ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Vol. 41 - No 45
Columns - Thoughts from London

Amnesty International plays its new ball game

By Neville de Silva

Well what do you know! Just when one thought that Amnesty International, that once respected human rights watchdog that has been slowly going to the dogs, it springs a surprise. Now the witless watch dog has taken to playing with balls and made a right royal ball(s) of the job.

AI has done a lot of spinning in its day. But under the current dispensation of Irene Khan and Purna Sen (secretary-general and director Asia-Pacific respectively) it has undertaken a senseless pursuit- trying to outdo even Muttiah Muralitharan in the spin department. But then, instead of playing hard ball it has gone for the soft variety, symbolic perhaps of the organisation’s growing woolly headedness.For those who might have missed this great saga written and directed by Amnesty International let me recapitulate. After all such theatrics should not go unsung and unappreciated even if it is pure farce in the great tradition of previous duos such as Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello and Manappuwa and Josie Baba of the Sinhala screen. Khan and Sen might be an asset to AI. But what a loss it has been to Vaudeville and the comic theatre.

Yet, in these days of gender equality and all that, one cannot keep a great pair down. Their previous attempts to denigrate Sri Lanka and procrastination over the release its August 2005 survey mission report critical of the LTTE, possibly as a gesture of genuflexion to terrorism, has been previously commented on in these columns.But first to the great ball game. As every Sri Lankan of whatever political hue, religion or ethnicity knows, the country’s cricket team is now playing in the World Cup in the Caribbean and has generally done itself proud.

The world remembers with surprise how a lowly ranked Sri Lanka burst into the media headlines and record books with a stunning win over fancied Australia in the 1996 encounter in Pakistan. Sri Lanka became the envy of the more experienced in the world of cricket. That envy has not evaporated though our cricket has had its ups and downs. Now after several tournaments we have a chance, an outside chance perhaps, of repeating that Pakistan performance.

Enter Amnesty International. This organisation has been pelting stones at the Sri Lanka government and occasionally lobbing one in the direction of the LTTE, for human rights violations and related issues. Admittedly it is AI’s mandate to monitor the human rights records of governments, publicise violations and urge remedial action. But until around 15 years ago, AI consciously and judiciously avoided any criticism of non-state groups responsible for armed violence and human rights violations which I publicly raised at an AI press conference in Hong Kong years ago.

One could always debate some of AI’s assertions and conclusions on Sri Lanka, often reached without corroborative evidence and a lack of balance. But that is another matter and one that could be taken up at any time. What calls for immediate attention is its current campaign against human rights violations, a campaign that is built round the cricket World Cup in the Caribbean.

This would appear to any objective onlooker as a carefully choreographed attempt to undermine and demoralise directly or indirectly, the Sri Lanka team which is the only credible South Asian team left in the competition. One needs to keep that South Asian perspective in mind as it does raise certain questions about the morality of the AI campaign. The AI campaign is to get celebrities and the public to sign foam cricket balls symbolising the World Cup and carrying the legend “Play by the rules.”

The campaign would be in the Caribbean too where the competition is, and the intention is to “get better human rights commitments from the government, the LTTE and other parties,” according a news report. “Please note that the campaign is in no way aimed at the Sri Lanka cricket team,” AI reportedly said in a statement. AI does have a sense of humour, to say the least. Reports said that AI has activated its offices in Bermuda and the Bahamas to push through this campaign. Since when did the people of Bermuda and the Bahamas interest themselves in the Sri Lanka situation, even assuming they had heard of it?

The Caribbean locale is for obvious reasons. AI’s protestation that this is not aimed at the cricket team holds as much water as a sieve. If these foam balls are being distributed in the Caribbean where Sri Lanka is playing as I write, is AI so naïve as to believe that these objects will not be seen by our cricketers or news of the campaign among the public not reach their ears as Tiger propagandists spread the gospel according to AI?

