Why the UPA government bends over backwards to bail out Sri Lanka at the UN at the cost of its own survival
By Aijaz Zaka Syed,
Iqbal passionately believed in a world without borders and had a healthy contempt for the modern concept of the nation state:
In taza khudaon mein bada sabsay watan hai
Jo pairahan iska hai, voh mazhab ka kafan hai
Of all the new false gods, the biggest is the nation
The garb of this idea is the death shroud of religion
This despite the three eventful that the poetic genius spent in Europe during which he acquired a law degree at Lincoln’s Inn, a Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge and a Doctor of Philosophy at Munich University.
The farce this week at the UN over a resolution that was supposed to condemn Sri Lanka’s war crimes against the Tamils reminds one of Iqbal’s observation. Defying public opinion at home and pressure from Tamil parties, the Indian government has chickened out of a strong UN resolution confronting the Lankan government. Instead, India, working with—surprise, surprise—Pakistan and China persuaded the United States to water down the UN Human Rights Council resolution.
Understandably, the move has outraged the Tamils in India and around the world forcing the DMK to quit the coalition and precipitate a serious crisis for the government.
Now why would the government bend over backwards to bail out Sri Lanka at the cost of its own survival, especially when it’s already struggling on all fronts and a critical General Election looms ahead? Passions in India have been running high since a recent Channel 4 documentary revealed the shameful killing of the 12-year old son of LTTE chief Prabhakaran. Government spokespersons explained in two words: National Interest.
Apparently, our militant foreign policy establishment felt that if India supported the UN resolution it might open the door for similar calls on our own role in Kashmir.
India’s apprehensions are not without basis. Only last week, Indian parliament in a unanimous resolution condemned the unanimous resolution of Pakistan’s National Assembly that condemned the execution of Afzal Guru. Since the surreptitious execution of Guru in unseemly haste by a desperate government to deflect the attention from its myriad woes, Kashmir has been on the boil all over again. Many fear a return of the bloodshed and instability of the 1990s.
The Himalayan paradise over which the nuclear neighbors have been squabbling since their violent separation in 1947 has seen more than its fair share of pain and suffering. More than 100,000 lives have been claimed by long years of conflict. Thousands remain missing.
One of the most picturesque regions in the world the size of Britain, Kashmir is also one of the most militarized with half a million security forces breathing down the neck of a restive, alienated population. Repeated demands by Kashmiri political parties for curtailing military presence, greater economy and repealing of black laws that protect security forces from the law and due process have met stony silence in Delhi.
The supreme national interest, as government spokespersons put it, prevents the Congress government in Delhi from doing what is right in Kashmir. No wonder it chose to rescue Sri Lanka at the UN to the horror of rights groups and the Tamils. Truth, justice, rights and humanity itself are conveniently sacrificed at the altar of the nation state and national interest. But what is a nation without its people? And how can foreign policy prevail over humanity and its basic values?
A veteran diplomat has the cheek to admonish a DMK lawmaker during a television debate for his ‘exaggeration’ of the Lankan Tamils’ predicament saying, “Don’t call it genocide. It becomes genocide only when lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people are killed!” Apparently, snuffing out a couple of thousands of lives here and there counts little in the pursuit of national interest and foreign policy goals.
Apart from Kashmir, what clearly forced India to go soft on Lanka is the island’s strategic position and its growing bonhomie with China and Pakistan. While Pak-Lanka relations go way back—when Musharraf was fired by Nawaz Sharif bringing about his own fall the General was playing golf in the island—China’s clout and investments have been growing at an alarming pace for India.
The Chinese arms played a crucial role in routing of the once invincible Tigers. Sri Lanka has just opened its second international airport, totally financed by the Chinese Renminbi that is also bankrolling 42 other major projects at a cost of $4.1billion. Little wonder India is keen to humor President Rajapaksa.
For its part, China is also troubled by the UNHRC resolution and the US assertion that the international community has the right to confront nations that persecute their own citizens. The People’s Republic has totally crushed the Tibetan insurgency and the once vibrant Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Clearly, it was also in Pakistan’s national interest to back Colombo on the question of Tamils ignoring what Muslims have lately been facing in Sri Lanka. This week, the OIC expressed ‘grave concern’ for what it’s worth over the escalating violence against Lankan Muslims. But then given the state of minorities in the Islamic republic, it’s hardy in a position to lecture Lanka.
The “responsibility to protect” doctrine sounds noble in theory and could have saved thousands of precious lives if applied objectively and universally. Imagine what critical difference it could have made in Syria where more than 70,000 people have perished on the watch of the international community over the past three years.
But since hypocrisy and duplicity are the norm in international relations, the principle is used selectively by nations to suit their own interests. This is a new stick in the hands of big powers to beat those defying them into submission. The US and Western powers moved the UN against Sri Lanka not because they are excessively concerned about the Tamils but because of the island’s growing fondness for China and the killing Beijing has made in the post-war Lanka by way of massive reconstruction deals.
The biggest joke and irony of it all is the fact that the UN resolution has been moved by the US. Only this week, the world marked the 10th anniversary of America’s Mesopotamian misadventure. More than a million Iraqis killed, their country ravaged and the Middle East ripped along sectarian lines and for what? For a monumental lie and false bravado of a president who dodged the Vietnam draft.
America hasn’t offered a word in apology for its delusions of grandeur. In fact, the neocons, egged on by their Zionist friends, are now spoiling for another showdown, this time with Iran. But then if the empire were tormented by its pangs of conscience, there would be no end to it.
After all, its history is littered with such adventures. Who can forget what happened to the original inhabitants of the land? Who can forget Vietnam? About 4 million Vietnamese were killed, wounded, or went missing during the decade-long war. More than 58,000 Americans died too before a humiliating escape from Saigon. And who can forget the shock and awe of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Forget the past, how can anyone ignore what is going on right now under a pacifist, Nobel laureate president? Ironically, Obama’s drones have killed more innocents than Bush’s killing machines did in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it’s not just the leader of the free world; the history of other Western powers, those who run the show at the UN, is little different. In this Turkish bath, no one has a stitch on. No one is in a position to lecture others on human rights. No wonder men like Rajapaksa and Bashar Assad get away with murder.
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*Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf-based journalist and columnist. Email: [email protected]