Sri Lanka on a cautious path to peace, seven years after end of civil war

BY KRISHAN FRANCIS

COLOMBO – For seven years, the ethnic Tamil housewife has waited for news of a son who vanished near the frenzied end of Sri Lanka’s quarter-century-long civil war. After so much time, she has little faith that the Sinhalese-majority government will help solve such mysteries and heal old wounds.

“There is no place I haven’t gone in search of him,” said Shantha, who like many people in this teardrop-shaped tropical island nation goes by one name. She last saw her son in March 2009, when he was 23 years old and injured in the crossfire of fighting. The military promised to take him to safety. She never heard from him again.

“The government just talks about good governance, but no good seems to be coming,” she said, weeping.

For the hundreds of thousands of minority ethnic Tamils like Shantha, the government’s repeated promises of postwar reconciliation ring false, even as authorities take tentative steps toward fulfilling some of them.

Tamil rebels demanding self-rule fought the government from 1983 to 2009 before being crushed by Sri Lanka’s army. While the U.N. counts some 100,000 people killed in the fighting, rights groups believe the number was much higher, including some 40,000 civilians believed to have been killed in the war’s final months.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa led the military in crushing the rebellion and continued to rule until last year, when he lost an election to Maithripala Sirisena. Many expected a new era of national healing and atonement, but more than a year later, there has only been slow progress as Sirisena cautiously balances the anguished demands of the Tamils with the persistent fears of the Sinhalese majority.

“It’s very difficult. It’s very challenging,” Sirisena said during last month’s ceremony in Colombo honoring soldiers on the seventh anniversary of their victory over separatist rebels.

His government has handed back some of the property seized by the army, discontinued the military’s involvement in civil administration and policing, and lifted bans on some Tamil expatriate groups that had previously supported the rebels’ separatist cause, with the aim of opening communications with them. Sinhalese nationalist groups are already rallying against these moves.

“Building reconciliation aimed at non-recurrence of violence can never be done with bricks, cement, iron, sand or any other material,” Sirisena said. “It’s about bringing people’s minds together; uniting hurting minds; uniting minds full of hatred.”

Changes are not coming fast enough for many Tamils, tens of thousands of whom have been homeless since the military bombed their homes or took their land. Jobs are hard to come by. Families are desperate for news on missing relatives. Many have refused to accept death certificates offered by the previous government and wait for information on what actually happened to them.

The mistrust between Tamils and Sinhalese goes back centuries, to when Tamil kings invaded from present-day southern India. Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority northern region was among the first to embrace English schools set up by British missionaries. Tamils dominated high-level jobs in government, medicine and law, creating a notion among the Sinhalese that they were being marginalized.

After Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, Sinhalese took control of the country and it was the Tamils who felt marginalized, setting the stage for the rebel movement.

During the fighting, both sides were accused of committing war crimes, though the allegations have never been investigated.

When he was president, Rajapaksa refused international oversight over any war-crimes inquiries and denied allegations that troops had executed prisoners, targeted civilians and hospitals and blocked food and medicine shipments to civilians living in rebel-held areas. Rebels, meanwhile, were accused of recruiting child soldiers, using civilians as human shields and killing people who tried to flee their control.

A documentary aired in 2010 by Britain’s Channel 4 TV station showed scores of naked, blindfolded prisoners being executed by soldiers. The video was apparently captured by troops on their mobile phones as souvenirs. Rajapaksa said the documentary was a fabrication, but Sirisena’s foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera, said last month that it was authentic, in what was seen as a major step toward acknowledging crimes.

Observers said part of the problem is that Sinhalese were fed a heavy dose of triumphalism after the war.

Among the Sinhalese, “there is hardly any awareness of the need for special measures for reconciliation,” 

said Jehan Perera, head of the local peace activist group National Peace Council. And those measures “will create apprehension in the southern people, which is why the government is progressing slowly.”

In the next U.N. Human Rights Council sessions starting June 13, the High Commissioner for Human Rights is set to brief on Sri Lanka’s progress toward reconciliation.

Sri Lanka won praise last year for finally promising a war-crimes investigation with international participation. The government also set up a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution likely to grant Tamils more political power, rights and protections against discrimination.

The Cabinet created an office to find missing people, though rights groups say it is being set up without consulting victims’ families as promised. The government has also promised various reforms intended to prevent a return of hostilities, but several have yet to be implemented.

The delays feed frustrations among Tamils waiting for the return of their land, for justice for war abuses or for knowledge of what happened to missing loved ones.

In the Tamil-majority Jaffna Peninsula in the north, 68-year-old Kasuthuri is impatient to regain her house and land where her family grew vegetables and reared cattle. The military declared it part of an off-limits high-security zone nearly three decades ago.

“When the president visited us, he promised we can go back home within six months,” she said. That was five months ago, and nothing has been said since.

But she is glad she can now at least air her grievances. “If it was the previous government,” she said, “I would have ended up being abducted.”

