R2P - latest acronym for neo-colonial
interventions
03rd August 2007
By H. L. D. Mahindapala
(Former Editor, The Sunday Observer, Colombo, Sri Lanka) (Courtesy:
Asian Tribune)
Delivering the Eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture at the International
Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, on July 29th 2007 Gareth
Evans, President, International Crisis Group (ICG), has in his characteristic
eloquent style clinically analyzed and described the new instrument
of international intervention needed to prevent future "Holocausts
and Cambodias and Rwandas and Bosnias of the past, and the Darfurs of
the present, and maybe the Iraqs of the near future
" happening
again.
He names the new instrument as "R2P". It is Gareth Evans'
shorthand for "responsibility to protect". He also spells
out his reasons to justify why R2P is applicable to the Sri Lankan situation.
Both are controversial. Despite the lucid exposition of the parameters
and the import of R2P and its uses, his argument is mired in deep political,
moral, legal and philosophical issues that the way out for existing
and impending "humanitarian crises" through R2P seems to be
nowhere nearer than in the old linguistic model, or envisaged in his
lecture. The new terminology is neither an advancement on the old concept
(it tastes more like old wine in new bottles) nor does it seem like
a viable and satisfactory solution to the prevention of humanitarian
crises. (More of this later).
Second, the political analysis on which he proposes to apply R2P to
Sri Lankan crisis questions not only the validity of R2P but also the
premises, the principles and the criteria recommended by him for its
application anywhere, let alone Sri Lanka. He states that Sri Lanka
is not another Rwanda, or Cambodia or Kosovo but R2P must be applied.
This reveals his hidden agenda. In the name of delivering a memorial
lecture on Neelan Tiruchelvam he has come to lay down the law of the
imperial masters who judges, defines and implements their own definitions
in accordance with their political agenda.
The overall flow of his lecture leads to his main political agenda
of stopping the Sri Lankan military from advancing into the north on
his assumption that it has the potential to descend into another Rwanda
or Cambodia. Obviously, he is not aware that the Forces had regained
Jaffna and the east (despite threats of blood bath by the Tamil Tigers)
without descending anywhere near to a Rwanda or Kosovo.
The Sri Lankan forces had even quelled two Marxist uprising in the
south with heavy casualties no doubt, more than the north-south conflict.
The "balance of consequences" he points in Iraq has not occurred.
The failure to take the ground realities and assess the overall picture
makes Gareth Evans' argument rather unsustainable. It is a pity that
he has merely regurgitated what has been fed to him by the local NGOs
without making a realistic assessment of his own. This explains why
he has misdiagnosed the Sri Lankan case. That is, perhaps, excusable
for a misled pundit who had misread the symptoms. But to prescribe the
wrong surgical operation is unacceptable in any language.
But before getting down to the Sri Lanka situation a brief examination
of R2P is necessary. For all intents and purposes, R2P is a moral and
a legal instrument sharpened to override state sovereignty and to impose
the will of the international community. His argument amounts to ram
R2P down the throats of sovereign nations in the Westphalian system,
without overtly being overly imperialistic or interventionist. There
is a reasonable argument for intervention, when the state fails "through
incapacity or through ill-will", as in the case of Cambodia, Kosovo
or Rwanda. But why should R2P apply to Sri Lanka when he states categorically
that it is not in the same category of Kosovo or Rwanda?
As head of the ICG and as a leading proponent of R2P he sets out to
draw "the limits of state sovereignty, and the proper role of the
international community in responding to catastrophic human rights violations
- genocide and other mass killing, large scale ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity - occurring within the boundaries of a single
country." Nicely put. The main thrust of his argument is to by-pass,
wherever necessary, Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter which states: "Nothing
should authorise intervention in matters essentially within the domestic
jurisdiction of any State" and to replace that with the phrase
coined by Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Medicines Sans Frontier and
now France's Foreign Minister, of 'droit d'ingerence' - the 'right to
intervene', or, more fully, the 'right of humanitarian intervention'.
In other words, he attempts to draw the distinction between straight
out intervention for political, economic, strategic or other interests
and the "right of humanitarian intervention", with the emphasis
on the elastic and even all-embracing word "humanitarian".
