March is about ‘Geneva’ and has been
for the past several years. March is
also time for opinions from all quarters about how to handle ‘Geneva’. Naturally policy decisions and choices will
be called ‘correct’ by some while others would use the word ‘folly’. The word in the street regarding ‘Geneva’
(which is, for those who might wonder, about human rights and violations
thereof, allegedly, by Sri Lanka, along with candy-words such as reconciliation
and accountability) is ‘negotiation’, i.e. finding a way to work the voting
arithmetic in Sri Lanka’s favor. Let’s
consider the word.
Negotiation is only necessitated by
recognition that one of two (or more) warring parties believes that
comprehensive victory is not possible.
That kind of ‘recognition’ can be manufactured, as we saw for at least
two decades vis-à-vis the LTTE. Easy
words and arguments rolled off ready tongues: ‘invincible’, ‘cannot be
militarily overcome,’ ‘too costly,’ and ‘politically injudicious’. On the other hand, just because Sri Lanka
un-manufactured or dismantled that lie, it doesn’t mean the principle does not
hold elsewhere.
We are talking about Geneva, the UN
Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), and the power of key players such as the USA,
European Union and India. In this case,
there are two factors that need to be addressed. First, there is the claimed poverty of Sri
Lanka to prevail. Secondly, we are not talking about winning a war. We are talking about defending fact over
fiction. That makes a difference.
There are those who argue that
appeasement would work; appeasing India that is. The assumption that underlies
this argument is that India (or anyone else for that matter) cannot be
contained if not brought around to stand with Sri Lanka. Now it goes without saying that one-on-one or
head-to-head, Sri Lanka cannot best either India or the USA and as such it is a
tall order to take on a ‘coalition’ made of these two countries, be it in
Geneva or the beaches of Colombo or the air over the city. On the other hand, negotiating such issues is
not a simple matter of comparing and contrasting military might.
Sri Lanka proved that there are
moments when the composition of the UNHRC voting group makes it possible to
turn things around; that and of course effective diplomacy. By and large, however, the odds are stacked
against countries such as Sri Lanka whenever big name nations decide that it is
in their interests to censure. It is not
about right or wrong, not about truth and falsehood. It is about power. Geneva, plain and simple,
is not ‘home turf’. It’s a game where the rules are skewed against Sri
Lanka. It is a fight that’s scripted to
yield victory to the powerful. Sri Lanka cannot change the venue. Sri Lanka can, however, play with the players
in ways that can bring balance (not ‘fair play’ for that’s a nonsense-term
that’s good for diplo-speak but for little else) into the equation.
In this instance, those ‘balancing
out’ forces are principally Russia and China. Gaddafi played appeasement and
lost, let us not forget; Assad has prevailed, so far. It is not whether or not these were ‘bad’
guys, for no bad guy can hold a candle to the mother of all bad guys,
Washington. It is about playing the
cards right. The options, whether we like it or not, therefore, are about
defence and trade pacts with China and Russia (and perhaps ASEAN) for the
simple reason that the mala fides of India and the USA (and it’s European
client states) are established beyond a shadow of doubt.
There are other ‘soft’ ways of dealing with these ‘forces beyond
our strength’. If ‘Geneve’ is a theater
with the purpose of turning Sri Lanka into audience that takes away a sense of
guilt for crimes uncommitted, then the guilt card can be tossed back. In India’s case, there’s a four-letter ‘word’
that can shut up Manmohan Singh: IPKF.
There, we would be talking not of ‘allegation’ but proven crimes against
humanity.
We can remind India that on Deepavali day, October
21, 1987, soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force went on a killing spree
that left over 70 dead, including three leading medical specialists, Dr.A.Sivapathasuntharam,
Dr.K.Parimelalahar and Dr.K.Ganesharatnam, as well as nurses, attendants,
patients and other civilians. They were
shot in cold blood; Dr Sivapathasuntharam was helping an injured worker and was
shot even as he pleaded that he was a doctor.
The same day the building that housed the OPD was shelled by the IPKF,
killing 7 people. The victims were all Tamils.
That’s Indian regard and concern for equality, dignity, justice and
self-respect for Sri Lankan Tamils, spoken with such fervor by Indian Foreign
Secretary Shrimati Sujatha Singh, who seems to be Geographically-challenged and
quite myopic considering she doesn’t know what her countrymen in Tamil Nadu
think about such sentiments when it comes to Sri Lankan Tamil fisherfolk and
their livelihoods.
