Britain can ill-afford all this moral posturing

By Neville de Silva

If the British High Commission wishes to exorcise its ghosts back home it should look elsewhere and not to this newspaper.

Within hours of The Sunday Times reaching its readers last week the British High Commission working overtime on the Sabbath issued a press release innocuously titled “British Government agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka for the provision of debt relief”, a labelled headline if ever there was one.

In fact it was a response to my splash story spread across the front page last Sunday and headlined “Britain threatens to stop aid to Lanka.”

Surprisingly my attention was drawn to this British quick step even before I had seen the newspaper itself.

I have no quarrel with the high commission responding. But I certainly do when it prevaricates and tries to draw red herrings in order to lull the reading public into believing in British generosity in the way of aid and other goodies.

Equally the high commission tries to draw linkages where there are none and any perceived linkages seem to exist in the somewhat elastic imagination of the British authorities.

My story contained two paragraphs at the end about visiting Minister Kim Howells’ offer to talk to the LTTE, apparently to revive the dormant peace process and the comment of analysts here wondering whether this meant the UK lifting the ban on the LTTE. That comment arose out of the British government’s known position that it does not negotiate with terrorists which is how the UK has viewed the LTTE for six years.

There was no causal connection between the debt relief issue and any possible LTTE proscription as the latter emerged only as a result of Howells’ offer to President Rajapaksa.

One begins to wonder whether this attempt at establishing linkages between British debt relief and the possible de-proscription of the LTTE is the result of a conscience racked with guilt.

My report last Sunday said that the British Government is trying to put the squeeze on Sri Lanka and threatening to stop the 10-year debt relief agreement because of what it perceives as a violation of certain commitments attached to it.

In a letter to the Sri Lanka government, Britain’s International Development Minister Hilary Benn demanded definite assurances that Sri Lanka would not breach what he calls international obligations and stop “unjustified” military spending.In its press release the high commission tries to downplay the implied threat and claims the minister was seeking “clarification”.

Unless the British mission is having problems with comprehending its own language, how this could be euphemistically, and worse falsely, described as a clarification passeth all understanding.

I would be the last to accuse the British High Commission of ignorance of the English language. The reason for what Winston Churchill once called a terminological inexactitude, is not linguistic but diplomatic.

Firstly it is damage control. The British, who Kim Howells, during his recent visit called a long time friend of Sri Lanka, did not want to be seen publicly applying economic pressure on Colombo and pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the LTTE.There is no “clarification” sought as the high commission claims. Hilary Benn is judgemental when he says there have been significant violations of international obligations, particularly human rights and accuses the government of instigating hostilities and an unjustified rise military spending.

Benn goes on to say before he authorises payment the government should demonstrate over the next year that it will adhere to the criteria agreed to originally.

Most people would see this as a veiled threat to stop debt relief unless Sri Lanka complies with conditions it agreed to in December 2005 when the political-military situation was quite different.

If the British High Commission still claims the minister was only seeking clarification, perhaps the best way to settle this in a democratic, accountable fashion (after all are these not norms that Britain is trying to instil in people worldwide by word and deed?) is to release a copy of Benn’s letter so that the public might judge whether this is clarification or threat.

Certainly Britain is entitled to spend its money the way it sees fit – give it away for the development of countries it once forcibly occupied or dump it on military invasions while denying funds to much-needed public services at home.

But what is so deprecating is that Britain clambers on to its moral high horse and charges on to save the world like a modern day Lancelot when in fact it is playing Lord Nelson and turning a blind eye to horrible violations of international obligations by itself and its friends.

I thought that this sort of conduct would be left to today’s moralisers on Sri Lanka such as Jonathan Steele of the Guardian newspaper who suffers from delusions of adequacy and does such disservice to a once great newspaper and writers such as Martin Woollacott who were not monochromatic like Steele.

Consider the three issues that seem to concern Hilary Benn – human rights, instigating hostilities and unjustified military spending.

When the debt relief agreement was signed in December 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa had just become president. The ceasefire was functioning by and large, and the LTTE said it was giving sufficient time for the new president to come up with a solution.

So there was no necessity to contemplate increased military spending then. But shortly thereafter the LTTE resumed its violence with attacks on civilians and military targets.

For six months at least the government absorbed all that without responding militarily. Then the attempted assassination of the army commander, the killings of other military officers and the blockade at Mavil Aru caused a military response which many argue was belated.

Yet in the rather convoluted thinking of Hilary Benn it is the government that instigated hostilities and not the other way round. Thus British logic would make us believe that Iraq attacked Britain and not vice versa.

In the event does it seem unusual for the government to beef up the military when the LTTE was smuggling arms at the height of the ceasefire and even now?

Moreover is not Britain being judgemental (not clarifying) when Benn argues that there has been an unjustified rise in military spending. In any case who is Britain to tell Sri Lanka whether it is unjustified or not.

Justification is a matter for sovereign governments. Surely isn’t the Blair government preparing to spend billions to updating its Trident nuclear weapons system despite public protest when there is no conceivable enemy in sight.

In this post-cold war era who does Britain see as a potential enemy that it needs to update its nuclear weapons? It is ready to jack up military spending to meet a yet unknown threat. When Sri Lanka strengthens its military to meet a real enemy that is intent on destroying its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Britain has the audacity to put its hands up in horror.

One hopes that Little Benn (as opposed to Big Benn, his father Tony) has not been guided in his thinking by High Commissioner Dominic Chilcott whose two immediate predecessors Stephen Evans and Linda Duffield had pro-LTTE proclivities. They are said to have argued against the banning of the LTTE some seven years ago.

The same Linda Duffield figures in the book “Murder in Samarkand” by former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and one wishes that her concern for the Tigers had been extended to the poor Uzbeks tortured by Aslam Karimov’s regime.Craig Murray was removed as ambassador and subsequently sacked from the foreign service for exposing the Karimov regime’s despicable human rights record including boiling to death political opponents and torturing dissidents and others.

Moreover, confessions and information obtained by torture were readily accepted by British intelligence and the foreign office even justified it saying there was no violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Even assuming there was no legal breach surely there was and is a moral responsibility not to accept torture, if not actually encourage it.

Murray’s book, which an embarrassed British government tried to stop employing various means because of the explosive material it contained, is a severe indictment not only on British foreign policy but more importantly on its pretentious claims to human rights concerns when actually it is extremely selective about who they bully – like Sri Lanka – and who they actively encourage such as the Karimov regime.

Unfortunately lack of space prevents me from commenting on Northern Ireland and Britain’s historical role there, on Britain’s complicity in the CIA rendition flights which carried suspected terrorists to third countries where they could be tortured in secret prisons and other violations of human rights law and its spurious concerns about accountability.

It also prevents me in this writing to say why Britain is so keen to involve itself in the peace negotiations and appease the LTTE.
But let me just add this. The British government has defined terrorism as “the use of violence for political ends.” That includes “any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public…in fear.”

I wonder whether this still stands. Another press release on it would suffice. Or is that too much to expect?