Plight of the war-widows in Sri Lanka

July 4, 2011: FMT LETTER: From Rajani Iqbal, 

A recently published book – Invisible, Forgotten Sufferers: The Plight of Widows Around the World – reveals that there are an estimated 245 million widows worldwide, 115 million of whom live in poverty and suffer from social stigmatisation and economic deprivation purely because they have lost their husbands.
Following  a proposal introduced by President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon  on Dec 21, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted June 23, as International Widows Day. It was also the day commemorated by the Tamil Women’s Development Front (TWDF).
The TWDF rightly decided to use this occasion to  highlight  the plight of the  large number of  Tamil women who have been made widows following the  death or disappearance of a large number of  Tamils during  and following  the brutal war  that ended in May, 2009.
Though  these widows  form  a  large majority of the widows in Sri Lanka today,  other calamities such as the tsunami of 2004 also contributed to  boosting the   numbers  of women who  became  widows during  recent times. To this number we must also add the wives of the large number  of the combatants, both  of the LTTE and the Sri Lanka Army, who  were killed   during the fighting .
Though for various reasons it is not possible to get the actual number of the widows in the respective categories mentioned above, we can estimate the numbers from  the speeches made, time to time by government officials, politicians and others. Some NGOs that have done an informal survey have also released some figures.  But none of them could  provide  any exact numbers.
The Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs of the Provincial Council of the East has stated recently that  there are  86,000 widows in the North and East of whom 40,000 widows are in the North and 46,000  are in  the East. Among these categories of widows are those who are young and old, sick and  the disabled. There are others  who do not know the whereabouts of their husbands.
This is especially because  the government has detained a large number of persons who  came out of the Wanni  and have not  provided the names of those who are under detention even though  more than two years have passed since they were taken into custody. Consequently there are many Tamil women who do not know if  they should consider themselves as widows or wait for the return of their husbands  on being released from detention.
Many of the  families have become female headed households. A report published by the  UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has issued a statement to the effect that women have taken over as bread winners in the North. A survey conducted by the Jaffna-based Centre for Women and Development revealed that  the Northern region has, as stated earlier, 40,000 female headed households  includes more than 20,000 in the Jaffna District alone.
In this district in the villages of Anaicottai and Chavakkadu of the total population  30 percent are  war widows.  On an average each widow has at least two or three children who have  to be fed and looked after by each widow  with the meager amounts they get either as a re-settlement allowance or a donation by well wishers.  Besides they have to provide for the education and health care of the children.
It needs to be noted that a majority of the war affected widows  are those who had been re-settled  in their own villages or  near about after they had lived in  the so-called  ill-equipped  welfare centres after the war was concluded. Many of them had been living in the Wanni before and during the war  while others had been displaced  from their villages during the war and had moved to other areas for security reasons. Once the war was  concluded  they had to  start life afresh in the locations where they had been resettled.
But soon they realised that this was not going to be easy  as  they found that  most of the infrastructure that existed in their villages had been destroyed. The roads, markets, houses and other buildings, schools, irrigation facilities and even their wells and canals  had all been either destroyed or are not in a usable condition. Though the government had promised to provide them with houses and reconstruct damaged infra structure,  those promises are yet to materialise. To make matters worse they found they could not resume their livelihood or social  activities. Nor could they send their children to schools as there are no schools and  the usual health care facilities are non-existent. To cap it all they have to live with the menacing presence of the army  who are having a watchful eye on every one of their activities.
It should be noted that since  the husbands of these widows were their breadwinners  are now no more.  So it is these widows who have to earn and provide for  the living of the family. Most of them  have not learnt any skills that could be used to earn a living. Consequently most of these widows  have become destitute hardly able to feed either themselves or their children. The husbands of some of these widows were either combatants  under  the LTTE  while others had been doing odd jobs in the Wanni.  Hence  almost all these widows are looked upon as members of the families of  those in the LTTE.
Some  of these widows  are under 25 years of age while there are others who are over 50 years of age.  These two categories have exclusive  problems. Those under 25 years are the ones who had been compelled to marry by their parents to enable them to escape conscription by the LTTE. The widows over 50 years are the ones having grown up girls whom they have to secure from  becoming victims to the sexual advances of the military or the other  unscrupulous men in the village. While these widowed mothers are having a tough time protecting their daughters, the young widows are having an equally tough time protecting themselves from the risks they run of being molested by the military or the youth of  their respective areas.
At this juncture I wish to mention that even  Dr Nimalka Fernando, the head of the International Movement against Discrimination and Racism, had confirmed the above stated situation of the war affected women in the North and the Wanni at a meeting held in Switzerland  this month. That the cost of living in Sri Lanka has reached  unprecedented levels today is known to everyone. On an average a lower middle class family with two children  would need  at least Rs.1000 per day for their living expenses. In such a situation one could imagine the kind of life a widow who has no income whatsoever,  must be leading. Some of them go in search of  odd jobs locally,  while others have been enticed by those seeking cheap labour for their factories in the free trade zones in the South of the country.  I need not stress here the risks they face while working in a male dominated  environment in such places. In desperation,  there are others who  have ventured  out to do jobs which women do not usually do.
The landmine clearing operations in the  North is one such field to which many women have moved in. A video on the life they are leading as landmine sweepers is to  be shown to you later today. I am  constrained  to mention here that shear force of circumstances have compelled  some of these widows  to take up  a vocation that could  put us all to shame and bring disrepute to our  community.
It is reported that there are nearly 40,000 women in Sri Lanka  who are professional  prostitutes. Some of  them are  said to be  young war widows from the North and the South.  While  I understand  their dilemma,  I feel sorry for  them. We all should  bear responsibility for letting this happen.
I think it would be appropriate  at this point  to  read to you extracts  from a  translation  of  a news item in the Veerakesari of June 3, 2011,  under the caption  “It is  important to curb the  increase  in crime in the North”: -
“Of late  there  has been  an  increase of  crime in the North. Incidents such as murder,  rape, robberies, etc. continue. … A large number of these incidents have occurred in the Kilinochchi District.
…Many incidents that  bring shame on Tamil culture, have continued to take place. Last Sunday there had been an incident of a wife and two children  stabbing  to death, a women who was suspected to be a mistress of  her husband.  The woman who was so killed,  is a widow with three children. …”
There had been news  reports which speak of an unspecified  number of women  from the war affected areas committing suicide almost every day. No  statistics of such incidents are available.
A research done by the undergraduates of the Jaffna University recently has indicated that a large number of children of  such destitute women in the North  are being sent to orphanages  and  other women are sending their children to work  as cheap labour for those who need them.  This has exposed  these children to being abused
sexually  or otherwise  by some of those who avail of their services.
Dr S Yamuna Nanthan,  a psychiatrist who is working with  these women stated  that most of the women are suffering from psychiatric disorders.  Such women can easily become prey to  the advances of designing individuals  while  others could be led to  commit suicide.
Another issue that these widows face is the absence of a male  in the household  which  makes them feel insecure. Besides,  the so called houses in which they live  could hardly be locked up and made safe from  intruders who come in the night  under  various excuses.
Consequently  they become easy prey for  those who come in the night looking for women. There had been many reports of such incidents.  In one such case, when the victim went to the military camp nearby to make a complaint of such an incident found the intruder was  the person who was in charge of receiving complaints in the camp.
A widow with children has to  play the role of the father and the mother of her children. This becomes a challenging task to many of them  who find it difficult to keep an eye on their children  while they are away from home for work or otherwise.  The widows who have grown up girls in their homes dare not leave them alone.  Hence they
