BY BANDULA JAYASEKARA in The Hague

Stephen J Rapp is the former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed to that position by the US President Barrack Obama. He is now with The Hague Institute for Global Justice as a Distinguished Fellow. We met him in The Hague, where he said he wanted to see the process of justice, established process of reparation and prevention of recurrence both in the instance of the rise of another movement like the LTTE and those responsible for crimes against non combatants.

Q You visited Sri Lanka sometime ago. What is the position on Sri Lanka?

Rapp: I was US Ambassador at large for War Crimes Issues then. Before that I worked as an International prosecutor and worked on several prosecutors, jurors and investigators. I have worked with several Sri Lankans like Raja Fernando, Asoka Gunewardane and before that with former Chief Justice De Silva and my good friend Shyamlal Rajapaksa, who died unfortunately. So, I have been actively involved and as the former Ambassador at large for War Crimes, I was very much engaged with the question of accountability on the Missing Persons and violations which may have occurred during the final stages of the conflict. I also wanted to see to the accountability to the crimes committed by the LTTE which were crimes of terror and atrocity, and support those efforts. But, obviously, I am also concerned about the allegations of killings of prisoners and aspects of the armed conflict which didn’t comply with the International law. Even with the LLRC it wasn’t implemented. And there is an official inquiry which was mandated in March of 2014 and following up on that thereafter we had the elections and the change of presidency and the parliament and opening to move in that direction. Thereafter I moved out as the Ambassador. I have been engaged in some public fora and wanting to see that the truth is revealed about missing persons and the process of justice established and the process of , reparation and prevention of recurrence established both in the instance of the rise of another movement like the LTTE and those responsible for crimes against non combatants.

Q: What about the crimes committed by America in Afghanistan? I hear they are going to take it up at the International Criminal Court. You point fingers at other countries. But, what about the crimes committed by the United States?

Rapp: No country is perfect. We work on our own conduct. The US does have a system of its own Military justice. When Sergeant Bales killed several people in Kabul, we charged him and sent him to prison for sixteen years. When American Security contractors, decorated ex servicemen shot down civilians on the streets of Iraq, we eventually sent them to prison for thirty years and for life. One of the problems we have in Sri Lanka is even with sexual abuse, sexual slavery, torture etc no one ever seems to be held accountable for it. You need to professionalise the situation. You need to have stronger systems of military justice.

Q: You mean to say the US is having such systems or is it just hypocrisy?

Rapp: No. It is not hypocrisy. You should see the families demonstrating saying how can you send this hero to prison because of what he has done and he was frightened by that car and is justified killing that child. We track down these things and we do this. May be we don’t do them perfectly. You need to have a system in doing these things and in Sri Lanka there hasn’t been such system or mechanism. Having said that I am aware of the work of the Attorney General. I was working with him on the Trinco five, ASF seventeen and we never got any progress at all by the former government. They misrepresented the aspects of the facts. These cases just don’t go anywhere. One really needs to work on it and as I say that’s not something any country is perfect about. But, we want to see that done.

Q: Sri Lankans have found that Republicans have been very favourable to Sri Lanka. Only time a Sri Lankan leader (President JR Jayewardene ) was invited on an official visit was during the time of President Ronald Reagan. How do you see the change of Presidency in the US for Sri Lanka?

Rapp: America is a good friend of Sri Lanka no matter who the President is. Friends work with you to strengthen your system and certainly I am proud of the role that Obama administration played in Sri Lanka which I think was very successful.

Courtesy: The Island