{"id":102344,"date":"2020-05-15T15:46:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T22:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102344"},"modified":"2020-05-15T15:46:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T22:46:36","slug":"a-nelson-mandela-statue-in-colombo-no-laughing-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/15\/a-nelson-mandela-statue-in-colombo-no-laughing-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nelson Mandela statue in Colombo: No laughing matter!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

A news report in The Island of May 9, 2020 under the heading \u2018One\nlocation for national heroes\u2019 (by Zacki Jabbar) says that Media and Higher\nEducation minister and co-cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardane told a news\nconference held at the Information Department that a cabinet decision was taken\non Wednesday (May 6) to locate statues of national heroes in one place so they\nwouldn\u2019t stand scattered across the island. This, the minister explained, was\nfor introducing a uniform policy  with regard to honouring those who had\nserved the nation in outstanding ways. I for one don\u2019t at present see any\nspecial merit or demerit in establishing a single sculpture garden or park\ndedicated to the memory of national heroes, nor do I have any idea about the\ncircumstances that caused the caretaker government to worry about where to\nstand memorial statues of national heroes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, what really stirred my curiosity was the simultaneous\nannouncement that the Cabinet of Ministers had also made a decision to allocate\nsome space in the Colombo Municipal Council premises for the erection of a\nstatue of freedom fighter and former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela\nat the request of the South African High Commission in Colombo. Why a request\nhad to be made by the diplomats of a friendly nation to have their late\nnational hero honoured by Sri Lanka in this way is hard to guess. The costs are\nto be borne by the South Africans themselves, it is implied. On the other hand,\ndoes Sri Lanka owe Nelson Mandela or South Africa special thanks or grateful\nacknowledgement for any outstanding services done to her in the past? It is\ntrue that South Africans have played a tenuous supplementary role in the\ninterventionist Western interest in Sri Lanka\u2019s internal problem between the\nstate and the Tamil separatists. That role was not the sort that earned the\nrespect or gratitude of Sri Lankans. It only contributed towards paving the way\nfor UNHRC resolutions 30\/1 (2015), 34\/1 (2017) and 40\/1 (2019) pushed against\nSri Lanka at Geneva during the previous Yahapalanaya, from whose co-sponsorship\nthe country recently withdrew with the change of government subsequent to the\nelection of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in November 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) provided a truly heroic leadership to the\nlongdrawn struggle for South Africa\u2019s freedom from the White supremacist\nApartheid system.  He spent a gruelling 28 years in detention and in jail\n(1962-1990) because of this. He proved more powerful as a prisoner than as a\nfree person in turning world opinion in favour of black South Africa\u2019s\nemancipation, and he had already become a globally celebrated freedom fighter\nby the time of his release from prison in 1990. The last Aparheid president\nF.W. de Klerk held a series of negotiations with Mandela between 1990 and 1993.\nDe Klerk\u2019s government took a number of unilateral steps and arranged for the\ncountry\u2019s first non-racial election in 1994, which Nelson Mandela easily won as\nleader of the African National Congress. He led South Africa as president from 1994\nto 1999. Mandela won great sympathy as well as great admiration from Sri\nLankans, who also had experienced the inhumanity of Western imperialism for\nover four centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 As far as I can remember, South Africa started showing an\ninterest in Sri Lanka\u2019s domestic problem around 2007 during Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s\nfirst term as president, and continued to do so during his second term as well.\nOf the 58 million SA population, over 80% are native black, about 8% white, and\nonly 2.6% Asian Indian citizens. Tamils form a large proportion of the last.\nThis factor seems to have enabled the interventionist West and their minions\nthe Tamil diaspora to imagine a false analogy between South Africa\u2019s ending of\nthe Apartheid system in 1994 and  Sri Lanka\u2019s termination of the\nseparatist civil conflict in 2009, which they wished to exploit to force Sri\nLanka to adopt South Africa\u2019s model in resolving \u2018reconciliation and\naccountability\u2019 issues (which, in reality though, seems to have left the\ndispossessed blacks in no better economic position vis-a-vis the White\nminority. It is said that the White 8% still possess 80% all arable land in\nSouth Africa!). Whatever the proffered wisdom of the South Africans meant, the\nultimate aim of those antinationalist forces and their local proteges seemed to\nbe the achievement, through political, diplomatic, and constitutional\nskulduggery, of the separatist aim which they couldn\u2019t realise through armed\nterrorism. The fact that prominent UN functionaries Yasmin Sooka who drafted a\ndamning report on Sri Lanka based on unreliable evidence and Navaneetham Pillay\nwho served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008-14) were both\nfrom South Africa, would have been a morale booster for the aforementioned Sri\nLanka baiters (that is, the meddling Western powers and the Tamil\ndiaspora). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another tormentor of Sri Lanka has been Louise Arbour, Canadian\nlawyer, international prosecutor and jurist. She made history by successfully\nindicting an incumbent head of state, the former Yugoslavian president Slobodan\nMelosevic over alleged war crimes. Arbour is currently the Special\nRepresentative of the United Nations Secretary General for International\nMigration. As former president and CEO of the South Africa based International\nCrisis Group that wanted to play a role in bringing about a so-called\nreconciliation in Sri Lanka, she wrote an article in the organization\u2019s website\non July 24, 2011 under the title \u2018What South Africa can do to help with\nreconciliation in Sri Lanka\u2019. She began:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018As South Africa knows better than most, a country cannot begin to\novercome decades of internal conflict without a sustained effort at revealing\nthe truth of the past and a committed push for reconciliation. If only Sri\nLanka could learn that lesson.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(If only LA could understand how very different Sri Lanka is from\nSouth Africa in every imaginable respect!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She arbitrarily asserts that the final months of the conflict saw\nboth the Sinhala majority government and the rebels contribute to the massive\nloss of Tamil civilian lives, but that, instead of \u2018starting on the slow\npainful path towards a more democratic and equal society\u2026.the post-war policies\nof President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his powerful brothers have further\nundermined the country\u2019s damaged political institutions and deepened the ethnic\ndivide\u2019…..the government has increasingly cut minorities out of decisions on\ntheir economic and political futures, clinging to its claim that the war was\nabout terrorism\u201d and not an ethnic conflict\u2026.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louise\nArbour also claims that \u2018the unwillingness of the million strong Sri Lankan\nTamil diaspora to recognize the brutality of the LTTE and its share of\nresponsibility for a largely broken Tamil society has only strengthened the\ngovernment\u2019s hand\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Occasionally blaming both the government and the rebels in common\nis a feeble attempt at pretending impartiality. How misinformed or ill-informed\non the subject LA is!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto her \u2018the process of reconciliation and accountability partly through the\nLessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was criticised as deeply flawed by\na UN panel of experts that included South Africa\u2019s Yasmin Sooka. The panel had\nspecifically addressed the government\u2019s claim that it had drawn on South\nAfrica\u2019s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), finding that the LLRC falls\nfar short of that important precedent\u2019. This panel claim must have been a\nfabrication, because the LLRC commissioners were not ignorant of the fact the\nSouth African experience contained no lessons that Sri Lanka could learn from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louise\nArbour thought that \u2018The country\u2019s post-war course will not change unless the\nRajapaksas decide it has to\u2019 and that, up to that point, they had shown no\ninterest \u2018in doing anything that would diverge from the Sinhalese nationalist vision\nthey have embraced fully as both a means to stay in power and an end in\nitself\u2019. The Rajapaksas came to rule only because they got elected to do so by\nthe people with whom sovereignty lies. How ethical was it for an ignorant\nprejudiced professional service provider to impugn in this way the personal\nhonesty and the worth of the political ideal of the most successful and the\nmost popular head of state Sri Lanka had had since independence until then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe article she accused the Rajapaksas of repressing the media and political\nopponents, while manipulating elections, and silencing civil society. The truth\nis that it was the Yahapalana politicians who were really guilty of those\nviolations of democratic norms during their term. Arbour also blamed the\n(pre-Yahapalana) Rajapaksa government for rejecting the allegedly growing body\nof evidence supporting allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by\nboth sides in the final stages of the war, allegations that, she asserted, were\nsupported by the UN panel of experts, and the Channel 4 TV documentary \u2018Sri\nLanka\u2019s Killing Fields\u2019. Arbour recommended that \u2018The international community\nshould push for a fundamental change of course\u2019. This is unwarranted\ninterference in the affairs of an independent and democratic sovereign nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nUN functionary wanted South Africa to \u2018use its influence with other emerging\npowers and members of the non-aligned movement to advance the recommendations\nin the UN panel report, including their call for an international investigation\ninto alleged atrocities by both sides. It should encourage other governments to\nreject Sri Lanka\u2019s attempt to dismiss any international scrutiny of its\nwar-time and post-war policies as a neocolonialist assault on its\nsovereignty\u2026.If the government would stick to its promises to ensure\naccountability and devolve power to the traditionally Tamil-speaking north and\neast, such scrutiny would disappear.