Sunday Times 2
Will Lanka’s fire-eaters raise a cheer for ICJ?
Sri Lanka’s media missed reporting the decision of the International Court of Justice on Monday ( Feb 25) against Britain for holding on to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Chagos Islands which include Diego Garcia housing, the strategic US base. Thus, Sri Lanka’s British and American bashers — who delight in the game of bashing their former masters and their successors — have yet to come out breathing fire and fury, particularly at a time when the British are hectoring Sri Lanka on human rights violations during the near 30-year ‘war’ that ended just a decade ago and reminding them of implementation of UNHCR resolutions.
A day after the ICJ Judgment, a Lord Nazir Ahmed of Wimbledon (quite a queer name for a British Lord) was reported expressing some gratuitous advice on Sri Lanka — more land being returned by the military to people of the North — but expressing concern about Sri Lanka’s commitment to implement the UNHCR resolutions, while stressing Britain’s deep commitment to human rights. Lord Ahmed held forth on his country’s deep commitment to human rights both at home and abroad: “We remain committed to strengthening justice, accountability and rules-based international systems and we remain committed to the Council (UNHRC), Lord Ahmed waxed eloquent in a report from London to a Colombo newspaper.
The good Lord Ahmed had apparently not heard of the Biblical saying: ‘first cast the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.’
The International Court of Justice — the highest court of the United Nations — on Monday concluded that Britain must return the Chagos Islands archipelago to Mauritius as rapidly as possible declaring its occupation, illegal and against international laws.
To begin from the beginning, when Britannia ruled the waves, Mauritius, an Island off the East African coast, became a British colony in 1810 and continued to be so till 1968 when in the wave of decolonisation that swept through the African continent and with that Mauritius became an independent republic. But Britannia could still waive the rules and thereby excised the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius to be a part of a new colony in which its ally the United States built up the mighty military base of Diego Garcia on the biggest island.
Mauritius which claims it parted with the Chagos Islands under duress at the time of its Independence, appealed to the United Nations General Assembly which overwhelmingly voted on the issue (94 nations for and 1O against with 65 abstentions) to be decided on by the ICJ. This move was strongly opposed by Britain and the US.
The British moves resulted in the entire population being expelled from the Chagos lslands and prevented from returning home. In the 1980s the British government paid an estimated $ 5.2 million to more than 1,300 evicted persons on condition that they placed their thumb prints or signatures on a document renouncing their right to return home. They are now said to be dispersed in Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
While British treatment of Chagos islanders is not much different to how other native populations who became captives of the British Empire in the heyday of colonialism were treated, it was an outstanding example of the violation of human rights in the second half of the twentieth century which the British Foreign Office and politicians like Lord Ahmed still defend.
But this has caused a bewildering dilemma for Sri Lanka-bashers of Britain, the US and today’s neo conservatives. Can they afford to hail the ICJ decision on the Chagos Islanders? Sri Lankan nationalists have gone berserk on proposals for foreign judges to sit in judgment on alleged violation of human rights by our service personnel—or foreign judges being called in for any sovereign state. The UNHRC resolutions on alleged violation of human rights by Sri Lanka’s military—our ‘war heroes’– cause instant apoplexy in our strident nationalists of varied hues.
Even though the recent ICJ ruling is a lusty kick on the posteriors of our former Sahibs and their successors, will any ardent nationalist raise a cheer for this UN court which they have kicked around for many years?
It violates the fundamental principle of noninterference, they are likely to say. The ICJ is sitting in judgment on an internal issue of the sovereign independent republic of Mauritius?
Such interference in affairs of sovereign states in this time of the 21st Century is a global phenomenon, Venezuela being the newest victim.
Nationalists don’t like people of their own county — certainly not those at the battle fronts — to be subject to decisions of foreign judges. Even the US will not subject its men on the battle front to the ICJ. But some say the US, the sole superpower, can afford to do so in the world today where the accepted principle is: ‘Might is Right’. Others say mighty atoms like Sri Lanka, too, can still do it.
President Sirisena has in so many words expressed his opposition to the idea of foreign judges sitting in judgment over our ‘war heroes’.
Donald Trump too would not subject US military action to any kind of judgment by foreigners. That was the reason why he withdrew his country from the UNHRC. Great minds like Trump and Sirisena agree, some would say.
We wonder what Wimal Weerawansa and his junior partner Gammanpila, who deliver authoritative judgments anytime anywhere on any world issue would say of the ICJ decision.
We would hazard a guess: It’s an international conspiracy.
The thinking we speculate would run on these lines: The neoconservative Western establishment is breathing its last and wants resuscitation to gain credibility in the fast developing nations of the Third World. Strictures passed by the ICJ are not legally binding and the recent ICJ ruling, too, is so. Do you think that Donald Trump like Donald Duck will wag his tail and pull out of Diego Garcia on the orders of the ICJ or UN? Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnath being of Indian origin with excellent relations with New Delhi and the New Delhi –Washington axis now being Yanki- Hindi ‘Jai-Jai’, Mauritius asking the Americans to quit Diego Garcia is not on the cards!