I did not do anything to offend the government- Dayan

Courtesy: Daily Mirror- Colombo

We should have implemented the 13th Amendment

(September 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Former Ambassador/ Permanent Representative to Geneva, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka spoke to the Daily Mirror about the controversial removal from his post, the allegations of violations of human rights levelled against Sri Lanka, the country’s foreign relations and winning what he calls the “legitimacy war.” Excerpts from the interview:

Q: The Foreign Minister removed you from your post in Geneva despite having been given assurances by the President that your term would be extended. What happened?

A: The short answer is: I don’t know.

Q: Do you think that any issues that you brought up or said could have ruffled a few feathers in certain people–the Foreign Minister or the government of Sri Lanka?

A: Well logically an ambassador is fired if he is unsuccessful or spectacularly unsuccessful. Some might say that there are quite a few unsuccessful ambassadors that have not been fired. Either way one has to have failed or there has to have been some sort of scandal involved. By any account I didn’t fail. And there wasn’t any incident or episode: I haven’t been calling the Foreign Minister rude names or exchanging letters or telephone calls or any other mishap with a politician or official. From a rational point of view there is nothing that I could think of. I don’t think that there was anything I could have said that should have offended the government of Sri Lanka. I was defending the government, the people and the armed forces of Sri Lanka from a fairly serious attempt at a war crimes probe. And that defense succeeded. I don’t see why anyone should have been offended but who knows?

Q: Any personal vendettas that could have led to your removal?

A: I don’t know. If there had been personal vendettas I am not aware of any. I assume that decisions are made according to results and I produced results and the right results. If there were any transgression on my part I would have expected that I would have been cautioned. That I would have heard, officially and directly, that I have done something that I shouldn’t have done or I have not done something that I should have done. I was not told anything; I was not given any reasons; I still haven’t been given any reasons, but I don’t spend my time thinking about it.

I see it as a lack of logic. I was given an extension, which by the way I did not request, through a letter signed by the then Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying that H.E. the President had asked me to remain in Geneva for another year. This leads me to believe that there is far too much subjectivity and the lack of logic in the way these things are done.

Q: Do you believe that you got a raw deal considering the significant role you played in Geneva?

A: I did have a bit of an embarrassing time, because all my colleagues there and the ambassadors were asking me this question: how is this possible? After this diplomatic triumph of the special session, why now? Some actually thought I was being brought back to be promoted! At the farewell parties an ambassador from a country friendly to Sri Lanka, said he thought I was going to be given some special national award for services rendered. So it was a bit embarrassing. Some adversaries asked if this was the reward I was being given by my country and I said, “Look this has nothing to do with my country”. There was some embarrassment but I have done my duty and it is on record and no one can take that away. It is a matter of history. That is that. And I walk away with some satisfaction. From the responses I get after my return, public opinion has been very positive and there had been a lot of ‘Thank You’ messages as people know what I have done. And that was done on behalf of the country, the armed forces and the people. And I am satisfied by that.

Q: Your stand on the 13th Amendment was something that often drew media attention. Could you elaborate more on what your position is on the 13th Amendment and the idea of devolving power to the provinces?

A: What the 13th Amendment means, very simply, is what you have in the other parts of the country. You have elected provincial councils in every part of the country, except the Northern Province. What I have been saying, as has Minister Douglas Devananda is saying–give the North what everyone else has. It is not a special privilege. When you look back at the performance of the Wayamba province when Mr. Gamini Jayawickrema Perera was Chief Minister you see that the powers vested in the Provincial Council can lead to considerable economic growth and development. That was proved and there had been scholarly research into the Wayamba success story. So a province can really develop although not every province has; but that is the failure of the leadership.

It is nothing dangerous actually; we have been having it since 1988 and in every other part of the country.

Secondly we have to remember that Prabhakaran was opposed to the 13th Amendment. He went to war against the Indian Peace Keeping Forces to prevent the implementation of the 13th Amendment. This is something that he was against. I emphasize this because some writers say that this is another way of separating the North from the South and bringing in separatism. If it were, then Prabhakaran would have supported it; not opposed it. Prabhakaran put forward an ISGA proposal, an interim self governing administration proposal, and he did agree to a thing called the PTOMS. Now these were structures through which he could proceed to his aim of a separate state but he could not do that through the 13th Amendment.

Thirdly it is declared government policy. So when I was defending the 13th Amendment I was articulating as a diplomat the policies of the Government of Sri Lanka.

I will add one thing now that I am no longer in my post. The events of the last 100 days have proved me absolutely right on the 13th Amendment. Why? It is because the delay in implementing the 13th Amendment has led to the political revival of the TNA. Now I think that it’s a good thing that the government is talking to the TNA. I think any form of dialogue with anyone is a good thing except with the LTTE.

