{"id":111044,"date":"2021-01-26T18:13:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T01:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111044"},"modified":"2021-01-26T18:13:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T01:13:58","slug":"gotas-war-a-hagiographic-monograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/26\/gotas-war-a-hagiographic-monograph\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGota\u2019s War\u201d \u2018a hagiographic monograph\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Signs are that anti-Sri Lanka forces at home and abroad are\nalready gearing up for a wishfully devastating diplomatic assault on the\ncountry during the forthcoming 46th session of the UNHRC in Geneva in March\n2021. Politicizing the artificial burial issue and the innocuous \u2018peniya\u2019 to resist\/treat\nCovid-19 and blaming it all on the government is one form of attack that uses\ndistortion of facts and disinformation as weapons. Which side stands to gain by\npoliticizing these \u2018problems\u2019  would be obvious to any dispassionate\nobserver. The implicit charges of racist discrimination against\nminorities  (trampling on their religious rights by banning burial) and\nreliance on shamanism instead of proper scientific medicine in battling the\nCovid pandemic do not hold water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas on the basis of unsubstantiated war crimes and human rights violation\nallegations against Sri Lanka that, in October 2015, the UNHRC in Geneva\nunanimously adopted Resolution 30\/1 co-sponsored by the infamous Yahapalana\nregime. The UN body reinforced this with two other subsequent resolutions:\nResolution 34\/1 in March 2017 and Resolution 40\/1 in March 2019, the last even\nafter the US, the main sponsor of 30\/1, left the HRC, having condemned it as a\n\u2018cesspool of political bias\u2019! (The United States withdrew from the UNHRC in\nJune 2018). Four uncalled for mechanisms were to be set up under these\nresolutions: a judicial mechanism with a special counsel, an office on missing\npersons, an office for reparations, and a commission for truth and justice.\nOnly the second and third (offices on missing persons and reparations\nrespectively) have been established. Of the four only the OMP is deemed\noperational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmovers and shakers at Geneva looking forward to the 46th session of the UNHRC\nin March  to engage with Sri Lanka cannot ignore the implications of this\nhumiliating electoral pratfall of their protege in Colombo. The new Sri Lankan\nForeign Minister Dinesh Gunawardane officially informed the UNHRC of Sri\nLanka\u2019s withdrawal from the co-sponsorship of the aforementioned UN resolutions\nbased on totally unsubstantiated allegations. He said this while addressing the\nUNHRC session at Geneva in February 2020. The minister told the meeting that\nthe 2009-2015 government had established domestic mechanisms to address a\nvariety of issues including alleged war crimes, accountability, rule of law,\nand human rights issues, but that the Yahapalana regime abandoned those\nhomegrown mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeding\nthe anti-Sri Lanka propaganda campaign that is gathering momentum ahead of the\nGeneva session, Rajan Philips (RP) (\u2018President Rajapaksa and his 13A\ndilemmas\u2019\/Sunday Island\/January 3, 2021) wrote about two weeks ago: \u2018……no\none can do worse than CA Chandraprema\u2019s attempt to rewrite history, as he did\nin his hagiographic monograph, Gota\u2019s War.\u201d We can anticipate versions of it\nto be undiplomatically broadcast from Geneva from March onward\u2019 (\u2018President\nGotabaya Rajapaksa and his 13A dilemmas\u2019\/Sunday Island\/January 3, 2021). RP is\nlaunching a quixotic preemptive strike at Chandraprema, who was appointed as\nPermanent Representative of Sri Lanka at Geneva in November 2020. What can a\nbiased scribe like RP do other than verbally discredit what he can\u2019t rationally\ndisprove? (because Chandraprema\u2019s history of Sri Lanka\u2019s war against Tamil\nTiger separatist terrorism \u2018Gota\u2019s War\u2019 is a record of solid facts, while being\na well supported commendation of Gotabaya and his achievements in that war (or\neven a hagiography in RP\u2019s sarcastic phraseology, if you like) crammed with\nfacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RP\nquotes, out of context though, from KM de Silva\u2019s \u2018A History of Sri Lanka\u2019\n(1981) to suggest that Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike\u2019s opposition to a\nfederal constitution in 1956 involved the abandonment of an earlier contrary\nview of the matter that he had held:  it was a grim irony that he (i.e.,\nBandaranaike) should be called upon, at the moment of his greatest political\ntriumph, to articulate the strong opposition of the Sinhalese to any attempt to\nestablish a federal constitution.