60 years after June 5, 1956:The making, unmaking and the difficult remaking of a nation

by Rajan Philips-June 4, 2016, 7:14 pm 

Sixty years ago, on 5 June 1956, Sri Lanka’s third parliament began the Second Reading and debate on enacting the Official Language Act, also known as the Sinhala Only Act. There is nothing special about this sixtieth anniversary except today is fifth of June and presents an occasion to write about it. The June 1956 legislation was the fulfillment by the then newly elected Prime Minister, SWRD Bandaranaike, of his dramatic electoral promise to make Sinhala the country’s official language within 24 hours of his becoming PM. Mr. Bandaranaike kept his promise with a simply worded bill that declared that "the Sinhala Language shall be the one official language of Ceylon." The passage of the bill into law was controversial even as it was celebratory. The MEP government was wildly enthusiastic about it. The two Left Parties (the LSSP and the CP) vehemently opposed it even at the peril of risking the safety of their top leaders. The mood of the Tamil political parties as well as that of the Tamil people was one of deep anxiety and uncertainty. The Tamil Federal Party organized a non-violent Satyagraha protest on the Galle Face Green before proceeding to join the debate in parliament. With the rare benefit of 60-year hindsight, it is fair to say that was one rite of passage that the country could have rather avoided. It proved to be a rite and a passage not for nation making, but for its prolonged undoing. And after 60 years, the remaking of the nation is still a troubling task.

Sixty years are a long time in one’s life and in the life of one’s country. As far as I know, not a single person who was in parliament in 1956 is alive today. Almost all of them lived reasonably long lives and died naturally. But the lives of two prominent personalities of that parliament were cut short by assassins’ bullets. They became victims of the dark socio-political forces they had unwittingly provoked. Prime Minister Bandaranaike (1899-1959) was killed three years after becoming Prime Minister, shot by a miss-guided junior Buddhist Monk who had been wound up by his corrupt and politically manipulating senior. The second was A. Amirthalingam, but 30 years after Bandaranaike. Amirthalingam (1927-1989) was elected to parliament for the first time in 1956 as a 29-year old, and was naturally thrilled to receive after his maiden speech a handwritten note of commendation from the Prime Minister, the Oxford orator. He went on to succeed SJV Chelvanayakam as the leader of the Sri Lankan Tamils and became Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, in 1977. Amirthalingam was killed by LTTE gunmen, in 1989, in socio-political circumstances that were vastly different from those that marked his first election to parliament in 1956. Considering the long list of the LTTE’s fatal targets, it might come as a surprise that Amirthalingam was the only one among them who had been a parliamentarian in 1956.

The demographic changes over 60 years are more sweeping. Only about one in ten Sri Lankans living now would have been born in 1956 or earlier. Those who voted for the first time in 1956, when the voting age was 21, are past eighty now. Those who were old enough in 1956 to understand the politics of the language legislation would be getting to seventy, and a good majority of them among the Tamils are now living in other countries. In other words, the so called children of 1956, the linguistically chosen in the south and the rejects in the north, are now a minority, and a good number of them, Sinhalese as well as Tamils, are not living in Sri Lanka. Yet, it is not an exaggeration to say that every Sri Lankan who was living in 1956 and everyone born after has been touched, in one way or another, by at least one or the other of the many tentacles of the 1956 legislation.

The roots and results of 1956

In the political commentaries following Mr. Bandaranaike’s death, 1956 became the commonplace watershed year – signifying the break from and future alternations with the governments of the right wing UNP. The SLFP was projected as the party of centre-left populism, an alternative not only to the UNP-right, but also to the Left. But in this narrative, the language legacy of the SLFP was glossed over by accident as well as by design. Even as the Bandaranaike legacy was beatified and the so called Bandaranaike principles were discovered and celebrated by successive SLFP-led governments between 1960 and 1964 and again in 1970-77, his legacy of accommodation with the Federal Party and the principles that he espoused in the Bandaranaike-Chelvanyakam agreement (the famous B-C Pact), were carefully excluded from mention. The truth of the matter is that SWRD Bandaranaike was the "Utopian Expedient", as James Manor called him in the title of his biography of Bandaranaike, and on the controversial language question, Prime Minister Bandaranaike first played the expedient role in rushing through the Sinhala Only legislation, and then reverted to his utopian instincts in trying find accommodation with the Federal Party and the minorities. His immediate successors celebrated and extended his expediency, but rejected and jettisoned his utopian mitigations. It was left to his daughter, President Chandrika Kumaratunga, to put the record straight 35 years later when she acknowledged that the Sinhala Only legislation was a blunder that contributed to the state’s failure "in the essential task of nation building". But President Kumaratunga’s retraction was repudiated by her successor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who went to the extent of banning the singing of the national anthem in Tamil as a violation of the constitution. Not even the Sinhala Only Act stopped anybody from singing the national anthem in Tamil, and Tamil is also an official language now, thanks to the Thirteenth Amendment (not to mention the Sixteenth Amendment) to the 1978 constitution.

The position that Sinhala and Tamil shall both be made official languages after independence was a settled matter among political leaders till the language controversy erupted in 1955. On five separate occasions between 1926 and 1943, first the Legislative Council and the State Council that came after 1931, had passed resolutions supporting both Sinhala and Tamil replacing English as the country’s official language. The country’s first Prime Minister, DS Senanayake, steadfastly stood by this position. His political mistake was not doing anything in the five years he was Prime Minister to bring about an orderly replacement of English by the two native languages of the island. This mistake of the elder Senanayake, his untimely death in 1952 and the succession struggles that had begun even before he died, the growing gulf between the privileged elites who were westernized and the vernacular population that was marginalized – that became the hallmark of the early UNP governments, and the political readiness to use language as an electoral instigator, were all factors that contributed to Sinhala becoming the only official language in 1956.

