MP Rathika Sitsabaies​an: UN (Darusman) Report on Sri Lanka

2066 Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1

14 May 2011

Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, MP., PC

Prime Minister of Canada 

House of Commons, Ottawa

Dear Prime Minister:

Re: Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP MP for Scarborough Southwest : UN (Darusman) Report on Sri Lanka

I have great admiration for this rookie Tamil MP for her enthusiasm to get parliament involved in what concerns deep in her heart as a Canadian-Tamil and I give an A+  for her enthusiasm.

But unfortunately there ends the passing grade as I give her a F for her misplaced priorities in affairs pertaining to Canada, and her non-Tamil constituents who voted her in to parliament.  The economy,  protecting the health care system, child care, Law and Order, funding for post-secondary education,  improving pensions for seniors, quick passage of the anti- Human Trafficking Bill, cleaning up the environment, and all that have taken a back seat in her priorities, and she is trying to tie up parliament’s precious working hours  unnecessarily when she said in an interview with BBC’s  Sinhala Service Sandeshaya that, “she will take the initiative to form an All Party Parliamentary Committee (APPC) to look into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war, and that she would get the APPC to come up with recommendations for the Canadian government over the UN expert panel report will be a priority.”

Prime Minister, this rookie is disingenuous when she focuses on the UN (Darusman) Report on Sri Lanka which apparently deals with the last five months of the 27-year nasty Tamil Tiger terrorist war, when she knows that the Canadian Liberal government for 13 years were aiding and abetting this Tamil terrorist war in Sri Lanka which criminally killed scores of thousands of innocent unarmed civilians by the Tamil Tiger terrorists for the want of their mono-ethnic, racist, Tamil separate state, Eelam. Unfortunately, this rookie too is dreaming of this mythical state as her promotional material shows exactly the area in Sri Lanka in a red colour wash of a tear where she thinks that her Tamil tribe should rule as their Eelam.

Prime Minister, what she is ignoring is that we, the 32 million Canadians,  including herself, have a film of Sinhalese and Muslim blood on our palms as it were the Canadian Tamil Diaspora who collected two million dollars a month during the 13 long Liberal Party governing years, and stuffed it into  the Tamil Tiger war-chest to buy sophisticated weapons and explosive materials to make bombs to support their blood thirsty Tamil Tiger terrorists to extend their killing fields from the north to the south, and from the east to the west of Sri Lanka.

I am surprised and disappointed that this rookie MP has not considered asking the Canadian parliament to officially apologize to the Sinhalese and Muslim Sri Lankan-Canadian communities for supporting directly and indirectly this Tamil Tiger terrorist war, as we Canadians under your Government have started to cleanse our souls by officially apologizing to the Chinese-Canadian community for the use of the head tax and the exclusion of Chinese immigrants to Canada.   Like the former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla making a pitch and overseeing the Government apologize to the Canadian-Sikh community for the Komogata Maru incident.  Like your government officially apologizing to the Inuit community for enacting policies to relocate Inuit families from their homes in Inukjuak located in Northern Quebec.

Prime Minister, I am also disappointed that if this rookie NDP parliamentarian is all Gung ho to bring her concerns of the UN (Darusman) Report on Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes to parliament, that she has not initiated an investigation to prosecute the Tamils who collected the funds for this Tamil terrorist separatist war  that saw 100,000 people killed in Sri Lanka, and the Canadian parliamentarians who supported this crime to be prosecuted for War Crimes in an International War Crimes Court.    In this investigation, who knows, whether the Tamil Christian men in religious cloth with white-collars starched towards heaven may also be found guilty of this war crime for  preaching lies from their pulpits and collecting funds in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa from their Sunday congregations to support this war.  Many of these culprits are still around in Canada and some of the Liberal parliamentarians who patronized the Tamil Tiger fund raising dinner that happened on May 6, 2000 in Toronto to continue with the separatist war and killing of innocent civilians, are not sitting presently in parliament and yet some others are.  That is indeed the true litmus test on our rookie Tamil-Canadian MP, to find out whether she is a genuine non-partisan democrat, an honest human rights advocate, an honest politician and an honest human being.

