IN THE
INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL
COURT OF JUSTICE
AT HAGUE
N.Nandhivarman
General Secretary
Dravida Peravai
9 Ramaraja Street
Puducherry 605001
To
Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo
Public Prosecutor
Office of the Public Prosecutor
International Criminal Court of
Justice
Post Office Box; 19519
2500 CM The Hague
THE NETHERLANDS
Respected Sir,
Subject: Complaint against
Srilankan President Mahinda Rajapakshe on the genocide, ethnic cleansing and
war crimes throwing all canons of international law to winds.
The petitioner recalls your words
at the outset. "I deeply hope that the horrors humanity has suffered
during the 20th century will serve us as a painful lesson, and that the
creation of the International Criminal Court will help us to prevent those
atrocities from being repeated in the future." [Statement made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the occasion of his election
as first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the Assembly of
States Parties in New York on 22 April 2003.]
International Campaign to End
Genocide lists out that 1.5 million Armenians, 3 million Ukrainians, 6 million
Jews, 2,50,000 gypsies, 6 million Slavs,1 million Ibos, 200,000 Guatemalans,
1.7 million Cambodians, 500,000 Indonesians, 200,000 East Timorese , 2,50,000
Burundians, 500,000 Ugandans, 2 million Sudanese, 800,000 Rwandans, 2 million
North Koreans and 10,000 Kosovo's lost their lives under Genocide during last
century.
Awareness on Genocide started in
1944, when a Jewish Refugee from Poland who taught in USA coined the word Genocide
in his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”. Tamils of Ceylon, currently known
as Srilanka started to learn the bitter truth about Genocide from 1956.
Dravida Peravai encloses you a
book titled Tamil Genocide under Neo-Nazism, which is a charge sheet against
Srilankan Governments wherein Tamil massacres since 1956 to 2001 are complied
by a non-governmental organization. Though the language used is not so fluent
with many spelling mistakes on the names of persons and places, we have thanked
the first ever effort made, and had attached that report to our complaint made
to the President of the Security Council for the month of May, to the General
Secretary of the United Nations and to the representatives of the Member
Nations of the Security Council. In that letter we have urged the Security
Council to direct our complaint to you urging you to begin the probe into the
issue of Tamil Genocide since 1956 to till date i.e. 2009. The copy is in the
first few pages of the enclosed book. We urge The International Criminal Court
of Justice probe using all arms of the United Nations and non governmental
organizations and to compile all the crimes of genocide committed by Srilankan
governments since independence but with emphasis of the current Government of
Mr.Mahinda Rajapakhse.
Winston Churchill called
genocide, a crime without name, before the word was coined. Now the Srilankan
President is pursuing that crime without witness. The War without witness may
be called a war against terrorism by Srilankan Government, but the day when
independent observers and non governmental organizations and international
media gets free access to the people of Tamil Eelam, you will be getting all
the evidences needed to fix the Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe for
war crimes and crimes of genocide. Further even after declaring victory in the
War, The Executive President of Srilanka who executed Tamils in thousands and
thousands, is nor stalling access to UN only to destroy the evidences against
the crime, like burning the corpses so that numbers killed could get concealed.
Before we could mail this
complaint news from Srilanka once again proves that President wants Peace too
to be without witnesses. Boston Globe voices concern.
EU must
investigate Sri Lanka war crimes - Boston Globe
Tuesday,
19 May 2009
"The government of President
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been claiming a glorious total victory - and denying
allegations from doctors on the scene that tens of thousands of innocent
civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate artillery fire and
scorched-earth tactics," said Boston Globe in Tuesday's editorial, adding "the European Union must follow up on
its call for an investigation of war crimes against civilians." The editorial also said that "the
United Nations adopted a resolution in 2005 on the "responsibility to
protect" populations that are not protected by their own governments. The
massive killing and wounding of civilians on Sri Lanka represents exactly the
sort of case that resolution was meant to address."
Full text of the editorial
follows:
Sri
Lanka, after the war
ONE OF THE WORLD'S bloodiest
conflicts has come to a violent conclusion in the island nation of Sri Lanka.
