Global Peace Support Group

The architect of Tamil Genocide, Mahinda Rajapakse’s accession to a second term of office as president of the Democratic Republic of Sri-Lanka on 19 November,2010 would be seen as an outrage by millions of people who look to the United Nations for help to get freedom from state tyranny and ethnic cleansing. Mr Ban Ki Mun, the Secretary General of the UN that has primary responsibility under its Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security failed to stop the "volcanic" genocide of nearly 40000 Tamils civilians by the Sinhala government in its ‘No-Fire Zone’ in Mullivaikal in May 19 2009 in the fight against the LTTE. This genocide is the culmination of 60 years of "rolling" genocide of Tamils in the their Traditional Homeland (TH) of the North and East of Ceylon (Now called in Sinhala Sri-Lanka).

The Inner City Press and many public and Humanitarian organisations criticised Ban for not acting proactively to stop the massacre. Subsequently, Ban Ki Mun’s failure to act soon to bring the HR violators to book either at the UN or at the ICCJ is unpardonable. This UN debacle had given time and opportunity to the perpetrator of the heinous crime in modern history, MR to work his way ascend the presidency a second time. Having secured his position, he had made use of the power of office to whitewash the crime and sanitise those who assisted him in the crime against humanity by appointing them to high position in the UN and in his diplomatic corp.

The popular American English idiom ‘Never had it so good’ applies aptly to the schemer of the 40000 Tamil’s genocide of this century Mahinda Rajapakse (MR). Being the son of Hambantota D A Rajapakse a lackey of the Oxford educated SWRD Bandaranayake who descended from a Dravidian called Nayake Pandaram, he was a nonentity in politics when Maitripala Senanayake, C P De Silva and their elks were in the forefront of SLFP politics. Having followed his father in propping up their leaders, Mahinda Rajapakse waited for his turn to lead the SLFP that wrecked the country in numerous ways. Once MR got the leadership of the party all his acts were in fact a psychological sublimation. His personality trait of having the capacity to play Jackyl and Hyde helped him to reach the pinnacle of power, the Presidency, created by another UNP political outcast JR Jayawardene.

During the presidential election in 2005 which he won, he followed another Sinhala communalist late President Premadasa in political horse trading. He was reported to have bribed the LTTE Rupees 195 millions to prevent Tamils in voting for the opposition candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe and secured the presidency for himself. He came to power by hook or by crook. It did not matter to him that the means he used were fair or foul. He wanted only power.

Once in power, MR turned an iconoclast. He ignored the Bandaranayke policies and proclaimed a new philosophy “Mahinda Chintanaya”. The gist of the Chintanaya or thinking was borrowed ideas and none originally from the espouser. His aversion of Banda family instigated him to marginalise them. Banda’s political progeny ex president Chandrika Bandaranayake was not even sent invitation to attend SLFP party meetings at times. The remembrance days of the founder of the SLFP party was conducted as a minor ritual to keep him in power. Bandaranayake family that worked had for the Sinhala laity has been finally interned. Now billboards and paper headings always carry the photographs of the recently patented head of the new dynasty Mahinda Rajapakse. He fancies people calling him the new Duttu Gemunu the worrior king of yore who was credited with killing the Tamil King Elara.

King Elara (205 BC – 161 BC) ruled Sri-Lanka for nearly 44 years and was speared to death by Dutu-Gemunu when he (Elara) fell from his mounted elephant during the battle between them. Killing an opponent in front without any weapons to defend himself was a sin and was barred in war. It is akin to hitting below the belt in boxing parlance.

During his first five years as president from 19th November 2005- 18 Novemeber 2010 MR continued the racist policies of the post independent (1948) Sinhala leaders in politics like DS Senanayake, his son Dudley Senanayake, SWRD Bandaranayake, his wife Mrs Srima Bandaranayke, JR Jayawardene, R Premadasa and SWRD Bandaranayake’s daughter Chandrika Bandaranayake. There were rolling genocide of Tamils in their Tamil Homeland (TH) and Tamils elsewhere during the presidency or premiership of these Sinhalese leaders. Tamils were subjected to serious human rights violations, murder, rape and looting and misappropriation of their properties.

