“The UN report says that the alleged crimes of both the warring parties and subsequent cover-up by the government constitutes ‘an assault on the entire system of international law and security’.

“By that, it means that should the government of Sri Lanka be allowed to get away with it, the system of international justice built on the back of the crimes in Rwanda and Bosnia is weakened.

“Srebrenica recalls a painful and costly UN failure. In a month during which the UN swiftly forestalled potentially disastrous internal conflicts in Libya and Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka cannot be allowed to erode the basic tenets of international peace, justice and security.”

- Gordon Weiss, former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka. See his comment on Sri Lanka's 'Srebrenica moment' in The Australian here.

This is the English text of the Sri Lankan government-sponsored petition against the UN expert panel's report:

“We Sri Lankans consisting of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities who enjoy the newly earned freedom, hereby strongly denounce the comments and relevant discussions made against the independence of our country by the UN’s Committee on war crimes allegations.”

See TamilNet's report on the petition here.

See Groundviews' comment, and photos, here.

Muslim and Buddhist clergy sign a petition against the report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes. Photo Nishan Priyantha/The Island

Based on leaked extracts, the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka constitutes a watershed moment in international understanding of the crimes committed in the closing phase of the war in Sri Lanka.

Crucially, although the word does not appear in the extracts, the report’s contents well supports the charge that Sri Lanka engaged in genocide of the Tamils. The report lays out in detail the calculated, deliberate and systematic targeting of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces, operating under the direct command of the country’s top political leadership.

The former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, has aptly termed the publishing of the UN experts’ report as a ‘Srebrenica’ moment for Sri Lanka and indeed for the world.

The analogy is correct on many counts. Firstly, it was in relation to Srebrenica that the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) most clearly formulated the principle that part destruction – specifically, a geographically contained (i.e a small territory) destruction - of an ethnic or national group constituted genocide.

Deaths and more

The ICTY held to be genocide the systematic executions of an estimated 8,000 Bosnian men and boys -or 1 in 5 - out of a population of 40,000 (the target group) in Srebrenica, and a total population of 2 million. However, the now well substantiated allegations against Sri Lankan state and the Rajapakse regime are an order of magnitude greater.

The UN expert panel finds that a credible estimate of civilian deaths in the Vanni would be 75,000 (or nearly ten times Srebrenica’s grim total) from an estimated population of 330,000 Tamils (or 1 in 4 of the target group), out of a total population of 3 million Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The report also estimates the ratio of physically injured to dead as 1:2 or 1:3, and says the number killed could be much higher. It notes that approximately 40,000 surgical procedures and 5,000 amputations were carried out on the wounded, under horrific conditions.

The genocide convention, of course, covers not just killing but serious physical or mental harm. And the UN experts’ report goes on to provide harrowing details of the subhuman medical and humanitarian conditions the Sri Lankan state created for the Vanni population, surrounded by its armed forces, by withholding food and medical supplies and relentless bombardment for months on end.

Deliberate, systematic, widespread

The UN experts’ report makes clear the deliberate, widespread and systematic nature of the physical harm and destruction that the Sri Lankan state inflicted on the Tamils. This not only meets the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) definition of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ (as the expert panel makes clear), it also demonstrates, crucially, the strategic logic - i.e. the intent to destroy – that makes this genocide.

As genocide experts recognize, it is not necessary to have explicit or recorded statements of intent to destroy or indeed explicit orders to this end. For example, not even the Nazis left a traceable trail of explicit orders for the various forms of destruction of their target groups. Intent can be inferred, often where no other plausible explanation is possible.

To return to Srebrenica, it is not the numbers that make the comparison valid. Indeed, the Rajapaksa regime seems to have adopted the modalities of the Serbian genocide.

Srebrenica was also a designated a safe haven (by the UN), encouraging civilians to concentrate there, and thereby making the mass killings possible. As the UN experts’ report notes, in Vanni, the Sri Lankan state three consecutively times declared ‘No fire Zones’, thereby encouraging civilians to concentrate there, before unleashing its mass bombardments.

The charge of genocide against the Rajapakse regime is simply this: that from the outset, it intended to substantially destroy the target group, namely the Tamils in the Vanni, and to ethnically cleanse the region in such a way that the community living there would not be able to be ever reconstituted in its original form.

Selected site

The ICTY found that the Srebrenica was chosen for its cataclysmic destruction because of the location’s strategic significance for the viability of the Bosnian state. As the ICTY’s 2004 report (p6) found, “capture and ethnic purification of Srebrenica would therefore severely undermine the military efforts of the Bosnian Muslim state to ensure its viability.”

