Image courtesy Daily News

Forty years ago this week, at the auspicious time of 12:34 p.m. at the Navarangahala on 22^nd May 1972, a new constitution was signed into law, creating the Republic of Sri Lanka. This was the first time in the history of the island that the republican form of state was established, discounting the period under which parts of the littoral were controlled by the Dutch East India Company during the time the Netherlands were a confederated republic. Given that the political history of the island spans over two millennia from its mytho-historical origins, four decades might not seem like a long time. But looking back to 1970-72, the country and the world in which the first republican constitution was created seems very different from the present, although the continuing resonance of many of the dominant themes of that era are still felt in today’s Sri Lanka.

In the Third World, it was the epoch of anti-colonialism and nationalism, of non-alignment and nationalisation. Many still regarded Marxism-Leninism seriously as a viable prescription for the political and economic organisation of newly independent states, and revolution as the means and method of social change. Autochthony and autarky were the mood music of the time. Both of Sri Lanka’s two republican constitutions were created in the 1970s: the decade, as some satirists have called it, that sanity forgot. It is one of the more benign ironies of our modern constitutional history that while the socialist progenitors of the 1972 constitution were content to describe their handiwork as simply the Republic of Sri Lanka, it is J.R. Jayewardene who added two ideological adjectives to the official name of the country in 1978, although the extent to which his Bonapartist constitution is either democratic or socialist is at least debatable.

The first four decades of the life of the republic has been nothing if not eventful, experiencing insurrectionary and secessionist challenges to its mainstream political system from without, and elective authoritarianism and institutional decay from within. Since 2009, the month of May also marks another significant event: the conclusion for the foreseeable future of the military phase of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. In the last three years, there has been extensive debate about what is and what ought to be Sri Lanka’s post-war constitutional, political and societal dispensation. While the republican form is largely taken for granted in these debates – although perhaps it should not be, given the monarchical presidentialism that dominates the institutional architecture and political culture of the Sri Lankan state – it is the contestation over ideas closely associated with republicanism that recalls many of the concerns which animated the process of constitutional change forty years ago: sovereignty, democracy, citizenship, pluralism, nationalism, secularism, and what ought to be the constitutional form of the polity that preserves its unity in diversity.

A review of the particular ways in which those constitutional questions were dealt with at the historic moment of the formation of the republic would therefore seem to have some value as we engage in the post-war constitutional debate. I do not however intend to provide a comprehensive treatment of the 1972 constitution, or a descriptive account of the proceedings in the Constituent Assembly in 1970-72 for, being relatively recent, much of this history is generally well known. I intend instead to focus in this essay on one of the main issues that remains important in the present: the process by which constitutional change was effected in 1970-72, and the implications the choice of that particular process has had in the constitutional and political development of the republic since. It is of course an issue that has topical relevance, as we engage with the modalities and processes, including the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee, by which a new constitutional settlement is to be discussed and agreed in post-war Sri Lanka.

The idea that Ceylon should become a republic, and sever the constitutional links that had survived the grant of independence as a dominion in 1948, had been gestating for some time before the 1970 general election. It was a consistent demand of the Old Left from before 1948, and after the populist-nationalist watershed of 1956, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike had appointed a Joint Select Committee of Parliament to consider ways of revising the constitution which included the establishment of a republic. Although centre-left nationalists of SLFP-led coalitions did hold power between 1956 and 1965 (except for a brief interregnum in 1960), these administrations were so crisis-ridden that constitutional reform could not become a priority. But the constitutional model to which we were gravitating from 1956 onwards – that of the republic within the Commonwealth established by an elected Constituent Assembly – had already been founded by India in 1950. The alliance of the Old Left with the SLFP 1964 onwards, in government (1964-65) and in opposition (1965-70), both prioritised constitutional reform and made the likelihood of a democratic mandate for creating a republic a realistic possibility.

It is clear that by the late 1960s the republican ideal had caught the imagination of the public. This is apparent, firstly, from the fact that the UNP-led National Government tried to seize the initiative from the centre-left opposition on this issue by appointing a Joint Select Committee to revise the constitution, and secondly by the fact that even the Federal Party was clearly in favour of a republic, provided that it provided for federal autonomy for the north and east. However, beyond differing ideological visions of the future republic, what divided the UNP and the centre-left opposition in the second half of the 1960s was the preferred method or process by which fundamental change could be effected to the Soulbury constitution. Could the latter be repealed and replaced with a republican constitution according to its own amendment procedure, as the UNP argued, or could a republic be established only by recourse to a revolutionary or extra-legal procedure, as the centre-left coalition argued, because elements of the Soulbury constitution were understood to be absolutely unamendable?

This political divide refracted a genuine theoretical dilemma that confronted constitutional lawyers at the time. The legal quandary arose in the context of certain observations about the scope and content of Section 29 of the Soulbury constitution made by British judges in the Privy Council in several cases of the 1960s, in which it was suggested that the anti-discrimination provision was absolutely unamendable, even by a two-thirds majority. The Privy Council in London was then the final court of appeal for Ceylon, and as such, the final adjudicator of constitutional questions under the Soulbury constitution. Section 29 was the pivotal minority protection mechanism of the Soulbury constitution, which constitutionally restricted the Parliament of Ceylon from enacting legislation having the effect of discriminating against any ethnic or religious community. Section 29 also laid down the procedure for constitutional amendment, for which it established essentially three requirements: a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives; a simple majority in the Senate; and a certificate from the Speaker that the requisite two-thirds had been obtained in the passage of the amendment bill.

In the August 1968 House of Representatives debate on the motion to reappoint the Joint Select Committee on the Revision of the Constitution, the two positions on this matter were clearly enunciated by Dr Colvin R. de Silva for the opposition (in typically florid fashion), and by the Minister of State J.R. Jayewardene for the government (in characteristically sphinx-like interventions). Mr Jayewardene’s position was that notwithstanding the Privy Council’s views, the wording of Section 29 (4) was clear to the effect that any part or all of the constitution was amendable by the Ceylon Parliament, provided the procedural requirement of the two-thirds majority was obtained. Dr de Silva adverted to the same Privy Council cases in making his argument that the Parliament of Ceylon did not have the power to amend certain parts of the constitution, specifically the anti-discrimination provision in Section 29 (2). He stated that while he did not approve of the implications of the Privy Council judgments in terms of Ceylon’s sovereignty and independence, he had no choice but to agree that the Privy Council’s observations to the effect that Section 29 (2) was unamendable reflected the correct legal position.

There were two extensions to this argument: firstly, that the Parliament of Ceylon, and therefore Ceylon itself, was not sovereign under the Soulbury constitution; and secondly, that if an independent and sovereign republic were to be established, it would have to be done by a process other than the procedure laid out in the Soulbury constitution (in other words, a process that would be technically illegal). It would be only through a process that was completely divorced from the fetters of the Soulbury constitution and of its amendment procedure that the people of Ceylon would be able to exercise their sovereignty in enacting a truly independent republic. Although Dr de Silva’s view had the support of eminent legal academics like Dr C.F. Amerasinghe at the time, there are at least three reasons, in addition to the plain meaning of Section 29 (4) relied upon by Jayewardene, why his view could be argued to be erroneous, or at the very least, an overstatement of the problem.

Firstly, all of the Privy Council’s comments which were cited in support of this argument were obiter dicta, i.e., the part of the judicial decision that is non-biding because it does not directly relate to the main issues on which the decision turned. There was no reason therefore to treat these observations as cast in stone. Dr de Silva’s excessive emphasis on them thus raises questions as to whether he was doing so because it helped to further his broader argument in favour of the need for an extra-legal process to create the future republic.

Secondly, given Sir Ivor Jennings’s involvement in the drafting of the Soulbury constitution and specifically Section 29, it is very clear that this provision was intended to only impose a procedural restriction in the form of the two-thirds requirement on Parliament’s legislative power, and not an absolute or substantive restriction. If the procedural requirement imposed by the higher law, the constitution, was met, Parliament could effect any change it wished on the constitution, including Section 29. There was thus no provision that was absolutely protected from change, contrary to the obiter remarks of the Privy Council.

There is no doubt from Jennings’ writings on the Soulbury constitution that this is what was intended in the formulation of Section 29, but it does require some background explanation. One of Jennings’ major contributions to Commonwealth constitutional law and theory during the mid-twentieth century is what is known as the doctrine of ‘manner and form’ entrenchment. This holds, contrary to the orthodox doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty associated with A.V. Dicey in the context of the unwritten British constitution, that the substantive competence of a Parliament is not affected by procedural limitations placed by a written constitution on the manner and form in which it should exercise its legislative power. Thus for example, the requirement in Section 29 (4) that a two-thirds majority was required for constitutional amendments, and that the Speaker should certify that such a majority has been obtained, are procedural requirements, setting out the manner and form in which the legislative power of Parliament should be exercised in amending the constitution. According to Jennings’ theory, this did not affect the substantive competence of the Ceylon Parliament to amend the Soulbury constitution, provided the procedural requirements were met.

So two types of legislation, i.e., laws that could have the effect of communal or religious discrimination, and laws to amend the constitution, were procedurally but not absolutely entrenched under the Soulbury constitution. The Privy Council’s suggestion – enthusiastically seized upon by Dr de Silva because it strengthened his argument in favour of the need for a constitutional revolution – that there were parts of the constitution that were absolutely unamendable in perpetuity therefore was clearly made in ignorance of Jennings’ theory, and the influence of that theory on the formulation of Section 29.

Thirdly, the extension of the Diceyan view of unfettered parliamentary sovereignty to countries with a written constitution intended to operate as a law higher than and binding on the legislature, could imply that such legislatures were legally not sovereign, and critically, that countries with such constitutional restrictions on the legal competence of their legislatures were not really sovereign. This unfortunate and theoretically incorrect equation of parliamentary sovereignty with legal independence was the approach that was once again instrumentally seized upon by Dr de Silva in his role as the principal spokesman for the republican centre-left of the 1960s. If this were true, then it leads to the absurd conclusion that no country subscribing to the principle of constitutional (rather than parliamentary) supremacy could be said to independent, including the former British colonies of the United States and India, as well as the dominions of Australia and Canada. To this day in Sri Lankan constitutional debates, we see this conception of sovereignty and independence asserting itself against the principle of constitutional supremacy. The fetishisation of centralisation that constituted part of the justification for the design of the National State Assembly in the 1972 constitution (continued in the 1978 constitution in other ways), and in its incarnation as the unitary state, for the fateful rejection of the Federal Party’s constitutional demands in the Constituent Assembly, flowed from this injurious theoretical confusion.

On a personal note, it was also deeply ironic that an individual who had, among other things, registered his aversion to imperialism by refusing the otherwise richly deserved professional accolade of Queen’s Counsel throughout his career, should be the champion of a constitutional doctrine that was so quintessentially British as the sovereignty of Parliament. And indeed, the attraction of the Diceyan conception of parliamentary sovereignty as conterminous with sovereign independence is pervasive within the Sri Lankan legal community, and especially strong among Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist defenders of the unitary state. This is explicable to the extent that the unitary state is parasitic upon parliamentary sovereignty, but as my colleague Rohan Edrisinha has shown in his critique of the Sinhala Commission’s constitutional analyses and prescriptions, it is a peculiar paradox that such paragons of indigenous authenticity should be so dependent on the old imperial oppressor for their constitutional arguments.

I find it quite impossible to believe that Dr de Silva was acting in ignorance when he took up these positions in the constitutional debates of the 1960s. He was too good a lawyer, too broad an intellect, had too much time between 1964 and 1970, and in the close company of too many scholarly colleagues – in particular, Dr N.M. Perera, whose postdoctoral work had been on comparative parliamentary democracy – to have been unaware of the issues I have raised above. To me, therefore, it suggests that he was being at least partly disingenuous on the question of the constitutional procedure to be adopted for the future establishment of the republic, playing up the Privy Council cases in order to not merely strengthen the argument that the Soulbury constitution was a foreign imposition that the Ceylonese were saddled with forever, but also to remind the public that the highest judicial authority of Ceylon was a foreign court, associated with the person of a foreign monarch, that continued to limit our sovereignty.

In Dr de Silva we had a constitution-maker who combined the skills and disposition of the criminal defence advocate with a Trotskyite commitment to revolutionary constitutional change. Projected onto the opposition coalition in the run up to the 1970 general election, it is this combination of professional and ideological dispositions that led to the formation of a dominant interpretative position on the process of constitutional change, that would once put into practice in 1970-72, invite major theoretical questions about the legality and legitimacy of the republican constitutional order in the years to come.

Thus it was that once the United Front had won 77% of parliamentary seats (but, it is pertinent to recall, only 49% of votes) in the 1970 general election that the Constituent Assembly process was established and operated. The UF government therefore had the necessary parliamentary majority with which to amend the constitution legally in terms of the Soulbury constitution, but expressly chose not to do so. The procedure for constitutional amendment was deliberately ignored to signify ‘a complete break with the past.’ It was claimed that the source of authority for the new constitution was the people of Sri Lanka, deriving from the democratic mandate of the 1970 general election.

The symbolism aside, this argument makes no sense whatsoever from a constitutional perspective. How could a new republican constitution that repealed and replaced the granted constitution be held to be anything less than what it is merely because the existing legal procedure was followed in its enactment? On the contrary, the deliberate adoption of an illegal procedure for the foundation of the republic, when there was no pressing necessity for it, created an insalubrious precedent that may be used in the future for less defensible ends than what occurred in 1970-72. It was a meretricious indulgence of wholly figurative anti-imperialist ideological sentiments that would, by rupturing legal continuity, have grave consequences for the future Sri Lankan republic, without at the same time following the normative requirements of inclusivity and consensus that would have added through political legitimacy what was lost by procedural illegality.

While the Indian Constituent Assembly served as the inspiration for Ceylonese republican revolutionaries in the Soulbury era, none of the former’s scrupulous attention to widest possible representation and rigorously negotiated consensus seem to have registered with the latter. Moreover, while the Indian experience was regarded as a great revolutionary model of constitution-making, an examination of the detailed mechanics of how that body was established from the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan onwards reveals that it was less literally ‘revolutionary’ than widely understood by Ceylonese admirers. As has been demonstrated in many other ways since, the Nehruvian political elite was more adept and relaxed in the dynamics of negotiation and the compromises of liberal democratic politics than what was the suggested by the slogans of its nationalist rhetoric, which our nationalists (from either side of the ethnic divide) have always taken rather too literally for the good of Sri Lanka’s pluralist democracy.

Concretely and immediately, the deliberate illegality of the Constituent Assembly process served to strengthen perceptions of the illegitimacy of its creature, the 1972 constitution, on both democratic and pluralist grounds. The UF’s two-thirds parliamentary majority was the product of the first-past-the-post electoral system then in operation, which enabled the votes of less than half of the electorate to be reflected in such disproportionate parliamentary representation. The question that naturally arose was: can a party that had obtained the support of only 49% of the country in terms of total votes, purport to speak for the entire country, in all its diversity, in the making of a constitution for a new republic? This aspect of its mandate was especially problematic for a government that would in the constitution-making process go on to use its overwhelming parliamentary majority to settle every question; that is, to adopt wholly majoritarian justifications for having its own way rather than inclusive, consultative, deliberative and consensual decision-making procedures in the negotiation of the content of the future constitution. This question would have arisen with lesser force had the UF followed the amendment procedure of the Soulbury constitution, because its parliamentary majority would then have been defensible on the grounds of constitutionality.

The illegal procedure also compounded the complete failure of the Constituent Assembly to sustain the support of the vast majority of Sri Lankan Tamils to the new republic by the contempt with which it treated the demand for autonomy. Instead the Constituent Assembly drafted a constitution that seemed to only reflect the constitutional worldview of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority, in terms of the ‘foremost place’ for Buddhism, the privileged constitutional status for Sinhala, and of course the unitary state that was instantiated in both structural and symbolic terms. It thus added to the illegitimacy of the entire post-republican constitutional order from the perspective of a plural polity, an argument that has been made by Tamil nationalist and especially Tamil separatist voices with more validity than should be the case. The combination of illegality and majoritarianism of the Constituent Assembly created the theoretical space for Tamil nationalists to assert a separate sovereignty on the basis of their lack of consent to the republican constitutional order. An argument made first and most completely by M. Tiruchelvam Q.C., in the Amirthalingam Trial-at-Bar in 1976, and in more demotic terms in the Vaddukoddai Resolution of the same year, this continues to reverberate, making invocations of popular sovereignty and democratic mandates a double-edged sword for Sri Lankan governments even today. While one can politically disagree with the separatist implications of such arguments, it is much more difficult as a matter of legal theory to reject their validity.

Indeed, it was not merely in relation to the loyalty of the Tamils to the new republic that the unadulterated majoritarianism of the 1970-72 constitution-making process proved problematic. It gave grounds for the UNP to change the constitution at the next available opportunity on the basis of the claim that the 1972 constitution only reflected the views of those who had voted for the UF in the 1970 general election. While it is likely that the horrors of the 1978 constitution might have occurred regardless, it is inescapable that the precedent for unbridled majoritarianism and governmental unilateralism in constitution-making was established when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1970-72: a point that present-day hagiographers of the 1972 constitution like Tissa Vitharana would do well to keep in mind. Quite clearly, therefore, the form of the 1970-72 process emerges as a singularly inappropriate way by which to construct a durable democratic republic with strong social foundations in our plural polity; an argument to which the past four decades of instability and extra-institutional violence bears sad testimony.

My purpose in raising these issues is neither historical revisionism nor the expression of some reactionary nostalgia for the dominion constitution, although I do believe that from the perspective of liberal democratic values, the Soulbury constitution succeeded better than either of the two republican constitutions that have been the result of much vaunted ‘home grown’ processes. I think that by the late 1960s the democratic aspiration for the establishment of a Sri Lankan republic was exceedingly clear and probably inexorable. There was thus no reason why an extra-constitutional process was necessary, except for the sheer symbolism of the act, and even less reason for the crude majoritarianism that characterised it. Based on the questionable rationales I have described above, the process that was chosen for the creation of the republic was driven, not only by majoritarian calculations, but also by excessive partisanship. The Old Left, once the exemplar of multi-ethnic accommodation on the basis of the Marxist approach to nations and nationalities, failed to alleviate the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism of its SLFP ally, and were at one with the SLFP’s authoritarianism in its commitment to centralisation.

