Indian Army to help de-mine Sri Lanka

Delhi’s complicity in Sri Lankan (SL) war crimes

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 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.
vssubramaniam
SINGAPORE

India would redeem its betrayal by allowing the mandated Human Rights bodies to do their job instead of playing its farcical role in UNHRC meeting on Sri Lanka (SL) war crimes

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 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.
vssubramaniam
SINGAPORE