Nisha Biswal shoots from a no-fire zone

Exactly one month ago, i.e. on the 16^th of June 2016, the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein offering a global update at the 32^nd session of the Human Rights Council made a dire observation.  He said ‘hate is being mainstreamed’.   

Just two days ago, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, invoked the insidious Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.  This is how he put it:

‘This is the time to massively reinforce UN action. When a Government cannot or will not protect its people, and when warring parties seem more intent on enriching and empowering themselves at the expense of their people, the international community has a responsibility to act.’

Zeid went on to talk about country-specific issues whereas Ki-moon was speaking on the situation in South Sudan.  Perhaps it was not the forum for Zeid to note that it is simplistic to speak of human rights as though it is a domestic issue of member states, but even then to talk of ‘structural racial discrimination’ in the USA without noting structured violence against African Americans including Police brutality and killings is negligent.  We are talking about a global situation where the most brutal violence is transnational in nature and where the United States and her allies are among the worst violators of human rights. 

Ki-moon was speaking about a specific country but it is strange that he uses the word ‘responsibility’ without naming the country that is clearly responsible for the South Sudan ‘situation’, the USA. 
These men care about human rights, they say.  They care about protecting people, they say.  They are mandated at times to talk about specific situations but since both are given to moralizing it is surprising that they leave out key elements of the narrative.  

To date we have not heard either Ki-moon or Zeid utter a single word on the Chilcot Report about Britain’s involvement in Iraq.  
 Mind you, this is a report that is soft enough to allow its principal ‘target’, Tony Blair to glean many a face-saving quote and yet is hard enough to warrant Ki-moon to invoke ‘responsibility’ and for Zeid to wax eloquent on the mainstreaming of hate, quoting once again, if he so wishes, Hafiz of Shiraz to talk of the ‘epic of pain’ as the ‘pallid ghosts’ of US-UK adventures in Iraq make an appearance. 

They are silent and in their silence should we find that the mainstreaming of hate can be talked of in the present continuous tense as well as the past tense.  The mainstream, in short, is marked by hatred and there are no prizes for naming this ‘mainstream’.   As for Ki-moon, he could elaborate on ‘warring parties intent on enriching and empowering themselves’ at the expense of their people (men and women serving in the US, UK and allied forces died) and at the expense of other people too (in Iraq and elsewhere – the USA has finally admitted, for example, that it has no clue how many civilians were killed in drone attacks).    

All of the above is ‘context’.  It provides backdrop for the statements issued by the Assistant Secretary of USA for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal, currently visiting Sri Lanka along with Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski (who was unceremoniously expelled for ‘interfering in the internal affairs’ from Bahrain, a US ally in the region no less). 

Biswal has visited Sri Lanka before as has Malinowski (read 'Tom Malinowski needs to sleep').  In February 2014, the lady issued a dire warning.  ‘If Sri Lanka doesn’t make meaningful progress in addressing the accountability issues, the patience of the international community on Sri Lanka will start to wear thin,’ she said and urged Sri Lanka to take some concrete steps to ‘address the issue of human rights, accountability and reconciliation process’.

 

‘Accountability’ was the word here.  ‘International Community’ was the definer.  ‘Patience’ is the commodity said to be in short supply.  But charity begins at home, she did not say.  And she’s not said it since.  Blair may think that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein, but the Chilcot Report and the declassified documents of the CIA about justification for the invasion of Iraq clearly show that the people of both countries were misled by their leaders.  Iraq did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction and there was absolutely no evidence of any link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.  If a lie followed by an invasion can be brushed aside by the simple claim ‘Saddam is out, the world is safer’ and if the UN and UNHRC are fine with it what it means is that we are living on a planet that has been renamed ‘Anything Goes’.   

Where anything goes, however, there cannot be a word called ‘accountability’ while ‘patience’ is nothing but a privilege reserved for brutes.  This is what Zeid and Ki-moon the big-name spokespersons for the ‘international community’ are telling us by their silence.  And it is what makes Biswal’s sanctimonious statements laughable.  If they were not insufferable, that is.  

