'Unite to defeat the conspiracy'

Lanka Sama Samaja Party General Secretary Tissa Vitharana

The government is facing a serious diplomatic offensive that could have disastrous consequences for the country as a whole. The LSSP calls on all Sri Lankans to unite to defeat this imperialist conspiracy, which is based on the Ban Ki Moon Panel Report. The government should not react emotionally or underestimate the magnitude of the threat. It needs to act effectively, but with great care.

Imperialistic Conspiracy

The double standards and sinister role of the imperialist countries led by the USA, has been exposed by events in the Middle East.

For example, in the face of the peoples' uprisings in the Arab world, the USA and its European allies have turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabian interventions to defend the pro-US regime in Bahrain. But they have gone to the extent of using the United Nations, on the pretext of saving civilians through a 'no fly zone' in Libya, to actively attack the pro-Gaddafi forces, killing civilians in the process, so as to prepare the ground for an invasion to ensure the regime change that they desire. A similar strategy appears to be aimed at Sri Lanka.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa-led government has carried out a non-aligned foreign policy which does not find favour with the USA. It has forged strong links with countries like China, Russia, India, Vietnam, Iran, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela and South Africa and refused to be a US puppet. It has acted against the neo-liberal policies foisted on Sri Lanka since 1977.

It has not only effectively defeated the deadly terrorist LTTE and its efforts to divide the country, but also thwarted the efforts of the USA to save the LTTE leadership at the end of the war in May 2009. By ending the war, the arms sales to both sides of the conflict have practically ended, a blow to struggling Western economies. Therefore, the USA would like to see a regime change in Sri Lanka.

The imperialists therefore, seek to discredit the government both locally and internationally and if possible pave the way for their intervention through the UN mechanism. The way they are seeking to do so, is by charging the government with 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity' directed against the minority Tamil population.

By making the issue one of injustice by a majority Sinhala government against an innocent Tamil minority, who have suffered due to a long and bitter conflict, world public sympathy is harnessed to achieve the imperialist objective.

Background

The fact that during the entire decades long war, except the last few months, there were no such allegations against the government forces, that the government ensured that food and medicines were supplied in adequate amounts to the Tamil people (and thereby also to the LTTE) and that displaced war affected Tamils were welcomed by the Sinhalese in the South and that Sinhala soldiers sacrificed their lives to save Tamil lives during the tsunami are all ignored.

The fact that the problems arose in the last few months of the war was purely because the LTTE herded the Tamil civilians and used them as a human shield and the LTTE not only ignored government pleas to release the civilians, but also shot those who tried to escape to reach the safety of the government areas.

When we of the Left appealed to the President to minimize the civilian casualties, he responded by stopping the use of long range weapons, even though restriction to small arms fire would expose our soldiers to greater danger. The supply of food and medicines on the basis of there being 300,000 civilians, was continued during the last phase of the war and after.

The Panel (BKMP)

Appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has been presented with a large body of information, some of which may be accurate. However, much of what has been included are clearly exaggerations, distortions or even complete fabrications by those wishing to discredit the government. Unfortunately, the sources include people who are expected to be neutral, such as members of United Nations and other international organizations, but over the years it has become evident that many of them are blatantly biased. Even if the three members preparing this report had been neutral, they were probably unaware of this and have taken the statements given to them to be factual. Many people abroad are unaware of the friendly relations that exist among the different racial groups in Sri Lanka, particularly the Sinhalese and the Tamils. This contrasts with the intense hostility that prevails between racial or religious groups associated with conflict situations abroad.

The LSSP recommends speedy action with regard to the following

1 The LSSP requests the Ministry of External Affairs and other relevant government ministries to quickly and objectively point out and refute the misinformation contained in the BKMP Report, so that the record can be put straight.

2 The government should effectively blunt the imperialist diplomatic offensive by early and affective briefing of the foreign ministers and governments of all the UN member countries, giving emphasis to the members of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council, which is scheduled to meet later this year in July.

03. The BKMP report aims to enable UN interventions in Sri Lanka to be initiated. Among the recommendations are the establishment of an International Investigative Process to look into alleged human rights violations from the point of view of accountability. Considering the biased nature of the BKMP report, one cannot expect fairness in such process. The need for the suggested course of action can be overcome by establishing a credible accountability process within Sri Lanka itself, as this is an internal problem which we should address.

04. The LSSP also calls upon the government to intensify the efforts being made to attend to the grievances of the Tamil people. While attending to economic and social needs of the Tamil people, it is important that they should also get a reasonable share of political power. One of the outcomes of the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) process was the reaching of a consensus on power sharing at the centre and the periphery within a unitary framework.

If the present TNA members of the Parliament are also drawn into a similar process and their views are given serious consideration, it would restore confidence that the government is serious about giving the Tamil people their due place in society and enabling their elected representatives to be able to take the decisions and implement them on their behalf. Meeting the economic and social needs of the Tamil people in a country that is still poor and underdeveloped like Sri Lanka, will take a long time.

But the necessary political changes can be implemented quickly. This would effectively undermine the attack of the diaspora and Western powers against the government on behalf of the Tamil people.

05. Counter the BKMP Report outcomes- Ban-Ki-Moon in his own wisdom had decided that he would release the panel report, despite the blatant errors which many have pointed out, but did not have authority to "probe into the matter any further." By releasing the report into the public domain, notwithstanding an undertaking he had previously given to the G.O.S.L. that he would not do so, he has made the process of reconciliation within the country more difficult while leaving the contents wide open to rash hands to handle.

Such hands may be found from any number of quarters, such as from the vast INGO community and sections of the Tamil Diaspora now banded together to form a trans-national organization.

It is our understanding that these organizations have the capability to use the trigger mechanism found in Article 15 of the Rome Treaty where the prosecutor of the International Court of Criminal Justice (ICC), could use material obtained or received from a wide variety of sources under Article 15(2) and to proceed to act on his own volition.

This process is one that the prosecutor possesses notwithstanding the claims by the UNP that their not signing into the Treaty of Rome might save the government from any legal harassments through the ICC. In our view the government should act with caution and engage in establishing a mechanism that would effectively explain and refute the many distortions and biases that interpenetrate the substance presented in the Panel Report.

Therefore, the question arises whether we should not only publicly refute the accusations made in the report, but also communicate them to the Prosecutor General of the ICC in time. The LSSP calls upon the government to respond effectively and with dignity on the lines outlined here so that we can effectively defeat the machinations of the imperialist countries.

We give our fullest support to the government in this endeavour.