by Izeth Hussain
The reason why I think that such an understanding could be in the offing is that I hold that there is no case whatever – I mean most emphatically none, none, none whatever – to hold international or even internal investigations into the alleged war crimes at the present stage. It seems to me therefore that there is a strong logical possibility that a Western compromise and a quid pro quo understanding could be in the offing. I will now develop my argument to show why that seems a strong logical possibility.
My first point is that there are serious doubts about the validity of claims that war crimes were committed on a massive scale. The evidence cited doesn’t seem conclusive. Besides there are commonsensical grounds on which it does seem very unlikely that persons high up in the government would have deliberately wanted to commit such crimes. It was the tail-end of the war with the inevitable conclusion of a government victory, so that it is difficult to ascribe credible motives for such crimes. The government would obviously have had in mind – so it seems to me – uproar in Tamil Nadu followed by demands for international intervention to stop what looked like genocidal killings. Furthermore, we can take it that the more enlightened persons in the government would have understood that what was in question was not just winning the war but winning the peace, in which perspective war crimes would be seriously counterproductive. Finally it is a fact, indubitable and unchallenged, that Tamil civilians were escaping from LTTE control in huge numbers. Why kill them?
I would acknowledge, however, that there could be some flaws in my argument. I am assuming that the government was in total control of the process of the war, whereas there is at least a theoretical possibility that armed forces personnel in the higher echelons acted beyond authority and did indeed commit war crimes on a scale requiring investigation. Besides, I and other members of the general public don’t know enough of the facts, which could lead to a prima facie case for investigations. But that prima facie case has certainly not been established in the public mind. We are not dealing here with the kind of enormities committed over Bosnia, Kosovo, Darfur, and so on. The war is over, and there is no compelling need to hold investigations at the present stage.
The crux of my argument is that holding investigations – even if there is a valid case for it – will go against two matters to which top priority should be given at the present stage. One is to start moving towards a political solution of the ethnic problem; the other is to heal the wounds of war and move towards reconciliation. Evidently, the government is giving no priority to the former, while on the latter – the problem of reconciliation – the process is already under way, and it is safe to assume that within Sri Lanka there is virtual unanimity on the need for it. It is crucial to bear in mind that the process here is very different from the "truth and reconciliation" process in South Africa. There the issues were clear-cut, with the process involving not much more than acknowledging the wrongs done under apartheid and expressing regret for them. Here nothing is clear-cut – no need to go into the obvious details, I think – and the process is going to be complex, difficult, and protracted. How complex it will be is shown by the fact that there will be no reconciliation worth speaking about unless there is a political solution to the ethnic problem. In this situation the holding of investigations – with all the recrimination and bitterness that will ensue –will make it impossible to move either towards a peaceful solution or reconciliation.
The crucial question that has to be asked is this: Who really wants investigations at this stage? The West it seems, and the supporters of the LTTE in the Tamil diaspora, but not the Tamils who are in Sri Lanka. According to one of Ambassador Butenis’ leaked cables none of the Tamil parties, with the singular exception of a tiny insignificant one, want investigations at the present stage. There are no loud demands for it in Tamil Nadu or in Delhi – (the latter may be keeping its options open).
The next question to be asked is this: How representative is the LTTE diaspora? On this I have been sent a most enlightening article by Nirmala Rajasingham on the LTTE in the UK, where she herself lives, under the title The Simulated Politics of Diaspora which appeared in the January issue of Himal Magazine. I will cite only a few details from it that are germane to the purposes of this article. Most members of the diaspora are settled comfortably abroad and have no intention of returning to Sri Lanka, in which country therefore they have no stakes. There are suspicions that some active LTTE members have their eyes on the LTTE gold-pots left after the war. Most diaspora members came from the North, particularly the Jaffna Peninsula, and not from the marginalized areas of Mannar, Amparai and Batticoloa. Most belong to the lower middle-class and above, not the poor, and most belong to the Vellala caste and not to the lower castes.
It is very probable that Rajasingham’s account is correct because it conforms to the general known pattern of emigration. Most of the emigrants to the US consisted not of the poor but of the lower middle-class and above, while today’s Sinhalese emigrants to the West are mostly from the middle class and not the poor who earn a pittance in the Middle East. There are good reasons to believe that today’s LTTE rump consists of a thoroughly unrepresentative lot.
The most important question to be addressed is whether precedence is to be given to the wishes of the West and the rump LTTE or to the Tamils living in Sri Lanka and other Sri Lankans. My question is of course rhetorical because the answer is self-evident, and that answer means that there is no case, none whatever, for holding investigations at the present stage. The West should surely be able to understand this, and therefore there does seem to be a strong logical possibility of a quid pro quo understanding: the West will stop harrying and bullying us over alleged war crimes, in exchange for which we accord some degree of legitimacy to Ban Ki-moon’s Advisory Panel by allowing it to make representations to the LL and RC. The West is very much in earnest about building a new world order, which in their view would be greatly facilitated by establishing a case for the UN, or the great powers, to intervene here there and everywhere at their will and pleasure. In giving some degree of legitimacy to the Advisory Panel, we are promoting the purposes of the West.
It may of course be that what I am doing in this article is not much more than indulging in wishful thinking about a quid pro quo understanding. It may just be that the Government had to succumb to Western pressure for reasons unknown to the public. However, the arguments marshaled in this article could help in working out a better strategy in handling the problem of war crimes allegations. Up to now we have done not much more than deny that any war crimes were perpetrated, insisted that we will never agree to international investigations, and pointed to Western double standards. It has been a totally ineffective strategy. It could be better strategy to pose certain questions as in this article.
There is one aspect of this whole affair that is anomalous and very disturbing. I must make a clarification before proceeding with this part of my argument. I have earlier made the mistake of thinking that the London demonstrations against the President showed a sudden accretion of strength to the LTTE. I now think that those demonstrations by a proscribed terrorist group would not have taken place if not for the sudden latitude allowed by the British authorities. We must now think of the gold-pot rump LTTE as a creature of the West.
This means that it is only the West, not any significant body of Sri Lankans, which wants us to hold investigations at the present stage, putting in abeyance our desperate need for ethnic reconciliation and moving towards a political solution of the ethnic problem. We have to work out better relations with the West, but at present they are harming us over the ethnic problem. It is time to get the foreigners off our backs. The world is too much with us.
(The writer can be reached at izethhussain@gmail.com )
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