Why Did Sri Lanka Kill So Many Children?

Why Did Sri Lanka Kill So Many Children?

(EXTREMELY GRAPHIC) Previously unseen photos tell of a painful, grisly and deadly time in Tamil history. American journalists need to pay attention.

Not Gaza... this is Sri Lanka three years ago.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - As the Israelis lay siege to Gaza, killing children by the score, our newsroom received a whole new batch of images from the Genocide in Sri Lanka that ended just a little over three years ago. The subject, as you will see at the bottom of this report, is one I have covered for years in great detail.

In fact, past articles exposing these horrific slaughter photos of dead and twisted human bodies, are some ofSalem-News.com's most viewed pages right now, even though they were written months ago. The writings and multi-media reports are a sad and terrible tribute for tens of thousands of ethnically cleansed Tamils- the minority group in Sri Lanka forever under the grinding thumb of the Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lankan government led by President Majinda Rajapaksa and his brothers.

Oh it is a family affair from the breeding grounds of nepotism, and anyone who steps out of line in this island nation finds their life in jeopardy very quickly. When they aren't being killed in government attacks, Sri Lanka uses their fleet of 'white vans' to abduct, torture and murder their political enemies, particularly media, who dare challenge the status quo.

Silent Witnesses

These photos tell so many stories. The picture of children being hanged in their own home; this is an image we have seen before but only the children, not the man who weassume to be their father.

Dead kids tell no tales they assume...

Or do they?

Thanks to these gruesome images, their deaths will never be completely unknown. Only monsters could be responsible for this.

They were murdered it appears, based on the calendar on the wall, in 2006. This is a year after the plans to terminate the Tamil people in the north of Sri Lanka were put into place. They were killed in an area called 'The Vanni'.

It is former U.S. President George W. Bush who greased the wheels for the Tamil Genocide. The event left up to 160k Sri Lankan Tamils dead.

Bush helped Rajapakse and his henchmen designate these desperate people as 'terrorists' - that is an American word that means 'strip people of humanity'. The civilians were mass murdered under the 'exterminate the terrorist' banner.

They scared the GoSL so much. State terror governments don't expect their victims to fight back. LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) were resourceful and dedicated like few groups that came before them.

They had already lost so much by the time they were formed that dedication to the cause of freedom was central for the Liberation Tigers.

The LTTE was faulted by its critics for having used child soldiers when their situation became desperate, but it is clear from these pictures that the plans the government had for these people was much worse, particularly for the innocent children and for the record all children in this world are innocent and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be slapped or worse, possibly much worse.

Here, civilians were told to enter no-fire zones and then attacked and killed once in place. Sri Lanka would later claim that they were used by the Tamil Tigers as 'human shields' and that is the biggest line of horsecrap ever spoken or written. No resilient resistance organizations use civilians or kids as human shields. That is pure bull and a simple excuse for war criminal governments like Sri Lanka and Israel.

Tricking non-combatants; women and children, into entering areas to be killed, even the devil might not have done that! Perhaps the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is worse than the devil. I can't help but entertain the possibility.

As a father, I can not begin to comprehend the thinking behind this operation that did so much more than murder with bombs and rockets as the photos of the hanged children and their dad show.

It is true the LTTE or Tamil Tigers as they are more widely known, were some of the best military minority resistance fighters and tacticians who ever lived and fought, and they had many successful attacks against and engagements with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). But what matters, is that the Tamils spent 30 years; from the year England ended their colonization in '48, trying to hold onto their language and culture and human rights peacefullyand non-violently before they ever went militant.

Sadly, as a journalist I feel it is necessary to acknowledge that non-violent protests all too often, are truly weak and limited and that while many want that to be the only approach, non-violent resistance runs the risk of becoming cowardice.

This point was made by the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi and also by our writer, the outspoken former U.S. Marine Ken O'Keefe who battled the Israelis during the siege of the ocean liner Mavi Marmara in 2010. Ken took a ton of grief from the pro-Palestine non-violence folks, all of whom slept comfortably the night Ken fought for his life disarming two Israeli 'commandos' who killed nine of his friends and shot and injured dozens.

When faced with an oppressive nation bent on murdering its own citizens who happen to be from the 'wrong' religion, fighting back is one of the only possibilities. Those who wish to remain non-violent as their families are slaughtered are not heroic people.

Sex Abuse and Rape

When examining the various parts of the Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide, one is inevitably faced with the brutal nature of the Buddhist state terrorism program that Tamils had to confront - sadly similar to the plight the Burmese Rohingya people are dealing with today where Buddhist mobs have been burning villages and murdering people left and right. That's right, as I write this, once again... Buddhist killers are attacking religious minorities with torches to burn and machetes to slice the humanity out of vulnerable civilians of the 'wrong' religion. Soldier and police sex abuse of Rohingya Muslims is another constant problem.