The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been claiming a glorious
total victory - and denying allegations from doctors on the scene that tens of
thousands of innocent civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate
artillery fire and scorched-earth tactics.
Rajapaksa must give aid
organizations access to hundreds of thousands of uprooted Tamils in the islands
northeast. Overwhelmed doctors in overcrowded camps are amputating limbs
without sufficient drugs and medical supplies. The people in those camps
desperately need medical care, food, and water. And they should be allowed to
return to their homes as soon as possible.
Once the
humanitarian crisis is addressed, the European Union must follow up on its call
for an investigation of war crimes against civilians. The Rajapaksa government has
tried to draw a screen around its actions, banning independent journalists and
international aid groups from the war zone. But the United Nations adopted a
resolution in 2005 on the "responsibility to protect" populations
that are not protected by their own governments. The massive killing and wounding
of civilians on Sri Lanka represents exactly the sort of case that resolution
was meant to address. Ultimately, the only way for Sri Lanka to avoid another
Tamil rebellion is to grant the Tamils some form of local autonomy in their
region. Now that the Tigers have been crushed, the Sinhalese majority of Sri
Lanka has no excuse for not addressing the legitimate grievances of the Tamil
minority.
Srilanka won’t heed Boston Globe
or even all nations in our globe. The purpose in our reproducing the Boston
Globe editorial is to urge you to start investigations into the war crimes in
Srilanka.
Lies,
deceptions, hallmark of Sri Lanka war- Telegraph
Monday, 18 May 2009
"Chinese weapons, intelligence,
Sinhala Armed personals and racist Sri Lankan leaders came together to perform
one of the most cruel war that has cost the lives of many thousands
innocents," says Richard Dixon, a columnist in London's Telegraph. While
"Tamils all over the world are mourning the death of their loved ones back
home," and "birds have now stopped singing in a land called
Vanni," Dixon writes, "leaders of Sri Lanka and some responsible
officers in the UN, should be questioned in international courts in order to
find out if they were responsible for the deaths of innocent Tamils."
Full text of the article follows:
The Real
Culprits behind Sri Lankan War
Birds have now stopped singing in
a land called Vanni. Sun, moon and the stars in the sky have hidden their
faces. Angel of death flew over the skies of Vanni and took the lives of more
than twenty five thousand innocent Tamil men, women and children in a single
day.
Thousands of wounded are still
are crying out for help. They are bleeding to death on the streets. They have
touched neither water nor food for days. Nobody has come to rescue them. Those
who fight for the rights of the animals and those who preach about Buddha and
Mahatma have no compassion for the dying Tamils. Chinese weapons, Indian intelligence,
Sinhalese Armed personals and racist Sri Lankan leaders came together to
perform one of the most cruel war that has cost the lives of many thousands
innocents. While thousands of innocent children and women are facing painful
and slow death, Sinhalese Buddhist extremists are celebrating victory with
flags and fire crackers in the south of the country. War that was started with
hidden agendas of local and international forces went on for months not just
with the strength of the weapons but with well organized false propaganda done
by the Sri Lankan officials.
This war was orchestrated and
staged with lies and deceptions from the beginning till the end.
Sri
Lankan leaders are still vomiting out worms of lies
Rulers of Sri Lanka are
continuing to vomit out worms of lies to justify their atrocities against
innocent lives. They started with “War on Terror” but changed the buzz word to
“Humanitarian Operation” in order to deceive the international community. “War
on Terror” was an accepted norm during the Bush era but lost its validity now.
Therefore they had changed the name of the game to “Humanitarian operation”
Why do
they lie?
Because they have many hidden agendas
behind this dirty war they want to hide the atrocities that are being committed
against innocent civilians. They themselves know, what they are doing is wrong and
not acceptable in a civilized world. Above everything they want to protect
India who is orchestrating the war in Sri Lanka. Indian intelligent agents and
military experts are working closely with the Sri Lankan forces in the war
zone.
How do
they manage to lie?
