Prabhakaran: the spectre haunting human rights activists
One
of the most disheartening - one may even call it flawed - reports
produced on the current crisis in Sri Lanka is the latest Asia Report
135 of the International Crisis Group (ICG). As the title says, the
report deals with Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis. It is disheartening
because it runs on the predictable groove of blaming practically
everyone - Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), the LTTE, better known as
Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan Peace Monitors, the Tamil para-militaries,
the international community, the UN, the Sri Lankan judiciary, the
commissions of inquiry etc - without targeting the key area that needs
to be addressed for any solution to emerge.
By and large (and predictably) the ICG blames the GOSL. Though the
ICG blames the Tamil Tigers intermittently it places the primary
responsibility on the GOSL to correct its human rights record. That
again is predictable. It concedes that "(T)he government faces a severe
security threat, which it has a legitimate right to address. However,
its policies are doing little to improve security and are fuelling
antagonism among moderate Tamils and other minorities towards the
state."
Its
recipe: "Without ignoring or minimising the serious violations of the
LTTE, the international community needs to bring more pressure to bear
on the government, through UN mechanisms, a reappraisal of aid policies
and intensified political engagement. The alternative is a further
decline into authoritarianism, violence, terrorism and repression."
Blaming the international community ICG adds: "The international
community has responded to the renewed conflict and human rights abuses,
however, in a disjointed and lacklustre way. While there has been some
public criticism, there is little sign of a coordinated approach that
would put real pressure on the government to change course."
In conclusion it says: "The international community can no longer
afford simply to repeat formulaic criticisms of the government's human
rights violations and express hope that political proposals will be
forthcoming. More urgent action is needed, including support for a
resolution in the UN Human Rights Council, an across the board
reassessment of aid policies and support for more international
involvement in monitoring abuses. Until that action is forthcoming, the
victims of violence perpetrated by the state, the LTTE, and other armed
groups have nowhere to turn."
In other words, the thrust of the Report is to tie the hands of the
GOSL with the tight ropes of human rights just the recipe required by
the Tamil Tigers to vindicate their position with their financial
backers in the diaspora to raise more funds to commit more violations of
human rights. Not surprisingly this issue comes up each time the
Security Forces are advancing into the area controlled by the Tamil
Tigers. It began with India stopping the advance of Sri Lankan forces
into Vaddamarachci area in the north by dropping lentils over Jaffna.
This "humanitarian intervention? was propagated then as a means of
winning the hearts and minds of the Jaffna Tamils people who were said
to be 'persecuted' by the Sri Lankan forces. The disastrous role of the
IPKF and its subsequent withdrawal stands as one of the best political
and historical answers to the outsiders who pretend to know the solution
to the crisis in Sri Lanka.
The analysis leading to the conclusion too is questionable. Based on
the popular theories touted by the local NGOs the ICG Report argues that
the Sri Lankan crisis can be solved if (1) a political package can be
presented to satisfy the aspirations of the Tamils (please note: Tamils
only and not the aspirations of the other communities) and (2) human
rights issues are addressed to wean away the Tamil moderates from the
Tamil Tigers which, hopefully, will return the country to normalcy.
'Little problem'
That is the theory though the ICG concedes that there is this little
problem of tackling Velupillai Prabhakaran. A fundamental flaw of the
ICG Report is its assumption that observing human rights with GOSL
taking full responsibility is the magic formula to put an end to the
crisis. It argues: "A central part of such a political strategy is
respect for due process and the basic rights of citizens. This kind of
respect for human rights is necessary to establish the legitimacy of the
state and to undercut the sense of grievance that is at the root of any
serious insurgency. Harsh counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency
efforts aim to deter insurgents and their potential supporters but
evidence shows that they often produce an opposite effect."
