1 00:00:02,070 --> 00:00:04,840 It's a great pleasure to introduce our speaker today. 2 00:00:04,860 --> 00:00:09,899 It says here on his bio that he's a senior research fellow at the Centre for International Studies. 3 00:00:09,900 --> 00:00:16,379 That sort of makes me smile because we know Adam is something much more significant to all of us. 4 00:00:16,380 --> 00:00:21,270 In his years as the Montagu Burton professor of international relations here in the department, 5 00:00:21,690 --> 00:00:28,440 a position he held for a number of years, helping to build up the graduate program in international relations. 6 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:36,630 The community of research that we have here, and indeed, I would say the culture of research that we that we have here, 7 00:00:37,110 --> 00:00:46,140 Adam's be involved in a couple of major research projects within the department and also bridging other areas of the university. 8 00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:48,700 The changing character of your program. 9 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:56,310 Adam was one of the Gang of Four who created the changing character of work program in its initial years and also his very 10 00:00:56,310 --> 00:01:06,330 interesting and pathbreaking project on civil resistance and power politics that he engaged with with Timothy Garton Ash as well. 11 00:01:07,020 --> 00:01:13,589 A number of you will have read Adam's work over the years on areas relating to civilians, 12 00:01:13,590 --> 00:01:17,430 to humanitarian action, to broader aspects of international security. 13 00:01:17,940 --> 00:01:25,230 He was also one of the editors of the big project we did in CCW on the United Nations Security Council. 14 00:01:25,860 --> 00:01:30,270 And War, I would say, is probably one of the driving editors of that project. 15 00:01:30,870 --> 00:01:37,800 But he's with us today to talk about a fascinating project that he mentioned to me a couple of years ago on the train, 16 00:01:38,070 --> 00:01:42,600 which I know brings together a number of his various interests. 17 00:01:43,380 --> 00:01:49,620 The title of the talk is On International Order and Violent Extremism, 18 00:01:49,950 --> 00:01:55,469 But Lessons from Sri Lanka and Adam will be drawing in particular on the book that 19 00:01:55,470 --> 00:02:01,920 he's just recently edited that's been released by I do i v tourists excuse me, 20 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:09,270 democracy, sovereignty and Terror. Lakshman Kadar, a gambler on the foundations of the international order. 21 00:02:09,270 --> 00:02:14,700 So we welcome Adam warmly to the CCW and Locke seminar. 22 00:02:14,700 --> 00:02:17,370 We're delighted you found the time to be with us, because, of course, 23 00:02:17,370 --> 00:02:24,560 Adam's day job these days is president of the British Academy, so we know he doesn't always have the same kind of time. 24 00:02:24,570 --> 00:02:28,350 He used to be in the department. So we're really pleased to have you, Adam. 25 00:02:28,350 --> 00:02:34,709 We are always open to questions at the end of these sessions, so we'll see how far we go. 26 00:02:34,710 --> 00:02:40,880 But we look forward to hearing your comments. Well, thank you so much, Jennifer. 27 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:51,560 And it's a delight to be back here, ladies and gentlemen, and to be addressing the particular topic that I have today. 28 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:59,090 My presentation is about a really longstanding set of questions. 29 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:10,670 Its central concern is whether the difficult task of containing movements designated as terrorist and I realise 30 00:03:10,670 --> 00:03:18,020 that's always a controversial designation can be conducted in a manner consistent with international norms, 31 00:03:18,860 --> 00:03:27,650 including those relating to sovereignty, human rights laws of armed conflict and democracy. 32 00:03:29,150 --> 00:03:37,400 It's well known that there are difficulties at every turn and this has been evident in most societies that have faced a terrorist threat. 33 00:03:38,930 --> 00:03:44,810 Now, I must make clear at the beginning that I am absolutely not a specialist on Sri Lanka, 34 00:03:45,500 --> 00:03:51,950 and I'm sure there are people here today who know a great deal more about Sri Lanka than I do. 35 00:03:53,300 --> 00:03:58,880 One of them is Laxman, caretaker widow, who is here today. 36 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:04,520 This is a sister pretty, who lives in London. 37 00:04:05,390 --> 00:04:14,960 And I take a particular angle on the Sri Lanka conflict, exploring it through the prism of Laxman Girma, 38 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:25,610 who served as foreign minister of Sri Lanka for most of the period from 1994 until his assassination in 2005. 39 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:39,470 I knew him pretty well. I first came across him in 1964 when he had just done a report, 40 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:48,230 which was the first ever report done on an international on the situation in a foreign country for Amnesty International. 41 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:58,730 And he very much starts out life as a committed lawyer and committed to democracy and civil liberties. 42 00:04:59,960 --> 00:05:10,370 And that report, which is published in full in the book, was about the Buddhist movement that unseated the regime of note in Zim. 43 00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:20,600 That's how I happened to be particularly interested because of my longstanding and incurable interest in civil resistance. 44 00:05:24,350 --> 00:05:30,430 30 years later, I discovered that this same man, 45 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:39,800 as I had had a correspondence with by the old fashioned method of letters in 1964, was Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka. 46 00:05:40,980 --> 00:05:51,200 Then I discovered, to my surprise, that he'd been a student at my own college, Balliol College, 47 00:05:51,770 --> 00:06:00,290 including a billet on the fascinating topic of strict liability in English and Roman Dutch law, 48 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:04,700 which you can consult in a broadly in law library if you feel inclined. 