The ‘tragedy of peace’ from a tendentious report:

European Parliament rejects moves for Int’l probe on Sri Lanka

“It is a far cry from the reality and was heavy on criticism but light in substance,” was the most telling comment on the Darusman Report made by Dr. Charles Tannock, UK - MEP) as he spoke on the ‘Urgency Debate’ in the European Parliament (Thursday 13), which defeated an attempt by the Socialist group ‘to seek the immediate establishment of an international justice mechanism’ on Sri Lanka. He was speaking against a move by the Socialist and Green Parties at the Strassbourg Plenary of the European Parliament to draw attention to the so-called ‘UN Panel Report’ on accountability issues in Sri Lanka, during the last phase of the operation against terrorism in the country.

Dr. Tannock, representing the European Conservatives, went further to state that: “Sri Lanka has finally achieved peace by defeating a ruthless terrorist organization - LTTE which rejected all the peace bids made by the government”. He said “the term ‘Genocide’ is being mentioned by some even without the knowledge of its meaning”. Questioning the arguments made by the Socialists and Greens, Dr. Tannock asked “how any one could accuse the Sri Lanka Army for genocide or crimes against humanity when the same Army rescued more than 200,000 Tamil civilians from the LTTE and have now helped re-settle most of them”.

The rejection by the European Parliament of the move to seek the immediate establishment of an international justice mechanism on Sri Lanka is a major success of the government’s move to present to the world the truth about the defeat of the LTTE, and exposing the efforts of the pro-LTTE lobbyists, especially in the West, who used the Office of the UN Secretary General and the highly contentious Darusman Report, to attack Sri Lanka through allegation of war crimes and violations of humanitarian law, in the final phase of the defeat of LTTE terror.

President’s forceful counter

It is significant that this defeat of the move to have an international probe on Sri Lanka came soon after President Mahinda Rajapaksa made it very clear that although Sri Lanka did not accept the validity of the Darusman Report, the government would be forceful in countering the many false charges the report makes against the country, its armed forces and the success of the humanitarian operation to defeat the LTTE and its terror.

In his interaction with editors of the print and electronic media last Tuesday, President Rajapaksa stated this position with emphasis and focus on core issues that seemed lacking earlier in official reactions to the Darusman Panel and its report, whether to diplomats or in other official statements.

Describing the Darusman Report as a tendentious document that makes grossly false allegations about Sri Lanka and its security forces, the President said the government will defend the good name of the country and expose the false allegations that are abundant in this report. He emphasized that although there were questions about the validity of the panel that prepared this report, Sri Lanka would not take it lightly because it is necessary to expose the abundance of false allegations made, and it is the responsibility of government to safeguard the good name and the image of the country.

Responding to questions the President said the report was admittedly a narrative of unsubstantiated statements and not a record of any verified or authenticated facts. He said there was an abundance of evidence available through very reliable sources within the UN and several international agencies that were associated with the government in carrying out humanitarian operation to eradicate terrorism. All of this will be made available to all concerned.

The suspicion that Thursday’s debate in the European Parliament was promoted by extremists elements in the ‘Tamil Diaspora’ who see in the Darusman Report a weapon in their campaign against Sri Lanka, was stated very clearly by Geoffrey Van Orden (The European Conservatives and Reformists/UK) who said, “I regret that we are having this debate today. I suspect that it has been promoted by extremist elements in the Tamil Diaspora - the same people who have helped to sustain the LTTE terrorist campaign over many years through political activity and funding, often from the proceeds of crime. Instead of trying to bring together the peoples of Sri Lanka, there are those that seek to continue a campaign of hatred and division. They see this Darusman Report as a weapon in this campaign and just want to put the Sri Lankan government in the dock. This approach is malicious and counter-productive”.

Sri Lankan responsibility

He added: “Of course there should be an enquiry and openness regarding allegations of human rights abuse. This is the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government which has set up an eight-member Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) with the aim of ensuring accountability and justice. I believe that its work would be strengthened enormously with international input and it needs to take serious account of the UN’s Darusman Report. Let us do all that we can to support the government and people of Sri Lanka instead of attacking them”. He urged the European Parliament “to remain vigilant concerning those that seek to reignite the embers of LTTE terrorism. I call on the EU and European governments to be more active in dealing with extremists in our midst”.

