{"id":115107,"date":"2021-06-11T16:32:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T23:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115107"},"modified":"2021-06-11T16:32:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T23:32:31","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18d-pt-4e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/11\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18d-pt-4e\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 18D Pt 4E"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

One aspect of\nthe Eelam war which has not received much attention is the support at UN level\nfor Eelam War. To start with, the UN High command, based in New York, was\nsupporting the Eelam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In 2005,  \nKofi Annan, as UN Secretary General had sent a condolence message on the\ndeath of LTTE Eastern province political wing leader, Kaushalyan. The National\nBhikkku Front marched down the streets and demonstrated outside the UN Head\nOffice in Colombo. They said this gesture  \nby Annan had given diplomatic status to a terrorist outfit.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

V. Nambiar,\nUN Under-Secretary-Genera<\/a>l had phoned\nthe leading LTTEer KP\u201d (K. Pathmanathan) in Malaysia. Nambiar had been in\ntouch with the LTTE for some time, said the media in 2009. Diplomatic circles\nhad commented on the clandestine links top UN envoys maintained with the LTTE,\nthe media added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some UN\nagencies in Sri Lanka were supporting Tamil separatism, observed Shamindra\nFerdinando. In     2007 UNICEF had imported 6000 ready to eat\nmeal packs and it was suspected that this was for the LTTE. UNICEF staffers in\nSri Lanka were working with the LTTE. \nJames Elder, the official spokesman for  \nUNICEF in Sri Lanka was ordered to leave the country in September 2009\nfor “supporting terrorism”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiva\nWijesinha   said he had been saying for a\nlong time, that Sri Lanka was simply too indulgent about letting in UN staff,\nwithout a proper assessment.  They should\nbe vetted more carefully. He found that junior staff of the UN came to Sri\nLanka with agendas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris du Toit<\/strong>, the Head of UN Security in Sri Lanka, had built up a network of\nUN informants, in LTTE controlled areas, said\nRajiva Wijesinha. The purpose of this\nnetwork, Rajiva thought was to declare that large numbers of civilians were\nbeing killed in the war zone. The existence of this network was first revealed in the Darusman Report. Rajiva Wijesinha observed\nthat this revelation has not received the attention it deserved. The propriety\nof UN setting this up needs to be questioned. Rajiva had\nwanted the government to call in the head of the UN and find out on what mandate such a\nnetwork had been set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sri Lanka\nUnited National Association of Canada wrote to the UN Secretary General, in\n2011 objecting to the appointment of Chris du Toit as the UN Security Chief in\nSri Lanka, Du Toit had trained and advised terrorists in Angola.\nFurther, he has established a network of\nobservers<\/a> In Sri Lanka described as \u2018a ring of paid informers and\nquestionable snoopers\u201d. The Association wanted him removed. The Secretary\nGeneral took no notice. Du Toit continued in Sri Lanka till the end of the\nwar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some UN\nofficials posted to Sri Lanka during Eelam war IV were supporters of Eelam. Gordon Weiss <\/strong>was the UN’s official\nspokesman in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the civil war. He was nowhere\nnear the war zone, he was in Colombo, but in 2009 he spoke of a bloodbath in\nMullaitivu. His visa was not renewed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon Weiss\nwas a major player in the numbers game, said Rajiva Wijesinha.  When he was working for the UN in\nColombo, Weiss said the number of civilian casualties at the end of Eelam\nWar IV was 7,000. This became the official figure at the Office of the UN\nGeneral Secretary. Then Weiss left the UN, returned to Australia and increased\nthe figure, first to 15,000, then to 40,000, the figure quoted thereafter\nby everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United\nNations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) had a number of staff in Sri Lanka,\nwho supported the LTTE, such as Peter Mackay and Benjamin Dix.  Two other  \nUNOPS staffers were arrested for transport of weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin\nDix<\/strong> had worked as a Communications Manager for the United Nations and\nvarious international NGOs across Asia and Africa for over 12 years. He had a BA in Political Geography of South\nAsia (SOAS, 2002) to which he later added an MA in Anthropology of Conflict and\nViolence, (2011) and a PhD in Anthropology (2016). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dix had\nworked in Sri Lanka from 2004 -2008 as Communications and Liaison Manager for\nthe UN   He had been based in\nKilinochchi. I interviewed hundreds of people whilst I worked in Vanni for 4\nyears, he said. The experience, it appears had affected him and he had returned\nto London with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then\nturned propagandist for Eelam. Amnesty International had taken Benjamin\nDix   to a UNHRC session in Geneva to\nspeak on the war after the Eelam War ended, said Rajiva Wijesinha. Benjamin Dix\nand Gordon Weiss provided interviews to Channel Four\u2019s No fire Zone\u201d and \u2018Sri\nLanka Killing Fields.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Dix\nproduced a cartoon book on Tamil refugees, which included the last stages of\nthe Eelam War. The book followed the fortunes of one fictionalized Tamil\nfamily, through war, displacement and the search for asylum abroad. The book,\n\u2018Vanni, a family\u2019s struggle through the Sri Lanka   conflict\u201d, by Dix and Pollock,   was published by Penguin Random House, 2019.\nIt was funded by Arts Council of England. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dix and\nPollock decided on telling the story through a \u2018comic book\u2019. They thought it a\ngood way to reach the public. Comics reach a different readership. Cartoon\nbooks connect with people in a different way. The initial impulse for the book\nwas publicity, to alert the general public to the injustice which had befallen\nthe Tamils. It was intended to educate and campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left Vanni\nwith a huge collection of interviews, photographs and reports, along with my\nown lived experiences and relationships within the Tamil community. A deep\nsense of shame and guilt engulfed me as I drove out of Kilinochchi in the last\nUN convoy on 16 September 2008,\u201d said Dix to Indian Express in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to\nturn what I was seeing in Vanni into a graphic novel, depicting the displaced\npeople, the carnage, our impotence at the UN and the many stories of human\nsuffering,\u201d he told the interviewer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the\ninternational media, the war remained largely a story of freedom\u201d from a\nterrorist organization. But that did not take into account the hundreds of\ndisplaced Tamilians, on the move, dying as shelling continued, or of the many\nothers who were disappearing\u201d into internment camps, continued Dix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is\nespecially important, because, Dix said, 10 years on; there still has not been\nany credible sense of closure and justice for the victims. The lack of respect\nthe state shows towards their people sets a dangerous precedent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Mackay<\/strong>, of Australia,   was Field\nCoordinator, UNOPS,  from <\/a>June 2008 –\nJanuary 2009.  He managed the UNOPS\nOffices in Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu & Vavuniya and was based in Kilinochchi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Then he was made Field Coordinator, UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS). After\nthat he was appointed UNDSS\nRepresentative in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian\nAffairs, Colombo from January\n2009 – October 2009.  <\/em>He also represented UNOPS on the Special\nCrisis Operations Group (COG) in the same UN Office. During this time, he\noversaw the collection, documentation & dissemination of information\nrelating to civilian casualties & possible violations of international laws\nin   the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mackay was in\ntouch with local staff and put together briefings, for embassies in Colombo,   using\neyewitness reports of the war. These briefings challenged Sri Lanka’s official\ncivilian death toll and its arrangements for relief operations. They led the UN\nto warn of a “bloodbath” in the final weeks of fighting. Mackay,\nplayed a key role in keeping the outside world informed about the number of civilians\nkilled in the final months of the war, deaths that Sri Lanka was keen to play\ndown, said Guardian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July 2009, Mackay was asked to leave the country   saying that his “adverse activities had\ncome to the notice of the intelligence services”.  The  UN\ntook the matter up through diplomatic channels with the government, but their\ndecision remained unchanged”, said the UN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On leaving Sri Lanka, Mackay joined International Crisis\nGroup.  