http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/Current_Affairs/ca201203/20120316ltte_refusal_stop_human_shields_tactic.htm



Friday, March 16, 2012 - 5.21
GMT
LTTE's refusal to stop human
shields tactic led to civilian deaths - Prof Rajiva Wijesinha

Responding to Channel 4’s recent claims, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Presidential
Adviser on Reconciliation, explains that “[…] the deaths of civilians occurred
largely because of the strategy of using civilians as human shields, and then
fighting from amidst them. […]We did keep asking the ICRC to tell the LTTE to
stop using this tactic, but while they said they would continue to remind both
parties to the conflict of their obligations, they pointed out that ‘not having
been agreed upon by both parties to the conflict, the zone as such is not
specifically protected under International Humanitarian Law’.”
Discussing Channel 4’s point on the deliberate shortages of supplies by the
Sri Lankan Government, Prof. Wijesinha highlighted that: “The Sri Lankan
government has indicated the supplies that were sent, in accordance with the
figure supplied by the UN. Many people calculated the possible figure in
different ways, and many got it wrong, but the Commissioner General of Essential
Services worked always to the same figures, while also ensuring that extra
medicines were sent. I myself saw bags of rice that had been used to make
bunkers, which suggests that if there were shortages, it was not due to us.”
Referring to the picture of the dead body of Prabhakaran’s son, he said: “In
fact that picture has been in the public domain since 2009. While of course the
matter should be investigated, the efforts to connect it with the President are
absurd.”
Expressing his views regarding former Army Commander Sarath Fonsaka being
excluded from the calls for action on war crimes, Prof. Wijesinha said, I should
note that Channel 4, while throwing blame on the President and the Secretary of
Defence and General Shavendra Silva and General Prasanna Silva, leaves out
Sarath Fonseka from its demands for retributive justice. Fascinatingly, the
Amnesty Spokesman Sam Zarifi stresses the responsibility of the first two, which
underlines the political motivation behind the allegations. He absolutely omits
Sarath Fonseka, who was the only major figure to have been cited in the US State
Department report as meriting criticism.
Full Statement of Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha
The latest Channel 4 film on Sri Lanka dwells on four points, most of them
expanded versions of what it claimed previously. Once again, actual evidence in
the form of documents dating from the period concerned, indicate how selective
it is.
Channel 4, following the Darusman report, talks of bombardments on a UN camp
from January 23rd on. Unlike Gordon Weiss, who mentioned the same incident but
without a date, attributing information to retired Colonel Harun Khan, from the
UN Secutiry Office, Channel 4 now finally mentions its purported informant, an
Australian called Peter Mackay.
There was no Peter Mackay in the list of those going on the convoy supplied
to the army. Apart from Harun Khan, the only UN officer supposed to be in the
convoy was a local employee called Mr Suganthan.
In contradiction it seems of the Channel 4 claim, the UN Security Chief wrote
to the Security Forces on January 24th as follows – ‘I would like to thank you
and your staff for excellent support in all the UN movements to date’ (it must
be noted that Harun Khan had stayed behind without authorization, when the rest
of the convoy left on January 20th, in order to persuade the LTTE to let local
staff who were working in the Wanni leave).
Another letter of du Toit’s of January 31st, after Harun and his small group
had got to safety, joining an ICRC convoy on January 29th as suggested by the
army when the LTTE was delaying their escape, reads as follows, with regard to
the local staff, ‘My office is keeping the SF HQ regularly updated as events
unfurl on the battle field in their immediate vicinity and I can report that we
are most pleased with the professional response and cooperation with SF HQ.’
So who was Mackay, where did he come from, and where did he get his footage?
He may well have been there, but the fact that his presence was never informed
to officials is suspicious in itself, given too his position at UNOPS which had
had a number of staff with LTTE sympathies, for whom the UNOPS head had
apologized (for instance Benjamin Dix whom Amnesty had taken round Geneva in a
show and tell performance during an earlier sessions of the UN Human Rights
Council).