49 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:14,930 It's wonderfully arcane because it's about a system of law, Rome and Dutch law that had ceased to exist in the Netherlands centuries ago, 50 00:06:15,530 --> 00:06:21,680 but had this extraordinary colonial afterlife in Sri Lanka and South Africa. 51 00:06:22,670 --> 00:06:29,479 And he was told by Tony Honoré, who hails from South Africa and is still very much alive. 52 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:34,430 And in his early nineties he still runs seminars at all schools. 53 00:06:35,300 --> 00:06:39,950 That was his peculiar and special interest. 54 00:06:40,460 --> 00:06:46,550 And I have to say that the thesis is largely about problems of dreams and what happens 55 00:06:46,550 --> 00:06:52,460 when water sinks or sewage seeps out of one house into the ground of another. 56 00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:57,320 And by one of those wonderful ironies of history, a problem that I thought was totally arcane, 57 00:06:58,130 --> 00:07:00,950 arose in the case of two of the contributors to the book. 58 00:07:01,310 --> 00:07:07,850 While the book was being compiled, whether the lawyers consulted the Oxford thesis, I'm not entirely sure. 59 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:17,930 We resumed contact when I discovered this connection with very little. 60 00:07:17,930 --> 00:07:26,300 He visited de Lille. I saw a lot of him. We elected him with acclamation, an honorary fellow of value. 61 00:07:27,620 --> 00:07:33,620 And that contact was not merely formal but intellectual. 62 00:07:34,610 --> 00:07:37,900 I found him extraordinarily interesting on the subject. 63 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:45,260 Of terrorism, a subject which does not always attract the most subtle minds. 64 00:07:46,250 --> 00:07:53,030 And he was also extraordinarily realistic about the risk that he would be assassinated. 65 00:07:54,530 --> 00:08:01,010 He knew that it was highly likely without being melodramatic about it. 66 00:08:01,790 --> 00:08:08,720 And on his invitation, I visited Sri Lanka in 2005 to give some lectures. 67 00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:11,780 So after his death, 68 00:08:12,110 --> 00:08:25,520 I felt somebody owed it to him to collect his major speeches and writings and to give some account of his life and what he stood for. 69 00:08:26,240 --> 00:08:31,820 And I felt that that was a job that I really had to do. 70 00:08:32,150 --> 00:08:41,750 The world is not waiting to hear about the wisdom of a third world diplomat or minister. 71 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:55,400 On the subject of terrorism, it's naturally more conventionally assumed that we should listen to other voices. 72 00:08:56,630 --> 00:09:02,030 And yet I felt there was something here of value. 73 00:09:04,010 --> 00:09:08,420 And he struck me as an interesting figure for three reasons. 74 00:09:09,890 --> 00:09:24,650 First of all, as a young athlete, you had an interesting and privileged education within Sri Lanka and excelled at practically everything he did. 75 00:09:25,730 --> 00:09:34,340 And here he is in 1952, winning the South Asian 110 metre hurdles title. 76 00:09:34,700 --> 00:09:40,520 I think it was the second time he'd won it. Extraordinarily talented man. 77 00:09:41,090 --> 00:09:47,120 And his talents resulted in him taking a role. 78 00:09:47,330 --> 00:09:54,229 A role in a very symbolic event which tells one something about the Sri Lanka 79 00:09:54,230 --> 00:09:59,780 of the time in post-colonial Sri Lanka having achieved independence in 48. 80 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:06,980 This was a relay to celebrate the unity of the peoples of Sri Lanka. 81 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:09,740 He's in the group on the left, far from the camera. 82 00:10:10,010 --> 00:10:17,450 Quite hard to make out, but that's him handing a scroll to a young maiden of the same ethnic group. 83 00:10:17,450 --> 00:10:25,820 He's representing the Tamil route. And the scroll has a message about the unity of the peoples in Sri Lanka. 84 00:10:26,630 --> 00:10:38,150 And it was again in Colombo half a century later that he was cremated in Independence Square, 85 00:10:38,750 --> 00:10:46,160 Colombo, in circumstances that symbolised the divisions of the people of Sri Lanka. 86 00:10:46,670 --> 00:10:52,969 So in his person, he symbolically symbolises the hopes that they were not just in Sri Lanka but in 87 00:10:52,970 --> 00:10:58,700 many countries for the huge progress that there would be after decolonisation. 88 00:10:58,700 --> 00:11:07,160 And that's what the Colombo exhibition was all about. It was the, if you like, Festival of Britain, except with more of an international flavour. 89 00:11:08,270 --> 00:11:20,990 And then the disappointment is now symbolised with that cremation in Independence Square all those years later. 90 00:11:21,860 --> 00:11:27,560 So that symbolic role struck me as important. 91 00:11:28,370 --> 00:11:34,460 Secondly, it strikes me as interesting because he was quite exceptionally brave. 92 00:11:36,410 --> 00:11:40,040 He, after a long and successful career as an international lawyer, 93 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:53,480 mainly with the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, he chose to go into politics in 1994 at the age of 62. 94 00:11:54,590 --> 00:12:04,040 Within months of the killing of his close acquaintance, who he who had preceded him as president of the Oxford Union. 95 00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:08,030 That's lovely. I love New Delhi. Bottom, right. 96 00:12:09,030 --> 00:12:13,130 I think was the first Sri Lankan ever to be president of the Oxford Union. 97 00:12:13,700 --> 00:12:17,300 And that's Laxman cutting on the top left. 98 00:12:18,380 --> 00:12:30,350 Who was the second? And the causes of Lalit Modi on his assassination are not known with certainty, 99 00:12:31,130 --> 00:12:35,990 but there is at least a suspicion that the government was involved for. 100 00:12:39,630 --> 00:12:46,350 It's a pretty remarkable thing in those circumstances to have decided to go into politics. 101 00:12:47,250 --> 00:12:48,930 A sign of bravery in itself. 102 00:12:49,800 --> 00:13:06,630 And Leishman, as foreign minister, was to work fearlessly, despite the strong evidence that he was a target of the Tamil Tigers. 