Sri Lankan General Admits War Crimes
US May Hold Crucial Supporting Evidence
by: Emanuel Stoakes
Truthout
29 January 2012
http://www.truth-out.org/sri-lankan-general-admits-war-crimes-us-may-hold-crucial-supporting-evidence/1327078686

The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering
soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction
of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a
former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed
to comment on military activity during the island
nation's bloody civil war.

The source, whose name is withheld for reasons of
safety, had high-level security clearance and access to
the flow of orders during the final days of the
conflict. He made the assertions in legally binding
testimony to a US lawyer in New York in 2010, recorded
in an affidavit seen by Truthout.

His statements hold particular significance because they
appear to corroborate claims made in reports by
prominent human rights organizations, international
media and a report for the United Nations by a panel of
experts published in 2011. The allegations also closely
corroborate the accounts of other members of the Sri
Lankan Army during the civil war.

It is believed that representatives of the United States
State Department have spoken to the source and hold a
rich collection of testimonies and other evidence
regarding alleged crimes committed during the civil war.

The most explosive claims have meaningful implications
in terms of international law, given that they
contribute to a body of evidence that places the command
responsibility for alleged war crimes at the feet of key
figures in Sri Lanka's civilian leadership.

In one of these claims, the source makes the assertion
that, during the war, an assassination unit operated out
of "white vans" under the direction of the Defence
Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in order to kill civilians.

These vehicles were mentioned in the United Nations
report in 2011 as one of the many "credible allegations"
of crimes against humanity made against the Sri Lankan
government. The alleged assassinations were committed by
what the source described as "hit squads" consisting of
a group of men hand-picked by the defence secretary and
assembled upon his appointment to high office.

The UN report refers to "an elite squad within the
Special Task Force (STF) ... implicated in running these
white van operations" that were used to abduct civilians
to "secret locations" where they were "interrogated and
tortured in a variety of ways." The report further
states that many of the abductees "were killed and their
bodies were disposed of secretly."

This agrees with further statements made by the source,
wherein he names a "Colombo Security" figure connected
to the police, who oversaw the white van assassinations
while "directly getting orders from the secretary."

Internal US diplomatic memos released by WikiLeaks also
appear to corroborate high-level ambassadorial awareness
of the vans. In a memo dated 2 February, 2010, entitled
"Post Election: New Threats to Media Freedom," US
Ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis refers to the
suspicious disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda, a
journalist known for his dissenting views, as "one of
many examples of what appears to be the government's
campaign to silence critical media."

According to the memo, "white vans" had been "spotted
outside" the offices where Eknaligoda worked "prior to
the attack" and "death threats" were made to colleagues
at his newspaper; additionally "paramilitaries
surrounded the premises on the evening of January 28 and
placed a padlock on the gate."

Mangala Samaweera, the former foreign minister of Sri
Lanka, has acknowledged the existence of white vans in
an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper
published on February 16, 2009. Samaweera, who was close
to President Rajapaksa until his resignation from the
cabinet in February 2007, told The Telegraph that "it is
an open secret that extra judicial death squads have
been operating with impunity since 2006." Samaweera also
remarked, "The notorious white van abductions ... have
been attributed to this group called the K9 group and
lately this same squad under the name of 'Mahasona
group' ... Within Army circles these killers are also
known as [Gotabaya's] sinha mafia'."

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch and the Asian Human Rights Commission have
noted with concern a large number of cases of
disappearances where witnesses describe seeing white
vans. The US released a State Department report in 2010,
which included acknowledgement of disappearances
involving the same vehicles.

Elsewhere within his testimony, the source makes the
allegation that extrajudicial killings of surrendering
or captured members of the rebel LTTE group, with whom
the government forces were at war, were committed as
"standard operating procedure" during the last months of
the conflict.

In a crucial exchange with the lawyer who took his
deposition, the source confirms that he was informed
that the defense secretary had passed on "some
instructions to a field commander to get rid of those
LTTE cadres who are surrendering."

What Does America Know?

It is believed that the State Department holds a live
file containing evidence of multiple offences committed
by both sides during the war, including testimony from
the source and other military, diplomatic and civilian
figures.

According to a WikiLeaks-released cable, Sarath Fonseka,
former commander of the Sri Lankan Army, spoke to the US
Department of Homeland Security during a visit to the
country in 2009 and he may have amplified previous
statements he is known to have made on government
responsibility for alleged extrajudicial killings.