cannot think of engaging themselves with any  livelihood activities away from home. In addition to all this,  it has been reported that many of these widows find  members of their own communities distancing themselves from widows whom they believe to be wives of  dead LTTE combatants. This could be perhaps due to the fear that the military who is all the time observing the activities of these widows may suspect the members of the community which endears these widows to be supporters of the LTTE itself.
One of the other issues facing these widows, especially the young widows, is  a matter which is rarely  spoken of. As widows their biological needs  remain unfulfilled.  Many of us do not  realise how serious this problem is.  How could  we expect these sex-starved widows  to lead  a normal life in the absence of  any other diversions
or pastimes to sublimate their natural desires. Instead of  treating such persons with  empathy, our  society  looks down upon widows as ‘unlucky’ persons who should take the back seat at  any social function. They are expected to dress modestly at functions and not wear  any embellishments.
Our outdated cultural practices  are  a curse to these women.  Not only are they looked upon with scorn,  but  they  are  also considered to be persons who could lure away  the husbands  from families in the areas where they live. Consequently  many a wife keeps a watchful eye on her husband when  in the company of widows. To cap it all,  our culture does not  permit a widow  to re-marry  without  a hassle.  In view of all these cultural barriers,  these widows are bound to  live a life of misery.  Though the dearth of men in the community has made it difficult  for young girls to find husbands,  it is more difficult for a young widow to find even a widower to marry. It is left to our society to give serious thought to this aspect of the life of the widows and think of bringing about a  change in our cultural approaches to this problem and make way for  a better place for these widows in the community.
It needs to be made clear that the war widows in the North are not a group that is politically significant. It is also true that the plight of the widows is not a matter of priority  either for the  Tamil people in the North or for  the politicians who represent them.  They have other priorities due  to the fast changing situation of  the Tamils in general. Though many have urged the Government of Sri Lanka to prepare a National Policy document  based on the  humanitarian needs of the widows,  this matter does not appear to have received due consideration by the government.
Besides,  the humanitarian and other related laws in Sri Lanka are male centred.  There does not appear to be any laws which are specifically aimed at relieving humanitarian  issues relating to women.  This is an obstacle that is standing in the way of  the issues of the widows being given legal recognition.  The absence of adequate representation of women in the legislature  is another reason why the issues relating to the war widows have not so received the attention that is due.
The few women who are now in the legislature  do not seem to be powerful enough to  draw the attention of  the Parliament to the dire circumstances of the war widows. In the circumstances it has become necessary for  the local and international  NGOs to step in to provide whatever assistance possible for these war widows who  have
none to look up to.
However, it appears that the local NGOs which  are aware of the plight of the widows have not shown adequate concern  for the issues facing these widows. The women leaders in the NGOs of Sri Lanka have merely looked at this problem as a social problem. This is the time for them to get together and raise their voice on the problems of the widows.
Instead  these leaders are silent about them perhaps because  the political climate in the country  does not  appear to be  favourable for such issues to be raised. They may even fear that the  same consequences that befell on the journalists and others who had been openly  speaking on the problems of the people,  may happen to them also.  I recall how in 1995  at a village in the Kalmunai District  there were 56 widows  who got together and formed a pressure group  which was able to attract the
attention of  International NGOs who stepped in and provided them meaningful assistance to enable them to eventually stand on their feet. Unfortunately the political environment  in the North is not conducive for the widows there to form themselves into any group whatsoever to make their voices heard.
However, it is a fact that there are a few NGOs which have direct or indirect links with the government have been permitted by the State to  handle projects for the welfare  of the widows within the frame work of the existing regulations  imposed by the government. It should also be noted that the government is averse to  the registration of any new organisations that have the welfare of the war affected in its agenda.
In the circumstances, the only feasible option that is available to NGOs or  those in the Tamil diaspora to help the war affected widows is to collaborate with  one or the other of the existing NGOs in Sri Lanka which  have been allowed to work in the North.  Such collaboration could be  either by feeding funds into an existing program of such an NGO or  by preparing a feasible project for the welfare of  the  widows and sell it to  a chosen NGO and seek collaboration with it.
Those of us who have lived in Jaffna during  better times, know, that there were a large number of  thrift and credit  co-operative societies in almost every village in thePeninsula.  We also know that those days these societies did not only promote  thrift and savings, they also developed  into a mini-bank in every village from which the
members were able to obtain loans on easy terms to meet exigencies such as for child birth expenses, purchase of agricultural equipment such as water pumps and even for  self employment activities.
Though the recent war would have disrupted the activities of these societies,  many would have survived it and should be in operation now.  We could do a quick survey and find out  which of these have widows as their members and channel assistance  to such societies  to provide assistance to the war widows who are its members.
Since Co-operative Thrift and Credit Societies are registered legal bodies, they have bank accounts and  function under the supervision and guidance of  the  Department of Co-operative Societies. In these circumstances,  this could be another option available to the diaspora to help the war widows in the North.
It should be noted that any project for  the welfare of the widows should  be focussed to  uplift the widows and make them stand on their own feet and should not be  projects to provide consumption items tothem.  It would be a grave mistake if  a project is aimed only to provide relief as that would  make  the widows  live with the begging bowl right through their life.
In identifying projects for  implementation,  the feasibility of the project should be carefully examined. I have come across many in the diaspora wanting to provide  sewing machines,  funds to  indulge in livestock keeping such as  poultry and cattle, without  any examination of the  possibility of marketing their produce  and making a living  out of such ventures.  Besides, these widows  do not even have  much experience in such ventures and do not have any place to keep the  sewing machine or the livestock secured from thieves  who thrive in these areas. Therefore before providing  funds for such projects, a survey of the skills, the needs , and the marketability of their produces  should be done,  if the expected objective is to be achieved.
The other option that could be considered is  to provide infrastructure needs of  the  villages where such widows are living in large numbers.  They could  be provided a common well  that would benefit many families , or  a  structure for a small school which had been damaged  during the war. This would provide the children of the widows,  the opportunity to study.
We should not forget the many widows who are immobile  due to their legs being amputed or maimed by the war and others who may  have lost one or two hands.  A survey should be done and  serious consideration should be given  to providing them with mobility assistance to enable them not just to move about, but also to see if  they could eke out a living in one way or the other.
Another thing I would like to mention  is  that we need to make sure that we don’t duplicate assistance. We must reach out to the widows in the far off villages  than  to those villages closer to the main road.
We should give priority to those widows who  are less likely to get any assistance  due to the inaccessibility of their villages. It would be appropriate here to mention that many in the diaspora have  already adopted families of widows and are  providing assistance directly  to them as their foster family members.  Though this method would provide some immediate benefits  to such families,  it is likely that they would continue to be dependants of  their benefactors  in the diaspora and are less likely to  make any serious attempt to stand on their own feet.
But the very fact that  organisations like the TWDF and many others have already started devising various ways in which the war widows  in the North  could be helped,  is an indication that these widows  have not been forgotten,  especially by those in the diaspora.  In spite of the adverse political climate, action is being taken by various organisations and persons  to provide  help to the widows.  However more work needs to be done to ensure that the  most  needy is given preference while  the weak and the infirm get their share of the assistance.
Whatever assistance or projects  that are put in place  for the widows, there  should be an effective monitoring mechanism to ensure that  the project  activities are in line with the project objectives.  There should be a flexibility in these projects to enable on course changes to be made to  overcome obstacles that may occur. Funds disbursed should be  systematically managed  to minimize misuse. Provision should be made for  an evaluation of the project  at regular intervals.
I hope  the TWDF would be able to take into consideration  all the matters referred to in my presentation and  launch on a carefully prepared project to expeditiously bring these widows to the main stream of our society as quickly as possible.
The writer is an independent researcher and training consultant

