Ms.Pillai’s IMPLAUSIBLE stand

M. Haris Z Deen, Ph.D., MBA., BSc., LLB (Hons.) FRICS

Naveen Pillai having failed in her earlier attempts in the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2012 to humble and humiliate Sri Lanka on its Human Rights record, continues to rake muck in further attempts to save face at her previous failures.

Sri Lanka though bravely faced, confronted and responded effectively to all the charges levelled against her. Furthermore, Sri Lanka, in allowing foreign fact finding missions to the places ravaged by the civil conflict (which has been erroneously termed war) and to confront and question the very people, the Tamils, against whom Naveen claims atrocities have been committed have displayed complete transparency. So far none of these foreign agencies have been able to come up with any evidence to support the trumped up allegations.

In fact, Sri Lanka in my view is the only country prepared to open its doors to such fact finding missions to travel freely to wherever they wished to go and speak to whomever they wished to gain evidence from, thus proving that she has no proverbial 'skeletons in her cupboards'. In fact in May 2012 Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Pieris agreed to allow a visit to this country by Naveenathan Pillai as United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights, without any reservations or conditions and also to host her. Despite this she continues to rubbish this country. Perhaps she has a reason for it as George Orwell stated in 1984 referring to another situation that:

“She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.”

Perhaps for Pillai, Sri Lanka is the ‘camouflage’ or the ‘scapegoat’ to cover her own disappointments and humiliations she and the UNHCR are suffering at the hands of the arrogant Israelis. In fact on the same day that the UNHCR passed a resolution condemning Sri Lanka’s human rights record in which the US and UK voted for, a similar resolution was passed against the Israelis in which the US and UK voted against. At this point it will not be out of place to assert that the Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported Sri Lanka by voting against the resolution. The Saudi and Arab bashers in Sri Lanka should not forget that these countries always continued to support this Island of ours.

External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Pieris

Naveenathan Pillai

Alfred Duraiappah

Readers of this article will be interested to know that the very same country, the United States that proposed the resolution against Sri Lanka used its veto powers 26 times on human rights motions against Israel and ironically the US not only opposed the motion against Israel it also spoke against the motion on the probe on Israeli settlements proposed by Pakistan. What hypocrisy!! Time and again when it comes to Israel, not only the US but all the western nations have shown unjust partiality and Naveenathan Pillai is powerless to do anything about it.

The Gulf Times of March 27th reported that Israel was very upset at ‘a resolution passed against it in the United Nations Human Rights Council and has declared that it would cut off all contacts with that body’. In the same report it was stated that Israel has said that it would bar any UN fact finding team from entering the Jewish State. At the same time (very aptly in my view) Israeli Prime Minister in his usual arrogant manner, has called the Human Rights Council a ‘hypocritical’ body with an automatic majority against Israel.

“This Council should be ashamed of itself”, he thundered. According to him, the Council has passed 91 resolutions upto that time and 39 of them were against Israel. It is on record that there were 224 resolutions dealing with various violations committed by Israel passed in the UN, its Security Council and its other organs all of which were flouted by the Jewish State.

It is also on record that between 1972 and 1982 the United States used its veto powers in the UN against any resolution censuring Israel. Similarly between 1982 and 2011, the US used its veto powers to block any motions in the Security Council against Israel.

Although, Naveen Pillai and her cronies are ‘deaf and dumb’ to the arrogance and disregard for any human rights or dignity by the Israelis, Pillai was audacious enough to warn Sri Lanka after the vote in the UNHCR in March 2012 not to intimidate those citizens responsible for lobbying the motion (Gulf Times, March 27, 2012). It would appear the Naveen though ‘went with her tail between her legs’ when it came to the outbursts of Natanyahu. What hypocrisy! Maybe the sauce for the Sri Lankan goose is not the same sauce for the Israeli gander!

Half Truths

Having exposed Pillai’s hypocrisy, it is important not to dismiss her allegations outright. Obviously Naveen is depending on reports given to her by Amnesty International and other Human Rights organizations and the powerful ‘diasporic’ Tamil lobby. She has very little or no first hand information at all.

This is very clear from her outbursts reported in the Gulf Times of March 27, 2012 referring to the ‘lobbyists’ of the March 2012 motion against Sri Lanka, in the UNHCR. As mentioned in the previous section Pillai was embarking on a fact finding mission after passing the resolution. She should in actual fact have done so prior to advocating the motion. Then she would have known the facts rather than speculate on half truths. According to the lobbyists Tamil people had disappeared from dear earth in Sri Lanka, but as Oscar Wilde said “It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world”.

This is the case of many who are reported as missing from Sri Lanka, they are eventually found in lands not only providing a safe haven, but also generous welfare facilities. It is unfair to accuse only the Tamils of this duplicity, many Muslims and Sinhalese also took advantage and travelled to the Americas, Europe and Australia, often on forged travel documents.

The accusation of unfair treatment and human rights violations that Naveen Pillai heard from these protagonists with self interests in the host country as well as in Sri Lanka obviously prompted her reaction. One cannot blame her. I myself was swayed by the influential Tamil lobby in the UK until I made a trip to Sri Lanka and visited some of the areas where the conflict occurred.

There had been civilian killings no doubt. It has to be acknowledged that in every military conflict there have been civilian deaths, either directly related to military activity or war related causes. In World War 1, it has been estimated that there were nearly 7 million civilian deaths, much more in World War 2 in excess of 37 million. 132,000 civilians totally unconnected with the conflict were killed in Iraq, similarly there were many civilians including women and children were killed in Afghanistan of which there are no official figures.

