Sarath Fonseka Post-War

The stocky Tamil man twisted himself nervously inside his thin black anorak, ill suited to one of the iciest days of winter, as he explained how he turned informer, betraying the very man he was supposed to protect, in order to save his own life. We endured the bone-chilling cold sitting outdoors on a deserted verandah sipping coffee in a café in Victoria Station, interrupted occasionally by the peremptory platform announcements. Indoors it was warm but there were too many people who might be listening; after all, we were talking about summary execution.

Kumaran, who doesn’t want to give his real name out of fear, had once been a Tamil Tiger rebel fighting for a separate homeland in north-eastern Sri Lanka. Now a refugee in a land where he doesn’t speak the language, he still exudes the confidence that might come from having once carried a gun. This was a man trusted enough to be the bodyguard of the political leaders of the Tamil Tigers.

In the chaos of the last weeks of the civil war in 2009, Kumaran was badly injured when a cluster bomb landed close to him. Medicine and even bandages were running out and the handful of doctors left were amputating limbs with butcher’s knives and no anesthetic. Without medical treatment Kumaran had no chance of recovery. He decided to make a run for it across the frontline – first throwing away the cyanide capsule that’s standard issue for Tamil Tigers rebels to swallow in case of capture.

Surrender

Telling the story of his escape, Kumaran is tellingly short on details.  Tamil Tiger rebels were supposed to fight to the death – surrender was considered a cowardly act of self-preservation.

As soon as he crossed the frontline, two former rebels turned traitor immediately spotted Kumaran and pointed him out to the army.

“They had no choice if they wanted to live,” Kumaran said with sympathy. “They only informed on people who were very obviously fighters and would be noticed anyway,” he said, explaining why he too turned informer once in the hands of the enemy. The screams of his comrades being tortured in the detention centre were enough to turn him.

I was sitting in a deserted portion of Victoria Station across a table from Kumaran and a second Tamil man who used to teach maths in another life. They are the first eyewitnesses to come forward to speak about what’s known as “the white flag incident”. This euphemistically refers to the murder of a group of Tamil Tiger political wing leaders after they had negotiated a surrender on the last day of the war.

Frantic

Even the Sri Lankan President knew that the group planned to surrender  – they’d sent frantic messages through everyone they could think of – the UN, the Red Cross, Norwegian diplomats, Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin, intermediaries in Europe and a Tamil member of parliament. All the indications from top officials in the Sri Lankan government were reassuring – that the surrender would indeed be accepted in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

One of those surrendering was Pulidevan, whom I’d known more than a decade ago when he was a peace negotiator for the Tamil Tigers and I was the BBC correspondent based in Sri Lanka. Puli – as his friends called him – loped about in that slightly ungainly apologetic way tall men sometimes do in places where being short is the norm. He loved nothing more than to sit down on his office sofa and chew over the current political situation at rapid speed like a man starved of discussion. When I left Sri Lanka for another posting he resolutely stayed in touch.

By the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009 Puli started coming online almost daily to chat. It was a desperate cry for help. Sometimes we discussed politics, battlefield strategy and the uncertain future, but mostly he wanted to escape the daily reality of severed body parts and screaming mothers. It’s a strange thing but if you talk to someone continuously through months of war you start rooting for their survival even though rationally the chances are slim. We even discussed the fact that if he was caught trying to escape or surrender he’d likely be killed.

For the last four years I’ve been trying to piece together what really happened to Puli and the others. This meeting in Victoria Station was a huge breakthrough. It was surreal to be discussing layer upon layer of treachery on the battlefields of northern Sri Lanka amid the mundane hustle and bustle of commuters in the middle of London.

Soon we’re drawing an untidy map on my notebook to mark the frontline and the bridge across the lagoon over which tens of thousands of emaciated civilians escaped at the end  – leaving behind them billowing black smoke and pounding shells. Kumaran shows me where he was positioned by the Sri Lankan military – behind an earthen embankment near a tree. The army wanted him to confirm the identity of the Tiger political leaders crossing over. Who better than their former bodyguard? It never crossed Kumaran’s mind that he was endangering them because this was clearly a well-planned and organised surrender. Senior Sri Lankan military officials were everywhere with bodyguards and walkie-talkies.