Quite rightly, he points out the difficulties of applying this principle
to all humanitarian crises
Citing Francis Deng, the Sudanese scholar and diplomat now named by
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as his Special Adviser for the Prevention
of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Gareth states that "its essence
should now be seen not as 'control', as in the centuries old Westphalian
tradition, but, again, as 'responsibility'. The starting point is that
any state has the primary responsibility to protect the individuals
within it. But that is not the finishing point: where the state fails
in that responsibility, through either incapacity or ill-will, a secondary
responsibility to protect falls on the wider international community.
That, in a nutshell, is the core of the responsibility to protect idea,
or 'R2P'as we are all now calling it for short."
Here Evans is making a big play on semantics. He is shifting the emphasis
from "control" to "responsibility" as if it makes
any significant difference. No, it doesn't. "Responsibility"
is a substitute word to sanitize the opprobrium in the offensive word
"control". In essence, both words converge in a meaning that
is not much different from the other for the simple reason that those
who take "responsibility" do so to take "control".
There is no point in taking "responsibility" if those doing
so cannot "control" the situation.
Evans' focus on semantics is pivotal to his argument. Without it his
argument fails. He throws the linguistic net to catch everyone who comes
within the realms of his political agenda. In his legalistic mind (he
was a Professor in the Law Faculty of Melbourne University, Australia)
he is well aware that those who formulate the rules have an advantage
in any contest. His law of contracts would have taught him that.
The powerful combatants invariably set the rules, define the limits
and force the other weak combatants to play according to the imposed
dictates. This ensures that the battle of the powerful is won even before
it begins. Defining ultimately is a key political act to achieve the
desired goal. Definitions make all the difference to winning or losing.
Taking control of the language to redefine the framework is a prime
necessity to fix the political agenda. The semantic framework in which
the discourse is held gives the upper hand to those who pre-plan the
agenda. Once the definitions and the language are established all actors
will have to play according to the rules that arise from the new definitions
and language.
Evans acknowledges this when he said: "The first was to invent
a new way of talking about 'humanitarian intervention'
.
(T) he whole point of embracing (the new) language (R2P) is that it
is capable of generating an effective, consensual response in extreme,
conscience-shocking cases, in a way that 'right to intervene' language
was not." Besides, political actions do not take place outside
the linguistic framework. Refining the language to define the actions,
the programme and the action is a prerequisite to pursue and achieve
the preordained goals. Controlling the discourse through an authoritarian,
imperialistic language is another way of imposing the will of those
who craft the draft. The language invariably precedes the implementation
of the political agenda. Evans has done this with finesse.
But in defining R2P he has (perhaps unwittingly) brought the meanings
of the two words - "control" and "responsibility"
- together. He says that "it means reacting effectively in situations
where genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity
are currently occurring or imminent. But it also means preventing situations,
not yet at that conscience-shocking stage but capable of reaching it,
from so deteriorating. And it means rebuilding societies shattered by
such catastrophes to ensure they do not recur.
"The action required by R2P is overwhelmingly, preventive: building
state capacity, remedying grievances and ensuring the rule of law. But
if prevention fails, R2P requires whatever measures - economic, political,
diplomatic, legal, security, or in the last resort military - become
necessary to stop mass atrocity crimes occurring."
His definition makes it amply clear that taking "responsibility"
is to take "control". He is trying to make out thattaking
"responsibility" is a higher moral duty as opposed to taking
"control" either through unilateral or multilateral interventions.
But it is a distinction without a difference when it comes to "reacting
effectively," as he states. No power on earth, not even the ICG,
can "react effectively" without taking control.
However, in his nuanced argument Evans does not bluntly go all out
to maintain that international intervention is necessary for each and
every humanitarian crisis and applicable to every situation. He takes
great pains to emphasize that the first opportunity must be given to
individual states to take R2P action. He says: "As to who should
in practice bear the responsibility in question, for individual states,
R2P means in the first instance the responsibility to protect their
own citizens from such crimes, and to help other states build their
capacity to do so. For international organizations, including the United
Nations, R2P means the responsibility to warn, to generate effective
preventive strategies, and when necessary to mobilize effective reaction.
For civil society groups, R2P means the responsibility to force the
attention of policymakers on what needs to be done, by whom and when.
According to paragraph 138 of the World Summit Outcome Document the
responsibility of the international community is to help countries to
help themselves in taking preventive action. So how should this principle
of helping Sri Lanka to help themselves be implemented by the international
community? The Sri Lankan state "has the responsibility,"
according to Evans, "to protect its population from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity." Everyone
of these crimes has been committed by the LTTE and that is why they
have been banned by the international community. That is also why Velupillai
Prabhkaran is wanted by Interpol, India and Sri Lanka.