Nation Remaking

The assassination of Prime Minister Bandaranaike three years later made matters terribly worse. Whereas the slain Prime Minister had valiantly tried to contain the damage and enter into an agreement with the Federal Party, his successors repudiated this conciliatory approach and aggressively implemented the official language policy to such extents and in such ways that Mr. Bandaranaike would have never envisaged or approved. The pervasive effects were not so much in the denial of the use of the Tamil language by Tamils and Muslims – in fact there was no such denial in practice but only a curious reluctance to acknowledge it in law, as in the discriminatory practices of recruitments to and promotions within government service, the armed forces, and as the last straw in the standardized admissions to universities.

The thoughtless implementation of Swabasha as the medium of instruction caused divisions down the middle not just of the schools and universities that had mixed student populations, but the Sri Lankan society as a whole. Even the language of worship became a matter of contention in a number of instances. The breakdown in the norms of civilian conduct and in the enforcement of law and order enabled politically orchestrated riots to become more the routine than exceptions. The politics of class became subordinated to the politics of language and the Left Parties that had once stood for parity of status were forced into the pathways of coalition politics. The culmination of this process was the enactment of the 1972 Constitution, which in turn provided the pretext for the rise of Tamil separatism.

In 1956, Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was then, was a nation in the making. The westernized middle classes provided what Hector Abhayavardhana called "the first anticipation of the Ceylonese nation." But the Ceylonese middle class was not a powerful enough class to forge a nation out of Lanka’s Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim co-existences. It did not have the requisite economic clout, without which the national unity it projected was no more than an unsustainable cosmopolitan unity. The onus was on the state to step into the breach, and the responsibility was on the political leaders to use the machinery of the state to forge a nation out of Sri Lankan plurality. There were multiple failures involving many leaders, Sinhalese as well as Tamil, and the upshot of all of them was that the postcolonial state that was set up for a future nation became a modern caricature. The official language law was one of such failures that occurred both before and after 1956, and all of them contributed to the failure of the state to forge a new nation. And all of contributed to the unmaking of the nation.

Language is hardly an issue in the task of remaking the nation that the present government, the TNA and Muslim leaders claim that they are committed to. When political problems are not resolved with the promptness they deserve, new symptoms and priorities emerge and require different approaches and treatments. The intervening war had created a host of new problems involving the displacement and the loss of land and livelihood of people, as well as the expectation of official acknowledgement and reparation for whatever atrocities that were committed by whichever side during the war. While it is not my purpose to offer unsolicited prescriptions to address current problems, it will not be inappropriate to suggest that the positive legacy of 1956 is the political maturity and the conciliatory approach of SWRD Bandaranaike and SJV Chelvanayakam that led to the historic B-C Pact an year after the official language legislation.

It is remarkable that by mutual consent the Pact focused on interim measures and left out of discussion the more contentious issues such as a federal constitution, regional autonomy and the Official Language Act itself. The Federal Party leaders graciously acknowledged the Prime Minister’s constraints on these matters and were content to discussing matters that were achievable in the short-term. Let me recall here Keynes’s timeless wisdom that "in the long-term we are all dead." It is equally remarkable that two of the four provisions of the Dudley Senanayake–Chelvanayakam agreement (the D-C Pact) of 1965 were about redressing the ill-effects of the over-zealous implementation of the official language policy in public administration and in the language of the courts by the successors of SWRD Bandaranaike. What was common to both agreements was the recognition of regional autonomy and power sharing as a means of addressing Tamil concerns.

The terms of the B-C Pact and the D-C Pact are not relevant today, but their methods and the process of reaching them should be sources of inspiration. Equally, the present leaders must learn from the mistakes of the immediate successors of Bandaranaike and Chelvanayakam who made wrongful selections from the legacies of the two leaders. While the successors of Bandaranaike jettisoned the legacy of his agreement with the Federal Party, the successors of Chelvanayakam projected as his sole legacy the creation of a separate Tamil state. While acknowledging the circumstances that precipitated these selective choices, we must also accept that both sets of choices have been experientially proved to be wrong in our own life-time.

A protest for the attack launched against Freddie Gamage

Jun 04, 2016

A protest was held today 4th at the Negombo town for the attacked launched against the author of Meepura newspaper Freddie Gamage.

Reverend’s, journalists and area residents joined the the protest organized by the “independent platform” and “protest in the street” 

The following are the pictures

Sri Lanka’s Role In South Asia’s Earliest Writing Controversy

By Darshanie Ratnawalli –June 5, 2016

Darshanie Ratnawalli

A few years ago someone came up with the campaign line ‘small miracle’ as a unique proposition to promote Sri Lanka to tourists. The Rajapaksa Government took exception to the ‘small’ and scrapped the campaign midway. This was a pity. The country has genuine small miracle credentials, tending sometimes to raise eyebrows by producing phenomena usually deemed too big, too grand for a country of its size. It can for example claim ownership of the oldest surviving, reliably dated samples of writing to be found in the whole of South Asia.

It was long thought that the earliest writing in South Asia were the inscriptions of the Indus Valley civilization. Now with the 2004 debut of an authoritative and persuasive academic thesis by Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat and Michael Witzel, the word in the street (a metaphorical street populated with academics) is that this ancient urban civilization that sprawled across Northwest South Asia and had its flowering phase between 2600 and 1900 BC lacked writing.

