{"id":115659,"date":"2021-06-30T16:24:06","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T23:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115659"},"modified":"2021-06-30T16:24:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T23:24:27","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-pt-20-c-9b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/30\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-pt-20-c-9b\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 20 C 9B"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

OISL REPORT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nessay updates the information given in my essay on the OISL Report. https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/04\/27\/the-oisl-report\/<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OHCHR\nInvestigation on Sri Lanka\u201d (OISL)\nwas an investigation initiated by the  \noffice of the UN Commissioner of Human Rights.  On 26th March 2014, the UNHRC by resolution\nA\/HRC\/25\/L.1\/Rev.1 requested the OHCHR to undertake a comprehensive\ninvestigation into serious violations and abuses of human rights and related\ncrimes allegedly committed in Sri Lanka during the period covered by the\nLessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninvestigating team consisted of Martti Ahtisaari, President of\nFinland, Silvia Cartwright     Governor-General of New Zealand<\/a>  and Asma\nJahangir, Chairman, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan<\/a>. The team\nstarted work in July 2014. The final report was released to the public on 16th\nSeptember 2015 and at the same time was filed officially with the UNHRC. High\nCommissioner for Human Rights admitted that the OISL Report is \u2018rather unique\u2019 and\nis the first of its kind by his Office in respect of any country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics\npointed out that  the OISL report is\nbased on a “desk review” of existing material including Government\npublications, international and Sri Lankan NGO\/civil society reports, the\nreports of LLRC and other commissions etc., and above all, material considered\ncredible by the Darusman Panel  which\nincluded  the evidence which will stay\nhidden until 2031. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Report\nclaimed to be a Human Rights investigation and not a criminal investigation,\nbut it said that criminal acts may have happened. The purpose of the OISL\nreport was to get a War Crimes Tribunal set up for Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The   OISL Report specifically asked that special\ncourts be set up to judge the war crimes of the Sri Lanka army .the Report also\nwanted universal Jurisdiction. Names of\nimportant military personnel and units have been mentioned in the Report in a\nmanner designed to incriminate and direct investigations. This puts these\npersons at grave risk of being arrested in foreign countries and charged under\nuniversal jurisdiction, said analysts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war\ncrimes listed in the OISL report are\nindiscriminate shelling, shelling of hospitals, unlawful killings, arbitrary\narrests, denial of humanitarian assistance to civilians in the conflict zone,\nenforced disappearance, torture, sexual and gender-based violence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nYahapalana agreed to support Resolution 30\/1 of the UNHRC the Federation of\nNational   Organizations (FNO) became\nalarmed. The Federation noted that the document used for the Resolution was the\nOISL Report. They saw that UNHRC had\nnot subjected the OISL to a review or scrutiny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January\n2017, Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka  Dr. Gunadasa\nAmarasekara and  Rear Admiral (Retd) Dr.\nSarath Weerasekara  of the Federation of\nNational  Organizations, supported by\nGlobal Sri Lanka Forum, asked  lawyer\nDarshan Weerasekera to provide an evaluation of the OISL Report.   The OISL has not been subjected to such an\nassessment, they said. There was an urgent need for a thorough assessment and\nanalysis of the facts in the OISL Report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darshan\nreadily obliged and the report was ready in March 2017. It was titled A Factual Appraisal of the OISL Report: A\nRebuttal to the Allegations against the Armed Forces\u201d. It was available\nin both digital and printed form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose\nof the OISL report is to make a case for war crimes against the State, said\nDarshan. The OISL report suggested that the military leaders who oversaw the war\ncommitted war crimes and crimes against humanity. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The standard\nof proof accepted by the OISL team, which was  \nreasonable grounds to believe\u201d, was the lowest threshold of proof recognized\nin law. OISL should have set itself a higher standard of proof, said Darshan. Also,\nthe evidence in the OISL report is seriously flawed. It is characterized among\nother things by contradictions, omissions, lies and half-truths. Its claims\ncould be easily contested and crushed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his   report, Darshan Weerasekera looked at each\nof the war crimes charges made in the OISL report and made the following\nobservations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an\nimpression, Darshan said, in the outside world especially in the West that the\nGovernment of Sri Lanka simply expelled all foreigners including foreign\ncorrespondents from the conflict zone and then proceeded to carry out its\nmilitary operations. This impression is wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of\nthe Western press were certainly not present in the conflict zone in large\nnumbers. But, members of the Indian press were present throughout, particularly\ncorrespondents from <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frontline<\/em>, the\nrespected Indian news magazine, and also from All India Radio\/Doordarshan. From\ninternational organizations, the ICRC was present inside the war zone until four days before the war ended. If\nindiscriminate killings of civilians had been made, then these representatives\nwould have reported it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

