CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRE CHANGE IN APPROACH
JEHAN PERERA
There is a need for balance and a time for everything. For those involved in the task of statecraft, there is a time for war and a time for ceasefire. The government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown commitment to a military course of action tat previous governments did not and were not prepared to take. In militarily confronting the LTTE and recapturing virtually all of the territory it once controlled, the government has achieved what many thought was not possible. There was a belief that the thick northern jungles, the mono-ethnic nature of the north with its nearly 100 percent Tamil population and the effectiveness of LTTE fighters were an impossible challenge to overcome.
The latest development is that the LTTE has issued an appeal to the international community to support a ceasefire that will safeguard lives and create an environment for political negotiations with the Sri Lankan government. This call has come even as the Sri Lankan government is on the threshold of capturing the last remaining LTTE territory. The government has rejected the appeal for a ceasefire unless it is accompanied by unconditional surrender by the LTTE
However, in trying to root out the LTTE 100 percent by military means, as the government appears to be doing at the end stage, the government may be going to the domain of what is counterproductive. The LTTE is not only a military machine but a state of mind which is being reinforced by the brutality of the present war. States of mind cannot be destroyed by military means, even as hatred cannot be destroyed by hatred but only by love. From a humanitarian perspective, a ceasefire that saves lives is always preferred to continued warfare and the bitter human suffering it generates. The current phase of the war in particular has inflicted enormous suffering on tens of thousands of civilians who continue to be trapped in the shrinking pocket of LTTE controlled territory.
Change occurring
The plight of the trapped civilians of the north, among whom the LTTE fighters presently are, and who are being killed and wounded in large numbers every day, points to the need for the government to come up with a new strategy and set of principles to guide it. What is necessary today is an equivalent commitment by the government to politically address the root causes that set the Tamil militancy in motion. There is a need to recognise that military means alone cannot eliminate the LTTE, which is not only a military machine, but an outcome of a state of mind amongst the Tamil people. Dealing politically with the issue of the trapped civilians, rather than relying on military force alone, can be the start of a new political process aimed at final conflict resolution.
Necessity can compel change. The overflowing welfare centres into which the fleeing people of the north are entering has highlighted the need for the government to seek assistance from other organisations, both local and international. The government is hard pressed for financial resources to meet the costs of supporting the tens of thousands who are displaced. The government also does not possess the trained personnel to take up the challenge of caring for so many traumatised people. As a result the doors that were once closed to international and national humanitarian organisations in the welfare centres are slowly being opened.
The government had taken precautions to insulate the ongoing war from the international community. There is sensitivity within the government to the international interventions of the past that were deemed supportive of Tamil militancy. For the past two years the government took a variety of measures to limit the possibility of international intervention. This included severe measures such as ordering almost all international humanitarian organisations to quit the LTTE controlled areas and war zones. The government also tightened the entry and visa restrictions on foreigners working in Sri Lanka, including both humanitarian and media workers.
Past failures
However, the continuing plight of the civilians trapped in the last remaining territory controlled by the LTTE, and the shortcomings found in the welfares centers set up outside of the LTTE controlled areas, has proved to be too big an issue to be suppressed. UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes who visited Sri Lanka recently has briefed the UN Security Council about the situation prevailing in the north of the country. He had said that estimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups. The civilians were stuck in a no-man's land spanning around 14 square kilometers. He is reported to have said that "They now face very great danger from fighting between the Sri Lankan government forces and the LTTE. And there is strong evidence that the LTTE are preventing them from leaving."
He urged "all those with any influence on the positions of the LTTE to use that influence now to persuade them to let the civilian population go. There is no time to lose." He also called on the Sri Lankan government to "hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely." Although the Sri Lankan situation was not formally listed as an agenda item at the UN Security Council meeting, the fact that it was taken up at all indicates that adverse reports about the human rights and humanitarian situation in the country are beginning to take their toll. The commercial world's international risk assessor, Fitch Ratings has downgraded Sri Lanka further, which will make international credit more expensive to the country, and will be another blow to its economy.
At present the powerful countries of the world are seeking to work together with the government. The government needs to reconsider its decision to end the conflict on its own terms through a military solution. The fact that ceasefires in the past did not last and were used by the LTTE to rearm and launch surprise attacks surely need to be kept in mind. But the failures of ceasefires in the past must not stand in the way of another attempt, as the circumstances at the present time are entirely different from the circumstances that existed when the ceasefires of the past were broken.
There are signs of hope and redemption even in the present moment. One is the advertisement being carried in the mass media by the government in association with UNICEF. This advertisement shows an LTTE child soldier and gives the message that a child must not be doomed but can be rehabilitated to enjoy a new life and to be a useful citizen. In the last remaining LTTE territory where fierce fighting now takes place are tens of thousands of people who include LTTE child soldiers and many multiples of that number of civilians. The war needs to be strategised to come to an end by a process that includes rehabilitating all of them, not killing many of them.
dailymirror.lk
Monday, March 2, 2009
ARULAR INTERVIEW IN COLOMBO WITH DM !!!
Arular Arudpragasam (Pic by Dinuka Liyanawatte) M.I.A with dad Arular
Arular wants to be an independent mediator in Lanka
By Jennifer A. Rodrigo
Hip hop sensation and British songster M.I.A’s father, Arular Arudpragasam, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mirror expressed his interest to offer his services as an independent mediator of the ethnic conflict to the government. Speaking, while in Sri Lanka on a visit, Arudpragasam, said that his 30 years’ experience in Sri Lanka’s conflict, would be the primary reason for his inclination. “Even though, right now, the government through its military strength, is thinking we are going to finish this war and attain peace, I feel that peace may be even further away with the current approach,” said the one-time military mentor of the LTTE, referring to the present arena in the North-East.
‘This is all her talent’ - Dad
Commenting quite early during the discourse, about his Oscar and Grammy-nominated artist daughter, Maya Arudpragasam (M.I.A), he said that she was born in London and brought to Sri Lanka as a seven month old baby when he came to launch EROS (Eelam Revolutionary Organisation) in Sri Lanka. She spent most of her budding years in Jaffna, where she schooled at the Jaffna Convent and left Sri Lanka in the year 1985. “She has single-handedly achieved all of this. I was away from home for many years and I could live with my family only from time to time. This is why she came up with her stage name M.I.A – to mean Missing In Action.” He moreover described his daughter as having little music training as a child even though she had talent towards music and dance. “What we,” he began referring to his wife and himself, “gave her were the confidence, self esteem and the courage.” Completing her education in the UK, M.I.A graduated from the Fine Arts School taking to Film and Media. She eventually joined the group Elastica as their PR person. M.I.A is one of three children in the family; she has one younger brother who works with her and an elder sister who is a jewellery designer working from London.
Mentoring Prabha
Arular Arudpragasam brought together six militant groups in the Eelam struggle in the early eighties which was called the Community for Eelam Liberation (CEL) and has been a pioneer of the militant groups. He was also the first to launch EROS in the year 1976 and V. Prabhakaran was under Arudpragasam’s watch in his early years as a militant. From the year 1980, Arudpragasam was “more or less a common person to all the militant groups.” He was in the North-East Provincial Council as Head of the Research Division of the Chief Minister’s Secretariat in the years 1988, 89 and 90. Simultaneously, according to him, he became the first mediator between the government and LTTE during President Premadasa’s regime. “This was the time, when the LTTE told me that they’d consider the alternative of a separate state if that is acceptable to the Tamil people, but unfortunately, for the last 18 years, such a solution has not emerged.”
The solution, a problem?
Arudpragasam noted that Sri Lanka is not living in an era where a solution can be imposed against the will of a people. He observed that the present solution attempted in the island, which is via military combat, is about imposing a unitary state and for the Tamil people, this means the Sinhalese rule over them, which is what brought them to the current state in the first place. “It is necessary that we work out a solution that is going to be acceptable to the Tamil people.” With the question of acceptability arising, it was queried as to what exactly he proposes as acceptable to the Tamil people, to which he responded that although there are many other communities as well, the conflict is between the Tamil people in the North-East and the Sinhalese of the South - “The solution lies in bringing a new Sri Lanka into existence where people will feel their rights have been met and they don’t feel threatened.”
“This is a problem of re-articulating Sri Lanka on a different platform. Only if such a process is taken forward, can a constitutional restructuring take place,” he said. According to this former EROS Leader and one time Coordinator for CEL, trying to deal with the existing problem in Sri Lanka at party/political level, where parties are more interested in the vote patterns than in bringing about a cardinal constitutional change, will not bring peace. “A platform of dialogue and understanding has to be established accompanied by some form of affirmative action directed at re-orienting our minds.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with the Tamil people or the Sinhalese, fundamentally,” he said, “They are all quite amicable and reasonable people. So it is necessary that we help people to come to terms with a solution that will meet the expectations of everybody.”
Referring to the approach taken by the government, Arudpragasam said that the ruling party is not aiming at bringing the mainstream Tamils into the political process. Instead, he sees, the government trying to solve the problem depending on the peripherals that are in goodwill with them. “This can only produce a temporary solution. Only a solution based on the principle, ‘Tamil Eelam belongs to Tamil people, Sinhala Rata belongs to Sinhala people and Sri Lanka belongs to all Sri Lankans’ will hold.”
“The current thinking is the LTTE is going to be wiped out and a solution can be brought for the Tamil people, even with the help of India. Of course, I’m extremely sceptical about that,” he expressed. According to Arudpragasam, even if the government occupies the entire Wanni area, with the LTTE disappearing, this in no way, will diminish their ability to wage a guerrilla war against the government for many years to come.”
Vice-versa
Arudpragasam is of the view that the government has completely rejected the approach where it comes up with a solution together with the Tamil people and then tried to marginalize the LTTE with the help of the Tamil people. “This is mainly because, the government does not have a solution which is acceptable to the Tamil community,” he said adding, “so we are only heading towards a scenario where there is extensive military occupation and rule over the North-East and a prolonged guerrilla war by the LTTE. Even if the government succeeds in defeating and eliminating the Tigers completely, without a settlement, the opportunity of withdrawing armed forces from the North-East will never come.” This, he feels, will be a setting, totally unacceptable to the Tamil people. “What I’m trying to say is that, we will see a Tamil national liberation struggle without the LTTE, while the government will continue to struggle and come to depend on greater foreign involvement to sustain its opposition of the liberation struggle.
Citing the example of Yasser Arafat, whom he described as a “moderate and secular leader”, he spoke of how the West undermined him labeling him a terrorist. “An amicable Abbas was a brought to be leader and Hamas was the answer of the Palestine people. The conflict never ended.” Urging to look at the similarities between what happened in Palestine and what is happening here, Arudpragasam said that without a settlement, only forms will change. This is the lesson we learn from the Palestine problem. If a solution is not going to be brought forth in earnestness, we are only heading towards more trouble.”
Prabha misled
When asked about the countless number of lives which have been lost due to the atrocities of war waged by the LTTE, he said that, his own vision for the LTTE when it was originated was not in harmony with such catastrophe. “Although Prabhakaran was under my spell earlier on, subsequently, he came under so many other forces, inclusive of Anton Balasingham, which took him in the wrong direction; however I always believed, if an appealing solution was brought forth by the government, I could convince Prabha and make him accept the solution and end the war but unfortunately, such a solution never came.”
From the very inception, Arudpragasam stated that he could differentiate between terrorism and liberation warfare. He expressed that Prabhakaran believed in individual killing when he came into the liberation struggle. “We thought we could suppress his terrorist killer inclination. I even wrote a Tamil Novel called Lanka Rani to force him out of this culture. I think we failed,” he articulated.
