The Beginning

| Editorial Tamil Guardian

( Marcxh 31, 2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UN Human Rights Council's adoption of a resolution last week calling on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to undertake a comprehensive investigation into Sri Lanka is a key milestone in the protracted Tamil struggle. The Council which in May 2009 praised Sri Lanka for its 'victory', now calls for it to be subject to an international inquiry. Whilst the intensification of Sri Lanka's militarised repression in the North-East, even during the Council's 25th session, underscores the inability of the resolution to lead to any immediate change on the ground, the significance of this moment - hard fought and long overdue – is nonetheless profound. Almost five years after the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Tamils, in what international experts have described as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide, the international community has come to acknowledge what Tamils had consistently argued was the case: Sri Lanka lacks the will to deliver justice to the Tamil people, international intervention is essential.

The journey here was by no means easy. The passage of the resolution last week was the culmination of the tireless efforts and determination of some for five years, including officials from the US, UK and co-sponsoring states, the High Commissioner, a coalition of international human rights organisations, and Tamil actors, particularly from the diaspora, who have doggedly pursued the quest for justice and accountability. In order to achieve the necessary consensus however, compromises have been made along the way. The intense discussions over recent weeks regarding the text of the resolution, and the eleventh hour efforts by Sri Lanka's allies to stall an international investigation made it evident to all engaged in the process, and those around the world who tuned in to watch events unfold live, the need for this. Whilst the behaviour of Sri Lanka's allies is unremarkable, India's abstention and vote in favour of postponing the debate, whilst thoroughly predictable given past conduct, remains deplorable and unbecoming of the aspiring world power it claims to be. Thus as we argued last week, the well intended efforts of the resolution sponsors to accommodate India's whims whilst seeking to secure an international inquiry were always to be in vain. On the question of Sri Lanka, India is less non-aligned than aligned with a murderous regime.

The significance of this moment however, should not detract from and fails to negate the resolution's inability to bring an end to the ongoing violations and the intensifying crisis in the North-East. As US and UK officials have commented repeatedly over recent weeks, the situation is deteriorating. The repeated and sustained calls from the North-East for immediate relief and protection from the Sri Lankan state remain unmet, as Sinhalisation and militarisation of the Tamil homeland escalate at an alarming rate. Meanwhile as Sri Lanka has already made evident, meaningful and genuine cooperation are not to be forthcoming, it remains determined to resist international norms and has categorically rejected the resolution. Thus, quite apart from the pursuit of justice for past crimes, arresting ongoing violations requires focus and further international action as a matter of urgency. Targeted sanctions and criminal prosecutions of alleged war criminals travelling outside the island, should be pursued, in parallel to the investigation by the High Commissioner's office.

In the immediate aftermath of May 2009, we forewarned of the inevitable confrontation that would ensue between Sri Lanka and liberal order. The military defeat of the LTTE – purported by liberal orthodoxy to be the panacea to the island's conflict - would not lead to Sri Lanka taking the road to ethnic reconciliation and liberal peace. Quite the reverse, the absence of an armed Tamil resistance to the Sri Lankan state, would allow the government to pursue Sinhala Buddhist hegemony unchecked. Today we stand vindicated. We also meanwhile wrote of renewed resolve amongst the Tamil diaspora to take the struggle forward as a coalition of activists, united in purpose, and focused on a greater engagement with key power centres. This too has been the case, so much so, it is at times easy to forget how far we have come to reach this point - that which was extraordinary and aspirational, is now routine and commonsensical.

Five years ago as Tamils in the homeland were brutalised, the diaspora, collectively criminalised as terrorist sympathisers, protested day after day in capital cities around the world. Today, the very people who led the protests of 2009, many of whom were second generation Tamil youth, together with those in the North-East who have suffered the greatest losses, such as the mothers and wives of the disappeared, have emerged as key driving forces of the struggle. Five years on, a coalition of Tamils from the homeland and diaspora, gathered at the UN in Geneva, to (successfully) secure international action on Sri Lanka, liaising closely with international actors. Amidst unfathomable loss and hopelessness, far from being paralysed by grief or anger, Tamils rose up and continued the struggle with unwavering resolve. This is just the beginning.



Indian Abstention at UNHRC


National Interest or Complicity Issue?

| by Prof. Ramu Manivannan

( March 31, 2014, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The introduction and passing of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution L.1/Rev.1.,‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’ on 27/03/2014 heralds a new page on many fronts in South Asia.

First, the uninterrupted impunity that the successive Sri Lankan governments have enjoyed in their treatment of Tamils since 1948 has finally been challenged at the international level.

Secondly, the Indian government has for long conducted itself like a school headmaster with the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the Tamils can now clearly move ahead with or without any support of India. There is more political confidence among the Tamils today than ever before.

Human Rights Council - 25th Session - Navi Pillay, United Nations, High Commissionner for Human Rights during the 25th Session of the Human Rights Council. 26 March 2014. UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
Thirdly, United States of America, United Kingdom and other members of the European Union are equal stake holders in the future of Tamils and the politics of South Asia. Indian government and its leadership, in the recent past, has consistently, thrown away its historical responsibilities, moral conscience, geographical preeminence and political potential to stand up for the weak and oppressed people of South and Southeast Asia.The realistic situations in Burma, Tibet and Sri Lanka are only a few pointers to this effect. The so called Indian domain has long been penetrated.

Fourthly, the passing of this resolution with the support of USA, European Union and the Latin American countries and with the resistance of Pakistan, China, Cuba (also read as Russia) presents a new polarization that will prevail and extend to other areas as well with India falling between the stool without any self-belief and courage of conviction.

