Further Generalizations from
the Asian Human Rights Commission
Secretariat for Coordinating
the Peace Process (SCOPP)
04th August 2008
The Peace Secretariat notes with sadness yet another effusion from
the so-called Asian Commission for Human Rights, which asserts that
'With 52 points, Sri Lanka is South Asia's worst human rights violator.'
This is yet another example of a game that has now becomed fashionable,
to develop lists which show how bad particular countries are. Sri Lanka
has figured prominently on such lists recently, though it is interesting
that it seems to depend on the whim of the list maker how many years
are taken into consideration in making the list.
Thus, Human Rights Watch, which earlier presented records of a year,
has decided to extend these to two year terms, thus allowing for the
desired denigration of Sri Lanka. Thus, what was undoubtedly a bad period,
in 2006, for reasons which are readily comprehensible, is used to perpetuate
the attack on a country everyone now seems, also for comprehensible
reasons, given the political use made of these lists, to want to place
in the pillory.
This does not mean that Sri Lanka does not have problems with regard
to the protection of Human Rights. These are exacerbated by the difficulties
of dealing with a particularly ruthless and insidious terrorist outfit,
but that does not make it any less important to reduce them. That is
why we engage with institutions that can assist us, that is why we have
set up Task Forces on the subject, that is why we try to clarify and
deal with particular situations. For this reason, we have no quarrel
with AHRC when it draws attention to particular cases, it is then the
duty of officials to investigate these and take remedial action as possible.
What is objectionable is blanket generalizations, and these interminable
lists. Sadly too, there is confusion which takes attention away from
the real problems. For instance, AHRC renews the canard about indiscriminate
attacks on civilians. If it is talking about problems with regard to
abductions, or attacks on journalists, it has a point, but here it suggests
that these attacks occur in the course of military operations (a canard
first spread by HRW), and that is just plain false, as any analysis
of the operations of our forces will show. Their record is excellent,
not only in comparison with that of other forces engaged in struggles
against terrorism, but in absolute terms too, and we can challenge anyone
to provide any evidence to the contrary.
Again, we have again the old story about child soldiers, so assiduously
spread by the LTTE after 2005. This time AHRC even brings the EPDP into
it, though this has not figured in previous allegations. Rather, it
has been shown clearly that the Karuna faction released its cadres in
2004, the LTTE then began killing them or rerecruiting them, and the
Karuna faction's recruitment was claimed to have been in response to
this.
Whether that is wholly credited or not, all those with them have now
been released, and UNICEF has been invited to check on the accuracy
of this assertion.
AHRC's extrapolations are quite extraordinary in their fraudulence.
They are said to claim that an entire ethnic group is excluded from
the nation's capital, obviously not knowing that minorities constitute
over half the population of the capital, and that security checks are
of those travelling to Colombo. Given the number of incidents of terrorist
attacks,it is understandable that those unable to give good reasons
for their presence are checked carefully, and in any case, the Supreme
Court ruling when this was not done appropriately makes clear that there
is recourse to judicial review when obvious violations of rights occur.
Sadly, it is this type of generalization that will catch the eye of
the media, and be avidly disseminated by the LTTE and its surrogates,
as well as other political forces within Sri Lanka that resent the strategy
of the current government in dealing firmly with terrorism whilst encouraging
democratic pluralism through political interaction with moderate Tamil
forces. Whilst assistance would be welcome in helping Sri Lanka deal
with all its problems, terrorism as well as violations of human rights,
indiscriminate attacks on all aspects of government can, at this juncture,
only contribute to self-justificatory pronouncements by terrorists as
well as more naive organizations.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process
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