WikiLeaks and Sri Lanka: Who are the real criminals?

[Joanne98]

(edited for copyright purposes proud patirot Moderator Democratic Underground)

Among the hundreds of secret diplomatic cables so far released by WikiLeaks, one sent from the US embassy in Sri Lanka has confirmed that the Obama administration was well aware of the war crimes committed by President Mahinda Rajapakse and his associates during the final stages of the war against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in early 2009. The document highlights the fact that who is deemed a criminal, or not, is determined entirely by the US and its allies according to the requirements of their economic and strategic interests.


The cable, transmitted by the US Ambassador to Colombo, Patricia A. Butenis in January this year, stated the prospect of any investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka had been “complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapakse and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka.”


The Obama administration and its allies are relentlessly hounding WikiLeaks and seeking to criminalise its founder Julian Assange, whose only “crime” has been to help expose to the world the dirty intrigues and crimes carried out by US imperialism. WikiLeaks has performed a decisive service in allowing ordinary people internationally to gain a glimpse of the secret diplomacy of Washington and its partners, including throughout the Indian sub-continent, from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Sri Lanka.


As a result of US pressure, Assange is now behind bars in Britain, fighting extradition to Sweden on trumped-up charges. By contrast, President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is directly responsible for war crimes, is free to roam the world, and was last week welcomed in London by the British government. Washington has never publicly named Rajapakse, his brothers or former Army Commander Fonseka as being responsible for the atrocities in Sri Lanka, despite a mountain of evidence in the public domain.


(snip)

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/pers-d09.shtml

[4dsc]

1. Astonishingly powerful, rare category of War Crime evidence, says Legal expert

"On the question of whether there should be an inquiry, this is astonishingly powerful evidence of a type I've only seen in a handful of times – there's some footage from Yugoslavia about mass killings – and this is up there. It's within a very, very rare category of evidence where killings are actually captured on tape and the idea that there can be a debate about whether there should be an investigation in the face of evidence like this is very surprising. So this evidence should lead to only one conclusion which plainly is there needs to be a full investigation and there needs to be prosecution of the people responsible," a leading war crimes lawyer Julian Knowles of Matrix Chambers told Channel-4 after watching the video obtained by Channel-4 on the extra-judicial execution of Tamils by Sri Lanka soldiers.

http://tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=33191

[dipsydoodle]

2. Saw that live on Channel 4 last night

Thanks for posting.

[Arctic Dave]

3. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.