A Defence Of War Crimes And War Criminals?

Yasmin Sooka

by Emil van der Poorten-Sunday, January 31, 2016

The fact that the hounds from hell are baying for the blood of South African Yasmin Sooka should surprise no one given the fact that this same bunch accused two other South Africans with similar credentials, the late Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, of being “Tiger collaborators!”

It is not a matter for any surprise that the very same people who are organizing a thinly-disguised “Super Race” project called “Sinha Le,” continue their support of the Bodhu Bala Sena’s well-financed project which had seemingly run out of steam. The surprise is that a government allegedly committed to stopping Nazi projects continues to turn a blind eye to the reality that the vast majority of Sri Lankans recognize, if not oppose wholeheartedly. What are we waiting for? Another Black July or a Sri Lankan Kristallnacht?

The attack on Sooka, whose early history is with Mandela and Tutu, is only a part of the “philosophy” practised by the lumpen of this country, tacitly supported by those up to Cabinet rank and even higher, it seems, within the Ohey Palayang government.

There is an old chestnut about living with the dividends of history unobserved and the geniuses who claim to represent “Sri Lankan interests” are pushing the envelope in the matter of achieving that fate. That may well constitute poetic justice. However, if we let greedy morons take us down that path, we will have no one to blame but ourselves for the fate that ultimately befalls us all: “governance” that makes the Rajapaksa regime’s excesses look like a Sunday School Picnic!

I have said it before and I will say it again: the only way that we will see an objective analysis of what happened during the violent ethnic conflict that ended in 2009 will be if an international tribunal of committed and skilled people conduct such an examination and analysis. And let me be clear about any such initiative, the Desmond de Silvas, even if the third generation of self-promoting figures with their primary loyalty to those in their family circle, have no place in any such plan.  To expect justice from a local panel, including hangers-on from this dispensation or its predecessor, is not only pushing credulity to the edge of the precipice of doom and gloom but giving it that final shove into the abyss. Those that pass for “practitioners of the law” in Sri Lanka have proven totally incapable of delivering on their local responsibilities in the day to day lives of our citizens, leave alone apply fairness and justice to a far bigger task. To expect them to deal fairly and within the bounds of universally-accepted norms is nothing short of ludicrous.  Without an objective analysis and the determinations that flow from it, we are doomed insofar as any pretensions to civilized behaviour are concerned. After all, human rights and crimes against humanity are now within an internationally-accepted framework and even the most repressive regimes in the world pay lip service to those precepts, no matter how hypocritically. There Is Absolutely No Evidence To So Much As Suggest That A “Made-In-Sri-Lanka” solution can come even close to delivering. And please do not drag into this debate any of the Sri Lankans who are considered jurists of international repute. One in particular, who was the recipient, not incidentally, of some national honour from our Monarch-recently-deposed, displayed what can only be described as deafening silence as far as condemnation of the rampant abuse of human rights conducted, literally, under his very nose. If that individual (and his kin) were silent then, how in heaven’s name can you expect those at the lower levels of his particular totem pole to deliver in circumstances which could be, to put it mildly, fraught with political and personal risk?       

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