From Gota’s War To Gota’s Crimes
Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah
Learning from the Gotabaya Rajapaksa experience
As Gotabaya Rajapaksa lectures on “counter-terrorism,” to the people listening, the truth behind this man won’t hurt them. But to numerous others ‘hurting’ by this man, his speech at the Defence Services Asia Conference in Malaysia this last week would be most revolting.
Talk about illegal evictions, to ‘White Van’ abductions, to disappearances, toMatale ‘mass graves’, to Budu Bala Sena terrorism, to torture and sexual violence by the armed forces, to unwarranted militarisation, to land grab, to illegal military occupation, to detentions without charge, to extra-judicial executions, to mass killings, to violations of international law, to war crimes, to mass atrocities – the one name and the one family that is synonymous and inextricably linked to these and other multitude of human rights abuses and heinous crimes in Sri Lanka is none other than Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksa family regime.
This man Gotabaya has the impudence to talk about counter- terrorism whilst him and his brothers, lording over their subjects, are actually presiding over a reign of terror in Sri Lanka after having allegedly wiped out 40,000 – 70,000 Tamil civilians and more than 146,000 unaccounted for after the war. They rule with an iron fist, these brothers one of whom is the president. They act as men above the law. To be more precise, these brothers and their henchmen think they are the law, having illegally impeached the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and put a puppet in her place.
If justice prevails, there is every likelihood Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his officers would be hauled for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide before an international tribunal as the international investigation, called for by the UN Human Rights Council, gets underway and reaches its conclusions.
It is ironic that whilst Gotabaya projects himself as Sri Lanka’s terrorism busting Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, the world thinks otherwise of this man, his regime and his troops:
Stewart Bell a veteran Canadian journalist writes:[1]
“..since defeating the Tamil Tigers rebels in 2009, Sri Lanka has faced mounting allegations its forces committed war crimes during the final months of the separatist conflict. The United Nations launched a formal investigation last month.”
And typically one of the ugly faces, tied to these war crimes allegations and of this “increasingly authoritarian” Sri Lankan government of Rajapaksa, referred to as such by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Read More
