Downing Street backs 2014 Glasgow invitation to Sri Lanka

Kate Devlin

UK Political Correspondent

Saturday 18 May 2013

Downing Street has refused to rule out inviting Sri Lanka to a

Downing Street has refused to rule out inviting Sri Lanka to a First World War commemoration service despite an outcry from human-rights organisations.

No 10 said normal protocol should be followed for the event with Commonwealth heads of state in Glasgow.

But campaigners including Amnesty International Scotland have called on the Coalition to prevent the Sri Lankan Government from attending amid allegations of appalling abuse.

Asked about Sri Lanka, which is due to take over the chairmanship of the Commonwealth later this year, No 10 said: "The usual approach on invitations to members of the Commonwealth should be followed".

The Sri Lankan Government has been accused of creating a climate of fear as well as sanctioning attacks on the media, judges, activists and political opponents.

David Cameron is already facing calls not to travel to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo in November.

However, the Coalition Government has insisted the Prime Minister will attend.

Downing Street said the UK Government would use the event to put pressure on the Sri Lankan Government over its human-rights record. There are signs of growing pressure on that position within the Coalition.

Earlier this week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he supported Mr Cameron's stance, but warned Sri Lanka it would face the consequences if it did not address human-rights abuses.

LibDem deputy leader Simon Hughes is among those who have appealed to the Prime Minister to boycott the event.

The commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 will be held just after the final day of next year's Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

It will include a special service in Glasgow Cathedral, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the War Memorial. The event is designed to be a focal point of Commonwealth activities to mark the centenary and is expected to be attended by leaders from across the globe.

Glasgow's Lord Provost Sadie Docherty, will lead the ceremony, remembering Britain's role.

She has said: "I know this is something Glaswegians will want to be part of. They value their hard-won freedoms and are extremely proud of their city's contribution."

The possible inclusion of Sri Lanka, however, has triggered outrage from campaigners.

Amnesty International Scotland has urged the UK Government to consider whether it is appropriate to invite Sri Lanka to this event "in light of the level of recorded human-rights abuses".

The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice warned the country was preventing many of its people from commemorating their dead.

On the Commonwealth, Values and Sri Lanka

By Gibson Bateman

Tamil demonstrators protest outside the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting in London. Image via Sri Lanka Campaign

Not surprisingly, late last month, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group(CMAG) failed to deal with Sri Lanka. As a result, it looks like the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on the island nation will continue as planned this November.  United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister David Cameron has recently announced that he will attend CHOGM. A spokesperson also mentioned that Mr. Cameron would be delivering a “tough message” to Mahinda Rajapaksa this November. (Some may be left wondering if it wouldn’t be more effective for Mr. Cameron to deliver his “tough message” from London while one of his subordinates attends CHOGM and does the same).

By virtually every standard – including media freedom, disappearances, the rule of lawand land rights – governance in Sri Lanka has become an unmitigated, incontrovertible disaster. In addition to recent reports by Amnesty International, International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch, recent articles by other groups show that the situation in Sri Lanka just keeps getting worse.

The truth is that the Commonwealth isn’t mostly about matters related to democracy, human rights or “shared values and principles.” The Commonwealth is mostly about rhetoric and bureaucracy. Given what has recently happened at CMAG, the Commonwealth can be viewed as, at best, an anachronism and, at worst, a highly irrelevant and unhelpful entity – one that actually works to undermine democratic values through its overt support of authoritarian regimes. The fact that Sri Lanka will soon be chairing the Commonwealth for two years is absurd.

Sri Lanka doesn’t deserve to host CHOGM, although – if the event does go ahead as planned – it is imperative that likeminded governments announce that they will be downgrading their level of representation. Or – as a minimum – it would be prudent for Heads of State to refrain from confirming their attendance, as Mr. Cameron has recently done.

Mr. Cameron is right to argue that tough messages should be conveyed to the regime during the Commonwealth summit. But – again – would it not be more effective for those messages to be delivered in Colombo by people other than Heads of State? That – in and of itself – would send a very clear message. In addition to consistent advocacy leading up to and during CHOGM, a more comprehensive downgrading of diplomatic representation would be an embarrassment for an insecure regime which is obsessed with prestige. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has taken the lead, but others should follow.

The Commonwealth is failing, but the UN’s Human Rights Council (HRC) doesn’t have to. Having already passed two resolutions on Sri Lanka and given the fact that the Rajapaksa regime shows no interest in changing its despotic ways, the stage is set for a real resolution – one with teeth – to be passed at the HRC’s 25th session. It’s been more than four years since the conclusion of war, but the regime still shows no interest in genuine reconciliation, a political solution or democratic governance. On the contrary, as long as this regime wields power; impunity will be the law of the land.

There are pressing humanitarian needs which still have not been met. Nonetheless, in the near to medium term – domestic political change and accountability don’t have to be mutually exclusive. They are both worthwhile initiatives which could and should be pursued simultaneously.  From firsthand testimonies and documentaries to United Nations reports, there’s a considerable amount of evidence which simply cannot be swept aside.

Though not necessarily commensurate with what transpired during the Central American nation’s bloodiest days, Guatemala has shown that a semblance of accountability via domestic institutions is possible. However, it’s unrealistic to expect a similar outcome in Sri Lanka – certainly not now and possibly not for decades.

The next steps are clear; all that’s missing is political will. The international community has an opportunity to take more meaningful action and confront the Rajapaksa autocracy. Only time will tell if diplomatic rhetoric can be matched with consequential diplomatic action.

Mahinda regime is scared even of the dead Comrade Sashie questioning UK Parliamentarian  Siobhan McDonagh Sri Lanka government arresting those who commemorated their loved ones lost in the war exposes how scared the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is, said the General Secretary of the NSSP. In a message to thousands who gathered in London in remembrance of Tamil civilians who were killed, maimed and displaced by Sri Lankan forces, Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne said the arrest of fifteen mourners in Mannar on the 18th of May shows 'how scared the Mahinda regime is even of the dead'. Comrade Bahu also highlighted the British government displaying its complicity in the  Mullivaikkal massacre in 2009. Message by Comrade Bahu "NSSP expresses solidarity with all remembering the fallen and killed in the massacre of Mullivaikkal in 2009. British Prime Minister David Cameron getting geared up to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting  (CHOGM) in Colombo to be held in November, shows the complicity of UK in that crime. The arrest today of those commemorating their loved ones in the north shows how scared the Mahinda regime is even of the dead. The NSSP stands alongside all who fight for freedom and justice for Tamils in their homeland." UK Prime Minister Co ordinator for NSSP in Europe questioned British Parliamentarian Siobhan McDonagh following her speech at the  Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day rally as to why the British parliament allowed the Prime Minister to attend CHOGM in November while acknowledging that Sri Lanka has a poor human rights record. "Cameron is not responsible for the parliament," said MP McDonagh. British Tamils Forum (BTF), that organised the Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day in London said that the gathering highlighted the urgent need for an  independent and international investigation into the events of 2009 further to the on-going genocide against the Tamil people and the inappropriateness of holding the next CHOGM in a country that stands in such complete opposition to Commonwealth Values. (19 May 2013)

Possessing memories, designing cemeteries - Part II

20 MAY 2013

BY SINTHUJAN VARATHARAJAH

Read 'Possessing memories, designing cemeteries' - Part I

Ceremonies of possession

The end of the no-prisoner war and the defeat of the LTTE as the largest embodiment of Tamil resistance against an authoritarian and neo-colonial Sri Lanka state left a void in the Tamil territorial and social landscape. The complete destruction and the subsequent absence of Tamil war memorials post-war was and is in itself not just an act of violence, but also an act of humiliation and subjugation of a people. The contested pieces of land were reclaimed by taking possession of the grief and memory of its people. With the destruction of racialized war memorials, the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan state was bound to be reestablished. Tamil war memorials as challenges and contestations to the majority Sinhala state’s narration of the past and present were successfully erased from the war-torn Tamil homeland and people. With the disappearance of thuyilum illams and other sites of Tamil memories of oppression and resistance, the ‘representations of the past, the narration and visualizing of history, personal and collective, private and public’’ that ‘’spell the desire for holding onto the familiar(…) of landmarks that are disappearing and securities that are unsettled’ completely vanished post-war  for Tamils .

To integrate the spatial and racial periphery of the Sri Lankan state and prevent a potential future rebellion by Tamils, the highly centralized state re-introduced policies of ‘Sinhalization’ of land and people. As part of it, the destruction of Tamil war memorials was followed by the construction of massive monuments dedicated to the military victory of the Sinhala victorious side.  These Sri Lankan state or effectively also Sinhalese war memorials dedicated to the almost mono-ethnic Sinhalese Sri Lankan Army are constructed in often highly symbolic locations. This should further ensur the central state’s grip over land and people.  The SLAF’s main war memorial , for instance, is situated in the former LTTE run de-facto state of Tamil-Eelam’s capital Kilinoichchi. As a conquered former capital with great historic, strategic and symbolic significance, the city has post-war transformed into a SLAF garrison town with an ever increasing flow of Sinhala war tourists flocking into the recaptured Tamil periphery regions of the state²⁰. One of the major sites to visit on such tours is the central war memorial in Kilinoichchi. It was inaugurated by Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse in an ostentatious ceremony and consists of a concrete block that signifies the LTTE rebellion. The concrete block is a spatial anomaly that violently interrupts the carefully crafted landscape planning of the monument.  The rebellion in the form of the block is crushed by a bullet, which represents the SLAF’s successful military victory against the Tamil uprisal. The crack created by the bullet releases a lotus flower²¹, which neutralizes the spatial anomaly in regards to the surrounding green landscape of the site.  The lotus can be interpreted as a symbol  of peace, which could only emerge through the SLAF’s military victory. It is, however, also a motif heavily connected with Buddhist mythology symbolizing purity and progress. The lotus can thus also be seen as a sudden signal of interruption of hostilities and marker of a cease of war through the ideological purity of its devout carriers – the Sinhalese Buddhist majority people and its military extension, the Sri Lankan Army. The memorial park itself ‘sits in a lush green park which in itself seems like an abomination on the dry, arid landscape of Kilinochchi’ and used to be both a children’s playground and part of former LTTE political leader Thamilchelvam property²². The park consists of an installation of a number of Sri Lankan flags, which have virtually flooded the recaptured territories, and an empty room with the picture of Sri Lanka’s President Rajapakse, who is simultaneously mentioned at the adjacent tablet to the memorial. The tablet reads in reference to the Sri Lankan President: ‘born for the grace of the nation’ ²³.

