7 August 2012, 11:48 pm
by Prof.Rajiva Wijesinha M.P.
Now that the LLRC Action Plan is out, it has drawn
the usual reactions. Those who find good things in it claim that these
have been forced on government. Others claim that it does not go far
enough. Kusal Perera does both.
Interestingly we do not yet find criticism that it goes too far,
though I suspect this viewpoint too will be expressed in time, for the
usual reason.
Meanwhile, predictably, we do not find credit given to government, and
we certainly do not find expressions of regret that the government has
indeed produced a plan, when the claims of the critics were that nothing
would be done.
I can think of several instances of such failure to admit to
unwarranted suspicions. Firstly, when the war ended, there were claims
that we planned to use the army to occupy the North, that we would keep
the displaced in camps for several years, and that we would incarcerate
the former LTTE combatants. None of these things happened, but no one
has granted that their predictions were wrong.
Indeed hardly any credit has been given by the usual critics of
government – though I should note that Mr Sumanthiran is an honourable
exception with regard to the former combatants, for he has publicly
granted that the government did well in that instance.
As part of this programme of predictions of doom, when the LLRC was
appointed, it was claimed that they would produce nothing of
consequence. I should note though that, when the Report appeared, we
found some sort of exception to the rule, in that most critics of
government welcomed it. I was at the farewell given by the then
Australian High Commissioner on the evening of the report being issued,
and found general satisfaction, in some cases accompanied by disbelief,
by most members of the diplomatic community present.
Surprisingly, though the statements issued thereafter were more
grudging than the immediate reactions, by and large they were very
positive.
There were three exceptions. One was the statement of the Centre for
Policy Alternatives, which it may be recalled had been amongst the most
vociferous critics of government at the event arranged by the American
Ambassador to discuss the Darusman Report, along with the representative
of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – who had been
invited by Ambassador Butenis, without the knowledge of the Acting UN
Resident Representative.
The second was the statement of the TNA, which was doubly unfortunate
since it came at a time when the talks between the government and the
TNA were going reasonably well. After that there were no more talks.
And, thirdly, there was the American pronouncement, not in Colombo,
but by Victoria Nuland in Washington. I found this surprising, because
it seemed so vindictive. It was only later that I heard about the
performance of the American Ambassador in Geneva who, when the move
against us that had been planned in September fell flat, had indicated
to our Ambassador there that, come what may, they would get us in March.
Obviously welcoming the LLRC Report in December would not have fitted
in with that strategy.
I was not entirely surprised by this. We had, after all, been there
before. In 2010, when all those who were relieved the war was over but
wanted a positive approach to the Tamils realized that Mahinda Rajapaksa
was a better bet for this purpose than Sarath Fonseka, there were three
astonishing exceptions. One was the TNA, another was the CPA led group
of NGOs, which specialized in shouting at us in Geneva and see the agent
of the UNHCHR as their natural ally, the third were the Americans,
sadly at that stage supported by the British – to the surprise of the
European ambassadors who discussed the matter with me afterwards, having
known, as one of them put it, all about Sarath Fonseka.
At the time I put it down to Ms Butenis’s naivete, for she was new in
Sri Lanka, and liable to be led by the British agenda, which was then
being dictated by David Miliband. But later I was told that the
Americans were the prime movers, having decided that Sarath Fonseka was
their best weapon against the Rajapaksas. Given the new accusatory
attitude he took up about war crimes (as opposed to what the Americans
had reported to us before they grew up and learnt to love Sarath
Fonseka), I can see why they thought him an ideal tool – like so many
military men they have used in the past for their various efforts to,
not necessarily win friends and influence people, but win influence and
control countries.
I was immensely sad about this, because I had been fond of Bob Blake,
who had been very positive about our liberation of the East. His aid
programme, run by the idealistic Rebecca Cohn, had been a catalyst in
restoring not just normalcy there, but also commercial activity. His
Public Affairs Officer, Jeff Anderson, was also enormously positive
about helping Sri Lanka out of the rut into which terrorism had thrust
it, and of course the Defence officials had given seminal support to us
to deal with that terrorism.
Blake had told one of my staff at the Peace Secretariat, who asked
him about what seemed a different approach in 2009, that he now served a
new government. Still, even though he also seems to have played along
with the Sarath Fonseka act, I suspect that, had he continued here, he
would have modified the new approach so that, while American interests
were being served, Sri Lankan interests would not have been treated as
unimportant.
What American interests involve became clear to me in a strange
episode involving Rebecca Cohn. It occurred after a meeting at the
Ministry of Resettlement, at which many of us, including Minister
Badiudeen, were worrying about what seemed the slow pace of
resettlement. This was now August 2009, and 3 months had passed of the
6, which the Indo-Sri Lankan joint communiqué just after the war had set
as the deadline for resttling the bulk of the displaced.
Incidentally, when the charming British Deputy High Commissioner told
me that the British had pressed for a resolution in Geneva against us
because they were worried about the displaced and so on (ie, the
concerns noted in the second paragraph above) I pointed out that they
should then have acted like the Indians. They, having supported us
solidly to get rid of terrorism on our soil, had, immediately after this
occurred, discussed their humanitarian concerns with us, so effectively
that we had issued a statement along with them noting how these should
be assuaged. This was a more sensible way of influencing us, I said,
than claiming in the House of Commons, as Miliband had done, in pursuing
his electoral concerns, that the British would ensure we were
prosecuted for War Crimes.
At the meeting in the Resettlement Ministry, we decided, after the
other foreign representatives had gone, except for Rebecca Cohn, whom we
treated as also someone with Sri Lankan concerns at heart, in this case
the displaced, that I would write to Mr Basil Rajapaksa, urging that
Resettlement be expedited.
I did so, and when he got the letter, he rang me up, and gave me a
earful, telling me that I was wrong to doubt him. He had said six
months, and he would do it in six months – he paused and added that
might be difficult, it would probably be seven or eight, which added to
the evident sincerity. I was convinced that he would do what he had
pledged, but then he added that I should tell my American friends that
they need not worry.
I was surprised at this, and asked what he meant, and he said that he
had got a similar letter from Rebecca Cohn before he got mine. I now
understood his anger, and tried to make it clear that I had no idea she
had written, but I am not sure that he believed me. I then rang Rebecca
and asked her whether she had written, and she admitted that she had
done so. She added that she had not thought it a good idea, but she had
been instructed to do so.
Blake had gone by then, and I believe it was the Deputy, James Manor,
a great friend of Mark’s, who had made the decision. I wondered at the
reason and can only conclude that the Americans wanted to take credit
for the rapid resettlement we all wanted. Reading Wikileaks later I am
more than ever convinced of this, and can almost see the cable that
would have been sent following resettlement had it begun then, beginning
‘Following representations by post, the Government of Sri Lanka began
resettling displaced persons…..’
In short the Americans need to take credit for all good. In a sense
we have seen this before, in the finest flower of British imperialism in
India, when the British wanted both to dominate, and to be loved.
As Paul Scott so brilliantly shows, in the Raj Quartet, many colonial
administrators sincerely believed in their own decency. The problem
was, when tough decisions had to be made, British interests came first,
and this included standing by those who behaved badly. It was in the end
the Merricks and the Brigadier Reids who made the running, with the
aggression born of their own insecurities, and I fear that has been
exemplified by the dominant Americans in dealings with Sri Lanka over
the last three years.
So we had the bizarre performance with Sarath Fonseka, and then the
determination over the last couple of years to hold the threat of war
crimes against us (even to the extent of trying to suborn serving
officers – a wickedness I still find appalling) until we rolled over and
put our paws up in submission. I certainly hope we have not done that,
but the triumph of the more Americans than the Americans in our Ministry
of External Affairs, after the vote in Geneva, indicated that the
Americans could feel they had brought us to heel.
Dayan Jayatilleka was threatened with dismissal, Tamara Kunanayagam
was removed from Geneva, and the claim was that this showed a drastic
shift in foreign policy. That it was accompanied by efforts to alienate
us from India, and indeed to blame India for the Geneva vote, was no
accident, for obviously bringing us to heel means we must feel dependent
for favours only on America, without a primary role for India in our
international relations.
Hence indeed the sharp attack on the LLRC Action Plan by Kusal
Perera, with its contemptuous references to the meetings of our Foreign
Ministry mandarins with Hillary Clinton and her staff after the Geneva
vote. Perera’s point is that, in keeping the Americans happy, we have
not really seriously addressed the concerns the LLRC Report laid out.
I do not agree with Kusal Perera, for I think much has been done with
regard to the problems that must be solved, and we are clearly
committed to the compensatory and trust building measures that are
recommended. But I have a certain sympathy for his perspective because I
believe that, in responding to the American concerns that have been
raised, we are not focusing sufficiently on the need to empower all our
people, and in particular the Tamils who suffered during the war period.
The order in which the Action Plan has been laid out is symptomatic
of this distorted perspective, because we should be highlighting efforts
with regard to restoration and restitution, especially as concerns land
issues, not the strange vindictive version of accountability that has
been in the forefront of attacks on us in recent years (and which the
TNA sadly still harps on).
We also need to spend more time and effort on social integration,
which is just sketched over. Of course this Plan is only an outline, and
it is now up to the agencies identified to spell out what they propose
to do, with clear timelines. But I hope we concentrate on the needs of
our people, rather than merely keeping happy what is termed the
international community – by which our Foreign Ministry leaks to
newspapers indicate they mean the Americans.
The Americans can contribute to this, if they allow their better
nature to come to the fore, rather than the gamesmanship they have
engaged in over the last three years. The Austrian Jewish novelist
Stefan Zweig, in Beware of Pity, a title those who now indulge the LTTE
rump and the current game of asylum seeking should digest, wrote of the
distinction between ‘what we are and what we make ourselves out to be’.
If only the Americans could now take a leaf out of the Indian book,
and be firm with the diaspora while encouraging us to move towards
reconciliation through restoration and social integration rather than
recrimination, they would probably come closer too to achieving their
own political ends without conflict – and without plumbing the moral
depths themselves
NASA of United States sent most advanced Mars rover Curiosity towards red planet.