Category Archives: Sri Lanka

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.

Standard
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.

Related:

Standard
Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Society, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s reputation and the need for answers…

Intro: The appalling human rights record in Sri Lanka raises questions about the legitimacy of the Commonwealth

The furore over the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka is problematic. For David Cameron, whose decision to attend a summit – hosted by a country where the government stands accused both of historical war crimes and continuing human rights violations – has, rightly, caused a flood of criticism. Mr Cameron insisted that by attending he would be in a position of applying more pressure than if he had not attended. His concomitant pledge of having frank and forthright discussions with President Rajapaksa was never convincing. The British prime minister’s attendance hardly shines an even dim light on the post-colonial club itself. Attendance in itself confers a credibility that Colombo has not earned.

The indifference of the Sri Lankan government has been quick to warn Mr Cameron off the topic – on the grounds that this was never the basis by which he was invited, and thus denies him the right to bring it up. Such a warning makes the prime minister’s position look even more ridiculous.

In retrospect, it was indefensible that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s authoritarian and tarnished leadership should have been given the honour of hosting the Commonwealth. Incredibly, as a matter of formality, he will also become the organisation’s formal chairman for the next two years. Whilst it is right that Mr Cameron’s attendance be condemned, we should not forget that these decisions were nodded through by the previous government of Gordon Brown at the Tobago and Trinidad summit in 2009. When Douglas Alexander, the now shadow foreign secretary, but who was part of the Brown administration, denounces the Prime Minister for refusing to boycott Sri Lanka, he is portraying the most brazen kind of political opportunism and hypocrisy.

As the British empire disintegrated after the Second World War, the legitimacy of the Commonwealth was conceived as an intergovernmental alliance centred around a shared commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Six decades on, it is far from a noble institution. Sri Lanka is not the only offender. In many of the Commonwealth’s 53 member states there are persistent allegations of everything from extrajudicial killings to torture and political suppression in countries ranging from Nigeria to Pakistan. Human rights abuses are often swept under the carpet by a quorum of member states facing similar charges of human rights violations – so much for the principle ideals and the so-called ‘core values’.

David Cameron says he will make clear that President Rajapaksa’s behaviour has impinged upon and seriously violated the Commonwealth’s most cherished ideals: no one has been held accountable for atrocities allegedly committed by Sri Lanka’s army in the final stages of the civil war in 2009. The whereabouts of nearly 5,700 critics of the regime, dissident politicians and journalists are unknown.

Mr Cameron is right to demand an independent inquiry into these cases, and Mr Rajapaksa should be made aware that his country’s reputation will never recover until the fate of the disappeared is settled. Likewise, evidence of atrocities committed by Tamil rebels during the civil war should also be thoroughly investigated. The UN estimates that some 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of the 26-year conflict. If some progress can be made in these areas, then something positive might yet come from the summit. In reality, though, with the Sri Lankans already fulminating against what they see as an old imperial power treating them like a colony, then this summit promises to be far from enchanting.

It has to be said, too, that the Commonwealth is not the only international gathering with such problems. The African Union, for instance, which officially excludes any government that has come to power through ‘unconstitutional means’, still has a number of despots on its register. The UN has similar issues: several of the countries recently elected to its Human Rights Council are violators themselves. The EU also faces continuing questions over its desire to admit new members that appear less than credible.

Despite the issues, this shouldn’t mean a call for the Commonwealth to be scrapped. Notwithstanding its imperial beginnings and arbitrary membership list, the Commonwealth of Nations is still an opportunity to garner and foster global discussion. With this is mind it should be cherished. Historical sensitivities, however, are important and the crisis of legitimacy cannot remain unaddressed. No one nation, even with the support of other rich-world members, can be the final arbiter of the rules.

With India, Canada and Mauritius having boycotted the summit on the grounds of war crimes and atrocities committed by Sri Lanka during its long civil war, it can only be hoped that when Mr Cameron was in India en route to Sri Lanka this week, he took the opportunity to press Manmohan Singh to spearhead reforms.

Standard