(December 14, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Canadian Tamil Congress spokesman David Poopalapillai told IANS that the Tamil diaspora around the world is writing to the UN, the International Court of Justice and world leaders to put the Sri Lankan president on trial immediately.
"We are drafting our petition and will send it soon to the world leaders, including Canada and India, to put Mahinda Rajapaksa and his men in the dock for war crimes,'' he said.
"What more proof do world leaders and the international community now need to try the Sri Lankan president and his men for crimes against humanity?'' he asked commenting on Sri Lanka's ex-Army Commander Sarath Fonseka's statement to The Sunday Leader that Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, a brother of President Rajapakse, ordered to kill the Tamil rebel leaders that came with white flags to surrender.
"Rajapaksa is a war criminal. He should be taken to The Hague to face trial for war crimes. No nation has violated the Geneva Convention as flagrantly as Sri Lanka. No nation ever killed the surrendering enemy.''
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse said yesterday (14) that he was ready to go to gallows on behalf of the 'war herpes'.
Fonseka named Sri Lanka Army Major General Shavendra Silva, a Brigadier who was leading operations under Fonseka, as the person of reception of the killing orders of the Defense Secretary.
Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse is a US citizen.
The majority Sinhala community respects the military and political leadership alike that crushed the violent armed struggle of Tamil nationalists. They vehemently oppose power sharing and want to maintain the Sinhala dominance in state apparatus. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), a rebel movement that had a de facto state in Northern and Eastern parts of the island was militarily defeated and almost all leaders were eliminated in the military operations that ended in May 2009 with the victory of the state Army.
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), an independent human rights organization in the Tamil polity in Sri Lanka stated in a recent report "for both parties, the key to military dominance lay not in brilliant strategies, but in an utter disregard for the lives of civilians and combatants alike, driven by their leaders’ single-minded pursuit of personal power."
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, ALWAYS.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Executive Summary
This latest report from the University Teacher for Human Rights (Jaffna) documents the final chapter of Sri Lanka’s war 26-year war. Drawing on individual eyewitness accounts, it chronicles the relentless violence experienced by survivors of the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam between September 2008 and May 2009, when the Sri Lankan government ultimately crushed the LTTE leadership and declared victory. What these survivors’ stories make clear is that for both parties, the key to military dominance lay not in brilliant strategies, but in an utter disregard for the lives of civilians and combatants alike, driven by their leaders’ single-minded pursuit of personal power.
Both sides treated truth as an enemy. Outsiders who could bear witness to these events were kept out or silenced; dissent on either side was crushed; the poor and powerless were treated as cannon fodder and in the case of Tamil civilians, ultimately locked up to prevent them from revealing what they had experienced. As the report notes, Sri Lanka’s “war against truth has grave implications for the future of democracy.”
But this report is more than a catalogue of war-time atrocities; it provides an analysis of the social and political underpinnings of the conflict that made atrocities possible, and that have historically shielded the people who committed such crimes from justice.
This report is a call to Sri Lankans of all communities to examine their history and take control of their present; to acknowledge the degeneration of the country and its democratic institutions, to demand justice for the crimes that have been committed in the name of fighting terrorism or securing Eelam, and to declare “never again.”
~~~
It was bloody war and international norms were breached by both sides, which by trapping people in the conflict zone wrought large scale death and destruction.
The State systematically marginalised and restricted the operation of international organisations, subverting their efforts to humanise the conduct of the war and secure reduced casualties. It convinced the majority of people in the country (and many outside), that utter annihilation was only way to deal with the forces like LTTE. At the same time the Government blatantly lied about the real number of civilians trapped in the zone, and the number killed by their disproportionate use of force in the form of intense shelling and bombing.
The LTTE’s callous attitude towards the civilians, its forced conscription and the violent and coercive methods it used to prevent people from fleeing for their lives, further helped the government to successfully neutralise any criticism against their modes of operation.
Perpetrators must be brought to account.
It is also imperative for international human rights activists and organisations to go beyond mere condemnation of the way in which this war was conducted and recognise what it has shown us about the limitations of the present broader architecture of international Human Rights and Humanitarian mechanisms and institutions, which failed utterly to avert this disaster.
