Heroes and Heroism: Osama Bin Laden and Prabhakaran
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Photo: AP
Osama Bin Laden. Dark avenging hero, Arabian knight, Arabic Lawrence of Arabia. Osama versus the USA: David versus Goliath, a hijacked airliner the stone from his slingshot. Not quite. David didn’t murder Goliath’s family in their tents, leaving Goliath only hobbling. Not every leader or dramatic figure is a hero, and not every force that takes on a much bigger foe is heroic. Not even when that foe has been guilty, as has the USA, of horrible crimes such as the sanctions which were responsible for the deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqi infants.
This is not an argument for pacifism. Or moderation. Heroes are almost always extremists in one way or the other. They seem to seek out or get drawn into ‘extreme situations’ – in which they really come alive. They also ‘take it to the limit/one more time’. (The Eagles). They are not ‘one of ‘and do not comfortably ‘dwell among’. They are different from the rest. Like eagles, lighthouse-keepers or sentinels in a watchtower, they rise ‘above’ or range ‘beyond’ the average, the norm, the ordinary and everyday. They are often martyrs but are almost never angels or saints – purer, more decent than others in any conventionally comprehended sense. Being a-typical, they are not cosseted by and comfortably ensconced in the surrounding society, though there are moments of celebration and felicitation. They bear marks of a certain isolation caused by being out there in the vanguard, since being in the vanguard is a lonely, singular situation. The hero is worn, even misshapen by the wear and tear of going against the grain, of swimming against the tide, of being a voice in the wilderness. Thus he slips, commits mistakes, even crimes. Often his very achievements, including that of sheer survival and outstanding performance against tremendous odds, give him the sin of hubris. A hero is not a safe, regular person. He is dangerously destabilizing to others and dangerous to himself. He lives on the edge; walks the high wire. A creature of conjunctures, at other times he dwells in exile, often ‘internal’ or ‘spiritual’ exile. The hero is also almost always in danger, often of an unspecified yet permanent sort. He has made so many enemies in his odyssey that the danger inheres in the environment in which he exists – and he is so exhausted that he hardly retains his robust capacity to resist and prevail.
Somewhere on Mount Olympus, the Gods compensate for the exceptional strengths and abilities of a hero by giving him blind spots and (fatal) weaknesses. Like Achilles’ Heel. Without these he would be impossible. The hero isn’t a better human being than everyone else. He doesn’t have more endearing qualities. He just has those qualities – or those qualities in greater measure – that are needed to fight evil; for the survival of the community when it is in danger from Evil. In thought and/or in deed, he goes further and faster than most, he’s willing to take more risks. He isn’t good – he’s just better than the rest and morally superior to the enemy he finds himself opposed to and who opposes him. The hero may be horribly flawed; indeed this is almost a structural trait of the heroic profile. Take Othello, Oedipus, Ajax. He may hesitate, vacillate: Gary Cooper in High Noon. Christ at Gethsemane. He may have reprehensible insensitive, even self-serving behavior: Jason. But Jason got the Argonauts through, and it took him to do so. The hero is singular, almost unique. His exceptional qualities – those that enable the community to survive in times of mortal danger – alienate him from the community, sometimes leading to exile or self-exile, and often to his undoing. Hence the tragic hero: the Greek and the Shakespearean audiences knew that the hero must fall, and yet is redeemed in some ultimate moral or cosmic sense by his exceptional virtues.
DEATH SURPLUS
What then is the difference between a hero and Osama Bin Laden or Prabhakaran? Osama believes in a cause, he is deeply committed, is brave, takes enormous risks, has sacrificed himself, is decisive, is a rebel, is at the vanguard of the struggle against the rich and powerful global Establishment. Why then is he not my hero? Because each and every one of these characteristics could have easily described Adolph Hitler and Mussolini. These alone are not what define a hero. These are not enough. This realization on my part didn’t come easy. I had to think it through, re-think it, and wrestle with contradictory thoughts, feelings. But whatever the initial rush that came with the unforgettable, once-in-lifetime spectacle of the plane flinging itself into the Twin Towers, Old Testament retribution reaching out from the remote Afghan hills right into Babylon/Wall Street, I reached out for and tried to hold fast to a moral-ethical compass. It is evil to deliberately target innocent civilians. If you lose that moral compass in the struggle for change, the struggle against the status- quo, you lose direction and wind up in the same hell as Pol Pot and Hitler. You lose your soul.
The hero has a code. A code that is noble – and in the final analysis he lives or dies by it. Osama Bin Laden’s code is not a noble one. That is why he is not a hero. True a hero is an extremist and is often unbending, relentless, driving. But he is never a fanatic. A hero is intrepid, but struggles to steer, as did Ulysses between Scylla and Charybdis: between a capitulationist conformism which passively accepts the things that are, and ethical anarcho-nihilism which suspends all moral considerations in fighting against things as they are. What is the defining difference between an extremist and a fanatic? I submit that it is a question of ‘surplus violence’, ‘surplus death’. A hero never dispenses or causes wittingly to be dispensed, and indeed strives not to cause to be dispensed, a greater sum of violent death than is necessary. The violence is targeted against the forces of the enemy. The hero observes the distinction between the innocent and the guilty, the armed and the unarmed, combatants and non-combatants, armed men and unarmed women and children. A hero observes these distinctions and is able to make these discriminations, so difficult to do in the heat of passion – and the hero is nothing if not passionate.
There is an intimate connection between a hero and action, often between a hero and violent action. But what guides that action? A hero never engages wittingly, intentionally, in avoidable cruelty – and if he has done so he agonizes in repentance. That is a defining aspect of his heroism. A fanatic is characterized by the untroubled use of ‘surplus death’ i.e. an unwarranted excess of lethal violence. Indeed excess is celebrated. Bigger bangs. More deaths. He does not observe vital moral distinctions. The Vietnamese, who had four times more bombs dropped on them by the US than were dropped in the whole Second World War, never set off a single bomb in the USA. Fidel Castro who had more assassination plots against him hatched or backed by the CIA than any world leader, never conspired to kill an American leader. The ICRC has in its archives a letter from Fidel and Che, written while fighting in the Sierra Maestra, requesting aid that would enable them to continue treating captured Batista soldiers according to the Geneva Convention. Japanese soldiers, belonging to an army that had perpetrated the Rape of Nanking, found themselves treated scrupulously by Mao’s Liberation Army. That is heroic sensibility in action – as opposed to the ferocity of fanaticism.
HEROISM, FANATICISM
Che Guevara was an extremist, but never a fanatic, while Osama bin Laden and Velupillai Prabhakaran are fanatics. This is also why Fidel Castro is a real hero, while bin Laden and Prabhakaran, though leaders – and ones of great military accomplishment – are not. And it is also why those communities (ethno-religious, ethno-national) and individuals who regard the latter as heroes, should take a long hard look at themselves.
