Home Archives for February 2008

Batti LG elections at a glance

"The Government has also taken steps to ensure a free and fair election. There are 16 refugee camps where people displaced by war are taking shelter. There are 124 families living in those camps. "

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by Manjula Pradeep Weerasuriya

(March 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) By January 25, six political parties and 22 independent groups had handed in their nominations for the election of 101 members to nine local government bodies in the Batticaloa District, Eastern Province. The elections are scheduled to be held on March 10.

The Local Government Elections in the Batticaloa District were due in 2006, but elections were held only in respect of three local bodies while the elections in respect of the remaining nine bodies were cancelled owing to the war situation in the area. The forthcoming local government election is concerned with the nine local government bodies that failed to conduct elections in 2006.

There are 2,70,473 voters registered in the voters list. They are expected to exercise their vote in 285 polling centres. According to the voters’ lists, 54,948 voters go to 51 polling centres to elect 19 members to the Batticaloa Municipal Council.

In this way, there are 45,336 voters to elect 14 members at 48 centres for the Eravurpattu Pradeshiya Sabha, 41,858 voters to elect 9 members at 47 centres, for the Koralipattu Pradeshiya Sabha, 12,419 voters to elect 11 members at 16 centres for the Koralipattu North Pradeshiya Sabha, 38,386 voters to elect 10 members at 39 centres for the Manmunai South and Eruvilpattu Pradeshiya Sabha, 18,759 voters to elect 9 members at 20 centres for the Manmunai Pradeshiya Sabha, 15,771 voters to elect 11 members at 16 centres for the Manmunai West Pradeshiya Sabha, 14,880 voters to elect 9 members at 18 centres for the Manmunai South West Pradeshiya Sabha and 28,116 voters to elect 9 members at 30 centres for the Porativepattu Pradeshiya Sabha.

Election campaign

The Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Party (T.M.V.P.) is contesting the Batticaloa Municipal Council seats in conjunction with the Government under the betel leaf while contesting seats in eight other Pradeshiya Sabhas as a separate party under the boat symbol . Their election campaign emphasizes that their aim is to bring about a true political leadership to the people of the Batticaloa District which is presently dominated by unscrupulous Tamil politicians living in Colombo. The Party’s political wing leader, Edwin Krishnanandarajah said that they are in favour of a democratic process as a solution to the problems of the Tamil people and the party will gradually give up arms, once a true Tamil leadership is established in the Batticaloa District.

Common symbol

The main Tamil political parties the E.P.D.P., E.P.R.L.F. and P.L.O.T. contest in the local government elections under the common symbol of the Apple while E.D.F comes under the symbol of a hoe. The United People’s Freedom Alliance (U.P.F.A.) will contest under the symbol of the betel leaf. The Jathika Sanwardhana Peramuna’s (JSF) symbol is the coconut tree, the National Congress symbol is a horse. the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has selected a tree as its symbol .

Our correspondent who visited the election front in the Batticaloa District a few days ago observed a tense atmosphere everywhere . Streets were empty after dusk and firearms were a common sight. Armed gangs in addition to security personnel were moving about freely . meanwhile there was a rumour that a candidate of the Pilleyan group had been abducted. The people of the were uncertain and were expecting anything to happen at any moment. Armed groups seemed to manipulate the political arena. Several non-governmental organisations play an imperial role in the District, some imes to the displeasure of the people of the area . People live in fear that any time they will be robbed by armed groups. The Government has taken steps to safeguard the interests of the voters as well as those of the candidates.

The Government has also taken steps to ensure a free and fair election. There are 16 refugee camps where people displaced by war are taking shelter. There are 124 families living in those camps.

Expensive

Among them 201 inmates are males and 217 females. 55 girls and 52 boys who were students from grade 1 to Advanced Level were among them. There were 30 women who were widowed due to the war. These refugees receive dry rations from the World Food Organisation. The fortnightly ration they receive is hardly enough for 10 days. Food items are extremely expensive in the District. By and large people feel that the rule under the security forces is far better and safer than being under the LTTE.

Image: Cadres of Military Wing in Tamil Makkal Viduthali Pulighal better known as the Karuna Faction.

“Prabha self-centred, so we joined the Govt” - TMVP canvasser

by Thava Sajitharan in Batticaloa

(March 01, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka Guardian) Batticaloa, the now scared city of the “singing fish”, is on the ready for the local polls. The efforts to restore ‘democracy’ under the gun are palpable in the region. One can feel the intensity of the military presence in the region as one enters Valachenai - an eastern gateway town located 30 km away from Batticaloa.

The polls are slated to be held on March 10 in the Eastern province to elect members to nine local bodies after the government recaptured the territory from the clutches of the Liberation Tigers Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year.

According to T. Krishnananthalingam, Assistant Commissioner of Elections, Batticaloa district, 270421 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at this election. Overall, 831 candidates are in the race for 101 seats in the district.

The Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) - the registered political party of the LTTE’s breakaway Karuna faction - is vying for the 25 seats of the Batticaloa Municipal Council in alliance with the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) under the betel leaf symbol. For other local government bodies, the TMVP is contesting on its own under the boat symbol.

The Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP), Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) are aligned together for the polls and contesting as an independent group under the Apple symbol. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress in the only Muslim party that has fielded its candidates for polls.

‘Regionalism’

Noticeably, among these four Tamil political parties that have had at some point in the past engaged in armed struggle in the island’s two and a half decades of conflict, only the TMVP has done away with the term ‘Eelam’ in naming their political party. The TMVP does not advocate the notion of Eelam either.

Is This Election For People or TMVP – SLFP?

The TMVP, in its election campaigns, advocates ‘regionalism’ stressing that they are the only Tamil political party whose ‘origin’ is from the Eastern province.

On the long road stretch, from Valachenai to Batticaloa, one gets to see the elaborate political offices of the TMVP set up in every village. Posters containing attractive slogans such as ‘Vote for boat, it will take the wounded Tamils to the shore’ have been put up by the TMVP.

Vavunaitivu rally

At a TMVP rally held on Thursday at Vavunativu, one of the surrounding villages in the Batticaloa district that used to be held by the LTTE, the speaker revealed that according to the agreement the TMVP entered into with the UPFA, an “Eastern Development Organization” would be established in the event of the TMVP losing the mini polls. The organization would be under the total control of the TMVP, said Ragu, a member of the TMVP who addressed the gathering.

“Prabhakaran is a self-centred man. We realized that he was never going to do us good and decided to join hands with the government. We want to bring development to our region” he said.

“We have learnt lessons from past experience. Aligning with the ruling party will be beneficial to us” he said.

Image: Senior members of TMVP

An old woman who listened to the speaker asked fearlessly why he was criticizing the LTTE having been with the LTTE for all these years. “Why can’t we all live together” she asked prompting a burst of laughter in the crowd.

Around 50 people had been gathered at a temple premises for the rally. Suranga alias Jegannathan Jeyaraj, the 23 year-old TMVP candidate contesting in Vavunaitivu told us he joined the LTTE when he was seven.

“I am now with the TMVP. I went to India in 2003 and spent two years in Bangalore following computer studies” he said.

Public mood

It is difficult to discern the mood of the public on the elections.

A.Theyvamalar (34), a resident in Maamaangam, interviewed during a house to house campaign of the EPRLF, expresses hope that the election would bring back normalcy but says she is not so enthusiastic about the mini polls. When asked if she believed people would be allowed to vote freely on March 10, she smiles and says tentatively “yes”.

Each candidate has been provided with two policemen for security. The policeman who was on duty escorting the EPRLF candidate in the election campaign in Maamangam was generous enough to spare few minutes and share his thoughts with us.

“Many candidates have sent back the policemen assigned to them for their safety as they were not wealthy enough to feed the policemen. They are supposed to look after the policemen and provide food for them” he said, not wanting to disclose his identity.

TMVP confident

S. Nagarasa, a candidate of the TMVP in Valachenai claims he was with the LTTE as a cadre for 20 years.

“We no longer believe that attainment of Thamil Eelam is possible. It is only a mirage that the LTTE keeps on dreaming of. We are contesting the mini polls on the pledge that we will strive for development of the region and for restoration of peace among our people”.

Asked about the death threats allegedly issued by the LTTE to TMVP candidates, he dismisses them scornfully. “It’s the little Tigers trying to bully the old Tigers” he says, with a laugh.

“We are confident that we will win the polls” he adds.

However, according to Erasaiyah Thurairatnam, the chief EPRLF candidate of the ‘Apple’ alliance in Batticaloa, the TMVP has enough reasons to be ‘confident’ about victory.
As we step into his office on Lake Road, he speaks in a complaining tone to someone on the phone about the atrocities committed by the TMVP cadres connected to the election campaign.

