Tag: Killing Fields

Few Countries in the world have regularly and systematically denied Rights to the minority Community as Sri Lanka has been to its Ethnic Minority.

Few Countries have massacred Children and women.

Rare are the Countries that confiscates the land of the minority and reconvert it into a Sinhala strong hold.

Few countries rape women and even children in front of their husbands,children and parents.

Few countries are so culturally brutal, despite having Buddhism as its official Religion , as have maimed children, massacred those who had come to surrender with White flags.

Ajay Sahni ,who  is s an author and expert on counter-terrorism, and serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, which maintains the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website focusing on terrorism in South Asia. Sahni also edits ‘South Asia Intelligence Review’ and ‘Faultlines’. Sahni earned his Ph.D. at the University of Delhi, where his dissertation was titled ‘Democracy, Dissent & the Right to Information’. has the gumption to write verbose prose justifying the maacacre of The Tamils in Sri Lanka under the garb of ‘Expert  Opinion.’

Look at the Company he keeps.

His President at the South Asia terrorism portal is none other than the infamous K.P.S.Gill , whose record on Human Rights is as follows.

”

On January 16, 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra, human rights activist and general secretary of the Akali Dal’s human rights wing, issued a press note alleging that Punjab security organizations had cremated thousands of unidentified bodies. [79] [80][dead link] [81] [82][dead link] Khalra was taken into custody by Punjab Police on 6 September 1995.[7] Human Rights Watch reported that a September 11, 1995 writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court was presented to DGP Gill,[32] and officials denied that police had detained him.[7]
In 2001, Sardool Singh, speaking for the Zinda Shaheed Police Officers Association, announced to the press “We have decided to return the gallantry medals to the President of India on the occasion of Police Martyr’s Day on October 21 if the cases against us are not withdrawn.” He also said that the association was filing a writ with the Supreme Court that cases be opened against senior police and political staff, including then-Director General of Police KPS Gill, for their “… ordering and certifying the encounters…” that resulted in over 650 junior officers facing human rights violation charges.[83][84][85]
In 2003, Khushwant Singh,[86][87] author of “A History of the Sikhs”,[88][89][90][91] wrote a review of “Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab”[92] for The Tribune titled K. P. S. Gill you have questions to answer.[93] Khushwant Singh noted that he supported Gill’s use of extrajudicial methods to “stamp out terrorism” as the judicial system was in a state of collapse due to judges being too frightened to rule against the “terrorists.” Singh commented on the murder of J.S. Khalra that “There were others like him who were disposed of because the police did not like them.” and “It is spine-chilling.” Khushwant Singh reported that when asked for comment, Gill’s response was “Rubbish.” The review continued “Well, Mr Gill, it is not rubbish; you and the Punjab police have quite a few awkward questions to answer.” [94][95]
In 2004, India’s National Human Rights Commission published a list of 2097 bodies cremated as unclaimed. Of those, the Commission had identified 693 at the time.[26]
In 2004, Khushwant Singh wrote K.P.S. Gill Is a “Hero” for The Tribune, and stated that “For 10 years, the Punjab countryside…” had been “…in the grip of terrorists…” until KPS Gill and Julio Francis Ribeiro led the Punjab Police to “…put them down with a heavy hand.” Khushwant Singh reported allegations that Gill was “…a wanton killer…”, but that in his judgement, this view was not correct. [96]
In 2005, Special Police Officer Kuldeep Singh testified in court that in October 1995, after Khalra had been beaten and tortured, and bore the signs of torture on his body, then-DGP KPS Gill visited Khalra at SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu’s home.[33] He further testified that Gill remained with Khalra in the room for “half an hour”, that a few days later Khalra was killed, and finally that on the way back to Jhabal police station after disposing of the body, he was told that Khalra could have saved himself if he had listened to the advice of KPS Gill.[8] [97] [98] Human Rights Watch and Ensaaf (another human rights organization focused on Punjab), argue that KPS Gill had knowledge of Khalra’s illegal detention, could reasonably have been expected to have knowledge of his torture, and had the authority and responsibility to order Khalra’s release, which would have prevented Khalra’s death.[32][97][98][99]
On November 18, 2005, six Punjab police officials were convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for Khalra’s abduction and murder.[100] On October 16, 2007, a division bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court chaired by Justices Mehtab Singh Gill and A N Jindal extended the sentence to life imprisonment for four of those convicted: Satnam Singh, Surinder Pal Singh, Jasbir Singh (all former Sub Inspectors) and Prithipal Singh (former Head Constable). [101] [102]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanwar_Pal_Singh_Gill

Let me look at the people behind this portal.

