Opinion:

Human rights swept under the carpet during LTTE terror

by K.M.H.C.B. Kulatunga

Human rights have become an effective tool for the so-called big countries to exert pressure on countries which do not dance to their tune. Thanks to the Nelsonian eye shown by the so-called worldwide guardians of human rights, over 21 million people had suffered immensely for almost three decades due to LTTE terrorism.

Navy personnel attend to a child victim in a field hospital.

There are enough and more global bodies as well as INGOs on human rights. But none of them ever uttered a word when hapless Tamil civilians were forcibly held as a human shield by the LTTE terrorists. Neither the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) nor the Amnesty International expressed even a word of comfort on behalf of the Tamils in the North and the East who had been subjected to untold privations.

Human shield

Though there wasn’t a single HR body or INGO to voice on behalf of those suffering civilians or their human rights which had been violated by the LTTE, there have been enough and more agents to speak on the human rights of Tiger terrorists after the Security Forces defeated terrorism.

UNHRC chief Navi Pillay appeared to be in deep slumber when the LTTE forcibly held Tamil civilians as a human shield. She cared less when human rights of over 21 million Sri Lankans were violated by the LTTE, which had been exploding bombs targeting innocent civilians.

However, since the eradication of terrorism, Pilly and her team has shown extraordinary concern on the human rights of LTTE terrorists killed in action, when confronting the legitimate army of a sovereign state. Many in the West have a habit of labelling terrorist a civilian no sooner he is injured in action and throws away his assault rifle or grenade.

Misery

If Pillay and her so-called human rights watch dog is sincerely concerned about human rights, they should have well thrown their full weight behind the liberation of Tamils from the clutches of the LTTE terror. The people in the North and the East had many sleepless nights due to LTTE terror, spending nights in jungles.

If not for true sons of our soil, they would still be spending nights in similar fashion, subjecting to untold misery. It was Sri Lanka’s valiant Security Forces which launched the world’s largest human rescue mission which eventually liberated over half a million people from the clutches of the LTTE terror.

If any other Western force would have done that, the UNHRC would have commended them and awarded bravery medals.

But now that it had been achieved by Sri Lanka, they are attempting to frame war crime charges for the Security Forces who had liberated over half a million people from the jaws of death.

As President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said time and again, no foreigner could have greater pain on people in Sri Lanka than the leaders of our country. If the so-called godfathers of human rights had even little concern on human rights of the Northern Tamils who had been held as a human shield, they should have taken prompt action against the LTTE.

Harmony

It was no secret that the LTTE was the most ruthless and merciless terrorist outfit in the world which had killed tens of thousands people in broad daylight. They not only killed Sinhalese and Muslims but also their own community. It was the Security Forces who vanquished the LTTE and restored peace, liberated over half a million people in the North and the East and provided peaceful atmosphere for one and all to live in harmony. Could anyone name such act as an act against mankind or war crimes as some Western elements do?

The UNHRC had been established with exemplary vision – to protect human rights of people across the globe. But time is now opportune to ask the question whether the UN human rights watchdog is paying the role that is expected from it. Has it become the playground of powerful nations in the West who use human rights as an effective tool to tame nations which do not dance to their melody?

We still can’t understand why the UNHRC or other world bodies can’t see the gross human rights violations by the LTTE terrorists. Thousands of civilians had been killed by LTTE’s mass-scale bomb explosion at public places targeting civilians.

The Government has taken the right decision by inviting Navi Pillay to visit Sri Lanka. Anybody who gets the first hand information on the true ground situation has no reason whatsoever to make wild allegations. Sri Lanka’s Security Forces had a right and were duty bound to protect civilians from the LTTE terrorism. The country’s legitimate Army has every right to protect civilians from terrorists.

Not war crime

Countries such as the US do everything under the Sun to protect its people from terrorism. We do not challenge that because US, or any other country for that matter, has a right to protect its people from terrorism. All what we want to emphasise is that Sri Lanka too has the same inalienable right to protect its people against terrorism. Sri Lanka’s Security Forces has exercised that same right and not a war crime as some people in the West allege.

Moreover, there can’t be two types of definition to terrorism – one to the West and another to this part of the world.

As President Rajapaksa had stated at the UN General Assembly a few years ago, there are no good terrorists and bad terrorists. Terrorism in any part of the world is the same and should be eradicated likewise. Hence, it is unfair for the UNHRC to level charges against Sri Lanka purely for the ‘sin’ of becoming the only country to defeat terrorism.

The UN can’t adopt different yardsticks to determine terrorism and human rights – one to the West and another to Sri Lanka.

The world knows who had covered up the United States culpability in the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

Improvised bombs

We have still not forgotten how LTTE had carried out various attacks during this part of the month in corresponding years of terror. On August 26, 2008, an LTTE light aircraft dropped two improvised bombs at the Trincomalee Naval dockyard around 9.15 pm, injuring 15 sailors, five of them seriously.

However, the LTTE abortive air raid targeting the Naval dockyard in Trincomalee was successfully thwarted by the Security Forces.

