( June 5, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Since the end of the war against the LTTE in May 2009, Sri Lanka has found itself being besieged on the international stage with accusations that its Military, in the process of defeating the LTTE, were responsible for unlawfully killing "tens of thousands" of its own civilians. These allegations have resulted in the UN Secretary-General appointing a committee of experts on accountability, popularly known as the Darusman Committee that released its report in April 2011. This was followed by the Report of the Secretary-Generals’ Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka, released in November 2012. The Darusman Commission finalized its report without visiting the island and the Internal Review Panel’s investigations were mostly external.
While the Darusman Committee estimated the possible civilian fatality estimate at 40,000, the Review Committee pushed up the figure to 70,000. Beside these estimates there have been others based on empirical evidence, one of them making a guess of 147,000 civilians killed. In this background of uncertainty, a survey reviewing literature accounting for the last stages of the war (Review), has been carried out by a group driven by the careful work of an engineer who has been wholly educated abroad, wishing to remain anonymous. The Marga Institute has uploaded this Review on to its web at ( here)
The Review is said to be based on eyewitness testimony, satellite and associated imagery, WikiLeaks, documentary information, media groups and information from human rights groups and related organizations. The account of the last days of the war has been contentious and subject to different analyses of what happened and what did not happen. The study has concentrated on the following:
A. The accusations of substantial fatalities caused by the shelling and other military actions of the Sri Lankan Security Forces;
B. The sustained and ongoing international campaign on this front via an emphasis on "tens of thousands" killed;
C. The links that exist between current political activities on the island with the war crimes initiative, and debating the actual merits of an investigation based on the specifics of the actions and events that occurred in 2009 – within a context permeated by the current drive by critics of the administration to use the war crimes issue to steer political developments within the island.
Salient Points
Some of the main arguments advanced by the Review are listed below with a view to putting it in proper perspective
1. The LTTE leadership remained obdurate and, as most knowledgeable observers would have forecast, spurned the Governments demands of an unconditional surrender on four separate occasions.
2. The LTTE chose to base its operations within or alongside civilian areas because of the likelihood of harm to civilians using them not only as a hostage-shield, but also as a looming IMAGE of humanitarian disaster.
3. As indicated by testimonies collected by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) and other evidence, the LTTE went beyond the use of civilians as cover, to the actual shelling of their own people on some occasions in order to cry "humanitarian disaster" – thereby inviting foreign intervention.
4. The overwhelming firepower and manpower resources of the Sri Lankan Army were such that a victory would have been achieved in a couple of months in 2009 if the LTTE had not utilized their people as a human deterrent and the military was reckless about civilian life.
5. High resolution satellite imagery reveals that shells fired by the Sri Lankan Army, whether artillery, rocket or mortar during the months of February to May, mostly avoided the crowded concentrations of civilians
6. Aerial photographs taken by international camera crews support the conclusions reached from studying the satellite images; and reveal that the second and third No-Fire-Zones do not display the visual markers of having been indiscriminately bombarded with heavy artillery or rockets.
7. The sea of tents and huts of the displaced still standing, stretch for several hundreds of meters, as far as the eye can see. They are so densely packed together that if these were indeed attacked with artillery and rockets, the resulting fires would have destroyed vast swathes of the tent city. But here is next to no visible evidence to show the vast swathes of devastation which have been talked of in the UN Panel report or the other documents produced by other international bodies.
8. Conclusions are further complicated by the fact that the LTTE killed civilians on several occasions when they sought flight.
9. Many LTTE fighters did not wear fatigues and thus deliberately contravened the protocols of war that enjoined the principal of distinction. Those levelling allegations at the Sri Lankan Government gloss over the implications of these fighters in civil clothing when they compile their statistical count of "civilian deaths"
10. The death count was rendered problematic by the fact that more than 31,000 people escaped from the LTTE’s clutches in the course of February as the count was being compiled.
11. Whilst the Pro-LTTE TamilNet figures for the dead and injured must be viewed with suspicion, it is significant that for the period 1 January to mid-May the number of fatalities reported by them add up only to 13,800 as against the allegation of ‘tens of thousands‘ killed
12. The clergy, officials and professionals in the Vanni acted under duress and fear. Some of them owed allegiance to the rebel regime. They were the sources of information on the population in the affected area, based on which the number of deaths has been calculated. It is likely that the figures the officials released were doctored by the LTTE to suit their ends. In any case the different estimates do not add up when compared.
13. The Review lists the following as obstacles to a proper evaluation of the number killed at the last stage of the war:
a. LTTE’s mostly unrecorded ‘blitz’ conscription of combatants and auxiliaries during the last five months;
b. the unknown number of Tigers and civilians who slipped through the Navy cordon in 2009 and reached India;
c. those who drowned when fleeing across Nanthikadal lagoon;
d. the corpses buried without a record being kept;
e. those corpses in the jungle that simply decomposed or became food for monitor lizards, jackals and termites; and finally
f. the considerable number of Tigers and civilians who survived but slipped out of the detention centre’s before being formally registered.
g. normal deaths during the period
14. The computations suggest that a range up to 15,000 truly civilian people were potentially killed in the conflict zone during the last five months, with an additional 2,000 – 3,000 having died by either being shot, shelled or having drowned whilst trying to flee the battle zone.
The report argues that in such a set of circumstances there is no way that one can refer to "tens of thousands" of civilian deaths. In any event the LTTE was responsible for creating the parameters of the CRUCIBLE in the conflict zone known as the Vanni Pocket in an attempt to generate international intervention. It concludes, "What these points clearly demonstrate is that these controversial figures, whether in the ICG report or the UN Panel report, were introduced not as irrefutable facts, but as "means" to act as a "smoking gun" to lay the foundation for greater external introspection and international investigation.
Defence by attack
The Council for Liberal Democracy together with the Marga Institute has organized a Seminar on "The numbers game: collective atonement and moral accountability and the responsibility of a Nation" The above Review has been highlighted in their invitation, presumably with a view to addressing the issues it has raised. It is hoped that intellectuals on all sides who are interested in getting at the ‘real truth’ behind the international allegations would find the time to attend this Seminar by prior arrangement and make their contributions from their respective points of view.
In any case the Marga Seminar will be largely an intellectual exercise. What is more important from the national point of view is to establish the conclusions of the Review, provided they are tenable. The Government has so far not made an effective effort to meet the accusations against the Forces It has treated the Geneva Inquisition as a debating society, fielding its proxy speakers there. Our strategy has been to hide ostrich-like behind a smokescreen of domestic treachery and international conspiracy. No transparent analysis of the alleged death roll has been made so far in a manner that could clear the name of the armed forces plausibly.
The Review has created a golden opportunity to go into the nitty-gritty of the Nandikadal Operation objectively and explain the county’s position with facts and figures. That purpose would be best served by establishing the conclusions of the Review and bringing its contents to the widest notice. And that is a job for the Government itself. The importance of this initiative ought to be brought to the notice of the highest in the land for immediate action.
The best way of getting about this assignment is to take the bull by the horns. That is best done by holding an International Conference to discuss the Review, to which conference, all the leading critics of the Armed Forces’ response to the tactics of the LTTE during the last days of the war, should be invited. Attack is the best form of defence and if the invitees fail to uphold their charges against the forces at the conference, we would not have to stand peevishly in the dock in Geneva year by year. - (The Island)
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