| Shaking hands with a
clenched fist gripping a grenade Media Release on the Media Release of Paul Zammit, Federal MP for Lowe and John Bradford, Federal MP for McPherson calling for the expulsion of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth. This press release was issued on July 22, 1998. In this Press Release Mr. Zammit, Mr. Bradford has offered to act as ''mediators'' in the 14-year-old conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil Tigers are demanding 60% of the coastline including the hinterland for 12% of the Tamils in an island smaller than Tasmania. It is very kind of these gentlemen to offer their services as ''mediators''. But, unfortunately, their good intentions are marred by their misinformation and biases contained in the press release. For instance, a prime requisite for any mediator must be to maintain a credible degree of objectivity, which make him/her acceptable to both parties. Will the Sri Lankan government ever dream of having these two MPs as ''mediators'' when they have prejudged the case and asked for the expulsion of the Sri Lankan government from the Commonwealth? Consider the tone and the aggressive thrust in the following demands put by the 'mediators'. ''I call on the Australian Government to undertake immediate bans on financial aid, sporting, cultural exchanges as well as a ban on all imports into Australia of Sri Lankan goods and services and the same is to apply to Sri Lankan sporting teams,'' says Zammit. In the same tone they add. ''Our proposals to the High Commissioner included: 1. Cessation of military action 2. Feed, clothe and provide medical assistance to the people 3. Lift the media blockade 4. Come to the negotiating table through the intermediaries of a third party. In a last ditch attempt to resolve the issue, John Bradford MP, Federal Member for McPherson and I have met with the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Australia to act as mediators.'' Whatever chances they had of acting as ''mediators'' would have gone out of the window the moment any sensible diplomat in the Sri Lankan Foreign Office read their Press Release. The touch of arrogance in it smacks of the insensitive approach to a very complex issue in which even the regional super-power, India, has failed to resolve with the backing of the superior Indian Forces who intervened to mediate in 1988. More importantly, there are 17 elected Tamil MPs in Parliament-all of whom support the present Chandrika Kumaratunga government. None of them have ever demanded that Sri Lanka should be expelled from the Commonwealth because they know that it is counter-productive, not to say idiotic. In fact, last week when a no-confidence motion was moved against the Minister of Telecommunications it was the Tamil parties that rose to his defence. They thanked the Minister for his valiant and progressive efforts to reconstruct Jaffna and refused to vote against him. But, Mr. Zammit, and Mr. Bradford, from the other end of the Indian Ocean, are demanding that the Sri Lankan government should be expelled from the Commonwealth. By making such unrealistic demands they have lowered their credibility not only as potential ''mediators'' but even as spokespersons for the cause which they seek to espouse. If these two MPs could pursue the moderate line of their Tamil counterparts in the Sri Lankan Parliament they might qualify to be considered as ''mediators''. Consider also the four proposals put to the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in Canberra. 1. Cessation of
military action. The British government, for instance, went as far as demanding the disarming of the IRA before any talks began. That is the norm. But these two gentlemen only insist on halting the ''military action''. No member of the international community will yield to such a one-sided demand. It is totally unrealistic, therefore, for the Sri Lankan government to even respond to such partisan demand. This is precisely the demand made by the Tamil Tigers each time they are cornered and it is apparent that these two gentlemen are repeating the demands of the Tamil Tigers on the run. Having said that, it must be emphasised that there should be an end to the unwanted war in Sri Lanka. Three times negotiations were opened to bring the Tamil Tigers to the negotiating table. First, the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, initiated peace-moves with an Indian formula to resolve the demands of the Sri Lankan Tamil for an autonomous region. After signing the Indo-Sri Lanka accord, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers, reneged on it. Prabhakaran opened fire abrogating the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement and boasts that they ''defeated the fourth largest army in the world.'' Rajiv Gandhi paid the ultimate price for his peace initiative when a Tamil Tiger assassin killed him in S. India. Second, President Ranasinghe Premadasa initiated a new dialogue after despatching the Indians forces back to their bases and it went on for 14-long months. The Tamil Tigers used the gap of time to recoup and consolidate their positions and opened fire, massacring 600 policemen who were asked to surrender by the Sri Lankan government in the hope that it would bring back the Tamil Tigers to the negotiating table. President Premadasa too was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers on May 1993 for his efforts to bring peace to a war-weary nation. Third, was when the current President Chandrika Kumaratunga initiated a new dialogue on January 8, 1995 with the Tamil Tigers. On April 19, 1995 the Tamil Tigers once again unilaterally broke off negotiations and opened fire leading to the current situation. The SAARC summit, which was held last week in Colombo, indicates clearly the response of the regional and international community. There are 17 Tamil MPs in Parliament who met the Prime Minister of India, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, and made representations on the Sri Lankan crisis. The Indian Prime Minister listened to them politely and did not utter a word for two main reasons: 