Govt. finally admits its bankruptcy – Harsha

April 19, 2013, 12:00 pm 

UNP National List MP and economist Harsha de Silva yesterday said that the government had finally been compelled to publicly admit its inability to manage the economy.

The MP was responding to a query by The Island on whether austerity measures were required, in the wake of UPFA spokesperson Minister Keheliya Rambukwella’s declaration that no government could continue to subsidise utility services forever.

Dr. de Silva said: "Minister Rambukwella has made public the real economic thinking of the neo-liberal Rajapaksa regime. The veil of deception that this Government put on, that it is interested in the welfare of the people, has finally been removed. However, if the Government is in such bad shape that the electricity tariffs of even the very poor has to be increased by more than fifty per cent, then the time has certainly arrived for broad based austerity measures."

The MP said that the UPFA regime’s powerful billionaire politicians and high officials who enjoyed enormous perks and privileges should have made personal sacrifices before they yanked the subsidies of the poor in this heartless move.  

Asked whether the main Opposition UNP was ready to lead a campaign to pressure the government to provide relief to the masses, the MP said that the opposition stood to make sacrifices in solidarity with the people. (SF)

Collapse Of Institutions – Further Considerations

By Asoka N.I. Ekanayaka -April 21, 2013

Prof. Asoka N.I. Ekanayaka

Considering that the appointment of the Colombo University Vice Chancellor is still in the melting pot it may not be inappropriate to add a further comment to the discussion originally set in motion by Professor  Savitri Goonesekere about the ‘collapse of institutions’( CT Mar 17) . The interjection of Professor SRH Hoole (CT Mar 20, 26) tended to blur a serious and timely discussion about the politicisation of higher education in some irrelevant detail, trivia and diatribe that are of little interest. Professor Goonesekere’s own postgraduate qualifications are quite beside the point and it was unworthy of Professor Hoole ( himself an academic of considerable distinction ) to have made that a matter of public discussion. Nor is it significant whether or not there has been some grammatical inconsistency here and there in the various exchanges (CT Mar.26). And as for any mix up between Professor Hoole’s initials and that of his illustrious grandfather(CT Mar 26) I am sure my good friend would have the sense of humour to concede that the printers devil might have done much worse with his particular name than what he has complained about !.

The fact remains that whatever their track record ( and we do not need to go into all that ) two of the applicants for the post of VC ( according to Prof. Goonesekere and as alleged by her ) are seemingly grade two senior lecturers one of whom is reported to be 61. Assuming the veracity of this information, It is not for us to speculate why someone so close to the age of retirement should still be confined to a promotional grade that most academics who complete postgraduate training would normally occupy much earlier in life. There may be some simple explanation for this seeming contradiction. However with all due respect, on the face of it one requires a certain leap of imagination to see such applicants possessing the eminence and stature consistent with the exalted office of Vice Chancellor.                               Read More

Tehelka report misled on British treatment of Tamils: Jaffna academic

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 April 2013, 08:03 GMT]
The Tehelka feature on Friday by Revati Laul is highly appreciable on many counts, as it has brought out the multifaceted genocide committed on Eezham Tamils so that they would remain “people without a nation, much like the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the military-occupied situation that is worse than that of Afghanistan and the double game of the world cum UN expecting that the “idea of nationhood could be the next to disappear,” but yet the reality and determination of the people alive with the idea of a separate Tamil nation despite the terror and genocide. However, the feature is misled by a repeatedly told myth by the adversaries of Tamils and believed by the gullible even among the Tamils especially in the diaspora, that British colonialism once favoured the Tamils, writes an academic in Jaffna. 

Further comments from the academic in Jaffna:

Revati Laul

“Despite the contemporary devastations the Tamils have faced, the tragic story of chauvinism and racial domination in Sri Lanka is not one-sided. In keeping with the imperial games it played elsewhere, while Sri Lanka was a part of the British Empire, the British clearly favoured and nurtured the Tamils over the Sinhalese,” the Tehelka feature said.

“This meant the Tamils ended up better educated, often returning with degrees from abroad; they had a greater share of the few plum jobs in the colonial civil services; they bought the biggest properties in Colombo,” the Tehelka feature further said.

What Revati Laul has written is a repeatedly told myth by the Sinhala politicians and academics including some Tamil lobbyists. Sri Lanka’s former President, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga recently reiterated that while delivering a lecture at Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation in 2012.

