By: Peter Bouckaert, The Guardian
5 September 2010
All attempts to investigate atrocities in the Tamil Tiger conflict have been stifled, despite promises made to Ban Ki-moon.
During the Vietnam conflict, the US military developed some creative ways to increase the numbers of Viet Cong insurgents it claimed to have killed. “If they’re dead, they’re Viet Cong,” meant that any Vietnamese killed by American soldiers would automatically count as enemy fighters.
Sri Lanka’s defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has taken such creative accounting to new heights. The United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands wounded during the final months of the brutal conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May 2009. But Gotabhaya has repeatedly cast aspersions on the idea that there were any civilian casualties.
