Dr.P.A.Samaraweera, Australia

On 21st May, New York based Human Right Watch submitted a report to the UN Secretary General saying that there is new evidence about allegedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ war crimes by Sri LankaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ during the final phase of the war against the LTTE. Last week (17th May), a report titled “War Crimes in Sri Lanka” was released by the International Crisis Group (ICG), obviously to coincide with the Victory day celebrations. The ICG is a self-appointed organisation and it appears that they hadƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ synchronised the publishing of the report with the V-Day!
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The issueƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ raised by independent observers is who is funding these Crisis Groups, Human Rights orgnisations etc., to publish report after report on war crimes in Sri Lanka. The reason is because the LTTE backers and the Tamil Diaspora are not short of money and will lavishly dish out funds to any organisation which will probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.
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According to the ICG report, the investigators (Lord Patten, Thomas Pickering and Louisie Arbour) had foundƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ evidence that the Sri Lanka forces had shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations towards the end of the war. It had pressed the UNƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to set up an international war crimes inquiry against Sri Lanka. However, they also observe that it is for the Security Council to decide aboutƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ initiating action with such aƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ report.
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It is obvious that the Crisis GroupƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ report is based on hearsay evidence and ambiguous information. When the figures given in the ICGƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ report is compared with dataƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  from other organisations and the govt., they are poles apart.
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During the last 3 decades, when Sri Lanka was going through tragedy after tragedy such as the LTTE wiping out Sinhala villages, deploying suicide bombers among civilians andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ so on. But to these crimes theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ so called Crisis Groups and Human Rights organisations were deaf and blind.
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Further, it is well lknown that the LTTEƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  relied on child soldiers and these organisations turned their back when the LTTE were recruiting children for their cadres. The LTTE started the Eelam war iv with more than 30,000 trained cadres of whom nearly 70 per cent were under the age of 18.
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These international organisations are quick to point the finger at countries like Sri Lanka while they do nothing to guarantee the implementation of their rules in the west. This shows the double standards and hypocrisy of the HR organisations.
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The war by the US and its allies to control the energy resources of Iraq and Afghanistan on the pretext of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction had cost nearly 2 million lives. Thousands of Palestinians have lost their lives as a result of indiscriminate military attacks.
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The western countries which sit on judgement on other nations war crimes , HR abuses etc., fail to investigate alleged war crimes against them or their allies. Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary in a report on, ‘Possible war crimes by the US’ says that there have been deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies that had resulted in alleged unlawful killings -ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ including possible war crimes by the US.
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Then even though President Obama had been saying, ‘No one is above the law’ he had refused to allow an investigation into knowing war crimes by his predecessor. Thus when it comes to human rights and war crimes there are obvious duplicities.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