A Lanka lost?

2013-03-23 

With India unequivocally backing a vote against Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council resolution that reprimands the Mahinda Rajapakse government for war crimes against the Tamil mino-rity, 40,000 of whom were slaughtered in the final days of a 27-year-old Tamil Tiger insurgency, Delhi’s Lankan challenge has only just begun.

The UNHRC resolution may not be seen as eno­ugh of a rap on the knu­ckles by the two regional rivals, the DMK and the AIADMK using Parlia-ment to score points off each other. They are upset that a full-fledged UN-appointed human rights trial is not on the cards, and instead, Colombo is only being “encourag­ed” to conduct an “independent and credible investigation into violations of international human rights laws.” But for India, watered down or not, the resolution marks a turning point in Indo-Sri Lanka relations.

It breaks with the approach that Delhi has adopted thus far, running back channel talks between the Mahinda Ra­japakse government and moderate Tamil leaders like Tamil Na­tional Alliance leader R. Sampantham, called to Delhi only months ago for consultations. It’s a signal that as much as India was willing to look the other way, and perhaps even help Colombo in its decimation of the Tigers, it cannot condone the cold-blooded massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocents when documentary evidence points to their wilful killing by the Sri Lankan Army.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s soldi­e­rs, many of whom were only children caught bet­ween the Tigers and the Army, were in the act of surrendering wh­en they were butchered.
Most importantly, thr­ee years and 10 months after the war ended, and despite promises to the contrary, the Rajapakse government, riding a wave of chauvinistic Sin­hala nationalism and thumbing its nose at India, has been un­wi­lling to bring Tamils — not the Tigers — into the mainstream.

The flaw may lie in Prime Minister Man­mo­han Singh’s foreign policy focused more on creating overarching economic linkages across Southeast Asia rather than building one-on-one political bonds with leaders in the immediate neighbourhood. Sri Lanka is an early casualty. The IPKF misadventure has been neither forgotten nor forgiven.

The Jayawardene-Raj­iv relationship predic­ta­bly floundered, collapsing in a welter of suspicion and mistrust; as did the Manmohan-Chan­dr­i­ka link, doomed when the Tigers tried and failed to assassinate her when she was Sri Lanka’s President. The subsequent all-party talks with the Tigers, en­dor­sed by the United Nati­o­nal Party’s Ranil Wic­kremesinghe, also ran aground.
With Mahinda Raja­pa­k­se, India had a fresh op­portunity to start over. Instead, ties with Co­lo­mbo unravelled further.

That’s a shame. India could have found no greater well-wisher than the earthy Raja­pak­se, whose rise from relative obscurity to counter the blue-blooded Sinhala leadership of the Ban­da­ranaike-Kumaratungas has been spectacular, with the Rajapakse family clearly taking control of the levers of power, both in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party — once synonymous with the former first family — and in the military and government.

The recent impeachment and removal from office of former Chief Justice Shirani Ban­da­ra­nayake is part of the plan to remove nay-sayers from positions of power, as is the deliberate cutting down to size of war hero Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who mistakenly believed he could use his popularity to counter the President.

The Opposition UNP, led by Wickremesinghe, remains a bystander.
Rajapakse, who made one overture after another to Delhi after he made clear that he was more than willing to go after the Tigers, confided to Indian interlocutors that he could not understand Delhi’s lack of warmth thereafter.

Delhi now sees the sweet talk for what it is — classic Rajapakse doublespeak. It’s the method he employed to use India’s help to destroy the Tigers, knowing that once he had the LTTE out of the way, India would have no card left to play, no leverage to push for the 13th Amendment and the rehabilitation of the moderate Tamils, whom India want back in the political mainstream.

It’s the same method he employed to checkmate critics, as he stays focused on marking his own place in history. The recent opening of the Chinese-built Mat­ta­la Rajapakse In­terna­tio­nal Airport in his home town near Hambantota, illustrates the Presi­de­nt’s masterly understa­n­ding of geopolitics as he plays off India’s inadequacies against an ass­e­r­tive China, and parlays Sri Lanka’s strategic lo­cation, eyed both by the US and India as a vital outpost astride Indian Ocean sea-lanes, for his own gain.

