I would like to begin by discussing why it is that Tamil people have a struggle. I am not a Tamil. I have taken on issues relating to Tamils in the United Nations, before my Government, and before the Government of India. What is it in International Law that underpins this initiative? Quite frankly, it's not because Tamils are Tamil. Tamils are no different from any other group when it comes to International Law. Under International Law principles, all people are equal. Tamils are considered naturally no more peaceful, no more intelligent, no more warm and loving than any other people in the world. Though I must say, given the last six months in the field, certain members of the Tamil community have shown themselves to be rather unusually courageous, rather unusually brilliant military commanders and, in the face of what appears to be overwhelming odds, dedicated and determined. This is difficult to find in 1988 among any peoples of the world.

But the struggle in Tamil Eelam is not adopted by the International Community because Tamils are Tamils. The struggle is discussed in the International Community because Tamils as Tamils have been persecuted and denied their basic rights as people. And that persecution has led to a series of events, that has led to an armed conflict, that has achieved diplomatic status, that has given a legal right for Tamils to be engaged in the activities they are now engaged in both Internationally and in Sri Lanka.

RECOURSE TO REBELLION

The third preambular paragraph to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "Whereas it is essential if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression. that human rights should be protected by the rule of law." What occurred in Sri Lanka is that the rule of law for Tamil people ceased to exist. What happened in Sri Lanka is that the government became a racist government, not a national government and the oppressed people of that racist government

began to see themselves more as oppressed people rather than citizens of Sri Lanka who happen to be Tamil rather than Sinhalese or anything else. The Tamil cause did not generate in my view because Tamils consider themselves different or better than anyone else but because the government in Sri Lanka was saying that Tamils were less than someone else, especially the ruling party in Sri Lanka.

Now the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is rarely discussed in terms of its establishment of a legal basis for rebellion. But I defy anyone to find another juridical meaning to the words "whereas it is essential if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression." I defy any jurist to find in those words a prohibition to rebellion against tyranny. The only way it can be construed is an acceptance that mankind, a people, will indeed, as their natural right, exercise the right to rebellion against tyranny.

For the most part, the right to engage in armed conflict is usually discussed in terms of the right to self defence. In other words, country A may not invade country B but country B can fight back if invaded and country B has the legal right to use force against oppression. Country A would be considered the aggressor country. When it comes to a people it is normally discussed in terms of a right to self defence. So that a government in an internal setting must appear to be against part of the population in order for that population to say I am exercising my right to self defence. There is also in International Law, an acceptance of the fact that inside countries and purely in a civil war setting there are power struggles and there is no international prohibition to the concept of a power struggle even if the power struggle takes on the force of arms. The International Law regime recognises civil wars, and civil wars may be fought not only from the perspective of an oppressed people against a domineering government but can be a mere power struggle as occurred in my country's civil war and has occurred in other countries' civil wars.

Civil wars can be revolutionary, as is the case right now in El Salvador where the opposition forces want to take over the National Government. Civil wars may be secessionist such as occurred in Pakistan creating Bangladesh or the attempt to create the State of Biafra in Nigeria. And civil wars may be, in the case of Sri Lanka, a war in which one segment of the population wants a homeland with some degree of autonomy if not total self sufficiency but something short of total sovereignty or separatism.

A civil war is found, and this is the International Law rule, when there is an armed conflict in the territory of a state between Government armed forces and dissident armed forces or other groups who under responsible command exercise sufficient control over territory so as to be able to engage in military operations and implement humanitarian law.

The International Community recognise that that state existed in Sri Lanka when in 1987, after three years of struggle in the United Nations, we achieved the adoption of a resolution in which the situation of Sri Lanka was discussed in terms of humanitarian law. Those are two sacred words to anyone involved in armed struggle. This is not the law of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but the law of the Geneva Conventions, the protocol's addition to the Geneva Convention and what we call the Laws of Armed Conflict. They are of course related.

I argued since 1983 that there was by law an armed conflict governed by these rules because in my view at least the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had met that test. Throughout the years constantly looking to see which other of the militant groups might have met the test, I never found any of the others independently meeting that test; and only in the limited periods when there appeared to be some intrinsic unity between the groups would any of the others groups ever be protected by humanitarian law. But throughout the last several years at least, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have met that test, they are protected as well as obliged by the Geneva Conventions, and the International Community adopted that concept in the Resolution of the Human Rights Commission 1987.

A VERY GRAVE VIOLATION

That instantly changed by law the status of LTTE from any implication that they might be terrorists. I had to contend with everything possible to prevent the use of the words 'humanitarian law in the United Nations. Every time I would make a speech going through this test and showing why the LTTE made it or arguing about where are the POW's in this war to point out violations or would expose attacks on a civilian population as violations of the Geneva Conventions, the Government of Sri Lanka would come back and argue. 'there are no POW's in Sri Lanka', pretending that the Geneva Conventions did not apply. Of course, what they were really doing was admitting a very grave violation of humanitarian law. But they were constantly trying to defend and the biggest struggle of human rights organisations dealing with the issue year after year was to get recognition that humanitarian law applied.

Then on October 10th, the universe changed. Until that time there had been and was an armed conflict in Sri Lanka between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government of Sri Lanka and that both sides were protected by and obliged by the International Humanitarian Law rules. What happens when another country comes into a civil war? And then who's who?

What obligations? There are two ways of looking at it. One is, you have an Internationalised civil war or you have a civil war and an international war going on at the same time. I prefer the second characterisation but in a way it does not make any difference. because whereas the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government of Sri Lanka in their armed conflict with each other were obliged by the civil war rules of humanitarian law, the

Government of India is obliged by the International rules of humanitarian law meaning the entire Geneva Conventions, not just Article 3 which governs civil wars. So now we have to look at the situation. We have combatants of the LTTE and combatants of the Government of India. Let's look at what we see in a war. It's different to what we look at when there is not a war if we are going to find culpability for human rights or humanitarian law violations.

What we looked at was the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Emergency Regulations and all those other Acts of the Sinhalese Government directed at the Tamil population and talked about it in terms of human rights. We talked about torture. We talked about disappearances. We talked about summary and arbitrary execution. We talked about the situation in the Boosa camp. We talked about their sweeps into neighbourhoods and the abductions and the arrests of, in particular and almost exclusively, the Tamil youth.

WHAT HAPPENS IN A WAR?

Now that we have a war, what have we talked about. Well when we talk about what's going on, it starts making more sense because what happens in a war? Bullets fly and people die. It's not an issue of a little torture here and there, it's an issue of the regrettable and devastating effect of bodies piling up and I am sorry to be graphic that is what happens in war. And we talked about the protection of the civilian population from military operations, not the police coming in, not interrupting a riot with a slightly hefty billiard club. You talk about someone coming into your home and shooting up your relatives, wearing uniforms. Civilians are protected from the dangers of war, hospitals are protected from military attack. I have prepared an outline, it has not been distributed, for those who are interested I am sure we can get a copy, The Basic Rules of Military Operations. In other words, what can an armed force do that's legal and what can an armed force not do. When we are talking about human rights in Sri Lanka it's not a human rights violation unless it breaks one of these rules.

International Humanitarian Law says you may not attack hospitals even if the other side says 'Yea but there were soldiers in there'. Doesn't matter if there are soldiers in there. A hospital is off' limit. You also must take Prisoners of War. That means that you cannot treat the captured enemy as if the war is still going on and you can shoot them. You hold them as a prisoner of war. I notice that in the course of the Indian -LTTE armed conflict, the LTTE turned over to India some of the captured combatants. I am not yet aware that the Government of India has turned over any captured combatants. In fact, the International community is rather disturbed that captured combatants may not be alive. Every captured combatant who is dead represents a war crime on the hands of the Indian Government and that leads into another point.

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

What happens when you violate human rights? You are a human rights violator. What happens when you violate the rules of war? You are a war criminal. The existence of humanitarian law changes not only the quality but also the culpability of violations and subjects perpetrators to perhaps universal jurisdiction for the rest of their life for the acts carried out. And it is my view that a number of the Indian Peace Keeping Force have the rest of their lives to wonder if someone isn't going to find them because their relative will identify that that's the one that came into my house and killed my mother or my father or my sister or my brother as a war crime and I have just as much right to seek them out the rest of their life as people have been seeking out the Nazis 40 years later. That is the gravity of that kind of violations in International Law. Why is there International Action? Why does Karen Parker get involved in Sri Lanka? Why has the United Nations got involved in Sri Lanka? Is it not intervening in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka?

