- Written by Shenali Waduge
- Tuesday, 22 May 2012 11:02
We have come to a stage in history that we need to
put things in its perspective by not shying away from demanding actions
on two key areas that now needs to be investigated. It is only by
investigating who the LTTE was, what LTTE was involved in, the players
who sponsored and supported the LTTE over the years, LTTE war crimes
over 3 decades, victims of LTTE terror (civil and military) as well as
investigating the war crimes, rape, looting and indiscriminate firing
upon innocent Tamil civilians by the Indian Peace Keeping Force sent by
India following India’s intervention in Sri Lanka forcing the signing of
the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord that we can derive a plausible conclusion
to enable the citizens of Sri Lanka to finally get on with their lives.
Incidentally, it is the death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, killed in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991 by the LTTE….and it becomes a perfect day to examine India’s and in particular Tamil Nadu politicians role in Sri Lanka and reason why all of India’s neighbors should despise India including Sri Lanka.
These 2 investigations are important for several reasons for it explains the reasons why Sri Lanka was forced to shoulder a conflict which went sour in the manner India’s peace keepers began raping and killing Sri Lankan Tamils – a true killing field ignored internationally. The manner in which in an unprecedented move resulted in the LTTE tie up with the Sri Lankan Government to fight the IPKF and demand it to leave Sri Lanka carries a clear message that Sri Lanka cannot be disintegrated like other nations – African or Middle Eastern.
1) Investigate War Crimes of LTTE
An investigation into LTTE war crimes will bring to light atrocities that forced 32 nations to declare it a terrorist organization and will record how over three decades the LTTE carried out over 200 suicide attacks killing innocent men, women, children and clergy. It will also enable the world to bury the myth that LTTE was a liberation movement when they realize that the LTTE killed practically all of the moderate Tamil politicians and Tamil intellectuals. All these people deserve justice for their untimely deaths.
It is easy to say that the LTTE is now no more. That may be true but we know very well that Sri Lanka’s Tamil political parties especially the TNA has been over the years the open mouthpiece of the LTTE and they are in parliament primarily on the strength of the LTTE’s open support of them even carrying out their election campaigns. There are enough evidence of TNA members with links to LTTE speaking atop LTTE stages even overseas. These TNA members have given political leadership and guidance to the LTTE over the year which has enabled them to entice the Tamil civilians towards the separatist cause.
LTTE’s foreign campaign is very much in full swing and are accountable for influencing the calls for war crimes against Sri Lanka’s troops on their ability to buy over foreign MPs on the bargaining tool of giving them enough votes to come into power. We are not interested in the morality of these foreign parliamentarians but what we insist on is that for far too long LTTE has been riding a white horse claiming itself the aggrieved party when they should have been as a declared terrorist entity found guilty of war crimes.
For a single act that has not even been proved the UN set up the UN Counter Terrorism Center immediately after the 9/11, what stopped the UN taking action against the LTTE when it has enough dossiers on the LTTE for recruiting child combatants, forcefully kidnapping them from their homes and running false orphanages which are actually LTTE training camps? What did the Tamil politicians do about Tamil children been taken and turned into child combatants – did they even plead for these innocent children to be released?
An investigation on how the LTTE and other Tamil terrorist groups started attacking Sri Lanka’s Government would take investigators to India where training camps were set up by retired RAW and army personnel. Investigations would unearth how the Indian Government provided logistical and financial support to these terrorist groups and how they manipulated one against the other.
The world would finally come to know how LTTE “liberation movement” was in fact an outsourced terrorist movement spearheaded by Indian intelligence primarily to delay an Eelaam and deny Sri Lanka any form of stability in economy or development. We need the world to finally know the truth and the world owes it to the public of Sri Lanka to open an investigation to bring out these dark home truths.
2) Investigate War Crimes of India’s IPKF
The Indian Peace Keeping Force landed in Sri Lanka the day after the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord on 30th July 1987. This accord was thrust upon Sri Lanka by India with Sri Lanka having no say in its contents and it not only amended Sri Lanka’s constitution but it also introduced a provincial council system and merged the provinces of the North and the East. It is obvious that India chose to go ahead with the accord as it came to realize that the Sri Lankan armed forces were within a short distance of capturing Prabakaran just a month before the accord was pushed for signature. India demanded Sri Lankan troops stop advancing to capture Prabakaran and he was whisked off to India and made a promise by India to be given 5million monthly for his agreeing to the Accord.
