Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Wednesday, 3 April 2019
Sri Lanka Perspectives: March 2019
Col R Hariharan
| 31-3-2019 | Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, April 2019 | www.security-risks.com |
Sri Lanka buys more
time at UNHRC
The decision of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to bury their political hatchet, at least
temporarily, appears to have helped Sri Lanka to gain two more years to fulfil its commitment made at UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to
promote accountability and human rights in 2015. The 40thsession of the human rights body
unanimously adopted a new resolution 40/L.1 granting Sri Lanka two more years,
for a second time.
Sri Lanka co-sponsored the new resolution, just as it did in
2015, as a tactical ploy to avoid a divisive vote in the UN forum and to gain a
breather till 2021. However, the resolution is a strong reminder that the
international community is not satisfied with the progress made by Sri Lanka to
bring transitional justice to the victims of internal conflict, even ten years
after the end of the Eelam.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s
report placed at the 40th session, appreciated Sri Lanka’s
commitment to implement Human Rights Council resolution 30/1. But it also said
Sri Lanka needed to be more consistent, comprehensive and accelerated.
The High Commissioner noted that there had been minimal progress on
accountability and said the continuing impunity risks fuelling communal or ethnic
violence and instability. She pointed to the continuing allegations of torture
and other human rights violations by security forces, including sexual violence
were troublesome. Ms Bechelet called for effective, transparent and independent
investigations by the government as well as measures to prevent and end such
practices.
Signifiantly, she also touched upon the political schism within
the government hampering the implementation of the Resolution. She said the
lack of a common vision among the country’s highest leadership and deadlock on
these important issues “has a damaging impact” on victims from all ethnic and
religious groups and on
society.
She was so true, if we consider the differences between
the President and the PM on the government strategy at the UNHRC session aired
in public space before the session. Playing the Sinhala nationalist card, President
Sirisena had said he was considering of withdrawing Sri Lanka from its commitment
to the Resolution, an action former president Mahinda Rajapaksa had wanted.
President Sirisena even came up with strange idea of sending a separate
delegation to the UNHRC Session, in addition to the official one!
Apparently the President changed his mind after unconfirmed
reports indicated the Rajapaksas had decided on fielding former defence
secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse as the presidential candidate. On top of it, the
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), unofficially led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, made
it clear that it would not ally with the President’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP) in the presidential election. It would contest the election on its own
with SLPP nominee. So it made sense for President Sirisena to mend fences
with PM Wickremesinghe at least for the time being, to work out his strategy to
contest next presidential election. But since then, the President seems to be
having second thoughts.
However, the wording of the unanimously adopted resolution
showed that Sri Lanka continues to enjoy international credibility despite the
tardy progress it had made so far. In order to retain it, by 2021 Sri Lanka has
to complete three requirements which are potential landmines at home. These
are: establishing an internationally credible judicial mechanism with a special
counsel to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of human rights,
instituting credible judicial process to include independent judicial
institutions and lastly, evolve a viable reconciliation process.
Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana explained Sri Lanka’s reservations
in his speech after the passing of the Resolution 40/L1 on the key issues
indicating Sri Lanka was in no hurry to “bring the issue to a closure.” He said Sri Lanka should be encouraged and
assisted in finding innovative and viable local mechanisms and processes which
incorporates international best practices, ….only then, it will be able to
bring closure to these events, which would “enjoy the confidence of victims and
society at large.” In other words, Sri Lanka cannot adhere to a time bound
implementation process.
However, since then the President has distanced himself from the
government’s co-sponsorship of a resolution at the UNHRC. In a
speech on March 27, he said Sri Lanka’s consent to the resolution was without
his knowledge or that of the foreign minister. He said the action resulted from
“wrong decisions by sections of the government.” The president was responsible
for the foreign affairs of the country, not anyone else, he added.
In the continuing confused political scene, Sri Lanka rulers’
priorities appear to be far from international expectations on accountability
and human right issues.
Col R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, served as the head
of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90.
He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies, South Asia Analysis
Group and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai.
E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.