Just few kilometers away from Kilinoichchi, on a sandy beach in Puthukudiyiruppu in the Vanni, a beach strip that witnessed the lethal end of the war, another war memorial has come to disrupt the tranquil region and its bloody memories: a jubilant soldier posing on a base of granite rocks, holding a gun in one hand and a Sri Lankan national flag in the other. A pigeon is hovering over the soldier’s gun to symbolize the peace that has been achieved thanks to the might of the gun²⁴. The granite base is decorated at each corner with a lion, which is not just the Sri Lankan state’s national animal, but more importantly connected to the Sinhalese’s (translated the ‘lion people’) identity and mythical origin as a people and nation. The mere symbolism of lions, symbolic and literally, standing on a piece of land that has become the burial ground for thousands of Tamils is not just problematic, but equally horrifying. The langue of geography and space is evidently one of violence and racial supremacy.

These are just two of the many war memories that were built and continue to be build all over the recaptured Tamil lands.  By continuing the intrusion into the territory, the contested space is forcibly reintegrated by reinterpreting its landscape and with it, its history and its people’s memories. In light of the denial to the right of memory and memorial for the tens of thousands of Tamils who died in the last stages of the war, the construction of Sinhala-centric memorials on top of violated landscapes and bodies is just another extension of the state’s rejection of the dignity of the living and the deceased. 

Dominant memories vs. subordinate memories

The symbolic nature, language and lack of memory of Tamils in conjunction with the virtual absence of Tamil visitors to the Sri-Lankan state’s war memorial leads to the conclusion of a memory of the Sinhala nation within the Tamil homeland. The intrusion into the landscape and sentiments of Tamil people is symbolically represented by an avoidance of Tamils of Sinhala war memorials and the ever increasing procession of war tourism from the Sinhala south into the Tamil north and east ²⁵. With post-war tourism, the racial and spatial flow of people has with the end of war almost reversed in proportion and direction. Whilst Tamil migration to the capital Colombo and abroad from the war torn and socio-economically depressed areas dominated the people flow over several decades, today post-war tourism, neoliberal projects and the increasing neocolonialist settlement of Sinhala soldiers, monks and settlers in Tamil areas has proportionally changed the direction of the migration flow²⁶. SriLankan sovereignty over its Tamil regions and people is thus expressed through forms of dominance embodied in violence and settlement.

Part of the process of post-war domination is embedded in the ‘ethnic dominant system’ which has coined much of Sri Lanka’s postcolonial history by producing a dominant and dominated social group. Symbolically speaking through the paradigm of war memorials, the state has post-war introduced ‘dominant sites of memory’ that dominate the dominated group’s places of commemoration²⁷. The desecration and destruction of Tamil war cemeteries by the SLAF was often followed by the construction of state institutions such as military cantonments and police stations upon the very same pieces of land. On March 7th 2011, for instance, the new military headquarter of the SLAF in Jaffna opened its doors after being built upon the Koopay ‘tuyilam illam’, which was flattened twice with bulldozers by the SLAF in an attempt to eradicate the Tamil perspective on the past²⁸.This falls in line with the GoSL’s announcement to replace ‘homes of LTTE leaders (…) with hotels and resort’ and free the land from memories of the ‘LTTE and the violence which affected the public during the war (…)’²⁹.By doing so, the GoSL produces dominant forms of memories of one side that often quite literally dominate those of the marginalized group by constructing upon their deads’ ashes and memories. The role of memorials as ‘repositories of memory, suffering and grief’ as means to’ translate the unthinkable to the thinkable’ is thereby completely ignored whilst Sri Lankan state memorials are inaugurated time after time in ceremonies of possessions over Tamil land and people³⁰. By destroying LTTE and Tamil memories, the space and right for Tamils to grief and remember as individuals and as a collective is denied, whilst being consciously exposed to the subjugation and humiliation of a state and its executive that forcefully tries to impose its narration of past, present and future to its alienated Tamil citizenry. 

The GoSL’s attempts to eradicate traces of the LTTE serves further as an attempt to  eradicate injustices and oppression committed by the state which gave rise and legitimacy to the LTTE as a force of resistance against a hegemonic state. As the Tamil National Alliances’ (TNA) MP Sumanthiran puts it, ‘the tragic irony is that the act of suppression removes the past memory from the past and places it firmly in the present’’³¹. As a result, Tamils are not just unable to forget and move on from the past, as it is conditioned by the Sri Lankan state-led reconciliation mantra, but renders it increasingly impossible for Tamils to escape the memories that still haunt their present lives. It is thus another form of imposing a dominant narrative, which denies legitimate grievances of the Tamil citizenry by taking away their rights to space and memory. With the destruction of public sites of memory, Tamil war commemoration has been re-transformed by the state from the public ceremony it was established as during the height of Tamil armed resistance into the private ceremony it has traditionally been reduced to prior to the insurgence. The removal of memories from the public and the visible is just another displacement from the public into the ‘private imagination where they can be neither checked nor measured only stirred’³².