Do they have any one from the community, the Tamils, who has suffered the most, or at least  has this ‘expert’ understood the history of the Tamils in Sri Lanka?

Or has he documented the atrocities of the Sri Lankan Army?

Of course, one is known by the Books he reads and the company he keeps.

While it is nauseating to call the LTTE as  Freedom Fighters, it can not be forgotten that but for the LTTE, the world would not have noticed the conditions of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

True, Prabakaran killed scores of Tamil Leaders who challenged his authority and went to the extent of assassinating Rajiv Gandh;

He  recruited volunteers by Force,used children as a shield.

Does this justify Sri Lankan Government’s behaviour of Genocide?

While focussing on terrorism, one must not forget the causes of terrorism, though  this is not in support of terrorism.

(By your logic Milosevic  of Bosnia is Right and the world is wrong.)

But when all avenues are closed, what do you expect the community to do?

Write blogs in the WordPress?

Or deliberate issues(?) , ensconced in an air-conditioned office as an arm-chair philosopher?

Have you looked at the displaced Tamils of Sri Lanka, who have become penniless overnight and had to become beggars?

Or at parents who have lost their children, children who lost their parents,husbands, wives ?

Has some one seen his wife/daughter raped in front of his eyes?

Or seen one’s son blind folded and shot in front of one’s eyes?

The Jewish approach to Palestine has made the Palestinians ‘People with out State” 

Want to do an encore of it for the Tamils?

The author seems to eulogize Rajapakshe, whose crimes of Genocide was confirmed by his Army Chief who was imprisoned by Rajapakshe.

Suggest ways for the Tamils to live peacefully with out the threat of booming guns and the freedom to learn their language.

Make them stop raping, killing and massacring the Tamil people.

Have you seen the ‘Killing Fields’

You might say it is doctored.

It is not difficult to convince an honest dissenter but a wilful one  ..?

People must have a conscience.

* though , not one who can write flowery prose, let me add that I have not shied away from criticising the LTTE and its methods, nor have  I  shied away from  stating that Rajapashe Government must be indicted.

P.S. Nice of you to have used Rajapakshe’s photo in the blog, it tells one more about you)

Story.

Through history, few countries in the world have had to endure a terrorist movement as protracted, vicious and intense as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) campaigns, which lasted over thirty three years and killed, on some estimates, up to 80,000 people, in a tiny country with a present population of under 21 million.

Few countries in the world have secured as clear and demonstrable victory over terrorism as has Sri Lanka, even where extraordinary and indiscriminate violence has been inflicted on large populations, as, for instance, in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where civilian settlements have been repeatedly targeted, and ‘collateral damage’ often overruns any rational proportion to legitimate targets.
And few countries in the world have restored normalcy with the speed and to the extent that Sri Lanka has in under three years. There has not been a single terrorism related fatality in the country since October 3, 2009, to the present, bringing peace to a people who had forgotten its contours over decades. Of the estimated 290,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), resulting from the final phase of the conflict, just 6,647 (roughly 2.3 per cent) had been left to return to their places of origin by the end of 2011. On March 15, 2012, Economic Development Minister Yapa Abeywardana claimed that over 99 per cent of the IDPs had been resettled. More significantly, of the 11,700 LTTE cadres who had surrendered, 10,490 had been freed and reunited with their families, after the completion of their rehabilitation process, as on March 29, 2012. The last remaining group of ex-LTTE cadres is scheduled for release by mid-2012, after completion of a mandatory 12-month rehabilitation and retraining process. The war ravaged North and East have also seen dramatic developmental transformations, with massive infrastructure and rehabilitation investments catalysing a 22 per cent rate of growth for the region, according to official claims, as against eight per cent for the entire country.

