Human Rights - new tool in international politics

It is becoming increasingly clear that these ‘war crimes’ charges brandished against Sri Lanka are the work of certain international forces that wish to punish Sri Lanka for the crime of not aligning with their politics on the pretext of the need to see ‘accountability and good international practices during the last stages of the conflict’.

Many are the incongruities and paradoxes, inherent in these charges that any right thinking person, evaluating those in the local and international contexts, would not fail to notice their frivolous nature.

In the local context, the people in this country should know that this is not the first time that subversion against the democratically elected government was overcome by the use of arms.

The JVP insurrection of 1971 was the first such instance, the Post-Independent Government had to contend with, and that was overcome in a matter of months with 12,000 youths losing their lives in a Che Guera type revolution. There wasn’t a wimp of ‘international concern’ then and the event was considered an internal matter of Sri Lanka.

Darkest periods

Then came the JVP’s anti Indian subversion in 1987 and 1988. That probably was the darkest (most gruesome) period in the Sri Lankan history vis-à-vis the rule of law and human rights violations.

The official estimates declared 25,000 to 30,000 deaths while the unofficial estimates put the figures much higher.

The corpses were lying everywhere and even by the road side; some on makeshift pyres and some offering a feast to the scavenging beasts. But again no Amnesty International and no HRW made a song and dance with that situation.

Then we had a 30-year ‘tryst’ with the tigers where two provinces in this country were rendered anarchic without a semblance of human rights nay law and order.

A near 100,000 people died and the most ruthless and organized terror outfit in the world was holding this country to ransom with no hope in sight.

The International bodies including the UN were not blinking at our misery and there was no international mechanism that could bring democracy and law and order to that part, the fascist ‘LTTE controlled area’. Bombs were exploding all over the country with the value of human lives reaching the lowest ebb. Sri Lanka was on the verge of being decimated and dismembered and being called a ‘failed state’.

War crimes

During all that time these powerful western nations, instead of helping us to bring the LTTE to the book allowed the fascist LTTE to collect funds and carry out their propaganda with impunity in their countries. Now after having allowed Sri Lanka to be devoured by the LTTE all this long and having even tried to save the LTTE in its last ditch, these western nations have suddenly woken up from their slumber and are engaged in an incessant attempt to unearth the ‘war crimes’ alleged to have been committed ‘during the last stages of the war’.

And then to fool us further they say that it is to find the ‘excesses committed by the Government and the LTTE both’. Why on earth did they wait till the LTTE is finished to dig in to their crimes? This is nothing but a naked attempt to punish those who punish the LTTE. Do they consider all of us in this country to be damn fools who do not see the subterfuge in this?

Now, let us examine these allegations in the international context. 1.4 million people have now been killed in Iraq because the United states wanted to save that country from Weapons of Mars Destruction (WMD) that never existed in that country.

Have they brought Collin Powel who lied about WMDs before the war crimes tribunal? What was the United States trying to save in Vietnam by killing 3 million people over a 20 year period, dropping more bombs than all the bombs dropped during the Second World War?

World War II

Was there a war crimes tribunal set up to investigate the destruction caused to the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing 280,000 civilians during the last stages of the World War II? Did anybody take Winston Churchill before war crimes for civilian bombings in Dresden? Was there a war crimes investigation on war excesses by NATO forces in Serbia and Kosovo? Weren’t there excesses committed by the British forces in Belfast? If the answer to all that is a firm no. Then, why is this indecent hurry to pass strictures on Sri Lanka for defending itself against ruthless terror?

If you study the past events of this whole fiasco it is clear that these ex colonials who now declare themselves as the ‘International community’ has been ‘targeting us’ from the day we eliminated terrorism. They brought proposals against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council and then they tried their luck with the General Assembly and even with the Security Council.

After having failed in all those attempts now they have prompted the Secretary General to appoint a committee ‘to advise him’.

The message on the wall is very clear. The Ex-colonial ‘International community’ is not happy that we eliminated terrorism from Sri Lanka. Even the GSP facility would still have been with us if we did not eliminated terror from Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka as a responsible member of UN will always be responsive to those who are genuinely interested in improving the country’s human rights accountability, but Sri Lanka will not be responsive to those who try to use human rights as a pretext to undermine its national security and its sovereign right to be engaged in global politics.

palitha_senanayaka@yahoo.com