India, which set up the Indian Oil Corporation at Trin­comalee on the east coast, could lose that too as Rajapakse shores up support from among Sinhala fringe groups like the Godu Bala Sena — the ironically named Buddhist Army — and steps up attacks on Muslim groups ambivalent over his leadership.

What’s clear is that India’s ability to influence the course of events in the island nation is negligible. Sources close to the powerful first family have told this writer that they see India as an “irritating gnat that can be smacked away at will”. Where does India go from here?

As Rajapakse whi­ps up the backlash aga­i­nst India and the US to perpetuate his dynastic politics, India must pu­sh for a human rights co­mmission that goes be­yond the empty Le­ss­ons Learnt and Re­con­cilia­tion Commission set up by Colombo.

It must en­sure the consolidation of moderate Tamil parties, vulnerable to the ruthless disappearances that have visited all critics of the government. It must strengthen the UNP, the only other political force on the island that shares India’s democratic values. Or better still bring Kumaratunga back into play.

And to the people of Sri Lanka, the vast majority of whom remain pro-India, it must be made clear that the UNHRC resolution is against the government, not the people of an island nation with whom India shares time-honoured bonds of ethnicity, culture and history.

The Bar Association of India Letter to President of Sri Lanka on Impeachment and Removal of Chief Justice of Sri Lanka

The Bar Association of India, has written a letter to the President of Sri Lanka communicating its concerns on the Rule of Law related issues that emerge from the recent Impeachment and Removal of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka.

Saturday, 23 March 2013

See full letter  here

Pope In Rome, US Resolution In Geneva, Setbacks In Colombo, Chennai And Delhi

By Rajan Philips -March 23, 2013 |

Rajan Philips

The conclave of cardinals surprised most outside observers by selecting Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as the new Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. There was no surprise in Geneva, however, where the US sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka passed with almost the same division among UNHRC members as last year. What has been new this year is the emergence of a vicious Colombo-Delhi-Chennai triangle driven by the eruptions of extremist bigots in both Colombo and Chennai. Manifestly, the diplomatic chicaneries in Geneva, extremist eruptions in Colombo and Chennai, and constant dillydallying in Delhi and Colombo have no connection to the spiritual summit of the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the new Pope’s down-to-earth pastoral emphasis, spiritual inclusiveness without hectoring, and his totally caring outlook could inspire new approaches to dealing with even intractable political issues.

A new approach is certainly needed in Colombo, Chennai and Delhi, where governments appear to be grandstanding against one another while leaving the stage open for extremists of many hues to perform their rituals of hatred and intolerance. What Harim Peiris perceptively noted about the current anti-Muslim campaign in Sri Lanka being very much “against the mainstream of the current public mood and popular sentiment”, is equally applicable to the orchestrated attacks on Sinhalese visitors in Tamil Nadu. They are despicable and beyond the pale. What is more worrisome are the actions and inactions of the three governments in Colombo, Chennai and Delhi, that are giving the social and political troublemakers “all the space and opportunity to pursue their bigoted campaign at will” – to borrow Mr. Peiris’s words for my purpose. As government actions and inactions go, it goes beyond the relatively mundane questions of law and order and the hackneyed concept of sovereignty. It goes to the more fundamental question of moral abdication, if not turpitude. World religions have complicated politics unnecessarily, but can they help when politics is desperate for a moral compass?

I am not suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church should be given the task of moralizing politics in the temporal world and there are enough people to shout that the Church must put its own spiritual house in order in the first place. Nor should it be possible, or necessary, for religious organizations to intervene in political matters. But there are times when the way religious organizations conduct themselves or claim to conduct themselves may provide inspirations for new approaches in temporal politics. ‘Do as they say, but not as they do’, Christ told his disciples against the high priests of his time, and politics might heed that advice while looking for inspiration from religion. Though a minority religion, Catholicism is part of the moral makeup of India and Sri Lanka and Cardinals from the two countries were among the Cardinals who selected the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Ares as the new Pope. Equally pertinent, the Sri Lankan parliament adopted a unanimous resolution to felicitate the retiring Pope Benedict, and Sri Lanka’s own Cardinal Malcolm Ranjithwas touted as a potential contender to become the new pope.