B. Muralidar\nReddy, of Frontline<\/em>, was part of a group of embedded\u2016 reporters who was\npresent in the battlefield right up to the end of the war on May 19, 2009. His\nstay was facilitated by the Defence Ministry and the Sri Lanka army.  No conditions\nwere made to him on how to report from the war zone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddy said we were allowed unfettered and unhindered movement up to 400\nmeters from the zone, where pitched battles were fought between the military\nand the remaining cadre and leaders of the LTTE. We had interference-free\naccess to the internet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddy interviewed the last batch of 80,000 civilians to flee the\nLTTE-occupied zone and found that the Tigers had decided on May 10 that they\nhad lost the war and that no purpose would be achieved by holding on to the\ncivilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 11, the Tigers seemed to have deserted their sentry-points,\ndismantled their defense-lines, and destroyed everything they could. The exodus\nof the last batch of civilians started on May 12\/13 and perhaps by the night of\nMay 15 there were no civilians left in the 1.5 square-kilometer area the Tigers\nwere boxed into, continued Reddy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 ICRC decided on May 15 to\nsuspend humanitarian operations inside Tiger-held territory. This proved beyond\ndoubt that the overwhelming majority of civilians were out of the battle-zone\nand that the military and the Tigers were engaged in a no-holds-barred fight.\nThe beaming faces of the commanders and troops spoke volumes, said Reddy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reddy spoke\nwith civilians who had just come out of the war-zone, civilians who wouldn\u2018t\nhave had time to reflect on or even digest the events they had experienced, or,\nmore important, to be coached by anyone as to what they ought to say to\nreporters.  Such spontaneous and\nunvarnished testimony is generally considered the best and most credible form\nof eye-witness testimony, and is recognized as such in courts of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is not\nthe slightest indication in Reddy\u2019s articles that he heard the civilians say\nGovernment troops were carrying out massacres, or that he felt the need to ask\nthe civilians about it. There is no record anywhere in Reddy\u2018s reports of\npeople coming out of the battle-zone saying massacres of civilians were going\non. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead there\nare published testimonials, where captured LTTE cadres say they were treated\nkindly by SLA troops. On a number of occasions troops had saved wounded LTTE\ncadres on the brink of death by treating them on the battlefield itself and\ntransporting them to safety behind Government lines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darshan next looked at the number of civilians killed. In November\n2011, the Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka completed a full\ncensus of the Northern Province. The data is in their website.  Roughly 8,000 persons died in the first five\nmonths of 2009 as a result of the conflict, inclusive of LTTE combatants. Of\nthis 5,000 were LTTE combatants which leaves 3,000 civilian deaths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is\nindependent corroboration of the Census Department\u2018s numbers said Darshan. There\nis a UN Country Report, completed in 2009, during the conflict itself, that gives\nan estimate of the number of persons killed between August 2008-May 13 2009, as\n7,721. That number is very close to the one generated by the Census Department.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also\na study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science of aerial\nphotographs of the conflict-zone at the very peak of the fighting. One purpose\nof the study was to find out if there was evidence of a rapid expansion of\ngravesites, or evidence of mass graves. The study found no expansion of\ngravesites, and no evidence of mass graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OISL team\nhad neglected to interview crucial witnesses who had first-hand knowledge\nincluding documents as to exactly how much food and medicine was in the Vanni\nat the relevant time. The team had made no attempt to interview the officials\nwho had participated in the CCHA meetings (Consultative Committee on\nHumanitarian Assistance) that decided on supplies, as to whether the government\nof Sri Lanka had deprived civilians in the conflict zone of food and medicines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Panel\ncould have had interviewed  Ms. Sukumar,\nS. B. Divaratne, officers responsible to sending the goods or Amin Awad, the\nUNHCR representative in Sri Lanka and asked them directly how much food was\nsent to the conflict zone during the time in question, whether or not there\nwere buffer-stocks available, and if so in what quantities. Instead the OISL\nreport stated that the GOSL followed a deliberate policy of depriving civilians\nin the conflict-zone of humanitarian assistance. The charge is simply not true,\nand the evidence exists to prove it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darshan also\npointed out that the OISL report made statements which showed that the Panel\nitself had come to realize that the LTTE used hospitals for military purposes. (p\n155).The OISL Panel had deliberately attempted to mislead the OHCHR on this\nissue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Panel\u2018s\nchief source of evidence for the charge of arbitrary arrest as well as for the\ncharge of sexual and gender-based violence is anonymous witnesses, whose\nstatements are not available to the public. They are kept secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paranagama Commission in its 1st Mandate has collected a vast database of complaints of disappearances. Its preliminary conclusions, with respect to the complaints, was that there was a large number of repeat complaints, and that a significant numbers of them were found to be living abroad, or in Sri Lanka under different names, concluded Darshan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

.A revised, updated version of the report by Darshan Weerasekera\nwas published by Sarasavi in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 ( continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS OISL REPORT This essay updates the information given in my essay on the OISL Report. https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/04\/27\/the-oisl-report\/  The OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka\u201d (OISL) was an investigation initiated by the   office of the UN Commissioner of Human Rights.  On 26th March 2014, the UNHRC by resolution A\/HRC\/25\/L.1\/Rev.1 requested the OHCHR to undertake a comprehensive […]<\/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-115659","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\/115659","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=115659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}