Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) welcomed the ICEP report leaked today, which concluded a damning catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and called for an urgent international investigation into these crimes as well as possible genocidal acts.
Speaking to the Tamil Guardian, Jan Jananayagam of TAG, said that the organisation welcomed the report, produced by the PIAC.
"Coming from an Australian institute, it adds geographical diversity to the range of voices calling for a full international investigation, and collates new evidence that has been reported piece-wise over the last five years and overlays them with legal analysis laying a foundation for prosecution," explained Ms. Jananayagam.
"The ICEP report’s description of GOSLs destruction of evidence and in particular human remains corroborates TAGs own primary evidence and constitutes information that was not previously in the public domain," she added.
Commenting on the report's acknowledgement that the crimes may constitute genocidal acts but warranted further investigation, Ms. Jananayagam said,
"While the 2011 report by the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts directly used the language of the genocide convention in relation to the bombing of humanitarian spaces and denial of food and medicine, it avoided the term ‘genocide’ while alleging Crimes Against Humanity which are also by definition systematic and widespread, and either part of or condoned by government policy.""The ICEP report emphasises the intent element, and explicitly leaves space for other actors to show that this intent is racially or religiously motivated."
Welcoming the report's analysis of crimes alleged to have been committed by LTTE cadre as "perhaps the clearest discussion of the alleged crimes by individual LTTE combatants that we have seen so far", she added,
"The terminology of ‘human shields’ that the UN Panel of Experts explained did not apply, and that we as TAG have refused to endorse, has been explicitly dropped and replaced with the terminology of hostages with the clear caveat of the element of political motive required to prove this allegation.""Thus this report brings some clarity to the strengths and weaknesses of the allegations that are being made by a range of international voices."
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