Our war on terror is now over, guns are silent and it is time to reflect on how awful it all was. Well wishers rushed in with sound counsel on how to move forward to impose a lasting peace – now we have reached a phase for reconciliation and nation-building. Certainly we never spared the time to seek retribution as victors for we just underwent a cleansing ritual to eradicate terror from our nation, and bloody one too.
However, one group of people on the planet thinks otherwise. A section of the British media appears to have a ferocious appetite to come out against the Sinhala for defeating the LTTE the way we did, by hook or crook they are willing to prolong the stranglehold on our nation by bringing sleazy unsubstantiated “allegations” of “war crimes” despite the fact we just conquered the most ruthless terror outfit the world has ever seen using conventional warfare methods conducted within defined parameters.
I researched the barebones of their allegations and have come to the realization that they exhibit a perfect portrait of confusion over the definition of “war crimes.” Let’s look at the fundamentals of bringing such charges anywhere. In short, the burden of proof falls heavily on the “allegers,” rather than on the proof of innocence by the “alleged perpetrators” of the atrocities against humanity. I must note that the standard of proving “war crimes” is exceptionally high under any circumstances.
In the absence of legal scholarly, the British media base their allegation heavily on dubious interpretations of international law and highly questionable evidence. They are compelling the rest of the world to accept unverifiable and manipulated evidence, especially from damaged goods (the IDPs) that do not have right presence of the mind to know what they really witnessed as they were traumatized, exhausted, hungry, some injured etc. They are basically emotionally flat-lined to provide any accurate claims of who was firing shells or anything else at whom.
MISPLACED TRUTH SEEKERS
Instead of seeking the truth, they pursue unethical exploits like fabricating evidence colluding with the notorious feigns in the Tamil Diaspora without any hesitation or having any personnel in conflict zones to corroborate. What is callous is their attempt to paint acceptable casualties of war as true horrific crimes by dealing with unreliable or tampered evidence. These media cheaters always found suckers or allege “victims,” who are in plenty in the Tamil Diaspora, to garnish their stories to authenticate the “allegations.” Here is my fury, just because the Western media was not allowed into the battlefield, by default it does not lend to any “war crimes” by the SLA. This is the dishonest side of these media people, looking for anything newsworthy to print headlines. The stark truth is we do not need the Western media to come over and exonerate the SLA.
Moreover, neither the questionable chain of custody for crucial evidence is mentioned nor can this be verified even in the worst case. False or inaccurate claims are justified by reporting that civilian witnesses reported to ‘foreign’ NGOs. Is that the criterion for collecting evidence of such crime of that magnitude? And most of all why ‘foreign” NGOs are the most reliable evidence gathers? All reported cases of unproven abuse in recent incidents in IDP camps had direct association with NGOs that lack credibility as partner to their “crime” of deceit. Therefore, by association all evidence coming from NGOs are contaminated.
FICTIONAL ‘MOTIVE’ & ‘INTENT’
Hypothetically, let’s assume that the charges were brought against the SLA. To present a successful case of “war crimes” any prosecution has to present its evidence, for the defence to exercise the protections and the discovery rights that are available to them, so they can find out what evidence they need to vigorously defend their client.
A trial process, which I seriously doubt, must be the fairest, just, and transparent process on Earth that exists to resolve divergent issues of facts on the ground and must come to a reasoned, solid and just conclusion. This can only be achieved if the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. It could well be the clash of ideas, the clash of facts and clash of instigation.
The burden for the prosecution is that they must prove the accused had committed the any “killings” with the intent of destroying Tamils, in whole or part. Therefore, whatever the tribunal, it must take the wording to include a requirement of a “motive,” namely, requiring proof of the fact that allege perpetrators committed these acts because they wished to destroy a particular group of people i.e. Tamils. A requirement of a “motive” paves the way for a defense, which was to win a war rather than to destroy a particular group, Tamils.
In 1948, when the definitions of “genocide” and “war crimes” being worked out, the concepts of both “intent” and “motive” were understood differently. However, the common law does not differentiate between general “intent” and “special intent,” and defines a crime includes an intent to commit some future act as well. What conduct exactly constitutes a crime under the 1998 Rome Statue has not been solved. Therefore, qualification of “motive” and “intent” is fundamental to initiate any “war crimes” tribunal.
There is no consensus of the concept of “crimes under international law” included in the Rome Statute and are subject to debate as to their status in current international customary law. It is understood that international agreement on the criminality of conduct of under international law many only become possible if the Court applies the definitions of crimes prudently, in order to win the confidence of those whose cooperation with the court and whose participation in international lawmaking is needed.
