No case for foreign intervention in Sri Lanka
Peace Secretariat rebukes ICG’s call:
COLOMBO: There is no case for Darfur-style international intervention
in Sri Lanka, Peace Secretariat Chief Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha stressed
yesterday.
Wijesinha was responding to a statement made by former Australian
Minister Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group (ICG),
which categorised Sri Lanka as a possible case for international
intervention on the basis of R2P - “right to protection”, the new term
coined by ICG for international intervention.
Evans in his lecture “The Limits of State sovereignty: The
Responsibility to Protect in the 21st Century” on Monday, argued that
“Sri Lanka is anything but an R2P situation.
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.
“So it is an R2P situation which 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.”
The Peace Secretariat Chief said: “None of the factors the lecture
notes are or have been present in Sri Lanka. As the examples cited
indicate, the concept of R2P arose in the context of genocide, where a
country was divided almost absolutely on racial lines.
This is not the case in Sri Lanka, where many Tamils have died at the
hands of the LTTE, and indeed after the Ceasefire was in operation other
Tamil parties and groups were in more danger from the Tamils than
Sinhalese were.”
He said Sri Lanka does not encompass a murderous struggle of two
races, as was the case in the cases cited. Rather, there are problems of
political deprivation that must be addressed, as with for instance the
aborigines in Australia.
Ensuring that these are addressed in a context in which some
politicians are recalcitrant does not lead to a R2P situation.
He noted that ethnic cleansing has never taken place in Sri Lanka,
except when the LTTE drove Muslims and Sinhalese out of the Northern
Province in 1990. Bandying the word about loosely is most irresponsible.
“Finally, though the lecture tries to be evenhanded in its
recommendations, it falls once more into the trap of failing to deal
responsibly with the terrorism of the LTTE.
Though it highlights recent measures to restrict funding, the fact
remains that the LTTE was not proscribed in many countries for many
years, and still operates with impunity in many countries including
unfortunately Norway, which is thus subjected to pressures it can
ill-afford in its current responsible position.”
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