Che, who loved puppies, once had to order the strangling of a puppy that latched onto his guerrilla column on an ambush, because the puppy’s barks were betraying the hiding place of the guerrillas and would have resulted in them being wiped out. Che obviously felt so lacerated by the experience that he confessed the incident in a short story. In Talequan, Northern Afghanistan, the Taliban herded the population into the main town square. Then they paraded a number of dogs, on whose foreheads had been stenciled the names of their enemies – including King Zahir Shah and George W. Bush. They poured petrol on the dogs and burnt them alive. It was meant as a warning, said eyewitnesses (identities given in the news report) who arrived at a refugee camp. (The Telegraph Group, London/The Island Tues 2nd Oct, 2001 p6). When the Taliban took power in 1995, they dragged former Afghan ruler and Communist Najibullah out of the UN compound in which he was sheltered in accordance with the negotiated settlement, castrated him while alive, dragged him through the streets tied to a jeep and finally hanged him in public. A report in France’s Le Point somewhere in the year 2000 (I think it was April-May) quoted an LTTE cadre code-named Marianna, as disclosing that captive Sri Lankan soldiers are bled to death. The report went uncontradicted by the Tigers. This is barbarism of a very Dark Age.
The choice posed by History is no longer ‘Socialism or Barbarism?’ but ‘Democracy or Barbarism?’ Neither from the objective point of view of social progress nor from the subjective point of view of ethics and morality, can Osama Bin Laden nor the Taliban, Prabhakaran and the LTTE, or fanatics and fundamentalists anywhere, be humanity’s heroes.
Dear lankan David Horowitz
/It is evil to deliberately target innocent civilians./
Is it alright if I add your previous bosses to the current boss in this line up
I am sorry to say, one time – in 80′s – I had a great respect to you, though I hated EPRLF government that you and Abu Yusof was part of; partially your then leftist intellectual status and partially for your father. Now whenever I see what you have done, do, write and tell, I feel you sound more like our hon minister Mervyn de Silva than the honest journalist Mervyn de Silva.
How extent can you go defending the crimes and criminals? I will continue to read your posts to see how the lankan fascist regime reacts and thinks, but with tremendous nausea and sadness.
Hey Johnny,
Of course it is evil to deliberately target innocent civilians. The operative words are ‘deliberately target’. The Sri Lankan state did not do this in the last war, and broadly speaking from Eelam war 2. The Tigers did so for a quarter century. If you wish to argue this out, please do with by engaging with david Blacker’s brilliant critique of the Darusman report posted on this website.
As for the EPRLF, have you forgotten that its leadership and hundreds of cadres were cruelly wiped out by the Tigers?
As for my father Mervyn de Silva, we were unlucky that he died before reaching 70, but he was lucky that he did not live to witness the suicide assassination of his good friend Neelan Tiruchelvam by the Tigers. Mervyn used to live around the corner from Neelan and dropped into see him often. On the day Neelan died I was on my way to meet him as he was planning a commemorative event and a multivolume anthology of Mervyn de Silva’s writings, timed for September 5th, the latter’s 70th Birth anniversary.
Mervyn was also lucky not to be around for the murder by the LTTE of his friend C Loganathan’s son, Kethesh.
Dayan:
The UN Panel Report, the C4 video, among others confirm that the civilians were anything but deliberately targeted. The various statements during the war further affirms this belief. Talking of zero civilian casualties for over two years and after the concerted pressure, now finally the regime there have been indeed civilian casualties. The essence of this war is the deliberate reduction of the Tamils.
The LTTE was (and is) a proscribed organisation. It killed Tamils as well as Sinhalese and it was forced to pay for its recalcitrant ways but for a “democratically” elected regime to kill 40,000 innocent civilians deliberately is a crime of major proportion. The cunning way the SL regime conducted this annihiliation is unparalleled in history, or so it thought and now with the truth being unearthed gradually, it will be consigned to the same chambers as the LTTE.
Dear jansee;
Deliberate lies!
You were unable to give any answer to the questions raised by us wrt C4 movie and the Darusman Report. But you are repeating and chanting the same lyre(lies) over and over to again propaganda advantage.
Why you never back your claims before shouting them again and again? Don’t you have that civility at least? Tell us frankly.
Thanks!
Care to point out how these CONFIRM the deliberate targeting?
So we can add some other persons to this lunatic, barbarian list. SWRD Bandaranayake, who had implemented ‘Sinhala Only’ act, the man behind the 1958 anti – Tamil riots where Tamil civilians were thrown into hot tar by his followers. Then JR Jeyawardane, who actually enjoyed the barbaric heroism of his men, who massacred thousands of Tamil civilians and destroying their properties. Last the great hero Mahinda Rajapaksha, who enjoyed the brutal cold blooded slaughtering of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians and still defend his barbaric activities by his trumphets like Dr Dayan Jayathilake.
Dr Dayan, you can write anything. But each and every Tamil citizen know who Prabhakaran was and for what he stood against. The enormous support to TNA in Tamil areas is a clear evidence for that.
Dear Aadhavan,
You write : “But each and every Tamil citizen know who Prabhakaran was and for what he stood against. The enormous support to TNA in Tamil areas is a clear evidence for that.”
That statement is disgraceful. It more than implies that a vote for the TNA is a vote for Prabhakaran or a vote by Prabhakaran’s supporters and admirers!
In the first place, Ahilan Kadirgamar’s brilliant post-election piece in the Sunday Island makes clear that the vote was nothing of the sort!
In the second place the TNA, which should know better than you, says nothing of the sort.
In the third place, your dangerous assertion would be applauded by only by two types of people: Tiger supporters ( like yourself, doubtless) and Sinhala chauvinists– both of whom wish to scuttle the talks between GoSL and the TNA reaching a fruitful conclusion.
Dear Dr Dayan,
I was very happy that you just took the last paragraph of my response and just refuted that. That means you are accepting my main point, ‘THE BARBARIC HEROES OF SRI LANKAN REGIME’ who ordered for mass massacres of innocent people.
Regarding the talks with TNA, please refer the latest article of groundvies ‘TNA takls suspension statement’. ” This we regret to state was clearly demonstrative of the lack of a genuine commitment on the part of the Government to the evolution of an acceptable political solution. While attempting to show the world that the Government was engaged in a political process as an integral part of reconciliation, what the Government was really engaged in was no more than a mere facade.” Is this a ‘FRUITFUL CONCLUSION?’ Government is using the talks with TNA to cheat the whole world and to escape itself from the war crime allegations.
Sri Lankan Tamils are refrain from talking about LTTE. If they speak about it, then they will be disappeared by next day morning. Even TNA parliamentarians are also not exceptional to that and that is the bitter truth…
Just want to to flag that the above comment is not mine. Thanks.
Why are you bothering to do so may I ask?
a. Decent Sri Lankans do not talk about Prabhakaran now because they are ashamed of what happened i. before he was born, ii. while he was alive and iii. after he was killed.
b. The moment intellectuals see a problem they try to remove the cause. They are ashamed to harp about the problem.
Many went and told LLRC what practical steps can be taken even at this late stage to save the country. Please state yours too.
Ohhhh !!!
Dayan
You keep ranting about reactive visible violence and not about the causative structural violence and visible violence of a state which is still continuing. You are misleading the ”not-so-informed” citizens who look up to ”informed” people to make decisions. Prof Wijesinha, Prof Pieris and you are doing just the opposite of what you three should be doing.