In its defence, the counter measures of the SLA were propelled by circumstances beyond their control and no different to any other army in the West would do in conducting a hostage rescue in the face of the cowardly terrorists without facing the enemy.
My line of reasoning is that the SLA ought not to feel that they are bordering on the burden of proof. Without a doubt, there is no proof of ‘motive,’ willful or otherwise, deliberate or even reckless. These allegations are unsupported charges against the SLA of harming civilians without presenting evidence to back any ‘motive’ for killing civilians.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
When There Are Many Victors And One Vanquished
In Sri Lanka, on the surface there were no winners only losers in this battle of wits. I was convinced for a long while that only fools rush in to claim victory when there is none; however, I am certain now we have Victors and Vanquished to place on record. The Victors are the countless victims, dead or alive, who stood in the path to Eelam and the Vanquished are the ones that perished perpetrating this massive fraud.
The brutality of ours conflict must raise our conscience and force a self-examination before moving ahead to find a lasting solution. The end was so costly that even an accountant would find tallying is pure madness just to determine the monetarily detriment to us. It involves precious lives perished on both side of the divide. At some point the warfare was so senseless that even keeping casualty figures became the high point of military success. The conflict in its own making disregarded the indescribable value of human life and denied the opportunity for each to one contribute to the making Sri Lanka, a place to call paradise. Thus, war is brutal and removes any reasonableness; destroys aspirations and brings economic cataclysm. It is our human nature, the experiences of WWII, Vietnam, Balkan etc. are often forgotten when a new conflict begin elsewhere.
To change for the better the victors must constantly ask how we ever got to this point. War doesn’t begin by just throwing a stone at somebody. It requires the use of weapons and the mechanism to acquire them. More often than not, all that is needed is to possess evil thoughts to instigate an armed insurrection and stand behind one pointed at the opposite to terrorize. Only those with criminal mentality coupled with terminal psychological conditions can justify such action and seek pleasure in seeing the victims agonize to make a point, that being, concede to the demands no matter how frivolous they are - like asking for disproportionate swath of land to call their state. They contradict conventional virtuousness; hence, they must be vanquished.
Instead, had they chosen the democratic path the victors would have never seen the agony of this war. By choosing this violence path, the vanquished hedged heavily on the terrorizing our nation and playing victim card. In fact, vanquished achieved only the latter very effectively galvanizing universal empathy to their cause under false pretence. The terror that the vanquished brought to our cities and villages made the victors insecure and vulnerable, however, they only made the victors more determined to eradicate the menace and hunt for its perpetrators. The vanquished never learnt that violence begets violence, but they could not or would not accept that the “ultimate one” will fail to deliver their Promised Land.
Our experience must educate us, the victors, a singular lesson – war is not worth pursuing. Seeking Eelam was a very naïve and a bad concept from the inception for the vanquished, a land grab that was designed for failure because they underestimated the victors determination to stop this nonsense presented for separation.
Now that the victors have conquered this virgin territory, we now know what’s like to live through one and never allow it to repeat. The only way to prevent this suffering ever happening in the future is to ensure that the democratic path is made clear to pursue to the end. Judicious victors should never put themselves in the position to ask ever again how they got to this point.
The brutality of ours conflict must raise our conscience and force a self-examination before moving ahead to find a lasting solution. The end was so costly that even an accountant would find tallying is pure madness just to determine the monetarily detriment to us. It involves precious lives perished on both side of the divide. At some point the warfare was so senseless that even keeping casualty figures became the high point of military success. The conflict in its own making disregarded the indescribable value of human life and denied the opportunity for each to one contribute to the making Sri Lanka, a place to call paradise. Thus, war is brutal and removes any reasonableness; destroys aspirations and brings economic cataclysm. It is our human nature, the experiences of WWII, Vietnam, Balkan etc. are often forgotten when a new conflict begin elsewhere.
To change for the better the victors must constantly ask how we ever got to this point. War doesn’t begin by just throwing a stone at somebody. It requires the use of weapons and the mechanism to acquire them. More often than not, all that is needed is to possess evil thoughts to instigate an armed insurrection and stand behind one pointed at the opposite to terrorize. Only those with criminal mentality coupled with terminal psychological conditions can justify such action and seek pleasure in seeing the victims agonize to make a point, that being, concede to the demands no matter how frivolous they are - like asking for disproportionate swath of land to call their state. They contradict conventional virtuousness; hence, they must be vanquished.
Instead, had they chosen the democratic path the victors would have never seen the agony of this war. By choosing this violence path, the vanquished hedged heavily on the terrorizing our nation and playing victim card. In fact, vanquished achieved only the latter very effectively galvanizing universal empathy to their cause under false pretence. The terror that the vanquished brought to our cities and villages made the victors insecure and vulnerable, however, they only made the victors more determined to eradicate the menace and hunt for its perpetrators. The vanquished never learnt that violence begets violence, but they could not or would not accept that the “ultimate one” will fail to deliver their Promised Land.
