H. L. D. Mahindapala

Broadly speaking, the people who vent their opinions publicly can be divided into two categories: 1. those who know their subject and 2. those who think they know their subject.

Let the readers decide into which category Lynn Ockersz, the Deputy Editor of The Island, belongs after reading this response to his punditry about “nation-building”.(See his latest comments on “nation-building” in The Island –November 5, 2009)  

In it he moans: “Sri Lanka has failed abjectly in the all-important undertaking of nation-building or of evolving an equal polity where the communities of the country could coexist peacefully. The latter is what nation-building is all about.” The first thing to note is that there is nothing original about his accusations of blaming only the Sinhala leadership. He is merely repeating the usual “litany of complaints” (Radhika Coomaraswamy) of the Jaffna Tamils without taking into consideration the complex north-south forces that interacted and exacerbated the community relations. If his skills of analyzing the primary peninsular forces that aggravated north-south relations were as great as skills in parroting the same old yarns of mono-ethnic extremism spun by the Jaffna jingoists there would have been chance of him being rated as a reliable pundit. His tiresome accusations indicate that the propaganda pills popped into his mouth are coming out of ears.

Consider his outlandish statement on the minorities. He blandly utters the falsehood that the “minorities” (plural) could not co-exist peacefully with the majority. But the fact remains that only one community (singular) – namely the Jaffna jingoists — refused to co-exist peacefully and took up arms to establish a separate state. No other Tamil-speaking community joined them for the simple reason that their political goals and their self-interests did not coincide with that of the mono-ethnic extremists of the north. Even the Batticoloa Tamils who joined the Jaffna-led war declared in the Vadukoddai Resolution broke away and fought against them saying that the Jaffna hegemonists were discriminating against them. The Batticoloa Tamils have come back to the mainstream, showing a willingness to co-exist with the other communities despite the differences with the centre. Ockersz’s tendency to talk of minorities in the plural when only one minority community has deviated into violence is, no doubt, similar to that of the proverbial Sinhala ant who thinks that a trickle of urine is greater than Mahaveli flooding the sea.

Besides, those who know Sri Lankan history will concede that all the other Tamil-speaking communities decided to co-exist sharing the land within the democratic framework however imperfect it may be. Sadly, Ockersz’s distorts the truth by lumping all the Tamil-speaking communities in his fictitious ethnic basket to exaggerate his claim that all the Tamil-speaking communities have ganged up against the majority. The reality is different. If the minorities (plural) joined with the Jaffna jingoists the state would not have had a chance of combating the common front of the Tamil-speaking minorities. It is because the Tamil-speaking Muslims and the Tamil-speaking Indians refused to join in (1) the separatist claim and (2) the military solution pursued by the Jaffna jingoists that the state was able to defeat “the deadliest terrorists in the world”. (FBI report). 

Then he proceeds to blame the leadership of Sri Lanka for not producing “a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru so far.” It is rather difficult to locate on which side of Rip Van Winkle’s bed he was sleeping when India was divided into two under the Gandhi-Nehruvian regime. And even after Gandhi and Nehru agreed to divide India on religious grounds the separatist tendencies continue to threaten India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The fact that the Gandhi-Nehruvian combination united India against the British imperialists does not mean that their image and leadership was valid in post-independence India. In any case, India was eventually forged into one geographical unit by the force of the Indian army invading Goa and Hydrebad and not on the non-violence of Gandhi. Besides, some Indian analysts blame Nehru for his romantic obsession with Kashmir as being the primary cause of instability on the north-west frontier. So how can Ockersz justify his spurious claim that the rebellions and the secessionist wars were due to the absence of Gandhis and Nehrus in Sri Lanka?

Ockersz then launches another broadside against the Sinhala leadership obviously because the Jaffna jingoists had made it a popular cry for likes of him to repeat it. He says, following the Vadukoddai vendors, the crushing of “the 30-year (??) LTTE-led separatist revolt …… (was) proof that nation-building never got off the ground in Sri Lanka.”

Going by his weird logic Indian nation-building too has not got off the ground because the Maoists are now presenting the greatest threat to India, as acknowledged by the Indian Prime Minister. The numerous uprisings in post-independence India, on ethnic, religious, political, linguistic, regional divisions must be because India has failed at nation-building, according to Ockersz. Perhaps, when he gets his balance right (hopefully in this birth!) he will realize that the greatest strength of the Indian democracy is the ability of its centre to hold the parts together sometimes with concessions and at other times with sheer force.

Let us skip his other punditry and consider what he considers to be one of his astoundingly original statements about “discriminatory legislation”. Blaming the parliamentary system he pontificates: “…….it essentially enabled the majority community to almost single-handedly manoeuvre the levers of state power and thereby stifle efforts at evolving the Lankan state in the direction of sufficiently empowering the country’s minorities. Besides, it was under the Parliamentary system that discriminatory legislation, such as the notorious Citizenship Acts of 1948 and the ‘Sinhala only’ Act of the mid fifties, were passed, for instance, which played a substantial role in precipitating the conflict.”

Briefly, let us take (1) “the notorious Citizenship Acts of 1948” and (2) the “Sinhala Only Act of mid fifties” which, he says, “played a substantial role in precipitating the conflict.”

Re.1: a) “The notorious Citizenship Act” was passed with the consent of the leader of the Jaffna Tamils, G. G. Ponnambalam, who was a Minister in the D. S. Senanayake Cabinet. So why blame the Sinhala majority? If it was okay for the then leadership of the Jaffna Tamils why shouldn’t it be okay for the rest? (b) Every independent nation (including India) exercised its right to define who its citizens were going to be in the post-colonial era and, according to Ockersz, Ceylon (as it was known then) should not have exercised that right to build the nation. (c) In contrast, in Uganda the Indians were beaten and kicked out by Idi Amin. In Sri Lanka they were eventually absorbed into the body politic. (d) In the Srima-Shastri Pact India accepted those who did not get citizenship under the Citizenship Act were Indian citizens. So what is the rationale for Ceylon to accept Indian citizens? (e) The Act did not deny citizenship to all Indian workers. Those Indians who could provide proof of being second generation Indians were entitled to citizenship. S. Thondaman, the leader of the Indian estate workers, campaigned to prevent these Indians from registering for citizenship and, when he realized his folly, he made a last-minute dash to apply for registration which was too late. But Ockersz believes that it was an act of the  majority discriminating against a minority, despite c and d and later JR’s decision to absorb all Indians as citizens.

Like all misguided pundits in the NGO circuit he conforms blindly to the myth that only the minority has rights and not the majority. The only duty, right and responsibility of the majority is to give in to the demands of a minority (e.g. the mono-ethnic extremists of Jaffna) at the expense of all other communities.

This becomes abundantly clear in 2: — the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 which, according to Ockersz, should not have been introduced because it “played a substantial role in precipitating the conflict.” Once again he is exhibiting his skills in mimicking the parrots of Jaffna. The underlying argument is that the ruling English language (known only to 6% of the population) should not have been replaced with the language of the people. Obviously, he is not aware that S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, father of Tamil separatism, “precipitated the conflict” first when he launched the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi (the Tamil State Party) in December 1949 – just one year after independence. He didn’t need the Sinhala Only Act to drive peninsular politics further into mono-ethnic extremism.

The language, though it was whipped up as an ethno-linguistic issue only by the Jaffna jingoists, it was primarily an issue shared commonly by the English-educated middle class in all communities. For instance, the Tamils that monopolized the jewelry business in Sea Street and the thousands of small shopkeepers in the Sinhala-dominated areas had no problem with the Sinhala language. At the non-professional lower levels and among the masses who lived with the Sinhalese in the south language was not an issue. It was an issue with the Jaffna middle class who were in the professions and those mainly in public service – the biggest growth industry at the time.

Ockersz who is wringing his hands about the state democracy in Sri Lanka should ask: How democratic was it to rule 94% of the population in an alien language? Didn’t the people of Sri Lanka have a right to be ruled in their own language? Is England ruled in Welsh? Is France ruled in English? In fact, in France the 13 million Occitanians are denied their language rights? In America the states are passing laws to make English the official language fearing the invasions of the Hispanics. 

Besides, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, one of the great Sinhala democratic liberals, passed the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act in 1959. He also declared that the status quo (English) will be preserved till December 1960.

In Parliament Prime Minister Bandaranaike, explained: “After December 1960 how will we deal with it? That is the question which has been often asked. Any Tamil gentleman must have the right to correspond in the Tamil language but the position of Sinhalese as the official language must be preserved. He can be sent a reply in the official language but for the convenience of the Tamil gentleman who may not know Sinhalese a copy of a Tamil translation or the substance of the reply will be attached to such letter. But as Sinhalese is also taught in Tamil schools we might quietly be able to drop the Tamil copy. What on earth is wrong with that? I cannot understand whether anything is wrong with that?”  — (Hansard August 5, 1956; Vol 31 col. 1971)

How much more liberal, fair and just can the Sinhalese be to the Tamils? Is this a denial of the rights of the Tamils? The irony, however, is that even to this day (53 years after the Sinhala Only Act), Sri Lanka is governed in English with a bit of Sinhala and Tamil thrown in. The legislature, the executive and the judiciary are still run at the highest levels in English. Perhaps, it’s time for Lynne to go back and study his recent history. He may then learn that it was the Sinhala youth who first took up arms on this issue of “kaduwa” (a weapon of the ruling class) long before the Tamils. Language was, therefore, not an ethnic issue but a class issue. Even the Westernized Sinhala middle class opposed and ridiculed Bandaranaike as an “opportunist” for granting their democratic and legal right to communicate in their mother tongue. They bitterly opposed the dethroning of English – their tool for hanging on to colonial powers and privileges.

The Marxists who initially opposed the Sinhala Only Act admitted later that it was introduced not to deny the Tamils their rights but to overthrow the ruling class armed with the English language. This is reason why the other Tamil-speaking communities did not agitate on the language issue because neither Indian workers in the estates nor the Muslim farmers and shopkeepers in the east and elsewhere were affected by it. It affected mainly the Sinhala and Tamil middle class in public service and professions.

It is a waste of time dealing with Ockersz’s other concoctions and inanities. The way forward for peaceful co-existence is to dispel the deliberate distortions peddled by the likes of Lynne Ockersz who can’t get their basic fact right.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

On September 30, 2009, UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1888/2009, on Women and peace and Security aimed at combating sexual violence in armed conflict. This session was presided over by Hillary Clinton, the US State Secretary, who used the opportunity to name Sri Lanka, along with Burma and Rwanda, as one of the countries that uses rape as a war tactic.

This is not the first time that the American administration used the Security Council to manipulate world opinion with lies. The most notorious case was Colin Powell presenting maps and aerial photographs to the 15-member Council on Iraq, accusing it of hiding weapons of mass destruction. Besides, President Barack Obama had openly accused her of telling fibs in one of the debates in the run up to the presidential election. Challenging accusations leveled against him by Hillary and Bill Clintons in the debate held on January 21, 2008 the then Democratic candidate, Obama, told America that “the assertions made by Sen. Clinton and her husband are not particularly accurate.” That’s a polite way of telling that she and her husband are liars.

Remember, how Bill Clinton told the world that he “did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky.” After having oral sex in the Oval Office with Lewinsky, while Hillary was upstairs, he was bent on convincing the world that he did not have sex with her. According to Bill Clinton’s lexicon sex is confined to genital contact and not oral stuffing. Knowing the mendacious tendencies of this duo one has to leave a wide margin to statements made by the Clintons, especially when they blacken the image of others.

Like Colin Powell who set out deliberately to blacken the image of Iraq when the best informed intelligence available to him was skeptical of the validity of the so-called evidence of WMDs (some of which were copied from an undergraduate’s outdated thesis) Hillary Clinton has acted, in the Chair of the Security Council, like an immature school girl who goes overboard to prove how good she is by making outrageous accusations against other parties without a shred of evidence to back her lies.

Besides, as the presiding head of the Security Council she should have had the courtesy to at least observe some of the basic provisions of Resolution 1888 which requires “objective, accurate and reliable information…. to ensure monitoring and reporting in a more effective and efficient way…..” How can reasonable member states take her word seriously knowing that Secretaries of State make declarations on the floor of the Security Council that are not based on “objective, accurate and reliable information?”

Furthermore, the Secretary General is expected to submit his next report by September 2010 on the implementation of Resolution 1888 based on “timely and ethical collection of information” (27 (a)). What is ethical in Clinton’s lies? How can any member state accept any statement from the UN if it is dependent on the likes of Hillary Clinton who wantonly makes accusations based on ill-informed, inaccurate and unethical collection of information?

In the background to the Resolution it is stated: “Sanctions committees should also be mandated to collect the names of people and parties who perpetrate sexual violence.” It is incumbent on Hillary Clinton to fulfill this obligation. Can she, therefore, “name the people and parties that perpetrated sexual violence”? UN cannot allow her to get away with “terminological inexactitudes” (Churchill’s term for lies) when it comes to accusing another member state. More than the integrity of UN she has to uphold the integrity of America. It is her responsibility to infuse respectability and elevate the mighty military power of America with moral authority. Naked power without morality is sheer brutality. Can she give moral authority to American power with lies? Colin Powell’s lies were bad enough. Do we need any more lies from Hillary Clinton?

It is against this background that Hillary Clinton accused Sri Lanka of committing sexual abuse on women as a “weapon of war”. Perhaps, realizing that she had stepped on a land mine the US Ambassadress in Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis, rushed to rescue her by saying that the “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not implicate any party in Sri Lanka during her speech at the UN Security Council on Wednesday when she made a reference to Sri Lanka.

“During the 26-year long war in Sri Lanka, there were allegations of rape and sexual violence, just as in other conflicts. Secretary Clinton’s statement was to raise awareness of such brutality, not to implicate specific perpetrators,” the Ambassadress told the media.