Evans goes further. He says: "This responsibility entails the
prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate
and necessary means. The international community should as appropriate
encourage and help States to exercise that responsibility
All the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the LTTE
have reached unacceptable proportions over the years. The regional super
power, India, intervened (violating international law) and forced the
Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement in the name of "humanitarian assistance".
The LTTE ripped it apart and took up arms against the Indian Peace Keeping
Force. The biggest boast of the Tamil Tigers is that they defeated the
fourth biggest army in the world. Then the stars in the nebulous international
community worked out the Ceasefire Agreement. LTTE not only walked out
of talks shortly after signing it but violated 95% of its terms and
conditions, according to Scandinavian Peace Monitors.
The Tamil Tigers have reneged on agreements with the UN to stop recruiting
children - a war crime. Since the international community and the regional
super power have failed to stop the war crimes and crimes committed
against humanity whose responsibility is to take the only option available
in the last resort to restore normalcy and decency in Sri Lanka: a regime
change in the Vanni. This is also endorsed by the Tamils in the democratic
stream, not to mention the look-alike and act-alike breakaway group
of the LTTE led by Karuna in the east. According to the principles and
criteria laid down by Evans, it is the responsibility of the international
community to help Sri Lanka "to build capacity to protect (its)
populations from these crimes (genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing
and crimes against humanity) and to assist those which are under stress
before crises and conflicts break out," says Evans, citing Paragraph
139 of the document approved unanimously by the world leaders.
So isn't it necessary and appropriate for the world leaders to adhere
to their principles enshrined in Paragraphs 138 and 139 and help Sri
Lanka to prevent these crimes? Instead Evans is threatening to stop
the very forces that are advancing to fulfill the objectives outlined
in Paragraphs 138 and 139. After the failures of the Indo-Sri Lankan
Agreement and the Ceasefire Agreement what options are available in
dealing with an intransigent and incorrigible perpetrator of these crimes
against humanit? In summary, Evans concludes that Sri Lankan is a R2P
case which requires international intervention. He says: "It may
not be one where large scale atrocity crimes - Cambodia-style, Rwanda-style,
Srebrenica-style, Kosovo-style - are occurring right now, or immediately
about to occur, but it is certainly a situation which is capable of
deteriorating to that extent."
His argument defies logic and commonsense. First, this argument runs
on the same logic of the policeman who was produced a man before a magistrate
for distilling illicit liquor. As evidence police said that he had all
the necessary equipment for distilling liquor. The man said that he
should then be charged of rape too because he has equipment to commit
that crime! Second, what justice or rationality is there in pushing
an agenda of his own when he brings imaginary charges against the he
Sri Lankan government and ignores the criminals who have been found
guilty of committing acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity? Where is his commitment to Paragraphs 138 and 139? He says
that Sri Lanka is not - nor is ii likely to be in near future - a Cambodia,
Rwanda, Srebrenica or Kosovo. But he imagines that "it is certainly
a situation which is capable of deteriorating to that extent."
Here he is parroting the hype of NGOs. Their tactic has been to over-emphasize
violations of human rights of the state fighting a grim battle to protect
a democratically elected state to cover-up for the gross and horrendous
violation of the Pol Potist regime in the north. In falling in line
with this line of mono-ethnic extremism of the north Evans loses his
balance and targets the victims of the brutal terrorist violence who,
based on historical experience, can be saved only by a regime change
in the Vanni.
Evans should know enough of history and heaps international machinations
to understand that an unrepentant and unrelenting political criminal
like Prabhakaran, who had killed more Tamils than all the other forces
put together, according to the son of the father of Tamil separatism,
S. J. V. Chelvanyakam, can never be reformed or contained by throwing
flowers of constitutional reforms or arguments of human rights. Even
if he doesn't accept this reality now he will long enough to realize
it sooner or later.
