|
An Open
Letter to Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala
Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat
12 September 2005
Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretary General
Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP)
Level 10, West Tower
World Trade Centre
Bank of Ceylon
Mawatha
Colombo 01, Sri Lanka
Dear Dr. Dhanapala,
Re:
Your briefing on the Sri Lankan Peace process: the Role
of the International Community
I am writing this open
letter in order to bring to your and the International
Community�s (IC) attention my comments and concern on some
of the matters you have raised in your briefing to the Sri
Lanka Congressional Caucus of the US Congress.
I
decided to write this open letter because this is the first
time after taking up the role of the Secretary General of
the SCOPP that you have behaved like a typical Sri Lankan
politician, trying to make the US Congressmen believe what
the Sri Lankan government wants them to believe.
The pivotal point of your briefing has been centred
around the assassination of the former Foreign Minister of
Sri Lanka, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar. Your hurried attempt to
put the blame for Kadirgamar�s assassination on the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), well before the
investigators have even scratched the surface on this
matter, indicates that you are on a hasty mission to
discredit the LTTE in the eyes of the IC before it is proved
otherwise. Such an attempt by you only leaves room for
others to suspect that the Sri Lankan Government (SLG) has
been waiting for such an unfortunate incident to restart the
campaign that, after a brief lapse, the late Minister
Kadirgamar himself initiated to proscribe the LTTE in
western nations.
Let us first look at the evidence so
far made public and what you have revealed about Minister
Kadirgamar�s assassination. The first evidence put out by
the investigators and quoted by you is that days prior to
the assassination, 2 LTTE cadres were apprehended carrying
out surveillance on the late Minister�s private residence.
If that is true, then one could conclude that the Sri Lankan
security forces have foiled the plan by the LTTE to
assassinate the Minister at the initial stages. How, then,
can the investigators and you give this as one of the
evidences to prove that the LTTE only has done this
assassination?
You also should have given the
following sequence of conflicting evidences put out by the
investigators from day 1 of this investigation to help the
caucus members to make their own judgement. According to the
owner of the house from where the fatal shots were alleged
to have been fired according to the investigators, Mr.
Thalyasingam, the police party raided his house only 2 hours
after the incident happened and, during the time the house
was searched, he was not allowed to be present. Therefore,
anything that is produced as found in the house could have
been planted by the raiding party as usually happens in Sri
Lanka.
The day after the incident the investigators
came up with the great breakthrough that they had found two
cyanide capsules in the upstairs room of Thalyasingam�s
house and, therefore, said that the assassination must have
to be the handiwork of the LTTE. This is just too convenient
for belief. In addition, if the purpose of the LTTE members
carrying cyanide capsule in their body is to avoid being
captured alive, do not you think they would not have left
the cyanide capsules in the room when they decided to flee
from the house? The next day the investigators said that
they had found a cigarette butt and the DNA analysis on this
would help to prove that the culprits were LTTE cadres.
While it is a well-known fact that LTTE cadres never smoke
or drink alcohol, it is ridiculous for the investigators to
think that others will believe that the Sri Lankan
intelligence agency has every LTTE member�s DNA profile. Or,
perhaps, the LTTE cadres are meant to possess a common
genetic profile!
The investigators produced pictures
of a tripod stand they alleged to have found in
Thalyasingam�s house and suspected to have been used by the
assailants to sit on and shoot through a hole in the
bathroom window with a sniper gun. But later the same
investigators contradicted this by saying that, according to
ballistic experts who conducted the forensic examination,
the shots were not fired from a sniper gun but from a
machine gun. Not only this cast doubts on the investigators�
stories, but also, as this gun was never found, the
assassins must have left the area with the gun.
Dr.
Dhanapala, with the 100 or so elite security officers
providing security to the late Minister, how on earth this
could have happened without the knowledge of late Ministers�
security guards? One needs not be a rocket scientist to come
to the conclusion that whoever were behind this
assassination used contract killers with connections to the
security forces, which is very common in Colombo now.
Let us examine the political aspect of this assassination
and see who could profit by it. What is the LTTE to gain by
doing this at this time? The LTTE knows very well that the
SLG and people like you will use the incident to re-start
your campaign to proscribe the LTTE in Western countries as
you have already began. Therefore, they lose all that they
have gained during the last 3 � years by patiently observing
the cease-fire. On the other hand, any chauvinistic
Singhalese terrorist elements like the JVP (the Marxist
People's Liberation Front party), who is against the SLG
negotiating with the LTTE and against Ranil Wickramasinghe
being elected as the next President, could gain by using the
late Minister as a sacrificial lamb, putting the blame on
the LTTE and using it in the Presidential election campaign
against Ranil. They could blame Ranil for creating the
Cease-fire Agreement, and letting the LTTE have access to
Colombo, during the Presidential election campaign to win
the nationalistic Singhalese votes for their candidate.
Dr. Dhanapala, I would like to bring to your and the IC's
notice that there were 3 political assassinations before in
Colombo that all were blamed on the LTTE. The investigations
into these assassinations were conveniently closed without
bringing (not even searching for) the culprits to justice.
These were two former presidential candidates Gamini
Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmuthali from the UNP (United
National Party) and the veteran Tamil politician, popular
human rights lawyer and Tamil nationalist Kumar Ponnambalam.
All the three widows of these victims are still asking for
independent inquiries about their husbands� assassinations,
as they are not satisfied with the police investigators�
verdict. None of these assassinations were proved in the
courts as the LTTE�s work. In the case of Kumar
Ponnambalam�s assassination his son, who himself is a
parliamentarian and a lawyer, has accused that his father�s
assassination was carried out by none other than the
Presidential Security Division, which is a special elite
division of the security force.
