Re: The LLRC Report

January 3, 2012

Robert O. Blake
Assistant Secretary
South and Central Asian Affairs
U.S. Department of State 
2201 C Street NW 
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Blake,

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has released its long-awaited report.  Like many others, we are disappointed in the LLRC’s work. Gibson Bateman, in the Journal of Foreign Relations, calls it “this biased, inaccurate and disappointing report loaded with lacunae…” We agree with him.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians are quoted by the Associated Press as saying  "By mischaracterizing the crimes committed during the last days of the war as isolated acts of individual perpetrators, the LLRC has effectively granted immunity to civilian and military leaders responsible for devising the policies that led directly to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity."  We agree with them, too.

We, Tamils for Obama, believe that the Sri Lankan armed forces, not just the LTTE (as suggested by the LLRC report), was guilty of hideous war crimes and transgressions. We suspect that any commission created by the government of Sri Lanka will be a cat’s paw of the Rajapaksa government, and will see its mission as minimizing and eluding blame for the government’s misdeeds. 

We know that you had a significant role in creating the LLRC. We see it as an act of wisdom and courage that prodded the GOSL into doing something which it would never have done by itself. And so you are probably even more disappointed than we are at the LLRC producing an apologia for the Rajapaksa government’s monstrosities. 

We hope that you will recognize this incomplete report as the whitewash that it is and call for an international tribunal to investigate the matters that the LLRC chose not to find.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Tamils for Obama