Chandrika Kumaratunga

“The colonial rulers had employed a policy of positive favoritism towards the Tamil citizens, in order to “divide and rule” a Nation which did not easily accept colonial subjugation. Independence saw the rise of the Sinhala majority with successive governments apportioning the best and most of the public benefits to the Sinhalese. The frustration of the Tamils, who enjoyed many privileges during the colonial era, was heightened in comparison to their previous situation.” Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga said.

The anti-colonial, anti-British and anti-imperialist political struggle of affected people in the entire island did not originate from the Sinhalese or from the Colombo Tamils. It originated from the Jaffna Youth Congress in the early 1920s, much before the appearance of Sinhala Left political parties, or for that matter any political party at all in the island. 

Jaffna Youth Congress bringing Mahatma Gandhi to Jaffna in 1927

That should be an enlightening evidence to understand where the grievances were simmering and against whom they were simmering.

It is true that the Tamils in Jaffna were educated, but the British did very little compared to what the then anti-colonial Americans and native revivalists did to education. The Jaffna Tamils had no other option as their economy of the Dutch times collapsed and was subordinated to plantation-based, Colombo-centric colonial economic outlook of the British.

If the British were favouring Tamils in education why a university was not given to Tamils during the entire British rule? Even the native institutions in Jaffna that were affiliated to Calcutta and Madras were made into ‘secondary schools’ by the British-Colombo administration, while a university college and later a university was started only in Colombo.

Lord Soulbury and DS Senanayake inauguarating the first Parliament of the so-called independent Ceylon

Those who argue that the British favoured Tamils should read what the Report of the Donoughmore Commission that was sent to Ceylon in 1927 by the first Labour government of Britain has said on the communities in the island.

The coastal Sinhalese were the most ‘progressive’ people in the island according to the Donoughmore Report, which implied that they were the favourite of the British in having a special relationship and in eventually transferring power.

That’s what the British did under the Donoughmore constitution and between 1945 and 1948 under the Soulbury constitution– transferring power to the coastal Sinhala leadership, despite witnessing an All-Sinhala cabinet for 10 years under Donoughmore constitution.

Deserving to their misplaced calculations, even their military bases were kicked out of the island by the Oxford-educated father of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

Transfer of Power from the British to the Sinhala State

The British who unified the separate territories in the island never heeded to federal solutions or any other power-sharing arrangements. They were only keen in transferring power to an elite that would be faithful to them and the chosen lot was the coastal Sinhalese. Transfer of power to an ethnic elite in an imbalanced way was the root cause of all the evils in the island.

Chandrika’s family, ancestors and their ilk were much more beneficiaries of the British than any Tamil. It is a joke that she speaks on British favouritism to Tamils. But then she is not the only person to come out with this myth, which by repetition, like the Aryan origins of the Sinhalese, has become almost a fact to many.

Journalists are ‘compelled’ to show that they are ‘balanced’ in their writings and often they rub wrong areas.

Revati comes out with the myth as a passing reference and as something insignificant to the plight of today’s Tamils. 

But, perhaps she is not aware of the fact that how the myth has taken a new avatar in sections of the diaspora to ‘inspire’ the gullible in the diaspora on the ‘virtues’ of not questioning the West and behaving as good children like their forefathers to the British, so that the West would bring back the pre-independence era through ‘regime change’ and would keep Tamils in contentment–never mind Tamil Eelam or any sovereignty-based solutions.

Revati also perhaps may not be aware that it is this attitude that is not questioning the LLRC-based ‘reconciliation’ even when it is worse than the rotten 13th Amendment rejected by Eezham Tamils.

The Tehelka feature says international actors like the UNHRC, the US and Indian governments take ambivalent positions on what happened. But they are not ambivalent. They are the ones who have taken a determined stand on making Eezham Tamils to forget Tamil Eelam, whether there is genocide or not. The Youth uprising in Tamil Nadu has grasped the issue and that is what makes many uncomfortable today.

Command Responsibility? Yes! But What About The ‘Foot Soldiers?’

By Emil van der Poorten -April 21, 2013 

Emil van der Poorten

With the temperature rising around the issues dealt with recently at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting in Geneva, the matter of “command responsibility” is being bandied about increasingly in connection with any transgressions that might have occurred during the final days of the campaign to annihilate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Since, apart from anything else, that debate has been entered by many commentators, the real kind as well as the “wanna-be” variety, I would like to deal with the issue of denial of human and civic rights by the foot soldiers and apologists acting for and, often, on behalf of the “commanders” in the day-to-day existences of Muniamma, Podi Banda and Cader Saibo. Let those who have already entered the ring in the other dispute continue their arguments and discussions. My focus in this brief submission will be what can and should be done about the destruction of civil and human rights in our collective day-to-day existence since May 2009.