They simply hide the truth. When
the truth is hidden what comes out is lie. Foreign journalists and aid workers
are barred from the war zone and IDP camps. Those who try to enter and report
about the war are kicked out of the country if they are critical of the
government. Local journalists are intimidated, tortured and sometime killed.
Telling the truth is considered a crime in Sri Lanka. Phone lines are tapped.
Web sites are blocked. Anybody who talks against the government is considered
as Terrorist or Terrorist supporter .In the war front, dead bodies of the
civilians is burned to ashes using powerful chemicals. This is to hide the
number of innocent civilians that have perished in the wars Lankan government
officials very often organize staged visits to the IDP camps and force the
refugees to lie to the foreign diplomats.
What did
they lie about?
They lied about the objective of
the war, weapons used, number of civilian causalities and military operations. Although
they initially claimed that the objective of the war was to defeat the LTTE, they have in fact killed and wounded
several thousands of innocent Tamil civilians with heavy weapons. They used
chemical weapons and cluster bombs on innocents, but they continue to deny the
usage of such weapons.
Sri
Lankan forces have destroyed Schools, hospitals and farm lands and made the
whole place into a graveyard for the Tamils. This is also regularly denied by
the Sri Lankan authorities. This war has claimed more than fifty thousands
lives just within the last few months but the Sri Lankan government is not
going to open their mouth and tell this truth to the world.
Why
didn't the UN intervene?
United Nations, who is supposed
to be a guardian for the oppressed people in the world turned out to be a
silent spectator of a man made disaster that has taken the lives of many
thousands. There is a conspiracy behind this whole war game. China was initially blocking every attempt
that was made by UK and France to discuss the Sri Lankan issue in the Security
Council.
What we
are witnessing in Sri Lanka is neither “war on terror” nor a Humanitarian
operation. This is simply a racist war against the Tamils conducted with the
help of India and China. You wouldn't shoot at the passengers and bomb the
whole bus, if you had to rescue the hostages.
Sinhalese extremists are already
celebrating and they have also started to intimidate Tamils in the South of the
country. India and China have started to work on their hidden agendas in Sri
Lanka. Tamils all over the world are mourning the death of their loved ones
back home.
What
Next?
When the rocket scientists
designed highly complex derivatives and greedy traders traded these new
emperors cloths, many investment banks collapsed. Pension funds lost money.
Bankers committed suicide. The whole financial disaster was caused by greedy
and selfish individuals who had short term hidden agendas. We took action.
Greedy bankers and traders were taken to courts. New rules and regulations are
now in place to prevent this happening again. In the same way, the masters of
this war in Sri Lanka should be brought to justice.
Sinhalese
government with racist agendas, China and India with their strategic interests
and UN with corrupt officers are the evil ingredients of this dirty war that
has cost the lives of many thousands innocent Tamils.
Leaders
of Sri Lanka and some responsible officers in the UN should be questioned in
international courts in order to find out if they were responsible for the
deaths of innocent Tamils.
If we didn't, we would end up
seeing more of such evil games repeated over and over again.
Richard
Dixon
RichardDixons@googlemail.com
Our comments:
[We are
baffled at the reporter’s charge about India, and being patriots we are ashamed
if such things were happening and we
pray it wont be true, but it is left to International Court of Criminal Justice
either to take cognizance of the views or to probe the matter further. India
should refute these charges and not bury truth, even if some one had bypassed
the Government to engage in such crimes. Since pursuit of truth and justice for
Tamils is our goal, amidst biased propaganda blitzkrieg of Srilanka, we don’t
want to censor The Telegraph, quoted in above paragraphs. …N.N]
SINHALESE
GOVERNMENTS AND TAMIL GENOCIDE
Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the crime of Genocide adopted by Resolution 260[ iii] A of the UN
General Assembly on 9th December 1048 is a remarkable milestone and
this came into effect on 12 th January 1951. The Srilankan Government started
its first genocide on 5.6.1956. People thought it is just ethnic clash but
never at that point Tamils thought ethnic cleansing had started. We are sending
the Charge sheet against Sinhalese Governments listing out the people who were
butchered to death in the genocidal agenda consistently pursued by almost all
Sinhalese Governments.
