Tamils should resist being taken into current western agenda: N Malathy

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2013, 12:36 GMT]
Tamils should be wary of the intentions of the Western Establishments that are pricking Sri Lanka with this or that war crimes evidence released year after year. They hold possession of a lot more hard evidence of Sri Lankan atrocities, but still do not address the question of genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, opines N. Malathy, arguing that, “the best option for the Tamils world all over is to use the insights they have gained in recent years and refuse to be taken into the Western fold. Tamils should firmly stand their ground about the genocide of Eelam Tamils and the necessity of the creation of independent Tamil Eelam.” In an article to TamilNet, Dr. Malathy, a key member of the NESoHR and the author of ‘A Fleeting Moment in my County’, gives a concise outline of how the West was playing the human rights card to bring both Sri Lanka and the Eezham Tamils into its fold. 

Dr. Malathy, noting that the West is currently trying to integrate Sri Lanka as a whole into its sphere of influence, writes further that the West also tries to accommodate the Tamils “with the aim of wiping out the insights Tamils gained during earlier phases of their struggle through direct experience,” referring to the insights gained by the Eezham Tamils on the negative role the West played in creating the current plight of the Tamils.

Similar concerns were addressed in her book ‘A Fleeting Moment in my Country’, which besides being a testimonial to the practical functioning of the earned sovereignty of Pirapaharan’s LTTE, has also noted the role that the organizations of the Establishments had played in tilting the balance in favour of the genocidal Sri Lankan state.

Dr. Malathy stayed in Vanni for 4 years working with civilian institutions like NESoHR and many other women and child organizations. She survived the genocidal onslaught in Vanni and spent over 4 gruelling months in the Manik farm detention camp. The insight coming from the rights activist addresses to the edification of Eezham Tamil diaspora activists.

Full text of Dr. Malathy’s article follows:

Making sense of the western campaign against Sri Lanka

Tamils in general are heartened by the western campaign that recognizes the plight of Tamils in the post-LTTE era. A minority among these Tamils postulate that the western campaign is aimed only at converting the Sri Lankan regime to be pliable towards western interests. They say that civil rights gains Tamils may make will be negligible. Another section among the Tamils believes that Tamils could gain their rights by offering themselves as the West friendly community in the island while the Sinhala regime moves away from the West. 

The various reports, statements, books, articles, interviews, and documentaries that have come out as part of this western campaign since 2009 have some prominent common threads: focus on the war crimes violations from Jan 2009 to May 2009; refusal to use the word Genocide of Tamils; refusal to include the six decades long atrocities against Tamils; hardly ever mentioning the Tamil rights to independence; insistence on always negatively painting the LTTE; and minimal disagreement among the western campaigners about this subject.

For the purpose of studying this campaign, the body of campaigners involved can be categorised as consisting of layers (see figure). At the bottom layer are the individual campaigners who do not represent any institution. They can put forward the most serious allegations without any need to act on it. At the next level are non-state institutions such as Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW), International Crisis Group (ICG) and even media like UK’s Channel-4 (C-4). 

These non-state groups can also carry out the campaign with very little obligations to act further. The next layer consists of UN agencies whose statements and resolutions carry more weight. But each UN agency can behave as if it lacks power to act. Final layer is made up of the western states who hold the real economic and military power. 

If one observes the format used by the campaigners as whole it is clear that the allegations against Sri Lanka increases in pitch that is proportional to how far down the layers they come from. Readers can test the validity of the above claim by taking any material that have came out as part of this western campaign. This layered view is therefore a valuable tool to interpret the western campaign. 

A prominent feature of this incessant western campaign against Sri Lanka since the demise of the LTTE is the gradually increasing seriousness of its allegations. In order to give the reader the sense of the progression of this campaign a description of the major milestones of this campaign are given below.

2009: The campaign started in August 2009 with the execution video of blind folded Tamil men being shot at close range. Much was made out of this video despite 300,000 eyewitnesses of worse crimes continued to be imprisoned in the Manik farm camp supported by the UN which had access to the 300,000 detained there. 

2010: There was silence from the western campaigners except for occasional allegations of war crimes and the need to investigate the war crimes. Then in March 2011 came the UN Panel report after much debate on whether it was going to be made public. It did not add much and what it said was a drop in the ocean. Gordon Weiss released his book in May 2011 with much media attention without adding much more except that UN stopped publishing the casualty numbers earlier which if done might have stopped the carnage. Then came the media sensation in the form of Channel-4’s first of the series of video evidence in June 2011. Francis Harrison who was working on her book was given publicity by chairing the release of Norway’s report “Pawn of Peace” in September 2011. 

2012: Just prior to the March 2012 UN Human Rights Council meeting in which USA sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka, Channel-4’s aired the second in its series “War Crimes Unpunished”. This was immediately followed by a “leaked” cluster bomb evidence in April 2012. Francis Harrison’s book followed in October 2012 and she toured the world promoting her book as part of the campaign.

