Exploiting 'Human Rights' for Political ends

The three most vociferous critiques of the Sri Lankan Government, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group have all declined the invitation by the LLRC to testify before it, citing 'lack of independence of the Commission' as reason for their inability to testify.

"Nothing in the LLRC mandate requires it to investigate the many credible allegations that, both the Government and the LTTE committed serious violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights law during the civil war, especially in the final months..." goes on the joint response of the organizations to the LLRC invitation.

UN resolution

In the first place these organizations should know that the Human Rights law as detailed in the UN resolution is not applicable to Sri Lanka in its conflict situation and what is applicable is only the International Humanitarian law.

Hence it is preposterous to accuse the Sri Lanka Government of violating human rights law which is applicable only in normal situations.

Again we notice the term 'civil war' being used in the response.

A civil war is a situation where two civilian communities fight among each other and this was certainly not the case in Sri Lanka. What was happening here was that the Sri Lankan Government Forces were battling the most organized terrorist outfit in the world.

It appears however that the use of the term 'civil war' is deliberate done to give a twisted impression of the situation in Sri Lankan to the world outside and especially to the West.

Therefore to start with, the response of the three organizations has betrayed their partisan attitude and the subjective nature with which they treated the situation in Sri Lanka during their many sessions of 'monitoring'.

The irony here is that, the three organizations are stating that the Sri Lanka Government is not credible and therefore they should not co-operate in the Government's efforts to be informed of the facts and circumstances of this conflict that they are privy to.

This is, in a situation where the Government has embarked in earnest to establish peace and rule of law in the country after having overcome a perilous situation where civil rights were endangered and human lives, just dispensable.

The three organizations should not forget that this conflict held this country to ransom for 34 years inflicting untold misery and hopelessness in to the lives of the country's citizens, destroying billions worth of national assets.

It appears that terms such as 'Independence' and 'transparency' are more important to these organizations than human lives itself! Therefore in such a context, this belligerent attitude smacks of any human sensitivity and brings to question the declared intentions of the organizations with claims of 'endeavouring to mitigate human misery at times of conflict'.

A feature that characterized the attitude adopted by these organizations throughout this conflict is that their proclivity to place the Sri Lankan Government and the terrorist LTTE on the same platform in levelling their criticism.

This was very subtly done in a way to elevate the LTTE and then to downgrade the Government so that the conflict gets projected as an unceasing fight between two parties of equal status. Paradoxically here was a situation where the LTTE was trying to wrest control of some parts of the country creating anarchy while the Government was endeavouring to re- establish its writ.

The Government of a country always has the right to use force against those who have taken arms against the State whereas the LTTE was committing a crime of high treason and subversion. But these organizations, blatantly disregarding the legality of the Government and the illegality of the LTTE held 'both the organizations equally responsible for violence'.

Guerilla tactics

Further these organizations do not appear to empathize with the difficulties an elected Government of a small country may have against a fascist brutal terror organization like the LTTE in protecting their population.

They do not appreciate that the guerilla tactics are a far removed way of fighting compared to the conventional fights for which these humanitarian laws have been formulated.

Deployment of civilians is very much a part of guerilla fighting tactics and a terrorist is always a civilian until and unless he pulls out his gun. The LTTE especially was an organization that possessed an effective propaganda mechanism and in order to gain propaganda mileage.

They used hospitals and churches as cover to invite military reactions against those facilities. The LTTE in fact exploited all the established norms of a civilized society with impunity for its own fighting advantage. Such a situation makes combat extremely volatile and civilian deaths inevitable and in such a light it is difficult to imagine how any organization, leave alone those wowed to protect human rights, could ignore the difficulties of a Government facing ruthless terror.

It is for this very reason that the Sri Lankan President in his recent UN address brought to the World Body's attention 'the need to rethink these international laws in the light of present day guerilla tactics'.

Human rights

Further, the emphasis placed by these organizations on the 'last stages of the conflict' appears intriguing given the fact that the people in this country suffered from this conflict for 34 years taking a toll of 100,000 human lives?

As far as the people in this country are concerned the last stages of the conflict or the fact that it ended was the best thing that ever happened to the conflict. But ironically the human rights activists are more concerned about how and why the conflict ended betraying their disappointment that the conflict ended after all.

Therefore in the end, these organizations despite their declared lofty ideal are not there to help small countries threatened by terrorism or democracies on the brink of anarchy but to create power vacuums by condemning the aggressor and the defender alike so that the situation become more vulnerable and unstable.

What the Government has to bear in mind is that the present improved situation in Sri Lanka is not because of, but despite these organizations and therefore the country has to consolidate that position again despite those who pontificate to fight for 'human rights' disregarding social and State rights.

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