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What`s up the SLMM`s sleeve?
Tuesday, 26 June 2007 - 7:36 AM SL Time
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What is being flaunted as Sri Lanka`s peace process is like a papaya on a wayside stall?raw but richly yellow thanks to exposure to calcium carbide, a treatment for which Sri Lankan fruit vendors could obtain a patent. It may come in handy for display purposes but is of no use to anyone. Even the Norwegians who masterminded the peace effort appear to be tired of trying to market it. The SLMM is reported to have stopped ruling on truce violations, citing some reasons such as the escalation of violence and lack of personnel.
A peace process is contingent upon three factors?a truce, a process to evolve a negotiated settlement and an effective monitoring mechanism. A truce is, to begin with, conspicuous by its absence in this country. As for finding a solution, successive governments have been flying with one wing, urged by the world powers. The monitoring mechanism, too, has collapsed. So, if anyone thinks there is a peace process in this country, he or she is only cherishing a delusion.
Why has the SLMM decided against ruling on truce violations at this particular juncture? It continued to do monitoring even after war broke out. It should have taken that decision, if at all, at that time or when the LTTE ordered that the monitors from the EU member states be removed from the SLMM in view of its proscription in the EU. That was the time when the SLMM first experienced a manpower shortage. But, all the tough talking foreign envoys took the LTTE order lying down, the SLMM chose to eat humble pie without a whimper of protest and monitoring continued.
The SLMM decision has stood the LTTE in good stead. For, it is the party that has committed the most number of CFA violations?3,827 since 2002, when the CFA was signed, as opposed to 346 by the armed forces. The number of child recruits confirmed by the SLMM has remained static (1,743)?the real number is twice as high as that?for the past several months, as it has not been updated regularly, though it is only too well known that the LTTE has stepped up recruiting children into fighting units to overcome a severe manpower shortage. These figures, repeated over a period of time, without being updated, could be grist to the LTTE`s mill in that its propagandists could use them to have the world believe that the outfit has stopped child recruitment of late. Misconceptions and confusion so created will militate against the on going international campaign against the LTTE`s conscription of child soldiers. The same goes for other atrocities against civilians like the abduction of adults, the number of which stagnates at 579 in the SLMM reports, though those crimes are manifestly on the increase in the Wanni.
Now that the armed forces have gained the upper hand at the battlefront, having bagged the Eastern Province, save a few pockets of resistance, are the monitors trying to add to the burden of the government, which is coming under international pressure to put its war effort on hold, by creating the impression that the government`s military action has led to their decision?
Frantic moves are being made in some quarters to involve the UN in monitoring the human rights situation here so as to put the brakes on the government`s military campaign and to create a situation similar to that in Cyprus. For this purpose, the government has to be put in the dock first of all with a failed state status conferred on it, while the LTTE is projected as the underdog. That is not possible, if the LTTE`s crimes against civilians are documented by way of SLMM rulings and presented to the world on a regular basis. So long as there are no SLMM rulings, the LTTE, which is on the UN List of Shame, can dismiss incidents of child recruitment and the like as baseless allegations and seek to avoid international opprobrium. The outfit has got into hot water in Britain and France. Its offices are being raided and leaders arrested. It has become a huge embarrassment to the countries where it has found a safe haven, because of its violence. Is it that the monitors don`t want to aggravate its woes further with ball-by-ball commentaries on truce violations?
Of what use are monitors who refuse to do the job they have been brought here for? Umpires should be in the middle of the field and not in the pavilion sipping a pint of bitter and relaxing. The monitors had better make up their minds and deliver or depart without carrying out their duties perfunctorily.
At least now, those who are trying to kick start `the peace process` should realise that they are flogging a dead horse and start working towards a brand new peace process devoid of the flaws that rendered the present peace effort hollow, such as the bias for the LTTE and the absence of a timeframe. The on-going APRC process is no substitute for peace negotiations with LTTE participation and it is the duty of the foreign powers, who are pressuring the government to offer a solution, to bring the LTTE back to the negotiating table and to spell out how they will deal with the outfit if it scuttles the peace efforts once again.
Nothing else is going to work!
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Vagabond
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 672
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26 Jun 2007 09:18:01 GMT Report for Abuse
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| What is SLMM? Is it Sri Lanka Muslim Congress? What does Forth ''M'' Stand for? Or is it a new party? |
Sintamus
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 1194
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26 Jun 2007 10:41:48 GMT Report for Abuse
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What can SLMM (monitoring Committee) do in a country with an extremist govt? They find the govt does not bother with abductions, killings and enforced starvation of one ethnic community? Any foreign NGO comes in and find the police, army, judiciary and even doctors are almost from the majority community and biased towards the minorities.
SLMM cannot do anything to inject rationality or justice into Sri Lankan society that has been self destructive over the last 50 years. |
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