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Wikileaks: US memo accuses Sri Lanka President of war crimes

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  • கருத்துக்கள உறுப்பினர்கள்

Channel 4 News uncovers a WikiLeaks cable which appears to show the United States believes responsibility for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka rests with its leaders,

including President Rajapakse.

http://www.channel4.com/news/wikileaks-sri-lanka-leadership-responsible-for-crimes

  • கருத்துக்கள உறுப்பினர்கள்

American diplomats believed that the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, bore responsibility for a massacre last year that is the subject of a UN war crimes enquiry, according to a leaked US cable.

Lawyers for Tamil activists in Britain are seeking an arrest warrant against President Rajapaksa - who is currently visiting the UK and is due to meet the defence secretary, Liam Fox, tonight – for alleged war crimes committed last year at the bloody end of the long-running civil war against Tamil separatists. Rajapaksa had been due to address the Oxford Union tomorrow but that appearance has been cancelled due to security concerns.

More than 10,000 Tamils, are thought to have died in the space of a few days in May 2009, when a large concentration of both Tamil Tiger guerrillas and civilians, crammed in a small coastal strip, came under heavy bombardment from Sri Lankan government forces.

In a cable sent on 15 January this year, the US ambassador in Colombo, Patricia Butenis, said that one of the reasons that there was so little progress towards a genuine Sri Lankan enquiry into how so many people were killed was that the president and the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, were largely responsible.

"There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power," Butenis noted.

"In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka." Fonseka was convicted of corruption by a court martial earlier this year.

In her cable to Washington, Butenis seeks to explain where there is so little momentum towards the formation of a "truth and reconciliation" commission, or any other form of accountability.

Most Tamil Tiger commanders, also under suspicion for war crimes such as the use of civilians as human shields, had been killed at the end of the war.

President Rajapaksa had meanwhile fought an election campaign promising to resist any international efforts to prosecute "war heroes" in the nation's army.

Not only was the Colombo government not interested in investigating itself, but Tamils in Sri Lanka – unlike those abroad – were also nervous about the issue at it might make them targets for reprisals.

Butenis wrote: "While they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil leaders with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them 'vulnerable'.

"Accountability is clearly an issue of importance for the ultimate political and moral health of Sri Lankan society," the ambassador concludes, but she does not think it will happen any time soon.

Last month David Cameron endorsed calls for an independent investigation into the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. The UN has set up a enquiry into the events of last May, but Butenis thinks that any overt foreign push for prosecutions would be counter-productive.

"Such an approach, however, would seem to play into the super-heated campaign rhetoric of Rajapaksa and his allies that there is an international conspiracy against Sri Lanka and its "war heroes," Butenis argued.

A spokesman for Fox said: "Dr Fox will be meeting President Rajapaksa in a private capacity. This reflects Dr Fox's long standing interest in Sri Lanka and his interest in, and commitment to peace and reconciliation there."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-sri-lanka-mahinda-rajapaksa

  • கருத்துக்கள உறவுகள்

Sri Lanka - Ambassador reports Sri Lankan President responsible for "alleged war crimes"

WikiLeaks Staff, 1 December 2010, 19.00 GMT

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family are responsible for alleged war crimes against the Tamil, according to a cable sent by US ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis.

Butenis said complicity in alleged war crimes by the president and leader of the opposition was stalling progress in launching investigations into the country’s civil war.

The long running conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers, was ended in May 2009 after the Sri Lankan army defeated LTTE leaders in an area known as the “no fire zone”.

The cable, dated 15 January 2010, updated the Secretary of State on war crimes accountability following the end of the country’s long and bloody conflict.

Ambassador Butenis noted there had been some limited progress in investigating potential war crimes, but noted:

“There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power.

“In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka.”

With regard to alleged LTTE war crimes, Butenis noted:

“Most of the LTTE leadership was killed at the end of the war, leaving few to be held responsible for those crimes. The Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) is holding thousands of mid- and lower-level ex-LTTE combatants for future rehabilitation and/or criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether any such prosecutions will meet international standards.”

The revelations coincide with a visit by President Rajapaksa to the United Kingdom. Rajapaksa, who has been in the UK since Monday, is due to meet with UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Rajapaksa was also scheduled to speak at the Oxford Union on Thursday until the university issued a statement cancelling the event on Wednesday afternoon. The statement cited “security concerns” due to the large number of protestors expected to picket the event.

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/articles/2010/Sri-Lankan-President-s-alleged-war.html

இந்த சந்தர்ப்பத்தை - செய்தியை எவ்வாறு நாம் எமக்கு பலம் சேர்க்கும் விதத்தில் பயன்படுத்தலாம்?

முக்கிய நேரத்தில் இச்செய்தியை வெளியிட்ட http://wikileaks.org/ இணையத்தளத்துக்கு அன்பளிப்பு செய்யுங்கள் http://wikileaks.org/support.html

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