Says govt will cautiously map out counter-measures
locally, globally :
Ingredients of LTTE rump in UN report - Media Minister
Ravi LADDUWAHETTY
The recent report of the three member panel of United Nations experts
on accountability issues which supposedly arose during the latter stages
of the humanitarian operation has ingredients of the LTTE rump and the
Tamil Diaspora, Government Spokesman and Media Minister Keheliya
Rambukwella charged yesterday.
“The government, while glancing through the report, has arrived at
the immediate conclusion that a majority of the statements which have
been made within the commission report, also coincide and are remarkably
the same as the statements which have been made by the LTTE rump and the
Tamil Diaspora in the final stages of the war,” the minister told the
Daily News.
“This report, has indirectly spelt out the voice of the LTTE, which
has failed on all fronts, militarily and politically, and is extremely
biased, flawed, one -sided and is unacceptable,” he said. He also said
that the government would tread with extreme caution and will gradually
map out a strategy both locally and internationally to counter the
allegations, and added that deadlines and targets could not be spelt out
at this stage.
The three -member Commission, chaired by Indonesia’s Marzuki
Dharusman and comprising South Africa’s Yasmin Sooka and Stephen Ratner
of the United States and appointed in May 2010, handed over the report
to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on April 12 and the
United Nations has shared a copy of the report with the government of
Sri Lanka.
The UN also hoped to release the report to the public with the
responses of the government of Sri Lanka.
Asked to comment on some of the allegations listed in the report and
published, such as violation of humanitarian laws, systematic shelling
of hospitals and No Fire Zones, and the LTTE refusing civilians
permission to leave and using them as hostages to form a human buffer
between themselves and the advancing Sri Lanka Army, the minister said
that the government would not be commenting on bits and pieces of the
report, but, instead, would map out a systematic strategy- locally and
globally to counter it. The minister also said that President Mahinda
Rajapaksa afforded an opportunity to the three members commission to
provide evidence to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC),
instead of which, the commission went around collecting evidence from
non-credible and biased sources.
The Government Spokesman also said that originally there were
vehement protests by the government to the United Nations on the
appointment of such a commission, as the UN did not have the mandate for
the appointment of such a commission, without consent, to interfere in
the affairs of a sovereign country which is also a UN member nation.
In the conduct of its mandate, the panel was expected to cooperate
with concerned officials in Sri Lanka and was expected to also complete
its advisory responsibilities within four months of the commencement of
its work.
The minister said that even in the event of the government being
taken to task based on the contents of the report at the level of the
United Nations Security Council, strong members of the Council which are
also friendly with Sri Lanka such as, India, Russia and China, will use
all their veto powers which will be in favour of Sri Lanka.
“This is indeed an absurd situation where the democratic rights of a
sovereign nation are being taken to task and here is a paradoxical
situation where a nation which has just begun to enjoy the dividends of
peace is put in a dilemma by an external power from somewhere which is
trying to move without looking at the practical aspects of the situation
and backdrop,” the minister said. |