Ambassadress Patricia Butenis noted that the full remarks of the speech by Secretary Clinton made no reference to the Sri Lankan Army or to the LTTE. This is a cure worse than the disease. Is M. Butenis saying that Hillary made a generalized statement accusing ghosts in Sri Lanka of committing sexual abuse? On the contrary, Ms. Clinton was more specific. Quoting her a media report said:  “Clinton noted that rape has been used as a weapon of war in the Balkans, Burma, Sri Lanka and elsewhere and that in too many countries and in too many cases.” If she was not making any reference to the Sri Lankan Army or the LTTE why didn’t she leave Sri Lankan in the anonymous category of “too many countries and cases” instead of lumping Sri Lanka with “Balkans and Burma”? In naming Sri Lanka to shame it in the Security Council she has a particular political objective in mind. The bare implication is that it is the state that is perpetrating this violence in Sri Lanka as in Burma, for instance.

The other implication is that both the Sri Lankan force and the LTTE are guilty. As in any war there is no doubt that the odd Sri Lankan soldier had committed acts of sexual abuse. But Clinton’s statement goes beyond that to imply, by linking Sri Lanka to the other states that had used sexual violence as “a weapon of war”, that the Sri Lankan state had officially adopted sexual abuse as a weapon of war”. Can she back up this claim? If she can’t she must issue an official apology to the Sri Lankan state. If she can back it up with names of parties then she has a right to name and shame the party at the Security Council.

It is a serious accusation because she made it when she was presiding at the Security Council meeting that unanimously passed Resolution 1888 which focused on “sexual violence, when used or commissioned as a tactic of war in order to deliberately target civilians or as a part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilian populations…” As laid down in the Resolution, can she provide evidence to prove that the Sri Lankan state had targeted civilians “as a part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilian populations…? It is her credibility that is at stake when she makes such wild and irresponsible accusations against a member state.

There is no doubt that Resolution 1888 was long overdue and Hillary Clinton was doing something good for women. Sexual violence in situations of armed conflict is a common occurrence. In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, approximately 1,100 rapes were reported each month. Some of the women are mutilated in the course of the attacks.

In the 1994 genocide of Rwanda nearly half a million women were raped, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. In the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s nearly 60,000 women were subject sexual abuse. In Sierra Leone, the figure amounted to 64,000 internally displaced women from 1991 to 2001.

It was also a common feature in World War II which raised barbarism to an unprecedented level.  “Secret wartime files made public the extent to which American GIs committed rape in Europe. A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates,” says Wikipedia, “that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II. It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and sexual violence against women in liberated France was common.^” 

In Iraq American forces even raped men.

Wikipedia adds: “In 2004, photos showing humiliation and abuse of prisoners were leaked from Abu Ghraib prison.. Forced humiliation of the detainees included, but is not limited to nudity, rape, human piling of nude detainees, masturbation, eating food out of toilets, crawling on hand and knees while American soldiers were sitting on their back sometimes requiring them to bark like dogs, and hooking up electrical wires to fingers, toes, and penises.

In addition to the acts of humiliation, there were more violent claims, such as American soldiers sodomizing detainees (including an event involving an underage boy), an incident where a phosphoric light was broken and the chemicals poured on a detainee, repeated beatings, and threats of death.”

These are not acts of individual soldiers, charged with high levels testosterone, running berserk. These sexual crimes stemmed from the official policy laid down by the American Administration at the highest level. “The severest abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred,” according Wikipedia, “in the immediate aftermath of a decision by Secretary Rumsfeld to step up the hunt for “actionable intelligence” among Iraqi prisoners. The officer who oversaw intelligence gathering at Guantanamo was brought in to overhaul interrogation practices in Iraq, and teams of interrogators from Guantanamo were sent to Abu Ghraib.

“The commanding general in Iraq issued orders to “manipulate an internee’s emotions and weaknesses.” Military police were ordered by military intelligence to “set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.” The captain who oversaw interrogations at the Afghan detention center where two prisoners died in detention posted “Interrogation Rules of Engagement” at Abu Ghraib, authorizing coercive methods (with prior written approval of the military commander) such as the use of military guard dogs to instill fear that violate the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman Degrading Treatment or Punishment On February 6, 2008, the CIA director General Michael Hayden stated that the CIA had used waterboarding on three prisoners during 2002 and 2003, namely Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubavda and Abd-al-Rahim-al Nashiri.”

It is against this background that Hillary Clinton accused Sri Lanka of committing sexual abuse on women as a “tactic of war”. Before opening her mouth and accusing Sri Lanka of using sexual abuse as “a weapon of war” she should have made an open confession about the men who were raped by the GIs in Abu Ghraib. This raping occurred not as an aberration of the sexual perversion of individual soldiers but as the official policy endorsed by the hierarchy in the Defence Department headed by Rumsfeld. So her posing as a lily white moralist, with a right to dictate ethical conduct to other states, is nothing but sheer humbuggery. Her morality stinks like the food fed to prisoners from toilets at Abu Ghraib prison.

America has a damning record of abusing women as “a weapon of war” even in World War II. Secret wartime files made public only in 2006 reveal that American GIs committed had committed sexual offences in Europe in the thousands. The Russians were the worst. But the Americans ran as a close second. A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II. It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and sexual violence against women in liberated France was common. (Wickipedia).

With this record what moral right has she to accuse Sri Lanka of sexual abuse of women in times of conflict. It would have been tolerable if it was true. But when she piles lies on top of America’s repulsive record of sexual abuse she goes over the top. Before she comes down on Sri Lanka with false accusations of sexual abuse she should reflect on how her husband turned the White House into a House of Shame by poking cigars in places not accustomed to by young interns.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

 Now that Robert  O’Blake is back in his home base after leaving Sri Lanka, he has fallen into what William Pfaff calls the “policy community and the newspaper editorial pages, with nothing original or questioning” the conventional wisdom recycled within it. This “policy community” consists of ex-diplomats like Teresita Schaffer, Director of the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)  and think-alike Tweedledums and Tweedledees from academia, armed forces etc.

 From time to time, they also invite handpicked guest speakers from crisis-ridden nations like Sri Lanka and project them as “independent experts” though in reality they are the ideological lackeys ever willing to confirm the prejudices, interests and agendas of their Western pay masters. There is a symbiotic relationship between the local NGOs and “policy community” in the US and Europe. They feed on each other. The “conventional wisdom” of this “policy community” on Sri Lanka has been conditioned mainly by their hired epigones in the anti-Sri Lankan NGO loop, circulating invariably in the diplomatic cocktail circus of Colombo.

 The in-breeding common to these policy communities produce only sterile ideologies. Recently, Teresita Schaffer presided over a session run by United States Institute for Peace (USIP) which featured Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu (“Paki”) and Jehan Perera as “experts” on Sri Lanka  — two other political twins from the anti-Sri Lankan NGOs. Predictably, as stated by Pfaff, nothing original or serious questioning of the fundamentals came out of it.

 This outcome is not surprising because Teresita Schaffer, who now heads the CSIS think-tank, was hand in glove with NGO hirelings headed by Neelan Tiruchelvam during her tenure as Ambassadress to Sri Lanka. Neelan exploited his Harvard connections to the maximum in promoting Tamil separatism, or a constitutional arrangement that would come close to it. He established the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), funded primarily by the American Ford Foundation, as the political base to market the agenda of the notorious Vadukoddai Resolution (May 14, 1976) that ended disastrously in Nanthi Kadal lagoon on May 18, 2009.

 Unlike the political fathers of the Vadukoddai Resolution who appealed to the basic instincts of Tamil racism Neelan turned his political base at the ICES into a private research center to wrap his Jaffna-centric politics in sophisticated and fashionable ideologies and phraseologies which would appeal to his Western patrons like the Ford Foundation. In essence, ICES and allied NGOs packaged the north-south confrontations as a conflict between the majority Sinhala-Buddhists and the Tamil-speaking minorities which deviously and mendaciously included the Tamil-speaking Muslims and the Indian Tamils in the estates into that category.

 This was a fallacious argument inflated to demonize the Sinhala-Buddhists as the majority pitted against all Tamil-speaking minorities. As the recorded history confirms, it is a conflict confined essentially to the north and the south. The Vadukoddai agenda did not inflame the eastern Muslims or the hill-country Indians. The other fallacy promoted by the ICES, headed by Neelan and Radhika Coomaraswamy, his successor, is that the north-south conflict was a phenomenon that arose from the mono-causal force of Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarianism that victimized and oppressed the Tamil-speaking minority. This enabled the ICES and allied NGOs to market victimology as their main ideology. Based on this fallacy they argued that the issues involved can be remedied only by restructuring the constitutional centre to devolve power to the “underdogs” of the north, if necessary at the expense of the other communities.

 This is the political mythology that has dominated and exacerbated the Sri Lanka conflict.  ICES, together with MARGA, MIRJE, CPA, Sarvodaya and National Peace Council etc., promoted this mono-causal theory partly because there was money in it and partly because they were committed to advance the political platform of the Vadukoddai Resolution. Neelan, for instance, openly shed all disguises of being an objective and independent head of an NGO and unashamedly became a card-carrying member of the Tamil National Alliance, which was the political arm of the LTTE. He even became a TNA MP.

Since the TNA was committed to the political agenda in the Vadukoddai Resolution the ICES turned into a mere sophisticated appendage of the ethnic extremism of the Vadukoddai agenda. For instance, ICES ignored the mono-ethnic imperatives of Jaffna-centric politics that exacerbated the north-south conflict and focused only on demonizing the Sinhala-Buddhist south. Other NGOs too followed the same pattern. An objective survey of the ideology of all the politicized NGOs will reveal that they never deviated one iota from the fundamentals laid down in the Vadukoddai Resolution. All their theories, analyses, research, recipes for peace, seminars, publications, etc., were designed, directly or indirectly, to buttress the political platform defined in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

As stated earlier, Jaffna-centric politics, unlike that of the other minority communities, was focused primarily on grabbing (1) power and (2) territory. The political mythology contained in the Vadukoddai Resolution was woven to achieve these two objectives. This is the main reason why it failed to grab the imagination of the other Tamil-speaking communities which had no interest in going along with the Jaffna-centric agenda. Norman Uphoff of Cornell University, a political scientist, “who did many years of extensive field research in conflict areas in Lanka,” confirms this when he says: “Sinhalese politicians were blinded by their own ethnic prejudices and perceptions, themselves seeing the conflict much as LTTE has defined it, as an ethnic struggle rather than a blatant attempt by a minority to seize political power and territory.” (quoted by Prof. Asoka Bandarage – p.16, The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka, Terrorism ethnicity, political economy,)\. 

Teresita Schaffer, like the other diplomats, had swallowed this political mythology unquestioningly. It is an ideology that determines the thinking of the US and Western policy-makers. With her head buried in the Tamil political mythology Schaffer has gone to the extreme position of advocating “confederalism” as her most favoured solution to the Sri Lankan conflict. It is a one-eyed solution promoted by think-tanks in distant Washington without taking into consideration the viability and acceptability among the people in Sri Lanka who, ultimately, will have to bear the human costs of dismantling or weakening the centre with various formulas of devolution of power while the American and NGO pundits go to sip their cocktails in the next seminar.

 To begin with, a mono-causal interpretation of complex north-south relations is totally unrealistic and irrelevant to either understand or work out a fair solution to all the majority and minority communities. Applying an asymmetrical and partisan solution according to the demands of one community in the north is not going to solve the related complex problems arising from appeasing the mono-ethnic extremism of the north. Any future formula for peace must take into consideration the political failures of the asymmetrical recipes prescribed in the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the failed Ceasefire Agreement of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Any one-sided formula to appease the mono-ethnic extremism of the north, particularly in the post-Prabhakaran era, would have a disastrous impact and bedevil the lives of all the other communities.

 The underlying cause for the failures of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the Ceasefire Agreement has been this mono-causal view demanding a mono-ethnic solution. For a fair and balanced solution to emerge the public discourse must shift further away from the false ideologies promoted by “policy communities” abroad and their henchaiyas in the local NGOs. A radical departure from the conventional wisdom of the failed past is vital because the mono-causal view that informs the policy-makers must necessarily lead them to the cul-de-sac of a mono-ethnic solution to solve a multi-ethnic problem. There is, therefore, an urgent need to revisit the dynamics of the north-south conflict and work out a solution that would be applicable and acceptable to all the communities.

 This demands a new perspective that rejects the mono-causal view of blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhists and accepts the multi-factorial imperatives, especially the over-determining singularity of the peninsular politics – namely, the Vellahla caste factor — that warped Jaffna-centric politics until it climaxed in the violence of the Vadukoddai Resolution. When the Vellahla leadership of the north passed the Vadukoddai Resolution, which abandoned the parliamentary process and insisted on a military solution, it was based primarily on the mono-causal dogma

 As the need for a multi-factorial analysis is commonsense there is no need to argue this point. However, an apposite quote from Leszek Kolakowski, one of the most pragmatic and even prophetic political theorists of the West, would help to reinforce it. He wrote: ”All kinds of circumstances contribute to the formation of a world-view….and all phenomena are due to an inexhaustible multiplicity of causes.” (Quoted in the New York Review of Books – September 24, 2009).

 Consequently, those who fall for the mono-causal theory of blaming the only the Sinhala-Buddhist with its corollary of exonerating the Tamils of the north must revisit the Vadukoddai Resolution and question its political myths and geographical concoctions to evade the pitfalls of the past and arrive at a balanced view of the bloody events that ended in Nanthi Kadal. As long as the US, or any other, policy-makers are stuck in this “conventional wisdom” of accepting the mono-causal political myths, without questioning the basics on which they are formulated, they will continue to miss the underlying historical dynamics that led to the 33-year-old Vadukoddai War declared on May 14, 1976 by the mono-ethnic extremists of the north.

