Yahapalana machinations subvert ‘transitional justice’

These are UNHRC days.  These are Yahapalana-UNHRC days which are therefore very different from the Rajapaksa-UNHRC days.  Both regimes use the same lexicon when it comes to ‘reconciliation’.  Back then too we heard talk of truth, reconciliation and what not.  There are of course differences.  

The previous regime created conditions to enable such talk simply by defeating the LTTE.  This regime says, rhetorically, that it wants to go beyond the rhetoric.  The previous regime rubbed the big name nations in the international community the wrong way, this regime is cosy with them.  

As for the movers and shakers, this much can be said: they have less illusions on what’s possible than those who swear on this government’s commitment to deliver on promises made.  

They’ll of course listen sympathetically to pleas about ‘ground realities’ and will appear to purchase the sob stories about spoilers in the opposition, but they probably know that spoilers notwithstanding the entire discourse of ‘reconciliation’ stinks on account of selectivity, gross exaggeration, editing out the uncomfortable and a fantastic brain-fade of context.  Yes, ‘context’, the basis for a deadline-extensions, is forgotten when it comes to the matter that’s at the heart of all this: the war and especially it’s final stages where the Sri Lankan security forces carried out an historic and massive hostage-rescue operation against the world’s then most ruthless terrorist outfit.  

Transitional justice.  That’s a lovely term.  It’s supposed to be about truth-seeking, accountability through courts of law, reparations and institutional reforms to ensure that there will not be recurrence of human rights violations.  Sure, all these are important and much needed too.  In the marketing of ‘need’ however there’s exaggeration, context-lack and such.  

There’s talk of continued suffering of those who were victims of the war.  They are said to be living in difficult circumstances and often out of the mainstream of life.  They are supposed to be struggling to survive without viable livelihood opportunities and burdened by uncertainty about the fate of their missing family members.  

Let’s get the marketing out of the way.

Not too long after the war then BBC correspondent in Sri Lanka Charles Haviland lamented in an article the plight of a former LTTE combatant who had been rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.  The man, Haviland wrote sadly, didn’t have a job.  The government had failed him, we are encouraged to conclude.  

Someone picks joins an outfit that kills people, sets off bombs in crowded places, abducts children and proceeds to hold several hundred thousand people hostage, is apprehended, given marketable skills and then set free.  The man can’t find a job.  We are supposed to feel sorry for him?  We are supposed to rant and rave about a government that has failed him and about a ‘failed state’?   

Sri Lanka is a middle-income country in name.  There are lots of third-world areas in this country.  We have not had the privilege of being government by competent and honest people for decades.  In fact it is a considerable feat that terrorism was defeated in the first instance.  The fact of the matter is that difficult circumstances is not the preserve of a particular community living in a particular part of the country.  The victims of the war: they are not just Tamils or those living in the Northern and Eastern provinces.  Survival struggle is not witnessed just in these two provinces.  It is not that those living in other parts are right in the middle of life’s ‘mainstream’.  It is not that everyone else has ‘viable livelihood opportunities.  

This is not to say of course that those in these two provinces suffered less; indeed they suffered much more.  The blame for all that cannot be addressed to those who governed and no one else.  The governments in power have a responsibility of course to make things better, but if making things better is what it’s all about then those who took the LTTE out of the equation and effectively ended the war did better than anyone else.  

Then there’s the burden of uncertainty about the fate of loved ones, i.e. those who disappeared.  There are claims about abduction.  Easy to charge, hard to prove.  There were tens of thousands ‘disappeared’ between 1988 and 1989.  If ‘uncertainty of fate’ is a burden, that burden is now close to 30 years old.  Does not mean that the currently privileged burdens should not be dealt with of course.  Again, easy to demand, hard to deliver.  

We know that among those claimed to have been disappeared died in battle.  We know that some went abroad.  We know that in wars there are liberties taken that are unwarranted, but we also know that all this is painted in a politics that has little sympathy for the aggrieved.   

In Sri Lanka’s case, there’s a deafening silence when it comes to the LTTE’s role in all this and an equal and even more pernicious silence on the culpability of the LTTE’s key approvers, namely the TNA.  Throw all that into the category called ‘ground reality’ and you will begin to understand that those who ignore all this are as guilty of opposing reconciliation as anyone else.  The ‘ground reality’ is made also of those who see and understand the hypocrisy of those who talk of reconciliation as though it’s a single hand clap.  The Opposition will oppose as their predecessors have done, regardless.  It’s silly though to accept everyone to salute the ludicrous.  

