WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - EDITORIAL

Since World War II the period between July to September has seen the largest number of war-related killing of civilians. 106,829 civilians have died in the Syrian civil war between 2011 and July 2018 and around 30,000 persons have died in the Libyan civil war.  

On September 24, 2015 the US-led United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on Sri Lanka was tabled. The resolution called for wide-ranging reforms and a domestic accountability mechanism with international involvement.  

The resolution in fact calls for the institution of a hybrid court or hybrid mechanism to try persons alleged to have committed war crimes during the civil war which commenced in July ‘83 and ended in 
May 2009. The UN has claimed that during the final stages of the war around 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan military.  

The killing of civilians is considered a war crime under terms of Article 25 of the Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention) states that, “The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or building which are undefended is prohibited”.  
Killers of civilians need to be brought to book first as an example that the countries of this world and particularly the people of Sri Lanka will not tolerate premeditated killing of its people. Secondly it sends a message to perpetrators of these crimes, that immunity will not be granted under cover of war.  

It is perhaps for these reasons the government of this country in September 2015 decided to co-sponsor the US-sponsored resolution against its military personnel.  

Which brings us to a moot point; at the end of World War II on August 6 and 9 in 1945 the US nuclear bombed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Both densely populated civilian areas.  
Having dropped the Atom bomb on Hiroshima, Brigadier-General Paul Warfield Tibbets (Junior) -- the pilot of the first plane (Enola Gay) to drop the atomic bomb -- said to have blinked from the flash behind his goggles. When he opened his eyes to look down, what he saw, he described as “a peep into hell.” At least 200,000 who died from the combined hellish force of the two atomic bombs, many more were scarred for life, including future generations harmed by radiologically caused birth defects, etc. The co-pilot of the Enola Gay, Robert Lewis, wrote in his flight log, “My God! What have we done?”  

Even the top US commander in the Pacific, General Douglas McArthur admitted that the Japanese were “already beaten” by the time the bomb was dropped, a view endorsed by the head of US air operations in the Pacific, General Curtis LeMay, who said, “Even without the atomic bomb and the Russian entry into the war, Japan would have surrendered in two weeks.”  

Sadly even today the none of the ‘democracies’ in the West or the NGOs and INGOs who lobbied for justice for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka see no reason  even today, to pressurize the international community to sponsor a UN resolution calling for a wide-ranging inquiry and accountability mechanism with international involvement into the nuclear bombing of Japan by the US, especially at a time the Japanese were defeated and on the point of surrender.  

The falsehoods uttered by then US President Harry Truman... “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base...” an absolute lie and cries to the heavens for justice.  

The deceit of the then US President describing two densely packed civilian townships as military bases is a continuing process matched by the present day incumbent of the White House who is today threatening Iran with nuclear attrition to prevent that country from possessing nuclear weapons.  

War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity need to be exposed and war criminals need to be brought to justice via the UNHRC. As much as the crimes Hitler committed against the Jewish people are condemned as War Crimes and the Nazis who perpetrated these crimes were prosecuted, so the US and its military, who nuclear bombed helpless Japanese civilians need also be exposed.  
A failure to do this only promotes the belief that the rich and the powerful can get away with any type of dastardly deed.