Archive for February, 2009

DILEMMAS AT WARS END: CLARIFICATIONS & COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

My essay DILEMMAS (note the plural) was also sent to a circle of friends and has appeared in other outlets, viz., http://sacrificialdevotionnetwork.wordpress.com and the Island, 11 February 2009. I thank all those who have provided cyber comments as well as email responses: both sets, as it happens, are quite polarised, with some highly critical and others strongly supportive. Groundviews was my first choice. One reason for this decision was the fact that I had aired my political position previously in this outlet (notably Roberts, 2008a, b and c) and could reasonably expect one part of the readership to read this piece within that broader framework (mistaken here). Dilemmas was (is) also constrained by space because it was well above the standard length of 800-1500 words permitted by most media sites. To elaborate my position: I hold that we are caught between two evils that I shall set out as inter-related points. A. At the broader level we are sandwiched on…

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Painting the tomb white

“You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of impurity.” The disturbances in Sri Lanka are slowly drawing to an end. I call it disturbances as many times we have heard the authorities say that it is not a war. But if it is not war, then it must be treated under the law. But then again it is a problem of terrorism, and the word terrorism itself is now played in a fast and loose manner. This prevents any application of law, international or local upon it. At a time when to speak for or against these disturbances is to be done with great fear and trembling, we must stop to discover or consider the situation at hand. While being a unique situation in a unique country amongst unique people, the problems are nonetheless similar to that which has drawn much wider international attention. (Or…

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  • 16 Feb, 2009
  • 5 Comments
  • Jaffna,
    Satire

Sri Lankan government admitted to the proctology ward of General Hospital

by Global Citizen for Banyan News Reporters Colombo, Sri Lanka: Our sources revealed that the Sri Lankan government was admitted to the proctology ward of the General Hospital in Colombo late last week after it complained about acute abdominal dysfunction. Leading British proctologist, Doctor Des Browne was hurriedly pushed in to examine the Sri Lankan government even before the patient was consulted. Dr. Browne later told reporters that he was unable to examine the patient due to an abnormal tightening of its anal sphincter – a muscle controlled by the patient’s nervous system to keep out uninvited poking in inappropriate places. It is believed that the Sri Lankan government first reported these symptoms as it was trying to purge the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam out of Sri Lanka’s digestive system. Local and foreign media nurses who have been poking around the patient’s anal sphincter have diagnosed that the most severe pains were reported in the appendix where close to a hundred thousand…

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THE INDIAN REALITY IN SRI LANKA’S EXISTENCE

How do we describe our country, Sri Lanka, and how is our country described by others? As an island in the Indian Ocean, just south of or off the Southern shores of India. All descriptions of Sri Lanka are a variant of this because no other is possible. We are defined by our placing, and that placing is in relation to and proximate to India. The unique importance of the Indian factor in Sri Lanka’s external relations is best evidenced in the fact that Sri Lanka is simply indescribable without reference to India. The inevitable asymmetry inherent in the Indo-Lanka equation is similarly evidenced in the fact that India is easily describable without reference to Sri Lanka. Our relation to India is almost unique. This is most easily understood with reference to another tropical island proximate to another big power: I refer to Cuba, ninety miles from the world’s greatest power, the superpower power or hyper-power as Fidel Castro puts…

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  • 15 Feb, 2009
  • 2 Comments
  • Jaffna,
    Peace and Conflict

Settling conflicts after the war and doing what is right

Amidst night cricket, world records, 20-20 cricket, and Deyata Kirula in another part of the country a grim battle rages. Caregivers have lost faith in justice and seek to die with those trapped than watch the horror. Some feel we are profiting on their misery. Many are tortured, scarred and traumatized by their experiences. Thousands are unable to make it out on their own freewill and will need to be led to safety in the next few days or many will die. This is in addition to the thousands recorded and unrecorded who have already paid with their lives.  Our primary duty is to prevent any more preventable deaths, disability and suffering. It requires a willingness on the part of the community representative of CHA to seek to lead people in peril to safety and security. The failure to do so will be an inheritance of curses, accusations of illegitimacy to speak of humanitarian imperatives and complicity in destruction of…

