Sri Lankan forces acted with restraint to save lives, former UN diplomat says

Sri Lankan security forces taking a major risk acted with restraint during the last stages of war against LTTE to avert a holocaust of 300,000 Tamil civilians who had been taken as human shields by the fleeing Tamil Tiger rebels, a former United Nations diplomat said.

Making a submission at Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies, retired UN diplomat and one time contender for its Secretary-General position, Jayantha Dhanapala the tragedy would have reached an alarming level if the forces had not exercised restraint in attacks in order to avoid civilian casualties.
He called on the the international community to adopt a new protocol to deal with the armed forces battling terrorism spearheaded by non-state actors.
"Armed forces should not be charged with war crimes when they launch offensives against terrorists," he said.
Sri Lanka is being accused of committing war crimes during the later stages of the war by Western nations and human right organizations. Sri Lanka denies that its forces committed any war crimes during final phase of the war that saw over 7,000 civilian deaths by the UN estimates.
Dhanapala pointed out that some nations interfere in affairs of other countries by aiding and abetting terrorism, funding terrorists, promoting terrorism and allowing funds from them to be used for supporting terrorist organizations.
"It is the responsibility of the international community to come for the protection of the nations victimized by the export of terrorism," he said adding that the international community should take action against countries assisting terrorism in other countries.
The career diplomat urged the government to enact a Race and Religious Relations Act to promote reconciliation and suggested that there should be punishment for hate speech and action against acts or speeches against other races and religions.
Dhanapala called for a programme to control the flow of illegal arms and light weapons in the Sri Lankan society.
"Now that the conflict is over the government should launch a programme, 'Aviyata Thitha' to prevent proliferation of unauthorized small arms and light weapons," Dhanapala said.
He suggested teaching Sinhala and Tamil languages from the beginning of the education of children to build trust and confidence among the communities and praised President Mahinda Rajapaksa for speaking in Tamil, whenever it is necessary.
Dhanapala suggested constitutional reforms as the way to attain true reconciliation and the government should consider public's views in formulating them.
"To begin with, the APRC proposals should be published, together with new proposals so that widespread consultations could take place," he suggested.