Prabhakaran: the spectre haunting human rights activists

One of the most disheartening – one may even call it flawed – reports produced on the current crisis in Sri Lanka is the latest Asia Report 135 of the International Crisis Group (ICG). As the title says, the report deals with Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Crisis. It is disheartening because its runs on the predictable groove of blaming practically everyone – Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), the LTTE, better known as Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan Peace Monitors, the Tamil para-militaries, the international community, the UN, the Sri Lankan judiciary, the commissions of inquiry etc -- without targeting the key area that needs to be addressed for any solution to emerge.

By and large (and predictably) the ICG blames the GOSL. Though the ICG blames the Tamil Tigers intermittently it places the primary responsibility on the GOSL to correct its human rights record. That again is predictable. It concedes that “(T)he government faces a severe security threat, which it has a legitimate right to address. However, its policies are doing little to improve security and are fuelling antagonism among moderate Tamils and other minorities towards the state.”

Its recipe: “Without ignoring or minimising the serious violations of the LTTE, the international community needs to bring more pressure to bear on the government, through UN mechanisms, a reappraisal of aid policies and intensified political engagement. The alternative is a further decline into authoritarianism, violence, terrorism and repression.”

Blaming the international community ICG adds: “The international community has responded to the renewed conflict and human rights abuses, however, in a disjointed and lacklustre way. While there has been some public criticism, there is little sign of a coordinated approach that would put real pressure on the government to change course.”

In conclusion it says: “The international community can no longer afford simply to repeat formulaic criticisms of the government’s human rights violations and express hope that political proposals will be forthcoming. More urgent action is needed, including support for a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council, an across the board reassessment of aid policies and support for more international involvement in monitoring abuses. Until that action is forthcoming, the victims of violence perpetrated by the state, the LTTE, and other armed groups have nowhere to turn.”

In other words, the thrust of the Report is to tie the hands of the GOSL with the tight ropes of human rights – just the recipe required by the Tamil Tigers to vindicate their position with their financial backers in the diaspora to raise more funds to commit more violations of human rights. Not surprisingly this issue comes up each time the Security Forces are advancing into the area controlled by the Tamil Tigers. It began with India stopping the advance of Sri Lankan forces into Vaddamarachci area in the north by dropping lentils over Jaffna. This “humanitarian intervention” was propagated then as a means of winning the hearts and minds of the Jaffna Tamils people who were said to be “persecuted” by the Sri Lankan forces. The disastrous role of the IPKF and its subsequent withdrawal stands as one of the best political and historical answers to the outsiders who pretend to know the solution to the crisis in Sri Lanka.

The analysis leading to the conclusion too is questionable. Based on the popular theories touted by the local NGOs the ICG Report argues that the Sri Lankan crisis can be solved if (1) a political package can be presented to satisfy the aspirations of the Tamils (please note: Tamils only and not the aspirations of the other communities) and (2) human rights issues are addressed to wean away the Tamil moderates from the Tamil Tigers which, hopefully, will return the country to normalcy.

That is the theory though the ICG concedes that there is this little problem of tackling Velupillai Prabhakaran. A fundamental flaw of the ICG Report is its assumption that observing human rights – with GOSL taking full responsibility -- is the magic formula to put an end to the crisis. It argues: “A central part of such a political strategy is respect for due process and the basic rights of citizens. This kind of respect for human rights is necessary to establish the legitimacy of the state and to undercut the sense of grievance that is at the root of any serious insurgency. Harsh counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency efforts aim to deter insurgents and their potential supporters but evidence shows that they often produce an opposite effect.”

But the historical evidence proves that forces bigger than human rights and various peace packages (Indian and Oslo agreements) have failed to bring the Tamil Tigers to the negotiating table, or to keep them there whenever they come to the table. Whatever themerits of human rights are – and no one denies those merits -- and however noble the ideals are the fact remains that nations fighting insurgency never won any battle by waving the UN charter on human rights. The ICG report confirms this when it says that in the period from 2002-2006, when the Ceasefire was in force, the Tamil Tigers took advantage of the reluctance of Ranil Wickremesinghe government to confront the violations of the human rights and the provisions of the CFA, fearing such action would upset the prospects of peace talks. In the end neither peace talks nor human rights gained anything by the so called “confidence building” inaction of the Wickremesinghe-Bradman Weerakoon duo.

