HIGH COMMISSIONER OF INDIA ADDRESSES SRI LANKAN DEFENCE SERVICES COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE

November 23, 2012 High Commission of India Colombo .... PRESS RELEASE HIGH COMMISSIONER OF INDIA ADDRESSES SRI LANKAN DEFENCE SERVICES COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE    On an invitation extended by the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, Government of Sri Lanka, H.E. Ashok K Kantha, High Commissioner of India, addressed the students and faculty of Defence Services Command and Staff College on the theme "India´s Foreign and Defence Policies" on 22 November 2012. The High Commissioner was cordially welcomed by Major General JC Rambukpotha, Commandant Defence Services Command and Staff College on arrival. 2. In his address, the High Commissioner touched upon India´s unique geographical location and key global and regional developments influencing India´s security environment and highlighted that India´s unique geographical position, maritime as well as continental entity, with its footprints and interests reaching well beyond South Asia and positioned as a bridge between different parts of Asia such as West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia etc. formed the key determinants of the India´s defence policies. 3. He underlined the transformation of global and regional balance of power, in which the risk of direct conflict between major states has markedly receded, transnational challenges like terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, energy security, climate change and the prolonged economic crisis have become the primary threats to global peace and stability. He emphasized the need for a collective global response to these challenges and especially the ones emanating from non-states actors, failed or weakened States. He drew attention to international terrorism as possibly the pre-eminent threat to global peace and security while pointing out India´s own experience as a victim of cross border terrorism for over two decades. He underlined the major risks associated with weapons of mass destruction possibly falling into the hands of terrorists and non-state actors and to the increased incidences of piracy, gun running and terrorism in the Indian Ocean region. 4. The High Commissioner highlighted that India´s overriding foreign and defence policy objective is to secure a peaceful and enabling international environment, both in the neighbourhood and globally, so as to concentrate on domestic priorities of nationhood and inclusive development while ensuring independence and autonomy in India´s decision making. He underlined that another vital objective is to protect and safeguard India´s territorial integrity and sovereignty and to deal with non-traditional threats to security which are increasingly becoming trans-national in character. He also underlined India´s recognition that transnational challenges can be addressed only through global efforts. 5. The High Commissioner drew attention to the fact that India has never pursued aggressive or expansionist policies and India´s armed forces have always been used to defend the motherland against external aggression. India has never sent troops abroad except for UN peace keeping operations or at the express specific request of the legitimate government of the country concerned. India´s defence preparedness and credible deterrence includes nuclear doctrine of credible minimum deterrence, which envisages no first use of nuclear weapons, non-use against non-nuclear weapon states and voluntary moratorium on further nuclear tests. He underlined that India´s defence preparedness has not been at the cost of development and India´s defence expenditure remains modest at around 2% of the GDP and in per capita terms is among the lowest in the world. 6. The High Commissioner emphasized that a natural corollary of India´s non-aligned foreign policy has been to enhance engagement with all the major countries of the world, which has resulted in substantial strengthening of our relationship with all the major countries and regions of the world and India´s rapid economic and social transformation since early 1990s has provided opportunities to meaningfully engage with the rest of the world in an unprecedented manner. India, at the same time, has been in the forefront of promoting South-South cooperation and continues to give highest priority to closer political, economic and other ties with our neighbours in South Asia and extended neighbourhood. He also referred to India´s successful "Look East Policy" launched in 1990s which is based on a cooperative paradigm of positive inter-connectedness of economic and security interests. He noted that there is a growing appreciation of India´s relevance and role in addressing cross-cutting global issues and India today is today a net provider of security in domains ranging from maritime security to UN Peace keeping operations and one of the engines helping to pull global economy out of recession. 7. High Commissioner Kantha highlighted that India is Sri Lanka´s closest neighbour and our bilateral relationship is extremely strong, anchored in common civilization heritage, shared interests and interlinked destinies. He underlined that India has consistently stood for a united, strong and prosperous Sri Lanka and the defence cooperation between the two countries encompasses a wide array of activities such as high level exchanges, training, joint exercises and exchange of goodwill visits by Naval ships of the two countries. In recent years, the relationship has been marked by close contacts at the highest political level, growing trade and investment, cooperation in the fields of development, education, culture and defence, as well as a broad understanding on major issues of international interest. 8. High Commissioner´s address was followed by an interactive session in which he responded to interesting questions raised by student officers. The event concluded with the presentation of a memento to the High Commissioner by the Commandant, Staff College. ***** Colombo 23 November 2012

Chennai court closes criminal charge against slain LTTE chief

By PTI - CHENNAI

23rd November 2012 09:10 PM

Prabhakaran and his associate Sivakumar allegedly fired at their rivals Uma Maheswaran and Jotheeswaran of People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam in Pondy Bazaar on May 19, 1982. (PTI photo/File)

A local court today closed a criminal charge filed against slain LTTE chief Prabhakaran, pending before it for many years.