Of course, he argues that the "government's sovereign responsibility
is not to put its own citizens at undue risk. For this reason, the government
must resist the temptation to continue its military campaign into the
areas of the Northern Province held by the LTTE." At the Melbourne
University he would marked down this argument as casuistry to cover-up
for Pol Potism. If the priority of the world leaders is to prevent war
crimes and crimes against humanity happening again, and if Sri Lanka
is not like Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica or Kosovo (except in the projected
imagination of Evans) what should be the response of the international
community be? Based on Paragraph 138 and 139 (cited above) should it
not be to help the Sri Lankan state to take effective action to protect
its people held captive in the Tamil Terroristan?
To understand why Evans is going down this track, against all logic
and available evidence, it is necessary to place in context the timing
of his arrival to deliver the Tircuelvam Memorial lecture sponsored
by the ICES. Without reading much into it, it should be noted that he
has come at the time when the Security Forces had advanced, with commendable
discipline and skill, avoiding the Srebrenica- Kosovo style of ethnic
cleansing, or even Rwanda-scale horrors in the east. In 1995 the forces
also occupied Jaffna without creating such horrendous ethnic catastrophes.
In fact, in putting down violent challenges thrown at the democratically
elected state, the Sri Lankan government had killed more Sinhalese (over
a 100,000 at a rough estimate in the two JVP uprisings) than in this
north-south conflict.
What Evans has not grasped is that there is no visceral enmity between
the two communities as in the case of Kosovo or Srebrenica, or Rwanda.
That is why the majority of Tamils live with the Sinhalese in the south.
That is why the Sinhalese villages in the east were the first to rush
to the Tamil victims of the tsunami, long before the state or the NGOs
went in with their aid. That is also why that there has been no ethnic
backlashes against the Tamil community (as in 1983) despite systematic
provocations of the Tamil Tigers to needle the lower-level Sinhala leadership
to retaliate violently against the Tamil neighbors each time they attack
the sacred Buddhist sites, or massacre babies, Buddhist monks and pregnant
mothers in villages.
Evans, of course, has missed all these realities. His political line
can be understood only if it is compared with the fixed mind-set of
the local NGOs whose main objective has been to tie the hands of the
Sri Lankan forces with cries of human rights violations - cries raised
to stop the advance of forces through international intervention. It
is also reported that he has close rapport with Radhika Coomaraswamy
who headed the ICES before the Sri Lankan government sponsored her to
the post of an Under-Secretary at the UN. Sadly, both belong to that
band of do-gooders in the world thriving on manufacturing sophisticated
rationalizations for the evils staring in their faces. It is no coincidence
that Evans was invited to deliver the Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial lecture
precisely at this time. He is the right spokesperson with the required
high-profile who could be recruited, without any arm-twisting, to do
the job of protecting the Pol Potist regime in the Vanni by stopping
the advance of the Security Forces.
Besides, his analysis and his recipe of R2P have been written many
times over by the foreign-funded International Centre for Ethnic Studies
(meaning only partisan studies of Sinhala-Buddhists and not the northern
Hindu Tamils), Centre for Policy Alternative (meaning policy alternatives
only for the democratic south and not for the fascist north), National
Peace Council (meaning a council to cover-up the war crimes committed
by the war lords of the north) etc., etc. The only new aspect in Evans'
lecture is the finger-pointing threat at the state if it goes into the
north. This is a repetition of Indian intervention when the Sri Lankan
forces were on the verge of de-clawing the Tamil Tigers. The Indians
too came in the name of humanitarian intervention and air-dropped lentils,
violating the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of its southern
neighbour. The Indian language was different from that of Evans. They
didn't come wrapped in fancy R2P but the effect was the same.
In the case of Evans, however, he seems to be all over the place with
him wriggling, semantically, to intervene through his R2P language,
despite him saying that the so-called "R2P situation
. demands
preventive action, by the Sri Lankan government itself, but with the
help and support of the wider international community, to ensure that
further deterioration does not occur."
If he really means what he says then in what manner should the wider
international community support and help Sri Lanka to take responsibility
to protect its citizens? Hasn't the state the right to invoke Bernard
Kouchner's 'droit d'ingerence' - the 'right to intervene', or, more
fully, the 'right of humanitarian intervention' to prevent the war crimes
and crimes against humanity committed in Tamil Terroristan? Or is R2P
action a right reserved only for the imperial masters? Going against
his own definition of R2P Evans labours, point by point. to argue against
the Security Forces advancing to liberate the Tamil citizens -- a call,
incidentally, made by the UN peace award-winning Tamil leader, V. Anandasangaree.
All his arguments boil down to block the Security Forces taking R2P
action.