We are not concerned about what type of agreement India had with Prabakaran or the LTTE. What we are concerned is that Sri Lanka lost thousands of people unnecessarily and for no reason simply because India did not want its Tamil Nadu to continue its calls to separate from India. By fooling the Tamil Nadu people into watching a supposed Eelaam take shape in Sri Lanka, India has been guilty of crimes against humanity.
From the circumstances that prevailed in sending Indian troops who had not been briefed about what they were supposed to do and clueless about their role it was no surprise when just after two months in October, orders were given to eliminate the LTTE and capture Prabakaran which clearly indicated India’s arrival was far more than India was revealing with 100,000 IPKF soldiers stationed in North Sri Lanka. The deaths to Tamil civilians by the IPKF is said to range from 6000 deaths to 10,000 deaths – we need all these deaths to be investigated before investigating anything else.
When the IPKF did capture Jaffna there were thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who were displaced. Did the Indians or Tamil Nadu or for that matter any in the TNA or the foreign embassies and humanitarian groups cry foul and demand answers from India?
The IPKF was soon to earn the acronym – Innocent People Killing Force and a series of encounters will remind Jaffna Tamils how wonderful India had treated the Tamil people. Indian reply by Brig Kahlon for rape charges were “the Indian army are not angels….rape happens even in the West”. These are just a few of the examples of IPKF’s war crimes in Sri Lanka against the Tamil people India is now so concerned about.
· 12 October 1987 – IPKF attacks village of Kokuvil killing over 40 civilians’ in retaliation for loosing 29 Indian commandoes at the Jaffna University raid.
· 21 October 1987 – Deepavali, 68 innocent Tamils shot and killed by IPKF inside Jaffna Hospital including hospital doctors, nurses, staff and patients. Dr. Sivapathasuntharan who entered the hospital the next day was also killed by the IPKF.
· 21 November 1987 – Trincomalee, a IPKF soldier kills 7 civilians and injures 4 by indiscriminate firing.
· August 1989 – Velvettiturai, 64 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians killed by the IPKF.
· More than a 100 Tamil civilian bodies were found in Chunnakam, Mallakam, Uduvil, Manipay, Maruthanamadam and Inuvil – all deaths attributed to the IPKF.
Amnesty International Report 1988 (Jan-Dec 1987) quotes local magistrate in North Sri Lanka finding seven cases of rape by IPKF.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA37/030/1990/en/1520f8d1-17d4-4b3b-b4d1-f948631bb10b/asa370301990en.pdf
· A book on India’s war crimes against Tamil civilians was released in April 2011 in New Delhi titled “In the Name of Peace : IPKF Massacres of Tamils in Sri Lanka” documented by the Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) and published by the Delhi Tamil Students Union. The book covers 12 massacres committed by the IPKF.
For further reading :
· Memorial for IPKF - Innocent People Killing Force
By Dr. T. Somasekaram Retd. Surveyor General http://www.tchr.net/reports_commission_IPKF.htm
· Those Who Cannot Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It http://www.sangam.org/2011/08/IPKF_Repeat.php?uid=4436
We do not deny the cultural affinities shared between India and Sri Lanka, we do not deny the close ties that have existed over centuries but inspite of such ties India has gone on to commit the unthinkable upon a nation that has done India no harm.
Knowing India’s own guilt at sponsoring terrorist groups and openly claiming to train them on Indian soil not feeling embarrassed of its guilt, India went on to vote against Sri Lanka in Geneva.
We are not concerned about why India did what India did for its actions speaks louder than words and foretells us that we can never expect sincerity in dealings with India ever. What we are now concerned more than ever is that the world should know the truth about the LTTE and we now demand war crimes investigations be opened against the LTTE being a terrorist organization and India for its crimes committed against our people by the IPKF. The Indian Penal Code does provide for extradition and Sri Lanka can open trial according to Sri Lanka’s laws.
Everyone can have their day in court – justice needs to start now.
For planning and sponsoring a terrorist organization, India does not deserve a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
Sri Lanka should now be proactive and not defensive and be firm about what needs to be said to the world.
Shenali Waduge
Courtesy: The Nation
Incidentally, it is the death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, killed in Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991 by the LTTE….and it becomes a perfect day to examine India’s and in particular Tamil Nadu politicians role in Sri Lanka and reason why all of India’s neighbors should despise India including Sri Lanka.
These 2 investigations are important for several reasons for it explains the reasons why Sri Lanka was forced to shoulder a conflict which went sour in the manner India’s peace keepers began raping and killing Sri Lankan Tamils – a true killing field ignored internationally. The manner in which in an unprecedented move resulted in the LTTE tie up with the Sri Lankan Government to fight the IPKF and demand it to leave Sri Lanka carries a clear message that Sri Lanka cannot be disintegrated like other nations – African or Middle Eastern.
1) Investigate War Crimes of LTTE
An investigation into LTTE war crimes will bring to light atrocities that forced 32 nations to declare it a terrorist organization and will record how over three decades the LTTE carried out over 200 suicide attacks killing innocent men, women, children and clergy. It will also enable the world to bury the myth that LTTE was a liberation movement when they realize that the LTTE killed practically all of the moderate Tamil politicians and Tamil intellectuals. All these people deserve justice for their untimely deaths.
It is easy to say that the LTTE is now no more. That may be true but we know very well that Sri Lanka’s Tamil political parties especially the TNA has been over the years the open mouthpiece of the LTTE and they are in parliament primarily on the strength of the LTTE’s open support of them even carrying out their election campaigns. There are enough evidence of TNA members with links to LTTE speaking atop LTTE stages even overseas. These TNA members have given political leadership and guidance to the LTTE over the year which has enabled them to entice the Tamil civilians towards the separatist cause.
LTTE’s foreign campaign is very much in full swing and are accountable for influencing the calls for war crimes against Sri Lanka’s troops on their ability to buy over foreign MPs on the bargaining tool of giving them enough votes to come into power. We are not interested in the morality of these foreign parliamentarians but what we insist on is that for far too long LTTE has been riding a white horse claiming itself the aggrieved party when they should have been as a declared terrorist entity found guilty of war crimes.
For a single act that has not even been proved the UN set up the UN Counter Terrorism Center immediately after the 9/11, what stopped the UN taking action against the LTTE when it has enough dossiers on the LTTE for recruiting child combatants, forcefully kidnapping them from their homes and running false orphanages which are actually LTTE training camps? What did the Tamil politicians do about Tamil children been taken and turned into child combatants – did they even plead for these innocent children to be released?
An investigation on how the LTTE and other Tamil terrorist groups started attacking Sri Lanka’s Government would take investigators to India where training camps were set up by retired RAW and army personnel. Investigations would unearth how the Indian Government provided logistical and financial support to these terrorist groups and how they manipulated one against the other.
The world would finally come to know how LTTE “liberation movement” was in fact an outsourced terrorist movement spearheaded by Indian intelligence primarily to delay an Eelaam and deny Sri Lanka any form of stability in economy or development. We need the world to finally know the truth and the world owes it to the public of Sri Lanka to open an investigation to bring out these dark home truths.
2) Investigate War Crimes of India’s IPKF
The Indian Peace Keeping Force landed in Sri Lanka the day after the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord on 30th July 1987. This accord was thrust upon Sri Lanka by India with Sri Lanka having no say in its contents and it not only amended Sri Lanka’s constitution but it also introduced a provincial council system and merged the provinces of the North and the East. It is obvious that India chose to go ahead with the accord as it came to realize that the Sri Lankan armed forces were within a short distance of capturing Prabakaran just a month before the accord was pushed for signature. India demanded Sri Lankan troops stop advancing to capture Prabakaran and he was whisked off to India and made a promise by India to be given 5million monthly for his agreeing to the Accord.
We are not concerned about what type of agreement India had with Prabakaran or the LTTE. What we are concerned is that Sri Lanka lost thousands of people unnecessarily and for no reason simply because India did not want its Tamil Nadu to continue its calls to separate from India. By fooling the Tamil Nadu people into watching a supposed Eelaam take shape in Sri Lanka, India has been guilty of crimes against humanity.
From the circumstances that prevailed in sending Indian troops who had not been briefed about what they were supposed to do and clueless about their role it was no surprise when just after two months in October, orders were given to eliminate the LTTE and capture Prabakaran which clearly indicated India’s arrival was far more than India was revealing with 100,000 IPKF soldiers stationed in North Sri Lanka. The deaths to Tamil civilians by the IPKF is said to range from 6000 deaths to 10,000 deaths – we need all these deaths to be investigated before investigating anything else.
When the IPKF did capture Jaffna there were thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who were displaced. Did the Indians or Tamil Nadu or for that matter any in the TNA or the foreign embassies and humanitarian groups cry foul and demand answers from India?
The IPKF was soon to earn the acronym – Innocent People Killing Force and a series of encounters will remind Jaffna Tamils how wonderful India had treated the Tamil people. Indian reply by Brig Kahlon for rape charges were “the Indian army are not angels….rape happens even in the West”. These are just a few of the examples of IPKF’s war crimes in Sri Lanka against the Tamil people India is now so concerned about.
· 12 October 1987 – IPKF attacks village of Kokuvil killing over 40 civilians’ in retaliation for loosing 29 Indian commandoes at the Jaffna University raid.
· 21 October 1987 – Deepavali, 68 innocent Tamils shot and killed by IPKF inside Jaffna Hospital including hospital doctors, nurses, staff and patients. Dr. Sivapathasuntharan who entered the hospital the next day was also killed by the IPKF.
· 21 November 1987 – Trincomalee, a IPKF soldier kills 7 civilians and injures 4 by indiscriminate firing.
· August 1989 – Velvettiturai, 64 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians killed by the IPKF.
· More than a 100 Tamil civilian bodies were found in Chunnakam, Mallakam, Uduvil, Manipay, Maruthanamadam and Inuvil – all deaths attributed to the IPKF.
Amnesty International Report 1988 (Jan-Dec 1987) quotes local magistrate in North Sri Lanka finding seven cases of rape by IPKF.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA37/030/1990/en/1520f8d1-17d4-4b3b-b4d1-f948631bb10b/asa370301990en.pdf
· A book on India’s war crimes against Tamil civilians was released in April 2011 in New Delhi titled “In the Name of Peace : IPKF Massacres of Tamils in Sri Lanka” documented by the Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR) and published by the Delhi Tamil Students Union. The book covers 12 massacres committed by the IPKF.
For further reading :
· Memorial for IPKF - Innocent People Killing Force
By Dr. T. Somasekaram Retd. Surveyor General http://www.tchr.net/reports_commission_IPKF.htm
· Those Who Cannot Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It http://www.sangam.org/2011/08/IPKF_Repeat.php?uid=4436
We do not deny the cultural affinities shared between India and Sri Lanka, we do not deny the close ties that have existed over centuries but inspite of such ties India has gone on to commit the unthinkable upon a nation that has done India no harm.
Knowing India’s own guilt at sponsoring terrorist groups and openly claiming to train them on Indian soil not feeling embarrassed of its guilt, India went on to vote against Sri Lanka in Geneva.
We are not concerned about why India did what India did for its actions speaks louder than words and foretells us that we can never expect sincerity in dealings with India ever. What we are now concerned more than ever is that the world should know the truth about the LTTE and we now demand war crimes investigations be opened against the LTTE being a terrorist organization and India for its crimes committed against our people by the IPKF. The Indian Penal Code does provide for extradition and Sri Lanka can open trial according to Sri Lanka’s laws.
Everyone can have their day in court – justice needs to start now.
For planning and sponsoring a terrorist organization, India does not deserve a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
Sri Lanka should now be proactive and not defensive and be firm about what needs to be said to the world.
Shenali Waduge
Courtesy: The Nation
