{"id":115916,"date":"2021-07-08T16:01:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T23:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115916"},"modified":"2021-07-08T16:01:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T23:01:20","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-21-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/08\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-21-a\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 21 A"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The word\ngenocide\u201d was first coined by Polish lawyer Raph\u00e4el Lemkin in 1944 for the\nkilling of Jews in World War II. Genocide was first recognized as a crime under\ninternational law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A\/RES\/96-I<\/a>). It was\ncodified as an independent crime in the  UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment\nof the Crime of Genocide<\/a> 1948. Sri Lanka    signed the Convention in 1950. .The\nInternational Criminal Court (est. 2002) which is specifically mandated to\njudge crimes of Genocide uses the definition given in the UN Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninternational legal definition of the crime of Genocide is found in Articles II\nand III of the 1948 Convention. There must be a proven intent on the part of\nperpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious\ngroup. Also action must be taken to\ncarry out the intent. A crime must include elements, intent and action, to be called “genocide.”\nIf the government is to be blamed, it must be a part of state policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four groups which need to be protected\nfrom Genocide   as stated in the UN\nConvention were, a \u2018national\u2019 group meaning a\nset of individuals whose identity is defined by a common country of nationality\nor national origin. An \u2018ethnical\u2019 group\nis a set of individuals whose identity is defined by common cultural\ntraditions, language or heritage. A \u2018racial\u2019\ngroup means a set of individuals whose identity is defined by physical\ncharacteristics. And lastly, a \u2018religious\u2019 group is a set of individuals whose identity is defined by common\nreligious creeds, beliefs, doctrines, practices, or rituals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victims of genocide must be deliberately targeted.  The target of destruction must be the group,\nnot individuals. Genocide can also be committed against a part of the group, as\nlong as that part is identifiable\u201d, such as within a geographically limited\narea and substantial.\u201d The part targeted must be significant enough to have an\nimpact on the group as a whole.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tribunals\nappointed to investigate Genocide in Rwanda and Yugoslavia   used these criteria. Genocide was declared\nin Rwanda, where there was a mass slaughter of more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi\nbetween April and July 1994. But not in Bosnia or Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of\nBosnia, the Court held that deporting a group to make an area \u2018ethnically homogeneous\u2019\nis not genocide. Deportation or displacement, even if done by force, does not\nmean destroying that group, the Tribunal said. \nIt was the same in Croatia. . The deporting of the Serb population in\nKrajina by Croatian leaders did not mean destroying the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rohingya\nissue in Myanmar is another high profile Genocide trial. Myanmar is being tried\nsimultaneously by three separate tribunals, ICJ, ICC and Argentina. Gambia   reported Myanmar to the International Court\nof Justice for violating the Genocide Convention.  The ICJ is now hearing the case. In 2019, Aung\nSan Suu Kyi appeared before the ICJ, where she defended the Burmese military\nagainst allegations of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN sent a\nfact-finding mission to Burma In 2018, to examine the Rohingya issue. This\nmission urged the UN Security Council to report Myanmar\u2019s\u2019 top military\nofficials to International Criminal Court on the charge of Genocide. The UN\nMission however stated that the standard of proof used was lower than that\nrequired in criminal proceedings”. \nThe ICC duly opened an investigation on Myanmar, for crimes against\nhumanity in its dealings with the Rohingya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly a\nuniversal jurisdiction case was filed in Argentina by the Burmese Rohingya Organization\nof UK.  Argentina then started a case\nagainst Myanmar\u2019s head of state, Aung Sang Suu Kyi using universal\njurisdiction<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myanmar   told the UN General Assembly that it had no\nright to interfere in the internal matters of a country. Myanmar is carrying\nout its own investigation on the 2017 events through its Independent Commission\nof Enquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Myanmar appeared before International Court of\nJustice in December 2019. Myanmar said that expelling a group was not Genocide.\nThere must be firm proof of Genocide. It is not enough to say that an action\nlooks like Genocide. It must be proved to be Genocide and nothing else.\nGenocide must bethe only\ninference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The standard for proving genocide is now quite high, and very\nchallenging, observed Myanmar. Even evidence of mass atrocity is not enough today\nto meet the strict legal definition of genocide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now to the\nsituation in Sri Lanka .The Tamil Separatist Movement   stated that the Eelam war IV was Genocide of\nthe Tamil people. Ceylon Tamils were living in the north for centuries, they\nsaid. It was their homeland.  