Fein responds: Professorial Nonsense on Stilts

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 December 2008, 12:35 GMT]
Responding to the note on Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) website by the Secretary General Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha on the model genocide indictment against Sri Lanka officials, the former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, says, the "Professor never denies the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides," but, "delivers an indictment against the LTTE as a purported defense to the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides." Fein adds: "The genocide prosecution sought against Sudanese President Omar Bashir has rejected such a defense theory to a charge of genocide."

Full text of Fein's response sent to TamilNet follows:

"I have prepared an approximately 400+ page model indictment against United States citizen and Sri Lankan Defense Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and United States green card holder and Sri Lankan Lt. General Sarath Fonseka for genocide in violation of the Section 1091 of the United States criminal code. The United States law applies irrespective of the location of the genocide or the nationality of the genocide defendant. The model indictment is scheduled for publication and presentation to the United States Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State in less than two weeks. The crime of genocide under United States law exposes the genocide defendant to the death penalty.

The model indictment elaborates a genocide narrative in the following manner. The politically and numerically dominant Sinhalese Buddhists have embraced and celebrated a culture of genocide against non-Sinhalese Buddhists since at least Sri Lankan independence in 1948. The genocide culture was informed by the Mahavamsa, the teachings of Dharmapala, and contemporary dogmas of Buddhist monks. Their common idiom is that Sri Lanka is an island for Sinhalese Buddhists only; and, that all others are intruders who must be either exterminated, expelled, or reduced to vassalage because of their ethnicity or religion. Thus, the Mahavamsa pays homage to King Duttugemenu for massacring Tamils who are described as sub-human.

The genocide indictment summons three types of evidence to establish guilt based on incidents since November 2005: approximately 3,000 incidents of extrajudicial murders or disappearances; approximately 1,000 incidents of causing serious bodily injury; and, approximately 2,000 incidents of creating conditions of life intended to cause the physical destruction of Tamils that affected 1 million, for example, starvation, deprivation of medicine, never-ending displacements that engendered permanent feelings of physical, economic, and psychological insecurity.

On December 15, 2008, Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, an echo chamber instrumentality of the Government of Sri Lanka, sallied forth on his website (www.peaceinsrilanka.org) with an awesome arsenal of irrelevancies and non sequiturs to confute my model genocide indictment. The Professor’s sophistry builds on the casuistry taught to every first year law student: If the law is against you, argue the facts; if the facts are against you, argue the law; and, if the law and the facts are against you, confuse the issue. Accordingly, Professor Wijesinha’s delivers an indictment against the LTTE as a purported defense to the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides. The genocide prosecution sought against Sudanese President Omar Bashir has rejected such a defense theory to a charge of genocide. In addressing the model genocide indictment I have prepared, this is what Professor Wijesinha adduces to persuade the reader to return a verdict of not guilty: not a single word or fact.

Indeed, the Professor never denies the Rajapaksa-Fonseka genocides. He simply bloviates: “Fein may see himself as an expert in pressing the right buttons, but [Tamils Against Genocide] should rethink squandering its funds on such characters.”

I challenge Professor Wijesinha or any official in the Government of Sri Lanka to debate me over the model genocide indictment at any time and in any venue of his or their choosing, including Colombo. I promise to arrive armed only with the truth; but my opponent may choose to come protected by the Sri Lankan Army and Pillaiyan. I am eager for a reply to my debate challenge. Silence will speak volumes of guilt.

Bruce Fein
Counsel for Tamils Against Genocide

Chronology:


External Links:

PS:

Fein’s Moral Confusion as Human Rights Watch returns to Reality