White flag

The first batch to cross the frontline carrying a white flag included the wife of the Tiger political leader. She was not a Tamil but Sinhalese – the same ethnic group as the soldiers. As they approached she was urgently screaming something in their language that Kumaran couldn’t understand – probably urging the soldiers to hold their fire. He watched the Tiger leaders cross over. They were received by the soldiers who escorted them across the bridge, moving towards a cluster of vehicles in the distance. More groups of Tigers walked past him at intervals and surrendered.

Once it was over Kumaran waited around for an hour or so before being driven away by the military. After a while Kumaran, sitting in the back of a pick-up truck, noticed a crowd of soldiers gathered alongside some open ground next to the road. They were taking pictures on their mobile phones of corpses laid out there. As they drove past Kumaran was horrified to see Puli and his boss, Nadesan, the political leader, lying there dead, their shirts stripped off their torsos.

Kumaran quickly understood that as a witness to this crime he was even more in danger than before. “I thought if they can do this to them, what can they do to me,” he recalled, his eyes filling with tears, “one of the hardest things in the hours and days ahead was to keep this knowledge inside me and not speak of it to anyone”.

Kumaran had no idea that there were other Tamil witnesses to the surrender who might also make it abroad one day. Sitting next to him is Sharmilan, who once taught maths to rows of neatly dressed school children in blue and white uniforms in the area of northern Sri Lanka under the control of the Tigers. He won’t tell me his real name or which school he worked in lest it identify him and endanger his relatives in Sri Lanka.

Sipping coffees to keep warm and keeping a careful eye on who was coming and going in the cafe, the two men are cordial but not especially chummy with each other. There’s awkward laughter all round when I ask Sharmilan if he was forcibly recruited by the Tigers. He cited the rule that every family had to give one fighter to the rebels – and goes on to explain how after only a month’s training he was press ganged into digging bunkers and disposing of dead bodies in the last year of the war.

The night before the top political leaders of the Tamil Tiger surrendered, Sharmilan had decided to make a run for it with a large group of civilians. It was still dark so the army held them in a destroyed building on the frontline waiting for dawn.

Escort

Sharmilan was surprised when he looked through the window and saw the Tiger political leaders walk by with white flags; he knew surrender was a taboo for an organization that glorified martyrdom. Sharmilan observed the soldiers receive the first group of about 15 people and frisk them for weapons before escorting them over a bridge until they disappeared from sight. In the distance he spotted not just military vehicles but also big white jeeps of the kind used by international aid organisations. Sharmilan estimates there were about five hundred soldiers in the area. He’s adamant all the Tiger political leaders surrendered successfully.

This is of course not what the Sri Lankan military says. It claimed that the Tigers were shot in the back by their own people. If this were the case it’s surprising the military never produced the bodies as evidence of the rebels’ perfidy. Instead they quickly disposed of all the evidence.

After a while a photograph appeared on the Internet – probably shot by one of the soldiers Kumaran saw. It showed the half naked corpses of  Puli and his boss, Nadesan, with burn marks and lacerations on the front belly. Puli’s chest had what appeared to be a bullet entry wound while Nadesan looked as if it had been shot in the side of the face.

It appears the Sri Lankan government did not want to take senior leaders of the Tamil Tigers prisoner, especially those who were well connected and spoke English.  Their detention and any legal proceedings would be subject to international scrutiny for a long time to come. This was a risk as they were witness to multiple war crimes – the deliberate bombing of hospitals, food queues and civilian safe zones by government forces. And there was the chance that alive these men could lead Sri Lankan Tamils in another chapter of their struggle. The victors wanted a definitive end to the conflict. But in their haste they violated one of the most basic norms of war. Without respect for the white flag there’s no way to protect civilians and those who decide to stop fighting.

Even with a group as disciplined and inured to casualties as the Tamil Tigers there came a point when many of its members could see no use in fighting on. The two men shivering opposite me in Victoria Station ignored the organisation’s mantra of martyrdom and chose instead to save themselves. Now by coming forward to tell their stories they’ve put themselves at risk once again.

