Since the Sri Lankan government's victory over the LTTE in May, visits by UN and other foreign envoys to this country have come thick and fast.
The first visitors after Prabhakaran's death was announced were, understandably, a high ranking delegation from Sri Lanka's biggest neighbour India, followed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. In more recent times we had the UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe. No sooner he left the country, hot on his heels came Representative of the UN Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kaelin. The main focus of concern for both was the IDP camps in the North. Now we hear that British Foreign Secretary David Milliband and and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner want to make their second visit in six months - this time to check on the conditions in the camps.
The extreme concern manifested by sections of the international community for the well-being of the long suffering people of the Wanni, after the country has vanquished a ruthless enemy, bringing an end to a 30-year war, is indeed a little odd.
The focus has been turned on 250,000 IDPs in Sri Lanka's North at a time when the numerous other trouble-spots in the world are, even as we speak, simmering or at boiling point, and where refugee and IDP numbers run into the millions.
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| The testimony of the IDPs of the Wanni is in stark contrast to the rhetorical stance taken by the pro-LTTE Tamils in the diaspora |
In Afghanistan, the commander of US and NATO forces, in an urgent appeal for more troops, has painted a grim picture of the battle against Islamic militants, predicting possible failure of the mission. Hundreds of Afghan civilians have died as a result of NATO attacks aimed at militants. In Iraq, where the US and its western allies are again bogged down in a war against a foreign enemy on foreign territory, we regularly hear of suicide bombs and explosions that kill hundreds of civilians. We may never know the actual tally of civilians killed and injured in these battles. There is no clamour from the western states and rights organizations for the UN to announce the numbers, or launch 'war crimes investigations,' and the western media do not leap to their own conclusions as they did in the case of Sri Lanka.
Around the same time that Sri Lankan government forces defeated the LTTE, and effected a spectacular operation that saved hundreds of thousands of civilians from a situation where they were being used as cannon fodder and/ or human shields, the armed forces of Pakistan launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the north western part of their country. This resulted in a situation that produced some two million IDPs. This drama was reported by the western media in a most matter-of-fact manner, suggesting it was an unavoidable, if unfortunate, outcome of a necessary battle.
What is common to all these situations from a western point of view is not hard to see - the enemies are Islamic militants - al-Qaeda or the Taliban - in other words, "their" enemy. One might also note the irony of the fact that this selective compassion of some western states for Sri Lanka's beleaguered Northern population, has intensified now that the worst is over, and that it was not half so much in evidence when these unfortunate people were under the jackboot of the LTTE.
It has been observed by the respected Hindu editor N. Ram, who visited Sri Lankan IDP camps about six weeks after the war ended, that "conditions in these camps are much better than what has been depicted, mostly second-hand, that is, without visiting the camps, in western media reports." He then went on to make an even more interesting point that "Moreover, they are visibly better than conditions in Sri Lankan refugee camps in India, which are still mostly inaccessible to journalists, researchers, and other outsiders."
Apparently there are some 117 camps in Tamil Nadu accommodating Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. It was recently reported by TNL radio that a group in one of these camps had gone on hunger strike demanding to be allowed to return home, having languished there for over three years! It is interesting to ask why Tamil Nadu politicians who seek to make political capital out of the plight of Sri Lankan IDPs, do not first put their own house in order. And why the Tamil Nadu camps have escaped the attention of sections of the western media so intensely focused on Sri Lanka.
At least part of the internationalized outcry about conditions in the camps and the pace of resettlement would seem to be driven more by invisible agendas than by concern for the IDPs' welfare.
Those who are genuinely concerned about resettlement of this population and the restoration of normal life for them, have expressed their views with a realistic apprehension of the formidable challenge faced by the government in its effort to do so, with no finger-wagging thrown in.
A case in point is a recent report by a group of Tamil expatriates who visited IDP camps and rehabilitation centres and met a whole range of government officials, Buddhist monks, ministers and UN agencies. The testimonies they obtained from the camps, like that of Mr. Ram, are particularly valuable since they were able to talk to the IDPs directly in Tamil without using intermediaries and translators.
It would appear that Sri Lanka is being singled out for "special treatment" from some quarters in the international arena. It would be a mistake for the government, riding high on its current wave of post-war popularity within the country, to dismiss these maneuvers lightly. They have to be matched by responses at the highest diplomatic level that reflect an understanding of where these moves are coming from, and the dynamics behind them. The LTTE may be militarily defeated but the pro-Tiger segment of the Tamil diaspora will keep turning up the heat abroad in its effort to discredit the Sri Lankan government.
The one and a half million strong Sri Lankan Tamil community concentrated in western capitals around the world represents a vote bank that western parliamentarians cannot ignore. They have by virtue of their numbers reached a "critical mass" that can influence policy in those countries.
Most of the second-generation Tamil youth aggressively demonstrating in the streets of Toronto, Washington, London and elsewhere in Europe probably had no familiarity with the actual situation in Sri Lanka, having being led to believe the propaganda fed to them by the overseas Tiger network. But their protests could, for that very reason, have come across to westerners as impassioned and genuine.
The Tamils both in and out of Sri Lanka who sympathized with the Tigers, mostly lived a safe and comfortable distance away from the harsh realities of "Tigerland". The testimony of the IDPs of the Wanni on the other hand, as described by the group of Tamil expatriates mentioned earlier, is in stark contrast to the rhetorical stance taken by the Tamils in the diaspora, whom the IDPs have condemned for their blind support of the LTTE.
The pro-Tiger lobby campaigned intensely for a resolution at the Human Rights Council in Geneva calling for a war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka. Owing to the brilliant work of former Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Dayan Jayatilleke, the move was not only defeated but replaced by Sri Lanka's own resolution that was supported by a majority vote in the Council. Western powers are still smarting from that defeat.
Getting resolutions passed in the UN seems to be very much a matter of being able to "win friends and influence people," and Jayatilleke and his team no doubt must have worked hard in advance of the vote to ensure that Sri Lanka's friends in the non-aligned countries rallied round in order to achieve this outcome.
In a recent interview he referred to the intensity of the canvassing by some western powers during the run up to this vote, hinting at how they sought support from far flung states where Sri Lanka did not even have diplomatic representation, even going to the extent of bribing them with possible EU membership if they fell in line.
Jayatilleke is arguably the only envoy we had, besides Lakshman Kadirgamar, who possessed the intellectual tools to grapple with the complexities of this issue at the UN level. But little thanks he got for his efforts from his bosses back home, as his abrupt removal from his post shows.
Sri Lanka's military battle may be over, but its "offshore" battle - or the challenge on the diplomatic front, has only begun. There is a crisis building up in the area of external relations, and now more than ever there is a need for more brains and less bravado in the conduct of foreign policy. In this context it certainly doesn't help to have the country's best representatives sidelined, and to allow internal competitions to take precedence over national interest.
(The writer is a senior journalist) |
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