Three cases around the world reflect a new trend in international justice – while Sri Lanka shows no intention of properly dealing with accusations its military committed atrocities in the closing months of the civil war in 2009, cases have opened in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.S. against both the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.

    By Richard Walker in The Hague

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    On Monday two ethnic Tamils filed a case in New York against a Sri Lankan general now serving as a UN diplomat. They claim Major General Shavendra Silva was commanding officer of the army’s 58th Division which helped crush the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 – and claim in so doing killed thousands of civilians through the shelling of no-fire zones and hospitals. The case is using the US’s universal jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes outside of its territory.

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    Last week in Switzerland, prosecutors took the unprecedented step of declaring that if the Sri Lankan diplomat and former army General Jagath Dias returns to the country they will have him arrested and prosecuted for alleged war crimes, also relating to the end of the civil war in 2009. Mr Dias had been in Switzerland serving as a Deputy Ambassador until recently and is now believed to have left the country.

    And currently in the Netherlands, five alleged supporters of the LTTE or Tamil Tigers rebel group are on trial for supporting a terrorist organization. Their case raises the question: what makes an organization terrorist in nature under Dutch criminal law? The hearing will continue until the end of next week.

    DIY justice

    All lawyers and experts agree, where a state’s judicial structure is strong enough it should prosecute its own war crimes cases. In Sri Lanka there is little international credibility given to the state’s Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, which has been criticised widely for not addressing questions of justice and for brushing claims of military atrocities under the carpet.

    Mounting pressure from the UN and international media this year has led many to call for a full and independent investigation into claims of war crimes in 2009, and the establishment of a tribunal to hold major players in the bloody denouement to the conflict accountable. The problem is that this is the last thing the current Sri Lankan government wants as it basks in the popularity it gained by ending the 30 year conflict.

    Who needs international courts?

    The fact that there are now three separate prosecutions in motion dealing with war crimes in Sri Lanka, thousands of miles away from the tiny island nation, is a very positive development for International Criminal lawyer Goran Sluiter. “These (international) tribunals are extremely costly, often quite inefficient, slow and bureaucratic. We should be very careful in setting up something new or using the ICC. So if at the national level you have all these cases there’s even less need to go to the ICC to set up a new tribunal – it’s only when at the national level nothing is happening that it’s important to go the ICC,” he said.

    Does this mean that national courts stepping in and using their own Universal jurisdiction to pursue war criminals from other countries is the way forward? “Yes of course that’s wonderful, but maybe not as much as one would hope, and national courts are dependent on the accused happening to be on their territory – and the big fish may not be on their territory, so then (prosecutions) may be fragmented”.

    Courts like the International Criminal Court are keen to stress they are courts of last resort and wherever possible will try to help national prosecutors achieve high standards of justice. These principles are widely held to be sound, but in the absence of a nation’s political will to pursue justice there is perhaps an ever expanding moral imperative for other states to pursue war criminals through their own courts.

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    Anonymous28 September 2011 – 1:34pm / Sri Lanka

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    this is turning out to be like when the people in the US went after all muslim people. as a sri lankan, i have no issue with any of my tamil, muslim, christian or budduist brother an sister. its the the extremist SOBs that we should go after. through out history, there has always been an extremist who has ruined it for everyone else. case in point hitler.


    DEMALA HUTHTHA28 September 2011 – 10:15am / Colombo

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    I AM DEPRESSED AND FRUSTRATED NOW SINCE LTTE ARE DEFEATED AND CANT BLOW UP SUICIDE BOMBS IN COLOMBO AND MURDER INNOCENT SINHALESE!! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!


