Karunanidhi, Vajpayee and Chatterjee: India loses epochal leaders

Rajan Philips-August 18, 2018, 7:32 pm 

Three of India’s epochal leaders passed away in the last fortnight. First to depart was Muthuvel Karunanidhi (1924 – 2018), the patriarch of Tamil Nadu politics, who passed away in Chennai on 7 August 2018. Nine days later, on August 16, former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924 – 2018) died in New Delhi after falling ill in June. In between, Somnath Chatterjee (1929 -2018) died on August 13 in Kolkata, West Bengal. Somnath Chatterjee may not be a familiar name in Sri Lanka, but he was a frontline leader of the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPM) and was elected by consensus and served as Lok Sabha Speaker from 2004 to 2009. Vajpayee and Karunanidhi were poets and superbly gifted orators in their mother tongues. Chatterjee belonged to that select band of Indian Communists who went to Cambridge to refine their indoctrination.

At the time of independence, Karunanidhi, Vajpayee and Chatterjee, and the political organizations to which they were belonged in three different parts of India, stood apart from the mighty All India National Congress, that great banyan tree of Indian politics both before and after independence. They were the discontents at the dawn of India’s independence. Yet, over time they were integrated into the politics of Indian federalism and played crucially different roles in the consolidation and furtherance of the federalist promise that was India in 1947. Their political origins were totally unconnected, and their political paths were initially separate, but they crisscrossed from 1975 onward as India broke loose from Indira Gandhi’s Emergency Rule and Indian federalism shifted gears from its centre-led dominant (Congress)-party orientation to a multipolar centre-state equilibrium

Both Karunanidhi and Vajpayee tasted early electoral success in the same year, in 1957, the former becoming a DMK Member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Chennai, and the latter becoming an opposition Jan Sangh (political arm of the right-wing RSS and precursor to the current BJP) MP in the Lok Sabha. Both men won every election thereafter regardless of the electoral fortunes of their political parties. Vajpayee retired in 2009, but Karunanidhi remained an MLA until his death, the longest serving MLA in Tamil Nadu history. Karunanidhi tasted power early and had the longest association with it, as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu – for five different terms totalling 20 years between 1969 and 2011. Karunanidhi and the DMK lost power in the 2011 election and were defeated again in 2016, even though he remained an opposition member of the legislature.

Vajpayee spent his first thirty years in parliament as an opposition MP, became Minister of External Affairs in the 1977 Janata Party government with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. That was the first non-Congress government at the Centre after independence. Vajapayee would later have three stints as BJP Prime Minister: for 13 days in 1996, 13 months in 1998-1999, and finally for a full term from 1999 to 2004 – the first and so far the only non-Congress Prime Minister to serve out a full term. Vajpayee and BJP/NDA were defeated in the 2004 general elections by Manmohan Singh and his Congress/UPA alliance. The current BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi is poised to break that record by serving out his first full term and going on to win a second term in the general election next year. Unlike Modi, Vajpayee was a man of compromise and consensus builder. He was a voice of moderation within the cacophony of Hinduthva nationalism. And he put himself at the service of his party, unlike Modi who calls all the shots both in the party and in the government.

The third Indian stalwart to die last week, Somnath Chatterjee was a Bengali lawyer from a prominent lawyer and political family in Kolkata. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 from the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPM) and functioned as its parliamentary leader from 1989 to 2004, when he was elected as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha by acclamation. Chatterjee was a highly respected Speaker and was fondly called Lok Sabha’s ‘headmaster.’ He is now most remembered for the heavy handed treatment that he received from the CPM Politburo in 2008. By 2008, the CPM had decided to leave the UPA alliance over the Indo-US nuclear deal and to vote against the government on a confidence motion. The Party leadership directed Speaker Chatterjee to resign as Speaker and vote against the government. He declined indicating his unwillingness to vote with the BJP against the government. The Politburo expelled him from the Party. Chatterjee was devastated by the expulsion and he retired from politics a broken man at the end of the Lok Sabha term in 2009. The Congress/UPA won again in the 2009 election, while the CPM fared rather badly. Subordinating elected Party MPs to its diktats has been typical of the CPM bureaucracy. It had earlier vetoed Jyoti Basu, the West Bengal CPM Chief Minister from becoming Prime Minister of India heading a coalition of non-Congress Parties.

Karunanidhi was different

"The life story of Muthuvel Karunanidhi," wrote The Hindu in its editorial after his death "is also a history of Tamil Nadu politics." He was born twenty three years before India’s independence, and became Chief Minister of Tami Nadu twenty two years after independence. He was drawn to political activism at the tender age of 14, and was a relatively unknown political activist before independence. He rode the reformist and linguistic waves, putting to good effect the powers of his pen and his tongue, earning notoriety among the elites and mass popularity in Tamil society and politics. For nearly fifty years since he first became Chief Minister in 1969, Karunanidhi remained the most powerful political force in Tamil Nadu and a highly influential regional voice at the national level. His death has created a huge vacuum in Tamil Nadu politics, and the start of a new chapter in Tamil Nadu politics will be hugely influenced by politics at the national level as India gets set for the general election next year. The centre-state dynamic and dialectic will be crucial factors in filling the Karunanidhi vacuum in Tamil Nadu.

The social building blocks in Tamil Nadu, as indeed in every South Asian society, are the family, caste and village. Their specific configurations and the politics that go with them vary from one society to another. Overarching these building blocks are the politics of nationalism, secularism, and federalism. The economic base underpinning the social and political ‘superstructures’ in Tamil Nadu has been rapidly shifting from agrarian feudalism and pre-colonial trading to modern industries and services. As the sixth most populous (72 million) state with the second largest economy (US$230 billion), Tamil Nadu is among the more successful state economies in India. But the economic relations in society are an uneven patchwork ranging from the archaic to the very modern.

Karunanidhi’s political trajectory not merely ‘intersected’ the social dimensions of family, caste and village, but was for the most part woven into them as they continued and changed over nearly hundred years. For fifty years he was the central figure in the ebb and flow of Tamilian nationalism and a key regional leader in the transformation of Indian federalism. As Chief Minister, it will not be an exaggeration to say that Karunanidhi presided over the development and diversification of the state’s industrial base. He was widely respected even among his critics as a swift decision maker and a consummate deal maker. He was known for keeping files ‘moving’ in government, unlike his rival MGR who was known for ‘piling’ them.

He was consistently dead set against caste discrimination, but was never wanting in shrewd political calculations to exploit caste loyalties in electoral politics. Village advancements and mass ameliorations were constant themes in his political campaigns and programs. A rationalist from his salad days, he remained true to his non-beliefs to the end. As a writer and speaker, he poured scorn on social superstitions religious rituals. He did mellow with years but the old sarcasm returned in full vigour when he made fun of the religious opposition to the dredging project for opening a shipping channel across the Palk Strait.

