COYLE rejects Darusman Report

Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE) being a national chamber of the entrepreneur community of Sri Lanka rejects the controversial Darusman Report on Accountability in Sri Lanka as its conclusions are based merely on information available to the panel members.

The communique from COYLE states that the conclusions are not based on facts or factual information gathered through any logical process of investigations. The report itself mentions that the mandate of the Panel was not to carry out a fact finding study or any investigations on the alleged accountability issues during the last stages of the humanitarian operations carried out by the Government armed forces.

Therefore, COYLE notes that the contents and justifications are baseless. The report does not take into account the ground situation that prevailed in the country in early 2009 and the ruthless terrorist activities of the so called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It is also noted that a larger part of information collected by the Darusman Panel was from biased sources and the sympathizers of the LTTE who carried out 30-year long bloody terrorist activities in Sri Lanka.

COYLE is in the opinion that the actions taken by the Sri Lankan Security Forces were well within International humanitarian laws and were necessary to rescue a large number of people the LTTE was keeping as a human shield. The so called Report itself states that due to LTTE’s use of military equipment in the proximity of civilians while using them as a buffer, the task of humanitarian rescue operation was difficult to Sri Lankan Security Forces.

Recognizing the national duty, COYLE Chairman Nayana D P Dehigama called for a special committee of management meeting recently and also invited an International humanitarian law expert to advise COYLE on the ways and means that COYLE could assist the political leadership, relevant authorities and stakeholders to handle this issue in a professional and effective manner.