As we have significantly documented, there were mass rapes of women and girls conducted by troops of the Sri Lanka Army. They actually recorded the aftermath of one of these escapades on their own video cameras, and those images... loading nude female rape / murder victims into the back of a truck, include statements from the soldiers who joke in extremely callous, insensitive ways about the dead, mostly dead... or soon to be dead, female victims.

A soldier shockingly proclaims of one victim, that he "would like to cut her tits off". What kind of people does Sri Lanka allow into its military? In twenty years of news, covering the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and dozens of deaths, murders, and other terrible crimes; after all of that, I have never heard such foul words uttered in such a casual tone.

This goes right to the very soul of humanity as far as I am concerned, creatures like this existing as armed soldiers... the mere notion of it is beyond comprehension.

The nude bodies are kicked and treated like inanimate objects, while at least one of the women is clearly still alive.

The video from Channel 4 in London as you can see by looking below, has been removed by YouTube. This is no mystery, it is another example of howGoogle is a paid element of the Sri Lanka Genocide.

I wrote before about how Google doctored the Google Earth images on Sri Lanka (as they were shot during the Genocide) and sewed in a frame from some time after the killing, to make the area look peaceful, to ensure that the bodies are removed or rotted away. War criminals like YouTube, and Google is on their side. At any rate, I am glad we recorded below the words so YouTube can't help the GoSL as much as they would like, the pricks.

The revelation as shown in the lower right photo, is that the SLA did cut the breasts off of women and I have not seen this before, to me it looks like another clear case for the International Criminal Courts (ICC) and I suspect they will find it very interesting as it corroborates our worst fears.

Translated dialog from Ch-4 Video

Statements of Sri Lanka soldiers

"Motherfuckin Tiger wankers!"
(inaudible)
"Load the ammo" "Show your face"
"Hey... pose with the bodies"

--then while showing bodies of what appear to be dead Tamil Tiger child soldiers---

"Hey look up" (Soldier looks at camera and makes grunting sound)

---then during the loading of female bodies--

"Bring that body... Another one"
"eh?"
"She is moaning now"
"Moaning in your head?"
"Still moaning?"
"Bring that one"
"This one has the best figure"
"Eh?"
"This one has the best figure".

---We have more footage, taken elsewhere, which suggests systematic murder, abuse and sexual violence---

"She seems like someone who's newly joined"
"She looks like someone's clerk"
"Look how many pencils and pens she's got"
"I really want to cut her tits off"
"...if no one was around"

Learn more, visit: Two of Sri Lanka's Fo

This is a shocking but extremely important video clip from Channel-4 in London, producers of 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields'

   Read    Full Article

Time to push back over Sri Lankan impunity

By Alan Keenan, Special to CNN

November 20th, 2012

Editor’s note: Alan Keenan is the International Crisis Group's Sri Lanka project director and senior analyst. The views expressed are his own. ICG’s new report on the issue can be downloaded here.

International attention on Sri Lanka has focused recently on a devastating report from the United Nations reviewing its own failure to protect civilians during the humanitarian catastrophe of the final months of the island nation’s civil war in 2009. Yet as many in the international community have been looking back, a new, quieter crisis is threatening Sri Lanka’s battered democracy – and the chances of lasting peace – with the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa moving to impeach the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Should the impeachment effort succeed, it will complete a constitutional coup begun in September 2010 with the 18th amendment to the constitution, which ended presidential term limits and removed the independence of commissions on the police, human rights, judiciary, bribery and other areas of governance.

What some have framed as a battle for power between the judiciary and executive is in fact a one-sided assault on an already weakened legal system, which has for decades, but particularly under President Rajapaksa, routinely done the executive’s bidding.

Once known as a Rajapaksa loyalist, Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake angered the president and his brothers when she helped strike down portions of proposed legislation that would increase the resources under the control of the president’s brother, the powerful economic development minister, Basil Rajapaksa. By removing some of the limited powers held by provincial councils, the proposed law also contradicts efforts to devolve further powers to the northern and eastern Tamil-speaking areas, an essential step in any lasting solution to the ethnic conflict.

More from GPS: Tamils want inquiry

Following the court’s ruling in September, the chief justice and other senior judicial officials were summoned to meet the president, while state-run media launched ferocious attacks on the chief justice. In early October, the secretary of the judicial services commission was assaulted by a group of armed men and badly injured, days after publicly criticizing government attempts to stifle judicial independence. The attackers, as in so many other cases of politically motivated violence, remain “unknown” and at large. On November 1, government legislators initiated impeachment proceedings in parliament.