The “Herods” of History

The new Pope, Pope Francis, is old at 76, but he has brought instant newness to the seat of St. Peter. His wit and humour have come across as a refreshing trademark – for instance, he told fellow Cardinals during the dinner toast following his election: “May God forgive you for what you have done!” More importantly, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first Jesuit to become Pope, the first non-European in many centuries and the first from the Americas. He is also the first Pope to take the name of Francis – after Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy, and the saint of humility, of the poor, of nature. In less than two weeks, the new Pope has already put his stamp on the papacy. As a Jesuit he is an intellectual cleric, but unlike Benedict, Pope Francis is not a reserved academic but a down-to-earth pastor. He may not be quite the dramatic persona that John Paul II was, but one who captivates others by his sincerity and humility. Unlike Benedict and like John Paul II, he is not shy of crowds but loves them. On the other hand, on the issue articulating spirituality and sexuality that has been the main focus of media coverage especially in the West, Pope Francis is a doctrinaire conservative like his two predecessors. Pope Francis is a Jesuit pope, but not a liberation theologian.

The inaugural papal mass on March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, was symptomatic of the man and his mission. The long standing ritual of nearly 18 centuries was much shorter and far less baroque than in recent past. The homily was scriptural, but simple, sincere, honest and inclusive without any trace of catholic triumphalism or spiritual hectoring. The theme of the homily was ‘protection’ and the Pope expertly based it on the role of Joseph as protector of the Holy Family, retraced its “prior human dimension”, and extended it to cover every person’s private and public responsibilities in every sphere of human activity and in all walks of life – one’s home, religion, as well as the political and secular world.

The Pope asked “all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.” As for his role in this collective endeavor, the Pope seemed to emphasize his position as the Bishop of Rome, perhaps signifying the importance of re-establishing the collegiality of the bishops spread throughout the world rather than the hierarchy of the pope. Institutional reform and devolution of power is what is most anticipated from the new Pope and that according to many commentators seem to have been the thinking of the cardinals who elected him. His hands-on record in the reorganization of the Church in Argentina is what the new Pope is now expected to extend globally.

The homily highlighted the qualities of goodness and tenderness as pre-requisites for providing care and protection. Neither is “the virtue of the weak”, he said, “but a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion …”. Anthropological nature, if not nature itself (Marx drew the distinction between the two), would seem to have made women the more common repositories of goodness and tenderness, qualities that women could and should bring to public life in great abundance. Compared to the advances that are being made, albeit not fast enough, in the secular world, there is hardly any movement within the Church in regard to gender equality. Will the Church open up? Not likely, but the pressure will be mounting, and rightly so.

Indirectly at least, the homily seemed to address the usual detractors over the role of the official Argentinian Church and Bergoglio himself during the country’s seven year (1976-83) ‘dirty war’. That was the time the ruling military junta waged war against dissidents including intrepid priests and ‘disappearing’ them by their thousands. The hierarchy of the Argentinian Church and many members of the clergy shamefully identified themselves with the military regime. But Jorge Bergoglio, who was the Jesuit Provincial and not even a bishop during the dirty war years, was not one of them. Last year, under his leadership as Cardinal Archbishop, the Church officially apologized to the people of Argentina for the role of the Church hierarchy in supporting the ruling junta during the dirty war.

Pope Francis may have had the last figurative word on the matter when he said in his homily: “Tragically, in every period of history, there are ‘Herods’ who plot death, wreak havoc, and mar the countenance of men and women.” The modern day Herods are the sovereign states that wreak havoc on human rights, and that would include, one might say, the Argentinian state during the dirty war years. Francis could not have made clearer on which side he stood then and where now stands now.

