Gotabhaya ordered execution of LTTE leaders who surrendered alleges Sarath Fonseka
by Frederica Jansz
Common opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka says Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa instructed a key ground commander in the north that all LTTE leaders must be killed and not allowed to surrender.
In an explosive interview with The Sunday Leader General Fonseka the then Army Commander said he had no information communicated to him in the final days of the war that three key LTTE leaders had opted to surrender to Sri Lanka’s armed forces as the battle drew to a bloody finish.
Fonseka charged that communications were instead confined between the LTTE leaders, Norway, various foreign parties, Basil Rajapaksa, Member of Parliament and the powerful senior adviser to the President and such information was never conveyed to him as he supervised the final stages of the war.
“Later, I learnt that Basil had conveyed this information to the Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa – who in turn spoke with Brigadier Shavendra Silva, Commander of the Army’s 58th Division, giving orders not to accommodate any LTTE leaders attempting surrender and that “they must all be killed.”
General Fonseka explained how on the night of May 17th this year desperate efforts of three senior LTTE leaders trapped in the war zone to save their lives failed as they were instead shot dead as they prepared to surrender to government forces.
The government later claimed that troops found bodies of three key LTTE leaders identified as Nadesan, Pulidevan and Ramesh during the mop- up operations in the last LTTE stronghold on the morning of May 18.
General Fonseka said the incident took place as the remaining LTTE cadres were boxed into a 100m x 100m area, North of Vellamullivaikkal.
Balasingham Nadeshan a former police constable of Sri Lanka police was the political head of the LTTE. Seevaratnam Pulidevan was the head of “LTTE peace secretariat” while Ramesh a senior special commander of the military wing.
Hours before they surrendered, in a flurry of emails, text messages and telephone calls between NGOs, a foreign government and Sri Lankan officials in Colombo, the two LTTE political leaders had frantically inquired as to how they could give themselves up.
They were told: “Get a piece of white cloth, put up your hands and walk towards the other side in a non-threatening manner.”
But the attempt to surrender by the three LTTE leader and their families failed. Sometime between midnight on 17 May and the early hours of the next morning, the three men and their family members were shot dead.
General Fonseka said it was Basil Rajapaksa together with the Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa who through foreign intermediaries conveyed a message back to the LTTE leaders who wished to surrender to walk out carrying a piece of white cloth. “It was their idea,” he said.
General Silva and Army commander say "No comment"
When we contacted Shavendra Silva, now promoted to Major General he sounded very shocked when told of the allegation but insisted he could not respond to this charge until he had clearance from the military spokesman.
Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told us he had to get clearance from the Army Commander Jagath Jayasuriya.
Later in the day the military spokesman said that he had contacted both the Army Commander and General Shavindra Silva and both had said that they would not comment on the matter.
The chief intermediary for the three LTTE men was the Norwegian government’s then Environment and Development Minister Erik Solheim. (Solheim is now the overseas development minister) On Sunday 17 May, Mr Solheim apparently received calls from LTTE figures who said they wanted to surrender.
The ICRC in Colombo later confirmed that it had received word from the Norwegians that the two leaders were looking to give themselves up. “The ICRC was approached on this matter by the representatives of the LTTE as well as the Norwegian authorities,” spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne was quoted saying at the time of the incident. “The information was referred to the Sri Lankan authorities. We have no idea what happened [then]. We lost contact with everyone in the last conflict.”
The government’s point man in the negotiations appears to have been former foreign secretary Palitha Kohona who is now Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United nations He was quoted by news agencies saying that in the days leading up to Sunday evening, he had received a number of messages indicating from Mr. Nadesan and Mr Pulidevan – whom he has met at various peace talks – wanting a way out.
In one interview with ‘SiberNews’ Mr. Kohona said that his response had been that “there was only one way to surrender that is recognised by military practice”. He said they should obtain a white flag and give themselves up. “I kept saying this for three days,” he added.
But General Fonseka maintains that Nadesan, Ramesh and Pulidevan had been shot dead by government troops as they advanced towards them carrying a white flag, as they had been instructed to do.
Fonseka said he later learnt about what exactly had taken place as a result of journalists who had been entrenched at the time with General Shavendra Silva’s brigade command. These reporter’s according to Fonseka were privy to the telephone call received by the Army’s 58th Brigade Commander from the Defence Secretary –“telling him to not accommodate any LTTE surrenders but to simply go ahead and kill them.” – “These journalists later told me what exactly took place,” Fonseka said.
“Norway never got in touch” – Basil
Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa refuted this damning charge. He told The Sunday Leader, “The Norwegians never got in touch with me over this particular incident. I have been in touch with the Norwegians over various issues pertaining to the conflict but never once on this particular issue."
When asked if he had been unaware then that three LTTE leaders were seeking surrender during the last stages of the war – Rajapaksa replied, “No. I won’t say that. But Norway never got in touch with me."
Asked nevertheless if he did convey something to this effect to his brother and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mr. Rajapaksa said “If I had not been informed by Norway in the first instance then obviously the second did not happen.”
Our attempts to contact Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa failed. When we telephoned the Defence Ministry Friday we were told Mr. Rajapaksa had not been in office the entire day. His staff refused to release any other telephone number. COURTESY:THE SUNDAY LEADER
Related: Did President Rajapakse assure the UN that surrendering LTTE leaders would be safe?
23 Comments
Here we see the first salvo of the NGO backed west at work.
By pitting SF against the incumbent Rajapakse, the west want nothing but ammunition for a war crimes tribunal. Now SF is the master PARROT and SL newspaper is the conduit.
Channa, Why blaming the West. Who elected these bros to power and how did the Generals split.
Whoever wins they both will not be able to serve a full term.
he he he
These revealations are sure to be noted by the UN and all human rights organisations.Fonseka wellcomes a 'human rights probe' into the last days of the war.so, he is probably telling the truth.This is more the reason why Mahinda R cannot afford to lose the election.
Sri Lanka is a signatory to the Geneva Covention and Article 3 deals with such situations of armed conflict. Sri Lanka being a civilsed country has to adhere to these rules regarding the surrender of combatants and civilian members. The above mentioned action cannot be allowed as an act of Patriotism. So ultimately those who gave the command to kill will have to accept the responsibility and pay the price.
.
Srilankan Miitary is wel known for killing innocent and surrendered militants. In 1988/89 they killed thousands of sinhala youths.
(In a way it is good for Tigers that these leaders were killed, otherwise their surrender would have been huge humiliation for them).
:-)
Until yesterday I respect Gen.SF as a hero and a gentleman. He has now become cat's paw of Ranil and start mud slinging campaign against his former boss. SF you are contesting Presidential election and your rival is MR. Why you behaving like a third class person. You have a hatred against Gota and now you going to take revenge from him.That's not politics. Now I see no difference between you and a 2nd grade student.
Mr.SF don't think that revealing military secrets wether it's true or false, you gain something. You are betraying your country. And you are loosing the respect and love you have gained as a war hero from common people.
If you doing politics do it as a gentleman. Don't be a third class citizen. Apart from military things in our country,there are so many other things to criticise.
My dear Sri Lankan,
one does NOT pay a price when he kills a terrorists.
Is not shame for these LTTE leaders to surrender instead of taking cyanide. Was there shortage of cyanide at the last minute. Do not you think they deserve to be killed for defying VP's order to take cyanide.Even at the last minute these three donkeys were asking the youngsters to take cyanide but they want a red carpet welcome from their enemies.
Get lost man!
Amirthakaliyan, I guess you are riht. Why didn't they take cyanide.
Bur I am all for anything the Ex Gen will say or bring out that will lock up these barbarians along with LTTE in the same way. They serve no purpose to humanity by their actions. They argue that every world "problem" is to be solved this way.
no way Jose.
just take a look at this picture # here:
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/12/no_qualms_about_shelling_huge.html
Hopefully we'll get to know who murdered my Aiya Lasantha too.
I think Ranil W knows what he is doing. He is the grstest Machiavellian of them all. He'll be President or Prime Minister in 2010. Mark this post.
The news has already hit the global wires.
Coupled with the comments on the December 2009 Kerry-Lugar Report that the army carried out this savage killing, room is left open for War Crimes inquiries in the future. It is not a question of whether LTTE's Nadesan, Pulidevan and Ramesh belonged to a violent anti-State entity and deserve maximum punishment under ordinary law.
