Postscript to a fiasco

The Ban Ki-moon report was made public last Monday, and by that time, we had basically said most of what we had to say about the report. For almost two weeks The Island had a complete monopoly over the report, with media organizations both local and overseas, knowing only what was published by us. The present columnist read in a certain daily English newspaper that after we started publishing excerpts of the report, starting with the executive summary, Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN secretary general had described The Island as a ‘pro-government newspaper’. We published only the sections in that report that were most damaging to the Sri Lankan government and yet, that was somehow interpreted as being ``pro-government.’’

The government itself tried until the last moment to prevent the report from being published. Despite this, some people appeared to feel that the publication of the sections of the report that were most damaging to Sri Lanka were somehow of advantage to the Sri Lankan government. This doesn’t tally with plain logic. What we would have expected is for The Island to be labeled an anti-government newspaper for publishing sections that were so damaging to the government.

To the present columnist, this defensiveness on the part of the promoters of the Ban Ki- moon report is an indication of the fact that they too are only too well aware of the glaring shortcomings in the report. We are a litigious nation and we do notice when something is said without evidence to back it up. This is probably why some people deemed the mere publication of sections of the report as an advantage to the government. Moreover, when a top secret report pops out into the public domain all at once, what will gain the most attention will be the allegations made, not the evidence presented in substantiation of those allegations. This was what the UNSG panelists lost when The Island made the main sections of the document public.

At the international level, the Moon report drama has ended in a fiasco with the UN secretary general himself admitting in his statement which accompanied the publicizing of the report on Sri Lanka, that he does not have the power to proceed any further without the sanction of an appropriate inter governmental body of the UN. This basically confirms what this columnist has been saying from the time this panel was first appointed – that it was appointed outside the established procedure of the UN and that the secretary general could appoint such a panel legally only at the express order of the security council or the general assembly without whose sanction any resultant report will come to a dead end.

Irretrievably tainted?

Even though the report itself is dead in the water, the mere fact that it was made public by the UNSG may have far reaching and permanent effects on the functioning of the UN. Everything relating to this unauthorized investigation against Sri Lanka was done in the format which would have been followed if this had been a formal Expert Panel sanctioned by the UN Security Council. It was even referred to as an ‘expert panel’ instead of an ‘advisory panel’ as it claimed to be. The term ‘expert panel’ is used to describe an established procedure of the UN. The UNSG appoints an ‘expert panel’ to advice him about a country when he is ordered by the security council to do so. The appointment of such an expert panel is an awe inspiring matter which has the backing of the entire world community. Usually when such an expert panel is appointed, things happen and world history changes

There has never been an instance when such a panel has been appointed with regard to a country and nothing has happened. Such expert panels were appointed with regard to the former Yugoslavia and Eritrea, and things changed with regard to those countries very significantly after that. As such, the appointment of expert panels is not something that should be taken lightly. Yet in this instance, the UNSG proceeded to appoint the panel in contravention of the usual procedure and even kept referring to it as an ‘expert panel’ after admitting that it was only a body to advise him and nothing more. Had he referred to this as the UNSG’s advisory panel on Sri Lanka, there would have been much less damage done to the UN.

But now, for the first time, an ‘expert panel’ appointed by the UNSG, is unable to act on its findings. What effect this will have on UNSG’s expert panels in the future will be interesting to watch. By appointing this panel on Sri Lanka and even referring to it formally as an ‘experts panel’ Ban clearly arrogated himself powers that repose only with the security council or the general assembly. Then he added insult to injury by trying to get the resultant report discussed by the security council to steam roll them into a decision that some members of that body were clearly not prepared to make. This is not a precedent that anybody in the security council would want – for a bureaucrat to be able to steamroll the world’s most powerful body into making decisions.

After Ban publicized his unauthorized ‘expert panel’ report on Sri Lanka and admitted he can do nothing to implement it, the sanctity of the ‘expert panel’ procedure has been lost. There is at this very moment, a UNSG expert panel appointed on Libya – a real one, with UN security council sanction. The report of this panel will be due only about ten months from now, but already China and Russia have expressed dissatisfaction with the way NATO has been bombing Libya and talking about regime change when the UN security council gave sanction only for the imposition of a no fly zone for the protection of civilians. What then would happen to the UNSG’s experts panel on Libya when it comes out will be interesting to see.

Will China and Russia use the precedent set in the Sri Lankan case to veto the expert panel on Libya as well? Ban Ki-moon has mongrelized the UN’s procedures to such an extent that nothing seems certain any more. What this goes to show is that the bureaucrats who run an institution have a lot to do with preserving its standing in the world. In 2009, as the war in Sri Lanka reached its climax, the west tried to politicize the IMF as well by utilizing their voting power in the board of directors to deny a stand by facility that Sri Lanka was entitled to as a member of IMF. What saved Sri Lanka in that instance (and the IMF as well) was the fact that India bluntly told the IMF that if they don’t give the money to Sri Lanka, India will. Another factor was that the IMF bureaucrats themselves were appalled at this attempt to politicize a hitherto apolitical international institution.

The IMF bureaucracy was able to remain independent and act with the wider interests of the community of nations in mind. One thing that Ban has displayed abundantly is that he is incapable of maintaining that independence and representing the wider interests of the community of nations. Even if the UNSG thought in all honesty that Sri Lanka should answer for war crimes and he appointed that expert panel he should not have subverted the procedure of the UN in the process. And if he was going to appoint an inquiry to go into Sri Lanka anyway despite everything, then at the very least, he could have called it an ‘advisory panel’ so that it does not ususrp the position reserved for the UNSG’s expert panels which have a very specific purpose.

The UNSG’s expert panel procedure has been sullied in other ways as well. Usually, when a UNSG expert panel is appointed it’s meant for implementation and will change world history for ever. As such these reports have to be done very professionally in a manner which will not make a rational reader gag. But the Moon report on Sri Lanka is not a document that will find ready acceptance among those who read it. We highlighted some of its main shortcomings over the past two weeks.

The panel report mentions a death rate of 40,000 civilians without giving any indication as to how they arrived at this figure. To be able to say that 40,000 civilians were killed, they should have at least a rough approximation of the overall number of deaths including combatants. And they should be able to give an indication as to how they separated the combatants from the civilians etc. We don’t see any of this in this report.

The other main shortcoming is that the panelists have relied on LTTE controlled sources of information. They have held information coming from government servants under LTTE control as reliable whereas the story told by the same government servants once they came back under government control were considered unreliable and lies. An accusation has been made that the Sri Lankan government deliberately understated the number of civilians under LTTE control so as to restrict the amount of food going into the LTTE held areas in a situation where the UN Resident Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sri Lanka Peter Buhne himself had given a figure only slightly more than the Sri Lankan figures at the lower estimate and slightly more than the Indian estimate at the higher estimate. Even in stating those figures, Buhne wanted a margin of error of no less than 60,000.

The panel report mentions the first hand experiences of two UN personnel who had set up an unauthorized ‘UN hub’ between the army and the LTTE in a situation where the LTTE was firing on the army from near this unauthorized hub. Whatever casualties resulted from this have to be blamed on the UN because UN personnel are not authorized to set up hubs as and when they feel like it. The UN is made up of sovereign nations and they cannot possibly ignore the fact that in this instance two junior UN officials took it upon themselves to set up a UN hub in the middle of a war zone, with no authorization from the government. If this is allowed to go unpunished and becomes a precedent, junior UN officials will be able to decide whether a country can wage war or not. He will be able to stop a war simply by setting a UN hub in the path of an advancing army and raising the UN flag! This is not how the role of the UN has been conceived in its charter and the general assembly resolutions pertaining to the provision of humanitarian assistance in member states in a situation of war. The high handed actions of those two UN officials struck at the very root of the relationship between the UN and the sovereign member states.

Hangman’s jurisprudence

But the most laughable part of the Moon panel report is the international law they have applied to Sri Lanka. One would think that the legal principles applied would be those enshrined in Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions and the ancillary documents of the Rome Statute such as "The Elements of a Crime" and the proceedings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the opinions expressed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Instead what we see is an almost complete reliance on a study of international humanitarian law, done by the International Committee of the Red Cross! The ICRC is a body of well paid do-gooders, nothing more. They are not responsible for eradicating terrorism anywhere in the world and they do not have a population that depends on them to eradicate terrorism. Nor do they think in such terms.

Quite apart from eradicating terrorism, organizations like the ICRC thrive only with the perpetuation of strife and mayhem. It is death and destruction that brings money into the ICRC and invests them with power. Can anyone in his right mind think of fighting wars under ‘rules’ interpreted by the ICRC?

