US believed Rajapaksa was responsible for 2009 Tamil massacre: Wikileaks

COLOMBO - The US ambassador in Colombo, Patricia Butenis, believed that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was responsible for the alleged 2009 massacre of Tamils, according to US diplomatic cables released by the whistleblower website ‘WikiLeaks.’

According to the BBC, Butenis said in a diplomatic cable sent on 15 January this year that President Rajapaksa and the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, were largely responsible for the human rights violations in the combat between the army and the Tamil separatists that killed thousands of Tamil civilians in the country.

She further stated that there were no examples of the regime investigating its own troops for war crimes.

“In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka,” Butenis wrote.

Last year, Fonseka had said during his failed campaign for the presidency that military decisions had been taken in the final days of the war without his knowledge.

The release has come at a time when Sri Lanka’s parliament was suspended on Thursday after a debate between MPs over demonstrations in the UK against President Rajapaksa’s visit.

Sri Lanka has repeatedly rejected international calls for an independent inquiry into the war against the Tamil Tigers, in which at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed in a few days of bombardment when the military cornered the rebels in a small coastal strip in May last year, the report said.

Other estimates put the death toll as high as 20,000. Both sides have been accused of crimes against humanity. (ANI)