David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

 KOTTE, Sri Lanka – In the wake of the U.S. governments least proud moment in history, the scandal known as ‘WikiLeaks’ released earlier this week, have called into question more than the institutional  make-up of a nation. The US embassy cables implicate Sri-Lankan leadership juxtaposed with the massacre of 7,000, following the end of Tamil Tiger uprising or civil ethnic revolution which took ended  just last year.

Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has given credence to calls for an independent analysis of the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

“Thousands of Tamil civilians are estimated to have been killed in a few days during a military bombardment as the 26-year insurgency ended in May last year, as reported by Al Jazeera.

By reports of the US diplomats on the ground in Sri Lanka, they believe the country’s president responsibilities for the mass deaths of ethnic Tamil citizens as the civil war came to a close last year need to be analyzed.

The cable was written by Patricia Butenis, the US ambassador in Colombo and it implicates Mahinda Rajapaksa, his generals and family members.

Butenis wrote candidly in January, that accountability for many of the apparent crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka,” she said, according to WikiLeaks. Gotabaya Rajapakse, the president’s brother, is the defense secretary, himself now implicated.

Due to past allegations, Rajapaksa has resisted external pressure for an international probe into charges that both the rebel Tamil Tigers and the military  have committed violation with the commission of war crimes during the conflict.

His unilateral call for an internal investigation was questioned by Butenis and the surrounding human rights community.

According to the cable, Butenis said that “there are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power.”

The notion of the Tamil Tigers captured during battle receiving due process is alluded to within the cables. As quoted below according to Butenis:

“The Government of Sri Lanka is holding thousands of mid- and lower-level ex-LTTE [Tamil Tiger] combatants for future rehabilitation and/or criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether any such prosecutions will meet international standards.”

Earlier reports indicated that the military forces killed the top Tamil Tiger leadership, in what is understood to be a “four-decade campaign in which they fought for a separate Tamil homeland.”

For more information, please see:

Lanka Journal – Wikileaks: Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa blamed for killings – 3 December 2010

BBC – Wikileaks: Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa blamed for killings – 2 December 2010

Al Jazeera English – Rajapaksa ‘linked to Tamil deaths’ – 2 December 2010

North Korea fired artillery shells onto the South Korean island, killing two civilians (Photo Courtesy of the New York Times)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, REPUBLIC OF KOREA – On Tuesday November 23, North Korea attacked a populated South Korean island near its border, killing two marines and two civilians while injuring dozens of people. Such a provocation was “one of the gravest incidents since the end of the Korean War,” according to Ban Ki moon, the current secretary general at the United nations.

North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island called Yeonpyeong, which marked the first time since the war that North struck at land-based targets. The rockets destroyed homes and workplaces of civilians who were later placed under temporary asylum homes in the mainland Korea. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea promised to return a “stern” and “strenuous retaliation” if any further provocation ensued.

The attacked island is situated in a disputed area where a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, was sunk in March, killing 46 sailors. An international investigative report blamed North Korea for torpedoing the naval vessel, an accusation which North still denies.

Although skirmishes between the two Koreas are not uncommon, their tense relations have worsened in the recent months especially after the Cheonan incident. To make matters worse, just last week, an American nuclear scientist who visited the North said he had been shown a secret and modern nuclear enrichment facility.

According to Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert and an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, “they [North Korea] want to direct attention to themselves, to say: ‘Look we are here, we are dangerous and we cannot just be ignored,’” The U.S. position had been to engage in talks when there was a prospect of democratization in the North, he said. “Now the chances for democratization are virtually zero, so they have nothing to talk about.”

Many analysts view the continuing provocation by the North as their desperate plea to capture world’s attention as the totalitarian regime goes through the transfer of power from Kim Jong-il to his 3rd son, Kim Jong-un. Such a hard-line stance, they believe, will enhance the military credentials of Kim Jong-un and garner a unified support for his rising to the new leadership. Others link it to the need for food aid, which has been largely denied by South Korea ever since President Lee took office two years ago, and strangled by international and United States sanctions.

The attack on Yeonpyeong came as 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning an annual nationwide military drill called Safeguarding the Nation. This exercise, which had been announced well in advance to the North, has been criticized by Pyongyang as “simulating an invasion of the North” and “a means to provoke a war.”