It should be added that the deaths of civilians occurred largely because of
the strategy of using civilians as human shields, and then fighting from amidst
them. We were aware of this from the start, given the evidence of the Bishop of
Jaffna who wrote on January 25th that ‘We are also urgently requesting the Tamil
Tigers not to station themselves among the people in the safety zone and fir
their artillery shells and rockets at the Army’.
The 25th was the first day in which Tamilnet, which I had monitored carefully
from the Peace Secretariat, claimed casualties of more than 20 from army action
(the total of civilian casualties alleged by Tamilnet in the last 7 months of
2008 had been 78). On the 26th we had three figure allegations for the first
time, but that was when we also got an SMS from the head of the UN in Colombo to
say that they believed most of the firing came from the LTTE. That SMS was kept
on my phone for a few months so that I could show it at the next session of the
Human Rights Council in Geneva, when the usual suspects made their extravagant
allegations.
What the LTTE was doing did raise serious moral problems, and I believe that
in general our forces dealt with these in a humane way. We did keep asking the
ICRC to tell the LTTE to stop using this tactic, but while they said they would
continue to remind both parties to the conflict of their obligations, they
pointed out that ‘not having been agreed upon by both parties to the conflict,
the zone as such is not specifically protected under International Humanitarian
Law’. Civilians of course continued to be protected under IHL, but this does not
take away from the right to fire back when under attack.
A letter from the UN head of security, Chris du Toit, indeed makes the
dilemma obvious. He wrote on 20th January that ‘artillery and mortar bases have
been established in the general area of our communications hub from where they
deliver fire to your forces. I therefore request that you inform your respective
ground commanders and artillery commanders not to deliver any artillery, mortar
or small arms fire into the general area of the hub’.
In other words, the LTTE is firing from you, using us as a shield, but please
do not fire back. Du Toit’s concern for his staff is admirable, but it is a form
almost of giving the LTTE a blank cheque. But our forces did exercise maximum
care, and no one in that UN convoy was hurt. Indeed, not one of the UN workers
who were forced by the LTTE to stay behind was hurt, except for one person whom
the UN head, Neil Buhne, told me in Geneva was probably injured by LTTE action,
and whom the forces looked after immediately.
Secondly, Channel 4 talks about deliberate shortages of supplies, and invokes
the sacred evidence of David Miliband in this regard, a man who, according to
Wikileaks, had been concerned about Sri Lanka for selfish electoral purposes.
The Sri Lankan government has indicated the supplies that were sent, in
accordance with the figure supplied by the UN. Many people calculated the
possible figure in different ways, and many got it wrong, but the Commissioner
General of Essential Services worked always to the same figures, while also
ensuring that extra medicines were sent. I myself saw bags of rice that had been
used to make bunkers, which suggests that if there were shortages, it was not
due to us. But in any case the figures speak for themselves. Mr Miliband’s
calculations suggest that everyone would have been dead if so little food was
sent in that period, but we know that over 250,000 escaped. In addition, I have
seen the medicines that were in the hospitals, and doctors who worked there,
including in the LTTE hospitals for their cadres, told me they had adequate
supplies including anaesthetics.
Thirdly we have the same old Channel 4 video, which we have conclusively
proved was doctored. Beginning with the original claim that the scene was filmed
in January 2009, which was the date the US State Department also put to us in
its document of allegations, there has been fraud and sleight of hand.
Ridiculously, Channel 4 now brought to corroborate its claims a member of what
is called Journalists for Democracy, which had originally supplied them with the
video. So much for independent witnesses! The UN has also indicated that the
second film shown was edited, and edited backwards, while the zooming suggests
it was done by a video camera, rather than the mobile phone that was claimed.
