Archive for the ‘War Crimes’

Geneva 2012: The signs missed, lessons unlearnt

geneva_sri lankans

Photo courtesy JDS Let’s learn the right lessons from the Geneva outcome, not the wrong ones. It is not the case that a small country such as Sri Lanka cannot fight a diplomatic battle with the mighty USA and win.  Minutes after the Sri Lanka vote at the HRC this time, the Cubans moved a resolution on the composition of the staff of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the opacity (code-named independence) of which the West regards as a holy of holies. The USA opposed the resolution. The Cuban resolution won with a massive 33 votes. Last year the USA invested far more effort and political capital at a far higher political level than in the case of the Sri Lanka resolution in Geneva, to prevent Palestine from being granted full membership of the UNESCO in Paris. The US lost that battle, and besieged Palestine, an embryonic or proto-state (unlike Sri Lanka) won a two…

Continue reading »

WHOSE MOVE IS IT ANYWAY?

Image from www.dbsjeyaraj.com. Photo by Jean-Marc Ferré

  The passage of the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution on Sri Lanka raises a fundamental question: what next? When the dust settles and tempers calm, all parties concerned will be faced with the actuality that things have changed quite dramatically. This piece attempts to identify the challenges and opportunities presented by the passage of the Resolution to a number of political entities or individuals. Sri Lankan government The Sri Lankan government now faces an awkward situation. Having lost more than one half of the entire membership of the Council including almost all of Latin America, and given the exhortations from even sympathetic members that it should implement the recommendations of the LLRC, the options at the Rajapaksas’ disposal have narrowed. What is clear is that twelve more months of slow or no progress on key issues of demilitarization, devolution, disarming paramilitaries, democracy and accountability will only isolate Sri Lanka further, and augment the likelihood of an international investigation…

Continue reading »

After the UNHRC Resolution Vote: Don’t Hold Your Breath for Truth, Justice or Reconciliation

weeping_mother_Batticaloa

Photo courtesy JDS/Guy Calaf, Agence France-Presse​ By the time this article is published, the votes on the hotly-contested UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka will have been cast and counted.  I am writing this as the debate over the resolutions is taking place in Geneva, and I find myself wondering if the outcome will be meaningful for the lives of hundreds of thousands of victims of our 30 year war.  Don’t get me wrong – I recognise the significance of the UNHRC resolution in terms of its moral and political symbolism, and that it may have profound implications for the Sri Lankan state’s position within the field of geopolitics and international relations.  I know that it will very likely impact the course of Sri Lanka’s national politics – even if I can’t anticipate the precise consequences.  Whilst I’d like to hope that the outcome of the UNHRC vote could lead to the harm and hurts of decades of…

Continue reading »

Counter-productive propaganda and human rights in Sri Lanka

JOINT STATEMENT - Sunila Abeysekara, Nimalka Fernando and Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu

As the three Sri Lankan human rights defenders who have come most under attack by the state media in Sri Lanka in the past week, because of our active involvement with the on-going session of the UN Human rights Council in Geneva, we feel compelled to issue this statement of clarification. We do not deny that we are critical of the conduct of the government of Sri Lanka, and the institutions and agencies under its control, whenever disregard for the human rights obligations imposed on the government by virtue of its being signatory to almost all international human rights conventions comes to our attention. As the President of Sri Lanka, and his Special Envoy on Human Rights well know, the three of us have offered our services to this government to ensure human rights accountability in the past. For example, all of us served on the National Advisory Council appointed by Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, when he held the portfolio for…

Continue reading »

Choosing What to Believe

Photo courtesy Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Photo courtesy of Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte [Editors' note: The article below was sent to us by a regular contributor to the site whose name we have redacted due to security considerations.] With the airing of Channel 4’s new film, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished, a follow-up to their first one Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields first broadcast nearly a year ago, there is bound to be a renewed interest in the matter of alleged war-crimes concerning the Sri Lankan Government. Because, let’s face it: Channel 4’s first video came and went, and while there were about two weeks of discussion around it, mostly everyone eventually forgot about it. Now, with the emergence of the new film and its alarming new footage, released in time with the Human Rights Council meetings in Geneva, we are forced to remember what we forgot then: That it is undeniable that Tamil civilians were maimed and killed during the last stages of the war, despite…

Continue reading »

India’s Volte-Face: Winners and Losers

Image courtesy LankaStandard

  India’s hasty decision to support the United States of America led Resolution on Sri Lanka came as a big surprise. While a few rumours flagged the possibility of an India “for” vote a couple of days before the actual announcement by the Prime Minister, they were largely ignored. The prevailing orthodoxy was that India would likely abstain, and that the vote would carry with a narrow majority. That orthodoxy has now been questioned, and with India coming on board, the possibility of a landslide victory for the US is more likely. This brief piece sets out to identify the political “winners” and “losers” from the fallout of India’s decision, barring last minute twists in the tale. The merits of the Resolution are not discussed in this article. Its aspirations are rather more modest, and only seeks to identify the manner in which coming events will contribute to the image of specific political personalities and entities. Winners The United States…

Continue reading »

Sri Lanka and the UNHRC: Implications for India and for Human Rights

Mumbai on March 5, 2012_2

Image courtesy India Ink blog by New York Times/Rajanish Kakade, Associated Press As the 19th session of the Human Rights Council progresses, the discourse on Sri Lanka with reference to Human Rights is reaching its annual climax. It is annual in the sense that it has been reaching the said level of climax each year ever since the United Nations Human Rights Commission took up the issue after the completion of war in Sri Lanka. In the first two sessions Sri Lanka managed to defeat the Resolutions forwarded by the Western countries with the support of its allies from various quarters of the world, most prominently from China and Russia. India, a part of Sri Lanka’s support system, continued to assist Sri Lanka beyond the platform of the UNHRC despite the opposition from its South Indian Tamil constituency[1].  However, India’s silence amidst the mounting protests by Tamil Nadu MPs has created sense of uncertainty for Sri Lanka which is more…

Continue reading »

What is the bigger lie? US resolution in Geneva or number of people in Vanni in 2009?

Red_tractor,_huge_load._Jan_2009_displacement_in_the_Vanni

Image from Wikimedia Commons “One of the rankest untruths in the public domain today is that the US resolution is innocuous and unobjectionable…” said Amb. Dayan Jayatilleka in his article THE BIG LIE ABOUT THE US RESOLUTION on 16th March 2012. It would be pertinent to question whether a bigger untruth in the public domain since 2009 is about the population in Vanni in 2009. Correct me if I’m wrong – but from my memory, Amb. Jayatilleke was a party to this lie, helped cover it up – and never offered an explanation even afterwards. Population in LTTE controlled Vanni On 30th Jan. 2009, according to official government website: 75,000 – 100,000 people (high side!) (See here) On 26th Feb. 2009 according to government website, quoting the Defense Secretary – 70,000 people (See here) Now let us compare above with what is stated in Government’s version of events in last few months of the war – “Humanitarian Operation Factual Analysis” available here -…

Continue reading »

A Realistic Look at the Draft Resolution by the US on Sri Lanka at the UN HRC

3206_main

Placard in Sinhala reads ‘Barack, you’re a burden for us’. Photo courtesy Priyantha Wickremarachchi/Ceylon Today The US recently tabled a draft resolution against Sri Lanka is so incredibly weak that President Mahinda Rajapaksa must be breathing a sigh of relief. It is no wonder that the US feels confident that it has the votes in needs. Besides, it is possible that the resolution will be watered down even more in the coming days—making this exercise seem that much more formulaic and pointless. The resolution requests that the government of Sri Lanka implement the recommendations from the Final Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). In order to achieve this objective, it asks the government to present an outline or roadmap as “expeditiously as possible” so that everyone will know how much progress Sri Lanka is making towards genuine national reconciliation and to addressing purported violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The resolution mentions that…

Continue reading »

THE BIG LIE ABOUT THE US RESOLUTION

1937e92fe6e374fad96065dfaf6eb069_XL

Image from The Nation It is almost a crime to lie to the people and mislead them on a matter of vital national interest. When it is committed by politicians it is an act of unconscionable opportunism. When it is perpetrated by so-called intellectuals belonging to civil society, it is a counterfeiting of the currency of the intellect and the function of the educated, which is to educate the public. One of the rankest untruths in the public domain today is that the US resolution is innocuous and unobjectionable because it only seeks to commit the government of Sri Lanka to implement its own LLRC report within a reasonable time frame. This untruth is perpetrated by the dominant elements of the UNP, the TNA and the civil society commentariat. The utter falsehood of this assertion is instantly provable by a mere glance at the Resolution itself. Far from limiting itself to the harmless and arguably even constructive pursuit of merely…

Continue reading »

