A guard is reflected on the vehicle of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as he leaves a working session of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo on Saturday. PHOTO: AFP
Sri Lanka has shunned Britain’s demand for an inquiry into human rights abuses committed against Tamils.
“Pressure won’t do anything.... It’s much better to wait rather than demand or dictate,” said Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Saturday at a press conference here where he was chairing a Commonwealth summit.
Sri Lanka must be trusted to conduct its own investigation into war crimes allegations and warned against international pressure on his regime’s human rights record, he stressed, adding, “People in glass houses must not throw stones.”
The three-day gathering has been overshadowed by allegations of war crimes committed by Sri Lankan troops at the end of an ethnic war in 2009.
Earlier, during the CHOGM session, allegations against Sri Lanka’s war crimes led to an impending conflict between Britain and the host of Commonwealth summit, as the country received strong criticism over the use of state-backed torture against Tamils.
Later, in a news briefing, UK Prime Minister David Cameron asked for a “credible, transparent and independent investigations into alleged war crimes.”
“Let me be clear, using our position in the Human Rights Council we will work with them and call for a credible international inquiry into alleged war crimes if the government fails to do so by March next year,” said Cameron.
Senior minister Basil Rajapakse was more direct in his statements against UK’s demand and said such an inquiry would ‘definitely’ not be allowed. Basil is also Rajapakse’s brother and the secretary in the defence ministry. The president himself holds the portfolio of the defence ministry, making him directly responsible to all such allegations.
Backing Colombo
Commonwealth countries seemed divided on the matter with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressing support to Rajapakse’s government.
In his address at the summit, Nawaz discussed weak economy, poverty, energy shortages, natural calamities and militancy among Pakistan’s various challenges. He said equitable development was one of the most significant contemporary challenges confronting the countries.
Australia and New Zealand have also backed Sri Lanka. Australian premier Tony Abbott, in his address, said countries recovering from conflict should not be isolated.
On Friday, Cameron had skipped CHOGM’s opening ceremony to visit Jaffna, the heart of the conflict. “I’m the first head of state to visit the north of Sri Lanka since 1948,” Cameron said in a tweet.
A UN report suggests the Sri Lankan military may have killed up to 40,000 civilian Tamils in the last few months of the 30-year war.
UK media has brought the issue of alleged human rights abuses to the fore. A horrifying nearly nine-minute documentary, released on BBC Newsnight days before the meeting, revealed allegations of sexual torture by the military against ethnic Tamils as recently as this year.
The stories of unconceivable abuse are confirmed by medical practitioners in the UK. The documentary says the allegations amount to a ‘crime against humanity’ which may be referred to the International Criminal Court for further investigation.
The summit opened up with subtle references to the crisis at hand, but steered clear from any direct confrontation. The Sri Lankan president, seemingly stressed, greeted the delegates holding his good luck gold charm in his left hand, but the luck seemed to have worn out by the end of the first day.
The Commonwealth meeting has also led to rising concerns about lack of media freedom in Sri Lanka, with journalists being given very limited access to the CHOGM events. BBC and Channel 4 News have been most vocal in their concerns.
Many in Sri Lanka see the UK’s concerns with much scepticism. When Channel 4 crew visited the media centre on Friday, questions thrown at them by local journalists implied the documentary was biased because of “European funding to produce the film.”
Moreover, Mauritius has backed out from hosting CHOGM 2015 because “almost nothing has been done” following revelations on civilian casualties. The country had already boycotted CHOGM 2013 because of Sri Lanka’s human rights record.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 17th, 2013.
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There is no excuse for mass killings or genocide by politically controlled nations. That goes without saying but all countries have at some time in their history committed genocide. Indeed from the beginning of time humans have killed each other usually for economic gain or survival. We are therefore no different in many ways to the animal kingdom but clearly where we should be. A great deal would change if nations had ‘real’ empathy with each other, but where political and corporate corruption change this mind-set to one of personal economic gain. Once this has happened (and it has to all nations), if people get in the way it appears that they are exterminated. Indeed when we look at the world’s history of genocide we see that western nations are as bad as all others. For one, the USA has the greatest crime against humanity when the Europeans took over North America. According to historical data it all stated with Columbus and the Pilgrim Fathers, and where the Indian tribes apparently greeted their new so-called friends from another world with open arms and heartfelt greetings. Little did they know that these new comers would eventually kill them. Therefore who were the savages, the Indians or the Europeans? But what happened in the USA is a little known story as the Europeans took over this northern continent. Indeed because the new European's economic interests predominated over everything, there is documented evidence that they exterminated between 50 million and 100 million native Indians (not necessarily savages either but peace abiding tribes and where the Indian wars only emerged because of the excesses of the new colonizing Europeans as they went further into the interior). To put these figures into perspective Hitler only murdered 11 million in the Holocaust (5 million of them of Jewish descendancy). Therefore the Europeans taking over what we now know as the USA, terminated the lives some 5 to 9 times that of the Nazi persecution. A similar thing happened in South and central America with the Spanish conquest in their quest for riches and global power. Therefore although western leaders have definitely to take to task the Sri Lankan regime and stop these crimes against humanity, our own history is steeped in genocide also (including slavery on a global scale). Regrettable but definitely historical fact. Therefore my summation of the problem of genocide is that at its roots there is economic and financial exploitation for the very few, politicians included – very much like today and where things have not really changed that much. Therefore not until a new breed of politicians and corporate leaders have persuasions that put people's lives above economic and political gains, genocide will unfortunately continue infinitum I am afraid to say. That is why people like Ed Snowdon have to show their face and expose as much behind closed doors decisions that they can, both in government and big business (as the two are inextricably bound together). Indeed the new EU-USA trade pact again favours corporations and gives big corporations power over sovereign states where if they do not achieve a certain profit margin, they can sue our national governments for the difference and get it. How mad is this, but it does show the immense power of corporates over national governments. Indeed according to Forbes a mere 2,000 corporates last year controlled 51% of all the global economic turnover in nominal terms or 51% of the total economic cake. The EU-USA agreement will give them even more power to extort more money out of the people of Europe and the US. Therefore genocide has its fundamental base in economic greed and the reason why it will never cease.
Dr David Hill World Innovation Foundation
Does the ICC only investigate and prosecutes Africans ? What about the Sri Lankans
RAJAPAKSE IS DA MAN.........speaking truth to power is never easy.