Yet, the legacy that Karunanidhi leaves behind after a long and complex political life is more mixed than unblemished. Just as his life story is a history of Tamil Nadu politics, his legacy mirrors the conflicts and contradictions of the society in Tamil Nadu. The main source of his blemished legacy is the family and corruption involving family members. No single family in Tamil Nadu has become so politically aggrandized, as the Karunanidhi family. Karunanidhi and his family members have been the subjects of a number corruption commissions and inquiries. They have been found guilty and punished a number of times, and have periodically suffered electoral defeats.

After Karunanidhi’s death a succession struggle has erupted between his sons, the younger one of whom the patriarch chose as his successor, and the elder one is now fighting for his ‘rightful’ place. The DMK could not win the last two Lok Sabha and State elections even with Karunanidhi actively involved as the leader. It is highly doubtful if the DMK would do better in the future without the presence of Karunanidhi. The end of an era in Tamil Nadu and even Indian politics has created a vacuum for new political leaders and alliances to actively emerge. But whether they can break through the constraining moulds of the opposition DMK and the governing ADMK in Tamil Nadu – is too early to predict. The Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and the State elections two years later will be crucial in shaping the near term future of both Tamil Nadu and India.

Myanmar: 8888 movement — 30 Years on

Remembering Pro democracy Movement in Aug-1988

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by Dr S. Chandrasekharan-Aug 20, 2018

Aug 19, 2018

( August 20, 2018, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) “What we demanded in 1988 was democracy and the downfall of dictatorship. Today the domination of the dictatorship largely remains and the democracy we have got is half real and half sham.”

This was mentioned recently at the time of commemorating the 30th anniversary of the pro democracy “8888″ movement- ( August 8, 1988) by one of the representatives of the 8888 movement who took an active part in the protests.

With no strong reason, (were they afraid of the Army?) none of the activists of the 8888 movement have found their due place with the advent of democracy. When they were ready to work for the LDP of Suu Kyi they were largely ignored and in their desperation have started a political party of their own to contest the elections in 2020. It may be too late and the public by and large may have forgotten the sacrifices they made in 1988. Yet I would say, that they should be credited for achieving a semblance of democracy today compared to what happened to the students in the Tien Anmen protests for democracy ten months later in China. The protests in Tien anmen were suppressed with tanks and many of the leaders found the easy way out to get green cards in US and prosper. It was not so with the activists of 8888. They suffered and continu to suffer. But they have returned to Myanmar to make a difference!

It all started with a protest march from the University campus on that fateful day. Soon the protestors were joined by people from all walks of life from monks to students to families. The protests spread all over Myanmar and were finally put down by September 18 when the government in a dispensation called State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) took over and continued the suppression. It should have been aptly named SLOSC !( State law and order Supression Council)

The Government of the day claimed that only 350 persons had died in the protests. I recall that firing on the unarmed crowds in Sule Pagoda itself would have taken many hundreds of lives in that one incident. The number of dead should be in thousands if not more. There is enough literature in the public domain now of the gory details of the protests and the brutal response of the Armed Forces.

Many of the students escaped to the border mostly to Thailand and a few to other countries. They threw away their future, all for the cause of democracy. They did not get either the required help from the ethnic insurgent units and suffered more. On their return after many years they were not to be given enough political space either by the leaders who in the first instance should have been grateful to those activists who suffered, all for the cause of democracy.

In Irrawady News, Kyaw Zwa Moe has given a poignant account recently of what these revolutionaries expected and what they have obtained at the end of the day. This was in reference to the 30th anniversary of the movement.

The protesting students expected that

* the military would finally return to the barracks

* an elected civilian government which will transform the battered economy into a prosperous democracy.

* all ethnic people would experience autonomy and equality

* The civil wars would end.

What has resulted is that except for an elected civilian government in position none of their expectations have been fulfilled. The problem lies not with the elected government but with the 2008 Constitution that gives the Army unquestionable say in the administration of the Army, border, ethnic insurgent operations and even local government.

The Army Chief claimed in the recent 3rd Panglong Conference that it is the Army that represents the 52 million people of Myanmar and not anyone else. The Army’s role is only to protect the people and not represent them in the Parliament or elsewhere.

Kyaw Zwa Mow has described the relationship aptly between the Army and the Government as a “forced marriage” according to the 2008 Constitution and so long as that Constitution remains with Army’s vested interests, democracy as mentioned by a representative of the 8888 movement will continue to be half sham and half real.

The Government, as I see is like a caged Tiger. For once, it outwitted the Generals by creating the post of a Counsellor thus negating the very purpose of keeping Suu Kyi out in the new Constitution. As recently as last month, the Government despite strong protests from the Army and Army-sponsored USDP agreed for an international Commission on the Rohingya issue and indeed the international team has already had a meeting with Suu Kyi. Barring such few examples, the Government except on economic matters has very little say in running the country.

On the 30th year of commemoration of the student’s movement, celebrations were held in Yangon and many other towns in Myanmar on a very modest scale. All one could say is that it could have been better. The students’ sacrifices for democracy with their lives, well being and future have not been in vain and but for them, Myanmar is not what it would have been today otherwise.

Though not related, there was another anniversary that has gained international attention. Last week also marked another anniversary and that is the coordinated attacks of the ARSA on some of Government posts resulting in loss of life to innocent civilians and Security personnel. It is understood that the Government which has accepted an investigation of the Rohingya incidents by the Commission has also requested them to enquire into the attacks on the police posts and households of other Myanmar citizens.

With a semblance of peace returning and a mutual agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh for return of the refugees in place, it looks that the ARSA would strike again. It is said that the RAB personnel of Bangladesh raided a gun factory in Kalarmar Chhara near Cox Bazar Bangladesh recently and recovered large quantities of guns and other war like materials. It is claimed but not confirmed yet that the gun factory was the source of weapons for the attack by ARSA across the border last August.

U.N. says it is still denied 'effective access' to Myanmar's Rakhine

The ruins of a market which was set on fire are seen at a Rohingya village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar October 27, 2016. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/Files

Poppy McPherson-AUGUST 21, 2018

YANGON (Reuters) - The United Nations is awaiting “effective access” to the Myanmar region where 700,000 Rohingya Muslims were driven out in an army crackdown, months after agreeing with the government to aid the return of refugees, the U.N. country head said on Tuesday.

The organisation’s agencies for development and refugees – UNDP and UNHCR – signed a memorandum of understanding with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in June to allow Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh last year to return home.

But requests for authorisations for staff to visit the conflict area have been beset by delays and authorities have offered access to a limited area, Knut Ostby, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, told Reuters.

Ostby said the United Nations had declined to accept an offer from the government to work in a limited number of villages and would not send in experts until it had negotiated a better deal.

“They’re standing ready to go when we have effective access,” he said.

“We need to have the possibility to do a proper job.”

His comments came despite an announcement from Suu Kyi on Tuesday that her government had “granted access” to the United Nations to work in 23 villages across northern Rakhine State as part of a “pilot assessment programme”.

