Terrorists shouldn’t be allowed to exploit international covenents says ex-UN diplomat, who believes the government has no option but to face international scrutiny over alleged human rights violations in the aftermath of war against LTTE terror.
Veteran diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala says International Humanitarian Law (IHL) should not be applied to Sri Lanka’s war against LTTE terrorism and the time is opportune for the country to push for new guidelines.
The former head of the Peace Secretariat says a conventional army cannot be bound by international laws in fighting a terrorist organisation, which deploys suicide cadres, child soldiers and human shields.
Ambassador Dhanapala called for international consultation among member States of the UN and other stakeholders such as the NGOs to work out a mechanism.
Testifying before Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission on Wednesday (Aug. 25) at the Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations, Dhanapala said that many of the Rules of War and International Humanitarian Laws were based on the assumption that the warring parties were conventional armies of states but in Sri Lanka’s case the LTTE had totally disregarded those laws and principles.
Asserting that terrorism could not be justified, Ambassador Dhanapala said that in the post-LTTE era Sri Lanka should initiate a dialogue with the international community on the subject of counter-terrorism. He said that conventional armies could not be expected to react to the threat posed by the LTTE the way they faced a conventional military threat.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=5210
No comments:
Post a Comment