SriLanka Today Ya_TV

People in South of Sri Lanka react to Sri Lanka = Military Victory = Part 01

People in South of Sri Lanka react to Sri Lanka = Military Victory = Part 02

Children in IDP camp Manik Farm

Minister Gunasekera comments on Rebuild After Ending War

SriLanka Today Ya_TV

Colombo celebrates the end of war

IDP and Post war Issues: Government views

SCOPP trains English teaches to unite communities

SriLanka Today Ya_TV

International Community – Friends or Foes of Sri Lanka ?

Rights and Reality : Sri Lanka-s Disabled Community take up accessibility issue

Sri Lanka-s propaganda war hits crescendo

Will this international community actually help ?

The international community, the UN Security Council, The Commonwealth Member Countries, the SAARC are all organizations and forums at different levels that could prevail on Sri Lanka over the human carnage that’s most nakedly unfolding, at the expense of innocent civilians, who are caught in the bloody conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers. This catastrophe has been unfolding in a very savage manner especially from January this year, after Tamil Tigers accepted defeat by leaving Killinochchi and retreating to their acclaimed stronghold, the Mullaitivu.

Even before that, there were calls going out to the international community, to the EU, to the UN and to most other humanitarian agencies, asking them to intervene in this conflict on the basis there is an imminent humanitarian crisis that needs independent intervention. This call for independent intervention from the outside world went out louder when the GoSL systematically closed all access to international and national aid organizations, humanitarian organizations and to the media in reaching the war affected areas and the people caught in the war. A war behind iron curtains can never be within humanitarian limits and decency.

Yet in a typically bureaucratic manner, all international organizations from the UN Security Council to the EU and the SL Aid Group, including all humanitarian agencies, worked hard to find protocols, international charters and covenants that could lay the blame square on both the GoSL and the Tamil Tigers equally and request for adherence to international law. It is not that they did not know such statements from distant cities would provide the government with time and space to continue with its military offensives how ever ruthless they could be.

This isn’t the first time these international organizations and associations have been into this business of allowing armed conflicts to grow savage at the expense of human life. The Rwandan conflict is one classic example of how the UN Security Council and the international community played on their own agenda at the expense of innocent human lives. In less than 100 days, over 01 million Tutsi civilians were hacked, butchered and cut to death in one of the most callous neglects in world diplomacy, while the UN Security Council members were arguing on who is right and who is wrong and whether it is right to intervene and how. They went into long discussions and debates over coffee and tea, for they had all the time in the world in their plush offices. But not those Tutsi men, women and children, the young and the old who were dying at the hands of Hutu power on the roads, in their homes, at workplaces and in hide outs they thought they would be safe.

The US Secretary of State under the Clinton administration, Madam Madeleine Albright writing her autobiography in her retirement says, [quote] As I look back at the records of the meetings held that first week, I am struck by the lack of information about the killing that had begun against unarmed Rwandan civilians, as opposed to the fighting between Hutu and Tutsi militias. Many Western embassies had been evacuated, including our own (US), so official reporting was curtailed. Dallaire (head of the UN Peace keeping force) was making dire reports to the UN headquarters, but the oral summaries provided to the Security Council lacked detail and failed to convey the full dimensions of the disaster. As a result, the Council hoped unrealistically that each new day would bring a cease fire.[unquote] – (Madam Secretary / page 188; emphasis and explanations within brackets added)

That is simply how these big powers play their role as international leaders. After all that massacre, after 01 million innocent lives had been unnecessarily hacked to death, Albright says, [unquote] My deepest regret from years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt those crimes. President Clinton later apologized for our lack of action, as did I. [unquote] – (ibid – p/185; emphasis added)

Its easy for them to tender apologies and lay the chapter of mass killings aside. So is it with all the other conflicts she lists in her memoirs. Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Sudan, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Tajikistan were all extreme cases of conflict that had received priority over Rwanda according to Albright. It was 1993 and 16 years ago that she lists all these conflict ridden countries. Israel and the Gaza, is not there though. That’s despite the UN Security Council adopting 131 Resolutions on the Israel – Palestinian conflict, but has never invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Israel is thus given freedom to behave the way it wants. Burma and Aung San Suki wasn’t even listed. The Military Junta carries on regardless.

How many has the UN Security Council and the international community solved or at least positively intervened in paving a way out of the conflicts, from this list in Madam Secretary’s memoirs ? None for sure. In fact the list is longer and broader now. There is Iraq, Iran and North Korea on a different plateau. Afghanistan has now turned the conflict into an Afghanistan – Pakistan – India conflict. Robert Mugabe continues with his Zimbabwe reeling with armed conflicts while enjoying inflation at over 2,000 per cent. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is indicted in the ICC while the international community allows Darfur to turn into a playing field for human catastrophe. The list is definitely long and bloody.