\u201d Actually, RP\u2019s is a false implication drawn\nfrom KM de Silva\u2019s personal reflections or sentiments in that context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nI remember as having read in the particular book is that the Kandyan members of\nthe State Council on the eve of independence demanded a separate unit of\nadministration (something that smacked of federalism) for the Upcountry because\nit had suffered special disabilities during the colonial times and could not\nexpect a fair deal under a structure that didn\u2019t recognize this. But the\nproposal must have been immediately shot down, because the Sinhalese looked\nupon the whole of the island as their single homeland of Sinhale, as they had\ndone over millennia, despite numerous foreign invasions (from South India and\nlater Europe) and occupations, the last of which was by the British, and a\nfederalist notion was a contradiction of that unitary ideal. The Kandyans\u2019 \nquasi federalist idea was much less menacing than what it means today: a hop,\nstep, and jump to separation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nRP later indicates, the quote comes from Chapter 36 titled The Triumph of\nLinguistic Nationalism\u201d of de Silva\u2019s book. RP seems to indulge in some empty\nrhetoric: The quote might suggest that the historian was having his academic\ntongue in his political cheek, but it reads far superior to anything that a\ngeographer seems to be able to politically offer 40 years later. And this is\nnot because Sri Lanka has too much history and too little geography.\u201d The\ngeographer meant here is Prof. GH Peiris, whose well argued case against the PC\nsystem titled \u2018Province-based Devolution in Sri Lanka: a Critique\u2019 was\npublished in two parts in The Island issues of December 16 and 17. RP\u2019s summary\ndismissal of the scholarly essay as \u2018Midweek fury\u2019 does not do justice to his\nown general knowledge or his common sense.  To claim that the quote from\nde Silva reads far superior to anything that a geographer seems to be able to\npolitically offer 40 years later\u201d is sheer nonsense, but RP tries to justify\nhis summary dismissal of Sri Lanka\u2019s history by stating that this is not\nbecause Sri Lanka has too much history and too little geography\u201d. The\nunintended ambiguity emphasizes the truth that he  wants to obliterate:it\nis the truth that Sri Lanka has a well authenticated history that is far out of\nproportion to the relatively small size of its geographical territory. It is\nnot the fault of the Sinhalese that detractors are not cultured enough to\nrecognize the greatness of their very long history and their unique\ncivilizational achievements recorded in ancient books and in rock inscriptions,\nmany dating back to centuries BCE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nreturn to RP\u2019s reference to \u2018Gota\u2019s War\u2019, which mainly provoked this reply,\nformer Island columnist C.A. Chandraprema (but he was much more than that\ncareerwise) has all the qualities that a successful diplomat  should\npossess according to Robert D. Blackwill, Director, Harvard University\u2019s Kennedy\nSchool\u2019s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Cambridge, USA.\nSome of these that Chandraprema has incidentally demonstrated in the course of\nhis journalism are: good writing ability, an analytical mind, verbal fluency\nand conciseness, attentiveness to detail, perspicacity in policy review,\ninsight into relevant political ideology. Of the fifteen positive qualities\nthat Blackwill enumerates, the eleventh is \u2018be loyal and truthful to your\nboss\u2019. The \u2018boss\u2019 is of course the government of the country that accredits the\ndiplomat. Chandraprema is definitely not going to face the embarrassment that\nour excellent career diplomats at Geneva had to face under Yahapalanaya. Love\nof the country the official represents should be added to Blackwill\u2019s list as\nyet another essential quality in a good diplomat. Chandraprema possesses this\nin abundance. We already have patriotic career diplomats there who weathered\nthrough the difficult period while the Yahapalanaya ruled at home.  With\nthem, Chandraprema will be a formidable presence in Geneva to take on disguised\neelam propagandists. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy Sunday Island Signs are that anti-Sri Lanka forces at home and abroad are already gearing up for a wishfully devastating diplomatic assault on the country during the forthcoming 46th session of the UNHRC in Geneva in March 2021. Politicizing the artificial burial issue and the innocuous \u2018peniya\u2019 to resist\/treat Covid-19 […]<\/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-111044","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\/111044","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=111044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}