I am no lover of violence, structural or visible though despise structural violence muc, much more than visible violence if it comes to the hardest of choice(NOT a choice at all).
Which country has the combination of unspeakable evils that happened in
disenfranchisement/decitizenisation of tens of thousands in mid-20C
burn children and parents in a sugarcane field and no investigation but shoot one dead when people protest the following day
beat satyagrahis and ask the police to watch the hooligans throw stones at them ….
……………….
…………………..
………………………
(some of them have been pointed out to LLRC)
Is there an end to this (Rajapakses are shamelessly continuing it on a daily basis).
You have one stance in your job at foreign missions – defend the most ruthless government Sri Lanka has known.
You have a multitude of stances in these pages just to come in and post a comment.
I’ve just bumped into a book (Mindfield by Lone Frank published a few years ago only) a chapter in which is:
Morality comes from within – The Brain as Ethics Council.
The ”not-so-informed” mentioned above may not have degrees enumerated by you in these pages over and over again but have a very good heart and morals and the ”informed” are not always with a heart that is necessary to process the head for social AND intellectual purposes.
Dear Vino Gamage,
“The most ruthless government Sri Lanka has ever known?” C’mon mate, where were you in 1971 when 16,000 were killed in six weeks, bodies floated down rivers and burnt on tyres? Where were you in the late 1980s, during which time the UN recorded the highest number of disappearences, some 12-15,000?
You are right in your praise of the allegedly “not-so-informed”, as it they who have elected leaders who have stood firm against sepratism and for sovereignty. It is also they who have sacrificed most to defend the country. The day that there is an alternative which these citizens are convinced will bring about positive change while safeguarding the military victory, they and they alone will make that change– without external interference! So if you want constructive change, design and support such a programme and project.
“ruthless” means merciless,fierce,cruel,brutal,ferocious,callous,barbarous,pitiless etc.
The 1971 massacres quoted above were ‘ruthless’. So were massacres during 1987/88/89.
Both were of mostly unarmed youth by elected governments.
But all governments were ruthless in killing tamils, only because they were tamils.
http://nesohr.org/files/Lest_We_Forget.pdf
http://nesohr.org/hrr/?show=all
Thus was “ruthless” LTTE born.
Rest is history.
Dayan
For Goodness’ sake please let a critical mass of Sri Lankans (any ethnicity, any religion, or NO religion as I am one – though respect who follow religions) grow fast to bring democracy (as in good governance and not as in ”elections”) before it is too late.
I stated with a few things in the 50s only there are five more decades to be filled – you’ve stated a few.
In this globalised world and R2P era sovereignty is relative. Sri Lanka supplies peace-keeping force to the UN – mhhh…
Good Governance is the bottomline for any decent country and means governance of ALL citizens in equitable ways.
Question of sovereignty/separatism arise when good governance fails.
But then the world rotates on the axis of geopolitics and not on Good Governance. Decades ago politicians around the world have been saying UN Charter has no meaning for the oppressed.
Rita
The relationship between sovereignty, R2P and the peace-keeping forces(PKF) is a sort of concepts at the three points of a V with R2P at the bottom point and sovereignty and PKF at the two top ends? Do you do visual maps please?
yapa:
How could one be a worse liar than you guys and the SL regime – after lying of zero civilian casualties, now GR admits there have been indeed civilian casualties. Before you accuse others and get excited in the process, please look at your own back. Can liars like this and brutal murderers be even expected of any civility – civility is how you treat others also in a civil way. Of course, it does not escape me of the fact that you are all fired up. Have some fun chasing roosters on the roof. You expect civility – please treat others too with civility.
Jansee, stop the spin, please. Would you be so kind as to quote a single reference by an authoritative source, to ‘zero civilian casualties’, rather than ‘a zero civilian casualties policy’ or ‘a policy of zero civilian casualties’? No one in GoSL was referring to outcome, but to intention and policy.
Before you continue with your unseemly hissy fit, why don’t you take up — and take on– the points made by David Blacker in his ‘Holes in the Darusman Defence’ posted on this website, which deal with the war and its last stages? He does expose quite a few lies and liars, you know.
Dayan:
The spin you made in the UNHRC was rightly pointed out by the UN Panel Report. Now you talk of policy. What good is a policy which is only good enough to frame up but insidiously do something else. MR has made several speeches and statement on this zero civilian casualties issue and we can certainly see you through this of many spins. Gone are the days of you hitting the target with your spins.
If David Blacker’s piece seem to convince you (and that doesn’t surprise me) then let us have an independent international investigation. Then we can settle this issue. Are you willing to go for it or hide behind one of your spins?
@Dayan, who says,
“Jansee, stop the spin, please. Would you be so kind as to quote a single reference by an authoritative source, to ‘zero civilian casualties’, rather than ‘a zero civilian casualties policy’ or ‘a policy of zero civilian casualties’? No one in GoSL was referring to outcome, but to intention and policy.”
“Sri Lanka never killed any civilians as such”
President Rajapaksa (The Times – 2.12.2010)
“….it was impossible in the battle of this magnitude, against a ruthless opponent actively endangering civilians, for civilian casualties to be avoided” (Defence Ministry Report – 2.8.2011).
“If you want to believe me, believe me, no civilian casualties”, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told The Australian on 23rd March, 2009. And for over two years, the Rajapaksas and their acolytes maintained that the Lankan Forces defeated the LTTE without killing a single Tamil civilian. The zero-civilian casualty claim became a Rajapaksa leitmotiv; anyone who questioned this impossibility was viciously denigrated.
Last week the Rajapaksas finally abandoned this inane-myth of their own creation.
From Rajapaksas Expose Rajapaksas, http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/08/07/rajapaksas-expose-rajapaksas/
Will Dayan say Tisaranee’s made this all up?
Dear jansee;
I think you are seated on your own tail. No sensible person would deny civilian casualties in a war. What our position you are trying to stutter is there were un-intentional civilian casualties in the war waged against terrorism. No one denied it. Our position was and is that there was no any intentional civilian killings or casualties that tantamount to war crimes. Not only that the tribute should go to SL forces that saved over Three Hundred Thousand innocent civilians from the clutches of brutal terrorists who were forcibly kept as human shield to protect the coward terrorist leaders. Blame should go to terrorists not to SL forces, saved them from the mouth of cruelty. You all(luxuriously living western Tamil diaspora) know that you all cannot take innocent Tamil civilians the way you want except you lie to them and give a mighty propaganda power to it. Otherwise, people will settle for the reality. What you want today is to prevent people settling down for reality and to use propaganda of lies against this. This is your foul strategy.
You ask me to look at my own back, but I prefer to look at your back to refute it, as it is swollen with bigger lies. To your prove civility I think you will treat others with your t repository of swollen lies.
Thanks!
yapa:
“Not only that the tribute should go to SL forces that saved over Three Hundred Thousand innocent civilians from the clutches of brutal terrorists who were forcibly kept as human shield to protect the coward terrorist leaders.”