Sunday, 24 March 2019
Masood Azhar: A Convenient Pawn
China’s reluctance to declare the JeM chief Masood Azhar a global
terrorist is evidence of its symbiotic ties with Pakistan. It will protect it
to keep a check on India’s influence in the region
By Col
R Hariharan | Global Trends | India Legal | March 24, 2019 |
Are we missing the wood for the trees by focusing on China
putting a “technical hold” on the listing of Masood Azhar, chief of
Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), as an international terrorist under the
UN sanctions regime? It would seem so because China’s response was not
unexpected; it had been taking the same stance for the last decade. And it is
Pakistan, not China, who is the main villain of the piece. India’s relentless
campaign to get the UN Security Council (UNSC) to list Azhar as a global terrorist
is not the whole, but part, of its efforts to internationally isolate Pakistan.
The fact that 14 members of the UNSC supported listing the JeM
leader against China’s lone negative vote speaks for the success of India’s
campaign against Pakistan for sponsoring and supporting trans-border terrorist
operations against India.
The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 Al Qaida
Sanctions Committee of the UNSC was moved by France, the UK and the US on
February 27, nearly two weeks after a JeM-inspired suicide car bomb attack on a
CRPF convoy killed 40 people in Pulwama in J&K. The committee members had
10 working days to raise any objection to the proposal.
China had put a “technical hold” on the proposal, seeking “more
time to examine” it. It said the move would give it time for a “thorough and
in-depth assessment” of the case and help the parties concerned to engage in
more talks to find a “lasting solution” acceptable to all. China’s explanation
would have been laughable, except for the grim fact that it enables Pakistan to
delay concrete action to dismantle terror groups operating from its soil
against India.
The anger against China after it blocked the UNSC move was
palpable on Indian social media. People could not understand what was
“technical” about recognising Azhar as a global terrorist. There were calls for
boycott of Chinese goods, though they have become indispensable to trade and
commerce and to the growth of mobile communication and the power industry in
the country.
The public outrage against China is understandable as the grim
sequel to the Pulwama attack took India and Pakistan to the brink of war. India
had responded to the attack with an air strike on a JeM training centre at
Balakot in Khyber Pahtunkhwa province in Pakistan. The Pakistan Air Force’s
counter-strike in J&K two days later and the capture of an Indian fighter
pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, in Pakistan turned the situation
ugly.
Further deterioration of the situation was averted when the US,
China, Saudi Arabia and UAE intervened and claimed credit for defusing the
situation after Pakistan released the Indian pilot. But the security situation
along the India-Pakistan border and LoC in J&K continues to be anomalous.
Pakistan continues to fire across the border while Indian troops are carrying
out operations to eliminate terrorists and security agencies are uncovering and
dismantling sources of supply and finance of Pakistan-inspired terrorist
support networks within the state.
High public expectations on l’affaire Azhar have to be
understood in the context of events that preceded it. India had been regularly
briefing foreign diplomats about the situation leading up to the UNSC meeting.
It gave a detailed dossier on Azhar and JeM involvement in terrorist activity
to the members, including China. The media gave a huge build-up before the UNSC
met to consider the listing of Azhar.
Unfortunately, the “friend or foe” binary vision of the visual
and social media in the country got very shrill in the events leading up to the
UNSC meeting. As the Indo-Pak confrontation happened close to the general
election, it inevitably led to a lot of chest-thumping of the ruling party,
countered equally and vehemently by the Opposition. Cumulatively, these
developments influenced their understanding of China’s stand on the Azhar
issue. People expected China to be more sensitive to India’s concerns about
terrorism as their hopes were kindled after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met
Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Wuhan unofficial summit last year.
In this context, the statement of Liu Zongyi, senior fellow at
the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, quoted in the Communist
Party of China’s tabloid, Global Times, is interesting. He said the question of
whether to list Azhar as a global terrorist has been a long-lasting dispute
between China and India. In 2017, New Delhi’s demand was partly behind the
Doklam stand-off. “If New Delhi succeeds in having both JeM and its leader
black-listed, Islamabad would be branded a state sponsor of terrorism and
isolated on the international stage. This is what India wants to pursue till
the end,” he added.
International columnist Fareed Zakaria’s quote that “foreign
policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology” applies to China’s
negative stand on Azhar. It has shown that China’s approach to India will be
transactional, selective and based on the hard reality of its national
self-interest rather than ephemeral notions of harmony and bonhomie.
China-Pakistan relations are built upon what Chanakya said long ago: “There is
some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without
self-interest. This is a bitter truth.”
Pakistan is increasingly becoming dependent on
China—strategically, economically, politically, diplomatically and militarily.
China will continue to use Pakistan’s vulnerability to protect and pamper it,
not merely because it is its long-term friend and strategic ally in South Asia.
It suits China that Pakistan firmly keeps a check on India’s strategic strength
and influence in the region. Pakistan enlarges China’s options in handling
India, its potential challenger in the region and beyond.
Moreover, China is under pressure to make a success of the China
Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in which it has invested over $40 billion to
showcase the Belt and Road Initiative which has come under heavy weather.
CPEC’s infrastructure would enable China to flex its strategic naval power to
secure its interests in the Indian Ocean Region and South Asia, which had been
dominated by India’s naval power.
Diplomat Gautam Bambawale, who served as India’s ambassador to
both Islamabad and Beijing, while addressing the Indian Association of Foreign
Affairs Correspondents, recently put the Wuhan meeting in perspective. He said
he was averse to the term “Wuhan reset” as some people have described the
informal summit. He said both India and China “saw what happened at Doklam,
analysed that particular experience and drew their own conclusions from it”.
Then they independently came to the decision that it was “much more important
to have a relatively harmonious and balanced relationship between the two most
populous states on the globe”.
He cautioned that “if the word (Wuhan) ‘reset’ in any way
implies that the tensions and ill temperedness of Doklam was being brushed
aside or under the carpet, then I strongly object to this term”. He added that
he would go along with the use of the term “reset” if it described “a cool
reappraisal of the relationship and a desire to put it on an even keel”.
On the Azhar episode, the diplomat was of the opinion that India
must have a transactional approach to the issue. “Perhaps China will permit the
listing to move ahead if there is something we can do for them or offer them in
return? If there is, a bargain can indeed be struck,” he added.
So it is not surprising that despite all the media hoopla over
the Azhar episode, India’s take on the issue was realistic as the Ministry of
External Affairs’ (MEA) carefully worded statement showed. The statement did
not even name China, but merely expressed disappointment “by this outcome. This
has prevented action by the international community to designate the leader of
Jaish-e-Mohammed, a proscribed and active terrorist organization, which has
claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir on
February 14, 2019”. However, one wishes the MEA had named China in the
statement, at least to signal that India was not happy with its role.
China is here to stay as a powerful neighbour. It is in India’s
interest to maintain a cordial working relationship with it, regardless of the
hiccups in bilateral relations from time to time. Bambawale in his speech
suggested an eight-point Pune Plan to build better relations with China.
These include maintaining high-level political relations,
enhanced and expanded military exchanges between both countries, working to
increase Chinese tourist visits to India through public-private partnership,
focusing on attracting more Chinese students, creating a financial model for Chinese
firms to modernise our railway stations, persuading it to join the
International Solar Alliance as a member and expanding engagement with the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
However, some of these proposals might become politically
controversial or inconvenient. But any foreign policy strategy to deal with
China runs the risk of getting mired in political controversy.
After Modi took foreign policy initiatives to the political main
stage with his signature showmanship, foreign policy has become one of the
mainstream issues in the national political discourse. In a way, it has become
a victim in the raucous election campaign, with rival political leaders making
short shrift of nuanced policy initiatives to dispense their penny wisdom to
the masses. Can political parties and leaders rise above petty politics to
build a consensus on foreign policy?
American elder statesman Henry A Kissinger may well be speaking
of India when he remarked that “our great foreign policy problem is our
divisions at home. Our greatest foreign policy need is national cohesion and a
return to the awareness that in foreign policy, we are all engaged in a common
national endeavour”.
Can our polity prove that Kissinger’s words do not apply to
India?
—The writer is a
military intelligence specialist on South Asia, associated with the Chennai
Centre for China Studies and the International Law and Strategic Studies
Institute
Tuesday, 5 March 2019
Sri Lanka Perspectives: February 2019
Sri
Lanka Perspectives: February 2019
Col R Hariharan | 28-2-2019 | Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, March 2019
| www.security-risks.com |
Getting ready for the UNHRC session
President Maithripala Sirisena is reported to be seriously
examining the implications of withdrawing from the US-backed UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
resolution Sri Lanka had co-sponsored in September 2015. By co-sponsoring the
resolution, Sri Lanka was committed to set up a tribunal with international
participation to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by the army as
part of its accountability for human rights aberrations during the Eelam War.
The President’s rethink on the resolution comes on the eve of the
40th annual session of the UNHRC being held in Geneva from February
22 to March 25. It will be taking up the
review on Sri Lanka on March 20 when the core group consisting of the UK,
Canada, Germany, Macedonia and Montenegro is expected to urge the Council’s
support for the resolution once again. Though the US is not part of the Core Group
as it had quit the Council, it has continued to work with Sri Lanka government
on the implementation of the UN resolution.
The Core Group on Sri Lanka is expected to present a
resolution on promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri
Lanka, making it more a semantic exercise than a substantive value addition.
The resolution will buy time as will have to buy time as all the four aspects
of transitional justice are still not fully implemented.
President
Sirisena speaking to the Colombo weekly the Sunday Times had said, “I
would wish we can withdraw from it. Discussions are now on over this matter.”
This reflects President Sirisena’s exasperation in handling the consequences of the UNHRC resolution passed
under his watch. He never accepted international involvement in the process to
investigate the war crimes allegations as he considered it a domestic issue.
He had always maintained the army never committed any war crimes
during the Eelam war. This is
understandable as he had served as defence minister in President Rajapaksa
cabinet during the Eelam War. In spite of his reservations, in 2015 President
Sirisena probably for reasons of political and diplomatic expediency went along with foreign minister
Mangala Samaraweera’s suggestion to co-sponsor the diluted US draft resolution.
Moreover, at that point the Presiden probably felt he was
beholden to the US and its allies for their open support that had enabled him
to defeat President Rajapaksa. He probably also saw sponsoring the resolution
would be seen as part of the yahapalana vision,
when he joined hands with the UNP to defeat Rajapaksa’s attempt to stage a
come-back in the August 2015 parliamentary election.
In the final draft of the
2015 resolution, the US had agreed to tone down the requirement for foreign
participation in the tribunal, by not specifying the exact nature of foreign
participation, while retaining it in a domestic mechanism. The revised resolution
was passed as it recognized the serious nature of the allegations as well as
the failure of Sri Lanka to act upon them as required by earlier UNHRC
resolutions.
The final resolution
disappointed many Sri Lankan Tamils and Tamil Nadu political parties as they had
been demanding only international mechanism. They had justifiably little faith
in Sri Lanka’s domestic process, because in the past domestic inquiries into
any human rights aberrations were subjected to heavy political interference. In
spite of this, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) chief Sampanthan accepted the
resolution at that time as he felt only a consensus resolution could make its honest
implementation possible. Moreover, the resolution also addressed the main
issues of accountability and reconciliation. On foreign participation, he was
of the view that involvement of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence
counsel, prosecutors and investigators would give the judicial process much
greater credibility.
But much to the dismay of
those who wanted to usher in a clean government and voted the
Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo to power and to the disappointment of the US and
the EU who had supported their rise, their government never implemented the UN
body’s resolution either in letter or spirit. With President Sirisena breaking
away from Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP coalition we can expect the
resolution to continue to remain in the half way house, as yet another belied
promise.
As the implementation
process is connected to good governance, distrust is a growing in the political
process itself. Growing national solidarity with the demands of the relatives
of missing persons, who have been protesting in Kilinochchi continuously for
over 700 days is a testimony to it.
If President Sirisena
withdraws Sri Lanka’s sponsorship at the UNHRC, it will only reinforce the long
standing belief of among Sri Lankan Tamils that Sri Lankan government never maintain
their promise to deliver equitable justice to minorities. In 2015, India had
supported the revised US draft, though on principle India is always opposed to
the role of foreign judges in internal conflicts.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi had earlier spelled out India’s stand on the issue:“Our position is very
clear. We stand for justice and at the same time we are respectful of the Sri
Lankan sovereignty issues to the extent the Sri Lankan government is
comfortable with the formulation that marries the two.” Even as the UNHRC
discusses the Core Group’s resolution on Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Modi will be
in the thick of the general elections. His party BJP is contesting the
elections in Tamil Nadu in alliance with AIADMK and two other smaller parties.
So India’s stand could be conditioned to some extent on Tamil Nadu political
perspectives on Sri Lanka and UNHRC resolution. However, Sri Lanka Tamils have
lost much of the political traction they had in the past. So India can be
expected to maintain its stand vocalized by PM Modi.
Col R Hariharan,
a retired MI officer, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace
Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai
Centre for China Studies, South Asia Analysis Group and the International Law
and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
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