On March 23, a two-year extension of the highly controversial 2015 Geneva Resolutions was passed at the UNHRC, without a vote. It was passed with the co-sponsorship of 36 countries, including Sri Lanka. Thus, we have accepted that our own military committed excesses. We have also entertained the notion of a hybrid court, on the basis that our judiciary is not credible.

Despite the transparency this government promised, the official stand on this hybrid courts is obscure. President and PM have stated that they will not allow foreigners. Yet, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has dismissed their protests as mere personal opinions. Thus, neither those pushing for hybrid courts, nor those opposing it, know the government’s stand. Professor GL Peiris observes that this extension is to implement the 2015 resolutions as it is, sans amendments.

Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera also tabled two reports in Geneva. One contained the expert opinions of world-renowned specialists, who having studied actual facts have concluded that it was not the Sri Lankan military that committed war crimes, but the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. They assert that our military strategies have been proportionate. They are univocal that all parties to the conflict must be responsible for civilian safety. As such, our military demarcated no-fire zones, and opened passages for those civilians to seek safety.

The LTTE on the other hand, prevented civilians from leaving the war zone, deliberately allowing civilian casualties to rise. They were forced to be a human shield to protect the LTTE hierarchy. Furthermore, they blended with the civilians in civilian clothes, blurring the distinction between combatant and civilian and made military installations within civilian establishments. Against such perfidy, these experts hold the LTTE guilty of committing war crimes.

The second report, prepared by an eminent board and wetted by the former Chief Justice Sarath N Silva examines the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL). This report discusses the seriously flawed contradictions, omissions and falsehood that make up the OISL.

Afterwards, one man, barely familiar with his own allegations, called Rear Admiral Weerasekera a war criminal, who ought to be arrested by the Swiss police. In response, Rear Admiral Weerasekera asked where he was when the LTTE was terrorizing Tamils and lands were been de-mined. He also pointed out that he had donated his own blood to treat Tamils, and asked if his accuser had acted similarly. Rear Admiral noted that it is not he who is the war criminal but his accuser, who supports a terrorist group.

While these proceedings were taking place in Geneva, a death anniversary passed unnoticed by the world. In 1968, in a small hamlet in South Vietnam, somewhere between 300 to 500 were massacred.

According to Historylearningsite.co.uk, “My Lai was a village of about 700 inhabitants some 100 miles to the southeast of the US base of Danang. Shortly after dawn on March 16th, three platoons of US troops from C Company, 11th Brigade, arrived in the Son My area having been dropped off by helicopters. 1 Platoon was commanded by Lieutenant William Calley and was ordered to My Lai village. They were part of Task Force Barker – the codename for a search and destroy mission. They had been told to expect to find members of the National Liberation Front (called Vietcong or VC by the U.S. soldiers) in the vicinity as the village was in an area where the NLF had been very active.
“When the troops from 1 Platoon moved through the village they started to fire at the villagers. These were women, children and the elderly as the young men had gone to the paddy fields to work. Sergeant Michael Bernhardt, who was at My Lai, was quoted in 1973 as stating that he saw no one who could have been considered to be of military age. He also stated that the U.S. troops in My Lai met no resistance. An army photographer, Ronald Haeberie, witnessed a U.S. soldier shoot two young boys who he believed were no more than five years of age. Other photos taken at the scene of the massacre show bodies of what can only be very young children.”

History.com notes, “The soldiers had been advised before the attack by army command that all who were found in My Lai could be considered VC or active VC sympathizers, and told to destroy the village. Still, they acted with extraordinary brutality, raping and torturing villagers before killing them and dragging dozens of people, including young children and babies, into a ditch and executing them with automatic weapons. The massacre reportedly ended when an Army helicopter pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, landed his aircraft between the soldiers and the retreating villagers and threatened to open fire if they continued their attacks.

“The events at My Lai were covered up by high-ranking army officers until the following March, when one soldier, Ron Ridenhour, heard of the incident secondhand and wrote about it in a letter to President Richard Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and various congressmen. The letter was largely ignored until later that year, when investigative journalist Seymour Hersh interviewed Calley and broke the story. Soon, My Lai was front-page news and an international scandal. In March 1970, an official U.S. Army inquiry board charged 14 officers, including Calley and his company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, of crimes relating to My Lai. Of that number, only Calley was convicted. Found guilty of personally killing 22 people, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.”

However, notes historylearningsite.co.uk, “He served three years before he was released.” Despite the shocking revelations, Calley found much support. Hersh too feels that Calley was ‘as much a victim as the people he shot’. “Philip Caputo, a US Marine, also accused of murdering innocent Vietnamese civilians, wrote ‘In a guerrilla war, the line between legitimate and illegitimate killing is blurred. The policies of free-fire zones, in which a soldier is permitted to shoot at any human target, armed or unarmed, further confuse the fighting man’s moral senses’.”

Yet, when the distinction between combatant and civilian was deliberately blurred during the last phase of the war against terrorism, our military refrained from using heavy artillery and absorbed far more casualties than otherwise.

Rear Admiral Weerasekera was not exaggerating when he concluded, “it’s a typical example of double standard and hypocrisy,” as the UNHRC “which kept a blind eye when LTTE was using human shields and child soldiers, is now leveling war crime charges on the very troops which destroyed the LTTE and protected the Human Rights of all.”