Provoking, persecuting and pushing Sri Lanka: Enough! - Dayan Jayathileka

“Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly”. – Mao Ze Dong

The matter is rather simple really. What do you do, or more correctly, what does a state do, and what does a leader at the helm of state affairs do, when faced with a situation of a heavily armed movement dedicated to dismembering the country through secession; a movement which has repeatedly resorted to terrorism; has repeatedly returned to war after episodes of ceasefires and negotiations with successive governments of two countries, has finally been outmanoeuvred and is cornered, trapped? What does a state do when such a movement, its cadres back in civilian clothes, has surrounded itself with and embedded itself in a population of civilians, many of whom had chosen to follow the secessionist army when it retreated from its citadel over a decade before and has been touted as a weapons trained militia? What does a state do when such an armed force has placed heavy guns and command centres amidst that populace and is firing those guns and mortars at the surrounding army? What does a state do when the strategy of the cornered terrorist army is to catalyse an externally induced ceasefire and live to fight another day? What does a state, especially a democratic republican state, do when the vast majority of its citizenry are urging a decisive finish to a decades-long plague of terrorism and when its armed forces are straining at the leash to defeat and destroy the beast which has been tormenting the state and generations of its citizenry?

Agree to yet another ceasefire and yet another round of talks, not based upon unconditional surrender – the only realistic option in the situation – but contingent on or resulting in the evacuation of the secessionist terrorist leadership? Or go in, as the Allies crashed into Berlin or Paul Kagame’s troops went into the civilian camps across the border?

When you go in, do you do so flailing about blindly, or while making the risky effort to breach the enemy defences and facilitate the exit of as many of the civilians as possible?

And once you’ve done so to the fullest extent possible, what do you do?  How do you deal with the efforts to breakout by the enemy; efforts which include the tactic of embedded suicide bombers in civilian clothes?