The attempted impeachment of the chief justice is a direct attack on the independence of judiciary. It also sends a clear message to the rest of the country that dissent is not permitted and that nothing will stand in the way of the further concentration of power in the Rajapaksa family. The damage to what remains of Sri Lanka’s democracy, as well as to the rights and interests of Sri Lankan Tamils and other Tamil-speaking minority communities, will be enormous.

The formal charges against the chief justice allege secret bank accounts and other financial misconduct – allegations the chief justice has publicly rejected. She is also accused of conflict of interest, including hearing cases involving her husband, who is now under indictment for financial fraud while head of a government bank. The formal charge sheet has been publicly ridiculed, with many pointing to its factual errors, unclear writing and ambiguous allegations as further evidence of power politics.

Seven of the eleven members of the parliamentary select committee hearing the case are government legislators. Reports from the committee’s initial meeting suggest the government majority intends to move fast, giving the chief justice little time to mount her defense. Rules of evidence and due process that are routine in formal judicial proceedings have been thrown out under the parliamentary procedures that govern impeachments. A simple majority vote of the legislature is all that is needed to find the chief justice guilty; the government currently has a more than two-thirds majority.

An unusually wide range of Sri Lankan organizations has spoken out strongly and publicly against the impeachment – not only opposition political parties and the usual human rights dissenters, but also much of country’s civil society: the bar association, the most senior of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist monks, Catholic bishops, university teachers, pro-government private media, and even two leftist parties that are part of the government coalition.

Governments and international institutions concerned about Sri Lanka’s post-war stability and a lasting political settlement to the ethnic conflict must also speak out against the impeachment, while sending tough private messages to the Rajapaksas. The ruling family needs to know that there will be a serious price to pay if they pursue the case against the chief justice.

In particular, the Rajapaksas should know that pressure will increase at the U.N. human rights council when Sri Lanka’s compliance with a U.S.-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka is considered again in March 2013. The politically-motivated impeachment of the chief justice undermines government claims to be implementing the council’s March 2012 resolution, which called, among other things, for strengthening independent institutions like the judiciary.

With the next commonwealth heads of government meeting (CHOGM) slated for October 2013 in Sri Lanka, leaders of commonwealth nations have a particular responsibility, and opportunity. They need to follow the lead of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and announce in advance that they won’t be attending the next CHOGM unless the impeachment is abandoned and real progress is made to end Sri Lanka’s institutionalized impunity for human rights violations. Progress should include a credible investigation into the atrocities and mass civilian deaths at the end of Sri Lanka’s war in 2009.

The commonwealth secretariat, in turn, should reaffirm its commitment to basic commonwealth values and make clear their grave concerns about the apparently political nature of the impeachment and the lack of due process being afforded the chief justice.

Sri Lanka’s humanitarian disaster of 2009, in which some 40,000 civilians are thought to have died in flagrant violation of the laws of war, was made possible in part by the international community’s failure to speak out loudly and quickly in the face of mounting evidence of suffering and possible war crimes. Sri Lanka’s current political crisis also demands an immediate and strong international response, able to add weight to domestic defenders of democracy and make the Rajapaksa government think again about dismantling the last pieces of Sri Lanka’s damaged but still legitimate institutions.

Post by:CNN's Jason Miks

Topics: Asia • Human Rights

Amnesty UCLU panel asks - 'Sri Lanka: Genocide?'20 November 2012

To a packed room of London university students, panellists Thusiyan Nandakumar of the Tamil Youth Organisation UK (TYOUK), Fred Carver of Sri Lanka Campaign, Madurika Rasaratnam of Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) and Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group (ICG) discussed the question - 'Sri Lanka: Genocide?'.

The event held on 13th November was chaired by Professor Neil Mitchell (International Relations, UCL) and hosted by the Amnesty International society at University of College London University (UCLU).

Criticising the conduct of the Sri Lankan state over the past three years, Alan Keenan of the ICG described the government's killing of civilians as "not accidental". The "machine" the Sri Lankan government used to fight the LTTE said Keenan, "what we might call state terror" has been "actively chugging along since the end of the war." He continued, "the hope was that with the end of the war, the apparatus to destroy dissent would be put away or could be slowly cranked down. Unfortunately it hasn't."

Photographs Amnesty society UCLU

Photographs Amnesty society UCLU

Following on from Keenan, Madurika Rasaratnam of TAG argued that the current issues highlighted were "not a departure from the norm, but rather a development of Sinhala Buddhist state formation".

