Opinion: Home-grown solution to be implemented soon:

Sri Lanka committed to reconciliation

By Kalinga Seneviratne

Rejecting the resolution passed at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on March 27 to launch an 'independent' international investigation on alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapkasa said that Sri Lanka would continue with its own reconciliation after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was defeated in May 2009.

The resolution, which was adopted by 24 votes to 12 with 12 abstentions, has been described by the government as a lop-sided vote where most of those voting for it were Europeans. "The EU votes as a block and the US had more than a dozen votes already in the bag while we started with none," President Rajapaksa said at a meeting with foreign media representatives in Colombo.

Two days after the vote, posters appeared all over Colombo claiming a moral victory questioning the UNHRC's mandate. It thanked the 24 nations that did not vote for the resolution including giant neighbour India. The Government sources said that these 24 nations were a better reflection of the views of the international community.

If there was any doubt about Sri Lanka's commitment to reconciliation, it were the Sri Lankan cricketers who dealt a telling blow to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and her supporters, who have claimed that Tamils and minorities were being marginalized in the country.

Just a week after the UNHRC vote, Sri Lanka's cricket team won the T20 World Cup in Dhakka, which sent the cricket-crazy nation into a frenzy of celebrations. The ethnically mixed team is widely supported across the country and when the man of the match and retiring cricket legend Kumar Sangakkara told a worldwide television audience at the presentation ceremony that they won the cup for 20 million Sri Lankans "each one of them" he emphasised there was no doubt that it was in fact the reality.

Cricket final

I watched the cricket final at a hotel in Pasikudah in eastern Sri Lanka, an area that was under LTTE control a few years ago. I watched it with five of the Tamil staff at the hotel, each of them cheering every Sri Lankan boundary and when the final victory was achieved over India, they spontaneously sang a Tamil celebratory song. The Sinhalese for long believed that Tamils, particularly in the East and the North of the country, supported India when it came to cricket. But what I was witnessing, was a new Sri Lanka. the next morning I listened to an interview on Sri Lankan radio where a senior military officer in the north, said they set up huge TV screens in the northern Tamil strongholds of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu where thousands of Tamils gathered to watch the game and later celebrated along with army officers when Sri Lanka won. Two days later I was driving past a well-known Muslim area near Wattala on my way to the airport, where men, women and children had lined up the road waving the Sri Lankan lion flag waiting for the returning cricketing heroes.

The Asian Tribune reported on April 13 that the US Secretary of State John Kerry had issued a New Year message to all Sri Lankans (who celebrated the New year on April 14) hoping this New Year would bring a new opportunity for all Sri Lankans to join together in the spirit of tolerance, reconciliation, and peace.

Perhaps because the US does not play cricket, he was not aware of the celebrations just a week earlier where such a spirit of tolerance, reconciliation and peace was evident.

What offends many Sri Lankans is the patronizing attitudes of Western nations and some UN officials, where they think they have the solutions to all the problems in the world. Even India found the latest UNHRC resolution too intrusive and refused to back it.

India's Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh was quoted in the media in Colombo as saying that what the UNHRC was trying to do on the Sri Lankan issue through the resolution adopted in Geneva was beyond its mandate. "It is not for the UN to investigate Sri Lanka and that India's position has always been that it is a national prerogative to investigate human rights issues," she said.

Sri Lanka has welcomed India's principled stand and President Rajapaksa ordered the immediate release of 79 Indian fishermen who had been arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy for intruding into Sri Lankan fishing grounds in the north. The Navy has since stopped arresting the intruders from Tamil Nadu.

Lankaweb columnist Bandula de Silva argues that India's vote switch in Geneva indicates that the foreign policy bureaucrats in New Delhi have brought the Central Government back into reality "to pursue India's long-term interest of building her image as a moral force in the world" rather than pandering to Tamil Nadu politicians for the short-term political need of staying in power.

Banned

On April 1, the Sri Lankan government hit back at its Tamil diaspora opponents who have been instrumental in persuading Western governments to move the resolution against Sri Lanka. The government banned 15 LTTE fronts and named 424 individuals and organizations to be investigated for alleged terror links. These organisations are all operating from overseas with its leaders having ties with foreign politicians and parliamentarians tied to various charities and NGOs. Ironically, the banned organisations are operating in countries which have banned the LTTE.

Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya told the Press Trust of India that among the organisations proscribed are the LTTE's Trans National Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), Global Tamil Forum (GTF), which are active in Europe, and the UK-based British Tamil Forum (BTF). He has said that the government will urge the western governments to investigate their fundraising activities. The government will also alert Interpol about them.

Just before the Geneva vote, Sri Lankan government said that there is evidence of an attempt to revive the LTTE terrorism in the country and disclosed to the media a shootout near the former LTTE stronghold of Kilinochchi where a police officer was alleged to have been injured. It also reported the discovery of a large cache of arms in a house the police had surrounded. The source of funding for these arms too has been allegedly traced to a Tamil diaspora activist Nediyavan who lives in Norway.

"Many of the Tiger and pro-Tiger activists abroad have transformed themselves into human rights champions," said veteran war reporter D.B.S Jeyaraj in his blog. "Ostensibly the name of the LTTE game was no longer an armed struggle to achieve national liberation. It was now a lofty quest for justice, accountability, reconciliation and equality."

"A tragic-comic aspect of the changed scenario was the spectacle of accredited representatives from respected human rights organizations associating with yesteryear Tigers gloating in their new avatar. The battlefront had seemingly shifted to the UN Human Rights Council arena in the new venue of Geneva," he noted. On April 10, Sri Lankan authorities said that the army had killed the three gunmen who escaped during the shootout with the police, in the North. They named all three of them as former LTTE combatants who were rehabilitated after surrendering to the army in the final stages of the war against terrorism.

Senior LTTE leader apprehended

On April 8, the Sri Lankan defence establishment revealed that a senior LTTE leader known as Nanthagopan, who had been functioning as one of the two deputy leaders of the LTTE overseas network, was apprehended in Iran on March 6 while travelling on a forged passport to visit his family living in Germany. He was subsequently sent back to Sri Lanka via Malaysia. The Sri Lankan defence officials are said to be elated over the capture of Nanthagopan as he is a key LTTE functionary with first-hand knowledge of current overseas LTTE operations.

Thus the Sri Lankan government has told its critics in the UNHRC and in the West that the Army needs to be on alert in the former LTTE strongholds and western governments need to take action to stop their countries becoming safe havens for terrorist fund-raising.

Writing in the Colombo Telegraph, Melbourne based Tamil physician Dr Noel Nadesan, who had visited Jaffna 13 times in the past five years and helped set up a private health clinic in his homeland, argues that whether you like him or not, diaspora Tamils need to appreciate that President Rajapaksa ended a brutal terrorist war and opened up new opportunities for their people.

Rather than becoming overnight human rights champions, he appeals to the Tamil diaspora to help rebuild the communities in their homeland. "We have to recognise the gains of peace if we are to move forward.

Politics can cloud the issues and make us easily forget the bloody past," said Dr Nadesan. Referring to the LTTE holding 400,000 Tamils as human shields in the last days of the war, he said, "taking cover behind unarmed civilians is a shameful act not worthy of our so-called heroes. It was a cowardly act".

"Going back to confrontational politics can only lead us tortuously to political turmoil again," warned the Sri Lankan born Australian doctor, in an impassioned plea to his overseas Tamils (and perhaps the likes of Navi Pillay as well). "Our people cannot live on a diet of politics forever. We need economics to raise our heads from the depths of misery. We have to postpone politics for the time being."

The writer is IDN Special Correspondent for Asia-Pacific. He teaches international communications in Singapore.