And when the final battles take place in the dark pre-dawn hours; a battle which does not entail a surgical strike by commandos against a lone enemy leader but with the elite praetorian guard of the cruellest of enemies; a battle which is fought not with pilotless Predator drones and Hellfire missiles but by foot soldiers who probably come from villages where night raids have left bodies and memories of huddled infants and breastfeeding mothers, against the backcloth of a long struggle which has reawakened historical anxieties of an existential sort, do you expect the final scene to be pretty? Revolution, said Mao, is not a dinner party. Still less is a secessionist war a dinner party. The Russian Bolsheviks led by those epitomes of Reason and modernity Lenin and Trotsky, sanctioned the physical elimination of the Tzar and his family (a ghastly act which Trotsky, the epitome of Western reason and modernity, justified and Bolshevism’s original sin, according to Reggie Siriwardena in the Lanka Guardian), the Italian partisans hanged Mussolini and his woman friend upon capture, elements of the Sri Lankan armed forces fed their co-ethnic and generational peer Rohana Wijeweera into the fire.  Not my idea of the ethics of violence, but who practised those ethics anyway, apart from Fidel, Che, the Cubans, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and perhaps some Lusophone African liberation movements? These were exceptions and veritable saints by comparison with the normal practices and practitioners of war in History– History described by Hegel as a “slaughter bench”.

So what now?

Does anybody seriously expect a state, especially one that is sufficiently democratic at base to be responsive to public opinion, to open up the war and its closing stages, which are felt to be a liberating triumph by the overwhelmingly greater number of its citizens, to international scrutiny? Which state has done so, where and when, two years after a victorious war? Why should Sri Lanka be the first in line of a questionable doctrine, when it should be at the back of the queue if there is one?

This is not a matter of a nasty regime defending itself. Liberal democratic Spain, a member of the EU and NATO, filed a case against its most celebrated judge, Balthazar Garzon, who started universal jurisdiction rolling with his admirable decision of Augusto Pinochet, because Garzon sought to open up for possible accountability the crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.

Each state and society decides on how, when and who by, the issues of accountability and impunity are settled. How can the UK, which let Augusto Pinochet go, and which took 38 years to issue its report into Bloody Sunday with no prosecutions having yet taken place, wag its finger at Sri Lanka on impunity?

Are those who argue that accountability is a pre-requisite for reconciliation and that an international or independent national inquiry is a prerequisite for accountability, seriously hold that an inquisition into the Sri Lankan armed forces will assist rather than wreck reconciliation? Who then will reconcile the rather large armed forces (with the stress on the adjective) with those who seek to or permit them to be placed in the dock for having risked life and limb to  liberate the country from one of the most violent militias the contemporary world has seen?

Who will reconcile the vast Sinhala peasantry with that element of urban society and its expatriate cousins, which wishes to put their sons in the dock at the behest of some foreigners or liberal legal doctrines? Who will reconcile an ancient nation which constitutes the vast mass of the island, with the former colonial powers that issue deadlines and ultimatums and a neighbouring landmass from which incursions took place throughout history, and now passes resolutions calling for economic blockades?

Did the pressure from the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida and the economic embargo by the USA lead to a softening within Cuba? Where in the world does a combination of such external pressures and outrageous demands, from historic invaders and occupiers, not lead to an internal hardening?

By which logic does anyone call for a risky lacerating inquiry in the name of reconciliation with a minority, when it the idea of penalising, persecuting and prosecuting a loved and socially rooted, army will incense the vast majority?  Who or which is more organic to the country: the armed forces or those who are calling for accountability hearings, so loudly, so aggressively and so soon after the war? Will Sri Lanka’s citizens heed the threatening calls of an ex-colonizer and occupier or the resolutions of the assembly of a neighbouring site of ancient incursions, or protect its elected government, a leadership of its democratic choice and a military consisting of its children?

What makes any intelligent person think that the people of this country will not defend from those deemed intervening outsiders and their local lackeys, those who defended the country—and do so ‘by any means necessary’? What could make an intelligent person think that the majority of Sri Lanka’s citizens do not see the Tiger flags and Tamil Eelam graphics (the map of the island with the North East differently coloured) in the photographs of the demonstrations and events taking place among the re-mobilised and revengeful elements of the Tamil Diaspora in the West? A literate people know that the Tiger is not a self-serving embellishment of the incumbent administration, but the old enemy propelling its front organisations and fellow travellers; its ‘useful idiots’, while straining to leverage the ex-colonial states against Sri Lanka and waiting to leap from beyond the oceans.

How can anyone seriously believe that inter-ethnic reconciliation will be possible, still less accelerated, by or in the aftermath of anything that smacks of victimising the popular armed forces? Accountability hearings AND devolution? Devolution AFTER accountability hearings? Is not the choice one of devolution OR accountability, under this or any other administration? Can any administration that accedes to a full-on accountability hearings, this present one or a successor, follow it up with liberal measures of ethnic compromise and reconciliation and hope to avoid a ferocious backlash? How long would a Wickramasinghe- Karunanayake-Samaraweera administration that moves on ‘accountability’ AND devolution (not to mention neoliberal economic reform) last? Is not an ‘accountability hearing into the closing stages of the war’ – as distinct from domestic inquiry into concrete instances of crimes involving aberrant armed forces personnel—precisely the single measure that will render radioactive any liberal interethnic compromise whatsoever?

How can any serious analyst draw parallels with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation process, when that was in the context of a negotiated transition from minority rule to majority rule and entailed for the most part, a re-telling of coercive transgressions by the minority against the majority? What would have been the mechanism and practice had the South African outcome been one of outright military victory by the majority forces?

How could a serious commentator draw parallels with the Serbian government handing over Milosevic and Mladic to The Hague? Serbia lost the war as conspicuously as Sri Lanka won it. Yugoslavia broke up or was broken up. Serbia was attracted by the EU option. Sri Lanka is in Asia, and in Asia, as the President of Slovenia (and political science scholar) Danilo Turk put it at a UNESCO Roundtable in Paris a few weeks ago, Westphalian sovereignty prevails. Henry Kissinger emphasised the same point in his new book ‘On China’.

