Thoughts from London

Amnesty: Khan, cant and so little candour
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said in Wonderland. The work of Amnesty International, the once respected international organisation particularly during the days of Martin Ennals, its first head, is becoming increasingly inscrutable and unpredictable.Take the recent visit to Sri Lanka of its current secretary-general Irene Khan of whom fellow columnist Rajpal Abeynayake had some interesting comments, if an euphemism might be permitted, to make last Sunday.

While I cannot say how the exchanges went at the Colombo press conference not having been there, I could only rely on Amnesty International’s own press release that, of course, carries only Khan’s statement and appears to avoid some of the embarrassing queries that appear to have been directed at her.

To judge by the Abeynayake column, Irene Khan had made some remarks probably in reply to questions that the AI statement does not contain.
That is not the only aspect of AI’s more recent activities and sudden burst of energy that is worrisome.

Take for instance the recent AI research mission to Sri Lanka. The team went to Colombo in mid-August and returned a little over two weeks later. The team visited Colombo, the eastern province and Kilinochchi.

AI was expected to release the findings of the mission somewhere in late November. I understand that the main findings were to be released at the time in summary form and the full report by end December. Now Khan has come and gone. But neither the summary of the research team nor the report has seen the light of day.

Why? Khant she or won’t she! That is the question. The truth is that the research team has had some nasty things to say about the LTTE’s child abduction, recruitment of child soldiers and the grabbing of land in the Batticaloa district.

If I am wrong I would be glad to know what precisely the research missions findings are and please don’t tell me to wait till next year, which is when AI is now expecting to release the findings, I gather. Is it not correct that AI was originally intending to release the main findings in November? If so why was the mission findings, which I am reliably informed, were very critical of the LTTE on the issues mentioned, delayed? Did Secretary-General Irene Khan want the findings to be kept a dark secret until after her visit to Sri Lanka?

Perhaps AI could answer that question for us. At one stage it had been mentioned that Amnesty would release the findings immediately after Khan completes her visit. So one could have justifiably expected to read all about it by the end of the first week of December and a couple days later.
But even by December 17 the report has still not seen the light of day. When it will be released or whether it would remain in the attic of forgotten things only AI could tell us. Now if Khan can’t who will?
I telephoned the AI press office on Friday morning to ask them about the report and when we will be able to read it. The press officer or whoever it was promised to find out and let me know.

Great, I said, so when will you let me know?
As soon as possible, she said.
But then I must say she got back to me about an hour later to break the exciting news. The news, I’m afraid does not have the same mega-wattage as the Iraqi elections or Chandrika Kumaratunga’s unproven purchase of Prince Andrew’s manor. But as blurb writers never tire of saying “Coming soon.” Await the great launch, tra a la a la and then a drum roll and the flash across the screen- January 10.

One must hope that unlike the second coming, this report will not be subject to a second writing. After we all know such things do happen. Recall the famous intelligence dossiers presented by Tony Blair to justify the invasion of Iraq. They were touched up here and there, if an understatement is in order.

The real problem for AI is this. Its original mandate was a watching brief over prisoners of conscience. Those were persons locked by governments mainly for their political views and who were rarely if ever brought to trial.
I know this because I was among the founder members of Amnesty International in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1967. Among the others were several justices of the Supreme Court including Justice H. Weerasooriya, Justice T.S. Fernando, Justice Sivasubramanium , lawyer A.E.G. de Silva; Times Editor Tori de Souza and Nihal Jayawickrama. In fact it was Jayawickrama’s initiative that launched the Ceylon branch.

When Martin Ennals first visited Colombo he had dinner at my home and we had a very long dialogue on the objectives of Amnesty and whether its mandate should be expanded, particularly because of the rise of terrorism including skyjackings, at the time.When I was working in Hong Kong I had to make several strictures about AI’s annual and other reports that were so one-sided that they failed to see there were non-state parties that were even more guilty of human rights abuses than the governments they castigated.

I could not have been all that wrong in my commentaries for when Amnesty International, the Foreign Correspondent Club and the Hong Kong Journalists Association launched their joint journalism awards shortly before I left Hong Kong, I received two awards in 1998 and 1999.
The issue that interested me was why AI was consistently critical of developing countries but were strangely quiescent about almost identical offences committed by western governments.

An equally important issue is why AI was so coy about exposing the human rights abuses and atrocities committed by what are euphemistically called non-state parties, many of which are groups guilty of terrorism and terrorist atrocities in which civilians and non-combatants are the principal victims and not the governments they condemn.

For instance, AI (and Human Rights Watch) issued a joint statement after a fire in the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission office last October.
While calling for an independent investigation into the ransacking and fire AI Deputy Program Director Asian-Pacific Program Natalie Hill was quoted as saying “This appears to be an attempt to intimidate the NHRC which is the most important human rights institution in Sri Lanka. Such intimidation must not be permitted. The authorities must take all necessary steps to ensure that the NHRC is able to carry out its work independently and in safety.”

It appears she has already prejudged the case even before the fire was probably doused. How wrong she was came to light later. News reports claimed it was the result of some internal dispute or some such thing.
But not a word about the two attacks on the soldiers that killed 15 of them.

Interestingly the NewYork-based Human Rights Watch is much more candid and forthright in its observations on atrocities committed by groups such as the LTTE. Why didn’t Khan make any reference to the findings at the end-of-tour press conference if she feared compromising her meetings with the LTTE?

She kept mum about it. Is it because some of the European countries that are reluctant to crackdown hard on the LTTE are also AI donors? One would naturally like to know. If Amnesty International believes more in cant than candour, then all we could say is goodnight Irene.

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