 To be continued

H. L. D. Mahindapala

The timing was impeccable.

On September 17, 2009 American Ambassadress, Patricia Butenis, appears before President Mahinda Rajapakse in Colombo and presents her credentials. On the same day in Washington Robert O. Blake, Assistant Secretary, South and Central Asian Affairs informs Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Washington, Jaliya Wickremasuriya, that a report prepared under his watch, criticizing the way the Sri Lankan forces waged the most successful counter-terrorist operation against the LTTE, will be presented to the US Congress on Monday (September 21).

This is no accident. It is not even a coincidence. This is a deliberate move of America’s intention to get tough with Sri Lanka. By sending a report to the Congress simultaneously with the posting of Ms. Butenis, America is signaling that it intends to escalate its confrontations with Sri Lanka to a higher level. Even before she arrived Ms. Butenis had announced her decision “to talk her mind”, meaning read the riot act to Sri Lanka. There is no doubt that she comes with a brief to tighten the screws on Sri Lanka. Blake is also indicating, with his words and deeds, that errant Sri Lanka must be pulled into line with aggressive confrontation.

This is most disappointing because Blake, a senior Asian hand, was expected to adopt a more seasoned and mature approach in dealing with south and central Asian affairs. Besides, in the post-Prabhakaran era, where the nation’s mood, will and the overall perspectives of the north-south crisis have changed radically, it is counter-productive for America to adopt stand over tactics. This aggressive approach is also in stark contrast to the softly-softly approach of President Barack Obama who is going all out to win friends, including those in the “axis of evil”. For instance, America is bending over backwards to appease North Korea, even conceding parity of status by agreeing to hold direct talks with this rogue state after dismissing six-nation intermediaries. But Blake is engaged in counter-productive moves to demonize Sri Lanka – the latest being the report sent to the Congress about the conduct of the war against Tiger terrorists.

It is also reported that Sri Lankan officials are charged with war crimes in the report to the Congress. Ironically, this comes at a time when seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency wrote to President Obama urging him to close the criminal investigation looking into whether any CIA officers tortured prisoners in their custody during their interrogations into counterterrorist activities.

America’s switch to an aggressive policy in the post-Prabhakaran phase is partly the outcome of the millions spent by the Tamil Tiger agents in hiring expensive lobbyists (Bruce Fein is one) to push the Obama administration into an anti-Sri Lankan hole. The leaning towards the cashed-up Tamil Transnational lobby, as demonstrated by Blake’s meeting with them in his Washington office on August 11, 2009, is contrary to President Obama’s declared policy of getting rid of lobbyists from the corridors of power in Washington. The power of the hired lobbyists is still evident and this questions the capacity of President Obama to change the manipulative lobbyists poisoning the American system. In fact, right now the No.1 bestseller in the New York Times Book Review is Culture of Corruption: Czars of the Obama Underworld, in which Michelle Malkin exposes the tax cheats, petty crooks, influence peddlers and Wall Street cronies in Obama’s team.

The other related factor also comes from Sri Lanka Tamil expatriate lobby which is boasting that they have the Obama administration in their pocket after funding the “Tamils for Obama” campaign in the last presidential election. True or false, the mud sticks because the Obama policy on Sri Lanka, driven by Blake, has been to stoke, overtly and covertly, the Tamil expatriate lobby committed to the Vadukoddai Resolution – the key political platform that led to the Vadukoddai War declared on May 14, 1976. After the meeting with representatives of “the Tamil Transnational government” Blake told the BBC that the Tamil expatriates are “energized”. Well, why shouldn’t they be when Blake – O Blake! — is giving them the oxygen to re-energize?

When Blake hosted a delegation of Tamils in the US, consisting mainly of the representatives of “the Tamil Transnational government” led by V. Rudrakumaran he was undermining his own primary objective of stabilizing the SAARC region. How can he stabilize the region when he entertains the defeated agents of Velupillai Prabhakaran who has been a destabilizing threat to India and Sri Lanka? Rudrakumaran and his gang are still operating under the Tiger flag and ideology. What is more, separatism, which breeds violence, is the scourge of the region. Despite this Blake has no qualms about playing footsy with the self-styled Tamil Transnational government (read: the financial backers and political agents of the defeated Tamil Tigers, still a banned terrorist organization in US).

He should be aware that there are consequences to regional stability as a result of “the Tamil Transnational government’s” commitment to the Vadukoddai Resolution which fathered Tamil ethnic violence that lasted for 33 years. Vadukoddians are also committed to a separate state and they openly say that they will not stop anything short of that. So is Blake working to stabilize the region or turn it into another unmanageable hell hole dominated by separatists and their violence? All which leads to question the rationality – not to mention the sanity – of Blake’s contradictory policy on Sri Lanka.

The Governments of Sri Lanka (GOSL) responded to the Vadukoddai Resolution in kind as no government committed to defend its territorial integrity and national sovereignty could allow an armed group to dictate terms, or dismember an internationally recognized state.. So on what legal or moral principles did Blake invite the representatives of the shadowy Tamil Transnational government to have tea with him in his office in Washington? What would be Blake’s interpretation if, for instance, Ambassador Jaliya Wickremasuriya invites Louis Farrakhan, who has been campaigning for black separatist nationalism in America, for some tea and sympathy? Blake is not a babe lost in the woods. He knows the meaning of every act he commits. So why is he going all out to give a nudge-and-a-wink to the Tamil separatists committed to the violent Vadukoddai Resolution?

Besides, if Blake’s mission is to stabilize the region how can he lend his patronage to the Vadukoddians of the Tamil Transnational government who are not only committed to violence and separatism but also linked the Naxalites of India and the Al-Qaeda, as confirmed in S. Pathmanathan’s links with Al Qaeda bases operating in Pakistan? When he hosted the representatives of “the Tamil Transnational government” in Washington office wasn’t Blake backing the leading financiers of “the deadliest terrorist organization in the world” knowing that he is, directly or indirectly, preparing the ground to export terror to Sri Lanka with his advice and consent? If the GOSL decided to follow the example of Blake and hosted the potential anti-American Bin Ladens located in Sri Lanka (factions of Jihadists are mushrooming in the east, according to some reports) what would be the reaction of Blake and President Obama? Would they welcome the opening up of space within Sri Lanka to raise funds and lobby for more support to destabilize America?

After meeting with the “Tamil Transnational government” delegation he warned the Sri Lankan government to give in to their extremist demands which are to be pursued with relentless violence as laid down in the Vadukoddai Resolution, adding that a refusal would lead to another bout of violence. Based on this logic shouldn’t someone tell Blake that US must give in to the demands of Al Qaeda if it intends avoiding escalation of extremist terror from the Islamic fundamentalists domiciled in the Western world?

Blake simply is playing with fire. His legitimate role should be to stabilize the SAARC region, not set to fire to it. When he invites a committed group of terrorist agents to engage with the Obama administration, knowing that the Tamil Tiger agents are using American soil to destabilize another member of the UN, he is deliberately using the Tamil expats as a tool to force Sri Lanka to fall in line with the American global agenda. It is against this subversive policy that the Sri Lankan government is expected to maintain friendly relations with the US! How friendly will America be towards Sri Lanka if the new head of the Foreign Ministry, S. Jayasinghe, invites representatives of, let’s say, a Taliban Transnational government to break the Ramadhan fast with him?

The brighter side of the election of President Obama was in the promise he held out to shed the uncouth image of the Ugly American – the misguided American ambassador to a fictitious South Asian nation as portrayed in the prophetic novel written by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick. His role was played brilliantly by Marlon Brando in the film version of the novel. One of the known characteristics of the Ugly Americans is that the American ambassadors seldom get their perspectives right to formulate conducive policies for global stability and peace which should be the primary duty of the No.1 power on earth.

Bush and his emissaries, with their bull-in-the-China-shop policies, reinforced the image of the Ugly American. Hopes of the world rose to a new peak with the election of Obama as the promising leader who would change America’s role for the good of all. But the anti-Sri Lankan policy of the Obama administration tends to make Blake look like a born-again Ugly American. Like all Ugly Americans Blake and Butenis have shown early signs of their mental blocks that limit their capacity to read and interpret the signs staring in their face. These functionaries and emissaries fly in overloaded with their political agenda that ignore the ground realities of the host country. When they take up their posting they believe that, as heavy weights in the international arena, they can impose their will, often going against the flow in the mainstream. But in the new world where the global axis is tilting heavily towards the East America must smarten up to get the balance right.

Unfortunately, they have a history of backing the vested interests of opportunistic and over-ambitious minority groups (be it class, religious, ethnic etc) dismissing the legitimate claims and aspirations flowing in the mainstream. For instance, they backed Catholic Ngoh Dinh Diem at the height of the Vietnam War and in the end CIA had to stage a coup to get rid of their own puppet. It was stupid to back a Catholic in a predominantly Buddhist country. It was a strategy doomed to fail. The failure of American egg-heads to pick the right person in the right place has been one of the primary causes for half the problems of global crises.

In whatever guise they come, American intelligence would be aware — and so should Blake – that the representatives of the Tamil Transnational government, invited for further talks by Blake, are committed to the violence embedded in the Vadukoddai Resolution. So doesn’t this move of Blake amount to re-energizing, with his consent and advice, the Louis Farrakhans of Sri Lanka? How can America, the No.1 power, with high-powered think-tanks, get it wrong so many times in the north, south, west and east?

Perhaps, the answer is in the incisive comments of William Pfaff, the respected columnist of the International Herald Tribune. In an article titled, US lacks vision in Afghanistan campaign, (reproduced in The Australian – September 18, 2009) he wrote: “I feel no confidence in his (Joseph Biden, US Vice President) judgment, which seems entirely the conventional wisdom of the policy community and the newspaper editorial pages, with nothing original or questioning in it.” More tellingly, he concludes by saying: “”I think the American government now has become institutionally a war government, which finds its purpose in waging war against small and troublesome countries and peoples in the generalised pursuit of running the world for the world’s own good. In this effort, one war is pretty much like another, and every president, to be elected needs one.”

Coming from Pfaff this is a damning indictment of American foreign policy. Waging war against small and troublesome countries has been the standard policy of America even though it boasts of not being an imperialist nation. Blake has sent Ms. Butenis, another Asian hand, who has a rather notorious record of waging such wars in the SAARC region. This is another example not only of America’s incapacity to learn from its past mistakes but also a dogged refusal to learn from its failed history. If Blake decides to go further down this track he is bound to leave a legacy far worse than what he inherited when he assumed office. SAARC region is the one regional bloc that has not got its act together. Blake has the opportunity to make it better by putting it together. But to achieve this he has to think again and consider whether his role is to send reports to the Congress against members of SAARC or add, as side dishes, thosais and vadais to his tea when he meets the Tamil Farrakhans next time in Washington.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

In alerting the Parliament to oppose moves by western nations to harass Sri Lankan VIPs the Speaker, W. J. M. Lokubandara, has given leadership to a cause that has been without a voice for too long. His voice should be a warning to the foreign interventionists that Sri Lanka is not going to roll over and fawn at the feet of the Western bullies. His clarion call, coming from the highest seat in Parliament, should make the Big Brothers in the West aware that there are limits to stand over tactics. Lokubandara’s voice indicates clearly that the Western tactics are counter-productive and is pushing Sri Lanka further away from the West. The Western think-tanks and the pundits allied to them in the local NGOs, as usual, have misread the mood of the nation which is now under the spell of the new nationalism.  Any bullying is bound to get the back up of Sri Lanka. In any case, Sri Lanka has a right to say: “Enough is enough.” Lokubandara has made this very clear in his call to the Parliament to stand up to fulfill its duty.

During the Vadukoddai War and after it ended in Nanthi Kadal Lagoon on May 18, 2009, Sri Lanka has been kicked around on the floors of Western parliaments in a manner that is reminiscent of the time when Winston Churchill was the Colonial Secretary in the twenties. When Western hirelings like Pakiasothy (“Paki”) Saravanamuttu and Jehan Perera are given free visas and airline line tickets over the counter to deliver their anti-Sri Lankan expertise in Western seminars and when obstacles are thrown in the way of Sri Lankan officials then it becomes abundantly clear that the West is out to harass Sri Lanka for not toeing their line. Speaker Lokubandara’s call coincides with the unusual incidents abroad of Sri Lankan officials being treated with utmost severity, if not contempt.

Our Parliament has taken a very passive role, taking every kick given by Western parliaments without a murmur of protest. It is the common practice now for every Tom, Dick and Harriet in Western parliaments to tip the bucket on Sri Lanka. Manipulated by the anti-Sri Lankan NGOs and the Tamil lobbies these MPs raise questions, make offensive and unsubstantiated allegations in their parliaments and generally open the doors of parliamentary premises to demonize Sri Lanka.

With their silence Sri Lankan parliamentarians have allowed the Western parliamentarians to walk all over them. Western parliaments are used consistently by the Tamil Tiger agents and the NGOs to declare war on the Sri Lankan parliament and it looks as if our Parliamentarians have surrendered. These foreign MPs are misleading their governments and exacerbating the political divisions in Sri Lanka. Their ignorance of Sri Lankan complexities and their willingness to parrot anything fed to them by the Tamil lobby are not conducive for peace or stability in Sri Lanka. On top of this some of our parliamentarians like the Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe, go on missions abroad to add fuel to the fires lit by the Western Parliamentarians.