An ancient nation, possibly one of the oldest on earth, with a long chronicled history, a unique language, specific religious denominational adherence and strong identity and consciousness, demographically well-positioned on an island in Asia; a nation which has beaten back a thirty year old ferocious suicide–terrorism and survived an external intervention, a nation with a fairly sizeable population and tough armed forces: does this look like a pushover, or a collective that’s going to bend over for six of the best from a former colonial schoolmaster?

Those doing the pushing see only the target, the incumbent regime, and perhaps the endgame, regime termination, but are poor students of history and politics and therefore do not have foresight or sense of direction. They are oblivious to pattern, process and trajectory, which is one of polarisation and radicalisation: of hardening. Instead of polarisation they may get regime shift or displacement, which ranges from intra regime displacement of the regime’s ‘centre of gravity’, to radical regime transformation.

Under extreme siege, or the collective perception of such, regimes recompose and mutate into or are displaced  and succeeded, not a by a neoliberal or liberal one so beloved by the West, the émigrés and urban civil society, but precisely by one that will be widely mandated to resist more resolutely: an organic, probably elected, Praetorianism or Caesarism. Is it inevitably, axiomatically, unsustainable and therefore bound to be but an interlude, however horribly Hobbesian? I don’t know, but one may ask Myanmar or Pakistan or imagine a fusion.

Sri Lanka’s cities were hit hardest by terrorist suicide bombings but its civil society is the least grateful to those who saved it. We didn’t save ourselves; we were saved by the Sinhala peasantry which sent its boys into the armed forces and bloody battle.

The best portrait of the Sinhalese peasant as protagonist came from the pen of Leonard Woolf, inThe Village in the Jungle. Silindu –unforgettably portrayed by Joe Abeywickrema in Lester’s movie — slow, superstitious, is repeatedly pushed, prodded and pilfered by the slick Fernando and Ratemahattaya, until, like the water-buffalo, he finally perceives process and enemy and turns, game-changer in his grasp: a double-barrelled shotgun. This is what happened after the years of the CFA, the PTOMS and unilateral appeasement and national humiliation, facilitated by the intermediaries, the compradors, represented by Ranil’s UNP. The Silindu streak in the collective Sinhala spirit and psyche took it to the next level, pushing back right up to ‘the Day of the Guns’ (to quote a favourite American thinker, Mickey Spillane) at Nandikadal. Today, the ‘social media’ savvy civil society sympathisers of the Darusman Report and the Channel 4 spin are the inheritors and continuators of role of the Fernandos and the Ratemahayttayas, connected to the same colonial overlords.

It makes little sense to push such a nation into a corner – to the point of crystallisation of a determination to resist and recoil in the face of an existential threat of incursion into the inviolable and irreducible sovereign space.

True, the physical fate of Silindu and his family was a tragic one, but as the thirty year old Mervyn de Silva, my father, concluded in his Introduction to Leonard Woolf’s Diaries (1961), these poor rural Sinhala folk had “a far greater moral worth than the Fernandos and Ratemahattayas of this world”.

Taken from the ground Views Blog Site.

GROWING DANGER OF INTERNATIONAL ISOLATION --Jehan Perera

The international pressure on the government on human rights issues is continuing without respite.  In the aftermath of the Channel 4 video released in the UK, the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner, Navaneethan Pillai has once again brought the issue of an international inquiry to the fore.  She has said that there is a high level of expectation in the international community that the Sri Lankan government will seriously inquire into the allegations of civilian killings and prisoner executions highlighted in the video.  Her words take on weight in a context in which the US has now followed the UK to warn the Sri Lankan government that the international community will find itself obliged to examine other options unless Sri Lanka itself moves in this regard. 

So far the government has responded to these pressures in an uncompromising manner.  It continues to deny the validity of the allegations leveled against it and has come up with a version of the video that it says is the original, and which it says proves that the Channel 4 version was doctored.  The government would get its strength from the backing of the people for its position.  A recent newspaper poll indicated that a majority of the respondents wanted the government to ignore the international concerns.  There is hardly any public opinion that is prepared to take a stance at variance from that of the government in the prevailing circumstances.  Government leaders have been routinely denouncing those who want an investigation of the allegations as being LTTE supporters and traitors.

The government has also been relying on its growing dependence on countries such as Russia and China to safeguard it in the international arena.  Both these countries have veto power in the UN Security Council and are extremely influential with many other countries.  However, the price that Sri Lanka may be called upon to pay for this growing dependence can also be high and with long term costs to the country.  There have been recent criticisms of loans taken from China for infrastructure projects that are overpriced and with interest rates that are higher than given by the traditional aid agencies, such as the Asian Development Bank.  Some of these loans are also tied, with procurements to be done from China even if lower cost options are available elsewhere.

HIGH PRICE

Support from Russia too appears to be coming at a price. In the UN General Assembly, Sri Lanka recently voted against Georgia and in support of the Russian position.  But in doing so it helped to strengthen the case of two separatist regions in Georgia. These are Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are backed by Russia. Sri Lankans who continue to remember India’s backing for Tamil separatists many decades ago cannot be supportive of another country doing the same, even if that country is its international ally. As a country that has suffered so much from separatism, Sri Lanka ought not to support it in other parts of the world.  Unfortunately, it appears that for political reasons rather than for principled reasons, Sri Lanka was part of a minority grouping of 13 countries, and that included North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Myanmar.

The Georgian resolution in the UN General Assembly reiterated the right of return of all displaced persons and refugees back to their homes.  Apart from politics, the right of return of internally displaced persons and refugees to their homes is a basic and fundamental human right which Sri Lanka would wish the world to acknowledge in the case of its own resettlement of internally displaced persons and refugees.  According to media reports, this was the third time in the last few years where Georgia brought this resolution before the UN General Assembly, and on every occasion it has been passed with an increasing majority.  This means that Sri Lanka voted with a shrinking minority of countries when it voted against the Georgian resolution. 