A State Department human rights report on Sri Lanka
issued on April 8, 2011, found that "the government [of
Sri Lanka] and its agents" were responsible for "serious
human rights problems." These included possible
arbitrary and unlawful killings; disappearances;
discrimination against the Tamil minority; abuse of
detainees by security forces; as well as restrictions on
freedom of the press, assembly and association. It also
observed that official corruption, government impunity
and unaccountability were serious issues. (US Department
of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,
"2010 Human Rights Report: Sri Lanka," April 8, 2011.)

Many of the Sri Lankan political and military figures
suspected of responsibility for offences detailed by
human rights groups hold dual citizenship and are both
Americans and Sri Lankans, which puts the US authorities
in a possibly pivotal position in terms of investigating
and prosecuting alleged crimes that may have occurred
during - and after - the war.

A senior source from Channel 4's news department
informed Truthout that they were aware that certain
figures from within the Sri Lankan political elite had
in fact testified in the US in return for immunity.

Basil Rajapaksa, who holds a US green card, is
documented as having privately told US diplomats that
some of the behavior during the war was, of necessity,
unlawful. "I'm not saying we're clean; we could not
abide by international law," he was quoted as saying,
adding,  "[if we had, the war] would have gone on for
centuries, an additional 60 years." Rajapaksa is a
senior adviser to the resident of Sri Lanka, his brother
Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Mr. Rajapaksa's admission could have resulted in charges
being made against his brother, the defense secretary,
as a United States citizen; however, to date, none have
to our knowledge been made.

During the war, the United States used satellites to
carefully monitor events in the Vanni region of the
island where the war's last battles occurred. Images
sourced from the State Department have been referenced
in a number of reports by non-governmental organizations
and others, which provoked some speculation as to the
evidence the US has which remains undisclosed to the
public.

In August last year, Victoria Nuland, a representative
of the State Department, was asked by a press questioner
about the possibility of bringing the Sri Lankan
president "to the International Criminal Justice Court"
[sic] for "atrocities" committed against Tamils. Nuland
stated: "We would like the Sri Lankan Government to take
its responsibility ... [on issues of] justice and
accountability ... But if that does not happen and does
not happen expeditiously, then we reserve the right to
discuss international mechanisms."

Nuland welcomed the publication of the "Lessons Learnt
and Reconciliation Commission" (LLRC) report in
December, stating that it made "substantive
recommendations" in terms of responding to human rights
and other issues it addressed. However, she added: "we
have concerns that the report, nonetheless, does not
fully address all the allegations of serious human
rights violations that occurred in the final phase of
the conflict."

Extrajudicial Killings and Corroborating Accounts

The order to kill surrendered LTTE rebels as alleged by
the source, if proven to have been given, would
contravene the rules of war under the Geneva
Conventions, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory, and
could mean that Defence Secretary Rajapaksa would be
liable for prosecution for war crimes.

This allegation is particularly potent because it agrees
with statements made by other key figures from within
the Army, including General Fonseka, who was the
commander of the armed forces during the final days of
the war. Fonseka alleged that extrajudicial killings had
occurred at the order of Rajapaksa in an interview with
the Sri Lankan Sunday Leader newspaper in November 2009.

He stated: "Basil [Rajapaksa, a senior government
figure] had conveyed ... information to the defense
secretary, Gothabaya Rajapaksa, who in turn spoke with
Brigadier Shavendra Silva, commander of the Army's 58th
division, giving orders not to accommodate any [Tiger]
leaders attempting surrender and that they must all be
killed."

Fonseka was recently sentenced to a three-year prison
term for the statements he made to the Sunday Leader,
which he initially had retracted in response to
considerable criticism; however, later, he told the BBC
journalist Stephen Sackur that he was willing to testify
to an international authority regarding alleged crimes
committed under government orders. See here, here and
here.

An account from a member of Sri Lanka's military, which
corroborates that of the source and Fonseka's claims,
was quoted in a report by Britain's Channel 4 news in
2011.

The witness, an officer who had served in Silva's 58th
division, made the allegation that "we received orders
from the top to kill some of those who surrendered. All
regiments received the orders unofficially - from the
top." To which he added: "I can confidently state ...
that those who ordered the killings were Defense
Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Brigadier Shavendra
Silva."

Both Rajapaksa and Silva deny the claims.

The source also referred to an incident wherein the 12-
year-old son of Villai Prabhakaran, the leader of the
LTTE, was interrogated and killed in the same manner as
rebel cadres. He stated, "I got to know at the latter
stages that they found out where Prabhakaran is, through
his son ... And subsequently, I got to know that [the
boy] had been killed."