Recently Wickremesinghe was a guest of the International Democratic Union – the holy brotherhood of right-wing fundamentalists allied to the Church like Tony Blair, George Bush, John Howard  etc.—meeting in Australia. During Wickremesinghe’s visit the raging issue of the day was about the living conditions of Aborigines. One headline in The Australian screamed that 12 Aborigines were living in three rooms while some MPs and the misguided fringe of the Sydney University NGO, led by Associate Prof Jake Lynch, were asking questions about the living conditions of the IDPs in the Vanni.  Why haven’t our MPs raised question in our parliament about the housing and education of the Aborigines in Australia? Or the living conditions of the native Indians in America? Or the latest crimes against humanity committed by the British government which had no compunction in cleansing the Diego Garcia of the domiciled Chagossians – mostly Afro-Asians –  for its partner in crime, USA, to build a military base in the Indian Ocean? Which MP has raised questions about the one million Iraqis killed (the latest body count) as a result of the American invasions? Or civilians killed in Afghanistan by blind drones?

By raising questions in their parliaments about Sri Lanka the Western MPs are not only attempting brazenly to impose their will on the natives but also to capture the moral high ground as if they are lily white maidens who had not sold their virginity to the highest bidder.  But the known reality is that some MPs in Western Parliaments are ready to drop their trousers or lift their skirts for the highest bidders. There are instances where MPs in UK were caught raising questions in Parliament for a fee. Princess Diana intended father-in-law, the owner of Harrods, Mohammed Al Fayed, admitted that he paid money to two Conservative Party MPs, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, to raise questions about his citizenship. Then there is Keith Vaz, a corrupt Labour MP in UK abusing his powers to intervene in a judicial case, raising questions in support of the agenda of the Tamil Tiger agents. His parliamentary conduct on several issues lacks integrity. Whenever his Tamil constituents ask him to jump he asks how high. This explains a lot about his integrity.

The Canadian Parliament is no different. The usual suspects linked to the LTTE, raise questions and make wild allegations ranging from genocide to depriving the Tamils victims of the late Velupillai Prabhakaran of food, medicine and other essentials – all of which are without any factual foundation.  – just to appease the Tamil vote bank  Jim Karygiannis, Liberal Party, MP for Scarborough-Agincourt, Albina Guaneri, Liberal Party, MP for Mississauga East-Cooksville, Judy Sgro, Former Min. of Immigration, Liberal Party, MP for York West, Bob Rae, Foreign Affairs Critic for the Liberal Party, MP for Toronto Centre and Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), MP for Toronto-Danforth are some of the bleeding-heart do-gooders whose commitment to the Tamil Tiger agents increases with the flow of funding and votes.

“These are all MPs from the Greater Toronto Area with a fairly large resident Tamil population in their riding, who often take up issues relating to Tamils based on the input from the pro-LTTE lobby. They are always invited to attend pro-LTTE events organized by the support groups using some generic type of association name such as Tamil Cultural, Sports/Students/Arts & Technology, etc,” says Mahinda Gunasekera, a leading Sri Lankan activist in Canada..

In Australia there is the notorious, John Murphy, Labour Party MP for Lowe. He developed a sudden attachment to the Tamil Tigers after the Tamil votes increased to a sizeable block in his electorate. Privately, Tamils boast that they fund him generously to defray costs of electioneering.

This is the general pattern. All parliamentarians allied to the Tiger agenda are suspect because they are under obligation to their Tamil constituents in one form or other. They are no better than the TNA MPs in Sri Lanka. Their support depends on the number of votes or the amount of funding they can gather from Tamil lobbies. In the post- Prabhakaran, and, of course, post-“KP” period, the Tamil lobbies are fighting exclusively with money now that bullets have no impact in changing the ground situation in their favour.

The fact that MPs in Western parliaments are for sale is a worrying factor for national leaders struggling to clean up political corruption in their backyard. President Barack Obama is waging a battle to eliminate lobbyists from the Washington loop. Flushed with collections from the Tamil diaspora the Tamil lobby has been an influential factor in Western parliaments. So it is not surprising to find, in recent times, parliamentarians of the West have rushing to rubbish Sri Lanka at the drop of a cheque in their pockets because they encounter defence from the Sri Lankan Parliament. If they are given a taste of their own medicine their superiority complex might come down a peg or two and they might think twice about getting away with bullying the Sri Parliament.

Sri Lankan Parliament should take a leaf from their book and even send a parliamentary delegation, if they can find the reources, to visit the prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, or the aboriginal homesteads of America and Australia and produce reports on their living conditions. Sri Lanka should certainly send a Parliamentary delegation to England to probe into the living conditions of the uprooted citizens of Diego Garcia who have no home, no income, no jobs and hope ever of returning to their original homes.

Why haven’t our parliamentarians taken up this issue of the uprooted people of Diego Garcia with Britain, USA and the UN? Why do we allow them to raise questions about us and why haven’t we raised questions about their violations on international humanitarian law? Why hasn’t Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Under Secretary for Children, raised the plight of the children evicted from their native land? Why is the UN content with barking at the moon on the violations of human rights by the Big Brothers of high morality?

By not reacting to the violations of human rights by the West the developing countries have handed over the moral supremacy to the West. If they are scrutinized the way the non-Western  countries are scrutinized they will not have a leg to stand on. The Westerners act as if they are above the law because the others are powerless to police them. They project the image of being clean because the rest of the world does not have the resources to hire NGOs to take them to task. They have the global media, NGOs, human rights watchdogs, academics to glorify their actions while magnifying the faults of the less fortunate countries.

Go to any crisis-ridden country and you fill that almost 98% of the mediators, facilitators, aid workers, peace-negotiators, human rights activists have their homes in the West. The locals are recruited only to add some colour to the white supremacists in their role as judges, juries and the executioners. Has anyone heard of an African or an Asian mission of investigators probing and writing reports on the seamy side of Western instituitons? Which journalist of Asia or Africa has visited Guantanamo Bay? In the first place which one of them will be given visas to visit Guantanamo Bay? Since our journalists can’t go there why haven’t our parliamentarians opened their mouths and told them a few of the home truths about their dirt which they prefer to sweep under the carpet. 

The prevailing system is heavily loaded in favour of the resource-rich West. They are in command of the key monitoring and report-writing institutions that their victims have no way of combating the superior force of power silencing their voices. Even some of our parliamentarians tend to kow-tow to their “superiors” in the West if they are given a seat in their institutions. For instance, Wickremesinghe value his appointment as Deputy President of IDU (Asia) and write reports that are not favourable to the Asians. It is apparent that during his recent visit to Australia he has been telling tales to his right-wing colleagues in the Liberal Party. Yesterday (May 14, 2009) Julie Bishop, the Shadow Foreign Minister (Liberal Party coalition) told Parliament: “The coalition recently had an opportunity to discuss these issues directly with the Sri Lankan opposition leader and former Prime Minister, Mr.  Ranil Wickremesinghe. I appreciated his willingness to talk openly about past and present circumstances in Sri Lanka.” Now the “willingness (on Wickremesinghe’s part) to talk openly” is not surprising because he hopes to get political mileage by talking “openly” about Sri Lanka.

Anyway, should not the Parliament to which he owes his entire career be informed of the role he played in his capacity as the Deputy President (Asian) of IDU? As Deputy President (Asia) he had to present a report on Sri Lanka. What did his report say about Sri Lanka? He is forever asking the government to reveal this and that which is fair enough. Shouldn’t same rule apply to him? The Opposition too has an obligation to tell the people what they are doing behind the people’s backs. After all, if he told the Liberal Party opposition in Australia about Sri Lanka don’t the people of Sri Lanka have a right to know what he told Australia and IDU? But knowing the backlash at home how can he reveal the negative report he presented to IDU and Australia? So why hasn’t any MP raised the question of what he told the IDU? Are our parliamentarians still stuck in the old colonial mentality believing that Western parliaments are so perfect in upholding human rights and all that jazz and we have no right to question their political conduct?

Right now there is a massive assault on Sri Lanka driven by the West. When the US Peace Institute, invited “Paki” and Jehan as experts on Sri Lanka they were signaling that the Americans were going to side with the anti-government forces. Of course, it is always cheaper for Americans and the West to hire a “Paki”or a Perera than posting an expensive diplomat to do their leg work. These two NGO hireling may be experts in knowing the agenda of the West. But what is their expertise in reading the pulse of the people? If they are such great experts why did they fail to provide a single formula to end the Vadukoddai War and restore normalcy before it ended in Nanthi Kadal Lagoon? They dutifully hailed the Western formulas but where has it taken them or their patrons in the West?

“Paki” has moved closer to the political platform of Wickremesinghe, Rauf Hakeem, Mangala Samaraweera with the TNA tagging along. They are ready to go on the war path whatever the formula that will be presented by the government on the devolution package. In addition, the new American Ambassadress, Patricia Butenis, has already signaled that she will speak her mind when she arrives here. That means she will be the latest addition to the “Paki”-Wicky-Haki-and-Mangy coalition. With her it will be “Paki”- Wicky-Haki-Mangy-and-“Butey” coalition! Wow! It will be fun to watch this caravan rolling down the road to nowhere.

Of course, the self-destructive UNPers would wallow obscenely in the embarrassment that will be caused by “Butey” putting pressure on the government. The UNPers have lost time and again because they failed to grasp the big picture repeatedly. But then when the nation is saddled with a Leader of the Opposition who had no qualms about insulting the heroic soldiers what can you expect? The only thing he hasn’t done so far is to extend an invitation to Yutio Hatoyama to join in the anniversary celebrations of the Japanese raids on Sri Lanka in World War II.  However, it is too early to rule this out. After his “juck-muck”, “toot-toot” politics you never know what’s up his sleeve, eh?

H. L. D. Mahindapala

A few Sundays back I stopped in my tracks and re-read Prof. Kumar David’s condemnation of the Tamils of Jaffna as “congenital idiots” (July 26, 2009, Sunday Island). He was angry that the Tamils were accusing the Marxists of betraying the Tamils when in reality it was the Tamils of Jaffna who never responded positively to the Marxists who had stuck their necks out to champion their causes. Of course, as a committed Marxist Prof. David was labeling the Tamils as “congenital idiots” for not embracing Marxism as a liberating political force. But the idiocy of Jaffna Tamil politics (if I may borrow Prof. David’s vocabulary) goes beyond the confines of Marxism. It covers a wider spectrum.

I am postponing a discussion on this aspect for the moment to agree with Prof. David wholeheartedly. I would not have dared to say so publicly because I would have been called a “racist” or a “Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist”. However, in private conversations with my Tamil friends in Melbourne I have said something to that effect in a broader sense, going beyond the narrow Marxist context. Now that Prof. David had described the Jaffna Tamil political class as “congenital idiots” I’m somewhat emboldened to say in public what I had said in private.

My point is that Jaffna Tamils had shown almost an inexhaustible capacity to produce engineers, doctors, academics, accountants, shopkeepers, businessmen, jewelers, bureaucrats, especially clerks, etc., but the Jaffna political culture failed to produce an enlightened political leadership that could rise above their “peninsularity of mind”, (p. 8 Communal Politicis uner the Donoughmore Constitution, 1931 -1947, Jane Russell quoting Leonard Woolf), and lead the people towards realistic and attainable political goals. Not since Ponnambalam Arunachalam left the Ceylon National Congress, rupturing hopes of communal harmony, has Jaffna produced a leader who has had the vision to accept co-existence in a multi-ethnic society as the most natural, viable and peaceful path for the welfare of all communities.

It is this “peninsularity of mind”, fixated immovably on casteism and communalism, that led them eventually and inexorably to the futile Vadukoddai War. Once the Vellahla ancien regime declared war they couldn’t back track. In 1976 Velupillai Prabhakaran was already looming in the background shooting at his targets indiscriminately. Once the old guard legitimized violence Prabhakaran got the licence to go on the rampage eliminating all his Tamil rivals. For the next 33 years he lived by the fire power of Vadukoddai violence until a part of his head was blown off when he was trying to cross the waters of the Nanthi Kadal lagoon in May 2009. Isn’t there a lesson in all this for the Jaffna Tamils? Or do they think that the past in which they invested all what they had and lost is irrelevant? Isn’t the decision of the Tamil diaspora to go back to the Vadukoddai Resolution a suicidal act to lead the Tamil people to another Nanthi Kadal once again? Have they given any thought to the possibility of losing the balance of Tamils left behind in Sri Lanka to Vadukoddai War II?

Of all the communities in Sri Lanka the Jaffna Tamils suffered most because of their leaders’ blind refusal to co-exist in a multi-ethnic society sharing the land in common with the other communities. Their suicidal political ambitions, arising from an exaggerated view of their self-importance and superiority, drove them to an end they never thought would come. With the whole world rejecting their claim for a separate state, only “congenital idiocy” would have led them to believe that they were all set to get their separate state. Only “congenital idiocy” would have made the Jaffna leadership believe that they can win the war by throwing under-aged children into the battlefield. Only those infected with “congenital idiocy” would rely solely on the single strategy of killing and destroying as a means of attaining their political goals, rejecting alternative paths of diplomacy and negotiations.. Only “congenital idiots” would use Tamil civilians as human shields to prolong a war they had lost ever since the Army asserted it superiority in Mavil Aru. If Velupillai Chelvanayakam, the father of the Vadukoddai Resolution and his successor, Velupillai Prabhakaran, are the typical kind of leaders that Jaffna can produce do the people of Jaffna need any outside enemies? When Prabhakaran began shooting his own people – the Tamil people who had sacrificed everything to protect him and all that was contained in the Vadukoddai Resolution – didn’t it confirm that the Jaffna leadership was not only idiotic but brutal as well?

Prof. David’s friend, Prof. Sivaguru Ganesan asks a pointed question that goes to the heart of the moral crisis in the Jaffna political culture: “How could a community, so educated, numerate, literate and much internationalised, have put up with this degree of brutality and lack of vision in its leading representative?” A similar question was raised by Prof. Rajan Hoole in the mid-nineties when he asked: “How could such an evil monster come out of the womb of Jaffna?” (I am quoting from memory.) The Tamil intellectuals are baffled. They cannot comprehend or come to terms with Vadukoddai violence that militarized and brutalized Jaffna society. How could the Jaffna leadership that accused the Sri Lankan government of turning a blind eye to the riots of 1983 kill more Tamils than all the other forces put together, as stated by S. C. Chandrahasan and V. Anandsangaree.

