Srebrenica, Mu'l'livaaykkaal: genocide's political dimension

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 July 2015, 00:04 GMT]
In Srebrenica, two decades ago, Serbian forces massacred 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and young adults, widely recognized as the worst genocide in Europe after World War II. While UN never formally recognized the genocide, UN statements and member states [read US, UK] have done so, and had recognized their failure to protect Srebrenica Muslims. In contrast, the nearly 80,000 civilan Tamils massacred in Mu'l'livaaykaal in 2009, in plain eye-view of advanced satellites, UN openly suppressed evidence, and the US, despite State Department's reports to the contrary, remained stoically silent, likely to avoid complicity in failing to prevent the beastial massacres. Wednesday's veto of Russia on UN security council resolution on Srebrenica drew condemnation from the US, in another demonstration of US's selective approach to geopolitical game of genocide.

Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, called the UN resolution a "confrontational and politically motivated" attempt by US and UK to blame one side for the atrocities in the Balkan conflict. On the opposite side, US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power of "Problems from Hell" fame, who, alongside President Obama's inaction, remained silent during Sri Lanka genocide, and who in the aftermath of Sri Lanka killings visited Rajapakse, recognized by former ambassador Butenis, as the key figure responsible for the Sri Lanka massacres, said on the Srebrenica veto as "a further stain on this Council's record," and called it a "madness" to deny what happened in Srebrenica.

Peter Wilson, UK's deputy ambassador to the UN who led UK in drafting the UN resolution, expressed outrage, saying “Genocide occurred at Srebrenica. This is a legal fact, not a political judgment. On this, there is no compromise.”

Such outrages are essentially political theater, pundits say, pointing to the former UK foreign Secretary Ed Miliband who said, with no serious follow-up action that "Sri Lankan government is “quite prepared to go ahead with acts of genocide,"" prompting Professor Boyle to assert that, now "Britain has an obligation under U.N. Charter Article 35(1) to bring this "civil war" and genocide in Sri Lanka "to the attention of the Security Council."

Political observers say, a predominant majority of Tamils believe, the Mu'l'livaaykaal massacre is the worst international crime of genocide this century, abetted in part by the liberal democracies of the West, including the US, UK, other European countries, and Australia, and also Sri Lanka's powerful neighbor, India.

Evidence of complicity of UN and US personnel carrying out the politically motivated policies of their host governments, in not only not intervening to prevent massacres despite clear indications of the impending genocide, but also in some cases in facilitating the killings, can be enumerated.

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  The World Bank
  World Bank, IMF: As recently revealed in former US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton's private emails, even the Worldbank and the International Monitory Fund (IMF) were complicit in aiding Rajapakse to carry out genocide. These premier financial institutions objected to Secretary Geithner that Ms Clinton is intervening to scuttle the Worldbank in providing a large amount of loan during the critical phase of war to allow Rajapakse to continue the war despite information that large amount of civilians were being killed. Two law suits were filed against the Worldbank loan in US and in UK in March 2009 before the May massacre.
  
  
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  Vijay Nambiar, Chief of Staff of Ban Ki Moon
  Vijay Nambiar, the Chef de Cabinet, who was a key official in shaping UN's Sri Lanka policy, is also accused of complicity in the "Whiteflag" incident where several surrendees were executed by the Sri Lanka military after being given assurances of safety by International actors. Nepotism and family connections between Ban Ki Moon and Nambiar, with personal links to India and Colombo, may also have contributed to the U.N.'s unwillingness to stop the Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre, observers say.
  
  
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  Robert O'Blake, Former Ambassador to Sri Lanka
  Robert Blake: Tamils hold Ambassador Blake, acknowldeged as the key US official who shaped the US policy on Sri Lanka's war within Tamil circles, as responsible for the tragedy. Blinded by the 9/11 terror and impelled by the perceived need for swift action against "terrorism," the US-led International Community [IC], made two serious miscalculations in Sri Lanka war: By allowing unhindered space for Sri Lanka's final military thrust, they misjudged Sinhala society's willing capacity to inflict bestial, savage crimes on fellow human beings amounting to genocide; and the IC's belief that, once the Tigers are eliminated Rajapakses will “fill in the gaps” and provide an acceptable political solution, has been shown as embarrassingly flawed. Now, as the IC savors the dystopian-monster they created, the need to whitewash the atrocities by side-stepping accountability, and to focus on development, appear to be driving IC's actions.
  