She continued,

"The idea of genocide is useful to understand the past, the present and the future of Sri Lanka. The label of genocide captures the process that has occurred in the post-independence Sri Lanka. If you look at post-2009 and the policies that were in place in the 60s and 70s there is absolute continuity."

Highlighting the "Sinhala Buddhist transformation of state, society and economy", as well as an ongoing process of colonisation, and militarisation of the North-East, Rasaratnam argued that "fixing Sri Lanka needs to be understood in terms of confronting the entrenched Sri Lankan Buddhist idealogy [and] affirming that Tamils have a right to exist as a nation, with a right to self-determination."

"Why is the Sri Lankan state committing human rights violations? It's not because it is a human rights violator per se, but because it is a means to an end [Sinhala Buddhist state formation]"
"Militarisation cannot be understood except as part of this rolling process of state formation".

As to whether the size of Sri Lanka's massive all-Sinhala military reflects a response to unemployment, Rasaratnam pointed out that Sri Lanka's actions differed significantly from other conflicted states with unemployment. Nigeria, for example, "did not increase their miliary, and presumably they too have issues with unemployment."

Left to right: Thusiyan Nandakumar - TYOUK, Fred Carver - Sri Lanka Campaign, Prof Neil Mitchell - chair,  Madurika Rasaratnam - TAG and Alan Keenan - ICG.

Stressing the need for justice, Fred Carver of Sri Lanka Campaign said, "many, many people have a fear of trying to get genocide to be taken seriously, but I don't think we should be scared." Outlining his own personal view - "I think there is a possibility it is genocide",Carver said that nonetheless it should not be activists that call it a genocide first, but academics. "What happened in the final days of the war may well fit genocide in a Srebrenica sense", he continued, "but equally there could be an argument made that when the LTTE forced the Muslims out, that could be a cultural genocide. Or the JVP up-rising."

Thusiyan Nandakumar of the TYO UK argued that "genocide is not a single explosion of violence", but a longer term process with "peaks of violence".

"If you look at the act of 2009, it had all happened before. That machinery and mechanism was in place long before the LTTE came into being. And now what you're seeing post-2009, is increased militarisation and colonisations."

Dismissing the notion of the situation in the island being one of only human rights violations, Nandakumar said,

"If you take the ethnic dimension out of it, it is to white wash what is happening.Tamils are disproportionately targeted, and it is exactly because they are Tamil. Eventhe targeting of Sinhalese journalists and activists was often precisely because of their work towards publicising atrocities towards Tamils... because they are seen to be undermining the Sinhala Buddhist project. Any threats to challenge this Sinhala Buddhist hegemony are dealt with even if it comes from the Sinhalese."

He added,

"If you look now at May 18th, it's still seen as a day of celebration in the South. For the Tamils it is a day of mourning. There is this divide, this gap in what is happening. There are even differences in the way that the state deals with unrest. There was an incident where the Sinhalese protested against the death of a Sinhalese inmate. Compare that to the government's response to Tamils protesting against the grease devil attacks last year. The Tamils were rounded up and taken to the army, and many were assaulted by the military."

Asked by a member of the audience, what would be the Sri Lankan government's counter to arguments presented by the panellists, Alan Keenan said,

"They would say, 'we are not colonising the north'. But there is certainly a cultural assault on the North. It has been been a hundred percent Tamil speaking for centuries".

Listing examples of colonisation such as the reversal of road sides, and state aided settlements in the North-East, Keenan noted,

"the government would say we are 'developing the north'. The problem is, who benefits? Who is doing it and who benefits? And it is certainly not the long term interests of the Tamils that the government has."
“The problem is, who benefits. Who is doing it, and who benefits. And it is certainly not the long term interests of Tamils that the GoSL has.”
“I would certainly agree with Madurika that the goverment of Sri Lanka is a Sinhala nationalist government. Institutionalised to develop the sinhala interests, and it certainly enjoys popular support by the Sinhala.”
“And it is destroying the material conditions in the north, that the Tamils would use to demonstrate the Tamils have a special status for some kind of autonomy.”
“It is clear to me and anyone who understands this that that is their central policy."
“Sinhala nationalist agenda to destroy the basis of Tamil nationalism. To destroy the ability of Tamils to say that we are a nation."