Prof. David attributes the distortions that misdirected the peninsular political class to the “socio-economic underdevelopment and cultural peculiarities” of Jaffna. As an “unrepentant Marxists” he explains “the 60 year non-relationship between the Tamil people and left politics” in predictable Marxist terminology, which has some relevance more than validity even in Marxist terms. He says: “The reason why a left ideology could not put down deep roots and either link up with the southern left or grow its own indigenous left tradition was the same; the social soil was not fertile. The deleterious effects of caste and the hidebound social ethos were supplemented by the absence of a modern working class. The backwardness of capitalist production denied Jaffna a proletariat, and more generally, a modern ethos.”

In classical Marxist terms this argument is wonky because there wasn’t much of “a modern working class” in the south. Bala Tampoe was leading the white collar workers in the mercantile sector and I. J. Wickrema was leading the clerks in the Government Clerical Service Union. These were two most powerful centres of trade union power held by the Trotskyites. If you leave the harbour workers and the workers of the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills out there wasn’t a working class of any significance to lead a revolution. In short, “a modern working class”, arising from a solid industrial base with a revolutionary potential, was no where in sight.

Besides, capitalist production was not much in evidence in the south either. It was basically a plantation economy with a sprinkling of the compradore middle-men dominating the export-import economy locked into the old colonial enterprises located in the city of Colombo. The plantocracy was the ruling elite because those who had money invested in land and not in industries. If there was a working class it was found only in the plantations and that class too was dominated by ethnic forces rather than by Marxist theories. In fact, it can be argued that Marxist leaders, who emerged as the alternative political force to the Senanayakes and the Bandaranaikes in the colonial and post-colonial periods, were not only overshadowed but ultimately buried by identity  politics which the gurus of Prof. David embraced eventually in their twilight years. 

Unfolding events in Sri Lanka proved that ethnicity stood Marxism on its head. The cultural dynamics embedded in ethnicity were the forces that were driving politics more than the imported and rootless theories of Marx. The Sri Lankan crisis can be understood best in the cultural context than in any other theoretical construct. It was primarily a clash of cultures. It was a clash between the closed, rigid and cruel culture of the north and the open, flexible and liberal culture of south. Prof. David admits this partially. He says that “the (Jaffna) social soil was not fertile. The deleterious effects of caste and the hidebound social ethos were supplemented by the absence of a modern working class.” However, he gets it wrong when he mixes “the deleterious effects of the caste” with “the absence of a working class.” The fact remains that with or without the working class “the deleterious effects of the caste” had distorted and perverted the Jaffna political culture beyond redemption. Only violence could dismantle the entrenched Vellahla caste. The Vadukoddai violence, as it worked out, was targeting the south as well as the north – the north suffocating under the oppressive pressures of traditional casteism.

It is most significant that Chelvanayakam launched his racist political movement, Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (the Tamil State Party)  to carve out a separate state for the Tamils from the GCSU Head office in Maradana on December 18, 1949. Mark you, he did not choose Jaffna but he chose the GCSU Head Office in Colombo, to launch his campaign for the mono-ethnic state. The left too was wooing assiduously and relentlessly the government servants in the public service which, incidentally, was the only growth industry under colonial rule. In the grand theory of the Marxists the GCSU was to be a part of the vanguard that was to lead the revolution. But it was Chelvanayakam who won the day. He chose the GCSU because the Vellahla vanguard of Jaffna communalism was in the public service. He assessed correctly and astutely that they were going to be the carriers of his communal message and also the driving force of communal politics. The Vellahlas were not only the domineering force in Jaffna but also dominant factor in the public service.

The heart and head of Jaffna was in the public service. R. W. Crossette-Thambiah confirmed this when he wrote: “The Jaffna man who is a strong individualist still hanker after the security of a public service run by the State.” ( p.112 – Jane Russell) The high value placed on the permanent and a pensionable public servant was expressed in several poplar sayings. One said: “The father reaped the harvest in Jaffna while the son shone in Colombo.” Crossette-Thambiah said: “There is a saying among the old people of Jaffna: “Even if you have to rear chicken, do it in the government service.” (Ibid). Besides, in the “onion and chillie ball economy of Jaffna” the earnings of Tamil public servants went a long way to sustain and enrich Jaffna. It is also known that the dowry of a public servant was guaranteed and its quantum rose with the rank in the public service.

Apart from these factors, the “craze for clerkship” among the Jaffna Tamils (p.72 – A. J. Wilson’s biography of Chelvanayakam) had a political element as well. Getting a foothold in the administration was another way of getting the ear of those in power and wielding power through the bureaucracy. The institutional mechanism that controls and manages power is the bureaucracy. I remember K. C. Nithiyanandan, a leader in the GCSU, telling me:: ”You Sinhalese govern but we rule.” He meant that having powerful base in the administration is more important than having power in the political center.

The primary objectives of the major Jaffna Tamil political movements were to grab (1) power at the center (including the administration) and (2) territory. Wielding power at the center meant grabbing a greater share of the national cake. The Jaffna Tamils wielded an undue share of powering the British colonial administration. For instance, “(F)rom 1900 to 1931 the Northern and Eastern Provinces had received almost 50% of the total government expenditure on major irrigation works. After 1931, (when D. S. Senanayake became the Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation) their share of the total fell to 19% and of minor works they received 12 ½.” (p.170 – Jane Russell).

Redressing the historical imbalances of society – particularly a nation emerging from 500 years of colonialism — was a prime necessity. Under colonial patronage minoritarianism ruled the roost. When the balance was restored they cried “discrimination”. The cry of discrimination was first raised by G. G. Ponnambalam when he went before the Soulbury Commission in 1945 – long before S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike came into power (1956) – and the independent commissioners dismissed it as stuff and nonsense. They also dismissed the “rapacious” cry for 50% of power at the center to 12% of Jaffna Tamils who, for the sake of political convenience, tried to rope in the other minorities who did not want to be a part of it.

“The Tamils putting forward more and more rapacious demands” (Bandaranaike – p.240, Jane Russell) could not be tolerated by any just society. When the balance was restored the Tamils cried “discrimination”. The sole objective of the struggles of the Vellahala high command, ruling Jaffna, was to preserve their feudal and colonial privileges, power and positions. Any loss of any one of these was decried as “discrimination”. Can the loss of these feudal and colonial privileges or the rejection of their “rapacious demands” be categorized as “discrimination”? But that is the sob story of the Jaffna Tamils.

The Sri Lankan crisis began with the cry of “discrimination” before the Jaffna Tamil shifted to “aspirations”. Any objective analysis must examine critically the myths of discrimination on an ethnic basis. The Tamil propagandists succeeded because the cry of “discrimination” was a simple and effective story to market. Whether it was an act of “discrimination” by the majority or whether it was a case of the minority playing the politics of Oliver Twist there was no necessity for any enlightened leadership to go down the violent path of the Vadukoddai Resolution. The Tamil political leadership was boxed inside the “peninsularity of their minds” that they failed to think outside it. They became “congenital idiots”, to quote Prof. David. They missed all the opportunities that came their way – all which will be dealt in the next article.

 PS: Please note that I am using Prof. David’s telling phrase only to describe the Jaffna Tamil political caste/class which dragged the Tamils, under false promises, into Nanthi Kadal. As individuals the Jaffna Tamil is a splendid specimen of generosity, kindness, and loving care. I know this for certain because I am married to one from Madagal.

————————–To be continued.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

Of all the political documents that came out of Jaffna there is none to surpass the Vadukoddai Resolution passed at the Convention of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) held in the electorate of Vadukoddai on May 14, 1976. It is the peak point where the diverse Jaffna-centric communal forces, lurching in all directions without a clear focal point (from 50-50 to “federalism”), came together as a decisive political expression of its ruing Vellahla caste/class. It revealed the hidden political agenda of the Tamil political caste/class aggressively. It shed the earlier sham about being non-violent Gandhians in search of a “federal state” and came out openly for the establishment of a separate Tamil state through violence. S. J.V. Chelvanayakam, the father of Tamil separatism, went through it with a fine comb and “approved the choice of words”. ( p.128 – S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism,1947 – 1977, a Political Biography, A. J. Wilson).

The Vadukoddai Resolution was the finale of the cryptic “little now and more later” (p.128 – Ibid) mono-ethnic extremism headed by Chelvanayakam. Later in his speech to Parliament on November 19, 1976, shortly after passing the Vadukoddai Resolution in May 1976,  he spelt it out categorically saying: “We have abandoned the demand for a federal constitution.:(p.129 – Ibid.) The bogus front of federalism presented earlier was a tactical and deceptive cover to advance, covertly and incrementally, towards a separate state. The “approved choice of words” was toned down craftily to preserve the bogus Gandhian veneer while passing the ammunition. Not surprisingly, the so-called Gandhians distributed wooden pistols at their so-called non-violent demonstrations, a clear sign of coming events casting their shadows. The Vellahla masters were brain-washing the Tamil activists to be ready for what was to come.

It was a Resolution that was designed deliberately to find a military solution. The Vellahla manipulators not only “abandoned the demand for a federal solution” but also abandoned, along with it, the idea of finding a solution through parliamentary process which was the only path available for non-violent politics. The Vadukoddai Resolution contained the collective will of the Vellahlas who defined, without any ambiguity, the mono-ethnic and intransigent determination of Vellahla-dominated politics to carve out a domain that would preserve, protect and promote their traditional feudal and colonial power over the peninsula and beyond.
The flow of events that originated from the Vadukoddai Resolution had a devastating impact on the Sri Lankan polity. When it declared war and called on the Tamil youth to take up arms it legitimized violence that rolled down from the north like a demonic juggernaut crushing everything in its wake. It summarized the basic “grievances”, “aspirations”, the political parameters, the ideological base and the ultimate Eelamist objectives of Vellahla politics. Knowing that separatism and violence are inseparable it urged emphatically the violent strategy needed to achieve the final goals of Jaffna political caste/class. After listing the usual litany of complaints in its preamble it declared war in the two concluding paragraphs, which called upon the youth to take up arms and throw themselves into the struggle without flinching until “the sacred fight for ….the goal of a sovereign socialist State of EELAM is reached.”

The Vadukoddai War which began in 1976 ran its full course, through many violent twists and turns, until it went down ignominiously in Nanthi Kadal. The Vellahla fathers of the Vadukoddai Resolution of May 14, 1976 – a suicidal political act that dragged the helpless Tamils and deposited them in the cold waters of Nanthi Kadal on May 18, 2009 — never expected to be defeated by the Sinhalese. Prof. A. J. Wilson, in his hagiography, elevated his father-in-law to the grade of a “Moses who would lead the Tamil people to their promised land” (p. 8 – Ibid). In hindsight, it is clear that Chelvanayakam was more like the Pied Piper of Ipoh, Malaysia (where he was born) who lured the Tamil people of Jaffna to follow him into the watery graves of Nanthi Kadal.

Despite the devastating impact on the lives and hopes of the misled Tamils, caused primarily by the Vadukoddai Resolution, the Tamils in the diaspora have declared that they are going back to the Vadukoddai Resolution. This is stated explicitly in the provisional declaration of “the Provisional Transnational Government” which, incidentally, has no fixed abode on this planet. How far can the Tamil diaspora go down this track? What do they hope to achieve by flogging dead horse? Have they considered the deadly consequences to the Tamil people who have had enough of the Vadukoddai Resolution? Haven’t the Tamil people paid enough for the folly of their leaders in the past who led them to Nanthi Kadal?

 After the collapse of the $300 million killing machine bank rolled by the Jaffna jingoists in the Tamil diaspora (Janes Weekly), after losing international support – mainly from India – and after the humiliating loss of two leaders within a space of three months, the return of the confused Tamil diaspora to a past that has no future is not only counter-productive but suicidal also. To go back to the Vadukoddai Resolution – the political altar on which the Jaffna leadership sacrificed the Tamils with no gain – can only ruin whatever is left of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The diasporic Tamils, of course, will drop their tears in their beer and whiskey and lead their comfortable lives in Western suburbs. But shouldn’t they, at least out of compassion for their fellow-Tamils who had suffered enough, give some due consideration to rebuild their lives at the end of the futile Vadukoddai War? Or are they opting deliberately, under the cover of concocted theories, to bankroll another violent route to Nanthi Kadal?  

Stunned by the unexpected defeat and without knowing how to face the new ground realities the frustrated and disillusioned Tamils in the diaspora have plucked out of thin air another bogus theory for shifting house from Vanni to a non-existent “Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam”. Without a fixed address on this planet and with no takers at an international level to give it some credibility it is purely a pie-in-the-sky “government” which exists only in the imagination of the big-noting, expatriate Jaffna jingoists who act in the mistaken belief that they can do to the decaying corpses of Nanthi Kadal what Jesus did to Lazarus. Their grand standing may help them to console each other and send a message that they are doing something to salvage their tattered reputations after their millions went down in Nanthi Kadal. But how is a return to Vadukoddai politics going to salvage the Tamils after what happened in Nanthi Kadal?

Their so-called “Provisional Government” is a “government” which is running around like a chook without a head. It is a “government” that no one has recognized – not even the Tamils who have had a gutful se first-hand experiences of going through the Vadukoddai disasters do not wish to relive the violence of the failed past. The fanciful description of its latest political fiction advertised as the “Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam” is an unrealizable figment in the fevered imagination of political stunt men who have not learnt the lessons staring in their face. Besides, this PTGTE has not even found its citizens yet. According to its own statement, it is looking for a reputable international company to register its one million Tamil voters to hold elections in a transnational electorate that excludes Sri Lanka. It is the first airy-fairy mobile “government” that exists, if at all, somewhere in the far distant stratosphere and, the worst is, they don’t even have a damp squib to get there! How much more comic can they get? In fact, the diasporic text which announces the return to Vadukoddai Resolution reads like a hilarious sit com written by a B-grade script writer who was in a hurry to get to the toilet.