Also participating in the debate, German MEP Thomas Mann of the Majority European Peoples Party (EPP), said in February 2011 he “was in Sri Lanka as a member of the South Asian Delegation and saw just how much effort was being made to progressively deal with the post conflict issues like removing land mines and facilitating displaced people to return to their homes. The government’s readiness to cooperate, desire to integrate minorities and assure proper democratic and human rights standards implies that there will be a valid future for this country”.

The tragedy of peace

“The war in Sri Lanka ended tragically, amidst controversy.” This is how the Darusman Report begins. Even the most cursory reading of this report would show that the tragedy it refers to was for the LTTE and its supporters who are still throwing the weight of their funds and constituency strength in several Western countries. The report goes on to state that: “Many Sri Lankans and others around the world were relieved that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) renowned for its brutality, was defeated and that 27 years of armed conflict had come to an end. However, many people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere were deeply disturbed about the means used to achieve the victory by the country’s armed forces.” (Para 1) It is interesting to note that the Darusman Panellists regarded the LTTE as ‘renowned’ and not ‘noted’. From the outset the panel seeks to bring some glory to the LTTE, although compelled to record its terrorism that saw this conflict being drawn for nearly three decades of tragic bloodshed. For the panellists the tragedy was peace itself, and the relief in Sri Lanka and others around the world that the LTTE was finally defeated. It is not easy to take such observations as being objective, whether they are in recommendations to the UNSG or any others. The tendentious nature of the report is thus made obvious from the outset.

In para 31, the report that has fast become the new Bible of the anti-Sri Lanka lobby, states: The LTTE began as a Tamil liberation movement and eventually became the most disciplined and nationalist of the Tamil militant groups, emerging as the dominant force espousing a separatist agenda in the mid-1980s”. It admits that the LTTE adopted increasingly violent tactics to silence other Tamil groups, and enforce the thinking of Velupillai Prabhakaran on all Tamils and others,

too. The issues of it being the ‘most disciplined’ and ‘most nationalist’ of the Tamil militant groups raise many questions. If discipline of any type is considered a virtue, then the Darusman Committee has made its point very well. As for being the ‘most nationalist’, one wonders whether any Tamil group that went on the rampage against its own people, to hold them in its thrall for so long, until being liberated by the Sri Lankan troops that it fought for three decades, could be termed even mildly nationalist, rather than extremist.

The world is not without examples of other such highly ‘disciplined’ and ‘nationalist’ groups. The quickest example is the Nazi forces of Adolf Hitler. There is no doubt about their high level of discipline, which saw almost the entirety of Europe come under the Nazi jackboot in a very short time. As for their nationalism, the Nazis had a very high commitment to demonstrating German Nationalism that had been distorted to the Nazi dogma of the racial supremacy of the Aryans. It was a high level of discipline and nationalism - of the Aryan racist variety - that saw the holocaust of Jews, and the systematic and highly efficient methods of seeking to wipe out the Roma and Gypsies and others too.

The Panel (para 53) states it “has chosen to present the allegations it finds credible in a narrative account rather than listing the various allegations under their legal classification, so as to provide a greater sense of context and perspective. This account should not be taken as proved facts, and any effort to determine specific liabilities would require a higher threshold.”

It is certainly interesting to see the Darusman Panel admit to its attempt at story telling, without recourse to the truth, in stating that what it presents is a narrative that does not list various allegations under their legal classifications. There are stories and narratives of many types, from fairy tales to the best and worst of novels. There are tales that are passed down by word of mouth and legends that continue to captivate the minds of people without an iota of truth established by research. What the Darusman Report is admitting to doing is presenting a gory story to the world, which has not gone through the test of verification or authentication. Its admission of requiring a higher threshold to determine specific liabilities is the most damning comment it makes of its own work, done at such speed, and with the least importance to verification of the truth.

It is hardly surprising that the European Parliament had thought it fit to reject any move to call for an international probe into the many allegations on Sri Lanka, based on such a narrative that lacks in basics of accountability about its own findings.