“They are carrying weapons and intimidating the public in the rural areas. Of course, they are not doing it within the city limits of Batticaloa” he complains.

“In Arayampathi, they threatened some women who came to our election rally —- pointing a gun at them. They warned those women not to vote for anyone other than the TMVP candidates or else they will lose their husbands” he says.

“They put up posters while being armed” he adds.

Thurairatnam says several incidents concerning electoral violence go unreported as the TMVP - the ally of the ruling UPFA - is responsible for most of the incidents.

“The police are reluctant to accommodate our complaints. We have gone several times to the police stations to lodge complaints. But they always try to pacify us. They ask us to solve the problems peacefully. They do not take any action against the perpetrators” he complains.

According to Batticaloa Police, over 25 incidents of election violence have been reported so far from several areas in the district during the past three weeks.

(February 29, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) “Another news bulletin about Sri Lanka, the Mullaithivu attack. The newsreader is going on about the number of deaths in the attack. Devika stops opening the tin of cat food to absorb the news of the attack. “Nearly a thousand young men had been killed according to various sources and the Sri Lankan government is looking for terrorists and are fighting back with naval, air and the armed forces.”

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1996

“It’s going to be a hot day” Devika pulls the curtains apart to see the weather outside and mumbles to herself while getting ready to go to work.

The clear blue sky is decorated with wandering soft white clouds moving in slow motion. The street is nearly empty as it is only about seven in the morning, but would be noisy and crowded in no time.

The man next door is playing reggae music, loud as usual. Devika puts the audio tape on and goes to the bathroom. Within a few seconds, devotional songs fill the house with calm rhythmic tones.

She gets ready and comes down to make some tea. Her children are asleep in their rooms, next to hers. They were playing games with their friends until late last night and they are going to wake up late. Their cat, Josie is wandering around the room and licking her feet as is usual in the morning. The black cat is very beautiful and moves as elegantly as a well-bred young lady. The cat mews at Devika.

Cat wants her food, but the boys won’t be awake until late. “Okay Josie, come down, I’ll feed you”. Devika strokes the velvety body of the cat. She turns the radio on in the kitchen to listen to the seven o’clock news. Devika always listened to the world service in the morning before she went to work.

Another news bulletin about Sri Lanka, the Mullaithivu attack. The newsreader is going on about the number of deaths in the attack. Devika stops opening the tin of cat food to absorb the news of the attack. “Nearly a thousand young men had been killed according to various sources and the Sri Lankan government is looking for terrorists and are fighting back with naval, air and the armed forces.

The news goes from Sri Lanka to Rwanda, Burundi and so on, to give details of the third world mania for killing games. For the radio broadcaster these bulletins are just more incidents.

For Devika?

Her imaginings of the scenario are too much to contemplate. What a tragedy! Losing her appetite now, she couldn’t be bothered with her cup of tea. She turns the radio off and gets herself ready to go to work. There is a knock at the door and the post man drops the letters.

Bills, bills and more bills, a never-ending flow of bills: the water, electricity, gas and telephone. Sometimes they all come at once, like a heavy ‘flu with head and body aches. With those bills there are two blue air mail letters. Suddenly Devika feels numb in her heart. She dreads airmail letters as they usually bring bad news. That was all that had happened for the last fifteen years in Sri Lanka. She puts the letters in her work bag and goes upstairs. The devotional song is still going on, she turns to the statues of Gods and Goddesses and asks “Why, why this madness of killing in Sri Lanka?” Could she wait for an answer?

Men have taken the place of Gods in Sri Lanka and are playing the ‘war’ game with innocent people.

Devika goes to her little son Ravi’s room and says “Bye darling…see you later” although he is fast asleep. He is eleven years old but for her he is her ‘baby’. She kisses him gently and watches his angelic face for a while, and mutters “how many children like this one have died in Sri Lanka today? How many mothers have lost their loved ones? When is it going to stop, and who’s going to stop it? Is there anyone who would dare to challenge the government? Where has all the spirituality gone?”

She shuts her son’s bedroom door and hurries to the street. Josie the cat follows her up to the corner of the road. There is uproar in the next street, she can hear. The noise is increasing every second as some children are screaming as loud as possible to protect an old oak tree which the council are going to cut down as they think the tree is a danger to the shop nearby (which sells cosmetic products which are often tested on animals).

The infantile child soldiers screech and scream in their little voices, their small spokesperson saying that the destruction of that tree will damage the way of life for many birds who use the tree to perch, and there are two varieties of squirrels living in that tree which are most beautiful to look at.

There are a few children dressed in ‘bunny’ outfits to symbolise the rabbits who are some of the occupants of the bushes that surround the tree. Some five-year-olds are holding a banner saying “save our tree and the animals in it”.

There are local reporters as well as one of the TV reporters to cover the issue. This old oak tree is in national focus for the last few days as the protest is being broadcast on national TV portraying the up rise to save the tree as a ‘people’s issue and affecting the local community’. The animal rights campaigners who are against testing on animals are there too with their placards with sentimental slogans to save the animals throughout the world, and protesting against any cruelty to animals.

There were the Ecologists as well, going on about the destruction of natures green fields and rain forests by greedy men in the world. “Look at what we have got now; out cities and towns are polluted with dirty air, look our streets – they are scattered with cars and lorries, this is all based on man’s greed, they exploit everything and everybody”.

“What a world – cats, birds, squirrels, rabbits and an old oak tree have the right to exist in the world but there is no right for ordinary Tamils in Sri Lanka to live because they belong to the wrong ethnic group”, Devika mutters to herself sadly.

The girl from the corner house is just coming out to the street. An Indian young beauty in her twenties with a seductive smile, slim figure, a simple blue outfit which complements her golden skin colour and flowing long black hair. She walks in the style of a well-trained fashion model who knows how to make other people turn and admire her elegance and charm. Devika had said ‘hello’ now and then to that young lady, other than that she has nothing much to say as they both always seem to be in a hurry.

Every time Devika looks at the young lady, she thinks of her nieces’ back home. Her cousin’s daughter Savitri was almost like another girl who is just passing by, one of the most beautiful girls in that village. Devika closes her eyes as she refuses to let the thoughts about Savitri to come to her any further as those memories are too painful.

A mother with two small children from the white house near the main road is behind her. Devika says good morning to the mother as usual – they meet every morning at the same spot. There has been nothing except ‘good morning’ up until now.

“ It’s going to be a hot day,” the woman said, looking up into the blue sky.

“Mmm” Devika.

The mother of the two may have been from Ireland as her English accent was not the same as Devika’s English friends.

“You are Sri Lankan, aren’t you?” she is asking, keeping her stare on Devika.

“Yes….but how do you know?” Devika is surprised.

“Well….my husband was listening to the early morning news and he mentioned you came from Sri Lanka. ”

Devika still hadn’t worked out how he had known.

“Oh, you’re wondering how he knew, aren’t you? Mrs Patel from the corner shop told him you’re from Sri Lanka when Sri Lanka won the Cricket World Cup. ”

Devika smiles politely, partly about the world cup, and partly because she was about to be asked about the early morning news. “Oh yes, some of my country men are good at the cricket field, and some are good at the killing filed too.” She wanted to honestly say to the woman.

“ The radio said that thousands of people are dying in your country, do you still have family there?” They have reached the bus stop now. Devika can’t answer – as the bus comes to a halt, she gets on. She waves to the mother, who waits for another bus. The bus is very crowded, people waiting their turn to get in, some muttering about the lateness of the bus, others patiently followed others. Her mind is still with the question from the mother of the two. “How many are being killed?”

“Its bloody murder.” A fat man with a huge stomach trying to move into the back of the bus yells at the driver. Devika places herself between a young lady who is plastered with heavy make up, heavily soaked in a nauseating perfume and a thin lady who is coughing intermittently with a slight wheezing.

Devika’s bus journey usually takes about twenty minutes and she will read something to pass the time. She fishes through her handbag and instead of finding the airmail letters she sees a note, which is about a Tamil woman who needs Devika’s help.

A Social Worker phoned Devika yesterday and asked her to come today to do a translation for a Tamil woman refugee who is in England and has to see a psychiatrist. The refugee woman came to England four months ago, lives alone and had a baby about two months ago and is having post-natal depression. She cannot communicate well as her English is not good. The social Service is considering isolating the child from her mother as the mother is not in an appropriate medical condition to care for the child.

A Tamil refugee!

That’s the identity for about 500,000 Sri Lankan Tamils abroad; no name, no status, no qualification, no address is needed except the word ‘refugee’! Devika puts the note back into her handbag as the bus stops at the tube station. She runs down to the platform as she doesn’t want to miss the train. Within a few minutes the trains will be packed with people like the sardines in the tin. She takes the airmail letters out as soon as he finds a place to sit down. Both letters are from Colombo, one from her sister another form her friend. Her friend Geeta’s letter which Devika has opened first:

“Dear Devika, please help me, I have no-one here to turn to, my son was arrested by the police few days ago, as they think he is one of the Tamil terrorists, as you know my family never has anything to do with politics, yet, as you know, in Colombo if you are a Tamil that is enough for you to get arrested and you don’t have to do anything. They took him a few days ago, I was trying to locate his whereabouts but with difficulty; now of course they are expecting me to pay a lot of money for his release. This politics in Sri Lanka is a big business. The police will ask for money in the police station, the army takes money at the checkpoints, the politicians will earn money from any means whether that is from an arms deal or from foreign aid to feed the hungry. Renting a house is a nightmare for a Tamil in Colombo, existing is a day to day struggle here, please help me”.

Devika’s eyes welled up with tears. Geets’s life is being destroyed by the awful political situation in Sri Lanka for the last fifteen years. Geeta was living back in Eastern province very happily before the trouble started in Sri Lanka, with her teacher husband and her three boys and two girls. When the Sri Lankan government systematically arrested and tortured the Tamil youths in the Tamil area, Geeta lost her elder son. A brilliant student from a Christian college, arrested, tortured and his mutilated body found in a field day after his arrest. The the army came to look for ‘Tamil terrorists’. When they couldn’t find men………..? Devika can still hear the screams of the Tamil women who were the victims of this brutal communal violence. ‘Oh poor Geeta’ Devika says to herself silently.

The other letter is from Devika’s sister, who describing the most recent ‘round up’ by the Sri Lankan army; how many people have died or disappeared as a result, and how many have either been recruited by or joined the Tamil militants to fight the government in their village.

“Dear sister, the life here at home is like a living hell – there is no future for the poor in Sri Lanka, you can run away abroad only if you have money or if you have some one abroad to help you, otherwise the young ones have no job to occupy them, the government take poor Sinhala boys to the battlefield to be massacred, poor Tamil boys have no future, therefore they are letting them into the war as a way of ‘living’. Some of them are the same age as your little son, what else can they do? Stay home and be arrested or killed by the Sri Lankan army? The recent sad thing was that our niece Premalatha has gone with the Tamil militant after her father and a brother have been taken by the army; as you know there is very little chance that they are alive. I wonder in our country if there s any one left to fight for peace, freedom, justice and humanity at all”

“ I am going early today”. Devika announces to her colleague Caroline Simpson. Caroline used to work for one of the International organisations and she was in Afghanistan helping women and children. She got injured by a Russian missile and nearly lost her life. Now she is working for this women’s organisation and has some knowledge of the Sri Lankan situation. Caroline looks at Devika who is busy organising the names of the women who come for advice. Their work involves helping women with varying issues from domestic violence to pregnancy testing.

“Are you OK?” asks Caroline – Devika is nearly in tears – thinking about what is happening in Sri Lanka. “How can I be OK, Caroline? Will you be happy when you hear that your countrymen are killing each other in thousands?” Samantha Johnson – the receptionist- walks in and says, “It’s a shame, a damn bloody shame!” Caroline and Devika look at each other with a question in their eyes. “It is a shame that your people are killing like this in your country…you see I booked a holiday to go to Sri Lanka, and now I can’t go; why can’t your people behave themselves properly like other human beings?

(To be continued)

(Rajeswary Balasubramaniam a leading Tamil writer who lives in London)

“I cannot accept your assertion that you did not receive the itinerary for the visit and the Foreign Office failed to inform you about our meeting with you. It is our experience from every engagement we undertook, that briefings from the Foreign Office had been appropriately given and the officials did their utmost in a responsible manner to proceed through the agreed programme.”
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by R Jayadevan

(February 29, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) A delegation assembled by me incorporating wider views of the Tamil Diaspora visited Sri Lanka on the invitation of the President from 17th to 23rd February 2008. The scheduled five days of fact finding mission included visits to Jaffna, Batticaloa, Puttalam and meetings with government ministers, officials and civil society leaders.

If not for your interference to undermine the programme, our visit would have given valuable insight into the situation prevailing in Sri Lanka. There are compelling and circumstantial evidence available to confirm your highhanded act to frustrate our visit. It is unimaginable that you were able to single handily and remorselessly proceed through to wreck our visit.

I am unable to accept or prepared to comprehend any amount of excuses given to exonerate your conduct during our telephone conversations in Colombo. Our conversations further strengthened the view of your single handed involvement in frustrating our visit.

I have no hesitation in stating that you wanted this visit to come under your scope and management and when this failed, you proceeded on the wrecking path to frustrate the programme fermenting all sorts of excuses. You have asserted this position very clearly during our conversations and when I refused to accommodate your version of events, desperation started to dictate your conduct and attempts were made to mitigate the damage your effort had caused to our visit.

I cannot accept your assertion that you did not receive the itinerary for the visit and the Foreign Office failed to inform you about our meeting with you. It is our experience from every engagement we undertook, that briefings from the Foreign Office had been appropriately given and the officials did their utmost in a responsible manner to proceed through the agreed programme. Having failed to meet us according to the programme, you then determinedly went on to frustrate our visit.

It is regretted that worm heart and understanding shown by the government ministers, the Opposition Leader and the government officials was not forthcoming from you. During our conversations, I was able to establish that you wanted exclusive control on Tamil matters and wanting every issue involving the Tamils to be directed or handled through you. When this was not forthcoming with us, you became determined to frustrate our visit to the East. Any amount of justification to exonerate yourself now and claim that Sri Lankan politics is different to the Western type of democracies cannot be acceptable and you must personally and fully take the responsibility to push your way through to frustrate our visit.

If not for your unacceptable and undue interference, our visit could have given valuable insight and helped our people engage further in the process to find peace in Sri Lanka.

This attitude of excessive control of yours is no different to the ‘control freak’ mindset of the LTTE. Our experience proved that the Tamils are not only having difficulties in finding ways to release themselves from the clutches of the LTTE, but also have an uphill task to liberate them from the conditioned and controlling mindsets opposing the LTTE.

In conclusion, I humbly appeal to you to disengage from such behaviour and embrace democratic and transparent ideals to strengthen accountability to become acceptable to the people. Our people have suffered enough for a long time and in the fast progressing world, every effort must be made by political parties and the leaders to reflect responsible governance and Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) which you head too must change to become acceptable to the people by embracing democratic ideals.

(February 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Karuna the rebel has failed but we can still hope for the success of the ideas and values which formed the banner of his rebellion. For an all too brief moment he embodied, however nebulously, the idea that Tamil struggle against Sinhala supremacism must remain democratic and humane, that it must eschew extremist and maximalist habits and veer towards moderation, that it must abandon nihilism and place the real interests of the real people above the glorification of the self-appointed liberators.

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Read Part IV

by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. But the task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.”
Camus (The Rebel)

V – Epilogue

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan belonged to the generation which came of age with the Black July. His is not just the story of one man; it is symbolic of the tragedy of an entire generation compelled by circumstances beyond their control to make choices which enmeshed them (their community and the country) in a cycle of vicious and deadly errors. It was a generation which came of age witnessing the spectacle of innocent Tamil men, women and children being brutally murdered by Sinhalese rioters while a majority of Southern society watched in silence (there were Sinhalese who risked themselves to save the lives of friends, neighbours and even strangers but proportionately this was a small number). The most courageous and idealistic amongst that generation, (together with the ones consumed by blood lust and power hunger) joined the militant movements only to have their dreams shattered or characters degenerated by an unforgiving reality. In a few short years they were either killing fellow Tamil militants or being killed by fellow Tamil militants – supposedly brothers in arms against a common oppressor. Some died, some left, others stayed and died or prospered. Karuna stayed and prospered.

When Karuna rebelled against Vellupillai Pirapaharan the BBC correspondent Frances Harrison called him ‘the rebels’ rebel”. Albert Camus reminds us that “rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way you are justified” (The Rebel). The LTTE had long passed the point of feeling the need for any justification; as far as the Tigers were concerned they – and their leader – embody both justice and virtue. Rebelling against the LTTE had thus become a necessary – though not sufficient - condition for Tamils to lay claim to the banner of justice again.
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“Why did Karuna rebel? The real story remains to be told and the man who holds all the threads of that tale is currently languishing in a British jail. Until that story is written we can only speculate. According to available evidence, Karuna was not planning to rebel; he was compelled to do so to avoid being destroyed by his leader. Circumstances seemed to have forced him to make a choice: victim, renegade or rebel. He chose correctly to rebel and raised the flag of Eastern liberation from Tiger dominance as his justification.”
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Karuna launched his rebellion on a just cause; his refusal to continue with an internecine war too was just. In the first phase of his reincarnation post-Good Friday offensive he was careful not to act in a manner that was completely at variance with the issues he had raised in the moment of his rebellion. Though he and his men could not have survived without some backing from segments of the Lankan state, right until 2006 Karuna was more rebel than paramilitary who did not set himself up against the interests of the people he claimed to represent and therefore managed to retain their support.