Our experience must educate us, the victors, a singular lesson – war is not worth pursuing. Seeking Eelam was a very naïve and a bad concept from the inception for the vanquished, a land grab that was designed for failure because they underestimated the victors determination to stop this nonsense presented for separation.
Now that the victors have conquered this virgin territory, we now know what’s like to live through one and never allow it to repeat. The only way to prevent this suffering ever happening in the future is to ensure that the democratic path is made clear to pursue to the end. Judicious victors should never put themselves in the position to ask ever again how they got to this point.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
'Phantom Pains’ for the ignoble
After a limb is amputated the amputees’ brain still gets messages saying that severe pain still exists, even though medically it is not possible after an amputation. This condition called ‘phantom pains’ can go on for sometime causing the amputee to suffer psychologically over non-existing pain.
I am using this analogy to explain the Eelam ‘phantom pains’ suffered by thousands of Tamil activists, their cohorts and apologists after the demise of LTTE. For many moons we heard, saw and read the call for ceasefire, to investigate “genocide,” charges of ‘war crimes’ even as of yesterday. For all us, these calls were never about making human suffering truly uniform across the world, but were driven by how loud the calls are and influential by self-appointed publicity seekers.
To them the ground reality, fact checking and truth are inconsequential as long as the headlines make reference to attention seekers, whether they are in politics, media or activism. In this framework the accused never gets heard, predisposed opinion is supreme. To get the desired attention they seek inflated casualties, misinform/distort facts and blatantly lie to media, who then in turn seek to reap the opportunity to make breathtaking career moves. In reality, they never feel the pain of the true victim, the nation of Sri Lanka.
A function of this grand scheme of things, what I term is the exhibition of ‘phantom pains’ to pretend to care and grieve over the suffering of Tamil civilians caught up this conflict while other conflicts in the present or past are ignored. The outpouring expressions ‘phantom pain’ has one focal point – get Sri Lanka's Sinhala Buddhists! Brand them animals, who fit the description of Nazi, Serbs etc that have committed recorded genocide. Not so fast ignoble, the square peg doesn’t fit in to the round hole.
In time, the truth will reveal more evidence of culpability those made wild and frivolous charges WITHOUT foundation just because they hold authority. Just name a few ignoble who suffer from the ‘phantom pains’ are Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, Erik Solheim, HRW, UN and several other NGOs who have own agendas to make them so visible to the cameras. And the gullible Tamil constituent that has violated our nation and pushed us over the precipice, has profited from drawing these ignoble to a cause they never bothered to understand.
Thus, my synopsis is that self-important is paramount to anyone to who choose to grasp the opportunity regardless of fairness or impartiality. To me, egalitarianism matters a great in addressing world conflicts, Rwanda is a fine example where the West and the UN failure to intervene lead to the annihilation of million people. The fact they failed in Rwanda has caused us their wrath and the demonstration of phantom pains over the misery of Tamils is sufficient proof that these ignoble are denying our right to defend and protect our nationhood and civilization.
Be prepared Sri Lanka, these phantom pains in ignoble can linger longer unless checked.
I am using this analogy to explain the Eelam ‘phantom pains’ suffered by thousands of Tamil activists, their cohorts and apologists after the demise of LTTE. For many moons we heard, saw and read the call for ceasefire, to investigate “genocide,” charges of ‘war crimes’ even as of yesterday. For all us, these calls were never about making human suffering truly uniform across the world, but were driven by how loud the calls are and influential by self-appointed publicity seekers.
To them the ground reality, fact checking and truth are inconsequential as long as the headlines make reference to attention seekers, whether they are in politics, media or activism. In this framework the accused never gets heard, predisposed opinion is supreme. To get the desired attention they seek inflated casualties, misinform/distort facts and blatantly lie to media, who then in turn seek to reap the opportunity to make breathtaking career moves. In reality, they never feel the pain of the true victim, the nation of Sri Lanka.
A function of this grand scheme of things, what I term is the exhibition of ‘phantom pains’ to pretend to care and grieve over the suffering of Tamil civilians caught up this conflict while other conflicts in the present or past are ignored. The outpouring expressions ‘phantom pain’ has one focal point – get Sri Lanka's Sinhala Buddhists! Brand them animals, who fit the description of Nazi, Serbs etc that have committed recorded genocide. Not so fast ignoble, the square peg doesn’t fit in to the round hole.