2013: Timing with the March 2013 UN Human Rights Council meeting came the HRW report in February on Rape in custody. This was followed by another Channel-4 media sensation of releasing 12 year old Balachandran’s photo. Then Francis Harrison wrote an article about her interviewing eye-witnesses to the “white-flag” incident.

It is certain that the West is in possession of a lot more hard evidence, including satellite images, of atrocities by Sri Lanka. Based on the progression of the post-2009 allegations produced by the western campaigners, one can assume that the West is capable of taking the pitch of the allegations to even higher level. What will make the intensity of the allegations against Sri Lanka go to a higher and higher pitch and what will make the allegations to be gradually toned down? In order to study this, the target of this layered campaign can be viewed as three distinct groups: the Sinhala people and the Sinhala regime, Tamil people and a potential Tamil regime, and the rest of the world. 

The Sinhala people are targeted with the view to make the Sri Lankan regime pliable to western interest. When targeting this audience the war crimes and other crimes allegations are meant to scare the target. At the same time this target is also enticed by actions like accepting alleged Sri Lankan war criminals as diplomats. The Tamils who are fully drawn into this western campaign swing between euphoria and despair as the campaigners alternately implement this carrot and stick style campaign. 

The next target is the Tamil target and they also need to be made pliable towards the West. Tamils have been sensitized to the role of the West in creating the current plight of the Eelam Tamils. These Tamils are living in a unique juncture of their history. They have gained an insight about the negative role played by the West in their struggle. This kind of opportunity to gain insight about the role of the West is not available to all of humanity. 

The Western campaign will also take into account the need to draw in the majority of the Tamils into the western fold with the aim of wiping out the insights Tamils gained during earlier phases of their struggle through direct experience. In other words to diminish the insight they have gained about the negative role the West played in creating the current plight of the Tamils. 

Peoples with such insights in general pose grave danger to the western interests. One can therefore speculate that if majority of the Tamils show greater resistance to be taken into the western fold the pitch of the western campaign against Sri Lanka will also be gradually increased to an adequate level to take in the Tamils. This can already be observed in certain statements and actions of the western campaigners.

The last section of the target audience is the rest of the world. This section needs to be prepared for any potential future actions for or against Sri Lanka. The on going campaign is also achieving this aim.

In summary the difficult target audience for the western campaign are the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The rest of the world are easy targets to be swung any which way. If the pliability of the Sri Lankan regime is achieved then the Tamils can be effectively ignored by making superficial adjustments to the Sri Lankan state. 

At the other end of the scale if the Sri Lankan regime shows no sign of yielding to western interests or if a large section of the Tamils resists coming into the western fold then the campaign pitch could increase even further. 

In conclusion the best option for the Tamils world over is to use the insights they have gained in recent years and refuse to be taken into the western fold. They should firmly stand their ground about the genocide of Eelam Tamils and the necessity of the creation of independent Tamil Eelam. Tamil Nadu student protest timed with the March 2013 UNHRC meeting is a demonstration of this Tamil resolve. These students have also said that there are sinister moves to disturb their uprising. 

Therefore, Tamils must remain ever vigilant of the western and perhaps even Indian campaigns which are capable of taking sinister forms to diffuse the Tamil resolve.

Required: A Sri Lanka Policy

By Ana Pararajasingham -March 27, 2013 

Ana Pararajasingham

In December 2004, I wrote a paper titled “India’s Sri Lanka Policy: Need for A Review”   (first published in the website of the South Asian Analysis Group)   arguing that that there was a need for New Delhi to review its Sri Lanka Policy. My argument was based on the premise that a country’s national interests are served only when policies are based on ground realities. I pointed out that India’s Sri Lanka policy did not reflect ground realities, which, at that time meant    acknowledging the existence of two distinct power centres in Sri Lanka-Colombo in the South and Killinocchchi in the North.  The implication was clear-New Delhi should seek to improve its leverage by adopting a more nuanced approach to ensure that its own interests were not compromised.

Instead, New Delhi, dictated by the belief  that by helping Colombo reassert its dominance over the entire island it could keep Sri Lanka within its orbit, provided Colombo with logistical support to cut off Tigers’ weapons supply.   It did not foresee Colombo counterbalancing Indian influence by bringing in China. Even after China’s direct involvement, New Delhi continued to extend its support to Colombo driven by the logic that it could not sit back and surrenders Sri Lanka into China’s embrace.[1]   In the meantime, by making New Delhi complicit in the brutal manner in which it brought the war to an end, Colombo has more than counterbalanced Indian influence. New Delhi’s apparent complicity in the horrendous war crimes committed during the final stages of the war has compromised New Delhi’s capacity to influence Colombo.  New Delhi’s impotence is not only due to its suspected complicity but also because of the demise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). As the International Crisis Group  pointed out “With the LTTE gone, the Indian government may have lost its best opportunity to influence Sri Lankan policy… That powerful leverage has now been lost”.[2]

What New Delhi had not quite thought through in implementing its policy which was primarily focused on getting rid of the LTTE[3] can be broadly summarised as follows:

(a) A complete failure to grasp the agenda of the Sri Lankan State in respect of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan State given its unitary constitution is a state where all political power resides with the majority Sinhala nation. This is because within the confines of unitary state the Sinhalese who make up well over seventy-five per cent of the population are a permanent majority. Since its independence in 1948, this Sinhala dominated state has relentlessly pursued an agenda of completely Sinhalising the state. This agenda is informed by the ideology that the entire island belongs only to the Sinhalese and the Tamils are interlopers. This is a well understood ideology explored in depth by several academics, Sinhalese, Tamils and those from the international community. It is this notion which has driven   successive Sri Lankan governments to pursue Sinhalisation through various means and thereby deny the Tamils a distinct identity as a people occupying a contiguous well defined area-the Tamil Homeland. Consequently any arrangement that provides autonomy to the Tamils is anathema to the Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan state.   Hence, Mohan Ram’s conclusion in “Sri Lanka Fractured Island” that the “ Sinhala majority  has all along thought that any Tamil demand can only be met  the cost of its own interest, a zero sum game… and is not reconciled to even providing  limited concessions  the Tamils were given under the Indo Sri Lanka Agreement”[4]

New Delhi appears to have not grasped this basic tenet underpinning the actions of the Sri Lankan state. Its hope that with the demise of the LTTE, Sri Lanka could be persuaded to at least ‘devolve’ some political power to the Tamils was entirely misplaced. New Delhi’s role in cooperating with Colombo appears to have been predicated by the flawed perception that once the LTTE is liquidated the Sinhalese could be persuaded to provide concessions to the Tamils.

Instead, the Sri Lankan state has taken advantage of the military solution which it had imposed with New Delhi’s help to further its own agenda of Sinhalising the state through changing the demography of the Tamil Homeland. This is being pursued through a strategy of ‘Ethnic flooding’[5] whereby the Tamil Homeland is flooded with Sinhalese population, initially, with families of the armed forces and thereafter with civilian settlers. New Delhi has been completely outsmarted by this strategy which has the potential to render any ‘devolution’ meaningless.

(b) A failure to evaluate the impact of China’s direct involvement in Sri Lanka

It has been argued that India’s involvement in Sri Lanka has been underpinned by the doctrine that Colombo should remain exclusively within New Delhi’s sphere of influence. This is based on the premise of India being the regional power and Sri Lanka a state within this region.[6] By permitting China’s entry, New Delhi has in effect not only abandoned this policy but appears to have endangered its own geopolitical interests.

(c) A failure to realise the impact  in Tamil Nadu

New Delhi has failed to factor into its strategy of assisting Sri Lanka, the fall out in Tamil Nadu. The manner in which the victory was achieved through the deployment of genocidal   violence and the role played by New Delhi in extending its support to the Sri Lankan regime has alienated Tamil Nadu. Sam Rajappa, writing for theNew Statesman noted that Tamil Nadu is on the boil due to India’s contribution to the genocide (of Tamils) in Sri Lanka and should Rajapaksa and company are hauled up before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, New Delhi cannot escape responsibility for this horrendous brutality.[7]  In 2011, Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution seeking the imposition of economic sanctions against Sri Lanka by India. The resolution moved by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa also wanted India to press the United Nations to declare as “war criminals” those who committed crimes during the conflict in Sri Lanka. [8] New Delhi’s  impotence or unwillingness to press for a strongly wondered resolution at the March 2013 UNHCR sessions has made it untenable for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) the ruling party’s ally in the Central government to continue its support for a government that is widely viewed by Tamil Nadu as having betrayed the  Tamil  people. In March 2013 the DMK withdrew its support greatly undermining the Congress led UPA’s capacity to stay in power.

It is imperative on the part of New Delhi’s policy makers to review the failed Sri Lanka policy and forge a bold approach to regain some influence in the region.

This bold approach must primarily address the ongoing plight of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka taking into account the agenda of the Sri Lankan state and its inclination to continue with the zero sum game. As part of its Sri Lanka policy New Delhi can and indeed should seek to protect the Tamil people by transforming the Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka into a protectorate. There is precedence for such an act in the protection that the US was able to provide for Iraq’s Kurdish population   in northern Iraq.

If New Delhi is able to successfully implement such a policy it can serve its interest in many ways. Apart from addressing the Tamil Nadu factor, it can also provide New Delhi the strategic space to counter the increasing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. Such a policy will also be in keeping with the advice proffered by Professor Sumantra  Bose[9] in 2007 in  the course  of his key note address at a  seminar[10] exploring the international dimensions of the conflict in Sri Lanka. According to Bose, despite the unhappy history of the last twenty years, it is with the Tamil people of Sri Lanka that India needs to build its alliance. New Delhi ought to build on the natural affinity between India and the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. There is no other community that has such powerful affinity of a historical and cultural nature with India. He made this point in the context of the perception by the Indian establishment “with good cause” that it is surrounded by hostility in the region[11].