Anyone who reads the Ban panel report will see that the panelists have really stretched the law to its absolute limits in an effort to fix Sri Lanka. There is very little talk of the principles of the international law of armed conflict and everything is about humanitarian law and human rights law. The argument is as follows – Sri Lanka is a signatory to the four Geneva Conventions but not to Additional Protocol II of the Geneva conventions which deals with conflicts of a non-international character. Therefore, Sri Lanka does not enjoy the cover provided by Additional Protocol II.

Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome Statute which set up the International Criminal Court and established the "Elements of a Crime" rules which need to be fulfilled if a war crime is to be proved. Since Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, they are not covered by the ICC rules either. Sri Lanka is therefore, alone and exposed to the vultures. According to the Ban panel, the only laws applicable to Sri Lanka is Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions which deals with internal conflicts and customary humanitarian law, which does not take into account the military needs of the combatants and other considerations such as sovereignty. For example, Article 3 of the Geneva conventions goes as follows:

Article 3: In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the high contracting parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply as a minimum, the following provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities including members of the armed forces, who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘hors de combat’ by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth or any other similar criteria.

To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture,

(b) Taking of hostages

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity in particular humiliating and degrading treatment

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples

(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for

An impartial body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the parties to the conflict. The parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force by means of special agreements all or part of the other provisions of the present convention. The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status to the parties to the conflict.

Readers will note that Article 3 gives civilian targets absolute immunity from attack. Article 3 is silent about a situation where for example a terrorist group for example uses a hospital as a cover to fire on the armed forces of a country. Other articles in the Geneva Conventions proper which Sri Lanka has signed however, does limit the immunity of civilian targets by making that immunity conditional upon their non participation or non use in offensive military actions. But the hitch is that other than Article 3, all other articles in the Geneva conventions proper, apply only to international conflicts - therefore those limits on immunity do not apply to the war against the Tigers! In contrast to this, Additional Protocol II of the Geneva conventions which we have not signed, offers comprehensive cover in Articles 11, 13 (2) and 13 (3) to armies combating terrorists who have no compunctions about using civilian facilities for terrorist attacks. These provisions clearly state that a civilian facility used for an offensive purpose – even a hospital – immediately loses its immunity from attack. But SL does not have the cover of this provision because we have not signed this document!

Thus, the Ban panel talks only about humanitarian law and virtually nothing about the law of armed conflict. It has sought to well and truly fix Sri Lanka on this matter in arguments presented on pages 56 and 57 of the report. We quote verbatim, three passages from the panel report in this regard.

(1) "International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects. Attacks may be directed only against military objects and combatants (Rule 7, ICRC Study) There is an "unconditional and absolute prohibition on the targeting of civilians in customary international law". This norm is the most fundamental of those flowing from the principle of distinction. In addition, parties may not direct an attack against a zone established to shelter the wounded, the sick and civilians from the effects of hostilities. (Rule 35 ICRC Study) In regard to the presence of the LTTE in proximity to civilians in the NFZs, international tribunals including the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia), have clarified that the ban on attacks against civilians protects a population that is "predominantly civilian" and the presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians (ie, combatants) does not deprive the population of its civilian character."

(2) "…Indiscriminate attacks, that is to say, attacks that strike civilians or civilian objects and military objectives without distinction may qualify as direct attacks against civilians. In the same way, certain apparently disproportionate attacks may give rise to the inference that civilians were actually the object of attack."

(3) "As for any argument that the SLA, did not intend to make the civilian population the object of attack, but that attacks were aimed at the LTTE, an attack remains unlawful if it is conducted simultaneously at a lawful military object and an unlawfully targeted civilian population.

The arguments in the above passage can be summarized as follows:

* There is an absolute and unqualified ban on attacks on civilian targets. Nothing is said about what can be done if civilian concentrations are used by terrorists to attack the legitimate forces of the state. The assumption appears to be that the absolute prohibition still holds even in such circumstances.

* The unit of reckoning is the entire population of a given target and a ‘predominantly’ civilian population continues to be considered civilian despite the presence of terrorist among them ie; if five terrorists are with ten civilians, that becomes a civilian target.

* If terrorists install two 120mm mortars, one near the front entrance of a hospital and the other on the concrete roof of the same building, the army can lawfully target the mortar batteries. But since the mortars are located in a hospital and targeting them means that the hospital too will be hit, that makes retaliation unlawful!

‘Lunatic fringe’

This basically borders on the ‘lunatic fringe’ of humanitarian law. The Ban panel actually refers to this nonsense as ‘jurisprudence’. They do not say how such a situation would have been handled under the law of armed conflict, under which, if LTTE cadres were squatting and chewing betel while exchanging pleasantries with civilians in the NFZ, they cannot be fired upon. However, if they fire artillery from among civilians, that immunity is lost. The assertion in the first paragraph conveys the impression that there is an absolute prohibition on targeting civilian objects. There is no such absolute prohibition. The prohibition is always conditional – ie, the civilian object should not be used for an offensive purpose.

While it is true that Sri Lanka is not a signatory to either the Additional protocol II of the Geneva conventions or the Rome Statute, for considerations of natural justice, the principles applied should be those enshrined in those documents. Clearly, no country in the world can afford to take the positions adopted by the Ban panel seriously – not even the west, because they too are involved in actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. For example, if you adopt this rule that the panelists have tried to impose on Sri Lanka - that the ‘presence of armed personnel in a population that is predominantly civilian’, is an absolute prohibition on military action, the Americans and Europeans are committing gross human rights violations by bombing Libya even as you read this column, because despite the presence of Gaddafi’s forces, the population of that part of Libya is in fact, ‘predominantly civilian’. But perhaps in the eyes of the Ban panelists, they have the cover of the Geneva conventions limiting the immunity of civilian concentrations because Libya is an international conflict! Are we discussing matters of principle here or are we, like nit picking bureaucrats saying "Oh they signed on the dotted line so they are covered, but you didn’t sign Additional Protocol II, therefore you have no protection!"

*

:

Is the West seeking a regime change?

island.lk

by Gomin Dayasri

The Moon report is the first short step of the West before taking a giant leap towards maneuvering a regime-change. The US ambassador invited the local NGO’s hostile to the government for a discussion along with other diplomats whose thinking could probably be supportive of the Moon report, before the ‘prime hater of Sri Lanka’ advocate Robert Blake arrives to place the blue print of project "Exit Rajapakse" into operation. (?)

That the UNP handed over the Moon report for the consideration of Bradman Weerakoon, their former international affairs expert, known for his alignment to the West and has handled many transactions for the UNP in dealing with the LTTE, is indeed significant.

The TNA comes in favor of the Moon report. The UPFA has many pro-western allies in high office seeking higher office.

The policies of Mahinda Rajapaksa are too protective of Sri Lanka to be acceptable to the West. They seek a government more amenable to the West than to the interest of Sri Lanka. The West craves a leadership that will succumb to devices such as the CFA or Peace Process or Package or Tsunami Structures. They desired an administration that would permit the Tigers to be alive and grow fat on a peace diet. The West yearned for the Norwegians with Erik Solheim as our guardian deity to facilitate their requirements.

Such a desired leadership is available both in the UPFA and UNP, some having served both parties diligently. The Prime Minister’s post is only a heartbeat away from Presidency. Instal a person loyal to the West as the Prime Minister and leave the rest to luck, knowing that is the only chance for the return of the UNP with divisions within the UPFA, without a Mahinda Rajapaksa!! The West seeks to control both the major parties and have their puppets in place.

Mahinda Rajapaksa saved Sri Lanka from being a slave nation and has to be punished for that crime.

The West requires Sri Lanka to follow its dictates led by a leadership that can be dictated to. Advice given by the West has to be adhered with a permitted degree to digress. Such puny politicians with shifting principles are in abundance in both the national parties. Mahinda Rajapakse has many frailties and infirmities but his inbred patriotism and the mental sturdiness will never make him sell the country. That deep conviction, heavily rooted in the minds of the ordinary people, makes him win with enhanced majorities at every election.

Rajapaksa will not jig to a foreign tango. That makes him prime candidate for a regime change.

The West contributes to the making of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Unconsciously, the hostile stand will swell the popularity of Rajapaksae among the voters, with their campaign for a regime change. People will stand stoutly behind a leadership that is being targeted by foreign interventionists.

The West knows that Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot be made to change his policies of safeguarding the country- his ministers and high officials may but not Mahinda Rajapakse nor his brother Gotabhaya, with their firewall defense of the country.

The Moon report is the tracer bullet fired before more lethal ammunition is directed against the Rajapaksa brothers. They need to worry less of the vote but more of their security against foreign mercenaries and their local agencies. It is the intelligence agencies, not the vote- counting machine that has to be on alert.

Up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 over a period of 110 years Americans overthrew 14 governments that displeased them for various ideological, political and economic reasons.

The first recorded overthrow of a government by USA was in 1893 when the Hawaiian monarchy was ousted for trying to proclaim a constitution restoring the rights of the ethnic Hawaiians that displeased the Americans.