In time, the truth will reveal more evidence of culpability those made wild and frivolous charges WITHOUT foundation just because they hold authority. Just name a few ignoble who suffer from the ‘phantom pains’ are Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, Erik Solheim, HRW, UN and several other NGOs who have own agendas to make them so visible to the cameras. And the gullible Tamil constituent that has violated our nation and pushed us over the precipice, has profited from drawing these ignoble to a cause they never bothered to understand.
Thus, my synopsis is that self-important is paramount to anyone to who choose to grasp the opportunity regardless of fairness or impartiality. To me, egalitarianism matters a great in addressing world conflicts, Rwanda is a fine example where the West and the UN failure to intervene lead to the annihilation of million people. The fact they failed in Rwanda has caused us their wrath and the demonstration of phantom pains over the misery of Tamils is sufficient proof that these ignoble are denying our right to defend and protect our nationhood and civilization.
Be prepared Sri Lanka, these phantom pains in ignoble can linger longer unless checked.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Grotesque Human Rights Watch Needs To Grow Up
My fellow Lankans, lend your ears, I have a story to tell.
On 5 May 2009 the HRW ran with a story about “boat people” from Sri Lanka arriving in Andra Pradesh, India. I remember few decades ago we called the Chinese-Vietnamese bolting out of Vietnam in thousands, the “boat people.” With that kind of numbers, it was a massive humanitarian crisis that spread across the entire Far East and Oceania. But I don’t ever recollect calling a group people in two boats escaping the ravages of LTTE (Tamil Tigers) literally as “boat people” per se. There is a colossal difference between the two happenings and certainly the later is not a comparable exodus.
The headline seeking HRW nonetheless wants the world to grasp the plight facing the Tamil hostages held by the LTTE is as a calamity equivalent to those Vietnamese “boat people.” It is a quite a common practice for HRW to stick convenient labels to events/incidents in Sri Lanka to catch the attention of world to force the UN to charge Sri Lanka, but not so much of the LTTE.
HRW claim they interviewed this group of Tamils and took extra-ordinary pain to say “the Sri Lankan government is doing everything it can to keep these stories of suffering from reaching the world." Seemingly this is the very first interview the HRW admitted to have conducted with Tamil refugees in the on-going counter terror war in Sri Lanka since GOSL scuttled all NGO efforts to undermine the SLA success. Interestingly, this small group of people in two boats apparently thought that escaping to India was the most prudent thing to do despite the fact nearly 115,500 other Tamils who braved the fire from resentful LTTE thought it was wise to escape to SLA lines.
There is an oddity about their arrival in India. Given these people managed to escape the Navy’s cordon with sufficient fuel and drinking water to move towards Indian coast smells rotten to the LTTE’s core. No doubt in my mind that this was hatched by LTTE to send their Mahaveer people to tell their horrific story to the world – that they were subjected to the brutal shelling by the SLA without mentioning the LTTE torture in the NFZ. Naturally, the HRW was there to embrace them and amplify to utter "these accounts must be multiplied tens of thousands of times to capture the full horror of those who remain trapped by the Tamil Tigers and shelled by government forces."
By strange coincidence, my research lead to an Israeli based group that monitor HRW over the years. The NGO Monitor has done analysis of repeated distortion and exploitation of facts in conflicts zones and questions HRW’s credibility.
Here I am attempting to draw parallel with our quarrel with HRW and how the Israelis managed to identify the flaws in HRW’s workmanship. They found that in HRW’s reports show a pattern of,
1) Reliance on unverifiable and highly questionable evidence
2) Political and ideological biases of the authors, which would explain manipulation of the evidence; and
3) Dubious interpretations of international law. These are all aspects of a well-established pattern of false claims and a biased agenda in HRW publications regarding Israel.
My research does concur all these, especially what worries me most the misinterpretation of international law as the NGO Monitor discovered to give the readers in Western capitals the impression that HRW is an authority in international law. I discovered the same while investigating for my Blog “Rendering Mute to ‘Genocide’ in Sri Lanka” that HRW flouts with international law and it is extremely dangerous precedence to let loose a bunch half-baked zealots define what international law for us.
It is easy to accuse HRW of the following meshed with a broader, yet carefully planned discrediting mission on Sri Lanka, which is similar to what Israel is accusing them of doing.
· Use of unreliable or tampered "evidence" whenever HRW has no personnel in conflict zones. Moreover, the chain of custody for crucial evidence is not mentioned, nor can this be verified
· False or inaccurate claims to justify their reporting
· No proof of motive, and unsupported charges against the SLA while charging the SLA of "willfully-that is, deliberately or recklessly" harming civilians without presenting evidence regarding SLA motives
· Alleging SLA lacks effective investigative capacity because the SLA is "infected by a climate of impunity" and alleges that the SLA cannot conduct an honest and thorough investigation
· Reliance on NGOs that lack credibility as partner to their “crime” of deceit
HRW fails to recognize that Sinhala are equally concerned about human rights as they are, and much more concerned about the equality to all citizens of Sri Lanka. For HRW to gain credibility, it must show elementary professionalism in reporting matters of great magnitude such as the right to live in peace without terror as shared by terror ravaged nations like Israel and Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately HRW lacks the vital capacity to separate the state and non-state actors to derive at the right conclusions. Failure to recognize that line of separation in conflicts, such as in Sri Lanka and Israel, allows the non-state actors continue to abuse all the rules of engagements that a state would adhere to. Perhaps it is because HRW has determined from its inception that they are better off not knowing the complexities of any conflict. Instead focusing on the states allows them to assault with impunity and without morally or legally responsible to a higher authority. The aura that HRW has built for them simply afford them a pass without any liability.
The extent to which the HRW is striving to be heard and seen relevant through misrepresentation of facts says a great deal about the personnel at HRW, who are obviously sweating bullets to profit from conflicts for individual career growth.
I am not alone in suggesting that HRW has to grow-up without exhibiting crass in their delivery when lives are at stake on all sides of conflicts.
On 5 May 2009 the HRW ran with a story about “boat people” from Sri Lanka arriving in Andra Pradesh, India. I remember few decades ago we called the Chinese-Vietnamese bolting out of Vietnam in thousands, the “boat people.” With that kind of numbers, it was a massive humanitarian crisis that spread across the entire Far East and Oceania. But I don’t ever recollect calling a group people in two boats escaping the ravages of LTTE (Tamil Tigers) literally as “boat people” per se. There is a colossal difference between the two happenings and certainly the later is not a comparable exodus.
The headline seeking HRW nonetheless wants the world to grasp the plight facing the Tamil hostages held by the LTTE is as a calamity equivalent to those Vietnamese “boat people.” It is a quite a common practice for HRW to stick convenient labels to events/incidents in Sri Lanka to catch the attention of world to force the UN to charge Sri Lanka, but not so much of the LTTE.
HRW claim they interviewed this group of Tamils and took extra-ordinary pain to say “the Sri Lankan government is doing everything it can to keep these stories of suffering from reaching the world." Seemingly this is the very first interview the HRW admitted to have conducted with Tamil refugees in the on-going counter terror war in Sri Lanka since GOSL scuttled all NGO efforts to undermine the SLA success. Interestingly, this small group of people in two boats apparently thought that escaping to India was the most prudent thing to do despite the fact nearly 115,500 other Tamils who braved the fire from resentful LTTE thought it was wise to escape to SLA lines.
There is an oddity about their arrival in India. Given these people managed to escape the Navy’s cordon with sufficient fuel and drinking water to move towards Indian coast smells rotten to the LTTE’s core. No doubt in my mind that this was hatched by LTTE to send their Mahaveer people to tell their horrific story to the world – that they were subjected to the brutal shelling by the SLA without mentioning the LTTE torture in the NFZ. Naturally, the HRW was there to embrace them and amplify to utter "these accounts must be multiplied tens of thousands of times to capture the full horror of those who remain trapped by the Tamil Tigers and shelled by government forces."
By strange coincidence, my research lead to an Israeli based group that monitor HRW over the years. The NGO Monitor has done analysis of repeated distortion and exploitation of facts in conflicts zones and questions HRW’s credibility.
Here I am attempting to draw parallel with our quarrel with HRW and how the Israelis managed to identify the flaws in HRW’s workmanship. They found that in HRW’s reports show a pattern of,
1) Reliance on unverifiable and highly questionable evidence
2) Political and ideological biases of the authors, which would explain manipulation of the evidence; and
3) Dubious interpretations of international law. These are all aspects of a well-established pattern of false claims and a biased agenda in HRW publications regarding Israel.
My research does concur all these, especially what worries me most the misinterpretation of international law as the NGO Monitor discovered to give the readers in Western capitals the impression that HRW is an authority in international law. I discovered the same while investigating for my Blog “Rendering Mute to ‘Genocide’ in Sri Lanka” that HRW flouts with international law and it is extremely dangerous precedence to let loose a bunch half-baked zealots define what international law for us.
It is easy to accuse HRW of the following meshed with a broader, yet carefully planned discrediting mission on Sri Lanka, which is similar to what Israel is accusing them of doing.
