The Foreign Minister Must Resign!
By Dr Mathias Keitel
(Courtesy of Asian Tribune)
As a student of Sri Lankan politics and a commentator on South Asian affairs, I was appalled to read the open letter written by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Samaraweera, to the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In a mature democracy, in the very least, he would have been forced to resign.
In some other places he would have been prosecuted for statements compromising the national interest. However despite the tediously longwinded prose and the sickeningly syrupy language used by Minister Samaraweera in his letter, which is replete with exaggerations and not so clever selfserving interpretations, there is no avoiding the impression that it was designed to please the Minister’s Western well-wishers. Unfortunately, his effort has generated only twitters of confused bemusement in diplomatic circles and among policy makers and advisers in Western capitals, who themselves would not ever stoop to denigrating their own past leaders.
In the countries which he holds so close and which seem to provide the inspiration for his own standards, the United States and the United Kingdom, no former leader has been subjected to such vituperative abuse by a successor. It is well known that serious allegations relating human rights, war crimes and crimes against humanity have been leveled by civil society against some of the former giants of the international arena, including Henry Kissinger. George Bush, Tony Blair and Dick Chaney. But no successor, however distanced they may have been in their politics and however much they would have loathed the policies of the former, have discredited themselves by engaging in demeaning public attacks of the nature employed by Minister Samaraweera. If nothing else, the Minister should learn this singular lesson from the West. The Minister’s ill considered open letter alone should be grounds for demanding his resignation.
In a modern democracy, it is acknowledged that governments change but the state continues. Any wrongdoing of a former Government continues to be the responsibility of the state. The concessions and acknowledgements so blithely made by Foreign Minister Samaraweera motivated by sheer political expediency and vengeance, could form the basis of claims and demands against Sri Lanka for years to come, long after he is gone. Political point scoring is one thing but lightly compromising the national interest is a serious matter. There are many, especially those elements of the expatriate community who funded the terrorist campaign, who would exploit Samaraweera’s letter to readily seek recourse to convenient legal options.
The Minister’s claim that the UNHRC resolution ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’ (A/HRC/30/L.29) was a victory for Sri Lanka is clearly a disingenuous misrepresentation and a justification that camouflages gross incompetance. There is clear evidence emerging from private discussions in Geneva that given Sri Lanka’s evident inclination to cosponsor the resolution, it could have struck a much more favourable bargain. The sponsors of the resolution were willing to accommodate Sri Lanka’s wishes generously, in particular, because of the groundswell of sympathy towards the newly elected President, the desire not to create any political discomfort for him, the palpable relief generated by the electoral defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the strongly felt need to get the Sri Lanka file off their desks. But the misguided and over eager enthusiasm for pleasing the Western sponsors of the resolution produced a missed opportunity and a result that was less than satisfactory. As a consequence, the resolution committed Sri Lanka to take actions that are likely to produce avoidable domestic instability.
While the Resolution was adopted by consensus, it could not be asserted that it had the unqualified endorsement of all 47 members of the Human Rights Council, especially of Sri Lanka’s traditional supporters. The consensus only meant that, consistent with practice, where the target country meekly turned over and consented to be tarred and feathered, others did not voice their objections. One needs only to read the statements in explanation of vote delivered by Pakistan, India, etc. to appreciate the nature of the reservations that these neighbors of Sri Lanka entertained, especially in the light of the precedent that was being set. In any event, all the positives that the Minister claims did not require a resolution of the Human Rights Council, particularly the resolution that Sri Lanka agreed to cosponsor. The Government was elected on a platform to deliver many of these outcomes and could have done so on its own without the political albatross of the resolution.
In justifying his defence of the Resolution, Mahinda Rajapaksa is said by Minister Samaraweera to have promised accountability in his joint communique concluded with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in May 2009. The Secretary-General consistent with what he set out to achieve on his visit to Sri Lanka under immense pressure from certain NGOS and some Western countries, “underlined the importance of an accountability process for addressing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.” This statement does not specify the nature of the process (“an accountability process”) and does not identify the entity/entities whose violations must be addressed. It was neutral and would apply to any violator of the relevent internationsl law principles, including the LTTE. For his part, Mahinda Rajapaksa simply agreed to “take measures to address those grivences” leaving ample room for Sri Lanka to deal with any infractions in its own way. The committments made by Sri Lanka in the Resolution, it could be argued, were unnecessary, and go way beyond what would have been required under the statement to which Rajapaksa agreed.
Perhaps the Rajapaksa government should have taken the initiative to address the grivences of the aggrieved in a more forthright manner. But one can not find fault with it for not falling over itself to please the critics in the West.
The Rajapaksa government was acutely conscious of the widespread euphoria that swept the country when the brutal conflict was brought to an end. It was in no position to pour cold water on a nation’s noisily expressed relief and the widespread celebrations, and continuing gratitude, even if it wanted to, simply to please its external detractors. Democratic politics do not accommodate such deviant action undertaken for the sake of expediency.
The concession made with regard to the Chanel 4 video is disturbing. The previous government had categorically denied the authenticity of the footage and challenged its content. For the new authorities, especially the Foreign Minister, to take an exactly opposite position in public is bizarre. The authenticity of the Chanel 4 footage needs to be determined by a proper authority. In the absence of any such authority, for the Foreign Minister to concede, “according to the information we have the video footage is not only authentic but was given to Ch 4 by members of the armed forces who themselves were shocked at some of the acts carried out as a result of orders from above” is simply beyond belief. Even though any prosecution is unlikely to succeed only on the basis of the Ch 4 video and the Minister’s irresponsible statement (since we, hopefully, do not rely on mob justice and kangaroo courts any more), the pall of the concession so injudiciously made will hang forever equally over the brave soldiers who made immense sacrifices to rid the country of the hated terrorists and any random miscreant who breached the law.
While protecting and advancing human rights is the solumn duty of all right thinking leaders, denigrating the former leadership through tedious prose for the purpose of gaining dubious brownie points with external entities is inexcusable. Minister Samaraweera’s open letter reflects very poor judgement and is more of an indictment of himself than of Mahinda Rajapaksa. While allegations of military wrongdoing, including those compiled by Channel 4 exist, the country will find it difficult to excuse the absence of serious reference in this open letter to the dozens of massacres, including of Buddhist monks, committed over 30 years by the LTTE, the murder of allmost all moderate Tamil leaders by them, the bombing of the holiest Buddhist shrines, the butchering of Sinhala and Muslim civilians in buses, trains and markets, wholesale ethnic cleansing, etc. The decent thing for Mr Samaraweera to do, if any decency remains in him, is to resign before the President goaded by public opinion flings him out.
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