Arudpragasam left Sri Lanka after his tenure as mediator in the island and entered Cambridge University to pursue Sustainability Development. He now lives in London and is the Director General and Convener of the NGO called Global Sustainability Initiative. His childhood years were spent in Jaffna predominantly but he also schooled at St. Joseph’s Bandarawela. His father was a head teacher and was also a political activist and Arudpragasam recalls growing up in an active political environment as a child. He attended University in Moscow where he read for his Masters degree in Engineering.
Disband LTTE
The Hindu on December 4, 2008 quoted Arudpragasam as having stated that the LTTE should disband itself and transform itself into a democratic force. Daily Mirror asked him if he still held such a view. “Yes,” he responded, “I have repeated this in my latest article ‘Political Realities and Political Solution to the Ethnic Problem in Sri Lanka’.” Arudpragasam had mentioned in his article that the LTTE should either join EROS or the TNA. He had further mentioned that if ever a situation arises when Prabhakaran cannot fight any further, he should inform the same to the Tamil people and disband the Tigers and allow them to join other groups. “But if he feels he can continue, then it is his duty to find the answer to the problem of overwhelming force he is facing.”
While he asserted that he has always been for meaningful devolution in the country, he sketched that transforming the LTTE into a democratic force is a difficult proposition. He believes that as long as Sonia and Congress are there, there will be problem with his leadership. “Tamil people need a leadership that will make India feel comfortable. I think Prabha should disband and retire.”
‘Is the LTTE the sole representative of the Tamil speaking populace?’ – a question, contemplated by many, to which he answered negatively. “In my view, the LTTE has about 20% support among the Tamil people but this can only be tested if LTTE contests the election. The LTTE has unnecessarily gone about imposing this position that it is the sole representative of the Tamil people and in the process of establishing this hegemony it has engaged in all sorts of artificial and fascist exercises and imposed itself to show that the Tamil people are overwhelmingly behind it.”
“It was my decision in the CEL to promote all groups equally. In the original CEL, there were six groups - EROS, EPRLF (Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front), TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization), PLOTE (People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam), LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and NLFTE (National Liberation Front of Tamil Eelam). It was in the CEL in 1982, that a decision was taken to seek India’s support to the militant movement but one of the groups, NLFTE, dropped out. It was a Maoist group which did not want to work with India. Then came India’s support and the 83 riots when Tamil people threw their entire lot with the militants. I made sure all five groups grew equally and that all them got India’s support, though individually, all of them sought factional supremacy.”
The result was, according to Arudpragasam, that by 1986 each group managed to consolidate a 20% support, the situation becoming saturated. No one could grow any further and LTTE turned the gun against fellow militant groups and since then, the LTTE wasn’t fighting a war of liberation but a war for factional supremacy and sole representative status. “Its lack of proper orientation is demonstrated in its current debacle. Tamil people are hard nuts. Even today the loyalty of people to various groups at that time has not changed in spite of all the efforts and games of the LTTE.” So, today’s government military victories, according to Arudpragasam, are not the end of the LTTE. “That 20% base support can never be erased.”
M.I.A wishes to tour Sri Lanka
Stating that he hopes to visit his daughter, M.I.A, now that she has delivered her baby, he went on to say that he doesn’t need to encourage her to travel to Sri Lanka. “She is quite interested in coming to Sri Lanka and India but her programmes are bound by long term contracts with record companies.” However, the father is sure she will work out some thing although he also feels that the return of peace may be a condition for her. “If on the other hand, I am going to mediate the conflict and her coming can contribute to peace, then I will make a request.”
dailymirror.lk
WAR ON TERROR: VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN LAW!!!
‘War on terror’ damage condemned
Kanaga RAJA
****------
An independent panel of eminent jurists denounces the US’ ‘war on terror’ paradigm which they say is legally flawed and seriously violates international human rights and humanitarian law.
****----------
The so-called US ‘war on terror’ is ‘legally flawed’ and has done ‘immense damage’ in the last seven years to both international human rights and humanitarian law. The administration of US President Barack Obama should repeal all laws, policies and practices associated with it.
This is one of the key findings of an eight-member independent panel of eminent judges and lawyers established by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a well-known non-Governmental organisation dealing with human rights issues.
9/11 terror attack - triggered off a worldwide awakening to the devastation caused by terrorism
The panel also said that other countries that have been complicit in human rights violations arising from the war on terror (initiated by President George W Bush following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US) should similarly repudiate such behaviour and review legislation, policies and practices to prevent any such repetition in the future.
In what the ICJ described as one of the most extensive studies of counter-terrorism and human rights yet undertaken, the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights undertook sixteen hearings covering more than forty countries in all regions of the world.
The outcome is the report ‘Assessing Damage, Urging Action’, released on February 16. The report illustrates the consequences of notorious counter-terrorism practices such as torture, disappearances, arbitrary and secret detention, unfair trials and persistent impunity for gross human rights violations in many parts of the world.
The Eminent Jurists Panel warns of the danger that exceptional ‘temporary’ counter-terrorism measures are becoming permanent features of law and practice, including in democratic societies. It calls for the rejection of the ‘war on terror’ paradigm and for a full repudiation of the policies grounded in it, and emphasises that criminal justice systems, not secret intelligence, should be at the heart of the legal response to terrorism.
“In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.
Many Governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights. The result is a serious threat to the integrity of the international human rights legal framework,” said Justice Arthur Chaskalson, the Chair of the Panel, and former Chief Justice of South Africa and first President of the South African Constitutional Court.
“Seven years after 9/11, it is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years. Human rights and international humanitarian law provide a strong and flexible framework to address terrorist threats,” said panel member Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and former President of Ireland and current President of the ICJ.
“It is now absolutely essential that all states restore their commitment to human rights and that the United Nations takes on a leadership role in this process. If we fail to act now, the damage to international law risks becoming permanent”, she added.
The other members of the Eminent Jurists Panel are Professor Georges Abi-Saab (Egypt), Emeritus Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; Professor Robert K Goldman (US), Professor of Law at the American University in Washington DC; Ms Hina Jilani (Pakistan), lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn (Thailand), Professor of Law at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Professor Stefan Trechsel (Switzerland), judge ad litem at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and Justice Raul Zaffaroni (Argentina), Judge of the Supreme Court of Argentina.
According to ICJ, though evidence of the deleterious effects of security measures has been well-documented in recent years, this is the first investigation to piece together a picture that draws on public and private hearings covering forty countries over a period of three years.
As panellists listened to testimonies from Government officials, victims of terrorism, rendition survivors and civil society groups in dozens of countries around the world, a consistent theme emerged: legal systems put in place after World War II were well-equipped to handle current terror threats.
The Panel called on policymakers to rely on civilian legal systems, utilise criminal courts and not resort to ad-hoc tribunals or military courts to try terror suspects. One chapter of the report was devoted to what the jurists called the war paradigm, which is the basis of the counter-terrorism policy of the United States, and the harm it has done not only to the country’s reputation, but to the international legal order as well.
The report said that in the past, States have used war analogies as a way of securing public support for dramatic measures - legal, financial or other. There have been wars on drugs, on organised crime and on poverty, but the terminology has served a largely rhetorical purpose.
The description of the current phase of counter-terrorism efforts as a ‘war on terror’, however, differs from the rhetorical flourishes of the past. The United States, in particular, has adopted a war paradigm in the expectation that this provides a legal justification for setting aside criminal law and human rights law safeguards, to be replaced by the extraordinary powers that are supposedly conferred under international humanitarian law (laws of war).
“In doing so, it has done immense damage in the last seven years to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both human rights and humanitarian law, and has given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations,” said the Panel.
The Panel believed that this war paradigm, by conflating acts of terrorism with acts of war, “is legally flawed and sets a dangerous precedent.”
The war paradigm as applied by the United States has however had a detrimental impact around the globe, said the Panel’s report. In many Hearings, the Panel learnt that Governments elsewhere appear to relativise or justify their own wrong-doing by comparisons with the US. Some countries have sought opportunistically to re-define long-standing internal armed conflicts as part of the worldwide ‘war on terror’.
Elsewhere - particularly at its Hearings in Canada and the European Union - the Panel learnt of the alleged complicity of numerous States in practices such as extraordinary renditions.
In its report, the Panel concluded that the US stance has caused serious damage to the protections accorded by both international human rights and humanitarian law.
There should be independent and impartial investigations into the alleged human rights violations and breaches of humanitarian law and remedies should be provided, said the Panel.
The Panel recommended that the US administration reaffirm the US’s historic commitment to fully uphold and faithfully apply international humanitarian law (the laws of war) during situations of armed conflict and recognise that human rights law does not cease to apply in such situations.
Accordingly, it should seek the repeal of any law and repudiate any policies or practices associated with the ‘war on terror’ paradigm which are inconsistent with international humanitarian and human rights law. In particular, it should renounce the use of torture and secret and prolonged detention without charge or trial.
The Panel also said that the US should conduct a transparent and comprehensive investigation into serious human rights and/or humanitarian law violations committed in the course of the ‘war on terror’ and should take active steps to provide effective remedies to the victims of such abuses.
“The military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay should be closed in a human rights compliant manner and persons held there should be released or charged and tried in accordance with applicable international law standards.”
The Panel said that other countries that have been complicit in human rights violations arising from the war paradigm should similarly repudiate that behaviour and review legislation, policies and practices to prevent any such repetition in future.
- Third World Network Features
Kanaga RAJA
****------
An independent panel of eminent jurists denounces the US’ ‘war on terror’ paradigm which they say is legally flawed and seriously violates international human rights and humanitarian law.
****----------
The so-called US ‘war on terror’ is ‘legally flawed’ and has done ‘immense damage’ in the last seven years to both international human rights and humanitarian law. The administration of US President Barack Obama should repeal all laws, policies and practices associated with it.
This is one of the key findings of an eight-member independent panel of eminent judges and lawyers established by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a well-known non-Governmental organisation dealing with human rights issues.
9/11 terror attack - triggered off a worldwide awakening to the devastation caused by terrorism
The panel also said that other countries that have been complicit in human rights violations arising from the war on terror (initiated by President George W Bush following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US) should similarly repudiate such behaviour and review legislation, policies and practices to prevent any such repetition in the future.
In what the ICJ described as one of the most extensive studies of counter-terrorism and human rights yet undertaken, the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights undertook sixteen hearings covering more than forty countries in all regions of the world.
The outcome is the report ‘Assessing Damage, Urging Action’, released on February 16. The report illustrates the consequences of notorious counter-terrorism practices such as torture, disappearances, arbitrary and secret detention, unfair trials and persistent impunity for gross human rights violations in many parts of the world.
The Eminent Jurists Panel warns of the danger that exceptional ‘temporary’ counter-terrorism measures are becoming permanent features of law and practice, including in democratic societies. It calls for the rejection of the ‘war on terror’ paradigm and for a full repudiation of the policies grounded in it, and emphasises that criminal justice systems, not secret intelligence, should be at the heart of the legal response to terrorism.
“In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.
Many Governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights. The result is a serious threat to the integrity of the international human rights legal framework,” said Justice Arthur Chaskalson, the Chair of the Panel, and former Chief Justice of South Africa and first President of the South African Constitutional Court.
“Seven years after 9/11, it is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years. Human rights and international humanitarian law provide a strong and flexible framework to address terrorist threats,” said panel member Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and former President of Ireland and current President of the ICJ.
