On the 31st March 2011 a panel of lawyers appointed by Ban Ki-Moon submitted a review of the Sri Lankan War IV without ever visiting the island. The report was composed in the manner of a prosecuting team rather than a judicial assessment. It was as slipshod in its methodology as flawed in several of its conclusions. Nevertheless, it is widely cited in a number of quarters, quarters hostile to the admittedly distasteful Rajapaksa Regime and happy to have any cane to beat up their activities.

A headmaster wielding a cane must have judiciousness on his side. Moral crusaders such as, say, Amnesty International must adhere to ethics in presentation and quotation. But, as it happens, the last four years have seen blatant dishonesty in quotation as well as interpretation.

Sri Lanka’s policy makers need to approach the issue of an investigation whether it is international or domestic by taking stock of the legalities and mandates legally in place. No inquiry can be limited to a period omitting the origins and terror unleashed over decades. No inquiry can omit to name and shame all parties that were connected to that terror directly & indirectly just because they are steering the investigation’s mandate and jurisprudence. None of the tribunals held thus far have provided solace or reconfirmed the truth as the sufferers know it and no amount of money can compensate for any loss except the realization that there is a root to the terror that prevails and it is not the counter measures for terrorism that needs to be pursued but the roots that create, cause and fan that terror. Unfortunately these parties are in the driver’s seat of all international investigations!

With just days for the UNHRC Panel to conclude accepting submissions it has emerged that the UNHRC has been cheating the system by providing UNHRC war crimes forms to only one party and that too clandestinely with links to LTTE-TNA. The shocking discovery immediately takes us back to sample formats appearing on internet to help Tamils compile cases against Sri Lanka during the Panel of Expert investigation. We now question how many of the ‘witnesses’ that the Panel of Experts claimed to quote from were bogus people. We question how many witness accounts were lies.

A two-day defence seminar, the fifth of an ongoing series, commenced at Galadari Hotel yesterday. This year’s sessions, themed on ‘National Security in the Context of Emerging Global Threats’, were segmented into a range of related issues, including ‘Terrorism and Challenges to National Security.’

The first three-day defence seminar was held on May 31, to June 2, 2011, two years after the conclusion of the war. The seminar dealt with Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience.

The seminar series was the brainchild of the then Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, whose contribution to Sri Lanka’s triumph over terrorism could never be matched under any circumstances. The Gajaba Regiment veteran ensured the largest ever combined security forces offensive, undertaken by the military, on track, until troops wiped the last organized LTTE resistance, on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, in May, 2009.