Social and political forces with narrow ethnic or religious ideological trappings continue to undermine democracy in most of the developing nations. These are not new phenomena; the world had seen many major religious crusades to wars between nations which in the modern era led to the creation of international institutions, conventions and treaties. The unequal economic and military power structures operating at a global level continue to undermine these institutions while allowing local actors to blame the external powers for their own failures.
In Sri Lanka, the political elite continues to fail the people, and whatever potential the country had to move towards a healthier path of development and prosperity has been continuously undermined by narrow electoral politics. The country is at a crossroads. Improvement will not be achieved by relying on the political elite in the belief that they will have at last to moderate self interest and address the many underlying social and economic issues which caused the war.
The callousness of Sri Lanka’s powerful towards their own people has been clearly shown in the persistent undermining of state institutions, the deterioration of which has been met with major armed resistance again and again. Today politicians continue to use this war, this monumental tragedy, for political capital in their narrow power game in the South, while the removed and insensitive Tamil Diaspora tries to further polarise people in their home country with their meaningless rhetoric and slogans of Transnational government.
There is only one way forward. An initiative to forge a broad multi-ethnic and multi-religious movement that challenges these narrow ethnic and religious agendas and Sri Lanka’s climate of impunity; that demands accountability for the grave and systematic violation of human rights that has for so long prevented Sri Lanka from progressing. This should be the priority for all those who desire to fight for social justice and human rights.
Marie Colvin, recognized as Best Foreign Correspondent in many of the British Press Awards, was wounded when she was fired upon in Vavuniya by the Sri Lankan Army in April 2001.
IT was a desperate last phone call but it did not sound like a man who would be dead within hours. Balasingham Nadesan, political leader of the Tamil Tigers, had nowhere to turn, it seemed.
“We are putting down our arms,” he told me late last Sunday night by satellite phone from the tiny slip of jungle and beach on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka where the Tigers had been making their last stand.
I could hear machinegun fire in the background as he continued coolly: “We are looking for a guarantee of security from the Obama administration and the British government. Is there a guarantee of security?”
He was well aware that surrendering to the victorious Sri Lankan army would be the most dangerous moment in the 26-year civil war between the Tigers and Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority.
I had known Nadesan and Seevaratnam Puleedevan, the head of the Tigers’ peace secretariat, since being smuggled into rebel territory eight years ago.
At that time the Tigers controlled a third of the island; now these two men were trying to save the lives of the remaining 300 fighters and their families, many of them injured. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were trapped with them, hiding in hand-dug trenches, enduring near constant bombardment.
For several days I had been the intermediary between the Tiger leadership and the United Nations as the army pressed in on the last enclave at the end of a successful military campaign to defeat the rebellion.
Nadesan had asked me to relay three points to the UN: they would lay down their arms, they wanted a guarantee of safety from the Americans or British, and they wanted an assurance that the Sri Lankan government would agree to a political process that would guarantee the rights of the Tamil minority.
Through highly placed British and American officials I had established contact with the UN special envoy in Colombo, Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general. I had passed on the Tigers’ conditions for surrender, which he had said he would relay to the Sri Lankan government.
The conflict seemed set for a peaceful outcome. Puleedevan, a jolly, bespectacled figure, found time to text me a smiling photo of himself in a bunker.
By last Sunday night, however, as the army pressed in, there were no more political demands from the Tigers and no more photos. Nadesan refused to use the word “surrender” when he called me, but that is what he intended to do. He wanted Nambiar to be present to guarantee the Tigers’ safety.
Once more, the UN 24-hour control centre in New York patched me through to Nambiar in Colombo, where it was 5.30am on Monday. I woke him up.
I told him the Tigers had laid down their arms. He said he had been assured by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, that Nadesan and Puleedevan would be safe in surrendering. All they had to do was “hoist a white flag high”, he said.
I asked Nambiar if he should not go north to witness the surrender. He said no, that would not be necessary: the president’s assurances were enough.