Many regard China as a key player in easing the tension between two Koreas. China, arguably North Korea’s sole trading partner and political ally, tries to prevent a collapse of the North Korean regime, which has potential to send a flood of refugees over its border. Whether this latest exchange of artilleries will escalate into a full-blown confrontation remains to be seen.

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island – 23 November 2010

Bloomberg Businessweek – N. Korea Attack on South Kills Two, Sets Homes Ablaze – 23 November 2010

Bloomberg – UN Chief Ban Ki-moon Condemns North Korea’s Attack on South – 23 November 2010

The Wall Street Journal – China Faces Pivotal Test – 24 November 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SINGAPORE – 76-year-old British author was jailed on Tuesday for six weeks in Singapore for attacking the judiciary in a book criticizing the city-state’s death penalty.

Alan Shadrake was also fined £9,589 over his book “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock”, which included a profile of Singapore’s executioner who put about 1,000 men and women to death over 47 years.

Shadrack offered a last-minute apology which was dismissed as a ploy by the judge. He will have to serve another two weeks in jail if he fails to pay the fine designed to prevent him profiting from the book.

Convicted on Nov. 3 of scandalizing the court in his book, “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock,” would also be fined 26,371 Singapore dollars ($15,400), in an effort to send “a signal to those who hope to profit from controversy,” said High Court Judge Quentin Loh.

The judge said the author’s technique was to make “claims against a dissembling and selective background of truths and half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods.

Singapore’s judicial officials feared that passive readers would interpret Singapore’s government as lacking order and justice.

The case has stressed not just the use of capital punishment in Singapore, but the bigger issue of freedom of speech in a country where opposition is rare.

Human rights groups say the Singaporean authorities too often resort to the courts to silence their critics.

Showing no signs of staying quiet, Alan Shadrake, entered Singapore’s High Court building for his first hearing holding up two fingers in a “V for victory” salute.

“Freedom and democracy for Singapore,” he shouted, as he waited to walk through the security scanners.

The judgment was condemned by Human Rights Watch which said it was a “serious blow” and would have a “chilling effect” on anyone who has differences with the Singapore government.

The book contains interviews with human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers, as well as a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Singapore’s Changi Prison. It claims he executed around 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.

US based Human Rights Watch and other rights groups had urged Singapore to exonerate the author.

Abner Koh, of the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965, said “certain restrictions are necessary to ensure harmonious living amongst different communities in Singapore”.

Singapore is not used to that kind of open defiance. This tiny state prides itself on being one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Asia.

BBC reports that, it is as if there is an unspoken but clearly understood deal between citizen and state: the system will look after you, as long as you do not question it.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph World News – British author Alan Shadrake jailed in Singapore – 16 November 2010

Wall Street Journal – Singapore Jails U.K. Author – 16 November 2010

BBC – UK author Shadrake jailed for six weeks in Singapore – 16 November 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Andrew Holmes is one of five soldiers accused of killing Afghans for sport. They’re also accused of mutilating corpses and keeping grisly souvenirs as troops allegedly covered up the deaths of their victims. Holmes’ lawyer denies the charges and says he will fight them vigorously.

Pfc. Andrew Holmes of Boise, Idaho, faces military officials Monday who will determine if there is enough evidence to court martial him over the premeditated killing of three Afghan civilians.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was briefed about the Army’s investigation into a “rogue” Stryker platoon in southern Afghanistan while the soldiers were deployed there earlier this year, an Army investigator testified yesterday.

Camero, testifying by phone Monday morning at an Article 32 hearing for Pfc. Andrew Holmes, said that the Army was careful to contain information about the investigation because it didn’t want to inflame the Afghan populace’s sentiment against U.S. soldiers.

“We didn’t want the public to know,” he said.

As one of five U.S. soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade accused of killing for sport and staging the deaths to look like legitimate war casualties, Holmes will face an Article 32 hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.  Spc. Jeremy Morlock was the first of the five to face an Article 32 hearing.

12 U.S. soldiers have been charged in what they called a conspiracy to murder Afghan civilians and cover it up; along with charges they mutilated corpses and kept grisly souvenirs.

Five of the soldiers face murder charges, while seven others are charged with participating in a cover-up.

According to the military documents, the five were also involved in throwing grenades at civilians.