For the record and in response to Blair’s claims which the official ‘international community’ is not contradicting, here are some numbers which speak to pre and post Saddam ‘safety’.  In the 15 years prior to the invasion there were zero suicide attacks in Iraq and in the 15 years that followed, more than 2000 such attacks (not counting of course the countless aerial bombings of the US-led forces and other horrendous human rights violations).  The numbers for Pakistan are 1 and 486 (by 2015).  There were zero suicide attacks in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria and Syria prior to 2003.  Since then the numbers (by 2015) were 88, 85, 29, 91 and 165 in these countries respectively.  There was no ISIS in 2003.  The ISIS now ‘owns’ parts of Iraq.  All due to the illegal invasion?  Perhaps not, but the invasion by all accounts fuelled the rise of that terrorist organization and not just in Iraq.

Keeping the ISIS out of it, had Saddam been alive, one could argue, the number could have been worse, but after the Chilcot Report conjecture has to be kept out of the discourse. 

Nisha Biswal has changed her tone this time around.  She says ‘We will continue to support the Government of Sri Lanka as it takes meaningful and concrete steps in relation to democratic governance, while working towards ensuring reconciliation, justice and accountability.’

Can this change of tone be attributed to some kind of chastening on account of recent revelations?  Could it be that she is scared that someone will toss back to her the very same words she uttered, in arrogance and ignorance, perhaps? No, that’s unlikely.  It is all about ‘interests’ of the kind that Ki-moon spoke of.  Human rights and democracy, justice and accountability, and if you like reconciliation too, do not have absolute values; they are weighted when included in diplo-speak; one language/tone for ‘friends’ and a different one for the less friendly. 

When she visited last and read her self-righteous and obnoxious Washinton-drafted statement, Biswal prompted the following response.

‘The leaders of this country are answerable. They are answerable to the people of this country.  They are not answerable to a bunch of terrorist who use wealth and weapons to convince the world that the rivers of blood they make flow are the inevitable juices that give life to democracy, peace, civilization etc.’(A  briefing note’ for Nisha Biswal’)  

That was a different set of leaders.  The message, in essence, is relevant for this Government too.  We can do without sanctimonious tutors and tutoring.  The official ‘international community’ is fine with what is essentially a friendly knuckle-rap report of the kind that the British inquiry on Iraq.  We saw seven years of ‘patience’.  This Government can do better but will certainly falter if it looks to the likes of Biswal and the politics she represent to draw inspiration from.   

It is simple, really.  Sri Lanka has to step out of the (main)stream of hatred.  The Government can be courteous to the likes of Biswal, but in the end if justice, accountability, reconciliation and peace are what’s sought, then there can be no substitute for conversations with the people of this country. 

This article was published in the Daily Mirror (July 14, 2016) under the title 'Stepping out of the (main)stream of hatred'.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Follow him on Twitter: malindasene. Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com

The Ministry of Development Strategies & International Trade said yesterday it would formulate the National Trade Policy by the end of next month - See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/112510/National-trade-policy-by-end-of-August-Ministry#sthash.iopSFGpv.dpuf

The Ministry of Development Strategies & International Trade said yesterday it would formulate the National Trade Policy by the end of next month - See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/112510/National-trade-policy-by-end-of-August-Ministry#sthash.iopSFGpv.dpuf

Read more

Spare your kisses Ki-moon!

It's 2016 and not 2010.  Things are different here in Sri Lanka.  Out there, it's same-old, same-old.  Today it's the time for the resurrections of ghosts and myth-models, the re-run of the Eelam drive, a regurgitation of old claims and half-truths, the celebration of selectivity.  In this context it is not out of place to revisit the politics and the politicians dancing on the global stage, especially a man called Ban ki-Moon.

 He’s rubbed half the world the wrong way, jumped the gun, gone against protocol, acquired powers that none of his predecessors enjoyed, thumbed his nose at the General Assembly and the Security Council and acted as though he’s CEO of Global Government and not the chief administrative officer of the UN.  Ban Ki-moon is cutting a sorry figure these days.

The man is half-blind; he could pour over the World Atlas for weeks and not come across names such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza, forget Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib etc.  Indeed, when such place-names are mentioned, his feet immediately swell to proportions so considerable that he is rendered immobile.  It is natural for a man decapitated in this manner to slip and fall and roll around.  He’s consumed enough lies and been exposed so many times that like a compulsive gambler, he’s persuaded to double his bet. And so he blunders along and gets rapped on his knuckles for his pains, now by Russia and now by China.   

