Dear Groundviews,
Thank you for posting this update.

BTW, the NYtimes link you posted works.

For the second link (piac) – You may want to remove the parenthesis at the end for the hyperlink to work.

The investigation, released on Tuesday by the Public Interest Advocacy Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy group in Australia, in consultation with prominent international jurists, went beyond other nonpartisan inquiries into the well-documented violence that punctuated the final days of that conflict, Asia’s longest civil war.

Although the Australian group’s investigation draws partly on earlier documented reporting, the group’s inquiry took testimony from new witnesses and submitted its findings to forensic and legal analysis to provide a possible basis for prosecution.

Via http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/world/asia/new-inquiry-on-sri-lanka-points-to-possible-war-crimes.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140204&tntemail0=y&_r=0

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Excerpt from Page 190 of the report (http://www.piac.asn.au/projects/node/6069/information)

C. Destruction of mass grave sites

14.21 Shortly before this report was finalised, ICEP obtained new eye-witness information in respect
of the registration and burial of the civilian dead in the former conflict zone in Sri Lanka during
the final five months of the war, and the alleged systematic destruction of civilian mass burial
sites in the post-conflict period.

14.22 According to this witness, these burial sites contained human remains from hundreds, and in
some instances, thousands of men, women and children who died during the conflict. The
precise location of these, and other, burial sites, has been provided to ICEP.

14.23 This witness has alleged that scores of civilian mass burial sites were systematically
destroyed after the conflict. According to this witness, the SFs, and specifically members of
the Sri Lankan Police and Sri Lankan Army, are directly implicated in this conduct. This
witness believes that senior SFs officials knew that graves were being identified for the
purpose of exhumation, and permanent destruction, over a period of more than a year. Self-
evidently, these allegations are very serious and there is an urgent need for further
investigation to determine their veracity.

PDF of this story (the site is blocked in Sri Lanka) here – http://cl.ly/0x3Q0b3o052R

The inaccessibility of the region makes the verification of these reports very hard.

March 2nd 2012 from the Island newspaper:

The “zero” casualties position was totally untenable to the point of being silly. It has naturally led us to a kind of “auction” where it has to be progressively admitted to be “a few hundred” and later “a few thousands”!

“Most of the civilians were killed by the LTTE. The terrorists used them as human shields. They killed the people trying to cross over to the government-controlled areas.”
“Sri Lanka never killed any civilians as such. Our instructions were, ‘You must not touch any civilians. This is a humanitarian operation’.” “one or two civilians might have got caught in the crossfire. We will look into this too.”

Yep, no civilians were killed, that’s exactly what Rajapakse was saying. You should probably get into the habit of reading past the headline, Dev.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2735656.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/24/sri-lanka-counts-civilian-war-dead

NO the government initially insisted that there were ZERO casualties but when it found that it was not being beleived it changed it to “policy”

In addition to the above links also refer to Rajapakse’s statement to the Times of London

Sri Lanka never killed any civilians as such: Rajapaksa
2nd December 2010

Dev,

Some here hate MR because he decimated LTTE. Some hate him just because he is not from their social class. Some hate him because he doesn’t speak English fluently. My point being, there are enough people who dislike MR for reasons which are inconsequential to the majority of people.

If you hate MR because he doesn’t acknowledge civilian deaths, then that is wrong. “Zero casualty” is a policy. It doesn’t mean the government’s official position is that there were no civilians killed. It means that the government did its level best to prevent civilian casualties. Now if what you really care about is a reason to hate MR and discredit this government then you can certainly take this out of context against him. Like many others that is what you have done. However, it is not something that matters to majority of people. You also have the complete freedom to hate him all the way to your grave and also write about it on the web however far fetch that may be from the truth.

It is not a secret that civilians got killed in the final push against LTTE. Though not published as much, LTTE also killed civilians and on purpose. LTTE was also a huge opportunity cost to the country. MR as a leader had to evaluate the cost of war (civilians deaths, deaths of soldiers, etc. etc.) against its benefits and he took a decision. It is not a decision that could be so easily justified one way or another. For an LTTE supporter or a human rights activist living in a far away land or to an idealist to whom the cost of LTTE to the country and its citizenry are of no consequence the decision is straightforward. But not for majority of people.

—
is he going to care for the well being of us that are lucky to be alive
—

Again, if you do not want to see the evidence, then nobody can make
you see it. GoSL cannot provide SL Tamils with the luxuries that they would enjoy should they seek asylum in Australia for instance. We are a poor country and displaced Tamils aren’t the only issue before the government. The government has done so much. Like what Dr. RN has done, credit must be given to what it has done and where it has failed, it must be pointed out. Constructive criticism is the need of the hour. Outright condemnation will not fly beyond TGTE, BTF, types…

MR’s private battles with CBK are their own and there is no reason
to bring them up here nor believe one is any worst than the other.

As for the Tamil version of National Anthem, I don’t know whether it
was MR who wanted it scrapped but what I do know is that, there were
several ministers who were against it and the cabinet decided to differ
the decision.

Dev,

I appreciate the positives unfolding and the trends that portend the evolution of the nation- a Sri
Lanka united as people’s and in her aspirations. These are beginning to happen under the present government. The end of the war is opening up the space for democratic debate, while also encouraging communalism to re-assert in the name of democracy. There are many things wrong with this country, including its genre of politicians. Our post-independence history, full of misplaced idealism, political chicanery,violence and tribalism, have created this situation. Our grandparents and parents permitted these to happen. We have the opportunity now-probably a once in a life time opportunity-to make amends. Mahinda Rajapakse, is seeding this process, out of either compulsion, circumstances, a vision or a combination of all these factors. There are many to condemn him and find fault with him in everything he says and does. He is neither a saint nor an irredeemable sinner. He is an astute politician who is wielding power at a critical point of transformation-a process that can go either forward or backwards yet- in our history. I can see the many substantive positives in what he is doing. I feel this trend should be encouraged, without us continuously barking at his heals, on the basis of an irredeemable and sometimes deliberately falsified history. He is a victim of history and it’s loathsome baggage as much as we are. My hope is that he will help us unload at least a part of this baggage during his tenure as president. I am convinced he should be encouraged to do what he is doing right, while pointing out what he doing wrong. Pointing out what is wrong, can also be done by presenting what we think is right. We have to weed out the rancour an venom out of our political discourse.

Dr.Rajasingham Narendran