{"id":8171,"date":"2020-02-15T06:20:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T06:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/?p=8171"},"modified":"2020-02-15T06:25:05","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T06:25:05","slug":"us-imposes-sanctions-on-sri-lankan-army-chief-over-war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/us-imposes-sanctions-on-sri-lankan-army-chief-over-war-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"US imposes sanctions on Sri Lankan army chief over war crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"content__head content__head--article tonal__head tonal__head--tone-news\">\n<div class=\"content__headline-standfirst-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"content__header tonal__header\">\n<div class=\"u-cf\">\n<h1 class=\"content__headline \" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/h1>\n<p>Shavendra Silva, centre, last year. Silva\u2019s promotion to army chief in January 2019 triggered widespread outrage. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte\/Reuters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tonal__standfirst u-cf\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div class=\"content__standfirst\" data-link-name=\"standfirst\" data-component=\"standfirst\">\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Shavendra Silva blacklisted for \u2018gross human rights violations\u2019<\/li>\n<li>Up to 70,000 Tamils killed during final stages of civil war<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content__meta-container js-content-meta u-cf \" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div class=\"meta__contact-wrap\">\n<p class=\"byline\" data-link-name=\"byline\" data-component=\"meta-byline\"><a class=\"tone-colour\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/profile\/julianborger\" rel=\"author\" data-link-name=\"auto tag link\">Julian Borger<\/a>\u00a0in Washington<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__dateline\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><time class=\"content__dateline-wpd js-wpd content__dateline-wpd--modified\" datetime=\"2020-02-14T16:02:05+0000\" data-timestamp=\"1581696125000\">Fri 14 Feb 2020\u00a0<span class=\"content__dateline-time\">16.02\u00a0GMT<\/span><\/time><time class=\"content__dateline-lm js-lm u-h\" datetime=\"2020-02-14T16:17:02+0000\" data-timestamp=\"1581697022000\">Last modified on Fri 14 Feb 2020\u00a0<span class=\"content__dateline-time\">16.17 GMT<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\" data-test-id=\"article-review-body\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The US has imposed sanctions on Sri Lanka\u2019s chief of army staff, Lt Gen Shavendra Silva, for war crimes committed at final stages of the conflict against the\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/tamil-tigers\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Tamil Tigers<\/a> in 2009, when up to 70,000 Tamil civilians were killed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The US travel ban against Silva and his family marks the first time any of the leading suspects in\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/sep\/03\/sri-lanka-slaughter-no-fire-zone\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the mass killings<\/a>\u00a0have been held accountable on the world stage.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The sanctions come three months after the\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/17\/sri-lanka-presidential-candidate-rajapaksa-premadas-count-continues\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">election\u00a0<\/a>of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the defence secretary during the brutal counter-insurgency. His victory increased fears there would be a return to impunity for war crimes, and a creeping erosion of human rights protections.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">During the 2008-09 conflict, General Silva was the commander of the army\u2019s 58th division, which was accused of shelling \u201cno-fire zones\u201d where ten of thousands of civilians had been told by the government to take shelter as it mounted a final offensive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Hundreds of Tamil Tiger fighters also disappeared after surrendering to Silva\u2019s troops. His promotion to army chief in January 2019 triggered widespread outrage.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Frances Harrison, the programme coordinator of the\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/itjpsl.com\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">International Truth and Justice Project<\/a>, which advocates for accountability for mass crimes in Sri Lanka, said: \u201cHow on earth did the government of Sri Lanka think it would not have consequences when they appointed one of the most notorious commanders to head the army?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cShavendra Silva\u2019s promotion to army commander and acting chief of defence showed utter disdain for international law and disrespect to victims of the civil war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Harrison, the author of Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka\u2019s Hidden War, said: \u201cEyewitnesses say he was present at the surrender of hundreds of Tamils on the last day of the war who have subsequently disappeared in army custody \u2013 for years those mothers have been sitting in the hot sun in the roadside holding up photos of their children desperate to know what happened.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis is not justice. It\u2019s humiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The state department designation holds him accountable, through command responsibility for \u201cin gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings, by the 58th division of the\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/srilanka\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Sri Lanka<\/a>\u00a0army during the final phase of Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war in 2009\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sri Lanka has ignored UN human rights council resolutions it signed agreeing to establish a system to hold to account the perpetrators of mass killings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Since Silva became head of the army and Rajapaksa was elected president, victims\u2019 families and witnesses have been under pressure to withdraw their testimony, according to Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cAfter that, families of the disappeared, have been receiving threats from security forces asking them to withdraw their protests, and their complaints,\u201d Ganguly said. \u201cThey have been getting calls from the intelligence agencies asking about their meetings and plans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In a statement accompanying the sanctions announcement, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said: \u201cWe urge the Sri Lankan government to promote human rights, hold accountable individuals responsible for war crimes and human rights violations, advance security sector reform, and uphold its other commitments to pursue justice and reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/14\/us-sanctions-sri-lanka-army-chief-shavendra-silva?fbclid=IwAR1Y_pDznLLMrIT9JHufNZrLi8Ki58Ax4xPav0Mczr1HeobccqvJxlG3qUA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shavendra Silva, centre, last year. Silva\u2019s promotion to army chief in January 2019 triggered&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-srilankan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}