These problematic choices with regard to process forty years ago have given rise to enduring questions about the nature, legality and legitimacy of the Sri Lankan republic that were entirely avoidable. As the Indian Constituent Assembly and constitution had shown, legitimacy is the measure of both revolutionary constitution-making as well as republican constitutionalism. By that standard, the Sri Lankan Constituent Assembly and 1972 constitution were an abject failure, and the Sri Lankan republic continues to suffer the consequences.

Are we capable of learning the lessons of the past in respect of pluralism and tolerance, negotiation and compromise, constitutionality and restraint, as we re-engage in a process of constitutional change in post-war Sri Lanka? We shall soon be able to see in the Parliamentary Select Committee.

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Note: The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice, an edited collection of critical and inter-disciplinary essays by leading Sri Lankan and international scholars, marking the 40^th anniversary of the enactment of the 1972 constitution and the establishment of the Sri Lankan republic, will be published by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), later this year.

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Long Reads brings to Groundviews long-form journalism found in publications such as Foreign Policy, The New Yorker and the New York Times. This section, inspired by Longreads, offers more in-depth deliberation on key issues covered on Groundviews

• BUDGET OR NO BUDGET? IT IS A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
• Constitutional Reforms in Sri Lanka: What was asked for, What was promised and What is going to be offered?
• Reforming the Constitutional Council
• Deliberative Democracy and the Sri Lankan Parliamentary Committee System
• The Island Abstains

Image courtesy CNN

It has been a couple of days since the former military commander of Sri Lankan Army and common opposition’s presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka was released from the prisons and I can’t think of a better timing than this for me to express some of my thoughts related to these developments, which I am sure many here would share with me, at yet another crucial time for our nation.

First of all, many have correctly pointed out to me about the technicality of the use of the rank General when referring to Mr. Fonseka and it is my personal belief that it is one way for me to demonstrate my suspicion as to whether the so-called court martial was really working in a fair, transparent manner contrary how it would have been through a civilian court, while at the same time joining thousands of fellow Sri Lankans who aren’t ready to forget the existence of the first-ever four star General the Sri Lankan armed forces had, however much his photos are altered from frames or name is being erased from plaques. Thus, I shall continue to refer to him as General Sarath Fonseka out of respect, admiration and also in solidarity with many others who have been meted with injustices simply because of political, religious, racial or ethnic prejudices against them.

As I have mentioned openly in a few occasions before, I have always used my vote, be it local government, provincial, parliamentary or presidential elections, based on the policies of candidates rather than party affiliations. I still remember the reasons behind my decision to vote for Mr. Rajapakse in 2005 to be the President as much the reasons for my vote for General Fonseka during the 2010 Presidential elections, which I have already published an article on in Groundviews. But as we know, some of his close political confidantes back then are no longer to be seen along with him and the same way some of the blocs who voted for him also consider that moment as one-off. However, as much as some commentators try to bring arguments saying the presidential election votes for General Fonseka were merely protest votes against Mr. Rajapakse and he doesn’t have a political standing, it would be so naïve to de-value his influence given that he had been one of those people to have had a consistent policy from the moment he stepped on to politics and on top of it the visible public affection and/or the respect he has earned during the last 30 months both, in and out of prisons, as a politician. Therefore even though he himself can’t stand for elections (for at least the next 5 years, according to some legal experts) still the influence he will have on Sri Lankan politics is unquestionable. This is specially at a time when the main opposition party is having its own set of internal problems and almost all the other political parties having had their own share of splits within. In that context, some of the very first words of General Fonseka being trying to unite the opposition rather than craving for positions, while mobilizing people for their socio-economical rights, is a mature approach.

As a citizen and someone who has seen a bloody conflict almost all throughout my lifetime of closer to 3 decades, given that we have already wasted the last 3 years as a nation after the end of the military conflict without any serious initiatives to address the root causes of the conflict; in my opinion, the direction General Fonseka will take in the next weeks and months on key issues, will for sure decide for itself if we can be hopeful of a turning-tide towards challenging the system to make civil liberties, transparency, equality and rule of law as priorities or whether we all will passively see our motherland moving away from being a real Democracy towards a state which may be identified as more of a Autocracy due to power-hungry politicians trying to cling to power at any cost. This shouldn’t be misinterpreted as if this is a call for change of regime per-se, but if the authorities are willing to change and do what’s best for the country, that’s much better.

A welcome statement he did make within 24 hours of being released was on the conduct of the current administration in handling international calls for accountability on allegations leveled by various parties about the military conflict and General Fonseka quite correctly reminded his policy from day one being that Sri Lanka should not dodge the questions and imply guilt, rather cooperate to establish the truth, whatever it may be. I am sure he is not foolish to understand even such a call would not go well within some of the vote blocs out of the cities, still he had the courage to make that statement needs to be applauded, even though some opportunistic politicians have been trying to brand him as a ‘traitor’ again for this statement. As someone who has had friends and family members affected and lost lives due to the almost 3 decades of military conflict in our country, I see this as a positive, mature and responsible statement towards reconciliation. This is not just because of the fact that General Fonseka has taken a bold step of talking about something which is considered not even up for mention by Sinhala nationalists and thus defying some of the nationalistic elements who were believed to be also supporting him, but still giving a perfect example of how Mr. Rajapakse’s administration also could have, if his administration had the will, to have spoken about harsh realities related to reconciliation in an assertive manner given the popularity he had soon after end of the military conflict 3 years ago.

This kind of a statement, at least, gives an opportunity to make justice for people who had to make the ultimate sacrifice during the war be it a Tamil like Nilukshan Sahadevan, my colleague from Sri Lankan Youth Parliament and a young budding journalist gunned down in the middle of the night in Jaffna at his home or a Sinhala youth like Captain Sandun Chanaka of Sinha Regiment, my class-mate for years at Richmond College in Galle, who was killed in Pudukudiyiruppu South in the last stages of the war or a Muslim like one of my relatives, who was also a provincial media person from North Central province killed along with his sibling and her husband in a suicide bomb blast a few years ago. And I wonder what a difference we could have made to our tiny island if sanity prevailed to the rulers 3 years ago as soon as the military conflict was over rather than the arrogance shown since then, on a victor’s mentality. So, I respect General Fonseka for making that statement which I am sure is not an easy task for himself being the commander of the army and chief strategist during the final few years of the war.

As a person having a huge popularity among the Sinhala community as well as the minorities and then the blocs who are already fed-up with economic hardships in the face of a near impunity for huge levels of corruption in the country and daily challenges to civil, political rights as citizens; I believe it is equally important for General Fonseka to make a bold statement about Sri Lankan society being multi-religious, multi-ethnic nature given the cautious distance some of the Tamils and Muslims have been maintaining from General Fonseka partly due to the apparently mis-quoted statement attributed to him, supposedly saying that the minority communities are ‘tourists’ in this country. A strong statement on that nature will not only make him more admired as a straight-talking leader but also will be of immense value to condemn the minority of violent extremists within the country who are trying to create challenges for religious harmony in our nation with situations like what happened in Dambulla recently and afterwards carried out by chauvinistic elements. After all I am sure General Fonseka himself will know how some of these politically or financially motivated monks make real Buddhists embarrassed by bigoted actions including the example of how his own framed pictures in the Nagadeepa Viharaya which were hanging for a long time suddenly went ‘missing’ soon after he was imprisoned, for reasons known only to the people or monks who did that, while it’s not really a mystery for anybody to guess in terms of the motivation behind them.

Having done this, on the challenge of uniting the opposition to make Sri Lankan politics towards a vibrant democracy rather than going towards like some of the single-party autocracies in other parts of the world; no one believes it is going to be an easy task. Yet, he will have to manage the charisma, admiration and respect he commands across the country and importantly from every part of the society to maneuver through the rough political terrains in bringing together , the young and old, ambitious and reserved, Northern and Southern, rich and poor, friends and old-friends, young people and the intellects, Marxists and the capitalists, and the list goes on; the same way he was able to strategise and restructure a whole military outfit with its own share of divisions and internal politics amidst challenging conditions to successfully complete a military conflict. In this sense, I personally like his idea of giving importance to civic education among the masses as a key factor and clearly stating how he would like to work on a broad level with all parties rather than trying to further divide an already fractured opposition.

And if we have a strong opposition it will help the country to be steered in the right direction by keeping the government in power (whoever it may be) in check and holding them responsible for every single action for the betterment of our own country. Crucially, he will also have to have an inclusive and responsible approach to be implemented in the aftermath of the mobilization of the opposition political parties and people towards their civic rights. If not, it would be like winning a war which many thought will never end but not being able to move towards establishing a long lasting peaceful, inclusive society just the same way it is now because of the policy of not having a real policy as shown over the last 3 years by the present administration. We have already had enough of our lifetimes wasted due to petty political ideological mistakes which have cost the nation immensely and we surely can’t afford to be passive observers when it is yet to be corrected.

I also have a feeling that we Sri Lankans have been quite selfish here by expecting a 61 year old gentleman who has done a lot for his country over four decades with dedication to do more rather than enjoying his life in retirement with his family. But General Fonseka himself says that he is ready to dedicate his life to correct the political system of this country for the sake of making sure we don’t lose any more for the years and generations to come.

And I don’t believe that he is going to be the miracle-man to push the government to do the right thing or get the opposition be strong to make it a vibrant democracy; rather we Sri Lankans lacked a voice to rally behind to challenge when we thought things weren’t right and we have finally got a straight-talking individual who is ready to take the leadership, despite the risks and challenges inherent to the role, to give a voice to the unheard, in a louder manner than before.

In that sense, I believe we as citizens are in desperate need of getting back our lost identity of being part of a Democratic, Inclusive, Transparent, Just Sri Lanka as much as a four star General stripped of his ranks and perks after 40 years of selfless service to the nation is desperately trying to justify to himself that he wants to make sure he will still do his part to hold politicians accountable for their actions for the sake of future generations.

And as long as that desire is fulfilled regardless of whether it is by forcing the current political leaders taking bold, decisive actions for the future of the country or by people democratically asking a different set of leaders to do the same; I am sure we all can be prouder to be Sri Lankans and do justice to all who made sacrifices in the last decades for causes which they believed were correct and selfless, in their own ways.

Welcome back to freedom, General Fonseka!

• General Fonseka and the interview
• Sarath Fonseka and the Role of the Opposition: Will Sanity Prevail?
• Rajapaksa vs Fonseka: Tweedledum vs Tweedledee?
• A response to Kusal Perera on political honesty and questioning Sarath Fonseka
• The opposition needs common sense, not a common candidate

Image courtesy the Economist

GV editors note: In the transcript below and the video of it available on the BBC online, the BBC correspondent in Sri Lanka Charles Haviland asks “Are the terms of your release unconditional – will you be allowed to go  back to politics?”

Sarath Fonseka responds by noting that “As yet I have not seen this legal document.  Unless they have remitted the prison sentence which I have completed already, unless they do that I can’t do politics.  I can do politics but I can’t vote or contest.  So as it is, we don’t know exactly what is there in the document but we’ll come to know.”

In this regard, we reproduce below the letter sent by the Ministry of Justice to the Commissioner General of Prisons. Download as PDF here.

Start of transcript

The BBC met Sarath Fonseka on Tuesday morning at the rented house where the family now stays on the outskirts of Colombo.  Two restless barking dogs – a Dalmation and a Dachshund – calmed down by the time we started filming and the place was peaceful, the only extraneous noise being the occasional lowing of cattle in an adjoining field.  The former army chief looked tired but was due to set off to pay homage at Buddhist temples in the provinces the same afternoon. 

[Charles Haviland: Why do you think you’ve been released now?]  Sarath Fonseka: There’s a lot of pressure on the people who were behind putting me behind bars – internally, the local aspirations of the people, the sentiments of the people, the pressure was building up.  Then internationally we know that there was unlimited pressure.  The international community did a great job by maintaining continuous pressure on them.  Because they were interested to see proper democracy in this country.  With that in mind, they I think exercised a fair amount of pressure on the people who were behind my incarceration.

[You have your differences with President Rajapaksa but are you grateful to him for signing the papers for your release?]  I will ask you the same question.  If I put you behind bars, later on I put you out, what would you feel about it?

[Are the terms of your release unconditional – will you be allowed to go  back to politics?]  As yet I have not seen this legal document.  Unless they have remitted the prison sentence which I have completed already, unless they do that I can’t do politics.  I can do politics but I can’t vote or contest.  So as it is, we don’t know exactly what is there in the document but we’ll come to know.

[There’s still another charge outstanding against you, of harbouring army deserters.  Could you still go back to court and be sentenced again or is that out of the question?]  Yes [?naturally] they want to hold on to it, thinking they can put pressure on me by maintaining that.  But that’s another case as far as I’m concerned.  Obviously we don’t agree with the charges.  If they think they can put me behind bars again using that, most probably they are repeating the same mistake.

[Would you like ideally to go back to politics again and challenge the president in an election once more?]  Umm – yes, it’s not that I want to become the president of the country or something.  My intention and my agenda is not to contest for the presidential and become the president of the country only.  I have a political agenda: to change the corrupt political culture in this country.  As far as I can do that, I don’t mind not becoming president or not being an MP.  But we’ll definitely try to gather all the forces together for that purpose.  So when we go ahead with that, they will already be confronting us, obviously.

[How do you see yourself in terms of being an opposition leader in this country?  Do you think perhaps you are the best place to be such a leader?]  It’s not a case of whether I am the best or anyone else is the best.  It’s a case of who is really interested, genuinely interested, about the country’s interest.  Let the people decide that.  The people who think that this government is not doing their job and if they think there is a change required now then they will have to decide basically who is the best person or who are the best people to do that.  Otherwise I don’t want to get into a leadership clash or fighting for appointments or something.

[I’d like to talk about human rights issues starting with the international angle.  In March the US sponsored a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva which was critical of Sri Lanka on human rights.  It was adopted, India supported it, and it basically said Sri Lanka should do more to implement reconciliation recommendations which came from within Sri Lanka and should do more about accountability in respect of alleged war crimes.  Were you happy to see that resolution passed?]   Yes – because – on certain issues in that resolution we straight away we agree – the violations of human rights, the reconciliation, yes, it’s a must, but the war crimes – there are various different opinions.  So we have to argue with that, argue it out and clarify any doubts so that those who are pointing out any issues – I always believe that they must point out specific  issues, then we are ready to answer them, we can clarify anything.  I don’t want to hide and wait.  The way some people are trying to hide their face when it comes to war crimes and other issues – it gives the impression to the rest of the world that these people are guilty of something.  I have always said that I am ready to answer for any allegations about the war crimes in relation to the military operations,  so that is my position.

But human rights violations, yes, and the intimidation, the people are under pressure, terrified, terrorised, all due to the abuse of power by the government – I fully agree that if there is a dictatorship, ongoing dictatorship, or someone looking forward for a dictatorship, tyrannical politics – if people’s interest is not looked after, people are intimidated, if the opposition is suppressed – then obviously if things go beyond the control of the law-enforcing agencies in the country, if the judiciary is being pressurised, influenced – then obviously the accepted thing in the whole world – the rest of the world must also take some interest in those issues to help a country out.

[So you say the judiciary is intimidated, that there is intimidation in wider society, threats, etc?  Is this what you are saying?]  Yeah that’s true.  Judiciary – although it is not direct intimidation there’s a certain amount of influence on judiciary because after the 18^th Amendment was brought in –    [making the president very very powerful?]  – Powerful, and the judges and everybody else in the judiciary, Attorney-General’s Department, everybody [is] vulnerable for a one-man show.  So obviously they can’t be independent, they can’t take decisions.  They themselves are human beings who have to look after their families, who have to look after their jobs.  So indirectly they are pressurising the judiciary and judiciary cannot be independent under a situation like this.

[You’re saying that’s because the president has the power to directly appoint so many of these people?]  Yes.  Everybody knows in this country and he’s not doing it sincerely.

[Before you left the army some people accused you of taking part in that same kind of culture of intimidation and threats.]  Er – That is also the fault of the government.  When there were incidents here and there, the government did not come out and face the criticism and settle those issues, then the people formed their own opinion.  If someone is killed in Colombo or a journalist is attacked or killed, then if the government does not find the culprits, the people, the opposition will point the finger at the government and those who are – the military and the police, the people who have power.  As the people who are responsible.  In fact this president, very unfortunate, I know at certain media briefings , after some incident took place in relation to a media personnel, he has been saying “don’t disturb the military, if you disturb the military we will not be able to look after you” – and words like that.  So obviously the people were suspicious about everybody else, not only the army I mean, the servicemen – the intelligence –

[So you deny having taken part in those kind of violations in the past?]  I had more important things to do.  I was full time to ensure [indistinct word] fighting a huge war.  Rather than going behind one or two people in Colombo which didn’t matter to me at all.  If that is the case now, the way they are criticising me, the mud-slinging, I must start attacking each and every man in the government, if I had that frame of psychology.

[On the subject of the war – we’ve referred to it already – a panel appointed by Ban Ki-Moon said there might have been up to 40,000 civilian casualties – civilian casualties on a mass scale.  The government absolutely rejects that.  Where do you stand on this?]  I totally reject, refuse the numbers given that thousands of civilians died.  Because I knew exactly how the battle was fought.  How the military was moving forward.  The reaction of the civilians.  What were the civilians doing.  Of course a certain amount of casualties would have been there because everybody knows the civilians were also manning the LTTE bunker lines.  Civilians – there were pictures and the video footage to show that even elderly women aged 60 or 70 going through weapon training.  So there is no question – of a few civilians getting killed obviously but you can’t blame the military for that – because civilians were given weapons and put in the front line, it would not be possible  for the military to identify such people.  But the large figures of 30,000, 40,000, dying, it was not practicable.  The way we conducted the war, the type of weapons systems we used, the manuals we made, we were always concerned about the security of the civilians.

[So what’s your view of the idea that there should be an international independent investigation of those claims?]  That is up to the international community – if they have any doubts, if they have any questions they can do it.  I think they have all the right and freedom to do it.  Then it’s our business to confront them, meet them and discuss with them and thrash out any doubts.