A voice from the street “The 2004 publication of a paper by Farmer, Sproat and Witzel in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies has made available the results of careful statistical studies which have analyzed sign repetition rates in the Indus inscriptions and claim to show that it is not possible that the so-called Indus script could have encoded language. They propose rather to see the signs as cultic emblems of particular deities and the like, pointing to parallel widespread use of such symbols in the Near East and elsewhere.

“It seems clear that their analysis shows beyond reasonable doubt that the script used in the extant inscriptions cannot be either alphabetic or syllabic” – (‘The Early Development of Buddhist Literature and Language in India’, L.S. Cousins, 2013)

The premise of an illiterate Indus Valley civilization contained in ‘The collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization’ has tremendous implications for Sri Lanka. If the oldest South Asian symbol system unearthed so far, going back to 3000 to 2000 years before Christ, was nonlinguistic, invested with cultish, clannish and mythological significance, instead of a true script encoding speech, that means South Asians remained illiterate until the middle of the first thousand years before Christ, when according to accepted wisdom, writing was first introduced to North West South Asia by the Persians. This accepted wisdom flows from a logical surmise. That is, we know that around 518 BC, certain territories in South Asia became part of the Persian Empire and as Persians were already writing with the Aramaic script by this time, historians assume the inevitable; “Once the north-west of India had become part of the Persian empire, if not before, writing would have been employed by the Aramaic scribes in that area, and it’s hard to believe that neighbouring rulers would not realize the advantages of keeping records of regnal years and royal accounts, and treasury and armoury details in some tangible form”- (K. R. Norman reviewing in 1993, ‘The beginning of writing and early literacy in India’ by Oskar v. Hinüber).

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'Verty Party': Tamil men to don traditional outfits, tackle stigmas around mental-health issues

Men's mental-health awareness event to take place in Scarborough on Saturday

Though stigma surrounding mental health exists across society, it has a particularly detrimental impact on men within the Tamil community in Canada, according to Ragavan Paranchothy the co-founder of Men's Services for Mental Health. (CBC News)

By Ramna Shahzad-Jun 03, 2016

Men's Services for Mental Health is throwing a "Verty Party" this weekend where men will sport traditional South Asian garb to raise awareness about, and address the stigma surrounding, mental health within the Tamil community. 

"My community, the Tamil community, has seen war for 30 years. We are fairly new to Canada and the Western world and we go through a lot. Men in particular suffer a lot and don't put it out there," Ragavan Paranchothy, the co-founder of Men's Services for Mental Health, told CBC's Metro Morning on Friday.

"They don't talk to their family, they don't talk to their friends, or to doctors, about their mental health. They suffer," he said.

What Paranchothy hopes to achieve with the campaign is to normalize topics related to mental health and make it easier to have conversations about conflicts left behind, financial stress and other sources of mental stress for men.

The "Verty Party," which will take place on Saturday at the Scarborough Convention Centre, is an opportunity for men to have open conversations about mental-health issues, as well as a chance for them to wear a traditional South Asian item of clothing worn by men, known as a veshti or dhoti.

Men's Services for Mental Health is hosting a party where men can sport traditional South Asian attire for a good cause -- to have conversations about mental health. (Facebook/ Verty Party For Men's Mental Health Promotion)

"It's part of our awareness campaign. We want to talk to young people so they can get in touch with their own thoughts and feelings and they can also propagate conversations outside," said Paranchothy. "We want [young people] to become ambassadors of the cause, get involved and start talking about it."

Paranchothy said that mental health takes a huge toll on Tamil families who have left behind their friends and family.

Certain months can be more difficult for the community and can be reminders of the pain and suffering of those left behind, Paranchothy said. 

"We remember the Tamil genocide in May, and November is when we commemorate the fallen men and women who fought for Tamil freedom," he said, adding that at times like these, it is particularly important to speak out and seek help if needed. 

With files from Metro Morning

Eastern CM And The Post-Conflict Sri Lanka

In my opinion, however, the key issue in post-war Sri Lanka is ‘Reconciliation,’ because without building a true, peaceful relationship between Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims etc., no other post-war issue will be satisfactorily addressed.  Proposing the issue of ‘Reconciliation’ with the issue of ‘Accountability’ that proposes a ‘punitive’ justice model is a mistake when evaluating it against the post-war context in Sri Lanka.

by Dinesh D. Dodamgoda

( June 5, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The incident that took place in Sampur a few days ago between the Chief Minister- Eastern Province and a Naval officer caused an uproar. The majority Sinhala – Buddhist people expressly viewed it as a threat posed against ‘war heroes’ by a Chief Minister belonging to the country’s Muslim minority. Some Muslims viewed it as an unnecessary act by the CM.

Despite the ‘controlled views’ expressed publically, some Sinhala-Buddhists think that they are losing ‘control’ that they had over minority groups. This was orchestrated, however, in publically by a group of Buddhist Monks who went to the CM’s residence and scolded him in front of cameras. The implicit message of the said effort was to ‘regain control’. On the other hand, some Muslims are proud of the CM’s behaviour and told me that the Chief Minister had ‘balls’ to severely reprimand a Naval officer publically (the US Ambassador to Colombo was also on the stage when the incident took place). Some minority groups, especially some Muslims think that the incident reminded them again the bitter truth – they are second class citizens of Sri Lanka.