It took three days to bury the dead from the My Lai massacre. Then, how many days did it take to lay to rest the alleged, unsubstantiated 40,000 bodies? Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International commissioned American Association for the Advancement of Science to study high resolution satellite imagery of the final Civilian Safety Zone during the last battles. All they could determine was a total of 1346 graves in three sites.

Samaraweera, in his speech at the UNHRC admitted, “Many in our country criticised and continue to criticise us for,” co-sponsoring Resolution 30/1. “Some even see this as an act of treachery and betrayal of the nation.”

To justify, he explained, “The Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Muslims, the Burghers, those of different faiths and beliefs, across gender, caste and creed, that constitute our country, worked together to gain Independence for our nation in 1948.

“That achieved, we failed to forge the perfect nation of individuals who all hold equal rights, working as one to achieve the heights our nation could attain. As a result, for 69 long years, we journeyed through pain, violence, loss of life and precious human resources, ruining chances of socio economic progress.”

Samaraweera must explain how we have failed to ensure equal rights to all and which community enjoys more rights and privileges than the others, when there are no restrictions on language, religious practices, profession and enterprise. Except for Tamil extremists like the LTTE and their proxies like the Tamil National Alliance, no other community had claimed their exclusivity in Sri Lanka.

There is a healthy Tamil and Muslim business community in Sri Lanka. They pay the same tax and interest rates as a Sinhala business. In most Tamil and Muslim businesses, the employs are exclusively of the same ethnicity as the entrepreneur. This is not usually seen in Sinhala businesses. The Sinhala consumer too makes no distinction and would patronize a business for its service, product quality and so on, but not for ethnicity or religion.

This discrimination, where entire communities were ostracized existed during the colonial days. Then, even a child could not be named in our own language. Only those who had adapted the western language, religion and customs had a place in society.

Even today, the West’s disdain to our cultures remains. This was evidenced in the recent landmark judgement delivered by the European Court of Justice that it does not constitute direct discrimination, if a firm has an internal rule banning the wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign. As such, European employers can dismiss Muslim female employees for wearing the hijab. Whether the cross worn as a pendent will be as offensive remains to be seen.

Furthermore, as Aljazeera reports, “Some countries such as Austria are mulling a complete ban on the full-face veil in public, while in France last year local authorities barred women wearing the burkini, the full-body swim.”

Switzerland, Guardian reports, “became the first country in Europe to vote to curb the religious practices of Muslims when a referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques was backed by a solid majority.” The country “has only four mosques with minarets and no major problems with Islamist militancy.”

In Sri Lanka, many feel making Sinhala the official language in 1956 was the problem. Yet, with the 13th Amendment, Tamil became an official language.

Still, the LTTE instead of coming to mainstream politics, became more violent. For instance, the few atrocities below has no relationship to the language act:
21.04.1987 – a car bomb at the Pettah Bus Stand killed 110 and wounded 298 civilians of all ethnicities.
03.08.1990 – Meera Jumma and Husania mosques were attacked and 103 killed and 70 wounded.
11.08.1990 – killed 116 Muslims at Eravur
29.04.1992 – Alichipothan attacked and 56 Muslims killed and 15 wounded

Alfred Duraiyappah – Jaffna mayor, A Thiyagarajah – MP for Vaddukkodai, V Dharmalingam – MP for Manipay, K Alalasunderam – MP for Kopay, A Amirthalingam – MP, Opposition leader and TULF leader, V Yogeswaran – MP for Jaffna, T Ganeshalingam – Provincial Minister for North and East, K Kanagaratnam – MP for Eastern Province, A Thangathurai – MP for Trincomalee, SP Tharmalingam – SLFP organizer Jaffna, Sarojini Yogeswaran – Jaffna mayor, Pon Sivapalan, Jaffna mayor, Neelam Thiruchelvam – TULF MP, Atputharajah Nadarajah – EPDP MP Jaffna, Sam Tambimuttu – EPRLF MP were all killed by the LTTE.

The LTTE also assassinated our most respected Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. Even Rajiv Gandhi, the very man who was instrumental in making Tamil an official language in Sri Lanka was also assassinated by the LTTE.

According to Wijedasa Rajapaksa’s speech in Parliament, holding the GSP Plus as a carrot, we are being induced to violate our own constitution. For the need of dollars, he said, we are made to play to all these foreign tunes. He rejected that any ethnic cleansing was committed by any Sri Lankan government.

However, he was instrumental in bringing this government to power. Samaraweera did not dupe his voter. As stated in the official webpage of the Foreign Ministry, in June 2007, he left the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, “as a protest against the increasingly militaristic and extremist approach of the Rajapaksa administration; Human Rights violations and abductions had become the order of the day as the government met LTTE terror with equally brutal state terrorism.”

As such was his belief, one must expect his present stance. What is confusing is when those who rode on that wave, powered mostly by the LTTE proxies, are now trying to dissociate from responsibility.

The sad reality is, we have never been free from foreign intervention. Yet, our politicians use the grave dangers we face as political fodder for their own survival.