This is the inevitability of war and any civil conflict. Some Tamils who fled from Mullativu (a wholly Tamil city) and settled in Wellawatte (with a cosmopolitan population of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslims), fled their homes seeking refuge in the predominantly Sinhala area because they were not fighters but were being forced into the front line by the Tigers as human shields.

The evidence is axiomatic that the Tamils and Muslims who were fortunate enough to escape the atrocities of the Tigers fled from their home cities and villages to Colombo and its immediate suburbs where it is predominantly Sinhala. The Sinhalese people did not chase them away. They rented their properties and most of them bought properties from Sinhala people. Records of property registrations during that period are of course available in the respective land registries for anyone who cares to research.

Therefore, the talk of discrimination and violation of human rights by Sri Lanka as a nation is only a half truth. There are of course isolated incidences of ill treatment by some Sinhala people of Tamils and Muslims. It is unfair to blame the whole Sinhala nation for the acts of an insignificant few.

What happened in Wellawatte in July 1983, when the Sinhala people attacked the Tamils and destroyed their businesses was a natural reaction to a rumour, which was immediately arrested by the government.

This incidence has been dubbed ‘Black July’ where 471 people was reported to have died while 3,769 people suffered injuries.

The Truth

The truth about civilian deaths is magnificently described and documented by Lasitha Chathuranga Rajapakshe in his excellent book written in Sinhala titled Bondhawu Eelama. I would recommend everyone who wants to know the truth to read it. In that book the writer points out that the Tigers killed Alfred Duraiappah a respected eminent Tamil personality in Jaffna for being a moderate person. That was Duraiappah’s own fault. Duraiappah, a harmless civilian was killed not by the Sinhalese people or the Armed Forces. He was killed by Tamil Tigers for no gain at all. Pillai must investigate this to start with.

In an attempt at ethnic cleaning, the Tamil Tigers not only killed but unnecessarily and heartlessly slit open the bellies of women and babies and dismembered bodies of able bodied men of 33 people in Dollar Farm, 29 people in Kent Farm and 11 others on 30th November 1984. Photographic evidence is available if Naveen will only ask the right people. They were not fighters but mere Sinhala farmers and their families.

If this is not human rights violations by those who demand it now what can it be? 14th May 1985 saw the end of 120 Sinhala men, women and children in Udamalawa, Anuradhapura and 24 others in Wilpattu all victims of Tamil Tiger atrocities. Pillai must ask all her lobbyists to account for these.

Despite the pleading of a respected Buddhist priest and the appeals of elders, the priest and 31 other men women and children were killed and mutilated by the Tamil Tigers in Amparai. They were all civilians and not combatants.

The evidence is there in black and white for the whole world to see not only for the UNHCR. These incidences are connected with innocent Sinhala Buddhist people, many of whom protected the Tamils from a few hooligans. This is the thanks they got for their generosity.

What about the Muslims, they suffered even harsher punishments purely because the Muslim community is a patriotic community to the country. Their religion instructs them to “obey Allah and the holy Prophet (PBUH) and those in authority”. Therefore, it would appear that the Tamil Tigers considered Muslims to be a ‘thorn in their flesh’.

There was no way that the Muslims in the Eastern Province were going to give their rightful ownership of lands and their right to live there. They did not support division of the country. Most of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka is fertile land, unlike Jaffna. Therefore Eelam without the Eastern Provinces would not economically sound. Therefore, similar to the Anuradhapura incident, they planned on systematic ‘cleansing’ the Eastern Province of any opposition to Eelam.

The first of these terror campaigns took place in two mosques (Al Husseiniyyah and Meera Jumma mosques) and continued for nearly ten days from 3rd August 1990. Muslim worshippers in those mosques killed were 127 in number.

There were 92 others killed while in Eravur 173 Muslims were killed. It has been recorded that the killings in the Kattankudi mosques took place while Muslims were in worship of the late night (Isha) prayer. Thus it must be abundantly clear for anyone, let alone any human rights lawyer, that these victims were innocent civilians and not combatants.

Naveen Pillai must ask her compatriots who are lobbying her to provide their answer to these allegations of gross violations of human rights by their former Tiger associates. In my recent visit to Eravur for another matter, I was shown pictures of the Eravur killings.

These are horrendous even to write about. I saw pictures of women whose bellies had been ripped open and babies with the same manner of killing.

For what reason may I ask? I was told by people that those who committed these atrocities in fact cut open the bellies of babies and offered the innards to the mother as ‘breakfast’ and killed the mother when she refused or turned away.

This is only hearsay, but from the pictures I saw believable as, if they can go to the extent of committing such heartless atrocities, they are certainly capable of doing what I have written.

Attack on the Madhu Church confirms that even the Christians were not spared.

I have not touched upon the murder of Rajiv Ghandhi, Admiral Clarence Fernando, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Gamini Dissanayake, Lalith Athulathmudhali, Major Tuan Nizam Muthalip, Lakshman Kadhirgamar or others associated with the government or the armed forces, because that can be marginally connected with the politics of the armed conflict. They might even justify it as part of their war effort. Similarly attack on economic targets in Sri Lanka may also be described by them as a necessity of the war effort. Discussion on these murders and attack on economic targets is refrained from to prevent any controversy.

What I have written in the foregoing is only a fraction of the killings and unnecessary carnage caused by the Tamil Tigers. In fact there is abundant evidence pointing the finger in the direction of the Tamil Tigers. I am sure that Naveenathan Pillai is not blind, but perhaps she is asleep and one day in the near future she will wake up to the truth. We pray and hope that that day is not long due.

Perchance, we should remind Pillai of what G.K.Chesterton says in “The Man who was Thursday”: ‘shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and clouding a face? If we could only get round in front’.

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