Editorial

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has allayed the long entertained apprehensions within the Armed Forces whether they are going to be sacrificed at the altar of political expediency by throwing them before an international tribunal that will inquire into allegations of violations of International Humanitarian Law for committing the ‘crime’ of safeguarding the security, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of this country.

The National Unity Government dilly-dallied on this crucial question for a tinge longer than it should have. President Maithripala Sirisena who was earlier emphatic that there would be no international tribunal, reiterated this in his exclusive interview published today in the Sunday Times. While the so-called International Community (read Western powers) were baying for the blood of the country’s then political leadership and the Armed Forces for not listening to them when they wanted ground military operations halted against the LTTE back in 2009, the ground political situation has changed since then.

The then President and Commander-in-chief has been ousted from office and the then Army Commander is now a cabinet minister in a Government that has found favour with those who instigated a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva calling for a probe into what for all intent and purposes are war crimes.

The fact that Sri Lanka co-sponsored this resolution together with the US when it came up last year has been strongly criticised, while the Foreign Ministry strenuously argued that co-sponsoring meant the country managed to water-down a harder hitting original draft and avoided a vote which we kept losing during the previous Government.

In the face of such a politically motivated call at the UN forum, many Sri Lankans at the time advocated a credible internal investigation. The then President was misled by his Foreign Minister to believing that the US was not serious – but it was, the sticking point being the international flavour to the probe.

The 2015 resolution referred to international judges and technical support but when the new UNHRC chief visited Sri Lanka he left a window open to allow Sri Lanka a credible internal investigation. The 32nd sessions of the UNHRC begin tomorrow in Geneva and the Jordanian prince who heads the UN body is expected to say something on the current status of the resolution.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera who seems to be handling the issue on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka went on record last week in this newspaper to say it was too early to speculate on what kind of mechanism would be in place for the inquiry. On the other hand, international NGOs are issuing reports calling for a more sustained adherence to the resolution’s wording.

The Foreign Minister also went on record to say that the domestic mechanism that would investigate the purported allegations of violations of International Humanitarian Law (read war crimes) had not yet been put in place.

This is going to be the major headache for the Government. Clearly, the move to investigate the Armed Forces via a war crimes tribunal by whatever name one calls it is not going to be a popular move for the Government; not with the Armed Forces and not with the majority of the people of this country who are grateful to the military for ending an insurgency that ran for 30 bloody years due to the cocktail of caste politics in the North; ethno-economic issues in the South’s dealings with the North, and geo-political hegemony politics in the region.

US President Barack Obama visiting Hiroshima on the 71st anniversary of the dropping of the Atom bombs over the city quoted from the Hibashuka (stories of the survivors) and related one of a woman who forgave the pilot who dropped that deadly bomb. He spoke of the human race as one family and he spoke of how two sworn enemies are today the best of friends, doing more for their people by partnership than by war.

So too must that spirit pervade an internal conflict that afflicted a country like Sri Lanka. On the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Japan, president Obama met President Sirisena and said his country was there to help Sri Lanka.

The terrible insurgency that sought to dismember Sri Lanka into another Cyprus took a heavy toll in the life, liberty and economic upliftment of all our people. A country that ‘took off’ economically in the post-1977 period leaving most other South Asian nations, including India behind slumped with the eruption of the separatist insurgency. The 1983 riots were a watershed and the Tamil diaspora that the riots triggered was to reverse the strides the country had made, economically.

Today, the diaspora, bitter about what happened, is trying to pull down the country and those remaining in it, including the minorities as sweet revenge. The Northern Province Chief Minister, in whom there was hope of reconciliation and rehabilitation with a Government that was put in place by both the majority and the minorities together, has been a pawn in the hands of this diaspora.

Ask the ordinary people of the North and many will say that the elected representatives of the North are more concerned about Geneva than Jaffna. These people want to get back on their feet having suffered more than anyone else during the war years. The North is replete with new problems; the narcotic ‘Kerala ganja’ to alcoholism to the lack of water to the problems of the fishermen staying at home in the face of Indians poaching in the Palk Strait and the farmers tilling the barren land with little support from the authorities.

On the other hand, Jaffna, the citadel of the North is probably the fastest growing city today outside Colombo as the ‘doing diaspora’ lends a hand to uplift the people as against the ‘talking diaspora’.

The Government has established, or proposes to establish a Task Force, a Truth Commission, a Permanent Office for Missing Persons and signed an International Convention for the protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. The Human Rights Commission must be given more strength, but never should the Government underestimate the undercurrents of the military, which it may need some day in the future.

What the UNHRC wants to do may not be the way forward; it certainly is not the only way to go. It must not make a delicate situation worse and at a time when healing is the best option, opening of old war wounds is not an option for the whole country.