CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Forked tongues of Gareth Evans and John Holmes

H. L. D. Mahindapala

By now those Sri Lankans who have their eyes wide open must be quite familiar with the globe-trotting descendants of the colonial masters arriving in plane loads, carting their moral bag and baggage with them, to tell us how we should behave according to what they say and not according to what they do.

Sir. John Holmes, the UN Humanitarian Affairs Chief, has arrived hard on the heels of Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group. Both come from a past that does not quite smell like roses. For instance, when Tony Blair nominated his buddy, Sir John, for the high-ranking Under-Secretary General position in the UN there was widespread criticism. One British commentator wrote: "Sir John is a personal friend and holiday companion (of Tony Blair) who has limited experience in emergency relief work compared with his predecessors, they say. He has no prior experience, no relevant knowledge of the issues. He's a Tony Crony." At best, Holmes is a thorough bred product of the colonial and the neo-colonial bureaucracy of Britain .

He was knighted not for rendering humanitarian services but primarily for services rendered to Her Majesty's government in various capacities, most of which can be considered as perpetuating neo-colonial exploitation of global markets and politics for the greater glory of Britain .

Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia, despite his intellectual credentials, has become a part of the antique furniture of the international bureaucracy that is obsessed with policing the world according to the Western gospel. He has been an integral part of the Australian system that joined the American-led blockade to prevent supplies of food and medicine reaching Iraq.

John Pilger, the left-wing journalist wrote: "Australian ships operate with the American fleet in the Gulf, enforcing an embargo against Iraq which, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, has led to the unnecessary deaths of more than 600,000 Iraqi children." Evans' record in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with Indonesia and even Sri Lanka, does not shine as an exemplary model of an enlightened force either, despite his eloquent rhetoric to pose like one.

Both of them go round the world somewhat like the missionaries who arrived in the colonies to civilize the barbaric heathens. Their earnest mission is to play the role of Moses coming down from the lofty heights to dictate an indelible and immutable morality revealed to them by some superior force. The lesser mortals in smaller countries are expected to take their commandments unquestioningly if they aspire to arrive in the elusive land promised by them.

These two negative prophets share in common the doom and gloom projected by the local NGOs. However, it must be mentioned in fairness to Holmes that, in one of his rare lucid moments, he struck the right note when he told a news conference in Colombo that (1) Karuna must be disarmed and that (2) only the Security Forces have the right to carry arms. A media report quoted him as saying: "I raised the Karuna issue with all whom I met during my visit to Sri Lanka and found a clear determination that Karuna should be disarmed.

The important thing here is the principle that the only people who can have arms are the security forces. Karuna operates in an area controlled by the government so that is why urgent action is needed."

Good news
This is good news. Perhaps, he may not have been quite aware of the import of what he said. But the news is good because the UN has recognized that only the Security Forces have the right to carry arms and that Karuna, the look-alike and act-alike of the Tamil Tigers, should be disarmed. (More of this later.) Presumably, his report will be handed to the Secretary-General of the UN and the UN Under-Secretary General, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the "strong-willed girl" from Jaffna, according to her horoscope reader.

Just to show her strong will she even threw in words like "fornication" at a Melbourne lecture to impress that she was not a repressed conservative girl from Ladies College.

That apart, Holmes' statement has serious implications in the current Sri Lankan context. First, it undermines the 'R2P' ("responsibility to protect") theory of Gareth Evans, the head of the International Crisis Group. In his flying visit to Sri Lanka recently, Evans' waved his R2P and threatened international intervention should the Security Forces move to disarm Prabhakaran. Holmes' statement to disarm Karuna in the east runs counter to that of Evans who has arbitrarily banned such action in the north against Prabhakaran. Evans refuses to accept similar action against Prabhakaran because it has the potential to blow up into a situation where the clash between Security Forces and Karuna's group can lead to a Rwanda-type catastrophe.

The two statements of the two big players in the international scene not only contradict each other but fail to provide clear guidelines to GOSL. If GOSL intervenes militarily to disarm Karuna based on UN's John Holmes will Evans' ICG rush to deliver another lecture at ICES threatening dire consequences based on his theory of R2P which says that any move of Security Forces to disarm Prabhakaran must be stopped by international intervention - Or will Evans, in keeping with the INGO/NGO agenda, turn a blind eye to the disarming of Karuna irrespective of the "balance of consequences" which has "the potential" to descend to a mini-Rwanda, according to his calculations.

Military intervention
Second, Holmes' green light to disarm Karuna is bound to end in some violations of human rights as military intervention can hardly escape collateral damage. In that event what will be the response of the UN, ICG and the rest of the international community? Will they come down on GOSL accusing it of violating human rights with the hired NGO claque parroting R2P? Will the Human Rights Watch blame the GOSL for following the line laid down by Holmes of the UN? Will Holmes then revisit to defend Sri Lanka or tell Reuters that things are pretty after the GOSL acted on his advice?

Third, why is disarmament confined only to Karuna? Why not to Velupillai Prabhakaran too? Since Holmes prescribes remedies from a more responsible and a law-making institution like the UN, can his formula for the east override Evans' theory of not going north to disarm Velupillai Prabhakaran? Unquestionably, Evans' R2P is to prevent the Security Force from advancing into the Terroristan in the north ruled by the one-man Pol Potist regime.

Karuna then has the right to turn round and accuse Evans of applying R2P selectively to suit the hidden agenda of INGO/NGOs.

After all, Karuna could argue that he is small time operator compared to the big time terrorist in the Vanni. So why is Holmes recommending R2P-type action against Karuna and not against Prabhakaran? Isn't it discrimination to favour one group and not the other? Ironically, Karuna quit the LTTE outfit complaining bitterly about the discriminatory practices of the LTTE dominated by the northern Tamils against the eastern Tamils. Is the international community, led by Evans and Holmes, going to impose an additional discrimination on Karuna, which will be a boon to Prabhakaran whose main ambition right now is to defeat Karuna more than the GOSL?

In any case, if Holmes means what he says and insists that the principle of carrying arms should be confined exclusively to the Security Forces of the elected government then what is going to be the impact of this on Prabhakaran? Why hasn't Holmes extended that principle to the territory in the uncleared areas of Prabhakaran? Why limit it to the east and not to the north? Besides, wasn't disarming the Tamil Tigers a condition laid down in the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement? Above all, wasn't it a primary condition laid down by him when he was working on the Irish peace agreement?

Isn't it also the pre-condition laid down by Western countries in dealing with terrorist/rebel groups before any talks could begin? So why haven't Evans and Holmes declared that GOSL should insist on the Tamil Tigers laying down arms before coming to the negotiating table? And if Holmes insists that GOSL should disarm Karuna in the east why has he studiously avoided mentioning the need to apply that to Prabhakaran in the north when his personal experiences in the Irish agreement tells him that this is considered to be a necessary pre-condition for confidence-building? Isn't Evans' R2P theory a subterfuge to prevent the disarming of the Tamil Tigers?

Not surprisingly, while Holmes sidesteps this issue Evans has gone in the opposite direction declaring that the international community would intervene, under his new-fangled theory of R2P if the GOSL advances to disarm the Tigers. Isn't this another glaring example that confirms the Amero-Indians adage: White man speaks in forked tongue! This exposes Evans? politics hidden in his R2P. He is foisting R2P on GOSL to protect the gross violator of human rights in Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran.

Decorative
The positions taken by Evans and Holmes are like fancy lace: very decorative but full of holes. They reveal, partly, their failure to be morally upright and fair and just in dealing with human rights, partly, their presumption that only the Western neo-colonialists sitting in commanding positions of international institutions have the right to dictate terms and conditions for the natives to conduct their affairs and partly their arrogance in assuming that they have the monopoly of brains to prescribe remedies for all problems of the world? problems created mostly by their meddlesome roles which have exacerbated the human rights conditions in crisis-ridden nations.

Of the two positions, Holmes is more acceptable than Evans' R2P which is nothing but a neo-colonialist cover for arbitrary intervention, based on the hidden agendas of Western powers manipulating/stoking troubled spots through their hired agents planted in local NGOs. Evans' exercise in Colombo demonstrates this amply. He strides into ICES, Radhika Coomaraswamy's home base, like Gulliver rushing into douse the fire in the Lilliputian Queen's Palace. He has no hesitation in pulling out his fire hose and urinating on it from his height. Some critics have already branded his R2P as the "Right to P"!

It is quite an apt description considering Evans' threat to violate the sovereign rights of GOSL to implement his own theory of 'responsibility to protect' by advancing to disarm Prabhakaran. On the one hand, Evans argues that the 'responsibility to protect' a nation's citizens should be first given to the state. On the other, he says the Sri Lankan government has no right to go north to protect its citizens from the dehumanizing Terroristan. Does he know what he is talking about? Or is he implying that only the superior white man has the right to make such interventions, irrespective of "the balance of consequences"?

Imagination
Since he is so worried about the consequences of a military intervention in the north - his imagination runs riot to dream up Rwandas and Kosovos - it would be educational to consider the "balance of consequences". What are the chances of it turning into a Rwanda or another Kosovo? In the see-sawing battles there is no known record of conquests or defeats leading to the horrors of a Rwanda or a Kosovo where two bitterly divided ethnic communities went on the rampage, riding on the available apocalyptic horses.

Even the collateral damage that is inevitable is not likely to reach anywhere near the 600,000 Iraqi children who died prematurely because of the multi-lateral cordon thrown round Iraq blocking all food and medical supplies. Evans, as Foreign Minister of Australia, was an active participant in this crime.

Like all high-sounding moralists he tends to brush aside their monumental crimes and focus only on the lesser crimes of others. One of the most telling arguments against Evans' R2P is the pacifist voice of the Tamil leader, V. Anandasangaree. He says that the trapped Tamil people are waiting in the north for the Security Forces to rescue them from the clutches of Prabhakaran. Why then is Evans objecting to the Sri Lankan Forces liberating them?

The Sri Lankan north-south conflict began with the declaration of a Tamil war against the Sinhala south by the Jaffna Tamil leadership who passed the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976, disregarding Evans' "balance of consequences". It has so far claimed nearly 70,000 victims. So from where did Evans pluck this scenario of a Rwanda which resulted in Catholics killing 800,000 - some inside Churches with the blessings of nuns and priests - within a few weeks?

A balanced and a fair mind must have a sense of proportion in passing judgments. Exaggerating scenarios to justify wonky theories is not going to be a solution for the protection of the people or human rights. If Evans bothers to do a reality check he will find that he has no substantial grounds for international intervention, either on any sustainable principle of international law or even his R2P. For an intellectual of some repute it is shocking to see Evans arguing for R2P intervention based on imaginary scenarios.

On balance, it is pretty obvious that he is invoking a questionable (R2P) theory to maintain the status quo in the Vanni. The clear choice is to let things remain as it is which grants impunity to Prabhakaran carry on violating human rights, or to let the Security Forces advance to demolish the base of all political evil in the north.

If he reads Anandasangaree's plea (see The Island - 11, August 2007) to liberate the Tamils he will concede, in his rational moments, that the quickest way to end the horrors in Sri Lanka is to liquidate the base of evil in the Vanni. Eliminating or weakening Evil-lam is a sine qua non for the restoration of peace and preservation of human rights.

Evans' failure to come to grips with terminal historical situations, where the options are very limited, condemns him to be a delusional victim of his interventionist R2P theory, reliving the horrors that cannot be remedied by his missionary zeal.

Both Holmes and Evans are typical products of the old, discarded gun-boat diplomacy when their ancestors were ruling the waves. In contemporary time, they do not invade other countries by sailing to their shores on gun-boats. They fly in on self-defeating theories, wrapped in elegant phrases that are politically correct for their neo-colonial agendas but not to rescue the victims of subhuman terror, as described by Anandasangaree.

At the end of the day, it is the helpless Tamil victims of the mono-ethnic tyranny that will have to pay with their lives while Evans will continue to thrive in his lecture circuit, untouched by distance of the Vanni tyranny.

Sri Lankans have a choice: either surrender to his R2P theory or take the following advice given by him over the Lateline program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation when he was asked what small nations can do in the face of US might: "They can certainly do more than lying on their backs with their pink tummies exposed and their four paws waving."

Using this last line Sri Lankans can justifiably ask Gareth Evans to go fishing in an outback billabong, leaving the people to work out their own solutions.

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