The book Journey of Man by
Spencer Wells establishes that all men are from common source. All genes of
human beings have common genes and gene markers. Science had proven beyond an
iota of doubt that race is a myth. But Sinhalese regard Mahavamsam, their sacred book which inculcates in them wrong notion
of racial supremacy. Even the legend on the origin of Sinhalese race starts
with a lion and a human princess, which itself will shatter the very foundation
of the origin of their race, as unscientific fiction. Yet with the same racial
superiority which Adolph Hitler proclaimed to be an Aryan, who went to
annihilate the inferior Jews according to his mindset, Sinhalese rulers have been
indulging in massacres of Tamils from 1956.
Though the world woke up to the
horrors of genocide in 1948, the report on The Genocide Convention: First 50
years [1948-1998] by William Schabas available in the online library of the US
Institute of Peace fails to mention crimes against Tamils. Tamils are the most
peace loving people, whose leaders have failed to highlight or bring to the
notice of the UN all these years about the Tamil Genocide in Srilanka since
1956.
We are
now starting to knock the International Criminal Court of Justice and the
Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner.
The Special Report on first 50
years record with anguish “that in 1994 while 800,000 Tutis died in Rwanda
State Department debated whether it was genocide and the United Nations
Security Council withdrew UN Peace Keeping Force who could have saved hundreds
of thousands of lives.” But in this century Tamils are placed in a better
position because all over the world Tamil Diaspora relentlessly fought to draw
the attention of the civilized world and we are grateful for the President of
the United States Mr.Barrack Obama and Secretary of State Ms.Hillary Rodham
Clinton, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary
Mr.Millind, the Norway Minster Mr. Eric Solheim and to European Parliament for
echoing the plight of Tamils of Tamil Eelam crushed under the genocidal war
machine of Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe.
The Special Report on first 50
years points out that on 2 nd September 1998 only International Tribunal for
Rwanda issued first conviction for genocide condemning Rwandan Mayor Jean Paul
Akayesu and justice done to Tutis. Similarly from the theatre of Eelam war
obeying the resolution of the UN Security Council, the freedom fighters
expressed willingness to surrender arms to a neutral country, they announced
that their guns will become silent, they pleaded for ensuring safe passage for
25000 civilians wounded in the combat zone. But unmindful of the conscience of
the humanity and comity of nations Srilankan President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakshe
went ahead in his war of ethnic cleansing and committed the gravest crime of
genocide. We hope UN and other bodies will belatedly deliver justice to out
Tamil kinsmen. After all wars are essential to test newly invented weaponry and
China with its single minded pursuit to encircle India and to teach India a
lesson for its involvement in Tibet, provided all the arms of mass destruction
and chemical weapons to the blood thirsty war mongers of Srilanka.
India tells UN that it has
complied with Weapons Convention : Chemical Arms Destroyed says a news in
English Daily :Deccan Chronicle of 15 th May 2009.The news paper says that
India has informed the United Nations that it has destroyed its stockpile of
chemical weapons in compliance with International Chemical Weapons Convention.
Though the Government of India had notified on 26th of March 2009 on the fulfillment of its
obligation to completely destroy its declared chemical weapons stockpile, the
news was broken a day before the
counting of votes in recently held Indian elections were to begin. If the news
had broken in March 26th, there would not have arisen doubts in the
minds of Indian Tamils. That is internal matter of India. Here the purpose is
to urge the Public Prosecutor to find out how come and wherefrom Srilanka
obtained its chemical bombs and weapons?
Let me
begin my complaint by quoting UN documents itself
Sri Lanka: UN expert on genocide prevention
Calls for end to conflict
Overcrowding remains a problem at the transit/IDP sites in Vavuniya, Sri
Lanka
15 May 2009 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide today
said that “it is not too late” for Sri Lanka's Government forces and rebels to end
their brutal conflict, underscoring the toll the clashes are taking on
civilians.