“It is now absolutely essential that all states restore their commitment to human rights and that the United Nations takes on a leadership role in this process. If we fail to act now, the damage to international law risks becoming permanent”, she added.
The other members of the Eminent Jurists Panel are Professor Georges Abi-Saab (Egypt), Emeritus Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; Professor Robert K Goldman (US), Professor of Law at the American University in Washington DC; Ms Hina Jilani (Pakistan), lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn (Thailand), Professor of Law at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Professor Stefan Trechsel (Switzerland), judge ad litem at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and Justice Raul Zaffaroni (Argentina), Judge of the Supreme Court of Argentina.
According to ICJ, though evidence of the deleterious effects of security measures has been well-documented in recent years, this is the first investigation to piece together a picture that draws on public and private hearings covering forty countries over a period of three years.
As panellists listened to testimonies from Government officials, victims of terrorism, rendition survivors and civil society groups in dozens of countries around the world, a consistent theme emerged: legal systems put in place after World War II were well-equipped to handle current terror threats.
The Panel called on policymakers to rely on civilian legal systems, utilise criminal courts and not resort to ad-hoc tribunals or military courts to try terror suspects. One chapter of the report was devoted to what the jurists called the war paradigm, which is the basis of the counter-terrorism policy of the United States, and the harm it has done not only to the country’s reputation, but to the international legal order as well.
The report said that in the past, States have used war analogies as a way of securing public support for dramatic measures - legal, financial or other. There have been wars on drugs, on organised crime and on poverty, but the terminology has served a largely rhetorical purpose.
The description of the current phase of counter-terrorism efforts as a ‘war on terror’, however, differs from the rhetorical flourishes of the past. The United States, in particular, has adopted a war paradigm in the expectation that this provides a legal justification for setting aside criminal law and human rights law safeguards, to be replaced by the extraordinary powers that are supposedly conferred under international humanitarian law (laws of war).
“In doing so, it has done immense damage in the last seven years to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both human rights and humanitarian law, and has given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations,” said the Panel.
The Panel believed that this war paradigm, by conflating acts of terrorism with acts of war, “is legally flawed and sets a dangerous precedent.”
The war paradigm as applied by the United States has however had a detrimental impact around the globe, said the Panel’s report. In many Hearings, the Panel learnt that Governments elsewhere appear to relativise or justify their own wrong-doing by comparisons with the US. Some countries have sought opportunistically to re-define long-standing internal armed conflicts as part of the worldwide ‘war on terror’.
Elsewhere - particularly at its Hearings in Canada and the European Union - the Panel learnt of the alleged complicity of numerous States in practices such as extraordinary renditions.
In its report, the Panel concluded that the US stance has caused serious damage to the protections accorded by both international human rights and humanitarian law.
There should be independent and impartial investigations into the alleged human rights violations and breaches of humanitarian law and remedies should be provided, said the Panel.
The Panel recommended that the US administration reaffirm the US’s historic commitment to fully uphold and faithfully apply international humanitarian law (the laws of war) during situations of armed conflict and recognise that human rights law does not cease to apply in such situations.
Accordingly, it should seek the repeal of any law and repudiate any policies or practices associated with the ‘war on terror’ paradigm which are inconsistent with international humanitarian and human rights law. In particular, it should renounce the use of torture and secret and prolonged detention without charge or trial.
The Panel also said that the US should conduct a transparent and comprehensive investigation into serious human rights and/or humanitarian law violations committed in the course of the ‘war on terror’ and should take active steps to provide effective remedies to the victims of such abuses.
“The military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay should be closed in a human rights compliant manner and persons held there should be released or charged and tried in accordance with applicable international law standards.”
The Panel said that other countries that have been complicit in human rights violations arising from the war paradigm should similarly repudiate that behaviour and review legislation, policies and practices to prevent any such repetition in future.
- Third World Network Features
Sunday, March 1, 2009
KARUNA DON'T WANT EVEN POLICE POWER TO EP!!!
Tamils want equal rights, not a separate State - Karuna
by Shanika SRIYANANDA
Excerpts of the interview:
Former LTTE military leader known as Karuna Amman, who wants to see a complete annihilation of the Tigers, says that Tamils would not demand for any rights if they are treated equally as the other communities.
Having high hopes that he could bag more votes for the SLFP from the East, the UPFA Parliamentarian Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan said that the only leader who could treat Tamils equally was President Rajapaksa who knows the heart beat of the poor as well as the rich.
In an interview with the `Sunday Observer’ he said that the present government will be in power for decades and Tamil politicians in small political parties should rally round President Rajapaksa to strengthen his hands to sweep out the LTTE from the country and take the country to a prosperous era. “Today, people are intelligent than the politicians. I want to bring Eastern intellectuals into politics. Uneducated people cannot do politics”, he said.
Q: Generally, the Tamil politicians blame the two main political parties - the UNP and the SLFP for overlooking the grievances of the Tamils. Why did you decide to join the SLFP?
A: The main reason is that the only leader who can look into the grievances of Tamils is President Rajapaksa. I believe him and I personally like him as he is very streight forward and firm on whatever the decisions, he takes. Even the world leaders are now in favour of the President’s efforts to crush LTTE terrorism and rebuild a new peaceful nation. I think it is the duty of all citizens of this country to strengthen his hands to end terrorism.
The other reason is that I do not want to see Tamils divided in small political parties. That is why this was dragged for so long. I do not think that small political parties can find solutions to most of these issues and need a strong political commitment. When you talk about national politics the only party which fits into this category is the SLFP.
Q:Isn’t your decision to become a SLFPer solely based on your ambition to become a minister?
A: No. The reasons I have already mentioned influenced me to join the SLFP. President Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary have also invited me to join the party. Eastern people have been battered by the decades long war and what they need is peace and development. The government is trying hard to restore peace. The Security Forces are working very closely with the people. Still there are small hiccups where the LTTE is trying to infiltrate and disrupt normalacy. People are happy with the development that is taking place in the East.
I have discussed with the President and if I am to be given a ministerial post I prefer something which I can contribute for the Eastern development.
Q: Contrary to your prediction that over 90 percent of the TMVPers will join the SLFP with you, the TMVP says that the majority will remain with the party. How confident are you that they will join you?
A: I am confident that I can change the East. People like me and they want me to be with the government and to develop the East. On the other hand, I decided to join the SLFP according to the consent of the intellectuals in the East. What I can say is that over 99 percent people are with us and so are the TMVPers. All district organisers are with me. Senior TMVP members like Mangala Master, Iniya Bharathi, Jeyam and Markan are to take the SLFP membership. I have talked with Mayor Sivageetha and hope she would also join the SLFP. If they do not join the SLFP, they do not have a future. If they still want to remain in the TMVP, their political future will be in a dilemma. This is a good chance for them. I do not think that the Eastern people will support the TMVP in future.
Q: Tamil politicians are talking about grievances of Tamils. What are the major issues that you have identified as grievances?
A: Some of these politicians are talking about fundamental rights of Tamils and this is all nonsense. If they continue to talk like this we can not solve this problem. Some are asking more Police powers. It is unnecessary as Sri Lanka is a small country. In big countries like India police powers for provinces are vital. Everyone knows that there were some problems for Tamils and that’s all history. But if we talk about the past over and again we can not solve this problem. We need to think this a fresh. There is no need of additional powers as we all are come under the same administration. People have realised this, but unfortunately not the politicians. They are talking about this to get their political mileage. In a couple of years their politics will come to an end. I think they should blame the LTTE and Prabhakaran for most of the things that happened in this country.
Q: Can you specifically say what are the problems that you have identified as problems of Tamils?
A: I think it is the equal rights that Tamils need to enjoy. Tamils do not want a separate country or political rights but need the benefits that Colombo people enjoy. They need development, peaceful life, education and entertainment. Today no politician can mislead the Tamils. They suffered for the last three decades. They are more educated than the politicians and they know better what they want.
Q: From the beginning you opposed asking for additional police powers. But will you demand more powers after you become politically stable?
A: No even in future I will not agree with those who ask for more police powers. For example, if we recruit thousand policemen we can solve the problem. Unlike those days the hatred between Sinhalese and Tamils is fading gradually. Even this was created by the politicians and we requested that Tamils be employed in the Police due to the language barrier. If the government can overcome the language barrier no one will ask more police powers.
Q: While the government is talking highly about a successful resettlement program in the East, rumours are going that there would be concentration camps in Vavuniya to keep IDPs for three years. What is your experience about resettlement process ?
A: The LTTE sympathizers still want to make these allegations to mislead the international community. This is utter madness. These IDPs need to be protected, not from anyone else, but from Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran tortured Tamils more than Hitler did to the Jews. When the government tries to protect them to the maximum the LTTE spread rumours. There is no doubt, a tight security system is needed to protect them as well as to stop LTTE infiltration. Those who talk about the proposed camps should never forget Prabhakaran’s human bombs sent to kill IDPs. The government has a good plan for resettlement of IDPs.
Q:You were Prabhakaran’s military leader and saw the rise and fall of the LTTE. How do you see the military strategies now and then?
A: It is sad to say that those days the then governments did not give a free hand to the military. Decision makers were the politicians and they commanded the battle from Colombo. The military was not allowed to take decisions about the battlefront.
But now the military commands the military and military decisions will be taken by the military. This battle is fought militarily, but not politically.
The other important decision was the firm decision taken by President Rajapaksa to crush the LTTE militarily. The decision is strong and nothing could change the decision. Political commitment to destroy terrorism played a major role.
Those days, when the military fought the battle successfully, the orders came to halt the military push. Those days, when the military continued with the battle they held talks to stop the battle. Those days the then government fought with the LTTE to get political mileage. Under this government the LTTE found it difficult to play the same game. President Rajapaksa never expected anything from Prabhakaran and he invited the LTTE for negotiations, but when Prabhakaran was becoming more memongalic the President banned the LTTE as a terrorist movement.
Q: At the same time what are the set backs of the LTTE?
A: As I told you earlier Prabhakaran is a creation. Some of the leaders including myself had created Prabhakaran. When we were winning the battle Prabhakaran become more popular. He never came to the battlefront and also to meet the people. I motivated the cadres as well as the people. I have already told the people in the East I need their support to destroy Prabhakaran. We should do that because he did not do anything for the Tamils in the country.
He destroyed them. Now the Tamils have a good leader - President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He has come from the village and he knows the heart beat of the ordinary more than anyone else.
Q: As you said, the military will destroy the LTTE and Prabhakaran, but according to some politicians, the Tamil diaspora will be more active to keep the LTTE going.
A: Tamil diaspora needs problems in Sri Lanka for their benefits. Otherwise, they cannot get PR in those countries. That is why they stage demonstrations and try to paint a different picture to the international community. Tamils abroad cannot mislead the international community that long. They cannot `sell’ problems of Tamils any longer.
President Rajapaksa has invited all Tamils abroad to come and help develop Sri Lanka. This is a good opportunity for them. This so-called Tamil diaspora did not give a cent to IDPs in the East. If they wish they can help the suffering Tamils through the UN, but they are not doing even that.
sundayobserver.lk
IC SHOULD DEMAND GOSL TO STOP ALL ATTACKS ON TAMIL CIVILIANS !!! ENSURE THEIR SAFETY !!!
