War crimes: FM stresses need to get at the truth

December 15, 2015, 9:43 am 

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has stressed the need to inquire into the alleged accountability issues during the war and punish those responsible to protect and restore the reputation of the vast majority of security forces personnel.

Minister Samaraweera was addressing the Diner’s Club of the Defence Services Command and Staff College on Sunday night. Samaraweera dealt with Sri Lanka’s present foreign policy.

The Command and Staff College, the highest seat of military learning in the country, annually trains around

150 selected mid-level officers from all three armed services and those of many countries around the world for command appointments.

The college was formed in 1998 with technical assistance from the British Army. 

Expressing the deepest appreciation for the immense sacrifices made by the security forces, the Foreign Minister said the government would fulfil its duty to ensure that the cloud that was hanging over the heads of the country’s security forces was lifted once and for all. Samaraweera said that the government would do it by adhering to the principles of good governance and the rule of law to investigate the truth and punish any wrongdoers so that the good name and professional reputation of the vast majority of security forces personnel and the armed forces as a whole could be restored. 

Quoting from Sri Lanka’s immediate post-Independence leaders, including Prime Ministers D. S. Senanayake and S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the Minister explained that Sri Lanka had pursued a democratic, world embracing and non-aligned foreign policy that benefited its people since Independence. Calling the period of international isolation from 2009 onwards an aberration, he said that Sri Lanka had reverted to its policy of friendship with all countries in the world. 

Discussing the interaction between domestic policy and foreign policy in the context of the Southern and Northern insurgency and terrorism, Samaraweera paid tribute to the late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s belief the struggle against terrorist movements had to be conducted on the basis of respect for the sovereignty of states; strengthening rather than undermining democracy; and observing human rights law and the law of armed conflict.

Winding up his speech the Minister stressed that the end of the war had been a historic moment that needed to be grasped to ensure that the problems that have torn apart the country since Independence as resolved. He quoted a speech Minister Kadirgamar made at the Kotelawala Defence Academy in 2000 on the "Role of the soldier in a Democratic Society" where he said "…when the day comes, and I believe it will come, for the armed forces to lay down their arms because they have done their duty and won their battles, the peace that is going to be constructed, basically by civilians, will be rendered possible only if the armed forces have seen to it that in fighting the way they also respected and had regard for, and wherever possible looked after, cared for and tendered the civilians who in those difficult times were geographically on the side of the enemy. Let us never have to rue the day when we won the war, but lost the peace for which the war was fought."