The United Nations wants to implement “quick impact projects” to benefit the population still there, including cash-for-work schemes and small-scale infrastructure projects.

Ostby said he did not know how the 23 villages, spread out across Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, had been selected.

The United Nations wanted to work in villages next to one another, he said, to avoid the risk of creating “inequality among neighbouring villages”.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay said the United Nations could work within the selected areas first and then expand its operations.

“As far as I understand, UNDP is to implement pilot project within the allowed villages and extend afterwards,” Zaw Htay said. “If UNDP does not think it’s enough, they would have to discuss with the government.”

The United Nations as been mostly barred from northern Rakhine State since August last year, when the government accused U.N. agencies of supplying food to Rohingya militants.

The Rohingya, who regard themselves as native to Rakhine state, are widely considered as interlopers by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority and are denied citizenship.

The June deal between the United Nations and the government was not made public, but a draft was seen by Reuters and also leaked online last month.

Refugee leaders and human rights groups said the deal failed to give assurances that returning refugees would be granted citizenship and freedom of movement.

Ostby said the United Nations had advocated for the release of the memorandum of understanding.
“We have proposed to the government that it would be a good idea to make it public,” he said.
“Having said that, we recognise that such agreements are not normally publicised in other countries.”

Laos dam collapse highlights global hydropower amnesia (commentary)

Commentary by Gus Greenstein on 20 August 2018

 

• The Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam collapse should not be considered an accident. Rather, it resulted from global ignorance of the many downsides of large dams and of well-documented lessons learned over and over again.
• Across the developing world, dams continue to forcibly displace and thereby impoverish millions of people, drain national budgets, emit greenhouse gases, and destroy the ecological balance of entire river basins — balances on which millions of people intimately depend.
• Backed by recent research, here are five key things that governments, development financiers, and other proponents of development-by-dams seem to consistently forget.
• This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

When the dam broke, it brought with it a torrent of water and mud, killing at least 31 people and displacing upwards of 6,000 people across Laos and Cambodia. Reported numbers of those still missing range from “many” to “hundreds.” The flood, by even the secretive Lao government’s conservative estimates, would have been enough to drown Manhattan in 28 feet of water.
This is what the hydropower boom has come to in Laos. And yet, the deaths and destruction so evident following the July 22 collapse are only the most visible consequences of the country’s dam-building efforts and the hydropower boom globally.

Across the developing world, dams continue to forcibly displace and thereby impoverish millions of people, drain national budgets, emit greenhouse gases, and destroy the ecological balance of entire river basins — balances on which millions of people intimately depend. At the same time, climate change — and the droughts and superstorms it exacerbates — is rendering hydroelectricity the most vulnerable source of power on offer.

Backed by recent research, here are five key things that governments, development financiers, and other proponents of development-by-dams seem to consistently forget.

1. Large dams have displaced tens of millions of people, impoverishing many in the process. And the trend is not abating.

In 2015, in a rare but welcome move, the World Bank owned up to its complicity in a concerning trend that frequently falls under the radar: infrastructure projects, often advertised with the primary aim of poverty alleviation, forcibly displace millions of people per year. In more cases than not, the most vulnerable of local populations are the ones who suffer, and neither their governments, nor any other projects proponents, typically compensate them for their losses.

According to Dr. Michael Cernea, one of the world’s leading resettlement experts and former World Bank Senior Adviser for Sociology and Social Policy, large hydropower dams constitute the sector responsible for the most displacement. Drawing on World Bank data in a new book, Cernea estimates that in the period from 2011 to 2020 more than 200 million people will have been forcibly displaced by development projects worldwide.

The magnitude of resettlement required by even a single dam can be massive. Brazil’s Sobradinho Dam ousted 65,000. India’s Narmada Dam project forced out more than 200,000. In 2002, the World Commission on Dams estimated that, throughout history, dams have displaced 40 to 80 million people in total.

A fisherman checks his traps in the Srepok River near Kbal Romeas Village, Cambodia. Earlier this year, the Lower Sesan 2 dam flooded the village and others around it, forcibly displacing 5,000 people in total. Scientists predict that the same dam will knock out 9 percent of the entire Lower Mekong basin’s annual fish catch. Photo by Gus Greenstein. November 2014.

From 1990-2010, more than 1,400 World Bank projects triggered the institution’s “Involuntary Resettlement Policy.” Compensation for the displaced, even by the Bank’s standards, was dismal. Fewer than 50 percent of those displaced by these projects had their livelihoods “restored.” At the same time, the World Bank is known to have some of the strongest social-environmental safeguards of any development financier. Development-induced impoverishment numbers associated with other financiers are likely much higher, but such data do not exist.

2. More often than not, large dams run over budget and under-deliver on benefits — severely enough, in some cases, to put entire national economies at risk.

Without even taking into account the economic destruction wrought by forced displacement, and without even considering environmental impacts, large dams are simply not worth their cost.
Analyzing a sample of 245 large dams, the most comprehensive dataset of its kind, Oxford economists found that “the capital sunk into building nearly half of the dams could not be recovered.” Much of this stems from poor cost-benefit forecasting. They uncover “overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams — excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs.”

Here, again, the burden of a single dam can be enormous: the authors’ model predicts that Pakistan’s under-construction Diamer-Bhasha dam, initially forecast to cost $12.7 billion, will ultimately require $35 billion (both 2008 dollars) — roughly one quarter of the country’s GDP.

There may even be global consequences to such project development. In a subsequent study on China’s international infrastructure boom, the same Oxford team finds that“poorly managed infrastructure investments are a main explanation of surfacing economic and financial problems in China.”

The Oxford researchers add: “Unless China shifts to a lower level of higher-quality infrastructure investments, the country is headed for infrastructure led financial and economic crisis, which is likely also to be a crisis for the international economy.”

3. Large hydropower is not emissions free. It can generate greenhouse gases more than 30 times as potent as carbon dioxide, frequently contributing more to climate change than fossil fuels plants of equivalent generating capacity.

Every time you see a report counting “hydroelectricity” as “renewable” or “zero-emissions,” look up the credentials of its author. Hydropower is not always clean.

Large dams often flood vast vegetated areas. When they do, that vegetation rots underwater, eventually releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 34 times as potent as carbon dioxide. In some cases, large dams can result in even more lifetime greenhouse gas emissions than would equivalent conventional sources.

In a 2016 study, leading reservoir emissions scientist Phillip Fearnside found that emissions from “18 dams that are planned or under construction” in the Brazilian Amazon “would exceed those from electricity generation based on fossil fuels.”

Once more, let’s look at the effects of a single dam. Recent analyses performed using the NGO Conservation Strategy Fund’s HydroCalculator tool — open-source software that performs basic cost-benefit analyses of hydroelectric dams with user input data — estimated that Bolivia’s planned Rositas dam reservoir will produce 70 million tons of CO2-equivalent emissions. That’s more than the state of South Carolina emits in a year. Note that these numbers do not include the emissions resulting from constructing dams – cement and equipment-heavy projects that usually take several years to build.