 As usual, they believe that they can concoct their own history and live in it by turning their backs on the known history running against their wishes and “aspirations” They are the born mytho-maniacs who fancy that they can force the rivers of history to flow backwards. Haven’t they heard of George Santayana who said, so very wisely, that those who forget their history are forced to relive it? What on earth do they expect to achieve by going back to a failed past? What is the glory left in the Vadukoddai Resolution after it ended in shooting, at point blank range, its own people who were running away from its horrors as fast as their feet could take them? The Jaffna jingoists have a consistent record of becoming the victims of their own political machinations. They declared war against the Sinhalese of the south in the Vadukoddai Resolution and, ironically, it was the children born out of this Resolution first turned their guns on the fathers who drafted and passed the Vadukoddai Resolution.

 Any serious or concerned Tamil must take a hard look at the Vadukoddai Resolution and ask: What has it done to the Tamil people of Jaffna? What are the great achievements that the Tamils of Jaffna can boast of now after the Vadukoddai Resolution ended in Nanthi Kadal? How many lives of Tamil children were cut down in their prime as a result of the violence unleashed in the Vadukoddai Resolution? Was the Vadukoddai route the only path available for the Tamils of Jaffna? If all the other Tamil-speaking minority communities decided to co-exist in a multi-cultural society, without resorting to Vadukoddai violence, why did the Jaffna Tamil leadership, which pretended to be non-violent Gandhians, declare war in the Vadukoddai Resolution, unleashing the most brutal violence on the nation and most of all on its own people? Who suffered most from the violent consequences of the Vadukoddai Resolution?

On what non-violent principles did the Jaffna Gandhians endorse violence which was the driving force of the Vadukoddai Resolution? How wise were the leaders of Jaffna to drag the Tamil people into the Vadukoddai nightmare? Why did the so-called superior intellectuals in the Jaffna peninsular fail to follow the more humane and civilized path of non-violent co-existence like the other minority leaders who first language was also Tamil?  If the Vadukoddai Resolution is the highest peak of their political imagination then what is the caliber of their intellect? Did not the Tamil leadership overplay their hand imagining that they had the power to defy the whole world and impose their will on Sri Lanka? Who should take responsibility for leading the Tamils into the hell hole in the Vadukoddai Resolution?

The ending of the Vadukoddai Resolution in Nanthi Kadal is the conclusive and triumphant argument that demolishes the unsustainable accusations of blaming the Sinhala-Buddhist of the south for everything that went wrong in the peninsular politics. It is the mono-ethnic extremism of the north that produced the Vadukoddai Resolution. And finally when it sank unceremoniously in the brackish waters of Nanthi Kadal they were dumb founded, more so because they could not scapegoat the Sinhala-Buddhists this time. They launched, with uminitagted arrogance, the Vadukoddai War to teach the Sinhalese a lesson. They financed it. They directed it. They recruited the old and the young into it. They even forced the young pregnant girls to eat raw pineapples and jump from tree-tops to abort the children in their wombs so that they could be forced to fight in the futile war declared in the Vadukoddai Resolution. And when they lost the Vadukoddai War, after fighting for 33 years rejecting international and national offers of peace, the violent villains of Vadukoddai had no one to blame except their own monumental folly.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

The Vadukoddai War launched officially in the Vadukoddai Resolution passed by the Jaffna leadership on May 14, 1976 ended on May 18, 2009 in Nanthi Kadal lagoon, eliminating all hopes of achieving the goal of a separate state through military means.  The military solution endorsed as Plan A in the Vadukoddai Resolution backfired and those who relied on the violence endorsed in it are licking their wounds, either in hideouts in Sri Lanka or in seminars abroad.

Their fall back position in Plan B is to mobilize international backing to gain what they lost in the battlefield. Post-mortems are popping up in seminars globally partly to manipulate the international community regain, partly to regain the lost international sympathy, partly to boost their sagging egos after Velupillai Prabhakaran went down in the Nanthi Kadal lagoon and partly to keep the money flowing in from far-flung network.

Not surprisingly, NGOs have joined hands with the defeated remnants of the Tiger terrorists in the Tamil diaspora to fan the dying embers of the war into another conflagration, if possible. These politicized NGOs have a lot to loose if the issues of the Vadukoddai War are snuffed out. To begin with, the foreign funding sources will dry up and they will be forced to give up their expensive life-styles outside, of course, the cocktail circuit of Western diplomats in Colombo. After Nanthi Kadal lagoon they lost their power to meddle in the domestic affairs under the pretence of being in possession of the magic solution to end the Vadukoddai War launched by the Jaffna jingoists. They have also their lost their self-appointed role as peace-makers too. They are now in a vacuum and are running scared, fearing the prospects of being unemployed. Their only hope of surviving is by re-igniting the fires of the lost Vadukoddai War.

But the Jaffna jingoists in the Tamil diaspora are flushed with millions of the unspent Tiger collections. Their problem is finding a way of spending it now that their $300 million killing machine went down in the Nanathi Kadal lagoon. So they are spending it lavishly on the second front abroad. To the Tiger supporters in the diaspora and their allies in the NGOs a seminar, right now, is war by other means. Lobbying foreign offices and financing mainly left-wing parliamentarians, or selling Tamil votes in exchange for political support are strategies pursued with renewed vigour as desperate moves to increase the pressures on the Sri Lankan government to give into their demands which they lost in Nanthi Kadal lagoon.

The latest seminar is in America. Teresita C. Schaffer, the director of South Asia Programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank, and former American Ambassador to Sri Lanka, is running it for the US Institute of Peace (USIP) which is a prestigious body established by the Congress. USIP, however, has not paid much attention to Sri Lanka in the past. Its main focus has been the Middle East and Africa. Suddenly, it has turned its attention to Sri Lanka and invited Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternative and Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council. Then in October A. T. Ariyaratne is billed to speak on his Gandhian approach to peace in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankans are well aware that these three names are inter-connected particularly in their cut-throat competitions to get the dwindling dollars in their kitties. They are also known as peace-merchants with a considerable capacity to use the common clichés used frequently in the lucrative peace industry. The invitations extended to these notorious peace-merchants of Sri Lanka is intriguing, more so because Ms. Schaffer is moderating it. These three are characters known to her during her tenure as Ambassador to Sri Lanka. So it is not far-fetched to assume that it is a case of birds of a feather clucking together.

According to Ms. Schafer’s advertisement (or is it USIP’s?) these two NGO pundits are billed as “two prominent individuals from Sri Lanka’s civil society who are working to secure a lasting peace in the country.” USIP/Ms.Schaffer also claim that these two guest speakers will show “the pathways to a sustainable peace and reconciliation.” Those who know the recent history of the 33-year Vadukoddai War would justifiably conclude that these puffs could have come only from those who write one-liners to Jay Leno for his audience to laugh. If they are so good, as advertised by USIP/Ms. Schaffer, how come these two NGO apparatchiks failed in all the years they worked “as prominent individuals of Sri Lanka’s civil society….to secure a lasting peace in the country”? Or to get anywhere near it?

But, more importantly, what does USIP/Ms.Schaffer hope to contribute to peace and stability with these two hired hacks? Can this charivari produce anything constructive to the war-weary people of Sri Lanka? It has on its staff scholars of repute. It is also linked to big names in the international community, from Condolleza Rice to Jimmy Carter. Though it is known as a body committed to promote peace it is also clouded in much controversy as to whose peace it intends to promote. In fact, when President George Bush appointed anti-Islamic Pipe as its head the Arab world, in particular, was up in arms protesting against his appointment.

This indicates that the USIP is not much different from many other NGOs, INGOs despite its claim to be an independent organization. If it is independent, as it claims, why is it that USIP has a tendency to invite only like-minded apparatchiks? Is it by coincidence that these so-called independent bodies invite only Tweedledums and Tweedledees? Take the case of Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu and Jehan Perera – the Tweedle-dumbos from Sri Lanka. Their biggest contribution will be to do what they normally do: demonize Sri Lanka. How can USIP, or the genuine peace lovers benefit from the usual complaints made by these two charlatans whose contribution to peace in Sri Lanka has been as oceanic as ant’s urine?

A critical question that needs to be asked is: how will the presence/participation of these two invitees help to achieve the USIP’s mission and goals which are to (1) prevent international and resolve violent conflicts (2) promote post-conflict stability and development and (3) increase conflict management capacity, tools, and intellectual capital Worldwide. These goals are commendable but how can two failed theoreticians from Sri Lanka help USIP to achieve any one of its goals. Of course, their record proves incontrovertibly that they failed in (1) and have not provided any credible evidence to prove that they are capable of achieving (3) either. At best, they can be expected to contribute something to (2) though that too is in doubt considering their past record.

 Of the three criteria of USIP what is most relevant to Sri Lanka right now is (2) – the promotion of post-conflict stability and development. Judging by their past performances can the war-weary Sri Lankans, who are now waiting expectantly in the post-conflict period, expect anything positive from these two peace merchants whose counter-productive attacks on Sri Lanka exceeds that of the Vadukoddai war-mongers? They have consistently skimmed over the war crimes and the crimes against humanity by the Tamil tiger terrorists because it undermines their one-eyed theories of blaming either the Sinhala-Buddhist south or the Sri Lankan government.

 Their partisan approach focused exclusively on the infirmities of the Sri Lankan government – all of which were common to other democracies engaged in combating terrorists. They even blame the Sri Lankan government for ending the 33-year-old war within 2 ½  years without taking the advice of the David Milliband and Richard Kouchner to stop the war at the most critical stage. They would, of course, raise the human rights issues and ask for international investigations as a first steps towards reconciliation. They would harp on the IDPs who are being screened in Menik camp as if America had released the Germans after World War II without screening them for Nazi connections. De-Nazification was an official policy of US and some researchers have written books claiming that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was so bitter with the Germans that he starved them. In the IDP camps in Sri Lanka they are given three meals a day and, according to BBC, contractors are making money hand over fist by supplying food. 

 But why should Paki or Jehan focus on these issues when their bread is buttered with dollops of foreign currency? Their passage to USIP or any other American institute depends on how well they denigrate Sri Lanka. Clearly, no one in their proper senses will deny that stability in the post-conflict period can come primarily by promoting development and this needs analysis, planning, scrutiny and careful implementation. But in their presentations they will have no constructive road map to go into the future. They will speak in generalities and divert attention to the failures of the government which is tasked to fulfill the needs of the north and east within three months.

 Apart from that development and stability need aid. But Paki and Jehan are busy lobbying to cut aid. Will they urge at USIP that the West should give more aid for stability and development or will they argue to cut aid because the government is not fulfilling their criteria on selected issues from their political agenda? My bet is that they will run down Sri Lanka with the ulterior motive of cutting off aid. These two are quite used to playing their conventional role of perverted nurses who pinch the baby and rock the cradle.

Last but not the least, let me deal with A. T. Ariyaratne – one of the best known cheats in the NGO circuit. He is due to speak on the topic of: In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Creating a Culture of Inter-Religious Peace in Sri Lanka. USIP has advertised him in the following text: “For over two decades, Sri Lanka has been beset with a civil war fought between government forces and a minority insurgent group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which seeks an independent Tamil state on the island country. Although rooted mainly in ethnic, linguistic, and political differences, religion has also come to play a role in the identity-dynamics shaping the conflict and its beleaguered peace process. Elements of the majority Sinhala Buddhist population in Sri Lanka argue against peace with the Tamils, who are predominantly Hindu, in defense of Buddhism. Meanwhile, the minority Muslim population, composing Sri Lanka’s third major ethnic group, is often caught in the cross-fire of war, and the Christian minority population has been accused of unethical conversion practices and targeted violently.”

The picture is painted in subtle terms to project the Buddhists as targeting Hindus, Muslims and Christians. This text could have been written only by the USIP, or by Ariyaratne. If the USIP wrote it, it would have been with the advice and consent of Ariyaratne. Jointly or severally, they have presented the Vadukoddai War as a “religious” war between the Buddhists and all other religionists. The religious element is woven in subtly when the blurb says that “religion has also come to play a role in the identity-dynamics shaping the conflict and its beleaguered peace process”. Then it goes on to add: “Elements of the majority Sinhala Buddhist population in Sri Lanka argue against peace with the Tamils, who are predominantly Hindu, in defense of Buddhism.” Which serious and credible analysts have ever come down to this kind of lies? When did the Hindus and Buddhist clash in this Vadukoddai War? 

This makes Ariyaratne, who would have seen this text by now and done nothing about it, a cheap and venal liar. Of course, he has spent a life time selling Buddhism and Gandhism as his main products. His greatest contribution to Sri Lankan peace has been to march from one suburb to another mainly to video the parade as an earth-shattering event that would bring about peace.  These marches are a charade to hoodwink foreign donors to make them believe that he is the Gandhi of Sri Lanka moving the masses towards peace. The ulterior motive, however, is to market the video abroad to rake in more foreign funding and also to grab as many peace awards as possible to boost his image for soliciting more foreign funds.

Now if USIP thinks that it can serve the cause of peace in Sri Lanka with Ariyaratne’s concocted lies and cheap tricks then it must think again. Independent commissions of inquiries into his money-making rackets have exposed him as a cheat too. So USIP must probe the advisors who recommend these racketeers as agents for peace. These are qualified professionals who are adepts in selling the misery of the war-weary people of Sri Lanka for a fistful of dollars. People of Sri Lanka deserve better than this. And so does USIP.

