Sinister Campaign Afoot To Block Sri Lanka Using Paranagama Report At UNHRC

By Chris Dharmakirti –August 28, 2015

Chris Dharmakirti

The release of the long awaited Paranagama Commission Report, officially known as the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints Regarding Missing Persons that was established in 2013, has now come into sharp focus, because both the UN and the world at large has been stuck with the conclusions of the Darusman Report, (officially known as the Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka), released in 2011, namely, that up to 40,000 civilians have been killed by the army in the final phase of the conflict.

In the wake of a global civil society outcry on possible genocide in Sri Lanka, the 47-member UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution in March 2014, which requested the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCR) to undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties in Sri Lanka during the last phase of the armed conflict. An expert panel was set up by the UN in late June 2014 and OHCHR was to present a comprehensive report on its findings by March 2015.

In response to this, the Government of Sri Lanka, on the 15th of July 2014, issued a second mandate to the Paranagama Commission, that obligated the Commission to inquire into the facts and circumstances that resulted in the principle loss of civilian life in the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka and to issue a report on or before the 15th of August 2015.

After all, the unverified death toll figure of 40,000 or more has led reasonable people all round the world, to conclude that the Sri Lankan army acted in a way that failed to observe the laws and customs of war.  The term “a genocidal army” stems from here.

Therefore, in order to come to the conclusion of how many civilians were killed, the UN must satisfy, as to who was a civilian in those circumstances. The UN needs to carefully consider the role of the Tamil civilians in this conflict, including the children who were forcibly conscripted. If a civilian joins the LTTE, and becomes part of the LTTE war machine, then they have to be properly classed as a combatant. The issue is further compounded by the fact that some of the Tamil civilians were forcibly conscripted whilst others volunteered freely to take up arms and they were engaged in combat in civilian clothes. According to reports, many of these civilians who were in the front line as LTTE combatants were killed.Read More