Even here, one might say that the principle of “command responsibility” should be of primary importance and that one needs to go after the “commanders” rather than the “other ranks” that they continue to direct. One reason for not doing that in this presentation is that, in the matter of identifying the “commanders”, the dots (or is it blood-splatters?) are only too obvious and it hardly needs a Sherlock Holmes to lead one to those having command responsibility for them. More often than not, they don’t even bother to deny what they are responsible for and the manner in which such transgressions are committed. In simple terms, the blanket explanation for the ultimate in impunity is simply that the perpetrator was “our man!”

Thanks to the untrammeled authority of those who command them, the “torch-bearers” who act as the extended arm of a violent lawlessness without precedent in this country, escape even identification after committing the most heinous of crimes – rape of children, unprovoked murder, political assassinations etc. These people continue to fade into the shadows and even into the community at large with not so much as identification for what they have done, leave alone being held accountable for deeds that cover the entire gamut of criminality.

To suggest that the rule of law has ceased to exist in this country is to state what has become an inalienable fact. To say that the best that an aggrieved citizen can hope for is either intervention by the President or divine intervention (the same thing?) is to state an even more obvious fact.

But the edicts of They-Who- Occupy-the-Pinnacle-of-Power need to be carried out by lesser minions and these lesser minions cannot escape their culpability by saying “He made me do it” or “It was in my job description.”

While the knee-jerk reaction to this state of affairs might be to bring in legislation creating a whole new bunch of offences to cover the behavior of these men (and women), that is more easily said than done. Also, such definition of criminality after the offence is committed hardly suggests an adherence to the elements of elementary justice. I believe that this was precisely the grounds on which the accused in the first attempted coup in Sri Lanka’s history were exonerated after an initial finding of guilt. Even if such draconian law-making has become common-or-garden in the Debacle of Asia, it should be rejected on ethical and moral grounds.

Instead, I would suggest a twin track approach to the need for justice for those who’ve contributed knowingly and with malice to the destruction of democracy and the establishment of the kleptocracy that is our current “reality.”

One track would be an examination of all financial transactions that these individuals have been engaged in during the time they’ve been active in the ranks of the Rajapaksa Sycophancy. This would include but not be restricted to checking out foreign bank accounts, investments etc. This would be a completely ethical and legal measure.

The other track would be to conduct full and comprehensive public hearings into injustices perpetrated against members of the general public driven by the need to stifle dissent and disagreement. If, during such investigations, it is revealed that acts of blatant criminality have been conducted by the “torch bearers,” they should be dealt with to the full extent of the law.

What I am suggesting is not a witch hunt but an attempt to re-establish justice and decency in this country because what is being trotted out with regard to post-conflict policy – forgive, forget, push the ugly stuff under the rug – is not going to work. We need a cleansing of the filth through which the public has been compelled to navigate these many years. NOTHING LESS will suffice if Sri Lanka is to return to sanity and decency.

DEW sounds alarm bells on woeful tax collection, waste crippling the country

April 19, 2013, 12:00 pm 

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) General Secretary and Senior Minister D. E. W. Gunasekera yesterday called on the government to wake up to the grave crisis facing the country due its failure to increase the tax revenue as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to the latest Central Bank statistics, government revenue had come down to 11 to 12 percent of the GDP, the minister said, noting that it was the worst post-Independence scenario. He said that in spite of the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009, the government hadn’t been able to streamline revenue collection operations.

"We are in a major crisis and the situation could deteriorate further unless corrective measures are taken immediately. Unfortunately, those responsible for taking remedial measures are acting as if the economy were on the right path," Minister Gunasekera said.

The veteran politician was responding to a query by The Island whether the SLFP-led UPFA could continue to engage in extravagance after having declared that no government could subsidise utility services forever.

CPSL is a constituent of the UPFA. Minister Gunasekera is the Chairman of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), one of the two standing watchdog committees responsible for inquiring into the conduct of those running public enterprises.

