Forked tongues of Gareth Evans and John Holmes
By now those Sri Lankans who have their eyes wide open must be quite
familiar with the globe-trotting descendants of the colonial masters
arriving in plane loads, carting their moral bag and baggage with them,
to tell us how we should behave according to what they say and not
according to what they do.
Sir. John Holmes, the UN Humanitarian Affairs Chief, has arrived hard
on the heels of Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group. Both
come from a past that does not quite smell like roses. For instance,
when Tony Blair nominated his buddy, Sir John, for the high-ranking
Under-Secretary General position in the UN there was widespread
criticism. One British commentator wrote: "Sir John is a personal friend
and holiday companion (of Tony Blair) who has limited experience in
emergency relief work compared with his predecessors, they say. He has
no prior experience, no relevant knowledge of the issues. He's a Tony
Crony." At best, Holmes is a thorough bred product of the colonial and
the neo-colonial bureaucracy of Britain .
He was knighted not for rendering humanitarian services but primarily
for services rendered to Her Majesty's government in various capacities,
most of which can be considered as perpetuating neo-colonial
exploitation of global markets and politics for the greater glory of
Britain .
Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia, despite his
intellectual credentials, has become a part of the antique furniture of
the international bureaucracy that is obsessed with policing the world
according to the Western gospel. He has been an integral part of the
Australian system that joined the American-led blockade to prevent
supplies of food and medicine reaching Iraq.
John Pilger, the left-wing journalist wrote: "Australian ships
operate with the American fleet in the Gulf, enforcing an embargo
against Iraq which, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, has
led to the unnecessary deaths of more than 600,000 Iraqi children."
Evans' record in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with Indonesia
and even Sri Lanka, does not shine as an exemplary model of an
enlightened force either, despite his eloquent rhetoric to pose like
one.
Both of them go round the world somewhat like the missionaries who
arrived in the colonies to civilize the barbaric heathens. Their earnest
mission is to play the role of Moses coming down from the lofty heights
to dictate an indelible and immutable morality revealed to them by some
superior force. The lesser mortals in smaller countries are expected to
take their commandments unquestioningly if they aspire to arrive in the
elusive land promised by them.
These two negative prophets share in common the doom and gloom
projected by the local NGOs. However, it must be mentioned in fairness
to Holmes that, in one of his rare lucid moments, he struck the right
note when he told a news conference in Colombo that (1) Karuna must be
disarmed and that (2) only the Security Forces have the right to carry
arms. A media report quoted him as saying: "I raised the Karuna issue
with all whom I met during my visit to Sri Lanka and found a clear
determination that Karuna should be disarmed.
The important thing here is the principle that the only people who
can have arms are the security forces. Karuna operates in an area
controlled by the government so that is why urgent action is needed."
Good news
This is good news. Perhaps, he may not have been quite aware of the
import of what he said. But the news is good because the UN has
recognized that only the Security Forces have the right to carry arms
and that Karuna, the look-alike and act-alike of the Tamil Tigers,
should be disarmed. (More of this later.) Presumably, his report will be
handed to the Secretary-General of the UN and the UN Under-Secretary
General, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the "strong-willed girl" from Jaffna,
according to her horoscope reader.
Just to show her strong will she even threw in words like
"fornication" at a Melbourne lecture to impress that she was not a
repressed conservative girl from Ladies College.
That apart, Holmes' statement has serious implications in the current
Sri Lankan context. First, it undermines the 'R2P' ("responsibility to
protect") theory of Gareth Evans, the head of the International Crisis
Group. In his flying visit to Sri Lanka recently, Evans' waved his R2P
and threatened international intervention should the Security Forces
move to disarm Prabhakaran. Holmes' statement to disarm Karuna in the
east runs counter to that of Evans who has arbitrarily banned such
action in the north against Prabhakaran. Evans refuses to accept similar
action against Prabhakaran because it has the potential to blow up into
a situation where the clash between Security Forces and Karuna's group
can lead to a Rwanda-type catastrophe.
The two statements of the two big players in the international scene
not only contradict each other but fail to provide clear guidelines to
GOSL. If GOSL intervenes militarily to disarm Karuna based on UN's John
Holmes will Evans' ICG rush to deliver another lecture at ICES
threatening dire consequences based on his theory of R2P which says that
any move of Security Forces to disarm Prabhakaran must be stopped by
international intervention - Or will Evans, in keeping with the INGO/NGO
agenda, turn a blind eye to the disarming of Karuna irrespective of the
"balance of consequences" which has "the potential" to descend to a
mini-Rwanda, according to his calculations.