Prime Minister, here are five good reasons why the parliament should not be tied up to form an All Party Parliamentary Committee to look into the  UN (Darusman) Report on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka as rookie NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan has intentions to do.

1.       Kindly note that I have referred to Rathika Sitsabaiesan’s ‘UN Expert Panel Report’ on Sri Lanka’s alleged War Crimes as the ‘UN (Darusman) Report’.  ‘Darusman’ refers to the leader of the three panelists that Ban ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the UN had appointed for this exercise.  Also note that this UN (Darusman) Report is in no way an official UN Report sanctioned by the UN’s Security Council.  It is a Report done from outside the UN Organization violating the authority under which the Secretary-General of the UN is expected to function under Article 100, Clause 1 of the UN Charter.  This article provides guidance to the Secretary-General to maintain his/her strict neutrality of the UN.  Thus the request to appoint an All Party Parliamentary Committee to look into this Report should not be accommodated by the Conservative caucus.

2.      Kindly note that the three person panel that Ban ki-Moon had appointed is cause for concern regarding their partiality and these panelists should never  have been appointed in the first place.  The panel was headed by Marzuki Darusman, a former Attorney General of Indonesia who was also a member of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIEGP) .  Canada’s eminent person in this group was Dr. Bruce Matthews of Nova Scotia who is well versed on Sri Lankan affairs and was an excellent choice.  This group was invited in March 2008 to observe the workings of Sri Lanka’s Presidential Commission looking into alleged serious violations of Human Rights. Darusman, I am afraid, left the IIEGP in a huff disagreeing with the Sri Lanka Government and yet signed the IIEGP Report without paying a single visit to Sri Lanka to ascertain himself the actual ground situation.

The second panelist was Steven Ratner an adviser to a Non-Governmental Organization known as the Human Rights Watch (HRW) that has been very critical of Sri Lanka from the inception of the Tamil terrorist Eelam War.  Ratner has also co-authored a book with Jason Adams titled ‘Accountability for Human Rights: Atrocities in International Law beyond the Nuremberg legacy’ in which on page 123 he has stated that the ‘convention on banning apartheid should be invoked in relations to countries such as Sri Lanka’.  With this backgrounder Steven Ratner should have been dismissed instantly as a panelist.  There lies his bias against Sri Lanka. 

The third panelist was the South African Yasmin Sooka who is a close associate of the South African Tamil Navi Pillai who is the patron of the Sooka Foundation, and also responsible for the failed resolution that was brought against Sri Lanka before the UNHRC in May 2009.  Thus it clearly shows her bias  too against Sri Lanka.  Thus the rookie MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan of the NDP’s  request to appoint an All Party Parliamentary Committee to look into the allegations against Sri Lanka in this UN (Darusman) Report should not be accommodated by the Conservative caucus.

3.      Kindly note that there is something sinister about this Report.  The question that needs an answer is why has the Report focused only on the last five months of a 27-year long bloody war.  There were 100,000 killings during that period.   A killing…is a killing… is a killing…. is a killing!  There were 11 ship loads of weapons smuggled in through the east coast via Mullaithivu for the Tamil Tigers during the Ceasefire Period between February 2002 and January 2008, all used to kill innocent unarmed civilians. Why not go back to the Tamil Tiger terrorists killings since February 2002  if there was some difficulty to go back to events as far back as July 1983.  Why didn’t they?  Why the last stages of the war despite a shorter 6-year war like World War II ended so abruptly with the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing 220,000 innocent Japanese, yet it seems morally right to have those scores of thousands of Japanese  incinerated, toasted  and die and not bring those who planned the bombings to an International War Crimes Court.  Do you wonder why?  Is Ban ki-Moon concerned that he would be opening a can of worms and having to haul all country-culprit Governments like Norway, France, Canada,  Denmark, Britain, and International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs), et cetra, for aiding and abetting to prolong the war and multiply the killings of innocent Sri Lankans while supporting the Tamil Tiger terrorists to win this war and destabilize a democratic sovereign country.

As it was Norway that gifted Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers a TV with a 6 ft screen despite a Deputy Minister Vida Helgessen objected to it.  It was Norway that smuggled six-tons of high-tech communications and electrical equipment to the Tamil Tigers for their Voice of Tiger’s radio station in 2002, including V-sat equipment used to satellite communications.  And according to Karuna, the Tamil Tiger chief’s right hand man in the East who defected the movement in 2004, said that Norway’s Minister Eric Solheim gave 16 million kroner to Anton Balasingham, the Tamil Tigers political advisor immediately after the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in February 2002 in Oslo.  Is this the reason why Ban ki-Moon decided to engage his exercise with Darusman only on the last five months of the war?

With panelists who were biased against Sri Lanka, what would be incorporated in the                      Darusman Report was predictable.  Thus it does not make sense to give credence to such an anti-Sri Lankan report by complying to rookie MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan of the NDP by forming an All Party Parliamentary Committee to study this report.  There are other important files that the Canadian Government should deal with to make the life of the Canadians stable and comfortable.

4.        Kindly note that the Executive Summary of the  UN (Darusman) Report says “…the Secretary General announced the appointment of the Panel of Experts to advise him on the implementation of the joint commitment included in the statement of the President of Sri Lanka and the Secretary General”.  The role of the panel was purely “advisory” and they were to report only to the Secretary General.  And also it was clearly understood that the panel was not expected to function in an investigative capacity.   That fact is stated on page 3 of the report as it says that “The panel has not conducted fact finding as that term is understood in United Nations practice.”   Again on page 6 of the report, it said “The panel and United Nations officials repeatedly made clear to the government the scope of its mandate as an advisory panel to the secretary general including that it was not engaged in any investigation.” Thus the fact that the Panel documented “credible alleged violations” based on submissions by unidentified parties is tantamount to investigation thus is in clear violation of their mandate.  Thus  with such cunning, it does not make sense to give credence to such  an anti-Sri Lankan report by complying to rookie MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan of the NDP by forming an All Party Parliamentary Committee to study this report which has completely violated the mandate given to the panelists.  There are other important files that your Government could devote to, to make the lives of the Canadians comfortable and stable in the sectors of economy, heath, child care, law and order, seniors, human trafficking and the environment.

5.      Kindly note that page 6 of the report says, “In some instances the panel received written and oral material on the condition of an assurance of absolute confidentiality in the subsequent use of the information. The Office of Legal Affairs, confirmed through formal legal advice that the provisions set out in the secretary general’s bulletin on information sensitivity classification and handling, could be applied to its records.  The bulletin provides for the classification of a document as strictly confidential with correspondingly strict limits on any access for a period of 20 years following which a declassification review may be undertaken that weighed the equities involved in retention or release.  Moreover the office of legal affairs confirmed that where necessary and appropriate for the panel’s work, the panel could give an undertaking of absolute confidentiality in subsequent use.  As a result nearly all of the panel’s substantive records will be classified as strictly confidential with in some cases additional protection regarding future use.”

Translating all this into simple language which NDPs rookie MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan hopefully will understand is that the material received orally and written is regarded as strictly confidential and for 20 years absolutely no one in this world, and that includes the All Party Parliamentary Committee that this rookie MP will be calling for to study this UN (Darusman) Report on alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka, would have no right to access this material.  Having said all this, Mr. Prime Minister, let us not waist  parliament’s time in this silly anti-Sri Lankan witch hunt exercise that the rookie MP is contemplating to tie your caucus members down,  Let us not encourage this futile exercise.

And finally, Mr. Prime Minister, I hope this new MP will cooperate with the Government to encourage the LTTE rump of her Tamil community in Canada  not to harass with threats other members of her community to collect funds to claim their mythical Eelam, and  also discourage the young ladies of her Tamil community not to get involved willingly or having been coerced, to perform their cultural song and dance routines, as this rookie MP is quite aware of, at fund raising events for their mythical Eelam. That should be a No, No.

I shall take the liberty to forward this letter to the key members of your caucus who I believe are interested in Sri Lankan affairs.

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe