For The Love Of My Motherland Sri Lanka: A Time To Rely On What We Have Seen & Heard Rather Than State Propaganda
Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
It is Monday 25 Feb. 2020 as I hunt-and-peck my computer keyboard at Colombo International Airport Terminal 12 awaiting my flight to New York with my wife to attend a family funeral.
I had been catching up on yesterday’s The Sunday Times. It announced that the government, with cabinet approval, will withdraw from Resolution 30/1 of the UNHRC, solemnly cosigned by our government in 2015. The UNP’s Sajith Premadasa has also promised to back the government, following Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who promised during the presidential elections to protect soldiers who might be charged.
I cringe in fear because these moves threaten the lives of Tamils in this country. Effectively the two leaders of the two largest political groupings of Sri Lanka are jointly committed to letting off soldiers accused of war crimes. The government is also protesting against the US travel restrictions imposed on Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, the Commander of the Sri Lankan Army.
The two matters relating to soldiers and their commander are closely related. For if there were war crimes at Nandikadal and the beaches of Mullaitivu, then Army Commander Silva would be guilty under Command Responsibility. Worse, our government would be guilty of a failure to uphold its Responsibility to Protect its own citizens. So, were war crimes committed towards the end of the war?
The Final Days of our War: Zero or 40,000 Casualties?
If yes, then the government and the opposition are jointly promoting the fracturing of Mother Lanka. For who is the Tamil who would want to be a part of Sri Lanka if murderers of Tamils would be protected by the two major political groupings in the country? Anyone loving Sri Lanka as his or her motherland must rise in protest.
Somehow, intrinsic to withdrawing from the resolution is the blind belief that there were no war crimes committed towards the end of the war in 2009. Is it possible that no war crimes were committed towards the end of the war? Indeed not. We have the report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts. Their finding is that over 40,000 civilians were killed mainly because of shelling by Sri Lankan forces. Even our government agreed to trying soldiers, which they never would have done if no crimes had been committed.
In 2015 when Resolution 30/1 was signed, it was clear to most of us that war crimes had truly been committed. Decent Sri Lankans heaved a sigh of relief that the government would protect civilians and punish those responsible. With the government effectively admitting that war crimes did happen, the restrictions of the silent were lifted. Up until then, many of them were scared to speak of their experiences. Lorry drivers, university staff, and people like Shanthi Sriskantharasa, MP (who lost her leg from Sri Lankan bombing) told me of the incessant lightning-like flashes as bombs fell all around them. Renowned international human rights workers told us of the evidence they had. A New Zealand human rights judge told us at Jaffna Public Library that once an inquiry was agreed to, evidence began mounting like fruits falling off a shaken tree. UK’s Channel 4 brought to our homes the most horrific images from the war. The image of an infant with its head chopped open particularly stands out. No one would kill an infant child simply to make separatist propaganda.
The state is trying to drown us in a deluge of untruths and convenient doubts. We need to rely on our own intelligence and reasoning. We need confidence in ourselves to judge what the truth is; otherwise we risk upholding the implausible claims of politicians made for their short-term electoral gain at the expense of the unity and integrity of our motherland.
The government and the opposition, it seems clear to me, are playing nationalist politics, stoking communal hatred at the expense of the unity of Sri Lanka. Over the past four years after signing Resolution 30/1, the government ramped up its propaganda and the newspapers have become silent. As a result, many decent Sinhalese have begun to question the 40,000 numbers. I have been told by many Sinhalese friends at work not to mention 40,000 dead, and that 10,000 was more like it. Many thinking Sinhalese seem to be in thrall to the propaganda being put out. As the state mounted its propaganda, even I in my weaker moments wondered if the reports are untrue after all.
Necrophilia – Worse than Bestial
Indeed no. Hundreds of credible eyewitnesses saw people surrendering to the armed forces before their disappearances – that number of people could not have a reason to lie. Photographs shown on Channel 4 do not lie. Most photographs were given by decent Sinhalese soldiers who were repulsed by the most murderous carnage and necrophilia they witnessed – I desist from using the word bestial on our soldiers because that would be to insult beasts since beasts do not engage in sex with corpses.
Even President Gotabaya Rajapaksa despite his position on protecting the soldiers at all cost, has now suddenly admitted for reasons I do not understand that 20,000 disappeared and they are all dead.
Remember that at the end of the war, then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa solemnly claimed zero civilian casualties. Not a single Tamil civilian died, he said, because his troops went in with the gun in one hand and the human rights charter in the other. Presumably having been advised how laughable this claim is, the number then got bumped up to 10,000 to give it some credibility. Now it is 20,000. Who knows whether tomorrow it might be 40,000?
All those nationalist scribes and subservient stooges who wanted to side with their president must be blue in their faces and numb in their souls after his admission. That is the cost of loyalty to ideologies rather than the truth. It is time for Sri Lankans to wake up and realize that we, like the rats who followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin, are following an alluring tune that will ultimately lead to our own undoing.