Ki-moon wants to help us, we are told.  His need is so acute that he’s appointed a panel to advise him on issues pertaining to Sri Lanka. Ki-moon’s representative, making the relevant announcement, categorically stated that the key-word is ‘advise’ and not ‘investigate’.  Now he clearly hasn’t briefed his panelists.  The chief of the panel, Marzuki Darusman, who was a member of the much-discredited IIGEP which tripped over itself and its words a couple of years ago, has said ‘we will investigate the LTTE also’.  Well, we don’t really care, for the LTTE is no longer the threat it used to be, but what worries me is that either Ki-moon hasn’t told him or he, Darusman, has not been listening.  It is not about ‘investigation’, Ki-moon has said clearly.

If it is just chit-chat over coffee or tea among the ill-informed to further confuse a muddle-head, then what’s all this fuss about?  It is clear that someone has had his tail stepped on and is thirsting for revenge.  Or else, he’s been called a wimp by so many and so frequently that he needs to feel adequate, big enough, capable, potent, virile etc., and is looking around for a country that is too small or too kind to whip his backside in the manner he clearly deserves. 

Fine, Ki-moon, we understand. Yes, we do. We really, really do.  You’ve got problems, we understand and hope, once sanity returns to you, that you understand that we have problems ourselves. 

This Darusman, we are told, is upset that Sri Lanka has decided not to recognize the panel and as such sees no reason to roll out the proverbial red carpet.  Advisors can do conference calls to Ki-moon. They can chit-chat on Facebook or Skype.  They can tweet. They don’t have to come to Sri Lanka to do anything.  If they want to consult anyone, they can use the internet or send text messages back and forth.   Who are they planning to consult in Sri Lanka?  Prabhakaran’s ghosts?  Prabhakaran’s apologists? Well, the former can visit Darusman and his pals anytime he chooses.  As for the latter category, its membership is ‘internetted’ and I am fairly certain that’s where the bug that’s biting Ki-moon’s behind was ‘Dollied’ (ref Dolly, the first cloned goat).

Darusman is upset.  He says, ‘Everybody loses out if we cannot go to Sri Lanka, it will make it harder for the truth to be unearthed’.  We are talking ASSUMPTION here.  The truth is out there. It has a number; 300,000 hostages freed. It has a history; a country that eliminated the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit.  There are comparisons and they have names: Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, and other places where the USA and its allies have killed hundreds of thousands of people (there’s PROOF here, unlike in the case of Sri Lanka, where there is WILD CONJECTURE based on NOTHING). 

We are upset too, Darusman. We are upset that you lack intellect, basic intelligence, integrity and the basic language skills necessary to distinguish the difference between ADVICE and INVESTIGATION.  What do we have to lose, Darusman?  We lost so much in 30 years of being held to ransom and being besieged by terrorism and during this time I would like you to tell me WTF were you doing and WTF you were doing it.  You could ask your pal Ki-moon the same, BTW.  We lose NOTHING if you don’t come.  If you DO come, we lose something, because we’ve already got our quota of bad smells and one more whiff would result in national asphyxiation.

I think there are things that best said with great economy of words.  Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, I am told, had once written the following lines about the British Council (very valid today, in terms of the rubbishy English that the BC is promoting these days and its celebration of the mediocrity in the name of championing English literature by Sri Lanka authors).   Since Ban Ki-moon is doing this for me and my fellow Sri Lankans, and Darusman and his pals too love me and my fellow Sri Lankans so much, let these words inspire us all and keep us on our toes.

When they kiss my ass

o lord

save me from the clap!

This article was first published in the Sunday Island (June 27, 2010). 

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene

Read more

The UN ‘Family’, its business and surname

Neil Buhne, the UN resident coordinator, we are told, has conveyed a message from UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon to the Government of Sri Lanka.  Ki-moon apparently has, ‘strong expectations for better treatment of the UN family in Sri Lanka’.  He desires, also, ‘progress on Sri Lanka’s commitments regarding the resettlement of IDPs, political reconciliation and accountability’. Thoughtful of him, I couldn’t help observing.
 

Looks multi-colored and lovely but scratch the UN skin and most of the colors disappear

The context is of course well known; Wimal Weerawansa’s theatrics prior to what might have been a notable and far more effective fast-unto-death exercise had he not blundered before.  UN officials certainly don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to moral posturing, but this doesn’t give license to play clown or vandal.  One doesn’t pick a pickpocket’s pocket and if one does and gets caught cannot really expect applause or even sympathy, even if it was one’s own pocket that was picked in the first place.

I feel however that Buhne’s wordage calls for comment, not to defend the indefensible, but to make it clear to Buhne and Ki-moon that we are not quite in the dark about UN doings.