'Sri Lanka: A Besieged Society' - Sivasegaram
[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 March 2009, 20:22 GMT]
The Indian establishment, pretending neutrality, backed overtly and covertly the Sri Lankan government, politically as well as militarily, using Chinese and Pakistani interests in Sri Lanka as a pretext, writes Professor S. Sivasegaram, a well-known academic and Marxist writer. “International concern on human rights violations, threat to the media, the state of lawlessness including killings and abductions, and other issues have been mere formalities and have never been translated into action.[…] Foreign governments and international organisations to demand that the LTTE should ‘release’ the people under its wings is wrong, without simultaneously insisting that the Sri Lankan government ends all attacks on civilians and ensures the safety of civilians wherever they are.”
Professor S. SivasegaramProfessor S. Sivasegaram has been extensively writing on Sri Lankan and International Politics for more than thirty years in Tamil and English, besides contributions to poetry, translation and literary criticism. Born in Jaffna and coming from Trincomalee, he is a former head of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Peradeniya. He also served in the Imperial College, London and has authored a large number of research papers in his field of profession.
Full text of the article published in Radical Notes (radicalnotes.com) follows:
Sri Lanka: A Besieged Society
S Sivasegaram
Sri Lanka is in deep crisis on many fronts, and its politics is almost a total mess. Yet, its President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, elected by a whisker in November 2005, thanks to the boycott of the election by the Tamils in the North-East, after a last-minute call by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is the only Sri Lankan head of government to have grown in popularity since election. He owes this immense popularity among the majority Sinhalese to his rejection of the peace process and the success of the armed forces in regaining, at a very high but unknown cost in men and material, all but 200 sq. km of the vast territory held by the LTTE.
Results of the provincial councils elections held during the past six months, show soaring support for the government; and if a general election is held now the government will secure with ease a two-thirds majority in Parliament. This apparent strength of the government and the preoccupation of the media, political parties and the public with military gains in the North conceal the crises faced by the country on several fronts.
This essay is intended to address the crisis gripping Sri Lanka on various fronts that do not receive adequate attention. Thus, despite the importance of the war and the consequent humanitarian crisis, it deals with them only briefly. The next section contains a short comment on the war and the humanitarian tragedy. It is followed by comments on the failing economy amid the growing global crisis and corruption in high places; violation of human and fundamental rights; the drift towards lawlessness; and foreign meddling. It concludes with comments on the impending threat to democracy and the tasks ahead in defending democracy.
The War and the Humanitarian Tragedy
The nominal interest of the ‘international community’, meaning imperialist countries, is in the humanitarian crisis. Their declared concerns have drifted with the course of the war, resumed in early 2006, with the Ceasefire Agreement in place until the government withdrew unilaterally from it in February 2007. Earlier calls for a negotiated settlement and end to hostilities became muted calls for a ceasefire last year; and are now reduced to concern for the safety of civilians entrapped in LTTE-controlled areas.
Indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the government armed forces have been the main cause of the human tragedy, aggravated by the deliberate blocking of essential supplies including food and medicine to LTTE-controlled areas. In the latter half of 2008, international and local news media and non-government organisations were ordered out of the conflict zone by the government so that now only the Internal Red Cross has limited access to the affected areas. Thus the true situation of the people even in areas regained by the government forces remains unknown.
The LTTE is now confined to less than 200 square kilometres of territory with an estimated 300 000 people, whom the government claims are held against their will as a human shield. People facing a dire shortage of essential goods and services and threatened by bombing and shelling will like to move to more secure areas. But it is uncertain whether they sufficiently trust the government or the armed forces to move into government-controlled areas. Reports of injury and deaths in government-designated security zones due to shelling by the armed forces are certainly no inducement to move into those areas. The living conditions of people who are further away from the conflict zone are equally pathetic: besides lack of attention to their urgent needs, they are treated as terrorist suspects by the security forces; and utterances by people in high places, later retracted, to the effect that ‘security villages’ will be set up to detain the displaced persons for up to three years are ominous.
The LTTE, with its emphasis on armed struggle at the expense of mass political work, failed to pay adequate attention to the safety and well being of the people in its territory. But for foreign governments and international organisations to demand that the LTTE should ‘release’ the people under its wings is wrong, without simultaneously insisting that the Sri Lankan government ends all attacks on civilians and ensures the safety of civilians wherever they are, and ensure that they are not harassed or victimised by the denial of essential goods and services. Strangely, no call has been made to deploy independent observers to find from the people on either side of the battle lines about their wishes and experiences.
Many who express deep concern about the humanitarian crisis now ignore the abject human rights record of the government, which they denounced strongly only months ago. Equally, pro-LTTE agitators fail to criticise it for its serious lapses, especially on matters of safety and well-being of the people, and with regard to respecting their wishes.
The Economy in Crisis
The Sri Lankan economy was propelled towards doom by the ‘open economic policy’ initiated in 1978, accompanied by unrestricted imports, reckless privatisation of state assets, and opening up the country to parasitic if not predatory foreign investors. As a result, the emergent national economy and well-functioning state enterprises were effectively destroyed or swallowed up by foreign predators.
The escalation of national oppression and conflict diverted public attention from the effects of the erroneous economic policy and repressive measures against political resistance to it. The resultant war, aided by foreign meddlers, some siding with the government and others fishing in troubled waters, added to the economic burdens of the country, which since 1978 has become increasingly dependent on the export of cheap labour, directly by employment abroad and indirectly through export processing zones where foreign ‘investors’ exploit the Sri Lankan export quota for apparel to the US and Europe. Besides the social implications of such employment, the diversion of close to 15% of the work force from useful production has made the economy susceptible to invasion by cheap imports and a rise in consumerism.
While the ‘open economic policy’ made the country vulnerable to the vagaries of the global economy, the need to finance the war and service foreign debts meant further privatisation, transfer of public assets to foreign interests, and weakening of the economy. When credit form foreign governments and lending agencies slowed down, the government in 2007 turned to private bankers by issuing bonds at high interest rates. In the wake of the declared ‘victory of the war against terrorism’, the government now appeals to the Sri Lankan émigré population to invest in government bonds.
The global economic crisis has begun to bite, although the government is putting on a brave face. The plantation sector, still a major part of the export sector, is affected by a fall in tea sales and in some regions the plantations are cutting down production and the number of working days of plantation workers. Apparel export to the US and Europe has shrunk, and a few hundred garment industries have already closed down. Recruitment to the Middle East has slowed down, as redundancies and wage reductions are on the horizon. Thus, besides the impending fall in overseas remittances, unemployment will be a major problem in the months to come.
However, a thriving employment sector may be the armed forces, with over 400,000, of a population of 20 million, serving in the police and the armed forces and a proposal to increase the number by 100,000 to ensure security in the North-East.
The economy has also been hurt by serious financial irregularities, bribery and corruption, and recently even unlawful speculation using state funds, as in the hedging deal on petroleum, which made the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation liable to US$ 7,000,000 to a group of banks involved in the deal. Several other corrupt deals, including the purchase of military equipment, have been exposed by sections of the media, but corrective action has been rare; and nobody has been held answerable, except for political expediency, while the mediapersons concerned have been intimidated or harassed.
Crises of Human and Fundamental Rights and Law and Order
Sri Lanka’s record on human rights was not bright 20 years ago: today it has hit rock bottom: Sri Lanka fell from a rank of 51 (among 139 countries considered) when Reporters sans frontiers (RSF) started ranking a few years ago to 165 (among 173, or the ninth worst) in 2008. Attacks on media personnel, including the gunning down in January 2009 of Lasantha Wickramatunge, Chief Editor of Sunday Leader, known for his views critical of the government and exposure of corruption in high places, and the killing of opposition politicians, fare importantly in such matters. Killing of other civilians does not, however, attract sustained attention of the international media, with exceptions such as the killing of 13 employees of a France-based NGO in 2006.
Threats, assaults, abductions and killings are commonplace. Very few cases are properly inquired into; and hardly a serious crime involving human rights has been solved. Yet, hundreds languish in prison without trial or inquiry under Emergency Regulations, even through the years of the ceasefire, as terrorist suspects; and the numbers have risen sharply in recent years to include Sinhalese left activists and opponents of the war.
While several political killings and attempts have been attributed to the LTTE, the main opposition party has charged that forces close to the government had been responsible for some of them; and many of the criminal acts against dissenting politicians and journalists as well as abduction for ransom are feared to have been carried out with the connivance of those responsible for preventing them.
The courts of law have on occasion ruled against mass expulsion of people and even refused bail to criminal suspects associated with the ruling party. There was a recent instance when the police were reprimanded for attempting to frame an opposition politician. These are, however, exceptions and not the rule. Judges including the Chief Justice have been threatened for their verdicts. But that is not new. The country has seen enough of it since 1978, when the new Constitution enabled the politicisation of the judiciary and the police. As a result, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was unanimously adopted in 2000 that made a Constitutional Council (CC) responsible for appointments to key posts in the Supreme Court, the Police and the Elections Commission among others. But the CC has not been reconstituted since its term lapsed in 2005, allowing room for abuse, as under the JR Jayawardane regime (1978-989).
Foreign Concerns
The country changed status from a British colony to an imperialist neo-colony in 1948, but defended itself against blatant interference in its internal matters, but for siding with US imperialism by choice under the United National Party (UNP) governments (1948-56, 60-65, 77-94). The conflict of this policy with Indian hegemonic ambitions since 1977 made India side with Tamils to further its interests in Sri Lanka. With its aim achieved in 1987, the Indian establishment switched sides to its new client, the Sri Lankan state.
Rivalry continues between US imperialism and India for hegemony in South Asia and has played a major role in derailing the peace process initiated around 2000, with the backing of the US. India resented Norwegian mediation, and asserted its interests and undermined the peace process at every turn. The US and its allies, having banned the LTTE and being committed to a global war on terrorism, were on a sticky wicket to object to the resumption of war in 2006. Meanwhile, the Indian establishment, pretending neutrality, backed overtly and covertly the Sri Lankan government, politically as well as militarily, using Chinese and Pakistani interests in Sri Lanka as a pretext, although neither country posed a serious threat to Indian interests.
This is not the place to discuss the political theatre of Tamil Nadu and the games played by the Delhi mandarins. But the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka is again an important issue in India, despite New Delhi’s wishes otherwise. The ongoing agitation in Tamil Nadu for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka was triggered by news of the suffering in the North of Sri Lanka reaching the state, despite efforts by the mainstream media to play down the events since resumption of hostilities in 2006. Reports of deaths due to indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the suffering due to obstruction of essential goods and services caused public shock and anger. Yet, it was only after the Communist Party of India, not a reputed champion of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause, organised state-wide protest rallies that the strength of feeling was realised and mass protests gathered momentum. Protests in Tamil Nadu will lose their impact on Delhi after the general elections in India this year, unless the movement takes new directions, free of manipulation by opportunistic political parties.
International concern on human rights violations, threat to the media, the state of lawlessness including killings and abductions, and other issues have been mere formalities and have never been translated into action. The general attitude seems to be to hope for an early end to the conflict by the elimination of the LTTE as a fighting force, so that the imperialist countries can get on with furthering their interests in this island of strategic interest. Irrespective of how the war ends and the conflict continues in other forms, the ‘international community’ has little to offer to the victims.
The Threat to Democracy and the Task Ahead
The threat to democracy transcends the killing of as many as five MPs in the past three years, and the intimidation, abduction and killing of leading members of opposition parties and journalists, and attacks on the media. The present government has surpassed previous governments in dividing and weakening every potential challenge to its authority. Initially, minority nationality MPs were tempted with posts so that they joined government en bloc, like the two Hill Country Tamil parties, or broke ranks with the leadership, as in the case of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Then, dissenters and corrupt individuals among UNP MPs were tempted into government ranks; and nearly every government MP was made a minister, or a junior minister.
