India aims to “engage” Sri Lanka on UN war crimes report

India's reaction to a UN report accusing Sri Lanka of committing war crimes during its final push against Tamil Tiger rebels was decidedly tactful — drawing attention to New Delhi's unwillingness to send Colombo into the arms of Beijing, reports the Times of India.

India reportedly said it was willing to "engage" Sri Lanka on the contents of the report, and already prime minister Manmohan Singh has taken a damage control call from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who will likely also approach Russia and China for support following the UN allegations, the paper said.

At the same time, however, elections underway in India's Tamil-dominated state of Tamil Nadu — where the plight of Sri Lanka's Tamil minority is a political issue — make it difficult for India to drop all pretense of moral outrage. On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK party said India should insist that alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka should be heard by an international tribunal, according to IANS. 

The DMK may be in the dock for corruption. But they've got a point. The UN report is too damning to be ignored, and this is as good a time as any for the international community to make an effort to stop China from throwing monkey wrenches into the works of international foreign policy. Too busy to read the full text? Try this excerpt on for size:

With respect to the Government of Sri Lanka, the credible allegations above point to a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population of the Vanni during and subsequent to, as well as perhaps preceding, the final stages of the war. This attack included the widespread shelling of a large IDP population; extrajudicial killings and disappearances in the aftermath of the armed conflict; deprivation of food and medicine; large-scale imprisonment; and other violations, including on discriminatory grounds. As for the particular acts constituting crimes against humanity, the Panel concludes that credible allegations and violations point to the commission by the Government of the following crimes against humanity:

(a) Murder. The ICTY has held that “[t]he constituent elements of murder … comprise the death of a victim as a result of the acts or omissions of the accused, where the conduct of the accused was a substantial cause of the death of the victim.”130 The mental element or mens rea required for murder as a crime against humanity is not limited to premeditation, but encompasses reckless disregard for human life.131 The credible allegations support a finding of the crime against humanity of murder insofar as the SLA killed civilians through widespread shelling.

(b) Extermination. Under the ICC Statute, extermination includes “intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population” (Art. 7(2)(b)). The part of the population subject to extermination has to be “numerically significant”.132 The credible allegations support a finding of the crime against humanity of extermination insofar as theconditions imposed on civilians in the final months in the NFZs were calculated to bring about the destruction of a significant part of the civilian population.