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*Ana Pararajasingham was Director- Programmes with the Centre for Just Peace and Democracy (CJPD) between 2008 and 2009.    He is the author of “Sri Lanka’s Endangered Peace Process and the Way Forward” (2007) and the editor of “The Conflict in Sri Lanka::Ground Realities (2005) and “Sri Lanka:60 Years of Independence and Beyond” (2009).

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[1] A Pratap in  “Lessons to be learnt from the rout of the LTTE” –The Week 31 May 2009

[2]   The International Crisis Group “India and Sri Lanka after the LTTE”, June 2011, p6

[3] Ibid p4-5

[4] Mohan Ram, Sri Lanka: The Fractured Island, New Delhi: Penguin Books (India), 1989,p138

[5] Ethnic flooding – the continuing and deliberate settling of Sinhalese populations on land in the Tamil homeland – to alter the demographic balance and thereby systemically erase the Tamil nation’s territorial identity- S Sathanathan in “After Pirapakaran: Deepening Internal Colonialism”,http://www.sangam.org/2010/08/Internal_Colonialism.php, viewed on 19^th March 2013.

[6] D T Hagerty,”India’s Regional Security Doctrine”, Asian Survey, Vol: XXXXI, No 4, April 1991

[7]“ S Rajappa,  “India and ‘the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka”, The Statesman, 12 July 2011,http://thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=376293&catid=38 viewed on 18^thJuly 2011

[8] : http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/tamil-nadu-seeks-economic-sanctions-against-sri-lanka-/ viewed on 17th July 2011

[9] Sumantra Bose is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His books include “Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka” (Harvard University Press, 2007), “Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace” (Harvard University Press, 2003), “Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention” (Oxford University Press, 2002) and  “Nations, Sovereignty: Sri Lanka, India and the Tamil Eelam Movement” (Sage Publications, 1994). He graduated from Amherst College, Massachusetts and received a doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 1998.

[10] Jointly hosted by TRANCEND International and the Centre for Just Peace and Democracy (CJPD) in Switzerland in June 2007.

[11] S Bose, “India”  in “ International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka” Centre  for Just Peace and Democracy (CJPD) , Emmenbrucke, Switzerland, 2008.

Tamil Nadu assembly adopts resolution: Centre must stop treating Sri Lanka as a friendly country

Reported by J Sam Daniel Stalin, Edited by Abhinav Bhatt |  March 27, 2013

Chennai: With emotions running high in Tamil Nadu over the Sri Lanka issue, the state assembly today adopted a resolution asking the Centre to stop treating Sri Lanka as a friendly country.

The resolution, moved by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, also demands India to move a UN resolution seeking a referendum on a separate Eelam among Tamils in Sri Lanka and those who have migrated abroad. Eelam is the separate homeland in Sri Lanka, Lankan Tamils are seeking.

The resolution also seeks credible international probe into the allegations of genocide of Lankan Tamils in the island nation. It also wants the Centre to impose an economic embargo against Sri Lanka till the alleged atrocities against Tamils are stopped.

There have been protests all over Tamil Nadu for days now, with all major political parties and students demanding that the Centre take a strong stand against Sri Lanka for its alleged war crimes in the final months of the civil war that ended when defence forces crushed the separatist Tamil Tigers in May 2009. The assembly resolution also asks the students to give up protests.

Last week the DMK pulled out of the UPA coalition at the Centre, accusing India of watering down a UN resolution against Sri Lanka that was adopted last week. India voted against Sri Lanka, but the Tamil Nadu parties say it let down Sri Lankan Tamils by failing to persuade the UN to use stronger language against the island nation and by not pushing for an independent rather than an internal inquiry into the alleged war crimes.

Just yesterday Ms Jayalalithaa wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying that no Indian Premier League (IPL) matches would be allowed in the state capital if they involved Sri Lankan players, umpires or officials. The tournament begins next week and at least 10 matches are scheduled in Chennai. The IPL governing council then decided at a hurried tele-conference with team owners that Sri Lankan cricketers will not play Indian Premier League matches in Chennai.

Tamil Nadu Assembly resolves for UN referendum on separate Eelam

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 March 2013, 10:03 GMT]
In a historic move, the Tamil Nadu State Assembly on Wednesday, unanimously passed a resolution for bringing in arrangements at the level of the UN Security Council to conduct a referendum among Eezham Tamils in the island as well as in the diaspora on the question of Separate Eelam. In addition, the resolution passed at the Tamil Nadu Assembly demanded the Government of India to stop calling Sri Lanka a friendly country. The resolution also included the earlier demands ie., Independent International Investigations on Genocide and War Crimes as well as imposition of economic sanctions on Sri Lanka. The resolution, unanimously passed, was moved by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa. 

Passing the resolution, Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa also urged the students of Tamil Nadu to end their current agitation and to return to studies, with the hope of winning their aspirations in the near future. 

Following is the full text of the resolution. 