Similarly, Sri Lanka marked the Vanni for a hammer blow because of its symbolism as a Tamil heartland and its strategic significance for the viability of a Tamil state. In a continuation of this logic, two years after the war ended, the vast majority of returning Tamils live under tarpaulins and corrugated sheets, while the Sri Lankan military sets up increasing numbers of bases and camps and, in parts, settles Sinhalese.

Crucially, the ICTY found that Serbian forces decided that “the elimination of the Muslim population of Srebrenica, despite the assurances given by the international community, would serve as a potent example to all Bosnian Muslims of their vulnerability and defenselessness in the face of Serb military forces.”

Similarly, the Sri Lankan state sought to deal the Tamil people such a traumatizing blow that they would no longer challenge Sinhala dominance of the entire island. As President Rajapaksa declared afterwards, the idea (of an independent Tamil Eelam) that began at Vaddukoddai in 1976 had been ended at Mulliyavikal in 2009.

Realisation dawning

While the UN experts’ report has not labeled what it oulines as genocide, it is clearly cognizant of the presence of the necessary indicators; the report is unequivocal that “[Sri Lanka’s] campaign constituted persecution of the population of the Vanni.”

Genocides do not occur outside of historical context and a prevailing racism. As many historians note, the Nazis’ extermination of Jews occurred amid the latent anti-Semitism in Europe of that period, and prior centuries of persecution.

The UN experts’ account of the events of 2009 have to be located, therefor, in their proper historic and contemporary trajectory. In successfully killing1 in 4 of the people of Vanni, the Rajapakse regime was continuing long-running trends of ethnic cleansing and annihilitary persecution undertaken by earlier governments.

As such, it is not the recognition of Vanni as Sri Lanka’s Srebrenica moment that is so surprising but the fact that this took so long to happen.

Following the UN expert panel's submission of its report on Sri Lanka to the Secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, the British Tamils Forum (BTF), an umbrella group of Tamil community organisations, said Wednesday:

"We demand that an independent international investigation is conducted, supported by comprehensive witness protection afforded to the Tamil community by a UN task force.

"We appeal to the UN to release the full report without further delay and implement with vigour the recommendations made by the advisory panel so as to restore the Tamil people's faith in the international body to deliver justice.

"In addition to the recommendations by the panel we the Tamil people demand that the UN demands from its members to reject the appointment of Sri Lankan emissaries who had served in the Sri Lankan armed forces during the war as well as political leaders who stand implicated in the war crimes and crimes against humanity in the genocidal war against the Tamil people.

"We urge the international community to ensure that justice is served."

See the full text of the BTF's statement here.

King's College London (KCL) Tamil Society's raises funds for the Sivan Arul Ilam Charity in Mannar. See the video created by Ratheeson Thillainathan for the Society:

See the report on KCL Tamil Soc's awards night for its newly established sports 'Legacy League' here.

"Instead of supporting international calls for a proper investigation and the prosecution of those responsible for mass atrocities against what are – supposedly – fellow citizens, Sri Lanka’s mainstream media, commentators and, now, the main opposition parties have instead rallied to defend the regime and its conduct of the war."

- See our comment: 'Sinhala opposition to accountability for Tamil suffering'

These are comments by Amnesty International’s Sri Lanka researcher, Yolanda Foster, in an interview to Channel 4 News Saturday.

“[The UN panel’s] report is a call for action because it highlights the scale and gravity of what happened in the final months of the war in Sri Lanka.

“Amnesty believes an international independent investigation should be set up without further delay.

“The panel’s report is very strong and it itself recommended an international investigation.

“[Amnesty] is hoping that Ban Ki-Moon will show leadership and deliver on his promises of accountability and set up a commission of inquiry to look into these very serious allegations.

“He has to remember there are thousands of survivors and families who are desperate for truth and justice in Sri Lanka, and they’re waiting and watching to see what the Secretary General will do in response to this very harrowing report.

“We think it is increasingly difficult for the government of Sri Lanka to push back against these kinds of findings. We are talking about a situation in which thousands of civilians were killed, where there was systematic targeting of hospitals.

“Now there’s emerging evidence of war crimes by both sides of the conflict and it is very hard for the government with this mounting information to continue to pretend they had a ‘zero civilian casualty’ policy.”

See Channel 4's interview here:

Over 100,000 Tamil civilians remain unaccounted for after Sri Lanka’s onslaught in 2009 into the northern Vanni region, Channel 4 reported Saturday.

Government census forms obtained by Channel 4 show 430,000 residents in Vanni in mid 2008. However internal UN documents also obtained by Channel 4 show only 290,000 people coming out of the final enclave overrun by the government’s troops and being put into its militarized internment camps.

Only 60% of the original residents have returned to Vanni, a Channel 4 source who recently visited the still miliarised region, also said.

Meanwhile, the UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka at the time of the government’s final onslaught, Gorden Weiss, says the death toll could be “shockingly high.”

“I believe a modest estimate of the number of civilians [killed] is probably 20-40,000. Others – significant others – have said the figures may well be far higher,” Weiss, who's recently published a book - 'The Cage' - on the fnal months war, said.

This is Amnesty International’s film – ‘Sri Lanka, tell the truth’ - on the ongoing effort to secure justice for five Tamil students executed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in January 2006.

 

The five students are:

Manoharan Ragihar (22.09.1985)
Yogarajah Hemachchandra (04.03.1985)
Logitharajah Rohan (07.04.1985)
Thangathurai Sivanantha (06.04.1985)
Shanmugarajah Gajendran (16.09.1985)

See links to TamilNet’s reports from the period here:

The state-owned Indian Bank, headquartered in Chennai, is going to open three more branches in Sri Lanka in the coming months, following the newly opened one in Jaffna (see more here).

Chairman and managing director T.M. Bhasin said the bank’s focus is on those areas where they can easily find Tamil clientele.

“Tamil speaking people are particularly very inclined towards our bank and we are also very close to them. So, we want to venture in those areas where many Tamil people are living. In Sri Lanka, many Tamils are there and we have very good business,” he said.

See the report in Sri Lanka’s state-owned Sunday Observer here.

Indian Bank has over 1,700 branches, the majority in Tamil Nadu (757) and Andhra Pradesh (230).

For the context, see also our earlier posts:

'India and Jaffna' (Jan 2011)

'Jaffna and the world' (Nov 2010).

It’s not human smuggling if you’re essentially trying to get caught, says a lawyer for one of the Tamils who sought asylum in Canada after arriving by ship.

Smuggling must entail clandestine and illegal entry, Rod Holloway argued to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). However, in the Tamils’ case,

“The [passengers’] intention appears to have been to bring the ship to Canada and to report at a port of entry, not to try and enter Canada clandestinely.

“What has happened in this case is not smuggling and the people involved should not be denied access to the refugee process when they came here in good faith.”

See the Globe and Mail’s report here.

See our comment on Canada's treatment of fleeing Tamils here.

Canada’s decision to deport the 74-year old widow of assassinated Tamil parliamentarian Joseph Parajasingham on the grounds she is a member “by association” of the Liberation Tigers exemplifies the Kafkaesque logics of the country’s asylum policy as implemented by its Immigration and Refugee Board.

In Canada, as in many Western states, asylum and immigration policy has long been controversial and marked by heated political and public debates. These have intensified amid the insecurities since the global financial crisis, and border agencies in many Western states are under intense pressure to stem immigration – and not just from developing countries. However some of the recent decisions made, and the logics put forward for these, by the IRB stand out as especially perverse.

Canada’s tourism slogan is “Enter a world of extraordinary experiences.” For those seeking safety from persecution, it is exactly that. When 76 Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka’s repression sought asylum after arriving by ship in October 2009, the IRB issued warnings some might have “ties” to the Tamil Tigers. After a protracted and terrifying wait, all were released as not a shred of supporting evidence was found. Nonetheless the same warnings were loudly repeated when 490 more Tamils arrived in August 2010. The vast majority have also had to be released (and the remaining three dozen cases are being processed) as, once again, no evidence was found.

However, the IRB has grasped at all manner of straws in its efforts to exclude people, including the invocation of dubious experts allied with the Sri Lankan government and military. In instances reported in the Canadian media, one asylum seeker was deemed a member of terrorist organisation simply because she was wearing an ‘LTTE locket’ on her necklace. Another applicant was accused of being a member of the LTTE because he had been a mechanic servicing public buses in the LTTE-controlled Vanni – where over 300,000 Tamils were then resident. A third applicant, a former LTTE cadre, is being held even though he had left the organisation nearly a decade ago.

It is Canada’s decision this week to order the deportation of Mrs. Sugunanayake Joseph that stands out for its perversity. Her husband’s assassination, along with other prominent Tamil politicians, is one of the highest profile extra-judicial killings amongst the tens of thousands carried out by Sri Lanka’s Army and its associated paramilitaries. In 2005 Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham was attending Christmas Mass at St. Mary's church in government-controlled Batticaloa town when two gunmen walked in and opened fire, killing the MP and wounding eight others, including his wife, before calmly walking out. No one has been arrested for the execution, reinforcing the chilling message which it carried that was understood by all, including the international community engaged in Sri Lanka.