103 00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:15,840 He was consistently warned by the Sri Lankan police intelligence army that he was a target because he was a tunnel. 104 00:13:16,590 --> 00:13:24,810 And the idea that a Tamil should defend the unity of Sri Lanka was obviously a betrayal that they could not tolerate. 105 00:13:26,190 --> 00:13:30,750 And hence the awful result. 106 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:43,430 Above all, Lakshman represented, as I've tried to indicate, an unusual combination of beliefs. 107 00:13:44,450 --> 00:13:50,000 On the one hand, he had an impeccable background of strong commitment to democracy and human rights. 108 00:13:50,540 --> 00:13:59,960 Here he is at the Oxford Union, making a comeback as a guest speaker in October 1959, 109 00:14:01,430 --> 00:14:08,510 opposing the notion that democracy is unsuitable for the developing for the underdeveloped nations of the world. 110 00:14:09,170 --> 00:14:16,610 Underdeveloped was that era's euphemism for developing the other way around, developing as a euphemism. 111 00:14:18,350 --> 00:14:27,049 And this was no mere youthful indiscretion when he went into politics. 112 00:14:27,050 --> 00:14:32,570 He was and remains sharply critical of the employment of state terror. 113 00:14:32,900 --> 00:14:39,260 He explicitly said in his statement of why he went into politics, which is in the in the book, 114 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:50,150 he was very much the same person as a student at Oxford, maybe a little older and wiser, but with the same very strong beliefs. 115 00:14:52,130 --> 00:14:58,700 Yet at the same time, and this is where there is a dichotomy, he was quite exceptionally tough on terrorism. 116 00:15:00,050 --> 00:15:12,710 This, I believe, reflected the fact that whereas we in the West tend to view terrorism as mainly a threat against our own societies, 117 00:15:13,490 --> 00:15:19,340 actually, and those who have studied many third world societies, I think would agree with this much. 118 00:15:19,340 --> 00:15:28,459 The bigger threat is to the fabric of societies that have less long historical traditions of managing a 119 00:15:28,460 --> 00:15:43,250 democratic system and which are more vulnerable to ethnic or religious conflict or a combination of the two. 120 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:56,890 It is actually societies such as Colombia, Lebanon and Somalia that have been more vulnerable to terrorism becoming absolutely endemic. 121 00:15:57,550 --> 00:16:03,580 Or Pakistan could add than some more developed Western societies. 122 00:16:05,890 --> 00:16:08,620 Among his deep beliefs was the need for a serious, 123 00:16:09,340 --> 00:16:19,210 professional and academically informed approach to the management of diplomacy and to our understanding of the world and his. 124 00:16:20,650 --> 00:16:30,710 So this is that's him as foreign minister. Here's a poignant picture of him on the 12th of August, 1995. 125 00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:40,150 On the day on which he announced the creation of a new journal which is handing to one 126 00:16:40,150 --> 00:16:47,799 of the contributors to a book on the road was now the Indian ambassador in Washington, 127 00:16:47,800 --> 00:17:00,460 DC was then in Colombo. That's the first edition of the Journal that the first issue of the journal that he had long wanted to create. 128 00:17:01,780 --> 00:17:09,160 And it was on that very day when he launched this journal on International Relations that he was assassinated. 129 00:17:12,470 --> 00:17:22,720 No. A few basic facts about the Sri Lanka war and please correct me where I make mistakes on. 130 00:17:22,810 --> 00:17:26,090 The first issue, of course, is it's very contentious to call it a war. 131 00:17:26,530 --> 00:17:36,460 Lakshman always avoided the term for reasons which are familiar to many who have lived in societies where they faced some kind of internal threat. 132 00:17:36,910 --> 00:17:40,150 They were reluctant to agree with the term war, 133 00:17:41,410 --> 00:17:47,799 but the so called Eelam war between the Tamil Tigers and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the 134 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:57,190 Sri Lankan government can be said to have begun in 1983 and was fought in four main phases 83 to 7, 135 00:17:58,060 --> 00:18:05,440 92, 95, 95 to 2002 and 2006 to 9. 136 00:18:06,010 --> 00:18:09,100 The last phase being, of course, after Lovren's death. 137 00:18:11,210 --> 00:18:15,320 No. This war was not the beginning of political violence in Sri Lanka. 138 00:18:16,610 --> 00:18:21,680 The country had had an unusually smooth transition from colonialism. 139 00:18:23,660 --> 00:18:29,780 If it had, I don't know what the British thought they were doing. Universal suffrage since 1931. 140 00:18:30,170 --> 00:18:41,420 Most unusual for a colony. And it was partly a reflection of a number of progressive British thinkers who really saw 141 00:18:41,420 --> 00:18:50,900 the empire in idealistic terms that that particular eventuality occurred in Sri Lanka. 142 00:18:55,030 --> 00:19:05,589 But maybe that very lack of a liberation myth of a prolonged struggle with a 143 00:19:05,590 --> 00:19:14,049 coherent single leadership resulted in a certain vision in the Sri Lankan politics. 144 00:19:14,050 --> 00:19:19,840 Thereafter, and in 1971 and 1987 to 9, 145 00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:27,309 there'd been an armed socialist uprising in the southern and central provinces led by a party 146 00:19:27,310 --> 00:19:34,800 known as the JVP and put down by Sri Lankan security forces with very considerable loss of life. 147 00:19:37,100 --> 00:19:56,390 Now the Tamil question. This slide is taken from the last census that was of evidentiary value taken in 1991, 148 00:19:58,700 --> 00:20:02,810 at which time there were, according to that sense that the census results, 149 00:20:03,260 --> 00:20:18,590 73% of the inhabitants of Sri Lanka were Sinhalese, 12% was Sri Lankan Tamil, 5% were Indian Tamil and 7% were Moors, mainly Muslim. 150 00:20:20,030 --> 00:20:28,790 The sense of insecurity of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka became serious in the mid 1950s and it's an 151 00:20:28,790 --> 00:20:37,460 absolutely classic problem of the limitations of democracy when faced with a divisive ethnic conflict. 