21st May 2000

UN troops in Sri Lanka?

Since UN intervention is primarily driven by Western states, largely to safeguard economic and national interests, Sri Lanka is not a prime candidate for a UN peacekeeping force. At least, not yet.

The hard reality is that Sri Lanka isn't rich in untapped oil reserves (as in East Timor) nor does it possess mineral resources such as diamonds (as in Sierra Leone, Angola and the Congo).

A joke in the 1970s was that the only oil the Russians discovered when they drilled in northern Sri Lanka was gingelly oil.

Sri Lanka is also not a strategically important country to warrant intervention, particularly in a post-Cold War era when most developing nations are no longer being wooed either by the Americans or the Russians.

And since Sri Lanka has not been accused of mass genocide, as in Kosovo, the concept of "humanitarian intervention" would not apply.

The Western states feverishly participated in the UN's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo fearing that a continued conflict in the former Yugoslavia would drive hundreds and thousands of refugees into Western Europe.

In the case of East Timor, Australia took the lead fearing a wave of East Timorese refugees into its own borders. But Western Europe, the US and Australia, all geographically far away from the battle fields in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, have not been threatened by the fear of refugees at their doorsteps.

And more importantly, India and Sri Lanka, two neighbours battling domestic insurgencies, shun UN intervention with a vengeance.

India has long argued that Kashmir is a domestic problem and, therefore, does not warrant any international intervention - humanitarian or otherwise.

Using the same argument, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar said last week that Sri Lanka was dead against any form of UN intervention.

The 114-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), of which Sri Lanka and India are both active members, has declared that the concept of national sovereignty is not only sacred but also protected by the UN charter.

NAM believes that intervention is permissible only if the country concerned seeks it on its own free will. But most Third World diplomats argue that the UN has no legitimate right to intervene in the domestic affairs of a country or send its peacekeeing troops into an unwilling country.

Although there have been unconfirmed rumours that Britain is interested in raising the Sri Lankan issue at the Security Council, it cannot do so unless it has the support of all five veto-wielding permanent members, including the US, France, China and Russia.

Both China and Russia are unyielding on issues relating to sovereignty. Arguing that Chechnya was essentially a domestic issue, the Russians did not permit the Security Council to discuss the separatist war that has enraged the Islamic world.

Nor does China permit Tibet to be discussed in the Council. Both are ultra sensitive issues strictly out of bounds. Based on assurances given to Sri Lanka, Kadirgamar said the Chinese and the Russians will not allow the Security Council to get involved in our domestic problems.

The basic principle governing international diplomacy is that national interests supersede all others. At the recently concluded meeting of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, the Russians and the Chinese were on the defensive.

When Western nations sought to censure China for human rights violations and Russia for Chechnya, Sri Lanka stood by both countries casting its vote against the two Western-inspired resolutions. And now it is pay back time.

By an odd coincidence, the two crisis-stricken countries very much in the news these days are Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone.

At his press conference last week, Kadirgamar referred to the "unholy mess" in Sierra Leone where 500 UN troops were taken hostage by a rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The troops are mostly from India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Jordan.

The performance of some UN soldiers was so pathetic that a contingent of about 900 armed Zambians gave up all their weapons and 13 of their armoured personnel carriers (APCs) without a single shot being fired.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan was himself wondering how 900 men with APCs could have been disarmed just like that. "Did they sell them?," he asked rather sarcastically.

Meanwhile, Annan has made several desperate pleas for a "rapid reaction force," manned by well-trained, well-equipped soldiers from countries such as the US, France and Britain, to reinforce UN troops in Sierra Leone.

But he did not receive a single offer from any of the Western states who are clearly unwilling to risk any of their soldiers on peacekeeping operations in Africa.