Geneva Again

By Izeth Hussain -January 11, 2014

Izeth Hussain

Once again Geneva looms on the horizon. But this time, in a more apposite metaphor, Geneva March 2014 takes the form of a huge bristly grisly monster moving towards Sri Lanka while wielding a lethal spiked club in its hand. That is to say that what happens in March in Geneva over accountability for alleged war crimes could eventually lead to UN sanctions against Sri Lanka. Those sanctions could prove lethal to the present Government of Sri Lanka. The main thrust of this article, however, is that the problem of accountability is the text while more important is the undeclared subtext, which is the problem of the failure to move effectively towards a political solution of the ethnic problem. I hold that it is the latter problem that has led to the problem of accountability. I hold further that the Government is probably in a no-win situation in regard to the problem of accountability, but it can win by convincingly and effectively moving towards a political solution of the ethnic problem.

What should we do? We must consider certain preliminary matters before answering that question. One is the enormous prejudice against Sri Lanka which prevails in a very powerful segment of the international community, namely the West and its allies in Australia and New Zealand. It is time to recognize that that “prejudice” is something that ought to be placed within inverted commas because the negative attitude towards Sri Lanka, more particularly its Government, is something that can be justified in terms of the highest standards of morality prevailing in contemporary civilization. Those standards demand that fair and equal treatment be given to the minorities.

The Government has a sorry record in the treatment accorded to our minorities since 2009. For almost four years it kept on promising to India that it would give not just 13A but 13A+, and eventually it offered 13A-. In terms of prevailing diplomatic norms that has to be seen as morally shabby behavior. During that period the Government tried out an alternate strategy to solve the ethnic problem, instead of the promised devolution: heavy expenditure on infrastructure projects which the Tamils see as designed, not to meet the economic needs of the Tamil people, but to bind the country together under monolithic Sinhalese power; attempts to change the demographic structure of the North and East by allegedly stealing the lands of the Tamils and the Muslims; and a heavy armed forces presence in the North which can be seen as showing the arrogance of the conqueror. That alternate strategy was shown to be a complete flop at the NPC elections. So the Government has set up the Northern Provincial Council, but the record up to now makes it doubtful that the Government will allow it to function properly.                                                       Read More