152 00:20:37,820 --> 00:20:45,260 We've had our version of those limitations in the history of Northern Ireland and in Sri Lanka, 153 00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:59,479 and they were all there became serious and Sinhalese Buddhist majority came to was attracted by the idea of 154 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:10,220 influence commensurate with our numbers and linguistic nationalism was part of the result of that attraction. 155 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:19,970 It was in contrast to the rather more elitist constitutionalism of the early years after independence. 156 00:21:20,780 --> 00:21:29,360 And its outcome was the 1956 Official Language Act, which made Sinhala the only official language of the state. 157 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:37,490 Unsurprisingly, especially as many Tamils had traditionally worked for the state as clerks and civil servants and the like. 158 00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:41,990 This was followed by much opposition, 159 00:21:42,770 --> 00:21:49,970 especially by Tamils who had good reason to fear any threat to their identity and diminution of their access to jobs. 160 00:21:56,050 --> 00:22:09,190 This led to riots in June 1956, the first serious occurrence of violence between communities since the Sinhala Muslim riots back in 1915. 161 00:22:10,300 --> 00:22:15,550 And then it led to the May 1958 clashes between Sinhalese and Tamils, 162 00:22:16,540 --> 00:22:29,050 which were the first major outbreak against Tamils and in many ways a point of no return as a result of continuing troubles over the language issue. 163 00:22:29,470 --> 00:22:32,530 There were various modifications of the Official Language Act. 164 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:45,040 Some convincing. More convincing than others. They reached the logical conclusion in the Constitution's current Article 22 as it was modified in 1987. 165 00:22:45,790 --> 00:22:52,420 I'm trying to remember the detail of it, but if something like Sinhala shall be the official language of Sri Lanka. 166 00:22:55,870 --> 00:22:59,170 Tamil shall also be an official language. 167 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,280 English should be the bridge language. 168 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:10,330 Now, if any of you can work out logically what that means, you are better experts on language than I am. 169 00:23:10,780 --> 00:23:21,160 And it failed to satisfactory. It was too little, too late, probably to satisfy the issue at hand. 170 00:23:23,410 --> 00:23:29,200 By this time the Eelam conflict had been going on for four years now. 171 00:23:32,020 --> 00:23:48,850 This war, which went through all conflict, which went through four phases, resulted in a point in 2002, at which point judgement was in opposition. 172 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:58,510 It resulted in a ceasefire agreement and you can get an idea of the areas that are covered by the ceasefire being recognised 173 00:23:58,930 --> 00:24:07,420 held by the Tamil Tigers as up in the northern province of there and then these two areas in the eastern province. 174 00:24:07,510 --> 00:24:11,410 So those are the three main areas that were recognised as held by the Tamil Tigers. 175 00:24:11,890 --> 00:24:15,820 Now there was no official map with the ceasefire agreement. 176 00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:21,940 The whole thing was done in a rush without the approval of the president of Sri Lanka. 177 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,780 We represented a different party from the government at the time. 178 00:24:27,070 --> 00:24:30,490 So it wasn't concluded in the most propitious of circumstances. 179 00:24:31,450 --> 00:24:36,130 By this time, Norway was involved in an intermediary role. 180 00:24:37,570 --> 00:24:46,959 I have tried I've tried hard to get a map, this map from the Norwegians, 181 00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:50,740 through the foreign ministry, through various contacts in the Foreign Ministry. 182 00:24:51,370 --> 00:24:57,760 And although I associate the Norwegians with efficiency and helpfulness, the money never came. 183 00:24:58,990 --> 00:25:15,940 And eventually, through a contact in the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry, who have been exceptionally helpful, I must say, I managed to get hold of this, 184 00:25:16,930 --> 00:25:30,970 of this map, and I think the reluctance to produce it had to do with the extreme difficulty of actually monitoring the ceasefire, 185 00:25:32,530 --> 00:25:35,050 the ill defined nature of some of the borders, 186 00:25:36,490 --> 00:25:48,640 the extreme disagreements over what the high security zones on the Sri Lankan government side of the borders actually meant, and so on and so forth. 187 00:25:52,360 --> 00:26:00,340 And this just as background to the war, and then I will end my PowerPoint extravaganza. 188 00:26:01,660 --> 00:26:21,280 This is just to illustrate the situation in the immediate in the last few years before the highly controversial final, final campaign of 2009. 189 00:26:21,820 --> 00:26:24,430 The red areas are controlled by the Tamil Tigers. 190 00:26:24,790 --> 00:26:34,600 By this time they've lost strong control in the eastern provinces, but they had partial control of quite large areas. 191 00:26:34,930 --> 00:26:48,520 They were operating certainly. And then the yellow areas, those controlled by the government of Sri Lanka, but still claimed for the Tamil state. 192 00:26:49,180 --> 00:26:54,940 And one of the features of the conflict was the reluctance of the Tamil Tiger leadership. 193 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,170 Not always the most politically astute leadership, I have to say, 194 00:27:00,610 --> 00:27:12,490 to make significant compromises about the areas that they might control in some confederal arrangement now. 195 00:27:16,930 --> 00:27:25,690 And I just want to explore a few general questions raised by the Sri Lankan conflict and by Peter Gomes performance. 196 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:32,620 First, is it intellectually legitimate or merely propaganda for a government or citizens of a 197 00:27:32,620 --> 00:27:39,160 country to call a movement fighting for a minority people's homeland within it as terrorist? 