Let’s return to ‘transitional justice’.  Those who demand ‘truth’ are silent on the truth.  Are we supposed to join them in the various forums they articulate their demands?  Those who talk reparations do so on tiptoe, making sure that their loved ones (politically speaking) don’t get egg on their faces.  

And yet, we need the truth, i.e. the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and not the comfortable ‘truths’ that the yahapalana-approvers or rather the lies they agree upon.  

And yes, we need accountability through courts of law, an eventuality that is being effectively subverted by the privileging of political revenge over justice-seeking, the preference for compromising sovereignty over credible investigation.  

As for institutional reforms that prevent recurrence of human rights violations, are they talking about federalism without using the F-word?  They did that for years until it became embarrassing to defend the LTTE.   Let them know then that not everyone believes that human rights violations are prevented or encouraged by the nature of the state, whether it is unitary or federal.  World history does not support such a thesis.

In the end, we need a better and broader definition of the term ‘transitional justice’ and maybe we’ll get there, not because of these justice-seekers but in fact in spite of them.  

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A love-bite release is hardly a palliative

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene. Blog: www.malindawords.blogspot.com

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A love-bite release is hardly a palliative

What’s the difference between this government and the previous one?  Ask some random person on the street and the most likely answer would be ‘nothing’.  That’s a perception of felt benefits.  In fact some might even say ‘this lot is worse’ and if pushed might explain, ‘they said they would be different and that means they wanted us to hold them to higher standards’.  

Put the question to a Sinhalese flagging reconciliation and ‘worse’ is what you are likely to get.  And that’s not only because the government has been a poor communicator on thinking, strategies and on-the-ground implementation.  It’s more about pandering to Eelamists, over and above the reality of being no different to the previous regime on things like nepotism, corruption, abuse of state resources, wastage and the use of force to quell protests.  

Things are not all rosy when it comes to media freedom.  The independence of the judiciary has been a frequent brag, but recent events makes one wonder.  Just 18 months after the General Election, it’s still early days.  It’s scary if one were to indulge in extrapolation.

The word in the street (or all the streets of all the relevant economic territories) is that nothing is getting done  Small wonder, considering that the appointers have essentially been clueless about the competence and integrity of the appointees to the top posts in the cabinet.  In short, then there’s rank incompetence when it comes to both word and deed.  

If the questions is “should they be thrown out then and the old lot brought back?” the response would be ‘Is it so bad that this is the best you can come up with?”  What it means that no one seems to know what needs to be done or else there’s no one around who can get it done.

Talking of words and deeds, the government’s international friends who heaped praise have come up short when it comes to delivery.  It’s the ‘bad guys’, the Chinese, that the government is looking to these days.  Clearly the government couldn’t figure out the simple truth that one has to borrow from those who have the bucks and not those in chronic debt.  Foreign investors are not looking our way despite the President and the Prime Minister meeting with world leaders and being assured of support.  It’s simple, really.  The particular head of state can ask the relevant business community to ‘explore the possibility of investing in Sri Lanka’ and they will do what any reasonable person would — conduct a risk assessment.  Naturally they will be told of incompetence, corruption and most important political instability.  And they stay away.  

The best indication that the government is in dire straits politically is the ‘go easy’ approach of the international community.  Tung-Lai Margue, the Ambassador for the European Union in Sri Lanka says ‘even in Europe elections are postponed’ referring to the local government elections not being held.  He doesn’t or maybe cannot say the obvious — the government is scared to go before the people.  If elections are important elements of democracy, then those who ranted and raved against the previous regime for being undemocratic should be rapping the knuckles of the President and the Prime Minister.  That’s not happening.  

Shivshanka Menon, India’s former Foreign Secretary opines ‘it is not for outsiders to say how this (reconciliation and healing) should be done.’  He has to say this too: ‘we did not see the same drive and energy in pursuit of reconciliation as we saw in the post-war rehabilitation work which proceeded fast and well.’   Maybe India, he country that has contributed most to the social, economic and political troubles of Sri Lanka and has fueled ethnic strife at every turn, is also on ‘go easy’ mode.  

