The UN's lopsided assault on Sri Lanka's rights record

The investigation of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights starts on an inauspicious note. Team coordinator Sandra Beidas, the only member officially named so far, turns out to be a controversial figure accused of submitting false reports on the conduct of the South Sudanese armed forces.

It's not just the Sri Lankan Government that has rejected the UN's meddling in a highly fraught reconciliation process of a member state. The OHCHR exercise is opposed by the people of Sri Lanka as well. This disapproval is not limited to the country's Sinhalese majority. A recent islandwide opinion poll conducted by TNS Lanka -- part of a global market research company -- commissioned by LMD magazine, showed that 83% of respondents thought that 'external parties should not demand HR probes,' and that 95% thought 'Powerful nations have double standards on HR.' These percentages are far in excess of the proportion of Sinhalese in the population, which is 74.9% according to Central Bank data for 2013. Business community disapproves

It's significant too that the country's business community has criticised the exercise. Suresh Shah, chairman of the country's most powerful business chamber, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, has described the US-led resolution that mandated the probe as being 'counter productive.' In 2012 when the first resolution censuring Sri Lanka was adopted by the rights body, the joint chambers of commerce issued a statement signed by eight chambers, including the CCC, to express their opposition and to "remind the international community that this is an internal matter and that the proposed resolution at this juncture would not be in the interests of the reconciliation process."

The business community that makes this critique has a significant minority profile. Even if statistical data are not readily available to prove this point, there is anecdotal evidence that points in this direction. An example is the conversation between Indian journalist Swapan Dasgupta and businessmen of Indian origin who hosted him for lunch in Colombo, when he was in Sri Lanka along with a BJP delegation that visited in June last year.

"I asked a Chettiar businessman how many Tamils there are in the capital city" wrote Dasgupta in 'The Pioneer.' "About 30 per cent of the city" he replied. "And do you control 60 per cent of the business?" I asked smilingly. "Only 60 per cent", he retorted with a tinge of disappointment. "It's more like 70 per cent" he said with a hearty laugh."

Diaspora driven agenda

So who's driving the resolutions against Sri Lanka and the investigation that targets the Sri Lankan state and its armed forces, whom most citizens look upon as heroes? Clearly these forces are located outside.

While the 2014 UNHRC resolution includes a fig-leaf type reference to investigating rights violations of "both parties," it's obvious the inquiry itself will be so lopsided that the LTTE will get off with nothing more than a token rap on its knuckles. Being the defeated side, its leaders are mostly dead, so are the victims of its atrocities.

Whereas in the West the human rights industry has made it their business to document the stories of Tamil refugees and asylum seekers, in Sri Lanka we don't see anybody busily preparing affidavits for the survivors or relatives of victims of the massacres in Kebithigollewa, Dollar and Kent farms, Anuradhapura, Arantalawa, Kattankudy, Kithuluthuwa, Dambulla, Buttala, the Temple of the Tooth, the Central Bank, the Pettah Bus Stand, Fort Railway Station, the CTO, the World Trade Centre, Galadari Hotel, Katunayake Airport and countless other incidents on buses, trains, highways, in places of worship and other public spaces where civilian men, women and children were mercilessly targeted regardless of their ethnicity over a period of three decades. Nor are there reports that parents of thousands of LTTE child soldiers are planning to complain to the UN team. And nobody speaks of the sub-human treatment of prisoners of war by the LTTE throughout its history.

Unlike the Tamil Diaspora, the survivors of LTTE atrocities in Sri Lanka are not motivated by a revenge agenda. They are more interested in getting on with their lives. As far as they are concerned the war is over. For the Diaspora on the other hand, the war is not over. These groups will continue to leverage their electoral clout in their countries of domicile and lobby western governments to pillory Sri Lanka till the war victory is reversed, through a damning, lopsided and ultimately unjust human rights verdict.

Asymmetry of conflict

Adding to the likelihood of a biased outcome is the fact that international human rights law, the yardstick in this investigation, is not applicable to armed groups of non-state parties like the LTTE. The ICRC has done a landmark study that discusses this issue of asymmetry, but it's unlikely the UN team would want its work complicated by the complex legal and ethical questions it raises.

It's not surprising that both the Diaspora and the TNA have eagerly embraced the UN probe. Their argument that the Government 'should cooperate if it has nothing to hide' is disingenuous to say the least, considering that they would know full well how biased the investigation will be. Neither the TNA nor Tamil Diaspora groups (TGTE, BTF, GTF) have made a categorical condemnation of the LTTE to unequivocally disassociate themselves from the terrorist outfit. Diaspora groups, while they disavow 'violence,' continue to hold events at which Tiger flags and insignia are publicly flaunted. And the LTTE's offshore fundraising activities continue.

Dasgupta makes an insightful observation on the TNA which, while declaring its commitment to the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, persists in actions that suggest it wants to keep ethnic tensions alive:

"It doesn't make sense until you realise that Tamil separatist politics derives its main impetus not from the ordinary people of Jaffna who are desperate for a breather but by the Tamil diaspora, the ones who bankroll the seemingly respectable, 'moderate' politicians. With a view of the island that is frozen in time, it is the diaspora that is proving to be the biggest impediment to Sri Lanka getting over its troubled history."