US violates Geneva Convention by permitting Sri Lanka to commit slow-motion genocide - Prof. Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 04:26 GMT]
Pointing to the statement issued by the U.S. Department of State that after an informal meeting at the United Nations that "[t]he United States is deeply concerned by the continued unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties," expert in International Law, Professor Francis A. Boyle said, the Obama administration is violating the 1948 convention for continuing to give "green light" to the Government of Sri Lanka to destroy the LTTE no matter what the cost to innocent Tamil civilians. Lawrence Christy, the head of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) Field Office on Monday put the death toll of civilians at more than 3,200 killed during the weekend.

Boyle explains: "[t]he implication of this official Statement by the United States Government is that there exists an acceptable level of civilian casualties to be inflicted by the Government of Sri Lanka upon completely innocent Tamils in Vanni.

"Yet under international humanitarian law civilians can never be made the object of a military attack--as just happened in the GOSL "massacre on the beach" of Tamils over the weekend. So 2000 murdered Tamil civilians in one operation is "unacceptably high" in the opinion of the Obama administration.

"The conclusion is obvious that the Obama administration continues to give the proverbial "green light" to the GOSL to destroy the LTTE no matter what the cost to innocent Tamil civilians so long as their death and destruction and genocide transpire in increments of somewhat fewer than 2000 Tamil civilians at a time.

"Slow- motion genocide indeed here being advocated by the United States government in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which it is a contracting party," warns Prof. Boyle.

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Geneva Conventions (IV): Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War