“The Cat Is Out Of The Bag” – A Rejoinder To Kusal

By Pon. Chandran - March 27, 2013 

Pon. Chandran

At the outset I and my friends in the Human Rights fraternity in India, particularly from PUCL acknowledge and express our profound gratitude and respects to Kusal Perera and Sunanda Deshapriya, the Sinhala Journalists, for exposing the diabolical design, at their life risks, behind camouflaging  the real numbers who were caught in the midst of War in Sri Lanka in January 2009.  Shri. Pranab Mukerjee, the then Foreign Minister declared that there were only 70,000 Srilankan Tamils who were caught in the midst of war, in the Vanni region, while the actual numbers were over 428,000. This exposed the genocidal design of the Sinhala regime to massacre thousands of Srilankan Tamils either using heavy artilleries or starving them to death by denying the much required food and medicines.

The humanitarian issue of such a massive magnitude was taken up with the Press and People in the Powers that matter, in Delhi, with the support of Kusal.  Had there  been a substantial intervention either from India or from the International Community, we could have saved at least 100,000 lives during the last phase of war in Sri Lanka. The UN’s  Internal Review Report of  Charles Petrie has confirmed that  the deliberately downsized numbers in the so called Safe Zones  entailed in the death of several thousands of civilians for want of adequate humanitarian assistance.  Also the actual numbers killed by shelling was under reported.  Again, it was Kusal who exposed the use of banned cluster and thermobaric bombs in the final stages of the war.

As human rights activists we unequivocally condemn the attack on the Buddhist monks in Tamil Nadu, which cannot be condoned whatever may be the provocation.  At the same time, we need to place on record that it is the hard core Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka who fan Sinhala chauvinism and continue to spearhead the unfettered  Sinhalisation in the North and the East.  Of course, one has to differentiate between the people and the State. Hence, while the boycott of the Sri Lanka in the arena of sports, culture, tourism, economy and diplomacy (like relocation/boycott of CHOGM) is aimed to internationally ostracize Sri Lanka and prevail upon the Srilankan State to concede to the self determination and political devolution, which is inseparably bound with the larger democratisation of Srilanka.

The question of Genocide:

Now that the above is clarified, I am constrained to delve into more serious aspects of the stand  propounded by Kusal, which deserves to be debated.  I guess he is for the “Self Determination” of the Eelam Tamils, sans separation.  Perhaps for the same reason, he is against naming the massacre of Tamils as “genocide” and hence argues that the call for a “referendum” is irrelevant, impractical and unfounded.

His argument hinges on the main plank that since a big chunk of Tamils live relatively peacefully in the South of the island, it cannot be called as genocide against Tamils!  Further I wonder whether he is adducing a tacit argument  that the lives of the Tamils in the South will not be safe, if the concept of Separate Tamil Eelam is pushed, as a process of political devolution.

Going by the history of the struggle of the  Tamils in Sri Lanka for over six decades and the revealing evidences (documentary, audio and video) on the War against Tamils, it is vivid that the violence perpetrated is beyond war crimes and very much borders well within the purview of Genocidal War. It was a war against Eelam Tamils, with Genocidal intent.

The sheer numbers that were exterminated, during the last seven months of the racist war indicates the “intent to destroy in whole or in part” a race which has been subjected to brutal violence by  the State. It blatantly violates Art 2 & 3 of Geneva Convention on Genocide. (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide dated 9th December 1948).

Thus the last phase of the racial war killed 146,679 civilians. Bodily and mental harm meted out against the Tamils rendered in the permanent disability of 16,356 Tamils. The protracted racial war created the sub-human conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction in whole or in part depriving thousands of Tamils (282,380) in to the concentration camps. Rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war rendered several thousands of women sexually brutalised and traumatised. The racial war ended up with more than 89,000 young war widows. In fact these are the numbers collated from the ground and brought out by Journalist friends like Kusal and Bishop of Mannar and several other Human Rights groups.

More than the actual killing and the rest, the intent to commit genocide is obvious from the umpteen statements, during the unguarded moments, made by Mahinda, Gotabaya and Fonseka.  Gotabaya had admitted publicly that the Tamil North has been converted into “Free Fire Zone”.  He has also gone record proclaiming that let Sinhala army throw the Tamils in the Ocean and “enjoy the Tamil women”. Fonseka has reiterated more than once that “Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese”.

It appears that Indian bureaucrats like Shivashankar Menon and M.K.Narayanan with the other officials in the Foreign ministry conspired with the Rajapakshes for the extermination of Tamils, under the guise of decimating the Tigers. The other hegemonic Powers including USA, China and Pakistan joined with others in the “war on terror”, which was used by the Rajapakshe regime for a genocidal war.   Perhaps none of them would have thought that the inevitable collateral damage in the “war on terror” would end up in such a colossal massacre of genocidal proportion.

Referendum – A means for Devolution:

Thanks to Kusal for bringing out succinctly the context and the ground realities in the case of East Timor and Southern Sudan, which facilitated the UN intervened referendum which led to the formation of a separate nation for East Timor and Southern Sudan.

The specific context which differentiated the post war Tamil Eelam from that of East Timor and South Sudan, as narrated by Kusal could be summed up as below:

a) The continued militant and strong political representation of the locals demanding self determination, including secession, at the time of referendum.

b) The unwillingness and the incapacity of the Ruling section in the respective countries, to continue with the Rule as before and hence had no choice but to give in.

