{"id":115230,"date":"2021-06-14T16:27:51","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T23:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115230"},"modified":"2021-06-14T16:27:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T23:27:51","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/14\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 20 C1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The main\ncharge against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC is that they deliberately killed\nthousands of civilians in the last phase of Eelam War IV. Rajiva Wijesinha was\nSecretary-General of the Sri Lankan Government Secretariat\nfor Coordinating the Peace Process<\/a> (SCOPP) from\n2007\u20132009. In that capacity Rajiva had access to war data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiva found that\nvery few allegations of civilian deaths were made to the Peace Secretariat until\nthe end of January 2009, when for the first time there was allegations of\nhundreds killed. In 2008 when forces took Kilinochchi, the total civilian deaths\naccording to Tamilnet was only 78.  It\nwas only on Jan 26th<\/sup> 2009 that a massive number of civilian deaths\nwere announced, just after the first No Fire Zone was declared.  UN Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne said he\nthought most of the firing in the NFZ came from LTTE, said Rajiva.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts\nobserved that the government\u2019s offensive in the Eastern   Province had succeeded without civilian\ncasualties.  The army would have followed\na similar policy in the North. Analysts noted that the international community has been closely watching the\nconduct of the war. Had there been any loss of civilian lives the     international    community would have definitely tried to\nstop the offensive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intelligentsia\nin Sri Lanka took a similar position. If the army had targeted civilians\noutside the conflict area, then we would have known, said Lalith de Mel, former\nhead of Reckitt and Colman. There would have been some information.  But there was none. There can be no truth in\nthis story. (Lalith\u201d p 151-2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiva\ncommented on the paucity of civilian casualties in the war. The reports of the\nSri Lanka Monitoring Mission   indicated\nthat there were hardly any civilian casualties. This is almost unique in the\nhistory of this type of military operation. Western nations are much less cautious,\nRajiva observed. In Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, the US army completely destroyed homes,\nschools, hospitals and killed civilians in droves, said analysts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been\nable to establish that the armed forces have been concerned only with military\ntargets. There certainly had not been wanton attacks on civilians, said\nRajiva.  Air Force gave me full accounts\nof whatever they had targeted, and their record was impressive. In the period\npreceding the last phase there has been allegations of just 76 civilian deaths arising\nfrom over  air force 500 sorties   <\/em>  Air force had refused to take certain targets\nsaying it would lead to civilian casualties. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took our\ntargets in the air force when we were 100 percent certain   that they were solely LTTE targets, Air Force\nsaid. We abandoned over 150 targets where we could inflict massive destruction\non LTTE as they were close to civilians. LTTE lasted two years and ten months\nonly because the Air Force had gone out of their way to avoid civilian\ncasualties.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

IDAG-S [1]<\/a>\nin its book The Numbers Game\u201d  , stated that\nhigh resolution satellite imagery  of the\nsecond and third No Fire Zones, showed that shells fired by the army, during\nthe months of February to May, 2009 \navoided  civilian settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IDAG-S found that the aerial photographs of the   zone confirmed this. The Tamil civilian camp,\ntheir \u2018tent city\u2019, was vast and stretched for several hundreds of miles. The\ntents were so densely packed together that if the area had been attacked by army\nmortars, the resulting fires would have destroyed vast swathes of tents.  But the photographs show the tents\npractically untouched. The majority\nof the permanent structures in this zone were also intact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The majority of\nthe disappeared are those of combat age. There were very few children or adults\nover 40. A very high percentage is in 20-30 age group.  This suggests that deaths were due to combat,\nsaid Rajiva. Statistics of the Census Department\nalso showed that hardly any children or old people were missing. Numbers were\nhighest at the age when they would have been with the LTTE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of the rescue operation, Army Commander Daya Ratnayake\nsaid, those working for the UN and several other international agencies\ninvolved in humanitarian work, and also those who were used as human shields\nduring the final stages of the war, came safely to us. Hundreds of clerics from\nall religions came out safely. There was not even a scratch on them. Some 4,000\ngovernment employees came out. The families of terrorist leaders too came out\nsafely. So what are these allegations, asked the Army Commander. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardly any public servants, school\nteachers or principals were killed In Eelam War IV, observed Rajiva. Hardly any\npublic servants were missing either. \nMost had got to government side with family intact during the war. Rajiva had wanted an audit done of all the\npublic servants in LTTE areas before 2009 and after. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that all UN workers got out safe and sound   makes it clear that the army did not engage\nin indiscriminate attack on civilians.  \nAll the local employees of NGOs too, had   come through safely after the war.   