The governments of Iran (Mossadeq), Gautemala (Arbenz) and Chile (Allende) were democratic but American coups ousted the leadership and installed totalitarian regimes under the Shah of Persia, Colonel Monzon and General Pinochet. The campaign in Iraq was intended to make it safe for American oil companies; in Guatemala the nationalist government had challenged the powerful American company United Fruit and invoked the wrath of the Americans; the nationalist policies in Chile made the Americans afraid that it will become infectious in South America.

The West removes legitimate governments stealthily to impose its ideology, increase it powers and gain control of valuable resources.

We proved the West wrong on the war and made the country safe and secure. Had we taken their advice, the terrorist would still be in our midst and we would have lived the rest of our lives with insecurity. We taught the world that it is prudent to ignore the opinion of the powerful and act in our own interest and succeed.

If lessons are learnt from Sri Lanka and if other countries follow suit, the power of the west will gradually diminish. Therefore they have to act fast to disgrace Sri Lanka

The regime change they require may be of a limited nature - to remove the two Rajapaksa brothers - Mahinda and Gotabhaya. The West can rest thereafter and it matters not whether the UPFA or UNP is in power.

It is the people that must stand up for Sri Lanka to prevent this national catastrophe being enacted according to the script of the West. It will start with a disturbed economy subjected to sanctions. The private sector in deep slumber will realize only when trade sanctions hit them.

For the moment we are without a road map.

Follow up the UN Panel Report - Don’t let Rajapaksa hijack May Day!

by Kumar David

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called on the working class to turn May Day into a massive show of protest against UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s three member Panel Report on war crimes and crimes against humanity during the closing stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009. Some trade unions of the LSSP and CP have refused to let international workers day be exploited by the government to engineer an attack on a preliminary finding of human rights violations by the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the LTTE. The CFL (Ceylon Federation of Labour) is the LSSP’s premier private sector trade union, NM was its president when alive and the much loved DG William secretary; today its secretary is TMR Raseedeen of the LSSP left-tendency. Raseedeen has issued a widely reported statement that appeared on a BBC website refusing to endorse Rajapaksa’s stratagem. The CFL insists that there are more important things such as rising costs and the IMF led new economic policy for workers to worry about on May Day.

The red line in the sand

Some left parties have defied Mahinda’s edict and called for an alternative May Day mobilising against the cover up of war crimes. LSSP and CP trade unions must take the idea seriously and work at organising the working class to assert its identity and independence from the regime. Since 1970 the trade union movement has been no more than an appendage of the incumbent government. It is imperative that this ends if the class is to achieve anything for and in-itself. Let Vasu, Tissa and DEW march behind Mahinda with xenophobic ultra-nationalist placards, winding their way to another Nuremburg rally and a political graveyard. Let those who must, go repeat a contemporary edition of the disgraceful 1965 masala vadai May Day.

To be frank however, I don’t know whether Raseedeen and their comrades will be able to reverse the decay that has rotted the class for so long, do it quickly, and neutralise party political leaders determined to hang on to, and with, Mahinda. If they need more time, then they must stay with the class, march with it and educate it for tomorrow. The watchwords are a patient, determined and uncompromising campaigning in the working class against the dangerous and racist politics of the Rajapaksa regime.

A good start has been made in Anik Pittuwa (The Other Page), a monthly supplement issued with the Ravaya newspaper by a group heavily influenced by the LSSP left-tendency. I have heard firsthand that the gist of a planned statement is as follows – forgive my poor Sinhala if the translation turns out to be inexact.

"The findings of the report released by Ban Ki-moon’s investigation panel are shocking to any right minded person. Although most of these allegations were known before and the Tamils have been insisting in private that they are true, their endorsement by an international panel is a matter for further dismay. The government is seeking to use the report to drive the country further down an ultra nationalist path. The Report is equally critical of both sides to the conflict since it is as scathing about the war crimes of the Tigers as it is about the behaviour of the state’s forces. This state of shock and disbelief in Sri Lanka is not unusual; to this day the Japanese people are in psychological denial of the massacres and brutality of the Japanese Army against civilians in China and SE Asia. Most Americans still hide from the truth about the carpet bombing of civilians in Laos and Vietnam that left tens of thousands dead and maimed. Serbians and Croatians are bitter about the war crimes of the other side but cannot accept that their own forces acted similarly".

"It is necessary now for Sri Lankans to remain calm and to consider with a clear mind all the evidence in the report, the government’s denials, and the large amount of other material that is now surfacing. Right understanding is what we need; it is a precept of the Noble Eightfold path. People must not allow themselves to be incited to irrational emotions, or to rash acts against minorities, foreigners, the United Nations, journalists who criticise the government, or the political opposition".

The implications are quite clear. The UN Report is not a fabrication written in cahoots with an LTTE rump in the diaspora, though understandably, Sinhala society is in a state of shock and denial. It is also implied that we must overcome such limitations and press for a systematic investigation. Even the JVP which was the military’s cheer-leader in the war is holding back from rejecting the findings of the report, it blames GoSL for human rights abuses but only in the last two years, and sees imperialism round every bush and corner. It must be uncomfortable days in the PB? If there is one party whose Marxism is now on litmus test, it is the JVP; let us see how the cookie crumbles.

Fear in society is palpable – with government leaders in the cross-hairs, a desperate and repressive backlash is possible; pressure is intense. Even Friday Forum which up to now has shown courage in decrying bad governance and threats to democracy has wobbled at the knees. Its statement over the signature of Jayantha Dhanapala is wishy-washy; it is neither here nor there and avoids stating that a preliminary indictment of much gravitas has been made and it is now necessary to go to the next logical step. My reference to the Forum is tangential, an opportunity to state my real concern; intimidation and the climate of fear.

Remember Germany in the 1930s or America at the height of McCarthyism? Irrational emotions, fear, lies, brutal attacks on harmless Jews, and in America a political witch-hunt, were pressed into the service of fascism and reaction, respectively. Caricatures depicting dirty, ugly and dervish Jews selling out the fatherland in the war, fuelling inflation and enticing virgins, were followed by physical brutality. McCarthyism’s victims included Hollywood’s genius without peer (Chaplin), one of America’s most distinguished physicists (Oppenheimer), scores of intellectuals, screen idols and even touched Einstein. In these countries the irrational in the psyche was whipped up to serve repressive ends. So too in Lanka, mass psychosis is being stirred to shield those potentially in the cross-hairs of international prosecutors.

Moonlighting Moon

Ban Ki-moon’s handling of the report is hard to understand. The signatures of the panel members are dated 31 March according to news reports, but Moon sat on it till 12 April before giving a copy to GoSL. In dereliction of duty he then failed to prevent GoSL from leaking it to the press. This put his own panel in the spot since the world saw handpicked bits, not the full report. There is a tempest of international media interested and a signature campaign demanding immediate release of the report is now running in the hundreds of thousands. Up to Easter Sunday, 24 April, Moon has moonlighted; sitting on his haunches. Perhaps when you read these lines the report will finally be available in full.

There is pressure from Sri Lanka not to release the report. GL Pieris is singing for his supper at press conferences and in the international media: "Please don’t release it; it’s not good for reconciliation". Having Pieris and his bosses in high office is what is detrimental for reconciliation! There is an interesting side to this plea; has GoSL changed tack and dropped its claim that the report is a bunch of lies? If it sticks to rubbishing the report, then when proved wrong as with the Channel-4 video clips, it will look as foolish as Colin Powel making an ass of himself at the UN Security Council before the whole world.

Or perhaps the UNSG and his office are concerned about covering their own behinds. It is not a secret that Moon sat silent when he could have done something to ameliorate the carnage in the last stages of the war. Here is what the Panel says in its executive summary.

"During the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians. Moreover, although senior international officials advocated in public and in private with the Government that it protect civilians and stop the shelling of hospitals and United Nations or ICRC locations, in the Panel’s view, the public use of casualty figures would have strengthened the call for the protection of civilians while those events in the Vanni were unfolding. In addition, following the end of war, the Human Rights Council may have been acting on incomplete information when it passed its May 2009 resolution on Sri Lanka".

Moon, who is hyperactive on Libya and the Ivory Coast, was paralysed on Sri Lanka; why? One version is that the then GoSL pulled the carpet under Jayantha Dhanapala, who would have given him a good run for the UNSG position, in order give Moon a clear field, so he now has a favour to return. Motives apart, Moon failing "to take actions that might have protected civilians" is indefensible moonlighting on the job.

International responses

Nothing very much is likely to come out of this tempest. The West is obsessed with Gaddafi who seems to have the capacity to give it a run for a while more. American assistance for the Libyan revolution is half-hearted for reasons I explained last week ("Global capitalism in a post-imperialist era", Sunday Island, 24 April 2011) so the fight will drag on and the West, mercifully for Rajapaksa, will remain distracted.

The success of the regime in thumbing its nose at the world is in part a gift from Delhi which has played dumb, if not brain dead and let Colombo get away with it (nothing in the Panel Report is news to Delhi). It has also allowed GoSL to renege on a string of promises on a much rumoured political settlement of the Tamil question. An interesting point is how much further Delhi, Beijing and Moscow can go again to protect GoSL? What rationalisation can they proffer? It is difficult for these patrons to echo the shrill voice of Colombo and assert that the findings of the Panel were fabricated in cahoots with an LTTE rump in the diaspora. Of course, nothing is impossible in this age of Goblesian disinformation, but this is a hard one and GoSL’s prime champions India, China and Russia may retreat to the sidelines.

Sensing international isolation GoSL is preparing a diplomatic offensive by dispatching delegations led by retired senior civil servants to "neutral" capitals. There are two lines they can opt between: (a) the report is pure fabrication, or (b) terrible things did happen but were unavoidable when fighting a ruthless enemy under painful circumstances. The saner defence would have been (b), whether true or false. One can quote Hiroshima, or the fire bombing of Dresden and Berlin, can’t one? But GoSL has shot itself in the foot by its previous stance.

Rajapaksa is on record that not a single civilian was killed by the military, that there was nil bombing or artillery shelling of civilian zones, and there is zero state involvement in the 50 or so journalists abducted or murdered. GoSL, having said this, will find it unavoidable to assert defence (a) in the main, only supplemented by (b). With this methodology it will have difficulty sustaining international credibility. Either the rest of the world has, collectively, gone quite mad, or something is rotten with the state in Sri Lanka.

Dealing with the Moon report …and adopting new approaches

By Foxwatch

Ban Ki-Moon’s "experts" have fulfilled their contract, and it is now up to us to demonstrate the flawed and vindictive nature of the entire exercise, from appointment to document to aftermath.

In a Nutshell

The GOSL’s terse initial comment accurately summed up the report. The External Affairs ‘Ministry said on April 13 that it had received a copy of the report and found it ‘fundamentally flawed’ and ‘biased’. The Ministry added. Among other deficiencies, the report is based on patently biased material which is presented without verification." Exactly.

But Not the WPB

Deeply flawed though it is, we cannot fling the report into the WPB. The western sponsors of the exercise, and their media, would then blow it up tenfold, and stampede the UN into working up a case for a War Crimes Tribunal. So it is necessary to refute the report, of which more later.

The Bigger Picture

Not a UN report

But first, leaving aside for the time the content of the report, we need to dwell on its illegitimacy. Panels are normally authorized by the UN or its affiliated bodies. Moon by-passed established procedure and appointed the panel on Sri Lanka off his own bat. Why? The upshot is that the report is not a UN authorized report. It is simply the work of the Moon Trio.

Secretary-General’s Misconduct

If Moon’s behavior was due to his fear that most UN members would not support the bullying of a small nation which deserved thanks and praise instead of censure, his action amounts to deliberately undermining UN procedure. A CEO who resorted to such deception would be hauled up by his Board. Moon should be held accountable.

Biased Panelists

Compounding his high-handed conduct, Moon then appointed, to his panel of three, one person who had had differences with the GOSL and one who had commented adversely on Sri Lanka in a book. Moon was evidently untroubled by such niceties as the maxim that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Again, Moon, the crusader for accountability, should be held accountable.

Selective and Misleading Terms of Reference

Moon appointed his hit squad on June 22, 2010. A UN news release dated 18 October stated that the UN Secretary-General had set up "a Panel of Experts to advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to alleged violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka. [This excluded from the Panels’s scope the near thirty-year LTTE orgy of killing and destruction, and the use of child soldiers]. The Panel will look into the modalities, applicable international standards and comparative experience with regard to accountability processes, taking into consideration the nature and scope of the alleged violations in Sri Lanka. The panel advises the Secretary General and is not an investigative or fact-finding body." (Emphasis added).

At first sight the statement that the Panel was not an investigative or fact-finding body seemed to take some of the sting out of the terms. But the Report’s intensely investigative content raises the question whether the description of the Panel’s scope was another instance of Moon’s duplicity. How, for instance, could the Panel not be an investigative body when it was required to take into consideration "the nature and scope of alleged violations?"

One thing is certain. The Panel acted as an investigative and fact-finding body, contrary to the UN description of its scope. The Panel exceeded its mandate, rendering it invalid.

Right of Reply Brushed Aside

Finally, Moon released the Report without affording Sri Lanka a right of reply. To say that he released it because Sri Lanka had not responded is to say that a 200-page Report concocted in a period of over 6 months, containing lethal allegations against Sri Lanka, could be replied to within two weeks! The premature release of the Report confirms beyond any doubt that the object of this exercise was to frame Sri Lanka.

Case Dismissal

This is the point at which, in a court of law, a defence counsel might point out the illegality, bias and invalidity of the report, and successfully appeal to a judge to dismiss the case. And a judge, in dismissing the case, may well have reprimanded the prosecution for presenting a case riddled with flaws. Although no such mechanism exists in this situation, we must keep hammering away at the improper way in which the Panel was appointed, the choice of biased Panel members, the misleading terms of reference, the invalid report, and the refusal to afford the GOSL reasonable time to respond before issuing the Report.

But ultra vires though the Report is, we have to analyse it and expose it with errors, unverified allegations, speculation, and bias, lest it be accepted by default.

Rebuttal

The manner of rebuttal is crucial. If we get it right, we may convince most countries (except the manic western sponsors of this witch-hunt) to seriously question, re-examine and reject the Report. If we fail, our rebuttal will be swept aside and the Report with all its flaws will be accepted as gospel truth, and the western sponsors will have a free run to whip up a frenzy of outrage against Sri Lanka.

Rebuttal is not difficult, but it has to be done professionally, clinically, honestly and as dispassionately as possible. We must insist on sufficient time to answer in full. After all, the Panel took over six months to produce a 200-page Report. We must not be stampeded into replying by an unreasonable deadline. We have to insist diplomatically that no UN or international action should be taken, or threats made, based on the Panel’s Report until our response is submitted to the UN. Natural justice demands that both sides of any story should be heard. Premature UN action would be monstrously unfair and one-sided.

Those Terms Again

First, we should check whether the Moon Trio have produced advice on its ostensible terms of reference – "applicable international standards and comparative experience with regard to accountability processes."

Refuting with Facts

Numbers out of Thin Air

We should then analyse the main charges and refute them with material whose authenticity cannot be challenged. For instance, the Report inflates the number of civilians allegedly killed by the army. The Sunday Island’s Political Watch page of April 17 traced the spurious escalations of numbers. Starting with an unofficial UN figure of 7,000 deaths in the period January 1, 2009 to April 30, 2009, the sleight of hand proceeded to a London Times extrapolation of 20,000, to a European Commission report of October 19, 2009 which adopted the Times figure of 20,000, to the International Crisis Group’s estimate of 30,000 to 75,000, and finally to the Moon Panel’s figure of 40,000, citing "credible sources."

IDP Camps

Another issue on which the report takes us to task is the conditions in the camps. The eminent Hindu editor N. Ram visited the Vavuniya camp and wrote an article published in the Hindu of July 4, 2009 titled "Visiting the Vavuniya IDP camps: an uplifting experience." His on-the-spot assessment was very different to that of the Moon Trio sitting in their ivory tower. To quote:

..What became clear during the visit to ..camps in the vast IDP relief complex, and in conversations in Tamil with some of the displaced persons was this. Conditions in these camps are much better than what has been depicted, mostly second-hand, that is, without visiting the camps, in western media reports. Moreover, they are visibly better than conditions in Sri Lankan refugee camps in India... Basic needs, including education for the schoolchildren and vocational training for older boys and girls, are being met by the Sri Lankan government with assistance from the United Nations, [and] a number of countries..

...President Rajapakse claimed, without exaggeration, that "the condition in the camps is the best any country has".

As further evidence of our caring treatment of the refugees, video footage is available of refugees coming across by the thousand and being helped across by army men and women, and being fed and cared for in the camps.

Hoist by their own Petard

Nihal Rodrigo, distinguished diplomat, wrote in the Sunday Times of April 17 citing UN documents adopted in May 2009 which appreciated Sri Lanka’s position in combating terrorism. He wrote. "The three foregoing United Nations documents that were all adopted in May 2009, in the close context of the controversial, much debated conclusion of the conflict between Sri Lanka and the LTTE, together present a balanced perspective of the situation as accepted by the international community which now seems to be called into question by the Panel’s Report."

