{"id":42594,"date":"2015-08-11T17:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T21:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=42594"},"modified":"2015-08-11T17:00:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T21:00:27","slug":"what-can-india-do-about-the-war-time-accountability-report-on-sri-lanka-at-the-unhrc-in-geneva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=42594","title":{"rendered":"What Can India do about the War Time Accountability Report on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in Geneva?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

N Sathiya Moorthy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Independent of who wins the 17 August parliamentary polls in Sri Lanka, the nation would be coming under immediate international pressure on the war-time ‘accountability issues’ at UNHRC. It could be more – or, less – dependent on what the UNHRC probe report, held back by six months after the presidential polls, will have to say, and who is elected to power in Sri Lanka, and how the post-poll government wants to look at things.<\/p>\n

Unless the UNHRC Council were to vote against the tabling of the report in the September session – which seems remote — for all practical purposes, the process could not be postponed indefinitely. Such a course could hit at the bottom of the very process. The ‘international community’ would also come under increasing pressure from domestic HR groups in individual nations and also the vociferous Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora, comprising a noticeable section in the domestic electoral constituencies. It’s anybody’s guess what the ‘official’ line – or, the line of the officialdom – in Sri Lanka would be, in preparation to the UNHRC session, and what the political touch would be, post-poll. Without reference to the post-poll government, Sri Lanka cannot be seen as letting down either the nation’s armed forces – either as individuals or at higher command levels – or the political and administrative leaderships of the times. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Better or worse still, the new government cannot be seen as letting down the ‘victimised’ Tamil community, either. It could alienate them more than already, and the Diaspora will find new reasons not to ‘trust’ the international community, either. It could create more problems for Sri Lanka in particular and the international community, otherwise. The latter’s credibility could take a further beating, after it has suffered enough on the Afghan and Iraq fronts, among others. <\/p>\n

‘Regime-change’ and ‘independent’ probe <\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem lies elsewhere. Hoping for a ‘regime-change’ through the domestic democratic process, the international community at the same time pursued the ‘independent’ probe, as desired by powerful members of the UN scheme, like the US. When both came through almost at the same time, they are unable to make the ‘mis-match’ work. Whether they would have been able to proceed with the findings in the probe-report even if the ‘regime-change’ did not happen through the 8 January presidential polls is an academic question that they would still have to ponder. <\/p>\n

The expectation\/anticipation is that the probe report could hit the Sri Lankan State apparatus(-es) in the knuckles and come down strongly also on the decimated LTTE. Anything short of it would have become argumentative, both within and outside the nation, but even a ‘strong and impartial’ report would not help resolve the problems. It can instead create confusion in the global ranks, where already there are internal queries about the wisdom of such interference — and hence inference. <\/p>\n

Whether the US and the rest would be able to carry the UNHRC vote either on the tabling of the report, or later on its findings, is a question that needs to be asked. There may be a sigh of relief even among the ‘unbroken’ western ranks if either or both votes are not taken. That too comes with consequences, both short and long-terms, not only for the American leadership of the ‘western, liberal’ group but also the UN process, which is already under severe strain.<\/p>\n

It may be too early for anyone to think or talk in terms of a nation like Sri Lanka challenging – or, having to challenge – the authority of the UN system, but global strategists should not overlook similar possibilities, from elsewhere, in the future. Already, the UN-based, US-authored global fiscal system is under severe pressure, both from within and outside. The creation of the BRICS Bank is only a starting-point. In the relatively smaller grouping of Commonwealth, a smaller nation like Maldives is threatening to walk-out, citing ‘international interference’ in what essentially is an ‘internal affair’ of that nation – or, as the present-day rulers perceive it. <\/p>\n

Indian dilemma(s) <\/strong><\/p>\n

As an influential and voting neighbourhood member in the UNHRC, India faces multiple dilemmas over the Sri Lankan ‘accountability issues’ this time round, more than over the past years and occasions. Since Sri Lanka came under the UNHRC voting-scheme in 2012, the incumbent Rajapaksa leadership was uncompromising in not negotiating with the international community. As reports indicated, it did not make things easier for India, which the Sri Lankan dispensation wanted to vote on its side, no questions asked or answered. <\/p>\n