Reconstructing cemeteries, redesigning landscapes

The iron fist of the current GoSL is uncompromising in attempts to stir the private imagination by intruding the intimacy of private remembrance: post-war, severe prohibitions, restrictions and state violence is repeatedly inflicted upon Tamils all over the country on November 27, the LTTE’s marveerar naal.  The GoSL aims to prevent them from actively mourning and remembering their war dead and Tamil resistance to Sri Lankan state oppression³³.Neither the ringing of temple bells nor the lightening of traditional deepams (oil lamps) are allowed to mark respect on that meaningful day in temples and churches all over the Tamil homeland. Private or public assemblies are violently dispersed and warned against. Last year, despite an army and police clampdown prior to ‘marveerar naal’, Tamil students lid oil lamps in the premises of the University of Jaffna campus to mark the day of commemoration. Their non-violent activities were, however, soon met by a brutal terror campaign of the Sri Lankan Police and Army to suppress their right to remember.

Similarly as to the failure to accommodate Tamil rights and grievances in November, May marks another symbolic period of the year when the state’s interpretation of history and politics clouds over any hopes of possible ‘reconciliation’ under the current system of power:  in May, when the Sinhalese majority starts to celebrate in a notoriously triumphalist mood and lavish as well as decadent fashion the end of war, Tamils are actively prevented from publically or privately, individually or collectively mourn for the thousands of Tamil causalities that occurred during the final months of the war³⁴. Instead, the state imposes patriotism lessons upon its Tamil citizenry, which includes the distribution of flags and forced participation in end of war celebrations³⁵.

Sensitivities of one seemingly trump another’s, just as memories of some are meant to eradicate another’s. Both days essentially mark the failure of the process of racial and spatial reconciliation of the island and embody the polarization and distance that continues to persist and rise between Tamils and Sinhalese. Neither Sri Lanka’s regained territorial integrity nor its strengthened sovereignty aided in the process of reconciling of what remained to be separated. The nation that never became a nation found itself with the end of war in a historic position to rewrite its path ahead, but also the one left behind. Instead of reconciling and healing wounds of a fatal, blood trenched past, the GoSL chose to silence upon the narrative of oppression and suffering of its Tamil citizenry by denying it any legitimate right to grief and memorize its sacrifices and human losses. With the absence of Tamil war memorials and the imposition of prohibitions and restrictions for public and collective signs of Tamil grief and memory, Tamil past and present grievances seem to continue to be delegitimized and externalized within Sri Lanka, as well as recapitulated into the present by being reproduced into the current post-war context.

With the criminalization of Tamil memories and memorialisation in relation to anti-state resistance and civilian causalities, the island state is actively invisibilizing and externalizing Tamil’s history, but also putting their position and relation to the state into question. Tamils’ continuance of remembering their dead relatives and fighters, despite a virtual clampdown and stigmatization enacted by state authorities, has thus risen to become a clear act of disobedience and resistance against the state’s dictate of Tamil amnesia. To create safe spaces to memorialize that alternate from the violent landscape of Sri Lanka, diasporic Tamils have in recent times increasingly resorted to the internet as a platform for political mobilization. The virtual world as a relatively anonymous entity helps to create a de- criminalized environment where a widely dispersed and displaced population can become the interpretant, architect, and participant in commemorations and memorialisation of the dead.  Concurrently, with the emergence of projects such as the Canadian based www.maaveerarillam.com, the tulliyam illam that were razed to the grounds in the Tamil homeland find themselves today reconstructed in a virtual landscape. By doing so, the memories and memorials of the dead that are illegalized in Sri Lanka find a new home in an increasingly fluid and shifting space that provides the freedom for alternating narrations of the past as well as present.  As the recent uprisal of Tamil students in Jaffna and the concurrent violence against them has, however, shown, the memories of the past cannot be eradicated without provoking the ghosts of the past.

Image: LTTE Heroes War Cemetery (Maveerar Tuyilam Illam) in Selvanagar, Kilinochchi, 27 November 2004

© JDS

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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

Notes:

Chennai event challenges ICE complicity in Tamil Genocide

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 May 2013, 08:29 GMT]
Articulating right demands and slogans in Genocide Remembrance events is crucial at a time when the Eezham Tamils in their homeland are barred from even silently mourning their heroes and civilians who sacrificed their lives in the culmination of the genocidal war at Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, said a Tamil political activist from Jaffna commenting on the slogans used by protestors at the May 19 event at Marina beach in Chennai. Civil society activists, artists, political leaders and ordinary people had participated a mass gathering near the Kannagi statue in the honour of those Eezham Tamils who perished in Sri Lanka’s genocidal war despite dissuasion by the police. Speaking to TamilNet from the gathering, Umar, an activist from the May 17 criticized the failure of UN in preventing the genocide, stating that Sri Lanka must be hauled in the UNSC. 