So what are the lessons that should be drawn by human rights activists from these historical experiences? Sri Lanka has established a credible record of defeating terrorism when it confronted the JVP and crushed them militarily. But the ICG dismisses the defeat of the JVP as a victory over a “relatively amateur, poorly funded and ineffective fighting force.” It also adds the use of “great brutality and legal and extra-judicial violence……” for the state’s success.

Though there is a modicum of truth in this it is, on the whole, a case of trivializing and misdiagnosing the factors that led to the collapse of the JVP as a violent force. As a fighting force the JVP reached its peak when it reduced the writ of the all-powerful president to the limits of the Colombo city. Even the city was run by kids distributing chits to the terrorised citizens. At its peak it was far better oganised that the amateur forces of the Tigers riding on bicycles in Jaffna murdering unarmed citizens. JVP nearly had, according some estimates, a substantial area under its control. The ICG has missed the salient points that gave succour to the Tiger terrorists. First is the fact that the JVP did not have foreign backers like India who trained them, financed them and armed them to destablise Sri Lanka. Second is the sheer ruthlessness of the Tiger tactics in eliminating their rivals and the licence of impunity given to them to get away with violations of human rights. Third, the Churches dominated by Tamil clergy, with international pastoral networks stretching from home to Rome, were not there to justify their political violence. Fourth, the founding fathers of Marxism who were quick to condemn the JVP as CIA agents were the first to raise their voices in defence of mono-ethnic extremism of northern political class. Fifth, the full force of the organized foreign-funded NGO, backed by foreign governments, was not in existence at the time to lend a hand and political respectability to the JVPers. Sixth, the JVPers did not gain any substantial sympathy from the north (e.g. academics, leftists, and political activists) like the way the Tamils of the north got from the south, despite the cries of Sinhala chauvinism. Seven, the Sinhala diaspora was not sympathetic to the JVPers who also cried discrimination on the basis of language (English/kaduwa) and lack of social mobility. Eight, GOSL was not hampered by the fledgling “civil society” and its human rights issues to deal with the violence unleashed by the JVP. Nine, JVP’s short spurts of violence did not produce a flood of Sinhala migrants who could exploit the benefits of a long-drawn violence (like the Tamils) to gain refugee status and sympathy of the bleeding hearts of the West. Ten, the Tigers cashed in on the cry of discrimination by presenting themselves as the underdog despite the fact that they were the most privileged community that went out to the world and occupied professional heights in Western capitals through the free education system (from the kindergarten to the university) provided by the so-called “Sinhala-dominated governments”. Eleven, though the Tamil and Sinhala youth were stuck in a stagnant colonial economy facing the same socio-economic disabilities and inequalities the JVPers did not have the middle-class English-speaking elite to lead them, or to prepare the ground for them to grab the attention or the support on a global scale. Twelve, the JVP movement was not internationalized to drag in the international community to intervene on their behalf.

These and other factors will reveal the extent of the Tamil political line that had influenced and misdirected the analysis of the ICG Report. Apart from this it is clear that the ICG Report is a rehash of the formulas written by the local NGO pundits. The strictures, the analysis and the prescriptions in the ICG Report could have been done by Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu or Kumar Rupesinghe eyes closed. In fact, the argument to restrain the GOSL by cutting aid was the theme of Saravanamuttu’s talk to the CSIS in New York, headed by the former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Teresita Schaffer.

Here a distinction needs to be drawn in the name of human rights. It is not in the interest of global peace, stability and prosperity to advocate, encourage, or manufacture excuses for the violations of human rights. But sometimes, as in the case of “just wars”, there are exceptional circumstances when, in the overall interests of protecting human rights threatened by brutal forces, it becomes necessary to fight fire with fire. The argument against this is that defenders of human rights cannot descend to the lower levels of the violators of human rights. However, the undeniable reality is that there isn’t a moral order that has come out of surrendering to the forces undermining human rights. Practically, every moral order has come out of violent struggles to win the human rights. Charters of human rights are valuable guides to protect a moral order. But invariably the triumph of any moral order has been a preceded by a struggle to overthrow the authoritarian and violent forces suppressing human rights.