Military intervention
Second, Holmes' green light to disarm Karuna is bound to end in some
violations of human rights as military intervention can hardly escape
collateral damage. In that event what will be the response of the UN,
ICG and the rest of the international community? Will they come down on
GOSL accusing it of violating human rights with the hired NGO claque
parroting R2P? Will the Human Rights Watch blame the GOSL for following
the line laid down by Holmes of the UN? Will Holmes then revisit to
defend Sri Lanka or tell Reuters that things are pretty after the GOSL
acted on his advice?
Third, why is disarmament confined only to Karuna? Why not to
Velupillai Prabhakaran too? Since Holmes prescribes remedies from a more
responsible and a law-making institution like the UN, can his formula
for the east override Evans' theory of not going north to disarm
Velupillai Prabhakaran? Unquestionably, Evans' R2P is to prevent the
Security Force from advancing into the Terroristan in the north ruled by
the one-man Pol Potist regime.
Karuna then has the right to turn round and accuse Evans of applying
R2P selectively to suit the hidden agenda of INGO/NGOs.
After all, Karuna could argue that he is small time operator compared
to the big time terrorist in the Vanni. So why is Holmes recommending
R2P-type action against Karuna and not against Prabhakaran? Isn't it
discrimination to favour one group and not the other? Ironically, Karuna
quit the LTTE outfit complaining bitterly about the discriminatory
practices of the LTTE dominated by the northern Tamils against the
eastern Tamils. Is the international community, led by Evans and Holmes,
going to impose an additional discrimination on Karuna, which will be a
boon to Prabhakaran whose main ambition right now is to defeat Karuna
more than the GOSL?
In any case, if Holmes means what he says and insists that the
principle of carrying arms should be confined exclusively to the
Security Forces of the elected government then what is going to be the
impact of this on Prabhakaran? Why hasn't Holmes extended that principle
to the territory in the uncleared areas of Prabhakaran? Why limit it to
the east and not to the north? Besides, wasn't disarming the Tamil
Tigers a condition laid down in the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement? Above all,
wasn't it a primary condition laid down by him when he was working on
the Irish peace agreement?
Isn't it also the pre-condition laid down by Western countries in
dealing with terrorist/rebel groups before any talks could begin? So why
haven't Evans and Holmes declared that GOSL should insist on the Tamil
Tigers laying down arms before coming to the negotiating table? And if
Holmes insists that GOSL should disarm Karuna in the east why has he
studiously avoided mentioning the need to apply that to Prabhakaran in
the north when his personal experiences in the Irish agreement tells him
that this is considered to be a necessary pre-condition for
confidence-building? Isn't Evans' R2P theory a subterfuge to prevent the
disarming of the Tamil Tigers?
Not surprisingly, while Holmes sidesteps this issue Evans has gone in
the opposite direction declaring that the international community would
intervene, under his new-fangled theory of R2P if the GOSL advances to
disarm the Tigers. Isn't this another glaring example that confirms the
Amero-Indians adage: White man speaks in forked tongue! This exposes
Evans? politics hidden in his R2P. He is foisting R2P on GOSL to protect
the gross violator of human rights in Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran.
Decorative
The positions taken by Evans and Holmes are like fancy lace: very
decorative but full of holes. They reveal, partly, their failure to be
morally upright and fair and just in dealing with human rights, partly,
their presumption that only the Western neo-colonialists sitting in
commanding positions of international institutions have the right to
dictate terms and conditions for the natives to conduct their affairs
and partly their arrogance in assuming that they have the monopoly of
brains to prescribe remedies for all problems of the world? problems
created mostly by their meddlesome roles which have exacerbated the
human rights conditions in crisis-ridden nations.
Of the two positions, Holmes is more acceptable than Evans' R2P which
is nothing but a neo-colonialist cover for arbitrary intervention, based
on the hidden agendas of Western powers manipulating/stoking troubled
spots through their hired agents planted in local NGOs. Evans' exercise
in Colombo demonstrates this amply. He strides into ICES, Radhika
Coomaraswamy's home base, like Gulliver rushing into douse the fire in
the Lilliputian Queen's Palace. He has no hesitation in pulling out his
fire hose and urinating on it from his height. Some critics have already
branded his R2P as the "Right to P"!
