By Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran –
PM - TGTE - Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
Cruel face of Sri Lankan establishment exposed with release of brutal trophy photos of 12 year old child’s execution
Britain’s Channel 4 and the international media outlets have recently published reports and pictures of the execution style assassination of 12-year old Balachandran Pirabaharan. These recently published accounts add to the mounting evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed against the Tamil people in the Vanni region in the island of Sri Lanka during and after the war in 2009.
The death of Balachandran Pirabaharan by the Sri Lankan armed forces candidly exposes the brutal events occurring at the end of the war. This conduct, which constitutes war crimes and violations of international law, must be investigated by a credible, independent international Commission of Inquiry to determine the facts behind these horrendous acts. Civilized governments do not execute innocent children in cold blood and then display trophy photos of the murder. The recently surfaced picture of the young boy’s innocent face raises the question: how can a human pull the trigger on a 12 year old child? The new pictures demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Balachandran Pirabaharan was not killed in crossfire as the Government of Sri Lanka alleges.
The international community must not view the fate of Balachandran Pirabaharan as an isolated incident. In reality, thousands of Tamil children were murdered in 2009 and more thousands are today enduring a servile existence under the same military that killed their relatives and friends in the Tamil areas. Up to one hundred and fifty thousand Tamil civilians have met their death during that period at the hands of the forces of the state, comprising almost exclusively by the Sinhalese. Anti-Tamil racism manifested by the Sinhala Politico-Military Establishment allowed barbarism and unimaginable cruelty on a vast scale to be perpetrated on the Tamils in the worst atrocity so far of the 21rst century.
We urge the international community to take into account the unadulterated and demonstrated hatred towards Tamils by the Sinhala Politico-Military Establishment in fashioning the form of remedial justice to the Tamils.
The interests of justice, institutional integrity and international security demand that the Security Council must seize itself with this matter and refer the case to the International Criminal Court. Alternatively, the Human Rights Council in the upcoming session in March must pass a resolution empowering an international investigation of the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and bestow justice to Tamils. In addition, we urge all countries in tolerant of genocide to invoke universal jurisdiction and open its tribunals to preside over civil and criminal prosecutions against the leaders of the Sinhala political military establishment who led during that period of cruel barbarity. Both the 2010 UN Expert Panel Report and the 2012 UN Internal Review Report noted that there is no political and judicial environment for domestic recourse to justice in Sri Lanka. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Naga / February 22, 2013
This guy Ruthirakumaran should also be tried for aiding and abetting Prabaharan and his murderous outfit LTTE for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He was the accredited international emissary of LTTE during the last few months preceding the end of Eelam War. Elsewhere I have commented how LTTE appointed him as their emissary to talk with India.
Those who are asking the international community to haul MR and others before the ICC do not realize that it would not be of any help to the North East Tamils. Will the sentencing of MR for war crimes will solve the Tamil problem? No
What is important for the Sri Lankan Tamils today is not a trial by ICC but finding an internal settlement of their long standing grievances and a way forward to pick up the pieces and start leading a decent life as equal citizens of Sri Lanka. Tamils living in the North East have to live under the suspicious eyes of the SL military. They would like to see the gradual withdrawal of troops. They would like to return to their places of original habitation and restart their life after three decades of warfare which produced no tangible results. No war crimes trial or UNHRC resolution is going to bring about that.
Those Tamil Nadu leaders who are making these irresponsible statements are doing so not because of their love for SL Tamils. For them SL Tamil issue is an attractive vote catching issue for next year’s Lok Saha elections and everyone is cashing in on it. Had Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha were really interested about the SL Tamils they should have joined hands in April-May 2009 to force New Delhi to bring about a ceasefire. They didn’t. Now after four years they are shedding crocodile tears about the death of Prabaharan’s son.
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Ben Hurling / February 22, 2013
What a joke!
TGTE monkeys so moved. Shedding fake tears about VP Jr.
As a Sri Lankan and a Sinhalese my total sympathy is with the young boy. It is a indeed a shame that we did not manage to rescue VP’s child as well.
However, when Rudra attempts to shed fake tears, after helping to brutalise Sri Lanka’s kids over 30 years, I can’t help it, but laugh.
Shameless LTTE rump overseas are using Tamil kids even in their death.
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kali / February 23, 2013
Naga,
Please dont make such silly statements as it hurts the victims of genocide. What you are saying is it is no point punishing the murder but find a “Punar Valvu” for the victims which includes those who are murdered, raped maimed which in your view will somehow address the issue.
