How Darusman and Weiss ignored LTTE killings in a church to enforce
conscription
prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP
The tendentious nature of the accusations against the Sri Lankan
government is most apparent in the accounts given by the Darusman report
and Gordon Weiss of the last couple of months of the war. Weiss
indicates that he depends heavily on information obtained from 'a small
cell' set up by his hero Chris du Toit (who had cut his teeth on
advising the notorious Angolan terrorist Jonas Savimbi, on behalf of the
apartheid South African government) to 'monitor the progress of the
battle, gather reports of casualties and weigh the information it
received'.
Despite disclaimers that this 'seemed to be the equivalent of
listening outside a door to a fracas and trying to guess the events from
the exclamations, sounds of splintering furniture and hoarse shouts of
those inside the room', Weiss seems to think the conclusions of this
shell should be believed. The refusal of the UN to deem all this
credible has prompted the Panel to also attack the senior UN leadership
in Colombo.
Weiss's purple prose is at its most emotive in the chapter entitled
'Managing the Siege', which begins with a reference to 'the bombed and
smoking wards of PTK hospital'. Which one he refers to is not made
clear, nor why he must refer to this when talking about the village of
Kombavil some distance away.
Selective culling
Weiss then engages in a long excursus on the number of civilians left
in the Wanni, in which he culls selectively from various statements to
insinuate that there were well over 300,000 left while the government
claimed there were about 70,000.
While certainly there were conflicting estimates, the UN suggests
230,000 even in its internal minutes (Weiss claims the 'UN had
half-heartedly agreed' to this estimate), while that is the figure to
which government agencies concerned with supplies worked.
Conversely even the Tigers, in an 18th February news item, said only
that 'More than 100,000 people have been forced into a plain and narrow
strip along the coast'.
He also indulges in philosophical reflects about civilians in
warfare, culminating in comparisons between what happened in Gaza and
the events in Sri Lanka.
What he conveniently forgets is that, while the Palestinians did not
deliberately target their own civilians, nor prevent them from getting
away into Israeli territory (for obvious reasons, which Weiss omits in
his pointed comparison, the Tigers had made it clear that they would use
Tamil civilians ruthlessly - precisely because they were counting on
people like Weiss to provoke international intervention.
Though obviously this does not count as a war crime in any
conventional sense, the encouragement offered by those like Weiss and
David Miliband who encouraged the Tigers to think they would be let off
the hook should be examined carefully, so that similar bad behaviour is
never repeated.
Western commentators
In the next chapter Weiss makes clear where he is coming from, in
attributing what he terms the 'unassailable confidence' of Sri Lanka to
its relations with China.
What proved a common refrain in those days and now, efforts by
Western commentators to insinuate rivalry between India and China with
regard to Sri Lanka, figures large in Weiss's world view, conveniently
ignoring the fact that India was equally solid in its support for Sri
Lanka's efforts to get rid of terrorism on its shores.
Weiss stresses 'Sri Lanka's ties with China, Myanmar, Iran, Venezuela
and Libya' while forgetting that Sri Lanka was supported by most
countries in Asia and Africa and the Middle East, and several others in
South America.
The fact that the West was isolated in its efforts to pin blame on
Sri Lanka in 2009 is conveniently forgotten to promote the polarization
in which characters like Weiss delight.
Without giving any details Weiss then perpetuates the myth that
'Hospitals and medical facilities were struck so often during these
months, and with such repeated accuracy'.
In actual fact, during the six weeks after the reported bombing of
the Ponnambalam hospital, which had never been officially identified,
there was only one attack reported on a hospital, namely on February
9th, when 'Puttumattalan was hit by shelling that killed at least 16
patients'.
Not the target
This was clearly not the target, for there was no repetition of such
an incident. The next allegation as regards the hospital was on 3rd
March, when it was claimed that 'shells hit the IDP settlement, located
200 metres near the hospital, claiming the lives of 13 Tamil civilians.
Allegations of shells in the vicinity of the hospital continued over
the next few days (a shell 'exploded 500 metres from the hospital'),
while on 10th March it was alleged that 'The medical store at
Valignarmadam has sustained damage and the son or a doctor was
reportedly killed there, according to initial reports'.
This is a far cry from the Darusman claim of systematic shelling of
hospitals, and is easily understood in the light of the Tiger tactic of
using weapons from the vicinity of hospitals.
Indeed, given the need to respond to fire from 'IDPs or civilian
installations such as hospitals', the relative paucity of collateral
damage should surely be commended.