Minister Gunasekera said that the government would have to set an example by doing away with unnecessary projects as well as curbing perks and privileges offered to various people, including politicians at the taxpayers’ expense. Certain controls on imports, too, would be a necessity in accordance with an overall plan to curtail expenditure, he said.

"Let me give you a simple example. While addressing a public gathering in Kurunegala, I requested those engaged in farming to raise their hands if they didn’t own a hand phone. None of them did. Those proudly making pronouncements regarding Sri Lankans having 20 million hand phones have failed to realise the absurdity of the situation. The fact that the number of mobile phones in the country is equal to the population means the vast majority of those surviving on one or two meals a day, too, own a phone."

The CPSL chief said that the government tax revenue had been as high as 24 as a percentage of the GDP when the then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike handed over the administration to UNP leader JR Jayewardene. Alleging that the UNP, in spite of making a big noise about irregularities in the public sector, had never managed to improve the situation, minister Gunasekera said that in the 2006/2007 the direct tax revenue had accounted for 14 to 15 percent of the GDP.

The minister said that the government couldn’t be complacent, though the Opposition was in total disarray. Asked whether he, as the head of COPE, could suggest some remedial measures, he said that tough austerity measures would be needed to arrest the situation. The failure to take some hard decisions now could cause a catastrophic situation, he said. The government would have to streamline the revenue collection process, tackle waste, corruption and irregularities in the public sector, while ensuring the private sector wouldn’t make profits at the expense of the public sector, the minister said.

The people, particularly those facing economic hardships, too, would have to be careful, especially in the wake of the latest hike in electricity tariff, which would cause increase in many other services as well as products, he said.

The minister lamented that a report submitted by presidential taxation commission, headed by Prof. W. D. Lakshman, was gathering dust, while those responsible for directing the economy turned a blind eye to the ground situation. The government would now have to review all its projects and take sensible measures to control public spending regardless of their short-term impact, the minister said. The reluctance on the part of the government to act now would be advantageous to those waiting to make political capital out of economic woes of the public, he said. .

May inflation likely to accelerate due to power prices: Official

 April 20, 2013 

Reuters: Sri Lanka’s annual inflation in May is likely to accelerate compared to April’s on-year pace, as the effect of higher electricity tariffs feeds through the broader economy, an official at the State-run StatisticsDepartment said on Friday.

The country’s Public Utilities Commission approved a sharp hike in tariffs on Wednesday as part of reforms to reduce losses in State-run power firms.
“There will be a 1.7% rise in the annual inflation next month from the April figure only due to the increase in the electricity prices,” D.C.A. Gunawardena, the Head of the Department of Census and Statistics told Reuters.
“Since the price revision will take place with effect from later this month, we hardly see any impact for this month. But we will also see second round effect of this power price increase gradually.”
Inflation in April is expected to be slightly higher than 7.5% compared to last year, Gunawardena said. The data will be released on 30 April.
Electricity accounts for 4.44% of the basket of goods considered for the compilation of the inflation index.
The $ 59 billion economy’s inflation rate is on a falling trend mainly due to a high base effect, the central bank has said. Annual inflation eased to 7.5 percent in March from a near record high of 9.8% the previous month.

Another ‘Humanitarian Operation’ For ‘Rata Viruwo’

By Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe -April 21, 2013 

Ajith Parakum Jayasinghe

Sri Lanka government calls them Rata Viruwo in Sinhala language meaning Expatriate Heroes or more meaningfully Foreign Employee Heroes. True, the government must worship them in the morning and in the evening because they are the primary donors for the politicians’ extravagances. They are the major foreign exchange source of the island economy. The Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion Dilan Perera says in the Ministry website, having received about US $ 4.1 billion in 2010, “remittance income is by far the highest foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka, providing 33% of her foreign exchange. Remittance income is 8% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, gained from Sri Lanka’s work force abroad. This work force is about 17% of Sri Lanka’s total labor force.”

But a part of these heroes sleep in an open space under a bridge in Jeddah city tonight also since they are considered by Saudi kingdom as illegal migrants who must be repatriated. The number is well over 750 including more than 60 women, sources say.

The fate is similar for a number of other migrant workers from countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Jeddah is a hub of present day slave trade and the issue of the stranded migrants is also part and parcel of the city.