To recap the Sinhala extremism under different Sinhala heads we could site instances of clear denial of human rights to the Tamils. Immediately after independence in 1948, a million Tamil plantation workers (Tamils of Indian origin) lost their citizenships and rights to vote on a motion brought in by communalist Prime Minister, late D S Senanayake. A majority of these stateless Tamils were deported to South India in the 1960s and ’70s. The aim was to reduce the number of Tamils in the country and thereby reduce their political power. DS Senanayake also started colonisation schemes to settle Sinhalese in the Traditional Tamil Homelands, eg Galoya, Kantalai etc. This was cultural genocide. Late Dudley Senanayake promised to give District Council administration to the Tamils that gave some sort of political freedom and signed an agreement with the Tamil Leader of the TULF late Chelvanayagam and subsequently abrogated it. The Oxford educated communalist SWRD Bandaranayake instigated the first pogrom in 1958. In 1956, Solomon Bandaranaike came to power in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), on a majority Sinhala nationalist platform.

The new government passed the Sinhala Only Act, making Sinhala the sole official language of the country. This was done despite the fact that nearly a quarter of the population used Tamil as their primary language. The Act immediately triggered discontent among the Tamils, who perceived their language, culture, and economic position as being subject to an increasing threat. The riots and pogroms that followed due to the Sinhala only Act were, the Galoya riots of 1956 when a total number of 150 Tamils were reportedly murdered; the island wide communal riots of 1958 in which the total number of deaths was estimated to be 300, mostly Sri Lankan Tamils (Please see Tarzie Vitachchi’s book “Emergency 1958”; the 1977 riots over 300 Tamils were killed during these riots; and in the black July riots of 1983 between 400-3,000 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians were killed. Srima Bandaranayake in addition to causing ethnic cleansing also caused Sinhala colonisation schemes in the TH Trincomalee (named Srima Pura) and Vavuniya (named Padavia). She also caused a calculated intellectual genocide of Tamils by requiring Tamil students to score more marks to gain entry to university education. During her daughter Chandrika Bandaranayke regime Tamils were reduced to paupers by economic blockade and mass killing of Tamils in prisons and elsewhere. All these Sinhala heads of state were responsible for the rolling genocide.

Twenty five years ago on the 25th of July 1985 the world watched in horror, the vicious and the violent attacks against the Tamils in Sri Lanka. This genocide broke the camels back. Tamils left their land of birth as refugees elsewhere in the world. An extract taken from the Guardian of 28 July 1983 speaks for itself. “The riots began in retaliation for an ambush of an army patrol in Jaffna that left thirteen Sinhalese soldiers dead. The army immediately retaliated by randomly killing a number of innocent civilians in the Jaffna peninsula. This followed by an extensively organised anti-Tamil riot which initially started in Colombo soon spread to southern part of Sri Lanka where ever the Tamils lived. Sinhalese rioters in Colombo were provided with voter’s lists containing details of names and addresses to enable them to specifically target the Tamil Community.

The police, security forces, Buddhist monks and the State Officials turned a blind eye but encouraged the mobs and in some cases they themselves actively took part in the carnage. “Smoke from hundreds of shops, offices, warehouses and homes blew idly over Colombo yesterday. Any business, any house belonging to or occupied by a Tamil has been attacked by gangs of goondas and the resulting destruction looks like London after a heavy night’s attention from the Luftwaffe. The sharp smell of destruction fills the nostrils and the roads beneath the feet crunch with broken glass. Cars and lorries lie at ungainly angles across the footways. In Pettah, the old commercial heart of the city, row after row of sari boutiques, electronic dealers, rice sellers, car parts stores, lie shattered and scarred… government officials yesterday estimated that 20,000 businesses had been attacked in the city”.

This 1983 pogrom, which took 3000 lives and caused 150,000 Tamils to flee abroad, became the watershed that caused a majority of Sri Lankan Tamils to support the armed struggle for independence by the LTTE, waged since the 1970s. Western Nations that value human rights, such as UK, Canada, Holland, Germany, France, Australia, Switzerland and many other countries opened their gates to these persecuted Tamils.

Watching all these happenings, Professor of Social Anthropology, Massey University, New Zealand, Margaret Trawick said on 28 April 1996 "Sri Lanka is trying to kill or terrorize as many Tamil people as possible." How true she was?