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t\nthis plain blackmail unworthy of an international dignitary? Louise Arbour\nconcludes her International Crisis Group article of July 24, 2011 thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Finally,\nSouth Africa should resist the government\u2019s attempts to gain undeserved\nlegitimacy by comparing the LLRC with South Africa\u2019s TRC. Such a comparison is,\nfrankly, an insult. Sri Lanka desperately needs a fair accounting of its\nviolent history to avoid repeating it. The Sri Lankan people should not have to\nsettle for anything less\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\nor what was Louise Arbour to determine that the then Mahinda Rajapaksa\ngovernment didn\u2019t have legitimacy? The war winning Mahinda had been returned to\na second term as president only a year previously (2010) with a majority of 1.8\nmillion votes (the largest ever in a presidential election) beating his commander-in-chief\nSarath Fonseka conspiratorially fielded against him under the auspices of the\nmeddlesome international community that Arbour serves. The three decade\npersecution of all communities by the LTTE had united the nation under Mahinda\nRajapaksa. Peace reigned for five years 2009-14. The destabilizing forces\nsucceeded in toppling him in January 2015 with his second betrayal at the hands\nof his own closest partners. The so-called Yahapalanaya worked to polarize the\nelectorate as minorities vs majority. The result was that Gotabaya Rajapaksa\nwon the presidency with a convincing majority of 1.3 million only on the\nstrength of the Sinhala voters, not without substantial support from minority\nvoters, nevertheless. So much for the contribution made to \u2018re-con-silly-ation\u2019\nin Sri Lanka by the so-called  international community including South\nAfrica.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\ndoes this all mean? In the final analysis, what this old conscienceless\nsalary-paid foreign jurist and international civil servant, completely ignorant\nof the history, the culture, the population composition, the demographic\ndistribution, the geography, etc etc of the island nation, is trying to do is\nto hold the 22 million citizens of the country to ransom through the medium of\nSouth Africa, for the sole purpose of dividing the country on ethnic lines,\nwhich was the goal of the defeated LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nLTTE was militarily defeated, but its ghost ideology has not been exorcised.\nThe Tamil National Alliance was not the largest partner of the later disintegrated\nYahapalanaya coalition; but it was the most influential in the dodgy\ncircumstances in which the Yahapalana misrule managed to survive for four and a\nhalf years, and also the clearest in its head about its goal, i.e., separatism\n(temporarily camouflaged as federalism). The TNA today is led by the senile R.\nSampanthan possessed by the separatist ideology, but he himself is guided\n(i.e., led) by M.A. Sumanthiran, former MP. He was reported to have met with\nthe prime minister recently and offered to work together on condition that a\ndevolution model, i.e. a federal solution to the so-called Tamil national\nquestion would be adopted. Needless to point out that this runs counter to the\n\u2018unitary Sri Lanka\u2019 stand that Gotabaya is espousing; but the \u2018devolution\nmodel\u2019 (euphemism for federalism) is exactly what the international community\nsupports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile,\nSumanthiran appeared in a Sinhala language TV interview a day or two ago and\npretended to denounce the LTTE. He belittled, in the eyes of  some\nnorthernTamils, the  separatist cause that it fought for. \nSumanthiran uttered the falsehood that the northern Tamil youth took to arms\nbecause of economic deprivation and joblessness. He also claimed that the LTTE\nkilled more innocent civilians than the Sri Lankan security forces did. He must\nhave been uttering these things with an implicit knowing wink at the\nincredulous Tamil viewers. The veteran TULF leader V. Ananda Sangari, of\nprobably the same vintage as Sampanthan, in an immediate response, says that\nSumanthiran is only play-acting to hoodwink the Tamils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extremist\nracist minority politicians like Sumanthiran and Hakeem will never see eye to\neye with nationalists. At the next parliamentary election, nationalists will\ndefinitely find favour with the ordinary Tamils and Muslims who are led by\nyoung minority politicians like  former LTTE deputy leader Karuna Amman\nand Mohamed Musammil of Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP) led by Wimal Weerawansa.\nPrime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will not alienate the latter group of fresh\nthinking young minority politicians (actually they are national politicians) by\ntrying to be politically correct with the former group of fair-weather friends\n(belonging to the communal regional group of politicians).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nSouth African High Commission\u2019s gratuitous request for a Mandela statue to be\nerected in Sri Lanka could be an importunate reminder of the so-called\ninternational community\u2019s past strategic reconciliation efforts, apparently\nstill not abandoned, but waiting to be re-launched in pursuit of its so far\naborted agenda. Cabinet ministers of a caretaker government shouldn\u2019t act as\nundertakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala A news report in The Island of May 9, 2020 under the heading \u2018One location for national heroes\u2019 (by Zacki Jabbar) says that Media and Higher Education minister and co-cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardane told a news conference held at the Information Department that a cabinet decision was taken on Wednesday (May […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}