BETA

Sri
Lankan case is a classic ‘how to’ guide book on committing the worst
human rights crimes and still escape criminality. All the invaluable
work on SL’s human rights crimes done by UNHRC and other mandated Human
rights groups were brought to naught (even a preliminary investigation
was killed off thanks to Delhi) at the May Council meeting with Delhi
exploiting the Council’s weakness as presently constituted. Delhi's
involvement in the SL genocide explains its intense interest in seeking
such an outcome.

UNHRC and related Hunan Rights groups used their commendable field
work and statements/reports to successfully prosecute the world’s most
renowned human rights abusers/criminals. In SL’s case Human Rights
groups reported ‘unacceptably high’ civilian deaths and ‘politically
motivated massacres of surrendering Tamil Tiger fighters’ by the SL
army. Yet Delhi (Raman) not only disputes vehemently the civilian
numbers killed in SL’s ‘no fire zone’ but unfairly accuses the West and
the personnel of the UN and mandated Human Rights groups of using the
‘Elam issue to embarrass the SL government and put its senior officers
in the dock by disseminating unauthenticated high figures of civilian
casualties’ and cruelly overlooking the savagery of SL’s attacks on
civilians that bordered on criminality; There was intense bombardment
of the narrow ‘no-fire zone’, government troops throwing grenades into
unarmed bunkers where civilians were sheltering, using heavy vehicles
to run over injured civilians and bulldozing civilians ‘into mass
graves along with the dead’. Leaks of graphic details of these are
effectively plugged by keeping incommunicado the front line human
shield civilians prisoners now in the concentration camps in the Vanni.
However TV images of the long marches to the concentration camps of
emaciated civilians, victims of starvation vouch to the savagery of
SL’s use of starvation as a weapon of war on unarmed civilians. A well
informed analyst cynically observed that SL crimes received praise in
that Council meeting which also ordered an investigation into Gaza
atrocities though SL’s crimes were easily 10 times worse; the
difference; there were no cameras in the SL case for the world see.

An observer explained 'India's (strong) backing for SL over the war
crimes at the UNHRC for the West using 'the Eelam struggle, to actually
de-stabilize SL and India'. The 'no fire zone', the brain child of
Narayanan/Menon was meant for the massacres to occur in utmost secrecy
without independent witnesses, to frustrate potential SL war crimes
proceedings. Tamil civilians entrapped in the war front trustingly
moved into the India blessed 'no fire zones' but they were actually
well planned 'massacres zones' unlike Israel's 1982 Shabra and Shatila
camp massacres. Lurid pictures of the SL massacres are in the public
domain worldwide, thanks to the internet. Furthermore the revelation in
The Sunday Times Gothabhaya Rajapakse’s interview described the role of
the Indian trio (Foreign Secretary, National Security Advisor and
Defense Secretary) who were ‘in the loop during the fighting’ and
involved in the step by step liaising with the SL counterparts over the
timing /details of the (May 16 to 19) massacres. Narayanan reportedly
insisted that RAW be involved in the capture and massacre of the Ltte
leadership along with a certain number of civilians politically
acceptable to Delhi. RAW's over flights gave precise co-ordinates of
the targets and the ground conditions for the massacres. In these
circumstances prudence called for India to act in the May UNHRC meeting
as it did. India saw a threat in the West's SL war crimes initiatives
in the UNHRC though the Tamils view that the western powers unlike
Delhi were acting perfectly morally exposing SL's inhuman crimes
against unarmed civilians. The Tamils are distressed that an unabashed
Delhi will continue to frustrate UNHRC’s pains to establish the
criminality of the SL genocide as long as the Council is heavily
stacked with members who are human rights abusers. Sri Lanka lost its
membership in the UNHRC almost exactly a year ago. SL’s success in the
UNHRC this time around is the result of India’s robust lobbying for
SL’s for which the Tamils in their tens of thousands were used as
sacrificial lambs.