A nasty, cruel war followed by a nasty, dirty election
by Dr. Packiyasothy Saravanamuttu
P hilip Alston the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions has asked the Government of Sri Lanka for explanations regarding the deaths of three senior LTTE leaders and members of their families in the final stages of the war.
He wants in particular information pertaining to the the “circumstances of the death of three representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Balasingham Nadesan, Seevaratnam Pulidevan and Ramesh, as well as members of their families in the night of 17 to 18 May, 2009”.
Alston’s inquiry follows the allegations made by presidential candidate Fonseka in an interview with the editor in chief of a Sunday paper. Fonseka claims that he was misquoted and the editor stands by her story.
What the Newspaper reported was that according to Fonseka who had obtained this information from journalists “embedded” with the 58th Brigade of the Sri Lanka Army, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had instructed the Brigade Commander Major General Shavendra Silva to shoot and kill the above named LTTE leaders as they came out carrying a white flag to surrender. Fonseka has subsequently insisted that these orders were not carried out and that he as the then Army Commander takes full responsibility for the conduct of the troops. He also maintains that he was in full command, even when he was out of the country in China in the last days of the war.
These allegations are self evidently serious. Every school boy and girl knows that a white flag means surrender and every soldier surely knows the basic rules of war – people carrying white flags are not to be shot at and killed. The fall out from them, generating more heat than light, underscores the challenge of the choice before us in this presidential election and the prospects for democracy, peace, reconciliation and unity. One thing seems clear, there are questions, serious, unanswered questions about the way in which the war was won and what happened in its final stages.
Allegations of human rights violations and war crimes persist. They are not going away, notwithstanding the belief of the main political formations that the credentials of their candidates must reside in their indubitable claim to responsibility for military victory.
In the context of the presidential election and prevailing political culture it is not surprising that Rajapaksa supporters have all screamed betrayal at candidate Fonseka. Supporters of candidate Fonseka, on the other hand, have resorted to a number of responses.
They range from accusations of partisanship against the Leader to commending his courage in spilling the beans on the heart of darkness of the regime to even those who believe that whatever may have been retracted, the allegation will garner votes for him amongst the Tamil community which according to the conventional wisdom will have a decisive say in the choice of the next president. No doubt there are those who will buy the argument about betrayal and Fonseka’s handlers may hope that the damage having being done in the relatively early stages of the campaign may be undone, subsequently.
What they do need to take note of are the costs of their candidate going solo and expressing his visceral hatred of the Rajapaksas. This if let out often will obscure whatever other qualities and attributes his supporters and handlers believe he brings to his quest for the presidency and undermine it.
Betrayal suggests that whatever is alleged in the newspaper interview, happened. It certainly constitutes grounds for reasonable speculation. There is a presidential panel mandated to respond to the US State Department report to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Incidents During the Recent Conflict in Sri Lanka, commonly referred to as the War Crimes Report. Fonseka’s Ambalangoda speech is cited in the State Department report as well as the killing of LTTE surrendees. Will the recent controversy be looked into as well and when will the findings of the panel be made public? Or is all of this irrelevant because there will always be doubts about the independence and impartiality of any commission or panel in this country and in any event, the allegations are such that neither side of the political divide in the current election is exempt from suspicion and culpability? Is the regime interested in investigating these allegations? In a response to Alston, Prof Wijesinghe, Secretary of the Human Rights Ministry states:
Since your letter was based on a report of allegations by General Fonseka which he has clarified in a manner that negates the story, I assume you will now withdraw your letter.
At the same time, the Daily News headline referring to the Fonseka allegations and Alston letter reads in bold letters – Great Betrayal. Now it may be argued that the betrayal referred to is of the troops he commanded irrespective of whether the allegation is true or not. In his overwhelming desire to throw muck at the Rajapaksas, Fonseka does not, it is argued, give a damn about muck sticking to the soldiers who were under his command, now commonly referred to as the heroic troops.
There must be an occasion on which he states clearly and unequivocally as to what he knows of what happened. More than just his presidency or that of the current incumbent depends on it. Accountability, reconciliation and unity do. On this score, there is hardly any difference between the incumbent and his principal challenger. Each one has publicly, loudly and proudly proclaimed that he alone will bear responsibility, if any, for war crimes.
We need to know what happened and yes, it has a bearing on who we choose to be our president.Voters who want to be better informed should read the latest Special Report No 34 by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) titled Let Them Speak: Truth about Sri Lanka’s Victims of War.