Lastly, the vote against Sri Lanka also reveals that the ways of Asian democracy cannot be defended and nurtured with homegrown solutions alone and the acknowledgement of this transition comes from the shift away from Sri Lanka demonstrated by Philippines and Indonesia. Though Bangladesh has no memory of its own past there are more Asian and African countries warming up well for this transition as we need to address substantial issues of human rights and justice that cannot be hidden away in the name of Asian, African or Third World solidarity.

Sri Lanka was virtually breathing out of Pakistan as ventilator after doing everything it can to defeat the Human Rights Council Resolution L.1/Rev.1.,’Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’. Worse of all, Sri Lanka needed a certificate of democracy from Pakistan.! When the Pakistan delegation spoke about thriving of political institutions and democracy in Sri Lanka during the debate on the resolution on 26/03/2014, a wave of disbelief with deep sigh swept the house. Pakistani delegation came back next day 27/03/2014 with another trick up their sleeves with questions about the financial implications and the availability of resources for the process of international mechanism while this should have been addressed during the consultative process.

US delegation reminded Pakistan, China, and other members who raised concerns about the financial implications about three consultative meetings that had already taken place in regard to content, process and drafting of the resolution with complete understanding of the implications and assumption of responsibilities. China quietly took the baton from Pakistan to seek vote on this issue with a ploy of postponing the issue indefinitely and complicate the process by applying Rule No.116. While the role of China and Pakistan can be understood from the bonhomie that they share among themselves and with the Sri Lankan government, Cuba continue to suffer from the colour blindness called the United States of America. Cuba needs a fair treatment of its own soul and moral conscience.

A final attempt to sabotage the process of international investigations was taken up once again jointly by Pakistan, China and Cuba seeking the deletion of Para 10 (a, b & c) of L.1/Rev.1., ‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’ (under Rule 129). Despite the US clarification and lucid defence of the resolution, these two proposals were put to vote and ultimately the passing of resolution process prevailed.

The real intent of the Indian government needs to be read from its role in these two situations than in the abstention during the final vote. India voted for adjournment motion under “No Action Rule No.116” and soon voted along with Pakistan and China for removal of Para 10 (a, b & c) of L.1/Rev.1., ‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’. If Indian position on the final vote was predetermined, then these two considerations were the discretions of the Ambassador/Permanent Representative of the Government of India unless the opinion of the government was sought on urgency mode by wire. If we had already decided to abstain, why did we vote for adjournment under ‘No Action Rule.116’ and deletion of Para 10 (a, b & c) under Rule 129? India was already in league with Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China who were prepared to derail the process of international mechanism. The Indian Ambassador is a known spade and India was dragged into this plot to kill the resolution at any cost. The application of discretions by the bureaucracy on such crucial contexts needs to be addressed. Given the consistency of bureaucratic despotism of MEA, the Chief Minister and the Government of Tamil Nadu should formally take up the subject with the Government of India at this stage.

The Indian mask had melted under the heat of politics inside the UNHRC after making one of the most confusing and mediocre statements submitted in defence of its decision to abstain. The rest is history with India announcing its decision to abstain from voting. The result is that India is with Sri Lanka and will do everything in its capacity to block the process of international investigations like it sabotaged the Norwegian led peace process by covertly encouraging the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to explore military options as well as remaining indifferent to the peace process. There was no room large enough for India to hide inside the UNHRC meeting after gifting an axe for rolling stones for the road blocks caused by Pakistan and China. The members of Sri Lankan delegation could barely hide their glee and jubilation at the announcement of Indian position.

There is no guilt or shame in our attempts to bury the question of status of thousands of Tamil women in the North & East of Sri Lanka. Even the Sri Lankan government had recently acknowledged the rapes of Tamil women by the Sri Lankan soldiers and shed its burden by saying that it would address these concerns of the global community as a last minute ditch battle to save its face before the HRC vote. The dehumanized conduct of Sri Lankan soldiers against Tamil women and even against dead bodies, denial of food and medicine by the Sri Lankan government to the victims and survivors of the final battle as revealed by the United Nations Seccretary General’s report, the use of chemical weapons by the Sri Lankan armed forces, death of 70,000 innocent civilians, disappearances of 146,749 Tamils, internment of 300,000 Tamils, torture and violations of human rights of Tamil civilians in the post-war period, Sinhala settlements, occupation of private and common lands and the militarization of North and East remain, according to the Indian government, only as concerns for the Indian government. India’s concerns for the Tamils, for record, have never been translated into recognition of realities.

But the vote is for the Sri Lankan government that wants to block any credible international investigation into these allegations. What a decadent state that India’s foreign policy has been driven into by the Congress led UPA Coalition and its small coterie of sycophants scheming within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). How does this act of abstention, which, in turn is a vote in favour of the Sri Lankan government, constitute as defence of the national interest of India?

The State Legislature and the people of Tamil Nadu have only asked for independent and credible international investigations into past violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws. Who are we, the people of Tamil Nadu, to the Government of India? What is the meaning and relevance of the State Legislature and its representation as part of the Indian federal system within the Indian Republic? India is a democracy and the Indian government should have shown a minimal respect to the unanimous resolution of the Tamil Nadu State Legislature and the opinion of the people of Tamil Nadu regarding the demand for credible international investigations against Sri Lanka for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the government authorities.

Those who argue that the decision has been taken in view of our national interest, let us not undermine our past that it has never been our national interest to defend and protect war criminals, oppressors and violators of international human rights and humanitarian laws. If the Government of India wants to cite that we have never voted in favour international investigations or mechanism and this resolution, in particular, violates the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, we need to remind the policy makers about the role and responsibilities undertaken by India towards the people of Bangladesh and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

This resolution seeks to undertake a “comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties in Sri Lanka during the period covered by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, and to establish the facts and circumstances of such alleged violations and of the crimes perpetrated with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring accountability, with assistance from relevant experts and special procedures mandate holders…” The demand for an international investigation is not only against the Sri Lankan government but also against the LTTE. Then why does India want to join with Sri Lanka in preventing an international investigation?