Therefore, it would
not be a surprise if one day Mrs. Kadirgamar also asks for
an independent inquiry into her husband�s assassination. In
the late Minister Kadirgamar�s assassination, although
several countries have offered their expertise in the
investigations, it remains a Million $ question why the SLG
has not requested any assistance yet to have an independent
inquiry.
Dr. Dhanapala, you have spoken at length about the need
for a review of the CFA, because of the several violations
of it by the LTTE. You have emphasised the need to review
the functioning of the CFA. Why did you not talk about the
SLG�s failure to implement key aspects of the CFA even after
3 � years, too?
According to the CFA, the SLG should
have disarmed the Tamil paramilitary groups by D-day + 30 at
the latest. Paramilitaries are still operating from the
security force�s camps and this is the cause for all the
killings going on in the east of the country - all of which
is counted as CFA violations by the LTTE.
Buildings
occupied by the security forces in the so-called High
Security Zones (HSZs) should have been vacated by D-day +
160 at the latest. You should have talked about how many are
still being occupied and how many tens of thousand Tamils
are still displaced if you are genuinely working in the
secretariat for a just peace.
As of D-day + 90, all
restrictions on day and night fishing in the NorthEast
should have been removed, subject to a few exceptions. You
have failed to mention that the security forces still insist
on passes and harass these Tamil fisherman and prevent them
from fishing without restrictions. Therefore, more than
review the functioning of the CFA, it is important to review
the government�s failure to implement key aspects of the
CFA.
You have spoken very highly of the SLG�s development
work and humanitarian assistance to the tsunami victims. It
is a pity that you have forgotten that you were talking to a
caucus that is well aware that the IC, including the UN
Security Council, the US Secretary of State and the
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, knowing
what has happened to the PTOMS (Post-Tsunami Operational
Management Structure) - supposed to be a joint structure
between the SLG and LTTE to utilise the US$ 3 billion
foreign aid pledged � have asked for the speedy
implementation of the P-TOMS.
You also have promised that the SLG would vigorously
argue in the courts to remove the injunction when the case
is taken up on the 12th of September 2005. Now the Caucus to
whom you spoke know that the Supreme Court has postponed
this case again to November, thereby extending the
injunction denying affected Tamil people of any chance of
rehabilitation. Your boasting about what the SLG is doing to
help these people in the interim could be verified by the
caucus if the SLG would ever let the members of the caucus
visit these areas.
You have spoken about involving
the UN in monitoring the Human Rights violations committed
by the LTTE and how a separate human rights agreement may be
necessary to stem the tide of human rights violations by the
LTTE. You have talked about both parties to the CFA agreed
to invite Mr. Ian Martin to act as an international human
rights adviser. However, you have failed to mention that, as
a result of Ian Martin�s involvement, the LTTE has created a
North East Secretariat of Human Rights (NESOHR), headed by
Fr. Karunaratnam. NESOHR is monitoring the human rights
violations in the LTTE-controlled areas.
Your
suggestion to get the UN involved in human rights will be
welcome by all the Tamils, including the LTTE. However it is
with deep regret that I would like to mention here that,
when Tamil people were killed extrajudicially by the Sri
Lankan Security forces and buried in mass graves like the
one in Chemmani - which was dug up under Amnesty
International supervision - the SLG ignored the Tamil
people�s call for UN involvement. The late Minister
Kadirgamar even ridiculed the UN by saying that the UN
should restrict its activities to "Malaria control" in Sri
Lanka.
Last but not the least, you have complained that the "IC
has been indulgent of the LTTE, subordinating democracy and
human rights to keep the peace process alive, rewarding the
LTTE with various incentives�." This is obviously a reaction
to the amount of pressure the IC is putting on the SLG to
implement the PTOMS and move ahead with the peace process.
Dr. Dhanapala, you are well aware that the presidential
candidate of the party you are working for has agreed to
cancel the P-TOMS and not to consider devolution of power to
the Tamils as a solution to the national crisis, to get the
support of the JVP in the elections. You are aware that when
the IC come to know this there will be more pressure on the
President and the SLG. To counteract this only you have
taken this pre-emptive attempt to force the IC to put
pressure on the LTTE.
Dr. Dhanapala, do not try to
live in a fool�s paradise thinking that, as in the past, the
SLG can fool the IC. The IC is well aware of what is going
on in Sri Lanka. The IC has exerted pressure on both sides
according to their judgement and interests and not because
of one party�s request to exert pressure on the other.
Dr. Dhanapala, during your visit to Washington you have
spoken about the nature of the responsibilities of the new
Secretary General (SG) to be elected soon, for which you
have already expressed your interest. Do you not think that,
if you had not done this briefing in Capital Hill, you would
have had a better chance of being elected to that position?
Through this briefing, you have demonstrated to the IC that
you are no different from any other Sri Lankan politician in
handling conflicts. You have demonstrated that you are not
suitable to fit into any of the criteria the SG�s position
demands that you ennumerated.
Therefore, it is
better for you to become a politician in Sri Lanka rather
than aspiring for the post of SG of the UN. Let the Almighty
God guide you in making that choice to save the world from a
political disaster like what Sri Lanka has gone through.
Yours truly,
Dr. Victor Rajakulendran
Sydney,
Australia
CC:
Madam Condoleezza Rice, US
Secretary of State
Hon. Ferrero Waldner, European Union
Commissioner
Hon. Jan Peterson, Foreign Minister of
Norway
Hon. Yassusi Akashi, Special Japanese Peace Envoy
to Sri Lanka
Congressman Frank Pallone
Congressman
Jerry Weller
Congressman Danny Davis
Prof. John
Richardson
Dr. Teresita Schafer, CSIS, Director South
Asia Program
Hon. Chandrika Kumarathunga Bandaranayake,
President of Sri Lanka |
