War crimes of ‘both sides’ or war crimes of all sides: Oslo film discussion stirs thoughts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 February 2012, 17:01 GMT]
After a full house show of Beate Arnestad’s documentary on exiled Sinhala and Eezham Tamil journalists on Thursday in Oslo, Norwegian journalist Sverre Tom Radøy leading the discussion, prompted British journalist Frances Harrison talking on the sufferings of the civilians to elucidate on ‘war crimes of both sides’ and particularly those of the LTTE. Forced recruitment and preventing the civilians from going to the side of the Sri Lanka Army were the war crimes of the LTTE, Ms. Harrison specified. Confining the crimes to a paradigm ‘both sides’ is a tactic of the international architects of the war to circumvent their crimes and responsibility. Made to naively believe that justice would come from the very architects, the affected Tamils have failed in focussing their demand on the accountability of all sides that had committed the crimes, commented an observer to the show. 

However, speaking after Ms. Harrison, exiled Sinhala journalist Bashana Abeywardene enlightened the audience on the topic.

The way the war was conduced was an international experiment of a war paradigm. It was meant to make a struggling people surrender, by breaking their morale through starvation, shelling and massacre. The paradigm is now deployed in Guatemala and Turkey, Bhashana said, pinpointing the responsibility of the world Establishments in the evil design of the war in the island.

When such was the intention of leading Establishments in the world, prompting perception towards a localised equation, ‘war crimes of both sides,’ by highlighting the 'crimes' of the LTTE, serves only for deviating focus of attention away from revelations like that of Beate raising larger questions, the observer of the show in Oslo opined.

A larger question actually arises on the modes operandi of a number of world Establishments that had lead the chronic local issue into a genocide paradigm through local agents, and that continue tilting the balance of any investigations and justice too, as they had tilted the balance of the war earlier, the observer further said.

Commenting on the equation ‘war crimes of both sides,’ a leading Tamil Nadu politician reminded of a saying in Tamil, “Yaanaikku paanai sariyaay poachchu:” An elephant and a pot are equal (because they resemble each other in shape). 

The affected civilians seeking justice are not from ‘both sides’.       Full story >>