Why should Sri Lanka face ‘isolation’ for valid questions UNHRC is not answering?
Posted on November 24th, 2014

Shenali D Waduge

Former diplomats and other political pundits are attempting to project a fear psychosis through the view that Sri Lanka should meekly allow a UNHRC investigation to conclude, silently watch the panel make its deliberations and announce its final report without demanding answers to some very valid questions. We are told that the West are the masters of good governance which Sri Lanka and similar third world nations must follow and central to that is the right to question and seek answers and if UNHRC is as transparent as it claims there is no reason for the OHCHR head and his office to get all into a tangle issuing derogatory statements without simply answering some very matter of fact questions. What is ‘offensive’ in asking valid questions to which OHCHR instead of answering is making accusations without evidence? It show that it is not Sri Lanka that has something to hide!

What is the central issue?

  • Submissions filled by third parties organized by pro-LTTE groups being accepted by the OHCHR/UNHRC/OISL team as ‘bonafide witness accounts’ unearthed following an arrest of an unrehabiliated LTTE cadre who had been tasked by a Tamil National Alliance member to obtain only signatures and collect copies of photos, national ID cards, death certificates.  This means bogus submissions have been sent to the OISL investigators and the OISL has been accepting them and we do not know how many such fraudulently filled forms will be used against Sri Lanka in formulating recommendations in the final report.

What’s wrong with submission forms being sent to the OISL?

  • The forms which the LTTE cadre had on him were blank forms which had only signatures and no date and no content. This reveals an organized effort.
  • Moreover, it questions if the signatures are victims at all leave alone ‘genuine’ victims.
  • It also questions what the LTTE cadre does having collected the signed forms.
  • The arrest has unearthed that the LTTE cadre hands the signed blank forms to a TNA member who then passes it to another group of lawyers who are filling false details and sending it to OISL
  • Following the arrest and the details that emerged from that arrest the diplomatic community and the OHCHR/UNHRC was officially informed of the new developments.
  • If anyone has been offensive it is both the OHCHR head and the UNSG seen clearly in their statements:

This continuing campaign of distortion and disinformation about the investigation, as well as the insidious attempts to prevent possible bona fide witnesses from submitting information to the investigating team, is an affront to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which mandated the investigation”.

  1. Informing the OHCHR of a LTTE cadre collecting signatures on blank forms is not a campaign of distortion or disinformation
  2. Informing that blank forms with only signatures taken and handed over to third parties which then fill false details and send to the OISL is not insidious attempts to prevent possible bona fide witnesses from submitting information to the investigation team
  3. It has emerged that some of these signatures on blank forms are repeated several times too.

What adds further weight to Sri Lanka’s case is that timed with the arrest was the request by TNA member Ananthi Sasitharan writing to OISL has requested to extend the deadline for submissions which the GOSL objected given that no official announcement was made raising doubts of selective acceptance beyond the deadline.

For the pundits that have emerged to say that Sri Lanka is likely to be internationally isolated in going on the offensive, all that needs to be said is what is wrong in Sri Lanka asking some very valid questions and it is within Sri Lanka’s right to ask them.

So far instead of answering the OHCHR Head and the UNSG seem to take delight in issuing derogatory statements without simply answering the questions raised.

Moreover, what is crucial to Sri Lanka’s argument is that the OHCHR in his statement says that the OHCHR have trained teams to detect fraud. The golden question is why did the OISL or the OHCHR/UNHRC keep silent about bogusly filled forms that have already been sent to them.

The LTTE cadre was arrested on 25th October 2014 just days before the deadline of the OISL ended on 30th Oct 2014 which means there would have been a frenzy to send more forms with false accounts. Let’s also not forget that the LTTE cadre had on him 500 such filled forms which had been handed over to the TNA member. We also do not know how many others have also been tasked to collect signatures on blank forms both in Sri Lanka and overseas as well. The proscribed Tamil Diaspora LTTE fronts are running website campaigns with teams assigned to collect witness accounts which only leads us to make the same conclusions that these accounts are also likely to be ‘doctored’.

All these assumptions are not fairy tales and have substantial evidence since the LTTE cadre has been arrested with blank forms with only signatures. So the accusations Sri Lanka is making are valid.

