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Why not international probe on UK in Iraq?

How often in recent weeks have you heard demands for transparency being made from Sri Lanka by the West - transparency is the key word being used in the current game of Sri Lanka bashing that is going on, whether it comes from the ranks of British Cabinet Ministers or officers of the United Nations.

But in the recent announcement by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown of an inquiry into what caused the UK to invade Iraq, its conduct of the war against the people of Iraq and its consequences, there is pretty little to show that Brown and his losing string of Labour hacks have any regard in transparency.

For all the international involvement of the UK in the war in Iraq, Gordon Brown only offers an internal probe; and that too in private. The British public that lost more than 140 troops, and the Iraqis who lost more than 1.5 million people, will be kept largely in the dark about UK in Iraq as would the world community, quite unlike the demands being heaped on Sri Lanka.

Our own people

The problem in Sri Lanka is one that involves its own people. Sri Lankan troops did not go to any foreign country, uninvited by the people of that land, to carry out regime change there. They did not do so under the guise of hunting for hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD.


Prime Minister Gordon Brown


David Miliband

The country’s troops were not deployed in the North and East, having misled Parliament on the purpose of their mission. In fact, the Parliament of Sri Lanka, has freely voted to extend the State of Emergency that facilitated the conduct of the military operations against terror, once a month, every month.

It was an internal matter that did not see any foreign forces, except when Indian troops came here with the consent of Colombo, and left at the request of Colombo too, having lost nearly 1,800 of their numbers and injury to many more.

Sri Lanka purchased its own weapons from a variety of sources, but certainly not from the West, that did not want to provide us with weapons to fight terrorism, although they were engaged in a War Against Terror, in far off lands, that have as a result been torn apart into sectarian violence, and new spirals of violence threatening the very survival of some once stable nations.

Sri Lanka fought terrorism the hard way, in the face of a multiplicity of obstacles placed by countries that have their own idea of who or what a terrorist is, and how such forces that are dangerous to society should be eliminated.

The recent observation by a Pakistani General leading the operations against the Taliban in the Swat Valley that the leader of the Taliban there should be eliminated, did not raise the ire of anyone in the West.

The General said exactly what he thought was necessary in the battle against a terrorist organization spreading mayhem in his own country. It is no different to what Sri Lankan military leaders said earlier about the need to finally rout the LTTE and eliminate its leaders.

But many in the West still have the gumption to raise questions as to how the fighting cadres of the LTTE, and its leader who masterminded so much or savagery, was eliminated and the cycle of terror in this country brought to an end. There are many voices rooted in the West that still demand independent and international inquiries into the last days of the LTTE’s rout.

Probe UK in Iraq

The facts of the UK’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq, it would show there is every reason to call for a fully independent and international probe into why the UK went to Iraq, what it did there and what it has left the Iraqi people with.

The reasons are compelling. They went to a foreign land. They went there uninvited by its people. They went under false pretexts, having lied to their own legislature, the House of Commons, that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of acquiring WMD.

They spun and twisted intelligence reports to mislead their own legislature, and even worse, together with those in Washington who misled both Houses of Congress about Iraq and WMD, also misled the UN Security Council on the same matter.

They fooled the UN into endorsing the invasion of Iraq, which was in fact an illegal and criminal act. The entire invasion was a war crime of the highest order. All the bloodshed there was a humanitarian catastrophe - bloodbaths aplenty that no one in the UN warned about. But what do we have instead.

Gordon Brown, David Miliband and the other pathetic caricatures of true Labour politicians, eating off the hands of a so-called Tamil Diaspora that promises them vote banks and plenty of undeclared stuffed brown paper envelopes, have announced a probe into the UK’s participation in the war against Iraq, to be held in private.

An international atrocity of such magnitude is to be probed in private, without even the media present to report what happens, at least to the British people, if not the world. Such is the level of transparency practised by those who demand the very extremes of public disclosure from us.

Green introspection

We have heard much in recent months of attempts at reforms within the UNP, with the calls for change coming after each election defeat, and similar calls for the stepping down of the UNP’s leader who guided the party to this plight. The leader seems quite cozy and the members who shout also appear not too keen to subject the party and its policies to good introspection and soul searching.

Very much in contrast is the letter written by the former BJP Minister and party stalwart, Yashwant Sinha, to the BJP’s President, after the recent rout of the party of Hindutva policies at the recent Indian General Election.

Its contents are important reading to any democrat, and moreso to those of the UNP that is unable to comprehend its continuing defeats and the type of change within that may be needed to change the trend.

Here are relevant excerpts from Yashwant Sinha’s exceptional call for introspection by a party in defeat, in the hope of success in the future.

“It will be obvious even to a casual observer that this election has thrown up a number of issues which we can ignore only at our peril.

These relate to our basic tenets, our policies and programs, the issues that we raised during elections, the language in which we expressed them, the strategy that we worked out for the elections, the manner in which that strategy was implemented, the campaign style of our leaders, and finally, the faces that we projected.

“One would like to understand the voting behaviour of the minorities, the first-time voters, women, scheduled castes and tribes, the urban middle class, the Government employees and most importantly, the farmers and the industrial workers in this election. Which is the vote bank we have lost? Which is the vote bank we have gained? And finally, an analysis of the factors which helped the Congress Party increase its tally from 145 seats in the last election to 206 in this.

“I am sure a detailed review would be instructive and show us the path for the future. At the same time, it would also help us establish the principle of accountability in the Party.

“We are shying away from pin-pointing our weaknesses and fixing responsibility. We are hoping that time shall heal our wounds.

Thus, while on the one hand, the Party is avoiding a systematic appraisal of its performance, on the other, those who were responsible for the management of the campaign have already made their views public through interviews and articles in the media, drawn their conclusions, apportioned blame and given themselves a clean chit.

It is difficult to avoid the impression that in the BJP we put a premium on failure. Our reluctance to introspect and introspect comprehensively and openly is unacceptable to a large number of people within the party. So is the rat race for posts.

If we are a party with a difference, let us set an example in abnegation. If the responsibility is collective, then all of us should jointly share the responsibility for our defeat.

Let the party implement its own Kamraj Plan under which all office bearers of the party and the Parliamentary Party should resign from their posts which should then be filled up through the process of election laid down by our Constitution.

In order to facilitate this and to establish the principle of collective responsibility, I am making a beginning by submitting my resignation from the post of Vice-President of the Party, from the membership of the National Executive of the Party and from all positions of responsibility in the Party at the national and State level. I shall continue to serve the Party as an ordinary worker of the Party and as its member in Lok Sabha from Hazaribagh.”

Is anybody out there from the UNP listening? Not likely, again.

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