{"id":57586,"date":"2016-08-13T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T22:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57586"},"modified":"2016-08-13T15:28:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T22:28:42","slug":"mechanism-for-justice-or-revenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/13\/mechanism-for-justice-or-revenge\/","title":{"rendered":"mechanism for justice or revenge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Whether we agree or not, Hybrid Courts may be a reality that we have to accept. Obviously, abusive or excessive force, or irregularities cannot be tolerated – even in war. However, the true intention of the proposed hybrid courts comes to question when the Human Rights Council is only interested in specific incidents alleged to have been committed by the Sri Lankan security forces. The terrorists’ role in the war crimes committed systematically and on a mass scale has not come into question. Thus, the military and legal opinion of many respective bodies is that the Hybrid Courts’ objective is to seek revenge while dismantling the national security of the country.<\/p>\n

One person who advocates Hybrid Courts’ is Dr. Nihal Jayawickrema. “HRC had not said to investigate the conduct of the war,” he explains. “They have identified certain events and have asked these to be investigated. For example, they have identified the recruitment of child soldiers before and after Karuna Amman defected – that means, after he was made a minister.<\/p>\n

“Then, they have identified certain deaths such as the killing of the people who had communicated to the government that they wanted to surrender and the killing of the TV announcer. Then certain deaths that were supposed to have occurred after the war. They also talk of disappearances, which have been reported since early 2000 and of summary executions<\/p>\n

Evidence<\/strong>
\n“Who’s going to investigate these charges? And who’s going to present the evidence to whatever tribunal is established?
\n“Clearly, they have not been investigated all these years. Police were most probably instructed not to pursue these matters. Now, we ask them to go ahead. I don’t know whether they have the capacity to investigate these offenses that have taken place many years ago.<\/p>\n

“Attorney-General’s Department officers regularly went before the HRC and refuted very strongly all claims that crimes against humanity or war crimes were taking place. On disappearances, Mohan Peiris said that to his knowledge Ekneligoda is in some foreign country.
\n“Now we are expecting the same people to take a completely different line and argue that there is credible evidence that these acts were committed.”<\/p>\n

The list of crimes allegedly committed by the military is of isolated incidents. Conversely, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) committed crimes against humanity systematically and on a mass scale. For instance, during the final months, they forcibly held over 300,000 civilians as a human buffer against the advancing Army. Their purpose was to detract the military onslaught and to use the collateral damage as evidence of war crimes.
\nThe military stands accused of shooting and killing two notable terrorists \u2013 Balasingham Nadesan and Pulidevan, while surrendering to the military with a white flag. Though the veracity is not established, the charge has earned the opprobrium of the West-led international community. However, the same community is not overtly concerned with the 600 plus Police personnel massacred in 1990 by the LTTE after the then government forced them to surrender.
\n“Of course, these may amount to war crimes,” agrees Dr. Jayawickrema. “But who are you going to investigate? Who are you going to bring to Court, who are you going to take to trial?”
\nSeparatists organizations<\/strong>
\nAs Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera states, only the separatists organizations’ terrorist arm was destroyed. Its brains and claws are intact and alive in the West. For instance, Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, has functioned as a legal advisor to the LTTE terrorists since 2002. Now as a New York based lawyer, he has represented thousands of LTTE bogus refugees. Since the annihilation of the terrorist arm, he has appointed himself as the PM of the so-called Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam.
\n“Was Rudrakumaran involved in combat?” asks Dr. Jayawickrema.” In criminal liability, you can’t find a person guilty of a crime unless that person committed an act with the intention of committing that act.”<\/p>\n

Can the pro-LTTE sympathizes who raised funds, often forcibly, and provided other vital support to the terrorist and subversive activities back in Sri Lanka be excused on the basis that they were not in the battle grounds? After all, fundraisers knew monies were not raised to build schools or develop agriculture, but to kill civilian men, women and children of all ages, ethnic groups and creed and to wage war against a legitimate government.<\/p>\n

Conflicts<\/strong>
\n“There was a conflict,” states Dr. Jayawickrema. “There are rules governing conflicts. The Geneva Convention applies to domestic conflicts as well. There would have been violations – maybe from both sides. The question is what happens now. Are we going to conduct a general inquiry into the whole conflict?<\/p>\n

“The HRC says that certain serious violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws were committed by both sides. So, there must be accountability. Now, as far as what the LTTE did, if you can produce people who were responsible for those acts, I think they must answer for them, but who’s there to do that?
\n“If those who gave orders to hold 300,000 hostages survived, then they can be held accountable. You have to identify the individuals. You can’t bring a man from Washington or some place and say he must be investigated.
\n“Normally, in post-conflict criminal proceedings, it is not the foot soldiers who are held accountable. It is the people up the chain of command who gave the orders. That’s the normal practice.
\n“Now somebody may have given an order that people instructed to carry a white cloth should be killed. Did someone from Colombo give such an order? If not, did some very senior officer on the spot take the decision to kill people who were seeking to surrender? Were the commanders on the ground informed that certain people wanted to surrender? Those are the questions that have arisen.<\/p>\n

Accountability
\n“That’s where accountability comes in. I don’t think it extends to people who raised funds abroad or people who formed so-called governments and so on. Unfortunately, there’s no one surviving in the LTTE. If Prabhakaran was alive, he’ll have to account for thousands of deaths. But, none of those leaders are alive now. You can’t bring a dead person for trial. A person who is brought to trial has a right to defend himself.”<\/p>\n

If the victims of terrorists cannot seek justice simply on the basis that the perpetrators did not survive, trying those who ushered in peace and unity to the country, merely because they survived is callous and partial to the terrorists.
\nAfter the World War II, it is alleged that over 160,000 German women were sexually assaulted by the Allied forces. Likewise, a catastrophic humanitarian crisis was created when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after firebombing hundreds of Japanese towns with absolutely no military significance. Hamburg is Germany’s second largest city. During July 1943, firebombing by the Allied Forces killed 42,600 civilians and wounded 37,000, virtually destroying most of the city.<\/p>\n

Chemical warfare<\/strong>
\nThe Vietnam War was a chemical warfare. Its effects, just as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remain gruesome to date with high rates of stillborn, deformed children and radiation induced diseases such as cancer.
\nWar crimes committed in Iraq, Afghanistan and the washing-off-hands after the Libyan mess and their current role in Syria shows that the West not only have failed to accept responsibility for their actions, but also refuse to learn from their atrocities.
\nThe ‘New York Times’ makes interesting observations on Barack Obama’s visit as the first American President to the Hiroshima memorial site. Obama notes, “Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us, such technology requires a moral revolution as well.” Still, despite the victims’ pressure to apologize for the mass scale atrocity, ‘Obama did not apologize, he made clear that Japan, despite a highly advanced culture, was to blame for the war.’<\/p>\n

Japan’s deepest wound
\n“Leaders in both China and South Korea worry that Obama’s visit to Japan’s deepest wound could be taken by the Japanese as an endpoint to their country’s efforts to come to grips with their own wartime atrocities.
\n“Many historians believe that the bombings on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, which together took the lives of more than 200,000 people, saved lives since an invasion of the islands would have led to far greater bloodshed.<\/p>\n

“A short inscription on the park’s memorial arch reads, in part, “We shall not repeat the evil.” Which evil – the bombing or the conflict itself – and who is to blame are left unsaid. Such failures by the Japanese to acknowledge their own role in the bombings have long bothered the Chinese, Koreans and others who suffered under the empire’s rule. “The Chinese Government suggested that the wartime atrocities committed by Japan on Chinese soil, notably in the city of Nanjing, deserved more attention than the bombing of Hiroshima.”
\nIn Sri Lanka, the scale of atrocities is lower, but the parallelism cannot be denied. The LTTE lost the right to claim any legitimate grievances as reasons for terrorism when they spurned political solutions offered by India in the late 1980s as well as the lucrative ‘package’ offered by President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2005.
\nThe Japanese WW II record is terrible. So is the conduct of the LTTE during its entire existence. Thus, the war was brought on by the LTTE itself. The United Nations and the West-led international community failed to pressurize the fund raisers and supportive sympathizers in the West to curtail the terrorist activities of the LTTE.
\nWhile collateral damage remains a disputed topic, the benefits of ending the war are remarkable.<\/p>\n

Specific allegations<\/strong>
\nYet, HRC is highlighting only specific allegations, like the so-called white flag case, even after it was retracted by the very person who propagated it. The clear intention is to bring criminal charges against the accused. Hasn’t HRC thereby wittingly or unwittingly taken the LTTE atrocities out of the picture?
\nThese allegations are currently being investigated. It should be, but with due consideration that is sorely lacking presently. Military personnel over the killing of politician and HR lawyer Nadarajah Raviraj, were the first to be detained, followed by the detention of nine military intelligence personnel for the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda. A few months later, one-time hardcore LTTE terrorist Pillayan who ditched terrorism for mainstream politics was arrested over the killing of MP for the Batticaloa District Joseph Pararajasingham. Recently, another intelligence officer was taken in for the killing of Lasantha Wickrematunga.
\nInterestingly though, the suspect for Wickrematunga’s killing is the sole survivor of the Millennium City fiasco. Separatists have a score to settle with Pillayan for his defection and direct involvement in bringing the terrorist outfit down. Those taken for Ekneligoda’s case were involved in the highly sensitive Operation Double Edge, where terrorists who escaped capture were convinced to work with government forces to prevent a recurrence of terrorism, instead of regrouping. The government has failed to understand the damage caused to the Military Intelligence, which is a country’s first line of defence, by the clumsy investigations. Post-independent Sri Lankan history reveals that successive governments have failed to appreciate the importance of intelligence services, even as the LTTE did. The LTTE provided a vital clue in this regard in the infamous Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2002 when they demanded cessation of such operations. After the war, one-time high-ranking LTTE terrorist, ‘Col’ Thamilini, too mentions in her memoirs the lethal effect military intelligence had on their operations. Yet, even with the benefit of hindsight, the penny has not yet dropped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today Whether we agree or not, Hybrid Courts may be a reality that we have to accept. Obviously, abusive or excessive force, or irregularities cannot be tolerated – even in war. However, the true intention of the proposed hybrid courts comes to question when the Human Rights Council is only interested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57586","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=57586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}