But of the behaviour of an army in the 21st century - said to be lead by officials trained to be Officers and Gentlemen in Sandhurst, West Point and other respected higher military academies of the world, turning into beasts. As widely reported, the LTTE men (their women and children as well) were coming over to Govt lines carrying White flags of surrender as agreed in their earlier tele-discussions with high UN officials and the GoSL Foreign Ministry.
They were assured safety but were executed in cold blood - suspected to be due to difference of opinion in the Army high command, the Foreign Ministry and the upper echelons of GoSL. Like in the execution of LTTEs Pulendran and his colleagues in 1987 this too will be one of those tragic incidents in the war of disputed paternity. The “Not me, Sir..It’s you, Sir; No, Sir, not me, Sir” musical chairs has to stop somewhere - like the buck.
In another related killing of high LTTERs a very high army official (named in the Press) is reported to have used an axe to personally kill a top man in the other side – while the lower ranks watched in horror. What an example the man was setting to an already indisciplined lot?
General Tojo of Japan was accorded proper army etiquette during the 2nd WWW once he surrendered - with American officials saluting and referring to them as “Sir” during his incarceration. In Afghanistan, together with US wounded, those from the Taliban too were accommodated in US-British hospitals on site causing a furore back home. All evidence of an enlightened and changing world where the Rights of Prisoners are carefully respected in civilized societies.
Osama Bin Laden was in US Army surveillancec Post 9/11 when he went to pray inside a Mosque in Afghanistan and when the Unit Commander in the ground sought permission of the US High Command back home to get him, this was refused on the ground of the sanctity of a house of worship. Bin Laden escaped arrest/death and continues to haunt the West - because the US Govt-army wanted to scrupulously honour mutually endorsed globalCovenants guiding the conduct of modern warfare. Where do we fit in here?
My fear now is the safety of Frederica.
ISS
If JVP leaders their sympathisers and now if Karuna and Pillaiyan are allowed to roam free - I mean they face cno charges whatsoever, what was wrong in allowing these LTTE leaders to surrender, and the prosecute them according to the laws of the land?
Rana, Why is the General saying this? Is he going to win votes among Sinhalese by doing so?
Dear GenF, That's fantastic. Now, it is time to come out with details of the Sun God's faked death. You are the one who came out first with the details probably because you wanted to end the war and the war's end could only be signified by the Sun God's death. Tell us what happened?
I think Fonseka is surely getting drawn deeper and deeper into the Peat Bog set up by Ranil.
These comments may please the NGOs , the anti government foreign agencies and a few privileged Colombosiders and draw in more money into Foseka's election kitty and the retirement fund.
Just imagine the reaction of the Sinhala voters in the rural areas, when the Government roll out the big guns to attack Fonseka on his "patriotism and Buddhism"
Even the little respect Fonseka enjoys now among the Armed Forces and their families will also evaporate soon.
Mmmm well,
If they can hang a leader like Saddam Hussain under the American rule, then shooting Nadesan et al, in Sri Lanka wouldn't be any where near it. Like Americans are solely responsible for the hanging of Saddam, the Sri Lankan government is "responsible -within quotes"; which means they are not.
I think the death of Nadesan et al, was beneficient to a greater number of people (Tamils / Sinhalese and others)
No point arguing who is responsible or not, but seems to be the appropriate thing done at that time. The above news was quite exciting to both the Sinhalese and the Tamil extremists to achieve their ends (i.e. To slander Fonseka as a traitor or rekindling the War Crime Tribunal based on this news).
Things will come to light in a month!
NGO NGO NGo...we need them in Sri Lanka, from ICRC to CARE to World Vision - the whole country benefits.
This 'confusion' crated by the bros too.
After all I wonder whether this piece of 'revelation' is true? SF denies it. Re-reading Frederica's article, though it says, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW I do not see a Q&A session in print.
I wrote about this issue in May soon after the great heroic victory "was Prabakaran and his entire family executed".
The Sinhala weerays here reacted venomously attacking me.
Now their hero and my good friend Sarath Fonseka is saying the same thing.
Don't get excited you great weerayas.
You have been taken for a good ride by the semi literates of Hambanthota who have been conning the peasants and dragging our country into turmoil.
Tamils are our citizens and as the majority we must always ensure that there is fairplay.