[And Sri Lanka should be open to that?] Definitely, yes.

[And you would be open to that even if you were to come under the spotlight of investigation?] I’ve said from the very beginning, to safeguard the name of the military, those who sacrificed their lives, those who conducted that operation, I’ll come out at any time, I’m not scared to come before anybody.

[Who was really in charge of the war effort in the last months or years – you or the defence secretary or the president?]  If I could run it for two years and eight months, there was no reason for take over during the last month.  Nobody else would have had the knowledge about what’s happening on the ground more than me at that time.  Of course everybody wants to say, “we conducted the war”.  I don’t know what they have been talking, what they have been doing.  If they were discussing things without my knowledge without my presence, I don’t know.  They are themselves saying they planned certain things, they worked out certain strategies, they have to answer for that then.  They must say what they exactly did.

[But you were in overall charge?]  Yeah, definitely.

[Sarath Fonseka, thank you very much for speaking to us.]  Thank you very much.  You take my message to the international community also.  We want them to be with us, to build the country, and clear the name of the image of this country.  And we need their assistance.  And we are ready to cooperate and work with the rest of the world any time.  Thank you.

Watch excerpts of the interview on the BBC website. A podcast of the interview, sent to us by the BBC, can be accessed below.

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I watched the Frontline Club panel on Sri Lanka, belatedly and reluctantly. I am skeptical about such public enquiries and debates into complex matters, which threaten to reduce the dialogue and truth into performance.

In my view, the problem with these ‘events’, for that is what they are, is that the truth is reduced to a many-sided thing; the more one counts the sides the more fragmented the truth itself becomes. But of course you never get ‘all sides’ of the story. So, for example, someone keeping a count of the sides could say the Muslim question or the gender dimension figured not at all.

In fact, Stephen Sackur set the tone for an evening of performance with his opening line: “First thing to say is that it is fantastic to see such a great audience.” The panelists inevitably came with their own scripts—prepared remarks, notes, papers (Mr. Wijesinha had loads of them), computers etc. Then there were the self-appointed (or chosen?) cheerleaders—prompting, laughing, clapping and some even heckling on cue. If at all anyone listened it seemed like it was only to rebut. Thus did the evening proceed to rehearse well-trodden narratives and imaginaries of dominance, violence and marginality in Sri Lanka. And I have no doubt that the panelists and their supporters will have also enaged in post-event reviews; “how did it go?”

I am not suggesting that the issues raised and discussed were not important, on the contrary. It just seemed like a classic case of the very gravity of the issues dwarfing the forum itself. I am certainly not saying that everyone who participated lacked seriousness or genuine intent, which may nevertheless be true of some, but I fear that in forums such as this, in which, at the very least, no one wants his or her position to come out looking ‘lesser’, ‘weaker’, or a ‘loser’ the truth is often the casualty. It is a battle, not always subtle, between well-held positions. It is not a conversation.

The fact is, like in adversarial adjudication, theatricality is a norm in such forums. Or at least, a la Derrida, it is inevitable that the performative elements of dialogue and truth are the ones that tend to get most play. The most theatrical moments of the evening were inevitably around the most sinister—such as the number of people dead or missing in the final months of the war. Numbers and counter-numbers were tossed around until the moderator, inevitably, said it was time to move on, “we have done the numbers.”

If, however, there was one moment when the mask dropped, it was in Mr. Wijesinha’s response to Dr. Manoharan, the father of one of the five students executed on a beach in Trincomalee 6 years ago, widely believed to be the handiwork of Sri Lankan security/law enforcement agents. The first part of this exchange is, sadly, worth recalling. Dr. Manoharan asked why no progress had been made in the case, including despite Dr. Wijesinha’s personal assurances. Mr. Wijesinha, began sagely enough, acknowledging that there was a strong case. He then said that he was present when the President had asked the Attorney General to issue indictments, who had said (to Mr. Wijesinha) that he did not do so because he felt there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction. Mr. Wijesinha went to say, “I said [to the Attorney General], for God’s sake take a leaf out of the British. What they do is prosecute ten people, acquit nine, one person gets two months in jail and then they will say justice.” Stephen Sackur—a seasoned Hard Talk moderator—could scarcely restrain himself and remarked, “I can’t believe that you told that to the Doctor [Dr. Manoharan] thinking it would reassure him.”

Mr. Wijesinha no doubt realised, from Sackur’s spontaneous response and the murmur of disbelief in the room, that it was actually looking more like a case of hit-wicket and tried again, this time making sure to mouth the ‘right’ words, restoring theatre. However, that was perhaps the one time he was being utterly unpremeditated.

Actually, Mr. Wijesinha’s performance of the evening in general merits particular comment because it embodies the theatre that is the Rajapakse regime itself—wearing a devil-may-care cockiness and triumphal face one instant followed by an innocent, we-are-oh-so-victimised cry the next; seeming polite and reasonable one instant but menacing and name-calling the next; full of confidence and bluster one moment but petulant and childish the next. Yes, this too is a familiar sort of theatre, one induced by a deep sub-conscious fear, of knowing that you simply cannot fool everyone forever.

###

Editors note: As we were watching the live web stream of the Frontline event, a few moments after Rajiva Wijesinha’s incredible response to Dr. Manoharan, we tweeted:

tweeted:

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“There is no State of Emergency today.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“Therefore, the attempt of the Sri Lankan government to replace emergency laws with another set of laws under a different name, yet meant to do the same task is not surprising. State of emergency is not only a particular set of laws. Removing emergency regulations while continuing with militarisation and a massive project of policing in socio-cultural arenas do not indicate a journey towards normalcy.” – Amali Wedagedara, Groundviews, 5 September 2011

“It is no secret that through 30 years there were armed groups and militias operating, especially in the North and East. All such groups have now been disarmed.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“March 3, 2012 marked a very dark ebb in our society as it saw the horrific rape and murder of little Jesudasan Lakshini (13), allegedly at the hands of former EPDP cadre, Kanthasami Jegatheswaran (alias Kiruba) (31), from the Delft Island, Jaffna. Currently being held in remand at the Jaffna Remand Prison, the accused was produced before the Kayts Magistrate this week (30). However, the hearing was further postponed to April 9, 2012, as the Delft Police had failed to conclude their compilation of eye witness statements, said attorney-at-law K.S. Ratnavel, who is appearing on behalf of the victim’s family. The pending statement is the last of four eye witness statements attesting to having witnessed Lakshini being intercepted and taken by the accused on her way to the market, he added. This raises the glaring question as to why the Police was unable to obtain a mere four eye witness statements in the course of almost a month following this incident, unless of course exterior political forces are in play.” – Marissa de Silva, Groundviews, 2 April 2012

“We have systematically removed from our vocabulary the references of refugee camps, land mines and villages under threat. ” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“Back at the destroyed camp, we learned that earlier the same morning, the industries and commerce minister, Rishad Bathiudeen, had also paid a visit to the site. Upon his arrival, bombarded by residents’ desperate pleas to finally be allowed to return to their homes, he responded that he had only come to see what could be done to help them after the storm and ordered, “don’t try and turn this into a political issue”. Unfortunately, what Mr. Bathiudeen does not seem to know or acknowledge is that the reason for not allowing these people to return to their villages for almost three years is a political decision.” – Watchdog, Groundviews, 7 April 2012

“There were limits imposed on fishermen under which they could not go beyond a certain distance. These restrictions are also no more.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“Many problems regarding the fishing industry in the North in many ways related to the militarization that was strengthened during the last phase of the war but not completely relaxed even after the end of the war. For instance, some coastal areas, which are very significant to fishing, still remains as High Security Zones (HSZ); and therefore fishermen are banned from engaging in their livelihood activities in those areas; in many areas, fishermen were allowed to go to sea only within a permitted corridor, and even for that they had to get passes from military forces.” – Sumith Chaaminda, Groundviews, 31 March 2012

“The check points and road blocks that we had through every two or three kilometers, and even on this Galle Road, are not there anymore… We are aware that the armed forces do not participate in the administration of the North or East. These regions are administered by the public service and the police. ” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“The reality that most, if not all the soldiers manning the Omanthai Checkpoint are not proficient in Tamil, is also quite telling in terms of the complete non-recognition of, and lack of respect for the Tamil community. More often than not, Tamil passengers unfamiliar with the routine have to rely on the Tamil translation of a more seasoned traveller. This indignity is further heightened when each of these passengers are made to have their personal belongings rifled through, until such time that the army personnel is adequately satisfied of the innocence of the specific passenger in question.” – Marisa de Silva, Groundviews, 16 April 2012

and

“The ubiquitous presence of armed security forces, weapons drawn, fingers on the trigger was fearsome. Every 100 metres on the Jaffna highway there was a security picket; every three kilometres, an army post; every 10 km, an army camp. The army was everywhere, running roadside shops, hotels and hospitality businesses. Even funerals or marriages or social functions in Tamil areas needed army permission in advance.” – The Hindu, 21 March 2012

“You will recall how terrorism compelled us all to live in the midst of much restrictions and obstructions, through 30 years. It is just three years since the war ended. Today, the country that faced such restrictions has returned to normal.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

“Especially for those living in the North, normalcy is far from reality. Only a part of these are the deciduous problems encountered, unfortunately but unavoidably, by people living in former conflict zones in the aftermath of war. It is now disconcertingly apparent that the militarisation of all spheres of life in the North is becoming increasingly institutionalised, and moreover, that this is the deliberate policy of the government. The regime is able to implement its policy with regard to the North, and more generally the continuation in force of disproportionate and repressive wartime national security measures, with virtually no meaningful democratic opposition.” – Asanga Welikala, Groundviews, 29 April 2011

“We are a country that is a member of the United Nations, working with friendship with all countries and sit with equality with all its members.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

On 30 June [2010], senior Government Minister Wimal Weerawansa urged the public to surround the UN office in Colombo and hold its staff hostage until moves by the UN to appoint a panel on Sri Lanka is dropped, putting the UN in Sri Lanka on high alert. On the same day, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said that when the UN contacted the Sri Lankan government over this statement, the government assured they were Minister Weerawansa’s “individual opinion”. On 2 July, it was reported that the government may tender an apology to the UN over the Minister’s comments. Any communication to this effect by the government to the UN is, to date, not in the public domain. On 4 July, Minister Weerawansa said he stood by his comment, and clarified that he made it as the National Freedom Front (NFF) leader and not in his capacity as a Government member. He also reiterated his call for the public to surround the building and protest against the UN panel. On the morning of 6 July, the NFF surrounded the UN compound in Colombo… Related to this, the Lanka Truth website runs a story on an alleged phone call with the President’s brother, the churlish Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in which he directly orders the Police to withdraw from the vicinity of the UN compound. – Groundviews, 8 July 2010

“We are already carrying out what we can agree to and can implement among the recommendations of the LLRC.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

The official media page of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) tells its own story. It’s blank. There’s literally nothing on the official website of the LLRC that provides information on public statements by the LLRC and coverage of its proceedings in the media. Furthermore, it’s impossible to find the interim recommendations or the final report of the LLRC on the official website… What remains of the LLRC’s proceedings and output – its interim report and recommendations, the accessibility and translations of its Final Report, most of the public submissions in Tamil, Sinhala and English, audio recordings and detailed records of media reports – are all, without exception, carefully curated and published online for public access by the very NGOs and platforms, including this site, that have been openly and repeatedly vilified by those in and partial to government. And all the government itself has managed to do was to establish a website for the LLRC – that too rather late into the LLRC’s activities and bereft of vital records. – Groundviews, 20 March 2012

“National political parties are today able to work and function freely in the North in absence of fear.” – President Rajapaksa’s Address to the Nation, 19 May 2012

vs.

The bizarre responses to what was a brutal attack, post-war, in broad daylight, against unarmed Parliamentarians engaging in nothing more subversive than the democratic process and it’s subsequent denial by the President himself – essentially shutting the door on any investigation or punitive measures – reflects a desire by government to, unilaterally and violently if necessary, define Tamil politics and moreover, throttle the growth of a more plural Tamil polity and society. These attacks are justified by senior government ministers, who believe that “the UPFA and other political parties represented more Tamils than the TNA”, which means that more can be expected in the future. The resulting humiliation of the TNA MPs is keenly felt and watched by a larger Tamil community, domestic as well as international. – Groundviews, The attack on TNA Parliamentarians in Jaffna: A timeline of outrageous denials (Updated), 5 July 2011

“Sri Lanka would soon pull out its remaining troops from areas still under military control in the Tamil-dominated northern province that was once an LTTE bastion, a prominent Tamil minister has said. ‘We have successfully taken the military presence off in most of the areas in the Northern Province. Only two in tenth of the areas are still under military control. We will soon make this area free of military presence. I need a month’s time from you to work on this,” Minister Douglas Devananda said while addressing people at Mathagal.” – Press Trust of India, 10 February 2012

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“Sri Lanka’s president has rejected a call by Indian legislators to withdraw soldiers from the island’s former war zone in the north where minority Tamils are concentrated, his spokesman… President Mahinda Rajapakse told a delegation of visiting Indian lawmakers that troops could not be pulled out despite the end of the decades-long Tamil separatist war in 2009.” – AFP, 22 April 2012

and

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa speaking at the Victory Day celebrations today said that it was not advisable to remove or reduce military camps in the North as the Tamil diasporas had not given up its attempts to win Eelam.” – Ceylon Today, 19 May 2012

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Photo courtesy Vikalpa

For the 3^rd successive year, the Sri Lankan government has made elaborate arrangements to celebrate the end of the war in Colombo. This year, May was declared as “war hero’s commemoration month”. For the last few days, roads were closed in Colombo causing great inconvenience, as preparations were being made for celebrating the end of the war.

However, in the North, among Tamils, where the last phase of the war was fought, the mood was far from celebratory, but outright mourning and grieving. In the morning of 18^th May, I joined a commemorative Mass in a church that was yet to be rebuilt after the war. More than the church building, two monuments stood out. One for Fr. Sarathjeevan (popularly known as Fr. Sara, who died on 18^th May 2009) and another for all people who had been killed in the war. Villagers including school children and Hindus flocked to this church. Amongst those present were families of those killed and disappeared. About 20 priests participated. After the Mass,  flowers and garlands were laid for those killed. A Tamil priest from Jaffna welcomed the small group of Sinhalese from Negombo, Colombo, Anuradhapura etc., who had joined the mourning and the simple commemoration, while most other Sinhalese were seen celebrating.

In the afternoon of 18^th May, I witnessed the passion of women whose family members had disappeared and been killed, as they gathered at a Hindu Kovil in Killinochchi town and participated in a service there, which included the smashing of coconuts. Some of the women were crying and some were clearly angry with those that had killed or made their family members disappear. I would not want to be at the receiving end of such anger.

In the evening, I joined other friends in a solemn event in Jaffna to commemorate the 3^rd year after the end of the war after by remembering those killed and disappeared. All of us lit candles and some shared their tragic stories of those killed and disappeared. Several mourned also for the lack of space to even cry and remember without fear, with one boy thanking the organizers of the event, as several others he had spoken to organize such an event had refused in fear.   Another woman, whose brother had died on 18^thMay 2009, spoke of the tension with which they participate in these events, as they are fearful to hold them in public.

One of the organizers of the Jaffna event spoke of the challenge he faces every year in May to organize a commemoration. His fears were clearly grounded and real.

On 17^th May evening, some unknown persons had inquired about him and his activities. The priest in whose church the commemorative event was held on the morning of 18^th May in Vanni was also questioned by the Army the previous day about what services and activities were planned. On 18^th May morning, the Secretary of the Jaffna University Students Union was attacked and was seriously injured. A friend told us that he was in the accident ward of the Jaffna hospital while we were there.

In another interior rural village close to Jaffna, Army personnel had twice visited a Catholic Priest and threatened him not to have any special masses between 18^th – 20^th May. In their 2^nd visit, they had told the Priest he can have mass, but that he shouldn’t pray for those killed in the last phase of the war, as all those killed had been LTTE cadres. There had been no answer when the Priest asked whether the 1-2 year old children killed and elders over 60 years who had been killed were also LTTE cadres.  Some months ago, threats by the Army had compelled the same priest to scrap the plan to build a tomb to remember all those killed in the war and didn’t have a tomb or a burial place. On 27^th November 2011, the Army had insisted that lamps  not be lit  and bells should not be rung in Churches and Kovils in the North and in some places, and had even threatened Catholic Priests not to celebrate the Sunday Mass! (Perhaps ignorant that Sunday Mass is celebrated in churches all over Sri Lanka and over the world for hundreds of years). Outside the Killinochchi Hindu Kovil that the families of disappeared and killed had gathered, there was a significant Police and Army presence and one of my friends recognized an intelligence officer who was photographing us and watched us as we got into our van after joining the Kovil event. By coincidence or not, in the next few minutes, our vehicle was stopped at a check point and subjected to registration and questioning which was not at all usual in my previous travels in the North this year.

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (LLRC) had recommended that a special event on National Day (4^th February) be set apart to express solidarity and empathy with all victims of the tragic conflict, but this was ignored by the Government.

And the military appeared to be doing its best to discourage and stop any religious or non religious events related to remembering the dead and disappeared, to grieve and mourn. The intimidation and threatening of organizers of such initiatives are alarming.

I’m happy the war had ended. But I’m not at all happy about the way it was fought, especially the last phase. And celebrating while many others are mourning and grieving – and actively trying to prevent mourning and grieving – doesn’t seem to be the way towards a genuine reconciliation.

But I did have something to celebrate also – the courage, creativity and perseverance of those who dared to build small monuments, organize and participate in memorials events to grieve and mourn for those killed, disappeared and who have suffered. It is this courage  and creativity i believe that will lead us to reconciliation.

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[Editors note: Sanjay Senanayake in a comment below raises a number of concerns regarding inflammatory statements made by Rev. Dambara Amila Thero in the past, which invariably inform the appreciation of the interview below. Sanjay also alleges that the thero had in the past assaulted journalists from Young Asia Television, which produced this video. We have asked them for a response.]