This report by the internationally recognized UTHR whose reports have been quoted by successive Sri Lankan governments should be made mandatory reading for all Sri Lankans and for generations to come.
Chilling and harrowing it records the experience of the civilians who were targeted by both sides in the war. The UTHR report alone surely must constitute grounds for an investigation of the allegations and incidents that marked and marred this war, if nothing else. The report states that:
What these survivors’ stories make clear is that for both parties, the key to military dominance lay not in brilliant strategies, but in an utter disregard for the lives of civilians and combatants alike, driven by their leader’s single -minded pursuit of personal power.
A nasty and cruel war is being followed by a nasty, dirty election. We must vote and thereafter ensure as best we can that whoever becomes president sheds as much light on this nastiness and cruelty and commits to ensuring that it is never repeated.
Even if peace, reconciliation are not accorded the prominence they demand in this election campaign, they must be acknowledged as the imperatives for government and governance thereafter.
27 Comments
It seems that during the Nasty and Dirty War several Nasty and Dirty Acts may have occured which the Government did not reveal to the Public nor did it take any action to Punish the Perpetrators. If anything was done against the Laws of this Country or against International Law the responsibility for taking suitable action against the wrongdoers is with the President and Defence Secretary. Hiding such acts in the name of Patriotism cannot be Justified.
On the other hand if no such incidents happened then the Governement has nothing to fear and hence this is Much Ado about Nothing. Better to come clean on these matters otherwise Truth will surely Out oneday.
... Yes! Everybody knows the meanning of a white flag ... But, everybody in SL knows that not a single human being in SL is lost his/her life or limb after the white flag incident .... this crap about human rights/white flags are nothing compared to the peaceful living people in SL has right now.
Now then all the do-gooders and bleeding hearts started coming out of the woodwork. A country fought with the most dangerous (and invincible to most foreign media) terrorist outfit in the world and won. The rest of the world including the super powers need to go and learn a lesson or two from that country if they respect fundamental human rights. Where were these Sarawanamutthus and Alstons when the LTTE were hacking innocent Sinhala people including babies and women to death in so called boarder villages? Where were they when the LTTE suicide bombers were killing tens of thousands of civilians in capital cities? The Sri lankans were denied of their fundamental right of mere existence by this brutal outfit. The parents were scared to send their kids to school. That includes Tamil students who were abducted and forced in to their so called army. And now once they are fairly and squarely defeated it is quite interesting to see some sections trying to breath some life in to the terrorist outfit in the name of human rights the very thing they denied to the Sri Lankans. It is also quite funny to see that very noble things in life could be interpreted and used on behalf of cold blooded killers such as LTTE. If we keep misusing human rights and democracy to go after regimes fighting terrorism we are in reality fighting for the terrorists. The world will never get rid of terrorism rather nurture it.
There should have been no jubilations. Both the Sinhala soldiers and hapless Tamil civilians lost their lives in thousands.
UN and US probe are awakenng calls to the government's handling of the last days of the war to vanquish the LTTE the government calls terrorists.
This government cannot extricate itself from the heinous crimes it committed against its own populace be they fleeing Tamils or dirt-poor soldiers from the outbacks of Sinhala villages.
This state terror needs to be nipped in the bud and if it takes the international community to bring these perpetrators to justice it is welcome. Otherwise we will have more Rajapakses who would flaunt Sinhala nationalism to entrench themselves as future kings.
The state should be made accountable to their horrid and gruesome massacre in the last throes of the war.
The state of governance needs radical change if Sri Lankans are to survive asdemocracy.
We only had oligarchy since independence.
No rightful citizen of Sri Lanka coud vote for any of our presidential candidates.
All of them have blood on their hands.
This SriLankan is False Sri Lankan. Looks like another name to managala samaraweera or UN or tamil Diaspora or LTTE
Y were U all were silent when thousnabds and thousands civi;inas werew massacred by LTTE!!!
Dr.Saravanamuttu forget these are barbaric terroists.They killed thousands of innocent tamil and sinhalese civillians and politicians in old blood. .At the final satage of the war,they send hundreds of tiger cadres as young as 10 years old, pretended to civillians with white flags as human bombs.These terroists needed to be killed.
Ther was no peace with them. So many people didn't want to the war came to an end. They made living out of the war for years. Please find another way of making money. Let the people live peacefully.
As far as I know, the LTTE leader wanted all his fighters to eat cyanide instead of surrendering. He too carried a cyanide capsule. In the later stages of the war, his fighters were asked to blow themselves up when surrendering, to kill as many enemies as possible.
