Sunday, May 19, 2013

Story and pix by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai- Sunday, 19 May 2013

War came to an end in May 2009, but that did not put an end to the suffering of the communities. Even today, numerous Tamil families await justice for their families and friends in Sri Lanka.

This tale is similar but also different. Different because it highlights the plight of women – mothers, wives and sisters – who are waiting for the men in their families to return home, post war. That story is so common to many thousands here. But it is different because these women are refusing to accept the loss of their dear ones as mere ‘collateral damage’ or ‘natural’ during war conditions.

These are men who were associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and surrendered during the final battle to the security forces, in a final bid to save their lives. Given to them was a firm undertaking that their lives, along with their families, would be safe.

For the women who have been waiting to be united with their family members after their surrender, it is not merely a matter of emotion but of justice. It is a right at least two women in this group have sought to have enforced through the arm of law.

Family members protesting the loss of their loved ones before the UN Office, Colombo

Uppermost in the minds of these women is the absence of justice after their family members voluntarily surrendered to the security forces. They demand justice – and the return of the male members of their families. Despite all odds, they firmly believe they have a cause and are now in active pursuit of justice.

Eyewitnesses to surrender

According to these women, their family members had surrendered to the military in May 2009, both during and at the end of the war. These women also claim to have actually witnessed the respective surrenders, during those final days of war.

Since then, the relatives have continued to search for their missing kith and kin and are now despairing, as it daily dawns on them that these surrendees are not likely to return home, no matter how much they hope that they would.

The Paris-based former LTTE international spokesperson who later became the Project Coordinator of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization(TRO) in Vanni, Lawrence Thilagar, Tiger Political Wing Deputy Leader, Thangan alias Sutha Master, LTTE Administrative Wing Head, Poovarangan and Jaffna Political Wing Leader, Ilamparithy, were among a group of senior Tiger commanders who were last seen surrendering to the security forces in the Vanni region on 18 May 2009, accompanied by a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph – never to be heard of or from – again.

“My son Vijayapaskaran (32) surrendered on 18 May 2009, in Vattuvaagal, along with many senior combatants, who were accompanied by a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph. I witnessed my son’s surrender as well as others’. The military took the surrendered combatants in a bus, and promised me, as I continued to stay there, that they will inform about their whereabouts, once they are taken to safety. In the past four years, I have visited all the detention centres in the country, but I did not find my son anywhere.

I have waited for far too long and I am getting old. I want justice for my surrendee son before I die,” says an emotionally charged Pushpaambaal Thanabalasingham (53), a grieving mother from Kumuzhamunai, in the Mullaithivu District.

Pushpaambaal Thanabalasingham from Kumuzhamunai„Mullaithivu District

“My son-in-law, Nadesu Muralitharan (37), served the LTTE’s Intelligence Unit, until the end of the war. My daughter, Krishnakumari (30) and their children Saariyan (5) and Abitha (3) surrendered to the military together with Nadesu, on 18 May 2009. I visited all the detention centres and I could not find my family members. They surrendered along with several senior combatants of the LTTE, accompanied by Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph. The surrender took place in Vattuvaagal in the Mullaithivu District and I witnessed their collective surrender.

I have searched everywhere for my son-in-law, my daughter and my two grandchildren. Almost four years have gone by since the war ended, but I have not heard a single word about my family members after their surrender to the security forces in Mullaithivu. I have decided to file a writ of habeas corpus,” says a defiant Ponnamma Kanthasamy (60) from Kandavalai, in the Kilinochchi District.

Ponnamma Kanthasamy from Kandavalai„ Kilinochchi District

It’s noteworthy that most of the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters witnessed their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers in the act of surrender to the security forces, thus rendering them eye witnesses to their surrenders, during the final phase of the war.

“My husband Sinnaththurai Sasitharan (43), popularly known as Ezhilan, was the Political Wing Leader for Trincomalee District. He surrendered along with many senior combatants like him, accompanied by Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph.

“I still have reason to believe that the government is keeping my husband, possibly in some secret place. I need to know where he is and to have him released urgently as promised to the families of all surrendees,” asserts Ananthy Sasitharan (41).

These families of LTTE surrendees have waited for justice since May 2009. Nothing has happened to alter their collective fate of having to wait for their family members and some of these anxious women have now resorted to legal action. Family members of five such surrendees have recently filed writs of habeas corpus at the Vavuniya High Court.

“The families of the surrendees are suffering without justice. These people were not taken into custody but were surrendees. As such, the government should be accountable for their safety and should be answerable. We believe, the State should not continue in this manner without ensuing justice,” adds Ananthy.

Ananthy Sasitharan, wife of Sinnaththurai Sasitharan alias Ezhilan

Meanwhile, there are many questions that remain unanswered relating to their safety and wellbeing.

“Where are the combatants who surrendered to the armed forces in May 2009? Family members of the surrendees have a right to truth and to the safe return of these persons. What happened to them after their acts of surrender? The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has made clear recommendations with regard to surrendees, which should be duly implemented.

That is mandatory for people to receive justice and for all of us to move ahead, towards reconciliation. The government was expected to create a centralized database containing the names of all detainees which should have been made available to the next of kin with their names, place of detention as well as the record of transfers, if any. Nearly four years have passed, but where is the list?” queries Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Sebamalai, Parish Priest of Thaazhvuppaadu in the Mannar District.

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Sebamalai, Parish Priest of Thaazhvuppaadu, Mannar District

For the family members of surrendees, it is of extreme importance to know what happened to their loved ones. They need information and justice to move on, bringing closure to this dark and painful episode in their collective lives.
LLRC Recommendations on surrendees

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report contains four specific recommendations relating to the surrendees.

9.23 – Launch a full investigation into allegations of disappearances after surrender/arrest and where such investigations produce evidence of any unlawful act on the part of individual members of the Army, to prosecute and punish the wrongdoers.

9.48 – Direct the law enforcement authorities to take immediate steps to ensure that allegations (of abductions, enforced or involuntary disappearances and arbitrary detention) are properly investigated into and perpetrators to be brought to justice.

