Civilian targets
Already last Thursday Tamilnet reported that an Army Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) had triggered a claymore mine targeting a civilian bus on the A9 Road at Pottur while the bus was heading to Puliyankulam, killing at least three civilians, including the driver of the bus.
There is a pattern in such reports of civilian targets from the north which has in the past served as a justification by the LTTE to bomb civilian targets in the south and should be taken as intelligence by the government to tighten security in the south.
Nevertheless, during a community meeting attended by over one thousand British Tamils, UK Foreign Minister Lord Mark Malloch Brown, was to focus on the plight of civilians stating "UK Government believes that minorities in any country must have their right to practice the fullest and free to expression of self determination.
"We are extremely concerned about how this government behaves and treats the Tamil community, and we are using all the means available to us to press the government to do otherwise."
Malloch-Brown also said that the British Government's overriding position was that there was no military solution to this problem in Sri Lanka, and it should be resolved by finding a political solution. A message he said he had communicated to President Rajapakse and the Defence Secretary.
Convoys leave
Even as convoys of NGO workers were seen leaving the Wanni, an Australian NGO director on Australia's ABC radio warned of a humanitarian disaster in the absence of foreign aid workers. The extreme humanitarian situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), including thousands of children, who are already malnourished, would deteriorate dramatically as clean water is not available for all the IDPs and they have been deprived of medicine by the Sri Lankan government, said Executive Director, Paul O'Callaghan of the Australian Council for International Development. ACFID has 25 member organisations working in Sri Lanka over many decades.
The European Union also earlier called upon both the government and the LTTE to allow the safe passage for civilians to leave the northern conflict zone, and to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid.
And it is in this backdrop that President Rajapakse is due to leave for New York tomorrow to attend a special meeting of Commonwealth leaders preceding a UN meeting on September 25 on how to accelerate the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing global poverty.
It is also in this backdrop of a human rights crisis that such a visit to the United States to attend a rather mundane meeting which is a follow up to another Commonwealth leaders' summit held in London this June, gains importance.
Lethal Act
Just last week the United States Government imposed a new law to crack down on military commanders who recruit child soldiers in conflict internationally, and then seek refuge in the US. "Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008," was passed by the House of Representatives unanimously on September 8 and was adopted by the Senate and cleared for the White House on September 15, and had the support of both Republicans and Democrats.
Obama signs
The Act makes recruitment of children under 15 a federal offence and allows the US government to file charges against both US citizens and non-citizens who are in the United States. Senator Richard Durbin authored the bipartisan bill, which he introduced together with Senators Tom Coburn, Christopher J. Dodd, Russell Feingold, Sam Brownback, John F Kerry, Blanche L. Lincoln, Tom Coburn, Patrick Leahy, J. Robert Menendez and interestingly enough Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama who set his hand to the document on October 15, 2007 .
Deportation
The title of the Bill introduced by Durbin on October 3, 2007 stated "A bill to prohibit the recruitment or use of child soldiers, to designate persons who recruit or use child soldiers as inadmissible aliens, to allow the deportation of persons who recruit or use child soldiers, and for other purposes."
The legislation allows the United States Government to prosecute U.S. citizens and non-citizens living in the United States who knowingly recruit or use child soldiers for combat purposes. The law makes it a federal crime to knowingly recruit or use soldiers under the age of 15 and permits the United States to bring charges under the law against both US citizens and non-citizens who are in the United States. The law imposes penalties of up to 20 years, or up to life in prison if death results, and allows the United States to deport or deny entry to individuals who have knowingly recruited children as soldiers.
War crimes
The US State Department has a separate office of War Crimes Issues which advises the Secretary of State directly and formulates U.S. policy responses to atrocities committed in areas of conflict and elsewhere throughout the world.
The office works closely with other governments, international institutions, and non-government organisations, and with the courts themselves, to see that international and domestic war crimes tribunals succeed in their efforts to bring those responsible for such crimes to justice.
Sri Lanka watched
The Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Clint Williamson is a career federal prosecutor, and serves as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, a post to which he was confirmed by the U. S. Senate on June 29, 2006. On the list as being watched closely by this office is Sri Lanka together with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma and some other failed states.
Jo Becker, children's rights advocate for Human Rights Watch speaking on the legal implications of the Act was to earlier say, "This law tells military commanders worldwide that they cannot recruit children into their forces and then seek safe haven in the United States." That this Act affects the LTTE there is no doubt. However what is significant is that the Act focuses very heavily on US citizens or non citizens who attempt to use the US as a safe haven.
Implication for Gota and Sarath
Perhaps it is significant that this Act due to the government's proximity to the TMVP and given the Tamil lobby in the United States have far reaching implications for US citizen Gotabaya Rajapakse and US Permanent Resident Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka through their nexus to the Karuna group.