The above explained situation is a typical post-conflict scenario in a divided society like Sri Lanka. The level of socio-ethnic polarisation in Sri Lanka is still high, though there are efforts to minimise it. The war that  was fought between divided ethnic lines and lasted for more than two decades has deepened the socio-ethnic polarisation. Therefore, the situation even after the war is that the majority rules and the minority co-operates. The war that lasted for more than two decades only drew national and international attention to the ethnic problem, yet complicated it furthermore.

Process of Reconciliation

The situation again emphasises the need for having a sustainable-reconciliation process, the most important issue that should be addressed in the post-conflict Sri Lanka. However, some pundits think that the ‘Justice’ should be served before reconciling the society. Yet, their proposed mechanism so far is to adopt a kind of a punitive justice model that addresses the ‘accountability’ issue. In my opinion, any punitive model will further deepen the socio-ethnic polarisation as it will again create a context of ‘winners and losers’.

As evident in many post-conflict theatres, deeply divided post-conflict societies do not want more winners and losers. What those societies need is a sustainable process of rebuilding broken relationships. This will require ‘top-down’, ‘bottom-up’ and ‘middle-range’ approaches to reconciliation. However, a truth finding mechanism not with a ‘punitive model’ yet with a ‘restorative justice model’ similar to the South African Truth Commission also can be complementary model for both sides.

A Truth Commission?

A model similar to the South African Truth & Reconciliation model is a viable option for Sri Lanka. However, at least five points were raised by the Global Tamil Forum, Amnesty International, the Government of Sri Lanka and the authors of the draft of the National Policy on Reconciliation in arguing against adopting a mechanism similar to the South African TRC model for Sri Lanka. They stated that,

1.   An inquiry should be based on the principle of punishment but not forgiveness.

2.   An inquiry should set up two moral status for the LTTE and the government forces.

3.   An inquiry should consider only the final phase of the War against the LTTE.

4.   An inquiry should be based on a trial, a conviction and punishment.

5.   An inquiry is to punish perpetrators as confession and forgiveness is not part of the Sri Lankan culture.

When evaluating arguments raised against Sri Lanka adopting a TRC style mechanism, it is worth inquiring the South African experience with regard to the five points noted above.

1. An inquiry should be based on the principle of punishment but not forgiveness

The South African mechanism was based on the principle of ‘forgiveness’ – not the principle of ‘punishment.’ The TRC in SA had no power of prosecution, or any judicial function. However, it could summon witnesses and had search powers and has access to all documents. According to the process that was adopted by the TRC, a perpetrator could apply for seeking amnesty and after a detailed confession about crimes he/she committed in achieving political objectives, his/her name would be published in the Government Gazette with acts for which the amnesty apply. It was a public hearing, yet the Committee could decide on a private hearing.

2.   An inquiry should set up two moral status for the LTTE and the government forces

Only a single moral status was set up in the South African context. The National Party (NP) negotiator, a member of the last white cabinet, Danie Schutte cautioned that ‘any instance on separate moral status for apartheid soldiers and guerrillas of the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) armed wing could undermine reconciliation. A South African reporter noted that the Commission should focus not just on the apartheid regime but also on crimes committed by the liberation movement such as the ANC atrocities in Angolan detention camps. Therefore, a single moral status should be set up for the GOSL and the LTTE.

3.   An inquiry should consider only the final phase of the War against the LTTE

The South African Commission had a mandate to cover crimes committed with a political objectives from 1 March 1960 to May 1994. This was to cover almost all the possible politically motivated gross human rights violations during the apartheid in SA. However, only the final phase of the War against the LTTE is to be considered in the Sri Lankan case and it would be the period from 1 January 2009 to May 2009. This is incorrect and the total period of more than two decades should be covered by the proposed inquiry.

4.   An inquiry should be based on a trial, a conviction and punishment

Human Rights organisations are the main propagators of the above argument. Even in the South African context, Amnesty International itself had suggested that pardon be granted only after trial and conviction. However, arguing against human rights organisations, Professor Kader Asmal, a Professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape and a politician, stated in a speech prepared for the TRC in SA that,

‘The Nuremburg approach would probably enjoy the support of most human rights organisations’ but this would not be conducive to reconciliation ‘and could be considered as a witch hunt.’

5.   An inquiry is to punish perpetrators as confession and forgiveness are not parts of the Sri Lankan culture

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera expressed ideas last year and indicated that confession and forgiveness are not parts of the Sri Lankan culture. Even in the South African context, some people argued that the culture and the moral code of the South African society is to punish perpetrators. For example, the very first interviewee, a Professor, who applied to become a TRC Commissioner said in the interview that he believed in retribution as part of the process, because ‘it is part and parcel of our moral code, our legal system and our theological belief, and I feel that the public embarrassment that would come with revelation to the Commission is a form of punishment.’ Even the families of Steve Biko also disagreed with the TRC and tested the Legality of the Commission in the Constitutional Court, saying they want ‘justice.’ Yet, the confessed perpetrators who admitted to killing Biko were not prosecuted.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu believed that reconciliation is not cheap and was based ultimately on forgiveness and repentance, which depend on confession. Archbishop Tutu favoured as broad a process of forgiveness as possible, provided those who perpetrated murders or torture could prove they acted politically. Therefore, the SA government refused the argument raised against the TRC on the basis of cultural and moral codes of the society and went ahead with the TRC mechanism.