When first put online by Young Asia Television after it was broadcast on Sri Lankan TV, Groundviews requested the producers to sub-title this video in English to make more widely accessible what Rev. Dambara Amila Thero has to say about the practice of the Dhamma in Sri Lanka today, his views on political Buddhism and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka.

What he says is particularly important and resonant in light of the outrageous violence spearheaded by the Chief Prelate of the Dambulla temple a few weeks ago.

This interview is essential viewing for those who expressed their condemnation over the violence in Dambulla, and refreshing take on the Dhamma over what is today the popular fashion of publicly worshipping the Buddha to bestow blessings on even the most heinous of deeds and men. At around 18 minutes into the interview, Rev. Dambara Amila Thero also supports religious co-existence and comes out strongly against religious extremism – noting that anyone who is such, is not really a Buddhist.

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• The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
• The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• Photo essay: Freedom, Religion, and Dambulla

In many post-conflict contexts the idea of reconciliation dominates public discussion. This is no different in Sri Lanka. But what exactly is meant by reconciliation? As Susan Dwyer (1999) points out there has been a “global frenzy” on this topic in the post-Apartheid era with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission often held up as an exemplary model. Much of this discussion, though, lacks analytical clarity. This is a brief attempt to explore one challenge posed to the notion of reconciliation in Sri Lanka: where or how can an inclusive Sri Lankan imaginary be located? I approach this issue through the area of my disciplinary training, literature, and attempt to reflect on how literary representations in general have struggled to articulate an inclusive conception of Sri Lankaness. A pervasive historical consciousness and the dominance of realism as a genre of writing, I argue, emerge as two inter-related phenomenon that are intimately connected to this problem.

To some commentators the post-2009 era presents an opportunity to break with the past. This appears to be largely the official government desire as well. In his address to the nation, following the defeat of the LTTE, the Executive President of country made the provocative and controversial statement that minorities no longer exist in Sri Lanka. Yet post-war events in the country clearly suggest otherwise. The majoritarian imagination of the Sinhala polity along with the Tamil minority’s self-perception as a historically wronged community and Tamil nationalism’s lingering desire for separation as evidenced by the activities of some sections of the Tamil diaspora and local Tamil politicians are all part of Sri Lanka’s post-war reality. There are signs of further ethno-religious schisms as evidenced by the recent Dambulla mosque incident.

While reconciliation might be seen as a future process that builds trust and tolerance between divided communities, the term also carries strong implications of a return or restoration. However, Sri Lanka’s past, both pre- and post-independence, provides little evidence of an inclusive conception of nationhood. Other than the elite English-speaking Ceylonese identity that flourished briefly in the early twentieth century, and found political expression in the Ceylon National Congress, Sri Lankan political culture and more importantly its national cultural imaginary has always been marked by, for want of a better word, a communal and religious dynamic.

This is not to homogenize Sri Lankan history and suggest that ethno-religious divisiveness has been the norm. Indeed, it is possible to argue that as recently as pre-1956 there were better relations between communities and ethno-nationalist consciousness was not a dominant concern. For instance, in the contest for the ‘educated-Ceylonese’ seat in the 1911 Legislative Council elections the goigama Sinhalese backed a Tamil vellala caste candidate over a karava Sinhala candidate—caste concerns superseded ethnic/racial considerations. Nonetheless a space where Sri Lankaness could be evoked and experienced, as in ecumenical Gandhian nationalism in India, has been largely absent in Sri Lanka. The ‘imagined community’ of Sri Lanka, to invoke Benedict Anderson (1983), has never been fully realized.

Literature and the attempt to imagine an inclusive nation

Literary writing is often a space where the idealistic and imaginative is explored. In a number of post-1983 English language novels, writers have tried to counter contemporary ethno-nationalist polarization in the island by attempting to imagine moments of connection and collective identity. I chose here two novels: Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s iconic When Memory Dies (1997) and Yasmine Gooneratne’s The Sweet and Simple Kind (2006). Broadly similar in structure both novels look at the past and the familial domain to imagine spaces of inclusivity. Yet both texts also represent a failure of the imagination because they replicate the trajectory of the familiar narrative of Sri Lanka’s inexorable slide into ethno-nationalist conflict—the imaginative here is subsumed by the historical and the ‘real’.[1]

In When Memory Dies, a text that is unique and exemplary in the way it attempts to imagine an inclusive Sri Lankan identity, Sivanandan creatively exploits the early labor movement in colonial Ceylon to suggest a subaltern multi-cultural anti-colonial movement. The text also features a number of instances where individuals transcend ethno-religious boundaries. The young Vijay born to Sinhala parents but socialized in both Tamil and Sinhala cultures, because his Sinhala father dies before his birth and his mother subsequently marries a Tamil man, is the most iconic example of the text’s attempt to question the naturalization of ethnic identity. But like his parents inter-ethnic marriage, Vijay’s life ends in tragedy. While his mother Lali is killed by a Sinhala mob during the 1958 anti-Tamil riots Vijay who tries to act as an emissary of reconciliation between the South and North at the end of the book is executed by his own Tamil cousin, a rising figure in the northern Tamil militant movement.

Unlike When Memory Dies the Sweet and Simple Kind looks at the issue of a collective Sri Lankan identity from an elite English-speaking perspective. Gooneratne’s text suggests that it was the historic responsibility of the English-speaking elite to disseminate liberal values to society at large. Centering on the powerful Wijesinghes and their manorial residence Lucas Falls—easily identifiable as a pastiche of the Bandaranaike and Ratwatte families—the story is one of how the once liberal and British educated Wijesinghe patriarch and most of his clan succumb to expedient ethno-nationalist politics in search of political power. While the text’s historical vision and understanding of Sri Lankan history is far more limited than When Memory Dies, the narrative trajectory is similar—from the promise of an inclusive and tolerant society to one riven by ethno-nationalist divisions.

Both texts try to imagine alternatives to Sri Lanka’s current predicament by looking at the past, but the imagination falters when confronted by the ‘reality’ of the island’s present. I would argue that this is at least in part due to the realist genre. Realism is largely compelled to remain faithful to the historical record and reproduce things as they are. While a certain degree of creative license may be available the imagination can be stifled by the realist form. Its greatest strength is the very ability to generate what Rolan Barthes has called the “illusion of reality” and create believable life-worlds and this is also why the realist novel has played a central social role, especially in imagining the nation. But it is this same compulsion to be ‘real’ that limits and constrains the imagination.

If one were to contrast this with the career of the African novel in English, for instance, an immediate difference is apparent. The writing of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o or Chinual Achebe, for example in its early phase was both realist and nationalist. Both writers saw the novel as a central literary artifact in in the process of decolonization. But as African post-colonial nationalism floundered Ngugi in particular abandoned the realist genre. This is what, American philosopher of Ghanaian origin, Kwame Appiah calls the post-realist and post-nativist turn in African literature.[2] If the earlier realist literary tradition contributed to nativist thinking and the naturalization of ethno-nationalist identities, post-realism helps the imagining of alternatives. But at the same time Ngũgĩ and many other post-realist African novelists are not post-national. While they may reject the conception of nation and nationalism as inherited from the colonial experience they try to imagine it in radically different ways.

Authenticity and the realist novel

Sri Lankan Sinhala writing has also been largely dominated by the realist mode. It may come as no surprise, therefore, that Gunadasa Amarasekara, arguably one of the most important and influential contemporary novelists, is a staunch defender of realism. For Amarasekara realism equates to authenticity. In Abudassa Yugayak, first published in 1976 and later updated in 1996, Amarasekara argues that the decline the Sinhala novel, following the work of Martin Wickremasinghe, is accompanied by social decline—the Sinhala novel he argues has failed in articulating a social vision that will help the Sinhalese rediscover their authenticity and become truly decolonized. Amarasekara repeats this theme across a number of his fictional texts as well as socio-political tracts. Exploiting outdated, but unfortunately widely prevalent positivist views on Sri Lankan history Amarasekara defines this authenticity as a form of transcendent Sinhala consciousness and a righteous form of governance associated with Buddhism which has survived for millennia from pre- to post-colonial times. The work of the novelist, as Amarasekara sees it, is to explore this notion of authenticity and how it can be realized in a modern social context.

Given the close association of the novel with the nation and the nationalist imagination it is unsurprising that a nationalist thinker like Amarasekara feels the need to defend it and uses it as a site to promote nativist thinking. What this evinces though is an inability to think beyond the legacies of certain modes of colonial thinking. Just as the form of the Sri Lankan nation state is the product of colonial-modernity so it seems is the literary imagination that accompanies it. The very ethnic identities that we take for granted today were crystalized in a complex negotiation between local actors and colonial forms of knowledge, institutional practices and practices of political representation. Imagining alternatives means the ability to be able to both critically reflect on these legacies but also to think beyond and outside them. From the perspective of literature perhaps we need a post-realist turn in Sri Lanka.[3]

To return to where I began if reconciliation means some kind of return, Sri Lanka needs to critically engage with the notion how an inclusive Sri Lankan identity can be generated. This necessarily means an encounter with the past—else we may have utopian declarations such as the one that minorities no longer exist. The past might not be the best inspiration for reconciliation in Sri Lanka but it does provide a template for how the nation should not be imagined. While Sinhala nationalism’s primary failure was and continues to be its unaccomodative majoritarianism, Tamil nationalism was equally majoritarian—it imagined and fought for a mono-ethnic Tamil nation. An ethical alternative to such majoritarianism needs to emerge. While critically engaging with the past we cannot be defined by it—only then might we be freed from the ‘tyranny of reality’.

References

• Amarasekara, Gunadasa. 1976 (1996). Abudassa Yugayak [An unreal time]. Boralesgamuwa, Sri Lanka: Visidunu Publishers.
• Anderson Benedict.1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
• Dwyer, Susan. 1999. “Reconciliation for realists”, Ethics & International Affairs 13(1): 81–98, March 1999.
• Gooneratne, Yasmine. 2006. The Sweet and Simple Kind. Colombo: Perera and Hussein Publishing
• Sivanandan, Ambalavaner. 1997. When Memory Dies. London: Arcadia.

• History after the War: Challenges for Post War Reconciliation (Podcast)
• Bigots on a Righteous Mission
• JAYATISSA, JEYARAJ AND JACOBINISM: DEBATING ‘SRI LANKAN-NESS’ IN POST-WAR SRI LANKA
• History after the War: Challenges for Post War Reconciliation
• LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS

Image from WSWS

“Disappearance is far worse than death, because when a person dies, when I know that, so and so is dead, the story ends and somehow or other we close the chapter. But when a person has disappeared, it is an eternal suffering.”

                                                                         (A.Santhipali, before the LLRC at Jaffna on 12^th November 2010)

In the controversial Commission of Inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation, 53 LTTE cadres who surrendered during the final days of the war in May 2009 are alleged to have been disappeared and are reported to be under the category of ‘missing’. What happened to these 53 people? Their relatives and close kith and kin say that they were last seen and heard surrendering to the Sri Lankan Army.

In the LLRC report, many family members of former LTTE cadres have complained that their husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters have disappeared after they surrendered to the Sri Lankan security forces. These family members still await the return of their loved ones, not knowing whether they would ever return. Below is a quotation from the LLRC report where a wife complained to the commission about the disappearance of her husband and presented the tragic story, which she is forced to deal with everyday.

“The wife of another former LTTE cadre appearing before the commission at the District Secretariat in Madu stated that on 16^th May 2009 she and her three children had come to Mullaittivu from Mullaivaikkal. Her husband had not accompanied them but had joined them on 17^th May 2009. On 18^th May 2009, in the morning, he had surrendered to the Army at Mullattivu together with some important LTTE cadres (Elamparthy, Kumaran, Ruben, Babu and Velavan). They had surrendered accompanied by Farther Francis Joseph and had been taken away in a bus. She stated that she had not heard from him since then. The Commission made inquiries regarding Farther Francis Joseph from Farther Muralitharan the Parish Priest and Assistant Administrator of Madhu Church, and he stated that Farther Francis Joseph had been a political teacher of the LTTE and people had told him that Father Francis Joseph had been in the conflict area until the end with the LTTE and was supposed to have surrendered and since then his whereabouts were unknown.”

 (Page: 111 of the LLRC in the Representations to the commission regarding alleged disappearances after surrender/arrest)  

There are 18 such complaints lodged with the LLRC with regard to the 53 disappeared LTTE cadres, who surrendered. Their whereabouts are unknown to this day. Whether they are alive or dead is unknown and presents an extremely tragic and problematic context for their families, who still hope and wait for their return. During a visit this writer paid to Jaffna last January, she was confronted by dramatist in Jaffna who narrated the sad story of many wives whose husbands have disappeared due to the war. The Jaffna dramatist whose name is Dev Annand had done research on the subject and had woven a drama based on real incidents. His words are still alive in my memory.

“In the Tamil culture the wife has to wear red kunkuman (a pottuwa) on her forehead if she is married as a custom. But if the husband is dead, they cannot wear this as a ritual. So in the case of ‘missing’ husbands, women do not know whether to wear the kunkuma or not, and they are eternally getting criticized by the elders of their community for this: because those who believe that their husbands are dead, are telling them not to wear it, while the wife’s heart that still waits for the return of her husband wears the kunkuman as hope.”

When this writer contacted the Military Spokesperson, Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasuriya, and questioned him regarding these 53 LTTE cadres who have disappeared and inquired about what actually happened to them, Wanigasuriya stated that the army has appointed a commission called the Court of Inquiry headed by a Major General and also compromises of senior officers of the army to look into the findings of the LLRC report that are directly related to the army.

“This Court of Inquiry will look into all the findings concerning the military that are in the LLRC report, and under that they will look into this issue as well and investigate into this matter. However we have records of 27 LTTE cadres who deserted while they were hospitalized for various illnesses; and 13 other LTTE cadres who suffered natural deaths. The total of 11,995 people came to be rehabilitated in May 2009. This includes LTTE carders who surrendered during war and LTTE cadres who surrendered while they were in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. From this number, 10,874 LTTE cadres have been rehabilitated and reintegrated to the society. From this lot, 655 cadres are with us at the rehabilitation centres now, and 187 are in custody at the Law Enforcement Authority for investigations due to the fact that there are evidence against them”, Wanigasuriya averred.

However, when pressed to answer about the 53 LTTE cadres that have disappeared, Wanigasuriya said that they could either belong to the 27 deserters or to the 13 LTTE cadres who suffered natural deaths and further added that the Sri Lankan army has given away all the LTTE cadres who were caught and surrendered in May 2009 (except for the 655 who are still at the rehabilitation centres) to the Prisons Department and the Sri Lankan Police Department.

During further investigations, this writer contacted the Prisons Department, Prisons Commissioner, A. Hapuarchi, who revealed that there are 500-600 LTTE cadres in the prisons of Jaffna, Vavuniya, Anuradapura, Magazine, Colombo, Bogambara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Negambo arrested under remand warrants. However, when this writer contacted the Police Spokesman Ajith Rohana regarding this matter he refused to comment saying that it is up to the Ministry of Defence.

Nevertheless, though the authorities keep passing the buck to each other (amidst themselves), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman and Jaffna District parliamentarian, Suresh Premachandran, stated that the Sri Lankan army was not only culpable for these 53 lives, but also for the hundreds of other who have disappeared without a trace in this country.

“The army is answerable for this. And it is not just 53, about 200 LTTE cadres surrendered to the army with Father Francis Joseph on that instance. And since then, up to today, no one knows anything about the whereabouts of those surrenders’.  No one knows what happened to them and whether they are alive or dead still remains a question mark. The families of these people have not heard from them since. So the families have lost all communications with these surrendered LTTE cadres”, Premachandran added.

Speaking further Premachandran also revealed that in Menik Farm (after 2009) the army had taken away hundreds of boys and girls; and since then the relatives of these youths have not heard anything about their whereabouts. “They have gone missing. One of our TNA members has a list of more than 500 missing personalities who have disappeared from the Menik Farm”, Premachandran stated.

The LLRC report earned different kinds of reactions from the public. Ironically, even the people who were in disfavour of this report at first (and criticized the LLRC while declaring that it is partial) are now urging the government to implement the report as the government has accepted it. One such political activist is Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne. When questioned about the 53 individuals who are noted in the LLRC as ‘missing’ while they were in the custody and protection of the army, Karunaratne stated, “This has to be investigated and reported and action should be taken about this by the government.  We heard of many similar situations where LTTE political prisoners have disappeared after they were taken into custody. The government is saying that they are rehabilitating, but they never tell us about where these rehabilitation centres are situated, or how many LTTE cadres are within their custody. And when the TNA MPs tried to visit these rehabilitation camps, the government denied access and did not allow them to visit the rehabilitation camps”.

Speaking further Karunaratne added that the process of rehabilitation is not indicated by the security forces or the government and further revealed that people have disappeared during the process of rehabilitation itself in Sri Lanka.

“We have received many reports from ex-LTTE cadres declaring that many carders disappeared during the process of rehabilitation and did not come out with them (once they were released)”, Karunaratne stated.

How does civil society respond to the disappearance of these 53 LTTE cadres? This writer spoke to a human rights activist who was closely monitoring violations of human rights in Sri Lanka during the time of the war. The activist spoke to this writer under terms of anonymity, and when questioned about these disappeared LTTE cadres and asked about what could have exactly happened to them, the activist revealed that they could either be killed, held in detention centres, or used as informants.

“Whether they are killed, held in detention centres or used as informants: either way it is illegal and wrong. Their family members should be allowed to see them. If they have done something wrong, then they should be legally charged,” he said.

Speaking further about the disappearance of the 53 individuals, this human rights activist stated, “Thousands of people have seen these people surrendering to the army with Father Francis Joseph. And therefore the army cannot deny it. Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission should question the Brigade Commander in Wattvakal in Mullaitivu as it is during his presence that most of these disappearances took place, and the documents about these arrests and surrenders that are with the military should be taken into careful consideration by the Human Rights Commission. According to the 3596 who have complained, 1018 people have surrendered and disappeared. This shows that the government is not willing to peruse the matter. How can there be any reconciliation without getting to know what has actually happened to these people? There is no point in building roads and monuments without actually finding out what happened to these thousands of people who have disappeared”.

