Editorial

The Government’s seemingly incessant woes now shift from seeking loans and swaps from overseas and tiding over the foreign currency crisis to challenging Western crusaders on a veritable inquisition against the country, particularly against the Rajapaksa I, and now the Rajapaksa II Governments.

A bound indictment from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) – once called a body motivated by political bias rather than human rights – has been delivered this week at Republic Square where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is housed. Ministry officials were poring over the contents of the report to send a fitting reply.

They will, no doubt, say; “Not Guilty as charged”, but how good their defence is before a jury and a judge that have already prejudged the case before them is left to be seen.

The UNHRC has deftly shifted the goal posts. From calling for an international tribunal to investigate allegations of violations of humanitarian laws by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces during the final push to defeat one of the world’s most bloodthirsty terrorist organisations, the current report delves into the realm of contemporary politics and the administration of the incumbent Government. It deals with the Rule of Law, the Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) laws, even the conduct of the Attorney General’s office. In short, never mind that Sri Lanka celebrated 74 years of Independence as a sovereign state, the UN agency wants to run the country the way it thinks it should be run. Republic Square might well be rechristened Neo-Colonial Square.

One of the ironies of it all is that the country spearheading this relentless drive is the very country that ruled this land for over 150 years, stripped it of its resources and left a legacy of ‘divide and rule’. And moreover, that it has its own share of race relations issues, military abuses abroad and the problems of any modern state.

Such hypocrisy apart, the widening scope of the UNHRC’s investigations will resonate with a wider cross-section of the local populace. The Western powers know that. That is its agenda to whip up internal dissension. It is no longer limited to a probe on the Armed Forces crushing a terrorist group way back in 2009 liberating the northern people from the clutches of a fascist group. There is little traction on that score apart from the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora.

The Rajapaksa II Government has been unable to win over not just the minorities, but now with a sizable and growing section of the majority increasingly disillusioned with it, any foreign pressure against the Government gets also welcomed. That is textbook strategy by foreign interventionists.

So when a Cabinet Minister says trade union strikes in essential services must be banned ignoring international labour covenants and political opponents and media adversaries get hammered by projectiles bringing back memories of the white van culture of not so long ago, it generates resentment within the country against the Government. That is fodder for foreign agencies to destabilise the country further especially on the eve of the meeting of the UNHRC that is breathing down the neck of this Government, sniffing blood waiting for such slip-ups.

Neither does the Foreign Ministry slamming human rights activists who have the eager ear of the Western world, or criticising the UK for not divulging its defence attache’s despatches during the war, help. There is little purpose served in ‘playing to the gallery’ at home, puffing one’s chest, and beating it when the greater need is to use whatever ammunition it has at the right place and the right time coupled with quiet but effective diplomacy where it counts.

Our Political Editor gives details of the UNHRC report and the challenges the Government is faced with, particularly when there is a prosecutor’s office in Geneva sifting through evidence with an eye on justifying its existence.

The Government has wisely done a course correction in deciding to work with the UNHRC without having to capitulate to the agenda of its funders. Much is at stake, and this country has got itself into a weak bargaining position given its economic crisis to engage in a brouhaha in the present situation.

Tinkering with counter-terror laws

In the meantime, the Foreign Affairs Minister plaintively laments that criticism of recent amendments proposed to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) is ‘unfair.’ To be sure, there is more than a tinge of hypocrisy in the UK preaching to Sri Lanka on these matters when it — and other European countries as well as the US — have blithely allowed torture and rendition as part of the global war on terror.

Even so, the PTA is an ancient law that does not belong in today’s world. Its first use was against trade unionists in the seventies. Since then, alleged ‘terrorists’, government critics and other inconvenient voices were all lumped into the same basket, locked up for years on a political whim. Some were released with no reparations; others died in prison. Many became terrorists after being subjected to its indignities.

To be fair, all Governments are guilty as charged in this regard. We recall a ‘yahapalanaya’ Counter-Terror Act (CTA) leaked in the pages of this newspaper, which was far worse than the PTA. Later exposed as a largely ‘cut and paste’ job from the US Patriot Act, it even categorised writings offending ‘unity’ as a terrorist act. Opposition parliamentarians pictured this week with broad smiles, signing a petition against the proposed amendments to the PTA, were in government then.

Civil society organisations who have responded with howls of outrage to the current amendments, also observed a studied silence at the time. The Foreign Affairs Minister has said that the current amendments are a prelude to replacement of the PTA by a counter-terror law. If so, he must be advised that the earlier CTA is not the way to go. In modern times, the prevention of terrorism is a strategic art. It needs surgically defined legal measures not blows of a sledgehammer crushing all and sundry. We need to learn this lesson from the badly handled West’s war on Islamist terror if not from our own experiences.