For me accountablity is a pre requisite for recocilation and those who are gilty of genocide must be punsished before real recociliation is possible.
Those who presided over mass kilings can never be part of the healing process and not only that what kind of message will you be sending to the world. You dont achieve anything by appeasement. If you want to kneel down to MR that is your choice but those of us who have suffered Sinhalese brutality since indepenadnce will never accept what MR has done.
A trial is important to try those who are guilty and if found to be guilty punish them. But what you suggesting amounts to saying that it is no point as it will serve no purpose which leads me to believe that
you are mental.
The people of Tamil Nadu are our saviours and if they dont stand up to our rights MR will colonise the whole of Sri Lanka within ten years which you might be prepared accept.
What you have uttered will be music to those who are hell bent on rubbishing everthing said by those who are on the side of reasonableness.
Finally the standard expected from elected leaders is of the highest standard and MR falls well below that.
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Chandra / February 22, 2013
Rudra,
What right do you have, given your association with the LTTE, and the continued thamasha you make from a safe distance, to talk about a cruel face of this evil war?
Just answer one question with a straight face, will you: Was it not the LTTE that put MARA in power after taking a bribe from him — from stolen tsunami funds?
Just as you think about the childish face of Balachandran and wonder how a human can pull a trigger on a 12 year old child, please, before you go to bed each night, also think about the kids from TELO who were beaten, shot and burnt at Parameswara junction along Palaly road, back in the eighties, by your “boys” who had funding and encouragement from your good self — some of those kids were still alive when the match was struck! Do you, or do you not, take responsibility for that?
To use terms like genocide, it is not enough to know how to spell them — you also ought to have the courage and honesty to take responsibility for your own actions — actions that marched the Tamil people to the massacre at Mullivaikkaal.
This particular kid’s sad fate is just one small part of that massacre.
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Sar / February 22, 2013
You brute!
Go to hell.. Consider the fact that the rotten Jayawardene government started the problem in the 1970’s by ordering the looting of Tamils’ businesses and their genocide.
May the people responsible burn and may they suffer the fruits of their misdeeds. May the sinhala soldiers, ministers, politicians burn eternally.
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Chandra / February 22, 2013
Yes, JR and his government were thugs who did evil things, and laid the foundation for much of the evil that followed. But nobody in their right mind called that genocide.
More to the point, please tell me how killing 16 year old TELO kids was going to help the Tamils? And did it? Tell me why your Trans Prime Minister who encouraged and funded the LTTE should not take some responsibility for those brutal murders. Had digital cameras been as cheap in the eighties as they are now, believe me, we will have equally horrible pictures of those helpless TELO kids, and their faces will look just like Balachandran’s.
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Henry Wong / February 23, 2013
hey you angry.. no funds from diaspora as in LTTE glory days i feel sorry mate no chance so you cry cry and cry…
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Dr.Rajasingham Narendran / February 22, 2013
The interests of justice, institutional integrity and international security , in your own words demand that you be made accountable for all the crimes committed by the LTTE and for your pussy footing when you were asked to join in arriving at a Tamil consensus to bring about an end to the war before it reached its culmination (Please read Naga’ comments on the TGTE and Rudrakumaran on a parallel thread).
Dr. Rajasingham Narendran
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Sarath / February 22, 2013
Arrest Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapakse when they are abroad for war crimes and produce them at The Hague. Also, freeze their Swiss Bank accounts. Place travel bans on all the Rajapakse cohorts, including so called cabinet ministers. That’s the only way to make these crooks and thugs accountable.
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KP Sinha / February 22, 2013
Not so fast man you have to wait till the people defeet them politically as they are the people leeders who saved not only Tamils from Rudrakumaran like crooks and VP like barbarians but the antire nation as well.
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Henry Wong / February 23, 2013
you must be LTTE dreamer…. how to call you..silly or born stupid? sorry no more night soil cleaners in sri lanka so you try a job in poor east european country..may be Poland?
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Banana / February 22, 2013
The blackest pot calling the kettle black.
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KP Sinha / February 22, 2013
This poor man who has run out of funds from the diaspora tries to deceive them again showing silly photos that do not show any evidences to prove SL military involvements within. These traitors who gained free education and everything from the mother land has moved out of the country and found an easy way of life spending charity money grabbed from poor Tamils who labour in the west. In fact these guys are the most accountable for ruining 2 poor Tamil youth generations in the country as they deceived them with false propaganda and smuggling them western arms.