But the historical evidence proves that forces bigger than human
rights and various peace packages (Indian and Oslo agreements) have
failed to bring the Tamil Tigers to the negotiating table, or to keep
them there whenever they come to the table. Whatever the merits of human
rights are and no one denies those merits - and however noble the ideals
are the fact remains that nations fighting insurgency never won any
battle by waving the UN charter on human rights. The ICG report confirms
this when it says in the period from 2002-2006 when the Ceasefire was in
force the Tamil Tigers took advantage of the reluctance of Ranil
Wickremesinghe government to confront the violations of the human rights
and the provisions of the CFA, fearing such action would upset the
prospects of peace talks. In the end neither peace talks nor human
rights gained anything by the so-called 'confidence building' inaction
of the Wickremesinghe-Bradman Weerakoon duo. So what are the lessons
that should be drawn by human rights activists from these historical
experiences Sri Lanka has established a track record of defeating
southern terrorism. But the ICG dismisses the defeat of the JVP as a
victory over a "elatively amateur, poorly funded and ineffective
fighting force.? It also adds the use of great brutality and legal and
extra-judicial violence" for the states success.
Salient points
Though there is a modicum of truth in this it is, on the whole, a
case of trivialising and misdiagnosing the factors that led to the
collapse of the JVP as a violent force. ICG also talks of
discrimination, disenfranchisement, repression and identity politics as
other causes. Leaving aside the validity of these claims cranked up by
one single minority of the north, ICG has missed the salient points that
gave succour to the Tiger terror. First is the sheer ruthlessness of the
Tiger tactics in eliminating their rivals and the licence given to them
to get away with violations of human rights with impunity. Second, JVP
did not have foreign backers like India who trained them, financed them
and armed them to destablise Sri Lanka. Third, the Churches dominated by
Tamil clergy, with international pastoral networks stretching from home
to Rome, were not there to justify their political violence. Fourth, the
founding fathers of Marxism who were quick to condemn the JVP as CIA
agents were the first to raise their voices in defence of mono-ethnic
extremism of northern political class. Fifth, there wasn't a
foreign-funded NGO, backed by foreign governments, to lend a hand and
political respectability to the JVPers. Sixth, the JVPers did not gain
any substantial sympathy from the north (e.g. academics, leftists, and
political activists) like the way the Tamils of the north got from the
south, despite the cries of Sinhala chauvinism. Seven, the Sinhala
diaspora was not sympathetic to the JVPers who also cried discrimination
on the basis of language (English/kaduwa) and lack of social mobility.
Eighth, GOSL was not hampered by the fledgling 'civil society' and its
human rights issues to deal with the violence unleashed by the JVP.
Ninth, their short spurts of violence did not produce a flood of Sinhala
migrants who could exploit the benefits of a long-drawn violence (like
the Tamils) to gain refugee status and sympathy of the bleeding hearts
of the West. Tenth, the Tigers cashed in on the cry of discrimination by
presenting themselves as the underdog despite the fact that they were
the most privileged community that went out to the world and occupied
professional heights in Western capitals through the free education
system (from the kindergarten to the university) provided by the
so-called 'Sinhala-dominated governments'. Eleventh, though the Tamil
and Sinhala youth were stuck in a stagnant colonial economy facing the
same socio-economic disabilities and inequalities the JVPers did not
have the middle-class English-speaking elite to lead them, or to prepare
the ground for them to grab the attention or the support on a global
scale.
These and other factors will reveal how much of Tamil politics have
influenced and misdirected the analysis of the ICG Report. Apart from
this it is clear that the ICG Report is a rehash of the formulas written
by the local NGO pundits. The strictures, the analysis and the
prescriptions in the ICG Report could have been done by Paikiasothy
Saravanamuttu or Kumar Rupesinghe eyes closed. In fact, the argument to
restrain the GOSL by cutting aid was the theme of Saravanamuttu?s talk
to the CSIS in New York , headed by the former US Ambassador to Sri
Lanka , Teresita Schaffer.
Here a distinction needs to be drawn in the name of human rights. It
is not in the interest of global peace, stability and prosperity to
advocate, encourage, or manufacture excuses for the violations of human
rights. But sometimes, as in the case of just wars, there are
exceptional circumstances when, in the overall interests of protecting
human rights threatened by brutal forces, it becomes necessary to fight
fire with fire. Violent politics strikes a moral posture of being above
the law because of perceived grievances. The world is full of grievances
but that does not give each and every disaffected group to resort to
violence outside the framework of law.
That's a recipe for chaos and not for protection of human rights.
Democratic forces fighting forces outside the law can never eliminate
violations of human rights or even excesses sometimes. The best they can
do is to minimise such excesses.
