President Bush’s argument backs Lanka’s right to fight terror

“The historical parallel applies President Rajapakse. His liberation of the east adds to his stature as a leader who had done his best to integrate the east into the mainstream politics. Any alternative to Prabhakaran’s one-man regime is an addition to democratic freedoms. To deny this is to go over the top. Quibbling about electoral processes is not going to take away the shine from his achievements. Soon the street protests and the ho-ha about voting will be forgotten. What will be remembered will be the improved the quality and the quantity of human rights, freedoms and democracy.” ( File Image:President Mahinda Rajapaksa during discussions with US President Gorge W Bush)
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by H.L.D. Mahindapala in Melbourne to Sri Lanka Guardian

(May 25, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) When I was listening the other day to President George Bush’s speech delivered at the Knesset, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel, it occurred to me that I had heard somewhere else before the salient issues he was expounding and stressing. Then it dawned on me that I had heard Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake focusing on the identical issues that President Bush was placing on the international agenda.

Consider, for instance, the following declaration made by President Bush: “We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve.

“The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies. This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil.”

Prime Minister Wickremanayake did not spell out his theme in the same words, or to this extent but the underlying theme was the same. The “right of nations to defend themselves” and that “no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction” is a theme that would strike a chord with all democratic nations facing the ruthless challenges of intransigent terrorists.

The “great ideological struggle” in “the fight against terror” is another theme that resonates in the “clash of visions.”

Then, as if he was describing the situation in Sri Lanka, President Bush said: “We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world.” Isn’t this what is happening to Sri Lanka? Isn’t it a shame that John Holmes, Alan Rock, Louis Arbour, Gareth (R2P) Evans -- all allied to moon-faced Radhika Coomaraswamy hiding her dark side – are routinely passing censures on Sri Lanka, the oldest democracy in Asia, without taking appropriate action against the deadliest terrorist group bent on eliminating leaders in the democratic mainstream and destroying democratic institutions?

The axiomatic fact that “(W)e believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights” was demonstrated unequivocally and courageously by President Mahinda Rajapakse when he, against all odds and objections, held the recent elections in the Eastern Province. Any objective analyst exploring the quality of human rights when the region was run by the Pol Potist regime of Velupillai Prabhakaran and after it was liberated by the Sri Lankan forces will agree that there is a quantitative and qualitative improvement in the record of human rights and freedoms in the east than before.

One of the greatest achievements of President Rajapakse is that he had provided the environmental conditions for the protection and preservation of human rights by restoring democracy to the east. President Bush’s next quote applies aptly to President Rajapakse’s role in the east: “This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America's closest friends.”

The historical parallel applies President Rajapakse. His liberation of the east adds to his stature as a leader who had done his best to integrate the east into the mainstream politics. Any alternative to Prabhakaran’s one-man regime is an addition to democratic freedoms. To deny this is to go over the top. Quibbling about electoral processes is not going to take away the shine from his achievements. Soon the street protests and the ho-ha about voting will be forgotten. What will be remembered will be the improved the quality and the quantity of human rights, freedoms and democracy.

It is necessary to emphasize that a declaration of war (as demonstrated in the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976) is in itself and act that would necessarily lead to violations of humanitarian law and no nation involved in a war has the power to eliminate total infringements of international humanitarian law. Bishop Edmund Tutu, the Nobel Laureate, would know that even the Holy Crusade of the Christians, were not fought either on the medieval principles of St. Augustine’s “just war”. The only way to guarantee non-violations of human rights is not to wage war. Period! But when there are wars -- and no one has yet found a way to prevent wars -- there is no way that Bishop Tutu’s Church, Jimmy Carter’s Centre or even the UN, three agents that censured Sri Lanka when it sought a second term in the Human Rights Council (HRC), can prevent violations of human rights. For instance, if one of those African dictators decides to occupy a segment of South Africa, violating its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, not to mention the sadistic oppression of S. African nationals, would the good Bishop argue against the state applying the full force of its state power to protect the sanctity of human lives, freedoms and the independence of S. Africa? What is the shield that Bishop Tutu can provide to prevent the state from violating human rights in a situation like that? States are established to confront evil with all its powers to protect its citizens. Any threat to the human rights of its citizens must be protected with the full force of the state powers, if necessary. There are no mantras available to avoid that.

Truth and Reconciliation commissions can be introduced later for the healing of wounds. But while the evil exists, whether it is apartheid, or oppressive regimes run by war criminals, democratic states, exercising the will of the people to live in peace and unity in multi-cultural diversity, should be granted the right to end the spiral of violence leading to the incremental exacerbation of the violations of human rights. The state has the moral, legal and constitutional powers to protect human rights of the larger community, even if it entails temporary violations of human rights of a small terrorist group taking cover behind their civilians. It is when the state fails to fulfill its moral, legal and constitutional duty that a supra-national RTP (Responsibility to Protect) intervention can come into force. However, national and supra-national actions are fraught with dangers of violating the human rights of one or the other section involved in the war. The irony is that human rights can be protected only by violating human rights. That has been the lesson of history and that will continue to be so in any given situation of war.