Frances Harrison is a former BBC foreign correspondent based in Sri Lanka.This article was first published by Asian Correspondent.

A classified US diplomatic cable under the name of Patricia A. Butenis, the US ambassador to Colombo shows, the Presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka stood by the controversial “white Flag” story published by the Sunday Leader.

The cable written on December 14, 2009 at 13.50pm by the ambassador Butenis and classified as “Confidential” recount the details of a lunch meeting she had with UNP deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya and Sarath Fonseka on December 14, 2009.

The editor Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz was given an interview by Fonseka and it was published under the name title of “Gota Ordered Them to Be Shot” – Genaral Sarath Fonseka” on December 13, 2009. Read the story here

After the story broke, the government began to portray Fonseka’s allegation as an act of treachery.  The story of the massacre was irrelevant. What mattered was that by speaking out Fonseka was betraying Gotabaya, the army and the country.

Frederica Jansz – subjected to smear campaigns

A government backed campaign to publicise particularly in Sinhala, a distorted version of the story, and present the General as a traitor.  The objective behind the campaign was to convince the General that his accusations were eroding his popularity and to force him to back down in the interest of winning more votes. This campaign began immediately after the newspaper went on sale with radio shows denouncing the story as an act of treachery by early Sunday morning.

It was only as the government’s denunciation campaign intensified with TV, radio, and internet sites declaring the former war hero a traitor that Fonseka’s advisors  Mangala Samaraweera, Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Vijitha Herath in particular advised him to retract part of the story.

Read Frederica Jansz’s strory here

Read the full US embassy cable below;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 001139

C O R R E C T E D COPY - ADDED PASSING INSTRUCTIONS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INSB

RELEASABLE TO: UK, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, SWITZERLAND

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PHUM PTER EAID MOPS CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: ELECTIONS UPDATE NO. 1

REF: COLOMBO 539

COLOMBO 00001139  001.6 OF 002

Classified By: AMBASSADOR PATRICIA A. BUTENIS.  REASONS: 1.4 (B, D)

¶1. (SBU)  Introduction:  As an air of anticipation builds in
Sri Lanka in advance of  the upcoming Sri Lankan elections,
including a presidential election scheduled for January 26
and a parliamentary election anticipated for later in the
spring, post will provide update reports as events dictate,
with emphasis on the quick relay of breaking news.  This is
the first such update.  Post will provide more in-depth
analysis in separate cables.

FONSEKA, UNP DETAIL ELECTION
ISSUES FOR AMBASSADOR
----------------------------

¶2. (C) At a December 14 lunch for Ambassador and DCM, to
which General Fonseka also dropped in, host UNP deputy head
Karu Jayasuriya said the UNP-JVP "alliance" was not a
coalition, though all were for a return to democracy.
Jayasuriya had a long list of complaints about media
harassment by the government and Rajapaksa corruption and
"family rule."  As for the Tamils, the UNP leader said he
believed they all wanted "regime change" because of the way
they had been treated by the Rajapaksas.  After Fonseka
arrived, the former general discussed his interview in the
Sunday Leader newspaper on December 13, in which he had
accused Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering at
the end of the war the shooting of any LTTE leaders who might
try to surrender under flags of truce. (NOTE: These killings
were detailed in the State Department Report to Congress on
Incidents at the End of the War, and in RefTel, though
details of the orders issued were not known to the report
authors.  END NOTE.)  Fonseka claimed he did not know until
two days later about the flurry of phone calls between
Gotabhaya, the Norwegian ambassador, and the LTTE leadership
regarding surrender and said he had been told details by
journalists.  Nevertheless, he said he took full
responsibility for the actions of the men in uniform.

¶3. (C) As for Fonseka's chances at the upcoming January 26
election, he and Jayasuriya believed they could win ) if the
election were free and fair.  They calculated that if voter
turnout were over 80 percent, they would win.  This was why,
they claimed, the Rajapaksas were focused on keeping turnout
low.  Even in the southern districts, home to both President
Rajapaksa and Fonseka, the election was up for grabs because
of local dissatisfaction with Rajapaksa corruption and
cronyism.  Finally, on the question of the desired role of
the international community in the elections, Jayasuriya made
a strong pitch for IC involvement to help ensure a free and
fair election and level playing field.

