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| Kautilya tips on how to duck Ban Ki-moon’s googly |
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(Lanka-e-News, July 29, 2010, 3.30PM) Both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Asif Ali Zardari have reason to sport a smile over the brickbats that have come Ban Ki-moon’s way from one of his deputies. Inga-Britt Ahlenius, (72) a Swedish auditor and Under Secretary General at the world body, has publicly issued a stinging rebuke of her boss, and bluntly told him that he was leading the global institution into an era of decline.
Rajapaksa’s unhappiness with Ban, as every one in Colombo knows, follows the Secretary General’s appointment of a panel to report to him on various human rights ‘abuses’ committed by the Sri Lankan army during the Wanni war last year. The Korean diplomat turned first civil servant of the world, that is how one of his worthy predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali (January 1992 to December 1996) of Egypt used to describe the job with a broad grin, refuses to budge. He appears to be convinced that he has got the mandate to appoint the committee from none other than Sri Lanka president himself. And is quoting letter and verse from the joint statement he and Mahinda had issued after their tête-à-tête at the UN headquarters on 9 April 2009 when the war was in its final phase.
Colombo is blowing hot and cold, naturally. Instead of beating him back on facts, it has opted for the time tested street politics which did not give it any brownie points. It has tried to whip up global opinion but again the effort has fallen flat. Most of the fellow NAM countries have cottoned their ears. It is surprising because most of them know the first hand how the West invokes the HR as the diplomatic way of arm-twisting them. |
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Now, to the Zardari’s troubles with the UN chief. Frankly, these are self-inflicted. Everyone who matters in the police and army establishment of his land of the pure had told him not to outsource investigations into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He paid no need. And now has come to grief. Why did he knock at the UN and generously foot the bill for the three member probe Commission of diplomat-investigators.
The story doing rounds of Islamabad is that with allegations about the insider hand flying thick and thin in the aftermath of the assassination, he could not trust any government agency to do a fair job. His own victimhood at the altar of the Pakistani establishment became a bench mark. So, the proverbial Mr Ten percent turned to the global first civil servant to nail the villain or villains who had snuffed life out of Benazir when she was on her home stretch to prime ministership.
The Commission headed by Heraldo Muñoz of Chile did a quick but competent and professional job. Zardari did not find any thing wrong with its work, and, in fact, commended the report when it was presented to him some four months back. To his relief, Heraldo bluntly stated that the effort to ‘pin responsibility on Mr Zardari (for the assassination) is unacceptable’. And spoke on issues which neither Zardari nor his coterie expected could form a part of the report. The Heraldo report bashed the army and it’s all powerful ISI for promoting the Taliban and Kashmiri jihadi groups, which, as a Pakistani columnist says, have become the state actors with all the trappings of non-state actors.
“The Pakistani military organised and supported the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan in 1996. Similar tactics were used in Kashmir against India after 1989’, said the report. It went on to quote multiple sources as having claimed that the army top brass and intelligence agencies, in particular, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI), and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and their powerful allies in political parties and civil bureaucracy, were involved in or had some responsibility for Benazir’s assassination. |
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That this section constitutes the de facto power structure of Pakistan is common knowledge. And, this very section, which is ‘the establishment’, had felt threatened, in the words of Heraldo Muñoz commission, ‘by the possibility of Ms Bhutto’s return’ to power. ‘Al Qaeda, Taliban, local jihadis — mostly ex-Kashmiri fighters — and Establishment may have colluded to eliminate Benazir Bhutto, viewing her as a common threat’.
While politician Zardari felt happy that he had been absolved, President Zardari squirmed, and wilted under constant army hectoring, and pressure to deflect the attention from the military establishment and its role in spawning jihadis all across the region. So, out went a communication to the UN Secretary General that the ‘allegations against the army and its role in regional issues were completely unacceptable’.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who wrote the letter, said, “The government of Pakistan maintains that any comments, observations or findings given in the report in respect of all matters except those that are directly relevant to the facts and circumstances of the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto shall not be viewed as having determined any fact that relates to any matter of foreign policy of Pakistan, neither shall it have the effect of influencing any position that GoP has been adhering hitherto.”
Qureshi’s party, the People’s Party of Pakistan (PPP) was not on the best of terms in the past whether under the founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or his daughter Benazir. It is only now that the businessman turned son-in-law of the family has cozied up the PPP to the the General Headquarters (GHQ) wih generous ‘extension’ trade offs to complete his first term.