The affidavit also contains a serious claim leveled at
the government regarding the murder of Lasantha
Wickremathunge, who predicted his own murder at the
hands of the Rajapaksa regime in an editorial published
in the Sunday Leader newspaper in January 2009.

Mr. Wickremathunge wrote just before his death that "[w]
hen finally I am killed, it will be the government that
kills me" adding, in a direct address to the president,
"we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not
call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends
on it." The source believed that a prominent cabinet
minister called Mervin Silva was responsible for the
killing, but added that he believed that the president
sanctioned it. He told the lawyer: "this type of thing
is coming from the top itself ... the president ... he
is ultimately responsible."

The Other Perspective

The Sri Lankan government and its representatives have
consistently denied that war crimes took place or that
the Army intentionally killed civilians in the final
days of the war. President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself
told Time magazine in July 2009 that "there was no
violation of human rights [committed by the Army during
the war]. There were no civilian casualties ... These
[allegations] are all propaganda."

Spokespersons for the government have stressed that a
humanitarian aspect to the war effort had been exercised
in very difficult circumstances, resulting in thousands
of civilians being rescued from LTTE through government
agency. In an interview with PBS, Sri Lankan ambassador
to the US, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, regretted the degree
to which Western reporting, in his view, omitted to
mention the great lengths to which the Sri Lankan Army
went to protect civilians. "What we did was, as a
government, we rescued nearly 300,000 innocent civilians
who were just taken by the LTTE ... as human shields" he
told Ray Suarez, "... we had to open up enough roads and
take out these innocent civilians. In fact, we lost more
than 6,000 soldiers by trying to do that."

In addition, government efforts to "rehabilitate" former
members of the LTTE and to rehouse internally displaced
persons (IDPs) have been ostensibly successful with 96
percent of the IDPs having been returned to their homes
or finding new residences. According to domestic news
reports, rehabilitated ex-LTTE members have been
successfully "reintegrated" into society.

The Sri Lankan Army fought a grim battle with the
separatist LTTE for over two and a half decades, during
which time the "Tamil Tigers" as they are also known,
pioneered the use of suicide bombings, killed thousands
of civilians and committed a series of atrocities that
made the prospect of future Sri Lankan peace seem
impracticable. The human cost of the civil war has been
estimated as having deprived the nation of up to 100,000
lives; the financial cost over US $200 Billion, a figure
that amounts to roughly five times Sri Lanka's gross
domestic product in 2009.

In addition to denying that surrendered soldiers or
civilians were intentionally killed by the Army, the
government has consistently suggested that certain
alleged high-profile photographic or video evidence of
alleged atrocities are unverifiable and likely to be
faked by parties connected to the LTTE.

In response to the airing of footage obtained by
Britain's Channel 4 news, which appeared to show
extrajudicial killings by Sri Lankan troops, Sri Lanka's
Ministry of Defense published the paper
"Unprofessionalism Revisited," which examined some of
the claims made by witnesses in a major news story by
Channel 4. The report concluded Channel 4's claims about
Sri Lanka "appear to be largely a tissue of invention,
unsubstantiated observations by unnamed witnesses and
second-hand eyewitness reports, depending far more on
imagination than any other factor."

When questioned during an interview on Al Jazeera
regarding some alleged footage of Sri Lankan troops
executing Tamils also broadcast by Channel four in 2009,
a representative of the government, Rajitha Wijesinha,
disputed the authenticity of the film and stated that
"this film seems to have been manipulated ... some of
[the films, alleged footage of killings] could very well
have been done by the Tigers themselves."

The Sri Lankan government appointed a panel of
investigators to look into the footage in 2010; the
group concluded that the recordings were untrustworthy
and cited several aspects to the footage that they found
were indications that the film was "fake."

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings,
Philip Alston, however, declared the Channel 4 footage
to be "authentic" and presented a point-by-point
response to the central objections made by the
government panel.

In a similar vein, senior politicians have asserted that
misleading information from sources that have an anti-
government agenda are feeding information to Western
media as a part of a highly organized campaign of
deceit.

An oft-referred to example of this is the case of
photographic "evidence" broadcast by Al Jazeera in
November 2010 that appeared to show atrocities, but
which the broadcaster acknowledges came from "Tamil
sources" and cannot be verified. See here and here.

The Sri Lankan government also disputed the findings of
the UN report of April 2011, citing what it regards as
flaws in the evidence referred to in the paper. An
External Affairs Ministry statement described the
document as "fundamentally flawed in many respects" the
findings of which were "based on patently biased
material which is presented without any verification."