UNF CHALLENGES PRESIDENT TO DEBATE
----------------------------------

¶4. (C) On December 13, the joint Opposition held a press
conference which included Gen. Fonseka, JVP leader Somawansa
Amarasinghe and UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe.  Amarasinghe
challenged President Rajapaksa to agree to a public debate
with Gen. Fonseka, but there has not yet been any response
from the Rajapaksa camp.  At lunch with the Ambassador,
Fonseka and Jayasuriya both said they did not expect
Rajapaksa to agree to a debate, joking that it would be hard
for him to speak without a teleprompter.

PILLAYAN WAVERING -- AGAIN
--------------------------

COLOMBO 00001139  002.4 OF 002

¶5. (C) After a party meeting on December 11, the TMVP
released a statement that appeared to back off earlier
statements by its leader, Pillayan, that the TMVP would
support President Rajapaksa.  Observers have stated that
Pillayan's December 2 pledge of support to the President
angered many in his TMVP ranks, and that they forced him to
retreat from that position.

TNA WISH LIST
-------------

¶6. (C) TNA MP Suresh Premachandran told media on December 12
that his party colleagues had agreed on four main points to
demand of any candidate they pledge to support.  The four
demands reportedly included a full account of those reported
disappeared or arrested during the war; to resettle all
displaced persons; to withdraw from High Security Zones and
enable resettlement of these lands; and to work out a
political settlement.  Premachandran said a delegation of TNA
representatives had met with Senior Presidential Advisor
Basil Rajapaksa on December 7 to discuss these conditions,
and that TNA leader R. Sampanthan had presented the list to
UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya.  In a meeting with PolOff
on December 11, TNA MP Pathmini Sithamparanathan implied that
there were still divisions within the TNA about what issues
they would push in any negotiations, and doubts about how
much they could expect to demand for their support.

RAJAPAKSA ORDERS POSTERS DOWN
-----------------------------

¶7. (C) The President announced on December 14 that he had
ordered the police to take down any campaign-related posters,
including his own, as they all violated elections law.
Colombo has been blanketed with pictures of the president and
his brothers, including at least one enormous full profile
picture of Rajapaksa that measures some 60 feet tall.
Fonseka posters just began appearing around town over the
weekend of December 12-13, including one large
billboard-sized poster on the road from the center of town to
the parliament building.  On a recent trip to Galle, EconOff
sighted well over 1,300 Rajapaksa posters along the 100 km
route.  Not more than 20 Fonseka posters were seen on the
same drive, and some of these had been either damaged or
partially covered by Rajapaksa posters.  The Southern
Province is known as Rajapaksa's home turf.  At Jayasuriya's
lunch, he told the Ambassador that the Rajapaksa campaign had
over 40,000 cut-outs of the President created, nearly half of
which had been placed in greater Colombo.
BUTENIS

by Colombo Telegraph, October 15, 2011

Although Sarath Fonseka was quoted as accusing Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering Sri Lankan troops to kill LTTE leaders attempting to surrender, he quickly backtracked after heavy criticism from the president and his allies and may avoid similar accountability issues during the presidential election campaign”  US ambassador wrote to Washington.

The Colombo Telegraph found a leaked US diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks database. The cable was classified as “CONFIDENTIAL” by Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis.

The cable written on 23, December 2009 says “After the president’s announcement of the formation of the committee in October, the issue of accountability for possible war crimes received little attention in Sri Lanka. Most people appeared to think either that civilian casualties were unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of war on terrorism or that, even if crimes were committed, there was little that could be done as long as the Rajapaksas remained in power.” The cable further says “ General Fonseka trust the topic onto the national scene, however, in a December 13 interview published in the local Sunday Leader newspaper, in which he said Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had ordered troops from the 58^thDivision to kill any remaining LTTE leaders, in particular Pulidevan, Nadesan and Ramesh, in spite of a reported attempt by them to surrender. This interview was immediately met by a firestorm of criticism from the government allies, accusing Fonseka of egregiously betraying his country and exposing its ‘loyal, courageous soldiers’ to war- crimes investigations and the possibility of being arrested when travelling overseas. Walking the tightrope of courting both Tamil votes and Sinhala voters, Fonseka backed off his statement two days later saying he

Fonseka Opens Up Pandora’s Box

had been misquoted, and that he would take full responsibility for anything done by his troops at the end of the war.”