“It is also because of the US operated UN that the Eezham Tamil nation faced the genocide in May 2009. Likewise, the UNHRC has shown repeatedly that it is impotent to address the root cause of the problem and frame a political solution on the basis of Eezham Tamil nationhood. Therefore, if the US and the UN are really sincere, they should take up the case of Tamil genocide by Sri Lanka in the UN Security Council.” Mr. Umar said. 

The gathering also saw the participation of MDMK leader Vaiko, Tamizhaga Vaazhvurimai Katchi leader Velmurugan, trade union leader Vellaiyan, Aanoor Jegatheesan from the Thanthai Periyar Dravida Kazhagam, Tapasi Kumaran from the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, and others.

The activists who attended also took an oath to launch protests against Indian companies investing in Sri Lanka, calling for investigation on Indian officials involved in war, boycott Indian national parties like Congress, BJP and CPM that support unitary Sri Lanka, and also to expose those Indian media that cover up the nature of Sri Lanka’s crimes. 

The Remembrance event was organized by the May 17 Movement. 

Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter: A Giant Step In The Right Direction – Prof. Francis Boyle

May 20, 2013 

Lancaster, Pennsylvania  - report by Nimal Vinayagamoorthy - Chair, Conference Committee

In the legendary city of Lancaster (Pennsylvania, U.S.A) the birth place of Thaddeus Stevens, the immortal 19th century egalitarian and a leading champion for the emancipation proclamation, the Prime Minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, Rt. Hon. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran solemnly unveiled the Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter in the presence of a host of academics, Human Rights activists, legal luminaries, TGTE MPs, Senators, political pundits, and professionals and a large gathering of Tamils. They have travelled from countries far away as Norway to Australia and India to Italy to be present at this epoch-making event.

Enumerating the Cardinal principles of the Tamil nationhood, historic homelands with the Right of self-determination, the Prime Minister of TGTE Solemnly and eloquently read out the proclamation consisting of 21 articles of freedom. The traditional Tamil drum used by the Tamil Kings in Eelam in the pre-colonial era to herald any news to the people were sounded as a symbol of the heralding of the proclamation of the Freedom Charter.

Speaking on the Freedom Charter immediately after its official Proclamation, Professor Francis Boyle, one of the architects behind its formulation said that “.. Under International laws and covenants the Tamils of Eelam have not only the Right to self-determination but that right also includes the right to establish a free and sovereign   State of Tamil Eelam consisting of their historical homelands. …And here I wish to quote from an international treaty to which the government of Sri Lanka is a party, thus implicitly recognizing that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have a right of self determination and this is from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the government of Sri Lanka is a party. They are bound by their own treaty and it says quite clearly in Article One, “all peoples have the right of self-determination.” The Tamils of Sri Lanka are a people.   “By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Those are rights that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have today even as recognized by the government of Sri Lanka…”

He explained that “..  Those are group rights and not just individual rights. And those are group rights that must be protected because the government of Sri Lanka has attacked the Tamils as a group, not just as individuals but as a group. So, since Tamils have been victims as a group, they must be protected as a group. And one of the basic rights of all that the Tamils have is this right of self-determination…”

He continued,  “Eelam Tamils living across the world must   establish social, political, economic and financial   structures and institutions as if they are already an independent nation. Do not wait until your territory is liberated from foreign occupation..” He further illustrated that “Territorial claim is only one of the elements of State formation. The TGTE has already taken the right steps to form a government with a cabinet exercising multiform ministerial functions  and this is a great march forward in the right direction. In this context your solemn venture and proclamation of the Freedom Charter in keeping with international norms and   protocols is bound to receive the recognition and encouragement of other States and nations.  Your position as an Observer in the United Nations like the State of Palestine is not far away. Now you must harness all your energies to attain that place ..”

Immediately following the Proclamation of the Freedom Charter, Dr. Nuran Nabi a freedom fighter who was once counted as the brain behind the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini Liberation  Front,  Dr. Ramsay Clark, former Attorney General of the USA and Hon. Daniel Mayan, a Representative of the newly formed  Government of South Sudan reiterated their support to the cause of Eelam Tamils and emphasized the historic significance and importance of the freedom charter.

A two day International Academic conference exploring the means to realize the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamils of Eelam was held prior to the proclamation of the Freedom Charter in the Historic Freedom Hall of the city of Lancaster where Thaddeus Stevens the great Champion of the Rights of the oppressed slaves in America left behind a lasting legacy of advocating for free speech and abolition of slavery already in the early part of the 19^th century. It is because of the symbolic importance of this place that the Prime Minister of      TGTE chose to unveil the Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter in this legendary city.

Professor Francis Boyle a leading advocate for Freedom to the oppressed national communities was the resource person at this conference at which several research papers on an array of topics related to the Conference were presented by eminent scholars and academics.

