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By Charles Perera

The government of Sri Lanka contests the report of the UN special representative Allan Rock in which he has accused the Sri Lanka Army for assisting the Karuna group to recruit children for his fighting force. His report has apparently said nothing more than what he may have learnt from his pro-terrorist Tamil Canadian supporters. He therefore falls into the category of a biased investigator, who could have as well prepared his report from New York without coming all the way to Sri Lanka.

The government says that it is evident, that his report has been made on hearsay evidence collected mostly from those who are sympathetic to the terrorists. He had reported that the Sri Lanka Army had helped Karuna to recruit children for his fighting force, without adducing supportive evidence. Neither had he visited the camps of Karuna to verify the presence of child soldiers. On the face of it the report is nothing more than an attempt to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka. The UN Security Council and the American based Human Rights Watch had made similar accusations to the government for its complicity in the alleged abduction of children by Karuna group, based on Allan Rock’s report.

The several letters to the Government of Sri Lanka, under the signature of Koffi Annan putting the government in par with the terrorists, with the by now well known phrase, “both parties should come to a negotiated settlement”, may have been written by junior UN professionals, going by the misinformation contained in the reports submitted by people like Allan Rock, gathered from out dated old files, or experiences they had in their own countries.

Each Organisations of the UN system consists of nearly 192 member states.
These member State are each different from the other, with different cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, customs and a political systems. Therefore, a UN Official making a report after a mission to one of its Member States should take these differences into consideration, be open minded, and evaluate a situation from the facts he gets personally acquainted with, of which he had been an eye witness, and verified by himself, without relying on what he had heard, or facts he had not himself verified.

This is conceivable only if these Organisations have qualified staff trained for that type of investigative missions. In order to make that possible there should be a proper system of selection of its special representatives, and the recruitment of its Professional Staff. They should also be given adequate training , and instructions to be open minded, respectful towards other cultures, their belief systems, and understand the basic factors that differentiates one member State from another. Their reports following their missions, and the letters to the governments of member states should reflect their International character of being detached observers.

But the recruitment procedure to the Professional grades of the UN System leaves much to be desired. There are no competitive examinations, which would enable the recruitment of the best candidates who have the intellectual maturity to show interest in familiarising them-selves with other cultures and political systems and respect the people of different member states without discrimination against colour, religion or economic conditions. Though the governments of the developing countries are accused of violation of human rights based on ethnicity, there exits in these International Organisations discrimination on another form of an ethnic difference-a racial discrimination practiced in such a way that they cannot be directly accused of it.

In the UNESCO recruitments of the young International Civil Servants are not through a competitive Examination nor through interviews by a competent recruitment panel. They are selected mostly on their academic achievements and the CVs submitted by them. Besides that there are also recruitment of the children or wives of senior professionals to the general service grade and promoted to higher grades thereafter.

These young International Civil Servants, however they areselected under the prevailing system have no first hand knowledge of political systems, and cultures of developing countries to understand the destructive nature of terrorism on their effort for development. Hence they thrive on sensationalism bashing the developing countries as savants having answers to all national problems of different cultures. They are unable to grasp the ground situation of any major national issue in its correct perspective as bias and prejudice blind them to objective analysis.

One day when taking lunch along with a Junior Professional of an Organisation of the UN System, I was surprised by the strange reaction of this young man on the mention of the problem of terrorism in Sri Lanka. He dismissed the reference to terrorists with sarcasm saying that it was how the Colonial Governments called those Africans who rebelled against them for independence.

He would not even try to understand the problem of Sri Lanka when I began to explain the situation, insisting that he knows how the governments themselves practice terrorism against freedom fighters calling it defensive action. He pretended to know the problem, and nothing would make him listen further. This is an instance of how bias and prejudice make Professional Staff Members of the UN System come to narrow minded conclusions, without being open minded even to listen to another persons point of view on controversial national problem, to which they are a strangers.

These UN Professionals, interpret all national problems however complex they may be, in the light of an isolated case they are familiar with. The numerous letters issued under the signature of the Secretary General of UN Mr.Kofi Annan may have been written by a junior professional like the one I met at lunch. For most of them terrorism is what happened in New York on the 11, September, 2000. And terrorism in small countries they dismiss as rebellions against an unpopular government.

Fortunately it appears, that the staff in the UNO, that wrote such letters for Kofi Annan’s signature are on the way out with the arrival of the new Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who seems to have employed perhaps senior staff members that have a better grasp of the subject of terrorism in developing countries and are able look at these questions objectively without mixing their own personal biases and prejudices.

There was a news item in the Lanka page recently which stated that, “In a report to be presented to the United Nations Security Council, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has for the first time recommended "targeted measures" against the LTTE political and military leadership due to the group’s continued refusal to completely cease the recruitment and use of children. Previously, the LTTE has only been at the receiving end of UN warnings. Targeted measures could now mean anything from the freezing of assets and the imposition of travel bans to the prohibition of communication with the relevant non-state actor.”

The same could be said about the other Organisations such as the American Based Human Rights Watch, the UN Security Council, the Amnesty International, and so on who depend on any report that comes across them to make accusations against the Sri Lanka Government.. It is only those who have personally experienced terrorism that can understand the havoc that it could create among the people in a country. But that too depends on how great was the impact of the terrorist act, how horrendous was it.

The Americans who on the 11 September were the witness to a catastrophe which could never be equalled to any thing else in the history of the world, may find it hard to understand the small scale terrorism. Even if the terrorists of a developing country are ruthless and inhuman their terrorism would be insignificant, in comparison to their own experience with Al-keida.Therefore, they may underestimate the gravity of the situation Sri Lanka is facing with a ruthless band of terrorists.

It is sad that the UN System is becoming a stumbling block to developing countries taking side with the International Community, instead of it being a reliable force to keep away the International Community benefiting from the poverty and conflict situations of the developing countries.

If the UNO had been such a force United States of America under Bush would have never engaged in an unending war in Iraq. That would have been an occasion for UNO to have intervened to advise the United State, to start a dialogue with Iraq, with the UNO as a intermediary, instead of engaging on its own in a war. Now it is easy for the UNO and the International community to keep telling the Government of Sri Lanka that there is no military solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.

The US Ambassador Robert Blake must be a born again American to say: “
We remain unwavering in our conviction that there can be no military solution to this terrible conflict.” That he should tell his boss Mr. George Bush, who is proposing to send more soldiers to Iraq., perhaps considering a military attack on Iran, and wage a war against North Korea. The USA, Mr.Robert Blake says one thing to us, and another thing elsewhere.

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