“This polarizing conflict is identity-related
with ethnicity and religion as deeply divisive factors,” he said. “It will not
end with winners and losers and it cannot be ended solely through a military
victory that may not be sustainable in the long-run unless legitimate
grievances are addressed.”
Mr.Deng underscored that
women and girls are particularly vulnerable to “excesses of conflict,”
stressing that the Government is legally obligated to give them special protection. He
called on authorities to allow the UN and other agencies “full and unfettered
access to all civilians and detainees.”
Mr.Kälin also expressed his
concern over the dire living conditions in camps for internally displaced
persons (IDPs) who escaped the conflict, with the influx of an additional
110,000 people during the last 10 days of April posing further challenges for
the Government and its humanitarian partners. “Ensuring adequate humanitarian
assistance to internally displaced persons is first and foremost a Government
responsibility, especially since the Government decided to intern them in camps,
citing security concerns,” he said, adding that authorities continue to hold
nearly 200,000 IDPs in temporary camps.
The Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
today reiterated that the loss of civilian life and the situation of
those trapped in the conflict zone are unacceptable, deploring the use
of heavy weapons and of civilians as human shields.
The Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR) said today that it believes that an
independent commission of inquiry is needed given the conduct of this war and
the number of civilians who have been killed.
Patients, medical staff, aid workers, and other
witnesses have provided Human Rights Watch with information about at least 30
attacks on permanent and makeshift hospitals in the combat area since December
2008. One of the deadliest took place on May 2, when artillery shells struck
Mullaivaikal hospital in the government-declared "no-fire zone,"
killing 68 persons and wounding 87.
HRW quoted “several independent
sources” as saying that each time a hospital was established in a new location,
the doctors transmitted GPS coordinates of the facility to the Sri Lankan
government to ensure that the facility would be protected from military attack.
Medical staff said that, on several occasions, attacks occurred on the day
after the coordinates had been transmitted. “Permanent and makeshift hospitals
within LTTE-controlled territory continue to receive hundreds of patients
daily. Many arrive wounded from the fighting, while others are sick due to
inadequate sanitation, and acute shortages of food and clean water,” HRW said.
"Hospitals are supposed to
be sanctuaries from shelling, not targets," Adams said." Repeated Sri
Lankan artillery attacks striking known hospitals is evidence of war
crimes," he added. "The government cannot hide behind LTTE atrocities
to justify their own unlawful acts.”HRW has criticized both the Sri Lankan
armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for numerous
violations of the laws of war during the recent fighting.
Four UN Human Rights
Council experts on right to health, food, water, and sanitation, in a statement
said that "there is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians
have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan
Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the
war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type," and that
"shipments of food and medicine to the "no fire zone" have been grossly
insufficient over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or
denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as to chlorine
tablets," and urged the U.N. to establish a commission to address the
critical human rights situation, and demand full respect to human rights.
Philip Alston, Professor of Law
and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New
York University School of Law, appointed Special Rapporteur in 2004 by the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Anand Grover, appointed Special
Rapporteur in 2008 by the United Nations Human Rights Council, Mr. Olivier De
Schutter was appointed Special Rapporteur in 2008, and Ms. Catarina de
Albuquerque began her work as Independent Expert on the issue of human rights
obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation in November
2008, signed the statement. Full text of the statement follows: current humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka gives
cause for deep concern, not only in terms of the number of civilians who have
been and continue to be killed, but because of a dramatic lack of transparency
and accountability. "There is good reason to believe that thousands of
civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri
Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access
to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type",
said Philip Alston, the UN expert on summary executions. The continuing
catastrophic situation of civilians in Sri Lanka trapped in the midst of
fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE, in an area measuring less
than 10 sq km, must be immediately addressed. "These civilians do not have
sufficient access to food, essential medical supplies or services and safe water
and sanitation. Even if they do escape death or injury at the hands of the
hostile parties, their continued presence in this area without access to these
basic rights is an effective death sentence," declared the Experts of the
UN Human Rights Council. "The safety of civilians, including their safe
passage out of the conflict zone, must be prioritized by all actors
involved" said the Experts. While many thousands of civilians have now
left this area, the Experts maintained their concern about the safety of more
than 50,000 estimated by the UN to still remain. Shipments of food and medicine
to the "no fire zone" have been grossly insufficient over the past
month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of
life saving medicines as well as to chlorine tablets. "As a result of the
blackout on independent information sources, it is impossible to verify any of
the Government's claims as to the number of casualties to date or as to the
steps that it says it is taking in order to minimize the further killing of
innocent civilians, and ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance", said
the Experts. "When people manage to escape, they reportedly continue to
face scant supplies, entirely insufficient access to adequate medical treatment
and severely overcrowded hospitals, providing no relief to the horrors they had
been living," remarked Anand Grover, the UN expert on the right to health.