Lastly, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa and Former General Sarath Fonseka have all consistently maintained both the during and after the war that Sri Lanka was only fighting India’s war and with the support of India. This impression has neither been disapproved nor challenged by the Indian political leadership and the MEA so far. Does this abstention at the UNHRC resolution L.1/Rev.1., ‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’ reaffirm our silence and complicity to the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the government authorities? It is not about the crisis of consciousness or betrayal against the Tamils but the complicity factor will continue to haunt India for a long time to come unless the new government in May-June 2014 takes new bold steps and amends the setbacks in defence of international human rights and humanitarian laws.

(Ramu Manivannan is Professor & Chair in the Department of Politics & Public Administration, School of Politics & International Studies, University of Madras. He is the author of a recently launched book in Geneva in March 2014 on “Sri Lanka : Hiding the Elephant – Documenting Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.”) The views expressed are his own. )



The Conflation: A New Book on Sri Lanka

( March 31, 2014, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Conflation is a new book edited by Niantha Ilangamuwa, which contains a collection of interviews with scholars, activists and institutional officers that he conducted during the last few years as a career journalist.

On reviewing the book, Dr. Binoy Kampmark, who was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge, pointed out, “This emotional, powerful work primarily examines the war-torn past of Sri Lanka and the role of the Tamils in their struggle for self-determination”.

“It features various interviews conducted by the author over the past decade. While focusing on Sri Lanka, the author also broadens his discussion in these interviews on subjects such as torture, the erosion of civil liberties in the West, and the role of the International Criminal Court. The wide array of powerful interviews will provide readers with a valuable historical document,” he added.

Ilangamuwa frequently writes on Sri Lanka and his views have appeared widely in publications such as Counter Punch, Counter Currents and the national and international media.


The Post-Election Scenario

Lessons & Options For Govt & Opposition

| by Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

( March 31, 2014, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A famous soliloquy in the history of Hollywood movies in Don Siegel’s iconic film Dirty Harry begins with Clint Eastwood, playing Inspector Harry Callahan says “I know what you’re thinking— did he fire six shots or only five...” In similar vein I can tell what the strategists of the Opposition are thinking after the Provincial Council election: “when we add the total vote of the ethnic and religious minorities to the 25% plus that the UNP has got, we can get the 50.1% we need to beat Mahinda Rajapaksa”.

In that movie scene, Dirty Harry went on to add a qualifier: “but seein’ as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and could blow your head clean off, there’s one question you’ve gotta ask yourself— do you feel lucky?” My response to the Opposition’s calculation is a similar one: “but seein’ as this will be a Presidential election, which is a popularity duel for leadership of the country, and you’re fielding Ranil Wickremesinghe against Mahinda Rajapaksa, there’s just one question you’ve gotta ask yourself— do you feel lucky?”

All the post-election analyses I read from the critics, tell me that they either do not know or have forgotten what Trotsky said about politics, namely that arithmetic is trumped by higher algebra. The higher algebra is that the Sri Lankan system is presidential, not parliamentary, and while the result of the PC election may be a pointer to future trends, it is far likelier to be indicative of parliamentary trends than the prospects at a Presidential election. The socio-psychological dynamics are quite different in a contest between two candidates for the top spot; for the leadership of the country. This does not mean that Mahinda Rajapaksa is unbeatable. He can certainly be given a run for his money and may even be beatable, but certainly not by Ranil Wickremesinghe who has seen a slight drop in the performance of his party and caused a significant drop of 5,000 votes in his party’s performance in his own Colombo Central, while the most significant improvement in his party’s performance has been spearheaded by his obvious rival for party leadership.

The Government has declined noticeably in its popularity, but the UNP has not only failed to gain, it has a huge gap to bridge between itself and the Government’s percentage of votes. Most dramatic is the fact that the gap between the UNP and the Government, which is 30% plus, is a greater percentage than the votes polled by the UNP. This means that in order to beat the Government the UNP would have to more than double its vote.

The counterargument is of course, that the Opposition would combine, but that’s hardly self evident. It is highly unlikely that Ranil Wickremesinghe could unite the Opposition and even if he were to do so, such a united opposition would see a drastic abstention by voters or even a shift to the incumbent, if the choice put before the electorate were Ranil vs. Mahinda.

The other argument is that even if the only vote that Ranil could count on is the 25% the UNP got this time, the minority bloc vote would see him through. It is here that Trotsky’s point about politics being higher algebra rather than simple arithmetic is relevant. Those who voted for the UNP’s candidates at a provincial election are less likely to vote for Ranil at a Presidential election. He is also unlikely to pull in votes that have gone to the smaller opposition parties— after all if those votes went to those parties, they did so at least in part as recoil from Ranil, and are unlikely to return. Most importantly, a Presidential candidate with a fairly conspicuously minoritarian profile such as Ranil (or Chandrika) are likely to trigger a pan-Sinhala slide towards Mahinda, as compensation for the swing of minority voters to his opponent. It is a toss-up as to who would do better, or less badly, Ranil or Chandrika—because CBK may not be able to pull out the UNP vote.

None of this means that the project of a joint opposition is untenable or that President Rajapaksa cannot be given a run for his money. This can be done either by a common candidate or the candidate who can revitalise the UNP, attract the votes of the other opposition parties at a Presidential election and bring back the voters who stayed home.

The problem with picking Gen Fonseka as the common candidate would be that the government can mount a legal challenge by proxy and this would snarl up the election campaign, culminating, in all likelihood, in a courtroom decision in the government’s favour. (In retrospect, the entire impeachment move seems more a pre-emptive strike with this Fonseka contingency in mind, than a move aimed at securing the passage of Divi Neguma).