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A response to Michael Robert’s Dilemma at Wars End: Thoughts on Hard Realities

This is a response to Michael Robert’s article published on Groundviews recently titled Dilemma at Wars End: Thoughts on Hard Realities. I am disappointed that a historian of Dr Michael Roberts’ stature and humanitarian sensibility is seduced by the triumphalist rhetoric of the current Sri Lankan government. There are countless examples currently and in the historical records that show that questions of competing identities and nationalities are only resolved when the issues fuelling such questions are addressed; otherwise they fester and deform the body politic of a nation state. Dr Roberts’ article seems a pure academic exercise in isolation of the material realities of the world. One cannot discuss the issue of bombing a civilian population out (however small that could be) in isolation. Dr Roberts unfortunately takes an extreme position and alleges that advocates of all other views as do-gooders. In doing so, he casts himself firmly in the camp of the war-mongers and extremist nationalists. His arguments justify any actions…

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Open Letter to His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka and the leadership of the LTTE

The undersigned are (a) citizen/s of Sri Lanka who are/is extremely concerned about the current plight of over one hundred thousand civilians trapped between the security forces of the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. We appreciate the Government’s right and duty to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka and its people. We understand that the Government considers its current military initiatives integral to the fulfilment of this right and duty. We also understand that the Government has stated that a primary objective of its ongoing military initiatives is the liberation of the civilian populace in the conflict zones. We also note that a primary stated intention of the LTTE in carrying out its armed initiatives is the securing of self-determination for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. In this context, we write on behalf of the civilians presently trapped within the conflict zones – because they are all Sri Lankans and fellow citizens who have…

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The Fear of Peace

He heard that peace will be here soon He lay in six inch deep muddy water watching the enemy in the horizon His eyes watered and mind wandered who was the real enemy anyway The barrel of his gun no longer felt cold there was comfort and strength Death was his constant companion blood and limbs of friends and foes the only scenery that he knew He knew not of dry socks and shoes but of them soggy in boots with holes He knew not of the warmth of a woman but of humid days and sweaty bodies He knew not of the cool breeze of a paddy field but of gun shots froman arid dessert He knew not what this peace was He dreaded the silence that would allow the demons within to shout louder He dreaded the loving arms that would embrace the man that he no longer was He dreaded the cold emptiness that would follow when…

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DILEMMA’S AT WAR’S END: THOUGHTS ON HARD REALITIES

With an uncertain number of Tamil ‘civilians’ trapped within the beleaguered and shrinking LTTE territory, Sri Lankan Tamils in the island as well as across the globe are understandably concerned about the fate of their brethren. Even those who are hostile to the LTTE have responded emotionally to this situation. The issue I raise is whether emotion and humanitarian concern have eclipsed realism and factuality. Humanitarian concern, tinged with some emotion too, has led non-partisan Western observers and statesmen to intervene as well with requests for a ceasefire and end of warring. Two questions develop from such requests: (A) would a delay in defeating the LTTE necessarily reduce civilian casualties if (and when) the war resumes in, say, a month’s time after some (imposed) ceasefire; (B) will the desired ceasefire give the LTTE a reprieve and enable it to be a party to any settlement thereafter? That is, will it provide a lifeline to the existing leaders of an organisation…

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Reformist Perspective on Constitutional Change

This is the text of the speech delivered at the seminar organized by NIPU on December 21, 2008. Since the late 1980s, there has been a general consensus that the Second Republican Constitution enacted in 1978 and the state structure set up by it should be replaced by a new constitution based on a new set of principles. It has also been emphasized that a legal foundation for a new state structure that is radically different from the state structure existed since 1948 should be placed. Prior to the Parliamentary and Presidential elections of 1994, discussions on this subject in different fora took place and new constitutional principles were delineated.  At least two areas of the Second Republican Constitution (SRC) that need significant and far reaching changes were specified immediately after its enactment in 1978. These two areas were (1) the excessive powers of the executive president and the downgrading of the Parliament, and (2) the electoral system based on…

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  • 8 Feb, 2009
  • 9 Comments
  • Jaffna,
    Satire