198 00:27:40,120 --> 00:27:43,570 It goes without saying that the term terrorist is highly emotional. 199 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:49,959 And I remember years ago in a book I contributed to on the subject of terrorism, 200 00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:58,270 Laurie Friedman said that the description of terrorist is a victory for those who are in the anti-terrorist cause. 201 00:27:58,270 --> 00:28:05,379 In any given case, it is highly emotional and it is inevitable that some will use different terms. 202 00:28:05,380 --> 00:28:22,870 That's absolutely inevitable. And yet we do need a term to describe actions which aim at assassinations and of course, 203 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:30,580 actions which aim at civilians aim sometimes at more or less random. 204 00:28:31,890 --> 00:28:48,780 Destruction and which operate by inculcating an atmosphere of fear not only against their adversaries, but also within the territory they control. 205 00:28:50,250 --> 00:28:55,680 And it seems to me that there is a need for the term and to reject its use entirely is problematic. 206 00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:02,970 But to recognise that it is a difficult term, an emotional term is right. 207 00:29:04,530 --> 00:29:12,839 Secondly, is it sensible for states outside a conflict area to proclaim one party in the conflict 208 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:19,980 terrorist and to adopt legislation to prohibit certain kinds of support for that party? 209 00:29:20,750 --> 00:29:23,520 That's one thing that Laxman worked tirelessly to do. 210 00:29:24,420 --> 00:29:34,980 He worked precisely to get the Tamil Tiger movement declared to be a terrorist movement in certain countries where they were raising funds. 211 00:29:36,150 --> 00:29:42,510 And you can get a flavour of that from Richmond's own speeches, for example. 212 00:29:43,350 --> 00:29:54,660 Here he is speaking in Washington, D.C. in 2000, and he says of the emigre Tamil population. 213 00:29:54,840 --> 00:30:02,549 And of course, emigre populations are often prone to feel guilty about the lack of direct involvement 214 00:30:02,550 --> 00:30:07,170 in the society from which they have fled and their desire to see it changed. 215 00:30:07,830 --> 00:30:14,130 It's not surprising, just as Irish emigres in America often gave money for the Provisional IRA. 216 00:30:14,730 --> 00:30:21,840 It's not surprising that they should do so in these cases. And here is Lakshman in Washington saying, 217 00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:30,870 I don't for one moment say that every one of the terminal emigres in North America supports terrorism most certainly, and categorically they do not. 218 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,480 The funding comes from, I would say, a small minority. 219 00:30:37,380 --> 00:30:44,430 The answer I used to get from foreign offices in this part of the world and in Europe was that they had no laws to deal with terrorism, 220 00:30:44,970 --> 00:30:49,470 especially the funding of terrorism. I was told it was a new phenomenon. 221 00:30:50,130 --> 00:30:54,390 Our legal system does not provide for combating international terrorism. 222 00:30:54,840 --> 00:31:01,499 We have old penal laws and so on. And he was entirely right about that in the sense that, for example, 223 00:31:01,500 --> 00:31:10,800 in the UK our definition of terrorism was one of planning actions within the UK or against the UK. 224 00:31:11,490 --> 00:31:14,970 It wasn't any kind of universal definition of terrorism. 225 00:31:15,780 --> 00:31:21,120 And he urged that there be changes in the UK law, specifically in a speech at Chatham House in 98, 226 00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:34,380 and eventually that was secured and after his death he had a posthumous triumph in getting European countries, 227 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:47,670 the European Union and India and Canada, to prohibit fundraising for the LTTE. 228 00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:56,520 So in a particular circumstances of his case, there was, it seems to me, a powerful argument for what he was doing. 229 00:31:57,870 --> 00:32:06,360 Third question raised is the theory that terrorism can be infectious and can easily become endemic in a society. 230 00:32:06,930 --> 00:32:19,169 Validated by the Sri Lankan case. To me, it has always seemed one of the major problems of terrorism that picked up or started by the right. 231 00:32:19,170 --> 00:32:26,490 It may get picked up by the left, started by nationalists, and they get taken up by communists or the other way around or whatever. 232 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:35,190 And whether one looks at the history of Cyprus or the history of Palestine started terrorism movements, 233 00:32:36,990 --> 00:32:49,770 really gained currency with the Jewish national resistance, a gun and a stone going against the British then got picked up by the PLO. 234 00:32:50,250 --> 00:33:01,979 There is something to the theory of the infectiousness of such methods, and I think that without going into too strongly into medical analogies, 235 00:33:01,980 --> 00:33:10,200 which I am deeply suspicious of, I do think that the Sri Lankan case, for reasons I've indicated, tends to support that view. 236 00:33:11,550 --> 00:33:18,420 Fourthly, are democratic political systems more or less likely than others to undergo terrorist attacks? 237 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:24,340 As I mentioned, he was a firm advocate of democracy. And yet in his writings on terrorism, 238 00:33:24,940 --> 00:33:30,489 he recognised that actually it's very often democracies that witness terrorist 239 00:33:30,490 --> 00:33:36,220 campaigns because it's easier to organise in them than it is in dictatorial states. 240 00:33:37,750 --> 00:33:42,790 And so he saw what the very least is a paradox in this situation. 241 00:33:43,090 --> 00:33:49,479 And particularly, of course, he was conscious of that problem of Democratic politics, 242 00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:56,049 that the majority Syrian tyranny that leaves a minority feeling dispossessed or 243 00:33:56,050 --> 00:34:03,190 vulnerable to extreme leaders because democratic politics don't seem to yield results. 