  
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  John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
  John Holmes, UN's former humanitarian chief, attempted to provide diplomatic cover to the slaughter taking place in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, repeatedly relying on Colombo's assurances on not using heavy weapons, and hesitating to provide casualty figures, a conduct comport with the "internal" strategy revealed by the then President of the United Nations Security Council, Yukio Takasu, that gave primacy to the need to eliminate the “terrorist LTTE."
  
  UN's Petrie report on UN's inaction during the last stages of the war, documents Holmes and Nambiar jointly pressuring Navi Pillay of UNHCR to desist from publishing estimated casualty figures that would put UN in to a “difficult terrain."
  
  
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  Yukio Takasu, President UN Security Council 2009
  Yukio Takasu, the 2009 President of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the critical month of February, was one of the key UN officials who allegedly prevented Sri Lanka from being dragged into the UNSC for the unfolding mass scale killings in Mu'l'livaaykkaal, public statements by UN officials during media stakes reveal. Japanese cultural views on asylum seekers, and the aversion to refugee intake into Japan to maintain purity of race, provide clues to the derisive approach of several Japanese officials to the Tamil struggle.

On India's staunch stand against Sri Lanka's Tamils, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, a young Tamil politician with a shining political pedigree, whose views on Tamil national politics resonate with several Tamil intellectuals, said of India's ill-fated attempts to help Sri Lanka forge a unitary constitution, and in the process overlook the mass atrocities: “The current Indian constitutional model is a quasi-federal one which has strong unitary characteristics as exemplified by Article 356, which vests the President with powers to dismiss state legislature and Executive. Therefore, the present Indian constitutional model did not have to address strong secessionist sentiments, and serves mainly to unite non-fissiparous ethnolinguistic regions.

“The conflict resolution process in Sri Lanka, on the other hand, will have to address the strong secessionist desires of the Tamil People. In other words, whatever model that is being mooted will have to be attractive enough for the Tamils to consider it as a viable alternative to the creation of a separate state," Mr Ponnambalam said.

Tamil legal activists say that Tamil people's destiny depends on the expressed strength, resoluteness and unwavering will in continuing to expose the Mu'l'livaaykal masscres until the killings are accepted as genocide, using international fora especially in courts of law that have jurisdiction for hearing international crimes. Despite a minority TNA [Tamil National Alliance, a dominant politcal party in the NorthEast] politicians who appear to be colluding with New Delhi, Washington and Colombo to scuttle the efforts in this matter, the Northern Province Council, with its recent resolution, has given the mandate to the Tamils in and out of Sri Lanka to establish the killings as a crime of genocide.

Tamil peoples struggle for justice, activists say, should not be compromised for any reason including the current and future Sinhala governments pronouncements to deliver justice, and shenanigans masquerading with complicit liberal West and India as conflict resolution specialists at the expense of Tamils right for an independent future.

Related Articles:
01.04.15   NPC Chief Minister hands over Genocide Resolution to UN Spec..
10.02.15   Wigneswaran calls for international investigation on genocid..
22.02.13   Blake, architect of Tamil tragedy, spectator to genocide
12.01.13   Nambiar, India's proxy in UN, complicit in white flag killin..
28.12.12   Takasu, Tamils' adversary in UN Security Council?
19.12.12   Holmes, UN's smokescreen to Mu'l'livaaykkaal killings?
18.11.12   UN culpable under "complicity clause," says Professor Boyle
18.11.12   Politics of Genocide
05.10.12   Creating historical fiction on Mu'l'livaaykkaal massacre
22.04.11   'Srebrenica moment'
05.02.11   Hague's WikiLeaks admission spells legal danger to Sri Lanka..
21.06.10   Intoxicating hubris
30.04.09   Miliband's statement obligates UK to take immediate UN actio..
28.04.09   Legal challenge to block IMF loan, charges UK's complicity i..
31.03.09   Case filed to block US vote on IMF loan to Sri Lanka
24.02.09   US Subcommittee to hear genocide charges against Sri Lanka


External Links:

WP:		Srebrenica at 20 years: How do we study genocide?
ICP:		Sri Lanka, IMF in Hilary e-mails

Chronology: