The UNHRC’s good intentions

I refer to Kath Noble’s letter in the Island of July 1, in which she writes that the image she projected of me as holding David Miliband’s bag while he gave Sri Lanka a good slap wasn’t based on a general impression that I am a great fan of DM, after which she goes on, “I was pointing out that the effort to hold a Special Session wasn’t based on good intentions and that it wasn’t reasonable of David Miliband to expect genocide, as Izeth Hussain claimed in his piece.”

Could KN kindly inform our readers where I have stated, or even remotely implied, that holding the Special Session had good intentions behind it? In my article HRC Special Session (Island of June 15) I wrote, after giving my reasons, “There was therefore no case whatever for holding the special session.” In that article I argued that putting us in the dock in Geneva was part of an ongoing campaign to slap down Sri Lanka. I saw it as beginning with the visit of the British and French Foreign Ministers, followed by two Security Council meetings, which I saw as a fateful development as the SC has coercive powers. I pointed to the unwarranted demands for an inquiry into what had happened in the Vanni by the HR Commissioner and the UN Secretary General. Could I have possibly been more explicit that the Special Session had behind it malign intentions, not good ones?

As for KN’s statement that she had claimed that “it wasn’t reasonable of David Miliband to expect genocide, as Izeth Hussain claimed in his piece”, I must say that KN shouldn’t argue by taking what I wrote out of context. I certainly wrote that the propensity to commit genocide is almost universal. But of course whether it takes place or not depends on the circumstances in each case. In the Vanni 300,000 Tamil hostages were being held, under which circumstance the full military thrust to destroy the LTTE would certainly have resulted in the killing of non-combatant Tamil civilians on an epic scale that would have been widely regarded as genocidal. The expectation of Miliband, the Western powers, and above all of India, that genocide could take place was therefore – most certainly – “reasonable”. The Government would have taken that fact into account in desisting from continuing its military thrust at that time, giving special weight to two arguments. One is that in the alternative Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka would have become inevitable. The other is that as a result of inevitable killings on a genocidal scale it would have become infinitely more difficult to establish inter-ethnic harmony in the aftermath of the war.

KN wrote “While there may be people who believe that criticising anything said by a Muslim is tantamount to Islamophobia, I hope that they are not many in number.” Can KN tell me and our readers where and when I said or wrote anything to that effect? The point I made was that explaining the loss of our seat on the HR Council in terms of the Islamic vote going against us could – not necessarily so, but could – have Islamophobia behind it. The reason is that the voters had more than one vote, and nothing precluded the Islamic ones voting both for Bahrain and Sri Lanka. And that is precisely what happened according to an analysis I made at that time together with my former colleagues who had served in Geneva and a former Foreign Secretary.

In conclusion I must clarify a misconception. KN refers to my campaign for her removal from the country, informs me that the Immigration Department has a hotline for people to report undesirable foreigners, and suggests that it might be convenient to send a white van. I believe that I was correct in stating in The Island of June 22, “She is evidently in a distraught state of mind.” I have not been engaged in any campaign to deport her, and never written anything to suggest that. The caption to my letter read Go home Kath!, not Send Kath home, and the original version of my letter concluded, “Someone ought to take her home again. Soon.” Unfortunately the word “again” was omitted in publication, erasing my reference to a haunting old Irish song “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen”, a great favourite in the sing-songs of the old days. What I had in mind was that KN should relax, recoup, and continue her good work. We all know that at a time when there is so much censoriousness towards and imperialist bullying of Sri Lanka, KN has stood up consistently for us. I will certainly write in her support should anyone be so mad as to want her deportation. So – Stay on, Kath!