United National Party (UNP) MP Ajith P. Perera says that they are needed to be brought back immediately. He said that some of these employees have migrated to Saudi Arabia via foreign employment agencies and they have failed to secure employment due to regulations of Saudi government. Other sources say that the bulk of these Lankans had travel led to Saudi Arabia on short-term visas and later over-stayed with the intention of securing employment. There are also those who had entered Saudi Arabia on religious pilgrimages and later stayed behind. There are others who have fled from the workplaces violating the service agreements mostly due to inhuman treatment. Most of them have registered in the Sri Lankan Embassy in Saudi Arabia and awaiting expatriation.

The UNP MP proposed the government to bring them back home in a chartered plane considering the pathetic situation they are facing. A good campaign. This is what the government of Sri Lanka wants to shun. The government preferably awaits until the kith and kin of the bereaved migrant employees collect money and send them to bring them home. Saudi police may have already informed the Sri Lanka embassy to take action to repatriate them.

Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau said last week that the government of Saudi Arabia had agreed to provide temporary jobs for 5,000 Sri Lankan expatriate workers who were staying in the Kingdom illegally. Perhaps this may help them to fetch some money to buy their air ticket.

Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau says that the government of Sri Lanka is facing difficulty in bringing back them to the home country. However, 30 to 35 of these expatriate workers are brought home, the Bureau says.

Over 600,000 Sri Lankans are employed in Saudi Arabia. The majority of them are housemaids and other domestic aide.

Minister Basil Rajapaksa said on March 12 addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Rata Viru Piyasa programme of building houses for Sri Lankan expatriate workers at the Galagedara that it was the foreign exchange earned by expatriate workers which enabled the country to purchase much needed weaponry and aircraft for the successful conclusion of the humanitarian operation which liberated the country from terrorism.

Then why don’t the heroes about whom we speak here deserve a humanitarian operation? It will be an actual humanitarian operation after all.

*Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe’s writings may be accessed via blog.parakum.com

Tehelka report brings out genocide at sea: Eezham Tamil activist

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 April 2013, 05:29 GMT]
The Tehelka report on Friday by Revati Laul touches a crucial facet of the structural genocide against Eezham Tamils that takes place not only in land but also in sea, commented a Tamil political activist in the island. This facet of structural genocide, dating from the British rule in severing the natural relations of Eezham Tamils with the Tamils of Tamil Nadu was structured further by the Sinhala State after the so-called independence. It is now intensified with the complicity of New Delhi in coming to the level of sealing off the coasts of Eezham Tamils depriving of their traditional economic activity, industrial exploitation of their seas without their consent or participation, and even snatching away their subsistence by bringing in militarily protected Sinhala fishermen from the South to occupy the coasts and seas, the activist said. 

Revati Laul

Further comments from the Tamil political activist on the issue follow:

In the late 19th century, even the British Government Agent in Jaffna opposed the British railway line coming from Colombo to Jaffna, as it would affect the native trade of Eezham Tamils carried out between the ports of Jaffna and India at that time.

But in early 20th century the Colombo-centric British administration closed down the northern ports on the pretext of the spread of ‘epidemics’ and allowed only one line of communication with ‘quarantine’ through Thalai Mannaar that was opened for the purpose of plantation labour migration.

The traditional Eezham Tamil trade was labelled as ‘smuggling’ under independent Sinhala State and in the pretext of controlling it, Colombo designed a strategy of encircling the north with Sinhala military camps as early as in the 1960s.

A Sinhala Government Agent of Jaffna in the 1960s later wrote how it was a long-term strategy, not simply against smuggling but in fact aiming against Tamils politically and structurally. 

The post-2009 acceleration of sealing off the coasts of Eezham Tamils militarily, bringing in large Sinhala military cum economic enclaves along the coasts in the pretext of High Security Zones and enactment of demographic cum structural genocide especially on the coastal communities of Eezham Tamils, are colossally more than the 1960s strategy. 

The strategy now has global aims to lock India forever, whatever the Establishment that may come in New Delhi in future. They also aim at locking every power, whether it is the West or the East that has geopolitical interests using the card of Eezham Tamils in future.

Unfortunately, the larger perspective of the dangers of the genocide committed on Eezham Tamils at sea, has not been understood properly by the media in India that was once fed with the phobia about LTTE’s navy and later influenced by the greed of the corporates jumping at ‘economically embracing’ the genocidal State, or carried away to superficially look at and reduce the gravity of the issue into issues like that of the fishermen.

It is a welcome point that the North India-based Tehelka has touched the issue in its report to imply structural genocide of Eezham Tamils at sea.