So, EVEN IF PRABHAKARAN CAME FORWARD WITH A WHITE FLAG, a very unlikely thing for the cyanide capuse-leader, I wouldn't trust him unless he is unconscious.
can this writer give even one example of a previous surrender by the LTTE cadre using white flags? Does he not know the encounters of the IKPF with LTTE cadre who blew themselves up?
In France, the French legion would have acted exactly as has been done by the very professional Sri Lankan army - shoot when in doubt.
I think absolutely NO human rights violation has been carried out. In the greater interest of every one, Prabhakaran should have been shot on sight, irrespective of his white flag, since there is no reason to believe that that he is genuine in his intentions. he has already been convicted and condemned to capital punishment by Indian and Sri Lankan courts.
So this writer has written pure crap. I doubt if he has ever been in a battle field.
** Jay Ranaweera, Jean-Pierre, sathiyaraj **
Why is Fonsy talking about this now...he is the "true Buddhist" after all.
Youd say "traitor"....LTTE supporters did the same thing too.
you haven't seen nothing yet.
Also, Dr. PS did speak up against LTTE terrorism. In fact people like him and Lakshman Kadirgamar helped to defeat LTTE.
Its not just Rajapakse and Fonseka who are fighting shamelessly to get credit.
There is no question in any person's mind that the LTTE leaders who gave directions to kill thousands of civilians have to face death penalty in what ever form it comes. So what is this fuss about?
How the Ltte leaders were killed, is not a matter at all. They were terrorist, they were killed for their own good, rather than sentencing to death on a chair some where else. If you dont know the past ask your self how the indian army who arrived in Sri Lanka to help the government was killed by the LTTe, when they were on parachutes, they were shot, which is not in the order of behaviour in a war. The Ltte has shot ambulances. Army has the right to suspect any flag as a bomb,due to the acts the LTTE has commited in past.
Hope this is suffice for your, EU thing. Be real.
I will not express my sympathy to LTTE. they are barbarian. Barbarians gave muslims to vacate nother provice only 02 hrs without any belongings. even their jewelerries and valuable items were robbed. I ma not here to sing a song for these bastards.
LTTE deserve to get killed nothing less:
Dear by stander, Pakyasothy is paid by international agents only to reveal any wrong doings of the Govt when they were eliminating the brutal LTTE. So he is doing his job. If not for the continuing war their earnings will be nil. They live by this & they are blind to the atrocities committed by the brutal thugs of LTTE against the Sinhales & Tamil civilians as well. So resregard his commensts as you do with the used toilet paper.
War is war ,you ca not expect any nice things happening at a war.Politicians take the advantage of the war as the presidential election near by.There is nothing serious to be taken of what remarks they make about the way how the war is faught but what is most nasty is that unneccessar y election has been forced by the governing party to people which people never requested for.There are so many unsolved problems to be considered rather than campaighning for election .this not only a huge waste of money but but hatred among the party members,violence and so on are unavodable .Most of all this is the time let not all these things should not happen.the government should take the full responsibility of putting the country in a political turmoil.
With all due respect Mr Thevanayagam the persons like you who twist the facts to suit your situation are the most dangerous ones. Please report facts as they are. I quote "... the LTTE the government calls terrorists" Unquote. Aren't you aware that lots of countries around the world including US and European Union proscribed LTTE as a terrorist group? Or you wouldn't want to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I FULLY AGREE WITH COMMETS MADE BY THE "BYSTANDAER" . WHO CARSs OF 3 TERRORIST WITH WHITE FLAGS OR RED FLAGS !. THIS MESSEGAE IS TO SRILANKAN POLITICIANS. TELL UN, US , UK ... TO F... OFF FROM SRILANKA INTERNAL AFFAIRS. THE FIGHT BETWEEN SF & MR IS AN INTERNAL ISSUE. TELL HRW ORGANISATIONS TO F... OFF TOO ! WE NEED A STRONG LEADER WHO CAN STAND UP FOR SRILANKANS !!! . SF CAN DO THIS SINCE HE IS HONEST AT LEAST TO 90 % ,WHAT HE SAYS AND WHAT HE DOES IN MILITARY STYLE!
