The question is also why people persist in appearing before this Commission which is just a cover up while the Constitution is being thrown into the wastepaper basket. Are we expecting anything positive to come out of the Commission sittings?

And then we have people rushing to the Supreme Court as if expecting that the Court will do anything against these amendments. Among these people is a noted sycophant of Chandrika Kumaratunge who was among those in league with the former Chief Justice, to destroy the judiciary, details of which can be found in Victor Ivan’s book, “The Unfinished Struggle” which I read as a law student at that time. And these individuals are our defenders of democracy now??

No wonder ordinary people reject these games. No wonder civil society has so little moral standing in this country today.

It is true to say that the Tamils are undergoing one of the darkest and the most pathetic periods of their history.As President Rajapakse said in his special address to the parliament on 18-05- 2010 mothers of Tamil daughters in the North had to ask their daughters to get pregnant by somebody in order to avoid forced conscription by the LTTE. The young children were taken away as child soldiers, the civilians were taken away to be used as human shields by the LTTE; which they did-as somebody suggested in a post they (the civilians)would have liked the idea!- ,the escaping civilians were shot and displayed without giving madical attention, then videod and sent to the international media as evidence of atrocities of the Sri Lankan Forces against the Tamils.

The Tamils have only themselves to blame for their plight ;for glorifying a Psychopath, expecting that he would bring victory over the Sinhalese and bring the lost legendary Dravidian Empire -Maha Tamilnadu- back, with “Thambi” being coronated as the “Emperor Sun God”! You lost, and my sympathies go to you, but please stop shouting now!

True the Tamil society has been pushed to the darkest and the most pathetic era of its history. As President Rajapaksha told on 18-05-2010 in his special address in parliament, Tamil mothers were forced to make their daughters pregnant by outsiders in order to avoid forced conscription by the LTTE. Young children were taken away forcibly, civilians were taken with the terrorists to be used as a human shield;which they did, the escaping civilians were shot and displayed without medical treatment and videod and sent to the international media as evidence of Government atrocities against the Tamils.

You only have to blame yourselves for glorifying a megalomaniac and expecting that he would bring victory over the Sinhalese and bring the old legendary Dravidian Empire-Maha Tamilnadu- back into existence with “Thambi” being coronated as the Emperor Sun God!

In its absence, there is little point in this e-circulation of transcripts and outraged comments by Amb. Dhanapala who should, in fact, be little outraged if he expected the island to report what he said correctly. The people who should, in fact, be outraged are those who believed that Amb. Dhanapala was among those few people having credibility in this country and who are still waiting for a formal demand from him to the Island that the relevant news report is corrected. Probably my father, who is a senior public servant and does not surf the net may then relax after being outraged at the initial news report.

While people are going before this Commission, expecting reconciliation and lessons to be learnt, the government merrily goes ahead with its hugely undemocratic constitutional reforms. Why are people like Amb. Dhanapala participating in this fraud? The only noticeable impact of the Commission’s sittings up to now has been to destroy the public credibility of witnesses like Amb. Dhanapala. It is quite striking that he commends the Commissioners. The Chair of this Commission was responsible, almost singlehandedly, while Attorney General, for destroying the legitimacy of the Udalagama Commisison. And yet, we commend these people?? Shame on you, Amb. Dhanapala!

… although there are more competent authorities in your Commission than I am to talk on the subject, I believe that we have learnt a great deal of lessons from the experience of combating one of the most ruthless terrorist groups in the country. The primary purpose of International Humanitarian Law is the protection of civilians, and we have been exposed to a terrorist group who have used child soldiers unconscionably; who have used civilians as human shields and who have used suicide bombers to cause mindless destruction of property and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. How does a conventional Army of a nation state pursue a conflict with that kind of combatant? The rules of war as they exist today do not cater for that situation. We would be providing something innovative to the international community if we can discuss amongst our outstanding international lawyers here – and we have a galaxy of talent from Judge Weeramanthri to Dr. Rohan Perera (a member of the LLRC) to Dr. Lakshman Marasinghe and many others – who could all form a brains trust on behalf of the Government,
engage with the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva
Conventions, the 4 Treaties and the 3 Additional Protocols which today constitute International
Humanitarian Law in order to try to give some guidance to armies of nation states as to how they
should react to such a situation. We were very fortunate that in the end game of our conflict in May of 2009 we were able through the bravery of our own Army to save ourselves the possible holocaust of 300,000 civilians dying in the final stage. The earth bund behind which they were held as human shields was breached at great sacrifice by our Army and we were able therefore to minimize civilian losses. I do not think we have an accurate estimate as to what the civilian losses were in the crossfire but there were civilian losses. The tragedy would have been much greater if not for the bravery of our soldiers. But what if there was a tragedy greater than what happened. We would have been then denigrated in the eyes of the international community for no other reason but the fact that these civilians were being held as human shields. We have to I think engage first of all the ICRC and then the rest of the international community in order to perhaps convene a diplomatic conference to discuss the formulation of a new protocol with regard to combat with non state actors. This is a phenomenon that is taking place all over the world and I think the marshalling of international opinion on this issue will be one of the contributions that we can make in the codification of international humanitarian law.

Commenting on the the responsibility to protect concept, Ambassador Dhanapala said: “ …
Now I think it is important for us to expand that concept to bring in the culpability of those
members of the international community who have subscribed to the situation that has caused injury to the civilians of a nation. I talk about the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary; are harboured; are supplied with arms and training by some countries with regard to
neighbours or with regard to other countries. We know that in our case this has happened, and I
don’t want to name countries, but even countries who have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be abused in such a way that money can flow from their countries in order to buy the arms and ammunition that cause the deaths, the maiming and the destruction of property in Sri Lanka are to blame and there is therefore a responsibility to protect our civilians and the civilians of other nation states from that kind of behavior on the part of members of the international community, and I think this is something that will echo with many countries in the Non Aligned Movement where Sri Lanka has a very respected position and where I hope we will be able to raise this issue.

I am surprised groundviews.org missed this

Shamindra Ferdinando (News Editor The Island)

2. Eminent Jurists Panel(convened by International Commission of Jurists) call for urgent steps to restore Human Rights in efforts to counter terrorism in Assessing Damage, Urging Action(February 2009), their Report on Post-9/11 ‘’War-on–Terror” Policies and consequences:

‘’This report catalogues, with deep concern, the extent to which the responses to the events of 11 September 2001 have changed the legal landscape in countries around the world. It documents how States have reacted to the threat posed by terrorism and concludes that as a result of the cumulative impact of counterterrorism policies that are being pursued, the international legal order based on respect for human rights, built up painstakingly during the second half of the last century, is in jeopardy. The report reflects this concern and the urgent need for action by governments to repair the damage that has been done.”

Most barbaric state terrorism.