9.51– Appoint a special Commissioner of Investigation to investigate alleged disappearances and provide materials to the Attorney General to initiate criminal proceedings as appropriate and to provide the Office of the Commissioner with experienced investigators to collect and process information.

9.63 – Create a centralized database containing a list of detainees, which should be made available to the next of kin with names, places of detention as well as the record of transfers.

Accordingly, (1) Publish a list of names of those in detention.

(2) Issue a certificate when a person is discharged, so that the same person is not taken into custody again, unless new evidence is discovered against him

(3)Look into the general issue of law delays to expedite prosecution or discharge detainees.

Electricity Economics: Pointless Populism

By Kumar David -May 19, 2013

Prof Kumar David

On April 28, in this column, I discussed the design of the proposed electricity tariffs and made three points; the domestic tariff structure is moronic (no exaggeration), Fuel Adjustment is a fraud that has nothing to do with fuel and less with adjustment, it is a swindle to increase tariffs by a further 40%, and thirdly the Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) consultative document is slip-shod, with incoherent accounting, replete with undefined terms and incomplete presentations. The PUC and President Rajapakse capitulated, and on May 9 the former issued a statement partially abandoning the Moronic Tariff Structure (MTS) and also lowering the charges for consumption less than 60 units to the previous level. Sustained pressure works; I am glad to have been instrumental. PUC, CEB, Power Ministry, Cabinet and President, were well aware of the folly of MTS when they endorsed and implemented it with effect from 20 April before partially abandoning it 20 days later. This tells a story about their intelligence, jointly and severally. Public and trade union outcry against raising electricity prices at all, however, will continue, but this is a different matter from MTS per se.

My April 28 column was a little weighted to the technical side, but as the results have proved, it was necessary to debunk the theoretical basis of MTS before taking on the political side. This piece has three objectives; to analyse other aspects of the tariffs, to comment on the climb down as it remains to be seen by what means the CEB is will make good the revenue shortfall to reach a balanced budget as promised to the IMF, and third to show that the government has no economic plan or perspective; hence fiddling with electricity and fuel prices is a UPFA survival tactic. If that piece was technical, this one is more straightforward.

Comparative tariffs

The tariff paid by domestic consumers consist of a unit charge depending on consumption, a Fixed Charge which is not fixed but rises with tariff slab, and a fraudulent quantity called the Fuel Adjustment Charge which is no adjustment at all but simply raises the unit charge by another 40% (25% if consumption is up to 30 units; 35% if up to 60 units) without rationale. The de facto average charge, per unit of consumption, is the sum of these three components divided by the units consumed. Defined thus, the average, de facto, cost per unit, for different domestic consumer categories, after PUC and Rajapakse’s 9 May capitulation, is as follows.

The mad hatter’s tea party of juddering prices has been ameliorated, but not eliminated. Consumption of 30 units costs Rs 142.50, but 31 units Rs 188; a bigger jolt is at 60 units which cost Rs 372, but 61 cost Rs 763. PUC-CEB really jerks it off at 90 units which cost Rs 1146 but if you go to 91 you pay Rs 1696! A smaller moron-jolt of Rs 164 is when you cross from 180 to 181. This is mainly because the FAC applies to the whole unit charge, not block by block; hence when the FAC jumps (from 25% to 35% to 40%) there is a big jump in the total charge. Continuous piecewise differentiable functions, much loved of Prof. Freddie Bartholomeuz, are anathema to the PUC! Wonder where these chaps picked up their arithmetic?

I am unable to make precise estimates of the loss of revenue caused by May 9 backtracking because it depends on the exact consumption at every de facto average price, and also because of price elasticity of demand. That is, due to price increases some consumers may try and slip down from just above 61 to just below 60, just above 91 to just below 90 and from just above 181 to just below 180. Also, in general, high-end consumer demand is likely to decline while low-end consumption will remain unchanged, or even rise for psychological reasons. This spells trouble for the CEB because the subsidisers will decline, and the subsidised remain static or increase. As an educated guess, I would say, CEB revenue shortfall due to the 9 May concessions will be about Rs 12 billion (PUC says Rs 5 billion; I disagree), or the expected 2013 revenue will decline from Rs 220 billion to Rs 208 billion.

According to the PUC, the cost of supply, including fuel, capital servicing, transmission and distribution, for each unit of electricity sold, is estimated for 2013 at Rs 20.80 per kWh. Consumers using below 105 units pay a lower price than this. I am providing a table of tariffs charged in several countries. The statistics are recent, but not all for the same year, and are based on a conversion rate of Rs 130 to one US$. These apply to the domestic sector and are per unit (kWh).

Denmark; Rs 52 – High surcharges to encourage expensive, fluctuating, wind power.

Philippines; Rs 39 – I don’t know why so high in this developing country.

Italy; Rs 36

Hong Kong andSingapore; Rs 20 to Rs 28 – Cost plus regulated, “reasonable”, profit.

UK; Rs 26 – Competitive commercial pricing.

New Zealand; Rs 25 – ditto

Malaysia; Rs 9.10 to Rs 19.50 – There are many subsidies.

India; Rs 10.40 to 15.60 – There is a complex regimen of subsidies and cross-subsidies.

Vietnam; Rs 8 to Rs 13 – ditto

Thailand; Rs 5.80 to Rs 12.70 – ditto.

It is difficult to make cross country comparisons because Denmark and Northern Europe levy a massive surcharge to support wind and carbon-free renewable technologies. At the other end, developing countries employ a variety of subsidies, cross-subsidies between rich and poor, and whole-sector subsidies where the exchequer bears part of the cost. The best examples of natural undistorted prices are Hong Kong,Singapore,UK and New Zealand, and as a rule of thumb Rs 25 per kWh (fuel + capital + T&D + maintenance + management) is a guide.

It is a little less in Lanka for two reasons. About 32% of our supply is from hydro sources which incur no expenditure on fuel (but capital charges, and T&D i.e. transmission and distribution costs, are unavoidable) and secondly, unlike say Hong Kong’s 99.999% reliability, we get away with less onerous and therefore less costly equipment and maintenance outlays. It is sometimes said that Putlam coal power costs only Rs 8.30 per kWh, but this is misleading; we must add Rs 3.50 for T&D before electricity can reach the consumer, and another, say Rs 2 (depending on the terms of financing) for interest charges and to repay capital.