    DEMALA HUTHTHI28 September 2011 – 10:20am / Colombo

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    Options for you are

    - Go to AL Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and train with our AL Qaeda brothers on suicide bombing

    - Or immolate yourself

    - or swallor cyanide capsule


    Western doctor28 September 2011 – 8:56am / Japan

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    It is indeed a good sign that countries who harbored and protected LTTE terrorists and their staunch supporter are taking law into their hands and proactively persecuting those found guilty in a court of law. What is puzzling though is how little real proof usable in a court of law there is about Sri Lankan Government misconduct during the last 9 months of the war (an arbitrary period set up by short sighted LTTE defenders?). Really, all the rants and raving about Channel 4 videos and the Darusman reprot (an illegal document if used officially in the UN) is hilarious. Only those grabbing at straws and pushing propaganda to defame the Sri Lankan government really believe it could make a difference in a court of law. Having seen the video, read the report and the SLG response to it, testimony by a US military expert based in Colombo at the time, Tamil officials of the government responsible for caring for the peoples in the north, documents from the International Red Cross, I seriously don’t think there is yet any evidence for excessive behavior during a time of war. Prove me wrong with evidence that will stand up in court, and I can bet you the Sri Lankan government will respond. Their intent is on public record by the way.


    Western doctor28 September 2011 – 8:56am / Japan

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    It is indeed a good sign that countries who harbored and protected LTTE terrorists and their staunch supporter are taking law into their hands and proactively persecuting those found guilty in a court of law. What is puzzling though is how little real proof usable in a court of law there is about Sri Lankan Government misconduct during the last 9 months of the war (an arbitrary period set up by short sighted LTTE defenders?). Really, all the rants and raving about Channel 4 videos and the Darusman reprot (an illegal document if used officially in the UN) is hilarious. Only those grabbing at straws and pushing propaganda to defame the Sri Lankan government really believe it could make a difference in a court of law. Having seen the video, read the report and the SLG response to it, testimony by a US military expert based in Colombo at the time, Tamil officials of the government responsible for caring for the peoples in the north, documents from the International Red Cross, I seriously don’t think there is yet any evidence for excessive behavior during a time of war. Prove me wrong with evidence that will stand up in court, and I can bet you the Sri Lankan government will respond. Their intent is on public record by the way.


    Lanka liar28 September 2011 – 7:24am / Afganistan

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    Thanks to all Sri Lankans for speking their national language. Vulgar


    DEMALA HUTHTHA28 September 2011 – 3:36pm / Eelam

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    Of course TAMIL TONGUES are made to lie 24/7!


    Lanka liar28 September 2011 – 7:24am / Afganistan

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    Thanks to all Sri Lankans for speking their national language. Vulgar


    Huththi28 September 2011 – 4:25am / Afganistan

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    yako koti kiyanne demallu nowe. cristhiyani huththila. mun boruwata demala kiyala dagena apiwa rawattanawa. api demallunta kemathiy. un sadaranai. eththatama lankawe wedi demala pirisak hodai. cristhiyaniyata harawagaththu un thamai me koti kiyanne. pahara cristhiyani.


    who28 September 2011 – 6:29am

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    don’t hate a religion because you don’t like it. what has being a christian got to do with this anyway? i was not even going to reply your message but idiots like you do need to kept in touch about what sort of a impact christians have had in society in Sri Lanka. the current presidents wife is a christian too . so was the former Air Force Commander. you either need to get yourself educated or stop making a fool of yourself. there are enough buddhist out there who do no respect to the Lord Buddha but that does not mean anyone should disrespect someone’s religion. do see a doctor


    sadith28 September 2011 – 2:09am

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    RNW as always hide the truth and take it’s stupid readers for a ride, you want able do it with intellectuals.

    RNW said two ethnic tamils filed two cases in US, why you didn’t tell who those ethnic tamils are, it is very important to know that. Since RNW is so naïve in journalism I’ll tell you about those two tamils

    One is a wife of a notorious ruthless cold blooded killer known as ramesh. This inhuman killed 600 policemen who surrendered to LTTE when peace talk began in 2002, killed 160 Sinhalese in a village, mostly by slitting the throat or by crushing the scull, this is just two examples. That women also a hard core terrorist who killed thousands of Sinhalese. Other tamil is a former terrorist came to US as a refugee. Interestingly, this man’s lawer is a former terrorist, who came to peace talks with Sri Lanka along with words most ruthless barbarian known as prabhakaran. This court case showcase the lack of credibility in US legal system,

    In Switzerland, they never issued an arrest warrant against Dias. It is a media hype created by tamil terrorist to mislead organizations just like RNW.

    Now it time to take legal actions by Sinhalese against every living tamil terrorist for killing 100,000 Sinhalese and hang those criminals for good.