In a written statement that was read out Yolande Foster of Amnesty International's South Asian desk said,

We released a press release after the Sri Lankan UPR criticising recent attacks on lawyers and the judicary.
On 5 November, Amnesty International supported the visit of Dr Manoharan, father of Ragihar Manoharan, to bring his fight for justice to the attention of UN member states at the Human Rights Council.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that Amnesty International approaches the issue of what happened in the armed conflict and the months afterwards  through the lens of international human rights law & international humanitarian law (IHL).
The term genocide can be used for political purposes or as a rhetorical flourish or can be expressed in a heartfelt way by victims themselves.
Amnesty International's description of the violations that have happened must come from empirical evidence  -  evidence that would stand up in a court of law, so we speak about alleged war crimes and violations of IHL.
I think it is vital that an Amnesty International event on Sri lanka also refers to the human rights of all Sri Lankans in the country - attacks on Sinhala journalists and lawyers, widespread custodial torture of all Sri Lankans in detention as well as the very serious issues of lack of durable solutions for those in the N & E and violations against Tamils in the war & ongoing through arbitrary detention.

SL ambassador cites China for ‘autonomy within unitary structure’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 November 2012, 06:25 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s ambassador in France, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke, on Sunday reiterated his stand of finding ‘autonomy’ solutions for Tamils within a ‘unitary’ state. The model he cited was China. He was replying to criticism on his stand by Emeritus Professor Peter Schalk that appeared in TamilNet last Thursday. “The reply of the ambassador only confirms what we all have a foreboding of, namely that the ambassador of Sri Lanka has a totalitarian system like the Chinese as a model for the unitary state of Lanka. What about the "autonomy" of Tibet in practice? There is no autonomy,” commented Peter Schalk in a note sent to TamilNet on Monday. 

“I am aware that Constitutions create fictions about regional autonomy within unitary states, but Tibet is a good example of the tension between theory and practice, much like it is the case in Lanka,” Schalk said, responding to Dayan’s reply that appeared in Lankaweb on Sunday. 

Earlier in November, the SL ambassador was entertained by France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), to come out with the ‘autonomy’ model while preserving the unitary character of the Sri Lankan state. 

Arguing that autonomy and unitary are fundamentally paradoxical, Schalk had said on Thursday that a social scientist would not have uttered such a thing. 

The structural genocide practised by the unitary state in the island for decades is not an occasional aberration or some nuts, he had said.

“The ambassador has come to a stage where he has to chose to continue his career as a demagogue or as a scholar,” Schalk responded on Monday to Dayan’s reiterated advocacy for autonomy within a unitary structure. 

Meanwhile, commenting on the SL ambassador’s advocacy, an Eezham Tamil political activist in the island said that if any majoritarian and unitary state with a chronic history of genocide wants to complete that genocide and total annihilation of the nation of its target, then ‘autonomy within unitary structure’ provides the most ostensible theoretical smokescreen to conduct it in a controlled atmosphere.

The modal coming from a state of genocidal conviction would first reduce the nation of its target into ‘ethnic minority’ living in pockets under subjugated conditions, before the total annihilation, the political activist said.

The SL diplomat was turning the table on the TNA for visiting China to study ‘autonomy’ under unitary state.

“The Chinese constitution which defines the state as unitary, also enshrines the concept of ethnic regional autonomy–so perhaps Prof Schalk should direct his absurd, politically fundamentalist objections to the leadership of the TNA and the Chinese Communist party, rather than to me,” Dayan wrote.

But the ‘autonomy within unitary’ hoodwink was long kept up in the sleeves of the West and India that never wanted to offend the genocidal Sinhala-Buddhist state in the island, said the Tamil political activist in the island.

He cited New Delhi’s silence on the separation of North and East and the current idea of abolishment of the 13th Amendment as well as Washington’s promotion of the LLRC recommendations of non-descript solutions paving way for further strengthening of the unitary genocidal state in the island.

Especially Washington, London and New Delhi that harbour thoroughly illogical approaches to the question in the island and contribute to furtherance of misery, choose to call the time-tested aspirations of Eezham Tamils as impractical, the activist further commented.

Sri Lanka: Tamil Politics and the Quest for a Political Solution

Colombo/Brussels  |   20 Nov 2012

The Sri Lankan government’s refusal to negotiate seriously with Tamil political leaders or consider reasonable forms of power sharing is heightening ethnic tensions and damaging prospects for sustainable peace.

Sri Lanka: Tamil Politics and the Quest for a Political Solution, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines political opportunities and challenges in finding a realistic strategy for the Tamil community to claim its rights against a government that remains opposed to power sharing. The administration of President Rajapaksa has failed to honour agreements with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), broke promises to world leaders and refused to implement constitutional provisions for minimal devolution of power to Tamil-speaking areas of the north and east. Instead, the government is pursuing a policy of militarisation and biased economic development in Tamil and Muslim areas.