The guiding principle

In my opinion, however, the key issue in post-war Sri Lanka is ‘Reconciliation,’ because without building a true, peaceful relationship between Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims etc., no other post-war issue will be satisfactorily addressed.  Proposing the issue of ‘Reconciliation’ with the issue of ‘Accountability’ that proposes a ‘punitive’ justice model is a mistake when evaluating it against the post-war context in Sri Lanka.

The reason is that such an approach generates counterproductive effects on initiating a process of sustainable reconciliation, because bringing the war-crime accountability issue forward ignites the flare of  the Sinhalese anger over international actors, human rights groups and the Tamil Diaspora as the majority of Sinhalese hail the military victory over LTTE and see contributors to the victory as ‘heroes’.

However, if the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) wants to initiate a domestic inquiry in SL as proposed by the USA, a mechanism similar to the South African TRC should be adopted and ‘forgiveness’ should be used as the guiding principle.

(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law and a former Member of Parliament)

The Story Of Looking Right From The Left

By Mahesan Niranjan –June 4, 2016

Prof. Mahesan Niranjan

On a rather rainy day a couple of years ago, the year 2010 I believe, two middle aged men in deep thought and nostalgic conversation, attempting to cross the main road outside the campus theatre of HillTop University in Sri Lanka, had a narrow escape. A fast moving car, going completely out of control, came to a sudden stop, crashing into a roadside lamp-post with a loud noise.

“Screech!” “Thud!”

Who were the two men, and why were they not looking carefully before crossing the road?

The two are my friends. One is Sivapuranam Thevaram, my drinking partner from Bridgetown, who was taking advantage of the end of the long running deadly war in our country to visit the place on Earth he loved the most. From the structure of his name, you will immediately infer that Thevaram is of Tamil ethnicity and he comes from the Northern parts of our island.

His friend was Dakunu Aarachchige Richmond Sinhaya. Not his real name, of course, but from the structure of the name I have synthesized, you will infer that he is of Sinhala ethnicity, and that he comes from the South.

During the golden days just prior to scaling up of the deadly war, Sinhaya and Thevaram were contemporary students at HillTop. Though they were supposed to be from the opposite camps, the mutual respect and affection they had for each other were above all known bounds of those particular traits.

You might wonder why I chose the name Sinhaya to refer to a friend from the South. After all, the image portrayed by the chief of the animal kingdom has recently been hijacked to represent a particularly nasty aspect of political thought in our country, right? Well, I have chosen that name because during his teenage years, Sinhaya approached public examinations in a manner very similar to how the King of the Jungle would attack, tear into his prey and finish the job. No examiner was known to set a mathematical problem that Sinhaya could not solve. His talents were unparalleled and natural.

Thevaram, on the other hand, though mediocre in his natural abilities, was raised in an environment of unparalleled inertia. He was a product of an educational environment of immense social and parental sacrifice, exceptional state schooling and even more industrious private education. Mass production of university entrance was the single minded objective of the community around him, very focused on benefitting a small social class, with all other damages of its inertia swept under the proverbial carpet, and to this day remaining unacknowledged in popular political discourse.

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Overstepping boundaries: Nazeer or Navy?

Image courtesy Ceylon News

REHANA MOHAMMED on 06/03/2016

Eastern Province Chief Minister Nazeer Ahamed’s recent row with a Navy Officer has now become infamous. In response, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) evidently jumped the gun, ordering (and later withdrawing) a military-wide boycott of the Chief Minister. The incident and its aftermath raise two concerns. It points to the ability of the state security apparatus to operate with little democratic accountability. It also reveals the government’s deeper failure to ensure the post-war reorientation of the security sector.

The Chief Minister’s conduct has been framed an unjustifiable attack on the particular Navy officer involved, Captain I.R. Premaratne, and on the military as a whole. The MOD’s directive attempted to rectify this perceived injustice by preventing the Chief Minister’s entry into any military camp and military’s participation in events attended by him.

Military virtue and democratic legitimacy

The MOD’s impulsive action raised eyebrows, including within government. It essentially designated the Chief Minister persona non grata on request of the security forces. Yet the Chief Minister is neither a common delinquent nor an enemy of the state; he is an elected representative of the Eastern Province. It would be unrealistic to presume that he presented a security threat of any significance by virtue of being present at a military camp.  Viewed in this light, the MOD’s actions gave the impression of irresponsible one-upmanship, a pointedly political response to public anger.

Meanwhile, discussions surrounding the issue resurfaced a narrative of irreproachable military virtue, contrasted with the unscrupulous politician. Recent allegations of ‘forcible’ entry into a military camp by Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan unfolded in a similar vein: both Sampanthan and Ahamed were cast as miscreants seeking to undermine Sri Lanka’s national heroes. The military currently enjoys a high moral legitimacy in the eyes of the public, particularly in the Sinhala south, where the dominant mind-set struggles to imagine the military’s capability for illegitimate action and is quick to defend it against perceived slight.

As such, public understanding of military legitimacy has become extricated from ideas of democratic accountability and legitimacy. In this context, the MOD’s swift decision gained widespread approval as satisfactory redress for perceived injustice.  Yet this decision was taken with little democratic oversight: there was no evidence of the MOD’s consultation with or referral to Parliament, the Cabinet or the judiciary. The suspension of the directive suggests it caused sufficient unease within the political establishment to effect its reversal. Yet, the legitimacy initially attached to the directive reveals the challenge at hand: the military’s high moral legitimacy enables it to circumvent democratic oversight unchecked. The incident also indicates that democratic control of the military remains discretionary rather than institutionalised.

