Saturday, September 19, 2015

Sri Lanka, and India too, Must Account for Letting Slip the Dogs of War

Whether the families of the victims – or the survivors – will ever find justice when the state refuses to acknowledge that enormous crimes were committed, is moot. That is a battle which must be fought

312.OISL is in possession of photographic and video material that show Balachandran Prabhakaran, the 12-year-old son of Villupillai Prabhakaran, sitting in a bunker, alive and in the custody of Sri Lankan troops as well as images of the dead body of Balachandran lying on the ground beside the dead bodies of five semi-naked men. Based on the assessment of an independent forensic pathologist of the photographs, Balachandran appears to have been killed with five gunshots to the chest. One gunshot wound with soot markings indicate the weapon was fired from a distance of 60-90 cm. A witness stated he saw Balachandran alive and then saw his body with bullet wounds; he did not see Balachandran being killed.

Undated photograph of Balachandran Prabhakaran, the 12-year-old son of LTTE chief Prabhakaran, in the custody of the Sri Lankan Army. A subsequent photograph taken soon after shows him dead with bullet injuries in his chest. See below.
Credit: No Fire Zone

BY SATYABRATA PAL ON 18/09/2015

The report of the Investigation on Sri Lanka – carried out by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and released on September 16, 2015 together with the High Commissioner’s overview – details the lawless savagery with which Sri Lanka fought its war against the LTTE, an enemy just as brutal, though unable to match the scale on which the machinery of a State could terrorise when it went rogue.
Sri Lanka, And India Too, Must Account for Letting Slip the Dogs of War by Thavam Ratna