Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

16 December  2020

 

 

 

JURISDICTION OVER WAR RELATED DISAPPEARANCES

Christian philosophy says :

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye

shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh

findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

 

To my mind, the above is Truth at various points of our seeking. Juniors have to ask and it is the seniors’ duty to ‘give’ that which is common – as per the rules of the relationship.

Those who are Equals must seek and they will find.

Owners have only to knock and the doors shall open. That to my mind is the Universal power of ownership, on which the voting system is based.

I believe that I am an owner of Sri Lanka. Whatever expressions of belief I make will manifest the other side – to complete  the picture of truth and thus empower that place and time.

 Yesterday, I wrote under the topic ‘NO JURISDICTION OVER EASTER SUNDAY TRAGEDY’. I highlighted that as per Article 9 of the Sri Lankan Constitution, the Sri Lankan Government did not have the jurisdiction to subjectively judge non-Buddhists.  Belief is the basis of any true relationship.

Today I have the opportunity to oppose the substance in  Colombo Telegraph article ‘Continuing Crimes – Matale To Mullivaikkal’ which presents the following picture:

 

[President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, should explain in court why newly released government lists show hundreds of Sinhalese and Tamils went ‘missing’ in Matale in 1989 and Mullivaikal in 2009. Both men remain criminally liable under international and domestic law for enforced disappearances that occurred under their command and control. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was secretary of defence in 2009;  Shavendra was a key divisional commander, who is now designated by the US government for credible allegations of gross violations of human rights.

 

Recently released data from Sri Lanka’s Office of Missing Persons (OMP) shows that more than 330 Tamils are classified as having gone ‘missing’ from the final days of the war when the country was fully under the government’s control. The data also shows 154 Sinhalese from Matale Distict are regarded as having gone ‘missing’ in the last half of 1989 when Gotabaya was the District Military Coordinator there, and Shavendra his junior officer. The ITJP believes that the OMP’s numbers while extremely large are nevertheless grossly underestimated. 

“Families have a right to the truth about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones and the army officers in command in the Vanni at the war end and into whose control they surendered have a legal obligation to explain how they ‘misplaced’ hundreds of Tamils who surrendered, as an enforced disappearance is a continuing crime” said the ITJP’s Executive Director, Yasmin Sooka. 

“Furthermore is Gotabaya Rajapaksa going to explain to the Sri Lankan people why so many Sinhalese youths from Matale went ‘missing’ in 1989 when he was in charge there?,” she asked.  ]

 

The question is ‘What is ITJP’s Jurisdiction?  ITJP presents itself as follows :

 

[The ITJP was established in December 2013 in response to emerging evidence regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sri Lanka both during the final phase of the civil war in 2009 and its aftermath. The project is administered by the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa under the guidance of its director, transitional justice expert, Yasmin Sooka.]

 

It is certainly a ‘foreign’ body to Sri Lanka. It has no jurisdiction over Sri Lankans including Sri Lankan Government. It has every right to publish the truth it realised which is highly likely to look different to the presentation of the experience by the above families.

 

In terms of the 330 missing Tamils, a good proportion would have been under the influence of the LTTE which can be questioned through its heirs – the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE).  There are also individual Tamil Politicians who claim to carry forward the LTTE heritage. One who seeks the truth has to first demarcate the boundaries of Sovereignty of the body – in which the truth resides. In this instance it is Sri Lanka taken as a total.  A Sri Lankan has every right to question another Sri Lankan as per her/his truth. Not a South African nor those who have declared they are Tamil Nationalists within Sri Lanka.  

 

In terms of families of Missing persons, each one must decide at family level as per their family experience of that person. I have knowledge of those who went missing from Vaddukoddai area due to conflict with other rebel  groups, in addition to Army actions. Some of them live with the memories of their loved ones which might be better than knowledge of what happened to them which in most cases would have been Acts of God as the families had no control over the parties concerned – including those who disappeared. One needs to live with them as part of their environment to have the right to represent them. ITJP has not had that experience.

 

[When we lose self-confidence we let others use us. I will not be used. I realised during the legal actions I took here in Australia, on the basis of Racial Discrimination Act 1975, that ‘I would not be told’.  It was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of NSW who  specifically included this assessment in his honour’s reasons for judgment. I identified with it. My complaint was dismissed but the lessons I learnt are now available  through my book – Naan Australian - which found its way to the National Library of Australia, without any intervention on my part.  I thus discovered that it was the Truth in that book that carried it to the Library without any direct input by me.  That was a major discovery by me about the pathway of Truth – that it becomes alive for a believer in need.] – Chapter 2 – Root Cause

Tamils of Sri Lanka need to know that we can do this by ourselves. If we are asking – to be ‘given’ then we insult all Tamils who are knocking on the doors of Justice which SHALL open. It does to the true believer as if Sri Lanka is part of her/him and v.v.