"Access to food has also been hampered by arduous and lengthy registration
procedures for the internally displaced persons; the desperation and chaos
witnessed in some cases show that the situation is critical," said Olivier
De Schutter, the UN expert on the right to food. Catarina de Albuquerque, the
UN expert on water and sanitation, also expressed concern about "water
shortages reported at Omanthai and at most of the transit sites as well as
inadequate sanitation facilities, which put the health and lives of the
population at further risk." The Government must take urgent measures with
the assistance of the international community to ensure that security concerns
do not result in unjustifiable suffering. The Experts called upon the Sri
Lankan Government to provide convincing evidence to the international community
that it is respecting its obligations under human rights and international
humanitarian law. It is also clear that the LTTE, for its part, has acted in
flagrant violation of the applicable norms by preventing civilians from leaving
the conflict area and having reportedly shot and killed those trying to flee.
"There is an urgent need to establish an international commission of
inquiry to document the events of recent months and to monitor ongoing
developments." The Experts called upon the UN Human Rights Council to
establish such a commission, as a matter of urgency, to address the critical
situation in Sri Lanka, and demand full respect for all human rights. Any such
inquiry should study the conduct of all sides to the conflict.
Even before the genocidal war was started by
Government of Srilanka at the behest of President Mahinda Rajapakshe i.e. on Monday, 23 October 2006, Prof. Philip Alston, United Nation's Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, speaking to the United
Nations General Assembly, Third Committee, 20 October 2006, said that the
"dramatic attacks in recent days and spiraling number of extrajudicial
executions" indicate that "Sri Lanka is not so much on the brink of a
new crisis but, instead, only in the midst of an interminable and intractable
crisis that has already exhausted its fair share of international
attention," and called upon the United Nations Secretariat to
"establish a full-fledged international human rights monitoring mission in
Sri Lanka."
"Widespread
violence during a faltering ceasefire is not the same as an all-out civil war
that costs tens of thousands of lives. Real progress has been made over the
past four years, and nothing that has happened in these past few months has
made achieving a sustainable peace founded on respect for human rights
impossible. But there is little reason to think that the opportunity will be
available for much longer," Prof. Alston warned.
He said although the
"issue was placed squarely before the Human Rights Council last month but
the signals are that any action the Council might take in November will do very
little to make a difference as this tragic situation swells and threatens to
reach bursting point." The following challenges should be immediately
addressed, Prof. Alston told the UN assembly:
- To
acknowledge the need for significantly more sustained and high-level
international involvement
- To
accept the fact that there is no national institution capable of
monitoring human rights throughout Sri Lanka, and To establish an
effective international human rights monitoring presence.
In the report Prof Alston
presented, he said: "The Sri Lanka
Government should not, however, interpret the widespread proscription of
LTTE as a terrorist organization as an endorsement of its own record. Neither its past nor its present conduct
would justify great faith in its ability to respect equally the rights of all
citizens. Indeed, it is an enduring scandal that there have been virtually no
convictions of government officials for killing Tamils, and many Tamils doubt
that the rule of law will protect their lives." The warning from
Prof.Alston comes in the wake of assurances given by Sri
Lanka 's President "of his intention to invite an
international commission to inquire into recent killings, disappearances and
abductions in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka
"Unless the government has announced something new, they have been calling for a Local Commission of Inquiry (COI) with international observers. However that is different from a human rights monitoring mission," Senior Legal Advisor, Human Rights Watch,New York
"Unless the government has announced something new, they have been calling for a Local Commission of Inquiry (COI) with international observers. However that is different from a human rights monitoring mission," Senior Legal Advisor, Human Rights Watch,
The
British Parliamentarians call
for UK to rein in Sri Lanka
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
A group of Parliamentarians from all of Britain’s main political parties condemned the assassination last week of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP K Sivanesan and, lamenting the recent exit of the international panel overseeing rights abuses probes in Sri Lanka, called on the UK government to take all possible steps to ensure that Government of Sri Lanka plays by accepted international rules.