The bottom line is that the Rs 20.80 per kWh claimed by the CEB and the PUC as the total cost of supply in our mixed hydro-thermal (coal and oil) system is reasonable and in line with international figures. We can have subsidies, we can charge less, we can charge more, these are policy matters and we can do as we like, but we cannot get away from this twenty rupee and eighty cent ogre. Somebody must pay it until the next 600MW of plant comes reliably on stream at Norochcholi, after which the average cost of supply will decline to about Rs 17 per kWh.

Distribution of charges

The psychological impact of these biting tariff increases is noticeable; households are cutting back on consumption, switching off lights, not using fans and commercial establishments switching off air conditioners. These conservation measures will be economically helpful if low-end consumers (paying less than supply cost) curtail consumption, but on the other hand, if high-end consumers, paying in excess of Rs 20.80 per unit reduce consumption, the effect will be that the CEB will run short on the revenue stream it relies on to cross-subsidise low-end consumers. Cross-subsidies, such as affirmative action in employment and education, are unworkable as permanent measures; they have to be phased-out over time. Electricity, like onions and arrack, eventually, has to be offered to everyone at the same price.

Non-domestic tariffs

Leaving aside the peak period (6.30pm to 10.30pm) the General Purpose tariff for shops and commercial establishments varies between Rs 13.50 and Rs 20.50, depending on category, Hotels pay between Rs 9.00 and Rs 22.00, and Industry between Rs 6.00 and Rs 12.50. The peak time tariff is only a little higher than the top end of these bands. Government offices pay between Rs 14.35 and Rs 14.65 at all times. The so-called Fuel Adjustment Charge for all these sectors is only 25% compared to 40% in the domestic sector. (Roughly 40% of our consumption is Domestic, 35% Industrial and 25% General Purpose; other sectors are small).

Compare these numbers with the CEB’s stated supply cost of Rs 20.80 per kWh. Domestic consumers using over 105 units are cross-subsidising business and commercial premises, hotels and tourists, government offices and industry, in addition to subsidising low-end domestic consumers! If the public is agreeable as a matter of principle, I have nothing to add, but how can the public agree or disagree when none of this has been brought into the open transparently? The disparity is not as bad as it looks because these sectors pay a fixed charge of Rs 240 to 3000, depending on category, and a kVA charge of Rs 1000 (or Rs 1100) per kVA of maximum demand, but a disparity there is.

It is not only the PUC that is to blame for not spelling all this out explicitly; the media and “learned” commentators who have confined themselves to superficial off-the-cuff wisdom are also to blame. The political opposition, and the odd quantum physicist who weighs in from afar, are as trivial as they are ignorant of public policy issues, and their social and economic impact.

Governing without policy

This government has no industrial policy; it lives by day to day decision making. It has undertaken a great deal of infrastructure development, some of it very creditable, some useless white elephants, but on industrial policy it is cluless. I was in Taiwan for a few days overlapping May Day and saw at first hand what a dirigisme economic policy with long term planning, not only of the state sector but also in partnership with private investors, has achieved.

Lanka’s electricity price increase will render exports less competitive, discourage investment and further slow down growth that has been stalling since August 2012. There is no long-term thinking, planning or strategy. The mish-mash in the electricity sector, the President jumping this way and that, the inability to reform the CEB for enhanced productivity (I am not a CEB basher and I do not support wholesale privatisation) and a similar state of affairs in the petroleum sector, all have the same root; absence of, policy, managerial discipline, and political will or understanding. You can’t teach old dogs new tricks; this government will not learn or reform; we have to wait for the next – but then, oh hell, I wonder!

[The Socialist Study Circle will conduct a seminar on Electricity Tariffs at the NM Centre, 106 Cotta Road, Borella, on Thursday 30 May, 4.45pm to 6.45pm. All welcome, admission free, language Singlish. Speaker Dr Tilak Siyambalapitiya; Discussion and Q&A, Dr Siyambalapitiya and Prof Kumar David]

Toxic chemicals in imported white sugar

By Kumudini Hettiarachchi and Shaveen Jeewandara-Sunday, May 19, 2013

Ministry says further tests being conducted, other imported food also being checked

Harmful substances have been found in white sugar imported to Sri Lanka, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena has disclosed. Random tests on samples of Brazilian sugar had revealed a high level of toxic cadmium, the Minister told the Sunday Times. He said the sugar was also being tested for arsenic, another heavy metal, which could cause serious health issues when ingested in high quantities.

Responding to a query from the Sunday Times whether tests were being carried out on other food products, the minister said that while tests on imported sugar revealed these chemical substances, random checks on locally-produced sugar were clear. Random checks on imported dhal, potatoes and onions also did not show any toxic substances, he said.

The ministry’s Additional Secretary D.B.T. Wijeratne said these were initial tests and the follow-up action would be to test more samples at accredited laboratories to confirm these findings. “We are hoping to check apples, grapes and oranges as well,” Dr. Wijeratne said. He said the ministry decided on this course of action after an in-depth World Health Organisation report on the Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Origin (CKDu) that has been felling the Dry Zone farmer.

“The Agriculture Ministry felt the need to do these tests, as there was criticism against us about agrochemicals not being regulated properly and the excessive use of agrochemicals,” Minister Abeywardena said. Residues in the kidneys of some of the farmers who had died of CKDu, according to the WHO report, were from agrochemicals not in use in Sri Lanka, he said. That was why the ministry felt it needed to check imported food products.

Meanwhile, three pesticides— carbofuran, chlorpyriphos and propanil — which the WHO report indicated were harmful had been prohibited in Sri Lanka, the minister said. According to information provided by the Minister, carbofuran imports amounted to 671,504kg, chlorpyriphos 299,999kg and propanil 995,310kg in 2012. This amounts to 10% of all imported pesticides a year.

FAC silence on milk issue

Sri Lanka’s Food Authority kept mum from January over chemical contamination of imported milk powder, even after New Zealand informed it — raising serious accountability issues on the part of the food watchdog.

