{"id":47924,"date":"2015-09-17T21:37:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T03:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=47924"},"modified":"2015-09-17T13:54:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T20:54:46","slug":"prince-zeids-war-on-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/09\/17\/prince-zeids-war-on-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Zeid\u2019s War On Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

September 16, 2015<\/p>\n

His Excellency, Maithripala Sirisena
\nPresident of Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

Copy to:\u00a0 Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister
\n” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs
\n” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Cabinet Ministers
\n” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0 Permanent Secretaries to HE the President, Prime Minister, and Min. of Foreign Aff.<\/p>\n

Your Excellency,<\/p>\n

Unproven Allegations of War Crimes and Violation of Int’l Humanitarian Law <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

We who consider Sri Lanka as our dearly beloved motherland are confused as to the position the present government is\u00a0taking to answer various allegations of wrong doing by Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces which fought a war thrust on Sri Lanka\u00a0by the internationally designated terrorist movement known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), aka Tamil\u00a0Tigers.\u00a0 Our representatives are acting like cattle being taken to slaughter, when we have honorably discharged our role
\nin defeating the ruthless terrorist forces who deliberately used the civilians whom they herded as they retreated as a\u00a0human shield putting them in harms way.<\/p>\n

Our brave soldiers who risked their life and limb by having to tread over heavily mined and booby trapped terrain, approach\u00a0the enemy who stood behind high earthen bunds in fortified bunkers with a clear view of opposing forces, succeeded in\u00a0breaching the bunds and to finally surround the enemy and defeat them totally.\u00a0 Our armed forces not only defeated the\u00a0LTTE terrorists that wrought havoc over three decades, but also rescued 295,000 displaced civilians used as a shield by the\u00a0cowardly terror forces.\u00a0 Our soldiers were disadvantaged to wards the latter stages from around April 27, 2009, when they\u00a0dispensed with the use of heavy weapons and air strikes in order to reduce the harm to the trapped civilian population while\u00a0they were being targeted by the LTTE with all their weaponry.\u00a0 The human cost suffered by our forces amounted to some\u00a05,200 lives lost, and 22,000 plus disabling injuries in this three year operation.\u00a0 The fighting men had to later handle welfare\u00a0duties in providing care to rescued civilians, feed them, and provide numerous services in de-mining the land of nearly\u00a01.5 million land\/personal mines, rebuilding homes and infrastructure such as roads, constructing schools, hospitals, effecting\u00a0repairs to irrigation facilities, and making the land livable for the displaced civilians. They also had the task of rehabilitating the\u00a0nearly 12,000 former Tiger fighters, imparting new life skills and releasing them to society with livelihood assistance.<\/p>\n

We are aware of the UNSG’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka reaching conclusions deemed “credible allegations”\u00a0based on one sided information which are locked away for 20 years.\u00a0 Their report which was for the personal guidance of the UN\u00a0Secretary General is surreptitiously leaked to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, who in turn attempts to\u00a0table this unofficial report, but causes a further flawed OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka that is before the September 2015\u00a0sessions of the UNHRC.<\/p>\n

Your Excellency, we are a proud nation with a illustrious history dating back to over 2,500 years that developed a unique system\u00a0of irrigation for utilizing the rainfall to cultivate the land.\u00a0 Our country which is a sovereign nation cannot become a guinea pig to\u00a0please the geopolitical aims of major powers, or give into the blackmail of extremist members of the Tamil minority community\u00a0who are seeking to carve out territory from the island nation to gradually form a separate state using the 13th Amendment as a\u00a0stepping stone to a federalist structure before opting for separation.\u00a0 We have never been defeated by the many invaders we faced
\nduring our long history, nor have we embarked on invasion of others lands to grab what is theirs.<\/p>\n

In our opinion, we are quite capable of conducting investigations into any wrongdoings that may have taken place during the conduct\u00a0of the war ended on May 19, 2009.\u00a0 Despite over 30 years of unbridled terrorist violence on the part of the LTTE, we do not harbour\u00a0thoughts of revenge or harm to members of the Tamil minority community which extended support to the terror movement both\u00a0willingly and unwillingly. We must firstly defend our country at the UNHRC and not let the big offenders of human rights\u00a0run rough shod over our country’s honour.\u00a0 We call upon you to immediately arrange to publish the second stage of the report of the\u00a0Paranagama Commission, along with the report submitted to the authorities by the distinguished legal experts from the UK and USA\u00a0led by Sir Desmond de Silva, all of whom have been selected by the UN in prosecutions conducted before the ICC.\u00a0 If necessary, retain\u00a0these legal experts to study the report of the OHCHR before the September 2015 sessions, and prepare a draft response that could\u00a0serve as a backgrounder to the correct position that Sri Lanka needs to take.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am annexing hereto an opinion piece written by Mr. Dayan Jayatilleka, a former Sri Lankan diplomat and Permanent Representative to\u00a0the UNHRC in Geneva.\u00a0 I must stress that I am conveying the sentiments of many of my friends who are ardent patriots of our island\u00a0motherland.\u00a0 I trust you would give your immediate attention to this matter and take the decision that does not humiliate our nation.\u00a0Shall appreciate if you would kindly acknowledge receipt and give an assurance that we will make our best possible case using the\u00a0valuable advice and opinions of the legal experts referred to earlier.<\/p>\n

May the Blessings of the Noble Triple Gem be with you.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n

Mahinda Gunasekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera September 16, 2015 His Excellency, Maithripala Sirisena President of Sri Lanka Copy to:\u00a0 Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister ” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs ” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Cabinet Ministers ” \u00a0 \u00a0 ” \u00a0 Permanent Secretaries to HE the President, Prime Minister, and Min. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924","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=47924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}