“Now, all the duties of rulers are contained in this one sentence, the safety of the people is the supreme law.”- Thomas Hobbes (‘Man and Citizen’)
Who should be “accountable” and primarily to whom, on what issues and why? Are the Sri Lankan state, its military and its leaders primarily accountable under international law? Are they primarily accountable to the UN or a resolution passed by one of its bodies, which is not even the Security Council? Arguably this might have been the case had the Sri Lankan military invaded another country and occupied it even in part. That is a violation of international law and the founding Charter of the UN, the primary purpose of which is to regulate the conduct of the global inter-state system. However, the Sri Lankan State fought a war within its own legitimate borders, in order to restore and protect them. Under international law, Sri Lanka does not occupy any territory or peoples.

Surveying the events of the last ten days, it seems to me that the need of the hour is to penetrate the fog of misinformation and fantasy with regard to the consequences of the Geneva Resolution on Sri Lanka, and to make a realistic appraisal of the situation. The point of departure is a clear understanding of the facts.

I would like to set out here eight very compelling reasons why the Government’s action in this regard is, without a shadow of doubt, gravely detrimental to the national interest of Sri Lanka, and why implementation of this Resolution should be resisted with all vigour.

I have refrained thus far from getting involved in the debate over the Geneva Resolution for a number of reasons. One is a commitment to finalize a few books, and in particular an account of what Sri Lanka did right, in winning the war, and then did wrong in losing the peace.

Secondly, I had long felt that the last government was destroying the country by its ostrich approach to the allegations made against us. As I told Al Jazeera on the day I expressed publicly my support for the Maithripala Sirisena candidacy, when hardly any one else who was part of the previous government took the plunge, I felt that a continuation of the Rajapaksa Presidency would lead to disaster. I was glad someone who had stood foursquare behind the President during the war years was the challenger, because while I hoped he would correct the faults that had arisen after the war, I assumed he would stand by the achievement of the first Rajapaksa Presidency in eradicating terrorism from Sri Lanka.

“Just as in Kosovo if enough civilians died in Sri Lanka the world would be forced to step in” – Pulidevan of LTTE to a pal in Europe (quoted in Harrison 2012: 63).

Guided by a series of studies that I have indulged in over the years 2010-15, let me summarize my findings in point form. The focus is on the period 2008-to-May 2009. However, four facets of the broad historical context must be stressed initially: (I) Prabhākaran had one goal only: Eelam and a separate state; (II) the LTTE used two ceasefire periods in 1995 and 2001-06 as recuperating periods for renewal of their war effort; (III) as Ben Bavinck and the UTHR reports have insisted Thamilīlamunder the Prabhākaran was a fascist state; and (IV) the Rajapaksa government which struggled for survival against the LTTE proved the validity of the Marxist dictum that there is an unity in any contradiction: it became distinctly authoritarian itself, albeit still populist in its self-convictions.