The deliberate targeting of Sri Lanka:

How, why, and the use of Auxiliary Forces including Channel 4

Prof. Rajiva WIJESINHA, MP
[Continued from yesterday]

Mackay was subsequently asked to leave Sri Lanka shortly after two individuals who worked for UNOPS, the agency by which he was employed, were arrested for transport of weapons.

It should be noted that UNOPS had another employee too who engaged in show and tell, a man called Benjamin Dix who was featured in the first Channel 4 film. He had been doing the rounds attacking Sri Lanka under the aegis of Amnesty International in September 2008, until we complained, whereupon the UN system stopped him in terms of his contract, and the UNOPS head in Sri Lanka actually came into our ministry to apologize and assure us that the incident would not be repeated. Unfortunately, when it was repeated, with the first Channel 4 film, we do not seem to have taken the matter up, and I suspect we will do nothing now, to make it clear to the UN that characters like Dix and Peter Mackay and Gordon Weiss are abusing the trust the UN placed in them.

Mackay is even more mysterious than the rest, given the absence of his name from the list I have seen of those who went into the Vanni in convoy 11, and who came out, either with the main group or later. The job description under which he was granted a visa states that he was supposed to ‘support the implementation of the UNOPS reconstruction portfolio in the current and future operational locations of Sri Lanka’. He seems however, according to an article in the Guardian that appeared after he was asked to leave, to have ‘collected high resolution satellite images’ and been part of the network of informants first publicized in the Darusman report which Chris du Toit, the Head of UN Security in Sri Lanka, and a former adviser to the terrorist Jonas Savimbi, had built up. Again, I am astonished and also very sad that the existence of this network was not taken up with the UN, whose senior officials were I believe as much in the dark about such shadowy networks and what they were actually doing as we were.

Mackay, like Gordon Weiss, implies that the remnants of the UN convoy faced great danger from the start. Weiss gives a starting date January 22, Mackay January 23. This is belied by what du Toit wrote to SF Headquarters on the 24th, that ‘I would like to thank you and your staff for excellent support to all the UN movements to date’. After the remnants of the convoy finally left, on January 29, getting through with an ICRC convoy, du Toit wrote, on the 30th, ‘Many thanks for the close cooperation that my team experience with your staff’.

Neil Buhne

He did in that letter draw attention to possible danger to the local staff who had been compelled to stay behind, and wrote ‘Reports have been received of artillery fire as close as 100 metres from the hospital’. This is a far cry from Mackay’s sworn statement that ‘Now the closest shells landed a 100 metres from us indicating that they could control the fire if they wanted to’. Mackay thus implies that previously the fire fell even closer, but was adjusted when details of the convoy were conveyed, whereas on the 30th du Toit implies that 100 metres is an aberration that was unusual.

Underlying all this is the fact that, while our forces had to deal with terrorists using heavy weapons from amongst civilians and in hospitals, they maintained proportionality. The fact that hardly any shells fell in or near hospitals during this period - and I have the very few letters from the ICRC that raise the issue - is testimony to the great care that was exercised. I was also told by the doctors, including one that had got away before the final days after serving at the Udaiyarkadu hospital that Mackay refers to, that no shells fell on the hospital though there were one or two nearby, and that the LTTE was asked to remove its weapons but ignored this. None of this is of course cited from Mackay’s sworn statement, assuming he bothered to mention it, but fortunately we have the correspondence of du Toit and the Bishop of Jaffna, who wrote asking the LTTE to withdraw its heavy weaponry from amongst the citizens. We also have the evidence of the UNDP Head, Neil Buhne, who having roused us early morning with reports that there was firing in the area of the remnants of the convoy, sent a text message that evening to say that they believed most of the firing had come from the LTTE. But, unfortunately, the Darusman report, following Gordon Weiss, holds that the senior UN staff were negligent and has ordered an inquiry into their conduct or failure to act.