It was still late Sunday night in London. I tried to get through to Nadesan’s satellite phone but failed, so I called a Tigers contact in South Africa to relay Nambiar’s message: wave a white flag high.
I was woken at 5am by a phone call from another Tigers contact in southeast Asia. He had been unable to get through to Nadesan. “I think it’s all over,” he said. “I think they’re all dead.”
That evening, the Sri Lankan army displayed their bodies. What had gone wrong with the surrender? I would soon find out.
I discovered that on Sunday night Nadesan had also called Rohan Chandra Nehru, a Tamil MP in the Sri Lankan parliament, who immediately contacted Rajapaksa.
The MP recounted the events of the next hours: “The president himself told me he would give full security to Nadesan and his family. Nadesan said he had 300 people with him, some injured.
“I said to the president, ‘I will go and take their surrender.’
“Rajapaksa said, ‘No, our army is very generous and very disciplined. There is no need for you to go to a warzone. You don’t need to put your life at risk’.”
Chandra Nehru said Basil, the president’s brother, called him. “He said, ‘They will be safe. They have to hoist a white flag.’ And he gave me the route they should follow.”
The MP got through to Nadesan at about 6.20am local time on Monday. The sound of gunfire was louder than ever.
“We are ready,” Nadesan told him. “I’m going to walk out and hoist the white flag.”
“I told him: ‘Hoist it high, brother – they need to see it. I will see you in the evening’,” said Chandra Nehru.
A Tamil who was in a group that managed to escape the killing zone described what happened. This source, who later spoke to an aid worker, said Nadesan and Puleedevan walked towards Sri Lankan army lines with a white flag in a group of about a dozen men and women. He said the army started firing machineguns at them.
Nadesan’s wife, a Sinhalese, yelled in Sinhala at the soldiers: “He is trying to surrender and you are shooting him.” She was also shot down.
The source said all in the group were killed. He is now in hiding, fearful for his life. Chandra Nehru has fled the country after being threatened, the MP says, by the president and his brother.
Over the past few days, Nambiar’s role as UN envoy has come into question. His brother, Satish, has been a paid consultant to the Sri Lankan army since 2002. Satish once wrote that General Sarath Fonseka, commander of the Sri Lankan armed forces, “displayed the qualities of a great military leader”.
Although the Tamil Tigers are internationally banned because of past acts of terrorism, including suicide bombings, Nadesan and Puleedevan favoured a political solution to the conflict. Had they lived, they would have been credible political leaders for the Tamil minority.
It was Velupillai Prabhakaran, their commander, who built the movement into a military machine. He was paranoid and ruthless, and he remained committed to military means even as the Tamil Tigers lost ground in the face of the Sri Lankan army onslaught.
Last week, although rumours circulated that Prabhakaran had survived, the organisation was in disarray. Surviving Tamil leaders spoke of turning to a political process, while more militant representatives threatened revenge attacks.
I am in a difficult position as a journalist reporting this story. I first went to Sri Lanka in 2001 to investigate reports that the government was blocking food and medical supplies to half a million Tamils. Journalists had been largely banned from the northern Tamil area for six years.
I found people living in squalor and doctors pleading for medicine. Leaders such as Nadesan and Puleedevan told me they had reduced their demands from independence to autonomy within Sri Lanka.
As I was being smuggled out of the area at night, we were ambushed by the Sri Lankan army. I was unhurt until I shouted, “Journalist, journalist.” Then they fired an RPG at me, severely wounding me.
After intermittent contact with the Tamils since then, I had a series of phone calls from the leadership in recent months as the Tigers fell back in the face of the army’s new offensive. In one call, Nadesan said the Tigers would abide by the result of any referendum and begged for a ceasefire. His plea was rejected by Colombo.
There was dancing on the capital’s streets last week after the defeat of the Tigers. Victory has come, however, at a shocking cost to Tamil civilians. The United Nations says that at least 7,000 died in the last onslaught, although the toll is believed to be much higher. Some 280,000 who had been trapped by the fighting have been herded into “welfare” camps surrounded by razor wire where conditions are said to be deteriorating fast.