The cricket team is a national team and representing Sri Lanka. It does not represent the LTTE. So any mention of the LTTE in the Caribbean campaign is purely cosmetic (something not strange to AIs top executives!), smeared on to suggest a veneer of balance.
The real target is the national team which will obviously be identified with the country. So by targeting Sri Lanka, AI is, by implication, trying to taint the cricketers and thus affect their game.

Is this not the real intention which is ostensibly couched in great moral terms as a concern about human rights?Is it not ironic that AI calls its campaign “play by the rules” when AI itself fails to play by them? This multi-ethnic, multi-religious cricket team has nothing to do with the decisions and actions of the government and the LTTE.

It is one thing to ostracise a country and its sports bodies after collective decisions to that effect by world leaders as happened to South Africa some 30-odd years ago following a Commonwealth heads of government decision on sporting contacts taken at he Gleneagles summit.

But surely AI is not authorised to make decisions for world leaders however much its ruling hierarchy might suffer from bloated egos.
And by whose rules are we expected to play? AIs, the so-called co-chairs that have been warming their posteriors and ducking the obvious truth that it takes two to tango, or other heavenly bodies like Irene Khan and Purna Sen?

And since when has the world to follow the dictates of AI which is seen by many as an organisation full of froth and foam like the balls it is distributing. As cricket lovers know, the game has been blackened by speculators, bookies and greedy players who have engaged in match-fixing, bribe-giving and taking and other unbecoming conduct that have disgraced nations and peoples.

Those accustomed to hearing of these shady deals emanating regularly from whistle blowers and others, might well wonder whether we are witnessing another form of match-fixing at the instigation of interested parties. Seeing the unusual interest taken by AI in cricket and the fact that this campaign appears to lack precedence in AI’s campaign annals could this be a doosra bowled by those who do not want the Sri Lanka team to proceed further?

Could anyone be faulted for such deductions? Look back to last year’s World Cup football. Did anybody see Amnesty International distribute foam footballs soliciting public and celebrity signatures against some playing nations that even today have horrible human rights records even though they are not faced with terrorism?Where were AI’s Khans, Sens, Catherine Babers et al at that time? Why did AI not extend its current campaign to include Bangladesh where the rights of journalists are being violated regularly and political foes killed? Is Bangladesh which is still playing in the World Cup an untouchable, for some reason? And what about Zimbabwe, pray? I suppose in AI’s scheme of things Zimbabwe has a clean human rights record and does not deserve foam balls.

Some say that this campaign was the brain child of Robert Godham , AI’s campaign co-ordinator for Asia. If true these great planners seem to have ignored the possibility that the LTTE and its front organisations, could use this campaign to distribute its soft balls all over the Caribbean in the hope of bringing the cricket team into disrepute and undermine its efforts to regain the world trophy?

Or did they? The jury is sure to be out on this for a long time given the state of the game which has been infiltrated by all kinds of sharpies with vested and personal interests. For quite some time now AI has been trying to get visas to send missions to Sri Lanka. If Colombo wishes to react to this campaign, it should abandon its current attempt to collect a million signatures of its own, unless the vast majority of the signatures come from outside Sri Lanka.

The simple thing to do is deny AI entry into the country. It has been trying to get a foothold by promoting an independent international monitoring body hoping to get itself on board. If Colombo does eventually allow one it should make sure that AI is not on it. After all AI is calling for an independent body which in the inimitable words of Sam Goldwyn should include AI out.

There are other more qualified organisations such as Human Rights Watch which, even when it has been critical of the Sri Lanka government, has not shirked the responsibility of castigating the LTTE. AI has not descended from Olympus, only from Martin Ennals. Unfortunately it has descended too far. So it is best it remembers that it is not God just Godham with a couple of Khans and Sens to keep him company.

When the Beijing Olympics comes around next year, Godham would probably be hamming it with new foam balls- or would it be a discus or javelin- trying to get the visiting millions to protest at China’s human rights record.

 
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Copyright 2007 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka.