From WikiLeaks to WikiLanka: War Is Definitely Savage Though “Accusations†Differ
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The latest WikiLeaks “dump” of around 400,000 US classified war reports on Iraq from 2003 to 2009, the biggest “war leaks” ever in US history, reveals how inhuman and savage the war is, never mind who conducts it and where. A few months ago in July this year, WikiLeaks’ first dump of over 90,000 US classified reports on the Afghan war, also revealed the insanity in waging war.
With this second enormously huge “leak”, obviously, there is all round condemnation by the US administration, the US defence and intelligence agencies. Britain can not avoid tagging along with such condemnations, being openly accused of violations in Iraq, through these same “leaks”. The core message in all these “Super Power” condemnations of these “leaks” is pretty much the same. “A threat to national security and to their collaborators and partners in war”. That hyped “national security” is not that of Iraqis and the Afghans, but of the US, the Britain, NATO member countries, Australia and other coalition partners, who assist war, in these two occupied countries.
This in fact is the latest “defence” with every government, where human rights and human life become the heaviest casualties in war against “terrorism”. It continues to be so with Israel, it was so in Sri Lanka, it is now the same with India and Pakistan, and would be so for ever, in all societies that opt for militarisation instead of democratisation of the State.
With such exaggerated concerns over “national security” being lumped together with war, the latest classified war log dump after Afghanistan, exposes wide spread complicity by US and UK troops in Iraq in violating international human rights and humanitarian laws and therefore the US and UK administrations as well. It is now safely adduced that the Iraqi war since 2003 has resulted in over 109,000 deaths with over 66,000 of them being civilians and over 24,000 labelled as “enemy”, which simply means “suspected insurgents”. The records have 15,000 deaths above that of earlier counts, says “Iraq Body Count Project”, an organisation that “counts dead bodies” of Iraqis.
Documents leaked, also hold US troops responsible for torture, rape and murder by handing over thousands of suspects and prisoners to their Iraqi counterparts, knowing well enough, what their fates could be after handing over. The US forces are even accused of ignoring cases of torture.
While there are other issues like Iran’s interference that comes out stronger than it was previously assumed, violation of basic human rights in Iraq now turns out labelled as “carnage in Iraq” in some Western media. The UN Special Investigator on Torture, Manfred Novak thus had to concede that, given the intensity of allegations now in the open on violations, the Obama administration is obliged to investigate all credible claims on torture and war crimes in Iraq. In Britain, there is the possibility of judicial interventions by Public Interest Lawyers demanding investigation into British forces’ involvement in some of the deaths recorded.
Have any of these, any relevance to the Sri Lankan issue of alleged violations during the final phase of its war against the LTTE ? The first is that, in Sri Lanka, it would never be possible for any one to play “Julian Assange” and dare face an open media briefing in Colombo, to justify his or her claims on war crimes and torture. Right or wrong, excessive or not, that “democracy” is nowhere within the shores of Sri Lanka and would not be, for many decades to come. There is also no possibility of any lawyer, any public litigant, requesting Courts to “order” relevant authorities to begin investigations into allegations of crimes committed during war, as in Britain. Relevance if any on such democratic practices, is almost naught.
Thus getting into other more relevant parts of all these “leaks” to Sri Lanka, the behaviour of these “ideal democratic governments” in the USA and the UK, seems no different in attitude and approach to this third world developing nation, Sri Lanka. The Obama and Cameron governments are no different to the Rajapaksa regime in denying and accusing those who throw up issues relating to war crimes and breach of international human rights law, where they conduct war. Their “national safety and security” rhetoric, politically allies with “patriotism” in Sri Lanka. They too therefore imply the “war against terrorism” they are involved in, “is a humanitarian war” in liberating the people from “terrorism” as Rajapaksa claimed his war was.
They are not what they stand for, when it is violations of rights, in their own backyards. Daniel Ellsberg, the man who created history in 1971 by exposing war records on Vietnam, that came to be known as “Pentagon Papers”, condemns the Obama administration for treading a path that leads to “repressive legal framework that Britain has, under its broad Official Secrets Act.”
That’s not what they vowed they would do. President Obama came to the White House with a moral pledge that the US would not want to be seen as a nation responsible for major human rights violations. A week ago, the British Foreign Secretary Hague wanted Sri Lanka to work in tandem with the UN experts panel on alleged war crimes, implying the British government does not believe in the LL&RC appointed by the Rajapaksa regime. Will they now live up to what they preach others and pledge they would do ? They don’t and they will be compared with the Rajapaksa regime on similar allegations of violating international law, accountability and war crimes.