They show their own fabricated allegations as facts as they have no facts to prove that the SL has done any inhuman act in view of the SL military forces who relived not only 300000 Tamils trapped by the VP in the North but also the entire country who suffered from their stupid and barbaric acts that ran for over 25 years.
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Waran Vaithilingam / February 22, 2013
Who ever defending Sri Lankan government, Let me ask you one question, Is any one Sinhalese condomn Balachandran murder?, Is that what you guys learn from Lord Buddha’s teachings?, Since 1948 there have been many Terrorist Sri Lankan sposored genocide (1946,1975, 1977 , 1983, 2009) let me ask YOU the great Lord Budha followers, Have you guys brought one single, YES, one single Sinhala thug to justice?
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kp / February 22, 2013
you know, the weirdest thing is, none of these people said a word when wijeweera’s kids and family were protected by the state after he went on a killing spree. but since we’re talking about a tamil kid here, i suppose everything can be justified.
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Dubdoc / February 23, 2013
Killing Balachandran is a heinous crime.So was the killing of Kabithigollawa little boy by LTTE bomb.War is ugly and there is no justification for those crimes.There is blood on hands(both parties).The interesting thing is Balachandran managed to have a normal life whereas all those Tamil child soldiers paid with their life because of his megalomaniac dad. How do you justify that?
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Henry Wong / February 23, 2013
Sinhalese are more intelligent than vada swallowing rasam drinking sub human Tamils bought for tea picking and clean toilets by white colonial mastters. photo is a fake.. cut and pate using photo faking software. you just evolved by monkeys so you have to go a long way to develop to a fully functional human brain. feel sorry for you remember Norway government took hundred of tamil children from tamil families to foster care for unhygienic food. habiits and child abuse. we are laughing at you from our other end
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crazyoldmansl / February 22, 2013
It is not only the sri lankan government. It is the LTTE as well that killed people in brutal fashion. Other governments including the american do the same…
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Waran Vaithilingam / February 23, 2013
“Since 1948 there have been many Terrorist Sri Lankan sposored genocide (1946,1975, 1977 , 1983, 2009) let me ask YOU the great Lord Budha followers, Have you guys brought one single, YES, one single Sinhala thug to justice?”
Answer MY question Duddoc and crazyoldmans , Answer it?
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Dubdoc / February 23, 2013
Dear Waran,
I do not want to play internet pong pong with you. However I must answer your question.Many atrocities were committed against many Sri Lankans regardless of their ethnic origin.you can go back to Portuguese ,Dutch and mainly British times and culprits got away.Since so called independence our governments paid only lip service to these crimes.
One has to look with a neutral mind to see that many Sinhala youths were massacred as well during 71 and 88-89 periods. Matale is just one mas grave.There are many undiscovered mass graves.No culprits except a few have been persecuted. So please do not paint the issue with ethnic brush.
Remember if it was not for the good will of majority of Sinhalese many more Tamils would have died during 1983 riots.I still remember how my father rescued an innocent Tamil man who was being dragged to be beaten to death. He took an enormous risk by talking to Sinhala thugs.
Getting emotional is natural but one must be rational. When I saw Balachandran’s photos I was speechless!
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Waran Vaithilingam / February 23, 2013
Dubdoc (Hmmm! What a name), You still have not answered by “pong pong” question.
Here it is one more time answer my Question:
“Since 1948 there have been many Terrorist Sri Lankan sposored genocide (1946,1975, 1977 , 1983, 2009) let me ask YOU the great Lord Budha followers, Have you guys brought one single, YES, one single Sinhala thug to justice?”
Answer MY question Duddoc and crazyoldmans , Answer it?
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Dubdoc / February 24, 2013
Warren, Sorry for the spelling mistake. I meant ‘ping pong’or table tennis.You seem to see issues through a racist angle .I see myself as a Sri Lankan. As such it is not worth wasting my time any more on this conversation.
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Naga / February 23, 2013
Ruthirakumaran says:
“Alternatively, the Human Rights Council in the upcoming session in March must pass a resolution empowering an international investigation of the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and bestow justice to Tamils.”
He being a lawyer should know what the law is in relation to investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For the benefit of CT readers I explain below how international investigations of war crimes are initiated and whether there is any chance of taking any Sri Lankan national to the International Criminal Court.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the only body where war crimes and crimes against humanity could be investigated and prosecuted. It came into force on 1 July 2002 and only crimes committed from that date could be investigated and prosecuted.
If someone is to be hauled before the ICC it must have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute that person. Article 13 of the Rome Statute lists three situations where it could exercise its jurisdiction. These are: 1) either the state where the crime appears to have been committed refers the situation to the Prosecutor of the ICC; or 2)the situation is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII or the UN Charter; or 3) the Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime.