Concerns over transparency and accountability are surfacing, as the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) stated categorically that it informed the Sri Lankan authorities of the Dicyandiamide (DCD) issue in January this year.

On Friday, the New Zealand Ministry, responding to queries from the Sunday Times, gave details of the tests it had carried out since September last year with the results showing that the levels of DCD in its milk were safe for human consumption. The World Health Organisation (WHO), in a separate communication to the Health Ministry, said tests carried out since 2003 by other agencies had also concluded that DCD was harmless.

However, the biggest problem, a Sunday Times investigation discovered, was the failure of the Food Authority under which comes the Food Advisory Committee (FAC), to inform the Sri Lankan public of these issues as early as January this year. The FAC is the authority responsible for ensuring food safety.

The Sunday Times learns that the FAC, despite having this information, failed not only to alert the Sri Lankan public but also other government authorities. This was substantiated by Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena when he told the Sunday Times that he was concerned that the DCD issue had not been publicised in Sri Lanka until this month. It was only after President Mahinda Rajapaksa in March ordered the Consumer Affairs Authority to conduct tests on New Zealand-sourced powdered milk that this issue surfaced.

“We were not told anything about this issue but have been collecting material and wanted to bring it to the attention of the authorities,” Mr. Abeywardena said explaining why he raised this matter in Parliament.

Repeated attempts during the week to reach the FAC for comment, failed with a senior official being curt to our reporter in the last attempt on Friday afternoon. “Many newspapers call me, asking about the milk issue. I should have a lot of mouths and phones to answer all those questions. The Health Ministry will release a media statement soon and I won’t say anything about the milk issue,” he said.

Throughout the week, while the Sri Lankan public waited patiently for a detailed explanation from the Government as to whether Fonterra’s Anchor and Ratthi – which have a sizable 60 per cent share of the powdered milk market – were contaminated or not, there was silence from the FAC. The Sunday Times made about 30 calls to the FAC.

Health Services Director-General Dr. Palitha Mahipala is chairman of the FAC while its Secretary is Dr. Ananda Jayalal.

NAVY SAILOR MISSING AFTER BOAT MISHAP DURING VICTORY PARADE

May 18, 2013

Two navy personnel had fallen off a small Sri Lanka Navy vessel which was involved in an accident during the Victory day Parade at the Galle Face Green this morning.

The boat had capsized during the parade causing both sailors to fall overboard. One of them has been rescued while the other sailor is reported missing at sea.

Approximately 170 officers and 2700 sailors of the Sri Lanka Navy had taken part in the Humanitarian Victory Day Parade 2013, which marks the fourth anniversary of ending of terrorism.

The Naval Contingent comprised of Naval Forces from the Western Naval Command, the Southern Naval Command, the Wanni Naval Command, the Eastern Naval Command and the Northern Naval Command.

The respective Area Commanders also took part in the parade. Several divisions including the 4th Fast Attack Craft Flotilla (FAF 4), Special Boat Squadron (SBS), women sailors and Rapid Action Boat Squadron (RABS) were also among those participated in the national event.

Sri Lanka Navy’s Offshore Patrol Vessels, Sayura, Sagara and Samudura, Landing Ship Tank, Shakthi, Fast Gun Boats, Udara, Ranawikrama and Ranarisi, Fast Missiles Vessels, Suranimala and Nandimitra, Fast Attack Craft, Wave Rider and Arrow craft sailed in formation in the seas off the Galle Face Green paying their tribute

SIX CHILDREN INJURED IN ‘ELEPHANT STAMPEDE’

May 19, 2013

Six children were injured in stampede when a female elephant ran amok during the annual Perahera (pageant) of the Kapugoda Sri Wardanarama Viharaya in Kandana last night.

The incident occurred at around 11.00 pm yesterday near the Ganemulla Junction when the Perahera was parading along the Colombo –Kandy main road.

Six children, between the ages of 06- 16, who were in the traditional dancers’ group in the pageant were injured in the stampede and have been admitted to the Ragama Hospital.

Let Us Celebrate, Let Us Mourn Too

By Malinda Seneviratne -May 19, 2013

Malinda Seneviratne

Four years ago the nation, which had held its collective breath in fear and uncertainty, breathed again. It was a deep breath that was taken and the exhalation was naturally long. There was dancing in the streets. This was called ‘triumphalism’, with the word laced with derisive commentary. Let us, at this moment when Sri Lanka celebrates the 4^th anniversary of the vanquishing of Eelamism’s military apparatus, it is a word that is worth reflecting on.

When Sri Lanka beat Australia to win the World Cup in 1996, there was celebration. It was a triumph that warranted celebration. There was ‘triumphalism’. When US security forces pinned down suspects of theBoston Marathon bombing, killing one and arresting the badly injured other, people cheered. Triumphalism. True, it was accompanied and preceded by a lot of religious intolerance and anti-Muslim invective, but there was unmistakable relief expressed by a citizenry that had been kept on its collective toes for several days.

Sri Lanka took almost 30 years to remove terrorism from the political equation and the daily lives of the nation. That’s thirty years of not known when you or your loved ones would be killed or how or where. The recovery of breath, the expansion of the dimensions of hope, the freedom from unnecessary fear and the return of predictability were all cause for celebration. It was called ‘triumphalism’, as mentioned earlier, in derisive tone. The Sinhalese were supposed to be celebrating the defeat of ‘Tamils’. In other words, Sinhalese, routinely accused of conflating ‘Tamil’ with ‘LTTE’, couldn’t celebrate the defeat of the latter without celebrating, simultaneously, ‘a defeat of Tamils’. It seems that the true ‘conflators’ were these very same objectors. After all, it was fashionable at one time to say ‘The LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamil people’. So, THEY, more than the Sinhalese read ‘LTTE defeat’ as ‘Tamil defeat’.

People cannot be denied the right to celebrate the recovery of freedom, even if only in part. Mis-educated or ill-informed or myopic onlookers, spoilers and others who preferred different outcomes can read things as they will of course. They too ‘won’ some freedom of movement, for bombs and suicide-bombers don’t check and separate friend from enemy when launching random attacks. Some relief may have slipped out of their lungs but they would never admit nor applaud those who made that kind of exhalation possible.