The British All Party Parliamentary Group
(APPG) for Tamils expressed its serious concern at the decision of the
International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) - headed by former
Indian Chief Justice P N Bhagwati to terminate its operations in Sri Lanka. “Violence
in Sri Lanka
The
British APPG for Tamils deplores all killings and assassinations including the
assassination of K. Sivanesan, a democratically elected member of the Sri
Lankan parliament,” the MPs, said. “The decision by the IIGEP to terminate
operations raises serious questions about the claims made by the Government of
Sri Lanka that it is taking all efforts to uphold human rights. “It is
extremely worrying that a reputable body such as the IIGEP has now concluded
that there is no further use for it in probing the abductions, disappearances
and extra-judicial killings which the Group was invited to investigate in
September 2006” The
APPG welcomed comments by British Foreign Minister Lord Malloch-Brown at the UN
Human Rights Council in which he criticized the Sri Lankan government of President
Mahinda Rajapakse. “We will now be asking the British Foreign Secretary to
consider what other action is available to the British government and to take
all possible steps to ensure that Government of Sri Lanka plays by accepted
international rules,” the APPG said.
“A political solution to
the continuing conflict in Sri
Lanka Sri Lanka
SRILANKAN GOVERNMENT LACKS WILL
TO BRING JUSTICE– IIGEP
08 March 2008
A lack of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka was one factor
in the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) terminating
its operations in Sri Lanka Britain
Sir Nigel Rodley (Photo:
BBC)
“It was I
think a lack of will ... they certainly didn’t have the money in order to have
full servicing from the private bar,” Sir Nigel Rodley said on being asked by
the BBC Tamil service correspondent whether it was administrative problems or
the lack of determination to maintain law and justice, or disinterest on the
part of GoSL which ended in the termination of the operations of IIGEP in Sri
Lanka.
"We felt that there
were shortcomings in the structure of the Commission of Inquiry and the duty of
IIGEP was to find what was wrong in the investigations of Commission and the
reason for the perpetrators of the crimes involved escaping the arms of the law.”
The Attorney General’s presence in the Commission and the participation of his
office in the commission was a factor that reduced the credibility of
commission," Sir Nigel Rodley said in his interview."Sri Lanka was accused yesterday of
widespread abductions in its counter-insurgency operations against the Tamil
Tigers, making the country one of the worst in the world for
'disappearances,'" said The Guardian, a British daily, in its Friday
edition.
"The Presidential Commission was so obviously an eye-wash and the IIGEP was only called upon to give respectability to a very deliberate design to subvert the process of law for which purpose alone this Commission was appointed," said Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a Hong Kong-based Rights watchdog, in a press release issued Friday. Meanwhile, Dr. Manohar, the father of Rajivar, one of the five university students killed in Trincomalee in January 2006, told BBC Tamil service Thursday,
“Sri Lanka Sri Lanka I am no longer afraid to state that it
was the Sri Lanka Army (SLA ) troops who killed
my son,” Dr. Manohar added.