Yet the watchdogs of human rights and democracy who lose no time in condemning any third world country, have been notoriously evasive in holding the US and the UK as equally or more responsible than Sri Lanka in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The AI accepts that this massive dump of US war reports by WikiLeaks, matches its own findings on “widespread torture and other ill-treatment of detainees by Iraqi forces, committed with impunity.” to quote its own words. It does know of Abu Ghraib prison and would have seriously studied the previous WikiLeaks dump on Afghanistan that implicated the US administration.
The AI nevertheless is satisfied, if the USA would undertake to “investigate how much US officials knew about the torture and other ill-treatment of detainees held by Iraqi security forces after new evidence emerged”. The USA that does not want to accept any exposure in these documents as serious, calling them as “mundane”.
The ICG is yet to be heard to know where they stand, while the HRW most surprisingly feel the Iraqi regime that can not hold together and is not in total control of the country, still under US occupation, can be more efficient and committed than the Rajapaksa regime and its LL&RC which they rejected outright, in conducting investigations and prosecuting those responsible for torture and other crimes in Iraq.
The AI nor the HRW are calling upon the UN Secretary General to appoint a special investigating body to inquire into US war logs published by WikiLeaks, that even Secretary of State Clinton accepts as authentic and wants them “returned”. These “rights” organisations don’t even condemn the US and the UK administrations for lack of accountability and torture, at the least. In fact, the AI and HRW do not even mention the UK government in their communications on “WikiLeaks”, although in the UK, human rights law specialist Phil Shiner says, the UK is clearly implicated and needs judicial inquiry.
WikiLeaks therefore tempts any one to question the credibility and the actual commitment of these human rights and crisis groups who stay stiff and away from campaigning for an independent inquiry, either by the UN or by an internationally constituted body, after the second massive dump of war logs clearly and openly leave the US and the UK governments complicit on accountability, torture and crimes against humanity, if not for war crimes. And not for the first time either.
With Ellsberg and his Vietnam war exposure, it was Hippies and their “Peace Culture” that raised a social voice in the West. This is a different world, that way too.
You seemed pretty uninformed about the democracy “Julian Assange” is receiving nowadays! But you are spot on about AI and HRW.
even the taliban admits to the u.s. aversion of civilian deaths. stop comparing the sla to any modern or democratic army.
gosl and sla are like cavemen. one day gosl will be punished.
The released documents show the daily life of the conflict, as U.S. soldiers have experienced it. In addition, it appears from the thousands threat analysis, attack reports and arrest records but also reconstruct exactly how has unfolded, the Islamic brother struggle between Shiites and Sunnis, how society brutalized, such as abductions, executions and torture of detainees routine was. Even activists from neighboring Syria, Iran and Jordan mingled the documents revealed in this war. It is shown again and again. A war benefits no one. Only the people suffer.
For Magerata,
Thanks for your comments.
It is not that I don’t know how Assange is hounded in the West. I know he was denied residence in Sweden and is been charged for rape. I know most democracies have avoided giving him residence in their countries and Assange had been in Iceland for some time.
Yet the difference between those democracies and SL is that, you can have your say and still live to answer your critics. You could continue to challenge the system and have public audiences.
None would ever dream of such gallantry in SL. That was what I meant to say.
That was what should be read as contrast.
Thanks again
Kusal
Julian Assange was the winner of the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award (New Media),awarded for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya with the investigation The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances. How I wish Mr.Assange would hack into our government computers and divulge to the world the horrors that went on in the country from 2005 onwards?
In Sri Lanka progressive secttions have to face athe machninations of the overseas funded terrorist organisations who are intent on slinging mud at the government with fabricated stories, films, photographs. It took a long while to accept the ability of the government forces. Even after the unification of Sri Lanka, overseas junkets of the LTTE turned to fabricating stories about government forces killing innocent civilians.
How hundreds of former LTTE sympatiserse find their way to Canada in LTTE owned ships has not been explored in depth. THe LTTE sympathisers talk about the percentage of the population thar was in favour of appeasement.
