| by A special correspondent
( November 27, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) British Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka has created some political controversies in Sri Lanka and Britain. His call for international investigations about war crimes in Sri Lanka has indeed, generated a great deal of political debates. I shall evaluate this issue from some ethical and moral perspectives in this piece of writing. I shall be objective in my writing without any bias. The opponents and proponents of war crime investigations have recorded their arguments in many Newspapers and social networks. I shall examine this issue little bit differently.
Without a shadow of any doubt justice should be done equally to all on this earth. Yet, such assumption is not always viable on earth. This is simply because the powerful people always get away with it. With political power, power of wealth, power money or family influence they get away with it. Yet, very human instinct tells us that justice should be done to all. That is natural law on this earth. Justice is unconditional and should be applied indifferently to all.
There is no one type of justice for America for the fact it is a superpower and another type of justice for Afghanistan. There is no special justice for Britain and another kind for Sri Lanka. There is no special kind of justice for Sinhalese and another kind of it for Tamils. Justice is absolute and conditional in every sense. Even if it is against our own blood relatives we should apply justice indifferently. We should have courage and determination to stand up against injustice even if it is done by our own father or mother or for that matter any relative of us. Injustice is injective. No matter who does it on earth?
Justice should not be conditioned with our own earthly values and qualifications. Hitler killed more than 5 million Jews. People may think that he got away with it but human instinct tells us he should be punished in accordance with magnitude of his crime. This physical world with its physical law does not allow that to punish him again and again 5 million times and yet, there must be some system of punishment in his next life. His soul should task such punishment for the crimes he did. Likewise, whoever dose wrong should be punished and justice should be done. This natural principle can be compared in Sri Lankan context of thirty years of war as well. A lot of innocent people were killed without any reasons. People were killed innocently in suicide blasts, bomb blasts, firing, and air attacks. The perpetrators of all these killing are should be either punished in this world if not they would be punished proportionately in their next life. This would be done according to the magnitude of crimes they committed.
How come the prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron opens his eyes now and not any time before this CHOGM? He has been in power for more than three years now and yet, when he came to power he did not speak on Sri Lanka Issue and abruptly he gets wisdom now to talk about Sri Lanka Issue. Why now he wants to shine a spotlight on Sri Lankan issue? What a political twist is this? You know well the nature of politics in western nation is different from the third world countries. The relationship between modern government in western nations and its public is more than mere casual customer relationship rather the relationship between modern states and its people is based on the modern concept of citizenship. That is to say those citizens have rights to hold their governments to account for the actions they take or fail to take. As citizens in these countries they want their voices heard and their rights are protected and their dignities are protected. Otherwise, public in these countries take their government into accountability and they could punish them in the next election (Martine Mingue. Charles Polidano. David Hume P.5)
This is the reality of modern governments in western nations. Politicians have to respect public views and have to listen to public and they have to be accountable and responsible people in their duty. Otherwise they would be chased out of office in the next election. In this sense, what David Cameron did was nothing but political manipulation to win Tamil votes in the next election. There are more 150 thousands Tamils live in England today according to reports and they live primarily in inner London constituencies and it would be politically appropriate to talk about the war crimes in SL at this cruel juncture than any time before. This is a timely needed topic today in British politics. Why on earth they talk about this issue right now? Last Monday house of Common debated this issue for more than 45 minutes and I noticed that most of conservative members raised their voices in support of their Prime Minister’s visit to Sri Lanka and they unanimously agree that there must be some sort of international enquires into war crimes in Sri Lanka. It seems that this is nothing opportunistic politics of some members of Parliament in Britain to win over the Tamil votes in their constituencies.
British Prime Minister wants to get Tamil votes in many constituencies for that reason he needs to talk about this issue right now so that his party MPs could be re-elected on the marginal seats. Look at the way they debated this issue in Westminster this Monday. Almost all MPs spoke about this problem in this debate. Where they have been before this CHOGM? Why they did not shine a spotlight on this before. It means this is a political game rather than their love and affection to Tamil people? When India, China and Pakistan supported SL on its final assault why they did not take this matter with UN? Why they did not stop that final battle? Why is now they mourn about this issue after all these killings. It would have been better if they had taken some constructive measures on those days when these people were killed. Justice must be done on this issue and yet, it seems that these politicians try to use this issue for their own political interest.
When LTTE did all their atrocities these English politicians did not have any say about it. International investigation into war crimes should be objective not subjective. It seems David Cameron and his team have got some subjective approaches to this problem. During these thirty years of bloody war both parties have done grave war crimes. It would not be fair to point the figure at one party and ignore other. Both parties should share the responsibilities for the war crimes they had committed. LTTE was branded as a terrorism movement by some western powers those days. It killed thousands of innocent people: Politicians, academics, Religious leaders and public on suspicion of being government supporters or collaborators. LTTE killed innocent Muslims for no reason. It chased out innocent Muslims from North for no reason and on mere suspicion. LTTE killed innocent devotees in their mosques and temples. These are grave crimes and humanity cannot forget crimes of this nature at all. Crimes committed by LTTE are forgotten by these politicians and yet, this does not mean that war crimes of Sri Lanka forces to be ignored and forgotten. They too killed innocent people and it was India's complicit attitude to this war that led to such killing. Indian government must have stopped mass killings of innocent people but it did not do that. Why because it was so irritated about past dirty works of LTTE. It was India that wanted to get rid of LTTE. Indian forces fought LTTE more than three years but they could not crush them and they wanted SL army to wipe out LTTE. That is why they did not interfere at the last battle at the Expense of innocent lives. It can be argued that innocent Tamil people were trapped in this geopolitical war between three regional powers in this region.
It appears that China is making more gains than any other country from the defeat of LTTE. Almost all the construction works are given to Chinese companies. Now Sri Lanka began to import more products from China than any other country. Chinese companies are buying lands and properties in Sri Lanka. China is monopolizing and dominating Sri Lankan economy from many ways but India cannot encounter this Chinese domination at all. Sri Lanka has become almost a Chinese colony today. It can be said that China is the real winner in this bloody war. They have been given lucrative contracts. China is milking from Sri Lanka. Now Sri Lanka has become a battlefield between China, India, and England. To be continued.
Reference:
1) Martine Minogue. Charles Polidano. David Hume. (Beyond The Management: changing ideas and practice in governance). Edward. Elgar Publishing limited. UK 2000.
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