I think only the local Sinhalese are fed to believe this kind of spin. From the so-called clutches of the LTTE to the dungeons of the SL regime’s barbed wire cages. You can ask a one-year old kid that when people are incessantly and mercilessly bombed, obviously they would have no choice but to run away from those places and being blocked on all other sides, were they left with any choice but to run to the govt areas.We are only too aware of your continued spin.
Dear jansee;
Ohho!, you say that Tamil people went singing and dancing with the LTTE terrorists to be blocked in a small piece of land to save the lives of those who took away their little ones to the battlefield from their class rooms?
I think they preferred barbed wires and to have their children’s education than to fight a nonessential war. Do you know how many former child soldiers of LTTE are sitting for the A/L examination held this month? Who deprived of these opportunities to those innocent children? Aren’t those “your barbed wire dungeons” gave these opportunities back to them? Are you colour bind to see only a single colour in this world?
The advice I can give you with loving kindness is try to see the reality. Try to see the world with some less prejudice to begin with.
Thanks!
Dear jansee;
This is what your former now has to say. What do you have to say about it?
http://print.dailymirror.lk/news/front-image/52197.html
Thanks!
yapa:
Honestly you sometimes make me laugh. With a gun pointed to someone’s head, what do you think he would say? Please talk of something more logical.
Dear jansee;
If you are captured, will that be the heroic response of yours as well?
BTW, don’t you think he got himself captured deliberately by Sri Lankan forces? Otherwise, why there are no more “captives”, even with the “huge information repository” of the former LTTE arms procurer and the boss of the organization, after his boss was killed?
Rather than just repeated claims, don’t you think a reactive discussion like this is more productive?
Thanks!
Conscientious, learned and well-respected Sinhalese have gone and told LLRC that what has been happening to the people in the Northeast after the end of the war is unacceptable and that the government must make a comprehensive plan public, allowing the public a say on it, and hasten the settlement and development and start reducing militarisation and high security zones, etc. and criticised taking Sinhalese to give work instead of employing people the people who are returning to their devastated villages, etc
This author is splitting hair over: ‘zero civilian casualties’, rather than ‘a zero civilian casualties policy’ or ‘a policy of zero civilian casualties’? – something a man on the street would be doing. The author is trying to patch up whatever is left incomplete by Rajapakse brothers.
Dayan,
Now you claim that
“The government had a policy of zero civilian causality”. So Dayan you are shifting the goal post.
The President himself maintained zero causality not policy on numerous occasions.
When the evidence is so overwhelming what else you can do? the guilty always gradually change his stand when the pressure is too much to bear.
The next stage may be to agree to local investigation hidding behind sovereignty.
We have a lot of experience about how investigations are conducted in Sri Lanka.
This month we are commemorating the fifth anniversary of 2006 Muttur Massacre of 17 aid workers and in January another commemoration for the 05 students killed in Trincomalee beach in January 2006 was held
We still remember IIGEP and numerous inquiries and COIs appointed under this regime.
The latest claim of zero civilian causality policy is just to evade the issue and hoodwink the international community- ( minus Russia, China …………..)
What do you say Dayan?
Dear Sri;
Do not give up any event that kindle hatred. Please keep on commemorating all of them.
That is the way to be gay and happy.
Thanks!
Sri, don’t be a big baby. Far from shifting the goal posts , all I am asking for is a single (sourced) quote from a single authoritative figure in Sri Lanka, claiming that there were zero civilian casualties caused, as distinct from claiming there was a policy of zero civilian casualties. After all, I should know: at the UN HRC in Geneva, I never once claimed there were zero civilian casualties.
True heroes are Rajapakses:
http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/615/Exclusive:-Lankan-deculturation.html
Filling up the land of the people chased away by bombing and shelling is not democracy but barbarism:
http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/615/Exclusive:-Inside-Lanka.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theweekendleader+%28The+Weekend+Leader%29
True Buddhist Sinhalese interested in the environment, sociology and economics should speak up.
Filling up with stupas and viharas – physically, psychologically, socially, environmentally, economically incompatible.
There had been no restriction for filling up of stupas and viharas, in this country before colonials brought cheap labour to this country from India to work in the tobacco plantation in the North. There are stupas and viharas that had been built all over the country including North and East. Those stupas were filled up even before the “objectors” set their foot on this soil.
Isn’t it physically, psychologically, socially, environmentally, economically incompatible, when the kovils are built? When the Kovils are built on the foundations of Buddhist stupas and viharas?
I don’t understand what these people are talking.
Thanks!
How does this physically, psychologically, socially, environmentally, economically incompatible to you?
http://www.cimicjaffna.lk/Cimicnews_2011_08_04.php
Thanks!
Exactly. That’s what Muslims who have been chased away 20 years ago will be thinking.
Good citizens are concerned about how disasters happening in the country can be mitigated:
http://groundviews.org/2010/10/06/amber-light-signals-requiring-pro-active-action-by-the-lessons-learnt-and-reconciliation-commission/
Dayan
There is so much people like you who have influence on the Rajapakses can do to the country by supporting:
http://groundviews.org/2010/10/06/amber-light-signals-requiring-pro-active-action-by-the-lessons-learnt-and-reconciliation-commission/
”…. In the context of the external environment and the lessons from India as described above, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission is urged to focus attention early in regard to the need to initiate risk mitigation strategies aimed at ensuring sustainable integration and reconciliation shedding the communal venom of the past and taking Sri Lanka forward in the direction of the constitutional values we too cherish.
The undernoted recommendations are made for due consideration by the Commission …….. ”
Dayan
The choice posed by History is no longer ‘Socialism or Barbarism?’ but ‘Democracy or Barbarism?’
If you want to do something useful, you may tell the government how it can stop being barbaric and start being democratic.
Neville, stop being a silly fellow: if Sri Lanka weren’t a democracy and the government wasn’t democratic would the TNA have been allowed to contest and win? Even Ahilan Kadirgamar , a trenchant critic of the regime, concludes his article in last Sunday’s island noting that the Northern election result was a victory for democracy.
Some people think democracy is ”elections”.
Informed people think it’s good governance of which elections form one part.
In spite of all the undemocratic behaviour of the Rajapakses(I don’t have to repeat it here – it was reported in the media) in the Northeast, TNA got what it got.
I must be silly to argue with you according to many who have stopped arguing with you – but I’ve some hope you’ll improve one day.
It remains to be seen what the Rajapakses do with the election results.
Oh, that reminds me of what he’s doing with the two reports he got in July 2009 – he’s sitting on them.
Oops, that’s democracy Rajapakse-style.
Dr Dayan Jayatilleke writes that someone claiming to be an LTTE cadre said “that captive Sri Lankan soldiers are bled to death.”
And Dr DJ seeks to argue that since “The report went uncontradicted by the Tigers” it must be true.
Dr DJ then concludes “This [the alleged blood draining LTTE behaviour] is barbarism of a very Dark Age”.
This is of course a fallacious argument, for not contradicting an allegation (which can be for all kinds of reasons, not least the accusations was perhaps never put to the accused) by no means demonstrates that the allegation is true.
But I am most surprised that Dr. DJ did not find someone who said that the LTTE then drank all that drained blood while performing weird rituals!
And I certainly have never seen the LTTE contradicting that anywhere!
However it is true that some Sinhalese extremists did drain and drink the blood of LTTE prisoners in the Welikade jail; they then openly boasted of it holding it to be a heroic Sinhala-patriotic act!
And there are similiar horrific allegations about what was done to the LTTE cadres, men and women, and civilians in May 2009.
But of course Mahinda Samarasinghe instead announced to the world that the Tamil civilians had all been ‘rescued’ without shedding a drop of civilian blood.
Contrary to Dr. DJ there were claims of zero civilian casualties as well as to the policy of zero civilian casualties by GOSL spokespersons.
We may justifiably wonder whether Dr. DJ’s distortions and frequent defending of the indefensible are meant to keep Lanka in a dark barbaric age.
But why?
Sambar, you sound pathetic. Ok, forget the respected French publication Le Point. What about the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist of the New York Times, who called Prabhakaran ‘the Pol Pot of South Asia’? What of the TIMES (London) Millennium magazine special edition on DEATH, which named Prabhakaran as the person responsible for the highest number of violent deaths? What of Emeritus Prof Walter Laqueur, editor of the Penguin/Pelican Reader’s Guide to fascism, who wrote in his book The New Terrorism that ‘ in terms of ruthlessness and fanaticism the only parallels I can find for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are the European fascist movements of the 1920s and 30s’?
It would seem Dr Dayan Jayatilleka can’t bear to have his illogicality exposed … so he resorts to pathetic name-calling.
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka,
Forget about Le Point, or any other Le for now, as well as the uninformed journalists who feel they must sensationlise their writings to gain readership and fame and also make a living.
What I want to know is what Antonio Gramsci would have made of all this!!
Neville, puhleeze, don’t even try to argue with me; the EU couldn’t in Geneva. Argue with Ahilan Kadirgamar: “If there is a larger lesson to be learned from the local government elections in the North, it is that there are limits to the political muscle of party machines and patronage. And this indeed is a victory for democracy in the country.”
‘Elections, Development and Democratisation in Post-war Jaffna’
by Ahilan Kadirgamar
Sunday Island July 31, 2011
”it is that there are limits to the political muscle of party machines and patronage. And this indeed is a victory for democracy in the country.”
In Sri Lanka, democracy has only one part of it, elections.
What happened to the election results of 1956,1960, 1965, 1970, for Federal Party and 1977 TULF. Worse things await the results of 2011. Already happening and not reported in Sinhala language.
Election results of the North have no meaning. Except driving ethnic outbidding in the South and not good life for the Tamils. And pogroms in the 50s/60s/70s/80s. Then aerial bombing of 80s/90s/2000s. Militarisation began 50yrs ago and has intensified recently. Northeast people under military boots.
In effect, government barbarism on ethnic minorities. Elections have been mandates for increasing the barbarism. In the name of protecting Buddhism.
”don’t even try to argue with me; the EU couldn’t in Geneva” ??
UN has been a place where human rights violators have been ganging up together and preventing justice reaching the oppressed for decades. Many don’t have any respect for the UN. Some argue that the UN needs reform. Any lofty idea is as good as the human beings who practice it, be it UN Charter or Buddhism.
Dayan,When you referred to heroes and fanatics,I just remembered some current synonyms and antonym
Such as patriots and traitors or freedom fighters and terrorists!
The modern day jargons-two extremes in a continuum!
One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist!
Or Are you with us?
or Those who are with us are patriots and others are traitors.
Now this heroes and fanatics? But is fanatics is antonym of heroes? May not be so, Villain is the appropriate word.
After all fanaticm is not a dirty word!
Dayan claims Mao before the 1949 Communist revolution Castro and Che before Cuban Revolution were real heroes because they were real humanists and they loved their enemies and used only appropriate violence against them.
Che agonized even about necessary violence against puppies!
So are Vietnamese qualified to be called heroes simply by bombing Saigon and not bombing USA.
Vietnamese had a narrow escape!
Mao, Castro Che and Ho Chi Minh are my heroes too, so let us leave them.
But what Dayan implicitly wanted is to draw parallels between them and local criminals, who are not merely fanatics but simply criminals
A lot of things have been discussed here several times. To repeat briefly:
http://www.cimicjaffna.lk/Cimicnews_2011_08_04.php
Army of occupation does its best to prevent Tamils from raising their heads:
i.to fool the world by building it after knocking down a part of it
ii.people and the clergy are scared of the army and the flood of Southern mobs brought by government-funded transport to the North – meaningless functions diverting time and material resources that could go into useful social projects
iii.the PTF prevents capacity building and formation of civil societies
iv.many conscientious Sinhalese have told LLRC how destructive things are promoted and constructive things are prevented from happening in the Northeast and how this barbaric(haphazard and unplanned) scheme must stop.
v.note what institute of constitutional studies have said in its report of December 2010.
A constructive plan must be drawn up in the way systemic plans are drawn up along the basics given here:
http://groundviews.org/2010/10/06/amber-light-signals-requiring-pro-active-action-by-the-lessons-learnt-and-reconciliation-commission/
Education doesn’t take place only in the classrooms or in schools – let this website be an educational tool to create more and more good citizens, better and better citizens.
Our children and grandchildren must be allowed to learn how the structural violence that created Prabhakaran should be brought to an end for the country to prosper peacefully.
Dayan Jayatilleka tries to harp on fanatics to hide the atrocities that are being committed by this government.
He is damaging the education of our future generation. He is undoing the attempts by others trying to bring reconciliation – they accept what the previous governments did and learn lessons not to repeat the past. To me they are heroes. They have to swim against the tide of the authoritarian Rajapakses.
Will Dayan use his influence over the Rajapakses to change them for the good of the country and become a hero?
Jansee, you wrote that “The spin you made in the UNHRC was rightly pointed out by the UN Panel Report”. Another falsehood. Please state where the Panel report said anything of the sort. What it did, as did Louise Arbour, Kevin Rudd and so many others, is to urge the revisiting and possible rollback of the UN HRC May 2009 resolution which I thought of and piloted to victory. The Panel Report does not talk of spin by me or anyone.
‘Neville Perera’, you lot have been dissing electoral democracy from the time that universal suffrage was introduced in Ceylon!
Jansee, Neville, Aadhavan et al, as for us agreeing to or complying with an international inquiry, we’ll do that once greater and earlier offfenders, who invaded other countries rather than reunify their own, submit themselves to such inquiries. Let’s see if the rest of asia, the world’s most populous continent to which we belong, or our South Asian region itself, urges us to comply with such an inquiry! Let’s also see if the current or incoming leadership of the deocratic opposition, the UNP, agrees with such a demand! Stay tuned to this station, but don’t hold your collective breath, folks
)
I’d like to see ”peace crimes” of the last two years investigated before the ”war crimes” of the previous 61 years are investigated.
Sri Lanka may be the only country which has killed its citizens – both sinhalese and tamil – ever since independence, for political purposes.
Rajapakses need i.a distractor from the atrocities going on in the Northeast ii. a smokesvreen for avoiding a political solution and iii. an antidote for emerging peace constituency.
