{"id":98490,"date":"2020-01-31T15:31:46","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T22:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98490"},"modified":"2020-01-31T15:31:46","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T22:31:46","slug":"sri-lanka-human-rights-in-grave-peril","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/31\/sri-lanka-human-rights-in-grave-peril\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka – Human Rights in Grave Peril"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ira de Silva Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The Editor,
Human Rights Watch
New York,N.Y.
U.S.A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 At the outset it is\nimportant to state that the so-called “war” in Sri Lanka was one that\nwas waged by the terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam\n(LTTE) which had the dubious distinction of being classed as the most violent\nterrorist group at the time, against the democratically elected Government of\nSri Lanka, with the goal of dividing the country to establish a fascist, Tamil\nonly state in the north and east of Sri Lanka comprising one third of the\ncountry. The LTTE was an internationally designated group banned by the UNSC\nand 32 countries. The protracted war was funded by LTTE supporters in Europe,\nCanada, the U.S. and Australia and supported by these countries just to get\nvotes of LTTE supporters in their countries. Western countries never had any\ninterest in helping Sri Lanka defeat the Tamil terrorists, Sri Lanka had to do\nit alone. This was at a time that the international community was broadcasting\ntheir “war on terrorism”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the security forces of the Government of Sri\nLanka, without any help from these western countries, finally managed to engage\nthe LTTE and forced it to retreat from west to east, the LTTE compelled Tamil\ncivilians to move with them to be used for their labour and serve as a human\nshield. In the final stages when it became clear that the LTTE would be\ndefeated, all that the western countries wanted was to negotiate a safe passage\nfor the LTTE leader and his hard core fighters. This effort was led by the U.S.\nambassador to Sri Lanka, Mr. R. Blake. This action merely confirmed the fact\nthat the western countries supported LTTE interests, not the people of Sri\nLanka who were the victims of Tamil terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resolution Number 30\/1 of October 1, 2015 was adopted by the UNHRC\nagainst Sr Lanka based on an imaginary figure of civilian deaths which were\nnever proven or based of facts. The UN Resident Representative in Colombo\nreported a total of 7,721 killed between the end of August 2008 and May 13,2009\nbased on information from selected sources on the ground including Tamil\nemployees of UN agencies whom the LTTE refused to release. TamilNet, the\npropaganda arm of the LTTE stated the number as 7398. Amensty claimed a total\nof 10,000 killed, the U.K. Sunday Times reporter, who only flew over the last\nbattleground with Ban Ki Moon on May 25,2009 claimed 20,000 killed and later\nthis figure increased to 40,000 killed. The pro-LTTE reporter Francis Harrison\nmust be still be looking for the dead to count as she believed that 70,000 to\n140,000 may have been killed but to  date has not indicated how many she\nhas counted. The fact is that these numbers kept increasing based on the\nclaimant\u2019s need to exaggerate and dramatise but there was no substantiation or\nproven facts to back these claims. The number of genuine civilians killed is\nunknown because none of the published figures distinguish between combatants,\nLTTE auxiliary forces and non-combatant civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The myth of 20,000, 40,000 killed is resurrected\nwhenever the organizations and countries that supported the LTTE make\nrepresentations at the UN in Geneva.  The pro-LTTE Yasmin Sooka, a Tamil\nfrom South Africa who is closely linked  with the Tamil lobby, attends\npropaganda meetings organized by the pro-LTTE groups, surfaces regularly in\ntime for the Human Rights sessions in Geneva. She has benefited by her openly\npartisan approach and received a grant of twenty-five million Euros for a NGO\nheaded by her in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012 the Government of Sri Lanka carried\nout  a census carried out by Tamil school teachers and public servants in\nthe north  to find out the number killed in the last stages of the war.\nThey established a number of 7,432 excluding those who had died of natural\ncauses. TamilNet, the propaganda arm of the LTTE stated that the total killed\nduring the period January 1,2009 to May 2009 was 7398. This proves that the\nfigures from LTTE propagandists of 40,000 to 100,000 is merely a figment of\ntheir imagination. To date, there are no graves, no dead bodies to substantiate\ntheir fictitious numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nquestion that the UN needs to answer is why Sri Lanka is being harassed by the\nUN  and\norgsnizations such as yours and attempts continue to interfere in Sri Lanka’s\ninternal affairs. Until the UN does and discredits your reports and opinions,\nSri Lanka will be subjected to the same lies and myths for the next sessions in\nGeneva. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I. de Silva<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Ira de Silva Canada The Editor,Human Rights WatchNew York,N.Y.U.S.A.  At the outset it is important to state that the so-called “war” in Sri Lanka was one that was waged by the terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which had the dubious distinction of being classed as the most violent terrorist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ira-de-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98490","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=98490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}