It is good to celebrate, to commemorate those who sacrificed their lives to give us that moment as well as the terrorism-free years that followed, especially since Eelamism is not dead. Eelamists in reduced circumstances haven’t stopped trying to achieve objectives in the little-now-more-later manner through relevant myth-mongering (using the 13^th Amendment as stepping stone of course). It is also important to mourn the massive loss of lives of those who fought and those who were caught in crossfire and terrorist attacks, regardless of communal identity and political loyalty. They were all citizens of this country.

We have celebrated enough, I feel. We’ve mourned very little and this is not only because we are a resilient nation that has its ways of achieving ‘closure’ and moving on. There has been forgive-and-forget, but there’s been selectivity in this, political allegiance being a critical factor. There has been rehabilitation and reconstruction, facilitation of skill-development and re-integration into society of LTTE cadres, captured or surrendered. But if KP and Karuna are forgiven and forgotten, then there’s nothing to stop the Government from facilitating and even encouraging the open mourning by friend, family and others of the LTTE dead,Prabhakaran downwards. No Sinhala Buddhist can object to this because this has been part of the ‘Sinhala Buddhist story’ in all conflicts and invasions they’ve lived through.

There will be those who would abuse such sanction, but the benefits, moral and otherwise, would far outstrip these irritants.

Today, therefore, is both a day of celebration as well as a day of mourning. Celebration because there’s reason to be happy, to be grateful too, and mourning because of the lost years, lost opportunities, needless deaths, childhoods that were destroyed and most of all for the reluctance to mourn and sanction mourning and consequent detracting of something of our common humanity.

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

First look: An Iranian director takes on Western morality

Cannes: Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi leaves Iran to make "The Past," a heartbreaking tale of modern marriage

Salon

BY ANDREW O'HEHIR

CANNES, France — By leaving his native Iran (at least for now) and making what for all practical purposes is a French film, Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi may have given up the principal factor that made him interesting to the West. But those who admired Farhadi’s intense Tehran domestic drama “A Separation” – one of the key movies of this decade so far – will find the same intimate sensibility and the same finely-wrought shifts in perspective at work in “The Past,” which premiered here on Friday. It’s still too early at Cannes to start handicapping the Palme d’Or race, but this one’s sure to be a strong contender.

This time Farhadi’s camera is pointed not at the hypocrisies of life in the Islamic Republic but at the darker consequenes of easy-breezy serial monogamy in the secular West. It’s oddly bracing to have an artist come out of a society that we know he finds overly repressive, and immediately make a film that essentially accuses supposedly liberated Westerners of behaving like a bunch of spoiled children, and of poisoning the next generation with our reckless misbehavior. Mind you, “The Past” is a complex drama that can’t be boiled down to that one theme, and anyway the squabbling middle-class couple in “A Separation” inflicted plenty of damage on that adorably precocious preteen daughter of theirs. It’s not as if Farhadi is preaching either morality or religion. Islam played a role in “A Separation” mainly as a marker of class differentiation, and while several of the characters in “The Past” come from Muslim backgrounds, religion is never mentioned.

Furthermore, the morality-fable overtones of “The Past” – and especially the suggestion that parents aren’t doing their jobs – are echoed in several other Cannes films this year, stretching from the depraved Los Angeles of Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” to the corrupt China of Jia Zhangke’s “A Touch of Sin” to the devastated psyche of a Blackfoot Indian World War II vet in Arnaud Desplechin’s “Jimmy P.” It’s Family Values Week on the Riviera! Seriously though, speaking both as a critic and a parent, I’m glad to see serious film artists take up a question that’s often viewed as an untouchable right-wing talking point.

Almost as soon as we see Marie-Anne (Bérénice Bejo of “The Artist”) picking up her estranged Iranian husband Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) at Charles de Gaulle Airport, they start bickering like – well, like a married couple. Indeed my immediate thought was less Oh, that’s why they broke up than These two are totally not over each other. Indeed, Marie-Anne’s new boyfriend, Samir (the terrific French actor Tahar Rahim), picks up on it right away: People don’t start fighting after four years apart if there’s nothing left in the tank. Officially, Ahmad is coming back from Iran for a brief visit, just to sign the divorce papers and end on a clean and friendly note. Needless to say, it won’t be quite that easy.

There’ll be much more to say about “The Past” when it reaches American theaters, but I’ll add for now that it’s densely plotted and full of twists and turns, with an element of detective story. Ahmad has no idea what he’s walking into after four years away, and Farhadi delivers the truth about this overly complicated family situation in modest doses of dry comedy. There’s a teenage daughter named Lucie (Pauline Burlet, surely a coming star in French cinema), who thinks of Ahmad as her father even though he isn’t, and two younger kids, neither of whom lives with both parents. Marie-Anne is pregnant with Samir’s child, but that was an accident and it’s not quite clear how their relationship is going either; Samir is still married to someone else, and Lucie knows a lot more about what went wrong in that relationship than she should.

If that sounds overly soap-operatic, it plays out against an intensely realistic portrayal of life in the multicultural Paris suburbs, with an episodic structure that keeps focusing your attention on a different member of the central adult triangle, each of whom is at fault in some ways. If “The Past” is perhaps not the same level of masterwork as “A Separation,” it’s still the work of a master. Its central theme, common to both melodramas and thrillers – we all believe we can run away from our past, but it catches up to us eventually – is after all not Western or Eastern, Christian or Muslim or secular, but simply human.

MORE ANDREW O'HEHIR.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Possessing memories, designing cemeteries

: 18 MAY 2013; BY SINTHUJAN VARATHARAJAH

The aftermaths of wars are coined by various, often divergent, forms of national politics of commemoration and historiography. In a pluralistic world, states and governments are globally committed to the production, remembrance and celebration of their distinct interpretation of history and the memory of those who have fallen for the concept of the nation-state. Amidst their varying tales, at times, a common denominator can be found in the acknowledgement of an emphasis granted to the memorization of suffering and sacrifices, especially in the process of reconciling with historic passages of severe national and/or societal violence and trauma. The questions of who is being memorized and for what particular reasons remains thereby crucial to the understanding of the architecture of national memory, i.e. the physical and psychological manifestations of memory, as well as its designers.

