Shenali D Waduge

As usual half-baked stories are being sold as hot cakes with the gullible falling prey! Suddenly news is a bug about some ‘verdict’ by a kangaroo court set up by the International Truth & Justice Project which is administered by the Foundation for Human Rights whose Executive Director is non other than Yasmin Sooka the ‘comrade’ of LTTE fronts and one of the 3 handpicked members of Ban Ki Moon’s personally commissioned panel report which declared LTTE as ‘the most disciplined and most nationalist of the Tamil militant groups’.

The Foundation for Human Rights was launched in 1996 through a cooperation agreement between the European Union and the South African government. Its mission was to address the historical legacy of apartheid in South Africa. Sooka is an EU employee and paid by EU.

http://www.fhr.org.za/index.php/projects/

At its 10^th anniversary a report was generated solely concentrating on South Africa http://www.fhr.org.za/files/6613/6120/1921/0045_3-_Making_rights_real.pdf

The question is when the Foundation for Human Rights has been set up and funded to look into the affairs of people in South Africa why should it create a sub-entity called the International Truth & Justice Project on Sri Lanka and why ONLY Sri Lanka? http://www.itjpsl.com and they also run a website Stop Torture – http://www.stop-torture.com that too on Sri Lanka. The entire focus seems to be on Sri Lanka only! Very strange!

Who is funding the ITJP projects? 

Sooka spends a lot of time issuing statements on the right for LTTE to commemorate its dead at Mullaiwaikkal http://athavaneng.com/?p=270504

Sooka is also an advisory member of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice – https://www.srilankacampaign.org/about-us/organizational-structure/ whose members include a plethora of controversial figures & it is very interesting how well networked they are

1. S. Tissainayagam

Teesta Setalvad

Natalie Samarasinghe

Bianca Jagger

Bruce Haigh

Basil Fernando

Beate Arnestad

Callum Macrae – Board Member

Charu Lata Hogg – Chairperson

The present kangaroo court recalls another The People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka held in Dubiln, Ireland in 2010 January was organized by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka.

The most hilarious part of this tribunal which was featured on International Council of Eelam Tamils website http://www.iceelamtamils.com/peoples-tribunal-on-sri-lanka/ was promoting the Vaddukoddai Resolution/Separation of Sri Lanka!

It is certainly interesting to find out who funded this Dublin Tribunal!

In 2013 Sooka was invited as Guest Speaker to the Global Tamil Forum conference in UK. She was introduced as ‘comrade’. Sri Lanka’s Opposition Leader Sambanthan and Sumanthiran were also present as invitees!

That same year Sooka campaigned to get countries to boycott attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo.

Yasmin Sooka in March 2014 joined Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bishop Joseph Rayappu, R. Sampanthan, CV Wigneswaran and 35 others jointly addressed to the UNHRC to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Sri Lanka. This petition was generated by Campaign for Peace and Justice of which Yasmin Sooka happens to be a member of the Advisory Council!

The same month, the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice released another report titled Crimes against Humanity in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province”. The foreward of the report was by the Centre for Justice and Accountability which Sooka endorsed!

Her unashamed bias and conflict of interest erases any semblance of credibility http://www.onlanka.com/news/is-yasmin-sooka-biased-and-prejudiced-against-sri-lanka.html

Such characters have no business to be calling people as war criminals. Who are funding these projects? Who are funding these tribunals? Who are paying for these trials and the amount of legal lies being concocted and disseminated over media by others who are also part of a large network out to discredit the achievements of Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces.

No amount of paid tarnishing campaigns can remove the fact that LTTE was a non-state armed group. Sri Lanka’s conflict was a non-international armed conflict. LTTE are not prisoners of war and they do not enjoy any privileges of rights given to PoWs.  LTTE is not entitled to be referred to as an ENEMY COMBATANT. In a non-international armed conflict such as Sri Lanka’s, COMBATANT and PRISONER OF WAR STATUS DOES NOT APPLY. 

LTTE fall into category of Unlawful combatants who are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.

A public petition must be organized demanding that LTTE must stand trial first for their war crimes over 30 years before any tribunals are introduced illegally bypassing the sovereign internal laws of Sri Lanka.

There are 5000 missing soldiers why are people like Sooka not speaking on behalf of these missing soldiers instead of going behind figures of people they cannot produce even birth certificates to proof they were even born! 

This farce has been going on for too long. Let it be made clear that LTTE started armed warfare. LTTE targeted civilians and scores innocent villagers became the first victims. Entire villages were attacked & villagers cut to pieces and chased out. That was how LTTE came to declare North as belong to only Tamils – after chasing out Muslims & Sinhalese. Where were the human rights organizations, foreign envoys and UN then? Did they even bother to count these dead killed by LTTE? The entities talking about the army hitting makeshift hospitals during the final stages and killing civilians during firing have conveniently forgotten the scores of LTTE suicide missions and bombs placed inside passenger trains, buses, civilian installations etc where were the vigils for these deaths? We never saw a single foreign envoy lighting a candle for them and LTTE carried out over 300 suicide attacks! Let those foreign envoys lighting candles for the dead answer this simple question – which dead are they mourning?

