PRESS TV: US, UK Guilty of Complicity in Sri Lanka Genocide

This is one of the biggest recent stories that U.S. media let lay by the wayside.... top western nations helped aid Sri Lanka's Genocide of minority Tamil people.

Sri Lankan Tamils. Photo courtesy: Press TV

(SALEM) - Joining the ranks of countries that have been convicted of such crimes, the U.S. and Great Britain politicians in office during the final years of Sri Lanka's decades-old civil war can add their countries names to Cambodia, Rwanda, Germany and Bosnia.

It is not "alternative" news, but you won't hear about the conviction of the United States for complicity of Genocide in America's mainstream news channels.

The following information, regarding Sri Lanka's specific direct role in the Genocide, is from Press release:The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka – Session II 7th – 10th December 2013 Bremen, Germany

The Tribunal found that genocide against the Eelam Tamil group has not yet achieved the total destruction of their identity. The genocidal coordinated plan of actions reached its climax on May 2009, but it is clear that the Sri Lanka Government project to erase the Eelam Tamil identity, corroborated by the above mentioned conduct, shows that genocide is a process and that process is ongoing. The genocidal strategy changed once the perpetrators gained control of the territory. The killings are being transformed into other forms of conduct, but the intention to destroy the group and its identity remains and continues, through causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the Eelam Tamil group.

The Tribunal considers that the proofs established, beyond any reasonable doubt that the following acts were committed by the Government of Sri Lanka

(a) Killing members of the group, which includes massacres, indiscriminate shelling, the strategy of herding civilians into so‐called “No Fire Zones” for the purpose of massive killings, targeted assassinations of outspoken Eelam Tamil civil leaders who were capable of articulating the Sri Lankan genocide project to the outside world.

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, including acts of torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, sexual violence including rape, interrogations combined with beatings, threats of death, and harm that damages health or causes disfigurement or injury.

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, including

* expulsions of the victims from their homes,

* seizures of private lands,

* declaring vast areas as military High Security Zone (HSZ) to facilitate the military acquisition of Tamil land.

I have written roughly 75 articles on the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka. There are only a couple of American writers who have paid any attention at all. Interestingly, a contingent of Tamil Diaspora members had convincingly explained to me that the crimes against Tamils did not technically qualify as a Genocide. The belief was that the ethnic cleansing of Tamils was technically only a series of War Crimes. I took the information under consideration but did not cease viewing the event as a potential Genocide.

Ron Ridenour noted in his article, Permanent Peoples Tribunal Verdict: Sri Lanka Commits Genocide against Tamils in Dissident Voice, "In January 2010, a PPT panel of other international law experts, meeting in Dublin, found Sri Lanka guilty of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. These are the same charges that a United Nations panel of experts later recommended be explored by an independent international investigation."

Indeed however, as this court has found, what happened in Sri Lanka was an act of Genocide. Bear in mind that Sri Lanka's government has scoffed at critical evidence and called all video and photographic documentary evidence of the Genocide "fake" for almost five years. Channel 4 in London has worked tirelessly to document the tragic story which involves all levels of military barbarity, such as rape and other violent sexual crimes, the execution of children, and the murder of LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) 'Tamil Tigers' who carried white flags.

The agonizing part is that Tamils were forced into refugee status, funneled into so-called "No Fire Zones" and then attacked with artillery and rockets which tore people into pieces and left children's mangled bodies hanging in the tree limbs.

The U.S. and U.K. are both directly tied to it because they supplied the weapons that the Rajapaksa government used to annihilate the Tamils.

The following statement was released after Session II of The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka, held 7th – 10th December 2013 Bremen, Germany:

Panel of Judges presents verdict finding Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide against the Eelam Tamil people; the UK and USA were found to be guilty of complicity, while the Judges withheld their decision on India’s complicity pending examination of further evidence.

The Second Session of the Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka concluded today in Bremen, Germany, with the presentation of its verdict. The panel of eleven judges unanimously found Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide against the Eelam Tamil people, and that this crime continues today.

Since its establishment, The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal has examined the cases of Tibet, Western Sahara, Argentina, Eritrea, Philippine, El Salvador, Afghanistan, East Timor, Zaïre, Guatemala, the Armenian Genocide, the recent Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka, and the intervention of the United States in Nicaragua, Brazilian Amazon, etc. In some cases, the investigating commissioners went to the scene of the reported crimes, this happened in Central America, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and following India's Bhopal disaster.

The Tamil Diaspora can breathe a small sigh of relief and view this legal finding as vindication.

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