Inscribing the past

Politics of history and memory appear as important markers of how individual and collective suffering and sacrifices are recognized, emphasized and memorialized. They simultaneously serve as indicators of desired and undesired narrations and interpretations of human catastrophes: those that are placed inside and those that fundamentally remain outside of the concept of the nation.

Whilst majority notions of memory serve to produce, stabilize and reinforce the pillars of carefully constructed national identities and ideas of, for instance, national pride and belonging via shared histories on suffering, sacrifices and heroism, they equally hold the ability to obliterate narrations of difference and divergence. By creating exclusive and often monopolizing interpretations of the past, the architects of state-backed memory intentionally or by default reduce, eliminate, dominate and in fact often deny versions of history that alternate and thus potentially serve to destabilize, their very own perspective and interpretation of history and its eventual political capitalization. Dominant representations, narrations and theories of war, suffering and sacrifice hence help to marginalize, silence and repress alternative interpretation of such. These alternative stories of the past emerge as antagonist histories and its memorials are, therefore, mutually threatening to the existence and legitimacy of one another.

Narrations of the past are often translated into architectonical structures such as war memorials, which mark the landscape of post-war or post-conflict societies. While mainstream interpretations of history remain secured by state and majority society, some memorial constructions and the human carriers of such appear as non-dominant interpretations and interpretants of one particular, or a chain of historical events. In most cases, these are perspectives and voices that belong to social minority groups, whether they may be ethnic, cultural, political, sexual et al., who find themselves positioned at and pushed to the fringes of mainstream acts of memorilization. As a result, they become subaltern memories of particular social, political, historical and cultural events or periods. They commonly remain excluded from national trajectories of storytelling, commemoration and performances that help to produce, impose and reinforce shared national identities and ideas of belonging through the authoring of a common history with tools such as national school curriculums, history books, museums, memorial sites, national remembrance days, public speeches or stage performances.

Antagonist histories

As alternate interpretations of histories challenges in their mere existence dominant narrations of the past, they become contested and their meaning is often threatened to be hollowed out by dominant historical interpretants’ political maneuvers. Seen as an antagonist, alternative historic narrations’ rights are often increasingly limited while its believers are policed and contained to protect mainstream versions of history from being devalued and dominated by stories of difference. By undermining their legitimacy and right to exist through acts of physical and psychological acts of marginalization, stigmatization or sometimes even warfare, the non-dominant interpreter’s version of the past often finds itself pushed into the waters of obliviousness. To hold onto one’s individual and collective past, therefore, becomes a struggle against oppression in itself - amongst the various intersections of oppression these groups often find themselves challenged with.

Politics of memory are reflective of state and societal power structures. Mirroring the centers of political power, the agents of dominant historical narrations are likewise mostly representatives of ruling classes and ideologies sitting in national or regional capitals of the state. Acts of national memorialization thus emerge as staged and centralized political performances that underline present structures of dominance and power. They are performances that ought to bind together and uphold the scaffold of national identities, allegiances and, of course, forces for political mobilization. In the aftermath of wars, it is victor’s politics and victor’s justice that crucially shape, alter and dictate the immediate and long-term post war period of reconstruction, restructuring, reeducation, reintegration and reconciliation. Is victor’s history however evenly true and self-explanatory? Questions about the narration of the history of violence, suffering and sacrifices call into question subjectivities of authorship, as it relates to the author’s role in the erasures of elements of history that find no space and validity in their own personal interpretation of a period of violence. In this process, the defeated side is limited to the receiving end, and its interpretation of history at the mercy of the authors of the victorious fraction, whose self-interest often leads to censorship and crass manipulations.

The diversity of narrations of war , however, also speak to a diversity of natures of wars and conflict: during inter-national wars i.e. wars waged between two nation-states, public spaces of memory for individuals who have given their lives for their respective state can easily be created and confined to the internationally recognized territory of belonging. In civil wars however i.e. wars that are fought between people of one state and limited to the borders of the same state, the situation emerges as more complex and divisive: the sovereignty of the state isn’t limited to its supporters, but equally encompasses contested regions and the territory of belonging of those who might have died in struggles against the state, its ruling elites and/or their ideologies. Under these circumstances, the memory of the victor increasingly holds the ability to trump, endanger and superimpose the memory of the defeated.

The context of civil wars therefore also highlights the role of geopolitical space in the process of memorialization. How does one narrate and honour memories when the same land marks multiple narratives motivated by political and religious agendas, which relativizes good and bad, right and wrong?

Memories of violence

In Sri Lanka, the final end of war on May 18 2009 brought the militant struggle for an independent Tamil homeland to a sudden and lethal end. The vast areas of the North and East that remained for several years, if not decades, under the control of the LTTE found themselves alongside their residents moved back from the framework of the breakaway de-facto state of Tamil Eelam to that of the unitary state of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s national flag started to re-emerge in the contested territories after having being absent over years and replaced by flags of the Tamil state. Alienated ghost towns and cities in the Vanni that were left depopulated by death and exodus of their populations found themselves newly marked and spaced. The change of flags from tiger, the emblem of the LTTE, to lion, the emblem of the Sinhalese people and the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), in the newly captured territories serves to demonstrate presence, power and victory by contesting former spatial and ethno-political borders that separated people and power. Flags decorated the bombed lanes, buildings, vehicles of recaptured land as it also started to decorate its war-torn people. The end of civil war thus equaled the forceful reintegration of a region and people under rebellion by recapturing land, bodies and minds.

For the victorious and defeated side, the memory and narration of war are as distinct and polarizing as the political positions taken and aspirations represented throughout the young history of the postcolonial state and its societies. The physical manifestations of memories of violence, memorials and processions of commemoration dedicated to the war, have evolved very distinctively amongst both Sinhalese and Tamils. Both sides have, however, evenly used memories as a ‘site of identity formation’ which positioned each in relation to the other’s national and global past¹. The length of Sri-Lanka’s civil war and the human losses that occurred on both sides of the imagined and actual ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural and political lines of demarcations begged for the construction of a number of such public fields of representation of the past. These memorial spaces served for its architects and the national authorities that governed the land and people at the time as an ‘objective to mould and control’ private memory ‘as a specific stabilized narrative which served to unify memory’². While both interpretations of the past stabilized its respective national identities, histories and claim to power, they served in juxtaposition as mutually destabilizing narrations of war. Both eventually served as antagonistic sites of remembrance.