But the Indian public needs to be enlightened much more on that issue in a country where the Establishment in New Delhi stomps at the very use of the word genocide to shield the crime it had committed and in the process endangers polity and civilization of humanity in the entire region.

The genocide of Eezham Tamils at sea is an issue crucial to India and Indian media need not wait for a Channel-4 or a BBC to first talk about it. 

“Even in the aftermath of the terror and genocide, the Tamil idea of nationhood has not disappeared. If India does not want another cycle of violence at its doorstep, it cannot afford to be indifferent to the voices of the Lankan Tamils,” the Tehelka report concluded.

The report also cited a coastal Tamil folk saying that all he could do now was to walk into the sea.

Tamil academic Guruparan, cited by Tehelka feature, rightly observed, “Without the history of Tamil oppression and the on-going structural genocide, the story of the Tamils has almost no meaning,” the Tamil political activist in the island commented.

Sri Lanka: Short Cuts

By Tariq Ali -April 20, 2013

Tariq Ali

Four years after the killing of between eight and ten thousand Tamils by the Sri Lankan army, which brought to an end a civil war that had lasted for 26 years, there is trouble on the island again. This time the army isn’t directly responsible: instead it’s the Buddhist monks from Bodu Bala Sena, the most active of the fundamentalist groups that have sprouted in Sinhalese strongholds. Three-quarters of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese; most of them are Buddhists. The monks’ target this time is the small Muslim minority. Muslim abattoirs have been raided, halal butchers attacked, homes targeted. The police merely stand and watch, and Sri Lankan TV crews calmly film the violence. A few weeks ago, Buddhist monks got some hoodlums to attack aMuslim-owned car showroom. One of its employees was going out with a young Sinhalese woman and her father complained to a local monk. The Sunday Leader reported that ‘an eyewitness saw a monk leaving one of the temples … followed by a group of youths, mostly under 25 years of age. The group carried stones and, people were later to discover, kerosene.’

A BBS blogger recently explained the ‘reasoning’ behind the targeting of Muslims:

Muslims have been living in this country since seventh century and now only they want to have Halal food in Sri Lanka. Population wise they are only 5 per cent. If we allow Halal, next time they will try to introduce circumcision on us. We have to nip these in the bud before it becomes a custom. We should never allow the Muslims and Christians to control anything in Sri Lanka … Hijab, burqa, niqab and purdah should be banned in Sri Lanka. The law and the legislature should always be under the control of the Sinhala-Buddhists and our Nationalist Patriotic president. After all, Sri Lanka is a gift from Buddha to the Sinhalese.

Difficult to imagine how circumcision could be ‘nipped in the bud’ even by a Buddhist, or how the percentage of the Muslim population could have fallen from 9.7 per cent in the 2011 census to 5 per cent today. It has undoubtedly dropped, however, as a direct result of decades of unchecked harassment and persecution, by Tamils as well as Sinhalese Buddhists.

It isn’t just members of the BBS who spout this nonsense. Many in the Sinhalese political-military mainstream share these views. In the town of Pottuvil, where the Muslims are the majority, soldiers have been helping local monks erect Buddhist statues and allowing loudspeakers to blare out Buddhist hymns morning and night. Local women who own land are being driven off it: the monasteries then steal the land, with the army providing protection.

Buddhist hardliners hate the suggestion that the island was not a gift from Buddha to them alone, but the earliest architectural finds reveal Tamil as well as Buddhist objects, which is hardly surprising given the proximity of South India to northern Sri Lanka. Who came first was a burning issue throughout the colonial period. Ever since independence in 1948, Buddhist fundamentalism has been the driving force behind Sinhalese intransigence on the Tamil question. A Buddhist monk assassinated S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the country’s fourth prime minister, in 1959. He was said to have made too many (in fact too few) concessions to the Tamils. After this, politicians began to pander to the monks’ prejudices and anti-Tamil discrimination was institutionalised. Young Tamils began to believe armed struggle was the only way to free themselves. If Bengali Muslims could split from their brethren in West Pakistan and create Bangladesh, why not the Tamils?

Having denied the Tamils autonomy, the Sinhalese were now faced with civil war. In 1976, the militants formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and demanded an independent homeland to be known as ‘Eelam’. Teenagers raided banks to fund the struggle, making their getaways by bike through narrow lanes lined with ancient palmyra trees. They targeted police stations and government officials. When state repression intensified, Tamil leaders shielded the rebels. They were proud of them.