The JVP leadership, by then too closely identified with the government, realised that its partner was ready to marginalise it. But by the time the JVP decided to part company in 2008, a dissent group cultivated within it sided with the government and formed a splinter faction. The TMVP (Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers), the group that split from the LTTE, was made a partner of the government coalition in the Eastern Provincial Council, and then an existing split was deepened by preferential treatment of the weaker faction, rendering the TMVP powerless and dependent on government for its survival.
Thus what exist as parliamentary political parties are severely weakened bodies without political vision and pose no serious threat to the government, unless its fortunes suffer serious setbacks. But general elections may be held before that. Meanwhile, the political landscape is being encroached upon by the clan of the President, whose three brothers are entrenched in positions of power.
Sections of the media, not so much the mainstream media, have carried a fair share of the burden of exposing corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. Thus subduing the media and prevention of the development of a mass opposition movement are principal concerns of the government. The rising threat to the media, once confined to Tamil journalists and printers, has crossed the ethnic threshold and forced an unprecedented number of Sinhalese and Muslim journalists to leave the country during the past year. A newspaper establishment and a radio station were shut down in 2007, and editors have been abused or threatened by people in power. The wave of arrests, intimidation, attacks and killings need to be seen against this background. The mainstream media has, however, learnt to conform on matters relating to ‘national security’ and is muted in its criticism of the government. Meanwhile, the government has, as part of its ongoing agenda to muffle dissent, proposed legislation to curb the electronic media. The NGO establishment too, for reasons of personal gain and fear of clamp-down for ‘anti-state activities’, is muted in its criticism of the government.
The Sri Lankan armed forces numbered far fewer than a thousand when the JVP launched its insurrection in 1971 and today we count by the hundred thousand. There is, besides army deserters and former militants, a thriving underworld with a significant say in the outcome of any political process. Added to this is rabid religious fundamentalism, growing out of chauvinistic politics with a parasitic social group attached to it. These forces could make an explosive mix that can plunge the country into lawlessness. To add further fuel to this potentially explosive situation are frustrated Tamil politicians calling for the ban of Tamil political parties known to be supportive of the LTTE. Thus the threat to democracy is serious and could become real in the context of the impending economic failure and armed conflict that may go on beyond a military defeat of the LTTE. National security could be the pretext for a fascist take over of the country.
The challenge before the genuine left, progressive and democratic forces is, therefore, daunting. But the conduct of the organised left among the Sinhalese is not encouraging. The discredited old left is less worth than an overgrown toe nail to the government to which its ‘leaders’ are clinging on for survival. Two militant Trotskyist parties have, during the past, two years got addicted to NGO funding so that their agenda is dictated by their NGO sponsors. Recently, the two parties moved close to the UNP in a ‘broad-based front to defend democracy’.
Thus the revival of the peace movement and a campaign for democracy is central to the revival of the left movement in the South. It should be accompanied by an anti-imperialist programme and resistance to meddling by foreign powers in any form, especially in the armed conflict and in advancing their interests in the name of peace, progress and stability.
http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com
[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 March 2009, 20:22 GMT]
The Indian establishment, pretending neutrality, backed overtly and covertly the Sri Lankan government, politically as well as militarily, using Chinese and Pakistani interests in Sri Lanka as a pretext, writes Professor S. Sivasegaram, a well-known academic and Marxist writer. “International concern on human rights violations, threat to the media, the state of lawlessness including killings and abductions, and other issues have been mere formalities and have never been translated into action.[…] Foreign governments and international organisations to demand that the LTTE should ‘release’ the people under its wings is wrong, without simultaneously insisting that the Sri Lankan government ends all attacks on civilians and ensures the safety of civilians wherever they are.”
Professor S. SivasegaramProfessor S. Sivasegaram has been extensively writing on Sri Lankan and International Politics for more than thirty years in Tamil and English, besides contributions to poetry, translation and literary criticism. Born in Jaffna and coming from Trincomalee, he is a former head of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Peradeniya. He also served in the Imperial College, London and has authored a large number of research papers in his field of profession.
Full text of the article published in Radical Notes (radicalnotes.com) follows:
Sri Lanka: A Besieged Society
S Sivasegaram
Sri Lanka is in deep crisis on many fronts, and its politics is almost a total mess. Yet, its President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, elected by a whisker in November 2005, thanks to the boycott of the election by the Tamils in the North-East, after a last-minute call by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is the only Sri Lankan head of government to have grown in popularity since election. He owes this immense popularity among the majority Sinhalese to his rejection of the peace process and the success of the armed forces in regaining, at a very high but unknown cost in men and material, all but 200 sq. km of the vast territory held by the LTTE.
Results of the provincial councils elections held during the past six months, show soaring support for the government; and if a general election is held now the government will secure with ease a two-thirds majority in Parliament. This apparent strength of the government and the preoccupation of the media, political parties and the public with military gains in the North conceal the crises faced by the country on several fronts.
This essay is intended to address the crisis gripping Sri Lanka on various fronts that do not receive adequate attention. Thus, despite the importance of the war and the consequent humanitarian crisis, it deals with them only briefly. The next section contains a short comment on the war and the humanitarian tragedy. It is followed by comments on the failing economy amid the growing global crisis and corruption in high places; violation of human and fundamental rights; the drift towards lawlessness; and foreign meddling. It concludes with comments on the impending threat to democracy and the tasks ahead in defending democracy.
The War and the Humanitarian Tragedy
The nominal interest of the ‘international community’, meaning imperialist countries, is in the humanitarian crisis. Their declared concerns have drifted with the course of the war, resumed in early 2006, with the Ceasefire Agreement in place until the government withdrew unilaterally from it in February 2007. Earlier calls for a negotiated settlement and end to hostilities became muted calls for a ceasefire last year; and are now reduced to concern for the safety of civilians entrapped in LTTE-controlled areas.
Indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the government armed forces have been the main cause of the human tragedy, aggravated by the deliberate blocking of essential supplies including food and medicine to LTTE-controlled areas. In the latter half of 2008, international and local news media and non-government organisations were ordered out of the conflict zone by the government so that now only the Internal Red Cross has limited access to the affected areas. Thus the true situation of the people even in areas regained by the government forces remains unknown.
The LTTE is now confined to less than 200 square kilometres of territory with an estimated 300 000 people, whom the government claims are held against their will as a human shield. People facing a dire shortage of essential goods and services and threatened by bombing and shelling will like to move to more secure areas. But it is uncertain whether they sufficiently trust the government or the armed forces to move into government-controlled areas. Reports of injury and deaths in government-designated security zones due to shelling by the armed forces are certainly no inducement to move into those areas. The living conditions of people who are further away from the conflict zone are equally pathetic: besides lack of attention to their urgent needs, they are treated as terrorist suspects by the security forces; and utterances by people in high places, later retracted, to the effect that ‘security villages’ will be set up to detain the displaced persons for up to three years are ominous.
The LTTE, with its emphasis on armed struggle at the expense of mass political work, failed to pay adequate attention to the safety and well being of the people in its territory. But for foreign governments and international organisations to demand that the LTTE should ‘release’ the people under its wings is wrong, without simultaneously insisting that the Sri Lankan government ends all attacks on civilians and ensures the safety of civilians wherever they are, and ensure that they are not harassed or victimised by the denial of essential goods and services. Strangely, no call has been made to deploy independent observers to find from the people on either side of the battle lines about their wishes and experiences.
Many who express deep concern about the humanitarian crisis now ignore the abject human rights record of the government, which they denounced strongly only months ago. Equally, pro-LTTE agitators fail to criticise it for its serious lapses, especially on matters of safety and well-being of the people, and with regard to respecting their wishes.
The Economy in Crisis
The Sri Lankan economy was propelled towards doom by the ‘open economic policy’ initiated in 1978, accompanied by unrestricted imports, reckless privatisation of state assets, and opening up the country to parasitic if not predatory foreign investors. As a result, the emergent national economy and well-functioning state enterprises were effectively destroyed or swallowed up by foreign predators.
The escalation of national oppression and conflict diverted public attention from the effects of the erroneous economic policy and repressive measures against political resistance to it. The resultant war, aided by foreign meddlers, some siding with the government and others fishing in troubled waters, added to the economic burdens of the country, which since 1978 has become increasingly dependent on the export of cheap labour, directly by employment abroad and indirectly through export processing zones where foreign ‘investors’ exploit the Sri Lankan export quota for apparel to the US and Europe. Besides the social implications of such employment, the diversion of close to 15% of the work force from useful production has made the economy susceptible to invasion by cheap imports and a rise in consumerism.
While the ‘open economic policy’ made the country vulnerable to the vagaries of the global economy, the need to finance the war and service foreign debts meant further privatisation, transfer of public assets to foreign interests, and weakening of the economy. When credit form foreign governments and lending agencies slowed down, the government in 2007 turned to private bankers by issuing bonds at high interest rates. In the wake of the declared ‘victory of the war against terrorism’, the government now appeals to the Sri Lankan émigré population to invest in government bonds.
The global economic crisis has begun to bite, although the government is putting on a brave face. The plantation sector, still a major part of the export sector, is affected by a fall in tea sales and in some regions the plantations are cutting down production and the number of working days of plantation workers. Apparel export to the US and Europe has shrunk, and a few hundred garment industries have already closed down. Recruitment to the Middle East has slowed down, as redundancies and wage reductions are on the horizon. Thus, besides the impending fall in overseas remittances, unemployment will be a major problem in the months to come.
However, a thriving employment sector may be the armed forces, with over 400,000, of a population of 20 million, serving in the police and the armed forces and a proposal to increase the number by 100,000 to ensure security in the North-East.
The economy has also been hurt by serious financial irregularities, bribery and corruption, and recently even unlawful speculation using state funds, as in the hedging deal on petroleum, which made the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation liable to US$ 7,000,000 to a group of banks involved in the deal. Several other corrupt deals, including the purchase of military equipment, have been exposed by sections of the media, but corrective action has been rare; and nobody has been held answerable, except for political expediency, while the mediapersons concerned have been intimidated or harassed.
Crises of Human and Fundamental Rights and Law and Order
Sri Lanka’s record on human rights was not bright 20 years ago: today it has hit rock bottom: Sri Lanka fell from a rank of 51 (among 139 countries considered) when Reporters sans frontiers (RSF) started ranking a few years ago to 165 (among 173, or the ninth worst) in 2008. Attacks on media personnel, including the gunning down in January 2009 of Lasantha Wickramatunge, Chief Editor of Sunday Leader, known for his views critical of the government and exposure of corruption in high places, and the killing of opposition politicians, fare importantly in such matters. Killing of other civilians does not, however, attract sustained attention of the international media, with exceptions such as the killing of 13 employees of a France-based NGO in 2006.
Threats, assaults, abductions and killings are commonplace. Very few cases are properly inquired into; and hardly a serious crime involving human rights has been solved. Yet, hundreds languish in prison without trial or inquiry under Emergency Regulations, even through the years of the ceasefire, as terrorist suspects; and the numbers have risen sharply in recent years to include Sinhalese left activists and opponents of the war.
While several political killings and attempts have been attributed to the LTTE, the main opposition party has charged that forces close to the government had been responsible for some of them; and many of the criminal acts against dissenting politicians and journalists as well as abduction for ransom are feared to have been carried out with the connivance of those responsible for preventing them.
