{"id":63030,"date":"2017-02-03T19:09:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T01:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63030"},"modified":"2017-02-03T08:41:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T15:41:26","slug":"grievances-and-resolution-the-question-of-true-dimensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/03\/grievances-and-resolution-the-question-of-true-dimensions\/","title":{"rendered":"Grievances and resolution: the question of true dimensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n
\u00a0Grievances.\u00a0\u00a0\u2018Grievances?\u2019 rather.\u00a0\u00a0A word and a question.\u00a0\u00a0The former implies a list or at least two issues that somehow cause distress.\u00a0\u00a0The latter, the question that is, is something that has been customarily ignored or caused much shy-making, toe-watching and navel-gazing.\u00a0\u00a0At best it prompts a highly emotion and even highly stylized narrative which is marked by marking out preserves (of grievances) where there are none and exaggerations where there is some degree of legitimacy to claim.\u00a0\u00a0We are talking of \u2018Tamil grievances,\u2019 by the way.<\/div>\n
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Dr Nirmala Chandrahasan (LLB, LLM, PhD, Attorney-at-Law) in an article titled\u00a0‘National Question and grievances faced by a minority\u2019\u00a0<\/a>(which she claims is a response to a piece I wrote,\u00a0\u2018Let\u2019s make Sampanthan\u2019s New Year wish come true\u2019<\/a>) does not indulge in such histrionics.\u00a0 She offers some sober reflections on the issue, lists grievances and makes recommendations for their resolution.\u00a0 They demand response. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Nirmala begins by quoting the LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) report:\u00a0\u2018The Commission takes the view that the root cause of the ethnic conflict lies in the failure of successive governments to address the genuine grievances of the Tamil people (Chapter 9 para 184).’ \u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
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One doesn\u2019t have to take the LLRC report as the last word on anything of course.\u00a0 Those who could be called fellow-travelers in Nirmala\u2019s pro-devolution caravan were shrill in their objections when the LLRC was set up.\u00a0 The LLRC did not stick to mandate.\u00a0 A minor misdemeanor, that.\u00a0 I remember offering some observations on this a few years ago. \u00a0 When the same shrill voices demanded that LLRC recommendations be implemented forthwith, I pointed out the following important \u2018misses\u2019 or \u2018forgets\u2019 in their pronouncements: the LLRC was a far cry from a body enacted to draft a constitution. Secondly, some of the recommendations require constitutional amendment and even referenda. A third \u2018forget\u2019 can be added: the Government is not bound (as per the mandate-limitation) to implement all of the recommendations. There\u2019s can-do and cannot-do in all this. There is, moreover, \u2018done\u2019, \u2018doing\u2019 and \u2018forget it\u2019 too. There is wanted-speed and doable-speed.\u201d\u00a0[For elaboration, please read,\u00a0‘LLRC and Devolution: the politics of skipping caveats’<\/a>].<\/span><\/div>\n
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The LLRC note on \u2018root cause\u2019 is incomplete.\u00a0 It is correct that successive governments have been in part responsible on account of their inability to address the genuine grievances of the Tamil people, but that is not the only root cause.\u00a0 Tamil chauvinism predates the much maligned \u2018Sinhala Only\u2019 legislation.\u00a0 But let\u2019s ignore all that.\u00a0 The key terms here are \u2018root causes\u2019 and \u2018genuine grievances\u2019.\u00a0 We\u2019ll take up \u2018root causes\u2019 later; for now, the key descriptive of the word \u2018grievances\u2019 is the word \u2018genuine\u2019.\u00a0 This has been ignored by those who have hurrahed the LLRC report.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018Genuine\u2019 is about true dimensions \u2014 fact, not falsehood; history and not myth-models. \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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Nirmala, having started with that LLRC quote appears to have forgotten that the issue is root causes in the main. She\u2019s flagged eight points of contention: 1. Implementation of the Language Act, 2.Equal access to services and opportunities, 3. The principle of equality in the dispensation of justice, 4. Fair and just treatment of those detained, 5. Transitional justice, 6. Return to rightful owners of private properties secured by the state during the conflict (Points 4, 5 and 6 being essentially elaborations of Point 3), 7. Lack of state-sponsored economic development in the northern and eastern provinces, and 8. Non-implementation in full of the 13th Amendment.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Of these, Points 3-6 and 8 are not ‘root causes’.