Moral and political dilemmas

Two days after the inauguration of the new Pope, the US led resolution on Sri Lanka was passed at the UNHRC in Geneva. It is one thing for religious leaders to call upon the political powers to exercise their responsibility in protecting all creation, as Pope Francis just did, but it is quite a different matter for the political world and secular society to deal with those who have committed human rights violations or face allegations of violating human rights. Is the UNHCR the best place to deal with contemporary Herods, or must each state be left to own resources to find “goodness and tenderness” within itself and deal with its own past, make amends and reconcile for the future?

For the last two years, Sri Lankan politics has been preoccupied with the UNHRC and its cycle of resolutions. The instinctive response and continuing strategy of the government has been to do everything possible to avoid, circumvent or defeat any resolution in Geneva. While these efforts have ended in failure, the government feels complacent because the resolutions have no real teeth or consequence. How long can a government remain complacent if the country is going to annually receive dishonourable mention even by a slim majority in an international forum? Apart from the embarrassment, is it moral and right for the government to persist in domestic sabre rattling and dead end diplomacy instead of genuinely committing itself to postwar reconciliation and addressing the substance of the UNHRC resolution which mostly pertains to implementing the recommendations of the government’s own LLRC Commission.

Beyond producing paper reports on the number of released detainees and the bill of quantities of infrastructure work, there has been no manifest commitment or action on the part of the government to work with the people of the north and east and their accredited representatives. Political solutions and structures can be endlessly drawn up on paper, but the ground realties in the north and east will not change until there is positive willingness within the government to change ground realities for the better. The upshot of this lack of willingness in government is the emergence of extremist communal forces in the south to open a new line of attack targeting the Muslims in postwar Sri Lanka. What is worse, there is now counter-extremism across the Palk Strait in Tamil Nadu, a new and unnecessary problem for which Colombo and Delhi must share proportionate responsibility.

It has often been argued that US and Western action in Geneva only helps the Sri Lankan government to reinforce its political base at home. The implication of this logic is that internal opposition to the Sri Lankan government that could potentially flourish in the absence of US and Western detractions may focus only on the economic hardships in the south and leave out of its agenda the task of achieving postwar reconciliation. Put another way, it is the responsibility of those who are critical of the government on the social and economic fronts to connect with the political task of reconciliation rather than blaming others for their interference. To that end, they could draw some encouragement from the rebuke that has been rightly expressed by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups against attacks targeting Sinhalese visitors in Tamil Nadu.

Although his premises and purposes are quite different, in his inaugural homily Pope Francis uses two terms that are topical in current political discussions: protect, responsibility. It would be farfetched to suggest even a subliminal articulation of the two as ‘Responsibility to Protect’! But it would be perfectly legitimate to ask in the spirit of the papal homily that every Sri Lankan, including the Rajapaksa government, must assume the responsibility to protect one another by admitting to the past and reconciling for the future.

GL clashes with Canadian Senator over CJ impeachment

SATURDAY, 23 MARCH 2013 

A heated exchange took place at a guest-lecture by visiting Canadian Senator Hugh Segal at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute yesterday when the impeachment of Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake arose during the ensuing question and answer session.

Responding to a journalist, Senator Segal said the Canadian Federal Court and the Supreme Court had given many rulings against the Canadian Government on the issue of the ‘first nations’, which constitute four percent of the total population.

“We [the government] have suffered as a matter from our courts but we didn’t impeach the Chief Justice as a result,” the Senator said.

Making his closing remarks External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L Peiris lashed out at Mr. Segal for his comment on the impeachment.

“I take exception to this remark which was the only unwarranted and inappropriate remark made. Had I not been your host I would have reacted more sharply. I would not have dreamt of making such a remark if I were visiting your country. I am appalled and taken aback by it because there is no nexus in this,” Prof. Peiris said. (Hafeel Farisz and Lahiru Pothmulla)

An uncle’s present to a nephew

SATURDAY, 23 MARCH 2013 

Shashendra Rajapaksa, the nephew of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and son of the Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, has been given the opportunity of continuing as the Basnayake Nilame of Ruhunu Maha Katharagama Devalaya through an extra special gazette No. 1807/39 issued on 15th March without any election.

