 www.tamileelamnews.com TNS Corner By V.N. Mithran
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted sixty years ago by the UN General Assembly, stated that all human beings are born free and equal, the implementation of the noble values enshrined in this declaration was shrouded by geopolitical and economic considerations. Human Rights are rights inherent to all human beings, irrespective of nationality, place of residence, sex, ethnic origin, colour, religion, or language. All are equally entitled to Human Rights without discrimination. These rights are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.
Unfortunately, these principles had to be implemented by politicians who, like every human being, had their own priorities. Economic and geopolitical considerations were uppermost in their minds and they assigned the back seat for human rights violations in friendly countries.
The five founding fathers of United Nations, US, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, when creating this organisation in 1948, were keen to see that the death and destruction perpetrated during the two world wars would never happen again. However, within a couple of years the allies during World War Two broke into two camps – the Western Alliance and the Communist Bloc, led by Soviet Union (now Russia). China, becoming a communist state in 1949, exasperated the rivalry between the two groups.
The Western alliance led by US and Britain were hell bent on preventing the expansion of communism to Western Europe and the newly independent countries in Africa and Asia, especially South East Asia, where many people of Chinese origin were domiciled. Uppermost in their minds was to look for friendly races or countries who are the least likely to accept the communist ideology. As a result they were not bothered about the minorities in any country, who would have been disadvantaged by their preferences. In Sri Lanka they preferred the power to be entrenched in the hands of the Sinhalese, as India was too close to the Soviet Union for comfort. The net result of this was the rights of the plantation and North-Eastern Tamils were not properly secured in the constitution.
Belgium Congo, which became independent on June 30 1960, was a good example of a country, where economic priorities took precedence over human rights. This country, which was once called Zaire, but now the Republic of Congo, was and still is rich in minerals. Patrice Lumumba, the first premier of this country was overthrown by his army chief, Col Joseph Mubutu in a CIA sponsored coup. Lumumba, a well respected national leader, was eventually murdered, and the American ambassador there removed his body in the booth of his car and had it buried in an unmarked grave. His popularity was so great, even after his death, that the Belgium chemists unearth his remains and dissolved it in nitric acid. The one who took over the power from Lumumba, Joseph Mubutu, robbed and bankrupted the country during his autocratic rule from 1965 to 1997. At the end of the Cold War, when he was no longer useful to the West, he was allowed to be deposed in a coup by Joseph Kabila. Even to this date the people in this well-endowed country have not seen peace.
To save Indonesia from Communism Gen. Suharto deposed President Sukarno in a bloody coup that claimed half a million Communist and Chinese lives. He was encouraged by the Western powers to invade and occupy East Timor in 1975, as East Timorese leaders showed Marxist tendencies. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999, a quarter of its population died in the independence agitation. The human rights violation in this territory was at its worst, but none of the champions of human rights raised a whimper against it. East Timor gained its independence when the Cold War ended and President Suharto was no longer useful to the West. The East Timorese were in a similar situation as the Eelam Tamils are today.
Without any support from any external power, they went on fighting for twenty four years, and ultimately at an opportune moment they went free.
To be fair to US some of its presidents lived up to the spirit and letter of the founding fathers of the United States of America.
Commentators have stated that, if only President John F Kennedy had come into power a month earlier, Patrice Lumumba's life would have been spared. He brushed aside economic considerations in Congo, persuaded Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru of India to send in Indian troops under UN flag, crushed the Katanga rebellion staged by the Western stooge Moise Tshombe and sent the Belgium troops packing home. Jimmy Carter, during his presidency (1977-81) took up the cudgel of human rights, which was ignored by most of his predecessors, and incorporated it in his foreign policy. Unfortunately, that was not what his country wanted most at that time and he did not last beyond a term.
After the 9/11twin tower tragedy, President Bush's 'war on terror' had exasperated human rights violations all over the world. It had encouraged many dictators to use terrorism as a weapon to suppress local dissent. Any rebellion in any part of the world is termed as an act of terrorism and it is brought under international scrutiny. The term 'terrorism' took a new definition. When a nation bombs and maims its minority citizens into submission, it is not called state terrorism, but when the oppressed retaliate by attacking the oppressor it is defined as an act of terrorism. During President Bush's term of office human rights violations all over the world had increased to an appalling state.