1) India's failure to implement the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement resulted finally in the Gujral Doctrine which said that India would not interfere in the affairs of its small neighbours and 2) India regards the Tamil Tigers as an unreliable group of terrorists who must be restrained militarily as a lesson to the separatist groups threatening India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Besides, the entire international community is behind the efforts of the Sri Lankan government's efforts to start negotiations. But the Tamil Tigers refuse to end the war, which has caused untold suffering to all communities-Muslims, Sinhalese and Tamils. In fact, the Australian government too has joined the international community and refused to talk to the agents of Tamil Tiger terrorism in Australia unless they renounce violence. The Press release of Mr. Zammit does not mention the violence and the intransigence of the Tamil Tigers, which has been the main cause of prolonging this unwanted war. As regards the excesses of the Sri Lankan Security Forces, we join the rest of the human rights activists in condemning such violence. The two gentlemen refer to mass graves in Jaffna. A Human Rights Commission appointed by the government has just initiated investigations into it. It is only fair that genuine human rights activists, as opposed to partisan propagandists, must await the outcome of the findings of this Commission before commenting on it. We welcome the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry by the government. It is a matter of deep concern that the two Australian MPs have not mentioned one word about the violations of the human rights by the deadliest group of terrorists who have been branded as the latest ''Pol Pot'' of Asia by the prestigious and independent newspaper The New York Times (May 26, 1995). The Indian Express (January 13, 1997), the leading independent daily in India, echoed similar opinions when it wrote: ''But democracy itself is anathema to the LTTE. Prabhakaran has no time for niceties of pluralism and dissent, the reason why more Tamils have been killed by the LTTE than the Sri Lanka army does. The LTTE cannot countenance a situation where it will have to compete with other groups for the affection of the Tamil community.'' 2. Feed, clothe and
provide medical assistance to the people This priest raised each of the these four demands at a lecture he gave to a group of Sri Lankans at the Monash University on July 13, 1998. When Fr. Emmanuel stated that food was not provided to the north he was confronted with the fact that the UN itself has commended the unique efforts of the Sri Lankan governments to feed, clothe and provide medical assistance to the Tamils of the north. Fr. Emmanuel had no answer. At a time when food supplies, under the UN flag, are blocked in Bosnia, Somalia, or Rwanda etc, Sri Lanka is the only country, which sends supplies to a rebel-held territory. Fr. Emmanuel also had no answer when he was told that it was the Tamil Tigers who had obstructed non-military essentials shipped to the predominantly Tamil north of Sri Lanka. Even the Red Cross ship was attacked by the Tamil Tigers and this neutral organisation protested against blocking the supply of food as a means of destablishing Jaffna for the political gain of the Tamil Tigers. As members of the international community, the Australian parliamentarians have a duty to promote peace in the region and the first step towards that is to get the facts straight. Besides, consider the scenario in which 500,000 Iraqi children have died under the UN-imposed embargo of basic food supplies and medicine. Australia is a party to this embargo. The Sri Lankan parliamentarians have not passed resolutions or issued press releases demanding that Australia should be expelled from the Commonwealth or the UN for being a party to such mass scale violations of human rights. We believe that they should. But their sense of responsibility to a friendly neighbour and their awareness of the grim realities of a complex situation in Iraq have not prompted them to act in a rash manner. Here again is another example of how the so-called backward Third World MPs conduct affairs. We also hope that the Sri Lankan MPs will not resort to a tit-for-tat response and demand that Australia's $400 million investments in Sri Lanka be taken over and the P & O project to develop Colombo harbour as a main staging post for the sea route to Europe be stopped. We are sure the Sri Lankan MPs will show greater maturity in handling sensitive issues in the region. 3. Lift the media
blockade This is not to say that media personnel are given the free run in the war zones. Monitoring the flow of information from a war zone is the common practice even in the wars conducted by the Western democracies. For instance, the coverage of the Gulf War, in which Australia was an active partner, was conducted behind the lines. Every evening a high-ranking officer would brief the journalists covering the war. Peter Arnott was the exception reporting directly from Baghdad. But that is done by the Tamil Tigers reporting their side on the internet. In fact, when Fr. Emmanuel made this complaint about media coverage one Australian Executive of a leading company investing in Sri Lanka asked: ''Did Churchill conduct World War II without a censorship?'' Fr. Emmanuel's silence was deafening. 4. Negotiate through
intermediaries of a third party The international community and the Sri Lankan government are very wary of the Tamil Tigers, having burnt their hands three times. The agents of Tamil Tigers are now running round the world trying to drum up support for (a) the cessation of the war and (b) third party negotiations without giving any guarantees that the Tamil Tigers will not break off negotiations at a convenient time of their choosing, after they recover from the battering they've been getting from the Sri Lankan Security Forces. Clearly, the war must end and negotiations must begin. But the big question is: how do you shake hands with a clenched fist gripping a hand grenade? |