Category Archives: Britain

Britain, Government, Iran, United Nations, United States

The Iranian deal exposes concerns but it’s worth the risk…

GENEVA AGREEMENT

Whilst the initial period of the Geneva agreement lasts only six months, and much of what has been agreed is based on trust, there is no doubt that Iran could have been in a position to assemble a nuclear device by next summer. Even a modest hiatus in its atomic preparations should be embraced as it pretty much ensures Israel will take no precipitate action.

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The interim agreement is a good way of testing if Iran can be trusted to keep its word. Tehran has agreed to give UN and IAEA inspectors’ better access to its reprocessing facilities, a promise that will be difficult to fudge or renege on without exposing bad faith or some covert hidden agenda. Critics are right in their assertions that the accord does nothing to dismantle Tehran’s capability to process weapons grade uranium whenever it wants, but securing the right to inspect the regime’s nuclear plants is a necessary and vital concession. This establishes a clear diplomatic tripwire that Tehran crosses at its peril.

There is, though, still much to worry about in this deal. The Iranian economy has been brought to its knees by western sanctions and the regime has been more than desperate to win a respite to mollify internal dissent and unrest. In many ways, President Hassan Rouhani has achieved that objective at comparatively modest cost, and has subsequently strengthened the grip of Iran’s religious dictatorship.

Israeli fears are well known in letting Iran off the hook. But others, too, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, have greeted the Geneva agreement with stony silence. They fear that a diplomatic win for Tehran will strengthen the resolve even further of President Assad in Syria, Iran’s client state and political ally.

On the balance of things, the Geneva deal should be deemed a worthy risk. Tehran has felt the full throttle of western sanctions and the sharpness of its teeth. It must also realise that having offered Iran diplomatic concessions and held Israel in check, President Obama will have no option but to take punitive military action if Iran reneges on its nuclear promises.

The onus in turning this interim deal into something permanent is now on Barack Obama and William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary. Their job will be to tame and dismantle Tehran’s nuclear threat once and for all. Any final agreement must see Iran disband its tens of thousands of uranium processing centrifuges – far more than is needed for any purely civilian atomic energy programme. Iran’s plant for making plutonium – which can only have a military intent – must also be dismantled. It would also make sense for Tehran to dispose of the excessive amounts of low enriched uranium it already possesses – enough to make at least six atomic bombs if those stocks were sufficiently enriched to weapons grade material.

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Britain, Government, Society, Sri Lanka, United Nations

The Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka and the diplomatic dilemma…

THE PLIGHT OF THE TAMILS EXPOSED

It was never easy going to be easy holding a Commonwealth summit in a country that has only recently emerged from a long and bloody civil war.  During the final months of a 26-year conflict the Sri Lankan army crushed a Tamil revolt amid much bloodshed in 2009. The Commonwealth heads of government were faced with a dilemma following the invitations they received from Colombo. Some countries like Canada and India stayed away in protest at the brutality displayed by the Sri Lankan government during its civil war and it’s still continuing appalling human rights record towards the Tamils. Sri Lanka does not wish to answer or be held to account for any of its ostensible heinous war crimes.

It will be noticeable to many analysts that the final communiqué from the meeting made no reference of David Cameron’s call for an inquiry into the human rights abuses that the Sri Lankan military allegedly committed during the closing stages of the war. Some may infer that this is evidence that the prime minister made a mistake in attending because Britain has, once again, not only unnecessarily exposed its declining influence in the world but made to appear complicit, to a certain degree, by being present during the Sri Lankan leader’s grandstanding before the world.

Diplomatic quandaries don’t come much tougher. Mr Cameron was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of a British boycott of the CHOGM, which would have been a first for a Commonwealth gathering, and no doubt felt that not to have gone to a difficult summit would have been a coward’s way out.

As it is, the Sri Lankan President has called for a new, more credible, probe into human rights abuses, and this runs alongside what Britain is demanding. He believes, however, that he can afford to ignore British criticisms as he attempts to nurture closer ties with China, which wants to draw the strategic island into its own orbit, and professes no interest in Sri Lanka’s human rights record. In predictable style, the President has also fired a barrage of rebukes in Mr Cameron’s direction, describing Britain as an ex-colonial power with plenty of blood on its own hands in Iraq and elsewhere.

The British prime minister did make good on his pledge to place a spotlight on the question of Tamil rights, visiting the war-torn district of Jaffna in the north to meet Tamil protestors first hand. He may make little headway with his call for a wider investigation, though it is less likely that the government in Colombo will resort again to the use of violence against the Tamils in the future. But not much more was ever going to be achieved.

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Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Society, Sri Lanka

Ending the brutality in Sri Lanka must be the British prime minister’s plea…

SRI LANKA

David Cameron on his difficult visit to Sri Lanka deserves credit insofar that he has certainly shown to the rest of the world that there are serious human rights problems afflicting the Tamil people in the northern part of Sri Lanka.

It is, however, the Sinhalese majority and the Sinhalese ministers of state who run Sri Lanka who must acknowledge and accept the grievous abuses occurring in their name and under their jurisdiction and authority. There, in the north, the British prime minister’s impact is much more questionable.

Mr Cameron has been the first significant government leader to travel to the north. By doing so – amidst the publicity and grandstanding of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – ensured that his trip has received wide notoriety and one that has reached well beyond the Commonwealth itself. If this will help to sustain the international pressure on the Sri Lankan government to stop the torture, rape, and other crimes being committed there, the prime minister’s efforts deserve praise.

The difficulty of such a trip is not just to bring a light to bear on the harrowing plight of the Tamil people, but in spreading afar the ghastly stories of how people were not just held captive and beaten (for doing no more than travelling from place to place), but also tortured and the repeated rape of women. The lists of crimes committed are too many and too well catalogued for the Sri Lankan government’s protestations of innocence to be anywhere near credible.

There clearly continues to be an authorised campaign of intimidation, designed to punish an ethnic people long after the war of liberation has ended – an emancipation from, and terrorism against, the Sinhalese people. It is also a continuing campaign of repression, and one that is designed to force a beaten people into a submissive acceptance that they have no rights and that there is no Tamil future. The prime minister heard accounts of brutality for himself: surely no person in his position can fail to have his heart wrenched by hearing such things and then do nothing.

Undoubtedly, this is a humanitarian tragedy, entirely man-made, and one which exasperates the deep wounds of war. It is likely such damage will cause the horror stories and lesions to fester, building up more trouble for the future.

It is time for the brutality to end and for the process of healing to begin. This is the forceful message that Mr Cameron should be delivering to his hosts.

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