· Use of unreliable or tampered "evidence" whenever HRW has no personnel in conflict zones. Moreover, the chain of custody for crucial evidence is not mentioned, nor can this be verified
· False or inaccurate claims to justify their reporting
· No proof of motive, and unsupported charges against the SLA while charging the SLA of "willfully-that is, deliberately or recklessly" harming civilians without presenting evidence regarding SLA motives
· Alleging SLA lacks effective investigative capacity because the SLA is "infected by a climate of impunity" and alleges that the SLA cannot conduct an honest and thorough investigation
· Reliance on NGOs that lack credibility as partner to their “crime” of deceit
HRW fails to recognize that Sinhala are equally concerned about human rights as they are, and much more concerned about the equality to all citizens of Sri Lanka. For HRW to gain credibility, it must show elementary professionalism in reporting matters of great magnitude such as the right to live in peace without terror as shared by terror ravaged nations like Israel and Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately HRW lacks the vital capacity to separate the state and non-state actors to derive at the right conclusions. Failure to recognize that line of separation in conflicts, such as in Sri Lanka and Israel, allows the non-state actors continue to abuse all the rules of engagements that a state would adhere to. Perhaps it is because HRW has determined from its inception that they are better off not knowing the complexities of any conflict. Instead focusing on the states allows them to assault with impunity and without morally or legally responsible to a higher authority. The aura that HRW has built for them simply afford them a pass without any liability.
The extent to which the HRW is striving to be heard and seen relevant through misrepresentation of facts says a great deal about the personnel at HRW, who are obviously sweating bullets to profit from conflicts for individual career growth.
I am not alone in suggesting that HRW has to grow-up without exhibiting crass in their delivery when lives are at stake on all sides of conflicts.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Rendering Mute to “Genocide” in Sri Lanka
The call to bring ostentatious genocide charges against Sri Lanka prompted me to submit this research and respond by way of this allegement.
Let’s begin by trying to understanding what “genocide” is in its purest form - the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, widely accepted definition even by the International Criminal Court. However, there are fringe elements (like Bruce Fein and Prof. Boyle) who argue that it doesn’t go far enough to address other circumstances and will never be satisfied until their version of the definition is established as the guiding principles for us to follow. Such arguments are only encouraging wild speculative innuendos to garnish such unsubstantiated “genocide” for the sake of making hay for the politically and morally bankrupt.
In the absence of other accepted credible forms, for all intentions and purposes today we are guided by the widely sanctioned protocol for establishing “genocide” is the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Article (2) of the Convention defines genocide as,
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article (3) defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention,
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
However, in 1996 Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, presented an interesting briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" into the development of classic genocide in Stages and Characteristics. His approach has validity since “genocide” cannot be spontaneous in any place without simmering hate or dislike for a specific community, race, ethnicity or nationality.
The challenge for those agents of Tamil diaspora who allege “genocide” is to bring forth the evidence to support if they meet any of the UN Convention’s Articles and/or satisfy the “8 Stages of Genocide” for it to uphold in a court of justice.
The ‘crying game’ of Tamil diaspora is nothing shorter than a ‘crying infamy’ loaded with virtuoso stunts and hypocrisy. It is reminiscing to a rickety old ship moving off the moorings to sail and calling like all minded others to join the journey to the never-land. Their signature issue as I wrote in my Blog “On Trial: Tamil Diaspora And Their Inconvenient Truth” that “It is amusing to watch this diaspora parading customary placards and shouting slogans against the only people capable of ending the Tamil agony under the LTTE – the Sri Lanka government. How ironic that their own funds caused the mayhem and misery to the Tamils?”
Those who champion ‘genocide’ show a notable lack of symmetry in the way they present their case on Sri Lanka. It is much easy to sling mud to tarnish conveniently ignoring the history of conflicts since 1948 when Raphael Lemkin introduced a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty. Since then Robert Gellately and Ben Kierman wrote in their book “The Specter of Genocide” that the West “employ double standards to justify the exception of major western countries from the list.” They conclude that “even more difficult is the fact that the kind of killings for which major Western countries have been responsible for colonial wars or in its counterrevolutionary and counternational liberation struggles, are excluded from the genocidal framework.”
Agents of Tamil diaspora should take serious note of what Gellately and Kierman write, “in the 20th century discussion of war crimes, responsibility and punishment has to address the sort of double thinking that assumes such criminality is absent on the part of the West.” And they continue to charge that “the credibility of the newly established International Criminal Court must depend on it demonstrating that it takes as serious evidence of crime against humanity by powerful figures in the /western world as it does by those who represent discredited and often collapsed or collapsing regimes of the third world.” There is no doubt the authors were clearly referring to George Bush Jr. and Tony Blair during the war on Iraq and in Afghanistan.
