By
C.A.Chandraprema
If there is anything that the latest report that Navi Pillai, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, has issued on Sri Lanka should teach us, it is that a reasoned response is not the best way to react to this kind of document.
Besides, there is nothing more unpleasant and tedious than a nagging foreigner citing various documents and claiming that we have not done this or that.
The present writer has read every report that Western nations or Western dominated international bodies put out since the end of the war and we have commented on them in this column. We have seen how these reports have gone from bad to worse, each succeeding one being more outrageous than the last almost as if they were relying on their capacity to shock, to cow SL into submission – a kind of documentary shock and awe operation.
We have seen the European Commission saying in their interim report on Sri Lanka in August 2009, three months after the war ended, that the number of civilian deaths are not known and that without knowing what was targeted and why, it’s not possible to say whether the Sri Lankan government has broken any laws pertaining to armed conflict.
Why it is important to know what was targeted and the reasons for targeting it is because the law of armed conflict provides for collateral damage in certain circumstances and civilians and civilian targets do not have absolute immunity. So each case has to be dealt with on its own merits.
Then in three short months, the European Commission moved from that point to saying in their final report on Sri Lanka in October 2009, that up to 20,000 civilians had died in the final months of the conflict and to back that claim, they used just one newspaper article in the London Times which had arrived at those figures by quoting unnamed UN sources – sources, that the UN has not to this date released because they cannot be corroborated.
The use of uncorroborated reports to make an actual accusation and to recommend punishment for it, is a part of the shock and awe strategy – a display of naked power over the intended victim – to convey the idea that the victim has no option but to surrender given the fact that all power is wielded by the other side and the victim is completely powerless. The same strategy was adopted when the UN Secretary General appointed outside the established procedure of the UN, an expert panel to compile a report on Sri Lanka.
Usually, a UN expert panel can be appointed only on the authority of the UN Security Council. But in Sri Lanka’s case, as the security council did not approve the appointing of such an expert panel, the UN Secretary general appointed an advisory body, called it an expert panel, compiled a report and proceeded to use it like a genuine UN expert panel report, even sending it to the UNHRC.
Besides, in this report, the number of civilian casualties in the final months of the war has been upped to 40,000. All this is naked power play, to show Sri Lanka what the West can do if they set their minds to it. Laws, procedures, facts, will all be twisted and moulded the way the West wants to order to get at their intended prey. In the face of such power play, the only thing that a country like Sri Lanka can do is to stop trying to reason with those who are deaf to reason and to use political manipulation as a survival tool.
Instead of trying to reason with Navi Pillai, Sri Lanka should move to render the UNHRC impotent and toothless. In this Sri Lanka has an ally – Israel. When the entire Western world turned their backs on Sri Lanka, Israel stood by Sri Lanka and continued to be a reliable source of good weapons and equipment until the end of the war.
Even at the height of the war, Sri Lanka continued to vote against Israel in the UN and the UN Human Rights Council, but they apparently do not mind that because they know that weak countries like Sri Lanka have to vote with the herd and anyway, Israel has the strength to withstand any adverse vote in any international body.
The case of Israel provides Sri Lanka with immense possibilities which have to be studied and exploited. From the time the UN Human Rights Council was formed in 2005, the one matter over which the West had no control was the manner in which the members of the HRC reacted to Israel. Even though the USA was able to twist the arms of the poorer countries among the third world to vote against Sri Lanka, they have not been able to do the same to obtain support for Israel because of the countervailing power of the Arab and Muslim world.
None of the Western countries wants Israel to fall, and this is clearly reflected in the voting patterns in the UN-HRC from its inception. Since the UN-HRC was formed, it has passed over 30 resolutions against Israel in the space of about seven years. The West has consistently supported Israel.
For example, at the 11 August 2006 special session of the UN-HRC a resolution was brought against Israel condemning the invasion of Lebanon, ‘the massacre of thousands of civilians’ and causing extensive damage to civilian infrastructure through massive air strikes and expressing outrage at the ‘senseless killings by Israel of children, women, the elderly’. Western countries like Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Britain voted in favour of Israel. The resolution against Israel was carried by the Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries and of course that of the Russian Federation.
This has been the consistent pattern with regard to Israel throughout the existence of the HRC over the past seven years. The composition of the HRC has changed over the years, but there has never been an HRC majority that has been well disposed towards Israel. The Western nations have always been on the back foot in the HRC when it comes to Israel.
There have of course been occasions when most Western countries have voted with the rest of the world as for example the resolution on 26 March 2009 condemning the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In this instance the entire HRC including countries like France, Germany, Italy, and the UK voted against Israel, with only one country Canada voting in favour. At that time, the USA was not a member of the HRC and had they been in it, they too would have voted for Israel. The Canadian have consistently stood by Israel following the American practice. Switzerland is the only western country that has voted against Israel more often than not. All other Western countries are weighted more towards Israel.
This fact is starkly revealed in another resolution brought against Israel on the same day (26 March 2009) as the one mentioned above. This second resolution condemned the violation of human rights through Israeli military operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Countries like Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands supported Israel. Switzerland voted against Israel and countries like France and the UK abstained. When one takes the voting pattern of the West over the past 22 sessions of the HRC, the overwhelming tendency of the West has been to side with Israel.
Because of the repeated passing of resolutions against Israel in the HRC, the cry has gone up in the West that the HRC and the UN itself is biased against Israel. In April 2011, Columnist Jonathan Freeland writing to The Guardian (UK) asked in an article tellingly titled “Where’s the Goldstone report into Sri Lanka, Congo, Darfur – or Britain?” alleged that “Israel is not even the biggest issue in the Middle East – yet it gets all the attention” and further that “the UN Human Rights Council that sounds like an eminently respectable body – until you look at its record.
A 2010 analysis showed that very nearly half of all the resolutions it had passed related to Israel: 32 out of 67. And guess which country is the only one to be under permanent review, on the agenda for every single meeting? Israel. There is only one rapporteur whose mandate never expires. No, it’s not the person charged with probing Belarus, North Korea or Saudi Arabia, despite the hideous human rights records of those nations. It is Israel.”
The NGO known as “UN WATCH” alleged in January this year that “The HRC continues to maintain a special agenda item and special day against Israel at every session. Israel is the only country targeted in this fashion.” And further that “The reality is that the HRC’s fact-finding enterprise is dedicated chiefly to attacking but one country: Israel.
In the entire history of the HRC, there have been seven one-sided inquiry missions on Israel, and only five on the rest of the world combined. Mass atrocities committed by Iran, China, or Sri Lanka, for example, have never been subjected to a single HRC inquiry.” Because of the Israeli factor, the following advantages accrue to Sri Lanka.
1. Because the West and particularly the USA does not have any control over the resolutions being passed against Israel in the UN-HRC, they dare not empower the HRC beyond a certain point. If the HRC assumes powers that would enable it to take punitive action on its own against a country without Security Council sanction, that would be to the disadvantage of Israel.
2. Therefore it is in the interests of the USA and all its western allies to ensure that the UN-HRC remains a toothless and powerless body that has the power only to cause embarrassment by passing resolutions but to do nothing else.
3. If the USA goes too far with regard to Sri Lanka and creates a precedent of action in the UN-HRC leading to anything more than passing resolutions, they will not be able to stop the same from being applied to Israel as well because the West has no control over the UN-HRC or the UN General Assembly when it comes to Israel.
4. Herein lies Sri Lanka’s salvation. So long as their need to safeguard Israel exists, the Western powers will not be able to move anything more than resolutions against Sri Lanka through the UN system and especially the UN-HRC.
COURTESY:SUNDAY ISLAND