Unfortunately, some of our leading institutions continue to mistake large dams as “emissions-free,” misleading governments, the public, and the researchers who build the climate change/energy production simulations that guide policy.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe calls hydropower a “cost-competitive renewable energy source” which “contributes to decarbonising the energy mix.” In its Sustainable Development Goals Tracker, the popular data visualization site Our World in Data counts hydropower capacity in its renewable energy indicator. Even the International Energy Agency is still calling hydropower “renewable.”
Meanwhile, a recent Washington State University study finds that methane emissions are currently not included in global greenhouse gas inventories.

4. Large dams can destroy the ecological balances of entire river basins, and, with them, the livelihoods of millions of people.

One need not look further than Laos, and the Mekong Basin in which it sits, as a case in point.
In the summer of 2016, a journalist colleague, Austin Meyer, and I traveled the length of the Lower Mekong River — from nearby the site of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy collapse in Laos to Cambodia, the Vietnam Delta, and the South China Sea. We found and illustrated how large dams on the Mekong mainstream and its tributaries are impacting communities throughout the region — each severely, but in a diverse variety of ways.

By obstructing nutrient flows from the upper Mekong River and hastening erosion, allowing saltwater to intrude upstream, dams are destroying rice paddy fields in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Photo by Gus Greenstein. August 2016.

While hydropower will transform the greater part of Southeast Asia, the roots of the problem lie in Laos: a 2010 study suggests that, taken together, the Mekong mainstream dams Laos plans to build, along with two others proposed by Cambodia, could wipe out roughly 40 percent of the wider Mekong Basin’s commercial fish catch, valued at more than $500 million annually.

In the villages floating on Cambodia’s Ton Le Sap lake, fishing conditions — once the backbone of sustenance and economic activity — have deteriorated such that young people are now regularly making the dangerous and illegal journey to construction jobs in Thailand.

In the “rice bowl” region of Vietnam, once-lime-green paddy fields are turning yellow, evaporating annual incomes, as dams hasten erosion (allowing salty sea water to intrude upstream), and impede the flow of nutrients on which farmers rely.

Where it enters the South China Sea, the Mekong River spills nearly 200 tons of nutrient-rich sediment into the ocean every minute, creating some of the most productive fishing grounds in the world. There, fishermen carry on, largely unaware of the difficulties to come. Regional scientists predict that, by blocking this flow of nutrients, dams will ultimately mean the end of the Mekong Plume as it is known today.

Given the degree to which “development” institutions continue to promote large hydropower projects, one may find it difficult to believe that there is a huge literature on this topic. For more, read about the Kariba dam’s impoverishment of 57,000 indigenous people, and about how Brazil’s Belo Monte dam has turned an Amazonian village into one of the poorest and most violent cities in Brazil.

5. As climate change renders weather patterns more unpredictable, large dams will become increasingly susceptible to catastrophic failure, and less reliable forms of energy production.

If this list of impacts is not enough, it is going to get worse. As climate change continues to show itself in fuller color, storms like the ones that helped lead the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam to fail will become much more frequent. In other places, water inputs, without which hydroelectric dams cannot produce energy, will become unreliable at best.

This is already happening. In 2015, less than a year’s worth of sub-normal rainfall caused the Hoover Dam’s electricity generation capacity to shrink by half. In 2016, droughts caused Lake Kariba, the largest man-made reservoir in the world, to dry up, leading to blackouts in both Zambia and Zimbabwe. A report by the environmental NGO International Rivers argued that, given its reliance on hydropower in the age of climate change, southern Africa is “moving toward the edge of ecological precipice.”

Global electricity demand is rapidly rising at the same time that climate change is rendering storms worse and predictable rainfall a thing of the past. These are toxic investment conditions for infrastructure that relies on constant water inputs – and that can kill when storms hit.

International organizations must come to terms

Despite these lessons — learned over and over again, only with greater consequences each time — it seems clear: the global hydropower boom will not end as a result of individual national governments recognizing and acting on their hydropower amnesia.

The Lao government has temporarily suspended all of its new hydropower projects while it carries out safety inspections of existing dams. Yet there is little to no talk of cancellation, and more than 3,500 hydropower dams are planned or under construction worldwide. As of last year, more than 420 hydroelectric dams were currently under discussion in South America, many of which will go straight on top of tropical rainforests and indigenous communities while blocking major arteries of the Amazon. Hydropower development in Africa is faster now than in any previous decade. The political expediency of erecting such grandiose infrastructure, and the profit it can entail, appears stronger than ever.

The destructive hydropower boom will only end when international entities such as the UN, and the financiers that make such projects possible, begin to talk about large hydropower dams as they too often turn out to be: sources of mass eviction and impoverishment, macroeconomic liabilities, climate change enablers, poison for river basins and the communities that depend on them – and vulnerable to the climate future they have already helped lock in.

A squid fisherman in the Mekong Plume, off the coast of Vietnam’s Phu Quoc Island. Dams are increasingly diminishing the nutrient-rich sediment inputs responsible for the Plume’s fishing productivity. It is unknown how much longer the Plume will exist. Photo by Austin Meyer. August 2016.

Grave secrets: Behind the skeletal excavations in Mannar

Forensic archeologist at work

By Indunil Usgoda Arachchi & Vimukthi Fernando

Sunday Observer journalists visit a grave excavation in Mannar, where forensic investigators are hard at work, painstakingly unearthing human skeleton after skeleton, determined that this time, the investigation into the suspected mass grave site will not be compromised- politically or scientifically

MANNAR: The site is tucked into the corner of two busy streets, fenced by metal; the entrance hidden from view. Blue tarpaulin covers the entire site, shielding it from the scorching midday, when excavators are at their busiest. Through a narrow opening, visitors must walk single file to reach the excavation site before the bones become visible.

Human skulls, femurs, hands, feet and entire skeletons protrude through the soil about 1.5 meters below the entrance to the dig. They appear to be strewn, some turned sideways, others, piled up haphazardly.

A female forensic archeologist hovers over a tiny skeleton, a proportionately small set of tools in her hand – a brush with soft bristles, a toothbrush and a few other instruments that resemble those on a surgical table. Painstakingly, she brushes sand off each piece of tiny bone, pouring tiny drops of water to remove stubborn pieces of dirt and handling the remains like a mother would handle an infant. As she works, part by part, the human skeleton begins to emerge and take shape.

Dr Saminda Rajapaksa stretches out a hand to stop visitors to the site from going any further. Chief Investigator of the excavation site and Judicial Medical Officer, Dr Rajapaksa says by Magistrate’s order, those with permission may walk up to the edge of the excavation, but no further. Only forensic specialists and investigators will handle the remains, in order to protect the integrity of the bones ahead of carbon dating and possible DNA testing.

On March 25 this year, a complaint was lodged with the Mannar Police, when human bones were discovered at a construction site on the CWE (Sathosa) premises. Investigation of the site began under the supervision of Mannar Magistrate T.G. Prabhakaran. Excavations began on May 28, after investigators determined that the area contained undisturbed skeletons. The excavation team comprises consultant JMOs, Prof. Raj Somadeva, a forensic archeologist, officers from the Government Analyst’s Department, police, Survey Department and staff from the Mannar Municipal Council. Police Scene of Crime Officers are in charge of photographic recording of the site.

Each time multiple human remains are discovered in Sri Lanka, they bring up old questions. Tens of thousands of people are still recorded as missing from two insurgencies and a 26 year civil war. Mass grave sites have been discovered all over the country – Matale, Sooriyakanda in Embilipitiya, Chemmani in Jaffna, and even in another location in Mannar four years ago, when 30 skulls emerged fuelling speculation that the site could provide answers about thousands who went missing during the war. Nearly every time, the discovery of bones has led to prolonged excavations and shipping thym off for carbon dating and other tests. Every time, the investigations reached no firm conclusions.
This time, Dr Rajapaksa is hoping, will be different.

If the chain of custody was not strictly maintained in previous suspected mass grave investigations, anyone could raise questions and make allegations. I am committed to finishing this investigation without raising such doubts. If necessary, I will accompany the bone samples to a lab overseas personally, to ensure authenticity and the integrity of the remains are not compromised,” Dr Rajapaksa told Sunday Observer, during the dig last week.

If there are mistakes linked to previous investigations, the scientists had to ensure they did not happen here, he insisted.

Bone samples are scheduled to be sent for testing at the Beta Analytic Radio Carbon Dating Lab in Florida USA for carbon dating. However, results of the carbon dating tests of the Matale mass grave conducted at the Beta Analytic Radio Carbon Dating Lab in Florida USA, was criticised by forensic experts. Lawyers and civil society groups in Mannaralso stopped the move to send samples of the Thirukethiswaram mass grave site to the same lab. But according to DrRajapaksa, these doubts could be cleared by ensuring the chain of custody is undisturbed.

On Friday, August 10th, the excavation had reached the 52nd day. Investigators had identified 81 skeletons, with 72 completed skeletons already excavated. Seven skeletons identified as children have been excavated so far. Adult males, females and adolescent remains have also been unearthed.
The work ongoing at the site is monumental, and deeply significant in a country in which a long internal conflict has cast long shadows and deep scarring. But according to investigators like Dr Rajapaksa, time is also of the essence. The forensic specialists begin work at 7AM every day, and sometimes continue till after dark, using bright electric floodlights to illuminate their work space.

Investigators say that at this juncture, dating of the find is of paramount importance as it will be key to future decisions about investigations at the site. The sooner the samples are sent for carbon dating, the better. The excavation crew is awaiting financial allocations for this purpose from the Ministry of Justice.

The reason for this urgency is because skeletons that had been underground for so long would damage easily when exposed. “The skeletons were found about a foot above the sea level and it seems some are below the sea level. Water seeps into part of the site, where human bones were first found as it is below sea level. Two pumps are used to keep the water away 24 hours. Even algae could threaten the remains. However, we try to minimise the threats and carry out the investigation scientifically and as close to international standards as possible,” one investigator told Sunday Observer.

The investigation of this suspected mass grave site, are conducted at two levels – excavation and analysis. The present stage is excavation. Already, DrRajapaksa says, forensics specialists have discovered two kinds of burials at the site – formal and informal. “The informal burial site is where skeletons were found overlapping, irregular, and in multiple layers of skeletons, so these take priority in further investigations,” the Chief Investigator explained.

According to forensic archeologist, Professor Raj Somadeva, the suspected mass grave is marked by the lack of evidence of ritualistic burial. “The arrangement of the skeletons is not of a ritualistic burial site. When a Hindu person dies, they perform rituals building a fire and breaking a water pot. There was no evidence of ritual objects such as pot shards or charcoal that tends to mark ritual Hindu burial sites,” Prof. Somadeva pointed out.

Prof. Somadeva says the artifacts found at the grave site belong to three different periods. While some date back to 5th or 6th century AD, others belong to the Dutch era and the rest to the modern period. “The assemblage of artifacts provides a complicated picture representing different time zones. We are interested in sorting out the three phases clearly. Therefore, a relative date could not be stated until we finish the report,” he explained.

The site of the discovery of bones itself is complicated. There are no records relating to the building that was torn down. The Mannar Magistrate has ordered authorities to hand over building plans, but investigators have not yet received them. According to residents in the area, the property was always owned by the Marketing Department or the CWE.

Investigators explain that photographs and the diagrams being meticulously recorded will help reconstruct the situation layer by layer. “We would try to depict it as a 3D image in the final report as this grave is of national and international interest. This could be the first mass grave investigation where 3D view is enabled. The documentation would help identify levels, the position of each bone and skeleton in relation to the rest,” he explained.

Open graves and excavations have begun with great enthusiasm and interest in the past, but have almost always led to disappointment and more questions than answers. Virtually, in every case – Sooriyakanda, Matale and Chemmani – the final reports were suspected to have been compromised and questionable. For families of the missing, scattered across this tiny island nation, every discovered mass gravesite, each unearthing of bones, brings fresh torment and fear.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the permanent Office of Missing Persons, set up by an Act of Parliament in 2016, has stepped in to supervise the current excavations in Mannar. In its first attempt to fulfill part of its mandate to trace the missing, the OMP decided to fund and facilitate logistics of the forensic investigation at the Sathosa premises in Mannar earlier this month. This would include food and transport facilities for investigators among other logistical support.

According to OMP Chairman Saliya Pieris, once investigations and carbon dating is complete, the Office may look into matching DNA of the discovered bones with DNA samples obtained from families of the missing, particularly in the Northern Province.

V.S. Niranjan, a lawyer representing families of the disappeared in Mannar, said the victim families would have preferred it if the excavation was being overseen by international experts. Niranjan says over 300 families who have lost loved ones believe the Mannar CWE remains could be linked to their cases. “We are going to file affidavits. That’s the next step. Of course, we have to go through several institutions to do that, so it’s a long process,” the lawyer explained. The legal battle waged by families of missing persons on the suspected mass grave site found in Mannar in 2014 is still not settled says Niranjan. “It is difficult to make them understand their loved ones may never come back. Some are still clinging to the last threads of hope.”

But all this is far removed from the forensic investigators, who must apply patience and meticulous rigour to their work on the bones. Sitting beside skeletons for hours, with small tools and brushes, investigators wash, dry and arduously prepare the bones for storage. Once the skeleton appears, it is photographed and the position of each bone is sketched, and an in-situ forensic description is made as part of the analysis and for the records. Thereafter, the skeleton is removed section by section, each bone is washed, dried labelled and placed in an airtight bag. A full set of bones belonging to each skeleton is placed in a cardboard box, labelled and stored. For security reasons, the remains are stored at the Magistrate’s Court in Mannar.

Dr Rajapaksa says that at their pace, the investigators are only able to remove one or two skeletons a day. This must be done with great care, he says, causing no damage whatsoever to the bones. “It’s time consuming, but we want to do this as scientifically and transparently as possible.”

Pix: Thilak Perera

Behind the protest - Families of the disappeared: Sivasothy

Artwork courtesy of Shawmy Thilipkumar 

(@shawmy_02)

19Aug 2018

For over 500 days relatives of the forcibly disappeared have been protesting on the streets across the North-East, demanding to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. Despite years, sometimes decades, of various government mechanisms and pledges, their search for answers continues.

In this series of interviews conducted since May 2017, Tamil Guardian goes behind the protest to the individual stories that make up this unyielding movement of Tamil families of the disappeared.

Sivasothy

“What we need now is that our children come home. We have daughters, many mothers have lost their children or have been made disappeared. This government kidnapped them. No one came from foreign countries to take them, did they? The Sri Lankan government must answer to these children. No one else can go outside and expect to find answers for them.”

Nanthabala Sivasothy sits along the roads of Trincomalee to protest with fellow mothers, following the forced disappearance of her daughter on February 10, 2002. Her daughter was kidnapped in a white van on her way home from tuition. Sivasothy recalls chasing the van as fast as she could as it sped off. Her daughter was only 15 years old at the time. She was a studious child, always eager to learn and very loving. Sivasothy weeps, knowing that those would have been the last moments she would see her daughter again. Now she joins the mothers of Trincomalee, demanding justice and accountability from the Sri Lankan state.

Kidnappings, forced abductions and disappearances were a common occurrence throughout the armed conflict Sivasothy recounts.

“Soldiers would come into our grounds with their faces covered, their foreheads and mouths covered so we could only see their eyes, and take groups of people away. They would also come into our homes at night and have forcibly taken some people away under the false pretence of a short investigation.”

In one attempted abduction of a young boy in the Puchivellai district, Sivasothy recalls how she and other village women intercepted a van that had kidnapped him. A group of ten women surrounded the van, opened the doors and dragged the young boy out of the sack of chillies he was tied in to, before they all fled together.

To Sivasothy, alongside finding her child and bringing the abductors to justice, it is as important to recognise how the Sri Lankan government protects and encourages perpetrators.

The protest only followed her and the other mothers’ multiple attempts at seeking alternative avenues to find their children, including approaching the UNHCR, the Senthoorai organization and Red Cross to file assistance reports. Sri Lankan police officers had turned her away and instead accused her of letting her child be kidnapped by the LTTE. But she knows that state forces took her and stresses the importance of acknowledging the role the Sri Lankan government plays in denying mothers the right to know the whereabouts of their children. “What has the government done thus far?” she asks, “It has prolonged the process by two years, making us run here and there.”

It’s not easy for Sivasothy to come out to these protests, as many mothers face threats from Sri Lanka’s CID (Criminal Investigation Department) and stay away out of fear of retaliation. Just last month, a woman serving as an assistant lawyer representing one of the families of disappeared in Jaffna was brutally attacked.

Above right: File photograph of masked members of Sri Lanka's Special Task Force, who have been accused of carrying out abductions in the North-East

Above: Nanthabala Sivasothy, speaking at the protest site in Trincomalee

It has been a long and arduous struggle. “Even now, we only eat once, rejecting food during the day and having one meal at night,” she says. “What we need is that our children come home.” She is also the sole-supporter of her family since her husband fled, leaving an elderly diabetic mother at home. “It is so difficult, especially without a proper house. If it rains, the water drains into my house. I work as a tea-maker, delivering tea to government officials and make around 10,000 rupees (some 60 USD) salary each month.” Last month, Sivasothy injured her leg in a fall and now works for 10 days a month, making only 5,500 rupees to take home.

Above: Tamil disappearances activists in Trincomalee lead a rally in the town earlier this year.

Her participation in these protests comes at a deep cost for her family, especially for her son who too has suffered at the hands of the state. She proudly describes his past academic achievements and ambitions, “learning three languages – English, Tamil and Sinhala – he was a talented student, like my daughter.” This was before Sri Lankan police officers stormed their home and took her son away claiming he had hidden a firearm. Even after the charges were dropped, Sivasothy recalls the police-inflicted trauma. “They destroyed his ambition to study and grow in life. He didn’t want to pursue his studies and even when school officials asked him to return, he turned them away. It was because of these police officers that my son abandoned his studies.” Now, Sivasothy’s son works back-breaking labour to make ends meet.

Her personal recollections of the suffering her family has endured is indicative of how local Tamils in the region suffered. Throughout the interview she provides brutal accounts of Sri Lankan security forces murdering and raping, providing a glimpse of the overwhelming mental distress that the local community have endured. “You won’t believe the types of cruelty that took place here,” she says.

“I must’ve been 15 years old and forced to hide from the army in a pile of 35 dead bodies when these government forces came around poking our limbs, even cutting through my leg, to check if we were still alive. I stiffened my body and laid there, under a dead body,” Sivasothy says, as she recounts a horrific massacre, before detailing more crimes she has witnessed.

“In front of my eyes, they dragged a woman out from under her feet and raped her right there… A young boy, brought him and killed him like that, slitting his neck and wrists and left him hanging on a tree.”

“I saw that all through my eyes and can never forget it… Those things took place here, in Sri Lanka.”

She doesn’t let any of this derail her determination, as the strength of the women around her inspire her to continue to participate in these protests. Some of the mothers she sits with are also the sole supporters of their families following the forced disappearances of their husbands. Unfortunately, the government’s lack of response to their pleadings makes their daily lives a constant struggle. “We are seeking an end, not only for us but for all of the mothers. Everyone needs an answer. But the government, some higher officials come along, and never do anything.”

And that is why she believes the diaspora plays a vital role in voicing the mother’s angst. “Even if our own government doesn’t care for us, through our diaspora Tamil peoples we need to find an end to this trauma,” she says. “Only we know the pain of losing our children,” she says adding that telling her story to the world “gives us hope”.

Her sheer will to continue to resist is indicative of what these mothers are capable of. “There are many problems like this,” she says.

“But, until the very end we will be here protesting.”

Above: Photographs of some of the forcibly disappeared loved ones these mothers are searching for.

Related Articles: 

29 July 2018 : Behind the protest – Kirishnakumari, Nadesu, Sarujan, Abitha and Ravichandran

09 July 2018 : Behind the protest - Families of the disappeared: Mariyathas

30 October 2017 : Behind the protest - Families of the disappeared: Selvan

26 August 2017 : Behind the protest - Families of the disappeared: Abirami

30 July 2017 : Behind the protest - Families of the disappeared: Ratheeswaran

What do ‘Human Rights’ mean for politicians in the South..?

