India likely to back UN war crimes investigation of Sri Lanka

A leaked report from India states that the government will back the inquiry into war crimes against Sri Lanka when the case reaches the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) next month.
 
Sri Lanka was convicted of Genocide The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal – Session II 7th – 10th December 2013, in Bremen, Germany. This was the straw that broke the camel's back.
 
"The Tribunal found that genocide against the Eelam Tamil group has not yet achieved the total destruction of their identity. The genocidal coordinated plan of actions reached its climax on May 2009, but it is clear that the Sri Lanka Government project to erase the Eelam Tamil identity, corroborated by the above mentioned conduct, shows that genocide is a process and that process is ongoing".
 
Sri Lanka's government was heralded for its 2009 defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but years of reports of severe war crimes against the "Tamil Tigers" are coming home to roost. All of denials of responsibility Sri Lanka has become famous for, will mean little once the case reaches the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) next month.
 
The LTTE was essentially a band of revolutionaries and like the Americans in the Revolutionary War, they diversified from standard military tactics. The Tamil Tigers, however imperfect, was formed to protect the Tamil people from a government focused on ethnic cleansing, and establishing an all Buddhist nation.
 
The "Tamil Tigers" were declared a terrorist organization, by 32 different countries over time. Sri Lanka declared that the LTTE was a terrorist group from January 1998 to 4 September 2002, when a cease fire was declared. As the government prepared an all out effort to defeat the LTTE during the final phase of the nearly three-decade long civil war, it again designated the LTTE as a terrorist organization on 7 January 2009. This was the launch of the period of torturous Genocide.
 
At this point, India has not fully committed to the process against Sri Lanka; however, the government of Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is under pressure from Great Britain and other countries that have increased lobbying efforts. Analysts believe India will do what it takes to hold onto its Tamil allies as the Spring general election nears.
Singh did surprisingly choose to boycott last year's Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Colombo, succumbing to pressure from key allies, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which is one of India's two main parties in the state of Tamil Nadu.
 
Sri Lankan President Majinda Rajapakse Under Pressure

Rajapakse will in the end, have an impossible task; that is explaining the countless atrocities that were carried out against Tamils in the final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war.
 
Driving the matter forward, is UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay. The timing of the release of her 20-page submission to both the United Nations and the Sri Lankan government, happened less than three weeks before a highly anticipated UN meeting in Geneva where the UK and US are expected to propose a formal war crimes inquiry.
The United Nations’ human rights chief has called for an international war crimes investigation into alleged atrocities carried out in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war, according to reports.
 
There are consistent findings that the LTTE also committed human rights abuses and war crimes. While the evidence of the acts of the Sri Lankan Army are well documented, far less evidence exists to demonstrate the LTTE's wrongdoings.
 
In an interview with Asian Human Rights Commission last year, Navi Pillay, said Sri Lankan Tamils feel completely threatened by the very heavy military presence there. As has been reported many times, the Sinhalazation process by the Buddhist govt. of Sri Lanka is a continuing element of the ethnic cleansing process that has been underway in Sri Lanka for decades.
 
Pillay said, "I met about 700 people in IDP camps, all of them has been fishing folk or planted rice on paddy fields and their lands have been confiscated without compensation, some of them said that the military have built their structures over that."
 
The UN Human rights Commissioner cited huge levels of insecurity, fear, and surveillance. "I saw that for myself. People whom I'd interview such as a Jesuit priest, a Christian father were immediately visited by the military even while I was still in the country and I complained to the Government about this."
 
Sri Lanka will long be known for its atrocious acts against Tamil civilians who were directed to enter so-called "No Fire Zones" and then ruthlessly attacked by artillery. Some of the rounds fell on and near a UN compound in the Vanni, perhaps this grinds at Pillay's heart, along with the fact that the UN's decision to pull its observers from the ground in Sri Lanka in 2009 basically facilitated the Genocide of up to 160,000 people.
 
LLRC: Sri Lanka's Lost Opportunity

In the wake of the violence in Sri Lanka, the government directed the creation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which went to work and created a massive report detailing some of the abuse, treading lightly though on Rajapakse's military mission.
 
The report assessed plenty of blame on the LTTE, referred to many of the dead as "human shields". Had Sri Lanka followed the LLRC, it may have shown an adequate degree of responsibility, but it did not. Instead the government has consistently scoffed at the idea of being accountable for crimes it says never happened.
 
In fact the thousands of dead Tamils, according to the govt. of Sri Lanka, were all victims of the Tamil Tigers, which is an impossible claim as the acts of Sri Lanka's army were heavily witnessed, and former soldiers of this army have provided some of the most damning evidence against the government themselves.
 
The allegations against Sri Lanka include sex crimes and mutilation, responsibility for thousands of dead prisoners, thousands of Tamils locked away in camps never to be seen again, and even darker things like torture and using rape as a weapon against both men and women. Sri Lanka is famous for using white vans to abduct and murder journalists who write negatively about the Rajapakse regime, and the murdered journalists are not all Tamil.
 
Pillay is only one world leader who tired of the Rajapakse regime's flippant attitude. This all takes place with the United States in an interesting rebound. The US and UK are both considered to be complicit in the Genocide itself, according to the ruling of The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. Officials in Washington DC were aware of the slaughter of Tamils in 2009 and it did not raise their voice. If India ultimately joins this quest to force Sri Lanka to accountability, it will undoubtedly give confidence to a battered Tamil population.