How can Sri Lanka’s image be sabotaged when it is asking valid questions? Why should the OHCHR/UNHRC/OISL or even the UNSG get into a tiff without explaining why they kept mum without making public that they are in receipt of forms fraudulently filled which emerged only as a result of the arrest.

What is central to the argument is that if not for the arrest, scores of fraudulently filled forms would have been accepted by the OISL without making public this fraud. However, even inspite of the fraud emerging from the arrest there is all possibility for the OISL to use only these fraudulently filled forms to build their case against Sri Lanka – this is why Sri Lanka has every right to question the credibility of this investigation and questions why Sri Lanka’s political pundits are trying to mislead the Sri Lanka public by projecting the notion of being isolated internationally by asking valid questions for which the OHCHR is bound to answer.

 Shenali D Waduge

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2014/11/18/un-human-rights-investigators-are-trained-to-spot-fraudulent-submissions-prince-zeid-how-come-unhrc-was-mum-on-the-doctored-forms-sent-by-ltte-tna-ag/

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2014/11/16/the-ohchr-complaints-submission-form-that-ltte-un-rehabilitated-cadre-had-on-him-when-arrested-on-25th-october-2014/

11 Responses to “Why should Sri Lanka face ‘isolation’ for valid questions UNHRC is not answering?”

  1. Christie Says:

    That is why India is trying to dislodge MR.

  2. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    The ongoing dispute with the UNHRC is supported by powerful nations including India and the United States. The United Nation uses issues ranging from Human rights, global warming, vague concept of Democracy to support political agendas. That is one issue

    the ongoing Tamil Diaspora and their quest to realize Elam using any method. The creation of Elam of course would be done at the expense of the integrity of Sri Lanka. The Tamil diaspora have the full support in this quest from the UNHRC, India (who continues to harbor pro Tamil Tiger outfits such as TESO, TELO and PlOT) to many western nation including the United Kingdom and the United States.

    Then it becomes just as important to address the rights of those in India who also want to form their own nation based on the same criteria presented by the Tamil Diaspora.

    In addition outside of the ongoing dispute with the UNHRC it has become apparent to me that the concept of India is a complete failure. In the last 70 years of her independence New Delhi has done a far worse job for her now 1.25 billion people than the British Empire did with far less subjects and a greater area to govern.

    If it is then logical that the British Empire had to be dismantled for whatever reasons that supported them then that has to hold true for the concept of India. This is an issue that was born partly due to the persistence of the Tamil Diaspora’s attempts to form Elam by destroying the concept of Sri Lanka but now goes far beyond that.

    My personal opinion and work on this subject now is independent of the ongoing dispute Sri Lanka is having with the Tamil backed UNHRC. My quest to see the formation of new nations out of the concept of India has validation within the workings of that government and stands separate from the ongoing attempts to form Elam using whatever means India continues to have.

  3. Ananda-USA Says:

    Even as Europeans are afflicted by Global Terrorism, they are DELISTING the LTTE from the list of TERRORIST organizations!

    Will they EVER LEARN, that what goes around ultimately comes around, as Canada is learning now? Frequent reminders from Bomb Blasts in European capitals seem to be ESSENTIAL to jog their fading memories alive!

    Meanwhile, thank God for Lord Naseby, who continues be a lone voice of wisdom and reason in the House of Lords!

    This is a WARNING to those Sri Lankans, busily engaged in UNDERMINING the War-Winning Govt of Sri Lanka, to CEASE & DESIST for they should

    “Ask Not for Whom the Bells Warning of Terrorism Tolls, it Tolls for Them!”</i?

    ……………………..
    Lords of British parliament discuss EU court’s delisting of LTTE and Sri Lanka’s presidential elections

    ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

    Nov 25, London: The European Union court’s decision to delist Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the upcoming presidential election were among the issues discussed at Britain’s upper parliament, House of Lords on Monday.

    The discussion initiated when Lord Naseby, who is the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka, asked the House of Lords what action they are taking in response to the European Court of Justice verdict on 16 October and its conclusions in respect of restrictive measures currently in place since the LTTE was proscribed by the European Union in 2006 and by the United Kingdom in 2000.

