R2P - latest acronym for neo-colonial interventions
Delivering the Eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture at the
International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, on July 29th
2007 Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group (ICG), has in
his characteristic eloquent style clinically analyzed and described the
new instrument of international intervention needed to prevent future
"Holocausts and Cambodias and Rwandas and Bosnias of the past, and the
Darfurs of the present, and maybe the Iraqs of the near future"
happening again.
He names the new instrument as "R2P". It is Gareth Evans? shorthand
for "responsibility to protect". He also spells out his reasons to
justify why R2P is applicable to the Sri Lankan situation.
Both are controversial. Despite the lucid exposition of the
parameters and the import of R2P and its uses, his argument is mired in
deep political, moral, legal and philosophical issues that the way out
for existing and impending "humanitarian crises" through R2P seems to be
nowhere nearer than in the old linguistic model, or envisaged in his
lecture. The new terminology is neither an advancement on the old
concept (it tastes more like old wine in new bottles) nor does it seem
like a viable and satisfactory solution to the prevention of
humanitarian crises. (More of this later).
Second, the political analysis on which he proposes to apply R2P to
Sri Lankan crisis questions not only the validity of R2P but also the
premises, the principles and the criteria recommended by him for its
application anywhere, let alone Sri Lanka. He states that Sri Lanka is
not another Rwanda, or Cambodia or Kosovo but R2P must be applied. This
reveals his hidden agenda. In the name of delivering a memorial lecture
on Neelan Tiruchelvam he has come to lay down the law of the imperial
masters who judge, defines and implements their own definitions in
accordance with their political agenda.
The overall flow of his lecture leads to his main political agenda of
stopping the Sri Lankan military from advancing into the north on his
assumption that it has the potential to descend into another Rwanda or
Cambodia. Obviously, he is not aware that the Forces had regained Jaffna
and the east (despite threats of blood bath by the Tamil Tigers) without
descending anywhere near to a Rwanda or Kosovo. The Sri Lankan forces
had even quelled two Marxist uprising in the south with heavy casualties
no doubt, more than the north-south conflict.
The "balance of consequences" he points in Iraq has not occurred. The
failure to take the ground realities and assess the overall picture
makes Gareth Evans' argument rather unsustainable. It is a pity that he
has merely regurgitated what has been fed to him by the local NGOs
without making a realistic assessment of his own. This explains why he
has misdiagnosed the Sri Lankan case. That is, perhaps, excusable for a
misled pundit who had misread the symptoms. But to prescribe the wrong
surgical operation is unacceptable in any language.
But before getting down to the Sri Lanka situation a brief
examination of R2P is necessary. For all intents and purposes, R2P is a
moral and a legal instrument sharpened to override state sovereignty and
to impose the will of the international community. His argument amounts
to ram R2P down the throats of sovereign nations in the Westphalian
system, without overtly being overly imperialistic or interventionist.
There is a reasonable argument for intervention, when the state fails
"through incapacity or through ill-will", as in the case of Cambodia,
Kosovo or Rwanda. But why should R2P apply to Sri Lanka when he states
categorically that it is not in the same category of Kosovo or Rwanda?
As head of the ICG and as a leading proponent of R2P he sets out to
draw " the limits of state sovereignty, and the proper role of the
international community in responding to catastrophic human rights
violations - genocide and other mass killing, large scale ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity - occurring within the boundaries
of a single country." Nicely put.
Main thrust
The main thrust of his argument is to by-pass, wherever necessary,
Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter which states: "Nothing should authorise
intervention in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of
any State" and to replace that with the phrase coined by Bernard
Kouchner, the founder of Medicines Sans Frontier and now France's
Foreign Minister, of "droit d'ingerence" - the "right to intervene", or,
more fully, the "right of humanitarian intervention".
In other words, he attempts to draw the distinction between straight
out intervention for political, economic, strategic or other interests
and the "right of humanitarian intervention", with the emphasis on the
elastic and even all-embracing word "humanitarian". Quite rightly, he
points out the difficulties of applying this principle to all
humanitarian crises.