Fraudulent Conclusions

The Report is replete with instances of unsubstantiated or vague conclusions. The Sunday Island Political Watch page, referred to above, exposed some of them, raising the question whether "maybes" and "could-have-beeps" and "likelys" and "credible sources" are good enough to recommend a war crimes probe against a country. The Report has to be gone through with a fine tooth comb to expose every such fiddle.

The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

Reading the report, one is struck by the detail into which this supposedly "non-investigative and non-fact finding" Panel has gone. There are strong echoes of the LTTE, in content and style. Could the co-authors have been the LTTE?! If the LTTE hand can be established, that would blow the report sky-high.

This is the way to go – exposing the flaws in the Report, and looking for the LTTE hand.

Spokesman

In addition to sending a detailed rebuttal to Moon, we must mobilize at least two powerful spokesmen who can not only present the Report but field any questions from international media. They must be highly articulate, tough, confident, street-smart, and possess the combination of personality, rhetoric and detailed knowledge needed to cope with possibly hostile LTTE-primed media.

Switching Gear

And now for a much-needed change of policy. The GOSL has been much too defensive, overlooking its own great achievements in defeating the LTTE and coping humanely with the flood of refugees.. We failed to cope with the barrage of LTTE misinformation, which buried the great hostage rescue operation and the famous military victory, with a pack of lies about condition in the camps and the number of civilians killed.

The Moon Report offers us a great opportunity to tell the world the truth - that a great military campaign destroyed the LTTE, that forces were under orders to minimize civilian casualties, and that we did our best to look after the 290,000 refugees who fled from the LTTE.

IDP and Aftermath

As the GOSL claimed, the rescue of 290,000 civilians being held as a human shield by the LTTE was the greatest hostage rescue ever. Soldiers fought their way to the LTTE’s earth bund under heavy fire, taking many casualties, and breached the bund. The Tamil civilians escaped through the breach, first in a trickle, braving LTTE fire, then by the thousands, and made their way to the army. The army received them with great sensitivity and housed them and fed them in camps.

This was a story which would normally have earned the plaudits of the world. If any western army had done half as much, the BBC and CNN would have run that every hour. But in quick time the LTTE and their western patrons fabricated a scenario which turned the truth on its head. Their fiction’ was that after the army defeated the LTTE, the army rounded up these 290,000 Tamil civilians, imprisoned them in concentration camps, and did not allow them to return to their homes. As always, BBC and CNN swallowed the lie, and focused on the camps. The army’s heroism vanished into thin air.

On this point too Ram’s article, referred to above, paints the actual picture. He referred to

...a poignant human drama in which some 300, 000 Tamil civilians were rescued by force of arms from a terrorist organisation that, claiming to fight for their freedom, had no compunction in using them as human shields ... [Emphasis added]

Now that we have the opportunity, we must put the record straight. We have much to be proud of; we destroyed the most dangerous terrorist outfit in the world, and our army, under orders to minimize civilian casualties - orders which saved Tamil civilian lives at the cost of the lives of hundreds of soldiers.

The Story Waiting to be Written

At the press conference, we should open the eyes of the press to the story they have missed, in their manic desire to rubbish Sri Lanka.

The blockbuster story is one besides which the phoney allegations against Sri Lanka pale into insignificance. Among the questions that have to be answered are-

• Why did western governments, self-proclaimed warriors against terror, twist Sri Lanka’s arm to declare a ceasefire, when it was on the point of wiping out the LTTE? The ostensible reason - concern for Tamil civilians - was laughable, given the west’s ongoing record of killing civilians by the hundred thousand, especially in Iraq. If they were genuinely concerned, they could have pressed the LTTE to release their human shield of over 200,000.

• Why did western powers allow the LTTE to operate freely, although they had been declared a terrorist organization and rated by the FBI as the most dangerous terrorists in the world?

• Just how cosy is the relationship between western leaders and the LTTE rump?

Fame awaits the writer who uncovers the sleaze and machinations permeating the relations between the west and terrorists – that is, if he is not eliminated by western intelligence agencies.

Closing Ranks

To do all this, we need to close ranks, and restore law and order and the rule of law. There is no room for bickering at this time of great peril. Let us remember that the western cabal, having had their noses rubbed in the dust in Iraq and Afghanistan, might find consolation in attacking a small island and notching up at least one win.

Sense of Perspective

Wrapping up our response, we could include a section on perspective, a call for common sense instead of a witch hunt. Consider the background. For thirty years, the LTTE had wrought havoc in Sri Lanka, assassinating our leaders, destroying the Central Bank building and the oil installation, attacking Katunayake airport, destroying passenger and military aircraft, attacking commuter trains, murdering Buddhist and Muslim pilgrims at prayer, hacking isolated villagers to death, blowing up public transport buses, and a host of other atrocities. The LTTE grew to a transnational criminal empire, and were rated by the FBI as the most dangerous terrorists in the world. In May 2009, after a superbly conducted army-navy-air force operation, the forces eliminated the LTTE. This was a prodigious achievement not only for Sri Lanka but for the world. Sri Lanka’s reward was a witch-hunt to malign its leaders and its army!

Lest We Forget

We end, as we began, with Ban Ki-Moon. When the founding fathers of the UN drafted its Charter, they stressed the need for the Secretary-General to be impartial. Article 100 of the Charter reads:

Article 100

In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and his staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international civil servants responsible only to the Organization

Can the wretched Moon say, hand on heart, that he has lived up to these high standards

island.lk

Antics of the TNA

Characteristically, Mr. Sambandan (who was one time ‘His Master’s Voice’),the leader of the TNA, has grandly endorsed unequivocally, the Report of Moon’s ‘selected’ panel of ‘Experts’, going to the length of saying "all this is what we have been saying all the time’’!

One really wonders whether S. comprehends fully, the grave implications of what he so foolhardily mouths.Has he paused for a moment to reflect on the impact this kind of impulsive statement could have on the future of the Tamil minority and on the Sri Lankan polity as a whole? Is he so naïve and bigoted as not to realise the irreparable damage he is doing to the reconciliation

efforts of the Govt. by needlessly and foolishly opening up old wounds, which would only harden the differences and the cleavage between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhala people?

The LTTE sympathizers in the West including the Tamil Diaspora, must expectedly be exhilarated by what S. has said.This is perhaps what S. wants for his own short term gains! He should surely have realized by now, the immense relief and the new sense of freedom felt by the majority of Sri Lankans, at the eradication of the harrowing plague of LTTE terrorism from the face of this land. In fact, the Tamil community itself seems to be enjoying the newly won liberty to move around the island without fear of being blown up by the landmine or the lone suicide bomber.If one goes

to Galle Face Green or to the Dehiwala Mt. Lavinia beach of an evening, one sees hordes of the Tamil community, most of whom have come down to Colombo from the North, enjoying themselves thoroughly with their families and kith and kin. This is so even in the North and the East where the Govt. is actively rebuilding the devastated physical infrastructure while simultaneously de-mining these areas making them safe for the re –settlement of the displaced Tamil people. Peace and security has been restored in these war torn areas, with the people being able to move about freely and engage in their day to day activities without let or hindrance. This is a totally new scenario one never witnessed before the Northern conflict was brought to an end.

The Tamil Diaspora , happily ensconced in their safe havens abroad, still keep chasing their fond chimera of a Tamil Eelam which has long since dipped and vanished over the horizon, totally unmindful of the misery and the isolation they are once again dragging down the hapless Sri Lankan Tamils to. Certain influential quarters in the US administration, with a uniquely skewed sense of justice and human rights, are trying to force Sri Lanka’s hand by hollering their new ‘mantram’ about ‘accountability preceding reconciliation’, forgetting quickly their own accountability for the horrendous war crimes perpetrated in Iraq and the atrocities they continue to commit in Afghanistan. What sanctimonious humbug!

The majority of the people in the island are indeed beholden to President MR for destroying the marauding Prabhakaran and his terrorist cadres who had ravaged the island and kept it under a perpetual pall of gloom for over 30 years.

President MR and his Govt. certainly have made mistakes and at times huge ones at that.

But when it comes to a deeply prejudiced report against Sri Lanka, like the one just released by the ‘unholy’ trio selected by Ban Ki-moon, which is no more than a vicious and unwarranted intrusion into the sovereignty of an independent State, it behoves all Sri Lankans to rally round the Govt. and oppose the report which is a deliberately prepared, heavily biased document, seething withpure malevolence, with all the vehemence one could command. The Tamil community, who suffered most when the LTTE’s writ ran over a

good part of the North and the East, should be shrewd and discerning enough to assess the current situation and not fall prey to the self centered short term machinations of people like Sambandan and the Tamil Diaspora, who will try to dangle the long evaporated dream of Eelam before them.