By H.L.D. Mahindapala

Delivering the Eighth Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, on July 29th 2007 Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group (ICG), has in his characteristic eloquent style clinically analyzed and described the new instrument of international intervention needed to prevent future “Holocausts and Cambodias and Rwandas and Bosnias of the past, and the Darfurs of the present, and maybe the Iraqs of the near future” happening again.

He names the new instrument as “R2P”. It is Gareth Evans? shorthand for “responsibility to protect”. He also spells out his reasons to justify why R2P is applicable to the Sri Lankan situation.

Both are controversial. Despite the lucid exposition of the parameters and the import of R2P and its uses, his argument is mired in deep political, moral, legal and philosophical issues that the way out for existing and impending “humanitarian crises” through R2P seems to be nowhere nearer than in the old linguistic model, or envisaged in his lecture. The new terminology is neither an advancement on the old concept (it tastes more like old wine in new bottles) nor does it seem like a viable and satisfactory solution to the prevention of humanitarian crises. (More of this later).

Second, the political analysis on which he proposes to apply R2P to Sri Lankan crisis questions not only the validity of R2P but also the premises, the principles and the criteria recommended by him for its application anywhere, let alone Sri Lanka. He states that Sri Lanka is not another Rwanda, or Cambodia or Kosovo but R2P must be applied. This reveals his hidden agenda. In the name of delivering a memorial lecture on Neelan Tiruchelvam he has come to lay down the law of the imperial masters who judge, defines and implements their own definitions in accordance with their political agenda.

The overall flow of his lecture leads to his main political agenda of stopping the Sri Lankan military from advancing into the north on his assumption that it has the potential to descend into another Rwanda or Cambodia. Obviously, he is not aware that the Forces had regained Jaffna and the east (despite threats of blood bath by the Tamil Tigers) without descending anywhere near to a Rwanda or Kosovo. The Sri Lankan forces had even quelled two Marxist uprising in the south with heavy casualties no doubt, more than the north-south conflict.

The “balance of consequences” he points in Iraq has not occurred. The failure to take the ground realities and assess the overall picture makes Gareth Evans’ argument rather unsustainable. It is a pity that he has merely regurgitated what has been fed to him by the local NGOs without making a realistic assessment of his own. This explains why he has misdiagnosed the Sri Lankan case. That is, perhaps, excusable for a misled pundit who had misread the symptoms. But to prescribe the wrong surgical operation is unacceptable in any language.

But before getting down to the Sri Lanka situation a brief examination of R2P is necessary. For all intents and purposes, R2P is a moral and a legal instrument sharpened to override state sovereignty and to impose the will of the international community. His argument amounts to ram R2P down the throats of sovereign nations in the Westphalian system, without overtly being overly imperialistic or interventionist. There is a reasonable argument for intervention, when the state fails “through incapacity or through ill-will”, as in the case of Cambodia, Kosovo or Rwanda. But why should R2P apply to Sri Lanka when he states categorically that it is not in the same category of Kosovo or Rwanda?

As head of the ICG and as a leading proponent of R2P he sets out to draw ” the limits of state sovereignty, and the proper role of the international community in responding to catastrophic human rights violations – genocide and other mass killing, large scale ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity – occurring within the boundaries of a single country.” Nicely put.

Main thrust

The main thrust of his argument is to by-pass, wherever necessary, Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter which states: “Nothing should authorise intervention in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State” and to replace that with the phrase coined by Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Medicines Sans Frontier and now France’s Foreign Minister, of “droit d’ingerence” – the “right to intervene”, or, more fully, the “right of humanitarian intervention”.

In other words, he attempts to draw the distinction between straight out intervention for political, economic, strategic or other interests and the “right of humanitarian intervention”, with the emphasis on the elastic and even all-embracing word “humanitarian”. Quite rightly, he points out the difficulties of applying this principle to all humanitarian crises.

Citing Francis Deng, the Sudanese scholar and diplomat now named by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as his Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Gareth states that “its essence should now be seen not as “control”, as in the centuries old Westphalian tradition, but, again, as “responsibility”. The starting point is that any state has the primary responsibility to protect the individuals within it. But that is not the finishing point: where the state fails in that responsibility, through either incapacity or ill-will, a secondary responsibility to protect falls on the wider international community. That, in a nutshell, is the core of the responsibility to protect idea, or “R2P” as we are all now calling it for short.”

Here Evans is making a big play on semantics. He is shifting the emphasis from “control” to “responsibility” as if it makes any significant difference. No, it doesn’t. “Responsibility” is a substitute word to sanitize the opprobrium in the offensive word “control”. In essence, both words converge in a meaning that is not much different from the other for the simple reason that those who take “responsibility” do so to take “control”. There is no point in taking “responsibility” if those doing so cannot ‘control’ the situation.

Evans’ focus on semantics is pivotal to his argument.

Without it his argument fails. He throws the linguistic net to catch everyone who comes within the realms of his political agenda. In his legalistic mind (he was a Professor in the Law Faculty of Melbourne University, Australia) he is well aware that those who formulate the rules have an advantage in any contest.

His law of contracts would have taught him that. The powerful combatants invariably set the rules, define the limits and force the other weak combatants to play according to the imposed dictates. This ensures that the battle of the powerful is won even before it begins. Defining ultimately is a key political act to achieve the desired goal. Definitions make all the difference to winning or losing. Taking control of the language to redefine the framework is a prime necessity to fix the political agenda. The semantic framework in which the discourse is held gives the upper hand to those who pre-plan the agenda. Once the definitions and the language are established all actors will have to play according to the rules that arise from the new definitions and language.

Evans acknowledges this when he said: “The first was to invent a new way of talking about ‘humanitarian intervention’”. (T) he whole point of embracing (the new) language (R2P) is that it is capable of generating an effective, consensual response in extreme, conscience-shocking cases, in a way that “right to intervene” language was not. Besides, political actions do not take place outside the linguistic framework. Refining the language to define the actions, the programme and the action is a prerequisite to pursue and achieve the preordained goals. Controlling the discourse through an authoritarian, imperialistic language is another way of imposing the will of those who craft the draft. The language invariably precedes the implementation of the political agenda. Evans has done this with finesse.

But in defining R2P he has (perhaps unwittingly) brought the meanings of the two words “control” and “responsibility” together. He says that ‘it means reacting effectively in situations where genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity are currently occurring or imminent. But it also means preventing situations, not yet at that conscience-shocking stage but capable of reaching it, from so deteriorating. And it means rebuilding societies shattered by such catastrophes to ensure they do not recur.

“The action required by R2P is overwhelmingly, preventive: building state capacity, remedying grievances and ensuring the rule of law. But if prevention fails, R2P requires whatever measures – economic, political, diplomatic, legal, security, or in the last resort military – become necessary to stop mass atrocity crimes occurring.”

His definition makes it amply clear that taking “responsibility” is to take “control”. He is trying to make out that taking “responsibility” is a higher moral duty as opposed to taking “control” either through unilateral or multilateral interventions. But it is a distinction without a difference when it comes to “reacting effectively,” as he states. No power on earth, not even the ICG, can “react effectively” without taking control.

However, in his nuanced argument Evans does not bluntly go all out to maintain that international intervention is necessary for each and every humanitarian crisis and applicable to every situation.

He takes great pains to emphasize that the first opportunity must be given to individual states to take R2P action. So how should this principle of helping Sri Lanka to help themselves be implemented by the international community? The Sri Lankan state “has the responsibility,” according to Evans, “to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

Every one of these crimes has been committed by the LTTE and that is why they have been banned by the international community. That is also why Velupillai Prabhakaran is wanted by Interpol, India and Sri Lanka.

And according to paragraph 138 of the World Summit Outcome Document the responsibility of the international community is to help countries to help themselves in taking preventive action. Evans goes further. He says: “This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. The international community should as appropriate encourage and help States to exercise that responsibility.

Crimes

All the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the LTTE have reached unacceptable proportions over the years. The regional super power, India, intervened (violating international law) and forced the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement in the name of “humanitarian assistance”.

The LTTE ripped it apart and took up arms against the Indian Peace Keeping Force. The biggest boast of the Tamil Tigers is that they defeated the fourth biggest army in the world.

Then the stars in the nebulous international community worked out the Ceasefire Agreement. LTTE not only walked out of talks shortly after signing it but violated 95% of its terms and conditions, according to Scandinavian Peace Monitors. The Tamil Tigers have reneged on agreements with the UN to stop recruiting children – a war crime.

Since the international community and the regional super power have failed to stop the war crimes and crimes committed against humanity whose responsibility is to take the only option available in the last resort to restore normalcy and decency in Sri Lanka: a regime change in the Vanni. This is also endorsed by the Tamils in the democratic stream, not to mention the look-alike and act-alike breakaway group of the LTTE led by Karuna in the east.

According to the principles and criteria laid down by Evans, it is the responsibility of the international community to help Sri Lanka “to build capacity to protect (its) populations from these crimes (genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity) and to assist those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out,” says Evans, citing Paragraph 139 of the document approved unanimously by the world leaders.

So isn’t it necessary and appropriate for the world leaders to adhere to their principles enshrined in Paragraphs 138 and 139 and help Sri Lanka to prevent these crimes? Instead Evans is threatening to stop the very forces that are advancing to fulfill the objectives outlined in Paragraphs 138 and 139.

After the failures of the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement and the Ceasefire Agreement what options are available in dealing with an intransigent and incorrigible perpetrator of these crimes against humanity In summary, Evans concludes that Sri Lankan is a R2P case which requires international intervention. He says: “It may not be one where large scale atrocity crimes – Cambodia-style, Rwanda-style, Srebrenica-style, Kosovo-style – are occurring right now, or immediately about to occur, but it is certainly a situation which is capable of deteriorating to that extent.”

His argument defies logic and commonsense. First, this argument runs on the same logic of the policeman who produced a man before a magistrate for distilling illicit liquor. As evidence police said that he had all the necessary equipment for distilling liquor. The man said that he should then be charged of rape too because he has equipment to commit that crime!

Second, what justice or rationality is there in pushing an agenda of his own when he brings imaginary charges against the he Sri Lankan government and ignores the criminals who have been found guilty of committing acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity” Where is his commitment to Paragraphs 138 and 139? He says that Sri Lanka is not “nor is it likely to be in near future” a Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica or Kosovo. But he imagines that “it is certainly a situation which is capable of deteriorating to that extent.”

Here he is parroting the hype of NGOs. Their tactic has been to over-emphasize violations of human rights of the state fighting a grim battle to protect a democratically elected state to cover-up for the gross and horrendous violation of the Pol Potist regime in the north. In falling in line with this line of mono-ethnic extremism of the north Evans loses his balance and targets the victims of the brutal terrorist violence who, based on historical experience, can be saved only by a regime change in the Vanni.

Evans should know enough of history and heaps international machinations to understand that an unrepentant and unrelenting political criminal like Prabhakaran, who had killed more Tamils than all the other forces put together, according to the son of the father of Tamil separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanyakam, can never be reformed or contained by throwing flowers of constitutional reforms or arguments of human rights.

Even if he doesn’t accept this reality now he will realize it sooner or later. Perhaps, sooner than later.

Of course, he argues that the “government’s sovereign responsibility is not to put its own citizens at undue risk. For this reason, the government must resist the temptation to continue its military campaign into the areas of the Northern Province held by the LTTE.” At the Melbourne University he would marked down this argument as casuistry to cover-up for Pol Potism. If the priority of the world leaders is to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity happening again, and if Sri Lanka is not like Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica or Kosovo (except in the projected imagination of Evans) what should be the response of the international community? Based on Paragraph 138 and 139 (cited above) should it not be to help the Sri Lankan state to take effective action to protect its people held captive in the Tamil Terroristan?

To understand why Evans is going down this track, against all logic and available evidence, it is necessary to place in context the timing of his arrival to deliver the Tiruchelvam Memorial lecture sponsored by the ICES. Without reading much into it, it should be noted that he has come at the time when the Security Forces had advanced, with commendable discipline and skill, avoiding the Srebrenica- Kosovo style of ethnic cleansing, or even Rwanda-scale horrors in the east. In 1995 the forces also occupied Jaffna without creating such horrendous ethnic catastrophes. In fact, in putting down violent challenges thrown at the democratically elected state, the Sri Lankan government had killed more Sinhalese (over a 100,000 at a rough estimate in the two JVP uprisings) than in this north-south conflict.

What Evans has not grasped is that there is no visceral enmity between the two communities as in the case of Kosovo or Srebrenica, or Rwanda . That is why the majority of Tamils live with the Sinhalese in the south. That is why the Sinhalese villages in the east were the first to rush to the Tamil victims of the tsunami, long before the state or the NGOs went in with their aid. That is also why that there has been no ethnic backlashes against the Tamil community (as in 1983) despite systematic provocations of the Tamil Tigers to needle the lower-level Sinhala leadership to retaliate violently against the Tamil neighbours each time they attack the sacred Buddhist sites, or massacre babies, Buddhist monks and pregnant mothers in villages.

Evans, of course, has missed all these realities. His political line can be understood only if it is compared with the fixed mind-set of the local NGOs whose main objective has been to tie the hands of the Sri Lankan forces with cries of human rights violations – cries raised to stop the advance of forces through international intervention. It is also reported that he has close rapport with Radhika Coomaraswamy who headed the ICES before the Sri Lankan government sponsored her to the post of an Under-Secretary at the UN. Sadly, both belong to that band of do-gooders in the world thriving on manufacturing sophisticated rationalizations for the evils staring in their faces. It is no coincidence that Evans was invited to deliver the Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial lecture precisely at this time.

He is the right spokesperson with the required high-profile who could be recruited, without any arm-twisting, to do the job of protecting the Pol Potist regime in the Vanni by stopping the advance of the Security Forces.