Memorial landscape

From 1989 onwards the LTTE commenced to pay organized public tribute to its fallen combatants³. All over the LTTE controlled territories of the island, temporary sheds that functioned as shrines, photographs, statues and cemeteries for the fallen ‘marveerars’ (heroes/martyrs) started to sprout and change the geographic and social landscape of the area⁴. By institutionalizing ‘mortuary rites of burial’ for the fighters of the secular armed group, the LTTE enacted an extreme breakaway from socially dominant forms of Tamil-Hindu Saiva death practices - specifically those in the Jaffna region⁵. In a cultural space largely coined by the Hindu Saiva tradition of cremation, death ceremonies formed private practices of commemoration, which were for the most part confined to personal acts of ritualized remembrance within the intimacy of families, relatives and their four walls⁶. The death ceremonies of the overwhelmingly Hindu society of the area left traditionally little memories or spatial traces of death, loss and mourning in the geographic landscape that could potentially serve as sites of remembrance and political mobilization. The construction of so-called ‘tuyillam illams’(sleeping houses) for the fallen LTTE fighters, thus, constituted an extreme abolition and separation from traditional Tamil Hindu culture, specifically those of the majority upper-caste Jaffna Tamil Hindu population.

While the act of cultural distancing, reformation and expansion of death rituals on the one hand attended to function as Roberts calls it ‘an act of bonding’ between Tiger personnel’ and those who became in the language of the LTTE ‘marveerars’ (heroes/martyrs) of their cause, it also served the purpose of respacing the territory under control⁷. The construction of ‘tuyillam illams’ in LTTE territories left, accordingly, lasting physical sites of remembrance and commemoration of war combatants in the social and political landscape of the Tamil people. The intrusion of the private and public sphere that occurred with these un-traditional forms of public commemoration intended to disrupt ‘conscious lives’ by installing the ‘persistant belief that the past continues to inflect the present’ amongst the people⁸. By constructing lasting sites of commemoration, the sacrifices made by the ‘marveerar’ in their quest to establish an independent Tamil state should forever remain part of the Tamil social and political consciousness. As such, the physical manifestations of collective and individual grief evolved as sites to revisit the past by ‘reopening the history that produced out contemporary world’⁹. The temporal return thus produces ‘the past as a field of meaning’, which provided understanding for the current social and political situations of the people. The Tamil population was meant to search, find and read meaning in the gravestones and memorials of the thousands of combatants who have given their lives for Tamil sovereignty.

By interpreting the present through past human sacrifices, public memorization however also aimed to reinforce the commitment of fellow LTTE combatants and the general public to the cause – the struggle for secession from the Sinhala majority ruled state of Sri Lanka.

Institutionalizing grief

When on November 27 1989 the LTTE’s late leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran announced a national day of collective commemoration for Tamil war dead named ‘marveerar naal’ (heroes’/martyrs’ day), the LTTE successfully mainstreamed a choreographed act of constructing the island’s Tamil society’s ‘relationship to its past’ as well as present¹⁰. Ever since, ‘marveerar naal’ has nationally, and through the Tamil diaspora also internationally, risen to become the most important day of memoralization and commemoration of Tamil war dead and Tamil resistance. Similar as to the architectonical purpose of the ‘tuyillam illams’, ‘marveerar naal’ equally served to become the day of re-legitimizing and re-strengthening the commitment to the struggle for Tamil self-determination. In Sri Lanka and the then de-facto state of Tamil Eelam, the 21 ‘tuyillam illams’ built by the LTTE became the main sites of assembly to commemorate and collectively mobilize for the Tamil political cause. Tens of thousands of people were drawn onto the grounds of public memory to individually and collectively grief and commemorate the fallen each November 27¹¹. The significance of these public sites of memorialization and the relationship of a large section of Tamil society to these spaces can be understood when taking into account the transformation of ‘tuyillam illams’ from resting places for the dead and sites of remembrances to that of ‘holy places’ and ‘temples’ in the vernacular of thousands¹². ‘Marveerars’ were thereby often elevated to the status of divine deities, whose sacrifices for the Tamil nation resembled those of Gods and Goddesses. The representations given to the dead and the struggle through architectural constructions such as cemeteries, tombstones and symbols like flags and emblems produced a manifold of societal meaning. From the individual interpretant by way of the ‘final interpretant’, in this case the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, politicized memorialisation started to become habitual to a large social groupthrough ways of repeated individual and collectively orchestrated enactment and thus started to become ‘culture’¹³.

Since its institutionalization by the LTTE in 1989, public grief and memorialisation emerged as a habitual practices linked to specific geographies in the de-facto state and outside of it. These spaces transformed to become ‘a repository for the beliefs and values’ of Tamils and for the respective signs and interpretive strategies they share¹⁴.In other words, the war cemeteries of the LTTE became as much symbols of the past as of the future in the form of separate statehood. As architectonical structures that served to physically assemble and politically unify people, the ‘tulliyam illams’ were not just inscribed with names of dead combatants but also a clear political message of sovereignty and secession. Hence, within the history of 26 years of war and war time loss, the representations given to memories of the past by the LTTE, as the national authority of the de-facto state, produced a culture coherent to the architectural embodiment of grief and memory that became intrinsic to the spatial landscape of the Tamil majority regions. LTTE war memorials did as a result not just remain embodiments of a LTTE culture, but were equally also Tamil war memorials and sites of commemoration that were both militaristic and civil.