Therefore, it is argued that as the situation in Sri Lanka is not comparable with that of South Sudan and East Timor, a similar referendum in Tamil Eelam can only remain a dream!

It may be noted that either the Tamil Diaspora or the students of Tamil Nadu who have been raising the demand for a Referendum is quoting the case of East Timor and South Sudan  only as a precedence in the International arena and not as THE BASIS.

It is true that Tamil Eelam is dwarfed without a de facto government which was in existence even while the genocidal war was on.  It is precisely for this reason that the international community should take the responsibility invoking the principle of R2P, the Responsibility to Protect. Nevertheless, it is obvious that, in the present oppressive political context, particularly in the backdrop of militarisation, the Tamil National Alliance or  other Tamil Representatives in the island are not articulating the  demand for a referendum today, perhaps tactically. The question of referendum will become a palpable demand only as a follow up of the findings of the International Investigation on the War Crimes and Genocide. But the demand for referendum raised by the Tamil diaspora, to keep the question of “self determination” and political devolution alive, is portrayed by Kusal as the one of ‘lamentation’ from the ‘Tamil fringe groups’, ‘political riffraff’ and by the ‘defeated human rights activists’ without any knowledge of political history either of the Tamil mainland or the Homeland of Eelam Tamils.

Further,  Kusal counter poses his argument  adducing that the ‘Eelamists’ and the ‘defeated human rights activists’ from Tamil Nadu have no locus standi to give a call for a “separate eelam” when the DMK has eschewed their earlier demand for “Dravida Nadu”.   The comparison deserves to be critiqued.  Dravida Nadu was only a socio-cultural concept against the post independence Brahmin-Baniya  hegemony.  It evolved as a political movement only among the people in Tamilnadu and not among the other nationalities which constituted the proposed Dravidasthan.  Hence unlike Pakistan, Dravidasthan was a non-starter. Moreover, the Tamil Nationalism nurtured by the Dravidian movement did not evolve into a movement of liberation as it capitulated with the centre, the gate way of imperialism.  Thus Nationality question today in the Indian sub-continent, which is a prison of various nationalities, is beyond the bourgeois democratic revolution.  It is with this understanding that the democratic movements and human rights movements in the sub-continent express solidarity with the Kashmiri question, Khalistan, and the nationality questions in the North-East.  Incidentally, the solidarity expressed by the Tamils in Tamil Nadu with the Eelam Tamils has reinforced the Tamil National question in Tamil Nadu, in the present context, as the Indian State is callous and indifferent towards the Eelam Tamil question.

On the question of Self Determination:

Kusal has elucidated the question of Self Determination drawing inspiration from Marxist literature on the question of the state and the people.  Yet another  crux of the Marxist perspective, which he did not refer to with regard to Self Determination, is the difference in approaches between the proletarian movement  that belong to the oppressor nation and with that of the oppressed nation.  While the stand of the proletarian movement   which belongs to the oppressed nation is to lend conditional support to the nationality question, the proletariat of the oppressor nation ought to lend unconditional support to the national self determination of the oppressed nation.

In the instant case, the people who champion the cause of democracy among the Sinhala nation have to support unconditionally the cause of Eelam Tamil nation. In view of the oppression unleashed on the Eelam Tamils by the successive governments, the Eelam Tamils have democratically asserted, as a nation, their self determination beginning from Vaddukottai Resolution and in the provincial elections one after another on the plank of independent Eelam.

It is well known that the young Eelam Tamils were constrained to resort to militant struggle to realise their call, as the Sinhala chauvinist regimes struck down their democratic voices, violently.  I guess this is the core of the A,B,C  of the politics of SL Tamils.  Instead of appreciating the long history and aspirations of the Eelam Tamils,  just highlighting the post war suppressed & feeble voice of the  Eelam Tamils, who seek political devolution with the perspective of 13th Amendment or Plus (which is categorically denied by the Ruling sections), as the core objective of SL Tamils is unwittingly misleading.  Interpreting this as the call for “better wages” vis-a-vis “Closure of the Factory” is naive.   It is unfortunate that Kusal who hails from a Marxist tradition has resorted to this.

There is lot more to share.  Thanks to Kusal, Paul and Colombo Telegraph for encouraging me to pen my concerns on some of the issues raised by my good friend Kusal.

The Wahhabi Invasion of Sri Lanka

by Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi

Folksmagazine [India]-July 18, 2012

To many non-Muslims, the existence of an Islamic community on the island of Sri Lanka may be surprising. Sri Lanka has been known for the past three decades as the scene of an atrocious civil war. Its Buddhist Sinhala majority, with 69.1 percent of the national population of 21.5 million, was challenged by Tamils – 7.1 percent, and mainly Hindu in religion, whom the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or "Tamil Tigers" aspired to represent. The "Tamil Tigers" were defeated militarily in 2009.