Sri Lanka, thanks to meticulous
documentation by the LTTE during the ‘IPKF times’ of such atrocities (note that
neither the LTTE nor its apologists abroad came up with anything close to such
horrible crimes with respect to the Sri Lankan security forces, giving further
credence to the claim of manufacturing such crimes post-2009), is in possession
of a massive dossier of Indian brutality in Sri Lanka. That’s ‘usable’ material in ‘negotiations’.
Anything in any document that India puts her signature on will, potentially, be
‘usable’ against India herself. Today’s
friend can be tomorrow’s enemy. Diplomacy is not a one-day match, history is
long and India knows that while it can talk down to Sri Lanka, it cannot do the
same to certain other nations.
There’s also the fact that in the
long run, India might not last. It is a
country that is made for break-up. India
would do well not to provide would-be enemies with extra ammunition. India must take the longer view.
Then there is the issue, the second one, of fact
over fiction. It is important to know
the truth. It is important, also, to
market the truth. There’s this figure of
40,000 being bandied about by persons, organization and countries with abysmal
track records when it comes to political chicanery. The circumstantial evidence rebels against any
systematic push to kill civilians. The
large number (inflated to 75-150,00 by Tamil National Alliance MP M
Sumanthiran) of bodies, moreover, would have had to be disposed of. The question ‘how?’ has not been answered.
Instead, there is ‘evidence’ in the form of testimonies of people who are
politically compromised or are plain and simple untrustworthy. The ICRC which was ‘on the spot’ until very
close to the end, tellingly, has not come out in support of these claims.
The conundrum has been commented on, editorially, in
The Nation:
“A ‘curious’ individual has offered a
‘solution’ to explain the vexed numbers problem. A simple question has been asked: ‘Eta katu
ko?’ (where are the bones—read, ‘remains’).
The contention is that if indeed 40,000 were massacred by the troops in
Mullivaikkal, the remains, if piled up, would make a tower that puts Pisa to
shame. No bodies have been found
there. Were the remains vaporized, the
writer asks.
“Let’s remember that there’s satellite
footage available of the LTTE shooting at Tamil civilians fleeing into
Government controlled areas. That place
was watched from above. It is also clear
that there are many who want to hang this Government over war crimes. As of now their ‘best’ has been cleverly
edited videos that is good as ‘collage’ but thin if they want to paint
‘systematic’, never mind the fact that the sources of the sources of the
sources cited are hardly reliable given their loyalties. If these people really, really, really, want
to get the job done, they’ve had ample time (more than 4 years) to mine the relevant
aerial footage. It is, after all, a
thin strip of land that we are talking about.
“The fact remains that getting rid of
150,000 corpses is not easy. Not in the
21st Century. Forget 150,000
or even the 40,000 that is being waved these days; ‘disappearing’ even 100
would be messy. We are told, after all,
that soldiers themselves were clicking away on their mobile devices to capture
‘trophy photos’.”
Logic,
however, does not have ‘enough legs’ to see Sri Lanka past the winning post, in
Geneva or elsewhere on matters of what is unadulterated harassment by bullies
who don’t have the moral authority to ask questions or demand answers. Truth doesn’t purchase in Geneva. This has to be recognized.
It
will boil down to how Sri Lanka builds relations with China and Russian, both
countries which, unlike India and the USA, have not back-stabbed. Sri Lanka has walked long enough along the
appeasement road to understand that it is going to a place called ‘Nowhere’,
not forgetting that this appeasement business includes a caveat where Sri Lanka
is required to confess to crimes uncommitted, with important implications for
national dignity and sovereignty. So
when some argue ‘appeasement’ they are either Indian agents, downright cowards
or clearly incompetent in analyzing realities.
Sri
Lanka has not played all her cards, that much is true. Diplomacy has not been
robust enough, this is also true. It is
time that the right choices are made and the right signals sent to both enemy
and friend. For starters, Sri Lanka can
make a policy decision on coal power plants.
Nothing for India and all future plants to be located in the Western
part of the island, for security reasons.
That might amount to ‘signal’ enough.
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