The VII Additional Sessions Judge (In charge) Kaliamoorthy declared the charge as "abated," following the Crime Branch-CID request to close it on the ground that Prabhakaran's body was recovered from the Nandikadal area of Sri Lanka in 2009.

According to police, Prabhakaran and his associate Sivakumar allegedly fired at their rivals Uma Maheswaran and Jotheeswaran of People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) in Pondy Bazaar on May 19, 1982.

After registering a case of attempt to murder, under IPC section 307 and provisions of the Arms Act, police had arrested Prabhakaran and Sivakumar who were later given conditional bail.

CB-CID had relied on Interpol and Sri Lankan police reports to state that the LTTE chief's body was recovered after an armed conflict in the Nandikadal area.

CB-CID also stated that Sivakumar was not in India for over 15 years and his whereabouts were still not known, while Jotheeswaran repatriated to Hong Kong and Uma Maheswaran was shot dead by the Sri Lankan Army.

http://newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/article1351953.ece?

Two life convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case approach HC

Published: Friday, Nov 23, 2012, 18:57 IST

Place: Chennai | Agency: PTI

Two Sri Lankan nationals, undergoing life imprisonment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, have filed habeas corpus pleas in the Madras High Court,challenging their incarceration, after completing 20 years in prison.

In their separate petitions, B Robert Payas and S Jayakumar contended that their detention in prison beyond 20 years was illegal and violative of their fundamental right under article 21 of the Constitution of India.

The life convicts, presently serving their sentences at Puzhal Central Prison here, contended that the date of release of prisoners sentenced to life, has to be calculated as per rules 236 and 341 of Tamil Nadu Prison Rules, 1983.

Both the rules specify that imprisonment for life for the purpose of calculation of normal date of release shall be deemed to be sentences of imprisonment for 20 years,they said.

A division bench, comprising justice C Nagappan and justice PR Shivakumar, posted the matter for November 30.

Payas and Jayakumar were arrested on June 10 and 11 respectively in 1991, in connection with the case.

A designated court had in 1998 imposed death penalty on 26 persons including Payas and Jayakumar, which was later converted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court on May 11, 1999.

The Advisory Board of Tamil Nadu government to decide on the premature release of life convicts, convened on January 20, 2010, did not recommend in their favour.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_two-life-convicts-in-rajiv-gandhi-assassination-case-approach-hc_1768690

 

External Affairs Ministry Statement on “Petrie report”

The Ministry of External Affairs refers to the “Report of the Secretary General’s Internal Review Panel on UN action in Sri Lanka” or the “Petrie Report” which was leaked to the media the day prior to its being formally handed over to the Secretary General on 14^th November, and officially made public the same day. While this Report is an internal review of the UN’s action in Sri Lanka during the terrorist conflict, the Ministry’s attention has been drawn to certain issues with regard to allegations directed at the Government of Sri Lanka, which are regrettably unsubstantiated, erroneous and replete with conjecture and bias. The Ministry, therefore, wishes to state the following:-

The Ministry, through its Permanent Mission in New York protested against the leak of the Report on the very day after this questionable action, to the Office of the Secretary General. The “Petrie Report” is an internal document to assess the working of the United Nations system in Sri Lanka during a given period, following a recommendation in the Report of the advisory Panel of Experts appointed by the Secretary General, known as the “Darusman Report”.

While noting that both these Reports are internal advisories to the UN, it is disconcerting that the Darusman Report came into the public domain initially through a leak, and in this instance of the Petrie Report too, the unacceptable procedure of leaking has been resorted to, establishing a disturbing pattern which brings into question the bona fides of the authorship of the document and its underlying motivation. It may be recalled that following the leak of the Petrie Report, while the UN Spokesman took the position that he could not comment on a leaked Report, the author stated to the media that the penultimate draft “very much reflects the findings of the Panel”. Following formal discussions on this issue by the Permanent Representative in New York, with the UN Secretariat, the latter characterized the Report as a document prepared by an independent body over which the Secretariat and has no control. However the expectation of a sovereign Government, quite legitimately, is that the accepted procedure of first consulting with the country concerned be rigidly adopted when commissioning experts. It is pertinent to recall, in the context of a recurring pattern, that the Darusman Report was formally made available by the UN to the public on the basis that it first leaked through the media, and in fact the Petrie Report also was formally released to the media the day after its leak.

The Government of Sri Lanka does not intend to comment on the entirety of its contents. However, some of the issues raised in the Report are of grave concern to Sri Lanka, and should not be construed as the accepted position.