The gazette with the signature of Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne has exempted Ruhunu Katharagama Devale, in which Chief Minister for Uva PC Shashendra Rajapaksa is the Basnayake Nilame, from clause 12  (a) of Buddhist Viharas and Devalagam Temporalities Act which states that the period a person could hold the post of Basnayake Nilame could be extended only by two years.

According to Buddhist Viharas and Devalagam Temporalities Act  A Basnayake Nilame could be in the post for five years since the day he is appointed and the President could extend his term for two years if he is found efficient.

The extended period of Mr. Shashendra Rajapaksa after his normal period of five years ended on 15th March. The Prime Minister has issued the aforementioned gazette when an election to the post was due.

Shashendra Rajapaksa as the Basnayake Nilame of Ruhunu Maha Katharagama Devale was not eligible to hold the post of chief minister of Uva PC. However, through an extra special gazette of 1614/30 dated 14th August, 2009 President Mahinda Rajapaksa exempted him from clause 14 (a) and (b) of the Buddhist Viharas and Devalagam Temporalities Act.

Ruhunu Maha Katharagama Devalaya is one the religious places in Sri Lanka that earns millions daily as contributions from devotees.

Just a rap on the knuckle for bad boy Sri Lanka by UNHRC

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(March 22, 2013, London Sri Lanka Guardian) A letter from the US to Sri Lanka:

“Tch, tch, you naughty boy Sri Lanka, those pesky Tamils are braying for your blood. We provided you with weapons to eradicate Tamil terrorists and so did UK, India, Pakistan, China and Russia among others. Yet, you could not keep your big gob shut. You went on bleating that no civilians were killed in the last throes of war. Some 40,000 innocent civilians (conservative estimate) were killed by your forces.

Lying should be done in a manner so you do not get caught with your pants down. Those snoopy Channel 4 media and Human Rights NGOs showed tangible evidence that you tortured and killed surrendering civilians with White Flags, raped and plundered homes of fleeing civilians. You cooped up survivors in detention camps, sent youth to rehabilitation camps, forced them to give up their allegiance to Tamil Tigers and ordered them to keep shtum about wanting a separate state.

You murdered and abducted journalists and as a result the surviving war reporters fled to the West and started providing eye-witness accounts of mass murders in Wanni. You should have known these hacks cannot keep their mouths shut for toffee.

Then you set up a farcical commission called the LLRC (Lessons Learn and Reconciliation Commission) modelled on South Africa’s TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and gathered evidence from anyone but victims and witnesses to the war. Now you want grace period until 2017 to fulfil recommendations made by the LLRC.

We wanted you to show some diplomacy but you sent in jokers to the UNHRC. How long can we mollycoddle you? You brought this onto yourselves.

We diluted the draft resolution to appease India. India sheds no tears for Sri Lanka. It is just like us. It will sell arms and diplomacy to anyone who bids highest. After all, did we not emerge as a super-power against British Empire and we are just a few centuries old.

Otherwise, who knows, we will end up like old blighty with only history to call it a ‘has been’ an empire.

Ok; ok. So we managed to show the world we care about human rights and UNHRC passed the resolution with more countries voting for it against your abysmal record on human rights than last year. Now don’t come on to us and start all that nonsense about our invasion into Iraq, Afghanistan and meddling into Middle-East Affairs.

Those Bedouins needed to be taught a lesson and we should make sure Uncle Sam looks after its populace without depleting its oil reserves in Texas and North America. They are for our future generation. We need all the oil we can get and the Bedouins can give up their limousines, get on their camels once more and ride off into the sunset like they did in the 1930s before oil was discovered in the deserts.

Don’t get us wrong. We are colour-blind and what more proof there is than our electing Barack Obama as President. True, he is just a puppet of the Bush administration be he Democrat or otherwise; but he is such a law abiding citizen who will not question Bush policy. He is but a born-again Republican Black and just a figurehead who would be etched in Mt. Rushmore as the first Black President of USA. Power to the Blacks.