Can the Sri Lankan conflict receive from these cumbersome agencies any treatment that would be different to what they have always been doling out ? In all these international agencies, from the UN to IMF and World Bank, the US dollar has big interests in how they act. All international agencies have to accede to super power interests and that is no secret. Who are they ? They are all big time arms manufacturers and dealers. The US between the years 2000 – 2007 has been leading the military hardware market with US $ 134.84 billion which was 37% of the market share. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the US, UK, France, Russia, and China together in 2002 shared 88% of the reported sales in conventional arms.

Imagine this planet earth in soothing peace ? No armed conflicts any where, only dialogue and negotiations in managing conflicts. Can these five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council afford to lose US $ 273.5 billion ? As former US President Jimmy Carter said during his presidential campaign in 1976, [quote] We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.[unquote]

They would rather say “sorry” again after everything is over. If Sri Lanka could on its own finish the conflict what ever the human carnage, as in Serbia, they would still issue a statement, ambiguous in tone but thanking the government of SL for finishing off “terrorism”. For they wouldn’t lose this tiny arms market immediately and there are other conflicts they moderate on their own agenda, any way. Its ridiculous to expect international big time players including the UN to help stop human tragedies. They wouldn’t.

Kusal Perera

For details on world armament market visit – http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big-business#GlobalArmsSalesBySupplierNations

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Ceasefire agreement and Role of International Community in Sri Lanka Ethnic Conflict

Let them decide

Civilians trapped with Tamil Tiger fighters must be offered an exit before a bloodbath ensues

John Holmes , The Guardian

As London witnesses Tamil protests, a bloodbath on the beaches of northern Sri Lanka seems an increasingly real possibility. The Sri Lankan military has pushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam into an area so small that any shooting or shelling inevitably causes casualties among the 150,000 to 190,000 civilians trapped in the same zone. There have been many hundreds of civilian deaths caused by firing from both sides, though exact numbers and who fired what and when are impossible to verify. It is clear that the LTTE is refusing to let people flee, though many are managing to escape somehow, and I fear the combatants may be gearing up for a final confrontation. This is a very grave situation.

As a full-scale, long-term ceasefire is unlikely to be agreed now, the only way to get the civilians out of harm’s way is a temporary humanitarian lull, during which aid workers and relief supplies must be allowed into the conflict zone, and those who want to leave must be given the chance to do so.

Both sides have a duty to bring this about. The LTTE’s leadership claims the civilians in the conflict zone do not want to leave because they accompanied the LTTE voluntarily in the first place and are afraid of government reprisals. Yet there are continuing reports that the group’s fighters are shooting at fleeing civilians, limiting fishing and sabotaging boats that might be used to escape, and forcing people to fight against their will. Civilians trapped by the fighting must be allowed a free choice of whether to leave or stay, as we have made clear to the LTTE. If the LTTE truly has the best interests of the Tamil people at heart, they should contribute to ending this unnecessary civilian suffering.

For its part, the government of Sri Lanka must stick to its promise of not using heavy weapons while the fighting lasts, and hold off from any final attack in the conflict zone while the pause is negotiated. With so many people packed into such a small area, further military action not only risks more civilian deaths and injuries but also threatens to undermine the government’s credibility with the international community and the national groups with whom it must soon seek reconciliation.

At this critical juncture independent aid workers must be allowed to bring in more aid, assess the situation and help civilians to decide their own fate. Indeed, unless better access for supplies and aid workers is urgently secured, the ravages of disease, untreated wounds and hunger will kill many more people.

The government must also show flexibility by recognising that many of the civilians in the conflict zone have genuine fears about possible mistreatment, whether the government deems them well-founded or not. It must also make clear that the safety of all civilians will be guaranteed, and that all those laying down their arms will be treated in accordance with the rule of law.

A vital part of this is ensuring that treatment of internally displaced people is in line with international standards – including the need for transparent screening and registration processes, guaranteed freedom of movement, and commitments to ensure speedy return to their places of origin. If the UN can play a role in bringing this about and monitoring it with other international groups, it is fully ready to do so.

Beyond this we need an end to the conflict, and rapid political progress to tackle the underlying issues through the devolution of power and long-term accommodation and reconciliation. With thousands of lives in the balance and the clock ticking, the time for decisive action by the government, the LTTE and the international community is now, before it is too late.

• Sir John Holmes is UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator