Geneva: Have we botched the show?

Have we compromised our case by the way in which we have handled the charge against Sri Lanka at (and by) the UNHCR? I think we have. First, we have taken a course suggestive of a Nation that avoids facing an issue by postponing the day of reckoning by seeking repeated deferments. The charges are serious.

Having been co-signatories to the original Resolution (along with the US), we backed down! Does this speak well of us? We were unique as a country that sponsored a Resolution, virtually against its own Armed Forces and its administration! Had the USA not reversed its intent to leave the UNHCR, characterizing the UN body as a “cesspool of bias”, we would have been left holding a (fatherless) baby!

Much argument revolves around the status and powers of the UNHCR, and the limits of its capacity for further actions. It is debatable, because so much damage can be done by individual states to cause problems, even if collective action is not legally possible. The GSP facility could be one, as also traffic rights, freezing of assets, prosecution, trading and investments (FDI), and all other disabilities of a “Pariah State”. Bravado would not be the path to tread. After all, our valiant fighters are being charged with breach of human rights. Armed Forces were quelling an insurrection challenging the integrity and very existence of Sri Lanka nation as an undivided country.

I do agree that merely citing the horrors committed by the enemy may not have sufficed. It would be a childish game of “He hit me first “or other emotional ‘tit-for- tat’ approach. The simplest would have been a simple query from our detractors. “What would you have done in similar circumstances?”

All wars are ugly, and all combatants would be guilty of excesses in the eyes of their opponents. No army is noted for carrying heavy tomes of Rules of Combat, Human Rights, Conventions, etc., into the field of battle. If only our delegations briefed themselves on the writings of the late S.L.Gunasekara and the “Route to Nandikadal” by our present Secretary of Defence, Kamal Gunaratne, and numerous other unbiased sources, like the bulletins of the UTHR, it might have made a difference. SLG painstakingly documented the myriad of LTTE atrocities and KG gave a vivid picture of the hardships, horrors and endurance of our troops who virtually marched the breadth of our land from Mannar to Mullaitivu.

The UNHCR, as other UN bodies, is charged with responsibilities of Member States to place “Maintenance of Peace and Honouring of Human Rights” as their key obligations. The UNHCR must not be viewed as a hostile demon, but as a benevolent force sincerely engaged in fulfilling its mandate through co-operation. Churlish reactions against its efforts and mandate, is counter-productive. Nit-picking and verbal gymnastics destroy the spirit and barely capture the intent. To throw up our arms and moan the astute promotion of their case (which probably they are genuine about) by the LTTE Diaspora is no help. Everybody has a right to entertain and promote their beliefs. If untrue, it is the business of the opposing party (in this case, The Sri Lankan State) to address or refute the LTTE Line.

One of the most amazing displays of gross miscalculation, has been the attitude towards the valiant efforts made by Lord Naseby to defend us. By his dogged pursuit of internal exchanges and dispatches, between the UK Embassy in Colombo and the Home Office in London, it is very clear that political compulsions, have gravely reversed the UK’s reputation for probity and fairness. No complicated arguments will suffice to convince any right-thinking person, that we have dropped a very easy catch. I was shocked when a worthy in Parliament declared that we will use it “at the Proper time”. Obviously, this worthy meant “Propitious Planetary position”. Meanwhile we are in “Nonagathe” until the “Nekatha”presents itself. As the pithy Sinhala saying goes, “Peddhi harenakota, Perahera pitathavela”

As a “side”, when somebody held that the casualty figures of innocent Tamil civilians fleeing the area of final battle was 140,000, one wonders how such numbers could have been surreptitiously buried, when a minute fraction of Moslems dying of Covid-19 has created such a huge backlash. Has somebody got his figures wrong?

Dr Upatissa Pethiyagoda