Lost in the euphoria of ending the brutal 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War is the civilian cost. In countries around the world, the civilian cost is not measured by opportunity costs, economic downturns, or political bickering - it's measured in casualties and lives. Perhaps the cost was not lost then in Sri Lanka. Just... ignored.
Even at the time of its conclusion, information indicated that the end was both bloody and ruthless. Given the treatment of Tamil civilians, particularly those living in LTTE-controlled areas, throughout the civil war, it comes as no surprise that they were simply a pawn in the endgame. Revised estimated suggest upwards of 40,000 were killed in the months leading up to May 2009. Since then, numerous organizations have worked tirelessly to compile evidence of the failure of the international community to act and protect. The claim of war crimes committed by government forces is not new (Amnesty International again, two years later). Although claims now focus largely on government action, it stands to mention that LTTE forces were culpable all the same.
It is a shame that the international community turned away then because an insurgency was being put down; because a terrorist group was, in a rare instance, being wholly destroyed. If the United Nations wishes to investigate war crimes, then it should do so. However, the watered down resolution endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council has turned this event into nothing short of embarrassment today. Four years have passed; it is high time to make clear that actions that occurred in 2009, and some since, do not represent the protocols of the international community.
It seems that every time the international community says "we didn't know" and "never again," but it happens over and over again. If nothing else, the war mentality of Sri Lankan forces is most clear in the unnecessary and blatantly illegal assassination of LTTE leader Prabhakaran's underage son in February of 2013 - nearly four years after the war ended, per the government (he would have been approximately 8 when his father died in 2009).
The time for government inquiries has passed. What evidence exists needs to be passed on to authorities beyond Sri Lanka, and those responsible prosecuted to the extent available. Otherwise, the wrong message is being sent - do what you want, so long as it's against "the terrorists."
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