The Government that is currently under the microscope and so it should be. The Government should be accountable to the people and held to a higher standard, if not, what is the difference between a terrorist and the government?

If Mahinda’s victory speech to Parliament after the war is to be taken seriously then there are only Sri Lankans and “no minorities”. If this is the case, Sri Lankans that “happen to be Tamil” (and all other Sri Lankans who would like to uphold principles of justice) have the right to an impartial inquiry into what exactly happened to the civilians over the last few months as a result of the war with the Tigers. This is a necessity if we are to put to rest this abhorrent chapter.

Just because the USA, Britain and Israel get away with impunity does not absolve the Sri Lankan government of its responsibility to its own citizens.
Here’s where the contradiction really comes to the fore. Those who argue that the USA, Britain and Israel have committed war crimes and have not been charged are in fact right. But their call should be for those, as well as, all others who commit war crimes to be held to account. Just because VP used Tamil civilians as a human shield does not give the Government the right to barter those civilians as collateral. If those people who continue to talk about the West’s hypocrisy as an excuse for letting the Government off the hook, they should realise that they are in fact accepting in more ways than one that the Government did in fact commit war crimes.

“The life of the nation is shot through with a certain falseness and hypocrisy, which are all the more tragic because they are so often subconscious rather than deliberate … The soul of the people is putrescent, and until that becomes regenerate and clean, no good work can be done.” Frantz Fanon

Let me play devil’s advocate: If Sri Lanka can never be brought up for war crimes and has plenty of Eurasian friends to vouch for it, then why investigate the Trinco 5 or ACF 17?

Going by UTHR, ACF 17 only directly implicated a home guard, but there were special forces around who did not stop the killings and would therefore be implicated as well. Would Gota punish “war heroes” for such negligence?

Trinco 5 is far more damning because there may have been senior government officials involved, and the cover-up was correspondingly much more extensive given that there were hordes of eyewitnesses. Unlike ACF 17, Trinco 5 did not occur in a context of combat but rather in the pre-hostilities tense environment where Mahinda was under pressure to demonstrate that the Tigers were not gradually taking over Trincomalee.

You will recall when the Nato forces attacked Yugoslavia – a nation with whom Sri Lanka used to enjoy close relationshilp, one of the first casualties was the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

I do not recall a UN led inquiry into that, as by and large UN can only be puppets dancing to the tune of their pay masters – again the former imperial powers. Nor was there any UN nquiry into the false propaganda spread by the Western powers regarding the possession Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq hands or the allied saga about Iraq’s attempts to purchase Uranium from Niger.

Though UK sent some of the LTTE arms suppliers Shanthan et al, to prison the proceedings at the court revealed the close relationship they enjoyed with ministers of high rank. Hence it is right and legitimate for Sri Lanka to be careful of the machinations of the Western powers, particularly as bogus refugees who used to supply weapons to LTTE are peopling many marginal electorates in powerful former colonial powers.

Sri Lankans should be united in repulsing any attempts by such shady hands to investigate affairs within Sri Lanka – we should do our own police work to root out any malpractice. One cannot depend on well apid NGOs to deliver – the cost is enormous and their justice will be a repeat of what happened in Wellassa.

What about Anuradhapura and Arantalawa?

Who in Asia ( actually Eurasia) ever accuses Sri Lanka of war crimes and atrocities?

Who is going to make Sri Lanka — neither a failed, defeated or friendless state in the Security Council and the UNGA– appear before anything its doesn’t want to?

Nihal J, Kumar david, Rajan Philips et al consider Sri Lanka’s sovereignty a fiction: the last guy who believed that died (hard) in the Nandikadal swamp, expecting ‘ international law’ and the ‘ international community’ to force the sovereign Sri Lankan state to provide him an exit.

I had to read your piece thrice to be able to comment. There is no doubt you sprang from a very eminent journalist and my mentor Mervyl De Silva and you have been places.

Justice Jayewickrema and yourself are refuting each other.

But the fact remains that it is imperative on the international community to bring Sri Lanka to book for atrocities committed during the lat throes of war exactly a year ago.

SL cannot extricate itself from the horrendous war crimes against a minority caught between extreme Tamil naitonalism and Sinhala supremacy.

This island belongs to all of us and to justify the war crimes committed against hapless civilians and asking the international community not to intervene in the internecine war is to turn your back on legitimate accountability of violating human rights.

The law is clear and every citizen of Sri Lanka under a democratic constiution deserves justice. There is no way Sri Lanka can exonerate itself from the injustices committed against a minority since 1948.

An international war tribunal to bring the perpetrators to justice is long overdue.

If this path is followed calls for international probes or tribunals would greatly reduce.