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Sri Lanka, Human Rights &
the Human Rights Council
Ancient Mariners shooting the albatross
Secretariat for Coordinating
the Peace Process (SCOPP)
22nd May 2008
Over the last couple of weeks there has been high drama with regard
to Sri Lanka and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. May
13th saw the Universal Periodic Review of Sri Lanka, with nearly 70
countries putting themselves down to speak, only 56 ultimately having
time to do so. The rest of the week saw discussions over the Report
of the Review, which was ultimately adopted on the 19th, rather than
the 15th as originally scheduled.
Meanwhile there was a spate of statements urging that Sri Lanka not
be re-elected to the Council at the election which was held on May 21st.
The usual suspects, the NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and the bizarrely
named Asian Human Rights Commission, that have been sedulously targeting
Sri Lanka over the last couple of years, were joined by three Nobel
Prize laureates. Pronouncements designed to prevent the re-election
of Sri Lanka to the Council were made by Jimmy Carter, or perhaps to
be more precise the Carter Centre, and Bishop Desmond Tutu and even
the Argentinian Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who obviously does not understand
the difference between a military dictatorship and a democratic government
that functions in the context of a vociferous opposition, an independent
judiciary and a vibrant indeed frenetic civil society.
Why so much concern? While it is conceivable that all this activity
is due to deep concern for human rights in Sri Lanka, it is significant
that none of the Nobel laureates actually engaged with Sri Lanka before
their sudden outbursts. Far from making any attempt to visit, to ask
questions, to raise issues with the government, they have plunged in
on the basis of generalizations that cannot be substantiated.
They are not unlike the usual suspects in this regard, for none of
those who have criticized Sri Lanka in sensationalistic terms over the
last year have actually responded to the detailed critiques of their
releases. Human Rights Watch for instance claimed that Sri Lanka engaged
in indiscriminate attacks on civilians, when their own report could
only cite one instance of civilian deaths in the course of operations
- and in that instance, the deaths were caused by mortar locating radar,
with the HRW report itself testifying to the presence of armed LTTE
cadres and the existence of bunkers in the refugee camp which was fired
upon. Again, they issued a sensationalistic press release claiming that
displaced persons were being resettled forcibly (involuntarily was the
way another NGO that does not know the meanings of the words it uses
put it), ignoring the citation in their own report of UNHCR saying that
resettlement was voluntary. They did respond when this was pointed out
by claiming that earlier forced resettlement had occurred, but they
could not cite evidence for this, and their whole report seems to have
relied, for this grotesque generalization, on an interview with a single
person.
Now all these people are doubtless sincere, but sadly they seem to
have been fed with dogma that they do not bother to check out for themselves.
Bishop Tutu and President Carter, like adored childhood teddy bears,
given what they stood for in the past, are too grand to go into detail,
but rather swallow whatever is put in front of them. In this they resemble
another less charming icon of yesteryear, Gareth Evans, who insinuated
that Sri Lanka had engaged in ethnic cleansing. He was then surprised
to find that the aide who had written his speech was referring in fact
to ethnic cleansing by the Tigers, of Muslims, way back in 1990. Sadly
these once hale and hearty and even quite productive ancient mariners
have to swallow several impossible things before breakfast, if they
are to aspire to being anything more than specters at feasts to which
their successors will not invite them.
But who is it that feeds them with the material they crave to walk
again on the world stage? Earlier I thought the position was clear with
regard to Sri Lanka, it was Tigers who wanted to throw the government
off balance with sustained international criticism, and the opposition
which hoped that once again it could subvert democracy by toppling the
government on the grounds that the world was against it. Certainly we
know that when Hillary Clinton made a speech in which she seemed to
justify Tiger terrorism by claiming it was different from other terrorism,
she was a victim of a sustained Tiger campaign of unqualified support,
whereby they assumed she would be their poodle for her tenure of the
White House (incidentally they thought they had achieved this with Ken
Livingstone in London, and had informed the BBC World Service accordingly,
that the Tamils of London would all vote for Ken and the LTTE be thus
assured of his indulgence for the next four years too).
Tigers and the UNP under its current leadership however the elected
government of Sri Lanka can handle, as it showed last year when both
segments were waiting with bated breath for the government to fall.
The last couple of weeks have shown however that there may be other
forces also arrayed against us, and these may be more insidious than
the proponents of terror or of the money politics that had previously
succeeded in toppling two elected governments.
For what the delay in producing the UPR Report on Sri Lanka showed
was that Sri Lanka was seen as one of the strongest threats to the complacent
monopoly on Human Rights based criticism that the international Human
Rights establishment had hitherto enjoyed. This establishment, it should
be noted, is not the preserve of individual countries for, as the UPR
process showed, even countries critical of Sri Lanka intervened in a
civilized manner that suggested concern with issues rather than a determination
to denigrate. It is true that some of them were a bit confused about
facts, but this seemed due to inadequate rather than partisan briefing.
On the whole, while some preconceptions had to be refuted, the exercise
at the Council itself was dignified and helpful.
Quite different was the Report produced by the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights. Sadly, however distinguished the High Commissioner
might be, she is dependent on her staff, and the prejudice of at least
some staff with regard to Sri Lanka has already been obvious, as with
for instance their suppression of the UNDP Stocktaking Report on the
Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission.