Strangely, the TNA, seems to be resorting to some bizarre ploys,encouraged obviously by the release of the report of the Moon panel.They have launched an unexpected tirade against all and sundry including their staunch supporters like the "International Community" and Tamil Nadu. The former is being berated for not intervening to stop the war in time and the latter for not bringing enough pressure to bear on the Centre to force Sri Lanka to stop hostilities.The TNA further says that the Tamil Nadu leaders too should bear responsibility for their complicity in war crimes. The TNA quite brazenly accuses the Govt. of India, of aiding and abetting Sri Lanka in the war adding that for this reason, India cannot deny it’s complicity in the commission of war crimes, for which it should be held responsible! The TNA of course, is well known for it’s compulsive political habit of deflecting blame onto their adversaries wherever possible and even onto their friends, where necessary!

This totally befuddling development is bound to be viewed by both the Govt. of India India and Tamil Nadu with consternation and incredulity! Knowing the deviousness of the TNA, one is wont to be wary of looking upon these rather amusing contretemps simply as the impetuous rantings and ravings of a confused and frustrated TNA. However, one could discern in all this, a well calculated ploy, to burden the three parties concerned, with a heavy sense of guilt which the TNA desperately hopes, will be redeemed and expiated by the former, by straining every nerve to ensure that the Moon panel report would be pursued to what the TNA imagines, would be its logical conclusion. India, in all its wisdom and long–term self-interest, is unlikely to fall for this kind of inane ploy.

DEMOS

island.lk -guess who is demos.None other than the editor

Violation of diplomatic norms? asks Rajiva

Reacting to yesterday’s report of a meeting of several diplomats and NGOs at the US ambassador’s residence to discuss the Ban panel report, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP, a former Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat, raised the possibility of the meeting being a ``possible violation’’ of diplomatic norms.

In a posting on his website which he described as satirical, he said that the ambassador’s ``failure to invite anyone from government or any NGOs not overtly hostile to government, for a meeting supposedly dedicated to reconciliation points to a possible violation of responsibilities and obligations of diplomats.’’

Wijesinha described his article (available at www.rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com) as ``satirical’’ and said that it mocks the manner in which the Darusman Panel uses hearsay as amounting to proof.

Diplomats from the US, India, Britain, EU, the Netherlands, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Norway, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, and Italy and UN officials attended the meetings.

NGO representatives present included Jehan Perera, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Sherine Xavier, J.C. Weliamuna, Sudharshana Gunawardena and Sunila Abeysekera.

Blake heads to Sri Lanka amid war flap

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2011 (AFP) - A US envoy heads to Sri Lanka next week to encourage a full accounting over its civil war after the government angrily rejected UN-backed allegations of atrocities, officials said Friday.

Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state handling South Asia, will leave Saturday on a six-day trip to Sri Lanka and Maldives for talks with political leaders and civil society, the State Department said.

A US official said Blake’s visit to Sri Lanka had originally been planned a month ago and was not linked to the war panel report released Monday but that it was certain to come up in conversation.

The report commissioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found "credible allegations" that both the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels had been involved in what could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The United Nations has estimated that tens of thousands of people died in the 2009 offensive, in which the government killed the top leadership of the Tamil Tigers and ended their nearly 40-year separatist insurgency.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris, meeting with diplomats on Thursday, denounced the report as "legally, morally and substantively flawed," and accused the United Nations of trying to destabilize the island.

But the United States has welcomed the report, with US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice calling for "an independent and full accounting of the facts."

Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States planned a "candid dialogue" with Sri Lanka and other countries to seek accountability over the civil war. "We strongly support the secretary-general’s call for Sri Lankan authorities to respond constructively to the report," the official said.

The Tamil diaspora has been actively pressing for an accounting of the war, contributing to calls by a number of US lawmakers for an international probe.

Some efforts to deter foreign participation - Post mortem on the war in upcoming military seminar

By Shamindra Ferdinando

With the Government of Sri Lanka increasingly coming under international pressure over the conduct of its political and military leaderships during the latter part of Vanni campaign (Mar 2007 to May 2009), a three-day international conference organized by the military later this month would give an opportunity for Sri Lanka to respond to constant allegations of excesses.

A senior military official told The Sunday Island that the seminar on Sri Lanka’s experience in defeating terrorism scheduled for May 31 to June 2 at the Galadari Hotel would also give a chance to those alleging war crimes to seek clarifications with regard to land, air and sea operations.

"We are open for a comprehensive discussion on all issues. The GoSL is confident those skeptical of our tactics on the ground and also at sea will take this opportunity," the official said.

Responding to a query, he said that in fact the military regrets that it didn’t organize the conference early this month in view of the release of ‘Darrsman Report’ commissioned by UNSG Ban Ki-moon..

This report alleged indiscriminate attacks on civilians, rape of Tamil speaking women and deliberate campaign to target hospitals in LTTE-held areas in the run-up to the final confrontation on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon on May 19, 2009.

Some NGOs at the behest of their donors have urged major militaries to boycott this seminar.

The military said that there had been no previous instance of a country eradicating a fully fledged terrorist organization, with considerable assets abroad.

"Since 1971, the military crushed two insurgencies by the majority Sinhala community in spite of all three services and the police being predominately Sinhala Buddhist. Thereafter we overcame the LTTE and we are proud of our record," another official said.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Army Commander Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya will address the gathering at the opening session on the first day of the conference.

There would be three sessions on the first day to deal with challenges and prospects of counter terrorism, evolution of LTTE and international networking and overview of counter-terrorism in Sri Lanka. Maj. Gen. (Retd) Kapila Hendavitharane and Lt. Col. T.S. Sallay will make presentations on evolution of LTTE and international networking, respectively.

The first session of the second day will focus on the liberation of the East with, Majors General Prasanna de Silva and Chagi Gallage scheduled to address the gatherings. Majors General Jagath Dias and Shavendra Silva will dominate the second session which will focus on the Vanni campaign, now at the centre of international controversy.

Former Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka in the run-up Jan 2010 presidential polls alleged that Defence Secretary Rajapaksa bypasses him to order Shavendra Silva to execute surrendering LTTE leaders, a charge denied by both Rajapaksa and Silva.

Operations behind LTTE lines will dominate the second session. The briefing on Special Forces operations will be followed by brief comments on armour, artillery, signals, engineers, naval and air operations. The final session will focus on logistical and medical support and training.

The military said that the final day would focus on post-war scenario with presentations on resettlement, rehabilitation and reintegration of LTTE combatants to the society and national recovery process.

Interestingly, Dr. Rohan Gunaratne, chosen as a guest speaker at the seminar and to deliver the closing remarks had publicly expressed doubts about an outright military victory over the LTTE in early 2007 as the battle for the Eastern Province was coming to an end.

Bloomberg in a website report captioned ‘Sri Lanka Tamil Tiger rebels fight a war that cannot be won,’ posted on Mar. 21, 2007, quoted Dr Gunaratne as having said that ``Continuing the current spate of violence is not going to bring about a different outcome or change the status quo. ``Both parties have developed significant support to be able to recover from losses, but this type of warfare is protracted,’’ Gunaratna said.

The military regained the entire East by July 2007. The LTTE collapsed on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon in May 2009, proving the likes of Dr. Gunaratne wrong.

``What is needed is a negotiated settlement’’ Anusha Ondaatji wrote in Mar 21 website report quoting head of terrorism research at Singapore’s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies Dr. Gunaratne.

The military said that many doubted Sri Lanka’s capacity to sustain a high intensity ground offensive on the Vanni front, in the wake of severe economic woes partly caused by 2008 world economic slowdown. The forthcoming seminar would discuss the entire gamut of issues relation to Sri Lanka’s war on terror from different perspectives, the military said.

Sri Lanka would take advantage of the forum to reiterate the circumstances leading to all out war following the failure of Norway and Co-Chairs to the Peace Process, Norway, EU, US and Japan to force the LTTE back to the negotiating table. The LTTE quit the Oslo-led peace process in April 2003 during the then PM Ranil Wickremesinghe’s tenure as the PM. Eelam War IV erupted in Aug. 2006 with a large scale simultaneous LTTE offensive targeting Trinomalee and Jaffna frontline.

island.lk

Destabilization plot’’ the May Day theme

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The stage is set for a decisive confrontation between the Government of Sri Lanka and a section of the international community, with the ruling UPFA calling a massive protest in Colombo today (May Day) to protest against what a senior aide to President Mahinda Rajapaksa called ``a diabolical plot to destabilize Sri Lanka.’’

Today’s protest is culmination of a series of small demonstrations and the launch of a public petition against war crime charges. The UN on Friday warned that it was the responsibility of the GOSL to ensure safety and security of UN personnel and property.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official asserted that no other member of the UN had faced a similar situation since its establishment in 1945 after the end of World War II. The UN replaced the League of Nations. The official alleged that a report on so-called accountability issues in Sri Lanka commissioned by UNSG Ban Ki-moon was being used as a blueprint to destabilize post-war recovery process here.