“Three and a half years after the end of the civil war, President Rajapaksa has delayed long-promised elections to the northern provincial council – elections the TNA would be nearly certain to win”, says Alan Keenan, Crisis Group’s Sri Lanka Project Director. “Rather than address Tamils’ legitimate demands for a fair share of power in areas where they have traditionally been the majority, the Rajapaksa administration has begun discussing a new amendment to reduce provincial powers even further”.

The government’s position follows a long tradition in Sinhala nationalist thinking that rejects the Tamil and Tamil-speaking character of the north and much of the east. Military and economic policies have been institutionalising this ideological position with vigour. The de-facto military occupation of the northern province and state-sponsored cultural and demographic changes appear designed to undermine Tamils’ ability to claim the north and east as their homeland. In the face of the government’s aggressive policies, Tamil leaders are under increased pressure from their constituents to adopt more confrontational language and tactics.

International actors should press the government for the speedy establishment of an elected provincial council and full restoration of civilian government in the north. They should insist that the government start serious negotiations with the TNA and that it make no new moves to dilute provincial powers.

At the same time, Tamil leaders need to rebuild relationships with Muslims – damaged by years of war and Tamil Tiger abuses – while making clear the links between the Tamil struggle for equality and the growing unease among Sinhalese at corruption and government abuse of power. Tamils are likely to win their rights only when the broader national struggle for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, including the independence of the judiciary, has made substantial progress.

“So long as the government refuses to devolve power to those areas in the north and east where Tamils and Muslims have for centuries been the majority, separatist demands are likely to be attractive to large numbers of Tamils in Sri Lanka”, says Paul Quinn-Judge, Crisis Group’s Acting Asia Program Director. “This would be a recipe for continued ethnic polarisation and political volatility”. 

Lankan issue debated at the Canadian parliament

[ Wednesday, 21 November 2012, 11:51.25 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Canadian Picring –Scaborough east ruling party parliamentarian Corneylich Chichu commented on the human rights situation in SriLanka.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird responds to the questions raised by the Canadian New Democratic Party MP Rathiga Sitsabeshan and also by the MP Wayne Merston Hemilton East –Stoney Creeck on UN internal review report and serious human rights violation on civilians in SriLanka. Responding to the question Canada foreign minister went on to say, Canadian government is the one and only nation which pays special attention on Lankan issue. Canada continuously raises voice on Lankan Tamils and their human rights situation in the country. Minister finally stressed out Canada would make more force on Lankan government to implement reconciliation activities.

The UN’s Plan For Making White People Feel Better

By Kath Noble -November 21, 2012 

Kath Noble

Last week I felt like I had been transported back in time. We were back in those awful first six months of 2009, when I was by turns horrified at the plight of the people caught up in the fighting in the Vanni and disgusted with the way in which the international community was responding.

Of course we all wanted to stop the war. I hate violence. But as I argued then and continue to believe, at that point, the only way the war was going to stop was with the defeat of the LTTE. Prabhakaran would not give up on Eelam. He was going to continue his vicious campaign against the Sri Lankan state and all its communities until he was caught or killed. Our task, therefore, was to minimise the damage. We had to try to ensure that it was done with as little death and destruction as possible.

The UN has inadvertently confirmed this hypothesis. In the report of the Internal Review Panel into its actions in Sri Lanka in the final stages of the war, which was released by Ban Ki-Moon last week, it says that it had realised by the end of January that the LTTE was going to lose. And it did the right thing. It worked out a plan for a surrender.

This could have saved a lot of lives.

Some people are very keen to find out how many. The UN count, according to the quite reasonable criteria that they employed in what were very difficult circumstances, is 7,737. I think that even a tiny fraction of that number would have been too many.

The surrender plan was put to the LTTE at the beginning of February, but it was rejected. The LTTE had lost both Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu by then, but Prabhakaran would not relent. He rejected it again in April, even after having lost most of his senior commanders at the Battle of Anandapuram. He was trapped inside the No Fire Zone, but still he would not accept the inevitable.

Some people no doubt consider that heroic. But it was the biggest crime in the history of the conflict.

Prabhakaran wanted a massacre.

His strategy was to create a humanitarian disaster so extraordinary that the international community would feel compelled to intervene. He must have known long before it dawned on the UN that he would not be able to hold out against the Sri Lankan forces. He was no idiot when it came to war.