The decline of the Tamil Tigers echoed that of similar movements elsewhere. The Tigers were led, as armies are, by commanders who brooked no dissent. Sensational acts of terror became a substitute for political strategy, alienating possible allies. Factions fought one another, while Sinhalese politicians in Colombo looked on delightedly, bided their time and then embarked on large-scale repression, killing huge numbers of Tamil men, women and children, many without any links to the Tigers. Much of the blame for all this lies with Sinhalese chauvinism and its grip on the island’s politics, but the Tigers can’t be forgiven their crimes against their own people. Suicide bombings, which they pioneered in Asia, were a cynical tactic to underline the Supreme Leader’s hold on his membership. Cyanide pills – every guerrilla carried them – were an inducement to self-destruction.

The current government continues to use the Prevention of Terrorism Act to repress Tamil civil rights; the army is still a constant presence in Tamil regions; press freedom continues to be threatened. In January, PresidentRajapaksa sacked the chief justice, Shirani Bandaranayake, supposedly on grounds of corruption, but actually because she dared to make rulings against the president’s wishes. Her replacement has declared that the civil rights of the population are not being violated. Rajapaksa is also the minister in charge of defence, urban development, finance and ports and highways. One can only imagine the kickbacks. His brother Basil is minister for economic development; another brother, Chamal, is the speaker of the Parliament; his nephew Shashindra is chief minister of Uva, a key province; his cousin Jaliya Wickramasuriya is ambassador in Washington; another cousin, Udayanga Weeratunga, is ambassador in Moscow; and his 25-year-old son Namal is the MP for Hambantota, a strategically crucial port, the development of which has been funded by Beijing. Like the planned free trade port of Gwadar in Pakistan, it will form part of China’s strategic ‘string of pearls’. Chinese state security bigwigs have recently been photographed with the army in Jaffna, enjoying the sights and inspecting the places where Chinese projects will soon be dotting the coastline.

The octogenarian Tamil novelist A. Sivanandan, who lives in London, fears not just for the Tamils but also the Sinhalese people:

Defeated, the Tamils are now rethinking everything, at least in the diaspora which so heavily and uncritically supported the Tigers. They are no longer talking of independence, but of political rights and democracy. Is it too late? I honestly don’t know. The Buddhist monks will soon turn on their own, denouncing Sinhalese who are not orthodox Buddhists and if Rajapaksa, family and friends back them, they might be in for a surprise. Mass uprisings are in the air.

*This article is first appeared in London Review of Books – Vol. 35 No. 8 · 25 April 2013

Gotabaya opens another war memorial in Tamil homeland

18 April 2013 Speaking at the opening of yet another triumphalist war memorial in the Tamil homeland, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa asked critics abroad to come and visit Sri Lanka and see for themselves the progress the country has made. “People were deprived of enjoying the scenic beauty of this area due to the 30-year-old war and people in these areas had to leave their native places and had lived under dire conditions. “After liberating the country from the terrorism, not only Sri Lankans but foreigners also have been able to come and enjoy the scenic beauty of this area,” he said at the opening ceremony of the memorial in Kudumpimalai, Batticaloa. He said that this was a great opportunity for the foreigners who hold wrong views to come and witness how Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims live together peacefully in these areas, according to the DailyMirror. The name Kudumpimalai in Batticaloa has been sinhalicised into Thoppigala after its capture by the Sri Lankan army in 2007. The new memorial was supported by Dilmah, Sri Lanka’s most famous tea company. A government website explained how the new facilities would encourage more war tourism to the area. “The exhibition centre and other facilities were established in order to facilitate local and foreign tourists a chance to visit Toppigala region and enjoy its natural environment and also appreciate the sacrifices made by the security forces to liberate the region from the clutches terrorism.” the Defence Ministry’s website said. Cup of Gota's tea

Dilmah Tea owner and the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary open the latest Sri Lankan military monument in the Tamil homeland.

During his address at the opening event, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, made a special mention to Dilmah Tea, one of Sri Lanka's leading brands, "for its patronage, extended to make Thoppigala a place of tourist interest."