This is why political observers see him as an agent of the local NGOs
arriving in time to twist the arm of the government, with not-so-veiled
threats from the international community. This threat also undermines
his argument that the first preference is given to the state to initiate
R2P action.
Consider, for instance is legal argument: "Recognizing that the
government's primary responsibility, like that of any state, is to protect
all its citizens, it must take steps to ensure that all its citizens
are accorded the equal protection of the laws." It is unthinkable
that he would confine the definition of the phrase "to protect
all its citizens" only to those living in the south.
All citizens should include those living in the Tamil Terroristan
too - citizens who are forced to endure crimes against their own children
with, mark you, Radhika Coomaraswamy, a concerned Tail, presiding over
hapless fate at the UN. How do Evans and Coomaraswamy propose to protect
these children from falling into the clutches of the Tamil Tigers? Is
it by giving another lecture? Or by writing another report for the UN
Secretary-General? Their politics do not give priority to war crimes
an crimes against humanity which they know for will not end as long
as Velupillai Prabhakaran is allowed to reign with impunity in Tamil
Terroristan.
They go down the other political tract of NGOs that argue in devious
ways that priority should be given to power-sharing with the mono-ethnic
extremists of the north over any meaningful consideration of the rights
of children or the victims of the violations of human rights. Their
intent is to keep the Tamil Tigers in power as a guarantee of Tamil
rights and R2P should not be applied to the north until the south provides
them an undue share of powers ignoring the aspirations of all communities.
In this argument human rights takes the last place in their list of
priorities. They invoke human rights only to force the state to submit
to their political demands and not because they are genuinely concerned
a bout protecting human rights. In other words, human rights are used
as a political tool to beat the state, exonerating the so-cal de facto
state guilty of horripilating crimes against humanity. This argument
is a perversion of R2P. ICG must decide whether it wants to prioritize
human rights, as it professes, or go along with the criminal politics
of the mono-ethnic extremists.
Besides, going on Evans' "balance of consequences", the chances
of Tamils finding political solution are far greater without the Tigers
than with them holding a gun at the heads of those seeking peace. Sadly,
Evans argument honed to stop the advance of the Sri Lankan forces does
not go as far as protecting all those citizens held to ransom by a ruthless
group of political criminals. His silence on this implies that those
citizens either need no protection from the state or are not citizens
of the state. In either case, he has virtually abandoned the "responsibilities"
to protect those citizens, either by the state or by the international
community. If Evans is keen on prioritizing politics as against human
rights then he loses the moral high ground. Though he is bouond to reject
it, he becomes anally of Prabhakaran and not the state which he states
deserves international help to prevent violations of human rights.
He argues that the Sri Lankan government must take preventive action
"with the help and support of the wider international community,
to ensure that further deterioration does not occur." But in saying
that the Sri Lankan forces must not advance to change the regime that
is violating human rights on an unprecedented scale he is endorsing
the NGO line that the status quo must be maintained, leading to further
deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Tamil Terroristan and, consequently,
the rest of the nation.
On balance and by all the available evidence the most pragmatic course
available deal with the deteriorating human rights crisis in Sri Lanka
is for the ICG to unleash the full force of R2P against "the Pol
Potist regime" (James Burns of New York Times - June 25, 1995)
than against the Sri Lankan state. He mentions the nominal restrictions
placed on the Tigers in Western havens. But to what effect? Roland Buerk,
BBC, in his latest report from Killinochchi states: "But now there
is new evidence that the organisation is forcing civilians into its
ranks" -- one from each family to fight in a needless war. Evans
is also aware of the forcible recruitment of child soldiers, reneging
on all UN agreements from 1995.
He may not be aware of the Nazi-style concentration camps run in the
heart of Terroristan, but he may be knowing of how 75,000 Muslims and
20,000 Sinhalese were ethnically cleansed from Jaffna. He, of course,
is aware of how the cream of Tamil leadership has been eliminated. It
has been an unceasing, on-going humanitarian crisis with no signs of
abating. With all this evidence before him Evans refuses to accept that
the Tamil Tigers have "crossed the boundary into mass atrocity
or obvious genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against
humanity." He is stuck in his ideological blindness. If he acknowledges
the plight of the Tamils under ruthless regime of Velupillai Prabhakaran
he will be forced, by his own logic to encourage the Sri Lankan state
to initiate R2P action "with the help and support of the wider
international community, to ensure that further deterioration does not
occur".
