BETA

After a glorious fact finding mission to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Louise Arbour, described the killings, disappearances, forceful evictions and land grabbings of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government, as ‘alarming’ and called for UN-Government cooperation to address the problem.

Her simplistic statement has disappointed us, the Tamils. We wonder why the UN is so insensitive to the suffering of our people.

Maybe we would better understand if we examined the history of the international community’s behaviour towards those weak and oppressed.
 
A few years ago, there was a man who was both intelligent and ambitious who lived in a beautiful country, a blessed one. His people were cultured but they mistrusted and oppressed the minorities.
 
He was from a privileged back ground. He studied hard and became a lawyer and in his youth he joined a political party. His direct style and advocacy of nationalism appealed to his people. He travelled to many towns and villages to hear the grievances of his people living there. Nationalist rhetoric, and his profile, was further heightened by media coverage and rallies organised by his supporters.

The international media described him as a strong man.

He organised mass rallies and used the media to promote his nationalist agenda. His popularity climbed. Within a few months he won a presidential election as the most popular candidate and became the president of his country.

He immediately acted to oppose the movement for autonomy of the minorities living in the country and to subvert the multiparty system. He broke down the opposition parties and used legal loopholes to curtail existing local power modalities.

The international community continued to ignore his actions and considered it an internal matter.

When celebrating the historical battle victories of his people he addressed a crowd of hundreds of thousands saying, "Once we were brave and dignified. ... Six centuries later we are again in battles and quarrels. ... They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded yet."

More of his people were recruited to push his line of thinking. The media was muzzled and opponents intimidated. Tensions rose.

The international community pleaded for calm and continued to give aid to his regime.

Within few years of his appointment the peace talks with the minorities, regarding power sharing, broke down.

A war started between his regime and the minorities. Within few weeks his armed forces and allied militias began to kill hundreds of minority civilians and forcibly seize territory of the minorities. Thousands of these minorities were made to live as refugees.

The international community still maintained this war and oppression as an internal affair.

In the meantime the minorities rallied together and offered stiff resistance. They fought to the last and managed to bring the war to a standstill.

Only at this juncture when this war threatened the stability and the economy of that region, did the international community intervene.

After the killing of more than two hundred thousand civilians and the displacement of three million through war crimes, this man was named as a war criminal by the international community.

A learned and well respected lady acted as the representative of the international community. She presented an indictment for confirmation against this man and charging him with crimes against humanity - specifically murder, deportation and persecutions, and with violations of the laws and customs of war.
 
He was eventually arrested and died in captivity from a heart attack.

As you may have guessed, this evil man was no other than the ex president of Yugoslavia and later Serbia, Mr Slobodan Milošević aka the ‘Butcher of Balkans’.
 
Following his death movers and shakers of the international community described their ignorance and indifference in flowery language.

"I met him on many occasions. He was a tough, clever, charismatic leader. He was called a nationalist, but he wasn't. He was an opportunist who rode the nationalist bandwagon. There is no doubt he was personally responsible for his crimes. He had seductive qualities which were sufficiently powerful to seduce many Western states who for far too long believed him to be part of the solution rather than the problem. ... I think he will be remembered as an extremely malign influence - a clever man whose undoubted intelligence was put to malevolent effect - and as the architect not only of the humiliation of his nation, but also their shame and the deaths of tens of thousands" one said later.

An ambassador described his psychology as 'he can utter the most egregious falsehoods with the appearance of the utmost sincerity. He is a Machiavellian character for whom truth has no inherent value of its own. It's there to be manipulated.'

 Another magazine editorial described him as "tactically shrewd, strategically inept and morally void, he went down the road to war without ever really considering why he was doing so, what the human costs would be, and whether there was any real chance of building a state on the ruins of its minorities."

"In the end, if there is a real lesson to be learned, it is about the seductive power of dictatorship. An unstable but charming killer fooled so many people. He seduced diplomats and wooed politicians. He beguiled the public. The international community will again need to confront charismatic leaders with inflammatory agendas. It will again be tempted to appease them." another European newspaper editorial cried.

The lady who indicted the Butcher of Balkans was Madame Louise Arbour, the current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She and others in the international community acted only after the minorities of Yugoslavia brought the war of Slobodan Milošević to a standstill. 

And now when history repeats itself only in a different part of the world, will they wait too long again?