2ND LEAD

Fonseka demands summary justice for LTTE cadres

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 11:45 GMT]
"We must deploy enough troops to provide security for these [resettled] areas. We must in these areas, this virus, there are still 1000’s of terrorists in IDP camps. We must identify these terrorist and destroy them. We must take them into custody and then resettle them. We must provide security in strength to these areas. I will only be happy that we finished the war we ended when I see this," said General Sarath Fonseka during a talk in a Budhist Temple in Washington D.C., according a website's English translation, before the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked for a "voluntary meeting" with the General to discuss the war-crimes alleged to be committed by Sri Lanka's military officials.

However, an article in Time magazine written by a Sri Lanka journalist, chose to leave out the self-incriminating Fonseka's statement saying, "[Fonseka] warned that there might still be thousands of Tigers among them and that they needed to be "weeded out.""

US State Department war crimes report to the Senate, detailed day-by-day account in a format similar to a "model indictment," and released in early October noted on the Page 46, inside a chapter on killings of combatants seeking to surrender, "[a] media outlet reported on July 18 that at a celebratory event in Ambalangoda, Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka stated that the military had to overlook the traditional rules of war and even kill LTTE rebels who came to surrender carrying white flags during the war against the LTTE."

Officials of Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based pressure group attending to legal matters related to Sri Lanka's culpability in war-crimes, when contacted by TamilNet said, "Sarath Fonseka's statement and the explicit endorsement of the need to "destroy" the LTTE combatants held in camps captured as prisoners of war, are in violation to Geneva III article 13, a legal principle upheld by customary international law."

Geneva III Article 13 states, "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention."

Sri Lanka signed Geneva Conventions in Feb 1959.

The DHS officials are scheduled to interview Mr Fonseka on November 4th in the State of his personal residence, Oklahoma, according to media reports in Sri Lanka. The choice of the State is a legal pointer that references to diplomatic immunity are not applicable to this action by the US Government, legal sources in Washington said.

Chronology:


External Links:

LNW:		Sarath Fonseka Speech in Washington D.C
Time:		The U.S. Wants to Talk to Sri Lanka's Tiger Tamer