This included the ones the LTTE had kept\nback. There were no casualties at all among the aid workers whom the LTTE held\nback when the UN and NCOs left the Wanni in 2008. The only injury to UN local staff was from a\nLTTE landmine, said Rajiva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final\ndays of the \u2018war\u2019, the Government took steps to make the fighting, a war\nwithout witnesses. The UN Agencies, international and local NGOs were ordered\nto leave the area, in preparation for the final assault by the Armed Forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nshortsighted policy provided the opportunity for those who wanted to give a\nslant to figures of civilian casualties and Armed Forces\u2019 atrocities, the\nplatform to do so. The absence of independent observers like the UN agencies,\nNGOs and the media, prevented accurate and truthful narratives to filter\nthrough, of what was happening on the battlefields, said analysts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many wars\nfought in different parts of the world, the media and other independent\nobservers provide accounts of the fighting and suffering of the people in the\nbattlefield, enabling the public to form a balanced opinion of what was going\non. By removing all third parties from the scene of action, the story of\ncivilian casualties could be falsified or exaggerated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a scenario\nhas also helped the pro LTTE sections of the Diaspora keep the issue alive, by\nfeeding the international community with figures of civilian casualties that\nmay not reflect the actual ground situation. Information from independent\nobservers and media would have helped counter the situation in no small measure,\nsaid analysts. . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the\nwestern media said that the last days of Eelam War IV was a war without\nwitnesses, commentators such as Rajiva Wijesinha, pointed out that ICRC had\nremained in the conflict zone throughout the entire duration of the war,   taking away those in need of medical\nassistance until almost the last week of the war. ICRC brought several\nshiploads of injured form conflict zone from February to May, 2009. The vast\nmajority of the wounded civilians were evacuated by the ICRC, starting on 10\nFebruary 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to\nNavy Headquarters, the ICRC ship carried out the last evacuations on May 09,\n2009, just 10 days before the successful conclusion of the war. The ICRC evacuated 14,000 wounded and their\nrelatives from Puthumattalan and also delivered 2,350metric tons of food to\nMullivaikkal between Feb 10, 2009 to May 09, 2009. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total, 16\nICRC ships came to the conflict zone in the final months. The international\nICRC staff that had remained in Puthumattalan left on the first ship, but they\nreturned and stayed onshore for a few hours each time the ships came back. The\nGovernment did not allow United Nations staff on the ships.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sri Lanka\nHumanitarian Effort\u2019 published by the Presidential Task Force for Resettlement,\nDevelopment and Security in the Northern Province  (2011) gave the number of people evacuated\nfrom Puthumattalan during Feb-May 2009  as 12,820. Of them only 4,740 were wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Indian medical team was deployed at Pulmoddai, to receive the\nwounded, transferred from Puthumathalan, by the ICRC in via sea. This Indian team received several thousand\nwounded civilians during February-May, 2009. The Indian team remained there until\nthe conclusion of the war, said Shamindra Ferdinando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shamindrawas among a small group of journalists\ntaken by the Navy in late April 2009 to the Chalai-Mullaitivu waters to observe\nthe ICRC operation and later to Pulmoddai, where the Indian medical team was at\nwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it\nappears that the media were allowed in during the last phase of the war. Muralidhar\nReddy and Kanchan Prasad had been embedded in the Sri Lanka battlefront since\nlate 2008. They were taken to the battlefront (Last Redoubt\u201d) every day from\nthe 14th<\/sup>-18th<\/sup> May, 2009, returning to the SL Army HQ area\nby evening-night so that they could file their reports to their respective\nIndian offices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddy has\ntold the world that [t]here were no conditions spelled out on the coverage\nfrom the war zone.  We were allowed unfettered and unhindered movement up\nto 400 meters from the zone, where pitched battles were fought between the\nmilitary and the remaining cadre and leaders of the LTTE . We sent our news\ndispatches to our headquarters.  No questions were asked\u201d (Reddy, An\neye-witness account of the last 70 hours of Eelam War IV,\u201d Frontline<\/em>,\nVolume 26-Issue 12:  June 6-19, 2009). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Roberts observed that While Prasad and Reddy may have been\ngiven a privileged place among reporters in mid-May, they were among a number\nof other foreign journalists airlifted to the front on other occasions in the\nmonths January-April 2009. The full list is available at http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/185693507\/SL-ARMY-Media-Accreditation-to-War-Zone-2007-2009<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The media agencies allowed into the war zone\nin from 2nd<\/sup> to 16th May 2009, included *Aften posten (Norway) *All\nIndia Radio *BBC *BBC New Delhi *Christian Science Monitor *Daily Telegraph *\nDanish Broadcasting *Financial times, Mumbai *France 24 *Hindu *Kayodo News Agency,\nJapan*Liberation Paris *News X, India * Reuters * Russian Information Agency *ZDF\/TV\nBerlin. ( continued)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Independent  Diaspora Analyst\nGroup, Sri Lanka . IDAG-S is a think tank of academics,\nprofessionals and analysts from  the Sri Lankan diaspora in Europe, North\nAmerica and Australia. The lead author is an aerospace engineer who was able to\nbring a wide range of multidisciplinary skills to the task. https:\/\/groundviews.org\/2013\/05\/28\/sri-lankas-numbers-game\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The main charge against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC is that they deliberately killed thousands of civilians in the last phase of Eelam War IV. Rajiva Wijesinha was Secretary-General of the Sri Lankan Government Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) from 2007\u20132009. In that capacity Rajiva had access to war data. Rajiva […]<\/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-115230","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\/115230","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=115230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}