Unfair to condemn new Army Chief based on unsubstantiated allegations: Sarath Weerasekera

Rear Admiral (Retd) Sarath Weerasekera says that the United States cannot act in the manner of an individual or NGO when accusing another country of various abuses, but must base those accusations on reports accepted and approved by the international community.

He stated this in a letter addressed to the US Ambassador in Sri Lanka to register his protest over the US Embassy’s statement regarding the appointment of the new Army Commander of Sri Lanka.

The United States had voiced deep concern over the appointment of Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva as Army Commander.  “The allegations of gross human rights violations against him, documented by the United Nations and other organizations, are serious and credible,” the US Embassy in Colombo had said.  

Weerasekara says that since 2017, he has filed a series of documents at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to show that the allegations of war crimes and other crimes leveled against Sri Lanka in the Report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL Report) are baseless.  

He said that as a result of an action that he has pursued under the ‘Complaint Procedures” facility of the UNHRC, these documents are now part of the official record of the Council.  The findings of the OISL Report are the sole basis for UNHRC resolution 30/1 of October 2015, which was sponsored by the United States and co-sponsored by Sri Lanka, he said. 

“To the best of my knowledge, two reports—the OISL Report, and the Report of UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability on Sri Lanka (POE) of March 2011—are the only reports connected to the UN to present findings on violations of humanitarian law and human rights law purportedly committed by the Government of Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war.”

However, he claims that the POE was commissioned by the Secretary-General for his personal use and not a collective decision by a UN body while the OISL report, on the other hand, was directly authorized by a resolution of the Council.  

Therefore, the OISL Report is, or should be, the final authority as far as the international community is concerned as to whether or not the Government of Sri Lanka committed war crimes and other serious crimes in the period in question, he said.
 
The former Parliamentarian said that regrettably, the OISL Report was never subjected to an independent assessment either by the Government or the Council prior to the adoption of Resolution 30/1 to see whether its conclusions followed from the evidence and also that many citizens of Sri Lanka did not have time to either study the report properly or raise objections to it with the Government.  

“It is my fervent hope that, an independent assessment of the OISL Report would be carried out under a new Government,” he added.  

In his letter to US Ambassador, Weerasekara also provided his rebuttals to the various charges leveled by the OISL Report which he said would assist the envoy in deciding whether any further criticism or condemnation of the members of Sri Lanka’s armed forces by the United States or any other country, is justified at this moment. 

“The U.S. as a member of the community of nations cannot act in the manner of a private individual or an NGO when accusing another country of various abuses, but must base those accusations as much as possible on reports accepted and approved by the international community.” 

“I have endeavored to show that, the OISL report, the only relevant international report in regard to allegations of humanitarian law and human rights law violations by the Government of Sri Lanka, has failed to establish the charges to any reasonable degree.” 

“Therefore it is unfair to condemn the new Army Commander based on such unsubstantiated allegations,” he said.

Under the circumstances, in the interests of justice and fairness, he appealed to the ambassador to ensure that the Embassy refrains from making statements “prejudicial to the members of the armed forces of Sri Lanka and by extension to the country”.

A COMPLAINT REGARDING THE EMBASSY’S REMARKS ABOUT THE NEW ARMY COMMANDER by Ada Derana on Scribd