Who this might be is evidenced by the results of the Provincial election itself, but is not remarked upon by the UNP in its official responses to the results. Perhaps the most dramatic single result was in Hambantota, and here too in Tissamaharama, the deepest of the Deep South. Not only did the ruling party and the ruling family experience a decline, but the UNP actually gained 10,000 votes (10%). This was the achievement of a young politician who was fighting on two fronts, one against the Rajapaksa machine and the other against the UNP establishment which attempted to isolate him and his campaign. Yet he did much better, comparatively speaking, than Ranil Wickremesinghe in Colombo.

If Ranil registered a decline in Colombo Central, the UNP’s citadel, how poorly will he perform in the Sinhala Buddhist heartland at a Presidential election and how poorly will the UNP do at a parliamentary election under his leadership?

Conversely, and logically, if Sajith did so creditably against the Rajapaksa machine in the heart of the Rajapaksa Rajjya itself, how well will he not fare in those areas of the country which are not Rajapaksa fiefdoms? How well will the UNP and the Opposition do at a parliamentary election under his leadership?

The Government has lessons to learn as well. Patriotism works electorally — and one wonder what the voting figures would have been without the Geneva factor—but it works best when it is felt that one is successfully resisting against the enemy or is putting up a good fight. That wasn’t the case with Geneva this time or the past three years. On the contrary, patriotism is either neutralised or works against a government if the public perceives that it is unsuccessful or not putting up a valiant fight commensurate with the nation’s self-respect. As the OHCHR international inquiry starts its insolent probe and Tamil Nadu opens a second front of pressure after the Indian election, patriotism can cut both ways.

The second lesson for the Government was the top spot that young Hirunika Premachandra won, nudging the prominent personality of a Sinhala Buddhist chauvinist party backed openly by the powerful Secretary of Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Hirunika, who secured the patronage of President Rajapaksa as well as the backing of senior SLFPers projected a youthful re-mix of the traditional centre-left SLFP/UPFA and won. This is a clear signal to the government that it should shift from the Sinhala extreme right, back to the progressive centre.

Thirdly, the Rajapaksa administration should recall the lessons of the decline of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike administration of 1970-77. It was not so much the unpopularity of the Prime Minister, but that of nepotism, of the family tree, or ‘family bandyism’ as JRJ put it, as well as the polarising and alienating role played by the family strongman, Felix Dias Bandaranaike. The contemporary parallels are quite evident. The economic hardship that finally wrecked the Bandaranaike regime could have its contemporary equivalent when an economic squeeze is imposed by legislatures in the West after the High Commissioner’s Office issues its report. The Rajapaksa government should strengthen itself politically by re-profiling and broad-basing itself, starting with the appointment of the party’s Gen Secretary Maithripala Sirisena as Prime Minister.

The Crisis in US-Sri Lanka Relations

| by DR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

( March 30, 2014, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Was it just me or did you notice something very strange in Geneva during the resolution on Sri Lanka? All the speakers who were critical of Sri Lanka focused on post-war sins of commission and omission on the part of the government and the state apparatus— in other words, the present. There was only a passing, ritualistic reference to accountability and reconciliation. However, the mandate of the High Commissioner’s office pertained to the past.

Once In A Blue Moon : Sharing A Smile
The establishment of a monitoring mission of the Office of the High Commissioner would have addressed the problems that were identified, but by going for an international investigation, the West has put paid for a long time to come, for such an effective measure. Far from an improvement in the situation on the ground, there will be a climate of deterioration.

Decades ago, US policy towards Sri Lanka or any place at all, was drawn up by knowledgeable individuals. A left-of-centre Sri Lankan administration was co-opted and eventually re-shaped by two US Ambassadors with stellar intellectual credentials: Prof Robert Strauss Hupe and Chris Van Hollen Sr. Prof Hupe, the author of the classic ‘Protracted Conflict’ went on to became US Ambassador to NATO. Chris van Hollen became a member of Dr Henry Kissinger’s ‘40 Committee’.

It is not my contention that current and recent US Ambassadors to Colombo are sub-standard. Ambassador Sison and her team are formidably competent diplomats and the crisis in US-Sri Lanka relations owes far more to the quality of Sri Lanka’s representation in the US than US representation in Colombo. It is, however, my contention that those who pushed through the Sri Lanka policy at the Washington end; those who made or endorsed the gear shift from the March 3rd draft resolution to the March 18th draft , are not of the same intellectual quality as the Robert Strauss Hupe, a great Realist strategic thinker, or Chris Van Hollen, a master diplomat (who established such an excellent personal equation with the anti-western Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike that he was suspected of being responsible for the ejection of the leftwing partners of the ruling coalition).

Once Upon A Time: Searching
The liberal fundamentalists and human rights hawks on Sri Lanka are, in all probability, not even from within the State Department, but are far more ideological-political elements in the upper reaches of officialdom in the Obama administration. They belong to a far more ideological or constituency driven type than their deeper thinking predecessors. These are the ‘humanitarian interventionists’; the ideological daughters of Madeleine Albright. It is they who overrode Secretary of Defence Robert Gates’ objections and pushed Obama into the Libyan adventure, which jeopardised US-Russian relations and catalysed the replacement of Medvedev. It is they who would have been most susceptible to moving against Syria and possibly Iran.

My reading is quite similar with respect to British policy. I suspect that the line of the High Commissioner, his staff in Colombo, and probably the FCO in general, was intelligently crafted, as evidenced by Hugo Swire’s nuanced speech at the High level segment in Geneva on March 3rd 2014 in which he mentioned ‘an independent , credible inquiry’ but dropped the term ‘international’. Westminster and Downing Street got into the act after that, taking off from where David Miliband stopped (or more accurately, was stopped) in 2009.