244 00:34:05,890 --> 00:34:16,450 If fifth issue. What is the place of negotiations and ceasefires in a struggle between a government and its insurgent adversaries? 245 00:34:18,540 --> 00:34:27,180 And here we have to confront cutting our own ambivalence on the subject. 246 00:34:28,140 --> 00:34:43,500 He reluctantly consented to the 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tigers, but only on certain understandings. 247 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:48,330 And of course, one of them was that there be progress towards a political settlement. 248 00:34:50,070 --> 00:34:59,580 He even went so far as to approve the deal prescription of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, 249 00:34:59,850 --> 00:35:05,040 even while he was encouraging the proscription everywhere else in other countries. 250 00:35:06,090 --> 00:35:08,579 And he he had the agreement, for example, 251 00:35:08,580 --> 00:35:14,400 of the United States government on that course they said were perfectly happy to go on keeping the Tamil Tigers proscribed, 252 00:35:14,700 --> 00:35:19,140 even if you did proscribed them in Sri Lanka, 253 00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:28,710 because he did believe that there was a case for talking because he profoundly believed that however destructive, 254 00:35:29,340 --> 00:35:39,090 stupid or whatever terrorist methods were, a terrorist movement did represent a series of political problems that had to be addressed. 255 00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:43,560 And he would say that as a generalisation about such movements, 256 00:35:44,190 --> 00:35:51,840 that they tended to have a social basis and that it was would be foolish not to address them. 257 00:35:52,650 --> 00:35:59,790 And of course, he certainly believed in, shall we say, 258 00:35:59,850 --> 00:36:07,050 somewhat variable geometry towards movements depending upon the circumstances in which they developed, for example. 259 00:36:08,790 --> 00:36:16,590 I don't think he supported the idiotic as I thought it at the time, 260 00:36:17,550 --> 00:36:25,740 British definition of the African National Congress of South Africa as a terrorist movement. 261 00:36:27,270 --> 00:36:34,409 There is a world of difference between a movement which has gone through some 262 00:36:34,410 --> 00:36:42,270 phase of organising attacks which might just about be construed as terrorism and 263 00:36:42,270 --> 00:36:47,969 being a systematically and consistently terrorist organisation and the foolishness 264 00:36:47,970 --> 00:36:52,170 of the British government in that particular description and needless to say, 265 00:36:53,190 --> 00:37:00,540 echoing the United States government. It seems to me to be an example of just how not to handle these problems. 266 00:37:01,140 --> 00:37:11,700 And in the book there's a lovely picture of a Laxman enjoying the company of Nelson and Cynthia, I think, enjoying the company of Nelson Mandela. 267 00:37:13,020 --> 00:37:22,410 So he was discriminating, I would say, in these matters. 268 00:37:24,450 --> 00:37:32,189 And yet he also was the leading critical became the leading critic of that ceasefire that he'd 269 00:37:32,190 --> 00:37:37,110 initially approved when he saw its consequences in the way in which it was being handled. 270 00:37:37,740 --> 00:37:43,620 And his speech in the Sri Lankan parliament criticising the ceasefire. 271 00:37:45,310 --> 00:37:49,560 About a year after it was concluded is a very powerful speech. 272 00:37:50,370 --> 00:37:59,579 It's forensic in its detail and it suggests exactly why a ceasefire cannot be allowed if it allows continuing 273 00:37:59,580 --> 00:38:09,180 control of territory and continuing military and naval activities cannot be a basis for permanent peace. 274 00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,650 And of course, there were numerous violations of the ceasefire, 275 00:38:14,460 --> 00:38:21,720 and it was a very impressive speech and a classic example of his toughness in relation to terrorism. 276 00:38:24,510 --> 00:38:31,680 Another issue I think we've got to the fix can upside interventions whether in the form of direct military involvement, 277 00:38:32,130 --> 00:38:40,410 third party monitoring etc. or unroll be effective in the case of an insurgency such as that in Sri Lanka. 278 00:38:41,730 --> 00:38:55,470 And there had been the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka in an attempt to solve the war following an earlier cease fire agreement, 279 00:38:55,710 --> 00:39:00,030 which wasn't a terribly clever agreement because it had been concluded between the Indian 280 00:39:00,030 --> 00:39:06,090 government and the government of Sri Lanka without the participation of the Tamil Tigers. 281 00:39:07,020 --> 00:39:08,159 This was, I think, 282 00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:21,450 before Lakshman became foreign minister and this led to a massive Indian peacekeeping presence and there that too badly broken down. 283 00:39:22,140 --> 00:39:29,550 And India had eventually to give up its peacekeeping role rather hastily. 284 00:39:31,410 --> 00:39:45,900 And it was one of the Tamil Tigers more more foolish mistakes that they irritated and the Indian so much and attacked them so much. 285 00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:56,190 And then ultimately they assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in India and that act rebounded in the face, 286 00:39:56,940 --> 00:40:01,650 as so often happens with movements using terrorist methods, 287 00:40:02,340 --> 00:40:11,400 but that the nasty taste left in the mouth of that attempted intervention in Sri Lanka was, 288 00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:20,880 I think, an indication to other powers that they were not likely to succeed in a major role, although Norway came forward offering a different role, 289 00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:30,960 a monitoring role and to some extent an intermediary role in connection with the 2002 ceasefire. 290 00:40:32,190 --> 00:40:39,060 And that too went pretty wrong. And there's a lot of soul searching being going on in Norway about it. 291 00:40:39,510 --> 00:40:43,919 And when you think about it, there's a fundamental problem not only in Sri Lanka, 292 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,850 but in many countries undergoing civil war that's really hard to escape. 