\u00a0 They are issues that have arisen long after tensions snowballed into a full blown armed conflict. Even Point 2, touches on language-related issues, i.e. Point 1.\u00a0 They are certainly valid concerns and anything less than comprehensive addressing of the same cannot help the cause of reconciliation.\u00a0 However, to flag these as valid or strong justification for \u2018devolution\u2019 is simplistic and demonstrates the pretty thin case for federalism championed by Tamil nationalists long before the LTTE came into the equation.\u00a0 Indeed, it shows that the unadulterated chauvinism of the Tamil political leadership was as potent a poison as that of their Sinhala counterparts.\u00a0 They\u2019ve offered therefore a \u2018Tamil counterpoint\u2019 to \u2018the non-addressing of grievances by successive governments\u2019 by articulating ridiculous aspirations, confusing cause, effect and objective, and thereby feeding militancy among Tamil youth.\u00a0 They\u2019re as culpable as lax governments in the production of the LTTE and the terrible thirty years of conflict. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Of course it is the state that has pick up after the fact.\u00a0\u00a0Those who funded, armed and in other ways backed the LTTE can adopt and have adopted a hands-off policy in the matter of infrastructure development and other necessary action to rebuild conflict-ridden territories including rebuilding livelihoods.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s never enough, of course.\u00a0\u00a0Charles Haviland, one time BBC correspondent in Colombo, once wrote about a \u2018rehabilitated\u2019 LTTE militant in Jaffna who was lamenting about being unemployed.\u00a0\u00a0[For an elaboration of the kind of ailment that the likes of Haviland suffer, read\u00a0‘Towards a post-complicit moment for those in pre-sleep slumber’<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0‘HRW and Brad Adams need to get some sleep’<\/a>]<\/div>\n
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Haviland’s wail was rich.\u00a0\u00a0Terrorists were offered skills that would help them earn an income, they were allowed to study and sit for examinations, they were released (if anyone wants to know what the countries that champion human rights and have berated Sri Lanka for being ‘non-complient’, all that is required is to whisper the name ‘Guantanamo Bay’ several times before and after meals) and the state is required to find them jobs as well?\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s great if any state anywhere in the world can do a fraction of all this, but this was being demanded of Sri Lanka, a not yet middle-income country, that was in no position to eliminate unemployment and certainly not required to babysit ex-terrorists!<\/div>\n
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The issue of justice (Points 3, 4 and 5) are valid. Of course one need not elaborate that injustice is not a badge that only Tamils have to wear.\u00a0\u00a0In fact the entire justice system in its operation heavily favors the privileged.\u00a0\u00a0Privilege is not the preserve of any particular community.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nirmala\u2019s point is valid when it comes to disappearances.\u00a0\u00a0Proper investigation and follow-up action is necessary and sadly has been most manifest in absence.<\/div>\n
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Just to get the \u2018ethnic\u2019 dimensions of the perspective right, the kind of justice that is sought was something that was not offered to victims of the 1988\/89 insurrection either. And, in the larger narrative of \u2018reconciliation\u2019, it has to be remembered that it was not just the security forces that were engaged in strewing misery.\u00a0\u00a0Who conscripted children?\u00a0\u00a0Who killed members of rival Tamil political and military groups?\u00a0\u00a0Were all members of the clergy, intellectuals, professional and ordinary people in the Tamil community killed by the security forces?\u00a0\u00a0The LTTE\u2019s track record is known in all this.\u00a0\u00a0And it was not only \u2018innocent Tamil civilians\u2019 who were killed.\u00a0\u00a0There were civilians of all communities who died, some were massacred, some villages were burnt and not all of them warrant the \u2018Tamil\u2019 marker.\u00a0\u00a0Widowhood.\u00a0\u00a0Becoming orphans.\u00a0\u00a0Sinhalese know all this.\u00a0\u00a0Muslims too.\u00a0\u00a0The baby belongs to the state by default of course, but when we talk about it, we can\u2019t talk of certain widows and not others, certain orphans and not others.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s a crime of selectivity that demands the descriptive ‘pernicious’.<\/div>\n
