No dirty war tactics by Forces - SCOPP
COLOMBO: Statistics indicate that the Sri Lankan forces have been far
more careful about civilians than many governments which HRW does not
seem inclined to criticise with the same personal intensity, SCOPP Chief
Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha said yesterday.
HRW should also be interested in the manner in which the Sri Lankan
armed forces conducted themselves throughout the operation in the East.
There were hardly any civilian casualties, as is borne out by the
reports of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, he said.
He said: “Among the more outrageous statements of the Human Rights
Watch in its recent statement headlined ‘Sri Lanka: Government Abuses
Intensify’ was the claim that “The Sri Lankan government has apparently
given its security forces a green light to use ‘dirty war’ tactics”.
This was said by Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. The
release claims that ‘President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother,
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, have pursued military operations
in the country’s north and east , with little regard for the security of
the civilian population ... Security forces have subjected civilians to
indiscriminate attacks’.
Astonishingly, the body of the report carries hardly any
substantiation of the latter claim. There is just over a page (along
with an illustration of an IDP) in the Summary subtitled ‘Abuses during
armed conflict’ which begins ‘Some of the most serious international law
violations have taken place during armed hostilities, when civilians
have died in unlawful attacks and others were displaced. Both the
government and the LTTE have shown a brazen disregard for the well-being
of non-combatants’.
There is then a paragraph regarding the attack on the Kathiravelli
School which was an IDP camp. The rest of the section is about IDPs,
including the statement ‘The LTTE has at times blocked civilians from
leaving areas of conflict’. No other instance is given of
‘indiscriminate attacks’ in the course of ‘military operations’.
Whilst the Kathiravelli incident needs to be considered further, what
HRW has failed to register, and what is almost unique in the history of
this type of military operation, is the paucity of civilian casualties.
Western nations involved in what they characterize as anti-terror
operations all over the world seem to have been less cautious in their
approach to civilians, judging from the number of casualties reported
over the last year in say Afghanistan or Iraq or Israel.
Whether HRW has engaged in crude denunciations of the leaders of the
countries involved may perhaps be of interest to those governments who
may be influenced by the HRW recommendations.
What they should also be interested in is the manner in which the Sri
Lankan armed forces conducted themselves throughout the operation in the
east. There were hardly any civilians casualties, as is borne out by the
reports of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
Furthermore, there have been no allegations whatsoever of rape which,
as Mr Adams will know from even the recent sentencing by the US army, is
difficult to avoid even for armies he will doubtless consider
disciplined and discriminating in their attacks on civilians.
With regard to Kathiravelli, which is the only actual incident cited
in the whole HRW report about civilian casualties during the military
operations in the east, the death of so many civilians must be deplored.
It is necessary however to examine all the facts, even as cited in the
HRW Report, before responsibility is decided upon.
On the morning of November 8th the LTTE had fired at the Sri Lankan
army from the Kathiravelli area, and, according to D B S Jeyaraj, five
soldiers and a civilian were wounded and one soldier killed. The army
fired back in the late morning, hitting the school though under the
impression, because of ‘mortar locating radar’ that it was hitting LTTE
gun positions.
HRW claims that, according to its eyewitness accounts, ‘while the
LTTE was frequently milling about the area, no LTTE fighters were
located in or adjacent to the IDP camp at the time of the attack or
directly before’.
However, HRW also notes that ‘The LTTE had sentries in the area of
the camp, ostensibly to monitor the movement of displaced persons’. A
man in the camp added that ‘In the daytime, the LTTE didn’t carry
weapons..When the LTTE has heavy weapons, they don’t show them because
they’re afraid someone will inform.’
Another woman added ‘that about 15 LTTE fighters stayed in some huts
about 6000 metres from the school. “They had rifles but no heavy guns,”
she said.’ The report also notes the many bunkers in the school grounds
but says that the displaced persons dug bunkers so as to ‘protect their
families from government shelling’.
Whilst this last phenomenon may seem only strange, the conclusion is
inescapable that there were at least at some times LTTE members with
heavy weapons in the camp. This does not in any way justify the killing
of civilians but, combined with the initiation of an artillery attack,
and what would probably have been the radar discovery of weapons, the
shelling of the camp is understandable.
The consequent deaths of civilians was a tragedy that every Sri
Lankan should mourn. It should also be noted however that no similar
incident has occurred after that. Recently, the Peace Secretariat looked
into what the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization alleged were several
violations of the CFA, and requested the SLMM too to provide reports.
The TRO reported an incident of July 11, 2007 and then listed five
other incidents over the preceding fifteen months in only two of which
was loss of life reported. One of these was Kathiravelli, where the
figure of deaths given is less than that alleged by HRW.
All lost of life is to be deplored, civilian or military, and it is
for that reason that SCOPP hopes that the LTTE will return to
negotiations. The fact that it is only the Kathiravelli incident that
HRW can cite in its blanket personal attack on the conduct of military
operations seems a tribute to the Sri Lankan forces.
Though the record of the government in the eighties was
unsatisfactory, and contributed much to the anguish of minorities, the
increasing concern of both government and forces for the civilians of
all communities they are meant to protect has been increasing apace in
recent years.
This must continue, but perhaps HRW should suggest that the training
programmes conducted by the forces in this respect, which have produced
such remarkable improvement, be shared with countries with much worse
records - assuming HRW has the guts to identify them.”
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