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ICEP’s Sri Lankan war crimes project – a set up?
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A ‘new’ report by an Australian law and policy advocacy company has given a turbo boost to the western chorus demanding an international war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka. The International Crimes Evidence Project (ICEP) says that Sri Lankan forces committed ‘the vast majority’ of alleged war crimes during the selected project period of Sept 2008 to May 2009. The 235-page report released Thursday acknowledges it is a contribution to the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session in March. It’s not clear who has paid for the investigation. It says ‘there are reasonable grounds to suspect’ that the alleged incidents were the result of deliberate policy decisions. And it goes so far as to assert that the civilian population was the Sri Lankan forces’ target of attack, even if their ultimate goal was to destroy the LTTE.
The report titled ‘Island of impunity? Investigation into international crimes in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war,’ was produced by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre Limited. Given the extreme nature of the allegations made, their timing and the conclusion, dovetailing with the western view that an international investigation is necessary, there is reason for serious misgivings about the project’s claim to being ‘independent and impartial.’ The catalog of incidents draws heavily on the flawed report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts (Darusman report). Just like the 2011 UNSG panel’s report, this one too has had no direct access to persons or places in Sri Lanka (“All alleged victims and witnesses have been interviewed by ICEP in locations outside of Sri Lanka.”) The evidence collected is ‘not exhaustive’ by its own admission. Less than half of the 31 witness statements used in the report are new, with most of them being taken from previous inquiries.
Yet the investigation deals with such weighty matters as indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, denial of humanitarian assistance, extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearance. While the crimes attributed to security forces are described as being “systematic and widespread,” when it comes to the LTTE the report says that “further investigation is needed to determine whether or not” the crimes were “sufficiently widespread or systematic to constitute crimes against humanity.”
Single witness testimony
Some of the statements treated as ‘evidentiary material’ would be outright laughable, if the implications were not so ominous. For instance, in a section relating to the LTTE’s conscription practices, in all seriousness the report refers to a statement of a local NGO official saying that “conscripted soldiers could be released if their birth documentation was provided to the LTTE to prove that they were under the age of 18.” It would seem that the ICEP’s deliberations were somewhat removed from ground reality.
One of the most publicised allegations contained in the ICEP report is about “systematic destruction of civilian mass burial sites in the post-conflict period.” It says the remains of hundreds and in some instances thousands of men, women and children were exhumed and destroyed by security forces. This is based on the testimony of a single witness. Those evaluating this testimony have not thought it strange that such a drama could have taken place and remained a secret in the porous social environment that prevails within Sri Lanka. The report gives little weight to the fact that this evidence is being gathered outside Sri Lanka in the context of a vigorous anti-Sri Lanka campaign by pro-LTTE sections of the Tamil Diaspora, whose post-war project is to nail the GoSL for war crimes and genocide.
The report says the witness has given precise locations of the mass burial sites, and that there is an ‘urgent need for further investigation’ to determine the veracity of these allegations. If the sites are traced and no human remains are found there, does this establish that the allegation is true (because they have been destroyed) or false (because there are none)? And does the truth matter anymore? No matter how ludicrous the claims being made, it would seem that the objective now is simply to set the stage for some form of external intervention. Investigating war crimes would be a good way to garner international support to do so.
Geostrategic interests
ICEP’s Investigation Committee was chaired by John Ralston, former Chief of Investigations, UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In a 2001 conference paper titled. ”The Role of Investigators In Crisis Intervention” Ralston focused on the collection of evidence on which war crimes prosecutions are based. In describing the categories of evidence to be considered for a successful investigation, it is interesting that he attaches importance to information collected by bodies such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe).
Would this not locate Ralston within the western bloc in the international system? Does it not give rise to questions as to how ‘independent and impartial’ a project headed by him can be? In the case of Yugoslavia, questions were asked at the time as to why NATO leaders were not required to appear before the ICTY (Andreas Laursen – NATO, the War over Kosovo, and the ICTY, 2001). It might be pertinent to ask, hypothetically, how Ralston would collect evidence for an investigation in say, Afghanistan, where NATO airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.
There should be little doubt now that the war crimes outcry emanating from the West is a case of setting the stage for an intervention necessitated by Western geostrategic interests. It is unfortunate that those in Sri Lanka assigned to formulate foreign policy to meet this challenge are so completely at sea with regard to what is going on. And it is tragic that those who have consistently warned of the need to counter this challenge by building strong ties with the global South, especially India – those who continue to urge certain domestic measures that could, if carried out before March, neutralise the threat that lies ahead – are so thoroughly ignored.