Rajapaksas and War Crimes

There is little doubt the war crimes issue would have any impact on this parliamentary election. The April 8 election has nothing serious on its platforms. It’s all about athletes, film stars, cricketers, journalists and also lumpens, and more about these “wonderful” personalities.

What is nevertheless important is how the Rajapaksas would avoid facing war crimes investigations. This leads to the question whether General Fonseka would play a role in complicating the situation. The issue of war crimes and crimes against humanity is up again with UN Secretary General (SG) Ban Ki-moon deciding to appoint a panel of experts to advise him on Sri Lanka.

“I made clear to President Rajapaksa that I intend to move forward on a group of experts which will advise me on setting the broad parameters and standards on the way ahead on establishing accountability concerning Sri Lanka,” Ban Ki-moon told the media in New York. He qualified his reference on Sri Lanka by saying, “I had a frank and honest exchange of views with the President.”

That accountability Ban Ki-moon talked of, concerns possible breaches of international humanitarian law or abuses of human rights carried out during the final phase of the war against the LTTE. The worst affected in this war were women and children. A sneaked camera by British Channel Four into the wired IDP camps in Vavuniya in August 2009 that then held over 250,000 displaced Tamil people, revealed the agony and humiliation young girls and women underwent with interrogating male security persons. Channel Four again topped that story with the now controversially famous video clip they aired which claims, stripped and unarmed youth were shot to death at close range. Certified as authentic footage by three international experts, the case against Sri Lanka on war crimes gained a new impetus.

What Ban Ki-moon politely wraps up as “accountability” is all about those war crimes touted once more in international human rights circles and by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navenetham Pillai.  Yet the SG is considered as lacking “a moral voice and authority.”

“Another example of weak handling from the Secretary-General’s side is the war in Sri Lanka. The Secretary-General was a powerless observer to civilians in their thousands losing their lives and being driven from their homes……..the Secretary-General’s moral voice and authority have been absent,” says a Norwegian diplomatic report in 2009 August, stamped “highly confidential” by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, but “leaked” to a leading Norwegian news paper, the Aftenposten.

Written by Norwegian deputy ambassador to the UN, a senior career diplomat Ms. Mona Juul, the highly confidential but damning report notes with a dry tone, “at a time when solutions by the UN and multilateral agencies are more necessary than ever to resolve global conflicts, Ban and the UN are conspicuous in their absence.”

It was obvious therefore the Sri Lankan government and the President would reject the SG’s decision on Sri Lanka and its accountability. President Rajapaksa was reported as having told Ban Ki-moon that the SL position on the proposed advisory panel would be sent in writing. Now it is said, by no other than the SG himself that the proposed advisory panel will only be appointed after Under Secretary General of Political Affairs Lyn Pascoe makes an early visit to Colombo, a visit he was expected to make in February, but never did.

The UN and its SG are an important factor in taking Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as Sri Lanka is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In fact, none of the SAARC member countries except Afghanistan have signed the Rome Statute that has 110 state parties. The ICC can only initiate proceedings against citizens of state parties that have signed the ‘Rome Statute.’ Therefore the Sri Lankan case has to be referred to the Hague based ICC by the UN Security Council.

The Indian “People’s Union for Civil Liberties” (PUCL) argued this position in its in early May, 2009 addressed to all members of the Security Council (SC) requesting the SC to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It is often said and the French diplomat at the UN, Gerard Araud had gone on record telling “Inner City Press” that the UN and the SG have been slow in taking up Sri Lankan issues due to pressure from member countries. First is India and then China.

The Indo – China rope could be strong enough for President Rajapaksa to hold tight in the UN. But the issue of war crimes and crimes against humanity does not stop with UN and other international lobbying. The Rajapaksa regime has created its own “devil” at home by targeting their former Army Commander turned common opposition presidential candidate against Rajapaksa. The two have gone beyond any possibility of compromise with General Fonseka now detained and investigated upon, for breach of army law and possible indictment on other issues in a civil court.

This egoistic conflict may not end the way the Rajapaksa regime would want it to end, if on April 8, a sizeable number of Colombo voters decide to elect Fonseka to parliament. While his image as a war hero and as a man with integrity had been badly chewed up with regular news reports to the contrary, he still has a sympathy vote that may elect him to parliament. That would not be something the Rajapaksas would be able to handle to their advantage with media campaigns.

If elected, his bitter animosity frothing in continued detention, may prompt him to use parliamentary privileges to make statements against his former friends adding more fuel to international lobbying. His statements on war related crimes if made in parliament, would not be  retractable as those made to the media. What then would this government do as damage control?

Accusations and counter accusations for sure would provide more ammo for international lobbying against Sri Lanka. But what purpose, what satisfaction would it be for all those innocent Tamil people, who lost all things dear to them in their hard earned life? To at least those 300,000 Tamil civilians who were herded into barbed wire camps, without basic facilities and with no privacy and safety? For how long would they have to wait for any justice to be meted out, as the world calls for war crimes investigations?