Solidarity, Sovereignty And Democracy

By Dayan Jayatilleka -February 10, 2013 |

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Under certain circumstances, it would have been good news that the main democratic opposition, the UNP and the main Tamil parliamentary party theTNA, together with a sprinkling of leftist groups, are to be partners in a renewed effort at Opposition unity. In the current and foreseeable circumstances however, that is good news only for the incumbent administration and its propagandists. Such an alliance today would be electorally radioactive. It will impact negatively on the opposition’s already imperilled performance at the upcoming provincial level elections.

As a general rule, an alliance of the UNP with the Tamil nationalist parties has been deleterious for both. The so-called Dudley-Chelvanayagam pact had a negative impact electorally and caused, as a by-product, divisions within the UNP administration. The more distressing consequence was that faced with a UNP-FP bloc, the Opposition incorporated chauvinism into its populism, and when it went on to win the election, that admixture fuelled policy, from standardisation to the ’72 Constitution.

One reason is of course, plain racism– if so, it can and must be combated; certainly not pandered to. However, that is not the sole factor involved. It must be recognised that, with a few notable exceptions, the UNP is generally not trusted as sufficiently patriotic by the electorate, and is perceived as a pro-Western and minoritarian party. The image of minoritarianism is enhanced by any alliance with a pronouncedly nationalist Tamil party.

There have of course been important exceptions. DS Senanayake led a multiethnic coalition. He could easily afford to, as he was trusted in the Sinhala heartland and his Tamil partner the ACTC was a moderate integrationist formation. Strikingly, JR Jayewardene swept to 5/6ths majority in parliament, with the CWC leader Mr Thondaman by his side. The Tamil nationalist TULF was not part of that coalition and the trade union chief Mr Thondaman was the very model of strong campaigner for integration not on the basis of supplication but of equality of rights.

Today’s UNP already suffers electorally by being led by someone whose personal appeal makes Mitt Romney seem as magnetic as Bill Clinton. He is also perceived by the electorate as the Grand Appeaser of the Tigers. Meanwhile the TNA swings between the staunchly liberal democratic (the legal activism of its MPs during the impeachment motion must be applauded) and the strident call for international accountability inquiries into the conduct of the armed forces. We may debate the validity of such a call, but what is relevant here is that it is outside the parameters of the national and the patriotic; arguably outside the boundaries of the Sri Lankan political community itself.

Gen Sarath Fonseka was electorally wounded by embracing a political suicide bomb, in the form of his meeting with and endorsement by a TNA widely perceived as fellow-travellers of the Tigers, irrespective of the fact that he could not have won that election even if it had been supervised by UN blue helmets, running against Mahinda Rajapaksa immediately after the war.

These two factors make a UNP-TNA alliance an electoral marriage made in hell. Either the TNA has to abandon its strident call on alleged war crimes and drop the radical Tamil nationalists from its ranks or its interaction with the mainline Opposition has to be limited to single issue united actions. Even so, the optics may just not be right. Thus the single issue convergences should be left to individual MPs such as the courageous and charming Mr Sumanthiran.

With foes like a Ranil-TNA alliance (and a sprinkling of anti-war activists such as Wickremabahu), President Rajapaksa does not need friends.

The same goes for the factor of international pressure. What Sri Lanka needs is international solidarity, not international interventionism. International solidarity stops where national sovereignty starts. International solidarity reaches out to people, to citizens, and respects the nation; interventionism targets states and breaks up nations.

The Age of Reason’s founding document of people’s sovereignty and individual rights, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), affirms in its third article that “The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation”.

There was a valid, invaluable campaign of solidarity for the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt and a disastrous campaign of interventionism in Kosovo, Iraq and Libya.

If anyone thinks that  solidarity and sovereignty, or to put it another way, strong manifestations of solidarity and strong opposition to interventionism,  are incompatible they should study the politics, diplomacy and ideology of Lula’s and Dilma Roussef’s Brazil, which accords high value to peoples’ solidarity just as to national sovereignty, and stands opposed to ‘liberal humanitarian’ interventionism. This is truest of course, of the stance of the progressive Latin American nations that form ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative. It is Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, a vocal defender of sovereignty, who also gave shelter to Julian Assange, a crusader for transparency in government and the people’s right to information.

Whatever external pressure there is must be ‘smart pressure’ and not dumb pressure as there has been until now. The problem with the international factor is that it has been in the main, responsive to the Tamil Diasporaand Tamil Nadu, which is understandable given the electoral arithmetic. However, it is a radically reverse arithmetic that prevails in Sri Lanka. Thus international pressure so far has gone up against the sentiments of the vast majority on the island, which is where the change has to be. Neither regime behaviour nor the regime itself can be changed by international pressure which runs completely contrary to the deeply felt sentiments of the vast majority of the citizenry.

As in the case of newly emergent or re-emergent democracies from Portugal, through Latin America to the Philippines and the former Soviet zone, any real change must carry along with it, the military. After a vastly popular military victory, a large army drawn from rural areas in an electorate dominated by rural voters is more significant than is most other socio-political contexts. If any Sri Lankan opposition strategist, democracy activist or policy-planner in the West thinks that the armed forces are going to shift so as to enable a level playing field or guarantee a change, as long as a transfer of power will be to a coalition that countenances a call for war crimes investigations and therefore may bring one in its wake, then these cosmopolitan liberals and democrats are smoking some substance that is highly hallucinogenic.

That is why democratic opinion (be it in the party political or civil society spaces, be it Sinhala or Tamil) and international players (be they states or global civil society) have a choice to make, between the project of re-democratisation and that of accountability. It has taken 30 years for Guatemala’s Gen Rios Montt to be brought to justice. It has taken 40 for the equivalents in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and now, Bangladesh. As for conflict resolution and transformation, the Sinn Fein/IRA has not mounted a global campaign for the prosecution of those responsible for the Bloody Sunday massacre or the callous disregard that resulted in the deaths of Bobby Sands and the hunger strikers. Democratic re-opening and conflict transformation would have been impossible had accountability—especially international accountability–been on the agenda during the long, complex transitions.

No seriously consequential solidarity campaign can accommodate calls for international inquiries on accountability as well as calls for re-democratization. The accountability slogan can split or shrink any coalition for democratization, in Sri Lanka as well as among Lankans throughout the world. International accountability can be a suicide bomb under the democracy movement. The accountability drive can sink the democracy agenda.

Houses demolished according to legal procedure at Waligamam north. Military Spokesperson states.

Demolishing houses or confiscating lands is not a monopolizing action by the forces, but such activities were advanced adhering to legal process.

 

Currently 2 thousand and 500 hector lands are in the possession of forces in Jaffna was said by Military spokesperson Brigadier Ruwan Vannigasooriya.  Such statement was stated  by him to an interview given for a Colombo media.

 

Tamil peoples lands are confiscated by forces in the Waligamam north area, and if forces evacuate the lands only,  people can be resettled.

 

Forces have impounded 24 Grama Sevaka divisions. Due to this reason, 10 thousand acres and more lands are under the direction of forces.

 

Many million worth of houses owned by the people located in this high security zone are demolished and flatten by the forces.

 

Tamil National Alliance parliament member Suresh Piremachandran alleged that the forces are engaged in constructing homes for themselves and to reinforce the high security zone.

 

Military Spokesperson Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya denied these allegations said, there is nonexistence of high security zone in north. But military camps are in existence.

 

Sri Lanka military can be positioned only in Sri Lanka and not anywhere. The allegation of 10 thousand acres of land in the control of military is false.

 

6 thousand 177 acres (2 thousand 500 hectares) land is in the custody of military, navy force and air force. Instances where lands are required for the development activities in the north; there is necessity to impound lands, where appropriate lands are available.  It is a legal practice.

 

But government is not monopolizing to confiscate lands or to demolish houses in any areas, without following this procedure was mentioned by him. 

Sunday , 10 February 2013

Commonwealth rope hangs over Lanka

Sunday, February 10, 2013

The Commonwealth Secretary General arrives in Colombo today with the sword of Damocles, so to say, hanging over the head of Sri Lanka; both in terms of hosting the Commonwealth Summit (CHOGM) later this year and even more importantly, our very existence as a member of the 54-member grouping of former British colonies.

The fact that the Minister of External Affairs had to rush to London to meet the Secretary General just a few days before the SG emplaned for Colombo speaks volumes for the gravity of the matter which Sri Lanka faces– a push led by Canada to place this country on the agenda of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) which has the mandate to report to CHOGM whether a particular member-state is conducting its internal affairs according to ‘Commonwealth values” – a term Sri Lanka has also concurred with. The Government has tried to hide the seriousness of the threat it now faces.

