Since this is not the first time such footage has been aired or talked about after the war ended in May 2009, there is need for more than a rebuttal from Colombo to set at rest lingering doubts. How the footage was obtained from where and how it reached UK media are questions of no less significance. One possibility that can be speculated is that the second or third line of LTTE leadership had managed to send the film in the dying days of the war to its West or Bangkok based media units hoping to use the same for devastating effect once a ceasefire was forced on Colombo.
President Rajapaksa refused to give a ceasefire and instead stood by the army as Tigers were hunted to the last man. India, which had a vested interest in the resolution of Lanka’s ethnic issue, was not happy with the absence of ‘no ceasefire’. Yet, Delhi not only stood by Colombo but also made Chennai to fall in-line while impressing upon the Rajapaksa government to ensure safety of the civilians. In that broad sense, there is reason for disquiet in Delhi over the telecast amidst calls from Tamilnadu government of charismatic Jayalalithaa Jayaram, who had trounced arch rival Muthavel Karunanidhi at the hustings recently, for war crimes trial of Lanka government’s leadership.
In any discussion on War crimes in Sri Lanka, one thing should be kept in view. It was not a conventional war waged by one state against another. It was a military campaign undertaken by the state to eliminate a non-state actor, whose hands were soaked in blood over a period of more than two decades and who had used every available respite in the conflict zone to arm himself to the teeth. This insurgent was a ruthless, brutal megalomaniac and he deserved no kid-glove treatment since all efforts to subdue him and to make him join the political mainstream had failed even with the Indian intervention.
Since, as Sri Lanka’s envoy at the UN, Palitha Kohona says, the Wanni War was not aimed at creating martyrs, if not more volunteers for the LTTE, what is necessary is to get answers to the question: Did the Lankan army fire indiscriminately at its targets, who nonchalantly used civilians as a human shield?
Unfortunately Colombo has not helped its own cause by its practice of stonewalling criticism. Probably, it could have helped its cause had it allowed the UN panel members to visit the country and see for themselves the conditions in the ‘refugee’ camps and the still existing tell-tale marks of war.
Yes, President Rajapaksa has appointed a Commission, LLRC to ‘learn’ lessons. Like the 15 or so commission Sri Lanka government had set up in the past two and a half decades, LLRC did not help blunt the criticism, which, in the first place, necessitated its very constitution.
Punitive economic sanctions against Colombo as demanded by some sections of ethnic Tamil minority and rights activists will be no more than another misguided jingoism when the need of the hour is facilitation to the process of bridging the political and emotional divide in Sri Lanka and finding a long lasting solution without much further delay.
