{"id":52848,"date":"2016-03-11T21:54:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T03:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52848"},"modified":"2016-03-11T04:57:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T11:57:16","slug":"why-sri-lankas-hybrid-court-cannot-become-another-farcical-nuremberg-tribunal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/11\/why-sri-lankas-hybrid-court-cannot-become-another-farcical-nuremberg-tribunal\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sri Lanka\u2019s hybrid court cannot become another farcical Nuremberg Tribunal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Robert Jackson, Chief US prosecutor & former US Attorney General said that the Nuremberg Trials were a continuation of the war effort of the Allied nations\u201d <\/strong>how true is the same when the effort to separate Sri Lanka seems very much the goal now taking place through a new constitution for Sri Lanka. If the Nuremberg Tribunal was the brainchild of the World Jewish Congress as reported by Nahum Goldmann in his memoirs (president of the World Jewish Congress and World Zionist Organization) isn\u2019t Sri Lanka\u2019s hybrid court the brainchild of all those players that are angry & jealous that the LTTE was annihilated by the Sri Lankan military. The hybrid court being created is a justice of revenge & vengeance.<\/p>\n

Only German leaders were put on trial as \u2018major war criminals\u2019. Like the Sri Lankan armed forces they were guilty even before the trials started. The Germans were called \u2018Nazi conspirators\u2019 the mainstream media slaps \u2018war criminals\u2019 of our soldiers. Nothing gets said or relayed about LTTE, their crimes or the countries and people that support(ed) the LTTE.<\/p>\n

If the Allies acted as prosecutor, judge and executioner of the Germans<\/strong>, the LTTE fronts & others that funded and lived off the LTTE are regular visitors to the UNHRC to frame charges against Sri Lanka<\/strong>. Both trials created for political purpose. British judge Sir Norman Birkett says the trial is only in form a judicial process and its main importance is political\u2019. We are likely to see similar statements once the gavel declares Sri Lanka\u2019s heroes as war criminals for no reason and with no evidence!<\/p>\n

If Germans were accused of exterminating 6million Jews. Sri Lanka is being accused of a figure between 40,000 and 200,000 but not even 100 names of the dead has been produced. If the trials were to legitimize the holocaust story the same is likely to happen for Sri Lanka<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If the World Jewish Congress made sure that Germany\u2019s persecution of the Jews was the primary focus of the trials, are the reports\/articles\/statements of numerous local\/foreign players not gearing up for the same task against Sri Lanka though with little or no evidence except that they have the propaganda channels and the power to relay lies.<\/p>\n

If Jewish officers like Lt. Col. Murray Bernays, Col David Marcus played key roles in persuading US War Secretary Henry Stimson to accept the idea of putting the Germans on trial, is the same role not been done by an opportunist bunch of Sri Lankan leaders in harmony with LTTE fronts and their heads all of whom were proscribed under UNSC Resolution 1373 in April 2014?<\/p>\n

If Col. David Marcus serving as America\u2019s head of War Crimes Branch selected judges, prosecutors & lawyers for Nuremberg is the same not taking place where the India-LTTEfronts-Church & other lobbies are today deciding how they would use the hybrid court to declare Sri Lanka\u2019s military as war criminals.<\/p>\n

Hopefully there are more people like Chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson who privately acknowledged that the Allies who were conducting the trials were guilty of the same crimes they accused the defendants of committing. The same sentiments were echoed by President Truman\u2026Allies \u2018have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for\u201d. This same injustice is going to happen again exactly 70 years later through the hybrid court for Sri Lanka. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If the Nuremberg Tribunals standards had been applied to the victors of the 2nd<\/sup> world war the supreme Allied commander Dwight Eisenhower should have been hanged! He declared the German POWs in US custody were not privy to Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs and these Germans faced slow death by disease & starvation.<\/p>\n

If the victors seized German documents\/papers to use whatever against Germany is the same not happening in the manner that the current puppet regime is opening every paper\/document and even security facility to foreign envoys, their representatives & the UN? There are said to be 1million documents in the US National Archives alone! Will the US, UK, France or any other superpower allow their top secret files to be selectively used to embarrass and incriminate them?<\/p>\n

If despite the seizer of documents not a single document could be found to refer to extermination program by the Germans is it not the same case about the hyped genocide of Tamils by the Sinhalese?<\/strong> All hot air and nothing to showcase as evidence.<\/p>\n

If the Tribunal accepted as valid dubious \u2018evidence\u2019 including hearsay and unsubstantiated reports from \u2018investigative\u2019 commissions by the Allies what music this is like in realizing how the same is taking place against Sri Lanka. The same teams of people are forming forums, panels, writing reports, books and even holding tribunals and canvassing petitions preparing the groundwork to hang Sri Lanka as war criminals completely ignoring that it was to stop the crimes of LTTE that a military solution was sought after 30 years of suffering.<\/p>\n

If the Tribunal accepted unsubstantiated reports is it any different to how the UNSG\u2019s panel quotes from LTTE sources or when LTTE cadres are projected as victims?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the Tribunal accepted the US congressional report that \u2018proved\u2019 gas chamber killings at Dachau, and a Polish report submitted by the US also \u2018proved\u2019 killings by steam at Treblinka, is it any difference to the hyped massacre & genocide stories being campaigned through well-funded organizations by the same sets of individuals? Why should our war heroes face trial and be falsely sentenced and be told years later that they were innocent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When after 70 years it emerges that the \u2018evidence\u2019 presented by the prosecution has been fraudulent are we not correct to object to a hybrid court for Sri Lanka with foreign judges who will attempt to do the same because they are going to be appointed by the very entities seeking vengeance against Sri Lanka for ending LTTE terror. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If the Israeli archives director Shmuel Krakowski confirmed in 1986 that more than 10,000 of the 20,000 \u2018testimonies\u2019 of Jewish survivors\u201d on file are unreliable\u201d. He says that some survivors wanting \u2018to be part of history\u2019 had let their imaginations run away with them. Quite a lot of that is happening in the Sri Lankan scene as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is striking when Krakowski says many were never in the places where they claimed to have witnessed atrocities while others relied on second-hand information given them by friends or passing strangers\u2019<\/em><\/strong> is the manner that victim-friends of the OHCHR are helping compile these witness testimonies & the OHCHR witness protection scheme is an attempt to keep the lies capped for 20 years. This information is important and needs to be quoted at all times by Sri Lankans in response to the hybrid court on Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Do we need to go through another Nuremberg to confirm decades later that Sri Lanka\u2019s hybrid court gave false testimonies, witnesses were never in places they claimed they were, evidence was fabricated, exaggerated and unreliable, witnesses were trained to lie, witnesses were paid to lie just as Charles Kremer who went in search of victims of supposed German massacre in World War 2 found out in 1981 that people were willing to give him any story for money! Is this not the case in Sri Lanka?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This clearly reiterates the farce behind the manner UN\/OHCHR and linked entities are attempting to frame \u2018witnesses\u2019 \u2018evidence\u2019 and \u2018testimonies\u2019 against Sri Lanka. Mr. Krakwski is acknowledging the lies after 40 years and the current witness protection scheme devised by OHCHR is purposely to keep these lies and liars officially hidden.<\/p>\n

We do not wish to see our armed forces suffer like Frank Walus who was charged of killing Jews after 11 Jews testified under oath that they personally saw Walus murder Jews including children. It took 4 years for Walus to prove he was a teenager during the war years and was working on a German farm! Such is the international justice that prevails with international judges & OHCHR head has the audacity to laugh at Sri Lanka\u2019s judges.<\/p>\n

The parallels in allegations against Nazis and Sri Lanka are striking. Herman Goring, Hitler\u2019s second-in-command denied knowing any extermination plans ordered by Hitler. This was collaborated by General Alfred Jodl, Armed Forces High Command Chief of Operations & Hitlers closest military advisor. In the case of Sri Lanka unfortunately, political motivated white-flag story has blown up a pandora\u2019s box of unnecessary lies & controversies. What is similar is the rumors and foreign reports of mass killings in both Germany & Sri Lanka in the case of Jews in 1945 and Tamils in 2009. <\/strong><\/p>\n

All German leaders on trial steadfastly denied any extermination program. However, the world claims millions of Jews were massacred. A handful of Germans on trial for their own defense accepted the extermination story and denied their involvement. The \u2018Auschwitz\u2019 trials in 1963 was difficult because there were only witness \u2018testimonies\u2019 and nothing to verify and in some cases the dead turned up alive. By law it is illegal to challenge the holocaust story. The same slap may occur for Sri Lanka using the excuse of \u2018reconciliation\u201d!<\/p>\n

Some noteworthy quotes<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • US Senator Robert Taft the trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice\u201d \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026this whole judgement there is the spirit of vengeance and vengeance is seldom justice\u201d. That same vengeance is taking place against Sri Lanka because the monster created by India was defeated and all those who made hay using the LTTE were left high and dry accept frothing mad with vengeance & revenge. The hybrid court is that opportunity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      \n
    • Milton Konvitz (Jewish specialist of law & public administration\/New York University) Nuremberg Tribunal defies many of the most basic assumptions of the judicial process\u201d\u2026.\u201dour policy with respect to the Nazis is consistent with neither international law nor our own State Departments policy\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • William O Douglas (US Supreme Court Justice) I still think that the Nuremberg Trials were unprincipled. Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamour of the time\u201d. With the hyped propaganda built about 40,000 more killed or still missing, this forms the basis for war crimes when no one is able to produce the names of the supposed dead or missing and this question is conveniently brushed under the carpet by the UNSG & the OHCHR as well as the nations that supported LTTE terror!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          \n
        • Rear Admiral H Lamont Pugh (Navy Surgeon General) I thought the trials in general bordered upon international lunacy. I thought it particularly unfortunate, inappropriate, ill-conceived and dupably injudicious that the US should have been cast in the leading role as prosecutors and implementators of the Trials of the German participants or principals\u201d. Same is happening – the LTTE heads & all those involved in LTTE terror\/separatism are steering justice and accountability against Sri Lanka. The Nuremberg trials were a trial of the vanquished by the victors when the victors themselves committed the same or worse crimes than those they were accusing. Not a single word is being told about who in the LTTE will be held accountable other than the cadres who surrendered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
            \n
          • Robert Jackson (US Chief Prosecutor) in letter to President Truman wrote that the Allies have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of German prisoners of war that our command is takng back prisoners sent to them for forced labor in France. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practising it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest\u201d. Isnt India trying to do the same by using every diplomatic and economic leverage to turn Sri Lanka into an Indian colony?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
              \n
            • Werner Maser (Historian) thousands of documents which seemed likely possibly to incriminate the Allies and exonerate the defendants suddenly disappeared\u2026 there is much evidence that documents were confiscated, concealed from the defense or even stolen in 1945\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                \n
              • Von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister) the defense had no fair chance to defend German foreign policy. \u2026half of the 300 documents which the defense prepared were not admitted. Witness and affidavits were only admitted after the prosecution had been heard; most of them were rejected\u2026..only the prosecution not the defense, had access to German & foreign archives. The prosecution only searched for incriminating documents and their use was biased.\u201d Is the same not happening throughout the calls for submissions to the OHCHR & OISL investigations much of the evidence against LTTE, its fronts and players that supported LTTE has obviously gone into the dustbin without even an acknowledgement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                  \n
                • American judge, Edward L. Van Roden, one of the three members of an American Army Commission\u00a0“all but two of the Germans, in the 139 cases investigated, had been<\/strong> kicked in the testicles beyond repair. This was standard operation procedure with our American investigators.” \u2026.”Torture with burning matches driven under the prisoners’ fingernails; knocking out of teeth and breaking jaws; solitary confinement and near-starvation rations. The statements which were admitted as evidence were obtained from men who had first been kept in solitary confinement for three, four, and five months\u00a0\u2026”Low rank prisoners were assured that convictions were being sought only against higher ranking officers, and they had absolutely nothing to lose by co-operating and making the desired statements. Such ‘evidence’ was then used against them – when they joined their superiors in the dock. The latter were told on the other hand that by ‘confession’, they would take all responsibility onto their own shoulders, thus shielding their men from trial.” (how familiar this sounds)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                    \n
                  • “In my Judgment, the procedure by which the Nuremberg Tribunal was created and the criminal trials thereunder conducted, was completely fraught with illegality.” – William L. Hart, Supreme Court of Ohio (we continue to say the UNSG Panel of Expert is illegal and the foundation on which Resolutions against Sri Lanka has been drafted)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                      \n
                    • “I am glad our real military men had nothing to do with the travesty of justice that the lawyers and ‘statesmen’ conducted on Nuremberg.” – Rear Admiral Dan V. Gallery. U.S.N. (Ret.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                        \n
                      • “Hearsay evidence was admitted indiscriminately and sworn statements of witnesses were admissible regardless of whether anybody knew the person who made the statement or the individual who took the statement.” – George McDonough, American Lawyer, New York Times (this very newspaper today is part of the lie machine against Sri Lanka)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                          \n
                        • “… a fantastic desecration of the ideals of Western Civilisation, and appalling miscarriage of justice… a misuse of evidence for vicious ends, all of which will someday be exposed as a shocking travesty of high legal and moral principles.” – Henry M. Adams, Ph.D. Professor of History, University of California (why should we wait for decades later to be told Sri Lanka\u2019s hybrid court was illegal & all judgements illegal as well)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                            \n
                          • “…wholly unjustified and a disgrace to the national governments sanctioning it.” – Rear Admiral Reginald R. Belknap, U.S.N. Atlantic Fleet (If international laws are to be applied it cannot mean that powerful nations can violate them and hold only smaller nations accountable for crimes. Justice and not vengeance must take place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                            The travesty of justice in the Nuremberg Trials is clear. The crimes of the victors were conveniently brushed aside. The victor\u2019s self-righteousness never thought of applying the standards to their own conduct and crimes \u00a0and these crimes continue unabated.<\/p>\n

                            Nuremberg Trials saw the marriage of wicked minds coming together to deliver warped justice<\/strong>, yet saner voices did emerge in the form of a US Supreme Court judge Charles Wennerstrum who declared If I had known seven months ago what I know today, I would never have come here\u2019. \u2026\u201dmost of the evidence in the trials as documentary, selected from the large tonnage of captured records. \u2026the defence had access only to those documents which the prosecution considered material to the case\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

                            Another judge, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote \u2026I wonder how many of those who preside at the trials would justify some of the acts of their own governments if they were placed in the status of the accused\u201d\u2026..\u201dif we had been defeated the victors could plausibly assert that our supplying Britain with fifty destroyers was an act of aggression\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

                            Will India be ever put on trial as state sponsor of terrorism for creating the LTTE, will the Church accept accountability for its role in terrorism, or will US, Canada, UK and EU nations be held responsible for harbouring LTTE fronts & their leaders some nations actually gave safe have to LTTE cadres even after the conflict ended?<\/p>\n

                            When US Representative Lawrence Smith says the Nuremberg Trials are so repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon principles of justice that we must forever be ashamed of that page in our history\u2026 the Nuremberg farce represents a revenge policy at its worst\u2019.<\/strong> Should these same nations not ask themselves why they are setting out to repeat the same mistake against Sri Lanka 70 years after the Nuremberg Trials?<\/p>\n

                            \u00a0<\/strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                            Shenali D Waduge \u00a0Robert Jackson, Chief US prosecutor & former US Attorney General said that the Nuremberg Trials were a continuation of the war effort of the Allied nations\u201d how true is the same when the effort to separate Sri Lanka seems very much the goal now taking place through a new constitution for Sri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52848","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=52848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}