I refer to the statement on the above subject attributed to you and appearing in two Sri Lankan national newspapers, namely the Sunday Leader of 5.11.95 ( page 1) and the Sunday Observer also of 5.11.95 (page 1) , continued on (page 4). I am taking the liberty of addressing this letter to you in view of some of your observations regarding the humanitarian assistance which Sri Lanka is presumed to need in the context of the on-going military operations in the country.
Let me introduce myself to you. I am a senior member of the International NGO Community, functioning presently as Deputy Secretary General of INNOVATIONS ET RESEAUX POUR LE DEVELOPMENT (IRED),an international NGO which has an office of its General Secretariat located in Colombo. Two other offices of its General Secretariat are located respectively in Niamey and Geneva while its regional offices are located in different parts of Africa , Asia, Latin America and Europe. As I work from IRED’s Colombo office and am myself a Sri Lankan national, I am well acquainted with the situation currently prevailing in this country and wish to make the following observations.
(1) There is certainly an on-going military operation in the country with a view to countering a secessionist movement. The majority opinion of all communities in Sri Lanka regards this as a war about the pursuit of which the present government had no option after all initiatives for peace taken by the government were unilaterally repudiated in April this year. International opinion too, including that of neighbouring countries, has therefore in no way faulted the Sri Lankan government for being reluctantly compelled to conduct the war.
(2) The International Community has been made aware by the government, that its objective in conducting the present operation is the achievement of a lasting peace in which all ethnic groups and communities can live in the areas of their choice with peace, honour and the freedom to pursue their chosen activities. Nothing in the conduct of the operation since the peace process broke down in April , has suggested to any rational person in the country or outside, that the government's objective is otherwise. The leader of the TULF, a prominent. Tamil political party, is quoted in the weekend press as saying that the troops have conducted themselves well, compared to some previous operations. It is also widely acknowledged that collateral damage has been kept to a minimum.
(3) While the geographical divisions within a small country like Sri Lanka may not seem too important to those far away, your statement contains misleading inaccuracies about such divisions which I am constrained to point out to you.
(a) Though you speak only of the displacement of civilians in 'Northern Sri Lanka', displaced civilians in fact are from three districts: From Northern Sri Lanka where they are mainly Tamil; from Eastern Sri Lanka were there are largely Sinhala and Muslim and from North Central Sri Lanka were there are wholly Sinhala.
(b) in the case of the Eastern and North Central parts of the country; displacement has been the result of terrorist forays into these areas where whole villages including women and children have been brutally massacred. And even where Northern Sri Lanka is concerned, your statement that civilian displacement is on account of 'people fleeing bitter fighting between the LTTE and advancing troops in Jaffna' needs correction. For, there now seems little doubt that the exodus from Jaffna was not generated by army action in the area. The purpose of those who encouraged the exodus was clearly to give a 'humanitarian' dimension to a conflict for which international opinion unambiguously holds the Sri Lankan government not to be responsible. In the circumstances, interested parties have sought to win back some international support for their position by trying to convert the issue of a military operation into a 'humanitarian' one . It is unfortunate that this has not been correctly understood by you.
(4) A rational military operation is one that is pursued as an absolutely last resort . Few will doubt that the present operation which commenced with the unprovoked resumption of terrorist attacks in April this year falls into the category. The conduct of even a rational military operation nevertheless has unfortunate consequences. Some people get killed and others get displaced. It cannot be argued for this reason that a rational military operational must be brought to a end or that it should never have begun . It must be recognised that any military operation by its very nature will have these consequences. Thus the loss of life, the displacement of persons and similar issues have to be examined in the context of a totality. You will no doubt remember that air attacks on Bosnian Serb territory were reluctantly authorised by NATO as the last resort for enforcing peace.
(5) But if in the course of conflict, human beings, both military and civilian, are treated in a manner that flouts the humanitarian law, those responsible must of course be held to account. This as we are glad to note, is being done in the former Yugoslavia. But there is not the slightest suggestion from any quarter that the Sri Lankan forces are guilty of this type of offence. In fact it is a widely held view in Sri Lanka that the forces are taking higher casualties in order to minimise collateral damage.
(6) The Sri Lankan Government is using its armed forces to deal with an obdurate enemy. I argue that while this is so, it has also the responsibility of giving relief to displaced persons howsoever this displacement has been caused, even when the displacement is a part of a military strategy to give a misleading orientation to the operation. We find that the Sri Lankan Government has accepted this responsibility and is clearly doing all that it can in the way of delivering food, clothing, shelter and medical attention to displaced persons. Sri Lanka’s friends can assist the government by making supplies available to the government's relief services. Such assistance, which will add to the supplies already available, will I am sure be welcomed by the government. We are also happy to see that the ICRC is fully operational on the ground, assisting the government's relief services.
(7) As for humanitarian aid in a situation of a military operation, I argue that it can and it should only be seen as a part of the dynamic of the operation itself. The humanitarian dimension cannot and should not be perceived as an absolute, detached from the environment of the war, as some humanitarian organisations would like us perceive. In the situation of a rational military operation, humanitarian factors can only be correctly perceived, evaluated and acted upon within the totality of the conflict dynamic itself. You will remember that it is exactly how the humanitarian factor was perceived and acted upon in military operations such as the Gulf War and the air campaign in Bosnia.
(8) It is in this spirit of humanitarian aid perceived as an absolute, a position I, and several others like me, totally reject, that the demand has been made of the government that those who are willing to contribute supplies must accompany the supplies themselves. Surely it will be understood that such a move will run counter to the government's rational objective of concluding this war in the shortest possible time. The very orientation which finds implicit expression in your statement, that a humanitarian problem has arisen because of the activities of Sri Lanka's armed services, will then get the confirmation that it implicitly seeks to achieve. A rational military operation will thus be tendentiously perceived as a humanitarian crisis.
(9) I wan to refer also to the corollary of this attempt to perceive a rational military operation as a humanitarian crisis. The corollary is this. If a large army of international relief workers were to come to Sri Lanka at this juncture, they will inevitably set up their own agenda for peace as perceived by them. They would do so with little knowledge of the country's recent trials, without a historical perspective within which to place these trials and even perhaps without understanding the simple truth that the large majority of the people of the country including all the Tamil parties represented in parliament have given support to the present strategy for achieving a negotiated peace. The agenda for peace which the incoming relief worker must be presumed to hold could thus run counter to and subvert the country's own emerging consensus for peace; and this too at a juncture when Sri Lanka is confident of pushing through this plan in a short period of time if allowed to do so without external interference.
As a senior member of the International NGO Community and also as a national of Sri Lanka, I urge my colleagues in the NGO Community and especially those working in International Relief Agencies not to see Sri Lanka as just another playing field in which to exercise their skills.
Their intentions may well be honourable but the matter is far too complex and serious for us Sri Lankans to permit International Agencies to pursue humanitarian principles and conflict resolution experiments in mindless fashion. And I also appeal to you, Sir, to act with the greatest of circumspection when you respond to demands of intervention that may come to you disguised in a humanitarian garb.
I shall be grateful to learn whether these comments are of use to you.
Yours Sincerely,
Sunimal Fernando