Nevertheless, in Sri Lanka powerful forces, both foreign and local,
exploit human rights issues to strengthen the authoritarian one-man rule
by tying the hands of a democratically elected government that has
maintained its democratic structures (with faults no doubt) against
overwhelming forces of right-wing coups, left-wing uprisings and a
terrorist force unleashed by mono-ethnic extremism. The contradictions
are too stark to add any further comment.
President Mahinda Rajapakse is fully aware of the negative impact of
violating human rights and the ICG Report quotes him as saying that it
tends to drive the Tamils into the hands of Prabhakaran. Apart from the
political consequences human rights are treasured for the mutual
benefits they bestow on the protectors and the recipients of these
sacred values. Human dignity is dependent on human rights. Violence
strips that dignity and dehumanizes society with no shared values to
hold individuals together except hate.
Hate
Prabhakaran is the embodiment of hate. He packs his suicide bombers
body belts with explosives of hate. He reduces his suicide bomber to a
zombie driven only by pure hate. It is not love that turned human beings
into precision bombers of Rajiv Gandhi and Premadasa.
Each death is counted by him as a tribute to his glory. Each death is
a fix that pumps his adrenalin.
Graveyards of Tamil youth are kept meticulously clean to wipe out any
stains of blood or memories of his guilt. The violence he unleashes
confirms to him his arbitrary and unrestrained power over life and
death.He has thrived so far on the power of his violence. His minions
are instructed to bring him videos of events that glorify him as a
global power. They even took pictures of the body parts of Rajiv Gandhi
flying in all directions of the compass. Those pictures make him believe
that he can even make India dance to his tune. Where would he be today
if he was persuaded to give up violence and embrace human rights?
Would any Western diplomat queue up outside his den in the Vanni if
he had failed to use his gun accurately? If the moral merchants in the
NGO and diplomatic circles had evaluated the misguided eviction of 370
Tamils from Colombo (which, of course, was condemned and corrected by
the judiciary and the GOSL) with that of the ethnic cleansing of the
50,000 Muslims from Jaffna by the Tamil Tigers (mark you, without any
corrections so far) who should get the plaudits for protecting human
rights?
Tragically, the lip service paid by the Western world to human rights
had devalued these sacred tenets to a worthless piece of paper. Last
Monday, for instance, a US-led air-strike killed seven children in an
Afghan school.
Did the British Ambassador in Washington walk into the State
Department and read the riot act to the Americans. In Australia last
Wednesday a police officer accused of killing an Aborigine locked up in
a cell walked out free from a court. His defence was that the Aborigine
broke four ribs, split his liver and punctured his portal vein then fell
on his prisoner in a fight. The Aborigine died of internal haemorrhage
within an hour. Medical experts said that it would require 'massive
force', something like a knee', to inflict those injuries. It doesn't
require much imagination to guess what the NGOs would have said about
the judiciary if such a verdict was delivered in Sri Lanka against a
Sinhala Police officer. The ICG Report confuses the human rights
violations of the south with the military efforts to beat the Tigers.
Though one leads to the other in a vicious cycle they are two different
issues. Given the nature of entrenched Tamil Tiger terrorism military
responses, at times, are bound to be excessive.
Without making excuses for those excesses, it is legitimate to ask
those nations who accuse Sri Lanka of violating human rights a simple
question: which nation fighting brutal enemies came out of their wars
with clean hands. By all means, the international community has a duty
to put pressure on Sri Lanka to curtail excesses. But in the process do
they have a right to commit excesses of cutting aid as a punitive
measure. This war, and consequently the violations of human rights
arising from this war, would have ended if these Western nations
proposing to cut aid had stopped the unlimited aid flowing out of their
banks to finance Prabhakaran's killing machine. This war and the
violations of human rights arising from this war would have ended a long
time ago if the nations calling for sanctions against Sri Lanka had cut
off aid that flowed freely from their bases to Prabhakaran. Every
bullet, gun, boats, planes came from Western funds. So who is
responsible for keeping the war going for so long. And who is
responsible for the violations of the human rights?
