Implement a political package that will ensure justice for all...!!! Remember our collective guilt in nurturing the Tamil militancy and the LTTE..!!!

The search for peace must at least begin now

NOTEBOOK OF A NOBODY............by Shanie

This Friday, May 15, 2009 handout photo provided by Sri Lankan army shows a soldier assisting a wounded civilian in Mullivaikkal, Sri Lanka..(AP)


As expected, the LTTE has now been defeated and conventional military operations have ended – one hopes for all time. Also as expected, there has been an outpouring of triumphalist celebrations with street dancing, lighting of fire crackers, vehicle processions, etc. In sharp contrast, President Mahinda Rajapakse’s address to the nation was largely devoid of triumphalist rhetoric and he showed commendable skill in articulating the direction in which the country has to move forward from here, even though he may have been selective in drawing lessons from the past.

But if the country is to move forward in the new direction that President Rajapakse spoke about, then the kind of celebrations that are being promoted around the country will not help. If we have a real commitment to democracy, peace and justice for all people, now is the time to take decisive steps towards that. The LTTE was not the only fascist entity that engaged in terrorizing all those who challenged their authority or policies. President Rajapakse rightly mentioned the cowardly killing of Alfred Durayappah, then Mayor of Jaffna, purely because he chose to defy the dominant political trend in Jaffna and sought to co-operate with the then SLFP Government headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Since then, several prominent persons and thousands of innocent civilians – Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim – have been senselessly killed: some because they differed in their political thinking from their assassins but the vast majority because they belonged to an ethnic community other than that of their killers. Apart from the LTTE which is responsible for many of the killings, fascist groups now close to the government and the security forces themselves have been responsible for/accused of many of the killings of civilians, political dissidents and non-conforming journalists. And the country and our respective communities are the poorer for all these killings. It has created a culture where we place little value on life and are prepared to glorify death, if it is of someone who is different from us.


Responsibility for the victims of war

Somapala Gunadheera, the retired Civil Servant, in a letter to The Island which the Editor published in the front page referred to a more noble culture that we have valued in this country over the millennia. He said that this ennobling culture was embodied in the Dhammapada stanza: akkocci mam avadhi mam – ajini mam ahaasi me – ye tam na upanaihanti veram tesuupasammati ["He abused me; he beat me; he defeated me; he robbed me" – hatred will cease in those who do not harbour such grudges.] Gunadheera reminded us, as he has done before, that we should emulate Dutugemunu who not only held a state funeral for his fallen enemy but also declared that the enemy’s burial site be sacred ground.

The LTTE has been defeated. But let us remember that military victory does not mean that peace will automatically follow. Let us remember that there are hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons who live as refugees in makeshift camps. It is not only the 280,000 (according to government figures) who have been displaced from the Vanni in the recent conflict. There are still thousands still living in camps in the East who were displaced two years ago in the eastern theatre. There are thousands more displaced earlier, including those Muslims who were ethnically cleansed from the North nearly twenty years ago. In addition to those in IDP camps, there are thousands who have been forced to move out of their homes in the North and East and compelled to live elsewhere – the fortunate few having had the resources to go abroad. Let us hope that the people organising the triumphalist celebrations, involving even young school children, will spare a thought for the plight of these displaced persons who have been deprived of their homes and livelihood. That can happen only if we can imbibe the culture to which Gunadheera referred.


Human Rights

There have been disturbing reports about some of those now in detention centres and IDP camps. When President Rajapakse said in his address that the Sri Lankan Army went into this battle with a gun in one hand and the Human Rights Charter in the other, he was saying that his government was committed to safeguarding human rights. Now is the time to show that this commitment is real. The three government medical officers who opted, willingly or otherwise, to stay behind in the IDP camps and tend to the sick were performing a duty that was in keeping with the code of medical ethics that all doctors are required to uphold. They did speak to the media about the numbers of those who had died or were injured. A medical officer’s obligation is to safeguard life, all life. This has been referred to as a war without witnesses but reports from independent sources indicate that the figures quoted by the medical officers were probably not incorrect. Propagandists on both sides have questioned these figures, some exaggerating them and others lowering them, to suit their own purposes. But these medical officers felt, and this columnist thinks rightly, that it was necessary to speak to the media about the casualties of the war in order to protect the civilians. If they have done or said anything that conflicted with the code that medical officers have on oath pledged to uphold, then the due process of administrative procedures must be followed.

Also necessary to show our commitment to human rights is the way we treat the captured or surrendered LTTE cadres. Some would have joined the LTTE willingly and some would have been conscripted unwillingly. Either way, they should not be subject to summary justice. The government has announced plans to have rehabilitation centres for these cadres. This is commendable. The government must however not allow non-LTTE armed groups to bring the government into disrepute by their own version of the law of the jungle.


The need to curb in extremists

This is also the time for the Government to rein in the extremists and armed groups who have contributed to exacerbating the conflict over the years and who seem to want to continue doing so. If we fail to do so now, we shall be sowing the seeds of another militancy. The southern militancy was bred on our collective disregard for the under-privileged groups in society. The northern militancy was bred on our collective disregard for the concerns of the minorities. Unless we address the issues that have created these militant groups, the country will not move forward, even with the defeat of the LTTE.

Let us not forget our collective guilt in the way the Tamils were harmed and killed long before the birth of the LTTE. In 1956 and 1958, the Tamils were attacked, killed and their homes destroyed. This was done with state connivance. It was unprovoked by any violence. The Tamil leadership were protesting the imposition of Sinhala only. It took several years before that right was restored to the Tamils. In between, the extremists saw to it that two agreements signed between the Sinhala and Tamil leadership was scuttled. Also in between, there were several pogroms directed against the Tamils, the most horrific of which was in 1983. This was again with state connivance.

As we celebrate the defeat of the LTTE, let us not only remember our collective guilt in nurturing the Tamil militancy and the LTTE, but remember that we can ensure sustainable peace in our country only if we resist pressures from extremists and supremacists and implement a political package that will ensure justice for all communities. Such a package may not please the extremists, Sinhala and Tamil, but will undoubtedly be acceptable to the vast majority of our people, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim.


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