Violated bodies

As thulliyam illams were reserved for fallen combatants, they remained exclusive to members of the LTTE. In as much as the cemeteries represented the Tamil struggle, they also failed to represent the toll of life carried by Tamil civilians who were neither formerly or informally part of the ‘iyakkam’ (movement). During the period of the protracted war, Tamil civilians became targets to be fought for and against. Their bodies were manipulated and interpreted as such to become sites of violence of their own. Massacres, executions, murder, assassinations, rape, abductions and disappearances were projected upon the bodies of Tamil men, women and children. Civilian suffering coined much of the Tamil past and present. The social landscape of Tamils was subsequently inscribed with numerous unmarked massgraves and the burnt remains of severely violated bodies.

The LTTE’s breakaway from the predominant upper-caste Jaffna Hindu Saiva death rituals never translated into a cultural revolution in respect of death rituals amongst the predominately Hindu Saiva community. Instead, the majority of Tamils of Christian faiths continued their tradition of burying their dead whilst Hindu Saivas for the most part held onto their practice of cremating the remains of their relatives. The scale of violence perpetrated against Tamil civilians by armed forces, whether the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) or the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF), however, increased the need to create public spaces to commemorate the suffering imposed upon the civilian population. Landmark sites in villages, towns and cities that became infamously connected to episodes of severe violence such as Jaffna (1974, 1994), Sathurukondan (1990), Kokkadichcholai (1991), Navali (1995) or Sencholai (2006) were to become geographic spaces marked by the presence of public memorials dedicated to the loss and trauma carried by the civilian population. The violent landscape thus produced architectonical constructions that preserved and connected its residents to painful memories of local civilian tragedies. In a society where death, grief and loss remains for a majority of devout people religiously intertwined with notions of impurity, civilian death found a culturally very unlikely visible manifestation in the shape of statues, pillars and gardens all over the Tamil homeland. Some were designed and constructed by local residents and village/town councils, others were built and inaugurated with the help and participation of the LTTE. The memorialisation of war dead in the Tamil lands was thus not just limited to combatant forces and their political agenda, but remained to be an equally strong endeavor and interest of the civilian population. Both, however, equally served the purpose of being visible constructions of resistance that emphasized the resilience and resistance of a people to state-violence.

Threats and targets

The areas held by the GoSL on the other hand produced a culture of memorization, which was distinct and contradictory from the one widespread in the north and east of the island. The narrative and culture that was constructed and reinforced in the majority Tamil areas through war memorials and cemeteries did essentially not just contrast the Sinhalese perspective, but also helped to destabilize the interpretation that was fiercely propagated by the GoSL to its people and the so-called international community. The LTTE’s efforts for political mobilization and its reinforcement of commitment and provision of legitimacy for the cause of Tamil Eelam threatened the very territorial sovereignty, integrity and racial supremacy practiced and propagated by the Sri Lankan state. Hence, Tamil war memorials and evolved to become legitimate targets of the GoSL in its attempt to fight Tamil separatism by reclaiming territory and people through the capture and erasure of their history and memory.

Prior to the current post- war environment, indications for the GoSL’s policies in relation to LTTE and Tamil war memorials could be traced in a long history of destructions of Tamil sites of grief following the capture of the Jaffna peninsula in 1995. When the contested peninsular fell into the hands of the SLAF, war memorials constructed by the LTTE had to be left behind by the southbound retreating guerilla forces. Following their retreat, the four prime LTTE thuyilum illams located in Koappay, Velanai, Thenmaradchi and Vadamaraadchi were, irrespective of the sentiments of local Tamil residents, raised to the grounds by bulldozers of the SLAF and left in debris¹⁵. Years later, all four cemeteries were as part of the 2001 cease-fire agreement reconstructed, but were soon again to be bulldozed to the grounds with the official collapse of the fragile and de-facto non-existent peace in 2008. Similar destructions of Tamil war memorials took place after the capture of the majority ethnic Tamil Eastern regions that were part of the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam until 2006 and 2007 respectively. Thereby, the cemeteries in Kagnchikudichcharu in Ampaarai district, Thaandiyadi, Tharavai, Kandaladi and Maadavi Mumaari in Batticoloa district and Aalangkulam, Iththikkulam, Verukal, Upparu and Paalampoaddaaru in the Trincomalee district’ fell victim to the GoSL’s policy of erasing memories and were reduced to nothing but shapeless rubble¹⁶.

When the SLAF on May 18 2009 announced the end of war and their victory over the LTTE, ten more Tamil war cemeteries that remained in the ever decreasing and by then vanquished de-facto Tamil state came under control of the GoSL. One of them was the largest thuyilum illam built in Visuvamadu, where more than 4000 resistance fighters were buried. Similar as to its predecessors, it was bulldozed to the ground even before the end of war was officially announced¹⁷. Of the last ten thuyilum illams in Aandaangkulam, Aadkaaddiveli and Pandivirichchaan in Mannar, district, Kanakapuram and Muzhangkaavil in Kilinochchi district, Uduththurai in Vadamaraadchi East of Jaffna district, Eachchangkulam in Vavuniyaa district and Vanni Vizhaangkulam, Visuvamadu, Alampil and Mulliyavalai in Mullaiththevu district not a single one remains to stand today ¹⁸. The destructions of Tamil war memorials was, however, not just limited to LTTE sites of memory. Civilian war memorials that visually represented and connected the population to the great suffering imposed upon them by GoSL (and IPKF) evenly became targets of state-vandalism by being either attacked or completly flattened to the ground. Neither the lotus flower shaped memorial commemorating the civilian victims of the IPKF’s attacks in Valveddiththurai in 1989, or the statue of the late Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) politician and leader S.J.V. chelvanayakam remained to be safe from the Sinhalese state’s yearning to erase the individual memory of a people by destroying their sites of collective memorials¹⁹. By doing so, the spaces of physical and psychological return for Tamils were reduced to ashes and with it, Tamils’ rights to grief and memorize their losses effectively annulled.

(To be continued)

Sinthujan Varatharajah graduated in 2012 from the London School of Economics and Political Science in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies. Interested in migration, diaspora and critical race theory, he wrote his thesis on conceptions of caste under migration and refugeehood. He now works as a research intern at the Institute of Race Relations in London as well as a researcher on Islam and Muslim communities in France, Belgium and Switzerland for Harvard University’s and CNRS France’s joint academic research network Euro-Islam. The author can be followed at twitter.com/varathas