Envoy stands accused of torture – morally speaking

By Neville de Silva

Dear High Commissioner,

When I last wrote to you after your amusing interview in a local newspaper extolling that so-called debate on Sri Lanka in the Commons which had its Malvolian moments, I promised to write again soon.

With one thing and another, it really escaped my mind until the other day when it was whispered in my ear, metaphorically speaking of course, about some comments allegedly made by someone close to you about my last open letter to you.

After all these months in Sri Lanka the lesson should have been clear. Colombo is not only an open society but an open-mouthed one. So when this someone is reported to have, allegedly I must add, told others that I had not only written “rubbish” but in bad English too, it did not take long for the comments to reach me here in London.

I might have forgiven them as the usual chattering of the cocktail classes but a second source corroborated it just a few days ago. Both are credible sources, unless they are hard of hearing or otherwise maladjusted.

English is, of course, a foreign language to me. So it seems to some of your compatriots here too judging by their execrable use of it.

I didn’t have much practice in stiffening my upper lip, not for want of trying by the colonial masters at the Church of England school I attended back home who did their best to make a brown sahib of me, punishing anybody who spoke in his native tongue.

So I was hoping that the next time I am in Colombo I could come round to Westminster House (if invited, naturally) to get myself a quick education on the best of English literature from Chaucer to the moderns via the Metaphysicals and the Romantics, if you please.

How educative it would be to study the etymology of the many words in the English language, 95 per cent or so of which are borrowed from other languages leaving just five per cent of your own which is about the same as the interest rates charged here. (I hope I will not get a letter from the British Council wanting to set “the record straight”) Maybe a little dip into formal linguistics or sociolinguistics over a cuppa would be simply delightful.

The last time I tried to get extra help in understanding Shakespeare, my English tutor then (David Craig if I remember correctly) was somewhat busy with other activities to provide me with that additional enlightenment.

Actually he had joined a student demo and was seen climbing the statue of Governor North, located close to the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy. He wanted to topple the poor chap from his pedestal, much like the Russians did later to their one time mentor Vladimir Ilyich and the Iraqis to Saddam (with a little help from your transatlantic partner with whom you invaded that country and are continuing to make a right royal mess of it).

As for rubbish I guess that someone is more acquainted with it than I am. After all it is not every day I get a chance to read your speeches. Actually that is the second reason that prompted this. I had just read the talk given by you at a panel discussion at the Bandaranaike Centre recently.

Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) only excerpts of your talk were published, and that ran into nine printed pages which is a luxury I am not afforded by the editor so I cannot deal with that ‘in extenso’.

But I do promise to come up with a dossier (not like the “dodgy dossier” that your prime minister used to justify invading Iraq) that will catalogue more clearly your country’s “respect for human rights and the standards of good governance” which you say the UK wants to “raise……around the world.”

“Rome was built on seven hills. My presentation is in seven parts” is how you start your contribution. For sheer pomposity that even beats those reported remarks. Setting yourself virtually on par with Romulus and Remus, the builders of that great city, takes some doing.

Come to think of it, it would have been better if your speech was in 10 parts rather than seven. Then you could have said that since Moses was given Ten Commandments you would like to do the same and enthralled your audience with your godly wisdom.
Seven parts or ten, the trouble is that some of your parts are rather loose and seem to be falling off.

Some might well dispute your use of the phrase “civil war” to describe the conflict in Sri Lanka or to your reference of a “homeland” (a word which your American colleague Richard Boucher seems to now avoid after his initial use of it). I don’t want to go into that. But there are several other matters such as your purported concern for human rights and the lessons you wish to inculcate about Northern Ireland and the eventual settlement reached after you had made a pretty mess of it with little concern for human rights, discriminatory legislation and abandoning the rule of law when it suited Britain’s interest. Now you want us to learn from you.

Let’s take some of the points you make. Naturally at this stage I could only be rather cursory for lack of space. But I do intend to return to them in detail.

Your reference to the Vienna Convention and the rights and duties of contracting parties does not really enhance your argument if your objective was to justify Britain’s interest in what is happening in Sri Lanka.

In fact your reference to the obligations cast on signatories to multilateral treaties and conventions such as the ICCPR and the right of any signatory to raise concerns regarding violations by others is valid and could have stood alone without leaning on the Vienna Convention for support.

I agree that as signatories to the ICCPR and other human rights laws we all have a right to comment on or raise concerns with regard to their observance by other contracting parties.

But then just as you say the UK has a right to pass strictures on Sri Lanka’s adherence to its treaty obligations the converse is also true. Sri Lanka too has a right to comment on the UK’s adherence to them.

But why do so when there is enough criticism within the UK itself on how you have and are planning to opt out of some of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and have abandoned some principles of the rule of law.

That is not all. The UK has been accused by the European Parliament of complicity in the abduction of terror suspects and accusations of their torture.

Freedom from torture is the one human right that is absolute. You stand accused of helping violate it, if not legally certainly morally.