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How the UN can bring peace to Sri Lanka
By Ravindra Wickremasinghe
December 14th 2005 marked the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka then Ceylon joining the United Nations. However, has Sri Lanka benefited from its membership apart from some of its citizens obtaining employment in UN agencies and securing a better material future of themselves and their families? No.
While many Sri Lankan luminaries especially from the legal field have left their mark on the UN and international law none have suggested how the United Nations can assist in permanently ending the curse of terrorism that has afflicted Sri Lanka for nearly 30 years.
What can Sri Lanka do both domestically and globally to persuade the United Nations membership consisting of 190 other states to end terrorism using Sri Lanka as a text case for global action?
Given the serious cease-fire violations committed by the LTTE, including the assassination of the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgarmar (73) on Friday 12 August 2005 and with all circumstantial, historical and material evidence pointing to the culpability of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan government, inter alia, urgently needs to undertake these four steps in the international arena:
1. Proactively work with its SAARC partners as well as those states which have proscribed or have designated the LTTE a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and other genuinely friendly states to cosponsor two United Nations resolutions calling for the immediate proscription/designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organization by all states especially Canada, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, ASEAN, EU and all Scandinavian states;
These resolutions should call for, inter alia, intelligence sharing, economic, political and military sanctions, the trial of LTTE members for crimes against humanity (child recruitment), closure of offices and front organizations, cutting off of funds, freezing of their assets including those of the LTTE gathered through commercial activities and passing of legislation to protect expatriate Tamil communities from extortion and LTTE attacks.
These two resolutions should also provide a firm six-month deadline for the LTTE to begin the decommissioning of arms and to enter the democratic process or risk UN sanctioned international military action. The recent disarmament by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) could provide some guidance in this regard. Sri Lanka should already be circulating these draft resolutions;
2. Table one resolution at the United Nations General Assembly and the second and binding one in the Security Council by the 12 January 2006 – the fifth month anniversary of the assassination of Minister Kadirgarmar. Let these resolutions not be held hostage to the lack of an agreed definition of terrorism by the United Nations/international community;
3. Call for all LTTE front organizations including NGOs to be stripped of their consultative status with ECOSOC and their members put on a United Nations watch list. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry and diplomatic machinery should be geared towards this end. An international media campaign, using anti-LTTE Tamils and the Sri Lankan diaspora, should also be launched to convince the world of how the LTTE is the primary oppressor of Sri Lankan Tamils whether they live in Sri Lanka or in the West. The World Wide Web has to be used in this regard as it is a cost effective medium;
4. Highlight the antidemocratic and fascist nature of the LTTE which on the same day allegedly murdered a Tamil Husband and Wife pair of activists. Mrs. Relangi Selvarajah (45) was working as a part-time television presenter for the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Cooperation (SLRC) and Mr. Sinnadurai Selvarajah (48) was formerly a member of the anti LTTE political party - Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE);
5. On the domestic front the JVP, JHU, other political parties such as the TULF, EPDP and all others opposed to the LTTE should organize peaceful demonstrations monthly in major cities and towns in Sri Lanka including in the North and East. The first such island-wide people power display can be held on 12th January which is the fifth month anniversary of the assassination of Minister Kadirgarmar.
The Gandhian methods are very much relevant to Sri Lanka today. Here the two proposed UN resolutions should be explained to the people in all languages. They have to be made stakeholders in the real decommissioning and demobilisation process.
The people of the North and East of Sri Lanka have to be turned into freedom fighters so that they can win their freedom from the LTTE. We need to immediately halt the appeasement process and begin a genuine peace process which enhances the dignity of the state and its citizens. All Non-Governmental and Civil Society Organizations needs to be held accountable and in this context legislation needs to enacted and enforced.
Sri Lanka needs to make good use of the current United Nations General Assembly Session where terrorism is the key issue. When will Sri Lanka learn to benefit from the War on Terrorism? The Sri Lankan government needs to be in the drivers seat in any UN negotiated settlement to the terrorist problem. It has to use international law and international cooperation to shut down this was international criminal enterprise known as the LTTE which is involved in narco-trafficking, human smuggling, gunrunning, money-laundering and other transnational crimes.
The president should appoint TULF leader Mr. V. Anadasangeree as Ambassador-at -Large to head the Sri Lankan delegation which will draft, negotiate and work to win the approval of the two United Nations resolutions.
Mr. V. Anadasangeree has been working selflessly and without concern for his life to secure the democratic rights of all Sri Lankans within a Sri Lanka that respects the law. Not appointing him as foreign minister in the wake of the Kadirgarmar assassination will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes of the Sri Lankan government. It is still not too late to rectify this mistake. In fact he has been functioning as the unofficial foreign minister for sometime now. Let us help this great son of mother Lanka to help us.
Merely begging other states to make statements condemning terrorism, the LTTE and the assassination is the worst insult we can do to the memory of the late Minister who was a man of action not hollow words. Talk is cheap. Sri Lanka stop talking get moving.
The above stated concise suggestions do not claim to be exhaustive, however, a Sri Lankan citizen submits them in the spirit of national service and their implementation will require character (courage, persistence, self-respect and vision), on the part of Sri Lanka, its politicians and diplomats.
The author calls upon the readers to assist in drafting these two UN resolutions and requests to create and online forum to obtain suggestions in this regard.
*References
Sri Lanka to mobilize world support against LTTE terrorism |
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