Pakistan and Fiji have been expelled from the Commonwealth for violating these ‘Commonwealth values’but were later reinstated while the Maldives remains suspended. This originated where military coups ousted elected governments, but now has been expanded to a wider spectrum, entrenched in what is known as the ‘Latimer House principles’.

These are all one-sided affairs. Not that ‘Commonwealth values’ or the ‘Latimer House principles’ are bad; in fact, they are good principles of how modern nations and their leaders must govern their citizens. The implementation of these values and principles is, however, wholly partisan and like in the case of the United Nations, aimed at neo-colonialism. The economically more powerful nations can get away with blue murder flouting these very values and principles but they gang up on recalcitrant nations that drift away from their orbit of influence.

Sri Lanka’s problem is self-inflicted. Just when the country was seemingly overcoming moves for an independent international tribunal to go into allegations of violations of International Humanitarian Law — also a part of this duplicitous neo-colonial agenda — during the last stages of the military campaign against the LTTE, there was another instance of political blundering with the blatantly flawed impeachment of the incumbent Chief Justice, that cowed down and emasculated the Judiciary in the process. That provided all the ammunition for countries like Canada (which has a significantly hostile Sri Lankan Diaspora lobby having some clout in the electoral politics of that country) to reopen old wounds under a new guise.

The fact that Sri Lanka’s judiciary is barely limping back to its feet, almost mortally felled by the Government, and that irreparable damage has been caused to its independence and integrity is a fact. That the appointment of Chief Justice 44 was from among its ranks of chosen advisers, his personal integrity challenged, does not make the hopeless situation any better.

The External Affairs Minister who too threw in his lot with the impeachment crisis, trying to avoid Presidential wrath for having recommended Chief Justice 43, made a drastic statement suggesting that the court order on the issue was “not worth the paper it was written on”. How far his own credibility reaches, or doesn’t, to those nations breathing fire on Sri Lanka is an open secret.

Make no mistake, the ‘white Commonwealth’ is out to derail CHOGM in Sri Lanka. Typically, it is being done subtly. The ‘white Commonwealth’ uses the rapier, not the bludgeon. This is an art, nay a science, it has been perfected over several decades and that is exactly what this Administration lacks. In whatever it seems to do, there is a mess left behind at the crime scene for others to pick up on.

Sri Lanka offered to host this summit at a time the country was craving the indulgence of an otherwise hostile world community, especially Western nations and India during its own ‘war on terror’ at home. Often Western powers give the rope for nations to hang themselves. CHOGM 2013 is now a rope dangling over the heads of the host Government.
The Commonwealth itself is a dead-duck organisation in the world scene.

Its titular head is the Queen of England, but even her successor and its future are uncertain. She is the thread that holds it together, and one can say that it hangs together by a thread. Britain, as primus inter pares (first among equals) has long dumped the Commonwealth, and is obsessed by Europe. Britain is now not sure whether to dump Europe as well. Even the century- old London based Commonwealth Press Union had to wind up due to the lack of financial support, and interest from Britain.

The Commonwealth does not vote en bloc atinternational agendas nor speak en voce. They are left to their own devices, Britain more often than not listening to the United States, or Europe, is least bothered about the sentiments of the Commonwealth. At best it is a club for nostalgic fuddy-duddies; not all of them who even play cricket.

The ‘Commonwealth values’ and the ‘Latimer House principles’ are worthy guidelines, a code of ethics and conduct, for self-government among nations emerging from centuries of oppressive colonial rule. There is a propensity for some of these nations to move to military juntas and autocratic rule and they must be reined in.

Sri Lanka, and Sri Lankans have largely embraced universal adult franchise, the Rule of Law, an independent Judiciary and Police and a free media even before Independence 65 years ago, but all of these ‘values’ are under severe threat and slowly ebbing away from the reach of the common citizen. There is what we can see as a more Chinese-style authoritarian regime in the making.

The Government will have to decide if it is then to abandon these ‘Commonwealth values’ that have been ingrained in the people of this country, and take a different road. Hosting a summit for Commonwealth leaders alone will seem as if the Government is trying to eat the cake – and have it. Some radical course-correction seems imperative.

Mass Grave In Matale: A Cause For Grave Concern

By Malinda Seneviratne -February 9, 2013 

Malinda Seneviratne

The discovery of a mass grave in Matale has elicited horror in certain circles.  It is no doubt a horrifying discovery.  The horror is such that it is also natural for people to ask questions and demand answers.  It all depends on who is asking, who is being asked and who ends up answering.

In the West there is a word that is used in post-death or indeed post-anything situations: closure.  Investigations help, we are told, not just to bring perpetrator to book but for the aggrieved to find ‘closure’.  The Matale grave is over two decades old, we are told.  The dead were the victims of thebheeshanaya, many seem to think.  They may be right.  The question is how did the loved ones of the victims find ‘closure’?

Most were Sinhala Buddhists.  The parents didn’t get to see the bodies of their sons and daughters.  Some assumed they were dead because they were aware that abductions had actually taken place.  Some couldn’t have known.  Twenty years is a long time.   One stops waiting.  Other tragedies sweep over earlier ones.  Joys, sporadic or otherwise, give respite. The diurnal takes over and new routines over-script older ones.  In most cases, merit (pin) would have been ‘transferred’ subsequent to almsgivings.

One can argue, effectively, that death is the only unguent that takes away the burdens and pains of loss.  Loss is personal.  Grief is personal. At the same time we are talking about mass murder. We are talking of crimes against humanity, and of course ones which escaped the eagle eye of chest-beating human rights activists.  These activists who talk of ‘justice for the living’ and ‘accountability’ should not be stopped by crime-date.  They can go back to the horrendous crimes against humanity perpetrated by European hordes in Sri Lanka for five long centuries, including the breaking of temples and construction of churches over those ruins, the burning of ancient and invaluable manuscripts and other such acts of vandalism.  They won’t.  Must we?

Yes, and no.  Yes, because society and civilization require answer to query.  No, not if it is a selective exercise. And ‘no,’ if it amounts to turning mass graves, bones and such into a political football.

The JVP, which lost hundreds of members in that period of terror, has demanded an investigation. Interestingly, though, the JVP has called for investigations into allegations of their own wrongdoing.  It’s a win-win situation. Victims of JVP terrorism were not buried in mass graves.  They were all clear cut assassinations where life was taken and body left behind.

The thrust of the JVP’s rhetoric on the Matale grave has little to do with the horror and the need for ‘closure’ but to gather some political mileage by way of pointing fingers.  Pointing fingers, let us be clear, not at the regime of the time but at individuals associated with that regime who have crossed over to the present regime.

The JVP ‘pacted’ with the UNP during the last Presidential election.   It dare not upset fellow travelers in the political wilderness.  This is logical and understandable.  It also points to humbuggery about victims and their loved ones.   The UNP, for its part, has been silent, although those UNP stalwarts who are aiding and abetting clearly pernicious moves to manufacture crimes against humanity purportedly perpetrated by the security forces, has the moral obligation to comment. They’ve been silent.  Not strange.

How about Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera, Sunila Abeysekera, Nimalka Fernando, Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, Basil Fernando, Kumar David and J.C. Weliamuna?  Is their silence a different kind of political football with the dead?  Are some victims not newsworthy? Are some murders not worthy of investigation?  Does that have something to do with who did the killing and does this silence indicate where these supposedly ‘neutral’ commentators stand party-politically?

None of these people wept the kinds of tears they weep now back then when the UNP regime slaughtered unarmed youth in their hundreds on a daily basis. They don’t need ‘closure’ now because they didn’t need closure then, should we not conclude?

Way back in the early nineties, Mangala Samaraweera helped set up an organization called ‘Mau Peramuna’ (Mother’s Front), which was also a ‘footballing’ of sorts, where the then ‘recent’ inconsolability of mothers whose children were billafied and probably murdered, some burnt alive, was tossed around for political gain.  Why is he so silent now?

No one can really dismiss investigation-call on account of the length of time that’s passed.   This is why those who are shedding tears over crimes that are said to have happened cannot remain silent about Matale.  The USA, Canada, Britain and other EU countries must speak out. They have not.

These are matters of grave concern.  These are matters to think about for if footballing is the intent then closure is of secondary import to the questioner.  That’s adding insult to injury.  Not just the dead but the living too would be turned into pawns in a political game.  This cannot be something that the nation wants.

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of ‘The Nation and his articles can be found at www.malindawords.blogspot.com

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders And The Buddhist Jathaka Stories

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders And The Buddhist Jathaka Stories

Psychiatric Disorder: An Analysis Of Gotabaya Rajapaksa

By Brian Senewiratne -September 5, 2012

A Possible Psychiatric Disorder At The Top Of The Government, An Analysis Of Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

This is a serious analysis of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary, effectively the de facto President of Sri Lanka, brother of the elected President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is only the de jure President.

A country with two Presidents

It is erroneously claimed that Mahinda Rajapaksa is the most powerful person in Sri Lanka. There is evidence that Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the most powerful (and certainly the most feared and ruthless) person in Sri Lanka.

A single (but crucial) example will suffice. With mounting international pressure to devolve some power to the Tamil areas (North and East), President Mahinda Rajapaksa initiated the All Party Representative Council (APRC) to look into a constitutional political settlement. The APRC limbered on from 2006-2009 and submitted a Report. This was never published. It was buried, as have so many Reports of Commissions of Inquiry and the like, in Sri Lanka.

With increasing pressure, particularly from India, the President initiated (yet another) ‘Committee’ – the Parliamentary Select Committee – to look into a constitutional settlement (that had just been done by the APRC).

In stepped de facto ‘President’ Gotabaya Rajapaksa. On 16 August 2012, in an interview to India’s Headlines Today television, he said that Sri Lanka would not devolve any more powers to the minorities in spite of the promises it made in the past. He said:

“The existing constitution is more than enough…..Devolution-wise I think we have done enough. I don’t think there is a necessity to go beyond that”.

And it has not gone “beyond that.” Q.E.D (quod erat demonstrandum – a Latin phrase which translates as “which was to be demonstrated”. The phrase is placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument when what was specified in the enunciation has been proved.

There are numerous other examples of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a mere Public Servant, telling the President and the Government to go to hell. What will be done is what he wants done. If that is not a de facto President, I do not know what he is.

Several people/groups, in and outside Sri Lanka, have expressed concern. Col R Hariharan, an Indian specialist on South Asian military Intelligence, in his “Sri Lanka: Gotabaya larger than life” (9 July 2012) said, “President Rajapaksa would be well advised to distance himself swiftly from his brother…. on sensitive issues that are not his business”. Yes, indeed, it is not his business.

The Head of the Centre for Policy Alternatives – a human rights group in Colombo– in an article, “Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Too full of power to exercise it”, has called for his resignation or dismissal, not once but three times.

Friday Forum, a group of much respected members of civil society in Colombo, which includes Jayantha Dhanapala, an internationally respected diplomat, in a damning indictment, “Arrogance of Power”, asked, “Is it acceptable for His Excellency the President to keep in high office a person who demonstrates an incapability to control his temper?”

Interview with a senior journalist Read More

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders And The Buddhist Jathaka Stories

By Ruwan M Jayatunge -February 9, 2013

Dr. Ruwan M Jayatunge MD

Several years ago, I exchanged views on DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and the Buddhist Jathaka stories with some Psychologists / Psychiatrists of the USA, UK, Australia and Canada. Only a very few knew the existence of the Buddhist Jathaka stories and how deeply it touches the DSM based mental illnesses.

What are Jathaka Stories ?

The Jathaka stories or Jathaka tales are a voluminous body of folklore concerned with previous births of the Buddha which is based as a collection of five hundred and fifty stories. Originally it comprise of 547 poems, arranged roughly by increasing number of verses. According to archaeological and literary evidence, the Jathaka stories were compiled in the period, the 3rd Century B.C. to the 5th Century A.D. The Khuddaka Nikāya contains 550 stories the Buddha told of his previous lifetimes as an aspiring Bodhisatta.

According to Professor Rhys DavidsJātaka stories are one of the oldest fables. Rev Buddhaghosa, translated most of the Jathaka stories into Pāli about 430 A.D. Jathaka stories can be considered as cases studies of the Buddhist philosophy. Most of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) based mental ailments could be seen in the Jathaka stories. It discusses profound psychological themes and analyses the human mind. The Consultant Psychiatrist Dr D.V.J Harischandra in his famous book Psychiatric aspects of Jathaka stories points out that the Western Psychologists should study the essences of mind analysis in Jathaka stories.

Jathaka Stories and the Western World

Among the Westerners Professor Rhys Davids Ph.D., LL. D., of London, Secretary of the Asiatic Society studied the historical and cultural context of the Jathaka stories and he translated a large number of stories in 1880. Professor E. B. Cowell, professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge, brought out the complete edition of the Jataka stories between 1895 and 1907.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) Read More

Main UNP and other opposition parties to sign agreement: Pressure to follow seven precepts
(Lanka-e-News-08.Feb.2013, 11.30PM) The memorandum of understanding between the UNP and several other opposition parties which are in the process of joining together is to be signed on the 11th of February. Ten political parties and civil Organizations that agreed so far have expressed their consent to sign this memorandum, according to reports. The preliminary agreement in this regard is being discussed these days .

Many of the smaller parties are of the view that the primary condition should be the abolition of the Presidential system that is spawning dictators . The UNP however is taking the stance that this must be done gradually , according to unofficial sources. The program of work following the signing of the agreement is also being discussed. The parties that have agreed to sign the agreement are as follows:

UNP under the leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Tamil National alliance led by R Sambandan
Nava sama samaja party under the leadership of Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne

* Democratic national Front led by Mano Ganeshan
* United socialist party led by Siritunge Jayasooriya
* Nava Sihala urumaya led by Sarath Manamendraarachchi
* Ruhunu Janatha party led by Aruna Soysa
* Mawbima Janatha Front led by Hemakumara Nanayakkara
* Muslim Tamil national alliance led by Azad Sally
* United national front led by Sirimasiri Hapuarachchi
The ten main parties will be forming this alliance via the agreement.

Apart from these ten parties , the platform for freedom organization had also expressed their desire to join the new alliance ,reports say.

Lanka e news had already reported on many occasions on the common opinion of the opposition parties that if Democracy in SL is to be safeguarded , the Rajapakse regime shall be chased out. To achieve this end , there are seven rules to be followed :

We shall name these seven rules as the seven precepts …

*Abolish the Presidency system that is spawning dictators and reinforce Democracy.
*Changes in the constitution be introduced to ensure that the minorities in SL live as citizens of this country with dignity.
*Supremacy of the law along with strengthening of Judicial independence .
*Protect human rights even subordinating life .
*Eradicate corruption and install good governance.
*Freedom of the media shall be promoted and strengthened.
*Sweep out politics from Govt. service.

Militarisation, Lankan Style

By Tisaranee Gunasekara -February 9, 2013 

Sri Lanka’s unexpected loss at the T20 World Cup finals in late 2012 plunged the country into despair. The fact that the defeat happened at home raised the shock to a new level. The day after the cricket fiasco,Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary and younger brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, offered his take on why Sri Lanka lost its fourth cricket world cup final. At a function to mark the commissioning of 23 principals of leading national schools as brevet colonels, Rajapaksa attributed the defeat to the “absence of leadership training” (Sri Lanka Mirror, 8 October 2012).

Rajapaksa’s “analysis”, considered in confluence with the occasion on which he made it and his full official title (Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development), indicates both the extent of Lankan militarisation and its sui generis nature. In Sri Lanka, militarisation is advancing with disturbing rapidity, and making inroads into traditional civilian preserves. The motive force behind these meticulously planned waves of militarisation is not the military leadership. The authors and directors of Lankan militarisation are the country’s civilian rulers, the Rajapaksas. The militarisation drive is part – and a critically important one – of the grand Rajapaksa scheme to strengthen “Rajapaksa power”, concomitant with dismantling democratic freedoms and subverting judicial independence.

File Photo

Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected the president of Sri Lanka in November 2005. Since then he and his family have moved ceaselessly to gather the reins of state and societal power into their hands. This orchestrated metamorphosis of Sri Lanka from a flawed democracy into a neo-patrimonial oligarchy is happening concurrently with the transformation of the Lankan military into a praetorian guard of the new familial power elite. The bloated military is being fed huge chunks of the national income, and used to crystallise Rajapaksa dominance of state and society.

“Leadership training” is the Rajapaksa regime’s code name for civilians being given courses in physical and psychological regimentation by the military. This process began in 2011 when all new entrants to universities were ordered to undergo a compulsory three-week leadership training programmes in army camps. Varying excuses were conjured to make this outrageous anomaly seem necessary and innocuous, ranging from promoting English and computer literacy to teaching rural students proper table etiquette. But the real purpose of the programme is to transform universities – hitherto immune to Rajapaksa influence – from breeding-grounds for dissent into epicentres of patriotic-conformism. Subsequently, some secondary school students and all ministers and parliamentarians of the ruling party were sent to army camps for leadership training. Subjecting 23 principals to a week’s “cadet and leadership training” by the National Cadet Corp marked the latest step in this process of administering a concentrated dosage of militarisation to civilians.¹

The leadership training programme is a brainchild of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development.² Logically, any concordance between defence and urban development is hard to perceive. However the twinning of these two disparate areas has given the military legal entrée into a wide variety of civilian preserves. Even more pertinently, it has enabled the Rajapaksas to use the military to bypass democratic norms and legal boundaries and undertake questionable projects aimed at economic extraction, politico-ideological indoctrination and societal control.

Militarisation, Lankan style, is turning the Lankan military into an effective tool of Rajapaksa power and a total defender of Rajapaksa rule, well beyond the boundaries of democracy, constitutionality and legality.

Militarisation with Rajapaksa Characteristics                              Read More

Some Issues Concerning Tamil Language Rights

by Dr. Devanesan Nesiah-:

( February 8, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Like nearly every other multi ethnic country, we have had a history of ethnic conflict. But, compared to several other countries, our conflict was mild and not posing a serious threat to national unity till the mid 20th century. The so called 50-50 issue raised by the Tamil Congress before the Soulbury Commission in the mid 40s was a non-starter, and quickly and smoothly disposed of. Far more insidious was the issue of citizenship and voting rights of ‘Indian Tamils’ (mostly Tamils who had been recruited into the plantations in the course of the first half of the 20th century or earlier, and their descendants). The State and the Plantation Leadership for economic reasons, the non-Tamil population for political reasons, and the Sri Lankan Tamils for social reasons (class & caste), had contributed to keeping the ‘Indian Tamils’ isolated from the other communities and on the margin of the Sri Lankan population.

In consequence, the legislation to deprive nearly all of them of citizenship and voting rights was very quickly conceived, drafted and passed almost immediately after independence with very little opposition apart from the ‘Indian Tamil’ and a minority of Sri Lankan Tamil Members of Parliament led by S.J.V. Chelvanayakam (who broke away on this issue and founded the Federal Party), and a few other individuals in Parliament, mostly on the left. Although it was their underpaid, indentured labour that was the main stay of our export earnings, the vast majority of Indian Tamils were reduced to statelessness overnight. One consequence was that the Tamil presence in Parliament was substantially depleted, paving the way for Sinhala Only (The Official Language Act of 1956), as well as a long succession of acts of Tamil political militancy and anti-Tamil riots and pogroms, leading to the twenty four years long civil war (1985 to 2009) involving much destruction and bloodshed.



Just as some Sri Lankan Tamil MPs were co-opted into backing the exclusion of citizenship and voting rights from ‘Indian Tamils’, Tamil speaking Muslim MPs based outside the North and East were co-opted into voting for Sinhala only. The honourable exceptions were the Eastern based Muslim MPs and the Jaffna born but Colombo based Senator A. M. A. Azeez. S. J. V. Chelvanayakam captured the leadership of the Sri Lankan Tamils and retained it till he died in the late 1970s. The ethnic animosity built up over the decades has led to continuing oppression and linguistic discrimination.

Some sporadic attempts were made to remedy the damage. Regulations were passed to permit ‘the reasonable use of the Tamil language in administration’, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed under Indian pressure, followed by the 16th Amendment enhancing the official status of Tamils and also recognizing English as a link language, and other reforms were proposed but all these have remained largely or partly unimplemented. A new draft constitution was introduced by the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumartunga some years ago but it was not passed. De Jure the official status of the Tamil language is now satisfactory in most respects, but de facto the situation is worse than it was in the wake of Sinhala Only more than half a century ago. Ethnic animosity is also worse than it has been for half a century. No credible attempt has been made in recent years to promote reconciliation. The Second and Third Constitutions have made things worse, and it looks as if no serious move is underway to remedy the situation.

Absence of political will Full Story>>>