Columns

It is not of such profundity that great minds grappling with the physical and metaphysical problems of the world are needed to expound it. It is a simple truth, it is something that is experienced in the life of an average man (DH Lawrence said there was no such animal but never mind).

Experience shows that things are not always what they appear to be. What is white to some might not be as white to others. What is black to some could well appear as charcoal grey to still others. How different perceptions are and could be, came to mind as we were confronted with three different reports in the space of five weeks broadly on a single theme, which exploded some myths and commonly held beliefs and exposed distortions deliberate untruths.

The first of those reports is the one that just the other day at the United Nations in New York, Zeid al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described as “historic”. Whether that report authored by three internationally-known figures on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights went beyond its mandate, whether such country-specific reports could create a precedent that is not only resented by some other member-states and could one day be turned on them and whether the report is the outcome of a “comprehensive investigation” as al-Hussein claimed, will be debated here and abroad for months and perhaps years to come.

A report authored by three internationally-known figures on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is the one that Zeid al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights described as "historic".

The second and third tabled simultaneously in parliament by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe followed by a cacophony that is fast becoming a regular parliamentary practice, were the Paranagama and Udalagama reports (if one might abbreviate the titles for convenience) both of which were related to the principal theme of the long-drawn out war against the LTTE.

Although we have still not been able to read these reports in full and have had to rely on excerpts and selected and selective passages appearing in the media, they still provide pointers that either tend to confirm media reports earlier denied by government or its agencies or lay bare some crucial tasks that sections of the international community not excluding the High Commissioner al-Hussein, thought that Sri Lanka was not capable of performing.
My mind goes back to the days when the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was appointed by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. Never mind for the moment whether it was the result of international pressure or whether it was a genuine attempt to arrive at some truths regarding what happened and should be done to restore faith in a government’s ability to deal with dangerous fissures in society.

The fact is that western nations and pro-western international human rights groups castigated no end the members of the commission as either former public servants who will not be impartial or government loyalists or flung other epithets to suggest that they can never be relied on to act independently and produce a report of any substance.

Such was the derision directed at the Commission that the notorious “Gang of Three”- Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group- wanted nothing to do with the commission and refused to appear before it.
When the report was finally released and the noble worthies of these international assemblages had the opportunity to read and digest its contents, the strident criticism of previous years was now directed at the government for not implementing the recommendations of the much decried LLRC.

The badly blackened commission over the subsequent months acquired a more respectable complexion. Now Mr al-Hussein finds that the Sri Lankan judicial system is not fit for purpose, that it is corrupt having been corrupted over the years and politicized. Conclusion – it is not possible to expect it to act in a manner that can be deemed independent. In one fell sweep, the al-Hussein report dismissed Sri Lanka’s judiciary and judicial system as unworthy.

While one might well agree that the judiciary has had a rough ride particularly because individuals unworthy of holding high judicial office were catapulted into positions that they were not fit to hold, that there have been ‘rotten eggs’ that had been swept into the higher judicial levels, to paint every one with the same brush has proved to be unfortunate.

I refer to the two commission reports, especially that of the Paranagama panel. If al-Hussein and those who think like him still argue that Sri Lanka’s judicial system is fully tainted and cannot be expected to show an element of independence and impartiality they should have had the opportunity of reading the Paranagama report before reaching that conclusion.
Right from the beginning western critics and some at home summarily dismissed the commission as a government cover-up and it would end up as white wash of the Sri Lanka state.

The British public is quite accustomed to inquiry reports that tended to white wash governments going back several decades to the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland to the Hutton report on the suicide of David Kelly a biological weapons expert and connected with the war on Iraq, not to mention the Butler report.

Britain is still waiting-it has done so for some time now- the outcome of the Chilcott inquiry into UK’s role in this disastrous war to see how genuine the inquiry has been and who and how many will be held accountable for what happened.The Paranagama report says the allegations that Sri Lankan troops committed war crimes are “credible”. It says that “There are credible allegations which, if proved to the required standard may show that some members of the armed forces committed acts during the final phase of the war that amounted to war crimes giving rise to individual criminal responsibility.” That surely is straight talk.

Moreover the Commission does not dismiss UK’s Channel-4 television documentaries that depicted crimes allegedly committed by Sri Lankan soldiers as fabrications as did the government of the day and a London-based organization called Engage Sri Lanka.

Rather it says there is material enough to justify judge-led investigations. In fact it goes on to say that the footage shown on C-4 of soldiers said to be executing Tamil prisoners was genuine. It says there is sufficient evidence to justify a judge-led investigation.
In fact the Paranagama report is quite candid on other issues too and often underlines the need for judicial inquiries and to changes in the law retrospectively to make war crimes an offence.

The report by no means spares the LTTE of liability for many of the civilian deaths and calls into question the civilian death toll of 40,000 in the final stages of the war as reported by the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts. If the west and international organisations thought that Sri Lankan inquiries cannot be fair here is the answer. The Paranagama report may have its shortcomings. Perhaps, I don’t know not having read it in full.

But it does prove that our judges could be independent and impartial and these attributes are not the monopoly of the west as some in that hemisphere faithfully believe.