The growing isolation of Sri Lanka’s government from the community of democracies in the world was its absence at an international gathering under the same name in Lithuania last month.  Among the countries represented at this meeting of world leaders was India. The Community of Democracies is a global intergovernmental coalition of democratic countries, with the goal of strengthening democratic norms and institutions around the world. The organization was founded in 2000.  As a new wave of democratization spreads across the Middle East, the Community of Democracies is refocusing its efforts on supporting successful transitions to democracy. At the meeting in Lithuania special attention was given to emerging democracies and civil society’s involvement in governance.

DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY

As part of their commitment to democracy the organizers of the meeting of the Community of Democracies had obtained a video message from the recently freed Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She has paid a heavy price for her leadership of the democracy movement ever since winning the last free elections in Burma by a large majority and thereafter being imprisoned by the military leaders.  She has shown great commitment to democracy and has not compromised and joined the military junta to save herself or obtain a position of power. Instead she speaks of her hope that her country would be democratic in the near future.  Instead of taking the side of the Burmese people and its democratically elected leaders, the Sri Lankan government has taken the side of the military leaders. 

It is unfortunate that at the present time the Sri Lankan government gives the appearance of turning its back on the democratic countries of the world and joining with those countries that do not value or practice democracy.  In this adverse context, it is the role of civil society and the business sectors to keep the country’s links with the democratic world alive.  The business community is heavily tied with the Western democratic countries in particular, which are the main markets for Sri Lanka’s exports.  The increasing call for economic sanctions against Sri Lanka on the grounds of its non-adherence to norms of international human rights could jeopardize those markets.  Already Sri Lanka’s economy has not obtained the foreign direct investment that was anticipated to multiply after the end of the war.

There is also a role for civil society. At the meeting in Lithuania, there was a strategic dialogue that included both civil society and government representatives.  There are changes taking place in inter-governmental thinking that was reflected in the speeches made by world leaders at the Community of Democracies.  US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton who played a major role at the meeting said that the purpose of this strategic dialogue was to engage with civil society at the same level as with government.  She said the US was supporting new tools such as internet use to promote democracy and also create a new "Lifeline" fund to support NGOs in trouble, with legal representation in case of legal challenges, medical fees in case of physical attack, prison visits in case of imprisonment and also replacing equipment in case offices and physical assets were destroyed.  Rather than isolating Sri Lanka, it would be much better if the government follows internationally accepted norms of democracy and enters the Community of Democracies.

RESPONSIBLE RESPONSE TO CHANNEL 4 VIDEO IS REQUIRED --Jehan Perera

Monday, 20 June 2011

The video footage of the last phase of Sri Lanka’s war by the British television broadcaster Channel 4 has been taken on by other international media channels such as Al Jazeera, giving it a global dimension.  It has also been shown at the margins of international forums such as the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, at the British Parliament and now also at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  This is being denounced by members of the government as an ill-motivated and fabricated propaganda blitz by enemies of Sri Lanka.  Whether the deeds depicted in the video were committed by soldiers or by the LTTE or by a third party, they are awful, cruel and tragic The only way to remain unmoved is to believe that these video images are not real, but have been acted out to discredit the government. The first part of the video focuses on the plight of the civilian population that was trapped along with and by the LTTE in an ever shrinking territory.  .  There is vivid imagery of artillery shells falling on the civilians.  There are the sounds of wailing children as their parents lie on top of them seeking to shield them with their bodies, and of people screaming in terror as the artillery fire rains on them. There are puddles of rain mixed with blood in the makeshift hospitals that were set up in abandoned schools and the bodies of victims who were being treated.  However, as this clear video footage comes from the territory that the LTTE was controlling it does not show how the LTTE forcibly kept the people in.  Perhaps no one dared to take video images or photographs of what the LTTE was doing in the areas they were in charge of.  There is some limited satellite imagery that shows in a blurred manner how LTTE cadre shot at the ground in front of civilians to prevent them from fleeing.  This is one of the accusations leveled against the producers of the video, that they were biased, and produced a documentary that is weighted against the government.  The one or two incidents in which an LTTE atrocity is shown emphasizes the fact that the rest are by the government forces. The second and shorter part of the video shows the very end of the war, after the fighting was over.  It shows bound and trussed prisoners, nearly naked, being shot at by military personnel.  It shows dozens of bodies lying in rows which persons said to be experts and interviewed by Channel 4 say were shot in the head, and so unlikely to be battlefield casualties.  There is also footage of bodies of women with their undergarments almost removed being dragged about and crude language in the background.  Unless these images were fakes, as argued by the government, they would have had to come from the cameras of soldiers on the ground at that time.  COMMON KNOWLEDGE In order to permit viewers throughout the world to watch the programme Channel 4 removed its geo-blocking devices for a week.  This meant that the video could be watched on internet in any part of the world instead of only in the UK as normal for Channel 4 news.  I watched the video the day after it was broadcast in the UK along with several of my colleagues, who were of all ethnic groups.  We wanted to see if we had different reactions so that we could come up with a more objective view, as this video is bound to be a very controversial and sensitive issue.  Our common thought after watching the video together was that the government needed to have an independent investigation into the video in order to substantiate its position that it was a fake, if that is the position those in the government wish to continue with. It is common knowledge that in any war, atrocities occur and civilians die.  Over 60,000 are said to have died in Kashmir over the course of the past decades of anti government terrorism and counter terrorism.  Over 500,000 are said to have died in Iraq when the US invaded that country to get rid of President Saddam Hussein.  Much of Chechnya was flattened and large numbers of civilians were killed when the Russian army finally moved in to defeat the rebel forces. Many Sri Lankans are indignant and infuriated why the Sri Lankan government is being singled out for international censure and the Sri Lankan killing fields are being subjected to investigation when the killing fields elsewhere are not. Perhaps a key reason is in the government’s consistent stance regardless of the mounting evidence, that it conducted a humanitarian operation to save the Tamil people from the LTTE, and had a policy of zero civilian casualties.  The denial of large scale civilian casualties involved in fighting the LTTE which had a civilian shield of more than 300,000 civilians is not one that the international community appears prepared to accept.  The video adds to the charges already leveled against the government by the Expert Panel appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon which argued for an independent international mechanism to probe the last phase of the war.  UNTENABLE DENIALS So long as the government is adamant in holding to its position of a humanitarian operation in which there were zero civilian casualties, there will be mounting international pressure on it to investigate the past.  In addition, in the absence of an inclusive and participatory investigation, the space for further allegations is to be expected from different pressure groups that will polarize the Sri Lankan society and hinder the process of reconciliation for sustainable peace for years to come. A credible mechanism involving the domestic legal apparatus in which there is multi partisan political consensus, including participation from opposition Tamil parties is now the best option for the government.  This was suggested by several Sri Lankan civil society organizations as their response to the UN Expert Panel report that called for an independent international mechanism. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced that it will investigate the video.  Although the appointment of this commission was done unilaterally by the President, and not in consultation with other stakeholders, the LLRC has a plural composition.  Its commissioners are also distinguished and respected within the country.  They have already obtained the services of a university academic in Sri Lanka who is an expert in video technology to make his assessment of the authenticity of the video, which he has done in camera and not in public due to the controversial nature of the issue. The finding of the LLRC can do much to convince the international community that Sri Lanka will deal with the issue in a responsible and legitimate manner that can quell international concerns. The government is also having the advantage of political support from powerful countries such as Russia and China, whose presidents have assured their Sri Lankan counterpart that they will not permit Sri Lankan sovereignty to be infringed and an international inquiry being imposed upon Sri Lanka.  The Indian government too does not appear to be keen on imposing an international inquiry on Sri Lanka and is seeking other forms of accommodation with the government. On the other hand, there are Western countries such as the UK which have stated that they will re-visit all options unless the Sri Lankan government comes up with a satisfactory response to the questions opened by the Channel 4 video in the aftermath of the UN Expert Panel report.  It is still possible for the government to develop an internal mechanism with credibility, if it ensures there is multi-partisan political backing for it, including from Tamil political parties.