That Report recommended technical assistance which the current UNDP
Head in Sri Lanka is working on, but the Report was not even shown to
the Head of Capacity Building in the OHCHR head office in Geneva.
So too, when the initial draft of the UPR Report was revealed, it gave
250 lines to 20 countries, which had raised questions and indulged in
some critical preconceptions, with only 180 lines to 36 countries which
had been more positive about Sri Lanka's achievements in the field.
Not entirely coincidentally, 15 of the 20 countries were European, amongst
the others being Canada and New Zealand and the United States. Perhaps
even less coincidentally, no Islamic country got more than 8 lines,
with Palestine being given just 2. All 56 countries had been allotted
2 minutes each for their speeches, but this was not reflected at all
in the original draft.
Obviously, the OHCHR has a particular view of Human Rights in which
Social and Economic Rights loom very low. Their preconceptions may be
understandable, coming as many of them do from countries where citizens
are comparatively healthy and literate, but they should not belittle
the achievements of a developing country which has enhanced equality
of opportunity, which does well by its women, which even - as was noted
during the UPR - continues to provide basic services in areas under
terrorist control. The comfortable well paid youngsters in Geneva may
not appreciate all this, but it is not their business to belittle what
member countries say, to emphasize their own predilections. More insidiously,
they should not have suppressed the wide acclaim for the role Sri Lanka
has played on the Council over the last year. Several countries paid
tribute to this, and seemed to see Sri Lanka as an emblem of hope, but
this did not find expression in the Report prepared by the OHCHR Secretariat.
And herein perhaps lies the rub. Sri Lanka had helped to place things
in perspective over the last year, to draw attention to abuses that
should be rectified, to problems that should be solved, to needs that
should be addressed. It is no coincidence that Human Rights Watch, which
kept aloof when other NGOs drew attention to problems in Gaza last March,
had emerged as the strongest critic of Sri Lanka, unwilling to appreciate
how much the situation in Sri Lanka has improved even though no quarter
has been given to terrorism. Our success in this respect, which owes
much to the second track of political reform, the successful elections
in the East, the empowerment of former terrorists who have abandoned
sectarian violence for democratic pluralism, is a lesson to all, but
it is a lesson that the prejudiced and partisan cannot accept.
In this regard, to compare small things with great, Sri Lankan might
be seen as an albatross, the bird of hope, heralding a new beginning
in the midst of awful conditions. Sadly the bird was shot down, by Coleridge's
Ancient Mariner who could not understand anything unusual, who had to
reduce everything to his own sadly static view of life. The result was
further misery for everyone, until a universal sense of pity returned.
On the day the UPR was held, the LTTE murdered a female Tamil Human
Rights
activist, who was the legal advisor to a former terrorist who took the
democratic path 20 years ago, and has since survived a dozen assassination
attempts. The day the voting for the Human Rights Council took place
was the 17th anniversary of the murder of Rajiv Gandhi, who helped to
introduce devolution to Sri Lanka through the Indo-Lankan Accord, which
was welcomed by all Tamils, only to be rejected in a surge of violence
by the LTTE when they did not get their way totally as to the interim
administration that was proposed.
The international community, as the establishment characterizes influential
countries in the West, urges Sri Lanka to talk to the LTTE, and this
Sri Lanka says, as it has always done, that it is ready to do. That
community cites the example of the IRA, which finally negotiated and
participated fully in the peace process, forgetting that arms were decommissioned
and funding had dried up before that happy consummation took place.
It forgets too that, whatever may have been said in the past of Gerry
Adams and Martin McGuiness, moderate leaders were not murdered. Over
the almost half century it took for extremists to come together in Northern
Ireland, O'Neill and Chichester-Clark and Trimble and Hume and Alderdice
were not victims of terrorism, as were Tamil leaders such as Amirthalingam
and Kadirgamar and Tiruchelvam, Sinhalese such as Premadasa and Dissanayake,
and Rajiv Gandhi in India - to say nothing of Padmanabha and the rest
of the EPRLF leadership.
Whether or not the LTTE enters the political process, the Sri Lankan
government will work with moderates in minority parties, men and women
of enormous courage. And whether or not the campaign of denigration
continues, Sri Lanka will work for all aspects of Human Rights for all
persons, and in particular those who are belittled by an establishment
that has not been accountable for far too long. It is not a deterrent
for this that membership of the Human Rights Council has now passed
to other countries, and with Pakistan and Bahrain winning election it
is to be hoped that the deprived whom Sri Lanka represented will continue
to have a voice.
Those opposed to the current Sri Lankan government may now rejoice,
as the establishment did 28 years ago when Jimmy Carter lost the Presidency
of the United States. But he managed over the years to reinvent himself,
and continues in various ways to reassert some of the positions he tried
to institutionalize in his brief tenure of the most powerful position
in the world. Sri Lanka aspired to less during its two years on the
Human Rights Council, but the recognition its contribution received
from the downtrodden on May 13th was remarkable. Their voice will not
be silenced, as the world continues to strive to strengthen human rights
of all types for everyone.
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary-General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
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