GoSL May Ask UNHRC To Set Up Data Base On War Time Dead

The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is discussing the possibility of asking the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to set up a database on those who were killed, or were injured or had gone missing in the last phase of Eelam War IV, according to Dr.Rohan Gunaratna, Honorary Professor at the Sir John Kotelawala Defense University and Senior Advisor to its Department of Defence and Strategic Studies.

- P. K. Balachandran

Dr.Gunaratna said that the UN’s unsubstantiated and oft-repeated allegation that 40,000 civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the last phase of the war continues to be made even twelve years after the war ended in May 2009. The baseless figure of 40,000 and other charges of war crimes are based on dubious, anonymous and unidentified sources, and blithely passed off as “credible evidence” to provide a basis for accusing the Sri Lankan armed forces of committing “war crimes” and demanding that its personnel be dragged before the International Criminal Court (ICC) he said.

Since there could not be “accountability” in the true sense of the term without credible evidence of culpability, data will first have to be collected scientifically and transparently, Dr.Gunaratna argued. The data should be on the dead, injured and missing. The best and the most suitable institution to undertake this task will be the UNHRC itself, Dr.Gunaratna said.

“Estimates of the number of dead range widely from 7,000 to 40,000. There is therefore a crying need for authentic figures. The UNHRC should take up the responsibility to create a database on this matter. It has the wherewithal to undertake the task as it has an annual budget of US$ 200 million and a staff of 1400,” Dr.Gunaratna pointed out.

CONJECTURE

On why he thinks that the death toll of 40,000 is pure conjecture, he pointed out that the UN Country Team in Sri Lanka had estimated the figure of the dead in the last phase of Eelam War IV as 7,721. And the number of injured was 18,479. “These figures pertain to the period between August 2008 and May 13, 2009.”