In an earlier time, US scholars on South Asia and Sri Lanka would have been consulted on the effects of an ‘international probe’ on the island’ society, polity and ethnic relations. Obviously none was.

We now have a US-UK driven international probe, which takes place in utterly new terrain: not that of an ongoing conflict (Syria), large scale violence (Colombia), a failed state (Sudan/Darfur), occupied territory (Israel/Palestine) or a closed, almost uniquely grotesque state (North Korea). It takes place in a political context of opposition from the neighbourhood (unlike the unanimous UNHRC resolution on North Korea). It takes place in a country which is not at war, in a state which is not fissured and fractured, against the will of a majority of people who have a very long historical sense of collective identity; is a very old nation. It puts the US in the middle of a protracted political conflict, between two very old ethnic communities (reinforced by old languages and religions), in Asia — and in particular in South Asia. It gets the USA into the entrails of a polarised South Asian society, on one side of what has long been played as a zero sum game.

For all these reasons, any first rate analyst with a solid grounding in the human and social sciences--sociologist, political scientist, cultural anthropologist or historian— would have advised Washington’s policy makers against the direction and thrust of the UNHRC resolution.

Washington does not consider the Sri Lankan state a ‘rogue state’, but it does seem to regard the Rajapaksa regime as a rogue regime (if I may coin a phrase), and is therefore engaging in ‘condition setting’ for regime change. Where the USA has blundered— and it would hardly be the first time it did so in Asia— is that its policy of choice, the international inquiry into the war and accountability by the OHCHR, is a diplomatic-legal drone strike that hits the nationalist sensibilities of the Sinhala majority.

The great George Kennan contended successfully that the containment of Soviet expansionism by the West would over time, cause and enable Russian sensibilities to outgrow and overthrow the Soviet state form and Communist party rule. He would have been aghast at a policy that injured the heart of Great Russian nationalist sensibilities. Henry Kissinger argued for and was the architect of a policy that would enmesh the USSR and China in a web of relationships, drawing them into the world order. In the post-Vietnam period he advocated a US policy for a world order which operated through regional sub-systems and by building up regional ‘influentials’.

No one who was steeped in the great tradition of US foreign policy and strategic thinking (i.e. of Kennan and Kissinger) would have pushed through a resolution in Geneva which revealed an asymmetry of policy perception between Washington and the entirety of South Asia, including ‘strategic partner’ Delhi, on a matter in the South Asian neighbourhood and within India’s sphere of influence.

No student of Kennan, Kissinger or even Brzezinski would have the current policy of the US towards Sri Lanka, which goes against those aims and methods of altering behaviour, because they go against the very grain of the society concerned. If one were to use a different tradition as a point of reference, no US policy maker from Jean Kirkpatrick to Condoleeza Rice with academic roots in political science, would target the regime in a manner that was perceived as an attack on the state as a whole, and the armed forces in particular. No sensible US or UK policy would fail to secure the support or at least the neutrality of the armed forces for the project of transition to a more pluralist and open post-war order. This resolution for an international probe has alienated the armed forces utterly. Switching intellectual traditions once more, no student of Prof Joseph Nye would sacrifice the goodwill toward the US, and US ‘soft power’ in Sri Lanka, by tilting so heavily to an ethnic minority and thereby guaranteeing that Russia, China make durable gains in Sinhala national and political consciousness as true friends and allies.

An Apple A Day Keeps A Doctor Away
What then is the bottom line? Hurt, pain and damage to Sri Lanka but also the failure of US policy, i.e. Mutually Assured Damage. The outcome will be the same as in Moby Dick, the great American novel by Herman Melville, about the nature of obsession and a quest driven by it. The Geneva resolution means that the harpoon has been fired and will soon enter the side of the Sri Lankan state. However, where state, nation, language, religion and demographics fuse, the formation that is produced has enormous staying power and tensile strength, as the resistance to thirty years of suicide bombing terrorism and cross border incursion demonstrated. As in the cases of the Indo-Lanka Accord and its IPKF accompaniment, and in a later decade, the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), ill-timed or ill targeted external pressure however well intentioned, generates irresistible blowback.

In pain, this Moby Dick will take the whaler down with it, or at least inflict heavy damage. The whaling ship in this case is obviously not the United States, but US policy goals and interests in Sri Lanka. The US obviously failed to think through the question of whether the instrument of an international inquiry will serve basic US national interests in Sri Lanka positively or negatively, currently and in the foreseeable future. Insofar as Sri Lanka matters enough for Washington to have spent effort and a bit of diplomatic capital for over three years on it, the prospect should cause some modest degree of concern.

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[Dr Dayan Jayatilleka’s latest book, just published in the UK by Palgrave, is The Fall of Global Socialism: A Counter-Narrative from the South, Palgrave Pivot, London, 2014]



100,000 death toll must be revised

| by Rajasingham Jayadevan

( March 30, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian ) The count clock of the war dead in Sri Lanka since 1997 is jammed at 100,000. It never moved even a point upward since. Many thousands have been killed ever from that year.

We have seen daily accounts of deaths and there were large numbers of casualties in major confrontations and random killings by the warring parties. The military’s actions against the Tamil civilians are many folds than actions of the LTTE and the civilians were treated as fodders to execute the war agenda.

100,000 has become a stubborn comfort figure that has stuck in the rusted and disabled count clock. Even the UN claim of 40,000 deaths in the final confrontation in 2008/09 did not shake the clock to move upward.

The 100,000 claim does not include the missing persons from all walks of life. There is no proper estimation for the missing persons. Then the government claim of soldiers missing in action can be adduced as military persons killed in the confrontation. The LTTE was giving its daily counts of its dead cadres until the latter stage of the war. LTTE’s official counts too has not helped move the count clock even a point forward. Then there was claims of dead bodies of the soldiers wrapped in black bags and dumped in the sea by the Air Force during the peak of the final battle. These dead are said be counted as military men missing in action.

Gist: These deaths are not in the static 100,000 claim ( File Photo)
The death count in Syria is on a fast upward trend. Within a short period of the internal strife, the death toll has climbed to over 150,000.

Estimation of war deaths in Sri Lanka will be an easy task but a reasonable or actual count will be a daunting one. To get a reasonable count, researching through the daily Sri Lankan newspapers after the 1977 anti-Tamil violence will give a comfortable insight. In such effort, the most difficult one to count is the last stage of the war, when government systematically prevented anyone reporting the casualty details. The government expelled international aid workers and UN staff from the war zone in the last stages of the fighting and blocked independent journalists from covering the war, making it impossible for outsiders to know the extent of civilian deaths. Until the genie let out, the true number will not come out.

Will the ICRC facilitate its statistical record on the number of killed in the war in Sri Lanka?. ICRC will be a difficult source as it will take cover under its mandate to be non controversial and will not compromise it’s non partisan stand.

The government has undertaken a count of the dead, wounded and the missing in the over quarter century old war on November 29, 2013. Will the Commission inquiring undertake a proper count of the dead. The effort of the government is braded as a “sham” already. If this is true, the count clock will be forced move backward from the static 100,000 dead.

Only credible source that can unearth the true number of deaths in the final war is the oncoming UN inquiry. If UN succeeds in reaching the wider focus of the war, scale of the deaths will become credible count.

Let’s wait and see whether or when the counting clock will show signs of some movement movement.

Two Verdicts on Rajapaksa Rule

| by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“Despots rely on elections not as a means of expression but as an act of acclamation. A dictator certainly does not go to the electorate for a mandate; he believes he already has one”.
The Guardian (7.12.2011)

Geneva: A Necessary Defeat

( March 30, 2014, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Rajapaksas were defeated in Geneva, by the Rajapaksas.

The Geneva resolutions would not have happened if the Rajapaksas did not depart from democratic norms so blatantly and consistently, post-war. The call for an international investigation would not have gained traction if the Rajapaksas did not undermine, debase and subjugate every Lankan institution, from the judiciary and the elections commission to the military and the human rights commission.

File Photo
After the impeachment travesty, can any objective observer believe in the possibility of an independent national inquiry into anything?

Less than 48 hours after the adoption of the US resolution on Sri Lanka, the UNHRC overwhelmingly approved five resolutions against Israel. And the US, the sole global hegemon, could not persuade a single UNHRC member to vote against the anti-Israeli resolutions, not even the UK. Of the 47 member-states, 46 voted for the resolutions, with only the US voting against . So much for the lie that the UNHRC is an imperialist pawn or that it can be manipulated by the US or that Navi Pillay is an American agent!

The US resolution on Sri Lanka succeeded not because of American power but because of undeniable and continuing crimes by the Rajapaksas against their own people.

Of the third world countries which supported the resolution only one, Botswana, can be considered an American ally. Benin may have voted for the resolution because its president is an evangelical Protestant (Perhaps the BBS et al can take a bow?). Apart from Cuba, every South American member-state of the UNHRC voted for the resolution and none of them are American-stooges. On the contrary, all those countries are ‘Pink-tide nations’ with left or left-of-centre governments. They would have voted for the resolution because they saw certain similarities between their own autocratic pasts and Rajapaksa Sri Lanka. For many of those countries despotic populism was a lived-reality, a part of their own nightmarish histories. That sense of déjà vu would have been solidified by such quintessentially Rajapaksa deeds as the arrest of Ruki Fernando and Father Praveen (even as the council was debating Sri Lanka) and the continued detention of Jeyakumari Balendran, plus the sudden desperate attempt by the regime to resurrect the dead-Tiger in order to justify the latest wave of repression.

Colombo could have avoided the independent international investigation at least for one more year if the promised national inquiry into allegations of torture, post-war, materialised. In characteristic Rajapaksa style, the regime made the promise in time for the Commonwealth Summit and reneged on it, once the summit was over. As Navi Pillai pointed out in her report to the UNHRC, “In November 2013, the Government announced that the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka would conduct a national inquiry into allegations of torture committed between 2009 and 2013, with the support of the Human Rights Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat. In early December 2013, the Commission announced that the inquiry had been postponed indefinitely.”

Blatant breaches of faith such as these would have done more to convince UNHRC member-states to support the resolution than anything the US could have said or done.

The UNHRC investigation is to cover the period from 2002 to 2009. Consequently, it would be an excellent opportunity to expose the anti-civilisational deeds of the LTTE, from child-conscription to the wanton murder of unarmed political opponents. But for the Rajapaksas this too would pose a problem because the senior-most Tiger leaders still alive have transformed their loyalties from the Sun God to the High King. After all, one of the counts on which Ms. Pillai faulted Colombo was its failure to indict “any LTTE suspect for alleged war crimes or other human rights abuses”!

The Geneva vote is a moral-political defeat for the Rajapaksas. It is a necessary and a welcome outcome not just from a Lankan but also from a Sinhala-Buddhist perspective. Left to their own devices, the Siblings will do to Sinhala-Buddhists what the Tigers did to the Tamils (the creation of the BBS constitutes an early warning). Given the nature of the UN system, the investigation cannot result in either a war-crimes trial at The Hague or UN sanctions on Sri Lanka. (Individual countries can impose travel and asset bans on Rajapaksas/officials but this can be done without any UNHRC investigation as the Magnitsky Act demonstrates .) UN trials and sanctions require Security Council approval. Since the Rajapaksas can count on Chinese and Russian vetoes for a long time to come, they, like Israel, can escape with a moral drubbing.

The Absent Anti-Geneva Wave

Respectable electoral victories with simple majorities are not enough for the Rajapaksas. They want gigantic wins to bolster the conceit that they and, they alone, represent the ‘nation’, in perpetuity.

The PC polls were expedited for the same reason - because the Rajapaksas expected an anti-Geneva Sinhala-Buddhist wave and wanted to benefit from it electorally. The results indicate that this majoritarian/patriotic surge existed only in the imagination of the Ruling Siblings.

Comparing the PC polls results with the results of the 2011 Local government polls is the most effective way of understanding the changes in public mood . Despite a blatantly partisan electoral process, including a toothless Elections Commissioner (who was unable to protect even his own assistant commissioners from government thugs ), a totally Rajapaksaised police, a subjugated bureaucracy and a cowed media, despite gross violation of state power and state resources, the regime failed to maintain its 2011 vote levels, let along improve it via the much-hyped (and ultimately non-existent) anti-Geneva wave.

Table I - UPFA Performance in the South
UPFA
Southern Province
Galle
Matara
Hambantota
LG polls 2011
60.03%
59.6%
61.7%
58.7%
PC polls 2014
58.06%
57.6%
59.71%
57.42%
Difference
-1.97%
-2%
-1.99%
-1.28%

Table II – UPFA performance in the West
UPFA
Western Province
Colombo
Gampaha
Kalutara
LG polls 2011
56.1%
53.1%
59%
56%
PC polls 2014
50.3%
45.33%
57.98%
61.23%
Difference
-5.8%
-7.77%
-1.02%
+5.23%


The UPFA average vote decreased between 2011 and 2014 in Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts. Provincially, the UPFA vote decreased by 2%, from 2011 to 2014.

The UPFA vote decreased in Colombo and Gampaha districts but increased in Kalutara district. Provincially, the UPFA vote decreased by a very substantial 5.8% between 2011 and 2014.

There is no patriotic-wave lifting the Rajapaksa boat. There is no anti-government wave either. The electorate is moving away from the government, but very slowly. If the Opposition is to amount a serious challenge to the Rajapaksas at national elections, it must become more active, more rooted, socio-economically and less fractious. The UNP remains the single largest opposition party (though with a much reduced vote-base); the JVP and DP are in a dead-heat for third place. What is necessary is the broadest possible opposition coalition, which includes the TNA and other minority parties, stands up for all victims of Rajapaksa misrule and opts to focus on political-social-economic distress rather than on patriotic chest-thumping.

References;

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/americas/10596-unhrc-passes-five-resolutions-on-israel.
According to Wikipedia, the UNHRC has passed 45 resolutions against Israel since its inception in 2006 till 2013.
When former UN Advisor on Sri Lanka, Yasmin Sook says that sanctions are possible, this is precisely what she talks about – sanctions by individual countries and not the UN proper. Similarly though no Lankan political or military leader can be taken to The Hague even if faulted in the UNHRC report, the US is perfectly within its rights to try Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in an American court so long as Mr. Rajapaksas clings to his US citizenship.
People vote differently at national and non-national elections and 2011 is closer than 2009.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=100667




How Vladimir Putin Became Evil

The US and UK condemn him for Crimea but supported him over the war in Chechnya. Why? Because now he refuses to play ball

| by Tariq Ali

( March 29, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Once again, it seems that Russia and the United States are finding it difficult to agree on how to deal with their respective ambitions. This clash of interests is highlighted by the Ukrainian crisis. The provocation in this particular instance, as the leaked recording of a US diplomat, Victoria Nuland, saying "Fuck the EU" suggests, came from Washington.

Several decades ago, at the height of the cold war, George Kennan, a leading American foreign policy strategist invited to give the Reith Lectures, informed his audience: "There is, let me assure you, nothing in nature more egocentric than embattled democracy. It soon becomes the victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value which distorts its own vision … Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side is the centre of all virtue."

And so it continues. Washington knows that Ukraine has always been a delicate issue for Moscow. The ultra-nationalists who fought with the Third Reich during the second world war killed 30,000 Russian soldiers and communists. They were still conducting a covert war with CIA backing as late as 1951. Pavel Sudoplatov, a Soviet intelligence chief, wrote in 1994: "The origins of the cold war are closely interwoven with western support for nationalist unrest in the Baltic areas and western Ukraine."

When Gorbachev agreed the deal on German reunification, the cornerstone of which was that united Germany could remain in Nato, US secretary of state Baker assured him that "there would be no extension of Nato's jurisdiction one inch to the east". Gorbachev repeated: "Any extension of the zone of Nato is unacceptable." Baker's response: "I agree." One reason Gorbachev has publicly supported Putin on the Crimea is that his trust in the west was so cruelly betrayed.

As long as Washington believed that Russian leaders would blindly do its bidding (which Yeltsin did blind drunk) it supported Moscow. Yeltsin's attack on the Russian parliament in 1993 was justified in the western media. The wholesale assaults on Chechnya by Yeltsin and then by Putin were treated as a little local problem with support from George Bush and Tony Blair. "Chechnya isn't Kosovo," said Blair after his meeting with Putin in 2000. Tony Wood's book, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, provides chapter and verse of what the horrors that were inflicted on that country. Chechnya had enjoyed de facto independence from 1991-94. Its people had observed the speed with which the Baltic republics had been allowed independence and wanted the same for themselves.

Instead they were bombarded. Grozny, the capital, was virtually reduced to dust as 85 percent of its housing was destroyed. In February 1995 two courageous Russian economists, Andrey Illarionov and Boris Lvin published a text in Moscow News arguing in favour of Chechen independence and the paper (unlike its Western counterparts) also published some excellent critical reports that revealed atrocities on a huge scale, eclipsing the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre in Srebrenica. Rape, torture, homeless refugees and tens of thousands dead was the fate of the Chechens. No problem here for Washington and its EU allies.

