UN Panel Report, Sri Lanka and India

13-May-2011

Guest column by Sivanendran

“The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world, then to organise and act to change it. That’s never been impossible and never been easy” - Noam Chomsky

On April 25^th the United Nations officially released a report of the UN Secretary General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. The report alleged that both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE were responsible for possible violation of humanitarian and human right law. The ethnic conflict gives context to the UN's report that the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) slaughtered Tamils during the last phase of the war.

 A draft of the report was given to the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) for their review and response prior to publication. It was intended to incorporate their response in the final document. The government obviously rattled by the findings in the report, leaked it to their slavish press and sought to mobilise the Sinhala masses  against the UN and the West.  The government used all tactics in their armoury to prevent its publication, and using the period before publication to hurl abuses at everyone connected with the report. The press instead of investigating the mass of information in the report and examining its recommendations -  as it is their function in a democracy - set about ridiculing and vilifying the panel members for its contents. Sri Lankan media have been especially frantic in their attacks on UNSG Ban ki Moon for commissioning the report. They have dismissed the document as a "fabrication," and contend that the UN researchers that documented the massacres of innocent Tamil victims of SLA are pursuing a vendetta against the Sri Lankan State. 

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theage.com.au

'Walk to the troops': SMS sent Tamils to their death 

Ben Doherty  May 14, 2011

Dr Palitha Kohona, a dual Sri Lankan-Australian citizen, denies Tamil allegations that he is a war criminal. Photo: Andrew Taylor

BEATEN and with nowhere left to run, they received the text message just before 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
It came, through an intermediary, from the Sri Lankan foreign secretary, apparent instructions for a surrender: ''Just walk across to the troops, slowly! With a white flag and comply with instructions carefully. The soldiers are nervous about suicide bombers.''
At dawn the next day, a group of nearly 20 - Tamil Tiger soldiers and civilians - scrambled from behind their defensive sand embankment, walking under white flags towards the Sri Lankan army's 58th Division.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/walk-to-the-troops-sms-sent-tamils-to-their-death-20110513-1emin.html#ixzz1MGcPTn9v

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