The UN Human Rights System And Its Relevance To Us

By R.M.B Senanayake - June 27, 2014

R.M.B. Senanayake

The recent violence against the Muslims in Alutgama and Beruwala are being discussed in civil society and in the Opposition political party. Discussions are mainly on what happened and who is to blame. Most people end up blaming both communities. But different communities will always have differences of opinion. But resorting to violence is not an option for any community to resolve such differences. Don’t we have a government which was elected on the Sinhala Buddhist vote? Surely if any Buddhist monk or group of Buddhist monks have a complaint against any other community shouldn’t he or they take up the issue with the Government? Have they done so? Can anybody in society including Buddhist monks resort to violence?

In July 1983 the government of President J.R Jayawardene failed to protect the Tamils who were subject to violent attacks by mobs. He failed to maintain the Rule of Law by declaring Emergency and calling out the Forces. It is true that the incident was sparked off by the killing of 13 soldiers. Would the Army have refused to obey the orders of the President? If so what was his option? Rumor has it that some Buddhist monks prevented the President from declaring Emergency. But some say the President wanted to teach the Tamils a lesson.  Whatever it was , it was the failure to protect the unarmed civilians that led to the intervention of the Indian government in the ethnic issue in our country.

The view of Mr. Mangala Samaraweera as well as several others is that the violence itself was contrived by the Government. Whether this is so or not will be difficult to prove or disprove. But that is not the most relevant issue. They say President MR has to create a new enemy of the Sinhala Buddhists to win their votes at the next Presidential election. He won earlier because he was the champion of the Sinhala Buddhists against the LTTE. He needs another enemy they say to win the votes of the Sinhala Buddhists who number 70% of the population. So these people say that it is necessary to create a new enemy and the Muslims and the Christians have been earmarked for the exercise. It is necessary to demonize them first. This is being done. But that is not enough. The Muslims must be provoked so that they will resort to counter attacks. So the richer Muslims particularly the shopkeepers have been targeted. It is very necessary that there should be counter violence by the Muslims for this plan to succeed. Some Muslims like the Jews believe in ‘eye for an eye’ or a tooth for a tooth”. But to do so would be a great mistake and will be playing into the hands of the provocateurs.Read More