He wants the UN family to be treated better.  In Colombo, he qualifies of course.  The word made me wonder what the larger UN family really was and what it’s been up to.  Is it made of the ‘member states’?  Is it just an aggregation of paid staff in all UN agencies? Those who work directly under the Secretary General?  The Security Council?  It is a one-man family called Barack Obama?  Is it a U-M and not UN, a ‘united mafia’?  Anyway, how happy is this happy family, or should we say instead ‘these happy families’ I wondered?  It looks like they have been having a bit of a ball; no, not the ‘Member States Family’, but that other clan of officials, consultants, experts, panelists, advisors etc. 

We are talking of big-time, major-league, mother-of-’em-all kinds of parties, folks.  If this family has a surname it has to be ‘Scandal’.  It’s been known for years that UN officials have been engaged in lots of fraudulent operations in countless countries.  It’s been about helping one another and helping friend, friend’s friend, cousin’s brother-in-law, third cousin twice removed, the classmate who wiped the knee when you slipped on a banana peel in third grade etc.  The odious stuff pertaining to bid-rigging, bribery and other abuses at U.N. headquarters and in peacekeeping missions abroad kept leaking and the stench was too much to ignore. Finally, a controlling/oversight body was set up to stem the rot. It was called the Procurement Task Force.  This unit revealed that contract fraud amounting to $630 million had been committed.  The ‘UN family’ decided not to renew funding for the Task Force, putting at risk 175 investigations that were yet to be completed. 

In the meantime, Ki-moon has stepped in firmly, it seems, to protect the ‘family’ by tripping the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) at every turn possible.

Inga-Britt Ahlenius eventually submitted a 50-page memo blasting the Secretary General for driving the UN (family) into irrelevance by his ‘deplorable, reprehensible, without-precedent and embarrassing’ actions. 

The ‘Family’, friends, has a well-earned reputation for mismanagement and is well known to be vulnerable to corruption and fraud.  The better known (meaning of course that we are seeing just the tip of the family-business iceberg) are the following:  a) The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal that Saddam Hussein used to generate over $10 billion in illegal revenue, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, b) a huge corruption scandal in which over 40 percent of U.N. procurement for peacekeeping was tainted by fraud, and c) the  widespread incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. personnel in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Guinea, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.

So what do we have?   

We have a ‘family’ that’s heavily invested in fraud and sexual exploitation. We have a ‘family’ that has in-built resistance to reform. We have a ‘family’ that is made for wrong-doing and of course will not suffer any kind of corrective intervention.  This is a ‘family’ that doesn’t believe in ‘transparency’ or ‘accountability’.   

Does Neil Buhne know all this?  Ki-moon briefed him on what he should say when he returns to Colombo, did he say, ‘Look boss, we really can’t afford to talk about accountability, can we?’

I like to think well of a person before he/she seems to be an insufferable rotten egg.  I am sure Buhne would have used a different set of words, but if he is an honourable man, a person who does not suffer double standards, I am sure he would have made a short speech to Ki-moon. Something like the following:

‘The Sri Lankan Government didn’t do enough to protect us during the protest carried out by a political ally led by a minister, this is true.  On the other hand, Sir, our officials in all parts of the world have not exactly done any ‘protecting’ either; they have, as you know, being involved in numerous cases of sexual harassment.  They’ve been found guilty of fraud.  Indeed, if Mahinda Rajapaksa says with his signature guffaw “Neil, I know what you UN people have done in Burundi and I know about the Oil-for-food scandal; I know also what happened to the Procurement Task Force and how things were made difficult for Ms. Inga-Britt Ahlenius”, I would have to spend a lot of times looking at the toes of my shoes.  And sir, about resettlement, they’ve done a decent job; to put things in perspective, we have by omission or commission supported the creation of IDPs to the tune of millions and have not treated them even fractionally as well as Sri Lanka has treated IDPs in the Vanni. Sir, there’s more happening there on the ground than what you can hope to see happen in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the next few years.  And sir, people know that when our family takes care of IDPs, rape is not a possibility but a probability’.  

If that was a prepared speech I think Ki-moon would have cut him short after the first sentence with a curt, ‘you benefit, so shut up’.  I don’t know.  Maybe Buhne will tell us. In any case, the good Buhne must be having his conscience twisted in knots.  I am wondering when he will pack his bags and say goodbye to the family.    