Post 9/11 world: Compromises with war crimes and accountability

President_Visits_Vietnam17

The President looking at war crimes in Vietnam. Courtesy Defence.lk A mapping of differences amongst and alliances within member States of the UN Human Rights Council, reduced to 46 with Libya not qualified to vote till a permanent government is installed in Tripoli, does not show a clean sweep to either side. US would still need another 06 votes even after watering down its Resolution. That says, GoSL would need to stop at least 05 out of that 06 to say, it won again at the UNHCR. Meanwhile the battle rages on in Delhi and Chennai, over what India should do in Geneva. Indian External Affairs Minister S.M Krishna used a grant of Rs. 500 crores for relief, rehabilitation and resettlement in 2009 June, tractors, seeds and agricultural implements gifted, 50,000 houses lagging far behind schedule now for almost 01 year and 08 months in SL, to convince the Rajya Sabha, that Delhi is doing things for the Tamil people….

Continue reading »

Some thoughts on Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished

Screen Shot 2012-03-15 at 6.33.35 PM

Like so many diasporic Sri Lankans I watched it, even staying up late (by my currently low standards that is). Did I think that the first programme was a good thing? Yes. There’s a line, a quandary, a grey area after any conflictual situation. And it’s about what we should just put behind us and forget or accept and what we need to analyse and dissect in order to learn from to move forward. There’s probably no one who would suggest that it’s wise to forget and / or accept absolutely everything, on all sides, and there’s probably no one who would think that’s it’s sensible to analyse and dissect every single thing. But the line has to be drawn somewhere and, for me, much of the positioning of the line has to do with the issue of civilian casualties (which sounds so much more PC than “civilians deaths”). Up until after the showing of the first Killing Fields documentary…

Continue reading »

Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished: Unofficial video now online

Screen Shot 2012-03-15 at 8.51.33 AM

Channel 4′s new documentary on Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished aired for the first time in the UK last night. Before it is even available on Channel 4′s official web based on-demand service, it’s now up on YouTube. It is likely that the video is soon taken down by Youtube over copyright violation claims, and Channel 4 notes the video will be officially available soon. In a series of tweets to Channel 4, we informed that the Adobe Flash based on-demand service of the channel, not just because it won’t play on any Apple iOS device, is far less suitable for the viral dissemination of the video than featuring it, like this unofficial version, on YouTube or Vimeo. Not doing so, and not making the video more easily downloadable, we said severely limited its access within Sri Lanka. We also asked Channel 4 to take a page out of the viral dissemination of KONY 2012. Finally,…

Continue reading »

Sri Lanka and its ‘Geneva-problem’

dfus0202

Maria Otero, US Under Secretary, Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights meets Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Secretary of Defence in February 2012. Photo courtesy Lanka Standard. The year 2009 was when the Western group of States at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) made a serious diplomatic blunder, by attempting to pass a resolution against Sri Lanka. The West missed the plot. This was just days after a bloody three decades long war had ended in Sri Lanka; just days after a group which was listed as a terrorist group in their own countries had been comprehensively defeated; at a time when they themselves had already begun a ‘War on Terror’; and soon after they were proven once again to be hypocritical defenders of human rights, given their convenient abstention from voting during the UNHRC Special Session on Israel. It was a serious diplomatic defeat for the West, a significant diplomatic victory for Sri Lanka and its allies. Rise of ‘Eastphalia’ In…

Continue reading »

Why Sri Lanka must ‘win’ at UNHRC

6934516693_10eb3c38ca_b

Image courtesy Vikalpa from rally held in Colombo on Monday, 27th February. Unclear what the poster means, but the general thrust of it seems to gel with Chaminda’s submission. The following is an excerpt from a statement recently made by Ambassador Eileen Chambarlain Donahoe JD PhD, top US diplomat to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC): The case of Sri Lanka is different and difficult. It is essentially dealing with large-scale civilian casualties, allegations of government involvement in large-scale civilian casualties during a civil war that took place over many years, but ended in 2009. It’s not an ongoing crisis. And for that reason, it’s slightly more challenging. In the circumstances of the world today the fact that it’s not a crisis makes it slightly more difficult. The comment was of particular interest to this writer, as it corresponded to what he noted in a short presentation made at a Sri Lanka-related conference at the Eidgenössische Techniche Hochscule (ETH) in…

Continue reading »
Page 2 of 1112345...10...Last »

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!"

cezarneaga.eu