Amnesty plays foul in Windies

GRAVE THREAT: Amnesty International (AI) is an organization I have had much respect for. I have been associated with it, and obtained its help when we needed international support to safeguard media freedom in Sri Lanka in the late 80s and early 90s, and also when Human Rights came under grave threat here in the same period. One is grateful for such help.

The Sri Lankan Government too obtained its assistance in the peace process. I understand well the need for action by HR organizations abroad at times when they are endangered or disregarded in any country.

Yet, I think AI has more than blundered, and in very poor taste too, in its decision to use the Cricket World Cup Series in the West Indies to allegedly draw the attention of the sporting world to HR violations in Sri Lanka.

It has launched its own “ball by ball” campaign for what it claims is a move to impress both sides to the Sri Lankan conflict the need to “play by the rule”.

I see this as a campaign conceived of and implemented with double standards. It is the duplicitous and condescending white sahib reborn, using Human Rights to buttress double standards of play.

Interestingly, the campaign which in effect seeks to humiliate and demoralize the Sri Lankan Cricket Team in the West Indies came to light at the same time when the LTTE carried yet another of its claymore bomb attacks on a civilian passenger bus at Ampara, killing 16 and injuring many more.

Surprisingly, AI had not thought of distributing models of claymore bombs on which sports fans were to write “Play by the Rules” knowing the carnage these bombs have caused in Sri Lanka. But, AI would have seen such a move as being biased against the LTTE, which is by far the largest user of this agent of human destruction.

It is necessary to remember that the Sri Lankan team participating in the current World Cup Series represents the entire country, and not any section of the people, or the government.

Its members comprise all main communities and religions in Sri Lanka. AI appears to have forgotten that cricket is a gentlemen’s game, while being decidedly ungentlemanly in its approach.

Super Bowl

Has AI distributed any protest leaflets or “protest balls” at any Super Bowl or World Series Baseball game or any major league Basketball game in the USA, to protest against all the Human Rights abuses at Guantanamo and in Iraq?

Although I do not want English cricket disrupted by cheap AI tactics, what has it done vis-…-vis cricket in England, considering the increasing threats to the rights of Muslims in the UK, and Britain’s role in spreading death and destruction in Iraq by being party to the illegal invasion and regime change there.

As one contributor to “Groundviews” (http://www.groundviews. org) has asked: “if sports tournaments are powerful platforms for human rights campaigns, it begs the question as to why AI has not used the NCAA to draw attention to the horrors of Guantanamo or World Cup Soccer to push for withdrawal from Iraq.

Are there AI banners following Tiger Woods to the first tee en route to his next Masters title?” The reality is that if its campaign is as successful as AI hopes, all it can do is demoralize and weaken the only South Asian (shall I say all brown?) team regarded as having a chance of winning the World Cup this year.

This is just not cricket. AI should also learn to play by the rules.

Neutral umpire?

But AI thinks differently. Commenting on an Associated Press report that carried my views on its campaign, AI said it saw no problem in using the World Cup to educate people about human rights.

Tim Parritt, Amnesty’s deputy Asia Pacific director has said: “Just as all cricket teams need an independent umpire to make objective decisions, so too does Sri Lanka need independent human rights monitors to ensure the Sri Lankan government, Tamil Tigers and other armed groups respect the rules and protect civilians caught up in the conflict.”

“Currently all parties to the conflict in Sri Lanka are breaking international law by killing civilians, destroying homes and schools, or forcibly disappearing people. The situation has got far worse over the last year, and we decided it was time to take action.”

Amnesty’s Parritt adds that: “Sports have proved an effective tool in the past for pressuring politicians, most notably in apartheid-era South Africa, which was banned from most international sporting events because of its racial policies.”

Although a puerile observation on a very serious matter, this should not escape challenge. Tim Parritt talks in terms of sports, games and independent umpires, while obviously lacking in basic knowledge about umpiring.

True enough, all cricket teams do need independent umpires to make objective decisions. What he does not know is that such independent or neutral umpires are there with the consent of both teams in the game are appointed by its organisers.

AI has not been chosen to be umpire in the dispute between the Sri Lankan State and the LTTE by either party, definitely not by the State. One presumes it has not been chosen by the LTTE either.

If not, Parritt had better say so, to help us judge AI about its alleged independence. If it has been nominated by the organisers of this crisis it is time for AI and Tim Parritt to name the organiser. Independent umpires do not parachute on to playing fields.

What calls for even more serious condemnation is AI’s attitude of looking at the dispute in Sri Lanka as a “game”.

With all its experience AI should know that this is no game, where cheap gimmicks of allegedly independent umpiring has to be brought into play.

This is a matter involving the entirety of the Sri Lankan people, the sovereignty and integrity of the Sri Lankan State, the rights of the important Tamil community that is largely held in thrall by the terror of the LTTE under the guise of liberation, and a great deal of bloodshed due to the LTTE’s commitment to terror.

It is a situation that gives genuine cause for concern by honest Human Rights activists, but not one that should invite such publicity-oriented humbug.

Apartheid

AI’s Asia Pacific director uses the example of international sanctions against the South Africa’s former apartheid regime, which included a ban on sporting contacts, to justify the AI ball game in the West Indies.

Does AI really compare the situation in Sri Lanka to the apartheid regime that prevailed in South Africa, with its institutionalised racism, pass books and all the violence of the State directed against the true owners and inheritors of South Africa, its black people?

Sri Lanka is no Apartheid State, though it has many shortcomings that need addressing. It is time that AI and any other organisations that may have begun to think in apartheid terms about Sri Lanka, realised that the LTTE is not even a much distorted image of the African National Congress.

Self deception of this type by international organisations can lead to much worse developments than AI’s current folly in the West Indies.

Whatever AI may say about independent umpiring or getting both sides to “play the game”, the fact is the thrust of AI’s current ball play is the Government of Sri Lanka only, through the vulnerable Sri Lankan cricket team.

Can it explain how the LTTE is impacted by this screaming humbug in the name of playing by the rules? It is very easy for AI to state what seeks to do is teach both sides the importance of playing by the rules.

Yet, the LTTE is not a player in any games conducted under civilised rules of participation.

It will take much more than scribbled balls to make the LTTE even think of getting away from its bloody “game” of persistent terror, where it is the arbiter on the rules of terror. It is time AI took a long hard look at its own rules of engagement and play.