The Government, meanwhile, must treat Buhne and his cousins on Bauddhaloka Mawatha nicely.  ‘Nicely’ means ensuring that politicians with bloated egos are kept at bay. ‘Nicely’ also means reminding the family that people know about the family business and are aware of the family’s surname, Scandal. 

This article was first published in the 'Sunday Island' in June 2010.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. Eamil: malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene

Read more

Sleep my children and may peace attend you all...

This was first published in the Daily News on June 3, 2010, exactly 6 years ago.  It was written just after Israsel attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza strip, killing 10 people in the pre-dawn attack  on May 31, 2010).  The world was outraged, but the expression of outrage was as always filtered through the politics of propriety.  Human rights have colours and so do their violations.  Read on...

I seldom go to sleep before midnight.  Most days I sleep around 1 pm.  I know some people subscribe to the early to bed and early to rise style of sleeping.  Some like a ‘power nap’.  Some are veritable Kubakarnas; they sleep for decades, it seems.  Some sleep like logs. Some are restless; they toss and turn.  Some sleep-walk, some walk-sleep.  Some have sweet dreams and some nightmares.  We are all made differently and so there’s nothing surprising in there being lots of possible sleep-ways. 

My friend Priyantha Wickramasinghe, as an undergraduate, was almost impossible to wake up.  He would vow to study all night after getting back to the hostel but would invariably beg us to wake him in 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, he would be woken up and told that his time was up. He would beg for another 10, then 15, then an hour.  This would go on until the ‘wakers’ tired of the game and went to bed.  Priyantha would literally fall asleep with a book in his hand. He would be on his side, book held up and from certain angles one might think he was deeply engrossed in it.  The book, I mean.  He was engrossed.  In slumber. 

People have strange sleeping habits and I have not had reason to lose any sleep over this issue.  This morning, however, I wondered.  I really, really, really, really wondered about how some people sleep.  I am thinking about a man called Ban Ki-moon.  I am thinking of a woman called Navi Pillai.  And another called Louise Arbour.  A man called Chris Patten.  In happier times I might have wondered about Gordon Brown and David Miliband, but these poor gentlemen have lost too much sleep in the past few months for me to wonder about possible shuteye-pattern. 

I wonder because I heard that Israsel attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza strip early Monday morning, and that 10 people had been killed in this pre-dawn attack.  Ban Ki-moon has woken up from a stupor.  He’s outraged.  He’s called for an investigation.  I love this man.  He’s called for investigations in Sri Lanka. He’s thrown the book at Israel. I am checking the internet every few minutes, waiting for a statement from Navi Pillai, the woman who loves to hate Sri Lanka and who got her knickers so twisted by listening to Tiger propaganda that she would fight a war to get things un-twisted. 

This is what she has said: ‘I am shocked by reports that humanitarian aid was met with violence early this morning reportedly causing death and injury as the boat convoy approached the Gaza coast.’

Shocked?  Just ‘shocked’?  What’s the lady done with her moral high horse?  Sold it to Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister?  I am surprised she didn’t get on the phone with Chris Patten and draft a letter for the International Crisis Group to release to the world, demanding that Barak and his Prime Minister drop their pants, bend down and be caned for being naughty. 

Was she sleeping, this lady, when those 10 people died? Did someone wake her up?  Does she have on her computer several word templates, one for each country; one for ‘shock’, one when she’s ‘appalled’, another for ‘investigations’, and so on? 

Chris Patten. Where was he? Why is he so silent?  We are not talking about a ‘first’ here. Isreal, Palestine, Gaza, West Bank…these are not place names we are hearing for the first time. We heard them all long before we knew that Ban was the first name of a man whose surname was Ki-moon, long before Navi Pillai started sucking up to terrorists and started believing anything and everything that they said, and long before Chris Patten had to leave Hong Kong. 

Forget Gaza. How about Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo Bay?  How about investigations in and of these places?  Does Ki-moon fall asleep automatically when such names are mentioned?  Does Pillai? And Patten?  Louise Arbour…what does that lady have to say?  We are talking here about elaborately planned and precisely executed crimes against humanity, ladies and gentlemen. Not once in a blue moon.  Frequent attacks. For decades.  We are talking about repeated and in-your-face violation of UN Resolutions by the State of Israel.

I am imagining Chris Patten waking up to this bit of news from Gaza.  I don’t know what he would say or think, but since he’s said and done nothing, I would like to put some words into his mouth and some action into his hands.