Prince Zeid of the UNHRC seems to disagree.  He believes there’s been progress.  He’s disappointed at the pace and about the substance, and want Sri Lanka to adopt new laws (for hybrid courts).  But homilies, knuckle-taps and rank interference (which he would dare not demand new laws from say, Israel or the USA) aside the UNHRC has essentially allowed the government to purchase some time.  Two years.  Naturally the human rights industry is upset.  So too the pro-LTTE and Eelamist groups here and abroad.  They should understand that reconciliation or rather helping Tamil chauvinists to even hobble towards Eelam is less important to the ‘international community’ or rather its white and Western masters than to have a pliant government in place.  

They simply don’t want to even nudge a badly leaking boat that is struggling to navigate unfriendly waters. Rocking it might be disastrous they probably feel.  

What does all this boil down to?  The vocal boys and girls of the international community is hopeful that this government will prevail.  Hope is all they can do, though.  Apart from holding back on stick and keeping silent on non-existing carrots.  One could call it love or rather affection.  Maybe it’s nothing more than ambivalence, but there’s no harm in calling it ‘love’ given current poverties in the affection department or a ‘love bite’.   It is not insurance however from other, less affectionate, bites that are probably on the cards.   Anyway, it’s still one headache less for the Government.  What it does with the breathing space is of course left to be seen.  

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

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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

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Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein’s prayer

The United Nations General Assembly on Monday has unanimously approved Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein of Jordan as the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, succeeding Navi Pillay of South Africa. Zeid is not filling big shoes. He’s filling strange shoes but that should not worry him because those who step into those shoes have a long history of slicing off toes and shaving heals. The shoes are US made, truth be told. Indeed, more often than not the US manages to find a Cinderella for whom the shoe is a perfect fit. But in a parallel universe Zeid can have a mind of his own and that mind can think. In a thinking mind thoughts bleed into words and words come together as prayer. Here is his.



‘Let me have courage. Let me have wisdom. Let me have the wisdom to separate fact from fiction. Let me have the wisdom to see agenda and preference in words that are uttered in shrill or ominous voices. Let me have the courage and good sense to tell myself every morning that the UN is made of member states and each voice of each name has equal worth. Let me have the humility to ask myself every night whether I’ve remembered this fact throughout my working hours.

‘Let me have a million eyes so that I will not only see what some people want me to see and so I will not miss that which some people don’t want me to see. Let me not be selective in vision or word. Let me have the wisdom to shave of frills, whether they come as crystallized sugar or as congealed drops of blood, so that I can obtain the true dimensions of incident and process.

‘Let me have patience. Let me not rush to judge. Let me have the wisdom, when appointing advisors to check credentials and let me have the wisdom to detect conflict of interest so that prejudice will not color the result of assessment or advice or other conclusions. 

‘Let me not be so foolish as to fire off ominous missives and veiled threats at the drop of a hat. Let me not be so foolish, moreover, not to make mountains out of molehills and worse see certain molehills and be blind to mountains, so that I will not confuse the two.

‘Let me have the courage to call tyrant a tyrant and the sense of justice to ask tyrant that points finger at tyrant, “a friend in deed?”

‘Let me find time to read up on history and political economy so I can discern both pattern and contradiction and thereby question the moral authority of finger pointers. 

‘Let me understand the truth that there are no bloodless wars. Let me tell myself over and over again that nowhere in the history of humankind has there ever been a hostage rescue operation concerning several hundred thousands of people held hostage by terrorists. Let me ask myself again and again which government, if so intent on genocide, provided enemy with food and medicine, and risked and lost thousands of personnel to rescue “enemy”.

‘Let me have the wisdom and courage to resist being a pawn of anyone or anything except the need to uphold human rights at all times in all places. Let me have the wisdom and the sense of justice to never forget that no life is less valuable than another life.

‘Let me resist the urge to take the word of particularly powerful and wealthy section of global media as biblical truth and instead understand that opinion, like consent, is frequently manufactured. 

‘In practical terms let me start where the rot starts and concentrate on the biggest violators of human rights this planet has known, namely the United States of America and its allies, Britain included. In this, let me investigate, first and foremost the unwarranted invasion of Iraq which Britain admits was illegal and the so-called “war on terror”. Let me not be fooled by do-gooders who fire missiles and carry out drone attacks claiming they are doing so for the good of the recipients. Let me not be fooled either by soft words like “democracy”, “peace” and “justice” because I know that horrendous crimes against humanity have been perpetrated in the name of such things.

‘Let me have the courage tell my predecessor to take her shoes with her as she leaves office.’

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