It is quite an apt description considering Evans' threat to violate
the sovereign rights of GOSL to implement his own theory of
'responsibility to protect' by advancing to disarm Prabhakaran. On the
one hand, Evans argues that the 'responsibility to protect' a nation's
citizens should be first given to the state. On the other, he says the
Sri Lankan government has no right to go north to protect its citizens
from the dehumanizing Terroristan. Does he know what he is talking
about? Or is he implying that only the superior white man has the right
to make such interventions, irrespective of "the balance of
consequences"?
Imagination
Since he is so worried about the consequences of a military
intervention in the north - his imagination runs riot to dream up
Rwandas and Kosovos - it would be educational to consider the "balance
of consequences". What are the chances of it turning into a Rwanda or
another Kosovo? In the see-sawing battles there is no known record of
conquests or defeats leading to the horrors of a Rwanda or a Kosovo
where two bitterly divided ethnic communities went on the rampage,
riding on the available apocalyptic horses.
Even the collateral damage that is inevitable is not likely to reach
anywhere near the 600,000 Iraqi children who died prematurely because of
the multi-lateral cordon thrown round Iraq blocking all food and medical
supplies. Evans, as Foreign Minister of Australia, was an active
participant in this crime.
Like all high-sounding moralists he tends to brush aside their
monumental crimes and focus only on the lesser crimes of others. One of
the most telling arguments against Evans' R2P is the pacifist voice of
the Tamil leader, V. Anandasangaree. He says that the trapped Tamil
people are waiting in the north for the Security Forces to rescue them
from the clutches of Prabhakaran. Why then is Evans objecting to the Sri
Lankan Forces liberating them?
The Sri Lankan north-south conflict began with the declaration of a
Tamil war against the Sinhala south by the Jaffna Tamil leadership who
passed the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976, disregarding Evans' "balance
of consequences". It has so far claimed nearly 70,000 victims. So from
where did Evans pluck this scenario of a Rwanda which resulted in
Catholics killing 800,000 - some inside Churches with the blessings of
nuns and priests - within a few weeks?
A balanced and a fair mind must have a sense of proportion in passing
judgments. Exaggerating scenarios to justify wonky theories is not going
to be a solution for the protection of the people or human rights. If
Evans bothers to do a reality check he will find that he has no
substantial grounds for international intervention, either on any
sustainable principle of international law or even his R2P. For an
intellectual of some repute it is shocking to see Evans arguing for R2P
intervention based on imaginary scenarios.
On balance, it is pretty obvious that he is invoking a questionable
(R2P) theory to maintain the status quo in the Vanni. The clear choice
is to let things remain as it is which grants impunity to Prabhakaran
carry on violating human rights, or to let the Security Forces advance
to demolish the base of all political evil in the north.
If he reads Anandasangaree's plea (see The Island - 11, August 2007)
to liberate the Tamils he will concede, in his rational moments, that
the quickest way to end the horrors in Sri Lanka is to liquidate the
base of evil in the Vanni. Eliminating or weakening Evil-lam is a sine
qua non for the restoration of peace and preservation of human rights.
Evans' failure to come to grips with terminal historical situations,
where the options are very limited, condemns him to be a delusional
victim of his interventionist R2P theory, reliving the horrors that
cannot be remedied by his missionary zeal.
Both Holmes and Evans are typical products of the old, discarded
gun-boat diplomacy when their ancestors were ruling the waves. In
contemporary time, they do not invade other countries by sailing to
their shores on gun-boats. They fly in on self-defeating theories,
wrapped in elegant phrases that are politically correct for their
neo-colonial agendas but not to rescue the victims of subhuman terror,
as described by Anandasangaree.
At the end of the day, it is the helpless Tamil victims of the
mono-ethnic tyranny that will have to pay with their lives while Evans
will continue to thrive in his lecture circuit, untouched by distance of
the Vanni tyranny.
Sri Lankans have a choice: either surrender to his R2P theory or take
the following advice given by him over the Lateline program of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation when he was asked what small nations
can do in the face of US might: "They can certainly do more than lying
on their backs with their pink tummies exposed and their four paws
waving."
Using this last line Sri Lankans can justifiably ask Gareth Evans to
go fishing in an outback billabong, leaving the people to work out their
own solutions. |