Read More

UN culpable under "complicity clause," says Professor Boyle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 November 2012, 22:22 GMT]
Dismissing the "recommendations" of the Petrie report as "UN double talk" similar to the language used by the UN to excuse UN's complicity in the Srebrenica massacre, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law, said that the Petrie report, however, provides legal evidence to establish UN's culpability on the element of "complicity" to war crimes and genocide, as defined in the Article 3(e) of 1948 Genocide Convention. Further, Boyle said, contrary to the claims in the Petrie report, the UN Secretary General (UNSG) has independent powers, and need not adhere to the dictates of the Security Council. 

Professor Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois

Noting the reasoning in Para-18, that "without clear Security Council support, the UN felt it could not play a lead role and made no attempt to implement a comprehensive strategy," Boyle said, "the UNSG has independent powers under Chapter 15 and Article 99 of the Charter. The SG is not an agent of the Security Council. Rather the Secretariat is one of 6 Independent Organs of the UNO. This is just a cop-out by Ban Ki Moon (BKM). He had the authority to act and he should have acted and he refused to act. Either the Americans pressured him or else he did not care," Boyle said. "Once again in my book The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka I made the case for complicity in genocide by BKM. I stand by those conclusions," Boyle added.

• Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel on United Nations action in Sri Lanka

In Para-33, the Petri report criticizes the UN on lack of meeting on Sri Lanka: "Throughout the final stages of the conflict, Member States did not hold a single formal meeting on Sri Lanka, whether at the Security Council, the Human Rights Council or the General Assembly."

• Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Boyle comments: "UNSG had the power to convene an Emergency Meeting of the Security Council, but refused. BKM had the legal authority and the responsibiliity to act and he failed and refused to do that. That is the essence of complicity in crimes, including genocide.

"Realistically one cannot expect UN humanitarian and unarmed officials on the ground to risk their lives if they do not want to, which is different from the UN peacekeeping force at Srebrenica. But BKM should have been doing all he could have under his independent powers under Article 19 and Chapter 15 of the Charter to stop the Wanni Genocide. He did not. He should have. That makes him an accomplice," Boyle said.

Comments on other salient paragraphs in the Petrie report that caught Professor Boyle's attention, follow:

• Para-22: Notice UN DPA admitting that they "would be complicit if they did not act on it." In other words, mens rea. Criminal intent
• Para-25: UN briefed on Tiger atrocities but not GOSL atrocities. a whitewash, more complicity.
• Para-26: More whitewashing of GOSL crimes. UN aiding and abetting GOSL crimes, including genocide.
• Para-28/29: More whitewashing and covering up of GOSL crimes by UN.
• Para-50: Boyle dismisses as "Nonsense." These UN officials knew exactly what they were not doing and why they were not doing it. These are highly competent and intelligent people. Obviously, the UNSG did not give the order and the resources to get the job done. People were deliberately stalling and delaying. This was malfeasance, not negligence, by the UN and SG.
• Para-52/53: UN deliberately understated GOSL atrocities so as to avoid international cries of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that would have produced international pressure on the UN Security Council to act. More BKM/UN complicity with GOSL crimes if not worse.
• Para-54: Reflects mercenary motive of the UN.
• Para-55: Why did UN refuse to assist and protect surrendered LTTE. They were out of combat under Geneva Convention Article 3 and were entitled to all the protections in there at a minimum.
• Para-61: Yes, no one kept a written record because they did not want to incriminate themselves in writing.
• Para-63: A sick joke and a demented fraud that the Special Adviser on Genocide would not speak out. That was his job. He deliberately failed and refused to perform it and thus became an accomplice himself.
• Para-69: UNSG BKM should have gone to the UN General Assembly. Boyle cites the example of Second UN Secretary General Hammarskjold, who Boyle said would have gone to the General Assembly as he did during his leadership.
• Para-71: BKM should have convened an emergency meeting of the Security Council under article 99.
• Para-70: Notice UN already had the Channel 4 information and refused to do anything with it.
• Para-73: Another instance of whitewash of malfeasance and complicity by BKM.
• Para-76: This was a case of UN malfeasance and complicity, not negligence and nonfeasance or misfeasance.

Referring to Para-77, where the report states, "the Security Council was deeply ambivalent about even placing on its agenda a situation that was not already the subject of a UN peacekeeping or political mandate; while at the same time no other UN Member State mechanism had the prerogative to provide the political response needed, leaving Sri Lanka in a vacuum of inaction," Boyle points out "basically UN is admitting that they did what the Permanent 5 on the Security Council wanted them to do, which was nothing."

Impeachment: Minister Rajitha who was convicted by court to hear the motion -whither SL’s justice ?

