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Terrorism: Sri Lankan Law & Practise

"These provisions are quite extraordinarily wide. No legislation conferring even remotely comparable powers is in force in any other free democracy operating under the Rule of Law, however troubled it may be by politically motivated violence. Indeed there is only one known precedent for the power to impose restriction orders under section 11 of the Sri Lankan P.T.A., and that - as Professor Leary rightly pointed out in her Report - is the comparable legislation currently in force in South Africa... such a provision is an ugly blot on the statute book of any civilised country." - Paul Sieghart: Sri Lanka: A Mounting Tragedy of Errors - Report of International Commission of Jurists 1984

"A situation of armed violence may be either armed conflict or terrorism but legally cannot be both. Armed conflict automatically invokes the Geneva Conventions. Terrorism invokes criminal law.  The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are an actual combat group, fully uniformed, occupying territory, engaging in sustained and concerted military operations with an identifiable chain of command and using the methods and materiel of armed conflict. Whether the war is viewed as one in the defense of the right to self-determination (I think it is) or a civil war, the minimum test for a war is clearly met... Using the “terrorism” label against the LTTE.. creates a huge problem if one wishes to “negotiate...”"