Let’s Not Do This: A Wee Note To Dr Jayatileka And Mr Seneviratne

By Anupama Ranawana -April 20, 2013 

An excellent piece in the New York Times today talks about ‘Monks Gone Bad’, describing a corrupt and violent Sangha that uses hate speech and abuse against minorities and is helmed by leaders who resemble fatuous politicians and not the ‘birds of the wing’ that the Buddha wanted his mendicant followers to be. I am not here to point out the contradictions between Buddhism as taught and Buddhism as practiced, the ingloriousness of Buddhist praxis nowadays is evident for all to see. I just wanted to point out that at every instance in that article where I saw Myanmar, I could have easily inserted Sri Lanka. For every instance where I read about 969 in the news, I can insert ‘Bodu Bala Sena’. About the only words that do not require replacing are ‘anti-Muslim’, ‘minority’ and ‘hate’.

As we all know, the police, together with the Bodu Bala Sena soon disbursed the vigil, arresting some, manhandling others, and collecting the names and pictures of most of the attendees.

The Bodu Bala Sena and its kindred run amok in Sri Lanka, like bullies in a school playground, and with not much more in the way of finesse. They hurl offensive invective towards religious minorities, and their words have resulted in quite a few violent incidents against Muslims ,and at least one against Christians, re-opening wounds in the country that are still struggling to heal after the 30 year war. They seem to operate in a space where Sri Lanka has not just lost so many lives, its economic development, and so much of its natural beauty to a long, long war. In order, perhaps, to call their attention to this, a peaceful vigil was held outside the headquarters of the Bodu Bala Sena. As we all know, the police, together with the Bodu Bala Sena soon disbursed the vigil, arresting some, manhandling others, and collecting the names and pictures of most of the attendees. Not only this, the Facebook page of the Bodu Bala Sena decided to ‘name and shame’ these attendees, causing their supporters to enact the most disgraceful bout of name-calling, verbal harassment and racist trolling that I have ever seen on social media.

One of the ‘points of order’ from the Bodu Bala Sena, its supporters and some of the media who covered the incident, was that the legitimacy of the vigil was in question because the attendees did not represent the Buddhist population, that many Muslims, Christians and Hindus were present. On Facebook, attendees are called out as ‘demalek’ ‘muslimayek’ ‘jathiyak nathe’. Indeed, an attendee tweeted that he overheard someone saying that the vigil was convened due to a ‘conspiracy of Muslims and Catholics’. So much for a critical understanding of religious history- perhaps the speaker would be better served from devoting his time to education rather than racist troublemaking! To each his own, however.
It is altogether more worrying thing that this misrepresentation of the attendees was not only picked up by the media, but that it was also the feature of an article by Malinda Seneviratne, writing in the Colombo Telegraph. The good gentleman, from his considerable experience, no doubt, is able to discern a Buddhist from a non-Buddhist, and therefore writes an entirely unnecessary article that serves only to distance himself from standing with those who attended the vigil. In response, Dr Dayan Jayatileka - who is experiencing some changes to his tune- quite rightly pointed out the flaws in Mr Seneviratne’s argument, but did it in a manner that entirely calls attention to his own accomplishments and ‘stake’ in the manner. The riposte from Mr Seneviratne was then, to accuse the good Doctor of ‘throwing his CV’ at him. I ask you, gentlemen, is this really the response to what is happening in Sri Lanka? The actions of the Bodu Bala Sena, and the complicity of the government in them are grotesque enough without the debate being reduced to puerile attacks on each other’s logic.

If you have a voice that can be heard and that has gravitas, and you both have the great privilege of this, why not turn it more fully toward more constructive dialogue? Why not ask that the rights of those who attended the vigil be defended? Countless women- because the body of the woman is so carelessly mangled in these cases- are facing vile, misogynistic abuse via Facebook from the supporters of the Bodu Bala Sena. These men direct all their perverted, violent fantasies at these girls who really do not have much in the way of legal succour. After all, the AG has instructed victims of social media attack to file complaints with the police. Yes, the very same police who put the kybosh in the vigil. Why not direct more energy into rousing the non-English speaking Buddhists to speak out against the Bodu Bala Sena with less articles in places like the Telegraph which are read by the diaspora and the English speakers? Yes, the handicap at the vigil was that there were many who attended who were ‘English speaking’- but that does not make them any less Sri Lankan, any less Buddhist, any less angry, or any less valid in their protesting attacks on minorities. Give out your voice in solidarity with each other, with those who will question the validity of the Bodu Bala Sena, and in solidarity with what must be a better tomorrow.

*Anupama Ranawana is a wishful academic and a practicing activist. She can be reached for comment via Twitter @MsAMR25