Besides, violent politics strikes a moral posture of being above the law because of perceived grievances. The world is full of grievances but that does not give each and every disaffected group to resort to violence outside the framework of laws based on democratic consensus. Violence outside a democratic legal structure is a recipe for anarchy and not for protection of human rights. Democratic forces fighting forces outside the law can never eliminate violations of human rights or even excesses sometimes. The best they can do is to minimize such excesses.

Nevertheless, in Sri Lanka powerful forces, both foreign and local, exploit human rights issues to strengthen the authoritarian one-man rule by tying the hands of a democratically elected government that has maintained its democratic structures (with faults no doubt) against overwhelming forces of right-wing coups, left-wing uprisings and a terrorist force unleashed by mono-ethnic extremism. The contradictions are too stark to add any further comment. President Mahinda Rajapakse is fully aware of the negative impact of violating human rights and the ICG Report quotes him as saying that it tends to drive the Tamils into the hands of Prabhakaran. Apart from the political consequences human rights are treasured for the mutual benefits they bestow on the protectors and the recipients of these sacred values. Human dignity is dependent on human rights. Violence strips that dignity and dehumanizes society with no shared values to hold individuals together except hate.

Prabhakaran is the embodiment of hate. He packs his suicide bombers body belts with explosives of hate. He reduces his suicide bomber to a zombie driven only by pure hate. It is not love that turned human beings into precision bombers of Rajiv Gandhi and Premadasa. Each death is counted by him as a tribute to his glory. Each death is a fix that pumps his adrenalin. Graveyards of Tamil youth are kept meticulously clean to wipe out any stains of blood or memories of his guilt. The violence he unleashes confirms to him his arbitrary and unrestrained power over life and death. He has thrived so far on the power of his violence.

His minions are instructed to bring him videos of events that glorify him as a global power. They even took pictures of the body parts of Rajiv Gandhi flying in all directions of the compass. Those pictures make him believe that he can even make India dance to his tune. Where would he be today if he was persuaded to give up violence and embrace human rights? Would any Western diplomat queue up outside his den in the Vanni if he had failed to use his gun accurately? If the moral merchants in the NGO and diplomatic circles had evaluated the misguided eviction of 370 Tamils from Colombo (which, of course, was condemned and corrected by the judiciary and the GOSL) with that of the ethnic cleansing of the 50,000 Muslims from Jaffna by the Tamil Tigers (mark you, without any corrections so far) who should get the plaudits for protecting human rights?

Tragically, the lip service paid by the Western world to human rights had devalued these sacred tenets to a worthless piece of paper. Last Monday, for instance, a US-led air-strike killed seven children in an Afghan school. Did the British Ambassador in Washington walk into the State Department and read the riot act to the Americans? In Australia last Wednesday a police officer accused of killing an Aborigine locked up in a cell walked out free from a court. His defence was that the Aborigine broke four ribs, split his liver and punctured his portal vein when fell on his prisoner in a fight. The Aborigine died of internal haemorrhage within an hour. Medical experts said that it would require “massive force”, something like a knee”, to inflict those injuries. It doesn’t require much imagination to guess what the NGOs would have said about the judiciary if such a verdict was delivered in Sri Lanka against a Sinhala Police officer?

The ICG Report confuses the human rights violations of tbe south with the military efforts to beat the Tigers. Though one leads to the other in a vicious cycle they are two different issues. Given the nature of entrenched Tamil Tiger terrorism military responses, at times, are bound to be excessive. Without making excuses for those excesses, it is legitimate to ask those nations who accuse Sri Lanka of violating human rights a simple question: which nation fighting brutal enemies came out of their wars with clean hands? By all means, the international community has a duty to put pressure on Sri Lanka to curtail excesses. But in the process do they have a right to commit excesses of cutting aid as a punitive measure? This war, and consequently the violations of human rights arising from this war, would have ended if these Western nations proposing to cut aid had stopped the unlimited aid flowing out of their banks to finance Prabhakaran’s killing machine. This war – and the violations of human rights arising from this war – would have ended a long time ago if the nations calling for sanctions against Sri Lanka had cut off aid that flowed freely from their bases to Prabhakaran. Every bullet, gun, boats, planes came from Western funds. So who is responsible for keeping the war going for so long? And who is responsible for the violations of the human rights?

