The conspiracy and the conspirators

by Hemantha WARNAKULASURIYA

Hemantha Warnakulasuriya

At the last press conference to launch his Presidential campaign, Sarath Fonseka, in answering to a journalist, said that ‘in relation to the war crimes, I was also a part and parcel of the Rajapaksa administration. I was the Army Commander of the Government. You can’t just point the finger on people. There should be clear evidence and details. If anybody can provide that kind of information, there is no question why anyone should not do an investigation. We never tried to cover up any illegal activities that have taken place during the war. We take action against any offenders and culprits. If there are countries that are suspicious, we must clear their doubts, to make sure that our hands are clean.

When the West did its utmost to save the life of Prabhakaran and the remaining LTTE cadre, it used everything that was within its power to stop the war and rescue the remaining LTTE cadre. Saving Prabhakaran and the LTTE was foremost in the Agenda of those nations who were furious with the Sri Lankan Government for not heeding the agenda of the West. On the one hand, there was a strong Tamil political lobby. The politicians in the countries where votes count and money was necessary to win the votes and the supporters of the LTTE could provide both , were behind these moves.

It is very well-known that Prabhakaran had a number of satellite phones, and constantly contacted KP, before the final battle urging him to bring pressure on certain Western Governments whom the LTTE thought were their allies, to prevent an annihilation of the Tigers. One of the weapons they possessed was the alleged war crimes of the Government of Sri Lanka. In order to pre-empt a final annihilation of the conflict, the Tamil diaspora and LTTE sympathisers collected millions of dollars, retained lawyers, called on Congressmen and Parliamentarians to instigate a war crimes probe against the Government.

They also had a movement called ‘Tamils Against Genocide’ (TAG), which collected millions of dollars through its website. In order to impress the Tamil people, they retained one of the Associate Attorney Generals under the Reagan government, Bruce Fein, to prepare a model indictment on the possible charges against the Government of Sri Lanka.

Previously, Sri Lankan politicians succumbed to the pressures first emanating from India, and later by the Western nations, and pre-empted any victory over the LTTE. When Prabhakaran was encircled and had no escape at Vadamarachchi the Tamil diaspora was able to bring sufficient pressure on the Indian Government to virtually order a cessation of hostilities. J. R. Jayewardene, who was known to be a very intelligent and crafty politician, had to submit to this pressure. Lalith Athulathmudali virtually cried at his feet, requesting JRJ not to stop the troops advancing and destroying the LTTE, but J. R. Jayewardene thought otherwise. This was not the last time this happened. Prabhakaran escaped to India and GOSL had to start from square one.

Political lobby

Mahinda Rajapaksa knew that any victory even a dream of an illusive victory over the LTTE could never be achieved if India was our adversary. Even Chandrika Kumaratunga who was believed to be closest friend of the Gandhi in India failed to obtain uncontroverted support from India. The excuse was the powerful political lobby in the Tamil Nadu. The absence support from the Tamil Nadu politicians would always make the centre vulnerable and shaky.

Mahinda did not begin very well. When the Indian government was vary about his persecution of the Tamils by the Mahinda’s administration as accounted to them by no lesser person than our own former Foreign Minister the hostility adversity was apparent. Mahinda charted a very special foreign policy that could have been planned and executed by him only the wheels turned a full circle. India became such a great ally as never happened in the past two decades.

Mahinda used this allegiance to ward off any pressure from the West of the excellent political rapport built by Mahinda. If not for the foreign policy achievements of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the war would’ve been stalled long before the capture of Kilinochchi. When the Tamil diaspora and LTTE sympathisers knew that the West may not want to offend India, they used other diplomatic skills, using methods of extortion to subvert the military process by advancing the possibility of a war crimes probe which will result in any politician from Mahinda downwards could be arrested and hauled before a war crimes tribunal.

Many media institutions and other important websites kept on collecting evidence based upon false testimonies given to them by the Tigers themselves, and used Goebbelsian propaganda techniques to project and enlarge the scope of genocide, rape, murder and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Forces. There was one impediment for the forces of falsehood to work on. That is the insistence of the GOSL to refuse these scavengers from feeding on the uninitiated and obtain video footage that gloss over the crime of the LTTE but heighten and highlight the alleged atrocities committed by the GOSL. The drawing rooms of the West was not bombarded with lies and deceptions optical illusions invented and created by the so called media institutions whose goal was to find graphic evidence.

The manner in which the Channel 4 acted clear exhibition of journalistic adventurism to find evidence of non existing war crime. The first of such broadcast depicted a man silhouette soliloquy narrating a horrendous abductions, murders and rape that was taking place every minute in the IDP camps followed by another dramatic clip of soldiers shooting suspects who had surrendered with some Sinhalese words uttered whilst casually shooting the suspect.

The Foreign Ministry and other officials and the Ministry of Human Rights was able to show within a very short time that video footage was a clever production of the LTTE camera unit. What made the whole episode blow on the faces of the perpetrators was that announcement that it was taken by soldier from his mobile camera. The experts were able to shred this theory into shreds and Channel 4 for the first time made an announcement that they no longer could certify the authenticity of the tapes.