Citing Francis Deng, the Sudanese scholar and diplomat now named by
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as his Special Adviser for the
Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Gareth states that "its
essence should now be seen not as "control", as in the centuries old
Westphalian tradition, but, again, as "responsibility". The starting
point is that any state has the primary responsibility to protect the
individuals within it. But that is not the finishing point: where the
state fails in that responsibility, through either incapacity or
ill-will, a secondary responsibility to protect falls on the wider
international community. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the
responsibility to protect idea, or "R2P" as we are all now calling it
for short."
Here Evans is making a big play on semantics. He is shifting the
emphasis from "control" to "responsibility" as if it makes any
significant difference. No, it doesn't. "Responsibility" is a substitute
word to sanitize the opprobrium in the offensive word "control". In
essence, both words converge in a meaning that is not much different
from the other for the simple reason that those who take
"responsibility" do so to take "control". There is no point in taking
"responsibility" if those doing so cannot 'control' the situation.
Evans' focus on semantics is pivotal to his argument.
Without it his argument fails. He throws the linguistic net to catch
everyone who comes within the realms of his political agenda. In his
legalistic mind (he was a Professor in the Law Faculty of Melbourne
University, Australia) he is well aware that those who formulate the
rules have an advantage in any contest.
His law of contracts would have taught him that. The powerful
combatants invariably set the rules, define the limits and force the
other weak combatants to play according to the imposed dictates. This
ensures that the battle of the powerful is won even before it begins.
Defining ultimately is a key political act to achieve the desired goal.
Definitions make all the difference to winning or losing. Taking control
of the language to redefine the framework is a prime necessity to fix
the political agenda. The semantic framework in which the discourse is
held gives the upper hand to those who pre-plan the agenda. Once the
definitions and the language are established all actors will have to
play according to the rules that arise from the new definitions and
language.
Evans acknowledges this when he said: "The first was to invent a new
way of talking about 'humanitarian intervention'". (T) he whole point of
embracing (the new) language (R2P) is that it is capable of generating
an effective, consensual response in extreme, conscience-shocking cases,
in a way that "right to intervene" language was not. Besides, political
actions do not take place outside the linguistic framework. Refining the
language to define the actions, the programme and the action is a
prerequisite to pursue and achieve the preordained goals. Controlling
the discourse through an authoritarian, imperialistic language is
another way of imposing the will of those who craft the draft. The
language invariably precedes the implementation of the political agenda.
Evans has done this with finesse.
But in defining R2P he has (perhaps unwittingly) brought the meanings
of the two words "control" and "responsibility" together. He says that
'it means reacting effectively in situations where genocide, ethnic
cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity are currently
occurring or imminent. But it also means preventing situations, not yet
at that conscience-shocking stage but capable of reaching it, from so
deteriorating. And it means rebuilding societies shattered by such
catastrophes to ensure they do not recur.
"The action required by R2P is overwhelmingly, preventive: building
state capacity, remedying grievances and ensuring the rule of law. But
if prevention fails, R2P requires whatever measures - economic,
political, diplomatic, legal, security, or in the last resort military -
become necessary to stop mass atrocity crimes occurring."
His definition makes it amply clear that taking "responsibility" is
to take "control". He is trying to make out that taking "responsibility"
is a higher moral duty as opposed to taking "control" either through
unilateral or multilateral interventions. But it is a distinction
without a difference when it comes to "reacting effectively," as he
states. No power on earth, not even the ICG, can "react effectively"
without taking control.
However, in his nuanced argument Evans does not bluntly go all out to
maintain that international intervention is necessary for each and every
humanitarian crisis and applicable to every situation.
He takes great pains to emphasize that the first opportunity must be
given to individual states to take R2P action. So how should this
principle of helping Sri Lanka to help themselves be implemented by the
international community? The Sri Lankan state "has the responsibility,"
according to Evans, "to protect its population from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."
Every one of these crimes has been committed by the LTTE and that is
why they have been banned by the international community. That is also
why Velupillai Prabhakaran is wanted by Interpol, India and Sri Lanka.
And according to paragraph 138 of the World Summit Outcome Document
the responsibility of the international community is to help countries
to help themselves in taking preventive action. Evans goes further. He
says: "This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes,
including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. The
international community should as appropriate encourage and help States
to exercise that responsibility.
Crimes
All the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the LTTE
have reached unacceptable proportions over the years. The regional super
power, India, intervened (violating international law) and forced the
Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement in the name of "humanitarian assistance".