One piece of consolation is this resolution too will blow over. Your highways, tin-pot airports, golf courses and casinos generously funded by the Chinese should bring in more tourism revenue. Just look at all those Chinese, Russian and Thai damsels descending on your beautiful isle like a flock of flamingos to appease your politicians’ sexual proclivities and play host to visiting VIPs.

If you played your cards right and pretended to develop the war-ravaged Wanni, North and East, your horrendous war crimes could be shelved for another year.

But watch out for those Tamils abroad. They are made of sterner stuff than you think and memories of the war are bound to remain raw as long as you continue to run detention camps and Sinhalify names of places which had been Tamil areas for centuries. Then you have those pesky international human rights advocates. So do not rest easy and lie on your laurels or lotuses. You must take credit for being one of the most violent nations despite Lord Buddha’s preaching of non-violence. You even get the Buddhist monks to bless your warriors to go and kill at will. Now they are pitting against Muslims from the unfounded fear they might outnumber your Sinhalese as majority. What paranoia.

Hague has good facilities for your President and his cohorts. Charles Taylor of Liberia is there among others to keep you company. No-one is indispensable. We nurtured Taylor as much as Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden. But when they turned against us we sent our boys to assassinate them. They were proving to be more meddlesome and dictatorial despite our benevolence.

Now that should send a warning signal to your President. Scoffing at our resolution and denying war crimes were committed are not helping this regime of yours. Then most recently you hauled up the Chief Justice for not pandering to your whims. The ICJ (International Commission for Jurists) is calling on you to show cause for her summary dismissal from her post.

Hell, the accusations against your President’s governance makes Idi Amin a saint and Bin Laden a minor offender although we believe the Twin Towers demolishing was masterminded by him with the connivance of CIA which gave him the ammo to do so.

The list is endless. UNHRC with that intrepid champion of human rights as its head, Ms Navi Pillai, is not someone you toy with. She is going nowhere and investigating war crimes is topmost on her agenda. She will move heaven and earth to mete out punishment and justice. Take it or leave it at your own peril.”

(The writer has been a journalist for 23 years and worked at Weekend, The Daily News, Sunday Leader and Weekend Express in Sri Lanka as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal; Washington Bureau, where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)

Where Is It All Going To End?

By Emil van der Poorten -March 23, 2013 

Emil van der Poorten

The recent attacks on Christian denominations bears out the contention I made earlier and which significantly more erudite observers of the national scene have identified as a government gone completely mad in its efforts to distract the public from the realities that are descending upon this nation and for which the current corrupt and violent government should take complete responsibility.

It is more than a year since the invasion of a mosque in Dambulla by a thousands-strong Buddhist-priest-led mob and NOTHING has been done to bring those responsible to book.  Even worse than a government from which little better can be expected, the religious hierarchies, inclusive of those of the Islamic faith, have done, as the saying goes, “diddley-squat” in the matter of seeking appropriate investigation and justice.  As for even the usual mealy-mouthed motherhood and apple pie statements that are traditional in this nation of invertebrate religionists, forget it!  Either they haven’t even uttered the usual hypocrisies or our permanently supine media has not even bothered to quote them.

The artificially-generated “Halal controversy” has been another nail in the coffin of those wishing to practice their faith in a country where that right is supposedly guaranteed in its very constitution.  But then, after the so-called “impeachment” of the Chief Justice for not doing the bidding of the Chief Executive of this country, one might as well whistle Dixie as expect law, order and common decency to prevail in this land of 2500 years of Sinhala Buddhist Civilization, particularly after the appointment of Ms. Bandaranayake’s successor whose credentials more than speak for themselves.

The continuing attacks on Christian denominations reached a point when even that “evangelical luminary,” Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, was embarrassed into appealing to the government to intervene when one of his denomination’s churches in the Sabaragamuwa Province was vandalised and a statue of either the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ, built at very considerable expense, totally destroyed.  Of course, his Eminence, after going through the motions of “protest,” then retreated to the Vatican where, not untypically of a denomination that produced a Pope that collaborated with Adolf Hitler and the Borgias before him, was considered a candidate for the Papacy!  As used and abused as that saying is, “O tempora, o mores” is apt in the circumstances!

Of course, the so-called Evangelical Churches have proved, once again, to be sitting ducks for the saffron-clad storm –troopers of this regime.  The primary reason for this is that they appear to be the most successful in bringing people into their fold, mostly because they are prepared to lay emphasis on dealing with the worldly needs of the very poor and offer them succour  in a form that the “main-line” churches usually don’t deign to do.  That success, obviously, lays them open to allegations of unprincipled conduct in effecting those conversions.  As one who dealt with this mode of operation in another country at another time and sought, as a community organizer, to ensure that unprincipled methods were not applied in efforts to convert the most vulnerable members of a community, I believe I can state with some objectivity and, certainly, with a significant degree of experience, that these “unethical conversions” are not always what they seem to be.  In fact, there were a number of occasions when I and other community organizers ended up with egg on our faces when the “converts” proved a lot savvier than we thought they were and abandoned their new-found faith after extracting whatever material benefits they needed at the time from the evangelists!  To the disappointed evangelists, all we could offer was the old piece of advice, “Caveat emptor” or buyer beware, more than partially tongue in cheek!

However, this self-righteous objection, backed by a proclivity for violence, to “unethical conversions” is coming (surprise! surprise!) from those who wouldn’t know ethics if they came and bit them in that part of their anatomy in which their grey matter obviously resides.  To call these self-righteous goons unprincipled thugs would be to understate the case.  To expect them to act with a modicum of decency and intelligence would call one’s own intelligence into serious question.

Of course one of the strange things, upto now, has been the fact that there have been no major recent attacks on Kovils or other Hindu places of worship, at least no very high-profile incidents that rival the recent attacks on mosques and mullahs and Christian churches and their pastors.  However, a friend, better versed in the manner in which attacks such as these are orchestrated, has warned me that it is just a matter of time before those places of worship will also come under attack.  After all, people of this stripe have a precedent going back more than half a century – the immolation of the Pusari of a Hindu temple south of Colombo during the communal riots of 1958.  And the current crop of goons has more than tacit support for their murderous behavior, something that the hypocritical S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike didn’t openly offer those who launched the attacks on the Tamils.

As a side-bar, it is interesting that the two heads of government when the pogroms were launched against the Tamils in 1958 and 1983 had very similarly dismissive evaluations of those landmark events.  Bandaranaike described them as a few isolated incidents and was ready to ignore the behavior of the “goondas” until the Indian government allegedly threatened to land troops at Ratmalana airport to bring law and order to the streets and villages of Sri Lanka.

As for J. R. Jayewardene, his official response to the bloodshed of Black July was more than dismissive.  He suggested quite clearly that “the Tamils had it coming to them”

I have one little piece of advice for those Sri Lankan observers of what is obviously a wave of intolerance and hysteria that is being built to tsunami proportions by those determined to camouflage their moral and ethical nakedness, our relegation to the status of a pariah state and the looming economic collapse:  don’t waste your time looking for events in Sri Lankan history where some statesman came galloping in on his white steed to save all that is (was?) decent in this country where many of its loudest defenders claim that the philosophy of Gautama is sacrosanct and will be maintained forever.  There was no such person in the past and it is even less likely that there will be such a savior in the future.  Pretty well all those who might have had the intelligence to engage in such a task are too busy either raiding the public coffers or directly or indirectly helping those who are!

Sri Lanka accused of ongoing torture and abuse of Tamil prisoners

 

A Sri Lankan Tamil woman holds a portrait of a missing relative at a protest outside the United Nations office in Colombo. Photograph: Ishara Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

Mark Townsend and Hussein Kesvani

Saturday 23 March 2013 

The torture of Tamil political prisoners is increasingly rife in Sri Lankawith some detainees dying in custody after suffering prolonged abuse, a new investigation claims.

The findings will intensify pressure on Britain to withdraw from a controversial summit to be held in Sri Lanka later this year.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils have been held without trial since 2009, when Sri Lanka's military finally crushed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in a decades-long conflict for control of the island's northern Jaffna peninsula.