Security reform is imperative

In the popular imagination, the military unquestionably aids the interests of peace and reconciliation. Thus its oversized presence in non-military spheres of life is perceived as intrinsic rather than inimical to peace. The statement issued by the State Minister of Defence after the incident demonstrates this sentiment. It expresses dismay over Ahamed’s failure to recognize the Navy’s ‘admirable role in rebuilding the lives of the Sampoor area’, and chastises his ‘unacceptable’ behaviour.[1] Absent from this narrative is the fact that vast swaths of military-occupied land in Sampur legally belong to private citizens. As such, return and resettlement are citizens’ rights that the state is legally bound to fulfil; they are not gifts of goodwill from the military to which people must be beholden. The Sampur Maha Vidyalayam, where the altercation occurred, incidentally sits on land the Navy released only in March 2016, almost seven years since the war ended, and around ten years since the recapture of the East.

The military currently maintains an abnormally high level of peacetime deployment in the former warzones. Land release in Sampur has been accompanied by assurances that overall deployment in the area will remain unchanged. While recent progress in demilitarisation was welcomed, the fact that it stemmed from the 2015 government transition is concerning; it indicates that the military’s high concentration in the North and East and continued occupation of private land is maintained by political inclination rather than a rigorous assessment of security threats and interests. Such an assessment would be integral to developing a coherent and effective national security policy. The question of what security interests were served by the military’s occupation of schools, places of worship, homes and privately owned land must now be answered.

Continued militarisation of the former warzones can be partly attributed to the high political and material costs of reforming the security sector, including the costs of demilitarisation and reintegration. Yet maintaining current levels of deployment comes at the cost of the peacetime imperatives of normalising civilian lives and strengthening civilian institutions. Such imperatives necessitate extricating the military from livelihood activities, such as tourism and agriculture, and from local-level administration. Progress in demilitarisation will certainly address the public’s economic, cultural and political insecurities associated with high levels of militarization in the former warzones. These goals are not at odds with the interests of national security. Demilitarisation and broader security reorientation in fact represent progression from ending the war towards securing peace. It upholds rather than betrays the security gains made in May 2009.

While regrettable, the Chief Minister’s indiscretion is not ultimately unforgivable. However, an indignant rush to defend Officer Premaratne from the abuse of a politician has come at the expense of much-needed introspection on how the state security forces interact with civilian and democratic functions in post-war Sri Lanka. As such we have continued to morally and politically excuse the state security establishment for the daily injustices and indignities it inflicts upon its citizens, by denying them their rights to return home, to access their rightfully-owned property, and to an effective and accountable state security force. Perhaps there is a greater injustice in these lapses than what the much-maligned Chief Minister is guilty of.

[1]http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Conduct_of_the_Eastern_Province_Chief_Minister_is_unacceptable_20160527_01

BAILING OUT A JUDGE: PROSTITUTION OF POWERS OF THE JUDICIARY – LAKSHAN DIAS

04/06/2016

Transparency International Sri Lanka chief, lawyer Lakshan Dias has told Sri Lanka Mirror that the  granting bail  to  Colombo additional magistrate Thilina Gamage by Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeyratne as an instance of prostitution of powers of the judiciary.

He has further said that the court had granted bail for Gamage at 6.45 pm, although the court registrar does not accept bail after 3.45 pm.

He raised a question as to whom the bail for Gamage was paid at 6.45 pm, about which the justice minister, chairman of the Judicial Services Commission and the chief justice should hold an investigation.

Thilina Gamage was sent on compulsory leave over charges including keeping an elephant calf without a license. Thilina Gamage surrendered in Nugegoda Magistrate’s Court on 2nd June,  through a motion, was released on four sureties of Rs. 2.5 million each and cash bail of Rs.500,000 by Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeyratne.

Ravaya News paper describes Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeyratne as a close friend of Thilina Gamage .

Now the attorney general has decided to file a revised application in the high court against the bailing out of former Colombo additional magistrate Thilina Gamage, who stands accused of having kept a baby elephant by producing fake documents.

Several top politicians of the government had influenced the IGP not to arrest Gamage, and only prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and law and peace minister Sagala Ratnayake had not done so.

Ratnayake has instructed the CID to write down in the case file the names of persons who had influenced them against Gamage’s arrest.

Meanwhile, the Anti Corruption Front alleges this incident goes onto establish the world opinion that the country’s judiciary cannot be trusted.

ACF consultant Keerthi Tennakoon told the media today that a major protest would be organized if the police, attorney general and the wildlife officials cannot resolve the unlicensed elephants issue on their own.

– With the inputs from Sri Lanka Mirror

Sri Lanka Mirrior further reports that Colombo Additional Magistrate – Thilina Gamage had left the court premises yesterday (02) even without posting bail.

Upon learning of this, a senior CID officer has made an inquiry from the court registrar and has learnt that the bail was posted only around 2.00pm today (03). However, when the officer has asked for the logbook, the registrar has refused.

Suddenly appearing, Gangodawila Magistrate Kanishka Wijeyratne has said that the officer’s request cannot be granted today and the logbook will be given next Monday.

