Video documentary moves Aus FM to speak out on SL
ABC Radio Australia - UN urged to review Sri Lankan civil war
Last year, a United Nations panel of experts found there was credible evidence that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the war.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd says new information about atrocities against Sri Lankan civilians at the end of the civil war is appalling.
A new British television documentary has shown evidence of civilians being killed by government troops.
The 26-year war, which ended in 2009, was waged between Tamils seeking to create their own state and the Sri Lankan government and military.
Last year, a United Nations panel of experts found there was credible evidence that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the war.
Mr Rudd says the UN's Human Rights Council needs to reinvestigate the issue.
"I believe their deliberation on it was inadequate and I would call upon - as does the Australian Government through its mission in Geneva - the Human Rights Council to revisit this matter and to examine once again whether their original findings can any longer be regarded as well founded," he said.
Alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka under the microscope Speakers: Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, Ms Melisa Park MP , Mr Don Randall MP, Australian Tamil Congress- Varuni Bala Listen to Derryn's powerful editorial and interview with Gordon Weiss, former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka below
Presenter: Cameron Wilson
Speaker: Melissa Parke, Australian Labor Party Member of Parliament and former UN lawyer
Austrailan Tamil opinion piece makes it on to mainstream Australian newspaper
Sydney Morning Herald - Emerging truth about UN failure in Sri Lanka
Sam Pari
April 28, 2011
Two years ago, a war without witness was executed by the state against the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka.
In September 2008, after ordering all United Nations personnel, non-government organisations and media out of the Vanni region, the Sri Lankan government embarked on a vicious military campaign. While it informed the world it was fighting the Tamil Tiger rebels and was following a ''zero civilian casualty'' policy, photographs, video footage and phone conversations with our relatives in the war zone told us a different story.
We watched in horror as images of injured babies, maimed pregnant women and rows of dead civilians leaked out. Hospitals were bombed. Refugee camps were shelled. Surrendering civilians were executed. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross was blocked from saving the injured.
Advertisement: Story continues below
As members of the Tamil diaspora took to the streets, campaigning for the international community to act to stop the bloodshed, the world did nothing. More than 100,000 Tamils rallied around the world, yet our cries fell on the bureaucrats' deaf ears. Kevin Rudd, then the prime minister, preferred ''soft diplomacy'' with Sri Lanka, in contrast to his stand on Burma, Zimbabwe and Libya.
We slowly realised the UN was well aware of the high civilian casualties. Leaked satellite images revealed the UN knew of the Sri Lankan Air Force's targeted bombing and shelling of civilian locations.
Following his resignation, the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss revealed the civilian death toll could be up to 40,000, while "significant others have said that the figure may well be far higher". Why would the world allow civilians to be killed in such a gruesome manner?
During the war, China and Russia prevented the war in Sri Lanka being discussed at the UN Security Council. Both countries are allies of Sri Lanka, China having invested heavily in it.
UN officials are said to have told Vijay Nambiar - whom the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed as his chief of staff - that the final death toll could exceed 20,000, but Nambiar urged his staff not to "rock the boat" by criticising the Sri Lankan government.
Witness reports later revealed senior UN officials, including Nambiar, and senior Sri Lankan officials, including the Defence Secretary (and brother of the President), Gotabaya Rajapaksa, were involved in the surrendering of Tamil Tiger combatants, who were later executed. After waiting two years for an independent inquiry into this incident, Tamil rights groups have submitted their own complaint to the International Criminal Court.
When the war came to a bloody end on May 18, 2009, Sri Lankan government puppets were quick to continue the propaganda, claiming all was well in Sri Lanka, encouraging Australian tourists while discouraging Australia from accepting Tamil refugees.
The reality was very different. Hundreds of thousands were held in military-run internment camps, disappearances were rife and rape and torture occurred. There was a reason the number of Tamil refugees arriving by boats in Australia had suddenly sky-rocketed.
The unrelenting campaigning by the Tamil diaspora and human rights groups finally forced Ban to establish a panel of experts last year to assess the mounting allegations of war crimes. Sri Lanka was quick to condemn this decision and banned the panel from visiting the island.
The panel's final report, submitted to Ban almost a fortnight ago, has finally been published. The panel has found allegations of war crimes to be credible and has admitted the UN failed to act to protect civilians, despite knowing about the high civilian casualty rate. The panel has also recommended an international independent inquiry into war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Today tens of thousands of Tamils are missing. Up to 14,000 Tamils, including 500 children, have been held for the past two years in secret prisons; no one knows if they are alive. The Tamil homeland in the north is under military occupation and forced resettlement of Sinhalese families is taking place, changing the demography of the region.
After Rwanda the world said "never again", but in early 2009, what happened to the Tamils was far worse. Not only did the UN fail to act to stop the persecution of Tamil civilians - it was complicit.
Dr Sam Pari is a spokeswoman for the Australian Tamil Congress.
Serious concerns raised over alleged war crimes abuses by Sri Lankan envoy to Australia
The Age - Concern over Sri Lankan envoy AUSTRALIA is under pressure to reject Sri Lanka's choice of a senior military commander as its next top envoy in Canberra over a war crimes controversy dating from Sri Lanka's grisly civil war with Tamil separatists. Former Sri Lankan navy chief Thisara Samarasinghe has reportedly been nominated to fill the vacant position of high commissioner to Australia. But The Age understands the Foreign Affairs Department - which must decide if it will accept the nomination - sees the appointment as ''problematic'' for Australia amid calls for a United Nations investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka. More
ATC in media - Aus PM should back calls for independent international inquiry in SL
Tamils in Australia and human rights groups say they've been vindicated by a United Nations report into the Sri Lankan government's final assault on the Tamil Tigers in 2009.They've long been calling for an international war crimes investigation into the conflict and now the UN is also. The UN report found that indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan government killed most of the tens of thousands of civilians who died in the last months of the 25-year civil war. It also accused the Tamil Tigers of using civilians as human shields. An Australian Tamil community group has urged the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to join calls for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. SBS TV News - Sri Lankan war crimes probe UN report on the offensive between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil separatists calls for an investigation PART 1 - A United Nations report on Sri Lanka's recent civil war found credible evidence of war crimes by both government and Tamil Tiger forces. Australia's Tamil Congress has called for Julia Gillard to demand an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes. The group has accused the Prime Minister and the government of failing to speak out against human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, a decision some critics have attributed to the government's need for Sri Lankan government co-operation to stem the tide of Tamil asylum-seekers. "Australia has spoken out against governments that have committed human rights violations in Burma, Zimbabwe, Fiji and most recently Libya, so I can't see why it should hold its tongue when it comes to Sri Lanka," said Tamil spokeswoman Sam Pari There has been mixed reaction in Australia to a United Nations report that painted a brutal picture of the final months of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009. The report accuses Tamil Tiger rebels of using people as human shields, and government forces of killing tens of thousands of civilians through indiscriminate shelling. 2ser Radio - UN report suggests War Crimes in Sri Lanka
The Australian Tamil Congress is again asking Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call for an independent investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka.
The civil war ended in bloodshed in May 2009 after 26 years.
The latest call is off the back of a report just released by the United Nations from a Panel of Experts on behalf of the UN’s General Secretary.
They’ve found that tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives between January to May 2009 and allegations of war crimes committed by both the government and the Tamil Tigers to be credible.
And they’ve also admitted that the UN failed to protect Tamil civilians despite being aware of the high number of civilian casualties.
|
|
