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Vijay Nambiar speaks to reporters before he leaves Rangoon in November 2010 (Reuters)

Acting UN special envoy to Burma, Vijay Nambiar, is facing calls from two Sri Lankan rights group to be included in an investigation into the army’s execution of surrendering Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.

The charges were submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the US-based Tamil’s Against Genocide (TAG) and the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET). They refer to Nambiar’s time as the UN’s Chief of Staff when he was sent to Colombo to aid negotiations towards an end to the country’s lengthy civil war.

Following instructions from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in May 2009 Nambiar told surrendering Tamil Tigers that they would be safe to cross no-mans land if they hoisted a white flag. “Just walk across to the troops, slowly! With a white flag and comply with instructions carefully. The soldiers are nervous about suicide bombers,” said a text from foreign secretary Palitha Kohona, sent via the Red Cross.

But in what has come to be known as the ‘white flag incident’, all were gunned down in what observers say would be tantamount to a war crime.

Nambiar’s complicity or involvement in the incident, which Rajapaksa later triumphed in, is yet to be fully investigated. Sri Lankan opposition politician and then-chief of the Sri Lankan Army, Sarath Fonseka, claimed in an interview that there was a direct order from then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to shoot dead the entire leadership of the Tamil Tigers.

Fonseka is now in jail following the claims and his attempt to oppose Mahinda Rajapaksa in the subsequent polls.

The submission by the two groups, TAG and SCET, asks “whether VIJAY NAMBIAR was in fact an innocent neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the negotiation-related community.

It also pours doubt on the efficacy of Nambiar’s presence there, given that his brother, Satish Nambiar, was at the time working as an advisor to the Sri Lankan military, as well as questioning his “subjective knowledge” of the Sri Lankan Army’s “widely (or routinely) adhered to policy of executing surrendering [Tamil] combatants, after generally blindfolding and stripping them naked”.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has however rejected calls for an inquiry into Nambiar, despite the Chief of Staff’s own assertion in May 2009 that, “As far as the UN is concerned, where there are grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law [in Sri Lanka], these are things which should be looked at by the international community, by the United Nations.”

This reluctance of senior members of the UN to investigate possible human rights violations will likely concern Burma observers, particularly given that Than Shwe visited Sri Lanka shortly before the incident and is alleged to have offered his Sri Lankan counterpart anti-insurgency “advice”.

Nambiar was in Burma shortly after the elections in November last year to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of the junta.

Tags: burma, myanmar, nambiar, sri lanka, tamil

Author: JOSEPH ALLCHIN              Category: News, Politics

Comments

  1. Tamil Victim says:

    February 25, 2011 at 12:33 pm

    There is very clear,pure, and undoubtfull war crimes. Not only members of Srilanka State terrorism but also India and UNO(Vijey Nambier, sathes Nambier, Ban Ki Moon, Soniya gandhi, Narayanan, Sivashagar Menon, Manmohan Singh, and Karunanithi) all are guilty.

  2. Ram chetty says:

    February 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    International community cares two hoots about the barbarious murder of 40,000 + Tamils in which Nambiar brothers are guilty to the hilt. They want to send a force to Libya to protect the oil in pretext of prtecting the people. Why this double standard. Rajapakse too bombed his people who took asylum in Church as instructed by the army. Proved beyond doubt by channel 4 video that autnedicated by US of extra judicial killing of Tamil prisoners and yet visited USA and he was not arrested. Why this double standard?

  3. Billa says:

    February 25, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    Nambiar is an Indian thief. He was colluding with the Indian intelligence agency (the RAW) and the Sri Lankan government to massacre Tamils in Sri lanka.

  4. Ray says:

    February 25, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    Ban and Nambiar are in UN to serve their own purpose. People like them make the victims who seek for justice to give up on the great organization UN.
    If they know something about the war crimes, I would say that these 2 are equally guily as the Srilankan forces.

  5. Sri says:

    February 25, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    From all what is known, especially in his involvement in the Sri Lankan massacre, Myanmar politicians for freedom, huamn rights and justice better be careful as he is an ‘establishments man’.
    Hopefully the ICC will consider that he examined at that Court to clear the air. Justice is long overdue by his involvement in Sri Lanka.

  6. t. piriyan says:

    February 25, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    Vijay Nambiar, Chief of Staff to Ban. Ban’s son-in-law is an Indian Army officer. Retired Army officer Satish Nambiar is Vijays’s brother. Satish Nambiar is a paid consultant to Sri Lanka Army Generals. Now how can you expect this cozy club to deliver justice to Tamils?

  7. sunthar says:

    February 25, 2011 at 10:06 pm

    Not only the article but also the opinions are clear tetimony for the ineficency of a great caretaker of humans,the so called UN is in the hands of such culprits named by the TAMIL VICTIM.
    Juctice WILL prevail at any coast because it has become a matter concerned of every peace loving honest citizen of the globe.

  8. Michelle says:

    February 26, 2011 at 12:00 am

    @ Ram Chetty – Our governments around the world have failed the people of Sri Lanka, Libya, and so many others. Please know that the true “international community” – the PEOPLE, if not the governments – DO care about our brothers and sisters whose human rights are being violated. Many, many people are actively campaigning to pressure our governments to act.

    Please don’t judge us all by our governments; just as we must not be tricked into believing that the Sri Lankan government represents all of its constituents.

    Peace to you.

  9. Justice says:

    February 26, 2011 at 12:59 am

    Since Indian establishment is also involved, Ban Ki Moon, whose Son in Law (Chaterjee)is Indian has an interest in not taking the war crimes commited seriously.
    All these mortals will one day have to give account to the Almighty for innocent blood spilt.

  10. Edward Chung Ho says:

    February 26, 2011 at 9:02 am

    Im deeply concerned that the UN has not done more to look into this matter. Nambiar should step aside at least.

  11. Sand says:

    February 26, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    Nambiars and the like belong to a ‘loyalist’ group, looking after self interest.

    Please see all the Arab world.
    They are still clinging on to the masters.

    Minorities or powerless are the least interest for them.

    He is a non-starter for Burmese civil society.

  12. Sri says:

    February 26, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    What a combo-Ban-Nambiar-Chatterjee?

    Justice should not only be done but appear to be done.

    It is time to recuse himself from teh SL war crimes investigations because of his and Nambiar’s ‘baggage’ and get a Special Representative to look into the Sri Lanka tragedy.

  13. Don says:

    February 27, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    Indian RAW agent Vijey Nambiar and his bother should be investigated for War Crimes. They colluded with the War Criminal Rajapakse to massacre more then 40,000 innocent Tamil civilians. Also former Indian officials MK Narayanan, Suresh Menon also should be included for War Crimes investigation. Burma people, Never Trust the Indians…

  14. Manjula says:

    February 27, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    Who are you guys trying to protect? Aren’t you trying to protect terrorists rights rather than innocent civilian rights? Can’t you see through the subtle picture here. I don’t dive a damn about those terrorists who killed eighty thousant innocent civilians in cold blood and I have no time to waste for those terrorist rights. Army commander himself later said he didn’t say that Gotabhaya ordered to kill them all. The media is spreading these lies because without them they have no income in journalism job, and they haven’t mastered any other trade to generate income. You guys can bark until the moon comes down but the majority has lot more important work to do other than crying on behalf of terrorists. It is stupid and funny to talk about war crimes since war itself is a crime and therefore you cannot seperate one inciodent or two as war crimes since the whole bloody thing is a crime from the very start 30 years ago. Actually the war crimes should have been laid against those western democratic countries who turned a blind eye when the terrorists were killing thousands of poor Sri Lankans and when those governments in the name of democracy and freedom allowed those terrorists to collect funds to kill more and more .

Nambiar facing calls for ICC investigation | Democratic Voice of Burma