According to the latest report of the UTHR the change took place in May-June 2006 as a result of an agreement Karuna and Douglas Devananda, the leader of the EPDP, reached with President Mahinda Rajapakse. This agreement supposedly committed Karuna and Devananda to the de-merging of the North-East and to help in defeating Tigers in the East. In return the President agreed to set up two interim councils, in the North for Devananda and in the East for Karuna. As a consequence of the pact, Karuna was to provide units to ‘fight for the liberation of the East’. “There were not many more than 200 cadres under Karuna. The lack of numbers was solved by the government forces helping him to conscript boys for his army. This emerged on a conspicuous scale within three weeks of the Kool Party Pact” (The Second Fascist Front in Sri Lanka: Towards Crushing the Minorities and Disenfranchising the Sinhalese - Special Report No. 29 – 21.2.2008). By the time that fateful year ended Karuna had become as much of an oppressor of his own people as Pirapaharan ever was. The rebellion had defeated itself, by metamorphosing into its antithesis.

Why did Karuna rebel? The real story remains to be told and the man who holds all the threads of that tale is currently languishing in a British jail. Until that story is written we can only speculate. According to available evidence, Karuna was not planning to rebel; he was compelled to do so to avoid being destroyed by his leader. Circumstances seemed to have forced him to make a choice: victim, renegade or rebel. He chose correctly to rebel and raised the flag of Eastern liberation from Tiger dominance as his justification. Helped by Karuna’s undoubted talents Pirapaharan had raised him high. But he was essentially an outsider in that Northern dominated outfit. The LTTE’s charge of financial corruption against him may be correct; but if he was not an ‘outsider’, and therefore structurally unreliable, that in itself may not have been sufficient for his competitors build a strong enough case against him.

The rebellion was a serious debunking of the LTTE’s sole representative myth which is an insurmountable obstacle to the growth (or even mere survival) of Tamil democracy. In that sense and irrespective of Col. Karuna’s subjective aims (he may have wanted to be the Eastern Sun God) the rebellion contained a significant democratising potential. The rebels in their moment of rebellion needed the help of Sri Lanka and the world and this need could have been used to realise (at least partially) the democratic potential of the rebellion. Moreover the fact of the rebellion could have been used to democratise the peace process through multi-lateralisation via a separate peace deal with Col. Karuna. None of these were done. Instead of trying to maximise their positive potential for mutual advantage, the Lankan state nudged the rebels towards perdition.

If handled correctly Karuna could have provided a positive role model to other disgruntled elements within the LTTE; his example could have been used to ferment dissent and perhaps even other rebellions against the Tiger chieftain. Karuna, languishing in a British jail, still constitutes an example – of the non-viability of rebellion against the LTTE, so long as Colombo is under the dominance of appeasers or Sinhala supremacists. For Tamils, especially easterners, the fate of Karuna and the actions of his successor Pilliyan are reminders that they are caught between a murderous LTTE and a duplicitous and oppressive Lankan state. Right now there does not seem to be any in-between spaces, a place where Tamil could practice democratic dissent both against the LTTE and the Sinhala supremacist regime. By mishandling the Karuna rebellion not just once but twice the state lost an ideal opportunity to weaken the Tiger from within. Appeasement made such a goal undesirable in the first instance; Sinhala supremacism made it unnecessary in the second.

In a retrospective moment Karuna, the rebel, recalled how 1983 turned him from a possible university entrant into an armed militant: “When I was in my teenage, I witnessed the 1983 Holocaust, where hundreds of Tamils were brutally killed, and thousand of them were chased out from the South to the East and North. People who were affected in the South Sri Lanka came back and told us their harrowing experiences which made our blood to boil. As a young man, that had a telling effect on me. The violence and the bloodshed caused by the State orchestrated genocide and violence disturbed me a lot. Events leading to the ethnic violence made me to realize the stark reality - the vulnerability of my people. I began to rake my head to find out ways and means of safeguarding them from such nightmarish acts. Subsequently it dawned on me, that I have a duty by my people, to take care of them, safeguard them and provide security to them, therefore I gave up my studies. I also decided that I should try my best to put an end to this State orchestrated violence, and I concluded that this could be achieved only by joining a Tamil liberation organization” (Asian Tribune -11.8.2004).

When Karuna made that choice, a choice shared by the best and the worst amongst his generation, Tamil militant groups occupied the moral high ground and the Lankan state was clearly the oppressor. Life is not that black and white anymore. The Tigers have proven themselves to be infinitely worse than the Sinhala enemy towards fellow Tamils while, post-Accord the Lankan state has transformed itself in to a more liberal and inclusivist entity. This process of progressive evolution has been stymied and turned back under the Rajapakse Presidency. The state is becoming more and more in thrall to Sinhala supremacists. It is conniving with child conscription, with abductions and extra-judicial killings of civilian Tamils. It is unapologetic about the damages caused to civilian Tamils as a result of the war against the LTTE, as the regime’s reaction to the death of eight civilians in an air raid on Kiranchi, Poonakari demonstrates, yet again. Therefore many young Tamils will, willingly or unwillingly, take the same path that Karuna took more than two and half decades ago. The increasingly Sinhala supremacist bent of the Lankan state and the unenviable fate of Karuna will help alleviate the Tigers’ manpower crisis, undermine Tamil democracy and de-legitimise the Lankan state.
The fate of the Karuna rebellion highlights a critical absence in Southern polity and society – a space characterised by unequivocal opposition to the LTTE and unambiguous support for a political solution to the ethnic problem based on generous and democratic devolution. If such a space existed Karuna would not have found himself in the bind he did – caught between the Sinhala supremacists, who were ready to befriend him because they wanted to use him against not just Pirapaharan but also Tamils in general, and the leftists and liberals, who opposed him because they believed that a deal with Pirapaharan can bring about a peaceful and united Sri Lanka. Unless that critical absence is made good, the Southern response to any future dissent/rebellion within the LTTE will be as suicidally destructive as the response to the Karuna rebellion was.

The manner in which the Pilliyan card was used by the JHU and the MEP, obviously in consonance with the President, to sabotage the APRC demonstrates that for Sinhala supremacists Tamil dissent is nothing but a cat’s paw to be abused at will. Little wonder, then, that the state having used Karuna abandoned him in favour of the completely pliant Pilliyan (he too will be abandoned in his turn). Karuna could have avoided this fate only if he resisted the pressure and the opportunities to transform himself from rebel to incipient war lord. He could have done a better deal for his people before the East was cleared, since the state needed him for that operation. He may not have had great strategic choices; but he did have tactical ones, in matters practical and behavioural, as we all do. Tragically he was unable to resist the lure the state held out to him, to be the Eastern Sun God. In the fateful moment of choice, Karuna thought and acted like a Tiger rather than a rebel. In losing himself he became in truth what his enemies claimed he was - a paramilitary. A bane to his own people, he was abandoned by his patrons once he had outlived his uses.

The great 18th Century German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller wrote a three part play based on the tragedy of Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein. Commenting on the fate of the historical Wallenstein, Schiller said, “If finally necessity and despair drive him really to deserve the judgment that was pronounced on him when innocent, this is not adequate to justify judgment itself…. A misfortune in life that he made an enemy of the victorious party – a misfortune in death that that enemy survived him and wrote his history” (Philosophical Letters). There is another, far more hopeful, reading of the Wallenstein story. The Thirty Years War, which formed the context for Wallenstein’s triumph and tragedy, ended with the Peace of Westphalia; and that treaty was founded on some of the ideas taken up by Wallenstein in his moment of rebellion, such as religious tolerance. Wallenstein, the rebel, failed never to be redeemed, even by history. But the ideas which formed the just cause of his rebellion ensured for Europe a long period of relative peace and became, with the triumph of Enlightenment, the new orthodoxy.
Karuna the rebel has failed but we can still hope for the success of the ideas and values which formed the banner of his rebellion. For an all too brief moment he embodied, however nebulously, the idea that Tamil struggle against Sinhala supremacism must remain democratic and humane, that it must eschew extremist and maximalist habits and veer towards moderation, that it must abandon nihilism and place the real interests of the real people above the glorification of the self-appointed liberators. These ideas, these mindsets are necessary, if the Tamils are to escape from the suicidal path of Vellupillai Pirapaharan.

(Concluded.....)

UN Conference sees rare European Union split over Question of Abortion

[This is a great breakthrough for those who respect life, even of the unborn. We hope the European Union will take courage from this development and march forward with such a stand even with greater boldness and be a role model to the whole world. Every child conceived is a human and we have no right to destroy it. Victor Karunairajan, Consultant Editor]

by Samantha Singson

(February 29, New York, Sri Lanka Guardian) The governments of Poland and Malta broke ranks with the European Union on the question of abortion this week. The dissention occurred at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which convened it’s annual two-week meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Monday. The reaction of Poland and Malta happened after the EU tried to shift the meeting’s agenda to include the right to abortion.

On Tuesday Radoslaw Mleczko, the Polish Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, told the gathering of UN Member States that Poland generally aligned itself with the EU but that any EU reference to sexual and reproductive health could not include abortion. On Thursday afternoon, the head of Malta’s mission to the UN, Ambassador Saviour F. Borg said, “Malta would like to clarify its position with respect to the language relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights in the [EU] statement. Malta firmly continues to maintain that any position taken or recommendations made regarding women’s empowerment and gender equality should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights, services or commodities.”

The split in the European Union is significant because the EU hardly ever splits on questions of social policy at the UN. Even countries that are generally anti-abortion go along with the more radical approach taken by the United Kingdom, France and Germany. They do this as an agreement that the EU will always work out their differences behind closed doors and present a united front at UN negotiations. This works to the advantage of the pro-abortion states since they outnumber the anti-abortion states. Moreover, an EU that is divided is one that can be defeated on social policy questions. In fact, the last time the EU split in any significant way was in the UN cloning debate which resulted in the UN calling for the ban of all forms of human cloning, an effort opposed by the UK, France, Germany and other left-wing European governments. It is unclear how meaningful this current split will be in the negotiations which will begin in earnest tomorrow.

Pro-life and pro-family issues were also woven into UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks to the commission on Monday when he criticized the now widespread practice of choosing abortions based on the sex of the baby, an issue that was all but taken off the agenda at last year’s CSW despite solid support from both civil society and numerous governmental delegations. In his speech to launch the new UN multi-year campaign to end violence against women, the Secretary-General stressed, “Through the practice of prenatal sex selection, countless others are denied the right even to exist. No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge.”

The Secretary-General also highlighted the importance of families and children stating, “We know that violence against women compounds the enormous social and economic toll on families, communities, even whole nations. And we know that when we work to eradicate violence against women, we empower our greatest resource for development: mothers raising children.”

Among the many pro-life and pro-family lobbyists attending the CSW is a large contingent of high school girls from Overbrook Academy in Rhode Island. Fourteen year old Elsa Corripio told the Friday Fax, “We want these delegates to know that there are many young people who believe in respecting life.” Ana Paola Rangel, 15, added, “Maybe we can’t change the world, but we know we can make a difference.”

The CSW meeting continues through next week.

(February 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “Sri Lanka successfully concluded a bilateral Extradition Treaty with Turkey recently in Ankara. Sri Lanka delegation comprised Dr. Rohan Perera, P.C., Legal Advisor/Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Palitha Fernando, P.C., Additional Solicitor General/Attorney General’s Department,” according to official statement released by the Foreign Ministry in Colombo on today.

The Extradition Treaty provides for extradition of fugitive offenders who are wanted for prosecution, trial, imposition or enforcement of a sentence in either country. Offences punishable under the laws in both Contracting Parties by deprivation of liberty for a period of more than one year or by a more severe penalty, are made extraditable offences under the Treaty.

“The Extradition Treaty places particular emphasis on terrorist related offences. While extradition could be denied, if the offence for which extradition is sought is a “political offence”, in keeping with the general laws of extradition, the Treaty makes specific exceptions, inter-alia, in respect of terrorist related offences. These include offences pursuant to international agreements to which Sri Lanka and Turkey are parties, such as the International Conventions on Suppression of Terrorism which establish the obligation to extradite or prosecute, and offences constituted by taking or endangering the life of a person, being an offence committed in circumstances in which such conduct creates a collective danger, whether direct or indirect, to the lives of other persons. Thus terrorist related offences are made extraditable, irrespective of any political motivation that may be present, in relation to such offences,” the statement said.

The draft Extradition Treaty also provides, inter-alia, for:

Extradition procedure and the required documents for extradition;
Provisional arrest pending a request for extradition
Surrender of property in connection with an extradition offence.

The Extradition treaty is expected to be formally signed by Sri Lanka and Turkey during a high level visit, once the internal formalities are completed.

“Though there are Tamils in India, there are no Sinhalas in that country. Neither the Sinhala language is spoken in any part of India. Though the Vijaya story claims that the Sinhalas came from Vanga or Bengal or Bangladesh, no Bangladeshi or a west Bengali in India would recognise the Sinhalas are the cousins of Bengalis.”

____________________

by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(February 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) After a seminar organised by the Organisation of Professional Associations on Federalism and Peace, some wanted to know more about the histories of Tamils and the Sinhalas in this country. It is widely believed that both the Sinhalas and the Tamils came to Sri Lanka from India and have been living ever since as Sinhalas and Tamils. As such the general impression among most of the people is that the Veddas are the indigenous people of the country and the Sinhalas and the Tamils are migrants. This notion also adds on to the myth that Sinhalas and the Tamils have the same status culturally and historically in Sri Lanka.

This is not only untrue but is based on the concept of aborigines, formulated by the westerners. The aborigines are people who are descendants of those who had been living in the respective countries before the Europeans, especially the English and the others from the British Isles set foot on those countries and almost annihilated the natives. The British, in general, with respect to certain countries such as North America, Australia and New Zealand not only grabbed the land but took steps to massacre the true sons of soil.

In Africa and especially in Asia they failed to do so and the Europeans, and especially the British tried to change the cultures of the people of the countries that they had freshly captured, through other methods. In the countries of the first category the British, built separate nations and ruled those countries with their laws without any regard to indigenous cultures. They grabbed the land that did not belong to them and established states and governments and went on to rule those whom they could not massacre. In most of these countries there were no owners of the land and the concept of individual ownership was not known to many cultures outside Europe at that time, and the people who had been living in those countries could not understand conceptually what was happening. The descendants of people who survived, but without land and other resources have been identified as aborigines.

. What has to be emphasised is that in North America, Australia and New Zealand, the Europeans built "new" nations and that they went to these countries from Europe, especially from Britain. The British did not mix with the indigenous people and neither the American English culture nor the Aussie English culture has absorbed anything significant from the indigenous cultures. The respective English languages do not have many words borrowed from the indigenous languages, except for some place names and names given to rivers and mountains. On the whole it was a case of anihilation of not only the people but also their cultures, political systems and economies. This had not happened previously in the history of the homo sapiens with respect to themselves or with respect to the others. The western theories, on how the homo sapiens annihilated the hominids in various countries after the former were supposed to have migrated to those countries from Africa, have to be taken with a pinch of salt. These theories are based on what the Europeans did after the fifteenth century with Britain being replaced by Africa, British by the homo sapiens and the "aborigines" by the hominids. Those who are outside the western countries are in general "underdeveloped" like the hominids and live in the "underdeveloped third world". It has to be remembered that as far as the westerners were concerned the "aborigines" were not better than the animals whom God has created for the (white) man. In a sense the European theories on the evolution of "man" attempts to justify the "evolution" of the Europeans. Theories, contrary to the popular belief, are not objective and are culture dependent. The western theory on evolution of man is unilinear, with an origin, everything originating from Africa, and is based on the unilinear "theories" of the old testament, that have an origin. So are Darwin’s theory of Evolution and the Big Bang theory. The westerners have retained the concept of the origin found in the Old Testament, though the originator has been removed.

Western theories on evolution, whether of the universe, life or homo sapiens are theories with origins, though without an "originator". In Physics, Biology, Anthropology or any other field, the western theories take the same form in essence. It is very often a case of presenting the "same" theory in different words. Classical Marxism is also unilinear and is not very different from Darwin’s theory of evolution. I have no intention of leaving western Mathematics out of the picture and in fact, it could be called the mother (or father) of all unilinear theories, with its unilinear axiomatic method in establishing results in the form of theorems.