Even if they say 90 % of Jaffna were in favour of ethnic cleansing of Jaffna and driving out the uslims, is it right for a democratic government to consider peace after such a vile act. Of course the moment one gives an inch the demand is for a mile – then the murder missions, bombings of city centres, killing sprees of innocent villagers, busbombs, closure of Mavil Aru and on and on.
Mahinada Rajapakse really deserves the Nobel Prize for bringing an end to terrorism.
I sincerely wish Wikipaedia can tap into the dossiers of LTTE overseas junkets, one day.
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Internal colonialism in an island in a geopolitically strategic location has taken an immense toll on the Tamils and hence Sri Lanka has features not seen in other countries. Who is going to bother teasing out this difficult case to get justice to the Tamils?
Dealing in drugs gets severe punishment in many countries. But supplying the oppressed is in the open:
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/10/young_religious_visit_their_ow.html#more
Young religious visit their own suffering brothers and sisters in Northern Sri Lanka, Rev.Fr.Lasantha de Abrew s.j, 25 October 2010:
”……easy availability of DVD shops, liquor, smoking even promoted by the soldiers ….”
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/09/23/submissions-before-lessons-learnt-reconciliation-committee-llrc-by-chandra-jayaratne/
Submission before Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) by Chandra Jayaratne, 23 September 2010:
”…Free availability of liquor, cigarettes and narcotics …..”
The oppressed keep getting oppressed more and more …..
Nobel Prize :
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=9787
Challenge to good governance posed by budget, Jehan Perera, Chairman, National Peace Council, 25 October 2010:
The government’s second budget after the end of the war has seen proposed appropriations that give the first place to the defence, and that by a very wide margin. By way of comparison, the defence appropriation of Rs. 215 billion dwarfs the resettlement appropriation of Rs 1.7 billion. It also dwarfs the second largest component of the budget which is Economic Development, which obtained Rs. 75 billion.
Nobel Prize:
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/10/young_religious_visit_their_ow.html#more
Young religious visit their own suffering brothers and sisters in Northern Sri Lanka, 25 October 2010:
”…..easy availability of DVD shops, liquor, smoking even promoted by the soldiers ….”
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/09/23/submissions-before-lessons-learnt-reconciliation-committee-llrc-by-chandra-jayaratne/
Submission before Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) by Chandra Jayaratne, 23 September 2010:
‘’…. Free availability of liquor, cigarettes and narcotics ….”
Nobel prize:
http://www.lankatruth.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7058:hand-tractors-of-icrc-distributed-among-namals-favourites-&catid=34:lead-news&Itemid=50
It is reported that some two-wheel tractors which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expected to distribute in Mullaittivu and Vavunia Districts were allegedly distributed among people of his choice by MP Namal Rajapakse who attended the ceremony with a group of UPFA members, overruling the list of beneficiaries prepared by the ICRC.
let’s face it.. if you’re at the pointing end of the US military might, you don’t have human rights! you just have to hope you don’t become a regrettable statistic. do you know how many civilians died in the Fallujah siege? it’s chilling and you have to wonder how in the world US can even begin to comment on the SLA’s final entry into NFZ when they took battle tanks into a city full of civilians. blaaahhh.. what;s the point? it;s their world we live. it;s their rules we have to live by. such is life!
sad part is so called human rights organisations like AI, HRW & Crisis Group act like they’re setup by the CIA… in fact it’s not too far off to think that is the case, amazingly!
Tamil people always cheated by politicians.Firstly their own and now from white men.Guys can’t you see first US and British governments accused SLA about war crimes and now their people saying SLA and US army,British army all are same.Why are they so interest about complaints without evidence against SLA?The answer is simple.They used it to cover their own war crimes.But now it’s all over wikileaks spoiled everything.Guys war against terror should be about to end terror not to end the nation who most of terrorists created.Look at sri lanka.Can you see any sign of terror in their land like Afghanistan and Iraq.Because of steps us army make to destroy one terrorist they create hundreds of terrorists.Sri Lanka knows that because they know how terrorism grows.So they know what will happen in future.That’s why they stand away from US and Britain.This terrorism now world suffering was created by US long ago.So what about the terrorism they creating now? Have you ever heard phrase that said” who led by the sword who die by the sword” ?
Actually, you couldn’t be more wrong about both AI and HRW which have campaigned consistently over the past decade for greater judicial accountability for torture and war crimes in the US and for an independent inquiry. You may wish to read AI’s most recent report “New Order, Same Abuses” on Iraq published in September 2010 to get better informed. The title says it all.