Thus you’re writing about Bin Laden, Prabhakaran, Hitler and Mussolini when these pages should be complementing the work of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (assuming they are allowed to be free from interfering Rajapakses) and other attempts to find peace.
”Let’s see if the rest of asia, the world’s most populous continent to which we belong, or our *South Asian region itself, urges us to comply with such an inquiry”
Not only Asia but the whole of the **Commonwealth have never questioned Sri Lanka or any of its members who violate human rights except for a few with Military Coup for the last six decades of oppression. Now that the Eminent Persons Group has made recommendations sweeping the whole of the Commonwealth the Secretary General(who only a few months ago said that it is not his duty to question the human rights violations of the member countries !!) has turned 180 degrees in a jiffy and made MoU with ICC. But then Sri Lanka and the like will never sign up for ICC.
Mhhh… let’s wait and see what CHOGM will do with the recommendations to be submitted by the EPG in October in Perth.
*South Asia is the worst barbaric region mired in human rights violations and conflicts. Hopefully the Commonwealth will be forced to change and South Asian countries will have to become REAL democracies, not just electoral democracies. Press freedom in ? Corruption out ?
**http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-19359–6-6–.html
Most of all human rights for the Commonwealth(hopefully)!!!
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/files/236344/FileName/EPGconsultation.pdf
Prabhakaran did a disservice to those who considered him a hero and put their faith in him.
As a supporter of the struggle for dignity and equal status for Tamils and all communities in Sri Lanka, I am personally disappointed in those who still consider Prabhakaran and members of the LTTE as “heroes”. That is because the Tamil’s struggle for dignity and equality in particular has is significantly weaker today that it was before the war started.
This is a direct result of strategic incompetence and immoral actions of Prabhakaran and his organisation.
Dayan and Harim: How different people interpret one and the same thing differently:
http://transcurrents.com/news-views/archives/213
Osama and Prabhakaran: The killing of two terrorist leaders, Harim Pieris, 5 May 2011:
‘’…. However the West’s war on terror and specifically its war on Al Queda have been complimented by a dialogue and outreach to the Muslim world.
Similarly Sri Lanka’s own war on terror, concluded now almost two years ago, must also be complemented and succeeded by dialogue and an outreach through friendship to the Tamil community. ….”
”Outreach” turned out to be: detention of IDPs in camps, closing down Vanni, erasing houses to the ground and militarising heavily, restricting NGOs, returnees put under the boots of the army, …., =
don’t let Tamils raise their heads.
”immoral actions”:
Jayantha Dhanapala’s submission to Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC), 25 August 2010: ‘’Each and every Government which held office from 1948 till the present bear culpability for the failure to achieve good governance, national unity and a framework of peace, stability and economic development in which all ethnic, religious and other groups could live in security and equality.”
”strategic incompetence”: no strategy will work with barbaric people who put a sword in a lion’s hand – non-violent strategy of first three decades failed. Violent strategies of next three decades failed – to stop the hassle of reacting to the reaction of the Tamils now they are put under the boots of the army:
CEYLON : A DIVIDED NATION, B H Farmer(1963):
Since those saddening days of 1958(when Prabhakaran was an infant) Ceylon has had its share of trouble. The truth, though unpalatable may be to some, is simply that nobody unacceptable to the present Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism has any chance of constitutional power in contemporary Ceylon.
Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka – Report of International Commission of Jurists 1981: ‘’The fate of the Tamils in Sri Lanka remains a matter of international concern”.
http://www.reliefweb.int /library/documents/2006/ecosoc -lka-27mar.pdf
Sri Lanka: Report of the UN Special Rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, 2006:‘’The human rights capacity of the United Nations Country Team should be expanded immediately, pending the creation of a broader monitoring mechanism.’’
Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Implications for Politics and Conflict resolution in Sri Lanka, East-West Centre Policy Studies 40, (2007): ‘’International human rights monitors must be stationed in Sri Lanka to ensure minorities are protected’’.
Philip Alston, Roundtable, Human Rights Council, Geneva, 3 June 2008: ”In 2005 I sounded the alarm. I said that Sri Lanka was on the verge of a major crisis and I indicated to the General Assembly how to avoid the crisis. But nothing was done.”
All around the world oppressors survive as long as they can ward off the UN and the international community. Sri Lanka being an island in a geopolitically strategic location, the oppressors will keep dodging for a long time to come.
Diaspora Chick,
Oops?
More seriously, these are quotes/rhetorical flourishes I was unaware of. The position consistently taken by me in Geneva, and by Prof Wijesinha (at the time, Secy Ministry of Human Rights), was one that spoke to intentionality and proportionality.
Please read the argumentation on GV by Prof Michael Roberts at the time the last battles were in the offing or actually ongoing. He pointed out the historical precedents in modern warfare and made the case that there is little option open, unless the LTTE surrendered en masse and unconditionally.
This was pretty much the same thing I was saying and writing, then and since.
It is also the line that David Blacker has consistently adopted.
The authoritative and definitive Defence Ministry Report just released, is all of a piece with that perspective.
Diaspora Chick et al,
If I may quote myself on this subject ( of accountability and the last stage of the war), here is what I wrote in a piece that appears last Sunday (yesterday) in The Island and on Transcurrents:
“…In the end Sri Lanka must and will prevail. It will do so because it is more in the right than in the wrong; more sinned against than sinning, on two major counts, those of accountability and sovereignty. As Anatole Lieven and John Hulsman remind us in their anti-neoconservative volume ‘Ethical Realism’, while Tacitus attributes to a barbarian chieftain the moral critique of Rome, namely that it “creates a desolation and calls it peace”, the great classical historian and realist had no doubts that even if that were so, the Roman empire was morally and ethically superior to the barbarians and the choice to be preferred.
Lieven and Hulsman also recall that the great strategic thinker and Christian theologian of the 20th century, Reinhold Niebuhr was clear that the atomic bombings at the end of WW2 did not mean that the Allies did not wage a Just War. Therefore even if everything that Channel 4 and Gordon Weiss et al say is factually accurate— which they clearly are not (as the counter-documentary ‘Lies Agreed Upon’ and the MoD Report ‘Factual Analysis’ tend to demonstrate)—Sri Lanka must not submit to an international Inquisition.
The young ideologues of humanitarian intervention should study the superb new book, On China, by the great Henry Kissinger, which contains the following reflection which should be committed to memory:
“In Asia…sovereignty, in many cases regained relatively recently after periods of foreign colonization, has an absolute character. The principles of the Westphalian system prevail, more so than on their continent of origin. The concept of sovereignty is considered paramount. ..Non-interference in domestic affairs is taken as a fundamental principle of interstate relations.” (On China, Allen Lane, London, 2011, p.515)
The campaign to make Sri Lanka submit is the furthermost reach of Northern hegemonic ideology into Asia, in the attempt to roll-back national sovereignty and impose, in an infinitely elasticised version of the Responsibility to Protect, new rules of the international game. The target is apparently China but is actually the Rise of Asia, and the tactic is the old one of divide, debilitate and rule (or re-assert). If Sri Lanka submits it will be a defeat for Asia as a whole.”