He held the post of United Nations Representative \u2013 Sri Lanka\nInvestigations Unit of the International Crisis Group<\/a>  from August 2009 \u2013\nDecember 2009. He was based in Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  His work there included assisting\nthe International Crisis Group in forming the framework for the investigation\nof war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in 2008-2009.  He facilitated the collection, analysis &\ndissemination of information to the ICG investigative team and provided them\nwith the data assembled from the UN Crisis Operations Group in Colombo. He also\nhelped ICG search for possible violations of all applicable international laws,\ncovenants and conventions. He helped to obtain additional evidence testimony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacKay had also been part of the network of UN informants which\nChris du Toit, the Head of UN Security in Sri Lanka, had built up. Mackay appears to have stayed on in war\nzone, after the UN staff were asked to leave. He says he got trapped by\nartillery fire in Mullaitivu and was stranded behind LTTE lines.  He was\nrepeatedly bombed for 10 days in January 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this secret stay, Mackay had obtained high-resolution\nsatellite images showing that the number of people trapped on beaches where the\nTigers made their last stand was far higher than that claimed by the\ngovernment. The scale of civilian casualties at the end was far higher than the\nSri Lanka government claimed, said Amnesty International. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKay alleged government forces deliberately targeted those taking\nrefuge in the first No Fire zone declared in late January 2009. The data showed that not only were more\npeople in danger than the government admitted, but that the food and medicine\nsent to the “No fire zone” were inadequate, said Guardian. Mackay was\nthe source for Channel Four\u2019s report of bombardments on a UN camp in January 23rd<\/sup>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was another channel which the UN used to provide  pro-Eelam information. The UN left the Wanni\nat the end of September 2008, but continued to send food convoys deep into LTTE\nterritory, returning to base at Vavuniya after each trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 On January 21 2009, a\nconvoy delivering food to Puthukudiruppu (PTK) returned to Vavuniya after being\nstuck for four days because of fighting. This convoy was labeled Convoy 11.  But two UN staffers stayed back and set up an\nunauthorized UN hub\u201d in Susantipuram, reported Padraic Colman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 This was in direct\ncontravention of UN General Assembly Resolution A\/RES\/46\/182 of 1991. The UN\nhub was deliberately located between two hostile military forces and the UN\npersonnel did not follow basic UN rules for humanitarian workers in conflict\nzones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN claimed that Convoy 11 stayed on after it had unloaded supplies\nbecause \u2018the government had cancelled their permission to return\u2019. Government\nsays there was no such cancellation. The Convoy had decided, without consulting\nthe government, to use this opportunity \u2018to negotiate the release of United\nNations national staff and dependents by the LTTE\u2019, reported Rajiva Wijesinha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The convoy staff returned to Vavuniya, leaving behind two\ninternational United Nations staff who chose to stay back with the national\nstaff.\u2019 Rajiva\nWijesinghe thought they were there to confirm that large numbers of civilians\nwere being killed.  Wijesinha said that Mackay\u2019s name\nwas not on the list of persons travelling in Convoy 11. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One officer\nwho remained was Colonel Harun Khan<\/strong>,  from\nBangladesh. Harun Khan said that the fire came overwhelmingly from\ngovernment forces\u201d.\u2019  \u2018The night\u2019s\nbombardment was nothing short of the intentional massacre of civilians\u201d he is\nreported to have said.\u2019 But Rajiva\nobserved that when shooting was supposedly taking place, near Puthukkudiyirippu Hospital,\nthe colonel who was staying in a house just across the hospital,  had slept soundly.<\/a> [1]<\/a> (Continued)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/rajivawijesinha.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/05\/gordon-weiss-and-his-military-mentor-jonas-savimbi-as-predecessor-to-mr-prabhakaran\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS One aspect of the Eelam war which has not received much attention is the support at UN level for Eelam War. To start with, the UN High command, based in New York, was supporting the Eelam War.  In 2005,   Kofi Annan, as UN Secretary General had sent a condolence message on the death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}