| by N Sathiya
Moorthy
( December 2,
2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Announcing the filing of defamation suits
against two Tamil newspapers published from Jaffna, an Army statement had this
to say – and rightly so: “Just as much the Army is not above the law, we are
not below the law either, and we will fight vigorously to protect the good name
of the Army and our heroic soldiers.”
 |
The sudden turn-about of and on armed forces commander, Sarath Fonseka, did not help matters. Earlier, he had taken all credit for war-time actions against the errant soldier. That could not have been allowed to stick – or, stick out.
The court suits
are for damages to the tune of SLR 100 million each. They stand in the name of
Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya. If the Army statement is to be
believed, there could well be more of the same to come. The office of the
Director (Legal) at the Army HQ and Gen. Jayasuriya would have their hands full
– and their pens always filled with ink.
Approaching the
Judiciary for redress is a better way to address the legitimate concerns of the
Army in matters of unsubstantiated allegations and rumour-mongering than other
methods often associated with the armed forces. As the Army statement said,
“even if a suicide takes place in Jaffna, the two newspapers make it a point to
refer to the existence of an Army Camp in the area, thus casting aspersions on
the Army in an unnecessary manner.”
These are
matters for the courts to adjudicate, or for the civil society to agitate.
There cannot be a half-way house, where motivated sections of the media seek to
replace either or both. Or, at least that is the Army’s allegation at present.
The media seeking to replace the civil society, and polity, is worse than what
is euphemistically called the ‘trial by the media’.
It is likely
that the Army and the Government will be blamed for using law to browbeat
adversaries, off battle-field. It is also not unusual for friends of the media
and the voices of democracy to argue that high-cost court cases could silence
criticism for good. Judicial verdicts likewise could put media houses out of
business – and possibly into red. Or, that would be the argument. This is not
peculiar to Sri Lanka. It is not certainly peculiar to the aftermath of the
ethnic war and violence, where the armed forces were/are engaged in
rehabilitation and reconstruction. The international community that had been
sceptical about it has since least acknowledged constructive role played by the
armed forces in the reconstruction work in the war-ravaged North and the East.
Other arguments
apart, there is justification in the Government’s query if reconstruction could
have been fast-tracked without involving the armed forces as planners,
executors and manual labour. If rehabilitation, as against reconstruction, is
not complete, or satisfactory, the armed forces cannot be blamed. It is an
administrative decision by the Government, for which the Army may have provided
inputs.
The presence of
the armed forces in the neighbourhood provides for a sense of security in
civilian habitations located near cantonments. But too much of armed forces’
presence can be intimidating, if not worse. Too much of interaction, even in
the best of times, could only generate a love-hate relationship, nothing
better. This again is a universal phenomenon, and both sides should acknowledge
the same.
Community
coordination
In the peculiar
circumstances in which the armed forces are deployed and employed in the North
and the East, the long history of reportage and records, rumour-mongering and
speculation have the tendency to devils even where ‘grease devils’ may not
exist. Yet, the Army could think in terms of setting up coordination committees
with community leaders’ participation and have internal mechanisms to look into
complaints of general and particular nature that may flow through those panels
and redress them.
Every time the
international community complained about the armed forces’ excesses at the
height of ‘Eelam War IV’, the Government would refer to the 7000-plus high
‘court martial trials’ that had been conducted during the period, on specific
complaints against individual soldiers.
The sudden
turn-about of and on armed forces commander, Sarath Fonseka, did not help
matters. Earlier, he had taken all credit for war-time actions against the
errant soldier. That could not have been allowed to stick – or, stick out.
Yet, when
specifics took a generalised form, and high numbers of civilian war casualties
from among the Tamil community began to be flagged, the issues changed course.
The Government may have been put on the defensive, and it ended up having
neither the time, nor the inclination for anything but to ‘protect’ the armed
forces from the international community.
UN-ilateral
reports, or what?
