Thus spake Ban
(Courtesy of The Island )
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has come and gone, but brouhaha one of his controversial remarks triggered has not yet died down. The government was over the moon about Ban’s visit, but now it has been left with egg on its face. How sad!
The UNSG, delivering a lecture, Sustainable Peace and Achieving Sustainable Development Goals, at Colombo Hilton last week, went out of his way to bracket Sri Lanka with Rwanda and Bosnia while speaking of the Vanni war. His comparison was not unintentional, at all. It was calculated to have the impact he had in mind. It looks as if he had come all the way here to say just that!
The government seems to think the UNSG came here in appreciation of its style of governance. He only wanted to dictate the tempo of the process of initiating the proposed war crimes probe, justify the UNHRC action and remind the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration of its commitment to the Geneva resolution. He apparently wanted to come out with something to shock the conscience of the global community while international media attention was on this country so as to give the UNHRC war crimes probe project a turbo boost. He succeeded in his endeavour.
A diplomat is said to be capable of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that the latter looks forward to the trip. The UNSG has done just that and the government worthies are getting ready for the journey. Having naively expected the UNSG’s visit to bring about some positive results the government leaders have gone into damage control mode. As if the problem of setting up a war crimes probe were not enough now they have an obliquely made genocide allegation to contend with!
Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, addressing the media on Tuesday, cut a very pathetic figure, trying hard as he did to defend the indefensible. He, in his wisdom, vehemently denied that the UNSG had ever sought to compare the civilian deaths during the Vanni war with genocidal killings in Rwanda and Bosnia. Why he undertook to speak for the UNSG defies comprehension. Not even the UN Spokesman Farhan Haq has cared to clear the air; he has only told this newspaper the UNSG’s words speak for themselves whatever that means. If Ban had made a mistake in Colombo his office would certainly have corrected it unambiguously. Nothing of the sort has happened.
Minister Samarasinghe’s argument that the UNSG’s remark in question was not part of the text of his speech and, therefore, it should not be taken seriously, does not hold water. Copies of all written speeches made available to the media always carry the tag, ‘check against delivery’. What prevails is what someone says in public and not what finds itself in the text of his or her speech. There have been instances where Sri Lankan leaders have announced government decisions while speaking without script. The late President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s call for the Indian Peace Keeping force (IPKF) to go whence it had come from is a case in point. He said so while speaking at a Colombo temple, of all places. The IPKF left in the end, didn’t it?
There are no asides in diplomacy, especially where top officials such as the UNSG are concerned. It is inevitable that Ban’s words will become official and accepted worldwide if they are allowed to go unchallenged. His attitude presages more turns of the screw in Geneva. The government ought to realise that the architects of the Geneva resolution, it naively co-sponsored, are not driven by any love for it in spite of their blandishments. They are only using it as a handmaiden to further their geo-political interests in this part of the world.
The government, without trying to fool itself, should seriously consider registering its protest with the UN against the UNSG’s statement at issue.
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