Exposed: INGO’s hypocrisy

The surprise would have been if the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) had not issued its latest statement, charging that the Sri Lanka Government is one of the world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances and accusing the Security Forces and Pro-Government militias of association with the adduction and disappearance of hundreds of people “mostly Tamils” since 2006.

We are now in a situation when such reports, whether based on fact of fiction, are to be expected, followed up with them being highlighted by international and local media institutions that have an agenda of seeking to humiliate the Sri Lankan state, when key international conferences or meetings take place on issues such as Human Rights.

In the event, the report by HRW that has received top billing by BBC and in some sections of the local media, has come in when Seventh Session of the Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva, where HRW and some others are lobbying hard for the presence of a permanent UN Fact Finding Mission in Sri Lanka on Human Rights.

It matters little to HRW and other such organisations that the allegations they make are not supported by actual evidence, or that their report that claims to cover a period of nearly two years stops far short of it so that the latest situation in Sri Lanka goes unreported in its desire to castigate a sovereign government that does not buckle down to the international lobby that is seeking to take the eyes of the world away from the LTTE and its terrorism, and working towards a situation where Sri Lanka will be manipulated by the forces of oppression fuelled both by economic and at times religious interests, that are active in so many parts of the world today.

The reality is that the figures on abductions and disappearances given by the official Presidential Commission Inquiring into Abductions and Disappearances run counter to these recent claims made by HRW. The Chairman of the One-man Presidential Commission Justice Mahanama Thilakaratne says the larger number of persons reported missing or disappeared have come back to their homes.

The charge that the Sri Lanka government is one of the world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances is not borne out the facts available from the investigations carried out by the One-man Commission, which indicate that the statements by HRW on this subject are tendentious exaggerations.

While HRW accuses the Sri Lankan Security Forces of the abduction and disappearance of hundreds of people - mostly Tamils- since 2006, Commissioner Thilakaratne is on record that that the Commission has so far not found any Armed Forces or police personnel guilty of alleged abductions or disappearances or linked to unidentified dead bodies and unexplained killings in the country.

Returned

The Commission which has covered alleged incidents of abduction and disappearance from March 2006 has concluded investigations into 6543 of 7130 complaints lodged with the Police about disappearances and related incidents. Of this number the Commission has found that over 6000 persons have returned to their homes.

There were 108 cases of abductions and disappearances reported from areas in the Northern Province and the relevant parties have returned or have been found; while of the 670 cases reported from the Eastern Province, 402 cases have been resolved so far, according to the Commission.

Significantly, the HRW report is a gross exaggeration that does not take into account the steady decline in disappearances over the past 12 months, mainly due to the new measures taken by the government, and HRW is basing its claims on unsubstantiated claims.

HRW is possibly unaware that recent police investigations have revealed the involvement of important cadres of the terrorist LTTE, including persons close to its leader Prabhakaran, in carrying out abductions in Colombo and elsewhere. One can be certain that the next report of HRW on Sri Lanka will also not carry anything about, or gloss over, that aspect of disappearances and abductions in Sri Lanka.

Although some of these findings by the One-man Commission had been reported by the Sinhala section of BBC that interviewed Justice Thilakaratne on the subject two days earlier, it did not stand in the way of the BBC’s World Service from playing it up on its news it last Thursday (March 6).

Despite repeated assertions by the Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Peace Secretariat Dr. Rajiva Wijesinghe, whose comments were sought on the matter, that the HRW report was flawed and grossly one-sided, the news presenter that night thought it fit to sit in judgment, almost like the Secretary General of the UN, and seek to goad Sri Lanka into accepting a permanent fact-finding presence by the UN here.

There is at present a confluence of events that has made organizations such as HRW and other so-called pro-democratic manipulators in Sri Lanka too to gang up just now in their orchestrated moves to discredit both Sri Lanka and its present government.

On the one hand there is the high visibility (vis-a-vis the western international community) Human Rights Council Session taking place in Geneva. On the other is the elections to local bodies in the Eastern Province that will take place on Monday (10), which if held successfully, as it appears will be, will strengthen the Governments hand in the restoring democracy to parts of the country that was denied it for nearly two decades, and also further expose the LTTE as being no liberation movement.

No pause

The other aspect that is propelling these organizations to intensify their attacks on Sri Lanka is the continuing military operations aimed at defeating the terrorism and separatist forces of the LTTE, and the steady reports of successes that the Armed Forces are recording in their actions each day.

Slow as the progress may be, for those who are eager for an end to this conflict, we now have the opinions of more objective observers of the military situation here, such as Jane’s Defence Intelligence, Indian and US military analysts and strategic think-tanks, who are agreed that the LTTE is in fact being militarily weakened and is now on the decline.

The reports of the advances made by the Armed Forces in the Mannar region in recent weeks cannot but displease forces that have come together to attack Sri Lanka. The latest report is that Parappakandal, one of the major suburbs to the north of Uyilankulam, was completely brought under the troops this morning (6), causing another major setback to the LTTE that had kept the whole area under siege, and have been fiercely resisting the forward march of the armed forces for some months.