The ICG Report which blames every one in sight does not look inwards
at their guilt and responsibilities. It is their failure that had
fuelled the fires of war in Sri Lanka . It is immoral and hypocritical
for the ICG to press for cutting of aid to a democratic government
fighting a terrorist war that had been financed by the Western nations.
The ICG smugly passes the buck to GOSL. It talks of the several Western
governments cracking down recently on the Tigers after letting them run
in their backyards for decades. They sit in judgment over Sri Lanka, as
some superior moral guardians, without taking any responsibility for the
crimes they have committed in providing bases to raise funds, torture
and extort money from their citizens, turn a blind eye to exporting
terrorism from UK, for instance, saying that they had not violated
British laws, and above all, refusing to act even now on the critical
judicial remedy available to them to solve the problem. They are
pussyfooting around human rights issues without going straight into the
heart of the problem the heart of darkness hidden in the jungles of
Vanni.
The ICG Report comes almost near to it but at the critical point it
turns away from the obvious, the necessary, the logical and the
inevitable step a step which it has taken in other instances where
violations of human rights have reached intolerable levels. The
international community has two major options: 1. military intervention
for regime change as in Iraq and 2. hunting and charging political
criminals who have a dismal record of violating human rights. Charles
Taylor of Sierra Leone is the latest that is being tried by the UN
prosecutors.
What explanation can the international community, along with their
moral mates in the NGOs, give for not putting Prabhakaran on trial for
war crimes and crimes against humanity. The New York Times branded him
as the "latest Pol Pot of Asia" who incarcerates Tamils who dare to even
crack anti-Prabhkaran jokes. He is a criminal wanted by Interpol, India
and Sri Lanka . He is banned in all countries respecting human rights.
Oddly enough, the ICG Report even mentions the need for Louise Arbour,
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit Sri Lanka and negotiate
with the GOSL. ICG also talks of making "other UN mechanisms" more
active. But "more active" for what? Is it to tie the hands of the GOSL
or to maintain the status quo by providing further legitimacy and scope
to perpetuate the one-man regime of the Tamil Pol Pot. Fed up with the
violations of human rights perpetuated by a needless war political
observers tend to agree that there will not be peace in Sri Lanka until
Prabhakaran is removed from the political equation. This removal can
take many forms. It may be a regime change. It may be a safe haven in
Norway for Prabhakaran. It may be voluntary retirement. It may be a
cyanide pill, if he chooses that exit. Or it may be a trial in an
international criminal court set up by the UN.
If the ICG is genuinely concerned about the human rights issue in Sri
Lanka why does it not take the initiative in filing the open-and-shut
case against Prabhakaran. What is inhibiting it. Why isn't the
international community hunting him the way they hunted the war
criminals in divided Yugoslavia. ICG knows that all its sanctions have
failed to reform Prabhakaran. So what is ICG waiting for? What is its
excuse.
Is it going to claim that peace process will be hindered if he is put
on trial? The reality is that the peace process has not gone anywhere
and will not go anywhere as long as he remains as the man who calls the
shots in the crisis. In one stroke the international community can
immobilize him by de-legitimizing his violent politics and alienate him
from the war-weary Tamils who are yearning for peace if a case is
instituted against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The impact on the peace process would be electrifying. More than all
the measures taken to stop the flow on funds from Tamil expatriates this
legal move would paralyze them as never before. There isn?t a better
means of protecting human rights than putting the man responsible for
most of it behind bars.
But will ICG or Ms. Louise Arbour take this critical step?
Considering the crimes he has committed against his own people let alone
the other communities he should have been put on trial years ago. The
credibility and the integrity of ICG and Ms. Arbour will rocket sky high
if they move in this direction to defend and protect human rights.
The victims of this needless war in Sri Lanka are sick to their back
teeth of more futile reports of this nature. ICG should be sufficiently
informed by now of the ground realities to know that the best option
available is to indict the man who will never give peace either to his
Tamil people, or to the other communities, or even to the region.
It is easy to write reports which generally tend to find excuses or
legitimize violence of non-state actors in democratic societies. The
hard part is in de-legitimizing violence of these armed groups which is
a primary requirement to prevent violations of human rights. ICG sadly
has taken the easy option.
Failure to accept this legal remedy will make ICG another irrelevant
producer of reports that are not even remotely connected to conflict
resolution. |