The courts of law have on occasion ruled against mass expulsion of people and even refused bail to criminal suspects associated with the ruling party. There was a recent instance when the police were reprimanded for attempting to frame an opposition politician. These are, however, exceptions and not the rule. Judges including the Chief Justice have been threatened for their verdicts. But that is not new. The country has seen enough of it since 1978, when the new Constitution enabled the politicisation of the judiciary and the police. As a result, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was unanimously adopted in 2000 that made a Constitutional Council (CC) responsible for appointments to key posts in the Supreme Court, the Police and the Elections Commission among others. But the CC has not been reconstituted since its term lapsed in 2005, allowing room for abuse, as under the JR Jayawardane regime (1978-989).
Foreign Concerns
The country changed status from a British colony to an imperialist neo-colony in 1948, but defended itself against blatant interference in its internal matters, but for siding with US imperialism by choice under the United National Party (UNP) governments (1948-56, 60-65, 77-94). The conflict of this policy with Indian hegemonic ambitions since 1977 made India side with Tamils to further its interests in Sri Lanka. With its aim achieved in 1987, the Indian establishment switched sides to its new client, the Sri Lankan state.
Rivalry continues between US imperialism and India for hegemony in South Asia and has played a major role in derailing the peace process initiated around 2000, with the backing of the US. India resented Norwegian mediation, and asserted its interests and undermined the peace process at every turn. The US and its allies, having banned the LTTE and being committed to a global war on terrorism, were on a sticky wicket to object to the resumption of war in 2006. Meanwhile, the Indian establishment, pretending neutrality, backed overtly and covertly the Sri Lankan government, politically as well as militarily, using Chinese and Pakistani interests in Sri Lanka as a pretext, although neither country posed a serious threat to Indian interests.
This is not the place to discuss the political theatre of Tamil Nadu and the games played by the Delhi mandarins. But the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka is again an important issue in India, despite New Delhi’s wishes otherwise. The ongoing agitation in Tamil Nadu for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka was triggered by news of the suffering in the North of Sri Lanka reaching the state, despite efforts by the mainstream media to play down the events since resumption of hostilities in 2006. Reports of deaths due to indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the Sri Lankan armed forces and the suffering due to obstruction of essential goods and services caused public shock and anger. Yet, it was only after the Communist Party of India, not a reputed champion of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause, organised state-wide protest rallies that the strength of feeling was realised and mass protests gathered momentum. Protests in Tamil Nadu will lose their impact on Delhi after the general elections in India this year, unless the movement takes new directions, free of manipulation by opportunistic political parties.
International concern on human rights violations, threat to the media, the state of lawlessness including killings and abductions, and other issues have been mere formalities and have never been translated into action. The general attitude seems to be to hope for an early end to the conflict by the elimination of the LTTE as a fighting force, so that the imperialist countries can get on with furthering their interests in this island of strategic interest. Irrespective of how the war ends and the conflict continues in other forms, the ‘international community’ has little to offer to the victims.
The Threat to Democracy and the Task Ahead
The threat to democracy transcends the killing of as many as five MPs in the past three years, and the intimidation, abduction and killing of leading members of opposition parties and journalists, and attacks on the media. The present government has surpassed previous governments in dividing and weakening every potential challenge to its authority. Initially, minority nationality MPs were tempted with posts so that they joined government en bloc, like the two Hill Country Tamil parties, or broke ranks with the leadership, as in the case of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Then, dissenters and corrupt individuals among UNP MPs were tempted into government ranks; and nearly every government MP was made a minister, or a junior minister.
The JVP leadership, by then too closely identified with the government, realised that its partner was ready to marginalise it. But by the time the JVP decided to part company in 2008, a dissent group cultivated within it sided with the government and formed a splinter faction. The TMVP (Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers), the group that split from the LTTE, was made a partner of the government coalition in the Eastern Provincial Council, and then an existing split was deepened by preferential treatment of the weaker faction, rendering the TMVP powerless and dependent on government for its survival.
Thus what exist as parliamentary political parties are severely weakened bodies without political vision and pose no serious threat to the government, unless its fortunes suffer serious setbacks. But general elections may be held before that. Meanwhile, the political landscape is being encroached upon by the clan of the President, whose three brothers are entrenched in positions of power.
Sections of the media, not so much the mainstream media, have carried a fair share of the burden of exposing corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. Thus subduing the media and prevention of the development of a mass opposition movement are principal concerns of the government. The rising threat to the media, once confined to Tamil journalists and printers, has crossed the ethnic threshold and forced an unprecedented number of Sinhalese and Muslim journalists to leave the country during the past year. A newspaper establishment and a radio station were shut down in 2007, and editors have been abused or threatened by people in power. The wave of arrests, intimidation, attacks and killings need to be seen against this background. The mainstream media has, however, learnt to conform on matters relating to ‘national security’ and is muted in its criticism of the government. Meanwhile, the government has, as part of its ongoing agenda to muffle dissent, proposed legislation to curb the electronic media. The NGO establishment too, for reasons of personal gain and fear of clamp-down for ‘anti-state activities’, is muted in its criticism of the government.
The Sri Lankan armed forces numbered far fewer than a thousand when the JVP launched its insurrection in 1971 and today we count by the hundred thousand. There is, besides army deserters and former militants, a thriving underworld with a significant say in the outcome of any political process. Added to this is rabid religious fundamentalism, growing out of chauvinistic politics with a parasitic social group attached to it. These forces could make an explosive mix that can plunge the country into lawlessness. To add further fuel to this potentially explosive situation are frustrated Tamil politicians calling for the ban of Tamil political parties known to be supportive of the LTTE. Thus the threat to democracy is serious and could become real in the context of the impending economic failure and armed conflict that may go on beyond a military defeat of the LTTE. National security could be the pretext for a fascist take over of the country.
The challenge before the genuine left, progressive and democratic forces is, therefore, daunting. But the conduct of the organised left among the Sinhalese is not encouraging. The discredited old left is less worth than an overgrown toe nail to the government to which its ‘leaders’ are clinging on for survival. Two militant Trotskyist parties have, during the past, two years got addicted to NGO funding so that their agenda is dictated by their NGO sponsors. Recently, the two parties moved close to the UNP in a ‘broad-based front to defend democracy’.
Thus the revival of the peace movement and a campaign for democracy is central to the revival of the left movement in the South. It should be accompanied by an anti-imperialist programme and resistance to meddling by foreign powers in any form, especially in the armed conflict and in advancing their interests in the name of peace, progress and stability.
http://www.tamilnet.com email: tamilnet@tamilnet.com
PROF.CHARLES SARVAN: JAFFNA NOTES...!!! BY JOHN MARTYN IN 1923!!!
Published: Sunday Island, Colombo, 1 March 2009.
Clarification. Paragraph 2. The impression, created through repetition, firmly remains that the North was favoured by the British because Tamils were “tame” and cooperative. Following from this, some Sinhalese have argued that discriminatory laws and practice against the Tamils after independence in 1948 was only an attempt to right a historical wrong. Tamils having failed to correct this impression, it remains - and continues to justify reaction and conduct.
Regarding religious intolerance, I have contemporary manifestation in mind, such as the Taliban and (the political, fundamentalist, populist) variety of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
As for collaborators, that too is a reality for Tamils today.
*************************************************************************************************
John Martyn, Notes On Jaffna, 1923.
Republished by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi & Chennai, 2003. (Hereafter, “Jaffna Notes”.) Page reference is to this text. I thank Mr Nanda Godage for sending me a copy of the book.
Entries in “Jaffna Notes” begin with 1505 and the first visit of the Portuguese to the Island; the last is dated 1920. The work is dedicated to the Compiler’s father, Henry Martyn, one of the first graduates of the “Batticotta Seminary”. The compilation, in the first instance, is for “my countrymen, the Jaffnese” to whom Jaffna will “ever be dear” (Preface). Unfortunately, there is much trivia: records of official appointments, deaths, honours conferred, examinations passed, relating to individuals most of whom are of no present importance or interest. Further, meant for then-present readers, some entries are bare and mystifying: “14 May 1904. Serious riots in Vannarponne in front of the Sivan Temple” (p. 75). “28 May 1915. Serious rioting and looting commence at Kandy and rapidly extend to Colombo and surrounding villages” (p. 104. One notes Colombo was then surrounded by villages). We are none the wiser as to who rioted and why. However, despite trivia and the cryptic, the work is interesting, and not without relevance to the present.
Life in Jaffna, given soil and climate, was hard. Consequently, the book extols an unostentatious life; a life of frugality and public service. That things did not come easily helps to explain the comic stereotype of the “Jaffna man” (like the Scotsman) being frugal to the point of parsimony. Forty-seven schools in Jaffna are suddenly closed for want of funds (p. 10). Money is sent to sustain relations in Jaffna by those living in other parts of the Island or abroad (p. 276). Western powers wished to conquer Jaffna not because of any commercial advantage but for “the security it gave to their settlements in the richer districts of the South” (p. 142). The iron horse (the railway line) began to run between Colombo and Jaffna only in August 1905, helping to break the isolation of the “Jaffnese”. There being no wealth to be extracted from Jaffna, the peninsular was neglected and disregarded. For example, it was rare for the wives of visiting high officials to accompany their husbands.
Though there is much chaff in “Jaffna Notes”, one does pick up grains of interest. I will draw attention to some of these “grains”, and then take up two aspects, namely, religion and imperialism, more precisely, the reaction to imperialism. In many ways, religion and imperialism are connected, Christianity having been brought to the Island by three successive, Western, Christian, powers: the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Had Christianity been introduced to Asia, South America and Africa by powers technologically backward, militarily weak and economically poor, it would not have had the same immediate success. (However, despite centuries of rule by Western powers, the percentage of Christians in countries such as India and Sri Lanka is very small.)
In 1575, digging to lay the foundation for St John’s Church, Mannar, gold coins with the effigy of the Roman emperor Claudius are discovered, confirming the Roman historian Pliny’s claim of contact between the Roman empire and the Island (p. 137). On 4 June 1707, Thesawalame (the “Customs of the country”) duly “declared correct by a body of 12 Moodaliars specially appointed for that purpose” (p. 147) is sanctioned by the Dutch government, and civil courts ordered to be guided by it. (For the benefit of non-Sri Lankan readers, a “Moodaliar” or “Mudaliyar” can roughly be described as a chief.) With some of the “grains” of interest (see “chaff” above), one wishes for more information. For example, we read that on the 15th of January 1799, the “importation of slaves into Ceylon” was prohibited (p. 9), and wonder from where these slaves had been imported. How many, what work did they do, and what became of them? (I will be grateful for guidance on this.) Later on, one reads that during the Dutch period, “Freedom was conferred upon all children born of slaves who were Protestants, whilst those of Catholic parents were condemned to perpetual servitude” (p.144). Jaffna in 1830 is described as follows:
There were no main roads beyond Pettah. Main Street from the fort terminated near 3rd Cross Street. The rainy season terminated contact between settlements. “Pachchillapally, now the coconut garden of the North, was comparatively little known, except as the domain of the elephant and the black bear. Elephants roamed about Kaithadi [...] cheetahs committed sad havoc on cattle” and packs of jackals roamed (p. 235).
