By
C.A.Chandraprema
Last week, the government’s decision to appoint three ‘international experts’ to advise the Presidential Commission to Investigate Cases of Alleged Disappearances of Persons in the Northern and Eastern Provinces is the equivalent of a muscular tough guy breaking coconuts on his own head to show his opponents the kind of punishment he can take without flinching. This act is in the same league as the teenaged Prabhakaran reportedly tying himself up in chilli bags to see how long he could hold under police torture. Desmond de Silva, Geoffrey Nice and Professor David Crane have been appointed as advisors to the Disappearances Commission. All three of them have served in the international criminal court system set up and run by the Western powers – The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
No third world government should touch even with a barge pole, anyone who has served in this international criminal court system. Many people may believe that an international court would be at a much higher level of probity than the courts at the national level, but the very opposite is true in fact. We have outlined on previous occasions, how the rules of evidence and principles of law that have been built up over centuries in the Western courts systems have been perverted in these international criminal courts. Besides the Western powers established these courts to try others and never themselves. We are clearly heading for another fiasco like the appointment of the International Independent Group of Independent Persons (IIGEP) to observe the work of a very similar Presidential Commission of Inquiry into certain specified allegations of human rights violations appointed in 2006. The IIGEP ended up saying that the inquiry process of the presidential commission falls short of international norms and standards and many other nasty things besides.
If the government wanted genuine legal opinion and guidance, they could perhaps have appointed distinguished ex-judges from the national courts systems of countries like the USA, Britain and Australia to advise the Disappearances Commission. The appointment of three ex-officers of the international kangaroo courts system maintained for the use of the Western powers cannot possibly be for the purpose of obtaining bona fide advice but a test to see the worst that we can take. Those who have served in the international criminal court system make a career of plugging the Western line and appointments like this help further their careers at the expense of countries like Sri Lanka. For example, Marsuki Darusman who was in the IIGEP in 2006 and gave an adverse report on Sri Lanka, got a job investigating Sri Lanka on the advisory panel appointed by Ban Ki- moon in 2010. Of the three latest individuals to be appointed to advise the commission on disappearances, Desmond de Silva is well beyond the age of three score years and ten and therefore he has no career prospects left and some may argue that this may encourage impartiality. But he has spent a long time within a certain system and even he cannot at this late stage go back on all that he did earlier in his career.
Geoffrey Nice and Professor David Crane have not yet we believe, reached their 70s and they may still have a few years left in their careers which makes it a foregone conclusion that they will do their utmost to please the Western powers as they have been doing all their lives. The wonderful thing in all this is that it does not really matter what these three individuals say or do. Whether these individuals give Sri Lanka a ringing endorsement or a blistering dressing down, that cannot make Sri Lanka’s position any better or worse than it is at present. The Western powers are not going to stop their persecution of Sri Lanka even if a trio of superannuated international prosecutors endorse Sri Lanka’s investigative procedures, and even if these advisors give a completely negative report on Sri Lanka, it is not going to make things any worse for Sri Lanka than they already are. This is Sri Lanka, the world’s miracle of resilience against unbelievable odds!
Keeping politicians on a leash
The conclusion of the Khuram Shaikh murder case with the conviction of the former SLFP chairman of the Tangalle Pradeshiya Sabha once again showed this to be a government that can correct the mistakes of its members. In comparison to previous governments, the public behaviour of most members of this government has not given much cause for complaint, there being only a few out of control types. The ‘owner’ of Kelaniya was one such individual, but he was brought to heel and today does not intrude on the public mind the way he used to earlier. Admittedly, the transgressions of the former Tangalle PS Chairman was not a constant needling irritant like the activities of the previously mentioned individual, but the single incident he was involved in was both scandalous and serious enough to warrant calls for condign punishment. This was the first time that a politician drunk with both power and alcohol had directed his inclination to throw his weight about at a person as harmless as a foreign tourist.
Since the government has thus clearly demonstrated its ability to control its own party men, the question arises why they have not yet been able to control the saffron conspiracy that threatens to undo everything that this government has achieved over the past nine years. Last week a group of monks led by the Bodu Bala Sena arrived unannounced at the Ministry for Mass Media and Information to complain about the lack of publicity for the Sinhala side of the story in the Aluthgama incident. As always, it is not the issue that they raised that is questionable but the method in which it was put forward. What we saw last week was no less than another invasion of a government ministry. The monks may have been justified in saying that the alleged assault on the monk Ayagama Samitha and his driver by Muslims at the very beginning of this chain of events was not given the same publicity as the subsequent attacks on Muslim owned establishments by Sinhalese mobs.
This writer has pointed out soon after the riots that the Aluthgama incident was not all black and white. The teary comment that Minister Rauff Hakkem made to the BBC would have conveyed the impression to the world that the Sinhalese had set upon the Muslims for no reason at all, but that was not the case. So the monks had cause for complaint that the correct sequence of events had not gone out to the world. Indeed the main reason why the correct sequence of events could not be sent out to the world was because of the Bodu Bala Sena itself! When the monk Ayagama Samitha complained of being assaulted by Muslims, the country could not be informed about the incident because of the anti-Muslim propaganda that the BBS had been carrying out for the past two years. Given the ethnic tension that the BBS had been ratcheting up, such an announcement would have been the spark they had been waiting for.
So the government had to suppress the news and minister Keheliya was not making any excuses for having done so either. If not for the situation created by the BBS, this news could have been given out. The news that the Dalada Maligawa was bombed by the LTTE was never suppressed or even diluted, but no Tamil was harmed even in Kandy. Likewise this isolated incident involving one monk would have in normal circumstances been a local dispute which would have been settled locally without the involvement of anti-Muslim organizations from Colombo. There have been many clashes in this area between the Sinhalese and the Muslims in the past but never have those clashes been connected to any generalized action against the Muslims. Nor had any of those incidents received the same publicity both locally and internationally as the most recent riots. It is the concerted anti-Muslim campaign of the BBS that has brought incidents that would otherwise have been provincial news at best, into the national and international spotlight.
Just last week the BBS called for the sacking of Rauff Hakeem. While it is true that Hakeem is an opportunist politician who survives on fanning the flames of Muslim exclusivism and chauvinism, a government needs to balance contending forces. For example there are outfits like the JHU which are trying to be to the Sinhalese what the SLMC is to the Muslims but nobody is calling for their removal from the government. By successfully peddling Muslim chauvinism, Hakeem has won sufficient seats in the Eastern provincial council to tip the balance either this way or that, and by having him around the government has some hold on the Eastern province without it going into the TNA’s orbit. Hakeem’s stay in the government can be justified for that reason and that alone. By trying to make the government sack Hakeem, the BBS is probably trying to ensure that the government loses control of the East so that even a resounding victory in the Uva province will be vitiated.
The UN’s OHCHR investigation
By far the biggest threat to the political stability of this country is not any threat coming from overseas but this saffron conspiracy. The ongoing probe against Sri Lanka by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) is an exercise in futility for many reasons. After completing the probe, a report will be prepared and handed over to the UNHRC which will then refer it to the UN Secretary General who will refer it to the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and other bodies for action. Since there is not the slightest possibility of the Security Council taking any action against Sri Lanka, the report will end up in the UN archives. Because of the block in the Security Council, there is the possibility that the USA and Europe will try to use the UN General Assembly to pass strictures or even sanctions on Sri Lanka. The Western powers if they spend enough money and make a considerable effort may be able to win a vote in the General Assembly the way they won in the UNHRC. But the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is largely a toothless body.
The real decision making body of the UN is the Security Council and not the General Assembly. The UN General Assembly can in fact impose sanctions on a country but it will not have the same effect as Security Council imposed sanctions. Back in the early 1950s when the People’s Republic of China had just come into being, the USA tried to impose sanctions on that newly emergent nation but because of Russia’s veto power they were not able to pass economic sanctions on China through the Security Council. So the Americans who had tremendous clout in the world just after the Second World War passed economic sanctions on China through the General Assembly. After the UNGA imposed sanctions on China, the world experienced a shortage of rice and the first Dudley Senanayake government was in desperate straits not being able to obtain the required supply of rice. China was in desperate straits because they did not have enough rubber. Most rubber producing nations like Malaysia and Indonesia were unwilling to sell rubber to China in defiance of the USA. But in 1952, Dudley Senanayake defied both the USA and the UNGA and sold rubber to China in exchange for rice. Dudley Senanayake was hardly the most resolute of Sri Lankan leaders but even he did not think twice before flouting economic sanctions imposed by the UNGA! Implementation of a UN Security Council directive is mandatory because it could be backed with military force but the implementation of the UNGA directive is purely voluntary.
So even if the USA is able to get a UNGA resolution passed against Sri Lanka, it is unlikely to have much of an impact on this country. In a way, what has enhanced Sri Lanka’s immunity from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) investigation process is the UN Secretary General’s ill-advised 2011 ‘Panel of Experts’ report on Sri Lanka. In 2011, the UN’s highest official appointed a three member body to inquire into and write a report on human rights violations in Sri Lanka. He distributed this report everywhere but nobody took the slightest notice. Now a lower level officer in the UN system has been tasked with writing another report on Sri Lanka. In a situation where nobody in the world took the slightest notice of the UN Secretary General’s report, what hope will the OHCHR report have? By Ban Ki-moon’s misadventure, Sri Lanka was ‘inoculated’ as it were against this kind of inquiry. Had Ban not jumped the gun, and this OHCHR inquiry was the first report that was being written on Sri Lanka by a UN body, then the pressure on this country would have been immense. Today however nobody in this country or overseas really seems to care about the outcome of the OHCHR inquiry – thanks to Ban.
If the OHCHR inquiry fails to tame SL, the USA and the EU can impose unilateral economic sanctions on Sri Lanka but that too will not have the desired impact due to various reasons. More than 90% of SL exports to the USA and the EU are apparel exports which does not use any raw materials produced in Sri Lanka. All inputs are imported, processed in Sri Lanka and exported. All that SL earns from this is the wages of the workers. So what we need is not rally the apparel industry but just someone, anyone at all, to pay a salary bill. If the Chinese government obliges us by shifting a few of their production facilities to Sri Lanka, the salary bill requirement will still be met. In any case, when J.R.Jayewardene first opened up the free trade zones, the first to come here and start paying our workers salaries were Chinese apparel manufacturers from Hongkong and Taiwan. This time, the employers will most probably be from mainland China – that will be the only difference.
The USA and the EU know that unilateral sanctions imposed by them will not have the required impact so long as China stands behind us, so it is unlikely that they will do something that will not produce the required result and end up only turning the ordinary Sri Lankan public against the West. Since both the UN procedures and possible US-EU unilateral economic sanctions will not have the desired impact that leaves only India as a possible external threat. But the Narendra Modi government appears to have adopted a very sane and rational position with regard to Sri Lanka, inspiring our correspondent in Delhi Venkat Narayan to write effusively that “Sri Lanka-India bonhomie is back”. The Indian government appears to have realized the danger that the separatist ferment in Tamil Nadu poses to India itself.
The internal destabilisation agenda
Thus the only real danger that Sri Lanka faces is sabotage within the country. The USA and EU know very well that they cannot assail Sri Lanka from without. That is where the saffron peril comes in. Since at least 2009, Western intrigue in this country has focussed on splitting the patriotic Sinhala vote so as to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa. The first strategy they used was to field Sarath Fonseka – a military figure – in the hope of bringing about that desired split. Since that strategy failed they appear to have hit upon using Buddhist monks to further the aims of their conspiracy. Thus we see organizations like the BBS trying to convince the Sinhala public that Mahinda Rajapaksa is not looking after the Sinhala interest as he should and is pandering to the Muslims.
Hysteria is being whipped up by the BBS about Muslim extremism which is portrayed as being a bigger threat to SL than Tamil terrorism was even at the height of the war. This may not be gaining much traction among the public, but this is compensated for by the fact that the activities of these monks of depriving the government of even the minority of the Muslim vote that it would have got earlier. The most important conspiratorial task being fulfilled by these monks is conveying the impression that this government is losing control of things. The invasion of the trade and commerce ministry by monks, the Aluthgama incident and last week’s invasion of the mass media and information ministry all give the impression of a government that is no longer able to determine the agenda of the country.
A government must never appear to be losing control. When we say that a government must never harass the opposition, we mean the established opposition parties. Harassing opposition political parties will only strengthen them. Therefore, the government should tolerate anything done by an established opposition party without murmur. An established political party in the opposition for its part will not take disruption of public life too far because they too fear public opinion. For example an established political party will not block public roads without warning or carry on interminable strikes as that will turn the public against them. Therefore, opposition parties can safely be allowed to do whatever they want and the government can afford to maintain a stolid silence about their activities.
However, a policy of not harassing the opposition does not mean yielding ground to various conspiratorial political outfits which try to compensate for their lack of votes and public support by using the ability of an organized minority to destabilize a government by disrupting public life. Any disruption of public life coming from outside the established political parties should be met with bull’s pizzles, and the jackboot. In recent times, we have seen one or two instances where the UNP’s political activities have been disrupted by the government. The tour organized by UNP parliamentarians to observe the development projects in Hambantota was disrupted. Last week their tour of the Sapugaskanda oil refinery was blocked by pro-government trade unions in the refinery. This was not really harassment by the standards of what the UNP had to face under the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime, but it was disruption nevertheless.
The disruption of the UNP’s activities in Hambantota and Sapuganskanda should give the government ideas as to how to deal with the BBS. This writer would prefer the J.R.Jayewardene approach to crowd control, which is to unleash thugs with bulls puzzles on the unwanted assembly. But the UPFA now seems to be perfecting their own less drastic methodology – meeting the unwanted assembly with noisy, jeering mobs wherever they go. However, it is not the UNP that should have their activities disrupted in this manner but the Bodu Bala Sena. No activity of the UNP poses any threat to the government by any stretch of the imagination. But the activities of the Bodu Bala Sena certainly does. The bottom line is that no government should ever lose control of the streets to conspiratorial operators outside the main opposition political parties.
If the BBS was met like the UNP parliamentarians by nameless and faceless mobs to hoot and jeer wherever they went, they will soon become a joke. One notices that wherever the BBS goes they have a fair number of monks. But that does not mean anything. When Buddhist monks are invited to something especially by other monks, they come regardless of what the occasion is. The UNP, SLFP, JVP or indeed even the IUSF can all assemble large numbers of monks for any event. So it’s not surprising the BBS can do the same. If however the BBS was met by jeering crowds wherever they went, monks would stop accepting invitations of the BBS as that would only be an invitation to travel to a destination, get hooted and jeered at and return to the temple. Action should be taken against the BBS without delay so that they will be only a bad memory by the time the next presidential election comes around. After years of dilly dallying, it finally took only five minutes to establish control over the out of control politician from Kelaniya. It will be the same with regard to the Bodu Bala Sena.
Courtesy:Sunday Island