HIGH STAKES IN FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS IN NORTH - Jehan Perera

                           The forthcoming local government elections on July 23 will be a critically important testing time for the government.  When the date for local government elections came earlier this year in March, the government postponed several of them especially those in the urban areas such as Colombo, Kandy and Matara. At that time there were anxieties about erosion in the government’s support base.   The inability of the government to even fulfill its promises of a salary increase in the face of an inflationary rise in the cost of living was believed to have shaken the confidence of the people in the government.  These doubts motivated the government to take maximum precautions to ensure victory with measures that included postponing elections in the urban areas most affected by cost of living issues.

Another set of elections where elections got postponed were in the north of the country.  Due to a slight inaccuracy in the translation of the name of the ruling alliance into the Tamil language, most of its candidate lists were rejected by the Election Commissioner.  The postponement of the local government elections has enabled the government to deal with this situation.  However, the challenge to the government still remains.  While the government virtually swept the board in electorates where the Sinhalese majority was dominant at the March elections, it failed to win in the north of the country where the Tamil minority is dominant.   The Tamil National Alliance, which has traditionally stood for the political rights of the Tamil people in relation to the devolution of power was the most successful.

At the forthcoming elections the government will face a major challenge to win the elections in the urban areas, whether in the north or south of the country due to its continuing inability to deliver an economic peace dividend to the middle and working classes. The stark reality is that the high rates of economic growth produced by the Central Bank have failed to cushion the adverse impact that inflation has had on the urban people.  The recent labour agitation that has been taking different forms, such as the protests by the workers of the Free Trade Zone and the protracted strike by university teachers is an indicator of urban discontent that the government will be hard put to overcome. 

COMPLEX SITUATION

The north of the country poses an especially complex challenge for the government to obtain electoral success.  The last phase of the war was fought almost entirely in the north and was a no-holds barred effort that led to the massive destruction of economic and social infrastructure and to consequent loss of life.  The report submitted by the Expert Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General and the UK-based Channel 4 video have both especially highlighted the human costs of the war.  Although the government has made some effort to address the problems in the north they have fallen well short of meeting the expectations of the people living there.

When the war ended there was a general expectation in the north, as there was in the south of the country, that there would be a peace dividend in the form of a comprehensive resettlement and reconstruction effort.  The pathetic conditions under which the war-affected people continue to live would be a scandal to those who have been personally witness to this reality.  However, the government has been insisting that its programmes, such as Northern Spring are much appreciated by the people.  The forthcoming elections in the north would offer the government an opportunity to disprove its critics, and demonstrate that it enjoys substantial popular support from the people of the north. 

Indeed, a convincing victory at the local government elections especially in the north can assist the government to strengthen its case that the allegations contained in the UN panel report and the Channel 4 video are exaggerated.  One element of the government strategy has to engage in infrastructure development that is visible to all people, even if it does not immediately provide them with livelihood opportunities.  The opening of the communication tower in Kokavil was described by the government as providing for job opportunities and economic development in the near future.  On the other hand, economic and infrastructure development are not the only requirements when it comes to winning the political allegiance of the people.  There are also issues of governance that will weigh heavily in the voting decisions of the northern electorate.

JAFFNA ATTACK

The physical attack of those attending a TNA election meeting in Jaffna a fortnight ago by army personnel in uniform needs to be viewed in the context of the forthcoming local government elections.  Government spokespersons have argued that the meeting was unauthorized apparently to justify the storming of the meeting.  On the other hand, the TNA has pointed out that it was not a public meeting and hence did not require the approval of the Police.  The use of force against citizens engaging in lawful political activity is unacceptable.  It violates the Sri Lankan constitution and contradicts the claims of the government that it is doing its best for the people of the North without any discrimination. It is also detrimental to restoring normalcy in the North, whose people would wish for peace and reconciliation, as would right-thinking people anywhere, based on a mutual recognition of human dignity and equal human rights.  