In the calculus of western interests there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. Nonetheless, the contrast between the west's attitude to the Chechen war and Crimea is startling.

The Crimean affair led to barely any loss of life, and the population clearly wanted to be part of Russia. The White House's reaction has been the opposite of its reaction to Chechnya. Why? Because Putin, unlike Yeltsin, is refusing to play ball any more on the things that matter such as Nato expansion, sanctions on Iran, Syria etc. As a result, he has become evil incarnate. And all this because he has decided to contest US hegemony by using the methods often deployed by the west. (France's repeated incursions in Africa are but one example.)

If the US insists on using the Nato magnet to attract the Ukraine, it is likely that Moscow will detach the eastern part of the country. Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the west nor Moscow.

Tariq Ali has been a leading figure of the international left since the 60s. He has been writing for the Guardian since the 70s. He is a long-standing editor of the New Left Review and a political commentator published on every continent. His books include The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power, and The Obama Syndrome

© 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited

War Fever in the Air

| by Eric Margolis

( March 30, 2014, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) War fever is in the air. Fifty thousand Russian troops and armor are massed on Ukraine’s eastern border. Europe and Washington worry that the reborn Red Army may sweep west across Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics – even into Poland.
The West is suffering from a bad case of Cold War chills.

Not only are the Western powers worried, they are discovering that they likely lack the means to stop possible Russian incursions into what was the former Soviet Empire.

They should not be at all surprised that Russia is again showing signs of life.

Frederick the Great, the renowned Prussian warrior-king, warned: “he who tried to defend everything, defends nothing.”

Every young officers should have Great Fredrick’s words tattooed on his right hand. Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a small number of strategists, this analyst included, warned NATO, “do not move east. It’s a bridge too far.”

Soviet chairman Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to let rebellious East Germany escape Soviet control – but in exchange for NATO’s vow not to push east in previously Soviet dominated areas of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The US and NATO agreed, then quickly broke their pledge.

NATO’s advance into Eastern Europe, the Baltic and the Caucasus – not to mention former Soviet Central Asia – that brought the US-led alliance right up to Russia’s borders. US anti- missile systems were scheduled to go into Poland, close to Russian territory. New US bases were set up in Bulgaria, Rumania and Central Asia.

Unsubtle US efforts to bring ex-Russian Ukraine and the vital Sevastopol naval base in Crimea under NATO control – no doubt to punish Russia for supporting Syria and Iran – proved the last straw for the Kremlin.

Talking tough is easy. Defending Eastern Europe from a possible Russian invasion will not be. The main problem is that while US/NATO guarantees have been advanced to Russia’s sensitive borders, their military capabilities have not. In short, commitment without capability.

Russia’s military could take over the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in an afternoon. Sizeable portions of their populations are ethnic Russians.

NATO is not deployed or equipped to go to war over Ukraine: its troops are far to the west, without supply systems or air cover. Besides, European powers, aside from the little Nazis in Denmark and Ukraine’s nationalists, want no part of war with Russia – that’s left to the war hawks safely at home in Washington.

The barrage of trade sanctions Washington is imposed on Russia is an act of pre-war. We should remember that US sanctions imposed on Japan in 1941 that led Tokyo to attack the Western powers.

During the Cold War, the US had some 400,000 troops in Europe, 800 warplanes and potent naval forces. Today, the US has only 43,000 troops left in Europe: two combat brigades and the rest air force and logistics personnel. The old days when the Soviet Union had 50,000 tanks pointed at Western Europe are long gone, but Russia’s modernized armed forces still pack punch.

Meanwhile, the US has scattered forces all over the globe in what Frederick the Great would call an effort to defend everything. Most notably, US troops have gone to Afghanistan, Iraq, then Kuwait, and many home. America’s strongest divisions are now guarding Kansas and Texas instead of German’s Fulda Gap and Hanover.

America’s military power has been dissipated in little colonial wars, just as Britain’s were in the 19th century. When British imperial troops had to face real German soldiers, they were slaughtered. Similarly, the US military, reconfigured after Vietnam to wage guerilla wars, is in no shape today to face the grandsons of the once mighty Red Army.

Cautious, patient Vlad Putin is not about to invade Poland. The real danger is what would happen if the ethnic Russian inhabitants of the Baltic states, Ukraine and Moldova rise up and demand reunification with Mother Russia?

Would Russia go to their aid? Would Europe and the US be ready to risk nuclear war for obscure places like Luhansk, Kharkov, Chisinau or Kaunus?

In Ukraine and Crimea we are now seeing the results of overly aggressive Western geopolitics. Russia was woefully underestimated. A crisis between nuclear-armed powers should never have been allowed to occur. It’s sheer madness. Like nuclear-armed children fighting over a toy.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. http://ericmargolis.com/

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2014



US company to build multibillion rupee oil pipeline here

( March 30, 2014, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A United States-based company has been selected to build a multibillion rupee project to lay a pipeline from the Colombo Port to the Kolonnawa fuel storage facility to expedite unloading of fuel from ships, a senior official said yesterday.Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminal Ltd (SPSTL) Chairman M.R.W.de Soysa said the US company had been picked by the technical evaluation committee to carry out the US$ 50 million (Rs. 6,500 million) project. He said the proposal would be submitted to the Cabinet soon.

The chairman said the new pipeline would help to unload 45,000 metric tonnes of fuel within two days in contrast to four days now.“At present, we are not in a position to use the existing pipeline to its full capacity as there are leaks and fuel cannot be pumped at full pressure. The pipeline is about 40 years old,” Retired Maj. Gen. Soysa said.

He said that though the main contract would be carried out by the US company, the civil engineering sub contract would be handled by the Sri Lanka Army.
The project to lay the 5.8 km pipeline would begin within the next few months.