On Aug. 29, 2006, LTTE killed a woman who allegedly had relations with an anti-LTTE faction, near Murugan Kovil, at Sittandy. The 48-year-old woman victim, Wellakuttu Veeramuttu’s son was earlier killed by terrorists after he was found linked to another anti-LTTE outfit. Four days ago, LTTE gunmen killed one more mother in Batticaloa after she opposed the LTTE’s attempt to abduct and conscript her son.

In total disregard of the plight of innocent civilians trapped in uncleared areas in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, the LTTE fired a mortar barrage towards a convoy of 11 lorries carrying 120 tonnes of essential food items to the uncleared areas on August 29, 2006..

Bomb explosions

On August 30, 1992,a bomb planted in, private bus parked at Trincomalee bus stand exploded, killing nine civilians and injuring 34 others.

A civilian and two police officers were killed by a bomb planted by LTTE at Kalmunai, Ampara district on August 30, 2001. The civilian was a labourer attached to the Kalmunai Divisional Secretariat, who was injured and later succumbed to his injuries.

There had been several other mass scale bomb explosions by the LTTE. A bomb planted in, private bus at the bus stand exploded, killing nine civilians and injuring 34 in Trincomalee Town on August 30, 2002. On August 30, 2008, over 45 people were injured by a bomb explosion carried out by LTTE terrorists near the Bo tree at Olcott Mawatha, Pettah.

On September 1, 1992, LTTE killed 22 Muslims while 67 others were injured in an explosion that took place in Saindamaradu, Kalmunai. LTTE made an unsuccessful attack at Kankasanthurai harbour on September 1, 2006. Later 20 LTTE boats, including five suicide boats laden with explosives, attacked a Naval patrol near the Kankesanturai harbour, injuring two sailors.

These are a few of the many LTTE terror acts. Navi Pillai must first and foremost sit down and make careful study of those thousands of LTTE attacks during its three decades of terror. That was the period during which the human rights had been violated in broad daylight.

The UNHRC or the countries in the West should not get carried away by the concocted stories dished out by the LTTE cohorts in Europe. They have also made use of the controversial Channel-4 to mislead the international community.

The Channel-4 has made serious mistakes by misinterpreting what the witnesses have said in Tamil, to suit the Channel-4 agenda.

The Channel-4, in its highly controversial the ‘Killing Fields’ documentary, the civilians who spoke in Tamil at no stage stated that the attacks were carried out specifically by the Sri Lanka Army, rather they always mentioned that “they attacked”, leaving it ambiguous.

When a question was posed in English to an unidentified victim regarding an alleged attack on a hospital by asking “do you think this was an accident?”, the answer from the victim in Tamil was, “Athavathu aspaththirikku aim panniththan adichchiruppinam” which literally means “they may have aimed and attacked the hospital”.

The Channel-4 has deliberately translated it as “the hospital was targeted”, giving implication to the viewers that it was done by the Sri Lanka Army.

In this context, on what basis the Director/Producer of the documentary, Callum Macrae gave an interpretation to what the witness referred to as “they”, to indicate that it was the Sri Lanka Army.

Over 12,000 rehabilitated

The LTTE was not an ordinary group of terrorists, but was one in which all its cadres mandatorily carried cyanide capsules to kill themselves if captured by the Security Forces. It was also a ruthless terrorist group which never hesitated to use even disabled and pregnant women as suicide bombers in order to achieve its objectives.

The Government has rehabilitated over 12,000 former LTTE cadres including 594 child soldiers after the Tiger outfit was militarily defeated in May 2009.

They have now been successfully integrated into the society and are leading peaceful and dignified lives. The people in the North and the East who had been rescued from the jaws of death have begun a new lease of life.

They now make a tangible contribution to the national economy as the North and the East provinces has shown a growth rate of a record 22 percent, compared to the country’s overall figure of over seven percent.

Irrespective of their religious or ethnic affiliations, people in Sri Lanka now live in perfect peace and harmony. This alone is ample testimony that people in Sri Lanka are now enjoying rich dividends of peace.

These are some of the important facts that Pillay should have a closer look, rather than digging old wounds what would disrupt the country’s hard-earned peace.

Clear testimony

Sri Lanka’s Security Forces had never targeted its own civilians deliberately as alleged by certain quarters in the West.

The fact that over 290,000 civilians fled the LTTE towards the Army during the last stage of fighting is a clear testimony to this. Even the critics of Sri Lanka acknowledge this fact and appreciate the efforts of the Sri Lanka’s Security Forces to rescue the civilians from the clutches of the LTTE which used them as human shields.

In his Hard Talk interview last April, Sir John Holms, the Former United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs & Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that the basic problem to the casualties is that the LTTE was not releasing the civilians.

It is a known fact that the demonstration by civilians outside the UN Office shown in the Channel-4 film was orchestrated by the LTTE. Further, there were several humanitarian agencies including ICRC and the local staff of UN that remained till the last stretch of the battle against terrorism. One could not rule out the possibility that the LTTE would harm the international workers and put the blame on the Government, had they stayed.

Sri Lanka, as a democracy, has done much to recover from the deadly effects of the 30 long years of terror that has devastated every aspect of life in the country.

It is a painful and delicate reconciliation process. We are mindful of the challenges ahead and once more we wish to reiterate that repetitive bashing of Sri Lanka with vested agenda would not be of any help in bringing justice or reconciliation but it will only keep the wounds open for ever.