But where does he draw the line? He draws the line only to prevent
the Sri Lankan government from taking the action to prevent future Rwandas
and Cambodias. Sadly, ICG, like all local NGOs, is putting maximum pressure
to prevent the subhuman source from these crimes originate. ICG, like
local NGOs is pussyfoots around the war crimes and the crimes against
humanity committed by the Tamil Tigers. In fact, Evans unashamedly states
that "in recent times" the Tigers have been behaving well
"without crossing the boundary into mass atrocity or obvious genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity." He even
equates that behavior with that of the SL government.
Whatever the data base from which he derived this conclusion he seems
to be quite comfortable with the forcible abduction of children, concentration
camps, and door-knocking to recruit one young person from each family
and, judging from his statements neither the state nor the international
community need apply R2P to liberate the Tamils enslaved by Prabhakaran.
R2P is only to be applied in the south exempting the worst criminals
in the north. Compounding all these sins of omission is the fact that
Evans failed to mention - not even in passing - that Neelan Tiruchelvam
was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. He does not view it as an integral
part of inhuman LTTE outfit urgently in need of regime change under
R2P action. On the contrary, he gloats over his assumption that the
Tamil Tigers have not "crossed the border" recently, or that
the Western citadels of human right, after nurturing them for decades,
have at last made some ineffective moves to curtail their fund raising.
Based on Evans' ideological blinkers, the peace-loving Sri Lankans can
be excused for thinking that R2P is the latest devious route of a neo-colonialist
fox sneaking its way into the hapless chicken coop.
One of the fundamental flaws in Evans' argument is the heartless way
in which he subjects reality to airy-fairy theories imported from the
West, or manufactured by the local NGOs. He states: "It has taken
the world an insanely long time, centuries in fact, to come to terms
conceptually with the idea that state sovereignty is not a license to
kill - that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about
states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens,
or standing by when others do so." Well, there are two political
entities in Sri Lanka - (1) the perfect Terroristan in the north and
(2) the imperfect democracy in the south. On any scale of judgment,
which side should he support in pursuance of R2P? Or to take an example
from his homeland, if there was in the heart of Australia a subhuman
pocket of tyranny violating all know canons of human rights and challenging
the authority of a democratically elected government how would he apply
R2P?
If Evans is worried about the "balance of consequences" aren't
the military operations and the consequences of the capture of Jaffna,
the east, and the ending of the two JVP insurrections good enough examples
for him to go by? Besides, wasn't it during his time as Foreign Minister
that Australia joined the multi-lateral force of throwing a naval cordon
round Iraq that blocked food and medical supplies leading to reported
deaths of around 500,000 children?
Without meaning to sound like a war-monger, it is most unlikely that
even a fraction of those casualties would occur on the "balance
of consequences" if the Security Forces should go north. It is
against this background that Evans has launched him mission to stop
the Security Forces advancing to the north and threatening the sovereign
democratic state (with all it faults) with R2P. To prove his bona fides
about his concerns for protecting communities in crisis there is a simple
legal remedy available to Evans.
He has the capacity/power to initiate action to bring Prabhakaran
before an International Criminal Court. This is, perhaps, the best non-militaristic
approach available in R2P. This legal action can then circumvent any
head-on collisions and prevent the grim scenario he paints.
But he won't do that either. As a professional immersed in the law
he would have been aware of this option available to him and the international
community. What is international law worth if it can't be applied to
an open-and-shut case like this? Why is Evans, the ICG and the international
community running away from their "responsibilities"? Is it
only to be applied to small countries which can be bullied into submission
by threats conveyed at lectures? With moral guardians like Evans is
it surprising that the likes of Prabhakaran reign in the safe havens
protected by those who failed to live up to their "responsibilities"
-- responsibilities they never fail to proclaim from NGO roof tops?
All in all, it is indeed "conscience-shocking" to see Gareth
Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia who pushed Austral-Lanka
relations to the brink, as it were, by defending the Aussie team's refusal
to play cricket in Sri Lanka fearing Tamil Tiger threats, standing up
now as a cryptic defender of a haven for Tamil Tiger terrorists and,
in the process, emerging as a toxic Aussie phrase-maker for peddling
obnoxious neo-colonialism.
(Courtesy: Asian Tribune)
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