First of all we don't presume to speak for Tamil, for Sinhalese, or for anyone else but to the degree we are discussing the basic rules of human rights, a humanitarian law, we are not intervening in any country. These areas of law have been internationalised. They are no longer in the internal jurisdiction of countries. South Africa can't say 'Apartheid is internal law therefore Ms Parker when you come over here and talk to us about apartheid you're intervening', it is not intervening when one involves oneself in violations of human rights or armed conflict law. We call it the Internationalisation of Rights and there is another reason why the International Community gets involved and that is because situations such as are occurring in Sri Lanka, create refugees. So that the problem inevitably, even if we have hard hearts in Washington or Ottawa who actually don't care that Tamils die in Sri Lanka, must deal with Tamils in the United States or in Canada or elsewhere who have fled and have a legitimate right to flee not simply because of violations of human rights leading to persecution which gives people a right to seek asylum from persecution but because people also have a right to flee flying bullets and they may not be sent to any country where there is an ongoing war or violations of the Geneva Conventions. So the issue in Sri Lanka becomes a key issue in the United Kingdom as to whether or not a Tamil who arrives here is entitled to asylum, or whether or not a Tamil who arrives here may be sent back to Sri Lanka by the British Government without the British Government committing a violation of human rights or armed conflict law.

GRAVE BREACH OF HUMANITARIAN LAW

Armed conflict law prohibits forcible repatriation of persons who have fled armed conflict and, in particular, repatriation to a country where the Geneva Conventions are not being complied with. A forcible deportation under those circumstances is considered by Article 147 of the fourth Geneva Convention signed and ratified by the Government of

United Kingdom a grave breach of humanitarian law. A grave breach is another word for war crime. And so it is not just combatants who may commit war crimes in International Law. Governments sending refugees from armed conflict back to armed conflict situations also commit war crimes. That is one of the other reasons why the International Community deals with even internal situations.

What has the International Community done on Sri Lanka? The human rights organisations and groups, myself included, have pushed for a number of years in the United Nations forums for there to be recognition of the serious and grave problems in Sri Lanka and for there to be recognition of the state of war and the classification of the combatants.

INDIA HAS NO DEFENCE

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights did agree with our characterisation of conflict as I said in the Commission on Human Rights Resolution of 1987. Before that there had been a resolution passed in the sub-commission and another in the commission on human rights which were somewhat weaker but still indicated a concern with the problem. We also make sure that the United Nations special rapporteur for torture received all information and allegations of torture in Sri Lanka. That the special rapporteur for summary and arbitrary execution received information about people whose deaths were not a result of a legitimately carried death sentence. Now I certainly hope that members of this community who have known of deaths occurring at the hands of the Indian Peace Keeping Force or the Sri Lankan Army in the last year have submitted details of those deaths to the special rapporteur for summary and arbitrary execution. It would be rather dreadful if the next year's session of human rights reports not one death in Sri Lanka when hundreds of deaths of the civilian population have taken place since October 10th. Every single one of those cannot be justified by military necessity. India has no defence. Every one of those is a summary and arbitrary execution and should be  reported.

Geopolitical consideration

We sometimes forget that no international or frequently relatively few internal affairs ever occur without manipulation from inside and out. We are probably in an era in which no international event occurs without some finger in the pot from one or the other or more of the super powers. It is impossible to understand accurately the events in Sri Lanka without looking a little farther than the relationship of Tamils and Sinhalese, without looking a little farther than the relationship of India and Sri Lanka, or the relationship past. present and future between India and say the LTTE.

My Government has had a very interesting and interested involvement in the events in Sri Lanka, particularly since the current administration came to power in 1981, and I am quite convinced some of the events that have occurred in the last six months at least if not more in Sri Lanka have been in part staged at the behest of that government, and certainly the continuation of Mr Jayewardene has to he looked at broader than just his supposed iron fisthold over Sri Lanka.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

What comes out of this conference is extremely important. If this conference falls short of endorsing or supporting the idea of cease-fire and negotiation, or if it falls short of achieving some reasonable unity of the Tamil Community, then it may he

an exercise in just vetting of motions but not towards a political solution and I say that because when we sit in the United Nations taking up these cases, if we don't have the sense that we have the people on whose behalf we are speaking behind us, we tend to hack off. None of us is arrogant enough to take on anyone else's cause. When we are concerned we raise it. If the affected parties aren't there around putting in their statements, making their presentations and appearances, it starts looking funny. And you can he sure that if the Tamil Community is not visibly out there the Government of India, and the Government of Sri Lanka are going to say 'See the Tamils are all happy, there are not here are they, they are not present are they'.

So I hope what can come out of this meeting is an even stronger sense of the urgency and the need for unity and understanding and that you begin defending your rights under human rights and humanitarian law and recognising that the combatants fighting in your cause do indeed have legal combatant status and deserve all the support for their rights under humanitarian law that we can possibly give them.