Ramifications Of UNHRC Chief’s Visit
Pearl Thevanayagam
This piece is rather a lengthy one intended for those observing UNHRC Chief Navi Pillai’s schedule in Sri Lanka for five days starting Sunday, August 25,1013.
Her visit should not be taken lightly. Whether the government likes it or not, she is after all the last word on what the future holds for the Rajapaksa Government and would sift through with a fine tooth-comb on what went on during the last stages of the war in 2008/2009.
She comes armed with enough tangible evidence of government soldiers committing rape, murder and torture on Tamil civilians fleeing for their lives caught between the advancing army and the stubborn LTTE which was using them as human shields. She would take the accusations of the majority Sinhala government’s unleashing so much horror on Tamil civilians akin to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and the following holocaust on par with ethnic cleansing of the Tamil population.
Then there is the complicated situation where the LTTE were said to be shooting fleeing civilians point-blank on the back according to eye-witness accounts of those who managed to enter army controlled areas and NGOs present. Would the government who is succouring active LTTE members now and rehabilitating them allow Ms Pillai unfettered access to these witnesses?
Could Ms Pillai garner evidence from former army chief Sarath Fonseka and the other military chiefs who conducted the dastardly operation from the frontline which killed 40,000 or more innocent Tamils?
The government would argue it conducted humanitarian relief for the fleeing Tamil civilians from the clutches of the LTTE. It has yet to prove this was the case. Even Bell Pottinger, an upbeat advertising firm engaged by the government at an enormous expense could not stop the salvos thrown in the direction of the government by international NGOS and media that the government was bent on eugenics annihilating Tamils to carve an exclusive conclave of a Sinhala Buddhist island.Read More