This Report seems to seek to endorse the baseless and discredited allegations in the Darusman Report, of an exaggerated civilian casualty figure during the last stages of the terrorist conflict, which has not been agreed upon even among the senior UN officials at the time, because of the speculative nature of the information which could not be verified. The statistics in the Petrie Report are based on “unnamed sources” quoted in the Darusman Report and unsubstantiated allegations made by NGOs and certain lower level UN officials. However, a censored section of this Report refers to a meeting of the Policy Planning Committee to discuss Sri Lanka where several participants including the then Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Resident Coordinator did not stand by the casualty numbers, saying that the data were ‘not verified’ and questioned the proposal by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to release a public statement containing references to the numbers and possible crimes. No mention has been made of the intransigence of the LTTE which held the people as a human shield, and even shot in cold blood those who tried to escape to gain their freedom.

While the Report admits that the LTTE positioned its artillery among civilians, the allegation of Government shelling into civilian concentrations does not take into account the principles of self defence or reasonableness of retaliation, proportionality, or a technical analysis of the trajectories of the shells allegedly fired, to determine their source.

The allegation relating to the Government deliberately restricting food and medicine to the North is another unsubstantiated statement which, as in the Darusman Report, is repeated in the Petrie publication. The attempts of the GOSL to demonstrate the fallacy of this contention from the time it emerged seem to have been dismissed in cavalier fashion in the Petrie Report. It is a well known fact that food and medicine sent to the North were monitored regularly by the Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA), which comprised officials from the Government, the UN and other humanitarian agencies, and representatives of the diplomatic community based in Colombo, including Japan, USA, Norway and the European Union. The efforts of successive Governments to provide food and medicine to the North, despite the definite knowledge that a major part of it was ending up in the hands of the terrorists, have been appreciated from the early stages of the conflict by the UN. This is amply corroborated by contemporaneous statements by the UN in Sri Lanka at the time. Further, the alleged intimidation of UN staff for delivery of humanitarian assistance is completely baseless, a position which has been endorsed by the former United Nations USG for Humanitarian Affairs and reported widely at the time in the media.

Repeated characterization of the welfare villages without any basis as “military run internment camps” demonstrate the ignorance on the part of the author of the Report, as well as resolve to ignore the efforts taken by the Government to provide basic needs and essential services to the thousands of displaced civilians who fled from the stronghold of the terrorists to the Government side. Without the assistance of the military at that juncture, the GOSL could not have handled the magnitude of the humanitarian task at hand. The military’s role in responding to any humanitarian crisis is well established the world over. It has been in this sense that the military has been engaged in Sri Lanka to overcome the challenges of the terrorist conflict.

Furthermore, while it refers to the military campaign to defeat the LTTE, the Report makes scant reference to the long series of negotiations engaged in by successive Governments to arrive at a peaceful settlement, while all those efforts and brief periods of ceasefire were used by the LTTE to regroup and rearm, to be subsequently unilaterally violated.

The Report appears to be another attempt at castigating Sri Lanka for militarily defeating a ruthless terrorist group which has held the very people it claimed to represent as human shields. The basis for blacking out sections of the Petrie Report is unclear and it is left to the GoSL to surmise that references which may serve positively are those which have been censored. In this context, attention is drawn to the following blacked out sections, inter-alia :-

• The Policy Committee met two days later on 12^th March 2012 to discuss Sri Lanka. Participants noted variously that “this crisis was being somewhat overlooked by the international community”, the policy “of incorporating a series of high level visits seem to have produced some positive results”, and that the possible involvement of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide would not indicate a suspicion of genocide but may add to the overcrowding of UN actors involved……..”.

• On 30 July the Policy Committee met again at UNHQ to address “follow-up on accountability” in Sri Lanka discussing whether or not the Secretary General should establish an international Commission of Experts, many participants were reticent to do so without the support of the Government and at a time when Member States were also not supportive…..”. The Secretary General said that the Government should be given the political space to develop a domestic mechanism……..”.

This practice of redacting clearly brings into question, yet again, the sincerity and objectives of this entire exercise.

Finally, the Report, which is critical of the Member States, seems to forget that the United Nations is an inter-governmental organization whose members are equal in terms of sovereignty and dignity. We remind the author of the Report that they must act within their given mandate and the Charter, and be equal and fair in their dealings with all Member States. A Report of this nature could serve to dangerously have the statistics and unsubstantiated information acquire a life of their own. In fact, the initial statements emanating from some countries seem to disregard the fact that the basic purpose of the Report was to engage in a critical appraisal of the UN system’s performance. Ignoring this vital aspect, they have taken the opportunity to resort to criticism of the GoSL in a manner that reflects patent bias and unwillingness to examine the developments with any degree of objectivity.

Ministry of External Affairs

23 November 2012