There is also considerable suspicion in patriotic Sri
Lankan circles over the political neutrality of many
prominent Western-based human rights groups such an
Amnesty International, which have been critical of the
government response to claims of misconduct.

Amnesty's alleged ties to the "Global Tamil Forum" (GTF)
and Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC), groups that some
believe to be connected to or sympathetic toward the
LTTE have been scrutinized by bloggers who assert that
the nonprofit organization is receiving politically
motivated funding from the CTC.

Despite their consistent denials of wrongdoing,
representatives of the government have at times been
self - contradicting in their responses to some of the
purported evidence. Foreign Minister Palitha Kohona told
Al Jazeera on May 1, 2009, that the government had
shelled a government-declared no-fire zone (NFZ) after
denying it in a previous interview. Faced with satellite
imagery that appeared to show shell damage and
indications of the use of weaponry with the NFZ, Kohona
was quick to add that this occurred before any civilians
were in the safety area. Al Jazeera then proceeded to
show footage from an earlier interview with Kohona,
which was broadcast on April 19 - the same day that some
of the satellite images were taken - in which Kohona had
insisted that the "the government does not shell this
area, because we know ... this area is full of
civilians."

In response to allegations of misconduct at the end of
the war, the government issued its own LLRC in 2010 to
investigate the conduct of the Sri Lankan military
during the war's denouement.

In December 2011, the LLRC report was made available to
the public. It found that there were civilian casualties
during the war and made a number of criticisms of the
government, but absolved the Rajapaksa administration of
any responsibility for serious breaches of international
law.

Genocide?

In marked distinction to the position of the government,
critics of Sri Lanka's policies toward the Tamil
minority in the island see the crisis in the Vanni in
2009 as simply one of the more extreme events in an on-
going pattern of intentional government-directed
violence against Tamils since the creation of modern Sri
Lanka.

The Indian writer Arundhati Roy called the endgame in
the northeast "a racist war on Tamils"and wrote that
such "racism has a long history - of social ostracism,
economic blockades, pogroms and torture." Elsewhere, Roy
opined "what happened in the war [in Sri Lanka], cannot
be called anything short of genocide."

The prominent Washington-based human rights lawyer,
Bruce Fein, is attempting to prosecute Defence Secretary
Rajapaksa under the US Torture Victim Protection Act,
which allows prosecutions of foreign politicians who are
suspected of being responsible for torture or
extrajudicial killings. Fein recently told Britain's
Daily Telegraph newspaper that, in reference to the last
days of the war, "it's hard to come to conclusion that
the aim wasn't to destroy the Tamil people in whole or
substantial part."

Tamils against genocide or TAG, a group committed to the
defense of Sri Lankan Tamil rights and the prosecution
of alleged crimes against Tamils, including the charge
of genocide as defined by the Geneva Conventions, have
compiled a large body of evidence that they believe
indicates that a systematic campaign to undermine or
destroy Tamil life in Sri Lanka was practiced by
successive governments.

TAG submitted an 800-page indictment document prepared
by Fein to US courts, which refers to allegations of
genocide against Sri Lanka's Tamil population.

The well-known musical artist M.I.A, in an interview
with the talk-show host Tavis Smiley in January 2009,
talked of "a systematic genocide" against ethnic
minority Tamils in Sri Lanka over the past two decades
or more. She expressed the view that "it's escalated
because Obama's coming to power ... only under Bush's
presidency you could get away with doing as much
[damage]."

The Diminishment of Courage?

In the second presidential debate in 2008, Obama
impressively declared "when genocide is happening, when
ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world
and we stand idly by, that diminishes us." See here and
here.

Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, perhaps the world's
foremost critic of Western foreign policy, averred that
such a demeaning stance was, in fact, taken by the
inaugurated Obama administration in response to Sri
Lanka's crisis in 2009. At a forum on the
"responsibility to protect" at the United Nations in
2009 , Professor Chomsky opined that an "atrocity"
comparable in terms of Western failures to the genocide
in Rwanda in 1994 occurred in Sri Lanka. See here and
here.

The LTTE leadership and organization were decisively
defeated by Sri Lankan forces at the end of the war.
Most of the high-level members of the "Tigers" were
killed or captured in the process of engaging the Army.
This was hardly the ideal outcome in terms of seeing
justice done for their crimes. The state actors who
oversaw the conduct of the war, however, remain as yet
free from the scrutiny of an internationally enforced
UN-delivered investigation into alleged offences
committed under their direction.

To date, no member of the Sri Lankan civilian or
military chain of command has been prosecuted for
alleged offences committed during the war.

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