The TMVP is nothing but a para military group temporarily garbed in political attire. Its coat and tie outer crust cannot hide the fact that the outfit has neither given up arms nor its right to recruit. UN reports have implicated some elements in the military of helping the Karuna Group recruit children. Only last week it was reported that TMVP leader Karuna — a man who used a forged passport and a false name committing immigration fraud to travel to the UK with the alleged collusion of the government was to meet Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.
He reportedly told a daily newspaper he would meet Gotabaya Rajapakse and discuss military matters with him regularly. Certainly then that the US citizen and resident in Sri Lanka responsible for the military are as thick as thieves with Karuna is without doubt also.
And if Karuna is a bucket of dung then anyone coming into contact with Karuna and the TMVP will also be tainted as will be Ali Moulana, the man responsible for the break up of the Karuna faction during the UNP era and now posted to the Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington.
Far reaching
But the Act has far reaching consequences of a military nature as well. All military assistance including the radar system for Trincomalee by Raytheon is expected to be held up under the child soldier provision of the Appropriations Law.
What is more this piece of legislation will be impossible to enforce against the LTTE leadership. It is unlikely that Pirapaharan is secretly a citizen of the US or that he will attempt to smuggle himself in to Los Angeles any time soon.
Double edged sword
Top diplomatic sources in Washington told The Sunday Leader the Act was a double edged sword lethal for the likes of Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse and Army Commander Sarath Fonseka whose close proximity with a tainted para military group may bring them within the ambit of these provisions especially given the pressure mounted by Tamil lobby groups.
Diplomatic sources in the US told this newspaper UNICEF has a list of over 70 child soldiers already identified as being in the TMVP. However it is learnt that the Government of Sri Lanka is allegedly refusing to release this information. Analysts say that under command authority and responsibility the chain of military and civil command will be ultimately held legally and morally responsible.
Earlier, well known US Attorney Bruce Fein rightly or wrongly advocated the prosecution of US citizen Gotabaya Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka to be extradited to the US for trial. There has been a large Tamil Lobby in the United States that has backed this move thus making the recent Act even more lethal in effect not so much to the LTTE — despite the fact that they do recruit child soldiers, but to the government and the powers that be.
International wrath
And while the government faces fresh anger from the international community over its continuing lack of concern for civilians and its failure to properly address humanitarian issues, there have also been recent rumblings again in India over helping the government in its military push.
India is due to hold elections either late this year or by March next year. The centre already walking on thin ice following the nuke agreement with the US will not want to rock the boat in Tamil Nadu due to domestic considerations.
Vaiko, the General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), immediately following news of two Indian radar operators injured when the LTTE attacked the Wanni Military Head Quarters was to react with anger lashing out at the Indian government of betraying the Tamils by providing military personnel to Sri Lanka
A letter sent Thursday (11) to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said that the Indian Government was "caught red handed in its unpardonable betrayal" of involving Indian military personnel in Sri Lanka's "genocidal war" against the Tamils. He blamed the top level bureaucrats in India, particularly the national security adviser, for "clandestinely conspiring" with the Sri Lankan government.
Vaiko urged the Indian Prime Minister to immediately withdraw and call back the Indian technicians and military personnel from Sri Lanka. He charged that, according to the information he had, there was a large number of Indian technocrats and military personnel, up to 265 persons, fully engaged and assisting the Sri Lankan military.
The UPA government at the centre in India, immediately after its formation, more or less finalised a defence pact with Sri Lanka. However Vaiko's MDMK, which was in the UPA, opposed the move and influenced Manmohan Singh not to go ahead with the defence pact.
India has said it will not supply offensive material to the security forces. Tamil Nadu Congress President K.V. Thangabalu has denied the Centre was providing military assistance to Sri Lanka, The Statesman reported. "The charges against the UPA government in this regard are totally false. In fact, our defence minister has asked the Sri Lankan government to ensure the safety and security of Tamils," he told the media.
Meanwhile a special tribunal in India has asked the central government to justify its call for a renewal of the ban on the LTTE, the Economic Times of India also reported.
The tribunal, wanted fresh evidence last week to ascertain if the ban should be extended by another two years. The ban was first imposed in 1992 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967, a year after the LTTE was accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and since then the ban continued to be extended every two years. LTTE counsel had argued that the group did not seek to disrupt the sovereignty and integrity of India.
Battle to the end
Though the government seeks to accelerate the war and battle it to the end with President Rajapakse himself stating he will not declare any ceasefires and talk is useless, the use of chemical weapons by the LTTE will no doubt slow down the process and tip the balance momentarily at least.
An army probe has reportedly found the LTTE to have recently directed 'CS gas' on some troops in the Wanni. The gas is used mostly in anti-hijack or hostage operations. At cabinet last Wednesday it was a matter that was to preoccupy the President's mind at an otherwise routine meeting.
And while the government prepares for a chemical attack on the military front with the soldiers equipped to meet the challenge with masks, President Rajapakse was to face more challenges from the Supreme Court which has taken up public interest issues much to the chagrin of the administration.
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