It’s even more difficult now for India to decipher the Sri Lankan mood and methods with less than a month available to the post-poll government in that country to decipher the global mood and their UNHRC methods. The last time round, the larger Indian neighbour might not have had a script. Today, Sri Lanka itself does not seem to have one – or, at least one that friends of the nation could hold as valid, post-poll and begin working on it internally, before giving it a final shape in its time.<\/p>\n

The Indian dilemma does not end there. The ‘Tamil cause’ in Sri Lanka is equally close to the Indian heart – and more so, politics. The nation cannot escape its ‘responsibilities’, as some Tamil and HR groups in the two countries would say. Others of the ilk argue that India cannot escape its own ‘accountability’ on the Sri Lankan ‘war crimes’ front – starting with the ‘IPKF era’, as they would like to have.<\/p>\n

It is the kind of environment in which the erstwhile Manmohan Singh government, dependent on its southern Tamil Nadu allies for a parliamentary majority, had battled with in shaping its Sri Lanka-related UNHRC policy. The Indian abstention from the ‘probe vote’ in 2014, preceded by pro-vote with the West in 2012 and 2013, did not go down well with the Sri Lankan State and Establishment, going beyond the political leadership of the time. <\/p>\n

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s staying away from the Colombo Commonwealth summit was possibly the proverbial last straw. There are those who argue that the greater Sri Lankan tilt towards China than already began there, as the latter did not have ‘ground realities’ of the Indian kind to compete with in shaping its Sri Lanka\/HR policy. Even the Sri Lankan clearance for the berthing of Chinese submarines closer to Indian waters became unavoidable, when sought, after the unquestionable Chinese support for the nation at UN and UNHRC since 2011. <\/p>\n

They also argue that in neighbourhood terms, India (too) cannot have the cake and eat it too, as they are being accused by sections of the Indian strategic community. In this context, they also claim that a favourable Indian vote for Sri Lanka at UNHRC-2011 would have changed the entire course. There are also those in India who say that the West nearly over-looked India in subsequent years when it found the vote would be on their side, with or without India. <\/p>\n

Confusion, confounded? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Indian confusion might have been confounded for the Modi Government after the Prime Minister, breaking protocol, called on Tamil Nadu’s reigning Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at her Poes Garden residence in Chennai on Friday. The CM’s memorandum to the visiting PM referred to the ‘Sri Lankan Tamil issue’ in equally strong terms as it had done a year ago, when she called on Modi for the first time after assuming office. <\/p>\n

Thankfully for the policy-maker in Delhi, there was no reference to the UNHRC vote in CM Jaya’s two memoranda to the PM. It’s unclear how and how far would the PM-CM meet and her memorandum would influence the voters in the Sinhala South and the Tamil North in Sri Lanka, but it would definitely be noticed by the political and Establishment leaderships, all across. The resultant confusion in Sri Lanka about India, and in India about the directions from the political leadership, too, could confound the policy-maker as he designs a course for the UNHRC session.<\/p>\n

How India navigates that course remains to be watched – and would be watched carefully, more in Sri Lanka than possibly in India. For India-watchers, both inside the country and outside, it would also be their first major lesson on the Modi leadership prioritising constituency interests viz foreign policy prerogatives of the nation, where the ‘Sri Lankan ethnic issue’ has as much a Sri Lankan Tamil component too for India as there is a domestic ‘Tamil Nadu component’. <\/p>\n

(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter) <\/em><\/p>\n

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By N Sathiya Moorthy Independent of who wins the 17 August parliamentary polls in Sri Lanka, the nation would be coming under immediate international pressure on the war-time ‘accountability issues’ at UNHRC. It could be more – or, less – dependent on what the UNHRC probe report, held back by six months after the presidential …<\/p>\n

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