    Responding to Lord Naseby, Lord Wallace of Saltaire said they are studying the implications of the ECJ judgment and considering appropriate next steps and announce that the UK condemns the Tamil Tigers as a brutal terror organization, and it remains proscribed under UK law.

    Lord Naseby informed the House that the Tamil Tiger groups in UK are planning a rally at ExCel on Thursday (27) to celebrate the life of the slain LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran and the other Tamil Tigers, and to raise money for Eelam. He said the rally should be stopped since the LTTE is a proscribed group in UK.

    Lord Wallace responding to Lord Naseby said the UK Government is actively concerned to promote reconciliation and reconstruction within Sri Lanka among all of its different communities.

    The members of the House of Lords also discussed the upcoming presidential elections in Sri Lanka when Lord Bach asked what the prospects are for a free, fair and inclusive election in Sri Lanka given the history of such elections in the past and the blocking of the common opposition candidate’s first TV interview.

    Lord Wallace said the British Government and others are talking about the best way to ensure that there is effective monitoring of the elections. “We will of course be raising such issues with the Sri Lankan Government,” he said.

    The Lords also discussed the progress being made with the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry into the war crime allegations and the Sri Lanka government’s cooperation with the investigation.

    Lord Wallace responded that as a sponsor of the resolution of the UNHRC, the UK is actively concerned in the issue.

    “We are not at all happy about the refusal of the Sri Lankan authorities to co-operate with the attempts to have an external inquiry, because of our concerns that the internal inquiry’s recommendations have not yet been implemented,” he said.

    When asked what action the British Government will take to ensure that the Sri Lankan Government co-operate more fully with the UN report Lord Wallace added that the UK government has actively made its position clear to the Sri Lankan Government and will continue to do so.

    Full Text of the House of Lords session can be found here

  4. RohanJay Says:

    @Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha actually you’re wrong. Modern India was initially created by the British, in their drive to centralise power of all the principalities and kingdoms under their control. India’s capital, New Delhi is a British creation. That said I disagree with you, that India hasn’t been able to much in the last 70 years. Nothing could be further from the truth. India is in fact a nation which despite its many challenges, has moved forward in science and technology and developed its industries, including a space program.
    Many Sri Lankans here seem to be very anti-India.
    I am not one of them, I applaud modern india, and what it has achieved. Mr Wijesinha India has done pretty well in my opinion in the last 70 years especially in the last 30 years. Wether you like it or not Modern India is Sri Lanka’s neighbour. Finally under Modi, Sri Lanka has an Indian leader which is favourable to Sri Lanka’s independence and sovereignty than those in the past. It would be wise therefore for Sri Lankans do drop their anti-India prejudices and work closely with current Indian leaders such as Modi.
    I just don’t understand many Sri Lankans anti india prejudices such attitudes cannot be beneficial to Sri Lanka now or in the future. Then again I am not fully Sri Lankan only part Sri Lankan. Sri Lanka and India share more in common than apart. It would be to Sri Lanka’s benefit to work closely with India.

    The British may have created New Delhi and modern India. But it is the Indians themselves of the last 7 decades who have propelled India forward than they would have ever achieved under the British Empire.

  5. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    RohanJay:
    Yes modern India and Pakistan were created by the British, Both were born almost the same day. Of the two modern day India has done a far worse job in 70 years than the “Mahatma’s” concept of “India”.

    Will not go too much into detail since most of that will end up in a book I am helping an author but here are some statistics you may want to consider:
    The “India” you are referring to applies to 117 thousand families with a net value of 2 Trillion US dollars. They are the elite super rich of India who control everything from government to business. Their power extends well beyond the boundaries of that nation. the few hundred million who make up India’s “middle class” a good deal of them cannot even afford an apartment. Many of those who are service callers live 9 to a room and in many cases in a slum. During the day they work in offices, but outside of that they live extremely badly.

    -1 billion 3 hundred million by and large live on a 1.25 per day. Most are undernourished. 3 thousand Indian children die each day due to that, while India wastes 21 million tons of wheat and around 60 million tons of rice each year to vermin, rot and poor storage.
    -India is home to half the world slave population or 15 million (that is a gross underestimate as I have broken it down). Compare that to the US slavery from beginning to end (17th century to 19th century). the total was around 600 thousand. The Colonial age of slavery (16 to 19th) a total of 20 million. If you extrapolate India’s slaves from 1947 to today that makes her the world’s largest slave based society in the history of man surpassing the Roman Empire, Egyptian Empire, Aztec and Mayan Empire or the Colonial age separately
    -The way they are treated goes beyond any comprehension of humans maltreating others in… every… respect.
    -Most of them come from India’s entrenched caste system and her Muslim minorities.
    -All the advancements you mentioned only effect that top elite. it has no relevance to the ocean of wretched poverty below them. That 117 thousand families (if one takes each at 5 people per family) would roughly be the population of San Francisco to a population greater than the New World from the tip of Argentina to the tip of Alaska or greater than the population of Africa (1.013 Billion, India is 1,3 Billion).
    India has the world’s greatest disparity of wealth seen in any nation. Based on just what I have presented to you the concept of India is a much greater failure than the British Empire. Then the same reasons one used to dismantle the British Empire must by all sense of that word also hold true for the concept of India.

  6. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    RohanJay
    That 21 million tons of wheat India wastes is equal to the total output of Australia in a year.The American revolution that gave birth to the 13 colonies and the very important “Declaration of Freedom” soon to be followed by the French Revolution which gave birth to the “Rights of Man” to the home rule of the Mahatma were based on issues of far less evil and I mean pure evil than what is now going on in India. If you can justify the right of Americans to determine our future or the French against the oppression of both Monarch and Church to the wrongs done by the British to demand home rule then by logic you have to demand the same of modern day India which in fact is made up of a collection of “nations”

  7. Ananda-USA Says:

    RohanJay,

    May I kindly inquire for how many DECADES have you been isolated in that particular well, to not know WHY many Sri Lankans are anti-India?

    Let me briefly explain why.

    India initiated, trained, delivered, funded and protected the Separatist Tamil terrorists in Sri Lanka during Indira Gandhi’s and a part of Rajiv Gandhi’s tenures as PMs of India. They PREVENTED the Sri Lanka armed forces from utterly defeating the LTTE several times before they FORCED Sri Lanka to accept an INVASION Force to PARTITION Sri Lanka in two to create an autonomous state for the Tamil Separatists. To this end, they FORCED the 13th Amendment upon Sri Lanka’s Constitution, and are pushing to achieve that end to this day.

    Those actions by India killed over 150,000 innocent citizens of Sri Lanka, caused untold economic losses, delayed the Economic Growth of Sri Lanka that was then held up as a model for Singapore and other Asian nations to emulate, and delayed the progress of Sri Lanka towards a more equitable and vibrant society. Only a few years ago, India was plotting with Western Powers to haul Sri Lanka up on War Crimes charges at the UN, forgetting its own culpability in fomenting that war in Sri Lanka in the FIRST PLACE!

    Only the new BJP government of Narendra Modi seems ready to change those flawed policies towards Sri Lanka. We Sri Lankans welcome this change heartily with renewed hope, although we are wary of a regression into the bad old days of the last 30-years of destructive enmity, especially when the Modi government is inevitably ousted from power some time in the future.

    Having said these things, We Sri Lankans also look towards India as the fount of our peoples, our cultures and our religions with a great deal of love and kindred feeling. So, we are torn apart internally with two opposing emotions: love arising from kinship and a shared Asokan age, and anger arising from recent betrayal. Since the betrayal is recent and more painful, protecting our nation against a recurrence is paramount in our minds.

    Ergo, the advice by many Sri Lankan Patriots here to hold India at an arms length, and never to give India predominant position within Sri Lanka, for India’s policies change with its local political winds. We as a nation cannot afford to be victimized again by India, because that can PERMANENTLY DIVIDE and DESTROY Sri Lanka, so we seek alliances and erect defenses against India.

    Unfortunately, our own national history teaches us, beyond all reasonable doubt, that denying India a predominant position in Sri Lanka, is the correct approach to Sri Lanka’s survival.

