National policy and thinking to the fore – Part III:

Just land policy under implementation

Text of speech delivered by External Affairs Minister Prof G. L. Peiris at the 'National Conference on the Role of Education in Reconciliation' held at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, Colombo on March 13.

This does not mean as some people are trying to argue, ousting the jurisdiction of the court. The jurisdiction of the court is preserved intact. But this is a practical remedy for the time being otherwise how are we to decide who is going to occupy a particular piece of land.

So that is being done. Then we are now formulating a cohesive and just land policy particularly in those parts of the country that have been affected by the war. On what basis do you allocate land to families in those parts of the country? When you have completed this exercise, regrettably but inevitably there will be a residue of people who will be left landless. How do you then deal with those problems? Now that work is continuing and the relevant institutions of the government are working hard on these matters, you can’t sort out these problems in Geneva, nobody can. These are local issues.

Minister Prof G. L. Peiris

Local minds with local experience and local expertise and a local involvement in local problems is absolutely necessary to arrive at a solution to these problems which would be acceptable not in Geneva but to the people of country. These are necessarily indigenous issues, so that is why we keep stressing the essentiality of a homespun solution. Now to be fair again the enthusiasm President Rajapaksa has shown with regard to, what to my mind, is one of the most pressing problems in this country and a problem that is crying out for a solution, I refer to the language capability initiative. This was initiated by the president of Sri Lanka a few months ago in the presence of the former President of India Abdul Kalam who throughout his career had taken a very keen interest in these issues. Former president A. J. P. Abdul Kalam accepted with pleasure of President Rajapaksa's invitation to come to our country and associate himself with this very productive, timely and beneficial initiative.

Tertiary education

I see some vice Chancellors of Universities here, you know one of the problems of secondary and tertiary education of this country is the stratification, the compartmentalization of our society on lines of language. When children of the Sinhala community are not able to converse with the children of the Tamil community because the Sinhalese don’t converse in Tamil and vice versa and unlike in our generation neither group is really comfortable in English you have a problem of communication. And over time this has accentuated differences, unwittingly therefore the system has tended to emphasise’ not what the communities share in common which is considerable it is the differences. Languages are therefore is very important.

Friendship when your in school or university are made on share interests and shared values and if you are overly conscious of racial identity, that is one of the more serious problem that has affected this country. Excessive consciousness on religious and linguistic identity. The answer is to be found in the very inspiring programme that has been inaugurated by the President.

So who can say that this is inadequate? And that the international community must step into put our house in order for us? is that a reasonable point of view having regard to the considerable progress we have made at the extremely short time we have had at our disposal since the report of the LLRC was presented to the government of Sri Lanka. So that is my resume of the work that has been done, but these are the main things the government has done.

Now I want to conclude by commenting in a very objective way about some of the aspects of the current situation. Now I told you that the international community certainly has a role to play, but surely when you talk of the system, whether its technical assistance or capacity building, surely the country in question must request this assistance. We must say that we would like you to support us in these matters.

LLRC report

A President of a country, I won’t say which country, told me “I don’t understand this, your not asking for assistance how can somebody thrust it down my throat. If I don’t want assistance how can somebody force me in accept what they give us”. I found that very interesting because he brought the whole issue down in one point. He said “I can’t understand this, you are not asking for it, how can somebody force you to accept this? How can somebody tell you that you must accept this assistance and that you must report back in the 82nd session in March next year when you never asked for it in the first place”. The whole international order works on the basis of mutual respect and equality it has nothing to do with coercion or duress or imposing ones will on somebody else, who may be weaker financially, militarily or in any other respect.

The doctrine of sovereign equality is one of the conceptual cornerstones of the international legal order. So as the President of one of the countries told me “it beats me, I cannot even begin comprehend how this can happen”, frankly nor can we and I told him that.

Now just ask yourself objectively what all this has done, I must emphasize that these issues must be considered without emotion, be cerebral the reflecting, discriminating mind, not the hear which is full of emotions. So let us entirely be entirely analytical and cerebral. So what has this done? What is the total upshot of it? This of course occupying centre stage in the media but is it not the case, that if the idea is to facilitate implementation of the proposals contained in the LLRC report, just ask yourselves sincerely frankly with candor ask yourselves has this task been facilitated or hampered by this exercise?