But Sri Lanka also counts 7.6 percent of its people as Muslims, and among them, as elsewhere throughout South Asia, the spiritual tradition of Sufism is vigorously present. After 1973, and the Arab oil embargo that enriched Saudi Arabia greatly, the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi sect, which is the official religious interpretation in the Saudi kingdom, began to penetrate Sri Lanka's adherents to Islam. The Wahhabis in Sri Lanka act through a movement called Thawheed, or Monotheism. They opened numerous medresas. They despise Sufis.

According to M.C.A. Hameed, president of the All Ceylon Thareekathul Mufliheen, a Sufi order whose name means "path of the fearless victorious," Sri Lankan Muslims then began to find employment in Saudi Arabia, and many young Sri Lankan Muslims were awarded scholarships by Saudi universities. But "those who completed their studies returned to Sri Lanka and… propagat[ed] the ideology" of Wahhabism, Hameed says. Further, "to pursue their goal the Wahhabis resorted to violence and intimidation culminating in death and destruction. Our religious society… was not spared and had to face untold hardship."

The All Ceylon Thareekathul Mufliheen was founded in the late 1980s by Sheihul Mufliheen M.S.M. Abdullah, known as "Rah," in the southeastern Sri Lanka village of Maruthamunai. It was registered as a cultural society with the civil authorities in 1989. The headquarters of Thareekathul Mufliheen is now located in the small eastern coast village of Kattankudy, which has 42 mosques. The order maintains branches around the island, and claims 15,000 members.

Hameed states that the "vision" of Thareekathul Mufliheen is "to expound the true meaning of 'kalimathuth thayiba,' the 'fragrant sacred words.'" These words are "la ilaha illallah," the essence of Islam, meaning "there is nothing but God." In the teachings of Thareekathul Mufliheen, "This word Allah (God) denotes a great power, unbound by time and space, infinite and beyond human imagination. The creation is only the manifestation of this eternal truth and [is] not separate from it."

This principle underlies the doctrines of Thareekathul Mufliheen, but its founder denied exerting any compulsion anywhere to embrace his views, given that each human being is free to choose a path of faith. In 1980, Abdullah (Rah) published a book in Tamil titled Imanin Unmaiyai Nee Arivaya, or Do You Know the Truth of Iman? – iman referring to Islamic belief. The country's official Council of Islamic Scholars, the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama, purportedly without reading the book or holding a hearing to examine it, published a fatwa or religious opinion on September 10, 1989, declaring Abdullah (Rah) and his followers as murtadd or apostates, who renounced Islam, in the judgment of the clerics.

Abdullah (Rah) filed a defamation suit against the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama in 1990 in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. Many hearings later, in 1996, the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama revoked the fatwa and settled the complaint. In a similar act of discrimination, members of Thareekathul Mufliheen were denied registration of marriages and burial of the dead in conformity with Islamic practice, but through legal action these rights were restored, at least on paper. A book by Abdullah (Rah) translated into English, The Court of Reason, was published in 2010.

Thareekathul Mufliheen opened a Meditation Centre at Kattankudy in 1996. On May 29 of that year, at 1 A.M. in the morning, Wahhabi arson struck the building. Abdullah (Rah) and the members of the order were targets of shooting and grenade attacks, and other physical aggression, as well as threats. Worse was to come. On October 31, 2004, at 12:30 p.m., 500 Wahhabis organized under the title "Jihad" again set the Meditation Centre ablaze, destroying its library, along with homes and businesses owned by Sufis. Financial loss to the injured parties was considerable, and one Sufi was shot and killed while another was wounded by gunfire. Thareekathul Mufliheen's president Hameed accuses police of assisting the assailants. Eight alleged perpetrators were arrested, but were released on bail with no further consequences. A complaint was entered at Police Headquarters in Colombo in 2004, and a subsequent protest was filed with the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (HRC) in 2005.

The HRC found in favor of the Sufis, stating that their constitutional right to adhere to the belief of their will and choice had been violated, and submitting recommendations for redress to the Inspector General of Police. But Thareekathul Mufliheen asserts, "Sadly, the Police were inactive in implementing these recommendations in an equitable manner." Still, the Meditation Centre and headquarters were rebuilt and a birthday celebration for the founder of the order was held on July 25, 2006, with 15,000 people provided free food.

Sheihul Mufliheen M.S.M. Abdullah (Rah) died on December 6, 2006. Wahhabi preachers from the Thawheed network and the armed "Jihad" incited the local clerics and politicians (Jamiathul Ulama Kattankudy, the Muslim Federation of Mosques, and the Urban Council of Kattankudy) to oppose his burial according to Islamic rites, in the Meditation Centre, as he was a supposed "apostate." Another member of the Sufi order had died on December 1, 2006, was buried that day, and on December 2 was exhumed by Wahhabis on the same pretext and laid out on the soil. According to the Wahhabis and their accomplices, "apostates" could not be buried in Kattankudy.

