Archive for the ‘UN Panel Report’

A review of ‘The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lankan & The Last Days of the Tamil Tigers’

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I was elated to take delivery of my copy of The Cage by Gordon Weiss yesterday. Having pre-ordered it off Amazon UK, I fully expected it to be held up by Customs officials in Sri Lanka, given the incendiary issues the book is anchored to and its author, an erstwhile employee of the United Nations (UN) in Sri Lanka. As a friend quipped, they probably thought it had something to do with the Dehiwela Zoo. This may be true for now, but it is highly unlikely, in a country that has repeatedly even blocked issues of The Economist with articles perceived to be against the incumbent government, that this tome will be freely sold in bookstores. The publication and release of The Cage comes soon after the hugely controversial and deeply distressing report by the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts, which found credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by both the LTTE and government armed forces…

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Buddhism and its impact on governance

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Image from Travel Blog Today, Wesak is the most revered day in the Buddhist calendar. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, the celebration is led by a small group of apparently sanctimonious humbugs followed closely by a larger herd of population of self inflicted ignorance. Their mutual objective being the public display of religious fervor through the performance of religious observations at the obvious expense of the practice of Buddhist precepts. It appears that they are trying to create an image of high standards of moral and ethical conduct despite their very apparent behaviour to the contrary. The negative reaction of the leadership to the UNSG’s request to respond to the POE report is the most powerful case in point. Their floundering behaviour of non- cooperation was followed by outright denial of allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses compounded by denigration of the UNSG and Panel of Experts by political buffoons even as country representatives at Wesak celebrations at the…

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Opposition to the UN Panel report: Any method to this madness?

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There is obviously much confusion in official circles on what to do with the report of the panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into issues of accountability in Sri Lanka, which has flagged credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As we flagged on our Twitter feed, the country’s foreign minister is himself confused over an appropriate response. Over the course of 24 hours, he first said that Sri Lanka would respond in detail, and then told mainstream media we would not. On May 10th, our foreign minister in the company of the President said that we would not respond to the report. In mid-April, before the UN officially published the report, government spokesmen said that a detailed response to the report would be made. Political parties like the TULF supported this stance. Mainstream media on May Day (1st May) reported that the government would in fact respond to the UN in the course of…

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Anti-UN sentiment in Jaffna: Fact or fiction?

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The Uthayan newspaper runs a revealing story on its website which suggests that on 8th May, the campaign to collect a million signatures against the UN Panel’s report basically forced people to sign up to the campaign. Groundviews has already covered this bizarre, mindless campaign when it started in Colombo, before in fact the UN Panel’s report was officially released! The story in the Uthayan reveals that bereft of any public support, the minister and his goons are now ostensibly forcing people to sign their names, and this too in the regions most affected by war. Much like the outrageously wasteful ‘record breaking’ kiri-bath (milk rice) made to celebrate the President’s second term in office, this continuing display of insensitivity and brutishness by members of government speaks volumes. As we noted in our story on the signature campaign, “This petition, and others that will invariably follow after the report’s official publication, is emblematic of Sri Lanka’s peculiar democracy, where highly…

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On Sinhalese Nationalists, Tamil Diaspora and the War Crimes Saga

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Photo from The Australian A couple of days ago I was watching a political talk show in the Derana TV Channel attended by prominent nationalists including Professor Nalin de Silva of the Sinhalatva School of thinking. One needs no special introduction to this nationalist ideologue cum academic. The focus of discussion was Report by the UN Experts Panel baptized by the government as the “Darusman Report”. I was curious when Nalin de Silva said something along following lines “There was no war in this country and whatever the pundits ( pandiyo) say this is not the Post War period. In fact this is pre-war period and there will be a real war within next six to seven months!” then came the thunderbolt if ever there was one as Nalin de Silva went on to explain that this report would be a preliminary towards a more damning report which would be taken as justification for NATO to do a Libya or…

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Sinhala and Tamil translations of UN Panel’s report on accountability