As for the first situation, Sri Lanka is the state where the alleged crime appears to have to be committed. There is no chance for Sri Lanka, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, taking its own national to the ICC.
UN Security Council is unlikely to refer the situation to the Prosecutor under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Chapter VII is where the UN Security Council takes action in respect of threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. Eelam War IV,an internal conflict between a sovereign state and a non-state party, cannot be considered a threat to peace, breach of peace or act of aggression. It happened four years ago and the matter has ended. Even if some country at this late stage is to move a resolution at the Security Council it would fail given the support Sri Lanka enjoys from veto powered permanent members like Russia and China. Therefore there is no question of any resolution coming from the UN Security Council.
That leaves the last option, namely, Prosecutor of the ICC initiating an investigation. Article 15 of the ICC lays down specific rules in relation to this matter. ICC Prosecutor may initiate investigations on his own on the basis of information on crimes listed as within the jurisdiction of ICC. After analysing such information, he or she must come to a conclusion that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with the investigation. If the Prosecutor does come to such a conclusion, he or she is required to submit to the Pre-Trial Chamber of ICC a request for authorization of an investigation. On the basis of facts available to it, the Pre-Trial Chamber will have to make a determinationt that there is a reasonable basis for authorization of an investigation. It is only then the Prosecutor can commence an investigation into the alleged crime or crimes.
The main hurdle for the Prosecutor in setting the ball rolling in initiating an investigation is Article 12 which necessitates the satisfaction of a pre-condition for the Prosecutor to exercise jurisdiction to initiate an investigation under Article 13. The relevant pre-condition under Article 12 is : either 1) the state where the conduct in question occured must accept jurisdiction of ICC or 2) the state where the person accused of a crime is a national accepts the jurisdiction of ICC. Apart from this ad hoc acceptance of jurisdiction, a state accepts jurisdiction of the ICC by becoming a party to the Rome Statute.
The problem for those who wants investigations into the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity is that Sri Lanka is not a state party to the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court. Sri Lanka, where the war crimes are alleged to have been committed, is unlikely to accept ad hoc jurisdiction of the ICC that would enable the ICC Prosecutor to initiae investigations. The person who is mainly blamed by the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora is a dual citizen of the United States, but US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Washington will never allow any ad hoc acceptance of ICC jurisdiction for the Prosecutor to initiate investigations against its nationals for fear of opening a flood gate.
As I stated earlier, hauling those in the MR government or the SL military personnel before ICC will not help solve the problems of the Tamils. There is no denying that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by both sides. In my opinion,an internal mechanism like the Truth Commission or even an internal Internationl Crimes Court like the one set up by Bangladesh will be the answer.
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Ajay / February 23, 2013
Rudrakumaran and his Tiger cohorts used to gleefully keep score when countless children were killed in the south in suicide attacks ordered by Prabakaran. But now it’s time to display “impeccable character” to fool the gullible white man.
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Vichara / February 23, 2013
Please look at the video in the “Channel 4 Prabhakaran Son Dead Video Published on Mar 13, 2012” You will notice that the so called executioners are barefooted. It is only the LTTE cadres who used to fight bare footed or in sandals.
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Rajan / February 24, 2013
Vichara,
So you think that it was LTTE Cadres who killed this 12 year old!!!
Why dont you consider the possibility that the person wearing slippers is just a servant of the Army who is not entitled to wear boots?
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Ajay / February 25, 2013
You find servants only in the LTTE. As far as Prabakaran was concerned all Tamils were his servants.
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Henry Wong / February 23, 2013
there are a few things. i saw pictures how LTTE chopped heads of infants with axes, i visited often to Anuradhapura mortuary in 1986-88 to see innocent kids and adults butchers by LTTE with money supplied by those well off tamil cowards in Western countries. they are not satisfied. The photo showing Praba’s Kid is a good fake. but it too almost 4 years to got the idea and work on it,,, too long matey. anyone with good knowledge to use Photoshop or Picasso software can do it. show us the originals. Do not take Jon Snow’s word. Channel 4 TV joint got influenced by Shirani Sabaratnam, who works at the London-based Channel-4 TV Station. Sabaratnam, a former LTTE member, married to Stuart Cosgrove a director of Channel 4. so you must be wise enough to make the comnnection! back to our friend Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran PM for dead and gone LTTE joint in USA. Are you running out of funding? you can fool a few gullable wester attention seeking do no gooders but not all, shame on you !!
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