We learn that the CID is to complain of this to the Judicial Services Commission.

Sri Lanka Mirror

Monetary Board’s latest statement on ‘bond fiascos’: A step backward and waking-up from a demonic dream

Monday, 6 June 2016-Implicit admission of guilt

The Monetary Board of the Central Bank has at last chosen to break its stoic silence over allegations against two main Treasury bond fiascos supposed to have taken place in the Treasury bill and bond market in Sri Lanka over the last 15 months or so by issuing a statement on the policy it recommends for adoption by the public debt management in the future (available at: http://www.cbsl.gov.lk/pics_n_docs/latest_news/press_20160602e.pdf ).

The statement is brief and does not address the issues raised by civil society activists and market participants. Yet, in a world where disclosure and transparency are valued high, even such a small gesture by the Monetary Board, as the statutory authority responsible for raising funds for the Government and for maintaining good governance principles in the market, is welcome. The Board has taken a step backward in its present statement by implicitly admitting that the systems in practice had not been ideal and need improvement.

First bond fiasco: Black mark on good governance government

The first bond fiasco took place in February 2015, less than two months after the new good governance government was voted into power. In that fiasco, it was alleged that inside information relating to the issue of a 30-year bond had been leaked to a primary dealer company owned by the son-in-law of the incumbent Governor enabling that company to make a killing in the Treasury bond market.

The Governor dismissed the charges flatly and the Monetary Board stood firmly by him. But civil society and the Opposition were not convinced of a clean deal as claimed by the Governor and the Monetary Board. They pressurised the Government to conduct an impartial investigation and deal with the culprits promptly.

Civil society had fought hard to bring the new good governance government to power and, therefore, in its eyes, the alleged incident was a black mark with which the less than two-month-old Government had been indelibly stigmatised.

Irrelevant TOR of the lawyers’ committee

Two inquiries were made; one by a committee of lawyers appointed by the Prime Minister and the other by the Parliamentary watchdog, the Committee on Public Enterprises or COPE. This writer’s services were obtained by both committees on an honorary basis to get clarifications on the complexities involved in the issue of Treasury bonds and the operations of the bond markets.

The Lawyers’ Committee (Full report available here: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Bond-Report.pdf) did not have as its terms of reference the mandate to investigate the particular bond issue in question. Instead, it was required to investigate three unrelated issues and report back to the Prime Minister.

The first was to report on the reasons for the Public Debt Department to offer Rs. 1 billion to the public in the bond issue in question. The second was to document the sequence of events and key statistics associated with the said bond issue with respect to each primary dealer. The last was to report on the results of bond auctions and the private placements made from 1 January 2012 to the auction in question.

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Arjun’s clothes and Wimal in his nudity!

*Was this shirt from Wimal’s Kollupitiya boarding?

*Wimal Weerawansa's 344 Dollar Shirt (Video)

Jun 05, 2016

MP Wimal Weerawansa, enraged over the loss of power, has recently given to the media a list of expenses of Central Bank governor Arjun Mahendran. Known for his inability to do the simplest of maths problems, Weerawansa has here listed out costs for food and beverages, transport, clothes, and given them at the rate of daily expenses.

Mahendran is a Singaporean citizen and a professional banker who manages personal wealth. He has earned wealth for himself before becoming the CB governor. His lifestyle suits the wealth he owns. We wonder as to whether Weerawansa is in his nudity when he makes comments about Mahendran’s clothes. That is because his expensive shirts became a topic when he was a JVP member. At a time when he donated the MP’s salary to the party, he had the money to wear shirts worth Rs. 40,000 while having only a communication centre to his name.

Anyone can understand that Mahendran cannot wear a cloth bought at the Colombo Pettah pavement when he goes to meet the IMF managing director Christine Lagardd or the Bank of England governor Canadian Mark Canrney. Expenses are decided on the basis of the position held and the service carried out. On the other hand, his professional record makes it clear that Mahendran does not need the CB governor position to earn money to spend according to his wishes.

Mahendran draws a Rs. 70,000 salary from the CB, and donates it to the Preethipura orphanage. After the Rajapaksa Draculas drained the Sri Lankan economy’s lifeblood dry, it is being run with the utmost difficulty. The result of paying for that curse is the depreciation of the rupee and the increases in taxes. Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the presidential election with two years of his tenure remaining in order to establish his power before the people came to know that the economy was about to collapse. Weerawansa, who now blames Mahendran for the economic crisis, too, was responsible for that sin, and as a person who would grab anything that comes his way, he is today engaged in cheap politics. Or he is involved in monkey politics to appease the gallery. Managing a central bank is no easy task. Mahendran is involved in that decisive exercise now. 

In conclusion, an old story that is related to this matter comes to mind. During the Chandrika Bandaranaike rule, Anura Bandaranaike tabled in parliament a hotel bill of the then foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgarmar. It was a bill for 2,000-odd pound sterling at Dorchester Hotel in London. When Anura questioned about this in an expressive manner, Kadirgarmar replied that he did not go in search of the ministerial position, but that the ministerial position came in search of him. With or without his position, his habitual place of accommodation in London is Dorchester Hotel, he said.

Weerawansa is today troubled by not having powers to use to appease himself. He is trying to express that hatred like the Hanuman with his tail on fire. He will surely have something to say even if Mahendran comes to work wearing a cloth bought from Colombo Pettah pavement and in a three wheeler.