    Iqbal28 September 2011 – 2:08am / UK

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    Sri Lanka and to some extent Israel can get away with any crime they commit against their oppressed communities, Tamils and Palestinians respectively. It’s politics that determine justice and fairness when human rights violations and war crimes are are concerned even in UN Human Rights Council. Arab states and autocratic communist bloc are more interested in protecting rouge states like Sri Lanka, Libya, Syria, Sudan etc to gain personal favours and trade. In the case of Sri Lanka relatives and friends of high profile officials in international institutions are employed as advisers and consultants in order to influence how their allegations are handled. Justice to the victims depends on how friendly the perpetrators of the crimes are with the members of the UN SC, UN HRC and UN itself and not on the merit or on their severity.


    Van Gogh28 September 2011 – 12:34am

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    Sri lankans are very uneducated people and no manufacturing facilities. They are depending on handouts from Western countries and donation from World Bank. Sri lankan men are sitting home do nothing while ladies are prostuting in Middle East.. so sad… Sri lankans should Thank British and Dutch for educating them. They are the ones who taught them how to read and write. Sri lankans are here reading and writing at this web site beacuse of British otherwise they would be living in jungle eating with animals…


    DEMALA HUTHTHA28 September 2011 – 3:01am

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    Whites are looters and plunderers! White nations are rich all because of the resources looted away from the Colonies of Asia and Africa. USA and Canada are rich because they too murdered the native Red Indians and committed genocide. Now the whites are trying to be lecturers in human rights! We need lot of people like Mugabe, Chavez and Ahmedinajad to counter Western terror hegemony!


    Justine27 September 2011 – 11:22pm / Germany

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    If anyone wants to comment, pls do so with facts but not with emotions. If anyone wants to comment, they should have a good grounding in the history of Sri Lanka. There are many books in good libraries, so make use of them. The Sinhalese elites whether it is the Bandaranaikas, Jayawardenas or the Rajapakses, they were all not interested in building the economy of the SL but only served their themselves and their extended families-simply feudalistic in nature. If federalism was implemented SL would have a rich properous country. As a Buddhist country it has a very bad record of torture, killings, raping etc. Why? If it says in history that Tamils have lived in SL as long as the Sinhalese, then simply accept it and look ahead. Now it is too late. LTTE is the symtom of the Sinhalese elite repressive nature on the Tamils many times afer independence. We have a primitive, thuggery kind of govt. The people who were involved in killing nearly 100, 000 Tamil people should be brought to hague. Many of the commentators who make rash statements make it simply just b’cos he or she is Sinhalese. This hate and no rationality in the statement.


    Anonymous27 September 2011 – 11:10pm / USA

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    It is a joke that West is crying about so called Tamil grievances when they took Tamils to Singapore, Malaysia, and West Indies and used them as Slaves. In Sri Lanka Tamil community has greater representation of Doctors, Engineers and in government.

    NGOs from West have become terrorist supports and do no useful thing to the mankind any more. They were silent when hundreds of thousands of people died from UK/US aerial bombardments. They show staged videos as facts. Too bad how they waste money to mislead foolish Western governments.


    DEVONECO27 September 2011 – 10:58pm

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The Sri Lankan government must demand from all foreign countries that are harboring these Tamil terrorists and their financiers, to extradite them to Sri Lanka to stand trial for all the atrocities and war crimes committed by them during their barbaric reign for almost three decades. ALl Sri Lankas living in these foreign countries must unite, investigate and find out who these people are and provide this information to the Sri Lankan government who in turn must demand these terrorists be repatriated to Sri Lanka to stand trial. One person in particular is that psychopath woman – Adele Balasingham – who was involved in the recruiting and training process of little child soldiers who were sent to the forefront of the war as cannon fodder to shield the cowardly senior Tamil tiger cadres, and to face the wrath of the Sri Lankan Military. Thousand of these little Tamil kids lost their lives due to this unfortunate situation. Its the responsibility of ALL Sri Lanka everywhere of the world to hound the remnants of these Tamil tiger terrorists and their supporters from wherever they are hiding in the world and provide their names and locations to the Sri Lankan government – just like the Jews are hounding the remnants of the Nazi Germans who are hiding in every corner of the Earth. These barbarians need to be taken to task and punished for their crimes – which cannot be forgiven.