{"id":8594,"date":"2010-11-29T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T23:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=8594"},"modified":"2010-11-24T15:15:32","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T14:15:32","slug":"war-criminal-gets-a-un-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/11\/war-criminal-gets-a-un-job\/","title":{"rendered":"‘War Criminal’ Gets a UN Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

A suspected war criminal who allegedly played a key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka has landed a cushy job at the United Nations <\/a>— with full diplomatic immunity. <\/em><\/p>\n

Human-rights groups are outraged that Shavendra Silva, 46, a top ex-military commander, was named Sri Lanka’s deputy permanent UN representative in August, after which he moved to New York.<\/p>\n

His arrival came a year after his troops defied international pleas and shelled a no-fire zone packed with women, children and elderly refugees, according to observers.<\/p>\n

Silva also stands accused of mowing down a group of separatist political leaders who agreed to surrender and were waving white flags when they were shot.<\/p>\n

“It’s a slap in the face,” said an investigator familiar with Silva, who last year oversaw the final months of a brutal 26-year civil war against Tamil separatists on the island nation off India’s southeastern tip.<\/p>\n

The war started in 1983 after the Tamils, a Hindu ethnic minority, were denied power by the ruling Sinhalese, Buddhists, and formed a violent resistance group, the Tamil Tigers.<\/p>\n

“Thousands were killed or starved. There were massive human-rights violations and he’s the No. 1 suspect,” said the investigator, a human-rights group expert who asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n

“And they send this guy here? There’s no one other than him in the mission who was involved in this.”<\/p>\n

Silva claims 11,000 friends on Facebook. The barrel-chested former major general also maintains his own site, shavendrasilva.com, filled with photos of himself in combat garb and a list of his battlefield successes.<\/p>\n

He works from an office at the Sri Lankan mission on Third Avenue.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nypost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A suspected war criminal who allegedly played a key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka has landed a cushy job at the United Nations — with full diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}