{"id":86668,"date":"2019-03-22T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T00:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86668"},"modified":"2019-03-22T17:32:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T00:32:12","slug":"usla-spokepersons-report%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/03\/22\/usla-spokepersons-report%ef%bb%bf\/","title":{"rendered":"USLA Spokepersons Report\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM <\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

4\/18\nto 3\/19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it\u2019s inception over three decades ago USLA has fervently\nfurthered  it\u2019s main founding objective\nviz. doing what it takes to support Sri Lanka in preserving it\u2019s independent\nand unitary status. Through USLA\u2019s \nexistence , the main threat to this came from the violent terrorism of\nthe Tamil Tigers and the devious and vicious misinformation from them. With the\ncomplete annihilation of the Tigers as a fighting force in Sri Lanka in May\n2009, USLA continued it\u2019s role in the countering Tiger misinformation that now\ntook an even more devious form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was initiated within days of their been vanquished in the fields\nand lagoons of Nandikadal by an internationally orchestrated allegation that\nthis victory was achieved through HR violations claiming  a civilian casualty rate of over 40,000 in\nthe last few weeks of the war, a number far in excess of what could be\nexplained on the basis of collateral damage and suggesting targeted shooting of\nTamil civilians. They found powerful allies in furthering these in  the UNSG appointed Darusman commission who\nconcurred with this allegation  having\nheard from the Tigers only and not Sri Lanka, and UK Channel four who produced\nthe film Sri Lanka Killing Fields\u201d ,based on film strips, unauthored,\nundated, & from unknown sites showing acts of brutality, blaming it all on\nthe Sri Lanka forces through a very effective commentary from producer Jon\nSnow. These allegations were orchestrated internationally and nationally with\nJoseph Gobellian zeal , that propounded that any lie, repeated frequently\nenough would eventually be believed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was my role as your spokesperson, in the past decade to counter these\nallegation at every opportunity with the media, politicians and even included\nthe screening of the counter film lies Agreed Upon\u201d in the NZ parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Importantly, I mustered the evidence supporting the impossibility\nof these allegations being true, including the fact that there were no where\nnear that number of bodies identified post war, nor were there any where near\nthe 120,000 injured as would be expected based on the internationally\nestablished injured to casualty ratio in war. Additionally, the initial estimate\nof the UN resident representatives suggested \na figure of seven thousand which tallied with figure of a census carried\nout for the dept of census in 2012 by Resident Tamil  Teachers of the region. Even  more strong counter evidence came from\nWIKILEAKS  leaked documents from the  defence attaches of both the the UK and Us\nembassies in SL who confirmed that the SL forces were exercising every care to\nsafeguard Civilians without which the war might have been over much earlier\nwith significantly less casualties for the SL forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the change of govt in SL in Jan 2015, the field changed\nsignificantly with the new govt almost carrying the torch for the tigers , co\nsponsoring the infamous resolution asking for foreign judges to hear cases\nagainst security personnel  accused of\nengineering  civilian disappearances. and\nseeking  a new constitution that would\nweaken SL\u2019s unitary status . These calls for foreign judges raises the specter\nof another Darusman Like Commission\u201d open to being influenced by the Tiger\nwar chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, even this week the SL govt \nreinforced this commitment rather than orchestrate arguments sighted\nearlier by me  and the report of the\nParanagama Commission   whose findings\nendorsed  by three international legal\nluminaries , clearly concluded against there being any war crimes by the SL\nforces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The even greater disappointment \nfor most Sri Lankans was the failure to present and table  Lord Naseby\u2019s revelations in October 2017 at\nthe UK house of Lords clearly establishing \nthat the civilian casualties were more of the order of 5000, and not\n40,000 , so leaving no basis for the UNHCR resolution and so calling for it\u2019s\nwithdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Sri Lankan govt \narguably, being the greatest threat to the SL\u2019s unitary status, in my\nposition as USLA spokesperson, my hands were rather tied this year. However,\nthe political machinations in SL of the last few months would suggest that, SL\nmay soon let go of the Tiger Torch , & leave the likes of me in more\nfamiliar territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM\n23.3.19<\/strong>    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM 4\/18 to 3\/19 Since it\u2019s inception over three decades ago USLA has fervently furthered  it\u2019s main founding objective viz. doing what it takes to support Sri Lanka in preserving it\u2019s independent and unitary status. Through USLA\u2019s  existence , the main threat to this came from the violent terrorism of the Tamil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86668","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=86668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}