So let’s parade all the culprits of “genocide” in the history of mankind without picking a choosing which one that bring biggest media hype. I am not holding back when I state that to pursue an allegation of “genocide” on Sinhala leaders is in itself is genocidal by singling out an ethnic community for the purpose of showmanship even though the allegations do not meet the baseline standard of genocide. It is a classic witch-hunt by Western agents of Tamils diaspora based on falsified data to claim political yardage in the face of defeat.
The civilized world must have the strength to elevate their wisdom to separate what is genuine genocide without becoming victims of a fraud and task the accusers of Lanka to demonstrate legitimacy of their claims or else banish.
Let’s begin by trying to understanding what “genocide” is in its purest form - the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, widely accepted definition even by the International Criminal Court. However, there are fringe elements (like Bruce Fein and Prof. Boyle) who argue that it doesn’t go far enough to address other circumstances and will never be satisfied until their version of the definition is established as the guiding principles for us to follow. Such arguments are only encouraging wild speculative innuendos to garnish such unsubstantiated “genocide” for the sake of making hay for the politically and morally bankrupt.
In the absence of other accepted credible forms, for all intentions and purposes today we are guided by the widely sanctioned protocol for establishing “genocide” is the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Article (2) of the Convention defines genocide as,
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article (3) defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention,
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
However, in 1996 Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, presented an interesting briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" into the development of classic genocide in Stages and Characteristics. His approach has validity since “genocide” cannot be spontaneous in any place without simmering hate or dislike for a specific community, race, ethnicity or nationality.
1. Classification - People are divided into "us and them"
2. Symbolization -"When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups..."
3. Dehumanization - "One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases."
4. Organization - "Genocide is always organized... Special army units or militias are often trained and armed..."
5. Polarization -"Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda..."
6. Preparation - "Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity..."
7. Extermination - "It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human."
8. Denial - "The perpetrators... deny that they committed any crimes ” (only in the face of overwhelming evidence)."
It must be understood that meeting the definition alone is not sufficient proof of genocide, unless otherwise each one of these stages of genocide is supported with serious evidence to establish a pattern of intention to commit genocide. It also requires the accusers to prove that sections within a community conspired to engage in genocide with malice. In the absence of all these, screaming “genocide” is hollow as a bottomless vessel.The challenge for those agents of Tamil diaspora who allege “genocide” is to bring forth the evidence to support if they meet any of the UN Convention’s Articles and/or satisfy the “8 Stages of Genocide” for it to uphold in a court of justice.
The ‘crying game’ of Tamil diaspora is nothing shorter than a ‘crying infamy’ loaded with virtuoso stunts and hypocrisy. It is reminiscing to a rickety old ship moving off the moorings to sail and calling like all minded others to join the journey to the never-land. Their signature issue as I wrote in my Blog “On Trial: Tamil Diaspora And Their Inconvenient Truth” that “It is amusing to watch this diaspora parading customary placards and shouting slogans against the only people capable of ending the Tamil agony under the LTTE – the Sri Lanka government. How ironic that their own funds caused the mayhem and misery to the Tamils?”
Those who champion ‘genocide’ show a notable lack of symmetry in the way they present their case on Sri Lanka. It is much easy to sling mud to tarnish conveniently ignoring the history of conflicts since 1948 when Raphael Lemkin introduced a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty. Since then Robert Gellately and Ben Kierman wrote in their book “The Specter of Genocide” that the West “employ double standards to justify the exception of major western countries from the list.” They conclude that “even more difficult is the fact that the kind of killings for which major Western countries have been responsible for colonial wars or in its counterrevolutionary and counternational liberation struggles, are excluded from the genocidal framework.”
Agents of Tamil diaspora should take serious note of what Gellately and Kierman write, “in the 20th century discussion of war crimes, responsibility and punishment has to address the sort of double thinking that assumes such criminality is absent on the part of the West.” And they continue to charge that “the credibility of the newly established International Criminal Court must depend on it demonstrating that it takes as serious evidence of crime against humanity by powerful figures in the /western world as it does by those who represent discredited and often collapsed or collapsing regimes of the third world.” There is no doubt the authors were clearly referring to George Bush Jr. and Tony Blair during the war on Iraq and in Afghanistan.
So let’s parade all the culprits of “genocide” in the history of mankind without picking a choosing which one that bring biggest media hype. I am not holding back when I state that to pursue an allegation of “genocide” on Sinhala leaders is in itself is genocidal by singling out an ethnic community for the purpose of showmanship even though the allegations do not meet the baseline standard of genocide. It is a classic witch-hunt by Western agents of Tamils diaspora based on falsified data to claim political yardage in the face of defeat.