‘Gaza?  What’s Gaza?  Some kind of sweet, some Turkish Delight?  Who is the aggressor?  Israel? Nooooooooooooooo…….can’t be.  They don’t do crimes-against-humanity.  They are our people.’

Chris Patten then does some ‘doing’. He gets on the phone to the British PM and says, ‘You may have heard about some Zionists chewing some Turkish Delight, but that’s all baloney. Didn’t happen. Will not happen.  If you are pushed, say “concerned” and nothing more.’

Chris Patten then has breakfast and calls his pals in the International Crisis Group and briefs them: ‘Palestine is not a country, and is therefore not our concern.  Israel is a Holy Cow.  Don’t touch it.  It’s Sri Lanka. Get it? Sri Lanka.  Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka.  Gaza Smaasha. Israel Smeashrael.  Palestine Shalestine.  All bunkum.  Let me repeat.  There are things we can chew and things we cannot.  And things we will not even if we could.’

Something was murdered yet once again on Monday morning.  Integrity.  Pillai must sleep well.  So too Ki-moon.  And of course Arbour and Patten. All good and healthy sleepers.  I am sure they have differences, but in this they are similar: sauce for the goose, according to them, is not sauce for the gander.

Sleep tight ladies and gentlemen.  There’s a bug that’s biting you.  Take a few pills called Sri Lanka and you will sleep well. All through the night. And, if necessary, through the day as well.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malinsene@gmail.com

Read more

There’s an open can of worms in Ki-moon’s office

[It's 'Geneva Time' again and it is time to re-visit fairy tales crafted, spoon-fed, digested, regurgitated and spat out like so much bad news. It is good to re-read fairy tales because the tellers of the tale need to be known. Their backers too.  This is from 3 years ago.]

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon asked some individuals to advise him on issues pertaining to Sri Lanka.  Such a move is not sanctioned by UN statutes. It amounted to a commissioning of an exercise that contravenes UN procedural regulations and moreover compromises the integrity of that multilateral body on a number of counts has been pointed out in a statement issued by ‘The Federation of National Organizations’ recently.   It clearly violates these and moreover creates an unfortunate and even dangerous precedent that effectively confers blemish on that multilateral body already severely scarred on counts of selectivity, servility to powerful nations, massive internal corruption etc.  

The mala fides of the individuals whose advice was sought by the UN Secretary General have been established beyond a shadow of doubt.  That Ki-moon selected these specific individuals to engage in an exercise that contravenes UN procedural regulations and moreover compromises the integrity of that multilateral body on a number of counts has been pointed out in a statement issued by ‘The Federation of National Organizations’ recently.   Bernard Goonetilleke, a veteran diplomat, in an interview to the website www.asiantribune.com has clearly articulated the illegality, malice, arrogance, utter disregard for protocol of Ki-moon’s moves in this regard and most disturbingly his open violation of the UN Charter. 

As such, this illegitimate panel began operations on the wrong foot from day one.  It could have nevertheless covered itself with some credit if not glory had it opted to privilege reason to the complete exclusion of emotion. 

While it is unfortunate that Ban Ki-moon played Bull-in-China-shop in this instance, it is certainly unpardonable that he abused his position and office to give official weight to a clearly malicious project and its concrete outcome, the so-called ‘panel report’ by making it public.  He could have saved himself some blushes had he considered the ‘advice’, drawn his own conclusions and used his authority in the legitimate processes he is positioned to avail himself of, even though he splashed egg over his face the moment he snubbed the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the Security Council the moment he ‘appointed’ this panel.  Gumption in this case must necessarily have been produced by powerful backers, such is the political economy of diplomacy and justice in the UN system. 

Regardless of all this, what is most damning about the panel report is that it has shown up the authors as politically slanted, intellectually lacking and morally suspect.  The problem of depending totally on those you believe are on your side is that it effectively compromises safeguards against error.  When you work with fellow-travellers or at least those you believe are your friends, especially those about whom what is known is what is convenient and/or supports your position, you tend to treat claim as fact.  When three individuals, all of whom in one way or another have compromised all claims to neutrality engage in analysis, it is all the more incumbent on them to exercise caution, place a high premium on corroboration, whittle away everything tainted with emotion and demonstrate integrity at every turn.  If investigative and analytical rigor is relaxed, authenticity of claim suffers. 

