A response to
Alistair Burt
What's so independent about the Chilcot Inquiry?
The war in Iraq was fought by the British in a foreign
land. The majority of victims were Iraqi civilians. Several thousands of
them were killed. Many more were gravely injured. The country was pushed
into sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia. The Iraqi Christians
have almost been eliminated. Those who were displaced by this "illegal"
war that "undermined the United Nations" became refugees by the millions
in Syria, Jordan and other neighbouring states.
Does Britain's Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War have
a single Iraqi as a member, to represent the very theatre of war? Is
there any Syrian, Jordanian or any other representative from a country
that received that massive exodus of Iraqi refugees? Regrettably, there
is no such representation. It is a British Inquiry into an international
operation by Britain that took place in foreign land, and caused (and
still causes) untold misery to those people. But the inquiry remains
wholly British, states journalist Lucien Rajakarunanayake, in response
to UK's Foreign Office Minister for South Asia Alistair Burt's recent
Op-Ed on Sri Lanka-UK relations.
That being so, why can't we in Sri Lanka conduct our
own inquiry, by our own persons of eminence -- public officers with good
records, senior diplomats and competent professionals -- to look into a
crisis within our own borders, without having the so-called
"independence" of foreign inquirers, who are not probing what needs to
be probed in their own countries, when the Sri Lankan crisis and armed
conflict was entirely local; with no foreign boots on our soil. No
attacks from foreign helicopter gunships on civilians and journalists,
or foreign bombardment of civilians.
So why can't we conduct our own inquiry, by our own
persons of eminence -- public officers with good records, senior
diplomats and professionals -- to look into a crisis within our own
borders, without having the so-called "independence" of foreign
inquirers, who are not probing what needs to be probed in their own
countries?", asks Rajakarunanayake.
It is accepted that most that left the country at that
time seeking refugee/asylum status in the west, including the UK, went
for better economic conditions. Many of them are now returning, and
Britain itself is sending back those who failed to fulfill the
requirements of refugee/asylum status, with no fear for them when they
return.
Here is the text of the response:
"The UK and the world watched in agony as Sri Lanka
suffered over 25 years of civil war. The barbaric tactics of the LTTE,
who pioneered modern day suicide bombing and forcibly recruited child
soldiers, were brought to an end. The plight of many thousands of
displaced people after the war reminds us of the human cost of such
conflicts. It is because of the strength of relations between our two
countries that we care so deeply about events in Sri Lanka. This
relationship has been forged
over many years and spans not just history, but also
areas such as trade, education, family and sporting links. Only this
month our cricket teams are competing against each other in a spirit of
friendly sporting rivalry."
This is what Alistair Burt UK's Foreign Office
Minister for South Asia, said in an Opinion Editorial on the Sri Lankan
situation titled "Honest Friends" published in "UK in Sri Lanka",
the official website of the British High Commission, Colombo.
Mr. Burt is profuse in his expressions of friendship
towards Sri Lanka, with lots of syrupy observations as seen in the
paragraph above. The wordy declarations of friendship are not anchored
in fact. Just one example: UK did not watch in agony as Sri Lanka
suffered over 25 years of "civil war". First, there was no civil war in
Sri Lanka, not by any definition of such a conflict. What we had was a
confrontation with a terrorist organization determined to use terror to
dismember the Sri Lankan State. No community in Sri Lanka took up arms
against another, which is what a civil war is. The very use of this
phrase shows something other than friendship in looking at Sri Lanka.
As for "watching in agony' it was certainly not
agonizing for the UK to allow Anton Balasingham, the theoretician of the
terrorist LTTE, and his wife Adele, who trained and built morale among
the LTTE's women suicide cadres, to function freely in the UK for so
many years, while Sri Lanka was bleeding from the LTTE's terror. It was
we who suffered in agony, as Balasingham and others, sheltered in the
UK, organized the forces of terror, broke up peace talks, and raised
funds for the huge military strength of the LTTE, that had to be subdued
by the Sri Lankan armed forces, without the help of any British weapons
or military advisors, as happens when the UK claims to fight terror in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Is it the agony the UK underwent watching the tragedy
of Sri Lanka being bled by LTTE terror that made the UK wait till 2001
to ban the LTTE as an international terrorist organization, when the US
took this step in 1997, and others too did it before 2001, without all
those historic friendly relations with Sri Lanka, that you speak of?
If, as you state, the strength of relations between
our two countries has made the UK care so deeply about the events in Sri
Lanka, those same relations should urge you to be more understanding of
the actual developments in this country, that necessitated the defeat of
the LTTE, about which you are crying so loudly today, couched in alleged
satisfaction in its defeat, but warning us of consequences if we are not
"accountable" as Alistair Burt would want us to be.
In fact when Alistair Burt makes such expressions of
friendship, and honest friendship at that, one is reminded of the adage
about the need for enemies when having such friends - I mean the likes
of Alistair Burt, David Campbell, and William Hague. The sting comes
later in the expression of honest friendship. "We have seen allegations
of war crimes in the detailed accounts in the UN Panel of Experts
report, and in documentary footage authenticated by independent experts.
The former indicates that civilians lost their lives through widespread
shelling by the Army of hospitals and humanitarian objects and that the
LTTE used civilians as a human buffer and killed those who attempted to
flee. The UK government is deeply
concerned about these allegations.
"The evidence which has so far come to light is enough
to lend credibility to the claims that war crimes were perpetrated by
both sides in the conflict in those difficult days. It is not for me to
judge where this evidence should lead: that is for the full and
independent inquiry that I and Sri Lanka's other friends have been
calling for." Despite his knowledge of jurisprudence obtained at Oxford,
Alistair Burt is satisfied that the "detailed accounts in the UN Panel
of Experts report", and "in documentary footage authenticated by
independent experts" are enough to lend credibility to the claims of war
crimes perpetrated "by both sides in the conflict in those difficult
days". He is not bothered by the "UN Panel of Experts" stating that
nothing in its reports has been authenticated or verified. He is also
not bothered by the views of experts, other than those independent
experts who have authenticated the documentary footage, who have been
emphatic that there is much to be questioned in technology and desired
in the standards of truth and veracity, in the said video footage that
has impressed him so much.
Not all of his expressions of friendship and concern
for Sri Lanka's agony in bloody crisis, helps dispel the belief that
Alistair Burt has been very well approached or lobbied by those who did
the pre-publicity for the Channel 4 video telecast, and must also have
read every word of the messages sent to him as an MP, by those who used
the Tool Kit provided by the Global Tamil Forum, for influencing UK MPs
on the issue.
And, what does this "Honest Friend" want? He is
modest, and does not want to judge where this evidence would lead. What
a good friend. He leaves that "for the full and independent inquiry that
I and Sri Lanka's other friends have been calling for." It is necessary
to state that Sri Lanka has many friends that do not share such views,
and do not as good, honest friends make such calls.
Apart from friendship, whether honest or not, it is
necessary to ask what exactly Alistair Burt means by an "independent
inquiry". He is aware of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation
Commission (LLRC) already sitting in Sri Lanka, and of its mandate. He
refers to it and has advice for it too, but thinks it is not
independent. What should it be independent of? This is the important
question that has to be asked from him and all other "friends", honest
or not, who crave for such independence.
It is not out of place to remind Alistair Burt, and
other such friends, of what is known as the Chilcot Inquiry, appointed
by the former Labour Government led by Gordon Brown, to probe into the
merits or otherwise of the UK's entry into the Iraq War to carry out
regime change in that country, and also study the record of British
military activity in that war, that continues to bleed Iraq.
Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, the probe team was
appointed in late 2009, full six years after the UK-US invasion of Iraq,
unlike the LLRC that was appointed less than two years after the defeat
of the LTTE. Now who the hell is Chilcot and how independent can he be?