By S. V. KIRUPAharan, France

(Lanka e News – 20.Aug.2018, 5.45AM) ‘Human rights’ may be a new phenomenon for many Sinhala Buddhists – SB and for some Tamils including a few members of the diaspora. I have seen many participants in UN human rights forums in Geneva without any basic knowledge of human rights. But to the outside world, they claim to be human rights activists and defenders. This crowd never wanted to educate themselves in human rights nor grasp a wider knowledge by listening to experts and lectures of scholars.

Since the independence of then Ceylon/Sri Lanka and the birth of UN human rights mechanisms, the SB, especially thugs blessed by politicians in the South and the Buddhist clergy, started to violate human rights by physically attacking innocent Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka. Beginning with small scale violence, it ended up in war crimes and genocide. Massacres, mass murders, ethnic cleansing, and the use of rape as a weapon of war against the Tamils became a norm.

As far as literacy rates are concerned, Sri Lanka enjoys a higher ranking than several countries. A crucial question to ask though, is - ‘What are the children in the South taught in school’? As far as Southern Sri Lanka is concerned, other than a small minority population of Christians, Saivites (Hindus) and Muslims, all others are strong SB. Most of these children are taught that anyone other than SB is evil, subhuman and equal to an animal. In other words, they are taught in school that human rights are only for them.

Here I would like to give a few examples. The ‘gun culture’ or the killing culture was started in Sri Lanka by SB in the early 1900s. In 1915 Muslims in Sri Lanka were the first victims, and were physically attacked by them for no reason. Then in the 1970s SB youths known as JVP - Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) started an armed revolution to overthrow the government. This started up again, by the same JVP in the late 80s, and horrifying human rights violations took place in the island. As a consequence tens of thousands of youths were ‘disappeared’ in the South – these killings and massacres were carried out by the Sri Lankan security forces.

During this period several SB politicians, especially then Members of Parliament Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mangala Samaraweera and a well-known leftist Vasudeva Nanayakara went abroad including to the then UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and to the EU in Brussels. They organized meetings and lobbied against Sri Lanka. These political leaders called for international pressure on Sri Lanka. (See the attached notice circulated in 1991)

It is not surprising that the JVP youths who introduced armed culture to Sri Lanka causing bloodshed, attempting to overthrow two governments, were given amnesty within a short period. The JVP’s horrendous human rights violations were well documented – Buddhist monks, academics and others especially in the South were killed by the JVP.

These three SB politicians also requested British people - in their term Suthaas (whites) to help the mothers of those who were disappeared and killed. (See the attached letter, circulated by Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mangala Samaraweera to many British people. They both signed this letter).

North and East

Now I turn to the situation in the North and East of the island of Sri Lanka which has been the homeland or hereditary land of the Tamils for thousands of years. The question of the promised land of the Tamils will be dealt with in detail in a different article.

In 1833, during the British rule then in Ceylon, the independently existing Tamil Kingdom was amalgamated with two Sinhala Kingdoms. This was done under the pretext of facilitating easy administration by the British. Existence of the Tamil Kingdom cannot be disputed by anyone. The colonial masters of Ceylon/Sri Lanka – the Portuguese, the Dutch and then the British were all witnesses to this fact.

Since the final stages of British colonization up to the present day, the Tamils from the North and East have been losing everything - day by day, inch by inch; their political rights, livelihoods, land, economy, etc. After 1948, Tamils demanded their political rights through peaceful, non-violent means, for more than thirty years. Their efforts consistently met with violent reprisals by the State. This multi-layered repression resulted in Tamil youths laying foundations for an armed resistance in the North and East in the late 70s, and eventually the war started in 1983.

Unfortunately, as had happened to the JVP in the South, thousands of Tamil youths were arbitrarily killed and disappeared in the North and East by the Sri Lankan security forces. This eventually ended up in war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Tamils for which Sri Lanka is today answerable to the international community via significant resolutions initiated and passed by the UN Human rights Council.

It is worth comparing the atrocities that took place in the South with the atrocities that were carried out in the North and East by the Security forces, with the blessings of the politicians from the South.

When the JVP youths tried to overthrow two governments and mercilessly killed hundreds of Buddhist clergy, academics and others, the above mentioned politicians played a key role in the name of human rights to find justice for those ‘disappeared’ and detained without trial in prisons. When the Tamils in the North and East were in the same situation, the SB leaders who had spoken about human rights and sought financial help for the mother’s front in the South, not only kept silent, but they were the ones who gave full power to the security forces to wipe out the Tamil youths.

The truth is that as far as the SB politicians are concerned, whatever happens to Tamils is justified as dealing with terrorism, so no quarter, bloody-mindedness and no amnesty for those suffering in prisons for decades.

A question for politicians in the South

Here is my straight-forward question to Mahinda Rajapaksa, Vasutheva Nanayakara, Mangala Samaraweera and a few others who travelled abroad to find justice and financial help to address disappearances that took place in the south. What is your contribution to seeking justice for the disappeared in the North and East and how do you see the struggle of the mothers of the disappeared in the North and East?

Mahinda Rajapaksa was the main culprit who is personally responsible for tens of thousands of disappearances in the North and East. For the human rights community, he is known as a dictator. At the end of the war, he was the one who said, ‘soldiers fought, holding human rights declaration in one hand, and their gun in the other hand’. I advise him to consult a good psychiatrist. Furthermore, we can’t ignore the disappearances that took place during the Presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga and others.

Vasutheva Nanayakara, has not condemned nor spoken a word about the disappearances in the North and East, either in the parliament or in any public meetings. It is acknowledged that his good friend Mahinda Rajapaksa was the cause of disappearances in the North and East. Those days he was for the right to self-determination of Tamils. Now…..?

Mangala Samaraweera caused and is causing many disasters for the whole Tamil population. He plays a smart diplomacy by using some Tamils who seek name and fame, and have a slave mentality. He used the label of terrorism and caused serious damage to the Tamil struggle for political rights, yet today he pretends to be a man for Tamil rights. Here I recall a Tamil proverb: “as long as there are people who can be fooled, people who fool also exist”.

One of Mangala Samaraweera’s latest achievements is that being the Minister of Information, he has requested certain media to prevent publishing my articles. This is nothing new compared to what he said about me and the late Dr. Jayalath Jayewardene in an interview in 2001. During that period he was the Minister of Information under Chandrika Kumaratunga.

During Chandrika’s period in the late 90s, when late Dr Jayalath Jeyawardena faced serious harassment and death threats, his party the UNP or Ranil Wickremasinge could not help him. We as ‘Tamil Centre for Human Rights – TCHR’ took up his case with the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva and worked on his behalf. Concerning this matter, our archives speak volumes. However our involvement in Dr Jayalath’s fundamental rights issue annoyed Chandrika and her late uncle Ratwatte. Then their Minister of Information Managala Samaraweera held a press conference and spoke utter lies about myself and late Dr Jayalath. (Daily News, 22 November 2001 – “Conspiracy comes out”)

Mr Minister or Good Governance - GG, where are the Tamils’ rights now? When you request the media not to publish my articles where is freedom of expression? GG is no better than dictator Rajapaksa’s white vans and land grabs.