There is claim without substantiation.  There is confession of inability to prove claim.  The report while on occasion appearing to chide the LTTE, has clearly treated that terrorist outfit with kid’s gloves even painting it in colourful and sometimes even respectable terms.  This is not the place for a clinical dissection of the document of course. However, I will mention just a couple of instances where the malicious intent of the authors is starkly evidenced. 

In the section on the LLRC, the report, clearly provoked by vilifying intent, takes issue with the compensation of the panel.  The authors state that there is only one Tamil in the LLRC when in fact there are two. That’s careless and compromises the rigor-requirement.  Were they in a hurry, one wonders, or worse, were they deliberately intending to mislead? They have  also sought to vilify certain members of the commission, i.e. to discredit the LLRC and pooh-pooh the entire process, never mind being square in the middle of the charge, ‘pot calling kettle black’ if indeed the LLRC is kettle to the panel’s pot. 

The report, targeting retired diplomat H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, has accused him of misdirecting himself on law on questions of human rights.  The report quotes Palihakkara as telling a witness, ‘since the [disappeared] child was taken by the LTTE the government finds it difficult because it is not the government’s responsibility’.  It then educates us, ‘As a matter of law, the State is required to undertaken (sic) an investigation as to the circumstances of such an alleged violation regardless of the identity of the perpetrators’.  Absolutely correct.  What is damning is that the report has deliberately ignored the rest of Palihakkara’s comment, viz ‘the Chairman has undertaken to check with the security authorities whether they have found him in any place and if so we will get back’. 

The report and the reporters compromise themselves, therefore in both the wild claims as well as in the details.  It is therefore a classic document worthy of careful study and clinical dissection, not in order to divest the entire process of humbuggery but to understand how ‘truth’ is manufactured, event is misrepresented, crimes are whitewashed, heroes are turned into villains and victories are reversed. 

In addition to all this, this report provides an opportunity for the community of nations to demand that Ki-moon refer and act in accordance with the principle of equality. In other words, he must seek advice from others (regardless of mandate or lack thereof) and report on all nations either engaging in military activities outside national boundaries or within them, against insurgents and insurgencies.

In Sri Lanka’s case, using ICRC statistics on the wounded and sick, Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha has made the following argument:

• A total of 13,826 sick, wounded and their helpers were conveyed to government held areas between February 2009 and May 9^th 2009
• Out of this 4520 were war wounded while 9306 were sick and helpers.
• Using a far from conservative dead to wounded ratio of 1:3, gives a figure of 1500 dead civilians.
• Taking into account that the LTTE would have not released all the war wounded we double that figure to 3,000.
• The wild allegations of the London Times state that there were 1000 deaths a day for the 10 days following the 9^th of May.
• Given the propensity of the London Times to exaggerate and it not explaining it’s method of calculation, we take roughly half that number which is 5000 deaths during that period.
• Given that amongst this 5000 are hard core LTTEr’s and those conscripted to fight, the number of civilians who would have died is FAR LESS than the tens of thousands that is alleged.
• Furthermore only a portion of the above derived figure could be attributed to mistakes made by the Sri Lankan armed forces and it is definitely not due to the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Now let’s see what some other countries have done in the name of ‘national interest’ in countries other than their own.  

According to the Lancet the civilian death toll in Iraq stands at 601,027 violent deaths for the period 2003 to 2006 while as of November 4, 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.

My friend, Harsha Perera, in an open letter to Gordon Weiss, concludes thus:

‘It is quite apparent that the geo-strategic interests of the west (US, UK and France) required the survival of the LTTE in some form. Furthermore Sri Lanka is seen as a threat of a good example and as such is being singled out for punishment by the US, UK, EU in collaboration with the LTTE overseas network and individuals such as you.  Just like WMD’s were “found” prior to the invasion of Iraq by those wanting to invade Iraq, tens of thosands of civilian deaths have been “discovered” in Sri Lanka by those parties who want to destabilise Sri Lanka and replace the Mahinda Rajapakse administration with a more subservient regime.’

I tend to agree.

Will Ki-moon do a Ki-moon on the USA, UK, France and Israel? Or a Ki-moon on Bahrain and Syria or even Libya?  And while he’s at it, would he ask his advisors why they have not talked about all those nations who openly and secretly supported the LTTE terrorists, provided money, arms and other resources to them in addition to allowing their offices and representatives to operate freely on their soil?

Yes, this ‘panel report’ raises a lot of questions.  It has opened a can of worms, not so much here in Sri Lanka, as in Geneva.  In Ki-moon’s office, to be specific.   

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more