COLOMBO: The United States has banned Sri Lanka’s Army Commander Shavendra Silva and his immediate family members from entering the country over what it calls ‘credible’ war crime charges—mainly gross violations of human rights, especially extrajudicial killings by the army during the final phase of the Eelam War in 2009. But in an interview in December last year to Nitin A. Gokhale, founder of BharatShakti.in, who now also heads StratNews Global, Gen. Silva questioned the motive of the allegations against him. I have faced three enquiries in Sri Lanka under the law but no court has declared me guilty, he said. Shouldn’t the basic principle of natural justice—presumed innocent till proven guilty—apply to me, the General asked. “And why was there no fuss when I was Sri Lanka’s envoy to the United Nations for four years and a half?”