    Finally, I would disagree with you regarding India’s development since Independence.

    In fact, despite a debilitating 30-year war, Sri Lanka is way ahead of India in all the accepted indices of social equity and economic progress. In India, caste and religious discrimination is endemic, and this is compunded by Government handouts based not on need alone, but on sicial attributes such as caste that pits its people into compettion against each other soley to garner these monetary benefits. India has failed to educate all of its people irrespective of social class, and is far behind Sri Lanka today. India’s foreign policy has succeeded in inciting wars with ALL of its neighboring countries; something tha Modi is trying to reverse. Corruption and graft is widespread; far more than in Sri Lanka. India is best with multiple internal rebellions and insurgencies. The biggest of them, the Naxalite Communist insurgency, is spread across a wide swathe of India’s land mass, extending from Karnataka in the South-West to Assam and Nagaland in the North-East encompassing about 80% of India’s people. Often, the government rules the cities, towns and the countryside by day, and rules only the city centers at night, leaving the rest to the Naxalite insurgents.

    Yes, India with its size, and large population, has a large number of technocrats, engineers, and businessmen who are still a very small minority as a percentage of its population in comparison with many other developing nations, even Sri Lanka. Again, because of its size and national resources, it can launch satellites and space craft, build weaponry of many types, and field nuclear power plants, while its people, on average, languish in abject poverty and social inequity. That is why it is rather ludicrous for India to be offering economic assistance to Sri Lanka, while the average Indian citizen is far worse off compared to the average Sri Lankan citizen. Let us call that Indian assistance to Sri Lanka what it is: “WAR REPARATIONS”.

    At the root of India”s failure to uplift its people lies its failure to demolish its evil caste structure, a problem the Lord Buddha himself encountered and preached against 2,500 years ago; its wrong policies implemented to reduce this endemic discrimination; its federal government structure that pits state governments against each other and against the union government, while none of them individually or together can summon the strength to enforce law and order within their territories.

    With the federal government structure, the central government continually FAILS to develop and execute NATIONAL PROGRAMS and DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS because of sabotage by regional forces. India is unable, even to enforce international agreements because of opposition and infringement of its legal national authority by regional players. For example, an agreement with Bangladesh to limit and repatriate illegal immigrants failed because of Mamata Banerjee’s opposition. India is unable to pursue a stable foreign policy with Sri Lanka that is in India’s national interest because of sabotage by Tamil Nadu, which colludes with foreign powers (eg. USA) on foreign policy matters that are the preserve of the central government. And so, this flawed nation, bungles on. Narendra Modi hopes to address some of these issues head-on, and I wish him all success in bringing discipline to India’s governance.

    Briefly, please take your blinders off, study and examine India more critically, particularly in comparison to Sri Lanka.

  8. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    Ananda-USA

    Just to address the sense of cultural relationship that Buddhist Sri Lanka shared with India. That died a thousand years ago when Buddhism was wiped out of India. India then was left predominantly Hindu culture battling an invasion ‘process” that took several centuries of Islamic conquerors (from Afghanistan formerly also a Buddhist region, to Persian Iran). Much of Indian history was based on the conflict between these two faiths. Even the establishment of the Vijayanagar Empire in present day Andhra Pradesh was a reaction to the Mogul Empire and the Deccani (Muslim) Sultanates. By then Buddhist Sri Lanka had shifted her relationship to Buddhist China and Buddhist South East Asia while at the same time dealing with Hindu South India. the latter was confrontational and to the detriment of Sinhalese Buddhist Sri Lanka. Classical example being the Chola invasions and then that of Kalinga Magha that decimated the Buddhist Sinhalese culture. There is nothing “fond” about that for the Buddhist Sinhalese. That fond memory goes way back to the time of Ashoka before the birth of Christ.
    Since then the rise of militant Hinduism across India was had a terrible effect on Sri Lanka. The Rajputs formed in the 13th century to deal with the Mogul Empire and later on the Hindu Marathas led by Shivaji, the Jats. The Sikh faith which tried to reconcile the difference by peace was forced to become militant just to survive the Mogul onslaught and the complex process of the “crystalization” of the caste system. Pre Islamic India then became very defensive and militaristic. Her age of glory died and was replaced by reactionary forces. Due to that Buddhist Sri Lanka paid and continues to pay a price.

