Taylor Dibbert
Taylor Dibbert is an Adjunct Fellow at Pacific Forum. His writing has appeared in a variety of outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Forbes, HuffPost and The Wire. He is based in Washington, D.C.
The reason for SL’s withdrawal from sponsorship was clearly explained by it’s Minster of Foreign affairs Dinesh Goonawardana ,who executed the withdrawal. Primarily it is because the basis of this resolution, which was the suggestion in the UN SG’s panel of experts reports suggesting that ” there was credible evidence of possible HR violations during the last few weeks of the war, that saw the defeat of the Tamil Tiger Terroriston 19.5.2009′,based on allegations of the Tiger Diaspora of large numbers of casualties ranging fro 40-100,00 , and direct targeting of civilians, no fire zones and hospital
That this finding was flawed was suggested by the fact that the panel of exports , all had personal altercations with SL in the immediately preceding period, and could have been chosen specifically for this reason,,was appointed without UNSC or UNGA sanction in fact against the specific wishes of two security council members, had gone beyond their brief which was to report on accountability process in SL, report was produced after receiving representation from the Tiger Diaspora only and not From SL govt or visit to SL and the report reserved the right to conceal their sources of information for twenty years.
That casualty figures were much less was clear from the Colombo’s resident UN representative George Holmes dispatches whose assessment was around 5-6t thousand casualties later corroborated by a census carried out by the Tamil University teachers and diplomatic cables from the US and UK embassies that concurred many times that the SL forces had taken great care to minimise civilian casualties without which the war would have been over many weeks earlier with significantly less security forces casualties. They also confirmed that the tigers installed their heavy artillery in no fire zones and cost to hospital to deliberately risk them.
These cables form the UK embassy was tabled in the UK hose of lords in October 2018 by Lord Naseby who had obtained them with great difficulty using the freedom of information provisions in the UK statute.
Writers like the above who deliberately ignore these facts and continue to sing from the Tiger Diaspora Song Book are very likely influenced by the Tigers ill-gotten war chest being used so , given there is no cost of procuring armaments now.
LTTE had lost way long time back. UNHRC has never solved anything and have only prolonged conflicts and thereby aggravated casualties. The resolution in this conflict is way forward but UNHRC will only look backwards. By the way what about rendition programme and Guantanamo bay …UNHRC never ever uttered a word.
It may be possible to forge a more harmonious future for Sri Lanka if a curtain is drawn on the many things that went wrong in the final phases of the war against LTTE, as part of a composite process by which the Tamil – also the Muslim – minority is treated with fairness. However, if there is triumphalism, Sinhala dominance, an effort to create a majoritarian society, repeating the follies that led to the civil war, Sri Lanka will continue to face social strain and strife. The Easter bombings should what is possible. India’s capacity to show Sri Lanka the way forward is itself in doubt.
Correct. India or any other country on the planet is in no position to show Sri Lanka the way. Every country should sort out it’s own affairs without interference from external busybodies.