[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 18, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E65]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  INVESTIGATE WAR CRIMES IN SRI LANKA

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                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 18, 2011

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, to achieve lasting peace in Sri Lanka, there 
should be an independent, international investigation into alleged war 
crimes at the end of the country's 25-year civil war in May 2009. Last 
August, I joined 57 of my fellow Members of Congress in urging 
Secretary Clinton to press for a United Nations investigation. I renew 
this call now. As the Boston Globe stated in an editorial on December 
29, 2010:

                 [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 29, 2010]

                     Probe Both Sides in Sri Lanka

       No foreign leader has fared worse in the cables released by 
     WikiLeaks than Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who 
     has been resisting calls for an international inquiry into 
     possible war crimes committed when Sri Lankan troops wiped 
     out the secessionist Tamil Tigers in May 2009. In this 
     particular case, disclosure of an American diplomat's 
     confidential assessment serves the cause of human rights, 
     validating the stand of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty 
     International, and the International Crisis Group. All three 
     have argued, rightly, for a credible investigation of alleged 
     war crimes in Sri Lanka, whether committed by the Tamil 
     Tigers or government forces.
       The documents show that US Ambassador Patricia Butenis 
     observed last January that no regime investigates ``its own 
     troops or senior officials for war crimes.'' She then added, 
     in a devastating aside, that in Sri Lanka ``responsibility 
     for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's 
     senior civilian and military leadership, including President 
     Rajapaksa and his brothers.''
       The ambassador's candor illuminates a recurring 
     contradiction between the moral imperatives of human rights 
     and the cold logic of diplomacy. Videos and survivor accounts 
     strongly suggest that hundreds, if not thousands, of Tamils 
     were stripped naked, had their hands bound behind their 
     backs, and were murdered during the final weeks of the 
     government's war against the Tigers. Yet for reasons of 
     state, neighboring powers India and China show no interest in 
     documenting and punishing such crimes. All the more reason 
     for America to heed the awful truth in Butenis's cable and 
     push for a legitimate UN investigation of war crimes in Sri 
     Lanka.

     

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