Sri Lankan Patriots Written to Government to Safe Guard the Heroic Soldiers
A world forum of Sri Lankan expatriate patriots has written to the government and has requested to safe guard the rights of heroic soldiers who fought for the unitary state of Sri Lanka. They have indicated some of the very serious implications on the ‘chief targets ‘, the armed forces of Sri Lanka , and, the consequences arising from so called UN investigations.
The full text of the letter is as follows;
25, November, 2015
His Excellency, Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka
Hon Ranil Wickramasinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
Hon the Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva
Hon the Minister Susil Prema Jayanth
Attorney General- Sri Lanka
The Commissioner of Human Rights Commission –Sri Lanka
An appeal to consider the plight of the defence force personnel who got rid of the LTTE menace which plagued Sri Lanka and her people for 35 years
The recent UNHRC resolution co-sponsored by the present Government of Sri Lanka aims to investigate members of the Sri Lankan armed forces for accountability in relation to allegations of war crimes. The investigative and legal processes are to include foreign judges, prosecutors and legal personnel.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner in his report of 30 September 2015 indicates as follows why the foreign participation is desired.
‘I welcome the Government’s commitment made before this Council, to investigate those violations and ensure accountability’. ’The unfortunate reality, however is that Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system is not currently equipped to conduct an independent, credible investigations of this breath and magnitude,“….
The above comments in the Report and the UNHRC resolution are clearly affront to both the judicial system and the members of the armed forces of Sri Lanka
It is indeed ironic that the High Commissioner’s statement and the resolution question the independence and the impartiality of the judiciary to conduct cases relating to war crimes in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, neither the High Commissioner nor the resolution provide sufficient and credible evidence to establish a prima facie case that the SL Government or its armed forces in fact committed war crimes to persuade any type of courts to follow through with an investigation.
The Resolution and the Report, especially the operative sections therein, 571,600, 981, 982, 983 and 1001, have alleged very serious crimes to have been committed by the armed forces mainly based on the highly questionable Darusman Report and the Channel 4 videos. But, the LLRC and Parangana commission reports have cleared the armed forces of these serious charges. Furthermore, Government of Sri Lanka has completely ignored the independent Military Expert Opinion of Major General John Holmes whose findings were very favourable to Sri Lanka and its defence forces.
We are of the view that the applicable law to investigate the incidents relating to the conflict is International Human Rights Law (IHL) as the UNHRC. OISL reports, the POE of the UNSG and Parnagama Commission have categorized the conflict in Sri Lanka as a non-international armed conflict.
In co-sponsoring the UNHRC Resolution and accepting the resolution, the Government has agreed to amend country’s laws, which in effect means that members of the armed forces will be tried under new laws that were not in existence when they fought the war.
In addition to the above, both serving and retired defence force personnel including service commanders will be hauled before politically controlled investigative bodies with little or no evidence for follow up action. This will undoubtedly lead to the degradation of morale within the service personnel and also cause a loss of public confidence in the armed forces.
We have indicated above, some of the very serious implications on the ‘chief targets ‘, the armed forces of Sri Lanka , and, the consequences arising from such an investigation will have on the concerned members of the armed forces who practically staked their lives and the families to liberate the country from three decades of the brutal terrorism. The risks taken and the sacrifices made to usher in an era of peace after the loss of nearly 100,000 lives and destruction of an inestimable amount of property cannot be evaluated. The morale of the armed forces will be shattered which will seriously affect their ability to meet future threats thereby adversely affecting the prevailing peace and security of the Nation.
At a time when France and other Western countries have declared ‘WAR’ on terrorism, one should not forget how the Tamil Tigers killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians by detonating explosives by the
suicide bombers, planting of bombs in public in transport and city centres, carrying out ethnic cleansing, massacres, blatantly violating the human rights through the use of thousands of brainwashed cadres and under age child soldiers for nearly 35 years in our own land. One should also remember how some of the Western countries and India directly or indirectly supported the LTTE. It was ONLY after the LTTE’s failure to abide by the internationally sponsored negotiations and the Tamil Tigers launching their so called war of liberation that Sri Lanka Government militarily responded to restore the right to life of her citizens and usher in peace for 21 million Sri Lankans belonging to all communities.
We therefore, wish to register our vehement protest about the surrender of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, the scant respect shown to our judicial system and the misguided attempts to sacrifice the members of the armed forces through the hybrid courts and brining in new laws illegally, unfairly and unreasonably.
RANJITH SOYSA
(CO-ORDINATOR)
1 .Global Sri Lanka Forum
2 Society for Peace, Unity and HR in Sri Lanka- Victoria
3 Society for Peace, Unity and HR in Sri Lanka- NSW
4 Western Australia Society for Peace, Unity and Rehabilitation in Sri Lanka.
5,Sinhala Cultural Association- ACT
6 Veera Parakramabahu Foundation- NSW
7 Viru Daru Diriya Fund- Victoria
8 Lanka Friendship Forum – ME
9.United National Association of Canada
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