Excellent analysis Mr. Lynch,

The Burmese military now plans to adopt the Rajapaksa doctrine of military solution to the national question in Burma, with the backing of the same establishments that backed Rajapaksa, and Vijay Nambiar (UN) is in the scene again, facilitating the agenda and shielding the war crimes.

Remember, during Burmese elections, the military commander for the ethnic minorities region said 'We are doing this for Democracy' when the ethnic minorities were not allowed for voting in the region.

The week long vote this month in Southern Sudan's referendum on self-determination is a model solution to an intractable problem. A country at war for twenty years, split between two distinct peoples speaking a different language, worshiping a different religion and ethnically separate. One dominates the other and imposes their way of life upon the other.

UN does not have to favour any rogue regime. It has to its part and campaign for peace and a vote.

East Timor, Kosovo and now South Sudan cast their vote.

Minority Rights Group: Report on Rising ethnic nationalism in Sri Lanka:

http://www.minorityrights.org/10463/press-releases/rising-ethnic-nationalism-in-sri-lanka-targets-minorities-for-abuse-new-report.html

‘Despite the end of the war, many Tamil and Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka continue to live in fear, ’ says Mark Lattimer, Executive Director of MRG.

The report quotes minority political leaders and activists who express serious fear of a state based on Sinhala hegemony. It documents cases of land in traditional Tamil and Muslim areas being seized by military and civilian authorities and used for the construction of everything from military encampments and a power plant to hotels and leisure facilities. The report also expresses concerns by minority activists at the sudden proliferation of Buddhist temples and religious symbols in Tamil and Muslim areas, which they argue is politically sponsored.

When the Press Institute complained about the oppression and criminal activities in the Tamil region to the Sri Lankan President, his response was 'do not rouse communalism'.

This was from a President who has witnessed several state-sponsored ethnic riots and mass massacres unleashed on ethnic minorities over the past five decades.

A President who has a brother who ordered 'kill everybody' when civilians were herded into tarpaulin huts and ICRC was kicked out.

Successive Sri Lankan governments have been successful at the UN for decades in
i.damage control by ''appointing'' Commissions and ''holding'' peace talks to kill time and to ward off sanction
ii. vilifying top UN officials in New York(eg in 2006/7/8) whenever they spoke of human rights violations by the government
iii.preventing UN Special Rapporteurs(egSR for extrajudicial killings) from visiting the country
iv.objecting to human rights monitoring
v.placing severe restrictions on UN staff on the ground and reprimanding them if they criticise(Eg WPF official in 2008) and expelling them, eg UNICEF spokesperson in 2009

A natural follow-up is wearing down the UN panel by all possible means.

It's not only the military solution that can be followed by contries like Burma and other rogue states but also the way the UN has been treated by Sri Lanka may also be emulated by rogue states.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/23/sri.lanka.united.nations/
U.N. secretary-general: Sri Lanka sites for the displaced 'appalling', 24 May 2009: "I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen," Ban told CNN. "I sympathize fully with all of the displaced persons."

He could tell CNN and not the President of Sri Lanka????

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84805/
SRI LANKA: "Too many people" at huge IDP camp - UN, 11 June 2009
Neil Buhne, the UN resident coordinator in Sri Lanka: ''The fundamental issue is that there are too many people in too small a place. We think it is the largest IDP camp in the world.''

UN couldn't be firm with a very repressive regime like Sri Lanka??

We need a stronger Secretary General

"The Sri Lankans have sought to keep their interaction through the secretariat, specifically the EOSG [the executive office of the secretary general]," the official said. "We have, however, been asking them and the panel to deal with each other directly and shall continue to do so."

Puzzled??

That's how Sri Lanka does its business:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dfid.gov.uk/mdg/aid-effectiveness/newsletters/srilanka-report.pdf
Sri Lanka: Aid effectiveness A scoping of development partner perceptions for DFID-SEA, Simon Harris 15th September 2005 (Revised Draft):
''Many respondents noted that the Government was neither reformist, nor open to criticism. Bilateral and informal discussions were preferred by the GoSL to joint open forums and critical debate.''

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sri_lanka_49737.html
As fighting ends, Sri Lanka faces a critical moment, 20 May 2009:
‘’Over a quarter of a million Sri Lankans are now in camps for people displaced by the fighting, and over this past weekend, the government restricted access to some camps by UN workers and their partners.''

'‘Top Ten’ humanitarian crises: Aid blocked and diseases neglected, MSF, 21 December 2009: ‘’… Three distinct patterns dominated in 2009: governments blocked lifesaving assistance to trapped populations, including in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Sudan’’

"In their last stand, the separatist Tamil Tigers embedded themselves in a displaced community of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians, forcing them to serve as human shields. The Sri Lankan military, meanwhile, fired indiscriminately into crowds of civilians, killing as many as 30,000."

From what I read in the media, the above seems to be the allegation repeated by many who appeal to the UN and other western governments. How do you tell apart a civilian from a combatant in such a situation?

More importantly, the land area where these civillians were used as a human shield was a mere 3 sq.miles (according to UN's own satellite imagery). If 30,000 civilians perished in a 3 sq mile area, one would not be able to walk 10 feet without walking over a grave. Also, the many countries and the UN who were watching this from 'above' would have easily spotted trouble if such a large scale carnage was taking place. So, where's the evidence. Did 30,000 people just vanish without a trace? Things don't seem to add up.

The eyewitness accounts put the civilian death toll at less than 1000 (and there were 300,000 who were rescued from harm). I'm more inclined to go with that number as the folks who were used as a human shields would be better able to tell apart civilians from combatants.

Even a single civilian death is one too many. However, any war situation causes death. I feel the Sri Lankan forces haven't performed any better or worse than their western counterparts engaged in other war situations. They have however, managed to wipe out a brutal terrorist insurgency saving 20 million people from daily terrorist attacks.... perhaps at the expense of several thousand casualties (combatants included). This goes against the conventional thinking that terrorism cannot be defeated militarily.... thus the compulsion to look for war crimes.

This is just a nother way of looking at the issue without simply buying in to the overwhelming amount of misinformation circulating around. I feel the Sri Lankan govt . should conduct a census of howmany actually perished during the last stages. Who is a civilian and who killed whom would always be shrouded by the fog of war.

Just my two cents.