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Original image from TNL The official version of the report published by the panel constituted by the UN Secretary General to look into issues of accountability in Sri Lanka was released on 26th April 2011. It is highly unlikely the UN itself will produce Sinhala and Tamil translations of the report. Given the near complete absence of reporting in Sinhala media over the issues flagged in the UN Panel’s report, readers have only got to read commentary based on sections of the report, which is almost always virulently in opposition with very little reasoned debate. Groundviews through Vikalpa commissioned a translation of the Executive Summary of the official version of the report. We received another translation done by a third party today. We also received today a translation of the report into Tamil. We give below links to the three documents – two in Sinhala and one in Tamil. The translation into Sinhala published on Vikalpa can be read online…

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Notes on Possibilities after the UN Report: Including Nationalism and ‘The Geopolitics of Emotion’

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Photo courtesy Deborah Philip It was my sense after May 18, 2009 when the LTTE was defeated that Sri Lanka was missing an opportunity to redefine itself as part of a kinder, gentler, global community. Instead it heightened nationalist discourse, extended emergency rule, surveillance and militarization, and devised new forms of censorship. Sri Lanka missed the opportunity to become one of South Asia’s more enlightened nations by not reaching out to one of its more battered and war-scarred communities after 18/09.  The UN report has returned us to that moment, and if intelligently and constructively used may help us explore roads not taken, toward a better, brighter and kinder future for all its citizens. Political philosopher Judith Butler wrote after 9/11 and the attacks on the twin towers in New York City in a book titled: Precarious Life: “that we can be injured, that others can be injured, that we are subject to death at the whim of the other,…

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Violence and accountability

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Cartoon by Albert Ashok As conflict raged, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights had stern words for those on both sides. “All violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law must be investigated and those responsible for breaches – including deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use of human shields – must be brought to justice,” her spokesman told reporters. The year was 2004, and fighting in Fallujah in Iraq was taking an ongoing toll on ordinary people. The UN Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur on the right to health had earlier listed “extremely serious allegations” against the US-led coalition that had taken control of Iraq and called for an independent inquiry. UN investigators continued to keep a close watch on Iraq. Just last year, special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak – who in 2006 had condemned the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay as a “torture camp”…

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War Crimes Accountability In Sri Lanka: Is There A Liberal Democratic Alternative To International Action?

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Sri Lanka’s President pictured here with the Governor of the Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal (L) and his brother Basil Rajapaksa, the Economic Development Minister (R) has repeatedly called the war a “humanitarian rescue operation with a zero civilian casualty policy”. Photo credit: REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte The report of the three-member panel of independent experts, appointed by the UN Secretary General to advise him on the issues of legal accountability arising out of the brutal final stages of Sri Lanka’s war, has finally been published. The panel has found ‘credible’ a large number of allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by the military protagonists in the conflict, the Sri Lankan security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), some of which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has also concluded that a political and legal environment conducive to the transparent investigation and prosecution of these violations does not exist in…

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Much ado about nothing: Is Sri Lanka in danger of being held accountable by the International Criminal Court?

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Image from Joe Klamar/AFP/GETTY Early last year I set about examining, as a recent graduate, the feasibility of any citizen of Sri Lanka being tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed in the last phases of the war between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. I concluded that there is no real danger of any case being brought against the members of Sri Lankan Military or the current administration. Such fears are simply unfounded. I wish to revisit the question of if in fact any citizen in Sri Lanka can be held accountable under the ICC within the current context. There has been much discussion about the issue of war crimes in Sri Lanka in the past week.  The current government and all major political parties have recently commented at many capacities on United Nations panel investigations and its leaked report. Since many commentators have written, and…

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Reconciliation and accountability after the UN Panel’s report: Challenges and opportunities for Sri Lanka and the UN system