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Does this absolve the state from finding out what happened to those who were taken into custody and then disappeared?\u00a0 Can the state shove it all under a carpet called \u2018forgive and forget\u2019?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Allegations have to be investigated.\u00a0 It may take time, but it has to be done.\u00a0 The LLRC is absolutely right on this.\u00a0 Nirmala has picked the correct quote which bears re-telling:\u00a0\u2018The government is duty bound to direct the law enforcement officers to take immediate steps to ensure that these allegations are properly investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. It will be recalled that this report came out quite a few years ago, but evidently these recommendations have fallen on deaf ears.\u2019\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
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It is a problem.\u00a0\u00a0Not a root cause.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps a \u2018cause\u2019 for delay in reconciliation or even a cause for another round of violence, but certainly not a \u2018root cause\u2019 that warranted armed insurrection or even a demand for devolution. \u00a0It’s none of that simply because of the error of chronology.<\/div>\n
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The same holds for Point 4, the indictment or release of those held in detention.\u00a0 The release of over 90% of those taken into custody at the end of the conflict, many of them as mentioned above after being provided the opportunity to obtain marketable skills and useful qualifications (something unheard of in countries whose leaders regularly lambast Sri Lanka for \u2018doing nothing\u2019 by way of reconciliation), is not a valid excuse for denying justice to those who remain in custody.\u00a0 Again, as pointed above, \u2018not a root cause\u2019 but a consequent whose genesis is not neat, not tidy and marked by multiple traces of ‘ethnicity’ if that’s the preferred frame.\u00a0 The state has to hold the baby, of course since no one is saying \u2018I am an LTTE member\u2019 these days, not even the LTTE\u2019s conflict-time proxy, the TNA, which by saying \u2018the LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamils\u2019 covered itself with the Tiger flag.\u00a0 The state has to hold the baby, yes, but this doesn\u2019t mean that we say nothing of the baby\u2019s parentage. But again, let us not forget, it\u2019s not a \u2018root cause\u2019.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Point 6 is also an issue of justice.\u00a0 However, demilitarization is a process and no one can say that this Government or the one before did nothing on this count.\u00a0 Security is and always will be an issue, but ‘return to normalcy’ requires that properties secured for whatever reason be returned to rightful owners, subject of course to the often difficult process of establishing legality of claim.\u00a0 Thorny, but addressable.\u00a0 A must, in fact.\u00a0 The fact remains, it is not a \u2018root cause\u2019.\u00a0 Not a grievance that caused conflict of a military nature. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The implementation of the Language Act has been slow.\u00a0 Nirmala is correct.\u00a0 Reasons include lack of resources and lack of political will.\u00a0 There\u2019s movement on both, however.\u00a0 It is a grievance that needs to be rectified, the LLRC is correct.\u00a0 Perhaps it is a root cause in generating a sense of being subject to discrimination, but whether the dimensions are significant enough to warrant insurrection is not clear.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Let us now take on Points 1 and 2<\/b><\/div>\n
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Point 2.\u00a0 Equal access to services and opportunities.\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 The Tamils were favored by the British in the public service and that edge did erode.\u00a0 If that\u2019s a grievance and therefore should be addressed by restoring the percentages we had in 1948 then the Sinhalese would be edged out for all time.\u00a0 We can play the proportions game in many ways.\u00a0 We call it multi-ethnic and multi-religious as though the population is equally divided among ethnicities and religious communities.\u00a0 Not true, but it\u2019s not said is it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Nirmala, however, is absolutely correct about the low representation of Tamils and Muslims in the armed forces and the Police.\u00a0 This has to be rectified.\u00a0 It will be slow, in the case of Tamils at least, for understandable reasons, but progress should be made.\u00a0 The recruitment of a full complement of Tamil speaking officials as per the requirement of providing meaningful services to all citizens is a non-negotiable.\u00a0 Here too, Nirmala is absolutely correct.\u00a0 Point 2 is a demand and it outlines a genuine grievances.\u00a0 A root cause?\u00a0 Well, as much or as little as Point 1, as argued above.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As for job opportunities and the lack of effort by governments to set up factories in the conflict-ridden areas (the \u2018development-deficit\u2019 discussed in Point 7), one must understand that it was not possible for thirty years and little thanks to those who went around burning all state institutions, factories included.