“The IIGEP monitored the investigation of the Commission of Inquiry and was moving it to international standards which were something the Government of Srilanka could not put up with and that is why it applied pressure on the IIGET forcing it to terminate its service,” Dr. Manohar said. GoSL says that it is unable to continue investigations because witnesses do not turn up at the trials, the BBC correspondent told Dr. Manohar and sought his response in the interview. “No one will come forward to bear witness because whoever who dared to so had been killed,” Dr. Mahohar replied. “It was very dangerous to speak the truth and I admit that I too was scared to bear witness that it was theSLA
troops who killed my son and other four youths in Trincomalee,” he said. “Two
of the students in the group, seriously injured in the grenade attack which
killed the others, had testified in the inquest into deaths that it was the SLA
troops that killed their five colleagues. ”“Even though the two are now in
countries away from Sri Lanka
they will not come forward to bear witness because of the danger to the lives
of their parents and siblings who still are in Sri Lanka
“The IIGEP monitored the investigation of the Commission of Inquiry and was moving it to international standards which were something the Government of Srilanka could not put up with and that is why it applied pressure on the IIGET forcing it to terminate its service,” Dr. Manohar said. GoSL says that it is unable to continue investigations because witnesses do not turn up at the trials, the BBC correspondent told Dr. Manohar and sought his response in the interview. “No one will come forward to bear witness because whoever who dared to so had been killed,” Dr. Mahohar replied. “It was very dangerous to speak the truth and I admit that I too was scared to bear witness that it was the
“There have been many commissions of inquiry
appointed to investigate into the human rights violation in Sri Lanka but none of them had been of any use
because Sri Lanka
The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), headed by P N Bhagwati, former Indian Chief Justice, decided to terminate its operations in Sri Lanka, according to a statement issued by the IIGEP on Thursday. "The IIGEP is of the opinion that there has not been the minimum level of trust necessary for the success of the work of the commission and the IIGEP," an AFP report has quoted a statement by the IIGEP. Trincomalee residents were shocked and angered over the killing of five old students ofTrincomalee Sri Koneswara
Hindu College Sri Koneswara
Hindu College
The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), headed by P N Bhagwati, former Indian Chief Justice, decided to terminate its operations in Sri Lanka, according to a statement issued by the IIGEP on Thursday. "The IIGEP is of the opinion that there has not been the minimum level of trust necessary for the success of the work of the commission and the IIGEP," an AFP report has quoted a statement by the IIGEP. Trincomalee residents were shocked and angered over the killing of five old students of
IIGEP faults Commission of
lacking Independence, Timeliness
Monday, 11
June 2007, International Independent
Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), in a report released to the President of Sri
Lanka on 1st June on the President’s Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and
Inquire into Alleged Serious Violations of Human Rights, said: "We have
identified and raised a number of concerns with the Commission and the
Government of Sri Lanka
Justice P.N. Bhagwati
On the issue
on independence, the report signed by P N Bhagwati Chairman, IIGEP, said" "The Attorney General’s Department is
the Chief Legal Adviser to the Government of Sri Lanka. Members of the Attorney
General’s Department have been involved in the original investigations into
those cases subject to further investigation by the Commission itself. As such,
members of the Attorney General’s Department may find that they are
investigating themselves. Furthermore, it is possible that they be called as
material witnesses before the Commission. We consider these to be serious
conflicts of interest, which lack transparency and compromise national and
international standards of independence and impartiality that are central to
the credibility and public confidence of the Commission. "The IIGEP
accused the Commission of not executing the expected investigations in a timely
manner.”We are concerned that the Commission did not commence even preliminary
investigations and inquiries until May 2007, despite being constituted six
months earlier in November 2006. To date, internal processes have not been
transparent; no detailed work plan has been announced; essential staff have not
yet been fully recruited; investigative and witness protection units are not
functioning; and significantly, evidence already known to be in the possession
of Governmental bodies relating to the cases has not been gathered and
transmitted to us. Such unnecessary delays undermine public confidence in the ability
of the Commission to carry out its mandate in a timely manner," the report
said. The report also criticized the CoI for not enacting appropriate
"legislation that accords with international norms and standards" to
protect victims and witnesses.
"The public
statements from State officials are creating the misleading impression that the
Commission and IIGEP have wide mandates and powers and the resources to address
ongoing alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 's
President invited an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP)
to act as observers of the activities of the Commission [consisting of Sri Lanka
TO BE CONTINUED..........
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