Embarrassed by the exodus of refugees and in order to prevent the genocide issue becoming internationalized, the newly elected UNP government of Sri Lanka in 2002 under the premiership of Ranil Wickremasinghe signed a Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the freedom fighters the LTTE in February 2002. Both parties held six highly publicised rounds of talks mediated by the Norwegians. It is significant to note that this peace agreement was observed more in breach for five years. A peace monitoring mission was set up on 22 February 2002 to monitor violations. It was staffed with about 60 monitors, and was headed by the Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson. The head of the mission had pointed out that the Sri-Lankan government carried out serious human rights violations by bombing civilian targets like the Sencholai children refuge and education center where 63 female students trainee in first aid were annihilated. The current Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, determined to crush the Tamil Tigers, unilaterally pulled out of the CFA in January 2008 and started a full scale war in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

The peace talks were abandoned mainly due the pressure from Sinhalese nationalist coalition parties. Although some progress were made, namely Tamil Tigers agreeing to a federal model as an alternative to an independent Tamil state called Eelam. The government’s decision to abrogate the Norwegian-facilitated Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) signed with the LTTE in 2002 raised the gravest concern to the undersigned civil society organisations. Association of War Affected Women, Centre for Society and Religion,Centre for Human Rights and Development, Colombo, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Christian Alliance for Social Action, Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies, Equal Ground, Sri Lanka, INFORM Home for Human Rights, Colombo, Human Development Organization, Kandy, Human Rights Resource Center, Kandy, International Centre for Ethnic Studies- Colombo, International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism, Law & Society Trust, Mothers and Daughters of Lanka, Mannar Women for Human Rights and Democracy, Muslim Information Centre Sri Lanka, Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum, National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, Rights Now Collective for Democracy Setik, Kandy.

The government’s abrogation of the peace process was well known to the world and UN and the co-sponsors of the peace process- the aid giving nations to Sri-Lanka viz USA, Norway, Japan and the EU. They quite well knew that MR had embarked on the re-conquest of the North and East through brutal war with devastating consequences for the Tamil people. NGOs and HR organization warned of the impending danger and the human cost of this rabid maneuver. The UN or the Western states did nothing to prevent the expected genocide. An international cooperate failure in modern times to stop a fresh genocide in the new century. The HR declaration that was aimed at genocide ‘never again’ happened again in Sri-Lanka with the full knowledge of the UN and the enlightened Western world. Leave alone the undeveloped world.

MR committed the worst War Crimes of this Century in May 19, 2009 in the war against the LTTE in front of the world and UN under Ban Ki Mun. According to the then permanent resident representative of the UN in Sri-Lanka, Mr Gordon Weiss the number that lost their life on May 2009 alone in the genocide was 40000 Tamils. The gruesome murders was carried out in the most cruel way without discriminating the weak, the infirm, the sick, the elderly and disabled, the children and women who took shelter in the ‘No-Fire Zone’ declared by the government with the approval of the UN. There is unshakeable evidence to prove the commission of war crimes in the form of photographs, videos, and satellite pictures even though MR government took very secret methods to prevent leaks of the genocide. The popular press described the war as ‘War Without Witnesses’ and one UN staff called it the “Blood Bath on the Beaches”.

Mahatma Gandhi like many religious prophets believed that Truth always triumphed. The mobile phone photos and videos broadcasted by Channel 4 news in the UK was reported to be the last nail in MR coffin of untruths The UN under Ban Ki Mun clutch is delaying or neglecting action on the Sri-Lankan war crimes and crimes against Humanity. This procrastination had given ample time to MR to secure a second term of office as president of Sri-Lanka. By assuming the presidency under a cloud of suspicions MR had put UN in shame. Ban had become a prop to MR to stay in power so he could white wash his crime and purify the committers of crimes by posting them to respectable public appointments such as ambassadors and UN permanent representative. The UK press reported that the Sri-Lankan government had appointed a public relation firm Bell Pottinger, to spin and create a respectable image for Sri-Lanka. The Sunday Leader, a Sri-Lankan news paper, in an article titled Temple Trees Crown Prince on 11 December 2010 announced that MR was touring Britain to address the Oxford Union with the main purpose of certainly trying to avail himself of a photo opportunity with the British Prime Minister.

The paper further added that the Sri Lanka High Commission in Britain is spending lavishly, paying large sums of monies to PR companies there to obtain this photo opportunity. Yet the negative reports received indicate that the huge efforts and expenditure may not reap the intended benefits.

But Ban Ki Mun must remember what Shakespere’s character Macbeth asked his wife Lady Macbeth “Will Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” Any amount of Ban Ki Mun’s support will not wash the Tamil’s blood from MR’s sinful hands and he will have to face the consequences of his dastardly crime at the ICC. The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka that sat in mid January 2010, in Dublin Ireland, found that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed by the Sri Lankan State and its armed forces. It recommended further investigations to ascertain if genocide has been committed. It also found USA and UK guilty of destabilising the peace process based on the 2020 ceasefire agreement.