But to the dismay of garrulous Qureshi, and his President, the Secretary General has stood his ground. As a frequent visitor to the region, Ban Ki-moon may not be oblivious to the American stakes in keeping the GHQ in Rawalpindi in good humour. Yet, his brief reply said, everything the report had said and observed were in line with the terms of reference given by GOP. So, no question of a roll back, he conveyed to Islamabad.
Now juxtapose the Colombo- Islamabad travails vis-à-vis Ban with his very own troubles from an Under Secretary General. The moral of the story becomes clear. It is that there is no substitute to transparency and accountability at all levels of governance.
Whether Ban Ki-moon is an American stooge, as a commentator in Colombo likes to call him, is not germane to our discussion. Even if he is a stooge or a puppet, it in no way diminishes the importance of issues he has raised in respect of Colombo. And that is that accountability is an essential foundation for durable peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka (June 22, 2010 statement that announced the appointment of Marzuki Darusman panel). Earlier on May 22, 2009, he echoed the same view while on a visit to Colombo. He also spoke of three goals for Sri Lanka – First and foremost urgent humanitarian aid. Second speedy return of refugees to their homes, and their rehabilitation. Third powerful and immediate steps to initiate a political process of dialogue, accommodation and reconciliation.
There can be no dispute with the Ban assertion that Sri Lanka must overcome its old enmities. And that Sri Lankans of every ethnic and religious identity must enjoy equal justice, rights and guarantees of security under the law. Since President Rajapaksa himself had declared that these were his goals as well in a recent address to Parliament, the world expects to see confidence-building measures to clearly and unmistakably signal Colombo’s good intentions in addressing root causes of Tamil and Muslim grievances and also full transparency and respect for legal due process and human rights.
The Rajapaksas should have revisited the drawing board at least after hearing Desmond Tutu and Lakhdar Brahimi, the (‘surviving’) members of the Elders, a Group of eminent global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. The two Elders are not impressed by the opposition to the Ban panel. Nor do they see the appointment of Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation as an adequate step in the right direction.The two eminent persons also donot think that the Commission intends to hold anyone to account for any violations of domestic or international law.
‘Without a clear mandate for legal accountability, the commission has little chance of producing either truth or reconciliation. Nor will victims and witnesses feel safe in giving evidence’, say Tutu and Brahimi. So, their prescription, certainly to the dismay of the Rajapaksas, is an independent, international inquiry, ‘with the ability to gather evidence within the country’. Given the ground realities, it is possible that the Ban Ki-moon’s panel of three experts will end up making the same recommendation as the best option.
Learning from the Zardari discomfiture, President Rajapaksa and his advisors are conscious of such a possibility if Ban has his way on the Tamil issue. It will have a big bearing on the domestic political scene because the end of fighting and disappearance of LTTE from Wanni have not brought genuine peace to the country.
Peace and development defy the logic of market forces and refuse to be measured in terms of IMF approv ed outlays and the Chinese FDIs. President Rajapaksa must get to grips with this harsh reality as he addresses the diplomatic challenge thrown up by Ban Ki-moon. The issue is political at its core.
Good governance is never a hostage to any one particular form of government. Tinkering with the form of government is also no panacea as the recent history of Sri Lanka shows. Nor is the concentration of power, favoritism, and jingoism. Or for that matter renaming a jail as a Correctional Centre and an Angoda Hospital as the National Institute of Mental Health, as some ministers appear to think. Chasing mirages is a good pastime for idle times but not when a country has pressing issues of ethnicity and under development to be addressed.
Having said so, it is difficult to resist the temptation to offer a suggestion that draws from an ancient political treatise that pre-dates Buddhism in the sub-continent. If you cannot win the enemy, better co-opt the enemy into your enterprise, it said in so many words. In the 20th century socialist lingo, it became nationalisation (take over). In the present context, for Colombo, what this means is inviting the Ban panel experts – all specialists who have cut their legal teeth in human rights, like Mahinda Rajapaksa himself, to ‘enrich’ the Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation. For a good talking point at home and abroad. For blunting the critics at home and overseas. For gaining time to use the absence of fighting to bring genuine peace.
Do we hear some one say, ‘what an idea, sir’? |
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| By Malladi Rama Rao |
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