Among the research topics  discussed  were:   Eelam –Geopolitical Perspectives by Prof. Manivannan (Chennai), The Future of the Tamils of Eelam  by Dr. Brian Senaviratne (Australia), Dialects of Unity and Separation by Dr. Satya Sivaram, Non-Violent Modes of Struggle for Freedom by Dr. Paul Newman,   International Crimes Prosecution under Universal Jurisdiction Dr. Alkatout (Germany),  Historico-Political Legitimacy for Tamil Nationhood by Prof. Chandrakanthan, (Canada) Inside Camps, Outside Battlefields by Dr. Nimmi Gowrinathan (Canada)  The Abiding Spirit of Eelam Tamil Women by Prof. Saraswathi (Chennai),International Protection of Tamil Refugees by Prof. David Matas (Canada),   Homeland , Nationhood and Self-Determination by Prof. Peter Schalk (Sweden), Remedial Self-Determination: War Crimes, Military Occupation and Inevitability of Eelam by Prof. M. Sornarajah, Mechanism for Protection of the Vulnerable  by Mrs. Usha Sriskandarajah, (Canada), Absolute Sovereignty: A Moot Question by Mr. V. Thangavelu,(Canada), New States: A case Study of East Timor by Dr. David Suntha (UK), and Political and Diplomatic Strategies for Worldwide Recognition of Tamil Eelam by Prof. Frederic Fappani (Switzerland).     Professor Sriskanda Rajah from Uppsala University in Sweden was the chief facilitator of this conference and stated that the proceedings of this Conference will be soon on the TGTE website.

The Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter can be viewed at www.tamileelamfreedomcharter.org

By Nimal Vinayagamoorthy - Chair, Conference Committee

Related posts;

TGTE Launched ‘Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter’

Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter To Enshrine Clearly Enunciated Principles Of International Law

TGTE To Gather ‘Freedom Demands’ From Tamils All Over The Globe For The Tamil Eelam Freedom Charter

May 18: Tiny glimmers of hope four years on

POST 19 MAY 2013

BY FRANCES HARRISON

Four years after the guns went silent at the end of the most brutal phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war, it’s quite extraordinary that survivors still don’t feel safe to come forward and tell the world what they witnessed, with the exception of one young British Tamil woman. I am talking about people who have received asylum in European countries – not those still living in the former war zone. The Tamilnet correspondent bravely did a few public appearances with a Sinhala exiled journalist who translated for him, but even he decided recently that the risk was too great for his family back home. Courageous eyewitnesses have spoken on TV with their identities disguised; contributed to the UN panel of experts, the Killing Fields films and my book of survivors’ stories and newspaper reports.  But it’s still impossible for Tamil war survivors to address public gatherings and tell their extraordinary stories of survival in person.

Imagine any other war where four years later the survivors are so silenced and invisible.  It says something about the degree of psychological control and oppression by the victors – the ripples of fear reach as far as London, Oslo, Paris and Geneva.

As a result I keep on retelling survivors’ stories to interviewers and audiences at literary festivals. Mainstream audiences know more and more about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka and are shocked that the British Prime Minister will go to Colombo in November for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting but say they feel powerless to make a difference.

I meet many Tamil exiles who struggle with a response to the events of 2009 – they exhibit a range of emotions:  frustration, rage, guilt, resigned hopelessness and despair. There’s much discussion of trauma inside Sri Lanka but it is also a huge issue for diaspora Tamils, who themselves fled as refugees earlier in the war. Some come to events to thank me, clutching a copy of my book sweetly confiding that they haven’t been able to bring themselves to read it yet because they fear the emotions it will rekindle.

The overriding question from diaspora Tamils is why the international community doesn’t do more – why international journalists don’t cover the story – why the world left Tamils to die in 2009. During a recent Tamil radio phone-in programme one caller even asked me why the international community couldn’t organise better political representatives for Tamils! Too much emphasis on finding a savior from outside will prevent Tamils forging their own solutions – hopefully non-violent solutions.

From my vantage point, there are some signs of hope. I see the mood slowly – almost imperceptibly slowly – changing. Many who were quite happy to defend the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war a few years ago are less comfortable doing this now. The faint aroma – I won’t say stench yet - of war crimes has put them off.

The international community is grasping that an end to the fighting won’t automatically solve Sri Lanka’s problems. This is unfortunately at the cost of people inside Sri Lanka who are still suffering. Post-war there’s racial discrimination, enforced disappearance, torture, religious intolerance, Sinhala chauvinism, rape in custody, impunity, nepotism and corruption. European countries are receiving hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers with horror stories of ongoing abuse that are hard to deny.

Colombo’s protestations of good faith and entreaties for more time are beginning to look increasingly lame. Of course it doesn't help that protests approved by the Sri Lankan government openly abuse and ridicule international figures like the Indian Prime Minister, the US President, the Canadian Foreign Minister and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Nor does it help that Sri Lanka fabricates grand action plans and then never implements them or holds secret military inquiries to exonerate its soldiers but never even bothers to publish their findings.