External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris last Thursday (Apr 28) said the controversial Darusman Report was the product of a personal initiative taken by UNSG Ban Ki-moon and the mandate of the Panel was purely advisory in nature, as stated in its terms of reference.

At a meeting with the Colombo-based diplomatic corps at the External Affairs Ministry, Peiris highlighted some of the fundamental deficiencies, inherent prejudices and malicious intentions that characterize the report. The flaws pertain not only to its contents, but also to the methodology followed in arriving at its conclusions, the minister said.

He declared that the report is "legally, morally and substantively flawed".

The External Affairs Ministry acknowledged that in spite of Sri Lanka’s strong protests, the US was pressing other countries to push for an international investigation in to war crimes committed during the war.

A senior official told The Sunday Island that due to eradication of the entire LTTE ‘military’ leadership, such an inquiry would automatically be directed against the Sri Lankan political and military leadership.

But former Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the defeated common candidate at the Jan. 2010 presidential poll, who had been categorized as a war criminal by US Ambassador in Colombo Patricia Butenis in a US embassy cable now in the public domain is the only one out of the Rajapaksa clan. Others specifically named by Ms Butenis are the president and two of his brothers, Gotabhaya and Basil.

The Sri Lankan military said that all overseas Diaspora groups such as the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), British Tamil Forum and Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), too, should be held responsible for war crimes, though the LTTE ‘military’ leadership was no more.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which threw its full weight behind the LTTE strategy, was also culpable for the bloodshed, ministerial sources told The Sunday Island. The TNA went to the extent of calling a media briefing in Colombo in the run-up the April 2004 parliamentary polls to declare the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil speaking people.

Among those at the briefing was NGO activist Kumar Rupesinghe, one of the key players promoting international intervention here, sources said. The bottom line was that the international community, which provided the funds for Rupesinghe and those like him, too, was now trying to pin the blame on the GoSL, sources said.

Responding to a query, they said that a comprehensive report issued by the EU Election Monitoring Mission headed by John Cushnahan following the Apr 2004 poll revealed the TNA’s complicity in the LTTE strategy.

They acknowledged that those gunning for Sri Lanka wouldn’t take any notice of today’s protest or ongoing effort to produce a petition signed by a million people against the controversial Darusman Report.

Sri Lanka’s efforts to counter the looming threat had been severely affected by the absence of a cohesive strategy, whereas forces (read as NGOs and INGOs) funded by the countries at the forefront of the diplomatic offensive targeting Sri Lanka, were working overtime, they said.

Basically all those, who had campaigned against President Rajapaksa at the Nov. 2005 presidential poll had thrown their weight behind the Darusman Report barring a few bought over by the government after the 2005 poll, they said.

The ongoing battle would give an opportunity to those involved in the destabilizing campaign to collect a sizeable amount of funds as they had done over the years, they said adding that an attempt was afoot to achieve through diplomatic means what the LTTE failed to do despite guerilla and conventional military capability.

The Sunday Island last week revealed how the government had squandered millions of dollars on foreign PR firms hired to defend the country’s human rights record and help thwart an international war crimes investigation. The government had failed to realize that external affairs couldn’t be outsourced or handled in way a tourism promotion project was carried out, the sources said.

island.lk

Win over the world on the basis of truth’ - Dr Dayan Jayatilleke

Sri Lanka should act with wisdom to defeat the intentions of the controversial Darusman Report by trying to win over the world on the basis of truth and by pointing out the manner in which we have acted - that is in a fair and just way - and by forming a global united front against it,” said Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France Dr Dayan Jayatilleke commenting on the Darusman Report in an interview with the SLBC yesterday. “We should also forge a wider national unity locally by eschewing all petty differences, including political leadership and communal differences to counter the unfounded allegations levelled by the Report,” he said. Dr Jayatilleke said there are ‘dos’ and ‘donts’ involved in the endeavour.

What we should not do is to fall into the enemy trap. We should ensure that we don’t create another 1983 situation by acting in a rash and violent manner whatever instigations and insinuations there may be.

Asked about the intentions of the Darusman Report and the manner in which he had identified the report Dr Jayatilleke said we should not treat the UN Secretary General as our number one enemy.

The Secretary General appointed the Expert Panel to advise him on accountability issues and the actions and the standards to be observed regarding them. However, the Darusman Report has gone beyond this mandate. Dr Jayatilleke said the UN Secretary General had done something he should not have done by allowing the publications of the report.

However, in this age of Wikileaks we cannot prevent the publication of such a report which is a narrative against Sri Lanka and its Security Forces. However, the publication of the report is an improper thing.

What we must do now is to clearly understand the trap laid against us without targeting UN Secretary General or any other individuals.

Asked what diplomatic moves should be taken to counter the intentions of this Darusman Report Dr Jayatilleke said there had been a heated war against Sri Lanka for 30 years. But the Security Forces, people and their leadership successfully won that war. Now a cold war has been waged against Sri Lanka by the worldwide LTTE network, the Diaspora to destroy the justifiability good intentions of our victory. This can be described as a psychological war waged against Sri Lanka. Asked about the possible outcome of this report Dr Dayan Jayatilleke said there is a possibility of cases being filed in some countries against Sri Lanka.

There may be moves in Parliaments in certain countries to slap economic sanctions against Sri Lanka. Already many prominent newspapers around the world had published editorials about the report. This may be an attempt to build up international opinion against Sri Lanka with the intention of dividing Sri Lanka sometime in future as done in Southern Sudan and Kosovo. Asked for the manner in which the report may have an impact on the State machinery Dr Jayatilleke said apart from seceding the North there may be attempts to effect a regime change or more appropriately a ‘regime termination’ as witnessed by us in certain other parts of the world.

Raghavan "Gavan" Paranchothy

The Conservative government's own expert on Tamil extremism is raising concerns about a Toronto Tory candidate, claming he has worked for two television stations that telecast "propaganda" for the Tamil Tigers.

Rohan Gunaratna told CBC News that Raghavan "Gavan" Paranchothy's work for two Tamil television stations in Toronto that "at times telecast information that was propaganda for the LTTE, the Tamil Tiger organization" does not work towards the reconciliation Sri Lankans of all beliefs need.

But in an interview with CBC News, Paranchothy denied that, saying: "If I can do anything to trigger [reconciliation] or be part of that process, I'd be happy to."

The government called upon Gunaratna when Tamil migrant boats appeared off the coast of British Columbia last August.

Paranchothy sparked controversy after a YouTube video of him emerged calling soldiers of the Tamil Tigers "freedom fighters" and "martyrs." The Canadian government has classified the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization.

Gunaratna, head the International Centre for Terrorism and political violence based in Singapore, said Paranchothy's characterization of the Tamil Tigers led him to believe Paranchothy "had sympathy and support for the Tamil Tigers."

Last week Conservative candidate Peter Kent questioned his party's vetting of the Scarborough Southwest candidate after watching the YouTube video of a "Heroes Day" special that was hosted on a Tamil station in late November

In the video, Paranchothy talks about "Tamil freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the rest of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, either guidedly or misguidedly."

Paranchothy issued a statement saying: "I absolutely condemn terrorists and terrorism. I believe in the rule of law and the democratic process." He also said his actions as a journalist do not reflect his personal views.

Kent later clarified his remarks, saying at the time he made his comments he was not aware Paranchothy "had given firm and unequivocal assurances that he is not a supporter of the [Tigers]."

Kent also apologized to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for embarrassing him during the campaign.

Paranchothy told CBC News that Kent's comments were "unfortunate," but said he continues to have a lot of respect for his fellow former broadcaster, whom he has not spoken to since the incident.

Paranchothy would not discuss the political slant of the stations where he worked, and suggested he had severed ties with them last summer.

Paranchothy's office later called CBC News to clarify that he continued to work for one of the stations right up until the election call.

CBC News has also learned that Paranchothy's first cousin, Thevathasan Kanagasabai, is under arrest in Sri Lanka as a suspected terrorist.

"He's a long lost cousin of mine," Paranchothy told the CBC. "I've got cousins all over the world, half of them I've never seen.

"But as far as this man is concerned, I think he's innocent. He worked for the Sri Lanka filming corporation or something, and he was at the wrong place at the wrong time from what I hear."

CPI (M): probe war crimes by Sri Lankan armed forces

Demonstrations in first week of May demanding detailed enquiry

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will organise demonstrations in major cities of the State, demanding an enquiry into “war crimes” committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the final phase of the civil war.

In a statement, CPI (M) State secretary G. Ramakrishnan said the report of a United Nations committee has indicted the Sri Lankan armed forces for killing thousands of civilians in the armed struggle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and of other human rights violations. The party's state executive committee has already passed a resolution seeking punishment against the war criminals.