Certainly, as the LLRC recommends, we should investigate further, but to do
that Channel 4 must cooperate by at least sending us the original – which they
refused to do even to the UN, which then got a different version from
Journalists for Democracy for its own investigations. Why such suppression of
evidence and blatant falsehoods, if they believe this is genuine.I should
note that another gruesome picture showed was one I first saw in Australia, when
I pointed out one of the people purportedly doing the torturing was in rubber
slippers, suggesting that this was an LTTE effort. Subsequently the slippers
have been cut out when the picture is shown, but I do still have that original
version.
Finally, they show the picture of Prabhakaran’s son, and claim he was killed
on orders from higher up. In fact that picture has been in the public domain
since 2009. While of course the matter should be investigated, the efforts to
connect it with the President are absurd. This is not like what happened when
Osama bin Laden was killed in cold blood, clearly on the orders of the American
Commander in Chief, since he was privileged to have a bird’s eye view of the
proceedings. The Americans may have thought the killing of Osama was justified,
as revenge, or what they see as justice, but it was not a killing in combat, and
was certainly not just. But one does not see any claims that he should be held
accountable, for the simple reason that, as Mao Tse Tung once said, power comes
out of the barrel of a gun, and the guns used against what is termed Islamic
terrorism are larger than those of anyone else.
I should add that there were more horrors connected with the death of Osama
bin Laden, including the justification offered by the celebrated Nazi hunter
Elie Wiesel, who claimed that, though children had been put in harm’s way, and
‘children are never guilty. Still, it was bin Laden himself who placed them in
harm’s way’.I hope we never use such justifications, and that any
allegation of killing will be looked into. But when America provides such glib
justifications for its actions in executing bin Laden, surely there should be
greater stress on the wickedness of the Tigers in the systematic use made of
civilians as human shields. But, in its relentless efforts to target the Sri
Lankan leadership, this is not an issue for Channel 4.
Finally, I should note that Channel 4, while throwing blame on the President
and the Secretary of Defence and General Shavendra Silva and General Prasanna
Silva, leaves out Sarath Fonseka from its demands for retributive justice.
Fascinatingly, the Amnesty Spokesman Sam Zarifi stresses the responsibility of
the first two, which underlines the political motivation behind the allegations.
He absolutely omits Sarath Fonseka, who was the only major figure to have been
cited in the US State Department report as meriting criticism.
They claimed that ‘A media outlet reported on July 18 that at a celebratory
event in Ambalangoda, Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka stated that the military
had to overlook the traditional rules of war and even kill LTTE rebels who came
to surrender carrying white flags during the war against the LTTE’. In fact the
cached version of that claim goes further and says that he declared that ‘- ‘I
managed the war like a true soldier. I did not make decisions from A/C rooms. I
was under pressure to stop the war even during the final phase. I got messages
not to shoot those who are carrying white flags. A war is fought by soldiers.
They do so by putting their lives on the line. Therefore, the decisions about
war should be taken by the soldiers in the battlefront. Not the people in A/C
rooms in Colombo. Our soldiers have seen in life the kind of destruction carried
out by those people before they decided to come carrying a white flag.
Therefore, they carried out their duties. We destroyed any one connected with
the LTTE. That is how we won the war,’
I believe government was wrong not to investigate this claim. It is possible
that the claim is untrue, but it is also possible that, as with other matters
one had to deal with during that period, such as the declaration that government
planned to increase the size of the army by 100,000, Fonseka was advancing his
own ideas which were at odds with government policy. It is even possible that he
wanted to take credit for things with which he had no connection. But while I
find strange the evident determination of the forces to shield him from inquiry
in this regard, I find even more bizarre the manner in which the Americans have
now taken him to their hearts. I was told by a senior politician that a senior
American diplomat claimed that they had now found a new weapon with which to
threaten government, namely Sarath Fonseka, and that explains his apotheosis
into an admired Presidential candidate soon after the Americans had laid their
evidence about him on the table. But such weapons have a habit of backfiring.
That Channel 4 and Sam Zarifi now leave him out of their cries for vengeance and
concentrate on civil leadership makes it crystal clear what the current agenda
is.