On the 26th of March it was again claimed that the 'makeshift
hospital at Puthmaththa'lan' was attacked with Rocket Propelled
Grenades, killing 5 people and destroying 'part of the medicines
recently brought to the hospital', which suggests the Darusman panel was
talking through its head in claiming that the Sri Lankan government was
not supplying these hospitals with medicine.
Its selective myopia can be seen when, protesting too much as usual,
it claims that 'While some wounded LTTE cadre were treated at
Putumattalan hospital, they were few in number and were kept in a
separate ward. Putumattalan hospital was shelled on several occasions
after that, in February and March. RPGs were fired at the hospital
around 27 March killing several civilians. In addition to civilian
casualties, the operating theatre, makeshift ward and roof all sustained
damage.
Massive breakthrough
However, despite these claims, activity at the hospital continued
into April, with regular comments on the work there between April 3rd
and April 19th. On April 11th it was reported that the Sri Lanka Army
was 'stationed just 800 metres away from the hospital', while on the
next day it was claimed that shelling 'in the makeshift hospital'
resulted in a 20 days old baby dying.
There were no other casualties, and the hospital continued to
function, and admit new patients. Finally on the 20th it was claimed
that the patients were 'forced to run away' as Rocket Propelled Grenades
hit the hospital, though 'A few medical staff remaining in the hospital
are hiding in bunkers'. That was the time when the civilians were able
to make a massive breakthrough, and get away to government controlled
territory.
Extravagant claim
Incidentally, the Darusman report had also claimed that 'Fresh water
was scarce and food was in such short supply that a few people died of
starvation', for which the footnote, which should indicate a source for
such an extravagant claim, merely extols the virtues of the Tamil
Rehabilitation Organization, which has been identified as an
organization supporting terrorism - 'The Tamils Rehabilitation
Organization (TRO), an entity associated with the LTTE, helped displaced
persons to move, transported the injured to the hospital, buried bodies
and distributed food, mainly Kanchi (rice and salt boiled with lots of
water)'.
Tamilnet however, having declared on 18th April that thousands
were'at the verge of death due to starvation', said nothing more in this
regard over the next month.
To get back to the narrative of the Darusman report with regard to
hospitals, it records that 'the second NFZ had three makeshift
hospitals, including Putumattalan, a small clinic at Valayanmadam and a
hospital in Mullivaikkal.
All of their coordinates were known to the Government, and they were
clearly marked with emblems'.
This is designed to show that government targeted these hospitals
deliberately, but as we have seen, no evidence is provided for this
claim, and in the case of the first hospital we have noted that there
were no claims that it was damaged between February 9th and March 26th.
With regard to the second, after the claim of March 10th that the
medical store was damaged, it next figures in a claim on 22nd April that
shelling 'killed a doctor and seven persons including medical staff'.
That report refers too to the injury caused to Father james
Pathinathar, who figures large in the narrative of the Jaffna University
Teachers for Human Rights. They do not refer to there being a hospital
at Valaignarmadam, though they say The ICRC had built some temporary
shelter near the church when it was forced to vacate PTK. It became also
the quarters for the AGA Parthipan and also the doctors.'
Sanctity of church
The UTHR narrative is clear in its description of the manner in which
the LTTE violated the sanctity of the church which the priests had
guarded as a refuge for those who had deserted the LTTE - 'Finally, late
morning close to March-end, a large number of LTTE cadres, including
police and military, surrounded the church in the style of a military
operation. They barged in.
They went into the church with their guns, but the victims evidently
did not want to give up without a fight. The LTTE opened fire and killed
four persons inside the church. As panic and terror spread the church
emptied. One observer described the scene of wailing and mourning as
one, whose profound imprint the shore and landscape would long remember.
The LTTE brought a stream of buses, packed the young and moved them
away in quick succession to Mullivaykkal'.
The Darusman report is more anodyne - 'On one occasion in mid-April,
LTTE cadre, led by the former Trincomalee Political Wing leader known as
Ezhilan, forcibly recruited hundreds of young people from Valayanmadam
Church and put them on buses to Mullivaikkal'. And the incident does not
figure at all in Gordon Weiss's narrative.
Assault on truth
There remains the last hospital in the last No Fire Zone, and we
should look carefully at what was claimed about that too.
But a careful assessment of what was said at the time, and the manner
in which it has been transformed into a brutal narrative by both
Darusman and Weiss indicates how unreliable they are, how purposeful
their assault on truth as well as the Sri Lankan forces. |