(THE TNA’s BRINKMANSHIP & THE TRAP FOR SRI LANKA, Aug 7th 2011)
‘… it is hard to imagine another topic that for him [Kissinger] would be more personally meaningful and satisfying or one more compelling in its contemporary relevance. Certainly not “On Vietnam.” … And yet, as Zhou Enlai once observed about the French Revolution, it may be too early to draw conclusions’~ Brantly Womack
Washignton Post
What then is Dayan’s middle path for pacifist human rights activists and Realpolitik bombers?
A Response to Dr Jayatilleka
Sovereignty as Responsibility ~ Amitai Etzioni
Abstract
This article examines the development of a new normative principle of international order, sovereignty as responsibility; its communitarian implications; and the ways in which the newly conceived responsibility of the “international community” to protect the people of states failing to live up to their responsibilities as defined by international norms can come to terms with the notion of democratic self-government.
Conscientious people talk about the HERE and NOW:
http://transcurrents.com/news-views/archives/139
National integration is still where it was when Prabhakaran’s body was found at Nandhikkadal, Somapala Gunadheera, 2 May 2011:
‘’…. If we are wise, we should first put our own house in order before we challenge the UN…. It is not yet too late to begin. The mission needs a powerful Presidential Task Force for National Reconciliation. Such a Force can cut the ground from under the feet of the ongoing controversy and many more to be expected.’’
Yes, Ward, “conscientious people” do indeed “talk about the here and now”. Less conscientious others talk of the last stages of a thirty year war that ended two years ago, while even less conscientious ones talk of 1956!
Real Hero Narangoda!
Chapter5: Ethnic Co-operation in Sri Lanka by Norman T.Uphoff in Carrots, Sticks and Ethnic Conflict(Ed MJ Esman and RJ Herring 2003):
”The farmer who objected to this generosity was persuaded to support the plan after a young farmer, Narangoda, took him by bicycle down the long and bumpy canal road to see what conditions were like at the end. The dissenting individual came back quite moved by what he had seen, reporting that the tail-end farmers did not have enough water even for drinking and bathing, let alone for growing a crop of rice. The Gonagolla farmers tried to save donate two and even three days’ of their five days water allotment once they became more conscious of how the drought was affecting othersothers down stream…..
Several Sinhalese farmer groups told me that they had an informal understanding with Tamil communities downstream: if the tigers were making a raid upstream, Tamils would try to warn Sinhalese communities so that they could try to protect themselves; if the Sri Lankan army was moving downstream, Sinhalese would try to warn the Tamil communities so that they would try to get out of the way…. When I met with Sinhalese farmers in Gonagolla and asked whether the Tamil engineer living among them was safe, Narangoda, the local leader said: ”Yes, I regard him as my brother and if someone comes to get him, they will have to get me first”
Dr Dayan Jayatilleka (August 6, 2011 • 2:29 am) wrote:
“Neville, puhleeze, don’t even try to argue with me; the EU couldn’t in Geneva.”
Dr. DJ it seems really does beleive that he, he Dr Dayan Jayatilleka himself, managed to out-argue the EU itself!
After so many years in politics how is it that Dr. DJ still holds such a childish yet self aggrandising view about how these things work?
The bottom line is this the EU has its agenda, but it must be seen to be playing the UN game.
In this game all, however illogical and verbose they may be, must be given their say in the UN lime-light.
So Dr. DJ (for SL) was allowed to say whatever he wanted – besides it is also important to make the powerless feel they have been given a hearing, because those who are vulnerable to flattery are easier to manipulate.
Did the EU listen to each word and try to out-argue DR. DJ?
Of course not!
Since the underlying EU agenda was not compromised, they just went along.
However on the surface of things the EU persons had to be seen to be playing the game; so they allowed Dr DJ to believe that he had scored a win!
If the EU and the US didn’t want the LTTE out of the way, the LTTE would still be here in force.
If the EU and the US wanted the GOSL to lose that is exactly what would have happened.
But games must be played and some people must be allowed to believe what they must so that …
Sambar, that’s simply pathetic. The UN HRC special session on sri Lanka took place AFTER the LTTE had been wiped out, so the EU allegedly wanting the LTTE wiped out had nothing to do with it. Secondly, did the EU want the LTTE wiped out, and if so, what was it upto, moving a resolution in the European parliament calling for a ceasfire? Thirdly, if it were all a game and the EU-led West let us win, why did they let out a loud wail in the media after the vote, and why on earth are everyone from the UN Experts panel, through Louise Arbour’s ICG and Kevin Rudd urging the revisiting and roll-back of that vote on the Resolution?
Anyway, let’s wait for events, now that Sri Lanka has a very able new Ambassador/Perm Rep in Geneva; a former UN person and a human rights activist. Hope you’ll approve, Sambar
)
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka,
It IS all a game – various moves must be seen to be made in order to get ahead with their agenda.
At the same time the Mahinda regime has become an embarrassment with whom it would not do to be seen conducting business, so that is also one of the reasons for the recent calls – to pretend to be clean by disclaiming the embarrassment.
As for the new man, I fully appreciate your reason for a smiley face
There are some people in this world where if they were in front of you and a highly venomous bad tempered snake were behind you, the best advice would be ‘watch out, forget the snake!’.
Human rights violators have been ruling the intergovernmental bodies and the oppressed haven’t been receiving justice for decades:
UN talks mostly about Israel and the Commonwealth about military coup – most members who are human rights violators can agree on these with the least difficulty. Intergovernmental bodies are clubs for human rights violators. Nobody has to work hard to get votes because they all want to be protected when their case comes up.
Dear DJ,
Could you please be candid/kind enough to give the direct answers for the following queries (do not beat the bush, please)
1) Who killed the white flag surrenders ( Nadesan & Pulidevan and the 300 odd gang )
2 )what happened to prabakaran’s wife , little son and daughter, if they were killed , who killed them?
3)Ramesh (col ), Isiripriya and other scores of LTTE carders were shot dead , were they killed during the battle ?
4 )what is your approximate figure of the casualties ( as 5000 for prof RW, 7000 for UN….)
5 ) what are the real reasons for imprismenent of General Sarath Fonseka ?
6 ) what will happen to SL in March 2012 at the UNHRC (if India goes against SL )
Regards
1) Dunno, but maybe it was thought that there were suicide bombers among the bunch? Who killed the kid in the London rioting the other day, and the Brazilian youngster on the Tube, who was thought to be a suicide bomber?
2) Dunno, but gather the wife and ( weapons trained, wielding) daughter were killed in a firefight?
3) Ramesh, dunno, Issipriya probably in a firefight. Anyone who could carry a gun had been armed/rearmed in the final breakout attempts.
4) Dunno, but as it wasn’t intentional and followed from the situational logic, I haven’t focused on a figure. Rajiva has deconstructed the UN figure at some length, so I’d go with under 5,000, probably a few thousand, maybe around 2,500.
5) On Feb 15th 2010 I published a piece in the Daily Mirror and the Island arguing against the arrest. That said, Gen Stanley McChrystal had to fall on his sword for indirect insubordination. If he made a direct power play, with violent threats, it might have had legal repercussions. Anyway, Gen Fonseka has his day/s in open court and I am sure justice will prevail.