Alistair Burt must surely know that Sir John Chilcot, retired in 1997
after decades long career in the UK Civil Service, no doubt with
faithful and dependable service to Governments and Ministers of
different political parties in Britain. Following retirement he dealt
with British Intelligence Services. Does this career record make him in
any way independent of the UK Government whether Labour or Con-Dem,
because it was Labour that ordered UK troops to invade Iraq, and the
Conservatives very strongly supported that move.
Who are the others in the Chilcot Team? The record is
very interesting for those who seek independent inquiries. They are Sir
Lawrence David Freedman (Falkland War historian and one who publicly
approved of regime change in Iraq), Sir Martin Gilbert (historian who
openly backed regime change in Iraq), Sir Roderick Michael John Lyne
(ex-diplomat subsequently involved in major British firms involved in
Iraq) and Usha Kumari Prashar aka Baroness Prashar (top private and
public sector executive). Interestingly, Prashar had been a
non-executive director of Channel 4, which is a British public service
broadcaster operative since Nov 1982.
Doesn't Alistair Burt find it surprising that no HR
groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and
International Crisis Group et al and the major western media have never
challenged or even queried the "independence" of the Chilcot Inquiry? Or
is it that they are too honestly friendly with the UK as to make such
embarrassing calls for independence?
I owe it to Sri Lanka's Deputy Representative at the
UN, Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva, for the information that the same Sir
John Chilcot served on another five-member inquiry appointed in Feb.
2004 to study the failure of Western Intelligence Services in relation
to false intelligence. Although western forces invaded Iraq citing
intelligence reports of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein having a mega
program to produce weapons of mass destruction, the invaders never found
anything. Those who investigated the intelligence failure included Lord
Butler of Brockwell (served three Prime Ministers as Cabinet Secretary),
Field Marshal Lord Inge (ex-Chief of Defence Staff), Sir John Chilcot
(now heads Iraq Inquiry) and two Labour and Conservative MPs, Ann Taylor
and Michael Mates, respectively, who supported the invasion of Iraq.
Indeed an outstanding example of "independence" in inquiry. All members
of both inquiries are solely British, and were largely supportive of the
Iraq invasion, so by what stretch of imagination could they be
independent?
It is also necessary to remind Alistair Burt of two
other important matters regarding the invasion of Iraq by the UK
(whether it was Tony Blair playing poodle to George W. Bush or not). The
present Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, the Liberal Democratic Leader
Nick Clegg, said in the House of Common on July2, 2010, that the
invasion of Iraq by the UK was illegal. At the end of a heated exchange
with Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary at the time the invasion was
launched, Clegg said: " We may have to wait for his memoirs, but perhaps
one day he will account for his role in the most disastrous decision of
all: the illegal invasion of Iraq". He made this statement from the
dispatch box of the Commons as the Deputy Prime Minister.
There were more things that Nick Clegg said that would
require inquiry. Referring to Wikileaks reports about torture and abuse
in Iraq, in October 2010, the Lib-Dem leader told BBC 4: " We can bemoan
how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made
are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they
are very serious. I am assuming the US administration will want to
provide its own answer. It is not for us to tell them what to do."
Asked by BBC 4 if there should be an inquiry into the
role of British troops, Clegg said: "I think anything that suggest that
basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that
torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to
be looked into...I think people will want to hear what the answer is to
what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think
everybody will find quite shocking."
Is it the extremely warm friendship, whether honest or
not, between the UK and US that has not made Alistair Burt to call all
for an independent inquiry to the charges about US troop activity in
Iraq and Afghanistan? Also, is it a not so honest friendship with Nick
Clegg or too much of an honest friendship with the British people that
Alistair Burt has not sought any independent inquiry into the charges
about British troops?
Just for the record, is Alistair Burt not aware of the
Labour Leader Ed Miliband's statement that Blair was wrong to take
Britain to war in Iraq, in his acceptance speech at the Labour Party
conference last year, which made his brother, the hugely pro-LTTE David
Miliband, to walk out of the conference? Here is what Ed Miliband said:
"I criticize nobody with making the toughest decisions and I honour our
troops who fought and died there. But I do believe that we were wrong.
Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that...Wrong
because the war was not a last resort, because we did not build
sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations."
Does Alistair Burt not want any inquiry, whether
independent or not, to inquire why Britain was taken to war in Iraq, in
a manner that undermined the United Nations? Or is he too much of an
honest friend with Ed Miliband to make such a call?
To get back to the question of an independent inquiry,
one must not forget that the war in Iraq was fought in a foreign land.
The majority of victims were Iraqi civilians. Several thousands of them
were killed. Many more were gravely injured. The country was pushed into
sectarian violence. The country was pushed into sectarian violence
between Sunni and Shia. Those who were displaced by this "illegal" war
that "undermined the United Nations" became refugees by the millions in
Syria, Jordan and other neighbouring states. Does the Chilcot Inquiry
into the Iraq War have a single Iraqi as a member, to represent the very
theatre of war? Is there any Syrian or Jordanian or any other
representative from a country that received that exodus of Iraqi
refugees. Regrettably, there is no such representation. It is a British
Inquiry into an international operation by Britain that took place in
another land, and caused (and still causes) untold misery to those
people. But the inquiry remains wholly British.
On the other hand the Sri Lankan crisis and armed
conflict was entirely local. There were no foreign boots on our soil. No
attacks from foreign helicopter gunships on civilians or journalists, or
foreign bombardment of civilians.
It is accepted that most that left the country at that
time seeking refugee/asylum status in the west, including the UK, went
for better economic conditions. Many of them are now returning, and
Britain itself is sending back those who failed to fulfill the
requirements of refugee/asylum status, with no fear for them when they
return.
So why can't we conduct our own inquiry, by our own
persons of eminence -- public officers with good records, senior
diplomats and competent professionals -- to look into a crisis within
our own borders, without having the so-called "independence" of foreign
inquirers, who are not probing what needs to be probed in their own
countries?
There is another matter that honest friends such as
Alistair Burt never raise. It is the oft stated position "that war
crimes were perpetrated by both sides in the conflict in those difficult
days." It is an easy way of shrugging off the responsibility of the LTTE
because it has been defeated, and all the better for it as they all say.
There is also the oft stated charge that "the LTTE used civilians as a
human buffer and killed those who attempted to flee". How is it that an
honest friend of Sri Lanka, who must have humanitarian feelings, can
ignore the role of those who still peddle the LTTE line abroad, and are
straining every nerve and muscle to level charges of alleged war crimes
against Sri Lanka, not ask one word about their own responsibility to
these horrendous crimes of the LTTE? Why not appoint an independent
inquiry if you wish, to find out what role the members of the Global
Tamil Forum (GTF), the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)
and such groups were doing by supporting the terror of the LTTE,
including its use of human shields, child soldiers and suicide killers?
How is it that any call for an independent probe can ignore the work of
such people, only because they happen to be non-state actors, despite
the fact that they were the strongest contributors to and diehard
activists in the cause of LTTE terror, and still seek to subvert
democracy to achieve their goal that was denied by Sri Lanka's defeat of
terrorism? Is this not a matter of interest to any honest friend, who
dares to point the finger only at the Sri Lankan State?
The sting of friendship is in the tail, when Alistair
Burt defines an honest friend as one who "would not stand aside and
remove the need for difficulties to be confronted." He should know it as
a twist of honest friendship to lacerate wounds already in the process
of healing, and claim it is because the UK wants an open and honest
relationship with Sri Lanka.
Friendship, especially one that is described as
honest, requires respect for the integrity of one's friend, be it a
person or a state. Honest friendship does not suggest or call for
interference in the affairs of a friendly nation, especially with
warnings of drastic action to follow if the friendly admonitions are not
followed. It is good for the UK to be a friend of Sri Lanka. Let's keep
it at that. Honest Friendship of the type that Alistair Burt offers
lacks the warmth and spirit of true friendship.
Lucien Rajakarunanayake, journalist, is the Director,
Policy Research & Information of the Presidential Secretariat.
Courtesy : PRIU
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