\u00a0 People all over the country are struggling to make ends meets.\u00a0 Farmers all over the country are suffering.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just Tamil farmers.\u00a0 As for fisherfolk, there was a time when they couldn\u2019t go out to sea and they can thank the LTTE for that! \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Governments can only do so much.\u00a0 Much has been done, in particular by clearing the ground for development.\u00a0 It is unfair to expect a country like Sri Lanka to turn a war-torn territory into a flourishing industrial zone overnight.\u00a0 Nirmala talks about benefits of development not accruing to ordinary people, but then again when was that ever an objective of any government? \u00a0Development was never\u00a0for Tamil \u2018ordinary people\u2019 and not for Sinhalese ‘ordinary people\u2019.\u00a0 Nirmala should be commended for noting this. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The one telling \u2018deficit\u2019 is a comprehensive irrigation program for the northern province that matches development in this sphere elsewhere.\u00a0 The issue of a \u2018River to Jaffna\u2019 has been debated for a long time.\u00a0 There are disputes over technical feasibility.\u00a0 One must take into account that not all areas have the same complement of resources.\u00a0 However, if devolution is about each devolved entity making do with what’s contained in the relevant geographical boundaries, then the \u2018Jaffna River\u2019 is out.\u00a0 In any event, the lack of development argument only alludes to something that few Tamil nationalists acknowledge or want anyone to mention:\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018Development-lag is an issue that can gather greater currency if it is dressed in an ethnic garb\u2019. \u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
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Let\u2019s consider devolution.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s nothing in Nirmala\u2019s \u2018Seven Point List of Grievances\u2019 that makes a case for \u2018devolution\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0Point seven, in fact, is dependent on the \u2018center\u2019 and not periphery.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not a root cause or a grievance.\u00a0\u00a0An aspiration, yes, but not a grievance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The grievances, the genuine ones that is, call for action and resolution but nothing that can be pinned on devolution of power.\u00a0\u00a0If there\u2019s a wound in a foot, one doesn\u2019t apply medicine on the neck.\u00a0\u00a0Apples and oranges.\u00a0\u00a0Call it whatever you will. The 13th Amendment is an aberration.\u00a0\u00a0It presumes historicity and scientific validity of arbitrarily drawn lines and markers that neither the Tamils nor the Sinhalese had anything to do with.\u00a0\u00a0The President himself has correctly pointed this out and the most ardent devolutionists have maintained a deafening silence on the matter.<\/div>\n
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Nirmala asks if devolution is good for everyone, not just Tamils, never mind that devolution to the current \u2018lines\u2019 will concretize the myth-models of Tamil chauvinism.\u00a0 She quotes Mahinda Rajapaksa on this, \u2018people in their own localities should be able to guide their own destinies\u2019.\u00a0 This of course presupposed a neat and equal distribution of resources, but even if that were true, then the devolution logic demands that we move to village councils and not stop at provinces.\u00a0 Nirmala says decentralization can do it but strangely does not apply that logic to the only two valid \u2018issues\u2019 she has flagged (Points 1 and 2). \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Many have misquoted or selectively quoted the LLRC report on the issue of devolution.\u00a0 Nirmala is not an exception.\u00a0<\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I strongly recommend a re-reading of the LLRC report with close examination of Section 9.231 which interjects 4 caveats to the principle of \u2018devolution.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
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Section 9.231 of the LLRC report, which interjects 4 caveats to the principle of \u2018devolution\u2019:\u00a0 (A) Devolution should essentially promote greater harmony and unity and not disharmony and disunity among the people of the country, (B) The focus should be to ensure that the people belonging to all communities are empowered at every level especially in all tiers of Government, (C) The democratic empowerment of the people should take place within the broader framework of the promotion and protection of human rights, and (D) In addressing the question of devolution two matters require the attention of the government: empowering the Local Government institutions to ensure greater peoples\u2019 participation at the grass roots level, and lessons learnt from the shortcomings in the functioning of the Provincial Councils system be taken into account in devising an appropriate system of devolution that addresses the needs of the people, (and finally) it should at the same time provide for safeguarding the territorial integrity and unity of Sri Lanka whilst fostering its rich diversity.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Caveat A imposes the condition of \u2018harmony\u2019. Now if devolution uses the current provincial boundaries (randomly drawn, let us not forget), which constitute the basis for the (diminished) Eelamist demarcation, if the majority of Tamils people live outside the North and East (for example), devolution along these chauvinist lines powered by myth-models and exaggeration cannot inspire anything but suspicion and anxiety among the Sinhalese.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Caveat B speaks of empowerment and calls for much better governance and greater affirmation of citizenship-meaning.\u00a0 Caveat C is about human rights. The upholding or subverting of human rights has nothing to do with the structure of the state (for example, whether it is a federal, unitary or other arrangement). So Caveat C, like Caveat B, is an add-on that is not devolution-specific.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Finally, Caveat D. It is about \u2018building on what we have\u2019, i.e. the local government institutions. It is about greater and meaningful participation. Such \u2018democracy,\u2019 again does not require devolution as per the 13th Amendment, 13 Plus posturing etc., but about scripting in checks and balances into the relevant articles of the constitution. Caveat D also unequivocally salutes the need to \u2018provide for safeguarding the territorial integrity and unity of Sri Lanka whilst fostering its rich diversity\u2019. The devolution debate has gone too far with taking as \u2018fact\u2019 and \u2018legitimate\u2019 the extrapolations of Tamil chauvinism for any power-devolution to established provincial lines not be seen as a threat to territorial integrity and unity.<\/span><\/div>\n
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A common and not very innocent \u2018error\u2019 is to confuse \u2018devolution\u2019 with \u2018power sharing\u2019.\u00a0 Power sharing is about checks and balances that forbid the abuse of power, celebrate equality of opportunity in letter, spirit and practice, and about leveling playing fields to the extent possible in a capitalist economy.\u00a0 Devolution is certainly not a necessary pre-condition; more robust legislation that insulates citizens from power-abuse is. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Back to basics.\u00a0\u00a0Root causes.\u00a0\u00a0Trotting out issues produced by an armed conflict where the blame for the dismemberment, death, displacement and destruction cannot be placed at a single door is not an enumeration of \u2018root causes\u2019 but a description of what any conflict inevitably produces.\u00a0\u00a0The only legitimate grievance Nirmala has expressed is about the language issue and here again it is more about sloth than anything else that one can complain about.<\/div>\n
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\u2018Genuine,\u2019 let me repeat, is about true dimensions \u2014 fact, not falsehood; history and not myth-models.\u00a0 Genuine grievances are about true dimensions.\u00a0 And resolution is about a solution that engages with grievance.\u00a0 Devolution doesn\u2019t arise from any of the genuine grievances Nirmala has outlined and certainly not the devolution to the Eelamist lines that are taken erroneously as a \u2018goes without saying\u2019 which, we all know, comes from a \u2018comes without saying\u2019 that has nothing to do with grievance.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nLLRC Proposals: let there be no foot-dragging<\/a>
\nReconciliation and hallucination<\/a><\/div>\n

*A shorter version of this article was published in the Daily Mirror on February 2, 2017.<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
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Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. Email:\u00a0<\/i>malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Twitter: malindasene. \u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE \u00a0Grievances.\u00a0\u00a0\u2018Grievances?\u2019 rather.\u00a0\u00a0A word and a question.\u00a0\u00a0The former implies a list or at least two issues that somehow cause distress.\u00a0\u00a0The latter, the question that is, is something that has been customarily ignored or caused much shy-making, toe-watching and navel-gazing.\u00a0\u00a0At best it prompts a highly emotion and even highly stylized narrative which is marked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63030","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=63030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}