Govt did not start the war
US State Dept Report - an extraordinary rendition of
events:
- Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka
The recent report by the US State Department on Sri Lanka was an
‘extraordinary rendition of events’, said Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka,
responding to questions raised during a panel discussion titled `War,
Peace and Human Rights: Sri Lanka after the Eastern Elections’, on
Friday on the sidelines of the Seventh Session of the Human Rights
Council.
“The Sri Lankan state did not start the war but a war of aggression
has been waged on it by a ruthless terrorist organisation - the LTTE”
Jayatilleka told the international audience of 30 representatives from
Permanent Missions, civil society organisations and Sri Lankan
professionals attached to international organisations.
Ambassador Jayatilleka who laid the framework for the discussion
traced the history of the conflict and the many attempts made by
successive Governments to find a political solution to the war that has
been waged on the people of Sri Lanka for more than 25 years by the LTTE.
The Ambassador who divided the conflict in Sri Lanka into two parts
as pre-1987 and post-1987 said that in July 1987 following the signing
of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord all other Tamil armed groups had
renounced violence and agreed to enter the democratic mainstream to
secure the rights of the Tamil minority.
However, the LTTE started waging a war against the Indian Peace
Keeping Force, the IPKF by October 1987.
Dr. Jayatilleka highlighted that it was incomprehensible to many
international observers why the LTTE had repeatedly and unilaterally
withdrawn from peace talks in which successive governments had agreed to
a degree of autonomy and political devolution.
Following the election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in November
2005 the LTTE launched a series of unprovoked attacks on civilians,
Armed Forces and political leaders in spite of the 2002 Ceasefire
Agreement (CFA) being in place.
Ambassador Jayatilleka repeatedly stressed that Sri Lanka which has
been a functioning and vibrant democracy since 1931 has been under siege
from the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) which has been
described by the FBI as among the most dangerous and deadly extremists
in the world, having perfected the use of suicide bombers, invented the
suicide belt, pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks, murdered
some 4,000 people in the past two years alone and assassinated two world
leaders - the only terrorist organisation to do so.
“Sri Lanka is waging a just war to defend itself and this is allowed
under international law”, he said. Ambassador Jayatilleka quipped about
the “extraordinary rendition” of events contained in the recent US State
Department report on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.
The references in the report to paramilitaries were ironic given the
experiences in Diyala and Anbar provinces in Iraq, where former Sunni
fighters, referred to by some as paramilitaries, were now part of the
stabilisation effort.
This was even truer in other parts of Iraq such as Basrah, where
power was handed over to armed Shiite personnel belonging to the
government, but condemned by some as paramilitaries led by warlords.
This reliance on so-called paramilitaries and the holding of
elections under less than normal, even violent conditions was an
inevitable feature of stabilisation efforts in conflict zones.
Recently, when in South Asia, an election campaign was marred by
suicide bombings and an Opposition Presidential candidate was killed by
a suicide assassin, the West kept urging the holding of elections as the
best answer to terrorism, but in Sri Lanka they urged exactly the
opposite concerning the Eastern province.
Dr Jayatilleka explained Sri Lanka’s current disinclination to accede
to the demand for a large scale standing presence of the OHCHR as
arising from three reasons:
Firstly he explained that Sri Lanka was not an emerging democracy
recently liberated from a one party democracy or military dictatorship.
Sri Lanka has had parliamentary democracy since 1931 and independence
since 1948 and therefore had well-developed national institutions.
Secondly, he said that several counties which had field offices of
the OHCHR advised Sri Lanka in discussions with the Minister of Human
Rights and our delegation, that given their experience, and Sri Lanka’s
situation, the most effective solution for Sri Lanka is to strengthen
our national institutions.
Thirdly he said that many countries within the Human Rights Council
had called for better regional representation and transparency of the
OHCHR. Once this has been achieved, Sri Lanka may be able to consider a
new equation with the Office, but until then certain questions did not
arise.
Deputy Solicitor-General Yasantha Kodagoda, who updated the audience
on the current state of military operations against the LTTE said that
in April 2003 the LTTE unilaterally abandoned peace talks, de facto
withdrawn from the CFA and then committed a series of violations of the
CFA including attacks on Mavil Aru and Mutur which were villages in the
Eastern Province and outside the control of the LTTE.
The panel discussion, moderated by Dr. Nalaka Mendis, Professor of
Psychiatry, University of Colombo, also saw presentations by Ms. Shirani
Goonatilleke, Director Legal, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace
Process, W.J.S. Fernando, Deputy Solicitor-General, Attorney General’s
Department, Yasantha Kodagoda and Deputy Solicitor-General, Attorney
General’s Department. |