Under the subheading of “ Anti – corruption as the new accountability?” the ambassador wrote “After ten days of brutal hits on his statements about the killing of the LTTE leaders, General Fonseka may e less likely to bring up specific human rights incidents that are related to ethnic divide and instead may talk more about general political reconciliation and the way ahead.”

The Colombo Telegraph published another cable on 10^th October which shows, the Presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka stood by the controversial “white Flag” story published by the Sunday Leader. The cable written on 14^th December 2009 at 13.50pm by the ambassador Butenis and classified as “Confidential” recount the details of a lunch meeting she had with UNP deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya and Sarath Fonseka on 14^th December 2009. Read that cable here; http://colombotelegraph.com/2011/10/10/wikileaks-%E2%80%93-fonseka-did-discuss-the-%E2%80%9Cwhite-flags-story%E2%80%9D-with-us-ambassador/

Read below leaked US cable for full details;

VZCZCXRO3072
OO RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHLM #1180/01 3571215
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 231215Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1058
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 2223
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 9245
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 7500
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 5344
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 3655
RUEHNY/AMEMBASSY OSLO PRIORITY 5269
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA PRIORITY 0130
RUEHSM/AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM PRIORITY 0804
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 4391
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI PRIORITY 9805
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI PRIORITY 7096
RUEHON/AMCONSUL TORONTO PRIORITY 0125
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 3967
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 001180

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INSB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/22/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PHUM PTER EAID MOPS CE
SUBJECT: ACCOUNTABILITY: FONSEKA STIRS UP HORNETS' NEST

COLOMBO 00001180  001.4 OF 003

Classified By: AMBASSADOR PATRICIA A. BUTENIS.  REASONS: 1.4 (B, D)

¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The committee appointed by the president to
look into allegations raised in the Department's October 21
incidents report to Congress will not issue a public report
but rather a recommendation memo for President Rajapaksa's
consideration.  Although Sarath Fonseka was quoted as
accusing Gothabaya Rajapaksa of ordering Sri Lankan troops to
kill LTTE leaders attempting to surrender, he quickly
backtracked after heavy criticism from the president and his
allies and may avoid similar accountability issues during the
presidential election campaign.  Tamil MP Sivajilingam broke
from his TNA colleagues and submitted his own name as a
presidential candidate, saying among other things, there
should be an international inquiry into the deaths of Tamils
during the war.  Rather than pushing accountability for
possible war crimes and human rights violations, Fonseka may
try to push anti-corruption as a major campaign theme,
attempting to appeal to all ethnic groups.  END SUMMARY.

RESPONSE TO INCIDENTS REPORT
----------------------------

¶2. (C) President Rajapaksa formed a committee in early
November to look into the allegations of violations of
international humanitarian law raised in the State
Department's "Report on Incidents" of October 21, 2009.  This
committee is expected to issue their report on December 31,
2009, but Ambassador was recently cautioned by Foreign
Minister Bogollagama not to expect too much from this initial
action.  Bogollagama said rather than a full-scale response
that is released to the public, the committee would send an
advisory memo to President Rajapaksa, making recommendations
on what items in the report merit further action and what
action might be best.  The president would then consider
those recommendations and decide how to proceed.  Bogollagama
appeared keenly interested in recent U.S. Appropriations
language requiring a follow-up report to the State
Department's October 21, 2009, report on incidents at the end
of the war.

FONSEKA OPENS UP PANDORA'S BOX
------------------------------

¶3. (C) After the president's announcement of the formation of
the committee in October, the issue of accountability for
possible war crimes received little attention in Sri Lanka.
Most people appeared to think either that civilian casualties
were an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of a war on
terrorism or that, even if crimes were committed, there was
little that could be done as long as the Rajapaksas remained
in power.  General Fonseka thrust the topic onto the national
scene, however, in a December 13 interview published in the
local Sunday Leader newspaper, in which he said Defense
Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa had ordered troops from the
58th Division to kill any remaining LTTE leaders, in
particular Pulidevan, Nadesan and Ramesh, in spite of a
reported attempt by them to surrender.  This interview was
immediately met by a firestorm of criticism from the
government and its allies, accusing Fonseka of egregiously
betraying his country and exposing its "loyal, courageous
soldiers" to war-crimes investigations and the possibility of
being arrested when traveling overseas.  Walking the
tightrope of courting both Tamil votes and nationalist
Sinhala voters, Fonseka backed off his statement two days
later, saying he had been misquoted, and that he would take
full responsibility for anything done by his troops at the
end of the war.  Criticism of him by Rajapaksa allies
nevertheless continued unabated, with some saying that
Fonseka had damaged Sri Lanka's reputation in the
international community.  Former Sri Lankan Navy Commander

COLOMBO 00001180  002.4 OF 003

Wasantha Karannagoda, for example, said on December 23 on
state media that Fonseka's comments jeopardized the Sri
Lankan military's chances at obtaining coveted UN
peacekeeping operations assignments in Haiti and elsewhere.

¶4. (C) UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or
Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston reportedly has sent a
letter to the GSL requesting more information on the alleged
incident involving the three LTTE chiefs.  In the
government's own backtracking exercise, Secretary of the
Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Rajiva
Wijesinghe has reportedly sent a letter back to Alston
clarifying that since Gen. Fonseka subsequently retracted his
statement, there was no longer a need for Alston's request.
Although local media has reported this development, it is
unlikely that Wijesinghe's argument will stop either the UN's
interest in this alleged incident or the attacks on Fonseka
by the Rajapaksa camp.

SIVAJILINGAM DEMANDS JUSTICE FOR TAMIL DEAD
-------------------------------------------

¶5. (C) TNA member of parliament M.K. Sivajilingam, who
recently broke with his party to present himself as a
candidate for the presidential elections, raised the need for
an international inquiry into civilian deaths and injuries
during the war as a primary theme of his campaign.  The
leadership of the TNA has not pressed either candidate on
this publicly.  TNA leader P. Sampanthan on the other hand
told Assistant Secretary Blake and Post that while he was
concerned with the accountability issue, he believed it was
both unrealistic to expect the government to do anything
about it and dangerous for the Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka
to raise the issue publicly.  Nevertheless, he believed it
was important for the government eventually to take some
steps towards accountability if it were to achieve meaningful
national reconciliation.

ANTI-CORRUPTION AS THE NEW ACCOUNTABILITY?
------------------------------------------

¶6. (C) After ten days of brutal hits on his statements about
the killing of the LTTE leaders, General Fonseka may be less
likely to bring up specific human rights incidents that are
related to the ethnic divide and instead may talk more about
general political reconciliation and the way ahead.  Fonseka
appears to be hoping that anti-corruption emerges as a
touchstone and has attempted to paint the Rajapaksas as a
family-based kleptocracy, giving out hundreds of jobs to
distant family members, building grand houses for themselves,
extorting vast sums of money from the country, and fostering
a culture of corruption throughout the government.  The
president, however, may be relying on his own internal
polling, which we understand from sources in the president's
office indicates that while a majority of voters know the
Rajapaksa family is corrupt, they still would vote for him as
the more experienced politician who does what he says he will
do.