Besides, his analysis and his recipe of R2P have been written many times over by the foreign-funded International Centre for Ethnic Studies (meaning only partisan studies of Sinhala-Buddhists and not the northern Hindu Tamils), Centre for Policy Alternative (meaning policy alternatives only for the democratic south and not for the fascist north), National Peace Council (meaning a council to cover-up the war crimes committed by the war lords of the north) etc., etc.

The only new aspect in Evans’ lecture is the finger-pointing threat at the state if it goes into the north. This is a repetition of Indian intervention when the Sri Lankan forces were on the verge of de-clawing the Tamil Tigers. The Indians too came in the name of humanitarian intervention and air-dropped lentils, violating the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of its southern neighbour. The Indian language was different from that of Evans. They didn’t come wrapped in fancy R2P but the effect was the same.

In the case of Evans, however, he seems to be all over the place with him wriggling, semantically, to intervene through his R2P language, despite him saying that the so-called “R2P situation”. demands preventive action, by the Sri Lankan government itself, but with the help and support of the wider international community, to ensure that further deterioration does not occur.”

If he really means what he says then in what manner should the wider international community support and help Sri Lanka to take responsibility to protect its citizens? Hasn’t the state the right to invoke Bernard Kouchner’s “droit d’ingerence” – the “right to intervene”, or, more fully, the “right of humanitarian intervention” to prevent the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Tamil Terroristan’ Or is R2P action a right reserved only for the imperial masters’ Going against his own definition of R2P Evans labours, point by point. to argue against the Security Forces advancing to liberate the Tamil citizens – a call, incidentally, made by the UN peace award-winning Tamil leader, V. Anandasangaree. All his arguments boil down to block the Security Forces taking R2P action. This is why political observers see him as an agent of the local NGOs arriving in time to twist the arm of the government, with not-so-veiled threats from the international community. This threat also undermines his argument that the first preference is given to the state to initiate R2P action.

Consider, for instance his legal argument: “Recognizing that the government’s primary responsibility, like that of any state, is to protect all its citizens, it must take steps to ensure that all its citizens are accorded the equal protection of the laws.” It is unthinkable that he would confine the definition of the phrase “to protect all its citizens” only to those living in the south. All citizens should include those living in the Tamil Terroristan too? citizens who are forced to endure crimes against their own children with, mark you, Radhika Coomaraswamy, a concerned Tail, presiding over their hapless fate at the UN. How do Evans and Coomaraswamy propose to protect these children from falling into the clutches of the Tamil Tigers? Is it by giving another lecture? Or by writing another report for the UN Secretary-General? Their politics do not give priority to war crimes an crimes against humanity which they know for will not end as long as Velupillai Prabhakaran is allowed to reign with impunity in Tamil Terroristan.

They go down the other political tract of NGOs that argue in devious ways that priority should be given to power-sharing with the mono-ethnic extremists of the north over any meaningful consideration of the rights of children or the victims of the violations of human rights. Their intent is to keep the Tamil Tigers in power as a guarantee of Tamil rights and R2P should not be applied to the north until the south provides them an undue share of powers ignoring the aspirations of all communities. In this argument human rights takes the last place in their list of priorities. They invoke human rights only to force the state to submit to their political demands and not because they are genuinely concerned about protecting human rights. In other words, human rights are used as a political tool to beat the state, exonerating the so-called de facto state guilty of horripilating crimes against humanity.

This argument is a perversion of R2P. ICG must decide whether it wants to prioritize human rights, as it professes, or go along with the criminal politics of the mono-ethnic extremists.

Besides, going on Evans’ “balance of consequences”, the chances of Tamils finding political solution are far greater without the Tigers than with them holding a gun at the heads of those seeking peace. Sadly, Evans? argument honed to stop the advance of the Sri Lankan forces does not go as far as protecting all those citizens held to ransom by a ruthless group of political criminals. His silence on this implies that those citizens either need no protection from the state or are not citizens of the state. In either case, he has virtually abandoned the “responsibilities” to protect those citizens, either by the state or by the international community. If Evans is keen on prioritizing politics as against human rights then he loses the moral high ground.

Though he is bound to reject it, he becomes an ally of Prabhakaran and not the state which he states deserves international help to prevent violations of human rights. He argues that the Sri Lankan government must take preventive action “with the help and support of the wider international community, to ensure that further deterioration does not occur.” But in saying that the Sri Lankan forces must not advance to change the regime that is violating human rights on an unprecedented scale he is endorsing the NGO line that the status quo must be maintained, leading to further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Tamil Terroristan and, consequently, the rest of the nation.

On balance and by all the available evidence the most pragmatic course available to deal with the deteriorating human rights crisis in Sri Lanka is for the ICG to unleash the full force of R2P against “the Pol Potist regime” (James Burns of New York Times – June 25, 1995) than against the Sri Lankan state. He mentions the nominal restrictions placed on the Tigers in Western havens. But to what effect? Roland Buerk, BBC, in his latest report from Killinochchi states: “But now there is new evidence that the organisation is forcing civilians into its ranks” – one from each family to fight in a needless war. Evans is also aware of the forcible recruitment of child soldiers, reneging on all UN agreements from 1995. He may not be aware of the Nazi-style concentration camps run in the heart of Terroristan, but he may be knowing of how 75,000 Muslims and 20,000 Sinhalese were ethnically cleansed from Jaffna . He, of course, is aware of how the cream of Tamil leadership has been eliminated. It has been an unceasing, on-going humanitarian crisis with no signs of abating. With all this evidence before him Evans refuses to accept that the Tamil Tigers have “crossed the boundary into mass atrocity or obvious genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.” He is stuck in his ideological blindness. If he acknowledges the plight of the Tamils under ruthless regime of Velupillai Prabhakaran he will be forced, by his own logic to encourage the Sri Lankan state to initiate R2P action “with the help and support of the wider international community, to ensure that further deterioration does not occur”.

But where does he draw the line? He draws the line only to prevent the Sri Lankan government from taking the action to prevent future Rwandas and Cambodias .

Sadly, ICG, like all local NGOs, is putting maximum pressure to prevent the subhuman source from where these crimes originate. ICG, like local NGOs is pussyfooting around the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by the Tamil Tigers. In fact, Evans unashamedly states that “in recent times” the Tigers have been behaving well “without crossing the boundary into mass atrocity or obvious genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.” He even equates that behaviour with that of the SL government. Whatever the data base from which he derived this conclusion he seems to be quite comfortable with the forcible abduction of children, concentration camps, and door-knocking to recruit one young person from each family and, judging from his statements neither the state nor the international community need apply R2P to liberate the Tamils enslaved by Prabhakaran. R2P is only to be applied in the south exempting the worst criminals in the north.

Compounding all these sins of omission is the fact that Evans failed to mention -not even in passing that Neelan Tiruchelvam was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. He does not view it as an integral part of the inhuman LTTE outfit urgently in need of regime change under R2P action. On the contrary, he gloats over his assumption that the Tamil Tigers have not “crossed the border” recently, or that the Western citadels of human rights, after nurturing them for decades, have at last made some ineffective moves to curtail their fund raising. Based on Evans’ ideological blinkers, the peace-loving Sri Lankans can be excused for thinking that R2P is the latest devious route of a neo-colonialist fox sneaking its way into the hapless chicken coop.

One of the fundamental flaws in Evans’ argument is the heartless way in which he subjects reality to airy-fairy theories imported from the West, or manufactured by the local NGOs.

He states: “It has taken the world an insanely long time, centuries in fact, to come to terms conceptually with the idea that state sovereignty is not a license to kill – that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens, or standing by when others do so.” Well, there are two political entities in Sri Lanka – (1)the perfect Terroristan in the north and (2)the imperfect democracy in the south. On any scale of judgment, which side should he support in pursuance of R2P? Or to take an example from his homeland, if there was in the heart of Australia a subhuman pocket of tyranny violating all know canons of human rights and challenging the authority of a democratically elected government how would he apply R2P?

If Evans is worried about the “balance of consequences” aren’t the military operations and the consequences of the capture of Jaffna, the east, and the ending of the two JVP insurrections good enough examples for him to go by? Besides, wasn’t it during his time as Foreign Minister that Australia joined the multi-lateral force of throwing a naval cordon round Iraq that blocked food and medical supplies leading to reported deaths of around 500,000 children?

Without meaning to sound like a war-monger, it is most unlikely that even a fraction of those casualties would occur on the “balance of consequences” if the Security Forces should go north. It is against this background that Evans has launched him mission to stop the Security Forces advancing to the north and threatening the sovereign democratic state (with all it faults) with R2P.

To prove his bona fides about his concerns for protecting communities in crisis there is a simple legal remedy available to Evans. He has the capacity/power to initiate action to bring Prabhakaran before an International Criminal Court. This is, perhaps, the best non-militaristic approach available in R2P. This legal action can then circumvent any head-on collisions and prevent the grim scenario he paints.

But he won’t do that either. As a professional immersed in the law he would have been aware of this option available to him and the international community. What is international law worth if it can’t be applied to an open-and-shut case like this? Why is Evans, the ICG and the international community running away from their “responsibilities” Is it only to be applied to small countries which can be bullied into submission by threats conveyed at lectures? With moral guardians like Evans is it surprising that the likes of Prabhakaran reign in the safe havens protected by those who failed to live up to their “responsibilities” – responsibilities they never fail to proclaim from NGO roof tops?

All in all, it is indeed “conscience-shocking” to see Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia who pushed Austral-Lanka relations to the brink, as it were, by defending the Aussie team’s refusal to play cricket in Sri Lanka fearing Tamil Tiger threats, standing up now as a cryptic defender of a haven for Tamil Tiger terrorists and, in the process, emerging as a toxic Aussie phrase-maker for peddling obnoxious neo-colonialism.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

In a statement issued by the British High Commission ( Colombo , Sri Lanka ) yesterday (May 6, 2009) the visiting group of British Parliamentarians led by Des Browne MP said:

·         “We saw the considerable efforts the Government is making to accommodate and assist IDPs who have left the conflict zone.

·         “We spoke to a number of people in the camps who expressed their genuine relief at having escaped the LTTE and reached a place of safety.

·         “It is clear that IDPs in camps are much better off than their friends and relatives who remain in the conflict zone,”

·         “We recognize the scale of the challenge facing the Government in delivering humanitarian relief to all civilians in the north, including those in IDP camps, those in screening centres and rehabilitation camps and those in the conflict zone itself,” said Des Browne, the delegation’s chairman

They also expressed their readiness to support the Government’s commitment to resettle 80 percent of the IDP population by the end of the year. The delegation included John Bercow (Conservative MP for Buckingham); Des Browne (Labour MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun); Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon); Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party MP for South Down) and Mohammad Sarwar (Labour MP for Glasgow Central)

The statement also said: “We are grateful to all those who met with us in Sri Lanka and to the Government for their support and assistance in organising our fact-finding mission.”

“We came without preconception and have listened to a range of opinions on the conflict and current humanitarian situation. Our primary concern is for those civilians who remain trapped in the conflict zone and are living in terrible conditions. The LTTE has ignored repeated calls for the release of these civilians. Only an end to intense fighting will offer them any respite. We urge the Government to use maximum restraint in their ongoing operations, including by upholding their commitment to refrain from the use of heavy weapons. We welcome the Government’s agreement to allow the UN to visit the conflict zone to assess the humanitarian needs of the people there and to plan the evacuation of the remaining civilians. We urge all parties to facilitate this agreement without delay.” “We recognize the scale of the challenge facing the Government in delivering humanitarian relief to all civilians in the north, including those in IDP camps, those in screening centres and rehabilitation camps and those in the conflict zone itself. We support the work they are doing in conjunction with the ICRC, UN and other humanitarian actors to assist IDPs and civilians affected by the conflict. We urge them to continue to improve access by international agencies thereby increasing capacity to minister to the identified needs of civilians.

“We visited the IDP camps in Vavuniya. We saw the considerable efforts the Government is making to accommodate and assist IDPs who have left the conflict zone. We spoke to a number of people in the camps who expressed their genuine relief at having escaped the LTTE and reached a place of safety. It is clear that IDPs in camps are much better off than their friends and relatives who remain in the conflict zone. Many of the civilians we spoke to also raised concerns about conditions in the camps and their ability to access humanitarian assistance. We encourage the Government to maintain their commitment to full implementation of the recommendations made by Walter Kaelin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of IDPs, during his recent visit. In particular we stress the need for civilians to be able to leave the camps to return to their homes or to stay with family or friends as soon as possible. We stand ready to support the Government’s commitment to resettle 80 percent of the IDP population by the end of the year?

(Source: Daily News}  

Resisting British pressure is a matter of national pride

In another related report in TIME (May 6, 2009) Jyoti Thottam report from New Delhi : “Remaining firm in the face of international pressure – particularly from its former colonial power Britain —    is an issue of national pride for the Sri Lankan government. ……..The Sri Lankan government has been more welcoming of delegations from sympathetic countries, such as India , South Asia’s regional superpower, and Japan , Sri Lanka ’s largest donor country. Neither has tried to exert similar public pressure. The Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, met with Rajapaksa on April 24; three days later the Army announced that “combat operations have reached their conclusion,” a declaration that was quickly clarified — it meant the Army would cease only heavy bombardment. On April 30, the Times of London reported that the U.S. and Britain were trying to use Sri Lanka ’s application for a $1.9 billion IMF loan as leverage in negotiations on humanitarian issues. The same day, the Sri Lankan government issued a statement saluting “the great nations that genuinely helped us fight terrorism,” calling the others “a group of hypocrites.” On May 2, the Sri Lankan president met with Japan ’s peace envoy Yasushi Akashi. “The conditions in these camps are not perfect, but I am keenly aware that the government is trying very hard and people are committed to make this better,” Akashi said.