Gareth Evans (ICG) Declaration
of a Possibile R2P (Right to Protection) Situation
Developing in Sri Lanka is aimed at Safeguarding the Tamil Tiger Terrorists
?
SRI LANKA UNITED NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF CANADA
Box 55292, 300 Borough Drive, Toronto, Ontario M1P 4Z7 Canada
Website: www.sluna.org E-mail: sluna@idirect.com
MEDIA RELEASE August 2, 2007
Gareth Evans (ICG) Declaration of a Possibile R2P (Right to Protection)
Situation
Developing in Sri Lanka is aimed at Safeguarding the Tamil Tiger Terrorists
?
Gareth Evans, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group delivering
the Eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture in Colombo, spoke at
length on the Limits of State Sovereignty: The Responsibility
To Protection In The 21st Century on July 29, 2007. In analysing
the substance of his speech, we find he is wishy, washy and iffy
in his attempt to make a case for international intervention in Sri
Lanka, which is currently getting the upper-hand in the battle with
the internationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), that has carried on an armed insurrection
for the past 24 years to establish a mono-ethnic racist break-away Tamil
separate state in the tiny island of Sri Lanka, which is roughly 1/16th
the size of Ontario.
At a time when the world has given the highest priority to rooting
out terrorism following the 9/11 attacks in the USA, and the 2001 UN
Convention on the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism, we find that
the western powers focussed all their attention on combating the Al
Qaeda and other Arab terrorist groups that were considered a threat
to their own interests. They allowed the LTTE to operate with impunity
within their jurisdictions cultivating politicians in exchange for campaign
funds and votes of the Tamil diaspora, thereby discounting the unceasing
turmoil, bloodshed and destruction caused by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists
to Sri Lankas institutions of governance and the civilian population
from all the ethnic communities. Measures have only been taken recently
by the US, UK, Canada, EU and Australia to prevent the LTTEs fundraising
and arms procurement activities, but such steps have not made any serious
dent as Janes Intelligence reports that the LTTE rakes in round
$300 million a year, which would make major corporations envious of
such bottom-line numbers. While these half measures are being implemented
at a fairly low priority, countries such as Norway continue to provide
banking facilities and funds to these terrorists with whom they maintain
close ties.
India which signed a Pancha Seela Pact on Non-Interference in Bandung,
trained, armed and funded the LTTE in the 1980s to destabilize
Sri Lanka, as she felt that her tiny neighbour was developing ties with
the USA. When Sri Lankas forces were in the process of defeating
the Indian trained Tamil militants in 1987, she threatened to intervene
militarily in Sri Lanka, imposed her unpopular solution of creating
Provincial Councils with a merged north-east unit to be controlled by
the Tamils, and later withdrew her troops in 1990 having failed to disarm
the marauding tiger that promised to lay down their weapons within 72
hours of the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987. India thereon
banned the LTTE, but still provides a porous border for smuggling of
explosives and weapons for the Tigers via Tamilnadu in South India.
Mr. Evans has laboured to define what is meant by the Right to Protection
(R2P) as Protecting men, women and children from large-scale killing,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity either occurring
now, or imminently feared likely to occur, without giving the
basis on which such potential situations are to be assessed. Going by
his own examples involving large-scale atrocity crimes as in Cambodia,
Rwanda, Srebrenica, or Kosovo where genocidal attacks took place, he
himself admits it is not possible to place Sri Lanka in that category.
He is aware that many Tamils including leaders of the calibre of Neelan
Tiruchelvam, Lakshman Kadirgamar and others have been killed by the
Tamil Tigers, with yet others being threatened, extorted and tortured
by these terrorists. Clear cases of ethnic cleansing are the eviction
of the 27000 Sinhalese from the north in the 1970s and the forced
removal of 90000 Muslims residents of the north with only 24 hours notice
in 1990 by the LTTE.
Mr. Evans admits there is a need to forcefully deal with the LTTE.
