Human rights - the first concrete step towards peace -Part III
 

H L D MAHINDAPALA

Continued from February 9

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS: Though various side issues, mostly cooked up by the LTTE, have been raised to avoid going down the short road to peace there is no doubt in the minds of those yearning for peace that at every turn the road ahead had been blown in to bits by the violence generated by the LTTE.

Amnesty International (AI) documents the latest manifestation of this violence that has bedeviled the peace process for the last 25 years.

The voice raised by AI against the LTTE confirms that whatever legitimacy its violence had in the beginning has been washed away by the endless streams of blood. Tired of the senseless bloodletting AI is crying enough is enough. Therefore, ending the LTTE violence must be at the top of the agenda of any peace negotiations.

The LTTE cannot get away by dismissing the war crimes and crimes against humanity itemized by AI as government propaganda.

Every one of the violations has been validated by first hand evidence gathered by AI and the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) - the only independent NGO that does not pussyfoot around the violations of human rights by all parties. To ignore these issues is to surrender to the agenda of the LTTE violence.

Suppression

The diversionary side issue of the LTTE will be to focus on 'paramilitaries', meaning suppression of its armed political rivals. Is this a priority for peace talks? If so for whom is it a priority? If it is a priority and a valid argument why did Prabhakaran break away from the peace talks even after Ranil Wickremesinghe government disarmed the paramilitaries as agreed in the Ceasefire Agreement?

If the disarming of the 'paramilitaries' is a priority for the LTTE isn't it a priority for the entire nation to disarm all armed groups including the LTTE?

Isn't it the standard policy of Western democracies to insist on disarming all armed groups before even starting negotiations? And will they ever tolerate the shenanigans going in Sri Lanka under their aegis?

For instance, Aftenposten, an Oslo daily reported just a couple of days ago (February 8, 2006) that Norwegian troops stationed in Afghanistan had been attacked with stones and a hand grenade by demonstrators protesting against the Danish cartoons caricaturing Mohammed.

In self-defence Norwegian troops in the town of Mayman, capital of Faryab province in Western Afghanistan, fired at the demonstrators.

Four demonstrators were killed and 22 injured. Norwegian soldiers had called for backup and a jet fighter swooped overhead in an effort to frighten the demonstrators, said Aftenposten.

Hypocrisy

Jehan Perera and Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, according to reliable sources, have not flown yet to Kabul to investigate the killing of four Afghans by the Norwegian soldiers. There is also no truth in the story that this couple has been invited to lecture to the Norwegian soldiers on how to protect human rights when a crowd attacks their camp.

Nor has SLMM made a statement on these killings. Most probably they will come up with the story that some "third party" had done it. Hypocrisy has been another obscenity of the NGOlogists.

Where is the morality of the Nordic peace-makers and peace-monitors acting in every conceivable way to tie the hands of forces opposed to the LTTE - whether Sri Lankan forces or the so-called 'paramilitaries' - and giving total immunity to the Norwegian soldiers to fire away at Afghan civilians? Peace-makers can't have it both ways. Peace-makers must choose between war and peace and the first step towards peace is the restoration of human rights.

This is emphasized in AI's press communiqu, (February 5) issued shortly after releasing its report (February 3). It states: "Amnesty International asked Sri Lanka's warring parties to thrash out human rights issues during crucial talks this month to stem a wave of killings, abductions, and child recruitment.

'The organisation urges that the issue of human rights monitoring be urgently addressed at these talks,' Amnesty said. (AFP, February 5)

Past experiences have proved that the peace process will collapse, every step of the way, if it is not backed up with without guarantees of human rights.

Ranil Wickremesinghe's globe-trotting team ended up as the biggest disaster next to the unsinkable Titanic because they failed to introduce or enforce a regime of human rights in the Vanni.

Neither peace nor the Tamil victims of the LTTE violence can be saved without enforcing undeviatingly the international humanitarian laws.

If regime change in the Vanni is ruled out as a means of restoring human rights to the Tamil people, then enforcing human rights is the only available means of restraining his brutal excesses.

Prolonged violence

But the reality is that Prabhakaran can never agree to it, nor will he enforce it if he agrees nominally to it to escape the wrath of the international community for the simple reason that observing human rights is not going to win him Eelam.

Nor is it an effective instrument for him to hang on to his precarious grip on the Tamil people. Because he relies only on prolonged violence to achieve his goals human rights is anathema to him.

As far as he is concerned human rights are there to trap and restrain his opponents. He, of course, has placed himself above the petty issues of human rights.

This explains why he refused to attend the talks in Tokyo which was going to tie him down to human rights as a pre-condition to receiving aid. Prabhakaran also did not hesitate to withdraw from the talks to draw up plans for human rights for both parties by Ian Martin of AI.

This is confirmed in the AI report which states: "At the last round of talks in April 2003 the human rights adviser to the peace process, Ian Martin, was asked to draw up a human rights declaration to be adopted by both parties as the basis of further monitoring. However, when the LTTE withdrew from the talks plans for human rights monitoring as part of the peace process did not proceed any further."

Neither his personality nor his political ideologies and strategies inclined him kindly towards human rights. Human rights and Prabhakaran stand at the opposite ends of any moral spectrum.

His career in violence - there is none other - reveals that he drifted instinctively towards violence from a young age. His first experiment in violence began as a kid when he would "catch insects and prick them to death with needles to gain the mental preparation to torture the 'enemy'. "(Tigers of Lanka, M. R. Narayan Swamy - p.52).

Next he graduated to a catapult to hone his marksmanship by targeting birds and squirrels and finally to lethal fire power, imitating Clint Eastwood, his favourite celluloid hero. He got his first scalp when he gunned down Alfred Duraiyappah Mayor of Jaffna in 1975. He has not stopped killing human beings since then.

Culture of violence

A study of his political strategies and ideologies too confirm that he was born into violence, grew up in violence and thrived in violence. He is the first born of the 1976 Vaddukoddai Resolution that endorsed violence by declaring war against the Sinhalese.

There were 30-odd armed Tamil groups in the post-1976 wave of violence. He eliminated practically all of them including the fathers of the Vaddukoddai Resolution. Again and again he has produced only one answer to any opposition that crosses his path: kill, kill and kill. Violating the human rights of others is second nature to him.

Prof. James Jupp of the Australian University told a seminar on the Sri Lankan crisis held in Canberra that Prabhakaran is 'a pathological killer.' There is no limit to his serial killings.

Besides, Prabhakaran can survive and thrive only in a culture of violence. He will collapse in a non-violent, democratic culture. Consequently, human rights are irrelevant to him. So who is going to make Prabhakaran put his gun down?

By his own admission it is known that the tsunami forced him to suspend his war planned for 2005. Can Geneva be the substitute for the tsunami in 2006? Geneva can produce some results if it follows the advice of Secretary General of AI, Irene Khan, who insists that an independent monitoring mechanism to safeguard human rights is indispensable for peace.

She took up this issue with LTTE's political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan in last December. His reply as recorded in the AI press communiqu, is: "Mr Thamilselvan said that the LTTE would be prepared to consider such an option if other parties to the discussion were in agreement with this approach."

AI is now planning another fact-finding mission in view of the LTTE denials of violations of human rights.

AI mission must cover all aspects of human rights in the areas controlled by the LTTE. One particular aspect should be the torture chambers. Can the LTTE which runs torture chambers for the Tamil people deliver peace to the Tamil people?

Peace can head towards some achievable goals only if the AI recommendations are endorsed in Geneva. If not AI will be condemned to write and re-write identical reports in the years to come.

Concluded