It is not clear how many LTTE cadres who surrendered have disappeared today. The LLRC report says that it is only 53, but in reality whether it is more or less than this figure, the fact remains that many people disappeared during the time of the war. And they still keep disappearing. And every time someone disappears, somewhere, in some corner of this country, someone cries and waits for the return of that person who forgot to bid goodbye.

• Students Missing In Jaffna
• Fr. Jim Brown and Mr. Vimalathas: Five years after disappearance, where are they and what has happened to the investigation?
• Translation of Tamil newspaper reports on the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission hearings held in Killinochchi and Mullaitivu
• THE LLRC AND COMPLAINTS OF DISAPPEARANCES OF PERSONS
• Closer Look At Operation To Capture Thoppigala

After the email update reproduced below was sent on 2nd May, less than a week after the Not In Our Name initiative was launched, Deshabandhu Jezima Ismail, senior lawyer and HR activist JC Weliamuna, two-time Secretary to Presidential Commissions of Inquiry into Disappearances MCM Iqbal, well-known economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Prof. Michael Roberts and Ranjini Obeyesekere, both leading academics, Tamil activist, poet and academic Cheran, Channa Daswatta, one of Sri Lanka’s best known architects and Harsha de Silva, Member of Parliament, along with dozens of others, have signed up to the initiative.

“I put my name here just to give evidence to my children that at some point in the future, if they happen to suffer from communal violence as a result of what happens under president Rajapakse Government, their father did his bit to condemn his silence.” – Thrishantha Nanayakkara

“The conduct of some of the Buddhist monks at Dambulla was disgraceful. It was an insult to the Buddha.” – Mangala Moonesinghe

“Sri Lankan; not Parsi, not Burgher, not Eurasian, not Sinhalese, all to which I have claim. Not in our name.” - Hans Billimoria

“All Buddhists, especially the prominent members of the Buddhist clergy, should hang their heads in shame at this racist, mediaeval and un-Buddhist act. The government should institute legal proceedings for treasonous public statements undermining the authority of the duly elected President of the country.” – Prof. H.L. Seneviratne

“Certainly not in my name. The Dambulla violence and intolerance can provoke another cycle of mindless chauvinism unless the silent majority voice their unanimous condemnation compelling the Government to act decisively and speedily. The true Sri Lankan patriot, anchored in a rich past of tolerance and co-existence, is a not a racist or religious bigot.” – Jayantha Dhanapala

“This attack and the clumsy, unacceptable handling of it by the authorities has quite certainly not been done in my name.” – Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga

These are excerpts from longer comments in response to the online campaign Not In My Name. In just under a week after it was launched and at the time of sending this email, around 940 have signed up to the campaign. It has been shared over 1,000 times on Facebook alone. The campaign, and why it was established, has been featured on TV in Sri Lanka.

Hundreds have tweeted about it, some have written their own blog posts encouraging more to sign up and many more have emailed all their email contacts the campaign and shared it with professional colleagues on networks like LinkedIn. Those who have signed up to date include,

• Deshamanya Bradman Weerakoon, one of Sri Lanka’s most senior and respected civil servants
• Popular TV personalities, actors and singers: Ranjan Ramanayake, Narada Bakmeewewa, Kasun Kalhara
• Popular theatre personalities and directors: Steve de la Zilwa, Tracy Holsinger, Ruwanthie de Chickera, Nadie Kammallaweera, Shanuki de Alwis
• Gratiaen Prize winners Shehan Karunatilaka and Senaka Abeyratne
• Leading authors: V.V. Ganeshananthan, Shyam Selvadurai, David Blacker, Pradeep Jeganathan
• Former Sri Lankan of the Year Chandra Jayaratne
• Leading journalists, Editors, media personalities and media owners: Hana Ibrahim, Dilrukshi Handunetti, Dharisha Bastian, Easwaran Rutnam, Anoma Rajakaruna, Savithri Rodrio, Lal Wickrematunge, Hilmy Ahamed, Sharmini Boyle
• Human rights activists: Kumudini Samuel, Ruki Fernando, Dayapala Thiranagama, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
• Gifted cartoonists like Gihan de Chickera
• Well-known photographers like Deshan Tennekoon and Asanka Brendon Ratnayake
• Prominent artists like Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Nelun Harasgama and Jagath Weerasinghe
• Former Secretary General of the JVP, Lionel Bopage
• Prominent bloggers like Jehan Mendis and Subha Wijesiriwardena

From a 73 year old grandmother to leading academics, from atheists to Hindus, Saivites and Christians, from Burghers and Sinhalese to Tamils and Muslims (and fascinating combinations of these beliefs and groups), the sheer diversity of those who have signed up to Not In Our Name unequivocally condemning the violence in Dambulla is incredible to read, both for what has been written and by whom.

As noted on the blog, after a month, the names and comments of those who signed up will be printed out and sent to the Presidential Secretariat, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Religious Affairs & Moral Upliftment, along with the Department of Buddhist Affairs, Department of Christian Religious Affairs, Department of Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs and the Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs.

Already, this campaign is a unique collection of comments opposed to violence and extremism. Please read them, and consider adding your own name today.

Young Asia Television asked the following questions about the Not In our Name initiative for their weekly Connections TV digest, broadcast over public TV this week.

1. Not in Our Name: Is it focusing just only on the incident in Dambulla or is it looking broadly at religious extremism in Sri Lanka ?
2. Judging from the responses so far , what do you feel is the general pulse on the role of the State in addressing religious extremism in Sri Lanka ?
3. How will such incidents impact on communal relations and attempts at bringing about ‘National Reconciliation’?
4. In the end what purpose will this initiative serve?

• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
• Not In Our Name: Against religious extremism in Sri Lanka
• The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
• Bigoted monks and militant mobs: Is this Buddhism in Sri Lanka today?
• “There is a right way and a wrong way to use violence”: Interview with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

A lion carries a dead wild boar in his mouth. He is walking through the grasslands, victorious after the hunt. On the dead boar is a crudely imprinted crescent moon and star.  This is an image found in a Sinhala Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/මාගේ-හෘද-සාක්ෂිය/351343628228268) that among other things compares Sri Lankan Muslims to wild boar, puppies (the Sinhala wording is cruder) and crows. The Facebook page has more than 5,000 likes and increases daily. It is only one of many that stalks cyberspace. This is Sri Lanka in 2012!

We are recovering from 26 years of war but it seems like some of the citizens of this country want to be at perpetual war. The latest fracas is the ‘Dambulla incident’  where a mob led by Buddhist monks of the area are agitating for what they call an illegal structure masquerading as a mosque to be torn down as it contaminates the sacred Buddhist area of the Dambulla temple. It is news to me that other places of religious worship can be considered as less sacred or contamination to a sacred area. But such is their complaint. Soon after this incident was made public, I had a conversation on the topic with a good and close friend of mine who is Buddhist. She is a decent woman, a devout woman. She is charitable and generous and kind but, and here is the surprise: she sees nothing wrong with the incidents of violence involving Buddhist monks. Regrettably she is not alone. Much as we would like to think that those who perpetrate Buddhist chauvinism are in the minority, it is not so. Increasingly, I see Buddhists who believe and engage in violence and un-Buddhistic behavior, trumpeting their achievement as champions of Buddhism.

Let us start with our constitution. I have often wondered how a country can claim to be Buddhist. In my mind it is technically impossible to apply Buddhist values  and survive as a nation in the world as it is. It would be an ideal world indeed to look forward to the time when all countries will be able to say they implement the values of Buddhism and the world will be a much better place for it. But for now, in todays time and place a country may need an army, may  need to engage in battle if  required to do so – both instances that we have experienced. But isn’t that against true Buddhist principles? Then I have wondered how Buddhist monks  who have been charged with drug possession, sexual misconduct, rape, treasure hunting, temple pillaging, murder, violence… the list of offences goes on and on which in itself is astounding,  continue to wear the robes, manage temples and call themselves Buddhist monks. Is there no authority that can expel disgraceful Buddhist monks? In addition, I am astonished that citizens who call themselves Buddhist, who are devout, pray, meditate and do pooja, attend sil, listen to bana and pirith, continue to condone  violence in the name of Buddhism by agreement or staying silent. I just don’t understand.

In my mind, Buddhism is one of the supreme non-violent movements of the world. The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path (right vision, right emotion, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right meditation) the Five Precepts (do not kill, do not steal, do not engage in false speech, do not engage in sexual misconduct, do not take intoxicants) and the Threefold Way (ethics, meditation, wisdom) are meant to be applied in daily life. How is this in any way possible or compatible with the violence and injustice committed in the name of Buddhism? Bernard Faure, Professor of Religious Studies of the University of Stanford, has this to say:

Which brings me to the question: What are the Chief Prelates of all the Nikayas doing? What is the state doing? If silence is acquiescence, then it appears that the powers that be – both religious and state, endorse the violence, the persecuting of minority communities and sending them the clear message of being second class citizens.

But let us go back to Dambulla. In  disputed cases there are legal avenues to pursue  to rectify the situation. If the mosque is illegal and needs to be demolished, there is a legal mechanism in place that will achieve it. Why the need for violence? For the destruction? For the barbaric and shocking behavior of both monks and men?

War is not unknown in the Buddhist world. In history, there has been what is termed  ‘Buddhist wars’ especially in China, Tibet and Japan. Most of them were begun as a cleansing process to rid threats to its very existence and fought in the name of liberation. Yet, of all the great religions and ideologies Buddhism remains the most pacific – a trait that is increasingly rare in the violent world of today. There are a number of verses from the Buddha’s sermons that support this:

In times of war
give rise in yourself to the mind of compassion,
Helping living beings,
abandon the will to fight. Kutadanta Sutta, (Digha Nikaya V)

Another is:

Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching. Kamcupamasutta, Majjhima-Nikkaya 1 – 28-29

I am not a Buddhist, but I appreciate the Buddhist ethos. And I wonder: if the behavior of violent Buddhism is puzzling to me, why isn’t it to you? One of the advantages Sri Lanka has is its multi-religious, multi-ethnic population. It is proof that for thousands of years the people of this country, whatever their religion and beliefs, have been open and welcoming , even embracing different cultures and people. It has made our country vibrant, rich in traditions and a truly wonderful place to live in. So we should be concerned when some elements in our modern history want to change that feature. In fact I have noticed intolerance apparent in all our communities not only the Sinhala Buddhist community. Perhaps it is a reflection of the times we live in but this is something we need to avoid. And if it happens we have to speak out.

I leave you with a favourite modern story that to me  embodies the quintessence of Buddhism:

A Vietnam veteran was baffled by Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh’s unswerving dedication to non-violence. The veteran in an attempt to question the monk, asked him if someone wiped out all the Buddhists in the world and if the monk was the last one left would he not try to kill the person who was trying to kill him and in doing so save Buddhism. Thicht Nhat Hanh answered: It would be better to let him kill me. If there is any truth to Buddhism and the Dharma it will not disappear from the face of the earth, but will reappear when seekers of truth are ready to rediscover it. In killing I would be betraying and abandoning the very teachings I would be seeking to preserve. So it would be better to let him kill me and remain true to the spirit of the Dharma.

• The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• Not In Our Name: Against religious extremism in Sri Lanka
• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
• Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka: A Response to Bhikkhu K. Tanchangya
• Monks of War – Al-Jazeera on the JHU

When going through the album, make sure to read the captions.

• Groundviews on Twitter and Facebook
• Launch of Groundviews Facebook Fan Page
• Fake video and lies: The strange case of Dambulla’s Inamaluwe Sumangala thero
• Like Slaves In Jaffna
• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)

Photo courtesy Vikalpa

The outcome in Geneva last year (March 2011) of the voting on Sri Lanka’s conduct of the war and related human rights record was very clearly in favour of the Sri Lankan government. The line up in the voting and the scale of the majority were such that is appeared that this year too the outcome would be similar, despite some recent wavering by India. But the conduct of the Sri Lankan government in the mean time was so counter- productive that it precipitated the debacle of March 2012. We should have anticipated the disaster but it seems to have taken the Sri Lankan government by surprise.

If the Sri Lankan government had learnt at least the main lessons that it had opportunities to learn in recent years, the voting would have been very different – perhaps even more favourable to the Sri Lankan government than last year. Apart from mindlessly deflecting votes that could have come our way, we alienated many countries and many institutions. Our people will pay the economic price for such aimlessly alienation in the years to come.  Even after the event the Sri Lankan government went on proclaiming the vote as a defeat for Sri Lanka, rubbing salt on its own wounds, and needlessly dragging down the population who were never consulted on this issue.

No two situations are identical but we can learn much from the success or failure of other governments and leaders in crisis situations elsewhere. For example, the impending passage of the historic Voting Rights Bill of 1965 in the USA was in serious crisis but President Johnson and Martin Luther King jointly overcame that crisis. I recommend to those interested in strategic leadership, Ronald A. Heifetz’s “Leadership without Easy Answers” (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass; London, England, 1994;), especially chapter 6 titled, “On a Razor’s Edge”. In this chapter he particularly deals with Johnson “Leading with Authority” and also with King “Leading without Authority”. In other chapters he deals with other leaders such as Gandhi who very successfully and astutely “Led without Authority”.

The unlikely partners and heroes of the passage of the U.S. Voting Rights Act were Martin Luther King and L. B. Johnson. King was handicapped by at least one serious moral failing. Moreover, Kings support base in the USA were mostly voteless Blacks, numbering about 10 percent of the total population, unlike Gandhi in India and Mandela in South Africa who had the backing of massive majorities in those countries and whose triumphs were inevitable in due course. The outcome of the Voting Rights Act remained very doubtful till King and Johnson made it happen against massive odds. It needs to be noted that Johnson entered the US Congress as a Texas based White racist in 1937. As set out by Heifetz: “For nearly 20 years he had voted against every civil rights bill before Congress – laws to end the poll tax, segregation in the armed services, and lynching”.

Johnson gradually modified his political stands thereafter as the Civil Rights Movement advanced, and he began to entertain ambitions for higher office. In the 1960 Presidential election, John F. Kennedy, reputed to be a Northern liberal, picked Johnson as his running mate to provide political and regional balance to his candidacy. President Kennedy initiated the Civil Rights Act, inclusive of a strong Voting Rights Clause, but his Vice President Johnson was not very enthusiastic. The draft Act got diluted and the Voting Rights Clause dropped altogether before the Act was finalized. In the mean time Kennedy was assassinated in 1964 and Johnson became President. Johnson took a political decision to stick to Kennedy’s policies. Accordingly, he successfully steered through the Civil Rights Act but without the Voting Rights Clause.

The Civil Rights Act helped to desegregate and gave Blacks access to jobs and other forms of economic advance but it was the Voting Rights Clause that was vital for political empowerment. Blacks all over USA, led by King and others, continued to demonstrate and insist on voting rights. The town of Selma was one of many flash points. Selma had more Blacks than Whites but even as late as March 1965, only 3 percent of the registered voters were Black. The rest of the Blacks were excluded in one way or other, e.g. by requiring them to pass literacy tests that virtually no one could pass. Blacks organized protests but Governor Wallace ensured that they remained largely vote less. Demonstrations by Black men, women and children were put down very brutally by the State police. TV crews filmed these scenes which were telecast into homes throughout the USA. Horrified Americans urged Johnson to intervene, but he held back.

There were marches into and sit-ins at the White House by civil rights activists but Johnson continued to hold back. There has been, from the times of the civil war, a long history of opposition to federal intervention into the affairs of the states. Johnson did not want to rouse such feelings prematurely till pressure to intervene became irresistible. He knew that the Voting Rights Act was needed but also that for most liberal Whites, especially in the South, the issue of voting rights for Blacks was of low priority. Privately, Johnson encouraged King to mount protests; both knew that these would provoke violent suppression and even killings, but this was a price that needed to be paid. They were using the media to mould White public opinion to accept Federal intervention and an effective Voting Rights Act, and also to promote national unity. In contrast, the media in Sri Lanka seem to be used by the state to obstruct progress towards settling the National Question.

Civil rights activist became very critical of Johnson for failing to intervene. King continued with his protests, but Johnson continued to hold back. At one point King escalated the protest by convening a Clergy March, inviting those in religious orders all over the USA, men and women, to join in a 50 miles march from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. Anticipating violent intervention by the state police, King appealed to the Federal Court to restrain the state police; instead the Federal Court ordered that the march be postponed indefinitely till adequate protection could be assured. This created a crisis, and Johnson sent an emissary to work out a compromise. That compromise was to march to the bridge near the end of the town of Selma, pray on the bridge, and then turn back. King reluctantly agreed but insisted that the march would resume later. In the event two of the protesters were killed, a Black youth shot by state troopers before the march, and a White clergyman brutally beaten to death after the march. When the marchers reached the bridge, as agreed, they stopped and prayed. When they opened their eyes after prayers, the state troops had moved away, virtually inviting the marchers to continue to Montgomery, defying the Federal court order. This was a trap but King did not fall into it. The marchers turned back as agreed but promising to march again all the way to Montgomery on another day.

The pressure on Johnson to intervene kept mounting but he continued to hold back. He was waiting for that pressure to build up to a level that would overwhelm any massive negative reaction to federal intervention. He knew that if he acted prematurely, Wallace would effectively mobilize Southern White reaction to it. But he also knew that widespread violence against Blacks, men, women and children, and against other peaceful protesters, graphically telecast frequently throughout the USA, was hurting the  political prospects of Wallace,who could not hold out much longer. As Johnson anticipated, within a few days of the Clergy March, Wallace asked to see Johnson to request federal intervention to maintain law and order. That meeting and request were promptly agreed to, and the meeting was immediately followed up by a Press Conference convened by Johnson at which he announced, in Wallace’s presence, that the Governor had requested Federal intervention but that Johnson would ensure that the intervention was the minimum necessary to maintain law and order. In one stroke Wallace was defanged and the way cleared for Federal intervention.

The back of the opposition to the Voting Rights Act had been broken, bringing much credit to Johnson. He wasted no time in asking for and receiving an invitation to address a joint meeting of the Congress. In his inspired and historic speech at that meeting he took the moral high ground and urged the Congress, this time very receptive, to quickly pass the Voting Rights Bill that he was introducing. The Voting Rights Act came into law on 6^th August 1995.

Compared to the obstacles that Johnson has to overcome, the problems of President Rajapakse relating to the Geneva resolution are mostly minimal. Within the island his political support base has been unassailable. He has much to gain and very little to lose by implementing the LLRC report, by fully implementing the Constitution (including the 13^th Amendment), by resolving the National Question to the satisfaction of the Tamils and Muslims, by imposing discipline among the unruly members among his followers, and by maintaining law and order. In fact this is what many leaders within his party and almost the entirety of the domestic opposition and the international community have been asking him to do. Accounting for those taken into custody and investigating allegations of unlawful activity (including assassinations, torture, rape and extortion) on the part of the armed forces and para-militia would be more problematic, but if he undertakes to act accordingly and sets about it step by step, his standing, internal and external, will rise except among some fringe elements within the island and among the Diaspora. Those fringe elements will only discredit themselves President Rajapakse surely understands this. It is investigating the past that may be problematic, not the resolution of the political problems referred to in the Resolution. Perhaps some of these political problems are internal to himself, located in a blind spot in his politics, just as President Johnson at one time had problems with several civil rights issues in his political vision. Johnson’s political ambition helped him to progressively shed those inhibitions relating to civil rights issues such as segregation, affirmative action, voting rights for Blacks, etc. For Johnson the residual blind spot was the Vietnam war and it was that blind spot that ultimately ended his political career.

What can the Sri Lankan government learn from the Voting Rights crisis in the USA? As soon as Johnson had decided that he wanted an effective Voting Rights Act, he went on to work out, with King’s backing, appropriate strategies to eliminate or reduce the divergence between that objective and the positions taken by key opponents such as Governor Wallace and Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirkson. Both Johnson and King avoided hurling abuse at those holding different views, as that would invariably be counter- productive. Johnson was a master strategist who kept his eyes constantly on his ultimate objective (a strong Voting Rights Act), refusing to be diverted by the success or failure of intermediate objectives (such as political demonstrations) or by those who crossed his path. That he was a Southern White with a racist past may have helped him to understand and overcome the opposition from that quarter. President Rajapakse too, given his Southern roots and empathy with Southern hard liners, should not find it difficult, if he is so inclined, to overcome opposition to the implementation of the LLRC report and the Constitution (inclusive of the 13^th Amendment in full) , to deal with Sinhalese,Tamil and Muslim communities to clear the way for national reconciliation, and to enforce discipline and law and order.

There is truth in the charges that some of the Western countries have double standards on war crimes but it is also true that some of those countries helped Sri Lanka very substantially to secure international condemnation and isolation of the LTTE, and to win the war. Moreover these charges have little to do with the political issues at the heart of the proceedings in Geneva. A problem with charges of “double standards” and “bullying” is that these will bring ill consequences that will soon hit us. Indeed they have already begun to do so. Unfortunately it is the Sri Lankan people, not the Sri Lankan government, who will be hit. If we are serious about those allegations, are we willing to formulate and present a resolution charging some of the western powers with war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan? I suspect that we would find it very difficult to find co-sponsors for such a resolution. If so, such a resolution will be a non starter and cannot be part of a viable strategy.

Our major handicap is that we seem to have no clear objective. Are we committed to 13 A+ (as Sri Lanka government has frequently proclaimed) or 13 A- (as also frequently proclaimed in respect of police and land powers) or in negotiating a settlement with Tamils and Muslims, or in implementing all of the LLRC report or some of it or none of it? To be credible, such commitment needs to be detailed and contained within specified times frames. The fact that the Interim Report of the LLRC has not been implemented, a complaint detailed in the LLRC report itself, throws doubt on the commitment of the Sri Lankan government. If we do not spell out credible time-bound commitments and make adequate progress within the intervening months, the outcome in March 2013 could be worse than in March 2012. The charges of “double standards” and “bullying” make have helped to gain some Asian votes in Geneva but had less success with African and Latin American governments. But we do over the next few months will determine how the voting will work out next time. If we take the steps referred to above and meet the issues outlined in the Geneva resolution, that could be the core of a winning strategy. We need to engage with all key actors, internal and external, friendly and not so friendly. Perhaps we could even co-sponsor a resolution with India, the West, Japan, China, Russia and other countries and get it unanimously passed at the next meeting in Geneva. But for that to happen many changes internal to the Sri Lankan government are needed and much works need to be done at home and abroad. If it happens, it could helped to transform the future of our Island and our people.

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This paper reflect the views of the author, Devanesan Nesiah, and not those of any of the institutions that he has been associated with.

• A Realistic Look at the Draft Resolution by the US on Sri Lanka at the UN HRC
• Sri Lanka and the UNHRC: Implications for India and for Human Rights
• Messiah
• Counter-productive propaganda and human rights in Sri Lanka
• The Offer from a Sri Lankan Tamil Man

The author demonstrating in Colombo against white van abductions. Photo courtesy Vikalpa. 

In a country that has achieved so much in literacy, education and social development, is it not indeed unfortunate that “White Van” has frightened the entire nation? Appearance of a white van assures a disappearance of some one.  If you Google or do any other internet search  (or any media that is not controlled by the Government) on Sri Lanka, “White Van” resembles the Defence Authorities of our country.  Are we not ashamed of it?

“White van operation” is the most used mode of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka at present. Enforced disappearance violates a range of human rights including  the right to security and dignity of a person, right to a legal personality, humane conditions of detention, right to fair trial, right to a family life and when killed, the right to life. The disappeared person is often tortured and in constant fear for life, removed from the protection of the law, deprived of all their rights and is at the mercy of the captors. Do you respect these rights seriously?  What would you do if you or a family member experiences abduction?
Disappearances are not new to Sri Lankan post-independence history. Between 1970’s and now, there were several insurgencies in the country and most of the disappearances were observed during those insurgencies. The present trend, however, is different. At present, there is neither an insurgency nor an emergency in the country,  but disappearances do take place.  Under whatever the circumstances, there is no legal, social or any other justification to forcefully abduct a person and destroy him/her.  In this article I attempt to analyze a few key governance issues revolving around the “white van culture” in Sri Lanka.

Present trend of abductions

A cursory glance at the recent abductions are mainly twofold; firstly, abductions of “criminals” (as the government called them) and secondly, abductions of dissenting voices. Let me deal with them briefly in order.

In recent years, several hundreds of suspects who had been lawfully taken into custody in the South were later found dead. In explaining these deaths, the police had an identical version on each one of them that those suspects were taken to a place to recover “weapons” where the suspect suddenly tried to grab a gun from a police officer and that the police had to shoot the suspect in self-defence! We all know that when hardcore criminal suspects are taken out, they are always handcuffed and guarded by officers who can physically handle him. In my view, this utter falsehood of “attempt to escape” can sustain only in a country where there is a total breakdown of internal supervision of police action.   It also suggests that government has a policy to destroy “suspects” without following a judicial process. The danger is not just that; rather the judicial organ of the State becomes irrelevant for serious criminal offences, because the Executive handles them on their whims and fancies.

That concerns lawfully arrested “suspects”. What about the others? Abductions of criminals and destroying them came in when the cell deaths in police custody became too much to be explained; or when political authorities preferred a sophisticated method of dealing with “identified individuals” without being answerable to anyone. For this to happen, there needs to be a trustworthy special group or groups of law enforcement officers who are assured of total impunity.  Secret detention places are also needed. Judicial experience all over the world shows that highest officers of the defence authorities must be either directly involved in such abduction operations or must approve the exercise directly.

The second category of abduction is to destroy the “Dissenting Voices” (who democratically challenge the government). While there are many examples, the recent trend started with the abduction of certain journalists. In particular, the abduction of Poddala Jayantha gave enough evidence of the motive of the abduction – non-criminal but he was a powerful dissenting voice in Sri Lanka, who organized the media against suppression. Like other similar abductions, the government did not honestly investigate into the incident; rather used state propaganda to discredit Jayantha. A man who wanted to stay in Sri Lanka was thus forced to live in exile.

Many dissenting voices faced white van abductions more recently and the list is not short by any means. Recently, two activists (named Kugan and Lalith)  working against abductions were abducted in Jaffna on 9^th  December 2011 –while they were organizing events to celebrate Human Rights Day the following day in Jaffna.  Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella admitted that the two persons were in custody but did not disclose where they were detained. Now the law enforcement authorities are denying the arrest!    Then came the abduction of Kumar Gunaratnam and Dimutu Attygalle.  All these four persons belong to a JVP breakaway group now called the “Frontline Socialist Party”. Even though the track record of the JVP, particularly during the 1989-90 period is undoubtedly atrocious, the JVP came to the democratic political main stream – just like many other armed groups. Then emerged the JVP breakaway group, challenging the undemocratic moves of the regime somewhat effectively, compared to other opposition parties. There is no doubt that the government is jittery about any powerful opposition challenging the government’s credibility, particularly when a group of past JVP activists were involved.  However, that cannot justify abductions of unarmed political activists. If they have violated the law of the land, then the government has the full lawful authority to deal with them according to the law.

Whose White Vans are They?

I shall begin with the efficiency of the law enforcement authorities of the country.  As a practicing lawyer for nearly 25 years, I can assure the readers that our intelligent services and police investigators are capable of busting any major crime in the country, if there is no political interference.  I cannot recall a single case of “NORMAL” abductions which were not solved. Sri Lankan law enforcement authorities have successfully dealt with crimes from well planned murders to crime networks beyond territorial jurisdiction.  However, law enforcement authorities have failed to solve a single “White Van” abduction. Why? The capacity/ability is one thing and  integrity is something totally different.

The three prominent recent White Van episodes give us an indication as to who is presently capable of doing these. Kolonnawa UC Chairman (unsuccessful), Kumar Gunaratnam (successful but released) and Methias Chandrapalan, abducted from the judicial custody (whereabouts not known yet) are the three examples.

Kolonnawa UC Chairman’s brother was first abducted and he went missing. Then a White Van group came to abduct the UC Chairman himself. The assailants (in plain clothes) were apprehended and handed over to the police. It was later revealed that they were from the defence establishment. Their identities were established and even published in the media. But nothing happened! Government first said that the group (white van operators) was from the military engaging in an operation to arrest army deserters. As far as I am aware, arrests of deserters are made ONLY by uniformed Military Police officers with police assistance. There was no genuine investigation into this incident and what the media reported later was that a senior DIG “rescued” the white van crowd at midnight from the police. If so, why did a DIG get involved in rescuing a set of criminals who committed or were attempting to commit a crime? In an interesting coincident, the Officer in charge of the police station was transferred!

Judicial history of our country has not seen an abduction of a suspect in the custody of the jail guards (while walking from one court to the other). Chandrapalan, a suspect in a drug case, was abducted at gun point by a white van group in the presence of lawyers and the relatives of the suspect.   This happened around 12 noon in the main court complex, which is known for good security arrangements and where all movements are closely monitored. No serious investigations took place on this. Who can abduct a person from judicial custody in Sri Lanka? Answers are probably not difficult but public do not want to openly give an answer in fear of white van reprisal.

Take the abduction of Kumar Gunaratnam and Dimutu Arttygalle. This raised a series of contradictions of the government’s version. They went missing on 6^th April 2012 and were released “through police” on 10^th April.  The most interesting announcement came on 10^th early hours from the Police spokesman who said on TV that “a person called Noel Mudalige believed to be JVP dissident Kumar Gunaratnam, had  surrendered to the Dematagoda CCD police station last night and requested to go to Australia and the government has made arrangement to send him to Australia and he is awaiting departure at the Bandaranaike International airport.”  If the version of the police is true, any foreigner who wants to return to his/her own country can go to a police station when an air ticket will be bought at government expense and he/she will be sent! Brilliant! Is the government expecting us to believe this? Here again we cannot see (or expect) any reasonable investigation. Later, the Police spokesman said that they are conducting further investigations to “contradict the position of the JVP breakaway group and tell the country the correct position.” This is more serious than the offence itself. What motivates a police investigation – to solve the crime or to white wash a government?

We have seen the government alleging “international conspiracy” whenever they cannot explain their questionable actions and that is generally a good indication to measure the government’s involvement. See what the Acting Minister of Media said on this occasion:

“Certain people are tarnishing the country’s image by leveling false and baseless allegations against the government in connection with the abduction of two members of the newly formed Frontline Socialist Party… The intention of such fabrications is to denigrate the state in the eyes of the world and to inconvenience it”.

The conduct of a criminal (after committing a crime) is a relevant fact that is useful to see the complicity of the suspect to a crime. Let us keep this simple test in mind here and consider the government as a suspect.  In all these white van abductions, there is identical response from the government. Initially it is denied. Then say the police are investigating into the matter. This is followed by the government propaganda team (both in state media, private media and sponsored journalists) discrediting the “abductees”, while diverting attention from the crime of abduction. Then we see police getting involved in an unusual exercise of finding evidence to “contradict” (that there had been in fact an abduction). Finally, someone comes out with a theory of “conspiracy” without any real material to justify such an allegation.  In the absence of a genuine and transparent investigation into the abductions, let me pose the question to the reader; do not these facts   suggest the complicity of the government?

Some Common Features from Notorious Countries

Sri Lanka is not the only country that grapples with the menace of abductions. Motive for abductions may vary depending on the group of abductors.  In many notorious countries, there are “enforced abductions” for religious conversions, extortions, conscriptions, rivalries and so on. But here I discuss only the abductions involving state authorities. In countries where the state officials are involved in enforced disappearances, there are some common features. The case studies on abductions from those countries give an indication of at least following six features:

1. The state institutions (including parliament and judiciary) are generally corrupt and not at all poised to deal with the crime of disappearances/abductions. In fact, the law enforcement agencies do not believe that abduction is a crime.  Abduction network is protected by the political/military leadership.
2. The government with or without its para-military arms run a series of secret detention places, outside the legal scrutiny.  In many instances, the military give them physical security.
3. The police, military and supervision bodies are under one single authority and they are generally linked to the political Head of the State. They do not have any resource constrains for criminal operations.
4. Though the disappearance operations are well planned under an organized state authority, it often goes out of control. Thus, there may be some abduction that is not authorized by political or military leadership.
5. Abductions can sustain only where impunity is guaranteed and therefore, abductors are fully satisfied of the track record of the political leadership in guaranteeing “impunity” to them.
6. Even the notorious regimes do not want exposures on abductions. Whenever evidence emerges of the government’s involvement, they usually eliminate possible critiques. Or else, it would brand the critiques as “traitors conspiring against the country”. Usually, those regimes have strong propaganda machinery and sophisticated intelligent network to identify and discredit those “traitors”.

Testing the White Van with Governance Tools

Whether Sri Lanka has above common features is a matter for the reader to decide but let us look at our own experience with White Vans.

It is not difficult to understand that among the core of the problems of many serious issues in any country lie bad-governance structures. In my view, white van abductions can sustain only in an environment of bad governance. In that context, let me endeavor to demonstrate at least 5 possible reasons, why “White Van” operations do exist in Sri Lanka unabated.

Firstly; the lack of accountability of the law enforcement agencies. All public institutions, inducing the Defense Ministry, are run on public finance and are therefore, accountable to the public.  Who are our law enforcement agencies accountable to – public, politicians or “unknown”? The cardinal principle of governance requires law enforcement agencies to be truthful and honest in their dealings. They should only by guided by the law of the land. We all know today that any investigation can be manipulated by the political masters. Impunity is thus institutionalized! Arguably, the law enforcement agencies seem to be only accountable to the political masters and not to the public. There is further confusion as to who a law enforcement authority is, when the police and military are under one and single Minister (President) and Secretary.  Thus there is no check on each other. When there is a confusion of the functions, there cannot be effective accountability.

Secondly; lack of legislative supervision over the Executive.  I hold the view that the Sri Lankan Parliament today is an ornamental institution, without sufficient capacity or  willingness to respect/protect human rights. There is no Parliamentary Committee on human rights nor are there debates on human rights status of the country.  The opposition is confused and one often wonders whether an opposition member is a government member or not. Contrary to acceptable parliamentary norms, almost all Parliamentary Committees including COPE and COPA are headed by Ministers.  Minister in charge of  Defence is the President. Total Defence budget is not subjected to review by Parliament or its Committees. The secret expenditure of the military are even exempted from the Auditor General’s review (See Financial Regulation 237D). In fact, if the President and the Minister of Finance jointly state that they are satisfied with “any necessary expenditure on services of a confidential nature (the particulars of which cannot be divulged)”, the Auditor General cannot audit such accounts. When the President, Minister of Defence and the Minister of Finance are one and the same person, this exercise becomes a gross conflict of interest; thus no one will ever know how defence expenditure is spent.   This can lead to large scale abuse of defence expenditure.  On top of it, Urban Development is also part of the Defence Ministry! This total mystification is a breathing ground for cover up any criminal operation of the law enforcement authorities.

Thirdly – Lack of transparency in governmental actions. Sri Lanka does not recognize freedom of information and in fact, the disclosure of information might attract disciplinary actions against public officials under the Establishment Code. The provision of confidentiality has been used as a tool of oppression and as a main source of corruption, for many decades. It is because of this secrecy that the governments can misbehave and cover up.  This has been so serious that the officials, let alone the citizens, are unaware of the secret decisions taken by higher officers.  Do the public officials have backbones to legitimately question fellow officials or superiors on integrity issues of the institutions today? Since the 1972 Constitution we have seen the decay of independence and integrity of the public service but the present period is undoubtedly the worst. This caters to a wonderful opportunity to “work secret plans for the political masters”.

Fourthly- the weak Opposition is a contributory factor. As opposed to this period (where even the role of the Opposition is distorted), in early part of 1990, the then Opposition took major steps to prevent abductions, whilst an insurgency was on. One move then was to work closely with the UN Agencies to hold Sri Lanka accountable under the international human rights law. The best possible example was the actions effectively performed by the then Opposition MPs, particularly Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa. Once, Mr. Rajapasa was even arrested at the airport on his way to Geneva to attend the 31st Session of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in September 1990. (Read Rajapaksha v. Kudahetti (1992(2) SLR 223). Many political leaders such as Vasudeva Nanayakkara led from the front with the “Mothers Front”.  Unfortunately, there is no such political voice against disappearances today.  There may be many reasons for this. One reason seems to be the “societal silence” on the disappearance of Tamils for many years and the society was “forced to believe” that abductions were necessary to deal with the LTTE. With that mindset, most of the politicians including some of the parties in the Opposition are now finding it difficult to explain their long silence on abductions. There may be political explanations for this; but suffice it to say, whatever the explanations may be, they have failed in their political duty to challenge the crime of disappearances at the right time.