6) GENEVA: I am certain that Ambassador Tamara Kunanayakam, a vibrant, European educated Third Worldist intellectual, will teach a lesson to and impose a cost on anyone who attempts to devalue Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
Well said Dayan — it is this preponderance of “dunnos” (and this from one who has little reservations claiming near-perfect foresight!)that justifies the call for investigation – an objective investigation by someone other than the suspects themselves.
One other point – how soverign is the country now if every time someone sneezes in the West, the SL Super-Heroes have to jet-rush to Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi and other “select” capitals?!
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1346
Conservatives Fail Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy Challenge, 1 March 2011:
‘’…..Terrorism is an ancient tactic long used for political purposes. Russians, Tamils, Palestinians, Irish, Basques, and others have employed terrorism as a weapon of the weak against the strong.
……Robert Pape of the University of Chicago reported that “The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign — over 95 percent of all the incidents — has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw. …..”
Well Dilan, the Sri Lankan state DID NOT WITHDRAW did it, now? Prof Pape is good but needed to draw a distinction between external intervention/occupation and wars of re-unification within one’s borders and limit his theory to the former.
”Sri Lankan state DID NOT WITHDRAW”
Not many expect that fom the Rajapakses.
oops, it should read:
”Sri Lankan state DID NOT WITHDRAW”
Not many expect anything else from the Rajapakses.
”re-unification within one’s borders” is expected from the lion with the sword.
Not only Pope all categories of social scientists around the world say so.
Many common people(without university degrees) like Narangoda who have a good head-and-heart also say that – in action.
Barbaric people don’t necessarily care about it.
Dear DJ ,
Thanks for the answers,
1) haven’t you heard Nadesan’s wife was one of the first to come forward and yelled at the army “do not shoot , they are going to surrender “ apparently after a little pause whole shooting rampage started. If you carefully analyze the C4 second movie , Jonathan miller showed 4 dozens of dead soldiers /persons photographs , do you think all those photographs are fake /creations ?on the other hand Wije Nambiar was quoting it was LTTE the one who shot at surrenders ? Going by the photographs, certainly it was not a suicide bomber; it looked very much of gun shot victims. do not you think C4 is playing this game much smarter than we are, it looks C4 waits for SL to utter all lies/denials and then put forward the evidence. It is believed, there are few more damning evidences are available, but waiting for the right moment so DJ better be careful what you say !
2)prabakaran’s Little daughter and son were too little to engage in a fire fight , it is very unlikely to have happened what you mentioned.
3)Ramesh , there were clear evidences of Ramesh being interrogated by the Army in a few video clips , it is mind boggling how SL gonna defend that Ramesh was not killed by the army after the capture/surrender , on Isapriya’s case , how come her hands were tied behind her back and shot dead , it is hard to believe that iaspriya died In combat ? Same goes to the other blind folded /hands tied LTTE carders, were they shot dead during the battle or after the capture/surrender? Here is a video clip of a new angle
http://www.tamilsforobama.com/video/New_Video/Srilanka_Genocide_of_Tamils_War_Crimes_Evidence.html
Ramesh’s interview
http://genocidesrilanka.blogspot.com/2011/05/sri-lanka-war-crime-alleged-over.html
4) Going by the GA, Imelda Sukumar’s data, in August 2008 Mannar, Mulaitivu and Kilinochchi total population was 430,000 , after the war it was only 290,000 IDP accounted for ?
Please check the first video clip of the three ( Time at 4.18 )
http://www.channel4.com/news/un-leak-points-to-crimes-against-humanity-in-sri-lanka-war
5) on 27 Jan10, Trans Asia hotel was surrounded by the army, preventing access to the hotel , later DS stated it was for SF’s own protection, then on 08 feb 2010 , General was arrested , reason was given” SF was preparing for a military coup” and host of other chargers , now the main charge , conspiracy theory of military coup is not to be seen , I wonder why ? Instead some pseudo procurement charges were level against this legend,
See the video for your self for the embarrassing evidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFBw_Go2X6A&NR=1
betrayal of SF by gota
6 ) if India goes against SL , do we have a chance DJ ? irrespective of the person who represents SL , but I doubt India would go to that level , as India herself is very much in a gauche position i.e since Nambiar brothers and Narayana & Menon duo are tangled in the web.
By the way DJ , why do you think UNSG, UNSG panel ,UNHR head , Amnesty international, ICG and all other reputed INGO s , US, EU, Australia and all most all the western block,C4,ABC,PBS, Head lines Today , Nelson Mandela , Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Martti Ahtisaari, Lakhdar Brahimi, Mary Robinson,jimmy carter, lee kuan yew akin elders going against the current SL regime ( not the country ), do you want us to believe all these people and organizations are wrong and they are LTTE proxies or working for their money ?, or ill informed? , or really envious towards SL military success? or can’t stomach this greatest king ? Which one is it? or we to believe what the regime says and never questioned its integrity and be a real patriotic srilankan in the name of sovereignty !
1) I didn’t know, and what you assert is hearsay. All these assertions, accusations and revelations sound exceedingly WMD-ish to me. From a debating point of view, you still need to get past the MoD counter-documentary, the Mod report and David Blacker’s essay on this website.
2) Prabhakaran didn’t have a ‘little’ daughter.
3) Ramesh: I don’t know enough to answer that.
4)As for the numbers, please reply the analysis on the MoD counter documentary. I am bad at arithmetic.
5)I was at the TransAsia hotel at the time, being interviewed by Al Jazeera. I criticised the events that unfolded on Al Jazeera, and in the Daily Mirror, the Island and the Lankadeepa. Now, let the Courts decide and the law take its course. I must add that when my group was indicted, we had far better lawyers than SF seems to now.
6) Don’t be a bore Bundoora. You have listed the evolution and the votaries of ‘neoliberal humanitarian intervention’ which is an ideological gasp of a declining, crisis ridden West and its allies. It has no resonance in Eurasia in general and Asia , the world’s most populous continent, which is firm on issues of sovereignty.
Bundoora, if I may repeat what I said in the UNHRC to Louise Arbour: “what part of ‘NO’ don’t you get?” Sri Lanka is not going to agree to, comly with or cooperate with any ínternational inquiry’. If you are deusional enough to think that another administration will comply, perhaps we should call for a referendum in Sri lanka and see whether any political party likely to come to office, will support such a call…
Dr DJ seems to be a real hero in his own words. He made an fallacious comparison. He justified all the atrocities committed by the regime in the areas of 100% Tamils and Muslims by using its 99% Sinhala army. And he desperately defended all the counter arguments by giving canard reports prepared by pro-govt puppets and by shamelessly saying ‘dunno’s when there was no place to refute.
Some time before I have read that Dr DJ is one of the great scholars and writers in Sri Lanka. But one I realized the truth that he is no more than liar and puppet of MR and Co.
Anyway, Dr DJ, I am not good in English. I say this becoz you will try to find some grammar mistakes and try to refute the argument desperately as you have done above (most of the times, desperately)
In total, your article is just a piece of waste paper.