We do not know

• How many civilians died from LTTE gunfire while fleeing LTTE
• How many civilians who were forced to use firearms died as a result
• How many civilians died out of fatigue/old age & other natural reasons
• How many LTTE in civilian clothing died while fighting
• How many LTTE injured cadres were killed by LTTE lest they spilled the beans!

Without knowing the numbers of the above, how dare anyone come to determine that ‘civilians’ were killed by the Sri Lankan Army.

The world is well aware that the LTTE forcibly took people while we do not know how many people even went voluntarily. We also do not know how many among these supposed civilians were actually from LTTE families as they enjoyed a more privileged life than other Tamils.

If LTTE had not taken civilians and used them as hostages or human shields they would have not been any civilian deaths in the first place. If LTTE had not fired from among civilians or kept their armour among civilians the Army would not have fired back because the army did not keep civilians near them and fired from among civilians. The LTTE are guilty of this.

Moreover, the biggest illegality and irregularity comes in former UNSG appointing a personally commissioned report on the final stages of the conflict – the last 3 months which later became the foundation of the UNHRC reports and 3 UNHRC resolutions. Let us remind everyone that the UNHRC mandate is human rights not international humanitarian laws. But the UNHRC and its head have pickpocketed areas that are not in their scope of work and moreover countries that had cozy links with the LTTE and their diaspora sponsors living overseas have with the power of money infiltrated and influenced the UN system and this seriously calls for an internal investigation of the UN.

All reports regarding denial of humanitarian aid have forgotten that that foreign envoys and UN representatives appeared every 2 weeks at the Consultative Committee Meetings where they were briefed by the Defense Secretary on the progress. If any of these heads had issues about humanitarian aid or other matters, this was a forum to directly demand answers. Silently sitting at these meetings and nodding heads and then coming out years later to create stories cannot be accepted as there are enough of statistics and data to prove aid had been sent. Moreover, let us also not forget that the LTTE forcibly took these items possibly to distribute amongst their own and their families or to keep lest the conflict drew longer and this resulted in ordinary people not getting what was sent to them. However, the Sri Lankan Government cannot be faulted for this!

All those making dramas out of the no fire zone have forgotten that a NFZ has legal basis ONLY if it is MUTUALLY agreed & WRITTEN between the parties to a conflict. There was no such agreement and therefore all reports quoting NFZ have no legal basis!

Let’s be clear that LTTE committed war crimes throughout 30 years – ignoring these crimes and going behind the Sri Lankan Army only is preposterous because it is the elements that supported LTTE who are funding these campaigns together with foreign entities that used LTTE to trigger diplomatic influence over the Sri Lankan Government.

Why has no one investigated the LTTE fronts proscribed in 2014 – these were the organizations who were registered overseas with their heads holding foreign passports and providing material support & raising funds for a terrorist organization. Moreover these entities were using loopholes in foreign systems and scamming foreign nationals through money laundering, credit card scams and even enjoying tax holidays registered as charities.

All those holding vigils and crying over the dead cadres in Mullaivaikkal have no response when questioned how many would still be getting killed if the military option was not sought? Would we civilians not be still getting killed by LTTE bombs and suicide missions? Did the UN, foreign envoys and all those shedding crocodile tears and writing books counting the dead provide relief to the scores of actually innocent people that the LTTE killed? Hard as it is to accept, either voluntarily or by fear, the Tamil populace apart from a handful of brave Tamils did not give LTTE away, some actually supported LTTE for it provided them a means to apply as economic refugees on the pretext of being discriminated by the Sinhalese? So far no one has been able to give examples of what ordinary Sinhalese are enjoying legally & constitutionally that Tamils are denied. No foreign envoy or UN representative has any right to propose giving the Northern or Eastern provincial council more powers over other provinces. All provinces & their people have to be given equal and same privileges.

No conflict can come to end without some form of damage and collateral affects. Given that all the entities that were silent during LTTE’s reign are now coming out with the humanitarian law books after LTTE demise, seems a little odd and puzzling. It is also baffling why all these entities are ONLY demanding international tribunals to put on trial ONLY the Sri Lankan Army while no mention of who should be held accountable for LTTE crimes are omitted from discussion. Just because the LTTE leader & his main ground force leaders are dead it does not mean that there are no one else to go on trial. There are plenty of people and organizations that have indirectly and directly helped LTTE over the years. All of these entities have to be put on trial first because the crimes committed by LTTE must be taken up first and these crimes started in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000 upto 2009 and we see some remnants of LTTE not re-emerging. Therefore, the GOSL must immediately start a mechanism where LTTE crimes are tabulated and victims of LTTE crimes are given justice and EVERYONE linked to LTTE are investigated (Foreign & Local).

Kangaroo courts funded by Tiger money is good for those living in a tiger world!

Shenali D Waduge