Failure to provide supplies and unreliable numbers

Channel 4’s second case study is about what it claims was deliberate denial of food. For this purpose it produces David Miliband claiming that only 60 tonnes of food was delivered to the zone between April 1- 27. This is incorrect, for through the ICRC over 1,000,000 kgs of food went in that month. There is also a letter from the Commissioner General of Essential Services to the ICRC asking them to expedite delivery of food he has got ready. That letter also notes over 1,000 tonnes of food delivered in April. David Miliband’s lie is so palpable in this instance that I feel we should sue him for defamation, but again I suspect it will be argued that we should not upset him, even though the scoundrel has actually been working aggressively against us, for purely selfish reasons as Wikileaks has indicated.

The stocks we sent in by ship does not take into account the buffer stocks that had been put in place. It is precisely because of all this preparation and provision that so many of the displaced survived, and were able to make their way to safety when the LTTE grip was finally loosened. And though there were varying estimates of the numbers, the CGES continued throughout the conflict to provide supplies in terms of the numbers agreed upon with the UN. Though the UN too had lower estimates than the number that finally emerged, they are exempt from charges of deliberate lowering of figures. We however are assumed to have done everything from malice aforethought.

Contrariwise, David Miliband’s deliberate lie about the food that was taken in is seen as deep concern, not the sanctimonious humbug it is.

Gordon Weiss

He pretends to be very precise about his dates, in saying that there were only 60 tons between April 1 and April 27, which suggests he knows about the 66 tons delivered on April 26. He ignores the over 1,000 tones delivered earlier in the month.

That the opposite error, that of inflating numbers, is also not entirely innocent is obvious from the manner in which the stories are supposed to be based on evidence that is then forgotten when it is shown to be unreliable. Thus the Times of London gave three different reasons for its vastly inflated figure of 20,000 casualties, the last being what it termed satellite images that showed the number of graves in the final No Fire Zone. There has also been much talk of satellite imagery from other auxiliary forces, and indeed Amnesty and Human Rights Watch commissioned a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which they thought would be the final nail in the Sri Lankan coffin. Though the report is now public, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have sedulously refrained from referring to it.

The reason for this is that the Report clearly refutes many of the allegations made against us. One claim was that the displaced had to move because of shelling. The report however says that;

What caused the IDP structures to be removed between May 6 and May 10 is uncertain based solely on the imagery. It is notable how complete the removal of IDP structures appears, in that while some debris and evidence of the structures remains, overall the area appears to have been swept relatively clean. This is less indicative of the entire area being razed by shelling, though it could correspond with an emigration from those specific areas by the IDPs due to some outside driver……These roofless buildings were initially interpreted as possible evidence of shelling or burning. However, on-the-ground photos taken immediately after the conflict instead indicate widespread removal of rooftops, which were composed of sheet metal, for use in constructing shelters throughout the area.

Another canard was that the number of dead increased dramatically during the last few days. However the AAAS report states that;

In all three grave sites reviewed, a total of 1,346 likely graves are estimated to be in the imagery by May 24, 2009. The majority of the graves were present by May 6, with little change after that except in the southernmost graveyard. The southernmost site grew an estimated 28 percent between May 6 and May 10, and grew another 20 percent between May 10 and May 24.

This southern graveyard seems to have been a graveyard for LTTE fighters. The report suggests this because it is similar in layout to another graveyard which was reported as having been for fighters. These were different from a third graveyard which was identified in media reports as having been for civilians.

Unlike the rigid pattern of the previous two sites, the layout of this area was much less regular. In total, 44 burials were identified at this site on May 6, with no changes observed between May 6, May 10 and May 24. Contrariwise, in the supposed LTTE graveyard, ‘Visual inspection of the imagery identified the appearance of 148 probable graves at this location between April 19 and May 6’.

Peter Splinter

The implication therefore of the AAAS report is that several LTTE cadres were killed and buried, but there was no noticeable increase in the number of civilian dead, insofar as the evidence from graveyards is concerned. Of course it could be argued - and doubtless will be, if this report which Amnesty and Human Rights Watch commissioned is actually brought into the open - that graveyards are irrelevant to calculation of the dead, but this was not the earlier position. What is clear is that the goalposts keep shifting whenever yet another argument against Sri Lanka bites the dust.