Adding to this heightened concern of what are clearly pro-separatist forces is the very clear reiteration by President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Ratnapura last weekend that until such time every inch of land is captured and the last terrorist is destroyed, his Government will not cease its operates to liberate the people and land of the North from the LTTE.

Addressing a mammoth rally President Rajapaksa pointed out that his Government is a very strong and stable democracy which need not under any circumstances beg before the international community on bended knees.

“We are no longer a poor country thriving on aid and subsidies of the world. Our per capita income has risen to US$ 1,625 now. We need not put our head down to anybody, but we are prepared to listen to constructive criticism and prudent advice of others,” the President said.

He added that nevertheless there were certain groups seeking and striving to stifle the ongoing development programmes already under way and in the pipeline, in diverse ways. Some groups including sections of the media indulged in a slanderous and misleading campaign to deprive the country of international aid and disrupt development. The LTTE too is using all means at their disposal to benefit from these groups, to their advantage.

In Geneva

It was in the face of the combined attack by the forces ranged against Sri Lanka that the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe who heads the Sri Lanka delegation to the Seventh Session of the Human Rights Council, joined issue with another voice that has joined the team of Sri Lanka bashers, in the form of the British Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, (Lord) Mark Malloch-Brown.

Exercising his right of reply to ill-informed critical comments by Malloch-Brown, Minister Samarasinghe said that Sri Lanka regretted his misconceived approach and that the UK Minister’s statement revealed a lack of appreciation for the steps taken by Sri Lanka to protect human rights while dealing with terrorism.

“We share the concerns of many members of the international community that such approaches only promote a growing belief that some individuals find it difficult to let go of historical possessions,” Minister Samarasinghe said.

He added that: “Regrettably, Lord Malloch-Brown has allowed himself to be quoted by the British Tamil Forum as saying that the results of the last election in Sri Lanka were unfortunate. This report has not been contradicted as yet, notwithstanding our High Commissioner in the UK bringing this to the attention of relevant parties.

The Sri Lankan minister responded to the patronizing comments by the UK Minister said that as a practising democracy of longstanding, Sri Lanka is well aware of the need to safeguard democracy while combating terrorism, and has over the years developed new institutions that a colonial tradition failed to install.

“We are proud of our record in dealing with terrorism, whilst minimizing harm to civilians. We hope that Lord Malloch-Brown will not forget that, when dealing with terrorism in other countries, our circumspection in this regard should be emulated.”

Referring Malloch-Brown’s support for attempts to establish a UN Human Rights Office in Sri Lanka despite a clear position enumerated to the contrary by the Government of Sri Lanka, Minister Samarasinghe said the attitude with regard to Sri Lanka should be more productively replaced by a genuine concern for human rights for all our citizens in the context of a genuine struggle against terrorism.

Across borders

The recent weeks have seen certain developments in several foreign locations that show the duplicity of the Western international community on how it deals with terrorism and also about the respect they have for the territorial rights of sovereign states.

The US that is mired in Iraq, together with the UK that joined it in regime change there using false charges about Weapons of Mass Destruction, were quite muted in the reactions to Turkey’s armed foray into Iraqi territory, the Kurdish enclave in the north of Iraq, when it carried out cross border attacks on the armed cadres of the PKK that it considers a terrorist movement. Turkey ignored US calls for it to halt the incursion and withdrew only after it had completed the task in came to carry out.

In Somalia, the US carried out a missile attack on what it said was a known Al Qaeda cell, killing several. It said they had attacked an identified target using precision missiles. However, witnesses to the attack reported that no terrorists were killed, but some homes were destroyed and women and children were killed. There have been no protests from any international watchers of Human Rights, such as HRW.

In South America, we see the dangers of a major armed conflict with Ecuador and Venezuela bringing their armed forces to the border with Columbia, which carried out an armed incursion into Ecuadorian territory in its battle against FARC rebels, where the deputy leader of FARC was among those killed.

Although the Columbian Foreign Minister apologised to Ecuador for the incident, US President George W Bush was strong in his support for the Columbian action.

One wonders whether we are seeing the unveiling of a proxy war by the US for a regime change in Ecuador or Venezuela, especially with the Columbians claiming that FARC had been trying to purchase Uranium, which apparently came to light through a laptop computer captured in the raid on the FARC camp in Ecuador.

It seems a good timing for another war against Weapons of Mass Destruction, this time on the backyard of the US, with the US Election due in November and President Bush endorsing the Republican nominee, John McCain, who is a well known hawk, that is fully supportive of the US presence in Iraq, and for many more decades, too.

It is interesting to compare these cross-border incursions into sovereign territory of countries, and the reactions that one sees when the Sri Lankan Armed Forces attempt to move into the country’s own territory to establish the sovereignty of the state and eradicate terrorism and separatism from our midst.