Sir John Holmes Sri-Lankan Story to UN is like an Infinite Loop. A Slur

Sir John Holmes Sri-Lankan Story to UN is like an Infinite Loop. A Slur

By: Dr C P Thiagarajah
Courtesy: TamilCanadian - March 11, 2009

Sir John Holmes, a career diplomat from United Kingdom is the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination in the UN from 3 Jan 2007. His post-visit briefing on the present Sri-Lankan situation to the Security Council showed his impotence at the job. It sounded like a story incorporated an infinite-loop motif poem, titled ‘There's a Hole in My Bucket’ and sung by Harry Belafonte and Odetta. Nothing was remedied nor anything new revealed and few positives came out of the three day trip that was popularly believed to fix the problem of genocide of Tamils in Sri-Lanka. It was a case of the mountain labouring and bringing out a mouse. The song referred to went something like:-

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,

Sir John in his address to the Security Council said that his visit to Sri-Lanka was in response to International Community’s (IC) high level of concern about the humanitarian consequences of the continuing fighting between the LTTE and the Sri-Lankan army.

Mr Holmes should remember that Sri-lankan situation was widely reported in media to have reached genocide. That is why the high level of concern. See what Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Liberal MP.), told the Canadian Parliament. He was serious. He wanted to call a spade a spade rather than hiding behind false pretence of modesty. He said, “The humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding today is unfortunate. I think we could go so far as to use the word that is not permitted to be used: genocide, or ethnic cleansing”. What is happening in there is no different from what happened in Dafur or what happened in Gaza lately. The equality principles require these situations to be treated alike. Sir John should have taken extra care to be fair by all and to show that justice was not only done but also appeared to be done.

He forgot the background issues that led to the Sri-Lankan conflict and called some of the ministers responsible for genocide by their first name which practice the English reserve for familiar or trusted persons. He would know that from the time of independence in Sri Lanka, all successive Sinhala governments of every of every hue, from that of the two Bandaranaikes, the Jayawardene government and that of Chandrika Kumaranatunge, used anti-Tamil propaganda to come to power. They kept themselves in power by stoking ethnic hatred and unleashing the army on the Tamil population, without making efforts at a political solution to an obviously political problem of the Tamils ie the right to self determination. Former, famous US high commissioner J Lunstead, and an assistant undersecretary Mr Richard Boucher had acknowledged that there is a requirement for a negotiated settlement to the highly vexes political aspirations of the Tamils based on the principle of self determination in their Traditional Homeland (TH) of North and East. The brutality with which Tamils had been treated in Sri Lanka by successive Sinhalese governments has justified a claim to self-determination in the Tamil minority.

Sir John’s erstwhile predecessor, Jan Egeland too, in a commentary article published in a leading newspaper in Norway on Saturday has called for world attention on forgotten conflicts where situation has deteriorated while the focal point of the world was centered on Gaza.

“In Gaza, as well as in Sri Lanka, the elected governments wish to crush the resistance movements – which have used abhorrent terror – but also enjoy peoples’ support. In both the places, the government forces are engaged in widespread violations on people’s rights. In both the cases one attempts keep the international media and other witnesses away. And, there ends the comparison,” writes Jan Egeland.

Sir John should have been scrupulously neutral to make his visit report credit worthy. He failed to involve the Tamil MPs who are the representative of the victims of this genocide crime. This is a fundamental error.

Sir John was given a remit to 1) obtain first-hand information about the dire humanitarian situation of those trapped in Vanni 2) look at arrangements for taking care of the escapees. 3) promote compliance by all the parties with international Humanitarian Law and international principles and standards for the treatment of the internally displaced by war.

This term of reference was quite adequate for him to present a comprehensive report to the SC so that it would have taken the Sri-Lankan case for discussion. But Mr Holmes failed in his duty to bring out the true situation/events in Vanni, particularly Sri-lankan use of cluster bombs and daily 20-50 killings of vulnerable section of the Tamil community-children, women and the elderly.

Methodology:-In his quest for the above objectives he said he met those in the highest level in government including the president and the leader of the important Tamil party and now defunct co-chairs of aid giving nations to the Sinhalese. He also met ICRC, NGOs and representative of civil societies and UN agencies.

The tools he chose to elicit facts in this qualitative inspection/research were inappropriate and biased. It had been widely reported that Sir John, whose lingua franca was English that originated from Indo-Aryan languages like the Sinhala language, could not communicate in a Dravidian language Tamil and therefore used an interpreter to interview the internally displaced people (IDPs). Stupidly he used a government minister named Badurdeen a member of the Muslim community whose mother tongue might not be Tamil though they could speak a Tamil dialect. There are Muslim in the Western province who use Sinhalese as mother tongue after 1956 when Sinhala was introduced as the official language. It was sad that ethnic Tamils in the Western coast along Colombo to Chilaw now used Sinhalese as their mother tongue. They had opted for it after the introduction of Sinhalese as the state language, in order to increase their employment opportunities and to avoid humiliation from Sinhalese after many language riots since 1958.

Surely, Sir John should have used a Tamil MP from the group that represented Vanni that is a Tamil electorate. True research should work that way.

Mr Holmes said he contacted NGOs. It is pertinent to mention that Sinhala government had banned Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) from functioning and many foreign NGOs had been prohibited from working among the IDPs. Owing to this revengeful act there is slow relief work in Vanni. This is a calculated move by the government, to frustrate the Vanni citizens from exercising their free choice of making independent decisions in politics. This collective punishment is a crime. Hence, the NGO he met must be from the Sinhala community who harbour the ideas of the Sinhala chauvinists or those ones from countries that supply arms to Sri-lanka to suppress Tamil’s and thereby their demand for the right to self determination which is a democratic right. Hence, the validity of his finding had been compromised.

