Sri Lanka: Human Rights Council should demand immediate access and accountability
Amnesty International welcomes the decision by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to hold a Special Session on Sri Lanka on Tuesday 26 May. �For the sake of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Sri Lanka, as well as its own credibility, the Human Rights Council should ensure that the Sri Lankan government takes immediate and concrete steps to address this crisis, beginning with providing immediate, unhindered access to international aid workers and monitors,said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International�s Asia-Pacific director.
Full Report: http://www.amnesty.nl/voor_de_pers_artikel/48612
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Blood on our hands – Former Indian Diplomat
May 19 2009 – Rediff ( M K Bhadrakumar, former Indian diplomat who served in Sri Lanka in the
1980s)
As the curtain comes down and we leave the theatre, the spectacle continues to haunt us. We feel a deep unease and can’t quite figure out the reason. Something rankles somewhere. And then we realise we have blood on our hands.
Not only our hands, but our whole body and deeper down, our conscience — what remains of it after the mundane battles of our day-to-day life is also dripping with blood.
Prabhakaran’s blood. No, it is not only Prabhakaran’s, but also of 70,000 Sri Lankan Tamils who have perished in the unspeakable violence through the past quarter century.
All the pujas we may perform to our favourite Lord Ganesh [ Images ] each morning and evening religiously before we march ahead in our life from success to success cannot wash away the guilt we are bearing — the curse of the 70,000 dead souls.
Our children and grandchildren will surely inherit the great curse. Oh, God, what a bitter legacy!
A long time ago, we created Prabhakaran. We picked him up as an urchin from nowhere. What we found charming about him was that he was so thoroughly apolitical — almost innocent about politics. He was a simpleton in many ways, who had a passion for weapons and the military regimen. He suited our needs perfectly.
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War Crime Allegations – The Background Story
January 3 2010 – The Sunday leader
On December 13, 2009 The Sunday Leader’s headline “Gota Ordered Them To Be Shot” – General Sarath Fonseka would become the most explosive story of the year.
The article which, perfectly accurately, quoted the General as saying he had heard that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had given an illegal order asking Brigadier Shavendra Silva (later promoted General) to not accommodate surrendering LTTE cadres, became more than a news story.
It became a political phenomenon and the allegations, denials, retractions and recriminations that followed are history.
However it is a history that has come to be grossly distorted.
As all the various parties caught in the story’s fallout struggled to save face, what began as a piece of journalism accusing the government of a serious war crime would become, through lies and deception, a coup for the Rajapaksa administration. Ultimately the campaign to vilify and distort the article and discredit me has now reached a point where I feel, I must comment and present what I believe to be an accurate version of the events leading to and following its publication.
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