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Image courtesy Huffington Post Asia Pacific Forum is a pan-Asian radio show broadcast every Monday night from 9-10pm on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City and live on the web. WBAI is part of the Pacifica Foundation, a national radio network founded in 1946 with additional affiliates in Houston, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Washington, D.C. Pacifica is a non-commercial, listener-sponsored network founded on a strong community role in each individual station. On the day the report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka was released, the founding Editor of Groundviews Sanjana Hattotuwa joined Matthew Russell Lee, the NY Bureau Chief of Inner City Press covering the United Nations for a 20 minute segment of the Asia Pacific Forum looking at the challenge of meaningfully addressing war crimes, accountability and reconciliation issues in Sri Lanka, for the State as well as the UN system. Broadcast on Monday 25th April, 2011, the full programme segment…

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An elephantine gestation: UN Panel’s report on accountability in Sri Lanka released

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Leaked versions of the UN Panel’s report found their way into The Island newspaper, where over the past week, Groundviews has contextualised the content that was published in print. Today, the Hindustan Times published an article based on the full version of the report, based on a leaked version of the full report the paper had acquired. Interestingly, the unimaginable horror highlighted in the HT’s report (body parts of babies on tree tops after shelling by the Army) is not content that was published in The Island. The UN had earlier expressed its deep regret over the leak to mainstream print media in Sri Lanka. Accusations between Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s envoy to the UN in New York and UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq over who is responsible for the leak have been traded. The constitution of the Secretary General’s panel and its mandate was announced in June 2010. As noted on the UN website, “The Secretary-General has appointed a Panel of…

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The cynical manipulation of international law: Murdering civilians in No Fire Zones and other war crimes allegations

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The Island newspaper continues to publish leaks from the report produced by the Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into post-war accountability in Sri Lanka. Groundviews has contextualised in detail the Executive Summary and Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the leaks. The Island published today Part 7 which deals with credible allegations of war crimes by the Sri Lankan Government and its armed forces that include the deliberate targeting of civilians in the so-called No Fire Zones (NFZs) and wholly inadequate measures to protect civilians from shelling. As the Panel succinctly notes, “… the Government’s instructions for civilians to move into the NFZs, only to be subsequently shelled by the SLA, disregarded this rule and in fact amounted to a cynical manipulation of it.” As before, we provide context and background information to frame these highlights. Much of the context in this story is actually part of that which was given in previous stories covering other aspects of the leaked UN report….

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The Darusman Report: Reflections on the real challenges ahead for Sri Lanka

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In less than two weeks since the Darusman Report (hereinafter referred to as the Report) was handed over to the United Nations Secretary General (hereinafter referred to as UNSG), a large number of articles have been written about the report, its motivations and on its impact on Sri Lanka. Except in several exceptions, the majority of these renderings seem to have lost the plot, in their failure to provide adequate attention to several key issues surrounding the report, or the ‘leaked’ version of it published in the Sri Lankan newspaper The Island. Public reactions to the leaked sections of the Report are best glimpsed from Groundviews, where comments made by readers include rather heated debates on issues such as the number of Eelam War IV casualties raised in the Report. One such key factor is that the Report is critical of both adversaries of Eelam War IV, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam…

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UNSG Panel Report on Sri Lanka: Revisiting ‘Accountability’

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Original photo from JDS Ensuring ‘accountability’ is important, but doing so is a complex task. Who is to ensure accountability, when, where, how? – are questions which have always aroused serious debate, and will do, in the future. While there may be no ‘independent/internal’ investigations, one need not be starry-eyed about ‘independent/international’ investigations. For example, ‘Nuremburg’ was an important start, but was never a suitable model. What, for instance, is ‘international’ and who decides the form and nature of this mechanism? Can we go with Chinese/Russian investigators, and if so, would they be independent? Can we go with US/UK investigators, and would they be independent? Also, can we simply investigate the ‘last stages’ of the armed conflict? What about India’s role in the conflict, and are we to forget the manner in which India nurtured armed groups hostile to Sri Lanka? Are we to investigate only the leaders (of the present regime) who defeated the LTTE, but not those of…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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