Indian defence analyst identifies possible witch-hunt targets

ENB File Photo

Indian defence analyst identifies possible witch-hunt targets
 Exclusive
 March 23, 2013, 12:00 pm

by S Venkat Narayan Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, March 23:

The Sri Lankan Government may continue to stonewall the global community’s demand for a credible and independent investigation into the excesses committed by its security forces during the last phase of Eelam War IV in 2009, according to defence analysts here.

This may be because such a probe will expose the crucial roles played by President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself, his brother and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and at least 14 other senior officials of the Armed Forces, the analysts told the Sunday Island.

 

Estimates by the United Nations and other independent sources say that at least 40,000 innocent Tamils have reportedly died during the last phase of the three-decade bloody civil war that finally ended with the killing of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his close associates at Mullivaikkal on the banks of Nanthikadal lagoon in the Wanni district of the Northern Province on May 19, 2009.

For the second consecutive year, the international community renewed its demand for such a probe last Thursday (March 21) in the form of a polite resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. The United States-sponsored resolution was backed by India and 24 other countries. Thirteen countries, including Pakistan, opposed the resolution while eight others abstained from voting.This was necessitated by the fact that the investigations by the government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and the Sri Lankan military have basically done a white-wash job by refusing to point a finger at anyone in authority for the senseless killings in the Wanni.

If the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis and the other war crimes trials conducted by United Nations-appointed tribunals into the killings in Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Lebanon are anything to go by, the roles of the top political and military authorities of the country concerned are investigated, and punishment meted out to those held responsible for such crimes.

If such an independent probe were to be ordered in Sri Lanka, heading the list of people whose roles may be investigated is President Rajapaksa himself because he also happens to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.

Next to him may be Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who used his close access to his brother and President Rajapaksa to procure whatever arms and other equipment from wherever possible to defeat the LTTE, admittedly the world’s most dangerous terrorist outfit till its decimation four years ago.

Experts here argue that, if the credit for planning and executing the brilliant strategy to wipe out the LTTE in the war must go to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, he cannot possibly shy away from responsibility for the excesses that were reportedly committed by the security forces during Eelam War IV.

Then Head of Joint Staff Air Marshal Donald Perera, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka, Navy Chief Wasantha Karannagoda, and Air Force Chief Roshan Gunathilake may be investigated.

In addition, those whose roles will be probed include the Commanders of Divisions 53 (then Brigadier/now Major General Kamal Goonaratne), 55 (Brig/Maj Gen Prasanna Silva), 57 (Brig/Maj Gen Jagath Dias), 58 (Brig/Maj Gen Shavindra Silva) and 59 (Brig/Maj Gen Nandana Udawatta).

The Divisions led by them had indeed facilitated the humiliating defeat of the LTTE rebels by surrounding them and successfully shutting down all their possible escape routes and trapping them at one place in the Wanni.

The roles of Heads of Task Force One (Brig Rohana Bandara), Task Force 2 (Brig Satyapriya Liyanage and Task Force 8 (Col GV Ravipriya, who actually killed Prabhakaran) too will be probed by such an investigation.

It remains to be see what the just-ordered second probe by the military into the Eelam War IV excesses will come up with anything that may satisfy the international community’s demand for a fair and credible investigation.