{"id":115437,"date":"2021-06-23T00:33:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T06:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115437"},"modified":"2021-06-22T17:07:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T00:07:51","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/23\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c7\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 20 C7"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA \u00a0PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

 When Sri Lanka won Eelam War IV, the west\ncalled for an international    war crimes investigation. This is a new\ndevelopment in warfare. The International Criminal Court in Hague (2002) was created\nfor this purpose and serious war crimes are now referred to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But   the first war crime courts were the\ntribunals for the wars in Rwanda (1990-1994) Yugoslavia, (1991-2001) and Sierra\nLeone (1991-2002). Yugoslavia   had a series of\nwars from 1991 to 2001, and finally broke up into the   successor states of Bosnia and Herzegovina,\nCroatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. There was a\nlong-running dispute between the Hutu<\/a> and Tutsi<\/a> In Rwanda. From\n1990 to 1994 there was war n Rwanda and the Hutus slaughtered 500,000 to\n600,000 Tutsi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In Sierra Leone there was a civil war. Sierra Leone Tribunal was a judicial\nbody set up by the Government of Sierra Leone<\/a> and the United Nations<\/a> to investigate war crimes during its\ncivil war. This court appears to have functioned effectively. It sentenced\npersons left and right. However, Sierra Leone is not mentioned in any\ndiscussion of the war crimes of the Eelam war IV.  Commentators in Sri Lanka looked at  Yugoslavia and Rwanda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 International\nCriminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia<\/a>  (1993) and the International Criminal Tribunal\nfor Rwanda<\/a>,(1995)  were established by\nthe UN Security Council<\/a> acting under\nChapter VIII of the UN Charter<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

US\ngave much money and EU provided personnel for the    Yugoslavia and Rwanda investigations. Netherlands gave certain concessions free. USA also provided\nprosecutors, investigators and other experts from the Dept of Defence, FBI and  US Department of State. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nYugoslavia and Rwanda  tribunals were\nheavily criticized  by legal experts. These\ntribunals  have perverted the  accepted laws ,they said. Many jurists were\nappalled by these two trials  saying that\nthe standard of evidence in these trials differed significantly from the legal\nstandards of most member nations of the UN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence\nrules in international war crimes tribunals have a lower benchmark than in the  national legal system of most countries. Life\nsentences can be handed down on little evidence, observed analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further,\nin the Rwanda and Yugoslavia trials it was decided that the normal rules of\nevidence need not be followed.  Witness\ntestimony need not be corroborated to be admitted.  Thus removing the protection provided for the\ndefendants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trials\nin both Tribunals were based entirely on oral testimonies. There is no\ndocumentation , only the accounts of witnesses. This also came in  for a barrage of criticisms by international\njurists and other experts. Stephen D Roper observed that  with the passage of time,  recollection becomes blurred   making witness accounts un-reliable <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassan B Jallow, chief prosecutor for Rwandan trial\nadmitted that the trial was seriously handicapped by the fact that the\ninvestigators were all foreigners and had to work through interpreters. Nuances\nwere lost in translation and this could \ndistort what a person said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jose Alvarez, Prof of Law at Columbia Law School,\npointed out that when trials are conducted with the aid of interpreters, and\nwithout knowledge of the relevant culture or manners, misunderstandings at all\nlevels are bound to occur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Manohara de Silva observed that almost all the\ninternational war crime tribunals  have\nbeen kangaroo courts where any   \nunreliable organization can make a complaint, false statements included,\nwithout having to face any consequences. Witnesses  are permitted \nto give testimonies  that have not\nbeen properly verified. Witnesses are coached and taught how to tell convincing\nstories without contradicting one another.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Black, a lawyer specializing in International Law who\nhas appeared for persons brought before UN tribunals, has exposed  other  flaws in \nthe way these tribunals  conduct  the inquiries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to him these tribunals are propagandist. Stories are\ncirculated about targeted countries, demonizing  their regimes and covering up the role of the\nUS and its allies in their interventions. Christopher Black says that it  is now \nknown that the US was responsible for what happened in Rwanda and that\nAmerica\u2019s falsehoods were exposed at the trials.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many individuals brought before these tribunals had been falsely\naccused. A respected Rwandan General who had saved many Rwandan lives was\narrested in 2000. Eleven years later the trial judges concluded that the arrest\nhad been illegal and politically motivated because he had testified that the US\nand the UN forces had been directly involved in the violence unleashed in that\ncountry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black also said that these tribunals use criminal methods against\nthose local  persons  whom  powerful countries want punished, such as\nfirst throwing them in prison without an indictment. Prisoners\nsuddenly disappear, isolation being a method used to exert psychological\npressure on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tribunals pressurize the accused to use lawyers  in their pay,  or those whom they could bend to their will to\ndo their bidding, or those in the pay of the West. Other lawyers are subject to\nharassment, intimidation, are followed, their hotel rooms are broken into and\nrumours are spread about them to discourage their appearing for the accused. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indictments\/charge sheets are often false and propagandist and\noften have parts blackened so that the defence lawyers cannot understand that\nwhole charge. Documents and\nrelevant disclosures are withheld from these lawyers.   ( Continued) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA \u00a0PIERIS  When Sri Lanka won Eelam War IV, the west called for an international    war crimes investigation. This is a new development in warfare. The International Criminal Court in Hague (2002) was created for this purpose and serious war crimes are now referred to it. But   the first war crime courts were the tribunals […]<\/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-115437","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\/115437","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=115437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}