The UN report has stated that over 40,000 civilians were killed in the last month of the battle and prisoners of war were shot dead at point blank range. The Sri Lankan government was responsible for the loss of lives of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils and human rights violations, he said.

The party would hold demonstrations in the first week of May demanding a detailed enquiry into such human rights violations, punishment to war criminals, rehabilitation of those affected and provincial autonomy for the Tamils in the island nation, Mr. Ramakrishnan said

UN chief asks member states to take Expert Panel report on Sri Lanka seriously and act

Sat, Apr 30, 2011, 01:56 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Apr 30, Colombo: While the United Nations is yet to receive a formal response from Sri Lanka on the report submitted to the UN Secretary-General by the Panel of Experts appointed by him to advise on the accountability of Sri Lanka during the last stages of war, the UN chief has asked the member states to give serious consideration to the report.

Martin Nesirky, the Spokesperson for the UN chief said Friday the United Nations has not seen an official response from the Government of Sri Lanka.

"We have not received an official response. We have, of course, seen what's played out in the public domain," he said when asked whether the Sri Lankan government responded to the report.

He said the UN is waiting for a formal response from the Government, as it made clear in the UN chief's earlier statement issued when the report was made public on April 25.

Nesirky reiterated that the UN would require Host Country consent or a mandate from an intergovernmental body to appoint an international body to investigate the allegations in the report.

However, he said the Secretary-General expects the member states to look at the report which is in the public domain and take it seriously.

"All Member States, whether they are in the Security Council, whether they are in the Human Rights Council, and obviously by definition, in the General Assembly, have access to it (the report). And the Secretary-General has publicly said that he is sure that all Member States will take that report seriously and act accordingly, draw the necessary conclusions," Nesirky said.

China asks international community not to complicate Sri Lanka's issues

Sat, Apr 30, 2011, 09:07 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Apr 30, Beijing: The Chinese government has asked the international community to support Sri Lanka's efforts to stabilize the country and avoid taking measures to complicate Sri Lanka's situation further.

In a statement China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has said today that China believes the Sri Lankan government and people will properly handle problems concerning its civil war and urged the international community not to complicate the issue.

The spokesman has made these remarks when asked to comment on the United Nations Expert Panel report on the accountability of Sri Lanka during the last stages of war, China's official news agency, Xinhua reported.

The spokesman has said the Chinese government has already noticed the publication of the report and Sri Lanka on its own is capable of addressing the issues raised by the panel.

"The Chinese side is confident that the Sri Lankan government and people are able to properly address all relevant issues," Hong has said.

He has noted that Sri Lanka has already set up its own institutes to investigate relevant issues and said China hopes the international community could provide support for Sri Lankan government's efforts.

"We hope that the international community could help develop a favorable external environment for the Sri Lankan government to stabilize the country's internal situation and accelerate economic growth, and avoid taking measures that could further complicate the issue," Xinhua quoted the spokesman.

China has been a strong supporter of Sri Lanka, providing crucial diplomatic support in the UN Security Council and blocking Western countries' efforts to prosecute Sri Lanka for alleged war crimes, said to have taken place during the last phase of the war against the brutal Tamil Tiger terrorists.

In addition, China has provided financial aid to rebuild Sri Lanka emerging from a three-decade long armed conflict.

China has boostted financial assistance in Sri Lanka's infrastructure development when other countries have reduced economic aid citing Sri Lanka's human right violations.

The Hambantota port development project, the second international airport, the Norochcholai coal power plant, highway development are among many other projects, supported by the Chinese government.

Boyle: Word "Genocide" missing in UN Panel's war crimes report

TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 12:09 GMT]
Pointing out the instances where the criminal allegations on Sri Lanka made in the UN's war crimes report support the charge of genocide on Sri Lanka, Professor Francis Boyle, expert in International Law and Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, told TamilNet, "[f]or obvious political reasons, no one wants to use the word “genocide." And that is because it then raises the question why did no one stop the genocide as required by article I of the Genocide Convention. The same phenomenon happened in Bosnia. No one would use the word “genocide” until afterwards, and it was too late to do anyone any good—they were all dead."

• Report of UN Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka

Boyle points to the accusation of "persecution" against Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), in para 251, pg. 69: "The credible allegations supporting a finding of the crime against humanity of persecution insofar as the other acts listed here appear to have been committed on racial or political grounds against the Tamil population of the Vanni... "

Professor Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois

This would support a genocide charge. And yet they (the members of UN panel) fail to get into genocide, Boyle says.

"Concerning their estimate that about 40,000 Tamils were exterminated by the GOSL in Vanni, that is about 5 times the 7000+ Bosnians exterminated at Srebrenica in 1995," and Prof Boyle provided the following analysis:

In its final Judgment on the merits in the Bosnia case that was issued in 2007, the World Court definitively agreed with me once and for all time that in order to constitute genocide, a state must only intend to destroy a “substantial part” of the group “as such”:

198. In terms of that question of law, the Court refers to three matters relevant to the determination of “part” of the “group” for the purposes of Article II. In the first place, the intent must be to destroy at least a substantial part of the particular group. That is demanded by the very nature of the crime of genocide: since the object and purpose of the Convention as a whole is to prevent the intentional destruction of groups, the part targeted must be significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole. That requirement of substantiality is supported by consistent rulings of the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and by the Commentary of the ILC to its Articles in the draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of mankind (e.g. Krstić, IT-98-33-A, Appeals Chamber Judgment, 19 April 2004, paras. 8-11 and the cases of Kayishema, Byilishema, and Semanza there referred to; and Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1996, Vol. II, Part Two, p. 45, para. 8 of the Commentary to Article 17).[1]

Furthermore, in paragraphs 293 and 294 of its 26 February 2007 Bosnian Judgment, the World Court found that you did not need six million exterminated people in order to constitute genocide. Rather, even the seven thousand murdered Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica were enough to constitute genocide. These victims constituted about one-fifth of the Srebrenica community.

In this regard, I still serve as Attorney of Record for the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja who constitute one of the primary groups of women survivors of that genocidal massacre still living in Bosnia today. I have personally toured the Killing Fields of Srebrenica with my Bosnian clients. I know genocide when I see it!

"The Report says nothing about genocide or the Genocide Convention. But I have already set forth the appropriate test from the ICJ’s judgment in the Bosnian case and have discussed this at great length in my book The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka. So I am not going to repeat any of that analysis here," Prof Boyle said.

Commenting on the "para 229, p. 63 …the State inexplicably excluded the ICRC, with its highly skilled family tracing services…," Professor Boyle explained, "the reason the ICRC was excluded and expelled was for the GOSL to better engage in enforced disappearances. Once registered with the ICRC, it becomes much harder to disappear someone."

For setting up these No Fire Zones , luring civilians in there, and then pouring artillery fire in there were clearly acts of treachery and thus war crimes, Prof Boyle said, "all those generals (detailed in pp 16-17) should be listed as presumptive war criminals."

Sri Lanka war-crime alleged over killing of TECH Director

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 April 2011, 00:08 GMT]
Emerging evidence on Sri Lanka military targeting civilian leadership of Eezham Tamil development organizations at the end of Vanni war further reinforces the credible allegation that Sri Lanka's war crimes and crimes against humanity had genocidal intentions. C. Sivalingam Suhunan, alias Thilak, the executive director of TECH (The Economic Consultancy House), the flagship development NGO of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam and a registered NGO in Sri Lanka, was one of the victims, according to a Senior official of TECH, who has identified Thilak's body in a recently leaked photograph taken by Sri Lankan soldiers. Mr. Suhunan had phoned his family last on 18 May, 2009 at 6:15 a.m. local time, informing that he was among a group of persons in civil clothes, going into Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled territory in Mullaiththeevu.

A former associate of Mr. Suhunan who escaped from the SLA-run internment camp, alleged that Sri Lankan military identified capable people among the captives and civilians, isolated them for extermination as part of the continued genocidal agenda, after committing serious war crimes on the former LTTE members.

Mr. Suhunan was earlier the Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE.

Suhunan, photographed at Oslo airport during his official visit to Norway

Photo of the dead body of late Mr. Suhunan leaked recently through SLA soldiers

TECH was the brain child of late Professor Thurairajah, Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University (1988-1994), and evolved into a formidable research and development facility during the CFA period. TECH worked with international NGOs including CARE and FORUT, and ws mandated to carry out projects that promote creation of income generating small scale enterprises to help economically disadvantaged section of the NorthEast population.

Suhunan took over the leadership at TECH in the latter part of 2003 and was instrumental in obtaining diaspora support for several agricultural and poultry farming projects for economic upliftment of the low-income strata of the population.

During the ceasefire, Mr. Suhunan, visited Germany, France and Norway for discussions with government and non-government development agencies in Europe.