Better spend resources on helping & developing the innocent who were affected LTTE terrorists, the very terrorist group Nadesan, Pulidevan and Ramesh were senior members of. GOSL is only answerable to the Citizens of Sri Lanka and not to Western imperialist forces and terrorist residues. Where was the UN, Human Rights activists & Dr. Packiyasothy Saravanamuttu when LTTE were having field day in terrorizing all Sri Lankans for over 3 decades? For a fact we know that the UN is ‘keeping clear’ of America’s War Crimes for sure.
Sri Lanka should investigate and deal with all those who connived with the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world – this includes politicians & diplomats from Western countries.
I pity the learned Dr.Saravanamuth as to why he cannot understand the reality as to what happened in the last stages of the war. The International Community including the UN wanted to save Prabaharan and his men.Why? Prabaharan and his men were considered Terrorists. They are famous for Suicide bombings as they have have killed many civilians and politicians inclusive of Rajiv Ghandhi. If the three Terrorists supposed to have shown white flags for surrendering, why cannot they be suicide bombers in disguise. When dealing with terrorists, there is no rule as such. It is understood that Dr.Saravanamuthu and the UN do not want Sri Lanka to live in peace. I would advice Dr.Saravanamuthu to leave Sri Lanka alone.
I am shocked by some of the comments.
Sri Lankan regime has a responsibility to safeguard its people and manitain Rule of Law, freedom, democracy and so on. The LTTE as they were product of the past Sri Lankan regimes and Sinhala hooliganism.
Sri Lanka is united by the British and not by the Sinhala. Even India is not united by the Indians and its an achievement of the British. We need a leader like former Russian President Goberchev to have broad minded and truly believe in democracy and freedom and provide independence to smaller states. I doubt that Asians have this mind set and they are power hungry, mockery and chauvinistic.
Rajapakse regime should be charged for war crimes and the inability of the International community to act swiftly on this is just shameful.
Rajapakse regime continues to support former rebels who also committed war crimes and gangs that commit crimes with impunity.
Journalists are attacked, intimidated and killed and no action has been taken by the regime yet.
Sarath Fonseka if becomes the President must deliver justice and punish the criminals. Mahinda Rajapakse with the collaboration of the Indians and Chinese has miserably failed in his responsibilities.
Sheriff_dubai, Well if not for LTTE Jaffna Muslims will be still facing the guises of warfare against minorities and live under Economic deprivation, while the country is looted by the Rajapkse bros.
What LTTE did is not right...that begins and ends there.
Thanks to Dr.PS many concerns of minorities and human rights in general are being addressed.
The Tamil community from all walks of life at large has been offering several good-will gestures.
Many Toronto Tamil Muslims who were originally from Jaffna think what there plight would be under the Rajapkse bros.
LTTE are terrorists, and they are punished...but there is no justification of human rights violations by Rajapakse bros either.
Those who want to harp on Western "interference" in these matters in SL, will you tolerate this in the countries you live now? Why SL has to have different standards for minorities, freedom of the pres, graft, family nepotism etc.
Well said, Jean-Pierre!
Dr.P.S., your school boy and girl lived in innocence. Today's boy and girl would be considered naive to read any meaning into a white flag of surrender and today's soldier should insist that the 'basic rules of war' are re-written - thanks to the bloody LTTE.
LTTE was a product of all past Sri Lankan racist governments which was against Tamils. LTTE was formed to protect Tamils from Sri Lankan Sinhala thugs and Sri Lankan army. Since LTTE formed, there wasn't a pogroms or killings of innocent Tamils by Sinhala army or thugs apart from bombing and shelling to kill innocent civilians who took refuge in churches, schools and public buildings. Sri Lankan government has however fooled the world and killed LTTE and thousands of Tamils in the name of 'war of terror. LTTE was protecting Tamils from the hands of arrogant Sinhala Racist Army and their leaders. Now Tamils are left without any security or protection for their lives.
MR . Jayathilaka ,"War is war ,you ca not expect any nice things happening at a war.Politicians take the advantage of the war" Yes, why did not you think the same when LTTE was fighting an asymetrical war with bombs while you were bombing civilians from the air if bombing from air is not terrarism .bombing otheways is also not terrism. Why did you cry terrarism?Have you got double tongh.
Dear Dr. Saravanamuthu,
The most important question for me is how did the 30,000 civilians killed by SL army. Why this question is not coming up?
LTTE's tactics were terroristic,So was The Srilankan leaders, military and the Thugs who have organised various pograms against Tamils and Muslims.LTTE have been punished already by Ic and natural justice. Now it is the right time to punish the Srilankan Leaders ,military and the thugs. This is the only way the Srilanka can begin the journy towards peace.