It was in recognition of that message, that the then Canadian government issued a visitor’s visa so his wife could flee to safety in Canada, where her son and daughter are citizens. Indeed, few people exemplify the UN refugee criterion of “a well founded fear of persecution” than Mrs. Joseph. However, in February this year, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board deemed her inadmissible, saying her role as a politician’s wife — supporting her late husband’s career and accompanying him to political events — amounted to membership in the LTTE, a designated terrorist organization in Canada. Her husband is, of course, also deemed to be a member of the LTTE.

The IRB’s justification is that Mr. Parajasingham’s party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was “associated” with the LTTE. This logic, it’s worth noting, is that of those who murdered him and several other TNA parliamentarians, party workers and supporters. Thus, in the IRB’s logic, the many journalists, political and civil society activists and ordinary people who have fled Sri Lanka are also members of the LTTE because they advocated Tamil self-determination and independence or, like the international community backing the Norwegian peace process, demanded Sri Lanka negotiate with the LTTE as the representatives of Tamil demands.

The extent to which the IRB’s decision - and by extension Canada’s implementation of its asylum policy - is divorced from reality is marked by two things: first, the growing international recognition of Sri Lanka’s murderous political repression of the Tamils, and, secondly, by international demands - most explicitly by the United States - that the Colombo government negotiate with the TNA to reach a political solution to Sri Lanka’s festering ethnopolitical crisis. Last month another TNA MP, S. Sritharan, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.

A country’s immigration and asylum policy, as much as its others, are very much part of its international identity. Under the banner of excluding bogus asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the IRB has chosen to interpret individual cases in distorted ways that violate not only the UN refugee convention, but the societal values of tolerance, support for human rights and justice that Canada, rhetorically at least, has been espousing. In doing so, it is making a mockery of, and serving to undermine, these principles both at home and abroad.

Boosted by an email campaign by his supporters, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa is sixth in Time magazine’s poll of the 100 most influential people of 2011.

(While polling for inclusion in the 100 is now closed, voting for ranking within the shortlist continues till April 21.)

When the shortlisting closed, President Rajapaksa, whose regime is in international focus for its war crimes, had polled over 74,000 ‘yes’ votes and 21,000 ‘no’ votes. (See Time's reasons here for why he might be considered 'influential', something his fans might have missed.)

That's more than seven times that for Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg (28th) and double for American pop star Lady Gaga (12th).

Ahead of him (in ascending ranking) were China’s Buddhist nun and philanthropist, Cheng Yen, and a clutch of pop stars: Beyonce, Britain’s Susan Boyle, Taiwan’s Jay Chou and on top, South Korea’s Rain.

China’s President Hu Jintao was ranked 27th (with over 8,000 yes votes), Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 73rd (1518 yes votes) and President Dimitri Medvedev 105th (1112 yes votes).

To see how Sonia Gandhi, Michelle Obama, Julian Assange and others fared, see the full list here.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa fetes the Sri Lankan team at his home on April 4. Photos Sudath Silva

Sri Lanka let India win the Cricket World Cup, President Mahinda Rajapaksa suggested to a reception welcoming back the team, echoing wild allegations that the players had deliberately performed below par.

"I like to tell my Indian friends that 20 million from our small country, took a step back to allow 1.2 billion Indian people to enjoy some happiness, for the second time since 1983," he told attendees.

See NDTV’s report here.

Rajapaksa’s comments nearly caused a diplomatic storm across the Palk Straits - see Emirates 24/7’s report here on another development since India’s victory:

Sri Lanka’s Sports Minister has ordered eleven Sri Lankan cricketers playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) to return to prepare for the national team’s tour of England next month.

This is despite their prior agreement with Sri Lanka cricket (SLC) that the players would complete their IPL contracts before joining the national team in Britain. (The IPL league concludes end May, the England tour begins mid-May).

The IPL contracts are lucrative for both the players and SLC. As such, the Minister’s directive makes clear Sri Lanka’s players have to put the country before their professional careers.

That the Sri Lankan team are seen as ambassadors of the country is underscored by the lavish reception in his home that President Rajapaksa gave the team.

Flanked by his wife Shiranthi, Rajapaksa presented players with a 5,000 rupee gold coin and a pair of gold cufflinks encrusted with colourful stones.

“You have done us proud,” Rajapaksa, a staunch Sinhala nationalist, told the players.

See more pictures (by Sudath Silva) of the reception: