War crimes canard nailed for good by Prof Peiris

The detractors of Sri Lanka’s victory over terror were bowled over in Washington DC last week as Prof G L Peiris nailed for good the disparaging canard about war crimes built on flawed thinking that mistook brutality of terror with the just war to end it. The maligning groups were held at bay as External Affairs Minister took them to task. Fending off the conniving groups was no easy task.

Their faulty logic could not take away Sri Lanka’s inalienable right to protect its people from acts of terror inimical to the lives of all ethnic groups-Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. It belied a wanton disregard for fairness and truth by some NGOs.

External Affairs Minister Prof G L Peiris meeting US Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton. AFP

The audacity of the plot to hang-out Sri Lanka to dry shown by the Amnesty International (AI) and International Crisis Group (ICG) and other organizations masquerading as the international community came a cropper as Prof. Peiris called their bluff. The erudite Rhodes Scholar did not mince words.

AI and ICG have blatantly ignored that terror war was fought against the most vicious terror group in recent history. Worse still, Prof. Peiris noted in his characteristic mastery of facts that non-governmental organizations like AI and ICG were not the “International Community.” It was preposterous for them to pose as organizations with authority. The Minister added that “the United Nations Human Rights Council debated these matters for three days, and concluded that it would not take action”.

ICG on thin ice

Prof. Peiris, taking on Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the ICG said it had said in its most recent report released at Chatham House in London that “tens of thousands of civilians were killed or harmed. What is tens of thousands—10,000, 20,000, 90,000—they are all tens of thousands. So, the language is vague, it’s nebulous, it is lacking precision and specificity that we would expect in a report of that kind, which is said to have been written by somebody who was a distinguished Canadian judge.” The wishy-washy nature of the ICG approach to a serious matter was beyond belief.

For AI, ICG and others, Sri Lanka has committed more evil than the terrorists it crushed. Their sheer vindictiveness in accusing a government that fought a just war exceeded all moral qualms. The double standard in ignoring the death of hundreds of civilians being killed in Afghanistan by unmanned drones used in the US-Afghan war exposed viciousness of the NGOs’ stand.

For IA and ICG no mass cruelty unleashed by the Tigers in the name of a mythical Eelam was vicious enough for condemnation. Arbour and her kith and kin seemed to exhibit selective amnesia about inhuman atrocities by the Tigers against their own people when that suited their fancy. Moral preaching emanating from the ICG is unproven and unremittingly negative when it comes to Sri Lanka.

Tiger crimes white-washed

The human rights groups currently trying to demonize Sri Lanka never found no reason to view LTTE horrors with contempt: Tiger leader had eliminated every possible rival for power, killing all moderate and pacific Tamil leaders as well as those who favoured the gun.

West habitually partitions off countries

ICG ignored how Tigers had subjected Tamils both inside the country and in the Diaspora to punitive taxes to fund his war, and had forced thousands of families to give up their children to fight as soldiers.

Their leader had ordered pogroms against Muslims in the area he controlled, forcing thousands of them to flee, as well as massacring Sinhalese. Where was Louise Arbour when we needed her?

The so called R2P or responsibility to protect that western human rightists incessantly throw at elected governments is just a pretext to force a flawed mind-set on unsuspecting Asian countries. That habitually leads to the partitioning of sovereign countries. Whatever moral content R2P possessed largely evaporated due to the discriminatory manner R2P doctrine had been used against selective countries.

Partitioning was practised or tried with no qualms as seen by policies prescribed in India, Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Western protagonists of R2P shove it under the carpet when under attack and try their best to bring it back periodically in various forms.

Safe havens for LTTE

Vietnam reversed the heinous partitioning they underwent while Sri Lanka defied Norwegian machinations after a long war. Elsewhere separate countries were born after partitioning in India, Pakistan (Bangladesh), Korea and Eastern Europe.

We are aware of how the NGOs became instrumental in providing safe havens in their vehicles, offices and international outfits for the Tiger operatives to act with impunity. Any attempt by a sovereign state to assert the right to inspect them is denounced as their access to international press is limitless.

Their lackeys closer home -often with connections to international news outlets send out damaging accounts of states fighting to protect their territorial integrity. Human watch wallahs pick up the threads from there on.

It is amply evident that ICG or any other R2P group would never succeed in erasing from memory unmitigated terror practices which no one in their right mind would ever condone. It was achieved in the teeth of opposition from the US and its allies, and at appalling human and moral cost. ICG can never reverse history.