. However, this does not mean that the others were not interested in linear theories. The Brahamin tradition in India also had linear theories though of a recurring nature. I am of the view that our own Vijaya story on the "origin" of the Sinhala nation is influenced by the Brahamin theories and not by Buddhist culture. The importance of this theory, meaning the Vijaya story, lies in a different direction. It reminds us as well as those so-called historians who following western theories on the formation of nations claim that Sinhala nation came into existence after the tenth or the eleventh century, that the Sinhalas even before the advent of Buddhist culture had been aware or conscious of a Sinhala nation. Otherwise, they would not have gone into the business of creating theories of a Sinhala nation. One does not think of theories on the "origin" of non-existent nations. The Vijaya story is very much biased towards north India and it is very likely that the "Purohitha" Brahimins of the kings who spoke Aryan languages were responsible for this particular theory. Even after the Sinhalas became Buddhists the Brahimin tradition had influenced them as could be seen from our literature. There have been few like Veedagama Maithreye Thero, Vettewe Thero who have fought openly against the Brahimin tradition. In the last century Messrs. Martin Wickremesinghe and Cumaratunga Munidasa gave the leadership in the struggle against the Brahimin tradition in Sinhala arts and literature. The latter was very conscious of what he was doing and he alone took the bold step to construct theories not based in the Brahmin tradition. Our present understanding of the history of the Sinhalas is essentially due to Mr. Cumaratunga Munidasa and Mr. Raphael Tennekone of the Hela Havula.

. The Sinhalas unlike the Tamils did not come from India. The Brahmin Vijaya story attempts to ignore the fact there had been Hela people living in this country before the Aryan language speaking people came from North India. The Tamils would like to say that the Hela people were Dravidian but unfortunately for them there are no historical or archaeological evidence to substantiate that claim. The Dravidians who had migrated even to South India only about two thousand five hundred years ago would not have arrived in Sri Lanka before that period. The research of Ven. Baddegama Vimalawansa Thero, Prof. D. E. Hetiarachchi and others confirm that there are Hela words in the present day Sinhala language. The words such as "bella, [neck] kata, [mouth] kakula, [leg] bada [belly/stomach]" are Hela words, though there are equivalents that Sinhala language has borrowed from the Indo Aryan languages.

The Sinhalas do not use words such as "gela, muva, paadaya, udaraya" in their day to day work. They would talk of "bella gahala yana vedak" and not of "gela gahala yana vedak". We have expressions such as "kata vata kara veta bendeema" [futile task on trying to stop spread of rumours] and "bada vada geneema [self advancement]" and not of "muva vata kara veta bendeema" and "udaraya vada geneema". The so-called common man who is very creative has even recently come out with expressions such as "honda kakulak"not to refer to shapely legs but to somebody who is good at his work, though the middle class may not think any good in the works of these "honda kakul".

Though there are Tamils in India, there are no Sinhalas in that country. Neither the Sinhala language is spoken in any part of India. Though the Vijaya story claims that the Sinhalas came from Vanga or Bengal or Bangladesh, no Bangladeshi or a west Bengali in India would recognise the Sinhalas are the cousins of Bengalis.

It is not the case with the present day Tamils in Sri Lanka, the vast majority of whom are descendants of those who were first brought to this country by the Dutch not more than three hundred and fifty years ago. The Sinhalas could not have come from a country where there were no Sinhalas or where the Sinhala language was not spoken. The English speaking people were able to go to North america, Australia, New Zealand and to Rhodesia from England as there were English people living in England at that time.

However, this is not to deny that people from North India, speaking Indo Aryan languages came to Sri Lanka about three thousand years ago. The excavations done by Dr. Shiran Deraniyagala in Anuradhapura reveal that Aryan language speaking people had come to Sri Lanka around ninth century BC. The Vijaya story or the theory (all theories are stories or narrations in the terminology of western post modernists) as recorded in the Mahavansa and Deepavansa mentions a date much later than the date estimated by Dr. Deraniyagala. However, the Vijaya story could be seen as an amalgamation of a number of stories. Mahavansa refers to Vijaya having embarked from an eastern port in Vanga going round India to the west coast before arriving in Sri Lanka. This could be interpreted to say that not only Aryan language speaking from Vanga but even people from areas such as present day Maharashtra and Gujarat had migrated to Sri Lanka from time to time over a period of more than five hundred years.

People migrate over periods extending to centuries and it is possible that from about ninth century BC Indo Aryan speaking people migrated to Sri Lanka and Vijaya could be the name given to the Victor who established some kind of dominance over the Hela people who lived in the country. According to Hela Havula Vijaya refers to Videhi or outsider - Vijathika) that the Indo Aryans were able to dominate the Hela people in the country.

In any event the Indo Aryans, meaning those who spoke Indo Aryan languages, did not massacre the Hela people nor established their own kingdom creating a new nation. That kind of colonialism was not known in the pre European dominated world and it was migration to a particular country and mixing with the people who already lived in that country. The same thing happened when the Aryans first came to India. They fought but mixed with the indigenous people, who were neither Aryans nor Dravidians, and did not form a new nation. The Mahabarath and Ramayana are essentially stories about how this mixing, sometimes through war, took place in Bharath. It should be emphasised that Ramayana refers to people who had already being mixed. The story around Rishi Agasti is a case in point. The Indo Aryans who migrated to Sri Lanka or Heladiva fought and mixed with the Hela people who were neither Aryans nor Dravidians, and in the course of time formed the mixed nation Sinhala.

As Hela Havula has pointed out Pandukabhaya period could be identified as the time during which the Sinhala nation came to be established. What is important here is that the Sinhala nation, the Sinhala language and the Sinhala language were not created by some outsiders or immigrants who came to this country. They came into existence as a result of mixing of Indo Aryans who migrated from North India and the non Aryan non Dravidian Hela people who had lived in the country for thousands of years.

- The Dam’s lawyers filed a case against Roy, Patkar and Movement lawyer, Pranshant Bhushan accusing them of contempt of the Supreme Court citing slogans the three had shouted outside the court during those protests. In the affidavit which Arundhati Roy filed in her defense, she argued that the court’s very decision to consider charges against her revealed "a disquieting inclination on the part of the court to silence criticism and muzzle dissent, to harass and intimidate those who disagree with it."

by Nalin Swaris

(February 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The bizarre punishment meted out to Anthony Michael Fernando on a charge of contempt of court shocked the international legal community. Fernando’s long and painful struggle to seek legal remedy for a real or perceived violation of his rights was detailed in a feature article published in the Sunday Leader of February 22 2002.

This right is guaranteed by Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Sri Lanka is a signatory. Fernando had finally turned to the highest court in the land to seek legal redress for an alleged violation of his fundamental rights by our judicial system. He arrived in court as an ordinary citizen. At the end of the hearings he found himself manacled like a common criminal and taken to serve a one year’s prison.

Dato Param Cumaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur has stated that his office in Geneva was inundated by protests and urgent appeals to take a stand in this matter. Cumaraswamy arrived in the Island, visited Fernando in hospital and obtained first hand information about the case. Fernando had alleged that on top of the heavy jail sentence he had been beaten by prison officers and subjected to degrading treatment by hospital personnel. If these allegations are proven, it amounts to "cruel inhuman and degrading treatment" terms used to define torture in the Anti-Torture Act.

The AFP and PTI reported that Cumaraswamy had said he was "shocked" and "stunned" by Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Sarath Silva hearing a case against himself. The punishment of Anthony Fernando calls to mind a criminal contempt of court case in neighbouring India last year. It was the sentencing of Arundhati Roy to a one-day prison sentence by the Supreme Court of India. Roy’s courage and eloquent defence of her position should inspire and jolt awake civil society activists and professionals who seem to be dormant in the face of the deplorable state of Sri Lanka’s judicial and legal system.

The Case of Arundhati Roy

For over 15 years the Save the Narmada Movement led by the reknowned film star with a social conscience, Medha Patkar, has been organizing struggle against the construction of big dams on the Narmada River. Arundhati Roy had been an active participant in public demonstrations organised by the Movement. These included protests against the dismissal by the Supreme Court of a lawsuit filed by activist groups to stop the building of the Dam. The Dam’s lawyers filed a case against Roy, Patkar and Movement lawyer, Pranshant Bhushan accusing them of contempt of the Supreme Court citing slogans the three had shouted outside the court during those protests. In the affidavit which Arundhati Roy filed in her defense, she argued that the court’s very decision to consider charges against her revealed "a disquieting inclination on the part of the court to silence criticism and muzzle dissent, to harass and intimidate those who disagree with it." In August 2001, the Indian Supreme Court dismissed the petition against the three respondents. However, in a remarkably twisted move the court demanded that Roy show cause as to why she should not face new contempt charges for the affidavit she filed in the dismissed contempt case!

The presiding judge at the hearings of this outrageous case against Arundhati Roy was one of the judges against whom the "contemptuous" remarks were supposedly made. In March 2002 the Supreme Court ruled that Arundhati Roy’s affidavit in fact constituted contempt of court and imposed a symbolic one-day prison term and a 2,000 rupees fine. If she refused to pay the fine, her jail term would be extended to three months. The judges described the punishment as "showing the magnaminity of Law, by keeping in mind the respondent is a woman." However controversial the case and the verdict, the Supreme Court of India showed it could be clement, not petty. But Arundhati Roy remained unrepentant and unflinching in her insistence that every citizen has a fundamental right to protest against muzzling freedom of expression even if the offender is the highest court in the land. (Source Lakshmi Chaudhry, www. AlterNet.com) Arundhati Roy and Contempt of Court

The following are some extracts from the courageous public statement Arundhati Roy issued on her release from prison:

"I stand by what I have said in my Affidavit and I have served the sentence which the Supreme Court of India imposed on me. Anybody who thinks that the punishment for my supposed "crime" was a symbolic one day in prison and a fine of two thousand rupees, is wrong. The punishment began over a year ago when notice was issued to me to appear personally in Court over a ludicrous charge which the Supreme Court itself held should never have been entertained. In India, everybody knows that as far as the legal system is concerned, the process is part of the punishment...Paying the fine does not in any way mean that I have apologized or accepted the judgment. I decided that paying the fine was the correct thing to do, because I have made the point I was trying to make.

To take it further would be to make myself into a martyr for a cause that is not mine alone. It is for India’s Free Press to fight to patrol the boundaries of its freedom which the law of Contempt, as it stands today, severely restricts and threatens. I hope that battle will be joined. If not in the course of this last year, I would have fought only for my own dignity, for my own right as an Indian citizen to look the Supreme Court of India in the eye and say, "I insist on the right to comment on the Court and to disagree with it." That would be considerably less than what I hope this fight is all about. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do.

There are parts of the Judgment which would have been deeply reassuring if it weren’t for the fact that citizens of India, on a daily basis, have just the opposite experience "Rule of Law is the basic rule of governance of any civilized, democratic polity.... Whoever the person may be, however high he or she is, no one is above the law notwithstanding however powerful and how rich he or she may be." If only!

The Judgment goes on to say "after more than half a century of Independence, the Judiciary in the country is under constant threat and being endangered from within and without." If this is true, would the way to deal with it be to do some honest introspection or to silence its critics by exercising the power of Contempt?

On the December 23, 2001, the Chief Justice of India, in an Inaugural Address to a National Legal Workshop in Kerala, said that 20 percent of the Judges in this country across the board may be corrupt, and that they bring the entire Judiciary into disrepute. But of course this did not constitute Criminal Contempt. Now let me read you what a former Law Minister said in a public speech some time ago: "The Supreme Court, composed of the elements of the elite class, had their unconcealed sympathy for the Haves i.e. the zamindars anti-social elements, bride-burners and a whole horde of reactionaries, have found their haven in the Supreme Court.

In this judgment, the Court says that the Law Minister’s statement was permissible because "the criticism of the judicial system was made by a person who himself had been a judge of the High Court and was the Minister at the relevant time."

However, they go on to say that "all citizens cannot be permitted to comment upon the conduct of the Courts in the name of fair criticism, which if not checked, would destroy the institution itself." In other words, it is not just what you say, nor its correctness or justification, but who says it, which determines whether or not it constitutes criminal contempt.

In other words, the assertion contained in the beginning of this judgment namely: "whoever the person may be, however high he or she is, no one is above the law notwithstanding how powerful or how rich he or she might be" is contradicted by the judgment itself. I wish to reiterate that

I believe that the Supreme Court of India is an extremely important institution and has made some enlightened judgments. For an individual to argue with the Court, does not in any way imply that he or she is undermining the whole institution. On the contrary, it means that he or she has a stake in this society and cares about the role and efficacy of that institution. Today, the Supreme Court makes decisions that affect for better or for worse the lives of millions of common citizens. To deny comment and criticism of this institution, on pain of criminal contempt, from all but an exclusive club of ‘experts’, would, I think, be destructive of the democratic principles on which our constitution is based. The judiciary in India is possibly the most powerful institution in the country, and as the Chief Justice recently implied, the least accountable.

In fact, the only accountability of this institution is that it can be subjected to comment and criticism by citizens in general. If even this right is denied, it would expose the country to the dangers of judicial tyranny".

During the Colombo press conference Dato Param Cumaraswamy said there was little outsiders could do to improve the judicial system in the island and urged civil society to take a stand to demand a better judiciary" "What I am concerned about", he said, "is not only the independence of the judiciary but also the accountability of the judges. I want the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to wake up, have the courage to take up the cause of this man without demanding guarantees that they will be not he hauled up for contempt". In Sri Lanka, the Silence of the Lambs (civil and uncivil) is deafening.

“Currently, the Indian Srilankan policy seems to be in a limbo. With LTTE banned in India for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, India has no leverage with this group. India also cannot offer much more than lip sympathy to the Srilankan Government which is turning to foreign sources like Pakistan and China for augmenting their assets to be used against LTTE.”
_____________________________

by A. K. Verma

(February 29, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The core problem in Srilanka is one of identity. The Tamils want to preserve their identity. The Sinhalas want to overrun it. No solution has emerged ever since Srilanka became a republic almost sixty years ago.

Today, the Srilankan Tamil quest for identity has crystallized around the demand for Ealam. Ironically, this milestone has been reached only because the Sinhalas, in various negotiations conducted through the period, refused to be generous to let the Tamils live as equal citizens and not a suppressed minority. Originally, the Srilankan Tamil leadership was moderate, willing to be a part of federal Srilanka, provided some minimum conditions were satisfied like recognition of Tamil as a national language, autonomy in the North East of Srilanka, equal opportunity in education and employment and non colonization of predominantly Tamil areas by non Tamil Srilankans. Sinhala obduracy and consistent bad faith led to the emergence of young militants who took over the leadership of the Tamil struggle from moderates. Today, as in the past more than 20 years, the shots in the movement are called by V. Prabakaran, the LTTE Supremo.

His experience with the Sinhalas has taught him that the Sinhala leadership of whatever hue cannot be trusted. He has implicit faith that Ealam is an achievable objective and he will be the one who will lead his people to this destination. His confidence in himself and his mission makes him in his own eyes the sole arbitrator of what can or cannot be accepted on behalf of the Srilankan Tamils from the Srilankan Government.

Unfortunately, the Government of India has been slow in grasping this truth. The failure is largely systemic because policy decisions in the past were often made without the benefit of well conducted policy research and analysis. Structures did not exist which could carry out an objective study of a situation, examining its short term and long term dynamics and throwing up a set of options with likely scenarios, for the policy maker to make his choice. It is evident that a study of this nature would try to reconcile various contradictions and their implications before recommending policy steps. In point of fact, policies those days were made through discussions in a core group, with rarely a position paper being ever presented to the discussants by anyone. No minutes were ever recorded and circulated after discussions which were often attended by bureaucratic overlords whose sole qualification for inclusion in the core group was their over lordship, not expertise, knowledge or understanding of the issues at stake. Bickering was not uncommon and were often initiated by these overlords whose objective would thereby be to register their over lordship.

India displayed no interest in the Srilankan Tamil ethnic questions till early 1980s. Prior to that the Indian interest had gravitated around the plantation Tamil immigrants from South India, who for more than 150 years had become the backbone of the plantation economy of Srilanka. After Srilanka’s independence, the Sinhala authorities wanted them, now numbering a million with several of them with residence in Srilanka for more than one generation, to be treated as Indian citizens. The Srilankan Tamils looked upon the plantation Tamil as a distinct group, separate from them. Consequently, the former did not enter India’s focus at that time.

But the rumblings of what was to follow had already started. The Sinhala leadership had displayed consistent insensitivity to implementation of their agreements with Tamil leadership over questions of regional autonomy and other rights of equal citizenship. The communal tempers were constantly rising and erupting in clashes. In July 1983, riots broke out which eventually catapulted ethnicity to the top of the agenda and marked that a point of no return had been reached for the Tamils of North East. The riots had erupted in Colombo and elsewhere after LTTE killed 13 Srilankan soldiers in the North on July 13 after an ambush. In these riots several Tamils were killed, including those locked up in prisons. There was credible suspicion of involvement of Srilankan Govt.

The riots led to an exodus of Tamils from Srilanka into Tamil Nadu, bringing into focus for the first time for the Government of India and people of Tamil Nadu the intensity of the ethnic question. The Indian reactions were guided by its political and strategic interests which required that while Srilanka must remain a united country, it should be advised against seeking a military solution of the ethnic problem through internal and external resources. Fearing that the influx might arouse fires of Tamil or Dravidian nationalism in Tamil Nadu also, it was felt, an option should be kept in hand to neutralize any effort by Srilankan Government to enforce a military solution in the North East. A decision was therefore taken to keep pressure on Sri Lanka by giving military training to Srilanka Tamil groups in India.

Actually there was no danger of igniting Tamil or Dravidian nationalism in Tamil Nadu. Dravidian nationalism had been just an intellectual concept of its progenitor Periyar EV Ramaswami Naicker, not based in ground reality. This theoretical formulation had also not even included Srilankan Tamils in its sweep. Besides in 1962, the idea of even Tamil separatist nationalism had been buried for good by CN Annadurai, founder of DMK. Training of Srilankan Tamils in India was, therefore, not a good idea. The situation in Srilanka was not comparable to East Pakistan in 1971, which became Bangladesh towards the end of that year. As later events were to prove Srilankan Tamils did not hold themselves beholden to India for all the assistance they received.

As Sri Lanka, in panic, looked for assistance from outside powers like US, UK, even China and Pakistan, Indian diplomacy tried to checkmate such efforts and to persuade the SL Govt. to devolve substantially central powers to North and East by creating regional councils. Indian efforts came to naught as Sri Lanka feared such devolution would lead to secession, with Trincomalee becoming the natural capital of Ealam Tamil region. How deep such fears ran was illustrated later by how quickly the demerger of North and East was brought about by the Srilankan Govt. after the IPKF left Srilanka.

However, India did not give up and hosted meetings in Thimpu in July and August 1985 between Srilankan Government and Tamil militants. It was the first time that all the Tamil militant groups came together to make a united set of proposals to the Srilankan Government, seeking recognition of identity, self determination and dignity. Unfortunately, the Srilankan Government failed to appreciate that this was an occasion to explore various options with the young leadership of the Tamil movement. The talks failed as the Srilankan Government could not offer anything to meet the Tamil aspirations. It also became evident that Indian influence did not count for much either with the Srilankan Government or the Tamil militant groups.

Failure at Thimpu also indicated that the negotiating process had reached a dead end. Srilankan Government felt that it must get back to a military campaign to vanquish the Tamils. The siege of Jaffna followed, with bombing raids and starving of Tamils in the Jaffna Peninsula. This caused a tremendous sense of outrage in Tamil Nadu. India was left with no option except to send IAF relief flights over Jaffna to air drop supplies.

The July 29, 1987 Indo Srilankan agreement inevitably followed as yet another manifestation of Indian concerns for arresting the drift towards a long civil war. However, the agreement was another example of a flawed exercise. President Jayewardene of Srilanka might have sued for peace with the Tamils through the pact but obviously enough notice had not been taken of the seeds of insurrection which were sprouting in the South among militant Buddhist Srilankans who were dead set against any compromise towards Tamil aspirations. Their party JVP was an off shoot of the rural youth movement of the sixties. By 1980s it had acquired formidable strength in urban and quasi urban regions also. The agreement incorporated two major concessions to the Tamils, a single administrative unit with devolved powers in North and East with a single provincial council and elections to this council before December 1987, Prabhakaran’s heart was not in it as by that time he had already decided that Tamils deserved nothing short of Eelam. Indian assumptions that he would accept less were illusory. Similarly the dream expectation that a merger of North and East would be genuinely acceptable to the Srilankan Government was unreal. The agreement was doomed from the beginning. Indian Intelligence had misgivings about this agreement and had advised against the induction of Indian Military into Srilanka which followed the signing of the agreement.

The intransigent attitude of Prabhakaran’s LTTE came to surface soon enough. It refused to surrender all the arms which the agreement required. It refused to take part in the elections to the provincial council of the merged North East. The IPKF had in the meanwhile been inducted in Sri Lanka to organize de-militarization of the Tamil areas. In the absence of LTTE co-operation, the Indian authorities allowed IPKF to become coercive.

The Indian decision to opt for military operations against LTTE was based on the army assessment that IPKF would take no more than a week to drive LTTE to its knees. Indian Intelligence was not aware how this assessment had been arrived at. Unfortunately, this assessment was not subjected to any deeper scrutiny and became the basis for Indian army operations against the LTTE. Subsequent events proved that the so called assessment was just wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, the Indo Srilanka agreement served some useful purposes in that Srilanka agreed not to allow hostile use of Trincomalee port or VOA facilities in Srilanka for prejudiced propaganda. But IPKF had ultimately to withdraw, leaving over 1200 dead and with over 3000 injured. The strange spectacle was also witnessed of LTTE and the Srilankan Government, under the successor President Premdasa, cooperating against IPKF. The merger of North and East has now been undone. The current President Rajapakshe is offering no more than district development councils to the Tamils in a unitary set up which had been rejected way back in 1985 at Thimpu by the Tamils. The Sinhala leadership has come full circle in its attitude towards the Tamils.

Currently, the Indian Srilankan policy seems to be in a limbo. With LTTE banned in India for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, India has no leverage with this group. India also cannot offer much more than lip sympathy to the Srilankan Government which is turning to foreign sources like Pakistan and China for augmenting their assets to be used against LTTE. The merger of North East no longer seems practical with Srilanka having successfully split the Tamils in the East under Karuna and created reservations in the minds of Muslim Tamils of East. Rajapakshe seems to be aiming at the attrition of LTTE, an objective which will not easily be met. The Tamils of North East are, therefore, destined to suffer a hapless fate for an unknown number of years in the future.

(The author was the Chief of R&AW at the time of IPKF operations. For too long, Indian intelligence has been blamed for the debacle in Sri Lanka.)

"Our Member Abducted & Poisoned By Armed Group"

“Recent Suicide Attack in the East Targets Us” - EROS

(February 29, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka Guardian) “On Thursday 21/02/2008 EROS member Rasamanickam Thiyagarasa (26), the brother of EROS candidate Rasamanickam Yogarasa contesting in the local government elections for the Valaichenai Pradeshiya Sabha on the Eelavar Democratic Front (EDF) ticket was abducted by an armed group, beaten up and was subsequently poisoned and left for dead in a deserted area,” according to press statement resealed by the Party official.

“He was later recovered by EROS members who were sent out to look for him after it was learned that he had been abducted. He had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and the Batticaloa Government hospital and was said to be in a serious but stable condition. The doctors had been unable to verify what poison had been used by the armed kidnappers. Unfortunately he passed away on 25th February 2008 at the Batticaloa General Hospital. His death was a result of being poisoned by members of the armed group that had abducted and beaten him,” the statement reported.

The matter is now being investigated by the local (DIG) of Police. A request has been made by EROS to the local police (DIG) for extra security personnel for senior EROS members.

Meanwhile, “The recent bomb blast killing two TMVP candidates by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was actually targeted at the EROS chief candidate Rajanathan Prabaharan who is known to travel on the same route using a similar vehicle,” the Party believed.

This attack of an EROS member was inhumane and EROS has urged the Government of Sri Lanka specifically the President to order the disarmament of armed groups in the East before the elections and to help avoid future abductions or even possible killings of candidates contesting in the elections or their relatives.

Meanwhile many civilians are being rounded up by the STF and local police as a result of search operations. These are being conducted because of the continued attacks by the LTTE and the fact that the LTTE cadres are disguising themselves as ordinary civilians. Members of EROS have visited local police stations and have had many locals civilians released from custody having proved that there is no connection between a majority of the arrested civilians and the LTTE. Meetings have been held with the local SSP and DIG including the STF Commander as a result many locals from the Amparai and Batticaloa have been released from custody.

Sri Lanka funds LTTE front radio station in London

(February 29, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sources close to the controversial satellite Tamil Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) operating from London confirms that the Sri Lankan government is funding its operations on a monthly basis. The said radio station is claimed to have aligned with the LTTE in Sri Lanka, India and in the Tamil Diaspora.

Information reaching from TBC confirms it is receiving £5,000 per month from the Sri Lankan government. According to the informant, the said radio station is receiving funds for over three years.

The controversial radio station came under public scrutiny following revelations that it is closely associated with the LTTE recently. Within the past six months the TBC radio has permitted LTTE activists to engage in programmes to espouse their cause.

The TBC is managed by Pussallawa born Veeraiah Ramurajaha who is well known as Ram. He has been accused of engaging in terrible anti-social activities including bank robberies, rapes in Sri Lanka and credit card fraud, drug dealings etc in the Tamil Diaspora. He is an active member of the Indian based Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF). This group is accused of committing over ten murders in the Indian soil-one of them is said to be an Indian citizen.

TBC’s Ramujaha is said to be a state benefit claimant in the UK and had undertaken extensive trips to India, Sri Lanka, Canada, Germany and France since his release from imprisonment in Geneva last year over large scale credit card fraud.

Sri Lankan government pays £5,000 per month to facilitate two hours of airtime programme of the TBC in the state run Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Ram is also being accused of not accounting for the large sums of money he had fraudulently taken from the radio listeners. Sources close to Ram confirm that the two break-ins at the TBC some months ago involving the LTTE activists were a conspiracy hatched by the radio station with the LTTE gangsters to generate income for TBC.

The government of Sri Lanka is said to be channelling funds to Ram without scrutinising how the funds are being spent by him.

Image: Pussalawa born Veeraiah Ramurajaha

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