Forget everything.
Just answer this question.
If someone commits a war crime,
and proven he commited it,
should he be punished or not.
Answer as a human being.

podi eko seems you don't know how this is used
When a country wins a war it uses "war crimes" to destroy the military structure of the opponent and make sure it does not happen again
In the old days the winning army did this without the need of any laws.
There normally was a purge following the war
These days this is how it is done.
"War crimes" is a pretext for punishing those who went against the winner
You saw USA hang Saddam but have you ever seen the same USA hang a general of hers for the mass casualties in IRAQ
A Law should be exercised uniformly for both parties otherwise it is not a law.
You should be asking this question from USA and UK and see the replies
In a certain rescue operation UK commandos or whatever special forces shot all the terrorists in the head at the end or the fight(sort of an execution)
UK decided not to face charges because that could weaken the moral of the forces going to an operation if they knew that they could face courts
Mr Athula
A war is not a clean thing.
We don't have the resources to fight the so called clean wars.
Nor we see the countries having the resources fight one.
We should be grateful that our commanders won this thing with what they had.
Can you win a terrorist war(or any war) cleanly is another matter. A govt has to fight like terrorists to win a terrorist war.
eg you can't kill children but LTTE uses child soldiers.
You can't kill civilians but LTTE doesn't wear uniforms.
the only sensible thing to do then is fnish a war as quick as possible and that results in civilian casualties.
no government accuses its victorious soldiers of "war crimes"
There are ways to take care of people if they inflict unneeded casualties on civilians and military takes care of that
The other question is
proven he commited it,
This process normally has taken the lifetime of the accused. where he lives it in exile in a different country.
So my answer is ideally in a world everybody practices this and sends their generals to courts and punish every wrongdoing regardless of position or status. yes
In a practical world, In this current world NO
The other angle is that all the LTTE ers who are angry for losing the war want to see our officers get punishments
We shouldn't sacrifice our officers for them achieve their aims.
This most probably is gotabhaya's reason
(You seem to fall something similar to this category . You frustrated over losing the election want to see somebody near MR get punished any way possible and you don't care who else gets harmed)
The problem with you and SF is that you don't know to contain your domestic problems.
gewal athule amma thathath ekka bana gaththa kiayalla rata wate egollonge waradi kiya kiya awidinne nane. eka charter eka thami umbata oya karanna ona wela thiyenne