Finally, given the claims that satellite imagery would show the deployment of heavy artillery, the report states, ‘While it is not possible to conclusively identify such sites based on image analysis alone, their locations bear noting for possible further investigations. None of the sites reviewed showed indications they were occupied by heavy artillery pieces, which are generally readily identifiable in such imagery unless camouflaged.’

In short, the report does not substantiate the positions taken up by opponents of Sri Lanka, and therefore it has been ignored.

Covering fire from Amnesty and the International Crisis Group

While suppressing the evidence it had commissioned from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amnesty produced yet another report to denigrate Sri Lanka during the sessions of the Human Rights Council, and has been actively canvassing against us in Geneva.

Its normally urbane representative, Peter Splinter, has been scurrying around like a headless chicken, and using language that he would not normally stoop to.

I met him as I went to the Palais on the 14th, and he did not stop to speak, understandably so for he had a meeting with the Sri Lankan delegates led by Dr Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternatives who have been in the forefront of the campaign against Sri Lanka.

Interestingly, when most people in Sri Lanka were positive about the LLRC report, it was CPA which followed the American line of criticism, which sadly the TNA also took up.

While Peter was deeply upset about what he claimed was characterization of his friends as terrorists, and this of course is nonsense, the congruence of their agenda with that of the LTTE rump that has now come to the Palais in increasing numbers is truly worrying.

Peter engaged in his own insults when he described the session at which Jeevan Thiagarajah and Javid Yusuf and I spoke about taking Reconciliation forward as a Dog and Pony show. I do not think he intended any particular insult to Yusuf, but it is this type of cultural insensitivity that Amnesty would have been careful about in the old days when people committed to Human Rights without a political agenda, such as Anne Ranasinghe and Javid himself worked for it.

The political agenda is clear in the latest report issued by Amnesty, with its claim that unlawful detention practices continue. In the past I used to think Amnesty was genuine in its commitment to human rights, and I have no objection to it drawing attention to practices it sees as illegal or improper. What I object to is its use of particular instances to engage in generalizations that shore up the impression it seeks to propagate, of Sri Lanka being a militarized state where abuses are the norm. I am sure Amnesty is aware of the vast number of deaths in police custody in Britain in recent years, and I am sure that it will draw attention to these, albeit less dramatically than it does to problems in countries it dislikes - but I do not see it claiming that such abuses in Britain are endemic and indicative of state policy.

The particular instances Amnesty draws attention to in its current assault are largely taken from the past. All case studies as far as I could see were of people arrested in 2009 or earlier, and several of them had been released.

While I have no doubt that, like any country under threat from terrorism, arrests sometimes erred on the side of caution, several of the studies indicate that there was good reason for the arrest, ranging from the foreign national who came out to work in an orphanage, as he claimed, and was then recruited by the LTTE (whether forcibly or not is not indicated) to the cadre who had lied under interrogation about his work for the LTTE though he has readily admitted it to whoever interviewed him for Amnesty.

Amnesty also ignores the fact that, whereas we did have large numbers in detention in 2009, those have been significantly reduced. While at the Ministry of Human Rights we would urge that cases be expedited, we could understand that while LTTE terrorism was still an active threat in Sri Lanka, we had to be cautious. Shortly after the war ended however the President appointed a Committee which I chaired to ensure that cases were dealt with, and I had complete cooperation from the prison authorities, the police and the Attorney General’s Department.

Though we would complain that this last was slow in dealing with files entrusted to it, the number was halved by the time the Committee ceased to function with the election of 2010.

Since then the Attorney General worked expeditiously to reduce the numbers, and the figure of 2,000 cited by Ambassador Godage, cited in the Amnesty Report from the LLRC hearings, is now down to a few hundreds. It should be noted too that ICRC has been visiting such detainees since 2007. I remembered that we used to get reports when I was at the ministry, but I checked again and ICRC has confirmed that its visits have continued throughout.