Yesterday international aid agencies claimed up to three families were crowding into each tent and being forced to queue for hours for water and food. One aid worker said there was only one doctor in a camp holding 44,000 people.
Refugees reached by The Sunday Times through aid organisations vented their fury. “Look at how we live,” said one woman in a camp with her two children. “We have no space, no protection from the sun. We are prisoners with armed guards and barbed wire. What do they think I will do – a mother and her two children? Why are we here?”
Reports were circulating that members of paramilitary gangs were seizing young people from the camps, accusing them of being Tigers and holding them in secret facilities, although this could not be confirmed.
The president has talked of reaching out to the Tamil community, unifying the country and resettling 80% of the refugees by the end of the year.
“I do not think that is realistic,” said Anna Neistat, of Human Rights Watch. “There is no procedure to release anyone.”
Whatever the declared intentions of the government, there seems to be little prospect of uniting Sri Lanka in the foreseeable future unless the Tamil grievances that enabled the Tigers to flourish are dealt with.
Additional reporting: Heather Mark, Colombo
[London Times reporter Marie Colvin visitng Iraq mass graves, lost her eye in a grenade attack by Sri Lanka Army in 2001.-cbc.ca/Courtesy Hot Docs. [courtesy: Times, UK]
(December 14, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The pragmatic Marxist nationalist People's Liberation Front (JVP) that backs the presidential candidature of Sri Lanka's ex-Army chief Sarath Fonseka, has planned an enviable 2000 meetings ranging from mass rallies to in-house discussions, JVP parliamentary group leader Anura Kumara Disanayaka says.
The first national joint rally where all parties supporting general Sarath Fonseka will participate will be held on December 18 in Kandy, he said. Subsequent rallies will be held on 19th in Ambalangoda and on 21st in Anuradhapura. Sarath Fonseka is expected to participate in about 60 rallies and 30 of these will be JVP events.
Fonseka already entertains strong backing from urban areas. The series of JVP meetings will be vital to change the mindset of the rural masses from whom President Mahinda Rajapakse enjoys comfortable support.
JVP is highly effective in opinion building among rural masses. In 2005, they ushered Mahinda Rajapakse to presidency from nowhere although the latter later undervalued the JVP's potentials.
(December 13, Colombo - Lanka Polity) "This is a comment given by General Fonseka and he will come out with many more. We will not comment on what he says."
This was the response of the Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara to an AFP reporter when the latter asked the Brigadier to comment on the ex-Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka's statement that Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse ordered the commander of the army's 58th division, not to accommodate any LTTE (Tiger) leaders attempting to surrender and that they must all be killed.
However, the story has begun to spread in international media as analysts speculate backlash from the UN and other human rights bodies that urge for a probe on war crime charges in the last phase of the war with the Tamil Tigers.
Fonseka's statement is the strongest evidence that has come out so far against Sri Lanka state and officials over war crime charges.
During the war's finale, the United States and other Western nations voiced alarm at Sri Lanka's treatment of non-combatants, along with its internment afterward of some 130,000 Tamil civilians. The U.S. State Department in October released a congressionally mandated report cataloguing accounts of shelling of civilians, killings, child-army recruitment and other abuses during Sri Lanka’s offensive against the separatists this year.
(December 13, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's opposition presidential candidate ex-Army Commander retired General Sarath Fonseka made a highly controversial statement today to The Sunday Leader newspaper unsettling the whole establishment including himself.
Immediately after the Sri Lankan rulers invigorated two selected investigations pertaining to intimidating and killing of media persons, for which the accusation finger was pointed at Fonseka by opposition and media, the latter said to the same newspaper the editor Lasantha Wickramathunga was brutally murdered on a busy highway in January that Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa instructed a key ground commander in the north that all Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) leaders must be killed and not allowed to surrender.
This is the first ever concrete evidence of war crimes suspected took place in the final phase of the war against the LTTE and UN Human Rights Council, the UN Security Council and other international bodies cannot overlook the former Army Commander's statement.
In an explosive interview with The Sunday Leader General Fonseka the then Army Commander said he had no information communicated to him in the final days of the war that three key LTTE leaders had opted to surrender to Sri Lanka’s armed forces as the battle drew to a bloody finish.
Fonseka charged that communications were instead confined between the LTTE leaders, Norway, various foreign parties, Basil Rajapaksa, Member of Parliament and the powerful senior adviser to the President and such information was never conveyed to him as he supervised the final stages of the war. “Later, I learnt that Basil had conveyed this information to the Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa – who in turn spoke with Brigadier Shavendra Silva, Commander of the Army’s 58th Division, giving orders not to accommodate any LTTE leaders attempting surrender and that “they must all be killed.”
General Fonseka explained how on the night of May 17th this year desperate efforts of three senior LTTE leaders trapped in the war zone to save their lives failed as they were instead shot dead as they prepared to surrender to government forces.
The government later claimed that troops found bodies of three key LTTE leaders identified as Nadesan, Pulidevan and Ramesh during the mop- up operations in the last LTTE stronghold on the morning of May 18.
General Fonseka said the incident took place as the remaining LTTE cadres were boxed into a 100m x 100m area, North of Vellamullivaikkal.
Balasingham Nadeshan a former police constable of Sri Lanka police was the political head of the LTTE. Seevaratnam Pulidevan was the head of “LTTE peace secretariat” while Ramesh a senior special commander of the military wing.
Hours before they surrendered, in a flurry of emails, text messages and telephone calls between NGOs, a foreign government and Sri Lankan officials in Colombo, the two LTTE political leaders had frantically inquired as to how they could give themselves up.
They were told: “Get a piece of white cloth, put up your hands and walk towards the other side in a non-threatening manner.”
But the attempt to surrender by the three LTTE leader and their families failed. Sometime between midnight on 17 May and the early hours of the next morning, the three men and their family members were shot dead.
General Fonseka said it was Basil Rajapaksa together with the Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa who through foreign intermediaries conveyed a message back to the LTTE leaders who wished to surrender to walk out carrying a piece of white cloth. “It was their idea,” he said.
GENERAL SILVA AND ARMY COMMANDER SAY ‘ NO COMMENT’
When we contacted Shavendra Silva, now promoted to Major General he sounded very shocked when told of the allegation but insisted he could not respond to this charge until he had clearance from the military spokesman.
Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told us he had to get clearance from the Army Commander Jagath Jayasuriya.
Later in the day the military spokesman said that he had contacted both the Army Commander and General Shavindra Silva and both had said that they would not comment on the matter.
The chief intermediary for the three LTTE men was the Norwegian government’s then Environment and Development Minister Erik Solheim. (Solheim is now the overseas development minister) On Sunday 17 May, Mr Solheim apparently received calls from LTTE figures who said they wanted to surrender.
The ICRC in Colombo later confirmed that it had received word from the Norwegians that the two leaders were looking to give themselves up. “The ICRC was approached on this matter by the representatives of the LTTE as well as the Norwegian authorities,” spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne was quoted saying at the time of the incident. “The information was referred to the Sri Lankan authorities. We have no idea what happened [then]. We lost contact with everyone in the last conflict.”
The government’s point man in the negotiations appears to have been former foreign secretary Palitha Kohona who is now Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United nations He was quoted by news agencies saying that in the days leading up to Sunday evening, he had received a number of messages indicating from Mr. Nadesan and Mr Pulidevan – whom he has met at various peace talks – wanting a way out.
In one interview with ‘SiberNews’ Mr. Kohona said that his response had been that “there was only one way to surrender that is recognised by military practice”. He said they should obtain a white flag and give themselves up. “I kept saying this for three days,” he added.
But General Fonseka maintains that Nadesan, Ramesh and Pulidevan had been shot dead by government troops as they advanced towards them carrying a white flag, as they had been instructed to do.
Fonseka said he later learnt about what exactly had taken place as a result of journalists who had been entrenched at the time with General Shavendra Silva’s brigade command. These reporter’s according to Fonseka were privy to the telephone call received by the Army’s 58th Brigade Commander from the Defence Secretary –“telling him to not accommodate any LTTE surrenders but to simply go ahead and kill them.” – “These journalists later told me what exactly took place,” Fonseka said.
“Norway never got in touch” – Basil
Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa refuted this damning charge. He told The Sunday Leader, “The Norwegians never got in touch with me over this particular incident. I have been in touch with the Norwegians over various issues pertaining to the conflict but never once on this particular issue.”
When asked if he had been unaware then that three LTTE leaders were seeking surrender during the last stages of the war – Rajapaksa replied, “No. I won’t say that. But Norway never got in touch with me.”
Asked nevertheless if he did convey something to this effect to his brother and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mr. Rajapaksa said “If I had not been informed by Norway in the first instance then obviously the second did not happen.”
Our attempts to contact Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa failed. When we telephoned the Defence Ministry Friday we were told Mr. Rajapaksa had not been in office the entire day. His staff refused to release any other telephone number.
A reader of The Sunday Leader commented as follows:
The War Crimes Tribunal and the international community should take note of the disclosures of Gen Sarath Fonseka, under whose watch the decades-long war was won. Perhaps, in the run-up to the Presidential election, we will learn more of the final phase of the war, and the innocent civilian blood that was shed to achieve that victory, hitherto censored from public knowledge. If this is not war crimes and crimes against humanity, what is?
Following is an excerpt from an encyclopedia on surrender:
Surrender is when soldiers, nations or other combatants stop fighting and eventually become prisoners of war, either as individuals or when ordered to by their officers. A White flag is a common symbol of surrender, as is the gesture of raising one's hands empty and open above one's head.
When the parties agree to terms the surrender may be conditional, i.e. if the surrendering party promises to submit only after the victor makes certain promises. Otherwise it is a surrender at discretion (unconditional surrender); the victor makes no promises of treatment other than those provided by the laws and customs of war — most of which are laid out in the Hague Conventions (1907) and the Geneva Conventions . Normally a belligerent will only agree to surrender unconditionally if completely incapable of continuing hostilities.
The Third Geneva Convention states that prisoners of war should not be mistreated or abused. United States Army policy states that surrendered persons should be treated according to the "5 S's" until turned over to higher authority.
Silence: so that they cannot plan an escape attempt.
Search: for weapons or items of intelligence value.
Secure: tie up and/or guard carefully at all times, particularly at first.
Safeguard: do not allow the dangers of the battlefield to hurt them
Separate: soldiers from officers, men from women, combatant
Combatant
A combatant is someone who takes a direct part in the hostilities of an armed conflict. If a combatant follows the law of war, then they are considered a privileged combatant, and upon capture they qualify as a prisoner of war under the Third Geneva Convention...
Combatants cease to be subject to attack when they have individually laid down their arms to surrender, when they are no longer capable of resistance, or when the unit in which they are serving or embarked has surrendered or been captured. However, the law of armed conflict does not precisely define when surrender takes effect or how it may be accomplished in practical terms. Surrender involves an offer by the surrendering party (a unit or individual combatant) and an ability to accept on the part of the opponent. The latter may not refuse an offer of surrender when communicated, but that communication must be made at a time when it can be received and properly acted upon - an attempt to surrender in the midst of a hard-fought battle is neither easily communicated nor received. The issue is one of reasonableness.
Combatants who have surrendered or otherwise fallen into enemy hands are entitled to prisoner-of-war status and, as such, must be treated humanely and protected against violence, intimidation, insult, and public curiosity. When prisoners of war are given medical treatment, no distinction among them will be based on any grounds other than medical ones. Prisoners of war may be interrogated upon capture but are required to disclose only their name, rank, date of birth, and military serial number. Torture, threats, or other coercive acts are prohibited.
Persons entitled to prisoner-of-war status upon capture include members of the regular armed forces, the militia and volunteer units fighting with the regular armed forces, and civilians accompanying the armed forces. Militia, volunteers, guerrillas, and other partisans not fighting in association with the regular armed forces qualify for prisoner-of-war status upon capture, provided they are commanded by a person responsible for their conduct, are uniformed or bear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and conduct their operations in accordance with the law of armed conflict.
Should a question arise regarding a captive's entitlement to prisoner-of-war status, that individual should be accorded prisoner-of-war treatment until a competent tribunal convened by the captor determines the status to which that individual is properly entitled. Individuals captured as spies or as illegal combatants have the right to assert their claim of entitlement to prisoner-of-war status before a judicial tribunal and to have the question adjudicated. Such persons have a right to be fairly tried for violations of the law of armed conflict and may not be summarily executed.
According to Wikipedia, clloquial definitions of war crime include violations of established protections of the laws of war, but also include failures to adhere to norms of procedure and rules of battle, such as attacking those displaying a flag of truce, or using that same flag as a ruse of war to mount an attack. Attacking enemy troops while they are being deployed by way of a parachute is not a war crime. However, Protocol I, Article 42 of the Geneva Conventions explicitly forbids attacking parachutists who eject from damaged airplanes, and surrendering parachutists once landed.War crimes include such acts as mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians. War crimes are sometimes part of instances of mass murder and genocide though these crimes are more broadly covered under international humanitarian law described as crimes against humanity.
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
Peace treaty
A peace treaty is an agreement between two hostile parties, usually countries or governments, that formally ends an armed conflict. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to cease hostilities, or a surrender, in which an army agrees to give up arms.-Elements of treaties:There are...
by Shamindra Ferdinando (The Island, December 12, 2009)
The government yesterday said that a fresh attempt was being made to blame the Sri Lankan government for turning down an LTTE offer to surrender a few days before the army wiped out the last organised LTTE resistance on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon.
A top government spokesman told The Island that this was an Opposition strategy to denigrate the Sri Lanka government before the international community. Responding to our queries, he said that the Opposition had fuelled speculation that the Norwegians had contacted Basil Rajapaksa, MP after the LTTE sought their help to facilitate an unconditional surrender. He said that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had been accused of dismissing the LTTE appeal when it was brought to his notice by his brother Basil before directing the 58 Division to finish off the Tigers.
This was likely to be a key opposition standpoint at the presidential election.
Shortly after the army had wiped out the remaining LTTE cadres, including Velupillai Prabhakaran in the third week of May during a series of battles, the Tamil Diaspora, too, accused the government of spurning an LTTE bid to surrender. Referring to a statement attributed to former Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka, at his inaugural press briefing at the JAIC Hilton, an aide to President Rajapaksa said that the Opposition presidential candidate had declared that the offensive could not have been halted even if the international community demanded it. The press quoted the war veteran as saying that they (the military) had reached a point of no return.
The government emphasised that the LTTE had ample time to surrender had it really wanted to before being cornered on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon. The government said that the top LTTE leadership could have easily negotiated its surrender through the ICRC as the international relief agency had a presence on the ground to facilitate the evacuation of the sick, wounded and the elderly.
"In fact, we expected them to make overtures through the ICRC but they never did," the aide to the President said. He regretted that the Opposition had sought to make political capital out of purely a security issue at a time even the harshest critics of the government had changed their approach. He was referring to the US position recently articulated by Ambassador Robert Blake that the defeat of the LTTE had created a tremendous opportunity for the people of Sri Lanka. "For the first time in over a generation, Sri Lankans live in a country that is not divided by war or marred by violence," he told the media last Wednesday after meeting President Rajapaksa.
The government had also conveniently forgotten that almost 300,000 held by the LTTE, too, escaped during the final stage of the battle and reached the army-held lines. Among them were Prabhakaran’s parents and over 11,000 LTTE cadres, including child combatants, the government said. Had they bothered to check what the army and the Justice and Law Reforms Ministry had accomplished over the past few months, they would know that the prisoners of war were well taken care of. In fact, Justice and Law Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda went to the extent of moving some of the child soldiers to the Hindu College, Ratmalana, the government said.
Marie Colvin, recognized as Best Foreign Correspondent in many of the British Press Awards, was wounded when she was fired upon in Vavuniya by the Sri Lankan Army in 
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