293 00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:56,580 And that is the problem. Either an intermediary regards the two sides as in some sense equal. 294 00:40:58,970 --> 00:41:02,420 In which case they did things like, for example, 295 00:41:03,770 --> 00:41:13,310 suggesting that the maritime zones controlled by the Tamil Tiger Navy and others controlled by the Sri Lankan navy, 296 00:41:13,820 --> 00:41:20,090 or you don't treat them as equal, and if you do treat them as equal, 297 00:41:21,530 --> 00:41:28,250 you're naturally going to irritate the government of a sovereign state that feels that its cause is being undermined. 298 00:41:28,610 --> 00:41:34,040 If you don't treat them as equal, you will irritate the insurgent movement. 299 00:41:35,090 --> 00:41:40,040 The Norwegians wandered into this situation without, as far as I can see, 300 00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:46,070 having very thoroughly analysed the structural problems and then handling it with a lack of finesse. 301 00:41:46,670 --> 00:41:54,680 That was quite remarkable. I was in Colombo on an occasion when the Tamil Tigers had, in their infinite wisdom, 302 00:41:55,370 --> 00:42:03,740 shut off the sluice gates to an area in the eastern provinces largely farmed by Muslims. 303 00:42:05,090 --> 00:42:08,629 And all they had done was create a very large number of refugees. 304 00:42:08,630 --> 00:42:11,660 They could no longer farm land. 305 00:42:12,950 --> 00:42:18,690 They fled as they had to, to government controlled towns. 306 00:42:19,700 --> 00:42:31,609 And then, after much outrage and opposition of the Tamil Tigers eventually agreed to reopen the seascapes and the Norwegian 307 00:42:31,610 --> 00:42:39,590 intermediaries made speeches about how statesmen like the Tamil Tigers would be in allowing them to be reopened. 308 00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:50,059 You can imagine that didn't go down terribly well in Colombo where it was felt that they had made too many compromises. 309 00:42:50,060 --> 00:42:55,220 And as I say, as much soul searching about this as was also unrolled. 310 00:42:55,940 --> 00:42:58,910 Lakshman was a great admirer of the United Nations. 311 00:42:59,750 --> 00:43:07,850 But just as the British have been great admirers of the United Nations, an active participant in it, but didn't want a UN role in Northern Ireland. 312 00:43:08,870 --> 00:43:18,410 So Sri Lanka was very much the same in respect to Sri Lanka, not keen on a UN role and for similar reasons. 313 00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:24,470 The UN is often caught in rather rigid positions. 314 00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:30,320 They may not be quick footed enough to handle crises. 315 00:43:30,740 --> 00:43:35,450 They may be subject to political winds of change that are unpredictable and so on. 316 00:43:36,170 --> 00:43:40,250 And so he was not particularly keen on that direct U.N. involvement, 317 00:43:40,580 --> 00:43:46,310 although he was keen to engage with the United Nations on matters such as human rights. 318 00:43:47,390 --> 00:43:56,900 He had written a major report on human rights before he became foreign minister and on human rights in Sri Lanka, 319 00:43:57,530 --> 00:44:04,379 drawing attention to some of the most problematic features of government action in Sri Lanka, 320 00:44:04,380 --> 00:44:07,730 the treatment of prisoners and the like, including torture. 321 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:15,560 He drew an attention to all of that, and in office he helped to set up a human rights commission in Sri Lanka and the like. 322 00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:23,270 He was always willing to to engage and to defend even when some of the policies he had to defend were questionable. 323 00:44:25,250 --> 00:44:30,920 Next question Can the laws of armed conflict be applied by government forces in such a conflict? 324 00:44:32,150 --> 00:44:36,880 He repeatedly addressed army units. 325 00:44:36,890 --> 00:44:45,620 I got the text of one of his speeches on that Army training institutions about the importance of the laws of armed conflict and human rights. 326 00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,000 And stressed important it was that they be observed. 327 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:59,060 You might criticise his speeches for being a little bit lawyer like that, maybe reflecting his training in the Oxford Law faculty, I don't know. 328 00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:04,730 But the emphasis was clear, 329 00:45:06,140 --> 00:45:22,880 and it's a question whether that approach could have been more effective in practice than what we know happened in the final months of the war, 330 00:45:23,330 --> 00:45:29,270 when he particularly emphasised the importance of observing the laws of armed conflict. 331 00:45:29,870 --> 00:45:40,460 If you hope to gain support within the international community and the adversaries community. 332 00:45:43,930 --> 00:45:49,600 Next. Can counter-terrorism be pursued at the same time as the sovereignty of states is respected? 333 00:45:50,290 --> 00:45:58,150 And here, as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, although he was, I would say, 334 00:45:58,390 --> 00:46:04,570 less than wholly enthusiastic about the performance of the Non-Aligned Movement and its capacity to think. 335 00:46:06,190 --> 00:46:20,660 But he did clearly believe that the principle of sovereignty remained important in today's world, as anybody in a post-colonial state is likely to do. 336 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,720 If you've been through the experience of colonialism and the damage that that has done. 337 00:46:27,190 --> 00:46:35,800 It's not surprising that you should be extremely suspicious of latter day colonialism, 338 00:46:36,100 --> 00:46:47,440 and you should see European or Western involvement in other societies through a particular lens, not in the least surprising. 339 00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:55,120 And yet he was nuanced in his views. 340 00:46:56,530 --> 00:47:05,950 He, for example, did not criticise as far as I was able to establish going through his speeches. 341 00:47:07,330 --> 00:47:11,230 He did not criticise the nature of involvement in Kosovo. 