As usual even with this crisis we are fire fighting, when there was such great opportunity to rise above it all and become a great statesman and raise Sri Lanka to a level higher than South Africa with tolerance and magnanimity.
All we have done is taken the kaththa, gone next door and butchered our neighbours with whom we had a conflict with and now trying to hid it like common criminals and semi literates from Medamulana.
Now we can all look forward to war crimes charges and the God king, the maharajaneni, will be remembered for presiding over the reign of the Kaththa, butchering, Lasantha, the LTTE, and dragging our country to the International war crimes tribunal and of course more murder in this land of the Buddha.
Since independence, our security forces have been used exclusively against our own citizens bombing and butchering 100,000 sinhalese branded as the JVP and now 100,000 Tamils branded as the LTTE.
We call them war hero's for efficiently killing and bombing our own citizens.
Sick bastards.
Dushy Ranetunge
In today's infolanka anyone could read the folloing article, a statment by SF denying he accused GR. So who is telling the truth? What is going on in SL, is dirty campaign and the standard of media is so low as our politics. They are ready to publish anything to get a boost thier circulation.
I did not say , Gotabaya gave orders to kill the LTTE members who came to surrender- Fonseka
(Lanka-e-News 13.Dec.2009 8.30PM) Gen. Sarath Fonseka the common Presidential candidate said today (13) when addressing a Press briefing at the JAIC Hilton Hotel, that he did not state that Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse gave orders to kill those who LTTE ers who came to surrender during the last phase of the war.
The General told this when answering a question raised by a media personnel with reference to a news item appearing in today’s Sunday Leader newspaper.
He told he has been misquoted in the news. The question asked from me was what action Gotabaya and Basil Rajapakse took when several LTTE leaders were preparing to come forward with white flags to surrender on 17th May 2009 after Basil and Gotabaya were informed of such a move by the LTTE leaders through the Norwegians.?
The answer I gave was, ‘I did not know the story of the LTTE leaders trying to surrender carrying the white flags. I came to know of this later through the media. That was known only between the two of them , as expressed by the media. T he media revealed to me , the Defense Secretary had instructed a high officer in the war operations not to allow anyone to escape whether they came with or without a white flag.
This is a story heard by you from others in the same way as I heard. Due to the security and safety of the media personnel who told me this , I cannot disclose his name. These details were revealed to me by a Media personnel who was on the battlefield on that day. The Defense secretary has instructed the high Army Officer over the phone.’
To TJ, I think it is because mere hatred. UNF and JVP knew that they never win. So their best bet is SF. SF became a cats paw and he already lose his respect and support. SF already knew that he cannot win. I think the best thing SF should do is to quit from Presidential candidature.
ALhough MR government has many weaknesses there is nobody except MR to rule our country at this moment.General SF accept Joint Opposition candidate to take revenge.He has no vision. Except talking about abolishing Presidential system and mud slinging at MR and Gota,SF has nothing more to say.
Today UNF and the JVP losing their popularity and credibility.That mean in next General election the TULF might become opposition party in SL as happened in 1977.The weak opposition mean more corruption.
We knew this story long time ago noe the difference is the information is comming out of the partners in the war crime. This the veerayas Sinhala buddhists type Their brave, courageous and disciplned soliders Killed women and childern who were un armed and with white flags.BRAVO have another party in Colombu . You can even rape some womwn in day light
Channa
An interview does not necessarily have to be in question&answer form. The article does carry direct quotes as well as paraphrases
By the way I think Frederica Jansz suv=cceeded Lasantha Wickrematunga as editor. No editor will put his or her byline to a "fishy" article
Did Gota even need to issue that order? I thought it was an unwritten understanding that when these TAMIL TERRORIST Leaders were caught they would be BRUTALLY FINISHED OFF... That was the Summary Justice they were due to receive. For each of the Families of the 25,000+ Dead Soldiers those TERRORISTS would never see the inside of a Prison cell. That was for sure.
*** Sri Lanka is a signatory to the Geneva Covention and Article 3 deals with such situations of armed conflict. ***
The GENEVA CONVENTION DOES NOT APPLY in this Situation. When fighting an ENEMY that has NO RULES, NO MORALS, and NO LIMITS, then we are not bound by any rules either. These people are TERRORISTS and they were SLAUGHTERED like TERRORISTS should be. Plain and Simple.