Finally, the weak civil society and feeble media. We need to ask ourselves whether we have done enough to preserve integrity and peace for the generations to come. When media was attacked, a coterie of government sponsored journalists supported the attackers. Though we have a few professional and fearless journalists, they are simply the exception, not majority. Civil society came under constant attacks by nationalist lobby for political reasons and state resources were frequently used to silence or weaken active NGOs, resulting in a grand opportunity for a despotic ruler.

Is silence the answer?  Governance is a dead letter where the public is not concerned about the fundamental freedoms. White vans created such an “oppressed” atmosphere that the public in general are not willing to speak up – obviously in fear of reprisal.  This is a clear objective of the oppressor. This reminds me of the words of Steve Biko – the Anti Apartheid hero from South Africa – “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.

In conclusion let me ask, are we not experiencing this presently – as a nation?

• New wave of abductions and dead bodies in Sri Lanka
• The abduction, assault, arrest and defamation of the Sudar Oli Editor: Questions for the Sri Lankan Government
• Horrible rise of disappearances in post-war Sri Lanka continues unabated
• Media and Violence
• Journalist Pakkiyanathan Vijayashanthan who went missing reported to Badulla Police station

54% of adolescent girls in Sri Lanka feel that a husband is justified in beating his wife. The UNICEF Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012 however is not available yet to try and unpack this further. What do they mean?

Surely, they cannot be suggesting that the arbitrary violence that some wives are subject to in Sri Lanka is acceptable; burned rice that results in cut lips and black eyes? It must be wives that were somehow overly flirtatious with another man. Wives that have behaved, or even worse, dressed, inappropriately. Wives that have proved to be whores!

What about those husbands that use wives like dogs? Psychologists call it displaced aggression, commonly known as kick-the-dog syndrome. Surely the adolescent girls can’t mean these husbands? Their wives did nothing more than open the door and welcome them home.

What about the husbands that come home inebriated and then proceed to beat their wives to a pulp for looking at them the wrong way? Do the 54% think this is justified?

Our friends at the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC) have a theory that the alcohol socialization process in Sri Lanka begins with the mother at the fence discussing with her neighbour her husband’s need to consume alcohol due to the various problems he faces. ADIC says this results in young people (who accompany their mother to the fence as kids) turning to alcohol to solve their problems – meka bonna ona prashnayak!

Do you think the mothers at the fences talk about how beleaguered their husbands are to rationalize their still bloody noses, or visible grab marks on arms? Perhaps the 54% have stood by holding on to maternal hems listening to why this is ok, understandable even, that’s it, understandable.

Do you think that this level of acceptance among young adolescent girls mirrors our own as Sri Lankans?

Violence is under reported here.  As a Nation, we’re also on record refuting allegations that we in anyway mistreat women. Apparently we revere them, and have placed them in the highest offices of the land as a symbol of our respect and adoration. This ridiculous response however was not pilloried by our free and easy going mainstream press. We seem to accept that this is just the way things are in Sri Lanka…

Is it a really surprise then that 54% of young adolescent girls think that wife beating is acceptable?

We did a series of workshops for the Rotaract Club in 2010 and also 2011 that included a discussion on violence in relationships. Over two thirds of the participants, predominantly from Colombo, affluent, English speaking, agreed that a man can in fact hit a woman, if the woman has done something to deserve it… defining what deserved a violent response in relationships ran the gamut from overcooking rice to being unfaithful. We were surprised at the levels of acceptance that first year, and then, as we did more workshops and listened to what were rational and well thought out justifications for intimate partner violence, our surprise soon gave way to disbelief and finally almost resignation.

This is the way we are. Simple, really. It’s not even about insidious forms of patriarchy. There’s nothing insidious about our acceptance of intimate partner violence… or at least, it’s no more insidious than us using the term intimate partner violence in a bid to be inclusive of men and women who face emotional and physical violence in their relationships, regardless of marital status and sexuality. No, in Sri Lanka, we’re honest, open, even proud of our patriarchal weltanschauung. A man is a man, with man responsibilities and commitments, and similarly, a woman is a woman, with woman obligations and duties. Those who fall between and into the cracks… well, tough, this is Sri Lanka.

Recently we have wondered if Sri Lanka’s patriarchy has its roots in Buddhism. You might think this an unnecessarily reductive approach to what has long be acknowledged as an amalgam of anthropology, religion (especially the people of the book) and their resultant socio-cultural influences. But still, we have to examine our contemporary expressions of Buddhism, which must surely be derived from the various influences just outlined, including the Judeo-Christian God of those who colonized us for nearly 450 years.

Religion’s role in patriarchy is well documented. It is steeped in power. Just read the Ten Commandments. They were written for men who owned slaves, donkeys and women. Nietzsche, before syphilitic insanity claimed him – a judgment from God, of course – spoke at length of how faith and belief was used to manipulate the masses. The herd. The priests didn’t believe in the lie of God, and most crucially heaven and hell. They merely perpetuated it.

Have we men similarly perpetuated a lie that it is in fact normal i.e. the norm, to slap our women about, especially when they deserve it?

Do we believe this, or do we find it convenient? Are we afraid that our women may wake up to the fact that we’re bullies and cheats and, in general, loathsome? Surely this is unnecessary Feminist vitriol? Next thing you know, I’d be advocating that all women become lesbians? That’s what feminists do apparently, even the men.

This last week, we’ve been forced to engage with our Buddhist ways in Sri Lanka.

When we heard of what happened in Dambulla, did we collectively shudder, or did we bang our hairy Sinhala chests in exultation? Nietzsche’s ascetic priest that believes not what he preaches was alive and well. Power was on display. Policemen and the armed forces were mocked and chided.

Is there a connection between Dambulla and the 54% of young adolescent girls who have beatings and marital rape to look forward to? Are they not both a reflection of what we have become… or even worse, who we’ve always been?

There are answers out there, but we mustn’t be afraid to ask the questions.

How do we recover? How do we help the 54% and the rest of our young girls feel self worth and value that will not perpetuate our peculiar patriarchy?

We’re as far from comprehensive sex education – any well structured programme addresses gender and patriarchy – in schools as we’re from freedom of speech. But how far is that really? What is the distance? How many miles to go before we sleep?

The shortest verse in the Bible is John’s Gospel Chapter 11, verse 35: Jesus wept.

This last week, as I watched and read of the ugly militant Buddhism that has raised its head and stripped itself of robes to jump up and down naked and unabashed, all I could see were tears in Buddha’s eyes. Today, reading of the 54%, Buddha’s tears continued to flow.

Buddha wept, and we, if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry too.

• The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• Aiyo!
• V-Day: Writings to end violence against women and girls
• Aroused by Akon’s Sexy Bitch: the Rise of Sinhala-Buddhist Fundamentalism?
• The Islamic Republic of Sri Lanka

Photo by author

The end of hostilities in May 2009 saw some 270,000 to 300,000 Tamils fleeing the conflict zone in the North and settling in camps for internally displaced people. Fleeing the fighting, together with the civilians, were thousands of Tamil Tiger combatants – many of them injured women fighters – both young women and more experienced middle-aged female fighters.

M10 – who lost her left leg in a 1995 battle in the Wanni region – surrendered herself at the Omantai military checkpoint in the closing days of the war after fleeing the heavy shelling on Puthikkudiyiruppu with civilians. There she was immediately taken to Pampaimadu Camp for interrogation by Sri Lankan army intelligence and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police force.  A year later, in late April 2010, M10 was released.

M7, like M10, is an injured ex-Tamil Tiger young woman combatant who surrendered at the Omantai checkpoint in the closing days of the war.  In April 2010 she was released after a year in Cheddikulam camp, where the CID interrogated her. M7 recalls how she tried to look for a job in Batticaloa after the army left her in her mother’s house:

My father passed away when I was in the jungle. Now my mother has to look after my six younger sisters. I did not want to be an extra burden to my mother because of my disability, and so I traveled to Batticaloa town with my three disabled [ex-LTTE] friends. We registered ourselves at the IOM [International Organization for Migration] office and asked whether there were any jobs for disabled young women, like us. After taking our details the IOM officer told us that they would contact us if anything turned up, and then asked us not to come back to the office to make enquiries. We were hurt.

The IOM programme in Batticaloa and other parts of the East, funded by the United States government, says it “provides information and counseling to former fighters, referring them to vocational training, psychosocial support and employment opportunities” (Embassy of the United States 2009). Some participants, with appropriate experience and skill sets, also receive small grants to help them start their own business in their local communities.  Mehreteab (2007) offers a word of caution for dealing with disabled ex-combatants when he points out that many have little education, few skills and poor health in societies where it is already difficult to start a small enterprise or find employment to generate adequate income to achieve a moderate standard of living.

Disabled ex-combatants, more so female ex-combatants, are one of the most difficult to reintegrate in the absence of specific medical and psychosocial care in communities. Due to their disability they are unable to generate any income without intensive training and rehabilitation (Mehreteab 2007). The International Labour Organization (ILO) in its guidelines on disabled ex-combatants warns against treating them as “objects of charity” and adds that these ex-combatants “do not want to depend on families and communities to sustain them…[and] wish to become economically and socially active in their civilian communities and avoid being a burden on society”

Nonetheless, in the face of deprivation and hardship, female household heads like ex-Tamil Tiger young woman fighter M11 in Mylampavely feel empowered and proud of their achievements:

My husband works for the local government, but it’s actually me who runs the household. I am proud that I can care for my three children and also help women in the neighbourhood, especially those young girls who have returned home from the jungle with just the clothes on their back. Life’s tough, it’s hard. But I have survived and moved on. My story with the Tamil Tigers would probably fill a book – and there are good and bad memories. The women in the community respect me – they have to. I sacrificed my life in the movement [LTTE] for these people.

In post-war Batticaloa, M11 has a respected position in the district’s matrilineal society where women hold most of the responsibilities and authority in the family. She is referred to as perria akka (big sister in Tamil) in female networks in the clearly defined matriclans and matrilocal households in Mavadivembu, a status she attained after she married soon after her demobilization following the 2002 ceasefire. With a living husband and three children, she has a sumankali or properly wedded woman status. The sacred knot or thali tied by their husbands during the marriage and the red dot or kukum symbolizes the sumankali. Lawrence (2007) explains that Tamil culture respects the sumankali and it is common understanding that she has the capacity to provide protection through female networks.

M11 spends her free time, after sending her children to school, seeking out the former LTTE child combatants from Mavadivembu who self-demobilized in 2004 when the Batticaloa-based commander of the Tamil Tiger forces in the East, V. Muralitharan or Col. Karuna, split off from the main LTTE.

In 2002, a bitter political rivalry began to emerge between the LTTE supreme leader Prabhakaran, who had his loyal Northern (Wanni) command, and the Eastern commander of the Tamil Tigers Col. Karuna. In April 2004, the Wanni faction of the LTTE fiercely attacked Karuna’s 6,000 troops in the East and, sensing defeat, the Eastern Tamil Tiger commander disbanded his forces and went into hiding (Human Rights Watch 2004; Goodhand, et al., 2009). Thousands of child soldiers who were forcibly recruited were forced to leave Karuna’s group and countless girls self-demobilized silently by disappearing into war-affected communities where, today, they still struggle to cope. These self-demobilized former child soldiers are now young adults.

Former child soldier M12, who was recruited by the LTTE when she was 13, relates the visits made by M11:

I really look forward to the visits by perria aka [big sister]. I am very eager to tell my stories to people, but nobody wants to listen to me. We need people to talk to. Sometimes it is good to talk to people to get our problems out. Sometimes we feel we have been forgotten; dumped into the community and then abandoned. Perria aka was one of us in the jungle. She understands what we went through.

The protection roles played by mature women ex-combatants in the community reintegration of former young women fighters warrants further research as these girls struggle to develop a new sense of identity, unlinked to war.

In Batticaloa, women heading households bear the main burden of caring for injured Tamil Tiger female ex-combatants and traumatized returned former girl child soldiers in the absence of social welfare services. Though families in east Sri Lanka have been displaced, dispossessed and dispirited in the long running civil war and the December 2004 tsunami, matrilocal traditions and support provided by matrilocal household clusters seemed to have survived (McGilvray & Lawrence 2010). As this researcher found in his field trips, in a matrilineal society all the families which are part of the same sub-clan system could be found living in the same vicinity. McGilvray & Lawrence (2010) document that matrilocal clusters of married sisters in adjacent households in the same compound are emotionally appealing as it allows for shared childcare and sisterly solidarity that also acts as a deterrence against domestic violence.

Ruwanpura & Humphries (2004) found in the kinship networks in East Sri Lanka that neighbours and friends are an important source of assistance for female-headed households – particularly non-financial help that many women found invaluable such as childcare, help in chaperoning children to school, help with cooking, and emotional support.  Both researchers caution against dismissing the value of this friendship as it makes female heads feel more emotionally stable and secure.

The economic case for helping female-headed households, especially with extra mouths to feed in the care given to returning female ex-combatants, is strong. Help cannot be limited to just food subsidies given out by the World Food Program in Batticaloa. The circumstances of the households in a post-conflict environment need to be taken into account.

As the former young Tamil Tiger women combatants aim to establish themselves as adult individuals in Sri Lanka by an identity transformation from militants to civilians, they also struggle for some measure of security in their lives. This researcher found that the predictability of organized schooling through local NGOs like the Jeeva Jothy Foundation, in Batticaloa, can help former girl child soldiers overcome their traumatic experiences and develop an identity separate from that of a combatant.

The former girl child soldiers are enrolled in schools near Jeeva Jothy, with the house wardens ensuring their safety to and from school. Former child soldier M15, who was 16 when she was brought to Jeeva Jothy by her mother in 2004, recalls her past and talks about the future:

After I came out of the jungle, I went back to my village school. There I was treated badly. My hair was short; the teachers always scolded me and the other kids did not want to mix with me. I was depressed. Some NGO people told my mother about Jeeva Jothy and she then brought me here. When I arrived at Jeeva Jothy, I was enrolled in Grade 9.

In Jeeva Jothy, I got to know other girls like me and began to feel more confident. I started mixing around. I passed my A-levels and now I am in the Open University’ Social Sciences Faculty. I want to finish university, get a good job and help look after my mother and sisters.

The consequences of girls not receiving an education may be more severe than boys and Ruwanpura (2006) points out that this is due to the array of ideological structures stacked against girls in a capitalist system with inherent patriarchal values. In female-headed households in Batticaloa, adult children staying at home seem to be a vital resource because the survival of the family often depends on their wages. Problems of poverty in these families are compounded by the presence of dependent children, like returned girl child soldiers, while advancement to more comfortable circumstances often depends on the ability of educated working-age children earning decent adult wages.

Photo by author

The economic case for assisting households headed by women in Batticaloa is strong. But lumping together all female-headed households in the East, and suggesting a single solution is a recipe for disaster. There is a need for a more nuanced analysis, one that recognizes that female-heads of households make difficult choices in conflict situations and their aftermath (Ruwanpura 2006, McGilvary & Lawrence 2010).

But the current situation in Sri Lanka, with the end of the war, offers a window of opportunity. With a combined effort and international cooperation, much progress can be made in mending the relationship between the Tamils in Batticaloa and the government. In order to start the healing process at both the individual and community level, first and foremost, dignity must be given to the young women ex-Tamil Tiger fighters. Also the female networks, in a matrilineal society, that heal, nurture and protect all groups of women ex-combatants must be recognized, valued and supported.

References

• Briggs, J. 2005, Innocents lost: When child soldiers go to war, Basic Books, New York.
• Embassy of the United States. 2009, Press release: U.S. Government helps former fighters gain a new start in the East, Embassy of the United States, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
• Goodhand, J., Klem, B. & Korf, B. 2009, “Religion, conflict and boundary politics in Sri Lanka”, European Journal of Development Research, vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 679-698.
• Human Rights Watch 2004, Living in fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch, New York.
• International Labour Organization. 1997, Manual on training and employment options for ex-combatants , International Labour Organization, Geneva.
• Lawrence, P. 2007, “The watch of Tamil women” in Women and the contested state: Religion, violence and agency in South and Southeast Asia, eds. M. Skidmore & P. Lawrence, pp. 89-116
• McGilvray, D.B. 2008, Crucible of conflict, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.
• McGilvary, D.B. & Lawrence, P. 2010, “Dreaming of dowry: Post-tsunami housing strategies in eastern Sri Lanka” in Tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and regional dimensions, ed. D.B. McGilvray & M.R. Gamburd, Routledge, London, pp 106 – 124.
• Mehreteab, A. 2007, Assistance to war wounded combatants and individuals associated with fighting forces in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Cornell University.
• Ruwanpura, K. 2006, Matrilineal communities, patriarchal realities: A feminist nirvana, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbour.
• Ruwanpura, K. & Humphries, J. 2004, “Mundane heroines: Conflict, ethnicity, gender, and female headship in eastern Sri Lanka”, Feminist Economics, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 173-205

• Female ex-combatants of LTTE in post-war Sri Lanka
• Hijab whereforth dost thou commeth?
• Picking up the Tamil Tigers’ scent
• Longing and Belonging series: From London to Jaffna for the first time
• How can society protect vulnerable women from post war atrocities?

The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday of an email written by a U.N. land mine expert that said unexploded cluster bomblets were discovered in the Puthukudiyiruppu area of northern Sri Lanka, where a boy was killed last month and his sister injured as they tried to pry apart an explosive device they had found to sell for scrap metal.

The email was written by Allan Poston, the technical adviser for the U.N. Development Program’s mine action group in Sri Lanka.

“After reviewing additional photographs from the investigation teams, I have determined that there are cluster sub-munitions in the area where the children were collecting scrap metal and in the house where the accident occurred. This is the first time that there has been confirmed unexploded sub-munitions found in Sri Lanka” the email said.

Emphasis ours. The incident noted in Ravi’s copy was actually reported in the Tamil media on 6th March 2012.