These were the people who told the international community that once ‘terrorism’ was wiped out, they would give all sort of rights including the ‘Thirteen Plus (13+)' solution to the Tamils. Now, nearly ten years since the ‘end of the war’, nothing positive has happened for the suffering people in the North and East. During these ten years, they have lost even what they had during or before the war.

Foreign Judges and Lawyers were in Sri Lanka

To resume – firstly, for the vast majority of SB, human rights for Tamils don’t exist in their vocabulary. Secondly, if foreigners should come to resolve the disappearances in the South and to help the mothers’ front financially, why can’t they allow the same to find justice for the disappeared in the North and East?

Just to remind everyone in the South - when a Commission of Inquiry was appointed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1963 to inquire into the political aspects of the Bandaranaike assassination, two out of three judges were foreigners. They were Justice Abdel Younis from Egypt and Justice G.C. Mills-Odich from Ghana.

Buddharakitha Thero and H.P. Jayawardene, the first and second accused in the assassination of Bandaranaike were represented in the Supreme Court by Phineas Quass, QC from Britain.

According to the courts, the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon/Sri Lanka, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Buddhist monk on 25th September 1959.

Read the Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of Bandaranaike, and you will understand how many foreign Judges and Lawyers were involved in this inquiry in Sri Lanka.

Considering the many facts given above, I repeat, when it comes to matters concerning the Tamil people of the North and East, the vast majority of SB looks at everything in an entirely different manner. It’s nothing other than racism.

There are hundreds of reasons why the people of the North and East cannot expect any political rights or justice through any government headed by a SB. They are racist but they play clever diplomacy in their interactions with the international community. The people in the North and East have no hope that someone like P.W. Botha or Frederik W. de Klerk of South Africa will be born among SB in Sri Lanka.

Civil society

According to international norms and standards civil society members should be neutral and not supportive of a government that violates human rights. Indeed, civil society must provide critique of such a government. But civil society in Sri Lanka, especially from the South is blindly supportive of the present so-called GG, under the pretext that, if dictatorial Mahinda Rajapaksa comes to power, no one will have any voice at all. If so, what has this civil society done on accountability and reconciliation to address the suffering of the people in the North and East? The majority of them are doing nothing other than paying lip-service to the GG.

I was told that some Tamil speaking members of civil society in Colombo are closely working with the National Intelligence Bureau – NIB and Terrorist Investigation Division – TID, for gathering information on those working hard to look for their loved ones in the North and East. These activities are not known as ‘human rights’ – they are ‘human wrongs’!

I take this opportunity to ask so-called progressive Sinhalese and Tamils with a slave mentality, to show a single area where this GG or other governments in power have done any good to the people in the North and East.

This reminds me of a story told by the Chief Minister of the Northern province Mr Wigneswaran. He said that during his schools days at Royal College, when as small boys they were playing marbles, senior students came and confiscated all their marbles. When the small boys begged or pleaded for their marbles, the senior students returned only one or two to please them. But it is clear all the confiscated marbles belonged to the small boys. Today this is the story of Tamil political rights in Sri Lanka in a so-called democratic country. This cannot be understood by virgin Tamil politicians or Tamil political apprentices.

In other words, what the virgin Tamil politicians and political apprentices are trying to achieve from a SB government, is equivalent (to quote a Tamil proverb ‘யானை பசிக்கு சோழப்பொரி’) to getting “Pop-corn for a hungry elephant”.

Accountability and the OMP are in a dilemma. In a few years or months these will come to a standstill. Experts and scholars have written and predicted enough about the shortcomings of the OMP. It has no teeth. This is another bluff like other Commissions and investigations. It will have its own death sooner or later.

Upcoming 40th session of HRC

I take this opportunity to disclose what I heard from some diplomats in Europe. As the Presidential and Parliamentary elections are coming up soon in Sri Lanka, the so-called GG is preparing to withdraw their co-sponsorship of the UN Human Rights Council resolution. This is the habitual tactic of any SB government. They play hide and seek with the international community to buy time. So- called GG had three peaceful years without any pressure from the international community. As usual, now they are going to twist their tongue during the 40th session of the HRC, due in March 2019.

When the resolution was passed with Sri Lanka as co-sponsor, I told many VIPs and spoke in many meetings within the UN, that this type of tactic has been used for more than seventy years (70) by Sri Lanka to buy time. Now they have achieved buying their time. Let’s see what civil society in the South is going to do about it.

However Sri Lanka is answerable to the following resolutions which were adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in the past - 19/2 of 22 March 2012, 22/1 of 21 March 2013, 25/1 of 27 March 2014, 30/1 of 1 October 2015 and 34/1 of 15/03/2017.

The other impending possibility is that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s group or party will win in the next parliamentary election. If everything works in their favour, Rajapaksa may even win with a two third majority. But winning the Presidential election is a difficult one for Rajapaksa’s family because it fully depends on the votes from the North, East and Up-country.

In November 2005 Rajapaksa won the Presidential election because there was a boycott in the North and East, and in January 2010 due to obvious vote-rigging. There were several complaints about the vote-rigging in the 2010 Presidential election which have not been investigated even today by the so-called GG. Where is then Election Commissioner Mr. Dayananda Dissanayake who quit the country soon after the Presidential election in 2010? Will he let the cat out of the bag?

It is believed that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family has already formed a shadow government with an idea of taking revenge on certain individuals who are serving in the present government or are supportive of the present government. A red list has been prepared by them. Sarath Fonseka, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mervyn de Silva and many others may end up as life-time jail birds. Some academics supportive of Rajapaksa are waiting like foxes to fill the posts in New York, Brussels, Geneva and Russia.

Soon, the time is coming for the present members of the GG to regret. They have failed to investigate and punish the culprits who played havoc during Rajapaksa’s regime. This includes Rajapaksa’s family as well.

An academic who was a minister in many different governments is working on the legal processes involved in taking revenge. Rajapaksa’s shadow government is preparing to shake the dust off many crime files on which they took no action during Rajapaksa’s presidency from 2005 to 2015. This will pave the way for half of the members in the present GG to seek asylum in foreign countries. (End)

By S. V. KIRUPAharan

19 August 2018

France

(The General Secretary of the ‘Tamil Centre for Human Rights – TCHR’, established in 1990 in France. (www.tchr.net). While working as a human rights activist/defender, writes articles on the situation in Sri Lanka and also UN Human Rights mechanisms. As member and representative of TCHR, has been attending the UN Human Rights Forums since 1990. Made interventions in the main plenary and spoke in many meetings in the UN.)

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by     (2018-08-20 00:38:10)