342 00:47:13,540 --> 00:47:20,200 And when you consider the amount of opposition that was to it in the Non-Aligned Movement and especially in India, 343 00:47:21,310 --> 00:47:34,120 which is always Sri Lanka's big brother next door, it's very remarkable that he he didn't join in that chorus, but he was suspicious of critical, 344 00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:40,240 I should say, of the United States involvement in Iraq and consistently so. 345 00:47:41,230 --> 00:47:49,060 And his ground wasn't just although that was part of it, the loyalty issue, as it were, a violation of sovereign state. 346 00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,920 It was also clearly simply a questioning of its prudence. 347 00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:59,380 Is it wise to be doing this? Is there a proper plan for it? 348 00:48:00,490 --> 00:48:03,850 Etc. Will the costs outweigh the gains? 349 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:11,230 What will be the post-colonial order? An issue of which he was naturally always very conscious. 350 00:48:11,980 --> 00:48:21,910 And I speculate in the book that when it came to the violation of Pakistan's sovereignty with the killing of Osama bin Laden, 351 00:48:23,140 --> 00:48:31,060 it's an interesting question whether his pro sovereignty beliefs would have outweighed his anti-terrorism beliefs. 352 00:48:31,510 --> 00:48:38,049 And I think that in that particular set of circumstances, he would probably have sympathised with the United States action. 353 00:48:38,050 --> 00:48:41,230 But that is speculation on my part. 354 00:48:42,580 --> 00:48:47,860 Lastly, and most difficult of all, and perhaps we can discuss it because I think it's high time I stopped. 355 00:48:48,520 --> 00:49:01,180 Does the military outcome in May of 2009 show that a terrorist movement can only be defeated in battle by the ruthless application of force? 356 00:49:01,990 --> 00:49:10,830 And here I would just make two comments. Which both of them are somewhat critical of. 357 00:49:10,830 --> 00:49:16,430 What one might say is the channel for received wisdom in this country. 358 00:49:17,860 --> 00:49:35,750 On it. The first is that actually a lot of the preparatory work for the defeat of the Tamil Tigers had been done by other governments patience, 359 00:49:36,890 --> 00:49:42,230 work and exceptional leadership in the Foreign Ministry. 360 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:48,680 The undermining of international support for the Tamil Tigers was one precondition for the outcome. 361 00:49:50,210 --> 00:49:57,080 Another was that following the willingness to negotiate and their participation in negotiations, 362 00:49:57,890 --> 00:50:08,300 the Tamil Tiger leadership in the East defected, and that couldn't have happened without there being extensive contact. 363 00:50:10,220 --> 00:50:17,480 And it was that defection of the leadership in the East with large numbers of 364 00:50:17,540 --> 00:50:30,320 Tamil Tiger forces who marched into government held areas and incidentally, 365 00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:36,560 as they did so, demonstrated the truth of what Lakshman had been saying for years, 366 00:50:37,580 --> 00:50:44,540 which is that most of them or many of the soldiers were child soldiers who were being forced into the struggle. 367 00:50:45,230 --> 00:50:58,610 And they were. That was the proof when the groups in the east up so much of the work had been done before the actual final campaign. 368 00:50:59,420 --> 00:51:06,139 But lastly, there is a problem, which I think is a problem for those of us who are interested in elections, 369 00:51:06,140 --> 00:51:13,790 in the laws of armed conflict, in the final stage of the struggle, which is a problem that I think has not been very squarely put. 370 00:51:14,330 --> 00:51:27,229 I take very seriously the UN report on the question of war crimes in the final phase and the killing of civilians in the five free zones, 371 00:51:27,230 --> 00:51:33,090 the no fly zones. And so. But the problem is essentially this. 372 00:51:35,580 --> 00:51:45,240 If as did happen, an area is proclaimed to be a no fly zone and civilians flee into it. 373 00:51:46,950 --> 00:51:59,850 And if after that happens the of armed forces of the Tamil Tigers or under exceptional pressure as they were from the Sri Lankan army, 374 00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:12,660 what do they do? They locate quite largely in the no fly zones and that may be in violation of the rules, 375 00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,820 but it is not frankly terribly surprising that they should do it. 376 00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:24,140 And if the Sri Lankan army then sees that problem, it's not surprising, perhaps, 377 00:52:24,630 --> 00:52:37,650 although I find it deeply shocking that they continue to fight against Sri Lankan military targets even if they are in a no fly zone. 378 00:52:38,910 --> 00:52:52,150 It's not just me saying that. Take this word from a February spokesman, a very interesting article on Sri Lanka and all out war. 379 00:52:52,180 --> 00:52:54,000 So Sri Lanka amid all out war. 380 00:52:54,600 --> 00:53:05,160 In a book produced by various numbers of medicines, some frontier, of course, humanitarian negotiations revealed the medicine frontier experience. 381 00:53:06,330 --> 00:53:11,790 And here is what every spokesman says as the rebel territories shrink. 382 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:19,980 The Tigers used increasingly violent means to dissuade the civilians from fleeing to government controlled areas. 383 00:53:21,690 --> 00:53:32,190 The LTTE forced the government to choose between tools to slow down or even halt the offensive or commit war crimes. 384 00:53:33,060 --> 00:53:38,100 Now I'm the first to be critical of much that was done in that period, 385 00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:45,630 but I do think that what is described by February spokesmen suggest something else as well. 386 00:53:46,170 --> 00:53:56,130 But there may be a problem in the notion of no fly zones as enshrined in a law as developed from the laws of armed conflict. 387 00:53:56,580 --> 00:54:00,240 In other words, there's a paradox at the heart of this problem. 388 00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:00,990 Thank you.