Although Gemma Pearce, Spokesperson of PIAC, directed us to the ‘fact sheet’ available on their website, it did not say anything about the ‘quantity’ of the study, the manner in which the evidence was gathered, the number of eye witness account they took into consideration, the methodology they followed to substantiate information with multiple sources, verification of information and the manner in which they contacted the people on the ground who were truly affected by war.
The two questionnaires sent to PIAC by ‘Asian Mirror’ went unanswered and the Australian NGO gave a strong indication that it was not ready to face media queries over the veracity of the study. Their approach towards media queries was suggestive of the level of transparency and accuracy of the study. That in other words means that the so called ‘study’ should not be accepted at any international forum that makes decisions based on exact fact, figures and statistics, without giving way to unsubstantiated claims and hearsay.
The UK Guardian reported, “The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (Piac) engaged leading experts on areas including criminal law, international criminal law, and forensics to investigate the multitude of serious allegations from the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2008-2009. It called for an independent, international inquiry as the only way to achieve full accountability, ahead of the March deadline for the Sri Lankan government to report back to the UN Human Rights Council.
“This report describes command and control structures so well-established that criminal responsibility for certain crimes if proven at trial could lead to convictions of senior military commanders and Sri Lankan government officials, as well as senior surviving members of the [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] LTTE,” it said.
The report, Island of Impunity by Piac’s International Crimes Evidence Project (ICEP) found that government forces were behind the vast majority of alleged war crimes, and heard evidence that suggests the Sri Lankan government may have deliberately and systematically sought to exhume bodies from mass graves in a bid to hide evidence of the mass killings.”
