Firstpost

That is an interesting observation. So could we expect something positive happening in the Human Rights Council?

I think so. I think that is the next possible step. I think people will wait for that. My personal view of this when I left Sri Lanka, was that any process of any sort would take a very long time. So I think there has been a lot of anxiety from a lot of quarters about how quickly this process will come about, if there is going to be a process at all. I never thought that a process like this will be fast. I always thought that if there was going to be any movement of an internationally led examination in Sri Lanka, it would take between five and ten years. So I continue to hold to that position.

But I have been rather surprised at how swiftly things moved along in some sense. The Channel Four documentary took me by surprise. Channel Four obviously put considerable resources into conducting careful examination of available evidence. I hadn’t expected that when I started writing my book. When I left Sri Lanka, it was all bathed in confusion on as to what precisely had happened in the siege zone in 2009. Now a year and half down the track, after the publication of my book, when I read newspaper reports I see that it is generally accepted that there were very high civilian deaths.

You said there is political evolution happening and China itself is changing. Can you expand on that a bit, because Sri Lanka’s trade and political ties with China are very strong. India, although a long-term ally of Sri Lanka, is struggling to catch up with the Chinese influence.

I can only try and detect signs of movement. What I tried to sketch out in the book was the influences that impelled that movement in one way or another. The examples of Beijing Consensus playing out will not stop. But I think anyone who assumes that what happened in 2009 was because of China’s role in Sri Lanka is an open cheque is mistaken, because I don’t think China’s cheque is ever open or blank. It is always conditional. And it is always a matter of where China’s interests lie at any given time.

So, any examination of Sri Lanka is going to play out in terms of interests. And that is a very complex calculation to figure out. The movement changes in the UN human Rights Council all the time – it changes between the players all the time and it changes according to domestic developments. India is a democracy, its position is based on what happens domestically.

In terms of healing and reconciliation, at the core of the problem is this vicious ideology, the heady mixture of religion, politics, nationalism, irrational fear and xenophobia. In your opinion, how is the process of reconciliation and healing moving? Will there be a fair reconciliation?

I don’t see things changing in Sri Lanka in the short to medium term. I think that my prognosis for Tamils is a reasonably gloomy one. A great deal has happened both in terms of the security situation and economic colonisation of the North to make the movement between Tamils and Sinhalese relations more difficult. At the same time, from what I have read, there is a detectable acceptance amongst a broader segment of the thinking Sinhalese community that the government version of what went on is not the accurate version or the true version.

There are a lot of very decent people in that segment who I think are questioning the cost of that final phase of the war, or at least or second-guessing the cost of the final phase of the war. There is a very broad space in which healing needs to take place. The kind of monolithic narrative of this great conquest of this terrible terrorist organisation of 2009 with almost no blood spilled, as the greatest refugee rescue operation in history – thats been pretty much thrown out of the window by now. That at least creates a better basis for whatever form of healing or whatever form of reconciliation is going to take place in Sri Lanka. Not ideal, but a better basis. But, this is all guesswork in a sense because I have not been to Sri Lanka since 2009. It is only what i am reading from afar. It is essentially unlikely to change in the next 5-10 years.

I have heard reports of “heterogenisation” of the Tamil areas, perhaps to change the demography.

That is one of the things that I guessed in my book. That there would be a lot of militarisation of the north, which they have done, and that they would encourage, particularly military families, to move up into the north. Verifying these kinds of subtle changes in land holdings, the establishment of businesses, in influence of economic life and in control of public services is very difficult. You can see the complexity of it in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. My guess is that “Sinhalisation” is going on, and yes that would make it very difficult for Tamils to have any increased political leverage in the short term

Your informed view on how should the international community move on in terms of a credible enquiry into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka?

I think the LLRC gave the answer themselves when they said they were unable to arrive at any conclusions on some of the most important aspects of the final phase of the war. The aspects over which there are big question marks. So, they have never said they were not capable of arriving at any conclusion. Instead, they have argued that the evidence has just disappeared. I think a number of outside observers will say that there is evidence. It is just that the international inquiries being conducted in Sri Lanka have a long history of internal inquiries that don’t go anywhere very much particularly given the fact that there is no witness protection in Sri Lanka.

One thing is what happens there, and the second thing is the progress of the international legal framework that restrains governments from carrying out an unhindered war on their internal population. That is the health of international treaties around the wars of law and humanitarian law as well as the Rome statute of governing the International Criminal Court

The last few days of the war are still unclear. You also didn’t pursue that much in the book. Post the book, or even while writing the book, did you you have some clearer idea of what had happened in the last few days? I am sure some of the people, not only in the command positions, but also outside them knew what happened.

Well, one thing is what happened to the bulk of the civilians there, and I stand by the descriptions that I gave in the book of what might have happened because there was extremely fierce fighting going on over a very small area where there were tens of thousands of civilians. The second thing is what happened to people during the so called “white flag incidence” and there seems to be mounting evidence that there were executions. I myself have seen incontestable evidence of executions. So, I think it is pretty obvious that there was wrongdoing in terms of the capture of some senior elements of Tamil tigers, and the disposal of those people. But, there is a long way to go before we have sufficient evidence of the full picture of what happened to the civilians in those days.

It is clear that there were a lot of civilian deaths. It is also reasonably clear that there was some attempt for the LTTE leadership to surrender but all of them were executed. As you mentioned, it might never come out, unless somebody in the establishment comes out with some revelations. Is there any chance of some evidence or conclusion coming out on that?

I don’t know. As I said, the latest evidence I saw, which was a video showing one particular leader alive in custody and later dead, is sort of incontestable evidence that there was foul play in relation to some captives at least. So, if then one extends that to this story of dozens who were said to have been surrendered and then executed, I think there is very compelling circumstantial evidence to show that it happened. But evidence coming out is one thing and having that evidence presented, tested and assessed to obtain a proper judicial conclusion of that evidence is quite a separate matter.

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