By –Wimal Dheerasekera
(Lanka-e-News, 20.Nov.2012, 11.55PM) After the Parliamentary select Committee held its first session to examine the impeachment motion against the chief justice (CJ), the copy of the indictments sent to the CJ giving unreasonably very short notice did not carry with it the annexure listing the witnesses or the relevant documents, nor the Select Committee permission was sought, according to reports . Usually , when a charge sheet is addressed, that should attach the list of prosecution witnesses expected to be summoned in support as well as the relevant documents . Yet in the charge sheet addressed to the CJ none of these relevant documents had been annexed. Moreover , the select committee permission for these documents had also not been obtained on that day.

It is noteworthy that the time allowed for the CJ to file answers for the charges is only one week. Usually in any inquiry, the accused is allowed at least one month to file answers. Even in charges of rapes and murders the rapists and murderers respectively are given two months time at least . In other words the CJ holding an exalted office has not been granted an opportunity to defend herself even as much as that given to notorious Julampitiya Amare the underworld criminal (who addresses MaRa fondly as ‘aiyya’). 

Under the constitution , an impeachment motion can be tabled only based on charges that can be substantiated. But in this impeachment motion laden with venomous and vindictive objectives , even the affidavit , the list of witnesses and the relevant documents have not been appended to the charge sheet , let alone the charges being provable . In such circumstances , are there charges that are tenable? . A preliminary inquiry must be made in that regard. Only if there is a basis for charges being framed on that preliminary inquiry , then and only then , the motion should be advanced. 

Rajitha who was convicted by courts is judge – can you beat that !- learn about MaRa’s special court 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Owing to these flaws, lapses and many others more this impeachment motion , to borrow the words in the language of the Medamulana village , ‘ it has become the impeachment by their mothers in the backwoods’. This chaos and confusion has precipitated a legal crisis :

There is no ascertainment on whether the MPs appointed to this Select Committee to inquire , are able to vote in this regard when it is tabled in Parliament. Ethically , these MPs who sat in this inquiry cannot vote for or against in Parliament on this issue. Nothing has been mentioned pertaining to this .

Of the 225 MPs , so far 117 have signed the motion. If in case this number increases to 220 and as there is no limit to the number of signatories, how is the select committee going to be appointed has not been indicated .
There are also issues in regard to the suitability of MPs appointed to the Select Committee. Leave alone Wimal Weerawansa’s unsuitability , the biggest setback is the appointment of epilepsy jerks prone Minister Rajitha Senaratne to the Committee even after being aware that while he was an M.P. , he was convicted by court for doing business on dental drugs . Due to this , he was even removed from his MP post. Later after transferring the business in his wife’s name in order to circumvent the law, came back as an M P on the ‘ chit’ system. No matter what, he was still a convict , (not just a suspect) and was punished by the SL court . How can in a country where such a convict who is even disallowed to get a Govt. job be deemed suitable to inquire into wrongs of a CJ? Is it because his epileptic neck jerks considered an additional qualification ?

The impeachment motion is beset with serious lapses and flaws . Usually , it is by referring to the Supreme court (SC) constitutional issues are legally resolved. Hence , in this instance too where there are countless lapses and issues , it must also be referred to the SC for a verdict. In that event , it is the same CJ who is on the bench. It is therefore very clear from all these what SL is looking forward to is an independent sacrosanct judiciary , and that is a must, and not an abominable MaRa judiciary. All these issues have begun proliferating because the hidden agenda in this impeachment motion of the Rajapakse village frogs is to overturn the sacrosanct independent judiciary and make it servile and subservient to their jungle laws . Therefore isn’t this impeachment motion rightly called as ‘ of the mothers in the backwoods of the Medamulana village crocodiles ? ’ The sole and whole objective of this Rajapakse regime is to expel the CJ , a chief justice of virtue and is therefore a thorn in their flesh , and by hook or by crook undermine the sacrosanct judiciary ,make it a rug to rub their feet on and their political citadel.

By –Wimal Dheerasekera

Lanka MPs initiate move to impeach top judge

THE TIMES OF INDIA

PTI | Nov 20, 2012

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's top judge was on Monday asked by parliament to appear before it for an impeachment hearing on Friday after rejecting her appeal for more time to prepare for her case.

An 11-member parliamentary select committee summoned Shirani Bandaranayake, 54, to appear before them. The 14-point impeachment motion accuses her of personal and professional misconduct.

The motion which came in as a result of a months-long dispute between the government and the chief justice has invited condemnation by US, Commonwealth and international rights watch groups as an action undermining the independence of judiciary.

Meanwhile, a civil society activist filed a petition in appeals court demanding a writ against the motion tabled in parliament.