Findings: - The UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs told Security Council members “Eestimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups."

Interestingly, Sir John could read between the lines the government’s understatement of the number of IDPs. If that was so how could he trust the government on their assurances and the promises for future arrangements for resettlement of the evacuees?

Humanitarian Issues that he identified and actions taken were:-

1 Firstly, Concerns about tens of thousands civilians caught in the Vanni pocket.

He summed up “I called on the LTTE in particular to let the civilians leave freely amid credible reports of shooting of some trying to flee and to stop forced recruitment especially of children. I also urged the government to make it possible for civilian population to get out safely by if possible halting the fighting”. He mentioned that the Government assured him at every level that they had virtually stopped using heavy weapons. He was unclear how far this was the case in reality.

There is ambiguity in this statement. The Under-secretary had every chance of verifying this from the NGOs or ICRC. They had voiced their opposition to the Government of Sri-Lanka (GSL) using heavy weapons. If he gave a definite reply the SC and the world would have got highly worked up and demanded quick action by the UN through the SC.

2 Secondly I called upon both the government and the LTTE to allow unhindered access to relief supplies to Vanni pockets.

All reports from Vanni indicated that it was the GSL that was causing delay or not giving relief supplies to Vanni. Mr Holmes should have made good effort to find out the real block in the relief supplies.

3 Thirdly, I emphasised to the government at every level that the treatment of IDPs has to be in line with international standards and principles. I visited transit sites in a school and other local buildings. Movement into and out of them is highly and unacceptably restricted.

Contrary to what Mr Holmes stated above an armed conflict, entailing widespread and serious abuses continues in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka areas. Calls for all sides to exercise restraint and respect international humanitarian and human rights law remain unheeded. The alleged abuses are being carried out with total impunity and include serious and indiscriminate violations of international humanitarian law. The genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, as well as crimes against humanity in Kosovo, East Timor and Darfur have demonstrated massive failures by the international community to prevent atrocities. Perhaps, as Sir John’s inspection did not bring out any solid positive action from the SC, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Dr Louise Arimatsu (LSE); Dr Chaloka Beyani (LSE); Professor Bill Bowring (Birkbeck); Professor Mathew Craven (SOAS); Professor Malgosia Fitzmaurice (Queen Mary); Professor Guy S. Goodwin-Gill (Oxford); Muthupandi Ganesan (barrister); Dr Krishna Kalaichelvan; Professor Mary Kaldor (LSE); Naomi Lumsdaine; John Mcnally; Dr Roger O’Keefe (Cambridge); Andrew Price (barrister); Professor Martin Shaw (Sussex); Mannan Thangarajah (barrister); Professor Nigel White (Sheffield), had jointly sent a letter to the UK Government to take measures aimed at conflict prevention and resolution, at the Security Council. UK is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. They stressed that action is urgently needed to ensure an end to persistent abuses by all parties to the conflict as there was a deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation throughout the war-afflicted areas.

4 Fourthly, I reiterated the importance of the displaced being able to return to their places of origin as soon as possible. The government, at every level assured me that this was their firm intention once the de-mining is completed. I underscored the suspicions of wanting to manipulate the ethnic mix in the North or keeping IDPs in long-term camps against their will.

5 Finally, he made an out of brief request to the govt to take the historic opportunity to move swiftly, after the end of the fighting, to tackle the underlying political issues and move to generally acceptable devolution settlement on a fully democratic basis.

Sir John wishes the war to end. Ground situation dictated that this is a war without end. It would end in the genocide of the Tamils. Every report pointed to that sad conclusion. Why did he not see that? The Sinhala minister to whom Sir John referred to by his first name ‘Mahinda’ may have predicted it to him that they would wipe out the 300000 civilians. Sir John should have taken serious action to prevent the much expected genocide.

See what happened after Sir James briefed the SC. The Sinhala government was openly on its warpath counter to the assurances given to the UN undersecretary. The BBC, on 6 March 2009 reported that the UN estimated that thousands of civilians had been killed and wounded in the conflict in the north-east of Sri Lanka. That the UN’s US-based Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says civilians continue to lose their lives within the war zone and that they were also being illegally killed in the no-fire area that had been hit by artillery attacks.

Therefore, the OCHA’s service mission to

* alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies
* advocate for the rights of people in need
* promote preparedness and prevention
* facilitate sustainable solutions.

remained unfulfilled leaving the Tamils at the mercy of the murderous regime of the Sinhala chauvinists.

In this crest fallen moment I am reminded of the famous Irish poet James Stephens and his anxiety to save a hare trapped in a snare in his poem “Snare”

But I cannot tell from where
He is calling out for aid!
Crying on the frightened air,
Making everything afraid!

I could hear the terror stricken voices of children and injured IDPs cursing the world for not going to their aid. It was an irony that MR Holmes did not hear those voices.

In the light of these circumstances, a responsibility to protect the Tamil Civilians arises in the international community. The Responsibility to Protect is now well recognized in international law. It results from an international instrument which the General Assembly of the United Nations approved in 2005 at the World Summit. The Responsibility to Protect is a duty every state owes its minorities. The Responsibility requires that the minority not be subjected to atrocities involving genocide or crimes against humanity like torture. Where this duty is violated by the state, it is incumbent on other members of the international community to intervene and ensure that the persecuted group is protected. Such intervention is legitimate in international law. It is opposed only by a few states like China, Russia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, fellow travellers with the government of Sri Lanka and persistent violators of the rights of their own citizens. Will all Nobel laureates and Oscar winners including Abdul Rhahuman take up the onerous duty of advocating the Tamil’s cause of self determination in their own homeland? Will the SC take immediate action to stop the carnage of GSL?