Government will not indict itself

By Jehan Perera

(May 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh became world known as a peace activist during the years of the Vietnam War. It was a war fought with the world’s media attention focused upon it and was one of the topmost priorities of the United Nations, as it involved the world’s three most powerful countries.The United States lost over 50,000 of its soldiers in that war which was the costliest since the end of the Second World War. The United States also dropped more tons of bombs in that region than done during the entirety of the World War. More than a million Vietnamese died in that war.

In one of his books, Teachings on Love, Ven. Hanh recorded an incident that had taken place during the course of the Vietnam War. He wrote about a retreat he had organized for US veterans of the war. More than twenty years had passed but many of them still felt guilt about what they had done and seen. They wanted to find peace of mind. One soldier recounted his experiences, in which almost everyone in his platoon had been killed by the Vietnamese guerrillas. He said how those who survived were so angry that they baked cookies and put explosives inside them and left them on the road.

When some Vietnamese children saw the cookies on the road they ate them as children who are hungry and find something they think is tasty would tend to do. But while they ate the cookies, the explosives detonated. The children rolled on the ground and thrashed about in agony. Their parents tried to save their children’s lives, but there was nothing they could do. The memory of those children rolling on the ground and dying was so deeply ingrained in this war veteran’s heart that he could not sit in the same room with children even though two decades had passed.

Ven. Hanh writes that he advised the suffering man in the following manner: "You killed five or six children that day. Can you save the lives of five or six children today? Children everywhere in the world are dying because of war, malnutrition and disease. You still have your body, you still have your heart. You can still do many things to help children who are dying in the present moment. Please give rise to your mind of love, and in the months and years that are left to you, do the work of helping children." According to Ven. Hanh this advice was taken by the former soldier who found a new purpose to his life that helped others and also brought him peace of mind.

GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSE

The inhumanity inherent in war can be seen in this horrifying and tragic story. Wars break down the bonds of humanity that laws of human rights are meant to protect. When the decision is made to go to war or to resort to violence, the lives of many will be blighted. What happened in Vietnam was a war crime even though the soldier in question was neither punished by a US or by an international tribunal. He was punished by his own conscience that refused to let that memory go away. The winning side in a war will find ways not to punish its own especially when those wars were the result of policy decisions by the winning government.

During the thirty year war in Sri Lanka similar acts may or may not have happened. Today the government of Sri Lanka is under heavy international pressure on account of allegations of war crimes especially during the last phase of the war when more than 300,000 civilians were held hostage by the LTTE in an unprecedented end of war. The Sri Lankan government has been steadfast in denying allegations that it purposely or otherwise permitted human rights violations to take place. It has taken the position that it adopted a policy of zero tolerance for civilian casualties. It has also taken the position that it conducted a humanitarian operation and not a ruthless military offensive to rescue the civilian population held hostage by the LTTE.

The latest international report on civilian casualties and human rights violations in the course of the war in Sri Lanka is by the International Crisis Group headed by a former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. The organization has a governing board comprising similar well known and credible international personalities. The ICG report documents a large number of incidents, such as firing at hospitals and civilian concentrations, that are based on reports by both local and international oganisations, and is supplemented by eye witness reports and satellite imagery.

One government response has been to deny the accuracy of the ICG findings and to challenge its interpretations as being biased. The other has been to point to the government’s establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation which has a fact finding mandate in addition to compensatory and reconciliatory mandates. It appears that the Commissioners are those that the government is able to place its confidence in. There might have been wider acceptance of the Commission if its members had been selected after consultation with other stakeholders, such as opposition and ethnic minority parties.

ACTION PROGRAMME

One of the first decisions of the Commission has been to decide to hold its hearings in camera and without public hearings which will not be helpful to increase its credibility. There is mounting international pressure on the government is to adopt a different mode of inquiry and to consent to an independent and international inquiry. The dilemma for the government is that it cannot risk having a more transparent and independent mechanism in which the findings go against it. This is a dilemma that would face virtually all governments in the aftermath of a bloody and protracted war that they have won. No government would wish itself to be indicted, which is the drama that is playing itself out in Sri Lanka.

In these difficult circumstances one course of action for the government to follow would be to follow the advice given by Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh to the distraught soldier. It would be to improve the lives of all those others who are today living and suffering as victims of war, and to ensure that the past will never happen again to haunt the lives of the Sri Lankan people. There is a four step programme the government can follow to achieve this objective. First, it must find the resources to provide more humanitarian assistance to the war affected people most of whom are bereft of resources. Second, it must improve its adherence to human rights and stop using draconian emergency laws that intimidates the population. Third, it must involve the ethnic minorities in deciding on their own development priorities instead of deciding everything from Colombo. And fourth, it must find an acceptable solution to the ethnic conflict instead of denying that one exists.

International human rights organizations will probably not be satisfied with a governmental response that is forward looking only. They will continue to seek the truth about what happened in the past and strive for justice that is based on this truth. Such human rights organizations have an important role to play in the world to keep the governments and those who violate human rights in check. They seek to be a conscience of the world. On the other hand, leaders of governments are generally pragmatic politicians. They lead countries that have gone to war themselves in the past, have sometimes colonized and brutalized people of other countries, and who continue to send their armies to war to safeguard the world in ways that best protects their interests.