The civilized world must have the strength to elevate their wisdom to separate what is genuine genocide without becoming victims of a fraud and task the accusers of Lanka to demonstrate legitimacy of their claims or else banish.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Our Right To Name And Shame
There is obviously a double standard when the West fights a terror war and when we do it more efficiently. The predispositions of the Western Govts and agencies are based on the premise that they consider themselves as humanity’s guardian angles capable of making rational decisions that we are ineffectual. Hence, Sri Lanka need to be scolded, threatened, disturbed and yanked back to “civilization.”
In any war civilian casualties are two folds: those who die in the crossfire and the ones are deliberately killed when forced into the conflict zones. Given that protecting the civilians is the responsibility of all warring factions, naturally, elected Govts are held to higher norms than lawless insurgents. However, it must be recognized the party that does not place greater emphasis on safety for civilians has little or no concern for them be held accountable regardless of its pedigree. In both conflicts, clearly there is “good” and “evil,” reminding us of the infamous “axis-of-evil”?
Therefore, the application of a standard to assess military actions must be consistent and it must not be based on the skin colour or how affluent a nation is with the power to influence worldwide opinion on the military actions it pursues. So can we expect the world to treat the NATO nations and Sri Lanka under the same status when chasing established ‘terrorists’ or not?
Civilian causalities in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are “collateral damages” according to the Western nations’ manual on aerial bombing. The NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer recently quoted saying on mounting Afghan civilian casualties “we realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity, while it was impossible to avoid civilian casualties entirely.”
With comments on the records like that, who are these scoundrels in the West to preach us on morality of warfare? Despite their own precautionary warfare to minimize civilian deaths the US, UK and France as members of NATO caused terror and paranoia among the Afghan civilians. The experience for civilians was similar in Serbia and Iraq when Western forces bombed them.
The Western emissaries were loud-mouthed as they could be before they made their much publicized trip to Sri Lanka, giving the impression to the world that they are speaking out of conscience in the interest of humanity. Without any moral high ground - it was all an attempt to create in us a marsh land of fear, guilt, shame and perceived but unquestionably flawed heroism on the part of West. They were No winners.
Therefore, I name Tamil diaspora, Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, Robert Blake (US Amb.) and Eric Solheim as enemies of our homeland.
Naming and shaming is one of the most sacred principle that I cherish - my love of freedom and truth-- that same freedom can be trampled and obliterated by seemingly bottom feeders working to build their own political careers. Yet, our story also contains within it the very simplest construction of the case: those who consort with an enemy will have to pay the political price.
Thus, naming names liberate us from a sense of guilt as spectators to a massive fraudulent “genocide” taking place in the Lion’s jaw in a place called Mullaitivu.
In any war civilian casualties are two folds: those who die in the crossfire and the ones are deliberately killed when forced into the conflict zones. Given that protecting the civilians is the responsibility of all warring factions, naturally, elected Govts are held to higher norms than lawless insurgents. However, it must be recognized the party that does not place greater emphasis on safety for civilians has little or no concern for them be held accountable regardless of its pedigree. In both conflicts, clearly there is “good” and “evil,” reminding us of the infamous “axis-of-evil”?
Therefore, the application of a standard to assess military actions must be consistent and it must not be based on the skin colour or how affluent a nation is with the power to influence worldwide opinion on the military actions it pursues. So can we expect the world to treat the NATO nations and Sri Lanka under the same status when chasing established ‘terrorists’ or not?
Civilian causalities in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are “collateral damages” according to the Western nations’ manual on aerial bombing. The NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer recently quoted saying on mounting Afghan civilian casualties “we realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity, while it was impossible to avoid civilian casualties entirely.”
With comments on the records like that, who are these scoundrels in the West to preach us on morality of warfare? Despite their own precautionary warfare to minimize civilian deaths the US, UK and France as members of NATO caused terror and paranoia among the Afghan civilians. The experience for civilians was similar in Serbia and Iraq when Western forces bombed them.
The Western emissaries were loud-mouthed as they could be before they made their much publicized trip to Sri Lanka, giving the impression to the world that they are speaking out of conscience in the interest of humanity. Without any moral high ground - it was all an attempt to create in us a marsh land of fear, guilt, shame and perceived but unquestionably flawed heroism on the part of West. They were No winners.
Therefore, I name Tamil diaspora, Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, Robert Blake (US Amb.) and Eric Solheim as enemies of our homeland.
Naming and shaming is one of the most sacred principle that I cherish - my love of freedom and truth-- that same freedom can be trampled and obliterated by seemingly bottom feeders working to build their own political careers. Yet, our story also contains within it the very simplest construction of the case: those who consort with an enemy will have to pay the political price.
Thus, naming names liberate us from a sense of guilt as spectators to a massive fraudulent “genocide” taking place in the Lion’s jaw in a place called Mullaitivu.
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