The Government
may be justified in complaining about the “exaggerated civilian casualty figure
during the last stages of the terrorist conflict”, as contained in UN reports
since the conclusion of ‘Eelam War IV’. Taking the occasion offered by the
leakage and subsequent presentation of the Petrie Report to UN
Secretary-General, the External Affairs Ministry has also taken exception to
the “allegation of Government shelling into civilian concentrations, the
allegation relating to the Government deliberately restricting food and
medicine to the North and the repeated characterisation of the welfare villages
without any basis as military-run internment camps”.
As the statement
rightly points out, be it the Petrie Report now, or the Darusman Report
earlier, both were publicised as the internal working-papers of the UN system
for the Secretary-General’s personal reference. Both got leaked promptly – and
even before they were presented to the Secretary-General.
It is sad to
note that even after the experience with the Darusman Report the UN
administration did not seek, or bother to ensure that there was no repeat of
the same in the case of the Petrie Report. In this case, even sections blacked
out before the Report’s publication were in the leaked version. Which one is
official, then?
Is it that
someone internally had pre-judged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon? Or, did he or
she – or, they – wanted to build up additional pressure on the
Secretary-General even before he got to see the Reports? Who were/are they? Why
do they continue to have access?
It is not always
that leaks of the kind have occurred in the UN system. The repeated nature of
the leaks would indicate that independent of the cause and case, there
definitely is a section within the UN administrative set-up that has its
motives to harass and embarrass Sri Lanka. Or, is selective subterfuge become
the part of the UN scheme? Something is really rotten in Ban’s kingdom.
Be it the UN
Reports, or those drawn up by INGOs on the last stages of ‘Eelam War IV’, there
is little acknowledgement of the LTTE’s role and contribution. There is also
nothing about the studied silence, if not complicity of sections of the Tamil
society, including the Diaspora, or their host-nations, whose politicians have
seen for long an existing and emerging constituency nearer home.
Not only are
such reports one-sided, they have seldom cited the Sri Lankan Government
version. Where the Government was unwilling to join issue, there were/are
knowledgeable persons outside the Government who have been speaking out openly,
with clarity and substance, data and facts. Some NGOs have also launched
campaigns in third countries as part of their perceived sense of ‘advocacy’.
This goes way
beyond their altruist sense of rights of the individual, including to life and
dignity, and the duties and obligations of the State. If their concerns for
human rights were sincere and serious, that part of the charity should have
begun at home. The Iraq Wars and the Afghan War in our times would outlive them
all to haunt national consciences, years and decades later.
‘Zero-casualty’
policy
It is not enough
that justice is done. It should also be seem to have been done. This holds as
much true of the Government and the armed forces as of the international
community, the UN included. There is thus a need for both sides – and all
stakeholders to the ethnic issue – to look as much inside as they have been
looking outside, for succour and support.
In criticising
the UN for coming up with “exaggerated civilian casualty figure”, the
Government statement, possibly for the first time, may have acknowledged the
existence of civilian casualty. On earlier occasions, when people identified
with the Government and have had long association with civilian work on the
ground had mentioned figures, they were scoffed at from within.
The External
Affairs Ministry statement also flies on the face of earlier Government claims
of a ‘zero-civilian casualty’ war. It is one thing for policy, another thing to
be able to implement on the ground. As part of the Government’s commitment at
the UNHRC, the armed forces have been tasked to look into allegations of the
nature. It is one thing for the Government to contest the claims of the
international community, another thing to argue that they were not civilians
but LTTE cadres. The Government has not acknowledged the plausible and the
acceptable.
The Government
and the armed forces should simultaneously look at the possible outcome of the
court cases against newspapers initiated by the Army. If the verdict were to go
against the Army, does it flow that the Government would put in place
mechanisms to rectify them? Or, would it go even a step further and farther, to
pull as much of the armed forces from civilian neighbourhoods as is possible –
and as a matter of policy?
(The writer is
Director and Senior Fellow, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research
Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank,
headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@hotmail.com)
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