Amnesty also devotes a chapter to what it terms, with insidious inverted commas and a question mark, ‘Rehabilitated?’. The chapter does not in fact spend much time on the rehabilitation programme, which it is generally agreed has been swift and successful, with almost all the 11,000 former combatants it took responsibility for initially having been released. Now some of those who had been detained elsewhere have now been transferred to the rehabilitation programme.

This chapter is perhaps the shoddiest in a generally shoddy piece of work. It uses on extract from a 2009 report on child soldiers, and completely ignores the programme implemented for these victims of LTTE terrorism, a programme that has even won high praise from the UN.

It ignores the actual rehabilitation programme, and cites as though it were gospel truth one American student who claimed that the rehabilitees felt aggrieved. Such an anecdotal approach is ridiculous, given the general plaudits the programme has received.

One anecdote can be trumped by several, including the reports of the volunteers I sent in to teach English and the representatives of Business Consultancy Services who ran four entrepreneurship programmes for the youngsters, but it will suffice to ask where else has such a programme gone ahead so smoothly and swiftly? Sadly, Amnesty is a bit like the Sri Lankan urban activist who claimed, when 50 couples amongst the rehabilitees were married, that they had been forced into marriage.

I should note that I checked, and over 100 had asked, but the Commissioner General had only gone ahead with ceremonies for those whose families too had agreed. Sadly, when perverse prejudice is endemic, nothing positive will be seen.

The International Crisis Group is similar. Its effusions, in two large documents this time, need to be studied in greater detail, but once again they have engaged in suggestiveness and suppression that are at variance with the facts. One issue on which they have corrected themselves is in declaring that the LTTE expulsion of Muslims was the only instance of ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, in contrast with the sleight of hand they tried to use in 2007 when they wanted to claim that Sri Lanka was a situation where the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, developed by its then President Gareth Evans, should be applied. They referred there in general terms to ethnic cleansing - which is one of the few reasons for trying to invoke R2P - as though it were happening in Sri Lanka. When I challenged Gareth Evans as to what he meant by this, he turned to the man who had written his speech, since clearly he had no idea what he was talking about, and had merely regurgitated what he had been fed.

That man was Alan Keenan, who has since continued with his vicious campaign against Sri Lanka. He admitted then that the ethnic cleansing was what had occurred in 1990 with the LTTE, but despite promising to correct the misleading elements in their pronouncement, neither he nor Gareth answered letters later. When I next met Gareth he told me he thought he had done so, but then revealed the truth when he told me that I was a dangerous man to deal with. I was flattered at this nervousness expressed by a former Foreign Minister, but that is no excuse for prevarication.

This time round the ICG reports once again rely on generalizations which are not borne out by the facts, nor indeed by the substance of the report. The theme of the first report is that the North of Sri Lanka is being subject to Sinhalisation, but what this amounts to seems to be only Sinhala on some nameboards and the resettlement of Sinhalese in the villages in the south of the Northern Province, where they had lived previous to being driven out by terrorism. Keenan obviously is not aware that government now has nameboards in all three languages in Colombo, which many of us welcome, though I suppose there are some who like him want to continue our citizens in the monolingual straitjacket in which previous educational policies confined them.

One remarkable instance of Keenan’s relentless prejudice is his claim that there is a museum only for Sinhalese. He must know that no checks are made on those entering such places. When I went there, I found the place in fact filled with a couple of Muslim groups. Perhaps some Tamils might not want to see evidence of the range of LTTE weaponry, but any who do would be welcome. Unfortunately the fact that most Sri Lankans, and in particular the Tamils of the Vanni who suffered under LTTE rule, are relieved that the LTTE threat no longer looms within Sri Lanka, is not to Keenan’s taste. That alone can explain the manner in which he writes, the timing of his publications, and the role these play in the agenda of the LTTE rump abroad which is still trying to fan the flames of separatism and terror. It is tragic that others have fallen in line with their agenda, but selfishness has always trumped morality in the field of international relations. What is sad is to see the rhetoric of rights being used to pursue blatantly hypocritical agendas, and to see the army of paid activists who provide auxiliary services for such agendas.

Concluded