I have great respect for Mr. Sambanthan but it is the case that the TNA is calling for the removal of the army bases in the north and for the removal of high security zones. The TNA has not yet accepted the 13th Amendment; it has not accepted the unitary state of Sri Lanka and if you talk to some of the members of the TNA, they have not abandoned the idea of a separate state of Tamil Eelam. I am not talking of Mr. Sambanthan. Now why is it and how is it that the TNA has revived? That is because the government delayed in implementing the 13th Amendment which would have strengthened moderate partners like Douglas Devananda and independent people like Siddarthan. If the 13th Amendment was fast tracked, and as Prabhakaran died, the democratic Tamil leadership of Devananda and others were given the opportunity of moving up, then you would not have people voting for the TNA.

My fear is that come the parliamentary elections in eight or nine months the North might swing towards the TNA -- and it might even win Trincomalee. All of this would be because the 13th Amendment was not implemented in time. Even the mounting pressure from the international community on war crimes charges could have been avoided if we had addressed one of their other concerns, which were the political empowerment of the Tamil people by way of the 13th Amendment. If we implemented it sooner we would have something to trade with the international community on the other issues. Right now we don’t. So on the 13th Amendment I would say I was right.

Q: Human rights allegations continue to be thrown at Sri Lanka and the platform where most of these allegations get heard is at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Was it a difficult task for you to repeatedly counter these allegations and say that Sri Lanka does not have human rights violations?

A: Well I never said that Sri Lanka didn’t have human rights violations. You see I’m not one of those people who think that just because you assert something, the world believes you. I never told lies when I was there [Geneva]. That is why I had credibility. What I did try to do was contextualize what was going on. We were at war against a ferocious enemy. The war wasn’t started by us. The Tigers started, not just this war but several wars before that. In 1987 it was against the Indo-Lanka accord, then in 1990 against President Premadasa who had spoken to them for 14 months and then again in 1995 against President Kumaratunga.

This is a war that has been forced on us and thereby it is a necessary war, a just war. We had to fight this war to defend ourselves against this aggressor and keep our little island together.

In that context, yes, there are things that have happened that shouldn’t have happened at all. But I was able to credibly emphasize the context in which this happened, which many people had forgotten. And it is also true that we could not allow the Tigers to use the democratic liberties and freedoms in our society to destroy this society. Therefore, temporarily, we had to suspend or plug what would have been loopholes. Was it tough explaining that? Yes. But we succeeded. That is why we had a 29/12 vote in our favor when the chips were down. It was tough because there was a very serious international campaign. It was a campaign supported and initiated by several Western Foreign Ministries, which have some of the oldest and most professional apparatus in the world that are centuries old. Diplomacy was basically written by these countries. These Foreign Ministries throughout the world were canvassing in capitals far away where we didn’t have any diplomatic representation. They were using carrots and sticks such as EU membership etc. So there was a formidable force out there backed by the Western media, some INGO’s and demonstrations. So the Tamil diaspora, well funded by the Tigers got into the act and there was this multi-pronged struggle; but in the end we won. It was tough but it was successful and it was rewarding.

We cannot however keep saying the same thing now that the war is over. This is very important. There were justifications - and what we said while the war was on and at the special session two weeks after the war was won cannot be said now. The special session was an attempt to penalize us for having liberated our country and to penalize out armed forces. That was the discourse that we used not only to defend ourselves but to turn the tables on our accusers and win diplomatically. We cannot keep saying the same thing with credibility 100 days after we have won the war. You have won a war, there is no more armed conflict, and still maintain the same postures, the same mentalities, the same mechanisms and the same argument that we did during the armed conflict. And that’s where we are getting into some trouble.

Q: So in your opinion what happened during the war is justified, but what is happening now is not? So are there human rights violations in Sri Lanka at the moment?

A: What I am saying is that not everything that happened during the war is justified but the war that we fought was a just war, it was not an unjust war, and we didn’t invade anyone else’s country. We were fighting for the unity of our own country. We didn’t ignore the possibility of negotiations -- so many governments, including this one, tried. All those opportunities were thwarted by the Tigers so we had no other means but to fight and we fought. Yes, there were things which should not have happened that did happen; but it was in that context of a just war and I would defend that position.

But what I am saying is that as in the matter of the PTA or the IDP issue you cannot maintain the same position that you maintained at that time when the war was on. The context is different and the argument does not have that same credibility. If you are asking me if there are human rights violations going on, almost a quarter million Tamil citizens of this country are being held behind security wire and armed guard. They are there involuntarily, and there is a Supreme Court judgment on the matter. Something is going wrong–there is something that should not be happening that is happening and something that should be happening that is not happening. And the world is watching. Even if the world is not watching we should be watching because those are our people. If we are talking about national unity and national re-integration and so on, this is our chance. We will be judged–never mind by the outside world, because it is already happening-- we will be judged by history, by posterity, by how we treat this quarter of a million people of diverse ages. I know that there are combatants that are in there–you can’t ignore that. The LTTE are a cunning enemy. We have defeated the LTTE army on the ground in Sri Lanka, but the LTTE movement is still out there globally. They will try to revive themselves and this question of security is important and we have to weed these combatants out. This number may be 10,000 to 15,000, but what about the other 200,000? What are they doing behind barbed wire?