COMMENT
-------

¶7. (C) As Sri Lanka tries to move beyond the war,
accountability for possible crimes remains a significant,
though secondary, issue in Sri Lanka.  Whether speaking of
accountability for ongoing human rights abuses or for
incidents occurring during the final stages of the war, the
issue had not received much attention from either the
government or the public before the recent flurry of activity
following Fonseka's statement.  Given their possible
involvement in most if not all incidents investigated, top

COLOMBO 00001180  003.4 OF 003

government leaders, in particular the Rajapaksa brothers,
have not pushed for greater accountability.  Indeed, given
the risk of exposing his own involvement, it was surprising
to many that Fonseka attempted to raise this as a campaign
issue, and he will probably not do so again.  We are unaware
of any cases in which a sitting government has undertaken
wholesale investigations of its own troops or leadership for
alleged war crimes, and it is probably unrealistic to expect
the current Sri Lankan government to do so.  Nevertheless, at
some point Sri Lankans will need to find a way to deal with
the accountability issue to achieve national reconciliation
and lasting peace.
BUTENIS

Their accounts cast fresh doubt on the Sri Lankan government’s claim that the rebels were killed by their own supporters and add to a growing body of evidence of war crimes allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan military during the conflict.

Last week, The Independent published photographs of the 12-year-old son of the Tamil Tiger chief eating a snack after being captured by the Sri Lankan army. Shortly afterwards, he was shot five times in the chest, probably at very close range according to a forensics expert.

The two new witnesses in what has become known as “the white flag incident” can testify they independently saw from different vantage points the Tamil Tiger leaders accepted into the custody of the Sri Lankan military and escorted from the front line, alive.

One witness, who did not want to give his name fearing retribution against his family in Sri Lanka, worked as a bodyguard to the Tiger political leaders. Badly injured in the last month of the war, he surrendered to save his life and says he reluctantly became an informer for the Sri Lankan army.

Now in London, he says he was taken to the front by members of the Sri Lankan military on the morning of 18 May 2009, and positioned behind an earth embankment. His job was to confirm the identity of the Tamil political leaders as they walked towards the army carrying white flags. He says it looked like a well-organised surrender with hundreds of soldiers, including senior officers with bodyguards, present.

The second witness, a government teacher, also now in London, says he was press-ganged into service for the rebels in the last months of the war. Hours before the incident, he says he also surrendered, knowing that the war was over and it was his only chance of survival. After being searched, he says he was held with others in a derelict building close to the front line. From this position he watched several groups of Tamil Tiger leaders and their relatives walk out of the war zone towards the Sri Lankan army, carrying white flags.

He admits he was surprised to see the leader of the Tiger political wing, Nadesan, his Sinhalese wife and the head of the Tiger Peace Secretariat, Pulidevan, in the first group. Officially the Tigers did not hold with surrender, issuing all recruits with cyanide capsules to wear around their necks to use in case of capture.

Both witnesses say Sri Lankan soldiers went out to greet several groups of surrendering rebels and escorted them over a bridge across a lagoon to waiting vehicles on the other side.

The former bodyguard waited for more than an hour until the military put him in the back of a pick-up truck and drove him away. Along the road he spotted soldiers taking photos on their mobile phones of corpses lying on the ground. As they went past, he recognised Pulidevan and Nadesan’s bodies. Photographs have since appeared on websites abroad showing the two Tiger leaders’ half-naked corpses, with bullet wounds and burn marks on their chests.

The “white flag” incident also involved approximately 40 other rebels believed to have negotiated a surrender with the Sri Lankan government. None of them have been seen since.

Tamil Tiger rebels conducted a vicious campaign of terror for a separate homeland for decades, using suicide bombers to kill civilians and scores of politicians, including a President and an Indian Prime Minister.

Pulidevan and Nadesan were two of the most senior rebels to surrender. In the hours beforehand, they used satellite phones to send messages to diplomats, journalists and peace mediators to ensure top Sri Lankan officials, including the country’s President, knew of their intention to lay down their arms. They had been assured that their surrender would be accepted if they raised a white flag.

However, the Sri Lankan defence ministry’s website lists Pulidevan and Nadesan as killed by troops of the 58th Division on 18 May 2009.

Sri Lanka’s government holds that the Tiger leaders were shot in the back by their own people, and say the army never executed any individuals.

Allegations the Sri Lankan army and rebels committed war crimes at the end of a brutal war are widespread. According to United Nations investigators, the last months saw repeated and deliberate government shelling of hospitals, food queues and safe zones for civilians.