Even as late as July 1918, a leopard stayed into the peninsula, mauling “two persons at Uduthurai and five at Chiviatheru” (p. 115). In September 1880, a “Dharma Chattiram (a charity house for Hindu pilgrims, mendicants and others) [was] established in Colombo” (p. 41). Presumably, the pilgrims were on their way to holy sites and temples in India. In 1864
“the question of an imperium in imperio for Jaffna was first mooted [...] Mr. Henry Francis Muttukisna [...] then fresh from a visit to Europe and smitten perhaps with an ardent love for the progressive institutions of the West, called a public meeting and harangued with all his eloquence, the burden of his song being that the time had come for Jaffna to set about to take upon herself the direction and Government of her own internal affairs” (p. 264. The choice of words such as “smitten” and “harangued” reveals the Compiler’s attitude, and relates to what will be noted about imperialism later on.)
Jaffna College was opened on 3 July 1872 “under the presidency of Rev. E. P. Hastings” (p. 270). February 1898 saw the publication of a short-hand system for the Tamil language (p. 65). The 23rd of April 1905 witnessed the arrival of the first motor car in Jaffna (p. 77). At a Durbar of Tamil Chiefs held at Queen’s House, Colombo (1June 1909), “it was decided to revive the rank of Adigar to be conferred as a mark of pre-eminence among the Tamils” (p. 90). Following this, a Durbar of Tamil chiefs was held in Jaffna (17 August 1910) under the presidency of His Excellency the Governor. Wider cultural insight is provided in the reference to one Sangarapillai Mudaliyar. During the early days of British rule, this Mudaliyar was in charge of the “Oppum” department of Jaffna. (“Khai oppum” in Tamil literally means “hand signature”, that is, a signed document of permission or authorisation.) The Mudaliyar’s office issued permits for the holding of ceremonies to mark
“marriages, births, deaths and other [social] occurrences, when the attendance of the Blacksmith, the Carpenter, the Dhoby [washerman] and the Barber were compulsory for the purpose of decorating the house with white cloth, spreading cloth on the ground for the newly-married couple to walk upon and for the temporary canopy, and for other services appropriate to their respective castes. An ‘Oppum’ was also required for riding in a ‘Palanquin’ [...] The ‘oppums’ were written in Tamil on slips of ola or palmirah leaf with a margin on the left on which were stamped the initials” of the authorising officer” (p. 232).
Moving to the aspect of religion, the Roman Catholicism of our Compiler seems to have been of a rather bigoted nature. Artefacts in churches are statues and religious images, while those in Hindu temples are “idols”. No doubt, he would have reacted similarly to Buddhist carvings and figures. Unaware of his own bias; reflecting imperial attitudes, Martyn writes (p. 116) of someone that he was a convert from a heathen family: those of “our” religion are believers; those of others, “heathen”. Those who join “our” religion are converts; those who leave it for another are renegades. Discrimination against Roman Catholics arouses his indignation, but not that suffered by Hindus and Buddhists.
In 1544, six hundred converts to Roman Catholicism were executed by the King of Jaffnapattam, who also dealt in similar fashion with his own eldest son. The second son fled to (Portuguese, Roman Catholic) Goa. Thereupon, Saint Francis Xavier “immediately repaired to Cochin, and having obtained from the authorities there a fleet, with a sufficient number of troops to co-operate with him in destroying the tyrant”, appeared off Mannar in April 1545, but failed in his enterprise” (Simon Casie Chitty, quoted on p. 136). The Compiler does not find it strange that a saint should resort to military invasion. In the name of religion, sometimes grossly irreligious acts are perpetrated – then and now.
Both Buddhism and Hinduism were neglected, if not badly treated, during almost half a millennium of Western rule. In 1711 (6 June), a law was enacted by the Dutch government “prohibiting Hindu ceremonies under severe penalties” (p. 6). However, it is discrimination against Roman Catholicism that is expatiated on. The penalty for harbouring a Roman Catholic priest was death. Marriage officiated by such priests was void. Private or public gatherings of Roman Catholics were banned, but neither “corruption nor coercion” (p. 144) led Sinhalese and Tamil Roman Catholics to abandon their religion. There is no mention of the percentage, greater by far, of the Buddhists and Hindus who remained faithful to their “heathen” (sic) religion. Presumably, Dutch hostility to Roman Catholic priests was not only on theological grounds but also based on the fear that they would work secretly towards restoring Portuguese power. If so, it would once again indicate the link between religion and politics; between power in the name of a religion, and political power.
The relation between imperialism and religion is shown in that no “native could aspire to the rank of Modaliyar, or be permitted to farm land or hold office under government, unless he became a Protestant” (p. 144). Prohibition and disqualification were matched, on the other hand, by the temptation of rewards. The Dutch grant a Mudaliyar, appointed to “watch the Company’s interests” and to deal with elephant traders “to the profit of the Honourable Company” (p. 152), twelve servants, permission to wear his turban, to be conveyed in a palanquin, “and above all, to have carried in state over him an umbrella” (p. 152). Some who are unable to resist the seduction of power, wealth and status join the enemy, and become collaborators. Having become collaborators, their status is increased because (be they envied or held in concealed contempt) Tamils desperately needing help have no option but to come to them as supplicants. Not only do collaborators have power but they are the intermediaries, having access to the real source of power, the central government in Colombo. But there is more to collaboration than the selling of the “soul” for worldly gain; than sacrificing one’s group for individual profit.
Whatever its fringe benefits, it is apodictic that, in its essence, imperialism meant military conquest, forced occupation, exploitation and humiliation. Why Western powers were able to defeat and control vast, highly populated, territory has several explanations, among them the following. Western scientific and technological progress meant military superiority. Those who have power are able to grant rewards, be it in money, land, position or privilege. There was division and distrust among “native” groups whose intra-rivalry, suspicion and hate were far greater than those directed at outside forces. The Uva Rebellion (1817-1818) was put down by the British because of support from “Low country” Sinhalese. Solomon Dias Bandaranaike received extensive tracts of land from Governor Brownrigg as a “reward for eminent service during the Kandian (sic) Rebellion A. D. 1818.” The so-called Indian Mutiny was crushed with the help of “loyal” Indian troops, “loyal” in their service to a foreign power.
Yet another factor, and the one relevant to the present work, is the success with which the belief was ingrained that the European powers were (a) superior in every respect – material, moral, cultural - and (b) impossible to defeat. I quote from a review of mine: in 1870, in an administrative district of Bengal, twenty Europeans lived among a native population of about two and a half million. Indeed, a visitor to India wondered why the natives simply “do not cut all our heads off and say nothing more about it” (Emily Eden, ‘Up the Country’, 1866, 2nd edition, p. 116). It was essential for the continuation of imperial rule that the conquered came to believe and accept that they were inherently inferior and incapable. From the conviction that the imperial powers were undefeatable, it was but a step for some to feel it was a pleasure and a privilege to serve, and in that way, be identified with them. (As suggested two paragraphs above, the motivation leading to collaboration can be complex, including not only greed but also the mistaken and the delusional.) This last psychological reaction, both at the individual and sub-group level, has been portrayed in literary texts, analysed in academic studies and, rather than dwelling on it, I will merely draw attention to some of its manifestation in this compilation.
The British Empire meant the exploitation of natural resources (including, in various forms and capacities, human resource) and markets for finished products. Only British goods could be sold in imperial territory. Cocoa and rubber were shipped to England, and Ceylonese (the Island was then Ceylon) bought chocolates and tyres exported from England but made with Ceylonese cocoa and rubber. Yet, bizarre as it may now seem, “Empire day” was celebrated in conquered territories world-wide. The purpose of this celebration was to encourage feelings of “devotion to the British Empire and Sovereign” (p. 100). As I have written elsewhere, while it is understandable that the British national anthem should express the wish that God would save the king and enable him to long “reign o’er us”, it is odd when conquered people join. That is tantamount to singing, “May he continue to be victorious over us.” The celebration of the coronation of His Most Gracious Majesty George V is “the heartiest and the most enthusiastic” event ever known (p. 297). Imperialism was armed robbery - massive in scale, protracted in time - and yet the subject peoples gave, from what was left to them, lavish gifts to their “robbers” because the latter basked in power. Indeed, it was felt to be an honour if one’s gift (more precisely, “offering”) was accepted – an honour, a bribe and an insurance. A list, too long to be quoted here, of presents sent to the Prince of Wales from Jaffna begins, “One snake bangle set with rubies and diamonds” (p. 243).
It is easy today to feel surprised, complacent and superior but, on closer examination, we see that, in some ways, the world changes and remains the same. The ethos of our times fits a pair of spectacles on us, lenses through which we see the world. We are unaware we are wearing glasses; that we see through them, and react accordingly. Few, very few, are able to detach themselves from their temporal, cultural, spectacles. What “Jaffna Notes” reveals is the Weltanschauung of many during imperial times. Rather than feeling distanced in history, safe and superior, this book should lead to the asking of the question: How will posterity view present beliefs and attitudes, present values and conduct? Will generations of Sri Lankans in the distant future be surprised, embarrassed and regretful (living in Germany, I am aware of this country’s sense of disbelief and shame when it looks back at past injustice and violence) or will the Island’s posterity be quietly satisfied and proud?
Prof.Charles Sarvan (Berlin) charlessarvan@yahoo.com
Clarification. Paragraph 2. The impression, created through repetition, firmly remains that the North was favoured by the British because Tamils were “tame” and cooperative. Following from this, some Sinhalese have argued that discriminatory laws and practice against the Tamils after independence in 1948 was only an attempt to right a historical wrong. Tamils having failed to correct this impression, it remains - and continues to justify reaction and conduct.
Regarding religious intolerance, I have contemporary manifestation in mind, such as the Taliban and (the political, fundamentalist, populist) variety of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
As for collaborators, that too is a reality for Tamils today.
*************************************************************************************************
John Martyn, Notes On Jaffna, 1923.
Republished by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi & Chennai, 2003. (Hereafter, “Jaffna Notes”.) Page reference is to this text. I thank Mr Nanda Godage for sending me a copy of the book.
Entries in “Jaffna Notes” begin with 1505 and the first visit of the Portuguese to the Island; the last is dated 1920. The work is dedicated to the Compiler’s father, Henry Martyn, one of the first graduates of the “Batticotta Seminary”. The compilation, in the first instance, is for “my countrymen, the Jaffnese” to whom Jaffna will “ever be dear” (Preface). Unfortunately, there is much trivia: records of official appointments, deaths, honours conferred, examinations passed, relating to individuals most of whom are of no present importance or interest. Further, meant for then-present readers, some entries are bare and mystifying: “14 May 1904. Serious riots in Vannarponne in front of the Sivan Temple” (p. 75). “28 May 1915. Serious rioting and looting commence at Kandy and rapidly extend to Colombo and surrounding villages” (p. 104. One notes Colombo was then surrounded by villages). We are none the wiser as to who rioted and why. However, despite trivia and the cryptic, the work is interesting, and not without relevance to the present.
Life in Jaffna, given soil and climate, was hard. Consequently, the book extols an unostentatious life; a life of frugality and public service. That things did not come easily helps to explain the comic stereotype of the “Jaffna man” (like the Scotsman) being frugal to the point of parsimony. Forty-seven schools in Jaffna are suddenly closed for want of funds (p. 10). Money is sent to sustain relations in Jaffna by those living in other parts of the Island or abroad (p. 276). Western powers wished to conquer Jaffna not because of any commercial advantage but for “the security it gave to their settlements in the richer districts of the South” (p. 142). The iron horse (the railway line) began to run between Colombo and Jaffna only in August 1905, helping to break the isolation of the “Jaffnese”. There being no wealth to be extracted from Jaffna, the peninsular was neglected and disregarded. For example, it was rare for the wives of visiting high officials to accompany their husbands.