US President Barrack Obama on Friday June 6 2009 suggested that other nations must take action against the genocide in Sri Lanka according to a report filed by the Associated Press. Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group (May 30 2010) suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths. This evidence also provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of The Elders said: “The government of Sri Lanka needs to show a much greater commitment to achieving meaningful reconciliation. The ongoing persecution and disappearances of human rights activists, journalists and government opponents is truly terrifying.

“Unfortunately, previous internal commissions have done little to reveal the truth behind human rights abuses. It is doubtful that the President’s ‘Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission’ will help Sri Lankans to work towards lasting peace and reconciliation.”

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General said: “There has been a deafening global silence in response to Sri Lanka’s actions, especially from its most influential friends. The international community cannot be selective in its approach to upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights. Impunity anywhere is a threat to international peace and security everywhere.”

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Mun should recollect that when he visited Sri Lanka shortly after the conflict ended in May 2009, President Rajapaksa promised him that his government would investigate. He had now appointed a LLRC. This commission is far short of a criminal investigation commission according to legal experts Please also see Desmond Tutu’s statement on the LLRC. This commission is a time waster to frustrate the Tamils in their quest for justice to their kith and kins. The ball is now in Ban Ki-moon’s court: he should establish an independent international investigation to establish the truth of what happened in Sri Lanka, an essential step toward accountability for the serious crimes committed there. Owing to the lapse of the UN the attitude of the Sinhalese had become hardened and they believe that they can get away with mass murder. Let us see what the media’s view on this.

The Economist of 18 November 2010 titled “A coronation in Sri Lanka.Beating the drum” goes on commenting on the irony of events i(n Sri-Lanka) a global perspective in a modest style, “The country’s Sinhalese majority is in no mood to seek an accommodation with the minority Tamils. Quite the reverse. Earlier plans for more regional power have been scrapped and the government seems to be using the army to help shift more Sinhalese people into Tamil-dominated regions. Tamils are too fearful to resist. Neither they nor outsiders such as the United Nations are able to force a proper inquiry into growing evidence that in the last days of the war the army killed perhaps tens of thousands of Tamil soldiers and civilians. This week the government dismissed video footage of massacres, broadcast by Al Jazeera, as fake. Elaine Pearson writing in web page www.guardian.co.uk in an article titled “There must be an authoritative Sri Lankan war crimes inquiry” stated that UK government had recently declared openly and officially that there should be an international inquiry into the alleged war crimes that was committed in May 2009 when nearly 40000 Tamils became victims of state terrorism in the ‘No fire zone’ and many more became seriously injured. She further pointed out that the Sri-Lankan government has hired the UK’s premier public relations firm, Bell Pottinger, to spin its story and salvage its reputation, said to be for almost £3m a year”, We the HR activists and the Tamil Diaspora categorically state that the UN must give no time to a rogue regime to change the opinion of the world through spin. UN under Ban Ki Mun hopes that Mahinda’s term will offer him a change to gain respectability in the world is a mirage in view of the mounting evidence provided by true Buddhist Sinhalese and HR activists.

Ban Ki Mun should take note that the Security Council has primary responsibility, under UN Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security. It is so organized as to be able to function continuously, and a representative of each of its members must be present at all times at United Nations Headquarters When a complaint concerning a threat to peace is brought before it, the Council’s first action is usually to recommend to the parties to try to reach agreement by peaceful means. Failing which the Council itself can undertakes investigation and mediation. It may appoint special representatives or request the Secretary-General to do so or to use his good offices. It may set forth principles for a peaceful settlement.

When a dispute leads to fighting, the Council’s first concern is to bring it to an end as soon as possible. On many occasions, the Council has issued cease-fire directives which have been instrumental in preventing wider hostilities. It also sends United Nations peace-keeping forces to help reduce tensions in troubled areas to keep opposing forces apart and create conditions of calm in which peaceful settlements may be sought. The Council may decide on enforcement measures, economic sanctions (such as trade embargoes) or collective military action if these means fail.

When an issue had gone beyond this threshold of action the next step is to go to the ICC. Will UN move fast to bring to book the war criminals to justice in ICC?

Courtesy: TamilCanadian

Published on: Dec 13, 2010 12:40:24 GMT

http://www.tamilcanadian.com/article/6009