Since then, according to a new report (pdf) by the London-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, the government has regularly flouted laws and violated promises of post-conflict reconciliation through systematic abuse of these prisoners, many of whom had no links to theTamil Tigers.

More than 100,000 people were killed on both sides of Sri Lanka's 26-year territorial war between minority Tamils and troops from the Sinhalese majority government. Both the rebels and government forces were accused of widespread atrocities during the fighting.

But with Sri Lanka now regaining credibility through its revival as a popular tourist destination and its role hosting a major Commonwealth summit later this year, campaigners warn that unless pressure is put on the country's leadership, a vital opportunity to secure lasting peace will be squandered.

Pressure is also mounting closer to home with calls for the Queen and David Cameron to boycott the Commonwealth heads of government meeting to be hosted in Colombo in November.

A Foreign Office source said on Friday that they had not ruled out attending the Colombo summit despite mounting unease over Sri Lanka's human rights record, explaining it was "too early to talk about UK attendance".

An FCO spokesman added: "The UK government has been clear in public and private that we have a range of concerns about post-conflict reconciliation, accountability and the protection of human rights in Sri Lanka."

On Thursday, The UN's human rights council passed a resolution highly critical of Sri Lanka's record, encouraging the country to conduct an independent and credible investigation into alleged war crimes with a previous UN investigation, saying up to 40,000 people were killed in the final five months of fighting alone.

The report documenting the island's human rights abuses was undertaken by Tamil and Sinhalese researchers from Sri Lanka and London, and specifically examined the treatment of detainees in the wake of a riot in the country's Vavuniya detention centre last June, that triggered brutal police retribution.

It found that prisoners from the riot were kept in "abominable conditions and deprived of basic human rights". One case study documents the treatment of Ganesan Nimalaruban, an aspiring post office worker who was arrested in 2009 and subjected to three days of torture that left him with heart and respiratory problems, the report says. He later died in custody.

Nimalaruban's family said their 28-year-old son was beaten regularly in prison and required frequent visits to hospital where, shackled on the floor and denied food and water, he also contracted dengue fever. Authorities claim Nimalaruban suffered a fatal heart attack because of the riot.

His mother, Rajeswari, insists her son died because of repeated beatings that police have attempted to cover up. She says her family, left impoverished by Nimalaruban's legal battle, has also been subjected to intimidation.

Another case study describes the ordeal of an artist, identified as MM, who was arrested in 2007. The 28-year-old, who has suffered from polio since childhood, claims he was forced after days of torture into signing a false confession stating he had assisted Tamil Tiger rebels.

He said he had his toenails extracted and was then electrocuted, rendering him unconscious for three days. Now convicted, he has been sent to prison in the central city of Kandy, far from his home in the north. He has barely been permitted contact with his wife or son, who was born just months after his arrest.

The report also criticises a government rehabilitation programme for former Tamil Tiger soldiers that, it says, is also blighted by violence and, despite officially being classed as voluntary, is frequently used as a tool to prolong detention without trial.

The Sri Lanka Campaign report says the treatment of Tamil prisoners has, along with other human rights violations, been largely unnoticed by an outside world eager to believe that the country's recent conflict is consigned to history.

Fred Carver, campaign director, said: "The report is an important reminder that not only were atrocities and war crimes committed on a large scale by both sides during the war but torture, arbitrary imprisonment and other human rights abuses continue on a large scale in Sri Lanka.

"This is particularly important in the light of continuing attempts by the UK government to deport Tamil asylum seekers, despite clear evidence – to which this report contributes – that those, such as returnees, who are identified by the regime as troublemakers are under considerable risk of falling victim to the worst kinds of rights violations: torture, murder, rape, and arbitrary detention.

"David Cameron must show leadership by announcing that he will not attend the Commonwealth summit if it takes place in Colombo."

The island is currently enjoying a rejuvenation of its tourism industry. Lonely Planet, the travel guide book, recently voted Sri Lanka as its top tourist destination for 2013.