The story on Sudar Oli, published on Page 7 notes,

An explosion in Killinochchi kills a boy: His sister sustains serious injuries

From Vishamadhu, Killinochchi, comes the report of a death of a boy, who had tried to examine a metallic object. The details of this incident are as follows.

Yesterday (5. March 2012) at around 11.30am, V. Villuwan (14) a small boy and his sister, V. Kovila (22) were collecting metal when they tried to remove the copper off a metallic object. At this moment, there was an explosion with a huge sound.

Seriously injured from the explosion, both children were admitted to the Dharmapuram Hospital. Afterwards, they were transferred to the Jaffna Hospital’s emergency ward, at which time the boy succumbed to his injuries.

It’s very important to track the Sri Lankan government’s denials over the use of cluster munitions. Last updated on 19 August 2011, the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor notes,

Sri Lanka has said that it does not possess cluster munitions. The Sri Lankan government’s Media Center for National Security issued the following statement on its website in February 2009: “The Government wishes to clarify that the Sri Lanka army do not use these cluster bombs nor do they have facilities to use them.” The Ministry of Defence website posted a statement saying Sri Lanka never fired cluster munitions and never brought them into the country. In February 2009, a military spokesperson was quoted stating, “We don’t have the facility to fire cluster munitions. We don’t have these weapons.”

Emphasis ours. On Page 47 of the UN Panel of Experts report, allegations of cluster munitions use are noted along with denials from the Sri Lankan government,

1. Allegations of the use of cluster munitions or white phosphorus
169. There are allegations that the SLA used cluster bomb munitions or white phosphorus or other chemical substances against civilians, particularly around PTK and in the second NFZ. Accounts refer to large explosions, followed by numerous smaller explosions consistent with the sound of a cluster bomb. Some wounds in the various hospitals are alleged to have been caused by cluster munitions or white phosphorus. The Government of Sri Lanka denies the use of these weapons and, instead, accuses the LTTE of using white phosphorus.

One of the most categorical denials came from Palitha Kohona, an Australian national who at the time was Secretary of Foreign Affairs and is currently Sri Lanka’s top ranking diplomat to the UN in New York.

In the interview with CNN, Kohona explicitly notes to a question by the anchor, Monita Rajpal, whether the Sri Lankan Army is using cluster bombs,

“I can say categorically that the Army does not use cluster bombs, it does not posses cluster bombs and it does not procure cluster bombs. I say this with authority, because I have… since… hearing the story, I have verified the facts with the procurement committee.”

There have been a number of reports in web media in particular on the use of cluster bombs. Coincidentally, in a report published on 21 March 2012 on Tamilnet.com, which is blocked in Sri Lanka, it is reported that “a container allegedly deployed by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) to carry cluster bomblets has been recovered recently by the de-miners of the humanitarian de-mining agency Halo Trust near a house at Thiruvaiuyaa’ru, 3 km east of Ki’linochchi town”. A PDF copy of the story, which also contains an image of the cluster bomb container, can be seen here. In January 2009, the same website carried images of cluster bombs allegedly dropped by the Sri Lankan Airforce in Mullaitivu. A PDF copy of the story, along with images, can be seen here.

There have also been other media reporting alleging the use of cluster bombs in Sri Lanka. Though is hard to verify the accuracy of a report that appears on Sri Lanka Truth conceding the use of cluster bombs in Sri Lanka sourced from Russia, the UN’s most recent confirmation over the use of cluster bombs also means that the report cannot be dismissed easily.

On 22 April 2009, the Guardian ran a story on the use of cluster bombs in Sri Lanka, which noted that,

Cluster bombs and artillery shelling have killed many civilians at a makeshift hospital within the last strip of Sri Lanka’s coastline still controlled by the Tamil Tigers, a doctor said today. Thangamutha Sathiyamorthy is a doctor working at the hospital in Puttumatalan.

Sathiyamorthy claimed that there had been a number of cluster bomb attacks, one of which killed a doctor, Dr Sivamanokaran, in the temporary hospital at Valayadmadam.

“The hospital yesterday was functioning and the doctor visited that area and there was a blast that is a cluster bomb and so he died in the hospital area,” he said.

In another news report published on IBM Live much earlier, on 4 February 2009, it was reported that,

Cluster bombs have been used in the war in Sri lanka for the first time since the collapse of a Norway-brokered ceasefire in 2007. The bombs were used near a civil hospital in Puthukudiyiruppu. It is not clear if they were used by the Lankan military or the tigers.

The organisation’s spokesperson, Sarasi Wijeratne couldn’t say who fired the shells. But Dr Thurairajah Varatharajah, the top Government health official in the area, said the attacks appeared to have come from the army.

Earlier we spoke to Gorden Weiss, the UN Spokesperson in Colombo who said that cluster bombs have been thrown in the vicinity of the hospital.

Revealingly, the three government doctors who claimed high civilian casualties and the use of cluster bombs by the Sri Lankan Army were rounded up and under duress, forced to retract their submissions. Though widely suspected, it was only after the Wikileaks cables were published that exactly why they contradicted their earlier submissions was confirmed.

Other prominent government spokesmen were more outright in their dismissal of concerns by the international community over the use of cluster bombs. Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, in February 2009, called those in Amnesty International “lunatics” and their concern over the use of cluster bombs by the Sri Lankan army “rank idiocy”.

Did the Sri Lankan Army use cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs against civilians?, published in September 2010 on Groundviews, translated a lead story published in the Sudar Oli newspaper based on the testimony of one N. Sundermurthi to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). As we noted at the time, not a single English or Sinhala mainstream print or broadcast media carried this story. Sundermurthi’s testimony notes,

In the final stages of the war, thinking they were attacking the LTTE around Puthumathalan, the Army used cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs against innocent civilians. There were many casualties on account of this. Around 400 to 600 died daily, and around 1,000 were injured.

The LTTE even attacked airplanes that were sent to attack the safe zones. When they counter-attacked, the Army used banned phosphorus and cluster bombs against the LTTE. There were many casualties on account of this. Around 400 – 600 died daily, and around 1,000 were injured. It was a grim situation. After this, amidst incredible hardship, we arrived in areas controlled by the Army.

There are, at the time of writing, 112 comments to this story, and most of the commentators vehemently deny the use of cluster bombs, noting that there is no way Sundermurthi could have known what kind of munitions were used and fired. At the time, Sri Lanka’s top ranking diplomat at permanent mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations at Geneva, and currently Ambassador to France, with accreditation to Spain and Portugal, and Sri Lanka’s Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka first roundly dismissed the report, and then said that the story was Sri Lanka’s equivalent of WMD’s (in Iraq). Another commentator, David Blacker, noted,

The witness’ testimony is quite useless on the point of whether or not cluster bombs and phosphorous was used by the SLAF. The witness merely states as fact that these weapons were used. There is no description of the weapons in action, the detonations or impact, nor of any residue, damage or injury caused. None whatsoever. The witness could just as easily have said that the SLAF used tactical nuclear weapons.

As an aside, artillery units use white phosphorous (WP) shells as marker rounds for forward observers, and often the explosions and residue from these rounds are mistaken for offensive weapons.

Overall… the witness’ statement seems a bit contrived, as if he has been fed a few keywords (DPU, cluster bombs, phosphorous, etc) and is trying to work them into his story. The skeletons he describe probably were from a cemetery having been shelled or bombed. In general, civilian statements on artillery exchanges are often sketchy, with witnesses unable to accurately discern direction, especially at close range.

Given all of this, is it really surprising that no other newspapers bothered with this?

This analysis was backed up by Dr. Jayatilleka. Blacker went on to accuse Groundviews of being a “tabloid” and “sensationalist publication” for republishing in English Sundermurthi’s testimony to the LLRC.

It remains to be seen how the Government will answer the UN’s confirmation, based on its significant technical expertise of dealing with UXOs, that there are in fact unexploded cluster munitions still in and around the Puthukudiyiruppu area. Perhaps because it trusted government reports, that the UN itself was wholly unprepared to deal with unexploded cluster munitions is evident in the leaked UN email. As AP’s Nessman notes,

Poston’s email, dated Tuesday, said mine clearers in Sri Lanka had not been prepared to deal with the bomblets, and are now relying on the experience of deminers who had worked in Lebanon, where Israel used cluster munitions in its 2006 war.

One deminer with experience in Lebanon was asked to clear the area and train other teams in how to handle the bomblets, according to the email. The local mine clearing office is adopting the Lebanon standards, and UNICEF was informed of the need to educate the local population about the dangers of the unexploded munitions, it said.

What new levels of spin, deception, counter-claims, propaganda and hate speech through spokesmen, Ambassadors, advisors and other assorted apologists will the government employ to counter this damning new evidence of what can constitute war crimes by the armed forces? If vehement denials of cluster bomb use by the government turn out to be false, what command chain responsibility implications will it have?

• Did the Sri Lankan Army use cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs against civilians?
• Cluster munitions, inhumane IDP camp conditions and the White Flag incident: More disturbing leaks from UN report
• Government MP Rajiva Wijesinha clarifies allegation against Groundviews
• The desecration of graves in Jaffna: Path to reconciliation?
• Post-war, is the Sri Lankan Army going on a rampage in the North?

A week ago, a violent a mob of about 2,000 Sinhalese, including a group of Buddhist monks led by the Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, stormed and vandalised a mosque in Dambulla. The mosque was declared an illegal structure, but it is unclear how this far this is accurate.

The shameful behaviour and expression employed by the Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, along with the monks he led and the crowd of thugs is not remotely associated with or reflective of the philosophy of the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha, or the way in which a Buddhist monk is supposed to behave and speak. Many online have already expressed their dismay and deep concern over the actions of a few, placing Sri Lanka in the media spotlight again for all the wrong reasons.

We have a choice, but time is running out. Speak up. Sign up to this online statement and say that this violence was not in your name, and that more calls to violence are futile. Renounce a fringe lunacy and resist extremism. By putting your name below, you are opposing mob violence and bigotry as ways to resolve disputes.

If we have to fight, let’s fight to keep Sri Lanka free of extremists who threaten not only what they seek to destroy, but also who and what they claim to represent. Add your name, and please pass the message on.

Read the full statement and sign up in English here, in Tamil here and in Sinhala here.

• Fake video and lies: The strange case of Dambulla’s Inamaluwe Sumangala thero
• The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
• Bigoted monks and militant mobs: Is this Buddhism in Sri Lanka today?
• Monks of War – Al-Jazeera on the JHU

In more ways than one, a sleeping Buddha in Dambulla Rock Cave Temple. Courtesy University of Peradeniya

Whilst the country awaits the decision of the regime regarding which recommendations, if any, of the LLRC report it will implement, human rights and reconciliation continue to be challenged, by disappearances and now, the ugly spectre of religious intolerance.

From October 2011 to March 2012, there have been some 56 cases of disappearances and abduction recorded.  Some 29 of these have been in February and March of this year and 19 happened whilst the UNHRC was in session.  Of the 29 cases, 16 have been reported from Colombo and 08 from the Northern Province.  Five of the cases reported from the north are said to be ex-LTTE cadre who had been detained, released and then abducted. Egregious cases include that of

1. Mr Ramasamy Prabhakaran who was abducted in Colombo two days before his fundamental rights petition was to come up before the Supreme Court. He had been held for 28 months and tortured.
2. Mr Sagara Senaratne, an in – law of Minister Jeevan Kumaratunga, who alleges that he was released once the President and Defence Secretary were informed of his abduction.
3. Mr Ravindra Udayashantha, the UPFA chairperson of the Kolonnawa Pradeshiya Council who alleged that the attempt to abduct him was foiled by his supporters surrounding the white van sent for this purpose only to discover that it contained army personnel. The latter were later released and the officer in charge of the police station transferred according to authorities on grounds unrelated to the incident.
4. The Gunaratnam and Atygalle cases, which were preceded by the disappearance of Lalith Weeraraj and Kugan Murugananthan in Jaffna – nothing being heard of the last two since they were disappeared.

The issue is as to what the regime is willing and able to do about disappearances and abductions and increasingly, to dispel the perception that in some of these cases at least, it is complicit – a perception that is lent credence to by the Senaratne and Kolonnawa cases.   Were this to be entirely erroneous a perception or accurate to the extent that there could be rogue elements in the law and order and security establishment at lower levels who operate without the knowledge and to the detriment of the hierarchy, it begs the question of the extent to which the hierarchy knows what is going on.  Assuming that none of this has anything to do with persons in the law and order and security establishment, the question still remains as to what credible steps they are willing and able to take to stop the institutionalization of an egregious human rights violation as a common place occurrence in the country.

It is not clear as to the seriousness and priority with which the regime treats this. The sensitivities of being seen to bow to international opinion on human rights post –Geneva notwithstanding, there is the danger of this becoming a political issue that could haunt the regime and erode its standing nationally.   There was a time when the questions -who is this man? what is he doing?- came to be catch phrases for a dark phase in our recent history. As a columnist put with regard to the Senaratne case – how did they know whom to call? Will that question be the catchphrase of today, tomorrow and tomorrow……..?

Dangerous and frightening is what is going on in Dambulla – the most recent example of religious intolerance but certainly not the only one in recent times.   The legality of both the Hindu and Muslim places of worship aside, the key question, given the need of the hour being reconciliation is as to why the issue was allowed to be dealt with, with violence, intimidation, gross contempt and insensitivity to religious coexistence and tolerance which the peoples of this country have upheld through decades of war and before.

Did anyone know that this incident was being planned? Why was it allowed to proceed and result in the cancellation of prayers at the mosque on Friday?  Questions are constantly asked and accusations hurled at those who have spoken out post –war at majoritarian triumphalism and the muscular assertion of the majority Sinhala- Buddhist identity.  All of this was on display in Dambulla, with the threat to expand the space for it throughout the island.  Particularly tragic, is that the area in which this demonstration of thuggery was enacted in the name of historic religious rights, with its Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu places of worship, has been a testament to religious tolerance and coexistence – not for over a century as the monk sarcastically inquires of the girl who says she worshiped at the Hindu shrine when she was a child – but for decades.

Available evidence suggests that the regime will resolve the issue in favour of the majority.  One can only hope and pray that whatever the resolution of the issue, that it will not lead to further violence and spread. Most importantly, that it will not sow the seeds of religious conflict.  Reconciliation requires that the seeds of conflict along any axis are not sustained or reproduced.

Dambulla is also telling for the deafening silence of those who feel the patriotic compulsion to regularly mouth off on the indignities and subversion of traitors and conspirators within and without.  I have yet to see an editorial in the media on this, denunciation of this blatant violation of the tenets of Buddhism by leading prelates, monks, members of civil society and politicians, except for a handful of the latter and those of us who have been labeled as traitors for upholding basic human rights.  Is criticism of members of the Sangha taboo even when it focuses on blatant violations of the teachings of the Lord Buddha and the overarching imperative of reconciliation to which these teachings are so integral and pivotal a part of?  What of the discipline of the priesthood?  Was the behavior of the monks in Dambulla in keeping with it?

It is time for civil society, its religious and lay components, to step up to the plate of their responsibilities to rid this country of ugly and altogether unnecessary tension and conflict.  It is highly likely that if they do, a populist regime will in turn take the lead from its followers, as populist regimes are wont to, to stay in power.

It would seem that as criticism of members of the Sangha is taboo, so does the minister who threatened to break my legs, enjoy impunity.   We are told by First Brother Basil that he has done good deeds in Kelaniya and that only His Excellency the President can remove him – from the party- that is.  His Excellency appears to be unmoved.

Would it have been any different if he carried out his threat, in this country and regime like no other?

• Horrible rise of disappearances in post-war Sri Lanka continues unabated
• Is Dambulla, Babri Masjid Redux?
• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
• Photo essay: Freedom, Religion, and Dambulla
• Disappearances of Persons in Sri Lanka

The Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, one of the key figures in the on-going tensions in Dambulla over the presence of a mosque and kovil near his Temple, perhaps in response to the public outcry against the violence instigated by him, has told the BBC that TV footage that showed monks engaged in violence – including one monk disrobing and exposing himself to the mosque – were fake.

The Mahanayaka of the Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero told BBC Sandeshaya that he only led a ‘peaceful and democratic protest against illegal constructions’.

He maintained that no violence was used.

“Videos that portrayed the protest as violent were technically manipulated,” said the Mahanayaka thero who also heads a media outlet.

Let us for the sake of argument not disbelieve or dismiss what Inamaluwe Sumangala thero says. Musāvāda veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi, or refraining from incorrect or false speech, is after all one of the five Noble Precepts. Let us believe that TV broadcasts of the violent mob were doctored.

There is however, a slight problem. Rangiri Dambulu chapter Inamaluwe Sumangala thero is the Director General of the private radio station Rangiri Radio.

Rangiri Radio also has a Facebook fan page. As it notes, “Rangiri Sri Lanka is a radio channel that has been inaugurated with the intention of promoting the Buddhist cultural values and development of personality including aeasthetics values.”

On both the homepage of the Rangiri Radio website, and prominently, at the time of writing, on the Facebook page of Rangiri Radio, the following video appears. The well crafted introduction and end credits suggest that this is a professional production, featured on Rangiri Radio with the awareness if not also the blessings of Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, who also appears in it.

If one glosses over the racist chants, the video footage fully supports Inamaluwe Sumangala thero’s submissions that he only led a peaceful and democratic protest. Up until, that is, around a minute and twenty seconds into the video. 1.27 to around 2.20 showcase the most violent moments of the mob, where you don’t need to understand the derogatory, racist expressions in Sinhala to observe just how far the monks and the mob are from being peaceful, democratic or indeed, Buddhist in expression and behaviour.

In light of the divide between Inamaluwe Sumangala thero’s submission to the BBC and what really was said and done, we wonder if there is a more righteous sangha in Sri Lanka or abroad who can urgently remind the monks in Dambulla about the first and fourth Noble Precepts in particular?

• Not In Our Name: Against religious extremism in Sri Lanka
• The middle finger to the middle-path in Sri Lanka
• A different take from the Sangha: The dhamma and religious co-existence in Sri Lanka (UPDATED)
• The Mind of Compassion: Buddhism and Violence
• Monks of War – Al-Jazeera on the JHU