The ICG Report which blames every in sight does not look inwards at their guilt and responsibilities. It is their failure that had fuelled the fires of war in Sri Lanka. It is immoral and hypocritical for the ICG to press for cutting of aid to a democratic government fighting a terrorist war that had been financed by the Western nations. The ICG smugly passes the buck to GOSL. It talks of the several Western governments cracking down recently on the Tigers after letting them run in their backyards for decades. They sit in judgment over Sri Lanka, as some superior moral guardians, without taking any responsibility for the crimes they have committed in providing bases to raise funds, torture and extort money from their citizens, turn a blind eye to exporting terrorism from UK, for instance, saying that they had not violated British laws, and above all, refusing to act even now on the critical judicial remedy available to them to solve the problem. They are pussyfooting around human rights issues without going straight into the heart of the problem – the heart of darkness hidden in the jungles of Vanni.

The ICG Report comes almost near to it but at the critical point it turns away from the obvious, the necessary, the logical and the inevitable step – a step which it has taken in other instances where violations of human rights have reached intolerable levels. The international community has two major options: 1. military intervention for regime change as in Iraq and 2. hunting and charging political criminals who have a dismal record of violating human rights. Charles Taylor of Sierra Leone is the latest that is being tried by the UN prosecutors.

What explanation can the international community, along with their moral mates in the NGOs, give for not putting Prabhakaran on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity? The New York Times branded him as the “latest Pol Pot of Asia” who incarcerates Tamils who dare to even crack anti-Prabhakaran jokes. He is a criminal wanted by Interpol, India and Sri Lanka. He is banned in all countries respecting human rights. Oddly enough, the ICG Report even mentions the need for Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit Sri Lanka and negotiate with the GOSL. ICG also talks of making “other UN mechanisms” “more active”.

But “more active” for what? Is it to tie the hands of the GOSL or to maintain the status quo by providing further legitimacy and scope to perpetuate the one-man regime of the Tamil Pol Pot? Fed up with the violations of human rights perpetuated by a needless war political observers tend to agree that there will not be peace in Sri Lanka until Prabhakaran is removed from the political equation. This removal can take many forms. It may be a regime change. It may be a safe haven in Norway for Prabhakaran. It may be voluntary retirement. It may be a cyanide pill, if he chooses that exit. Or it may be a trial in an international criminal court set up by the UN.

If the ICG is genuinely concerned about the human rights issue in Sri Lanka why does it not take the initiative in filing the open-and-shut case against Prabhakaran? What is inhibiting it? Why isn’t the international community hunting him the way they hunted the war criminals in divided Yugoslavia? ICG knows that all its sanctions have failed to reform Prabhakaran. So what is ICG waiting for? What is its excuse? Is it going to claim that peace process will be hindered if he is put on trial? The reality is that the peace process has not gone anywhere and will not go anywhere as long as he remains as the man who calls the shots in the crisis. In one stroke the international community can immobilize him by de-legitimizing his violent politics and alienate him from the war-weary Tamils who are yearning for peace if a case is instituted against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The impact on the peace process would be electrifying. More than all the measures taken to stop the flow on funds from Tamil expatriates this legal move would paralyze the Tigers as never before. There isn’t a better means of protecting human rights than putting the man responsible for most of it behind bars.

But will ICG or Ms. Louise Arbour take this critical step? Considering the crimes he has committed against his own people – let alone the other communities – he should have been put on trial years ago. The credibility and the integrity of ICG and Ms. Arbour will rocket sky high if they move in this direction to defend and protect human rights. The victims of this needless war in Sri Lanka are sick to their back teeth of futile, finger-pointing reports. ICG should be sufficiently informed by now of the ground realities to know that the best option available is to indict the man who will never give peace either to his Tamil people, or to the other communities, or even to the region.

It is easy to write reports which generally tend to find excuses or legitimize violence of non-state actors in democratic societies. The hard part is in de-legitimizing violence of these armed groups which is a primary requirement to prevent violations of human rights. ICG sadly has taken the easy option. Failure to accept this legal remedy will make ICG another irrelevant producer of reports that are not even remotely connected to conflict resolution.

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(http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6263)