He states Sri Lankas conflict presents a particularly difficult
situation for would-be peacemakers in part because the very real difficulty
of containing and taming the LTTE. Given the deliberately provocative
manner in which the Tigers attacked the government forces in late 2005
and early 2006, and given their past willingness to target civilians
and the brutal nature of their rule in the north, the government clearly
has legitimate security concerns to which it must respond. The
LTTE continues to target civilians using claymore mines and bombs in
public places and public transit, and have even attempted to move two
trucks with over 1000 kg of explosives concealed in each to population
centres in the south which were luckily detected en-route to their intended
blasting sites.
The crisis expert with no military background further states that it
is highly unlikely that the Tigers can be defeated militarily. Unlike
in the east where the government forces were able to defeat the LTTE
and take over the terrain with minimum casualties, he expresses the
opinion that extending the war to the Tiger stronghold in the northern
Vanni will have a devastating impact on civilians, giving rise to a
R2P situation which demands preventive action in the first instance
by the Sri Lankan government with possible military intervention by
the international community to ensure their safety. Does he want the
Sri Lankan government to stop military action against the LTTE despite
legitimate security concerns which he himself drew attention to, and
continue to allow this canker of terrorism to grow and spread with the
associated bloodshed and turmoil which she has endured for over 25 years?
Just as the Sri Lankan forces contained the casualties in their eastern
manoeuvres to record low numbers, and are currently re-settling the
temporarily displaced civilians in de-mined villages speedily, giving
them freedom and a chance to lead normal lives having been freed from
the clutches of the ruthless LTTE, they will act with similar concern
and skill to safeguard the civilians in the Vanni living under the jackboot
of the LTTE, who along with the Tiger cadres are being fed and looked
after by the government even at the present time.
Mr. Evans logic is difficult to understand when he says military
action against the LTTE is permissible provided a package of political
and constitutional reforms
that appeal to non-separatist Tamils and non-LTTE parties are arrived
at the All Party Conference (APC) initiated by the government. It is
apparent that Mr. Evans realizes that the LTTE is not amenable
to a negotiated settlement, as they have only used the numerous attempts
to talk peace during the past 20 years to buy time to re-arm themselves
and resume hostilities in pursuit of their goal of a mono-ethnic racist
Tamil separate state. We wish to point out that whatever reform package
is to be determined by the All Party Conference should not only appeal
to the Tamil parties drawn up on communal lines, but should also be
acceptable to the Sinhalese who form the majority community.
We are aware that the international community, the INGOs and foreign
funded NGOs have been using their ample funds to campaign for a federal
system of governance, seeking extensive devolution of powers to an area
encompassing the north and east mistakenly being described by them as
Tamil areas, ignoring the fact that a larger percentage
of Tamils have chosen to live outside this region in mixed ethnic surroundings.
The latter group are unlikely to uproot themselves and move over to
the so called Tamil areas to enjoy the expected security
and freedom which is currently being denied to the existing residents
of the Vanni by their self-declared sole representative, the LTTE. Furthermore,
in surveys carried out by these very same NGOs, they have become aware
that the vast majority of the people are not in favour of a federal
set-up, as it is seen as a stepping stone to separation for which the
Tamils have waged war including suicide terrorism for almost 25 years.
Such an eventuality could give rise to a real R2P situation as witnessed
at the time of the partition of India in 1947.
We for our part have proposed to the APC to grant of the fullest possible
devolution at the district level combined with a sharing of appropriate
powers at the centre, where the minorities will play a participatory
role in the day to day governance, planning and future development of
the common homeland as equal citizens within a unitary set-up, which
best suits the needs of the constituent communities. We are left to
conclude that pressure being applied on Sri Lanka by the UK and their
All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, West Germany, USA, Norway
and yet others in the international community, to withhold promised
aid or stop humanitarian aid, along with moves by the ICG, INGOs and
foreign funded NGOs is nothing but an attempt to sustain the Tamil Tiger
Terrorists and provide space for the cornered Tiger to re-emerge and
unleash its fury in order to keep Sri Lanka in a constant state of imbalance
and insecurity. Solutions prescribed by foreign governments or that
decided by the APC cannot be implemented without the approval of the
people, who alone are vested with that authority by the constitution.
Yours very truly,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Honorary President
Copy to: Mr. Gareth Evans, President & CEO, ICG, Brussels (By facsimile)
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