Besides, history has evolved over the ages to the current level of concern about human rights enshrined in the UN Charter only by violating human rights – on a massive scale at times -- as a necessary evil to protect the human rights on a global scale. All the great wars of the twentieth century were fought on this principle. Winston Churchill, the vaunted icon of freedoms and anti-authoritarianism, who railed incessantly against the Hitler’s fascism and Stalin’s Iron Curtain, said: “Let them (the enemies) have a good dose where it will hurt most….It is time that the Germany should be made to suffer in their own homelands and cities….The burning of Japanese cities by incendiary bombs (will bring home their errors) in a most effective way.” (The New York Review of Books – May 29, 2008, quoting Human Smoke)

Let us also not forget that Jimmy Carter, who protested against Sri Lanka running a second term in the HRC, presided over the button at White House that could destroy the world ten times over. He wasn’t going to be the president of the most powerful nation on earth, twiddling his thumbs worrying about human rights if the occasion arose for him to press the button to save the interest of US. Hillary Clinton, the presidential aspirant, has already declared that she would “totally obliterate” Iran if it was necessary. And what did she mean by her advertisement of responding to the “3.a.m call” at the White House when some urgent action is required to protect America’s interests threatened by “the evil axis”? She didn’t mean protecting human right. She meant “totally obliterating” enemies of America, without any regard for human rights. And let us not forget, America did obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki – two non-military targets -- purely to shorten the war for their convenience. I guess the time has not yet come for Hillary Clinton to open one of those NGO centers and join hands with Bishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter to talk of human rights. That will have to wait till Hillary Clinton loses the presidential race, leaving her with some power to preach about human rights. Now wouldn’t that be “Hillaryous”!

To advocate the ideal of fighting wars with roses without thorns, however desirable it may be, is a pipe dream. Therefore, if any sanctions, or punitive actions are initiated it should be solely against three categories: (1) whoever initiates and perpetuates wars disregarding the horrendous consequences and the opportunities provided for working out a negotiated settlement; (2) those who pursue war purely to grab power without any regard for the preservation of the cherished values of humanity (in the current context to restore democracy, freedoms, liberalism etc by eliminating a fascist one-man rule) and (3) those who lack restraint and proportionality in waging a war. All three criteria must be applied simultaneously, without picking selectively one or two, to justify any war.

The solution recommended by the pipe-dreamers of trying to eliminate all violations of human rights in a war situation is not only unrealistic but a cop out to advance a dubious morality to condone evil. It is a virtual surrender to the forces of evil who refuse to be placated by compromises and/or concerns for the protection of human rights To surrender to those forces of evil is, in fact, a negation of human rights because the implacable forces of evil, when not confronted with counter-violence, will be given the unfettered licence to perpetuate violence that would lead to ever-increasing and unending violations of human rights The issue, therefore, is either to stop all wars to end violations of human rights (which has been the unattainable dream of all civilized communities) or to confront the violators of human rights with the necessary force which would invariably result in violations of human rights of varying degrees.

In short, the logic of any war situation would lead to violations of human rights The grieving conscience of the world recoils from its horrors – and rightfully so. Wilfred Owen, the leading war poets of World War I, fighting in the cold, rain-drenched trenches of Somme, wrote poignantly about the horrors of war. He died when he was shot in the last week of the War. But before he died he raged with all his poetic powers (he was an innovative poet with great promise) against “the truth untold / The pity of war, the pity war distilled.” (Strange Meeting).

And in Dulce Et Decorum Est he wrote (note the grim, graphic details leading to the telling conclusion):”If in some smothering dream, you too could pace / Behind that wagon that we flung him in, / And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; / If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood / Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs, / Bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -- / My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie: Dulce Et decorum est / Pro patria mori.”

All Sri Lankans who have lived through the obscenities of the unwanted war, initiated and perpetuated by northern racist fascism (ideologically it was endorsed in 1976 by the Jaffna elite who passed the Vadukoddai Resolution) have been searching for a formula for multi-ethnic co-existence where the aspirations of all communities, and not just one exclusive community, are fulfilled. It has been a testing time where the values of individuals, institutions and communities have been running through irreconcilable twists and turns with no end in sight.

Of all the obscenities the most obnoxious have been the hired peace-mongers who have been selling their bodies and souls to the highest bidders. These chrematistic careerists, parading as high-minded moralists and do-gooders in the NGO circuit, have shown inexhaustible and extraordinary skills for bootlicking their Western masters and marching to their drumbeats than serving the genuine needs of our peoples yearning for peace.

They have been good at describing the situation rather than prescribing any viable solution. Some of them like Godfrey Goonetillke, the ex-civil servant turned into a peace mudalali, has been in this game from 1972 when MARGA was established. What positive gains have come out of MARGA seminars, publications, trips abroad (with family), lectures etc to stabilize the nation and restore peace? In the name of peace he and his cronies and in the NGO circus have been destroying virgin forests to record justifications, in devious ways, for the perpetuation of northern violence. Some like Kumar Rupesinghe, drawing a salary of Rs. 1.1 million a month, is yet to justify the cost-benefit ratio to the peace movement. This is as unacceptable as that gang of NGO-mudalalis who met in a five-star hotel down south to discuss poverty alleviation. Is it surprising that the people in the vicinity stoned them?

Then there is Jehan Perera who moves around like a dazed zombie just raised from the graves littered all over Prabhakaran’s killing fields. He is forever ready, willing and able to lend his jesuitry to anyone who hires him like the Norwegians (he gets a substantial amount from them), A. T. Ariyaratne, and the Church-oriented NGOs in the international network, including the National Council of Churches in Australia in which John Ball of the Uniting Church acts as the liaison between NCCA and the self-appointed National Council of Peace.

Among them you find Paikiasothy Saravanmuttu, all togged up in a casual style as if he is about to parade in a men’s catwalk, posing as the poosari of all things bright and beautiful in the world of peace-making. He competes fiercely with other NGOs for the dwindling dollar in the Western funding agencies and gets away mainly by running down the Sri Lanka government. His funding increases by the amount of anti-Sri Lankan propaganda he generates for his Westerns bosses. He must have pleased his bosses no end by writing reams to NGO networks to unseat Sri Lanka from the Human Rights Council. But does a seat in the Human Rights Council really matter? Is Sri Lanka going to collapse because it has lost a second term (with a narrow margin) in the HRC? More of this in the next article.

- Sri Lanka Guardian