Though there is much chaff in “Jaffna Notes”, one does pick up grains of interest. I will draw attention to some of these “grains”, and then take up two aspects, namely, religion and imperialism, more precisely, the reaction to imperialism. In many ways, religion and imperialism are connected, Christianity having been brought to the Island by three successive, Western, Christian, powers: the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Had Christianity been introduced to Asia, South America and Africa by powers technologically backward, militarily weak and economically poor, it would not have had the same immediate success. (However, despite centuries of rule by Western powers, the percentage of Christians in countries such as India and Sri Lanka is very small.)
In 1575, digging to lay the foundation for St John’s Church, Mannar, gold coins with the effigy of the Roman emperor Claudius are discovered, confirming the Roman historian Pliny’s claim of contact between the Roman empire and the Island (p. 137). On 4 June 1707, Thesawalame (the “Customs of the country”) duly “declared correct by a body of 12 Moodaliars specially appointed for that purpose” (p. 147) is sanctioned by the Dutch government, and civil courts ordered to be guided by it. (For the benefit of non-Sri Lankan readers, a “Moodaliar” or “Mudaliyar” can roughly be described as a chief.) With some of the “grains” of interest (see “chaff” above), one wishes for more information. For example, we read that on the 15th of January 1799, the “importation of slaves into Ceylon” was prohibited (p. 9), and wonder from where these slaves had been imported. How many, what work did they do, and what became of them? (I will be grateful for guidance on this.) Later on, one reads that during the Dutch period, “Freedom was conferred upon all children born of slaves who were Protestants, whilst those of Catholic parents were condemned to perpetual servitude” (p.144). Jaffna in 1830 is described as follows:
There were no main roads beyond Pettah. Main Street from the fort terminated near 3rd Cross Street. The rainy season terminated contact between settlements. “Pachchillapally, now the coconut garden of the North, was comparatively little known, except as the domain of the elephant and the black bear. Elephants roamed about Kaithadi [...] cheetahs committed sad havoc on cattle” and packs of jackals roamed (p. 235).
Even as late as July 1918, a leopard stayed into the peninsula, mauling “two persons at Uduthurai and five at Chiviatheru” (p. 115). In September 1880, a “Dharma Chattiram (a charity house for Hindu pilgrims, mendicants and others) [was] established in Colombo” (p. 41). Presumably, the pilgrims were on their way to holy sites and temples in India. In 1864
“the question of an imperium in imperio for Jaffna was first mooted [...] Mr. Henry Francis Muttukisna [...] then fresh from a visit to Europe and smitten perhaps with an ardent love for the progressive institutions of the West, called a public meeting and harangued with all his eloquence, the burden of his song being that the time had come for Jaffna to set about to take upon herself the direction and Government of her own internal affairs” (p. 264. The choice of words such as “smitten” and “harangued” reveals the Compiler’s attitude, and relates to what will be noted about imperialism later on.)
Jaffna College was opened on 3 July 1872 “under the presidency of Rev. E. P. Hastings” (p. 270). February 1898 saw the publication of a short-hand system for the Tamil language (p. 65). The 23rd of April 1905 witnessed the arrival of the first motor car in Jaffna (p. 77). At a Durbar of Tamil Chiefs held at Queen’s House, Colombo (1June 1909), “it was decided to revive the rank of Adigar to be conferred as a mark of pre-eminence among the Tamils” (p. 90). Following this, a Durbar of Tamil chiefs was held in Jaffna (17 August 1910) under the presidency of His Excellency the Governor. Wider cultural insight is provided in the reference to one Sangarapillai Mudaliyar. During the early days of British rule, this Mudaliyar was in charge of the “Oppum” department of Jaffna. (“Khai oppum” in Tamil literally means “hand signature”, that is, a signed document of permission or authorisation.) The Mudaliyar’s office issued permits for the holding of ceremonies to mark
“marriages, births, deaths and other [social] occurrences, when the attendance of the Blacksmith, the Carpenter, the Dhoby [washerman] and the Barber were compulsory for the purpose of decorating the house with white cloth, spreading cloth on the ground for the newly-married couple to walk upon and for the temporary canopy, and for other services appropriate to their respective castes. An ‘Oppum’ was also required for riding in a ‘Palanquin’ [...] The ‘oppums’ were written in Tamil on slips of ola or palmirah leaf with a margin on the left on which were stamped the initials” of the authorising officer” (p. 232).
Moving to the aspect of religion, the Roman Catholicism of our Compiler seems to have been of a rather bigoted nature. Artefacts in churches are statues and religious images, while those in Hindu temples are “idols”. No doubt, he would have reacted similarly to Buddhist carvings and figures. Unaware of his own bias; reflecting imperial attitudes, Martyn writes (p. 116) of someone that he was a convert from a heathen family: those of “our” religion are believers; those of others, “heathen”. Those who join “our” religion are converts; those who leave it for another are renegades. Discrimination against Roman Catholics arouses his indignation, but not that suffered by Hindus and Buddhists.
In 1544, six hundred converts to Roman Catholicism were executed by the King of Jaffnapattam, who also dealt in similar fashion with his own eldest son. The second son fled to (Portuguese, Roman Catholic) Goa. Thereupon, Saint Francis Xavier “immediately repaired to Cochin, and having obtained from the authorities there a fleet, with a sufficient number of troops to co-operate with him in destroying the tyrant”, appeared off Mannar in April 1545, but failed in his enterprise” (Simon Casie Chitty, quoted on p. 136). The Compiler does not find it strange that a saint should resort to military invasion. In the name of religion, sometimes grossly irreligious acts are perpetrated – then and now.
Both Buddhism and Hinduism were neglected, if not badly treated, during almost half a millennium of Western rule. In 1711 (6 June), a law was enacted by the Dutch government “prohibiting Hindu ceremonies under severe penalties” (p. 6). However, it is discrimination against Roman Catholicism that is expatiated on. The penalty for harbouring a Roman Catholic priest was death. Marriage officiated by such priests was void. Private or public gatherings of Roman Catholics were banned, but neither “corruption nor coercion” (p. 144) led Sinhalese and Tamil Roman Catholics to abandon their religion. There is no mention of the percentage, greater by far, of the Buddhists and Hindus who remained faithful to their “heathen” (sic) religion. Presumably, Dutch hostility to Roman Catholic priests was not only on theological grounds but also based on the fear that they would work secretly towards restoring Portuguese power. If so, it would once again indicate the link between religion and politics; between power in the name of a religion, and political power.
The relation between imperialism and religion is shown in that no “native could aspire to the rank of Modaliyar, or be permitted to farm land or hold office under government, unless he became a Protestant” (p. 144). Prohibition and disqualification were matched, on the other hand, by the temptation of rewards. The Dutch grant a Mudaliyar, appointed to “watch the Company’s interests” and to deal with elephant traders “to the profit of the Honourable Company” (p. 152), twelve servants, permission to wear his turban, to be conveyed in a palanquin, “and above all, to have carried in state over him an umbrella” (p. 152). Some who are unable to resist the seduction of power, wealth and status join the enemy, and become collaborators. Having become collaborators, their status is increased because (be they envied or held in concealed contempt) Tamils desperately needing help have no option but to come to them as supplicants. Not only do collaborators have power but they are the intermediaries, having access to the real source of power, the central government in Colombo. But there is more to collaboration than the selling of the “soul” for worldly gain; than sacrificing one’s group for individual profit.
Whatever its fringe benefits, it is apodictic that, in its essence, imperialism meant military conquest, forced occupation, exploitation and humiliation. Why Western powers were able to defeat and control vast, highly populated, territory has several explanations, among them the following. Western scientific and technological progress meant military superiority. Those who have power are able to grant rewards, be it in money, land, position or privilege. There was division and distrust among “native” groups whose intra-rivalry, suspicion and hate were far greater than those directed at outside forces. The Uva Rebellion (1817-1818) was put down by the British because of support from “Low country” Sinhalese. Solomon Dias Bandaranaike received extensive tracts of land from Governor Brownrigg as a “reward for eminent service during the Kandian (sic) Rebellion A. D. 1818.” The so-called Indian Mutiny was crushed with the help of “loyal” Indian troops, “loyal” in their service to a foreign power.
Yet another factor, and the one relevant to the present work, is the success with which the belief was ingrained that the European powers were (a) superior in every respect – material, moral, cultural - and (b) impossible to defeat. I quote from a review of mine: in 1870, in an administrative district of Bengal, twenty Europeans lived among a native population of about two and a half million. Indeed, a visitor to India wondered why the natives simply “do not cut all our heads off and say nothing more about it” (Emily Eden, ‘Up the Country’, 1866, 2nd edition, p. 116). It was essential for the continuation of imperial rule that the conquered came to believe and accept that they were inherently inferior and incapable. From the conviction that the imperial powers were undefeatable, it was but a step for some to feel it was a pleasure and a privilege to serve, and in that way, be identified with them. (As suggested two paragraphs above, the motivation leading to collaboration can be complex, including not only greed but also the mistaken and the delusional.) This last psychological reaction, both at the individual and sub-group level, has been portrayed in literary texts, analysed in academic studies and, rather than dwelling on it, I will merely draw attention to some of its manifestation in this compilation.
The British Empire meant the exploitation of natural resources (including, in various forms and capacities, human resource) and markets for finished products. Only British goods could be sold in imperial territory. Cocoa and rubber were shipped to England, and Ceylonese (the Island was then Ceylon) bought chocolates and tyres exported from England but made with Ceylonese cocoa and rubber. Yet, bizarre as it may now seem, “Empire day” was celebrated in conquered territories world-wide. The purpose of this celebration was to encourage feelings of “devotion to the British Empire and Sovereign” (p. 100). As I have written elsewhere, while it is understandable that the British national anthem should express the wish that God would save the king and enable him to long “reign o’er us”, it is odd when conquered people join. That is tantamount to singing, “May he continue to be victorious over us.” The celebration of the coronation of His Most Gracious Majesty George V is “the heartiest and the most enthusiastic” event ever known (p. 297). Imperialism was armed robbery - massive in scale, protracted in time - and yet the subject peoples gave, from what was left to them, lavish gifts to their “robbers” because the latter basked in power. Indeed, it was felt to be an honour if one’s gift (more precisely, “offering”) was accepted – an honour, a bribe and an insurance. A list, too long to be quoted here, of presents sent to the Prince of Wales from Jaffna begins, “One snake bangle set with rubies and diamonds” (p. 243).
It is easy today to feel surprised, complacent and superior but, on closer examination, we see that, in some ways, the world changes and remains the same. The ethos of our times fits a pair of spectacles on us, lenses through which we see the world. We are unaware we are wearing glasses; that we see through them, and react accordingly. Few, very few, are able to detach themselves from their temporal, cultural, spectacles. What “Jaffna Notes” reveals is the Weltanschauung of many during imperial times. Rather than feeling distanced in history, safe and superior, this book should lead to the asking of the question: How will posterity view present beliefs and attitudes, present values and conduct? Will generations of Sri Lankans in the distant future be surprised, embarrassed and regretful (living in Germany, I am aware of this country’s sense of disbelief and shame when it looks back at past injustice and violence) or will the Island’s posterity be quietly satisfied and proud?
Prof.Charles Sarvan (Berlin) charlessarvan@yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