Progress towards justice has been infuriatingly slow but it’s worth remembering it’s taken decades in other countries like Cambodia or Guatemala. Any kind of international investigation into war crimes is still a long way off, but India has twice voted against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council, there’s growing impatience in the United States, while Canada, which took a brave stand within the Commonwealth, has virtually dubbed the government in Colombo “evil”. The talk is now of “an international mechanism” for accountability in Sri Lanka, though what that would mean is unclear. Under pressure the Sri Lankan government is pursuing reconciliation options both with the Commonwealth Secretariat and a South African initiative. Unsurprisingly Sri Lankan officials are keen to discuss the issue of an amnesty – for themselves primarily.

Recent student protests in Tamil Nadu are another significant development because ordinary people in the southern state are beginning to take notice of the plight of their fellow Tamils in Sri Lanka. Though Colombo should not be heading the Commonwealth for the next two years, it will bring added scrutiny to its human rights record. Sri Lanka will not be able to arrest the mothers of the disappeared or citizens holding candlelight vigils calling for religious tolerance if world leaders are in town and international journalists are roaming about looking for a good story.

It’s true that Sri Lankans who oppose the Rajapaksa government by no means agree with each other. Several Colombo lawyers who have bravely challenged the impeachment of Sri Lanka’s top judge still do not take seriously the issue of war crimes in 2009. Muslims, who are now under threat, have not really received an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity from others who’ve suffered before at the hands of Sinhala Buddhist extremists. However there is now a willingness on the part of opponents of the government to be more outspoken and take more risks than in the immediate aftermath of the war.

It’s a long way off but I hope for the day when the 18th May unites all Sri Lankans in mourning their terrible losses, rather becoming an excuse for triumphalism by one side.

Image: Defying a military ban, Tamils commemorate their war dead in the northern town of Vavuniya , 18 May 2013

© JDS

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Frances Harrison is a former BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka and the author of Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War, published by Portobello Books (UK), House of Anansi (Canada) and Penguin ( India). 

Pick Another Day

By Dayan Jayatilleka -May 20, 2013 |

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

The usual polarised debate is on again, on the issue of the Victory Daycommemoration. This time there are three sides, not the usual pair of suspects.

One side denounces the commemorations as divisive, upholds the right of the Tamil people to commemorate their dead and calls for a national day of remembrance or mourning.

Another commemorates the Tamil side, uses the occasion to denounce as ‘genocidal’ the Sri Lankan state, government, leadership, armed forces and the climax of the war itself.

The third side commemorates the victory of May 18^th and arrests or justify the arrests of those who celebrate it as a day of mourning.

A positive historic event must be celebrated irrespective of developments further downstream from that event. To reiterate, however negative subsequent developments may be, a historically positive even must be commemorated. This is why the Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day must be celebrated irrespective of slavery, segregation and the Vietnam War. It is why July 14^th Bastille Day must be celebrated irrespective of the Great Terror or the Battle of Algiers. It is why the October Revolution must be celebrated, irrespective of the Gulags. It is why our Independence Day Feb 4^th must be celebrated notwithstanding July ’83. It is also why it is right and necessary to commemorate our war victory of May 2009, despite the erroneous path we have taken in the postwar years.

As a country we were resurrected, even reborn on May 2009. That month blessed us with two broad consensuses. One was national, local, domestic: the relief and celebration over the victory of May 18^th. The other was international, external and took place ten days later in Geneva. The Sri Lankan government has frittered away the international consensus while the Sri Lankan Opposition and the Tamil nationalists never bought into and stood aside from the domestic consensus. That is our crisis.

No Sri Lankan citizen or concerned observer of Sri Lankan affairs should fail to observe the photographs of the demonstration in London on May 18^th.  Described as the largest since May 2009, the pictures showed thousands of Tamil demonstrators denouncing the events of May 18^th 2009, which in and of itself, may be said to be fair enough. What cannot fail to escape attention is that the demonstration was replete with Tiger flags; not one or two or a few dozen, but hundreds. The event was addressed by members from all major British political parties.  (It was also addressed by video by a member of the TNA and another of the joint opposition alliance Vipaksha Virodaya). If they had any problem with the ubiquity of Tiger flags, they didn’t say so.

The demonstration wasn’t a figment of the imagination of the Sri Lankan state. Nor did High CommissionerChris Nonis pay the bill for it.

While it is true that the political behaviour of the Sri Lankan state and government has kept open and even widened the space for pro-Tiger activists the world over, Colombo can only be held responsible in the most indirect sense for what happened on the streets of London on May 18^th this year. This is because there were similar and actually far larger demonstrations on the same streets in the last months and weeks of the war in 2009. Therefore, the demonstrations and the Tiger flags are not the result of what took place after the war or even what happened on May 18-19^th.  I know. I was there when Geneva traffic was snarled up by tens of thousands of Tiger flag bearing demonstrators and a 21 year old man from London immolated himself in front of the Palais de Nations.

Neither in 2009 nor in 2013 have any of the significant Tamil nationalist political formations or frontline political personalities condemned the demonstrations for bearing the Tiger flag (with the 33 stylised bullets). This is why, in the eyes of the Sinhala majority and the armed forces, they are not devoid of the taint of collusion with separatist terrorism and may prove incapable of not behaving as proxies, if push comes to shove.

This is also why the entirely justifiable criticisms that Tamil parties and public personalities make of the post-war policies of the Government, do not carry the full moral weight that they otherwise might.

It is difficult to occupy the moral high ground when you are blind to the atrocities of the worst of the perpetrators and to their continued presence in the ranks of offshore politics (in Tamil Nadu and the Diaspora).

There was another noteworthy event on May 18^th.  Mr Rudrakumaran of the TGTE issued a Charter for an independent Tamil Eelam. No Tamil party has rejected or criticised it, so far.

As for the Southern liberal/pacifist critics of the State, their often justifiable criticisms are morally vitiated and lack resonance, when these criticisms are devoid of any stronger or even corresponding criticism—and in some cases any criticism at all—of the LTTE flags, and the pro-Tamil Eelam   slogans issued on May 18^th. It sometimes seems as if they have more of a problem with Mahinda Rajapaksa than they had with Velupillai Prabhakaran and have with those who carry his effigy.

What do those flags show? The most charitable interpretation is that these mobilisations are uncritical of the LTTE. The more realistic explanation is that they are essentially pro-separatist; even pro-Tiger. What does the presence of British politicians prove? The fact that they fail to insist on an absence of Tiger banners if they are to address a gathering shows that they are either uncritical of or tacitly supportive of the cause of Tamil separatism.

These are not merely enemies of the Rajapaksas. If they were they would limit themselves to issues of governance, human rights, a critique of nepotism and oligarchy and post-war policies in the North. No, these are enemies of the war and our common victory; they are enemies of our armed forces; they are enemies of the very idea of an independent, united and sovereign Sri Lankan state; of Sri Lanka as a single country.

The vast majority of the people of this country will never regard the Rajapaksas as greater enemies than those who brandish Tiger flags in London and Chennai. The people are right not to do so. It is both shame and folly that there are those who seem to regard the Rajapaksas as the greater enemies.

Those who fail to recognise Sri Lanka’s enemies and take a stand in defending the country from them, will fail to convince the people and will therefore discredit their own valid arguments on other issues.  A viable opposition to the Rajapaksas can only issue from within a defence of Sri Lanka and the war against the Tigers; from the ranks of those patriots who continue to oppose the Tigers and the Tamil separatist project.

What then of the Tamils’ right to mourn? The matter is easily resolved. The Sinhala hardliners are wrong when they refuse to allow the Tamil people to mourn those who died in the war, including those who died while fighting for the other side and opposing cause. Sophocles’ Antigone has established the case in universalist moral philosophy, though few if any, of the Sinhala hawks would have heard of, let alone read, the classic tragedy. Perhaps Prof Rajiva Wijesinha should be invited to give the Govt parliamentary group and MoD bureaucracy a lecture on it.

There is however, a crucial point that needs making. The Day of Mourning or Remembrance cannot and must not be May 18-19^th.  Victory day is just that: it commemorates a historically significant triumph over a cruel foe. It commemorates the heroism of the armed forces and our citizens who did not capitulate to terrorism and separatism. It celebrates the spirit of resistance of our nation. It salutes the memory of the sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors and airmen, and the families and communities from whose womb they emerged. It was a glorious day of liberation and reunification of a divided state, an island country. It needs celebrating down the ages. It must be a stand-alone event. In that sense May 18-19^th are sacrosanct.

There is an element of forgetfulness or subterfuge in the attempt to commemorate May 18^th as the day of National Mourning. There were no significantly high Tamil civilian casualties on that day. May 18-19 were the days in which the army closed in on and finished off Prabhakaran and his praetorian guard, in the Nandikadal lagoon. What’s there to mourn? What’s there not to celebrate?  By then, the Tamil civilians had for the most part been liberated by the soldiers who sacrificed life and limb to break through the impressive bunker-bund complex of the LTTE. Those Tamil civilians, who had died, as collateral casualties or by design, had done so in earlier weeks and days. Those horrific episodes of a few Tiger captives who may have been executed after the conflict –because 11,000 surrendered of which 10,000 have been released—were not, by definition, ones which involved civilians. Therefore there is no logic by which May 18^th should be declared a national day of mourning or remembrance, or anything other than Victory day. I correct myself: there is such logic; one which mourns the end of a Tamil secessionist war by the defeat of the Tigers and the victory of the Sri Lankan armed forces. That logic will never be acceptable to the vast majority of the Sri Lankan citizenry.

The same goes for November 26/27^th, so-called Mahaveera Day. It is not a day for commemorating the Tamil dead or those of all communities who have died. It is the day on which the LTTE commemorated its fighters, including terrorist suicide bombers. Such commemoration on that day must not be permitted on Sri Lankan soil.

A Day of Tamil Mourning or Sri Lankan Remembrance is a necessary catharsis. Perhaps it should be July 23^rd or 29^th. It should just not be on Victory Day, May 18th.