Modern times

Sri Lanka is a proud nation and it has every reason to be proud, not only because of its culture and its civilization, but we have every reason to be proud of its achievement in modern times. How many countries with armies as large as 25 times of ours, today one of the most pressing problems is terrorism, this country have been able to vanquish terrorism not only for our benefit but for the benefit of the entire region. We don’t have serious problems of piracy in the Bay of Bengal unlike in certain parts of the world so far beyond the shores of this island nation humanity has benefited what President Rajapaksa and his government has achieved. So we have every reason to be proud.

Now people of Sri Lanka get the impression that the report is being forced down by foreign powers. What do you think the natural reaction is going to be. Obviously there is going to be some resistance. By some kind of reason if it acquires some foreign identity or character the impression would be not because we want to but because we are being forced to. Resolutions against us, coercion, duress, compulsion the natural reaction of a proud people is to resist that. Why force us, let us decide for ourselves what is good for this country. Why must we succumb to this kind of naked pressure?

Now there is a ground swell in this country which is perfectly obvious. So it all depends on what are ones objectives, what is ones priorities. If the objective is to facilitate the implementation of the LLRC report is this plus or minus? Is it helpful or is it the opposite that would happen? I would like to pose that question to you. It is polarizing not only Sri Lankan society but the international community.

International community

Anybody who was in Geneva last week would have observed to themselves how deep that polarization is, HRC consisting of 47 countries is split right down the middle. If that is not polarization what is polarization? The result of this has been to divide the international community as well in a very starkly direct way. It is not as though there is a consensus in the HRC, there is no consensus whatsoever and on the contrary there is a fundamental disagreement. Not only with regard to Sri Lanka but with regard to the manner of the functioning of the HRC. That is why I have said in the different capitals that I have visited during the last month that this is a matter which has repercussions which far transcend the specifics of the Lankan situation.

I also want to ask you this, specifically because I am addressing the teachers on this occasion. I say to you the HRC would have totally defeated the objectives with which it was established. If you have power blocks, total groups of countries that are saying whatever are conscience tells us to do whatever our judgments tells us to do we have to support the resolution because of the country that is bringing the resolution, is that they way you want this HRC to function? The issues don’t matter, the merits don’t matter, and the overriding consideration is a political or strategic alliance.

Human Rights Council

We had a luncheon for all the heads of delegations and I addressed them the way I am addressing you now, and that was followed by a lively Q&A session.

The permanent representative of one country told me I have no control over the manner in which I vote that I have to do with the instructions that come from my capital. But our heart is not in it, we don’t think that this is reasonable at all, we can’t break ranks that is the political reality of the matter and this person added that therefore I had to vote, but I chose to remain silent in the discussion because I did not wish to say something that is opposed to my conscience. So I did not utter a single word.

So I you have power blocks who are operating as power blocks in the HRC, there saying we can't decide, somebody cracks the whips we have to follow meekly and submissively, what does it do to the justice of a matter? We will certainly object to our country and its future to be decided in that manner. We will not allow that to happen. I will say that you without fear of contradiction.

If other people because of political, economic or other problems feel the need to work together that is fine, but if that is going to impact upon the destiny of this nation we will not allow that to happen.

The Human Rights Council was a successor to the commission which was done away with and it was replaced by the council for precisely this reason, because there was growing disenchantment about the degree of politicization of the commission. It was felt that the commission was not serving its purpose because it had become a political instrument, now the council is no different to the commission. If the council was thought to be unacceptable due to this, then the council is going exactly the same way the commission went. And I say to you that if that is the modus operandi of the HRC then it's not worthy of the respect of the international community. It's certainly not worthy of the respect or esteem of the international community.

Value system

Decide each issue on its merits; decide for in this case against in another. You can't say that we all belong to one block: no matter what the merits we will raise our hands if we are ordered to. That is a travesty of justice it's a denial and an absolute contradiction of the value system underpinning the charter of the UN. So I ask those of you who have the most sacred of all duties which I fulfilled for 26 years in the University as a teacher. You have the sacrosanct responsibility of disseminating knowledge, not only knowledge but analytical capabilities in the minds that you come into contact with and the minds that you mould in the course of your teaching.

So we go back there in a few weeks, it is not a question of who wins or who loses that is not the issue.

What is right what the proper thing to do is? Can we in all conscience accept this? Are these the ideals that motivated the formation of the institutions? Are we doing justice to those whose vision resulted in these institutions coming into being or are we prostituting them? Are we vilifying these institutions in a spirit of cynicism and skepticism now these are the questions I pose to you to ponder in earnest? Not to give me the answer but to give the answer to your own conscience. Concluded