His civilian lawyer, Dan Conway, said his client did not kill any civilian and was ordered by his supervisor, Gibbs, to keep a human finger.

“There is no proof that … Holmes caused or conspired to cause the death of any human being unlawfully,” Conway said.

The Army refuses to comment on any aspect of any of the cases and has sought to limit circulation of evidence, especially since videotaped interrogations of some of the soldiers and alleged written confessions by some soldiers were leaked.

Holmes’ attorney said he plans to put on a vigorous defense of his client, arguing that he killed no one.

“The only way these kinds of allegations can occur is the command is completely derelict in supervising, meaning there involved or there are ignoring that this kind of conduct may be occurring,” Conway said. “And I don’t know which one it is at this point.”

Holmes’ attorney, Dan Conway, pressed Camero, who was part of a team that went to the scene of a related May killing, to gather evidence about the investigation to highlight the Army’s lack of physical evidence from the January incident in which Holmes was involved.

Camero said the decision to visit crime scenes rested with higher-ranking officers who were aware that the location of the January incident was in hostile territory.

For more information, please see:

CNN – Soldier accused of Afghan sport killings faces hearing – 15 November 2010

The News Tribune – Stryker murder scandal details shared  with top level of Afghan Government – 15 November 2010

Boise Weekly – War: More  Testimony in the Holmes Case – 15 November 2010

Some voters at gunpoint (Photo courtesy of Radio Liberty/AFP)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – A day after the historic elections held for the first time in twenty years in Myanmar, thousands of new refugees fled into Northern Thailand on Monday. The fighting broke out between the Myanmar Army and ethnic rebels. Although the election was disguised as a movement towards democracy, it has been widely denounced by the international community as fraudulent, with citizens not having the freedom to vote correctly.

The International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) says that “the fighting between the Myanmar military and an ethnic minority armed group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), following the Myanmar elections on Sunday, resulted in an estimated 12,000 people fleeing into Thailand at the Mae Sot and Three Pagoda Pass border crossing points.”


UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, said refugees started to cross the border early Monday on foot and on inner tubes across the Moei River. According to Mahecic, many of the refugees testified that they fled because they were afraid for their lives after their houses were attacked while other said they fled the sound of fighting.


”Many collected their children from school and fled to Thailand with only the clothes on their back, some even barefoot,” said Mahecic. “At first, only women and children were crossing, but later in the day more men arrived. Among the new arrivals are mothers with newborn babies as young as five days and 15 days.”  


A government election has not been held in Myanmar since 1990 when leader of the National League for Democracy Party (NDL), Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won with 60 percent of the popularity vote. However, it didn’t take too long until the military intervened and denied her power and continues to hold her in custody to this day.

Many unsung heroes demanded the return of their civil and political rights, which have been denied by the military-led government for more than 26 years. However, the government often resorted to violent repression to deal with its citizens’ demands for freedom, and it is estimated that more than 10,000 citizens have died in the process.

This led to thousands of refugees fleeing the military junta for survival and personal freedom. One of the countries that has housed these refugees is India. This past week, when US President Barack Obama paid a diplomatic visit to India, he mildly rebuked India for its diplomatic silence on Junta rule.

” When peaceful democratic movements are suppressed, as they have been in Burma (Myanmar), then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent,” President Obama said.

At least 7000 refugees have fled Myanmar in the past 22 years and are now residing in parts of India, where they still face problems. Living conditions are poor but what is worse for refugees is witnessing India’s reluctance to oppose the military Junta back home.

”My heart aches, but my mind accepts the truth,” says Htay, Burmese refugee now living in Janakpuri. So many seek refuge in other countries. Nyuant Mungpi who has settled down in India three years ago says he was disappointed to see the daily grind here.

”Most Burmese in India want the UNHCR to recognise our refugee status. We want to go to the US, Canada or Australia. There is very little recognition for us, unlike the Tibetans.” says Mungpi.

For more information, please see:

VoA News – Thousands of Burmese Flee Following Elections, Fighting – 9 November 2010

The Times of India – They want India to speak up – 12 November 2010

Geneva Lunch – Burma/Myanmar refugees flooding Thailand – 11 November 2010

Pacific.Scoop – Burma’s elections highlight cruel tale of repression by junta – 9 November 2010