19 August 2023

Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

 

 

WAR CRIMINALS & REFUGEES

 

‘At the close of World War II, dozens of former Nazi leaders came to the United States. After decades of inaction, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter created a special unit within the Department of Justice dedicated to hunting down Nazi war criminals. Decades after passing the first substantive human rights statutes that make it possible to prosecute war criminals for crimes like torture and genocide, the U.S. has successfully prosecuted only one person under the laws. Sriskandarajah talks to experts about why prosecutors often take an “Al Capone” strategy to going after war criminals, pursuing them on lesser charges like immigration violations rather than human rights abuses.’ - My Neighbor the Suspected War Criminal  by revealnews.org

 

My review was:

‘Excellent presentation. As a Tamil, I am still searching as to where we went wrong to lose 40,000 of our community. After my cousin’s funeral service on Wednesday, a fellow accountant who came from Colombo, said that at the University of Jaffna her offers to assist were rejected. She said that a student from Batticaloa had said that the Jaffna folks helped only those from Jaffna. In the end , as Lasantha said, we did not have anyone to speak for us.’

 

So why would governments use weaker avenues to punish those who are ‘seen’ to be criminals?

 

 

‘Although the gangster Al Capone beat sundry murder charges, he was eventually imprisoned for tax evasion.’ Rebecca Tinsley, in Last Lectures on prevention and intervention of Genocide

 

Interestingly, Sriskandarajah whose name indicates that he is of Tamil origin, connects to ‘lesser charges like immigration violations’

 

The business connection I see between ‘war criminals and the American government, is ‘refugee policy’. This is not belief based as the refugees are from areas outside the sovereign borders/circle of sovereign energy of the USA. Hence recruitment of refugees needs an equation that confirms costs are equal to benefits. In this instance the equation would be:

 

War criminals = War refugees.

 

In terms of employment, the American government becomes the medium through which the two sides neutralise each other and keep the officers in employment.

 

In Al Capone’s case he was outside the circle of Sovereignty of law. This was also the case with armed militants in Sri Lanka.  To the extent such groups live within their  own earnings and remain within their own circles, they are harmless. The problem arises when they take status outside their own cultural boundaries. The reason why Al Capone was punished for tax evasion was because it was his fundamental duty to taxes to the same whole from which he made the profit due to his cleverness and the law officers’ lack of cleverness. Likewise, those in government, accused of corruption.

 

Interestingly, this is discussed in relation to Genocide.

 

If the armed rebels were clever enough to fool the people by ‘showing’ better government, there comes a time when those folks would fool themselves, when there is no outsider to fool. They thus promoted suicides. The politicians who blame the governments, would tend to use the term Genocide, instead of Suicide. One who fought and died during battle is a hero. One who died due to plan was brainwashed by the planner and therefore was lacking in belief. A hero is ready to die in battle. So if the 40,000 Tamils who died  were war-heroes, there is no room to claim Genocide.