Q: Is our victory in Geneva now going down the drain because we are not taking action over the IDP issue?

A: There is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Law from Princeton University, Richard Falk and he uses the term “legitimacy war.” I use the same term. We have won the shooting war and it wasn’t going to be easy considering the nature of the Tigers. We had to suspend civil liberties in order to rip out the entrails of the Tiger network and especially the suicide network. That had to be done. Thereby we have won the war, but we have to consolidate that victory. We must not allow that victory to be rolled back or undermined. That victory can be undermined if we fail to win the legitimacy war.

Now we are fighting the legitimacy war. Nowhere in the world, nobody, not even our friends are going to consider it legitimate if we continue to keep Tamil civilians within barbed wired camps beyond the dates we promised. We have given dates, made pledges and promises and we have to keep to them. Nobody will consider it legitimate to keep Tamil civilians of diverse ages in these camps. I have heard this argument that even in our homes we have barbed wire–but we don’t have rolls of barbed wire between our walls and our homes, do we? This kind of argument is going to damage us in the legitimacy war. We are now fighting a legitimacy war, and I don’t see us winning that.

That does not mean that we must let the Tiger suspects go. What it does mean is that we have to learn from the best practices of countries around the world. I have had friends from South East Asia that have had far larger numbers of IDP’s and ex-combatants.–armies that have been defeated that have had 1.5 million men. And what they are saying is that people can be categorized by age and separated. This is one option–the age classification. Once they are classified by age the others can be allowed to reside in open camps. Further we have good rehabilitation programmes under a fine officer and we have a good record with regard to rehabilitating ex-combatants. But the process needs to be fast tracked.

Q: You say that we have made promises. Yet the argument that the government keeps brining up is that these are not promises or pledges these are merely targets we set out for ourselves, and that they cannot resettle these people haphazardly. What is your response to these justifications?

A: I have made the same point in Geneva. Yet, we have to show progress towards those targets. If those are statements we made casually then we shouldn’t have put them down in statements that we made on May 21st and 23rd, including with the Secretary General of the United Nations. But we did that.

Now I didn’t do that. I was in Geneva, somebody here did that. Certainly the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Ministry did that. We got the communiqué and we were told to stick to the language of the communiqué, which I did. The Foreign Minister told me over the telephone that I was to strictly adhere to the language of the communiqué. Thereby it is there, written, and people are going to hold us to it. I think it shouldn’t have been done. But when you put it down in a joint statement you should know that they will come for you. This time next year, if there are kids behind barbed wire we are going to pay a price. Because, to me, the most important things to ward off are the war crimes charges. We have to protect our armed forces.

To do this we have to show progress on the other two issues. There are three issues in the joint communiqué with the Secretary General and these are the things they are now raising. One is the IDP’s, two, political reconciliation and integration and third–war crimes. Now they put war crimes at number one and they keep juggling the three issues. Thereby we have got to make progress on the other two. If we don’t, the pressure on the war crimes issue is going to mount. I think that it is dangerous and a serious matter.

Q: In the past you have made predictions with regard to various political issues like the election of Barack Obama to the White House. So what is it that you fear is coming upon on us?

A: If you go back into the newspapers I predicted that Barack Obama would be in the White House at a time when he was still lagging behind Hilary Clinton in the primaries. If you go further back, in October 2004 I wrote a signed piece to a newspaper with the title “Why Prabhakaran will lose.” I could have watered it down but I didn’t because that’s the way I saw it. I’m not an astrologer, I am an analyst. What I see is that Sri Lanka’s external relations are in a crisis. Mind you a needless crisis. We don’t have to be in this mess. Our external relations are in crisis and we are facing what I have called before, an external relations or foreign relations tsunami. It is building up. And these are all avoidable.

We stand to lose the legitimacy war if we don’t make the changes we have to in peace time. Because the war is over, and we have won. We cannot go ahead with the same mindset. I am not saying that we have to forget that there is an enemy out there, but we have to be smart. The next stage of this struggle is not going to be a shooting war–it is not going to be a hot war. There is no point in preparing for the last war again. That is not the way it is going to happen. The center of gravity of the LTTE is now overseas; it has shifted from Sri Lanka and gone global. It has shifted from the military to the political, the diplomatic, and the ideological and world opinion. Now that’s the one that you have to fight. You can’t go around with this war-time mentality looking for enemies and jail journalists for 20 years, for getting some 150,000 bucks from an LTTE fellow. You can’t do that without consequences. You look bad.

It was OK when there was a war on and you were fighting Tigers. We’ve won now–the good guys won. So now the spot-light is on us. When it looks like us versus Tamil IDPs behind barbed wire, we look like the bullies, not Prabakaran. We have to change that.

We can’t be like the princess in the fairy tale and be like “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” and be satisfied with ourselves and live in an echo chamber of our own propaganda. We put out the propaganda and not all of it is believed or even believable. We are playing to some domestic audiences but we are not actually serving the interests of the people. And we live in this echo chamber of our propaganda and we are very happy, but nobody out there is convinced.

-Sri Lanka Guardian