The LTTE ripped it apart and took up arms against the Indian Peace
Keeping Force. The biggest boast of the Tamil Tigers is that they
defeated the fourth biggest army in the world.
Then the stars in the nebulous international community worked out the
Ceasefire Agreement. LTTE not only walked out of talks shortly after
signing it but violated 95% of its terms and conditions, according to
Scandinavian Peace Monitors. The Tamil Tigers have reneged on agreements
with the UN to stop recruiting children - a war crime.
Since the international community and the regional super power have
failed to stop the war crimes and crimes committed against humanity
whose responsibility is to take the only option available in the last
resort to restore normalcy and decency in Sri Lanka: a regime change in
the Vanni. This is also endorsed by the Tamils in the democratic stream,
not to mention the look-alike and act-alike breakaway group of the LTTE
led by Karuna in the east.
According to the principles and criteria laid down by Evans, it is
the responsibility of the international community to help Sri Lanka "to
build capacity to protect (its) populations from these crimes (genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity) and to assist
those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out,"
says Evans, citing Paragraph 139 of the document approved unanimously by
the world leaders.
So isn't it necessary and appropriate for the world leaders to adhere
to their principles enshrined in Paragraphs 138 and 139 and help Sri
Lanka to prevent these crimes? Instead Evans is threatening to stop the
very forces that are advancing to fulfill the objectives outlined in
Paragraphs 138 and 139.
After the failures of the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement and the Ceasefire
Agreement what options are available in dealing with an intransigent and
incorrigible perpetrator of these crimes against humanity In summary,
Evans concludes that Sri Lankan is a R2P case which requires
international intervention. He says: "It may not be one where large
scale atrocity crimes - Cambodia-style, Rwanda-style, Srebrenica-style,
Kosovo-style - are occurring right now, or immediately about to occur,
but it is certainly a situation which is capable of deteriorating to
that extent."
His argument defies logic and commonsense. First, this argument runs
on the same logic of the policeman who produced a man before a
magistrate for distilling illicit liquor. As evidence police said that
he had all the necessary equipment for distilling liquor. The man said
that he should then be charged of rape too because he has equipment to
commit that crime!
Second, what justice or rationality is there in pushing an agenda of
his own when he brings imaginary charges against the he Sri Lankan
government and ignores the criminals who have been found guilty of
committing acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity"
Where is his commitment to Paragraphs 138 and 139? He says that Sri
Lanka is not "nor is it likely to be in near future" a Cambodia, Rwanda,
Srebrenica or Kosovo. But he imagines that "it is certainly a situation
which is capable of deteriorating to that extent."
Here he is parroting the hype of NGOs. Their tactic has been to
over-emphasize violations of human rights of the state fighting a grim
battle to protect a democratically elected state to cover-up for the
gross and horrendous violation of the Pol Potist regime in the north. In
falling in line with this line of mono-ethnic extremism of the north
Evans loses his balance and targets the victims of the brutal terrorist
violence who, based on historical experience, can be saved only by a
regime change in the Vanni.
Evans should know enough of history and heaps international
machinations to understand that an unrepentant and unrelenting political
criminal like Prabhakaran, who had killed more Tamils than all the other
forces put together, according to the son of the father of Tamil
separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanyakam, can never be reformed or contained by
throwing flowers of constitutional reforms or arguments of human rights.
Even if he doesn't accept this reality now he will realize it sooner
or later. Perhaps, sooner than later.
Of course, he argues that the "government's sovereign responsibility
is not to put its own citizens at undue risk. For this reason, the
government must resist the temptation to continue its military campaign
into the areas of the Northern Province held by the LTTE." At the
Melbourne University he would marked down this argument as casuistry to
cover-up for Pol Potism. If the priority of the world leaders is to
prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity happening again, and if
Sri Lanka is not like Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica or Kosovo (except in
the projected imagination of Evans) what should be the response of the
international community? Based on Paragraph 138 and 139 (cited above)
should it not be to help the Sri Lankan state to take effective action
to protect its people held captive in the Tamil Terroristan?
To understand why Evans is going down this track, against all logic
and available evidence, it is necessary to place in context the timing
of his arrival to deliver the Tiruchelvam Memorial lecture sponsored by
the ICES. Without reading much into it, it should be noted that he has
come at the time when the Security Forces had advanced, with commendable
discipline and skill, avoiding the Srebrenica- Kosovo style of ethnic
cleansing, or even Rwanda-scale horrors in the east. In 1995 the forces
also occupied Jaffna without creating such horrendous ethnic
catastrophes. In fact, in putting down violent challenges thrown at the
democratically elected state, the Sri Lankan government had killed more
Sinhalese (over a 100,000 at a rough estimate in the two JVP uprisings)
than in this north-south conflict.
What Evans has not grasped is that there is no visceral enmity
between the two communities as in the case of Kosovo or Srebrenica, or
Rwanda . That is why the majority of Tamils live with the Sinhalese in
the south. That is why the Sinhalese villages in the east were the first
to rush to the Tamil victims of the tsunami, long before the state or
the NGOs went in with their aid. That is also why that there has been no
ethnic backlashes against the Tamil community (as in 1983) despite
systematic provocations of the Tamil Tigers to needle the lower-level
Sinhala leadership to retaliate violently against the Tamil neighbours
each time they attack the sacred Buddhist sites, or massacre babies,
Buddhist monks and pregnant mothers in villages.
Evans, of course, has missed all these realities. His political line
can be understood only if it is compared with the fixed mind-set of the
local NGOs whose main objective has been to tie the hands of the Sri
Lankan forces with cries of human rights violations - cries raised to
stop the advance of forces through international intervention. It is
also reported that he has close rapport with Radhika Coomaraswamy who
headed the ICES before the Sri Lankan government sponsored her to the
post of an Under-Secretary at the UN. Sadly, both belong to that band of
do-gooders in the world thriving on manufacturing sophisticated
rationalizations for the evils staring in their faces. It is no
coincidence that Evans was invited to deliver the Neelan Tiruchelvam
Memorial lecture precisely at this time.
He is the right spokesperson with the required high-profile who could
be recruited, without any arm-twisting, to do the job of protecting the
Pol Potist regime in the Vanni by stopping the advance of the Security
Forces.
Besides, his analysis and his recipe of R2P have been written many
times over by the foreign-funded International Centre for Ethnic Studies
(meaning only partisan studies of Sinhala-Buddhists and not the northern
Hindu Tamils), Centre for Policy Alternative (meaning policy
alternatives only for the democratic south and not for the fascist
north), National Peace Council (meaning a council to cover-up the war
crimes committed by the war lords of the north) etc., etc.
The only new aspect in Evans' lecture is the finger-pointing threat
at the state if it goes into the north. This is a repetition of Indian
intervention when the Sri Lankan forces were on the verge of de-clawing
the Tamil Tigers. The Indians too came in the name of humanitarian
intervention and air-dropped lentils, violating the sovereignty and the
territorial integrity of its southern neighbour. The Indian language was
different from that of Evans. They didn't come wrapped in fancy R2P but
the effect was the same.
In the case of Evans, however, he seems to be all over the place with
him wriggling, semantically, to intervene through his R2P language,
despite him saying that the so-called "R2P situation". demands
preventive action, by the Sri Lankan government itself, but with the
help and support of the wider international community, to ensure that
further deterioration does not occur."
If he really means what he says then in what manner should the wider
international community support and help Sri Lanka to take
responsibility to protect its citizens? Hasn't the state the right to
invoke Bernard Kouchner's "droit d'ingerence" - the "right to
intervene", or, more fully, the "right of humanitarian intervention" to
prevent the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Tamil
Terroristan' Or is R2P action a right reserved only for the imperial
masters' Going against his own definition of R2P Evans labours, point by
point. to argue against the Security Forces advancing to liberate the
Tamil citizens - a call, incidentally, made by the UN peace
award-winning Tamil leader, V. Anandasangaree. All his arguments boil
down to block the Security Forces taking R2P action. This is why
political observers see him as an agent of the local NGOs arriving in
time to twist the arm of the government, with not-so-veiled threats from
the international community. This threat also undermines his argument
that the first preference is given to the state to initiate R2P action.
Consider, for instance his legal argument: "Recognizing that the
government's primary responsibility, like that of any state, is to
protect all its citizens, it must take steps to ensure that all its
citizens are accorded the equal protection of the laws." It is
unthinkable that he would confine the definition of the phrase "to
protect all its citizens" only to those living in the south. All
citizens should include those living in the Tamil Terroristan too?
citizens who are forced to endure crimes against their own children
with, mark you, Radhika Coomaraswamy, a concerned Tail, presiding over
their hapless fate at the UN. How do Evans and Coomaraswamy propose to
protect these children from falling into the clutches of the Tamil
Tigers? Is it by giving another lecture? Or by writing another report
for the UN Secretary-General? Their politics do not give priority to war
crimes an crimes against humanity which they know for will not end as
long as Velupillai Prabhakaran is allowed to reign with impunity in
Tamil Terroristan.
They go down the other political tract of NGOs that argue in devious
ways that priority should be given to power-sharing with the mono-ethnic
extremists of the north over any meaningful consideration of the rights
of children or the victims of the violations of human rights. Their
intent is to keep the Tamil Tigers in power as a guarantee of Tamil
rights and R2P should not be applied to the north until the south
provides them an undue share of powers ignoring the aspirations of all
communities. In this argument human rights takes the last place in their
list of priorities. They invoke human rights only to force the state to
submit to their political demands and not because they are genuinely
concerned about protecting human rights. In other words, human rights
are used as a political tool to beat the state, exonerating the
so-called de facto state guilty of horripilating crimes against
humanity.
This argument is a perversion of R2P. ICG must decide whether it
wants to prioritize human rights, as it professes, or go along with the
criminal politics of the mono-ethnic extremists.
Besides, going on Evans' "balance of consequences", the chances of
Tamils finding political solution are far greater without the Tigers
than with them holding a gun at the heads of those seeking peace. Sadly,
Evans? argument honed to stop the advance of the Sri Lankan forces does
not go as far as protecting all those citizens held to ransom by a
ruthless group of political criminals. His silence on this implies that
those citizens either need no protection from the state or are not
citizens of the state. In either case, he has virtually abandoned the
"responsibilities" to protect those citizens, either by the state or by
the international community. If Evans is keen on prioritizing politics
as against human rights then he loses the moral high ground.
Though he is bound to reject it, he becomes an ally of Prabhakaran
and not the state which he states deserves international help to prevent
violations of human rights. He argues that the Sri Lankan government
must take preventive action "with the help and support of the wider
international community, to ensure that further deterioration does not
occur." But in saying that the Sri Lankan forces must not advance to
change the regime that is violating human rights on an unprecedented
scale he is endorsing the NGO line that the status quo must be
maintained, leading to further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis
in Tamil Terroristan and, consequently, the rest of the nation.
On balance and by all the available evidence the most pragmatic
course available to deal with the deteriorating human rights crisis in
Sri Lanka is for the ICG to unleash the full force of R2P against "the
Pol Potist regime" (James Burns of New York Times - June 25, 1995) than
against the Sri Lankan state. He mentions the nominal restrictions
placed on the Tigers in Western havens. But to what effect? Roland Buerk,
BBC, in his latest report from Killinochchi states: "But now there is
new evidence that the organisation is forcing civilians into its ranks"
- one from each family to fight in a needless war. Evans is also aware
of the forcible recruitment of child soldiers, reneging on all UN
agreements from 1995. He may not be aware of the Nazi-style
concentration camps run in the heart of Terroristan, but he may be
knowing of how 75,000 Muslims and 20,000 Sinhalese were ethnically
cleansed from Jaffna . He, of course, is aware of how the cream of Tamil
leadership has been eliminated. It has been an unceasing, on-going
humanitarian crisis with no signs of abating. With all this evidence
before him Evans refuses to accept that the Tamil Tigers have "crossed
the boundary into mass atrocity or obvious genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing, or crimes against humanity." He is stuck in his ideological
blindness. If he acknowledges the plight of the Tamils under ruthless
regime of Velupillai Prabhakaran he will be forced, by his own logic to
encourage the Sri Lankan state to initiate R2P action "with the help and
support of the wider international community, to ensure that further
deterioration does not occur".
But where does he draw the line? He draws the line only to prevent
the Sri Lankan government from taking the action to prevent future
Rwandas and Cambodias .
