Sri Lanka’s government appointed disappearances commission said in a report the Tamil deaths, caused by incessant government shelling of the so-called No Fire Zones (NFZ), were collateral damage and blame should rest with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Foreign experts, appointed to the commission by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, said civilians would have lost their protected status if they voluntarily assisted the LTTE.
“As unfortunate as it is, the civilian casualties should be considered collateral damage and the ultimate responsibility for their loss would rest on the LTTE due to their grave breaches of [international humanitarian law],”
“It is noteworthy that if civilians wilfully participate in a human shield with the intent to assist in the military objectives of the LTTE, they are considered direct participants and lose their protected status, taking them out of the proportionality assessment. It is important to emphasize that any voluntary human shields are legitimate targets,” the experts said.
The report said rules of international humanitarian law should change as the nature of conflicts changes and argued the Sri Lankan military’s attacks on the NFZs were proportional to the threat faced.
“The SLA complied with proportionality by endeavoring to create NFZs, however, the LTTE's steadfast refusal to agree to such zones may be a clear indication that it was the LTTE's intention that there should be no safe zones for Tamil civilians so as to be able to exploit such civilians for their own military or political advantage.”
The commission, still funded by the new government, includes former UN prosecutor in Sierra Leone’s war crimes investigations, Sir Desmond de Silva, a member of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Sir Geoffrey Nice, and the chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, David Crane.
According to the Rajapaksa-government, the foreign experts were appointed to “double check what we have found so far and to get some international backing”.