The Sri\nLanka army came there, without reason and started killing innocent Tamils\u2019\nwith the deliberate intention of carrying out Genocide. This is nonsense. The\nEelam War IV was a civil war started by the Tamils themselves. The Sri Lanka\narmy had a legitimate right to be there and to engage in military action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is\/are no \u2018Tamil people\u2019 or \u2018Tamil nation\u2019 or \u2018Tamil\nhomeland\u2019 in Sri Lanka.  The Ceylon\nTamil\u201d   is descended from    the  \nlow caste, landless agriculture laborers who were initially brought in\nto Sri Lanka by the Dutch in the 18th century to work on the tobacco\nplantations in the north. The Tesawalamai was drawn up by a Dutch\nadministrator, Claas Isaaks in 1707 and the Yalapana Vaipaya Malai was written\nin 1736, at the request of the Dutch governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British\nfollowed the Dutch policy and more Tamil laborers came in to the north. Tamil\nimmigrants were also brought in by the British to populate the Eastern\nprovince. This was deliberate. It was to replace the Sinhala villagers who were\nallowed to die. These newly arrived Tamils of the north and east, were given\nthe label \u2018Ceylon Tamil\u2019 in the Census which started in 1871.  The \u2018Ceylon Tamil\u2019 is a bogus race invented\nby the British.  The concept of \u2018Race\u2019 is\nitself bogus                                 \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notion of a \u2018Tamil nation\u2019 and \u2018Tamil homeland\u2019 are    inventions of the Tamil Separatist\nMovement. They can be dated to the post independence period.  Tamil \u2018nation\u2019 has been taken from the\nutterances of Lenin. It is used to justify the civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The term \u2018Tamil homeland \u2018was\nused by the Tamil Separatist Movement to mean ancestral land or the place where\na cultural, racial identity had been forged. The notion of a Tamil\nhomeland    got publicity through the Union of Regions\u201d\nproposal of January 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept was promptly squashed. Historians showed that there\nwas no historical basis for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. The public laughed\nat the very idea. They wanted to know, is there any other ethnic group that has\ntwo homelands, one in Tamilnadu and the other in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government of Sri Lanka has consistently denied that it\nengaged in genocide. Sri Lanka said that it has rescued 295,000 hostages and\nrehabilitated 12,000 former LTTE cadres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka government has   also challenged the use of the word Genocide\nfor the Eelam war. The term has specific legal connotations, and the United\nNations, which has codified the concept of \u2018genocide\u2019, has never used it in\nrelation to the Sri Lankan conflict, nor has the term been used by any of the\nUN\u2019s subsidiary bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paranagama Commission stated firmly that after many months of\ninvestigation and after consulting top legal experts, it had concluded that\nthere is no     evidence to support the\ncharge of Genocide. The Paranagama commission rejected the suggestion that\ncivilians were targeted by the SLA as part of an alleged genocidal plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paranagama Commission also pointed out that the term \u2018genocide\u2019\nis a legal concept with a very precise and definite meaning and scope of\napplication. The International Court of Justice rejected claims of genocide by\nboth Croatia and Serbia making it plain that the crime is only made out if it is proved that the perpetrators\nacted with specific intent to destroy physically the group concerned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts\npointed out something else in this Genocide claim.  If 40,000 were killed at Nandikadal in the\nlast weeks of Eelam War IV, where are the bodies? If genocide of 40,000\noccurred in the last weeks of Eelam IV, mass graves of 40,000 killed must\nemerge.  In every country where there\nhave been “system crimes” invariably mass graves have been found. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been ten years since the end of the war, but no mass graves\nhave been found.Even the Northern Provincial\nCouncil under Wigneswaran, which charged the government with genocide, has not succeeded\nin finding mass graves. The Mannar mass grave, which was excavated with great expectations\ncontained skeletons that have been carbon dated to the Portuguese era.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts\nobserved that it would not have been possible to conceal the piles of skeletons\nor mountains of ashes of 40,000 bodies in an area like Nandikadal, which is not\nheavily forested. Also,   if the skeletons\nexisted, then they would have been found during the mine clearing operations. (Continued\nin A2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The word genocide\u201d was first coined by Polish lawyer Raph\u00e4el Lemkin in 1944 for the killing of Jews in World War II. Genocide was first recognized as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A\/RES\/96-I). It was codified as an independent crime in the  UN Convention on […]<\/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-115916","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\/115916","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=115916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}