Sadly, ICG, like all local NGOs, is putting maximum pressure to
prevent the subhuman source from where these crimes originate. ICG, like
local NGOs is pussyfooting around the war crimes and the crimes against
humanity committed by the Tamil Tigers. In fact, Evans unashamedly
states that "in recent times" the Tigers have been behaving well
"without crossing the boundary into mass atrocity or obvious genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity." He even
equates that behaviour with that of the SL government. Whatever the data
base from which he derived this conclusion he seems to be quite
comfortable with the forcible abduction of children, concentration
camps, and door-knocking to recruit one young person from each family
and, judging from his statements neither the state nor the international
community need apply R2P to liberate the Tamils enslaved by Prabhakaran.
R2P is only to be applied in the south exempting the worst criminals in
the north.
Compounding all these sins of omission is the fact that Evans failed
to mention -not even in passing that Neelan Tiruchelvam was assassinated
by the Tamil Tigers. He does not view it as an integral part of the
inhuman LTTE outfit urgently in need of regime change under R2P action.
On the contrary, he gloats over his assumption that the Tamil Tigers
have not "crossed the border" recently, or that the Western citadels of
human rights, after nurturing them for decades, have at last made some
ineffective moves to curtail their fund raising. Based on Evans'
ideological blinkers, the peace-loving Sri Lankans can be excused for
thinking that R2P is the latest devious route of a neo-colonialist fox
sneaking its way into the hapless chicken coop.
One of the fundamental flaws in Evans' argument is the heartless way
in which he subjects reality to airy-fairy theories imported from the
West, or manufactured by the local NGOs.
He states: "It has taken the world an insanely long time, centuries
in fact, to come to terms conceptually with the idea that state
sovereignty is not a license to kill - that there is something
fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly
displacing large numbers of their own citizens, or standing by when
others do so." Well, there are two political entities in Sri Lanka -
(1)the perfect Terroristan in the north and (2)the imperfect democracy
in the south. On any scale of judgment, which side should he support in
pursuance of R2P? Or to take an example from his homeland, if there was
in the heart of Australia a subhuman pocket of tyranny violating all
know canons of human rights and challenging the authority of a
democratically elected government how would he apply R2P?
If Evans is worried about the "balance of consequences" aren't the
military operations and the consequences of the capture of Jaffna, the
east, and the ending of the two JVP insurrections good enough examples
for him to go by? Besides, wasn't it during his time as Foreign Minister
that Australia joined the multi-lateral force of throwing a naval cordon
round Iraq that blocked food and medical supplies leading to reported
deaths of around 500,000 children?
Without meaning to sound like a war-monger, it is most unlikely that
even a fraction of those casualties would occur on the "balance of
consequences" if the Security Forces should go north. It is against this
background that Evans has launched him mission to stop the Security
Forces advancing to the north and threatening the sovereign democratic
state (with all it faults) with R2P.
To prove his bona fides about his concerns for protecting communities
in crisis there is a simple legal remedy available to Evans. He has the
capacity/power to initiate action to bring Prabhakaran before an
International Criminal Court. This is, perhaps, the best
non-militaristic approach available in R2P. This legal action can then
circumvent any head-on collisions and prevent the grim scenario he
paints.
But he won't do that either. As a professional immersed in the law he
would have been aware of this option available to him and the
international community. What is international law worth if it can't be
applied to an open-and-shut case like this? Why is Evans, the ICG and
the international community running away from their "responsibilities"
Is it only to be applied to small countries which can be bullied into
submission by threats conveyed at lectures? With moral guardians like
Evans is it surprising that the likes of Prabhakaran reign in the safe
havens protected by those who failed to live up to their
"responsibilities" - responsibilities they never fail to proclaim from
NGO roof tops?
All in all, it is indeed "conscience-shocking" to see Gareth Evans,
the former Foreign Minister of Australia who pushed Austral-Lanka
relations to the brink, as it were, by defending the Aussie team's
refusal to play cricket in Sri Lanka fearing Tamil Tiger threats,
standing up now as a cryptic defender of a haven for Tamil Tiger
terrorists and, in the process, emerging as a toxic Aussie phrase-maker
for peddling obnoxious neo-colonialism. |