Thoughts from London

The message from the Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Conference which came hard on the heels of that from the European Union should have been clear enough to those who have eyes to see.

Enough is enough. No more claymores, no more procrastination, settle your differences peacefully. Otherwise, in the words of Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, “a plague o’ both your houses.” The threat is to pack up the paraphernalia of conflict resolution and retire to their corners leaving the ‘waring’ parties to sort out imbroglio.

The Co-Chair’s statement does not sound as diplomatic as it would normally have been. But these are not normal times. The tougher language addressed to both the government and the LTTE contains an unmistakable tone of anger, exasperation and even a tired resignation.

Perhaps the government and its assorted advisers did not expect the Co-Chairs and later one of its participants at the Tokyo meeting, Richard Boucher of the US State Department, to speak so forthrightly on how they view the current situation.

Though Richard Boucher, who I knew well in my years in Hong Kong when he was US Consul General there, is certainly more sophisticated and articulate than a John Wayne with a six gun at his hip, but Boucher’s thoughts in Colombo seemed straight from the wild west.

Sri Lanka was now in the Last Chance Saloon. Whether it comes out of it alive, if not exactly in one piece, depended very much on keeping itchy fingers away from the trigger and the claymore mine.

Washington and its partners could only call for the sheriff. But that might be all too late if the bullets fly and bodies hit the bar room floor.

Perhaps the government and its cohorts were too busy celebrating what they saw as their triumph over the LTTE, when the EU banned the Tigers and so paid little attention to the Tokyo meeting.

Admittedly it was known that the ban was coming. It had been on the cards from the time Brussels-based senior officials of the EU members decided unanimously to outlaw the LTTE.

It then needed only the formal agreement of the Council of Ministers. So the government and more so perhaps the JVP and the Hela Urumeya who strike a more chauvinistic pose, were in a triumphant mood after the EU finally did what they had been clamouring for over the last months, if not years.

However exultant the Rajapaksa administration and others might feel, it was not their doing that caused the EU to clamp down on the Tigers.

True, some of Sri Lanka’s diplomatic missions in the EU capitals would have been chipping away at the resistance of some Union members and the ambivalence or insouciance of others, by providing more and more evidence of LTTE violations of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), that both sides solemnly swore to uphold. And much of this would have had to come from more independent groups such as the SLMM and international organisations such as the UN agencies, if they were to have any validity in the eyes of the chanceries of the member states.

But in the final analysis it was the LTTE that brought the ban down on its head by its own intransigence and its bloody- minded actions.

This was made abundantly clear in media interviews the other day. Referring to the ban, Netherlands Ambassador Reynout Van Dijk reportedly said “What really, really, really did it……….was attacking the Dvoras protecting the troop ship with an SLMM flag on it. They knew that the SLMM was aboard and they said they were not interested in talks.”

Yet gloating over the ban, as some are obviously doing would not bring us closer to the durable solution that is now essential if an end to the conflict is to be realised.

The EU and Co-Chair statements and the Washington policy adumbrated by Richard Boucher, all spell out in clear terms where the “international community”, to use a cliché, stands.

Certainly they castigate the Tigers, and rightly so for their continuing violence against military and non-combatant targets and denial of political pluralism.

Equally they do not spare the Sri Lanka Government on several scores, including doing little or nothing to stop violence against civilians on its side of the territorial fence.

To be sure, the government has the principal responsibility of ensuring that the human rights of citizens are not violated, that law and order prevails and that if state agencies are involved in committing or aiding and abetting violations and violence they be brought to book.

There is no getting away from that responsibility unless it is ready to abdicate its obligations to society and, in the large context, to the world. For too long now the state has remained oblivious to the human rights violations or procrastinated over the inquiries and punitive action against the guilty that should follow.

There were times when those found guilty of violating human rights had their court imposed fines paid by the state as though theirs was an act that needed to be glorified not condemned.

A classic case was when the late LSSP politician and MP Vivienne Goonewardene succeeded in winning her case against the Kollupitiya Police.
Yet the JR Jayewardene government in its wisdom paid the fine of the guilty policemen thus sending the signal that human rights could be violated with impunity without suffering the consequences.

Such contempt for the law and for human rights persists even today with politicians and their children behaving as though the country and assets were a part of their “boodelay.”

One remark in the Co-Chairs’ statement, however needs clarification. Referring to the government the Co-Chairs say, “it must protect the rights and security of Tamils throughout the country and ensure violators are prosecuted.”

Should it not have read “the rights and security of all its people?”

After all, others are entitled to have their rights protected and security assured.

And how do the Co-Chairs expect the government to protect people, “throughout the country” when the much-vaunted CFA makes a division between, “government-controlled territory” and LTTE-controlled territory which is taboo to the government and even to the SLMM without Tiger say so?

The Co-Chairs should rightly address the Tigers about safeguarding human rights and protecting civilians from violence on their side of the palmyrah curtain.

While these are matters that the Co-Chairs should mull over, the fact is that the government cannot be absolved for not fulfilling its responsibilities and obligations.

At the rate commissions, special committees and other bodies of inquiry are being set-up, we will soon run out of people to man them. Cosmetic gestures will not do. Rhetoric, wherever it comes from must be matched with deeds that are meaningful and not intended merely to momentarily pacify the victims and their families.

The minorities in our country have rights too and they cannot be brushed aside as though they did not matter. Bans do not last forever.

While the chauvinists savour the ban while they can, the government cannot abdicate its moral and legal responsibilities- unless it wants to earn universal opprobrium as a another morally decadent state.

If the government does not get its act together and heed the warnings that come loud and clear in those statements, we could well end up economically bankrupt and politically discarded.

We are on the brink of it now. Could we muster the wisdom and the moral courage to step back from the abyss of disaster.