Cutting edge scientific research in Sri Lanka

by Global Citizen for Banyan News Reporters Colombo, Sri Lanka: With the drawn out military campaign against terrorism in its last phase, the Sri Lankan government has taken a decision to divert the country’s defence budget to fund science & technology, education and research. Economists point out that the move will power the Sri Lankan economy out of it’s recent set-backs and place Sri Lanka right at the centre of the world map – a position it had secured millions of years ago thanks to a geological phenomenon called ‘plate tectonics’. In its fresh forays into the world of high energy particle physics, the Sri Lankan military boxed up the LTTE in a 10km X 20km area in the country’s northern Vanni region. Their mission was to carry out a literal re-enactment of a thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 that is widely known as “Schrödinger’s cat”. V Prabhakaran – the leader of the LTTE was chosen to…

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  • 8 Feb, 2009
  • 53 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Human Rights,
    Politics and Governance

Rajapaksrized Chauvinism in Flowery prose: Sri Lankan Diplomat’s outright humiliation of Sri Lankan Tamils

This article concerns an article entitled “Tamils must sell something Sinhalese will be willing to buy at affordable price”, by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, an eminent Sri Lankan scholar, who is currently the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva. The position occupied by Dr.Jayatilleka is one of the highest-ranking diplomatic postings, and many may concur that he has been rendering valuable services to his country since he was appointed to the high office. Dr. Jayatilleka is also a highly skilled writer and analyst, and his writings on Sri Lankan and international affairs published internationally have proven to be extremely insightful. In many of his contributions, notably to websites such as Groundviews and Transcurrents, Dr. Jayathilleka has made it clear that the views expressed in his writings are strictly his own. But given the high office he occupies in Sri Lankan diplomacy, his ‘personal’ views regarding Sri Lankan affairs (especially the ethnic…

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Power of sovereignty, standards of life and education

In 1948, Sri Lanka attained independence from colonial domination of the British. Sixty years later, Sri Lankans are on the verge of declaring another form of Independence- defeating terrorism and assuring territorial integrity of the country – for territory is an important aspect of Independence. National address of the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse at the 61st Independence Day celebrations, focused on several crucial issues such as human security, social justice and dignity of the citizen. As I understood, through his speech, he was proposing a new project as the massive undertaking of the defeat of the LTTE is almost accomplished. The President was offering a plan to transform subjects who are alien to prospects of freedom and equality, into modern citizens. He was expressing his lack of trust “on the bill-boards in [...] cities as “the true extent of [...] development” (National address of the President of Sri Lanka, 04th Feb, 2009) and eloquently emphasized the importance of…

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Tamil politics tomorrow: Options, challenges and pitfalls

The armies clash in the night but what of the morning after? The underlying ethno-national question, that of the relationships between the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Muslims and the state, remains, but it does not remain unaltered.  The war grew out of the nationalities question but it has in turn affected and altered it. Those who acknowledge the existence of the issue fail to recognize that the outcome of the war, actually wars, have impacted upon the underlying issue itself. When one gambles and fails, when one plays a zero-sum game and loses, that has consequences. On the other hand, those who stress the discontinuity, the rupture, that the outcome of the war signifies, do not concede the fact of continuity of the under-girding complex of issues.  What is needed is a mutual realization on the part of both major communities. The Sinhalese must know the limits of the victory achieved, while the Tamils must recognize the extent of the…

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An ‘Ausgleich’ for Sri Lanka: Equalization – not Devolution

Elangai Naganathan   With the end of the war in sight Sinhala opinion on the next step of the Nationalities Question (or “ethnic issue”, if you will) is firming up. At best it is in favour of the implementation of the 13th Amendment with the Concurrent List being devolved without conditions. At worst it is for the unitary state intact and inviolate. I have had intimations from several quarters some of them being my very dear friends that Sinhala opinion is hardening on this issue. “Well”, they seem to say “you Tamils have tried your worst to destabilize our Sinhala state and our position in it as the de jure and de facto rulers of the country. Terrorism and conventional warfare have failed you. Now take what is offered and be done with it”. The Nationalities Question, however cannot be put away so easily. I know that the term “nation” is denied by many sections of Sinhala opinion to the…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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