Setting aside reservations about the United States’ government’s right to take the moral high ground about human rights abuses, killing civilians or equipping the Israeli Defence Force to do the same the State Department’s report on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka must have been an unwelcome delivery for the country’s Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake.

It hedges its bets a little bit by saying “the report does not reach legal conclusions as to whether the incidents described herein actually constitute violations of IHL”   (international humanitarian law).

The authors land an easy punch on the LTTE, saying that it forcibly recruited both male and female children, some as young as 12 to serve as cadres, by which we can guess fighters. This assertion is widely supported and there can be no question that methods of this type alienated many Tamils and prevented active solidarity in many parts of the world.

Having got that out of the way the authors call Sri Lankan government (GSL) officials liars.

“Senior Sri Lankan officials made repeated public statements denying that the GSL was shelling the NFZ (no fire zone) or targeting hospitals and was not responsible for any civilian casualties. However, sources alleged that the majority of shelling in the NFZ  was from GSL forces. The GSL announced that it would observe a 48-hour ceasefire on two occasions. The stated aim of these was to allow civilians to move into areas in which they would not be subject to shelling. Incident reports suggest, however, that the GSL may have begun shelling before the end of the second 48-hour ceasefire. “

The report endorses claims that the Sri Lankan Army summarily executed prisoners. This can only have been a premeditated attempt to physically eliminate the political leadership of the LTTE and is one of the reasons we can accurately say that it has suffered the most severe defeat of any national movement in decades.

“Multiple reports alleged that in the final few days of fighting, senior LTTE leaders contacted international representatives in an effort to broker a surrender but were killed after they allegedly reached a surrender agreement with the GSL.”

But that was not enough for Wickremanayake’s government.The State Department confims what sources inside the country say has been happening for years.

“GSL forces or GSL-supported paramilitaries abducted and in some instances then killed Tamil civilians, particularly children and young men.”

This is the worst sort of counter-insurgency in which a state gives great freedom to murder gangs to terrorise a community which has shown resistance. Both the State Department and the British Army have some experience in that area.

The last charge has been widely covered in those sections of the foreign press which did manage to access the refugee camps. It meshes too with the counter insurgency strategy of random and targetted murder. By keeping a starving, ill population in the camps it is collectively punishing them for either being Tamil or actively or passively supporting the LTTE. It also allows their homes to be resettled by Sinhala tenants. Just like in Palestine.

“Reports include instances of severe food shortages; malnutrition, particularly among the very young and old; as well as surgeries being performed with little or no anaesthetic. The GSL pledged to provide sufficient food and medical supplies to people in IDP camps and to those trapped in the NFZ. However, most reports point to significant gaps between food, medicine, and clean water needs and the available supplies in the NFZ and IDP camps.”