{"id":70836,"date":"2017-10-20T13:16:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T20:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=70836"},"modified":"2017-10-20T13:17:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T20:17:56","slug":"war-crimes-gr-highlights-confusion-over-civilian-death-toll-very-basis-of-move-to-change-constitution-disputed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/10\/20\/war-crimes-gr-highlights-confusion-over-civilian-death-toll-very-basis-of-move-to-change-constitution-disputed\/","title":{"rendered":"War crimes: GR highlights confusion over civilian death toll \u2018Very basis of move to change Constitution disputed\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Wartime Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said that the very basis of the controversial Geneva Resolution 30\/1 had been strongly disputed by Michael Morris, Baron Naseby, PC, during a debate on Sri Lanka in the British parliament Thursday last week.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka co-sponsored Resolution 30\/1 in Oct 2015, in spite of the Foreign Ministry rejecting the same the month before.<\/p>\n

In accordance with that co-sponsored declaration, Sri Lanka had accepted foreign judges as well as other experts in the proposed war crimes courts, Rajapaksa said, adding that Baron Naseby\u2019s statement was timely and couldn\u2019t have been made at a better time as an attempt was being made to introduce a new Constitution to address accountability issues.<\/p>\n

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Wartime Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary has intervened in the wake of the media drawing heavy fire over recent coverage of joint statement issued by Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters objecting to the constitution making process.<\/p>\n

War veteran Rajapaksa said that Baron Naseby, having challenged the much touted unsubstantiated allegations pertaining to the killing of 40,000 civilians during the last phase of the offensive on the Vanni east front, had urged Theresa May\u2019s government to accept a much lower casualty figure of 7,000 to 8,000.The former Defence Secretary said so when\u00a0The Island\u00a0asked him whether he was aware of the request made by Baron Naseby, who launched the all-party parliamentary group on Sri Lanka eight years before outbreak of war in 1983.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion in May 2009.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa said the international community couldn\u2019t ignore Baron Naseby\u2019s request to the May government to convince the UN as well as the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to accept casualty figure of 7,000 to 8,000.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa said that Baron Naseby\u2019s request should be examined against the backdrop of the UK being a member of the UNHRC with a membership of 47 countries. The UK represents Western Europe and Other States, a grouping that pushed strongly for war crimes probe against Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary said the British government\u2019s response to Baron Naseby\u2019s call really surprised him. Instead of reiterating the government\u2019s commitment to the main allegation that had been widely quoted by many, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon-Conservative Party)\u00a0had said that though there were discrepancy in the number of civilians killed, \u2018 a number of civilians died in the final stages of the war and there were still serious allegations of human rights abuses against both the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers\u2019.<\/p>\n

The minister had refrained from responding to Baron Naseby suggestion that the rules of engagement in respect of Sri Lanka\u2019s war against terrorism were based on international humanitarian law not on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights, Rajapaksa pointed out.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa regretted the fact that the government nor political parties represented in parliament hadn\u2019t so far reacted to the Baron Naseby\u2019s statement in spite of it being extremely useful in Geneva. Those who had been demanding transparent investigations on behalf of the civil society as well as foreign human rights groups, too, had so far remained silent, he said.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary emphasized that as accusations regarding 40,000 civilian deaths claimed by UN Panel of Experts (POE) in its March 2011 report remained the primary charge, there was no harm in reviewing available data. Baron Naseby has underscored the need to compare wartime dispatches from the British High Commission in Colombo, ground survey undertaken by the UN mission in Colombo and a survey conducted by the previous government over claims of 40,000 civilian deaths. Rajapaksa said that perhaps the most important document of all was the UN ground survey that dealt with the situation in the Vanni from Aug 2008 to May 13, 2009.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa pointed out that on the basis of the Geneva Resolution, UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid bin Ra\u2019ad Zeid al-Hussein\u00a0had recommended a new Constitution for Sri Lanka subject to a referendum. The former Defence Secretary said that those who had accepted Geneva Resolution 30\/1 under pressure couldn\u2019t remain silent in the wake of Baron Naseby\u2019s call.<\/p>\n

Responding to another query, Rajapaksa said the parliament here had allocated three days (Oct 30, 31 and\u00a0Nov 1) to debate constitutional reforms, whereas the entire process leading to that situation was now debatable due to dispute over the main allegation.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa said that Baron Naseby had quite rightly reminded the British folly in allowing British national of Sri Lankan origin Anton Balasingham to inspire Tamil terrorism. Rajapaksa recalled how Balasingham had received British citizenship for having worked for the British High Commission in Colombo.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary appreciated the British Lord for going on record how the Tamil Diaspora and a section of the Tamil media as well as \u2018Killing Fields\u2019 produced by UK outfit Channel 4 had influenced the British government in the wake of the LTTE\u2019s battlefield defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island Wartime Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said that the very basis of the controversial Geneva Resolution 30\/1 had been strongly disputed by Michael Morris, Baron Naseby, PC, during a debate on Sri Lanka in the British parliament Thursday last week. Sri Lanka co-sponsored Resolution 30\/1 in Oct 2015, in spite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70836","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=70836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}