Sunday Times 2
Operation Evacuation Sri Lankans : Lebanon 1982
As I star
The United Nations adopted The International Convention on The Protection of Migrant Workers in 1990.
twriting this article thirty four long years have passed and terms like ‘evacuation, migration, refugees, homelessness, and human rights’ have entered the United Nations lexicon to an unimaginable extent. On the eighteenth of December 1990, the United Nations adopted The International Convention on The Protection of Migrant Workers, due to the urging of some Asian nations that their migrant labour, especially to the West Asian and Middle East countries, should be protected and their rights preserved. Among them were the so-called Sending Countries of migrant labour, like the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka as opposed to the Receiving Countries
Migration,of course, as stated in my previous articles, has been a phenomenon as old as humans. Migration was essential for those humans, for better pasture, agriculture, water and living space. As civilizations developed, social, cultural, and security concerns became preeminent. Kings and emperors annexed territories and the victors colonised the vanquished territories. The vanquished migrated in search of security. Thus migration became a sine-qua-non with early empires, and the word entered the vocabulary of humans. With labour becoming an integral segment of society there arose a class system or a caste system depending on the particular culture. Some became servers of others; willingly and others by force. ‘Slavery’ became the order of the day. The slaves were from inside the territory or from neighbouring territories. There sprung slave traders, and with colonialism the slave trade from Africa, Asia and Latin America, became a prolific business to the United States, England, and other colonial countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Affluent classes in the colonies too worked for colonial masters and their progeny were educated in the countries of the masters in the 20th century. This cycle benefitted a fraction of the people of the colonies. It was this process that worked in Sri Lanka as well, till the 1950s.The progeny with Sri Lanka’s independence, became the masters of the natives. The latter lived with meagre resources and poor education. They too searched for a way out as employment dwindled, especially, among women. It was during 1970s that oil wealth of the Middle East, moved into the hands of the Arabs and they wanted more and more migrant labour to do their daily chores. It is this vicious circle that led to our sisters and brothers migrating to the Middle East. In some of these countries we did not have diplomatic representation. Lebanon in 1982 was such a country where our people were toiling due to their marginalisation by their own rulers or masters.
Lebanon in 1982 was the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by that charismatic leader Yasser Arafat. There were Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra, Shatila, and Bourjbarajini. They were the Arab Palestinians chased away from Jordan, Palestine, and other parts of West Asia due to wars, and they were themselves migrants, like Sri Lankans. The Sri Lankan household employees had been recruited by unscrupulous agencies without explaining that Lebanon itself was a country in turmoil. The Israelis launched their Operation Peace of the Galilee on June 6th 1982, and occupied Southern Lebanon. This was known as the First Lebanon War. The immediate reason for the invasion was the retaliation to the assassination attempt on Israel’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, by the Abu Nidal Organization.
The story of the quite harmless operation by Sri Lankan diplomats to evacuate the stranded Sri Lankans’ should begin here. 1982 happened to be a politically unsettled year for Sri Lanka. President J.R.Jayewardene’s first five years had ended and he was planning to have Presidential Elections under the 1978 Constitution, and extend the life of his Government by another six years, with a referendum. Even a minor negative impediment to the success at the presidential elections and referendum, was not permitted, whereas, the Lebanese war tended to reduce his vote bank; as thousands of Sri Lankans got stranded there; there was a mass-demonstration by the next-of-kin in front of Town Hall Colombo in June 1982, demanding that they be brought back. President JR brooked no excuses from his ministers when he realised that the opposition was making this too an election issue, in addition to their demand to have general elections and not a referendum.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time was responsible for the general welfare of Sri Lankans living abroad, The migrant labour was also their responsibility, but with the least amount of facilities. President JR had called Foreign Minister Hameed when the next of kin staged demonstrations against the Government and had told him that he was planning to have presidential elections before a referendum and that he did not want any external factors to affect his victory and the United National Party at the referendum. In fact the President had seen to it that Madam Sirimavo would not stand for elections, as her civic rights had been stripped. Minister Hameed was on his foreign tours and was in Cyprus attending a Commonwealth Meeting. He had been told by the President to resolve this problem of expatriate labour in Lebanon.
I was serving in our High Commission in London, in 1982, and it was in June that the assassination attempt on the Israeli Ambassador to London by Abu Nidal failed and both electronic and print media gave widespread publicity to the invasion of Lebanon by Israel.
Operation Evacuation: I received a telephone call from my Minister Shahul Hameed asking whether I could proceed to Lebanon and evacuate around one hundred Sri Lankans from Lebanon with another officer colleague. I said, ‘Sir, there is a war going on there’. The minister said, ‘that is exactly why I want you to go there’. After a long conversation, on logistics, our travel, our attachment to the British Embassy in Beirut, and the reporting to Colombo through an office headed by my senior colleague, the late Janaka Nakkawita, we left London to the war zone. My other colleague was A.H. Seneviratne who was serving in Rome. It was a hazardous journey by air to Larnaca, Cyprus. By sea from Larnaca to Jounieh in Lebanon, for nine hours, and by road to an accommodation in East Beirut. The British Embassy in West Beirut had been closed, and shifted to East to a Supermarket called Bouri. From the following day we were attached to the British Embassy as diplomats and funnily the Israeli border guards could not understand how two brown skin guys could be British diplomats. We were taken in for questioning a few times and the embassy had to explain the background and we were later released.
The Sri Lankans in Lebanon were happy that we were there to help them but numbered in thousands and not hundreds as told to us by Minister Hameed. Many are the life and death situations we faced, and we had to extend our stay till January 1983, inspite of them, as we were duty bound to look after our people. Due to space constraints, only a summary of the work undertaken will be detailed here.
The names of all those who sought our help were registered, and they were repatriated via Damascus, in Syria, and Larnaca in Cyprus, Their names were telexed to the Foreign Ministry, every evening from the Hotel Alexandre, in Ashrafieh, where we were staying. When the vessel schedules changed, we had to accommodate the refugees in temporary places. There were the sick who had to be visited by us, but there was mutual help forthcoming. Fortunately, there were only a handful who passed away and with the permission of next of kin they were buried with the help of other Sri Lankans. There were women who had been locked in by employers in houses as they left for safer places, especially in West Beirut. With the help of security forces they were taken out and sent back. There were also some who had jumped out from storied buildings and had been injured in the spinal cord. They were hospitalised with the help of the British Embassy. There were Tamil Sri Lankans some of whom had been recruited as militia by the Palestine PLO, taken into custody by the Israelis, who were also released with the assistance of the Red Cross.
It was definitely a period of inner satisfaction and there were occasions when persons talked to us in Colombo, and thanked us for helping them in difficult times.
West Asia is once again in turmoil, especially Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. The story above too refers to a time when we were caught unawares, ill-prepared the with least amount of facilities. In our recommendations, we highlighted the need to establish institutions, have an insurance scheme for workers, establish embassies in all Middle East countries and post trained labour officers to embassies. Over the years, they have been fulfilled. The most important was the request for a UN Convention for the Protection of Migrant Labour. With the assistance of other labour sending countries it too had been achieved. The signature of these conventions by individual Receiving Countries has to be ensured.
However, still the harassment and ill-treatment of our women-folk in the Middle East continues, remains the same as seen in media reports. It is a question of national pride, not to subject them to these privations merely because they are poor. Bangladesh and India have banned the employment of women in these countries. Only Philippines allows such exodus, similar to what we do. I have written on this issue before too but for our leaders the petro dollars are more important than national prestige.
(The writer was an Ambassador for Sri Lanka.)