The Jihadis, armed with lethal weapons, rioted after the death of Abdullah (Rah), bringing life in Kattankudy to a halt by a general work stoppage (hartal). Schools, government and private offices, banks and businesses shut down and some banks and shops were looted and burned. The official clerics of All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama, Jamiathul Ulama Kattankudy, the Muslim Federation of Mosques, other Islamic organizations, and the Kattankudy Urban Council initiated a judicial argument on December 11, 2006. They denounced the interment of Abdullah (Rah) as defying Muslim norms and traditions and charged that Thareekathul Mufliheen had failed to seek permission from the authorities for the burial. The petition by the official clerics and Wahhabis was dismissed in 2007. But the Sri Lanka HRC declared in 2007 that it could not "interfere in the disputes between various sects of a religion" and recommended the conflict be referred to the Council of Ulemas – All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama, or to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

In a separate controversy, the Urban Council in Kattankudy had ordered the dismantling of the minaret at the Meditation Centre, as an "unauthorized structure," in a decision announced on December 13, 2006. Police prevented commencement of the demolition, but Wahhabi fanatics interfered with the officers. Three rioters were shot and killed. A police post and police vehicle were assaulted. On December 15, 2006, nevertheless, members of the Urban Council joined a Wahhabi mob that invaded the Meditation Centre and knocked down the minaret, removing the body of Abdullah (Rah), either burning or reburying it in a location yet unknown. The houses of 117 Sufis were leveled by fire. Many were threatened and fled the district. Two were injured, and one lost an arm.

Evidence of persecution of Thareekathul Mufliheen was submitted to Asma Jahangir, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, during a visit she made to Sri Lanka. In her 2008 Report to the UN, the Special Rapporteur expressed "regrets that she has not received a reply from the Government [of Sri Lanka]" regarding the 2006 incidents. She affirmed that "the Government of Sri Lanka has to fulfill its positive obligation to protect the right to freedom of religion or belief of all its citizens… in most of the cases that have been brought to her attention… these obligations have not been satisfactorily fulfilled by the Government."

The 2007 International Religious Freedom Report issued by the U.S. Department of State noted the Wahhabi interference with Thareekathul Mufliheen. Since then, however, abuses against the Sufis of Kattankudy have continued, with the Wahhabi Thawheed faction in the forefront of violence. Official ulema and the village authorities attempted unsuccessfully to prevent celebration of a Sufi festival in 2008. That year, a Sri Lanka Supreme Court order, providing that 200 members of Thareekathul Mufliheen be allowed to return to their homes in Kattankudy and practice their beliefs in freedom, was obstructed by armed Jihad members.

The 10th c. CE Ketchimalai Mosque, Beruwala, Sri Lanka -- Photograph 2009 Via Wikimedia Commons.

In February 2009 a 150-year old shrine was destroyed by Thawheed in the city of Ukuwela, in the central hill country of Sri Lanka. Conflict in July 2009 between Thawheed and the Qadiri Sufi order, in the southwestern town of Beruwala, led to two deaths, more than 40 people injured, and 132 arrests. The Qadiri devotees complained that the Wahhabi mosque in their town, named Masjidur Rahman (Mosque of the Merciful) had accused the Qadiris of the Bukhari Thakkiya mosque of being qafirun ("disbelievers" or "concealers of the truth") continuously in the eight years since the Wahhabi mosque was inaugurated.

According to the Sri Lanka newspaper The Sunday Times of August 16, 2009, Muslim Home Guards recruited by the Sri Lankan government to fight the Tamil rebels had deserted with their weapons and joined Thawheed to fulfill its demand for "Jihad" against traditional Muslims. The newspaper described a significant influx of Wahhabi preachers and activists from south India and Saudi Arabia. Riyad S. Al-Khenene, counsellor of the Royal Saudi Embassy in Sri Lanka, denied that official Saudi support was granted to the Wahhabi interlopers, while admitting that "certain wealthy persons… are helping various religious groups in Sri Lanka to put up mosques. But this has nothing to do with the Government of Saudi Arabia," Al-Khenene insisted.

In response to the campaign against it, Thareekathul Mufliheen has appealed to the Sri Lanka authorities for an impartial inquiry into Wahhabi activities in the country; to disarm the Wahhabis; to provide for reconstruction of the headquarters of Thareekathul Mufliheen in Kattankudy; to enforce the revocation of the fatwa issued by the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulama against Abdullah (Rah) and his disciples, as ordered by the Colombo District Court, and to compensate the displaced Sufis, facilitating restoration of their lost heritage, ruined homes, and businesses. The Sufis of Kattankudy seek "peaceful resettlement with honor."

Thareekathul Mufliheen defines itself as "a peace loving and non-violent Religious Society… The members have displayed their patience and tolerance even in times of grave injustice and calamity... The words of wisdom of our spiritual leader are to detest arms and adopt peaceful means to find a solution in a crisis situation."

The Wahhabi, Deobandi, and Mawdudist jihad trends have revealed their ambition to control South Asian Islam through violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. In all these countries traditionalists resist them. The Sufis of Sri Lanka, although obscure to the rest of the world, deserve no less support than anti-radical Muslims elsewhere in the region and around the globe.