The Tamils in Tamil Eelam have suffered, on account of the war on terror, more than any other race in the world. The Sinhalese leaders are adept at taking advantage of international situations to subjugate the Tamils. The former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Laxman Kadirgamar, went to western capitals to convince them to place LTTE on the terrorist list. His main trump card was the recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE and their unwillingness to come for any settlement. LTTE takes extreme care of children, as they are the future leaders of the Tamil nation. It is the Sinhala regime that is committing genocide against the Tamil race, especially the youths.
There is ample evidence of this. Sri Lankan Air Force bombed schools in Naakar Koayil and refugees in Navaali Church, where hundreds of children died. In August 2006, the present government bombed Chegnchoalai complex in Northern Vanni, an area designated as refugee centre, killing 52 children. Abduction of youths and extra-judicial killings are a daily occurrences in the so-called 'liberated areas of the East.' Dr. Raveendranath, former Vice Chancellor of the Eastern University disappeared in front of the Bandaranayake International Memorial Hall (BMICH) and Chinese Embassy inside the High Security Zone in Colombo. According to the Annual Report for 2007 of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), more than 5000 cases of disappearances are pending without clarification from the Sri Lankan Government.
Human rights are violated daily as hundreds of Tamil youth are arrested on suspicion under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations. They are being held at Boosa detention centre and other prisons without any charges filed against them. Quite a number of them were tortured to death in these prisons.
In Sri Lanka, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which entitles everyone to freedom of opinion and expression, is ignored. Reputed journalist and the 'Reporters without Borders' nominee for their award this year, J.S.Tissainayagam, is languishing in the Magazine prison along with the common criminals. Tissainayagam was indicted under the PTA for airing his views as a journalist on the ongoing war efforts of the Government of the day. Nimalarajan, a BBC correspondent from Jaffna, and D.Sivaram, a popular military analyst and a senior editor of TamilNet, were killed allegedly by paramilitaries collaborating with Colombo.
"Genocide refers to violent crimes with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" says the United Nations General Assembly which adopted a law banning genocide by anybody or any state on 9 December 1948. "Genocide is the ultimate form of discrimination. We must do everything in our power to prevent it," said Ms Navaneetham Pillai the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Tamils are being trampled in their homeland by the security forces, who are given wide impunity.
Having helplessly watched these atrocities the Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament (MP) for Jaffna Ms Padmini Sithamparanathan, asked the world leaders in December 2008 "This act of 'state terrorism' is in what way less deplorable than the Mumbai killings, for failing to attract condemnation and action from the International Community?
Traditional views of sovereignty have also been major obstacles to effective international action. It has often been argued that external action in response to threats of genocide constitutes unacceptable interference in a country's domestic affairs. There is a growing understanding, however, that sovereignty implies rights and obligations, and that states have a basic responsibility to protect their citizens from genocide and mass atrocities. No government has the right to use national sovereignty as a shield behind which it can murder its own people. The challenge for the world community is not only to state this principle, but to implement it. In Bosnia and Kosovo sovereignty lost its status as a sacred cow.
Time for reckoning has come to President Rajapaksa, his brothers and his cronies. Sri Lanka is now one of the eight in the 'Genocide Red Alert Watch List.' President elect Barack Obama is determined to bring leadership and political will into his fight against genocide. To make this point clear he has appointed a human rights advocate, Susan Rice, as the next US ambassador to UN.
Meanwhile, Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General and currently Counsel for a U.S. Tamil Group said in an interview that a 400+ page model indictment charging Sri Lanka officials for genocide against Tamils will be ready to be submitted to the U.S. Justice Department first week of January 2009. He added that the document describes the motivational context, catalogues crimes, and constructs legal arguments establishing culpability of a U.S. citizen and a U.S. greencard holder for the crime of genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka under the U.S. Genocide Accountability Act. (Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka are US citizen and green card holder respectively.) The Group has also met with a member of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, and submitted a brief on the charges being levelled against Sri Lanka officials.
The Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen was jointly convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace. Task Force sought to develop practical policy recommendations to enhance the capacity of the U.S. government to recognize and respond to future threats of genocide and mass atrocities. (Please read attachment for details on the Genocide Prevention Task Force.)
The above developments in the new US administration may bring some solace to the suffering Tamils and the Tamil diasporas overseas; but past experiences had shown that depending on external forces to save the Tamils from extinction leads to disappointment and frustration. While the Eelam Tamils are facing the brunt of the foreign aided chauvinistic Sinhalese assault, the international Tamil diasporas have a moral obligation to remain focused in aiding the Tamil cause. At a time when the Tamils are fighting for survival, we just cannot afford the luxury of despair.
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