  9. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    Finally the formation of the “region” of India started to take place around the 10 to 11th century. Outside of the horrendous turmoil of Islam, the collapse of Buddhism and the “crystalization” of the Caste system where castes started to multiply based on emerging languages and regions was the development of most of India’s modern languages. Similar to (but not exactly) these languages formed “pseudo nations”. In the region of Rajasthan by the 13th century Hindu kings came to an agreement to form an alliance to defend that faith against Islam. When the Mogul Empire rose and flourished it changed the very nature of India, creating a new “multi dimensional culture and forcing the caste system to become even more rigid. this was not an act of thought but a process that happened in reaction to forced conversions. The concept of the “pariah” or out cast is not ancient. the Hindu Caste system ‘shut itself” from absorbing those who embraced some aspect of a faith really called “Sanatana Darhma (the word Hindu is a foreign name with no meaning except that it refers to the river Indus).

    The process of ethnic identity in the region called India (or really Bharat as in the Bharata Janata Party BJP) was more complex, more painful and very defensive. One estimate put the number of Hindus killed due to invasions from the 11th to the 13th century in Northern India at 80 million. That is not too far fetched when that the entire region had a population of 150 million or twice that of Europe. “Hindu Kush” means “the slaughter of the Hindus”. By the time Sikhism was born and by the time the European colonial age came about, most of India’s modern languages already had enough of supporting literature both written and spoken as those in Europe. Identities such a “Bengali”, “Tamil”, “Punjabi”, “Malayali” were stronger than any concept of “India’. That is why the Mahatma was easily persuaded to let go of his concept of an “India” and let the formation of two nations happen at the same time. Pakistan was not “torn” from an established India for in the complex brew the “Muslim Indian identity” was well established. By the time of the Mahatma the “Muslim India” was a thousand years old with glorious empires and Kingdoms. Islamic Pakistan and a Hindu based Secular India was born on the same day.

    One more issue Indian nationalists now push is that the Sepoy rebellion was India’s first attempt for independence. That is a lie. Had the Sepoys defeated the East India company they would have been left with possibly returning to the remnants of the Mogul kingdom (not even Empire for by now the Marathas and Jats had destroyed it) and a new war of European powers fighting over that region, this time France, Holland, Portugal, Tsarist Russia and even possibly the Austro/Hungarian Empire that included Germany would have fought over the subcontinent.

    The British Empire gave that region the stability and the infrastructure (railway, telegraph, Postal system, Educational system, roads, harbors. Language, even measurements, and all the trapping of a modern state) for India and Pakistan to emerge. It also gave Sri Lanka the same level of development. God only knows what the fate of Sri Lanka would have been had the Sepoys won over the East India company. That is why New Delhi has to be judged in the same manner London was for ruling over a greater population than the British Empire and in a shorter time (70 years). In that context New Delhi has done a lousy job over the governance of a group of pseudo nations. If there is any nation that has a right to form that would be the Punjab which under Ranjit Singh in the 19th century formed a “nation” based on language, ethnicity and religion. It suffered the most during partition.

  10. Mr. Bernard Wijeyasingha Says:

    One last comment on this subject:
    This happened to China. All the European powers tried to carve that nation out in their battles with each other. The viciousness of it can be seen in the Opium wars waged by Great Britain, but she did it in the face of aggressive European and even nascent America. If the Sepoys defeated the East India company the horror then that would have ensued as the European powers including Russia and America would have ripped the region from Afghanistan to Burma, from Kashmir to Sri Lanka, apart.

  11. Vimutti Says:

    Everyone who is part of the government coalition should READ this article that rather convincingly ties the UNHRC investigators to GEORGE SOROS – the Jewish American Billionaire who has been bankrolling the Arab Spring around the world.

    Soros and his assortment of NGOs, especially Open Societies Foundation, and International Crisis Group, have been meddling in the internal affairs of every country where they operate, and have been propping up “opposition” groups they control to initiate regime change.

    Google: “Pillay’s panel from the shadow of George Soros”

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