Indictment

But the unearthing of evidence from various sources went on, permitting Bruce Fein to file a model indictment containing innumerable charges, and the indictment had more than 850 pages. But, the filing of an indictment in the Department of State, was not acted upon as the evidence was flimsy and could not be acted upon.

But, immediately after the war, one person made several damaging statements.

These statements were made by no lesser person than General Sarath Fonseka, who had been the second person named as the accused in the indictment of Bruce Fein. It is however, clear that, having made those confessionary statements, which were damaging to his own position, he is now being used by certain elements who throughout the last four years continued to support the LTTE, on the basis that they were concerned of the rights of the minorities.

These activists were used by the LTTE as pawns to destabilise the country, bring pressure on the Government, the final chapter of which would be that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration would bite the dust, having failed to defeat the LTTE. Some of the people stationed in Sri Lanka constantly met with Ambassadors of certain countries, giving false information, so that they would in turn be paid millions of dollars to continue their efforts to destabilise Sri Lanka.

So the statement made by Sarath Fonseka is extremely important, as he stated that if he became President, he would permit the international community or investigators to come to Sri Lanka to collect evidence of the alleged war crimes. When this same request was made by the powerful international organisations, the Government of Sri Lanka point blankly rejected such request, as we maintained that our forces never violated the Geneva Convention.

When the Government permitted a supposedly independent TV channel like Channel 4 to come to Sri Lanka to film the liberated areas, they were only interested in portraying the negative aspects of the war, and first showed a person in uniform making statements in Tamil about the people dying around him, and about the abused women. Thereafter, it also showed a clip produced by the LTTE, an amateurish attempt to show our soldiers killing an arrested rebel. The Foreign Minister and the Government of Sri Lanka were able to dispute these video footages, and were able to demonstrate that this was an attempt by the novices to portray the crimes committed by the Government; the technical evaluation showed that this was a forged document.

In Geneva, the Government was able to reject the resolution brought forward by the EU to have a war crimes probe against Sri Lanka. We were able to reject the allegations contained in the Times Online newspaper. The speedy resettlement of the IDPs and the manner in which they are treated by the Government opened the eyes of Europe, which quelled the fears of mass genocide against the ethnic minority. The Government was able to show how our soldiers treated the IDPs with utmost responsibility and consideration.

Lavish

Therefore, the gang of investigators paid lavishly by the LTTE for probing into the alleged war crimes remained silent, but yet it did not give up their goal of obtaining some mileage by successfully getting a Tribunal, Court or country to investigate such crimes.

Sarath Fonseka, who had made quite a noise about the Tamils, the IDPs and the minorities, and was considered as the biggest criminal than anyone in the Rajapaksa administration, was found to be an escape bell through which these lobbyists could restart the war in Sri Lanka.

Sarath Fonseka might not know that, wittingly or unwittingly, he opened Pandora’s box.

He made several statements which would amount to a confession, which would be sufficient for any biased tribunal to take cognisance of such ill-thought statements made by no lesser person than the Army Commander.

It is interesting to note that the US State Department War Crimes Report to the Senate, released in October, stated in page 44, inside the Chapter ‘Killing of Combatants seeking to surrender’, that “[a] media outlet reported on July 18 that at a celebratory event in Ambalangoda, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka stated that the military had to overlook the traditional rules of war and even kill LTTE rebels who came to surrender carrying white flags during the war against the LTTE.” The admission / confession made by Sarath Fonseka at Ambalangoda has been reported in the media, and even TV footage of his speech was submitted to various agencies, to be handed over to the US State Department. After that statement, in his famous statement at the Washington Buddhist Temple, where many Sri Lankans applauded without understanding the naivety with which he put the foot in his mouth, he also said that ‘we must deploy enough troops to provide security for these [resettled] areas. We must in these areas, this virus, there are still 1000’s of terrorists in IDP camps. We must identify these terrorist and destroy them. We must take them into custody and then resettle them. We must provide security in strength to these areas.

I will only be happy that we finished the war we ended when I see this’. So General Fonseka specifically stated that the terrorists who surrender to the Sri Lankan Army must be arrested, identified and prosecuted. The TAG stated that these two statements are an explicit endorsement or voluntary confession of war crimes committed by him. Another Tamil group stated that these two statements are sufficient to bring an indictment to the Government for alleged war crimes.

In fact, these statements made by Sarath Fonseka, wittingly or unwittingly, would only rekindle the dying cry for alleged war crimes, which the President and the Foreign Minister were able to clearly repel and reject with great aplomb. The question is whether Sarath Fonseka has made these statements deliberately to invite the international agencies for a war crimes probe, enabling them to prosecute two of the mist important people whom they thought defied their mission for a future Sri Lanka with a separate state for the Tamils. This matter that would greatly concern the Sri Lankans, who unitedly supported Mahinda Rajapaksa to eliminate terrorism, the very fact that he is contesting him is the very proof that he has become a pawn in the hands of these international conspirators.