Crucially, a remarkable resurrection of democratic processes and structures has been secured across the country, with General, Presidential, Provincial and local body elections conducted across the country.

At the height of the final phase of the counter-terrorism campaign in the North, which eventually brought the LTTE terror to an end in May 2009, Norway and other European interlocutors had repeatedly used the threat of initiative processes for ‘war crimes’ and ‘human rights violations’ against the Sri Lankan state, to force the Colombo to end its increasingly successful operations against the LTTE, even as Velupillai Prabhakaran, the then LTTE Chief, and the besieged terrorist cadres surrounded themselves with a human shield of civilians to thwart Security Force (SF) operations. As President Mahinda Rajapakse declared unambiguously on May 22, 2009, “There are some who tried to stop our military campaign by threatening to haul us before war crimes tribunals. They are still trying to do that, but I am not afraid.” This group of minor and frustrated European powers have now roped in the US to push an agenda that they failed to impose through a perverse ‘peace process’, which kept a virulent terrorist movement alive for years, with increasing international sanction and legitimacy.

This is the essence of the gratuitous resolution passed by United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on March 22, 2012, by a vote of 24 in favour, 15 against and eight abstentions. Crucially and disgracefully, at the last moment, India chose to cast its vote in support of a hypocritical, divisive and essentially unproductive resolution that demanded, among other things, that Sri Lanka “present, as expeditiously as possible, a comprehensive action plan detailing the steps that the Government has taken and will take” to implement “the constructive recommendations in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” (LLRC).

It is significant that India had dithered almost to the last moment on its vote, and eventually decided to go with the US sponsored resolution because of domestic political considerations – increasing pressures from the United Progressive Alliance Government’s ally, the Tamil Nadu regional party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). This has been duly noted by the leadership in Colombo, with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris, observing,

The most distressing feature of this experience is the obvious reality that voting at the Human Rights Council is now determined not by the merits of a particular issue but by strategic alliances and domestic political issues in other countries which have nothing to do with the subject matter of a Resolution or the best interests of the country to which the Resolution relates. This is a cynical negation of the purposes for which the Human Rights Council was established.
Peiris’ obvious reference was to the UPA’s conundrum with political allies in the State of Tamil Nadu. As usual, and despite its vote against Sri Lanka, New Delhi continued in its efforts to straddle two boats at once, seeking credit for ‘diluting’ the content of the draft resolution to make it ‘non-intrusive’, even as the official spin, thereafter, has sought to justify the decision to vote in favour of the resolution on the grounds that the process for devolution of power was “not moving forward” in Sri Lanka. One unnamed ‘official source’ stated in the media, “Many promises were made (by Sri Lanka) but very little has been done. The rehabilitation process has proceeded well, in fact better than in countries like Cambodia but the political process is not happening. The devolution (of power) is not moving forward.”

This, then, appears to be the crux of India’s official justification for its feckless vote: that Colombo has failed to implement a formula for devolution of power in the North and East which would be acceptable to all Tamil groupings in the country (and their sympathisers in India). But adopting the political objective – devolution of power – of one ethnic grouping as the minimum definition of ‘resolution’ of the conflict in Sri Lanka is both arbitrary and absurd. The issue of devolution of power is a purely domestic political issue and, whatever their divergent preferences, no other country or international institution has any business telling the Sri Lankans how they should govern themselves, or what shape they must give to their Constitution. Certainly not India, which has numberless difficulties in accommodating the aspirations of its own many ethnic, religious, linguistic and regional minorities, and which has dealt with utter inhumanity with the millions who have been displaced by predatory development processes initiated and supported by the state, as well as with IDPs from a multiplicity of conflicts in different regions, where significant populations remain, often in utter destitution, in primitive ‘relief camps’, at least in some cases, decades after the proclaimed end of a conflict. New Delhi, in any event, has no more business interfering in domestic arrangements for devolution of power in Sri Lanka, than Colombo has intervening in fractious Centre-State relations in India.

http://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/placing-the-sri-lankan-war-in-context-and-critquing-indian-vote-at-unhcr-sessions/