Recently on a visit to the north, people there including schoolteachers reported that they believed that any meeting, including a school meeting, had to be authorized by the military.  They said that they also feel obliged to invite military officers to their functions for fear of offending the military authorities, as occurred in the case of the TNA meeting, which included several Parliamentarians.  At the same time the government affirms that it has restored normalcy and peace throughout the country. A strong military presence in the north following the war may be deemed to be a necessary security precaution by those who view national security through traditional modes of thinking.   However, the intervention of the armed force in daily civil life cannot foster reconciliation or give a sense of security to the people. 

Indeed, the threat of interference in civic meetings will tend to increase fear and sense of alienation, hindering the government’s vision of a reunited and peaceful land. This is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the Tamil people for reconciliation with the rest of the people. This incident in which elected representatives of the Tamil people were not permitted to conduct a peaceful private political meeting reinforces the political marginalization of the country’s minority groups and erodes their democratic rights, a practice that has had dangerous consequences in the past. Electoral success in the north would require the government to provide the people of the north with the same political rights available in the rest of the country.  It is such uniformity of political rights without discrimination that can generate the electoral support that the government is looking to confound its critics.

Beginning With A Hello! – A Route to Reconciliation

The National Peace Council recently organized a tour for several religious and civil society members from the northern districts of Mannar, Jaffna and Vavuniya  as well Puttalam to visit their counterparts in the Southern cities of Galle and Matara. The five day visit was conceptualized with the intention of bridging the divide between the communities in the North and South of Sri Lanka. The three decade long military conflict perpetuated and entrenched this divide, forcing the Tamils and the Sinhalese to perceive each other through the actions of military entities.

The itinerary for the group from the North included a variety of activities that contributed to their understanding of the history, culture and traditions of the people of the South which they never had the opportunity of experiencing or getting to know of. Daphne, one of the participating DIRC members from the North, who had just completed her A/Ls and visiting the South for the first time in her life, had this to say:

“Initially I was extremely scared of visiting the South since I have heard that the Sinhalese people are extremely dangerous. However when I came here I was surprised with the warm welcome that I received. While I was disappointed that I could not cultivate any friendships because of the language barrier, I did try my best to communicate with my Sinhalese counterparts. While I have changed my opinions about the ordinary Sinhalese people, I can’t say that is the case with the opinions that I have of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.”

Daphne was not the only individual to air such sentiments, even members from the predominantly Sinhalese Buddhist groups that were receiving them had similar views to share. Sheila Dissanayaka, working at the Senani Elder’s Organization and a member of the DIRC in the historical Buddhist capital of Anuradhapura stated:

“The war distanced us Sinhalese and Tamils. When we get involved in such initiatives we get to meet Tamil people and have discussions with them. Unfortunately, we rarely get this opportunity as individuals. We know very little about their religion, culture and traditions.”

The “Exposure Visit”, as its name suggests was the second of its kind, where the National Peace Council (NPC) had organized visits for members from the 12 District Inter Religious Committees (DIRC) to visit each other with the intention of promoting mutual understanding between communities and thereby creating a conducive environment for reconciliation in this war ravaged nation. The DIRCs are committees that were created with the intention of promoting inter religious collaboration in catering to the humanitarian needs of women and children affected by the war in their respective districts. The DIRCs already comprise of an impressive total membership of 747 active members.

One of the reasons for conceptualizing this program from a religious dimension is because of the significant influence that religious leaders have within their local communities. Hence, it was believed that this unique leverage which they possess should be harnessed in the advancement of the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka. These “exposure visits” conducted by the NPC were meant to facilitate this objective. While the objective of a larger peace remains distant, it was clear from the observations of this particular visit, that such tours indeed were a step in the right direction.

It did not take long to realize the latter. The first stop off for the members from the North in their visit to the South was at the scenic and ancient city of Anuradhapura inhabited by a large Sinhalese majority. Mariamma Anthony Croos, a History teacher from Mannar summed up her appreciation of the hospitality that her counterparts in Anuradhapura showed to her:

“I was extremely touched by the offering of “Bulath Kola (Betel Leaves”) by Anuradhapura DRC members to welcome us to the Anuradhapura DRC Meeting and the replica of a “Sandakada Pahana” (Moon Stone), which was given to us as a souvenir. Reconciliation begins with a hello.”

In Sinhalese and Tamil culture the offering of a “betel leaf” to welcome a guest is a symbol of great respect. While the “Sandakada Pahana” (Moon Stone) is a historical artifact symbolic of the great monarchial era of Sri Lanka stretching back thousands of years.

 Having been divided by a gruesome war for nearly three decades, it truly was remarkable to witness each Sinhalese person from the Anuradhapura DIRCs taking one of their Northern counterparts by hand and leading them to a seat and then engaging in a conversation using a mixture of broken Sinhalese, Tamil and some even resorting desperately to gesticulations when the latter two attempts at interaction failed.

After an hour long ceremony in Anuradhapura the group travelled to Puttalam, where they had lunch and then set off to Colombo stopping on the way at the Don Bosco Training Center in Negombo, one of eight training centers in the country. The Don Bosco initiative was geared at providing valuable vocational programs to youth from all backgrounds who had failed in their secondary educational pursuits, let alone those who couldn’t secure admission into the local university system. One of the admirable features of this program was that unlike many of the private tertiary educational institutes that had popped up in Sri Lanka, the Don Bosco Institute made an active effort to provide their students with employment opportunities upon completion of their courses. It truly was a remarkable initiative that gave a second chance to youth to make a valuable contribution to society. Many of the members from the North concurred that the Don Bosco Model was one which should be worth considering.  Another impressive reason to duplicate the Don Bosco model was that despite being run by the Catholic Church, youth from all religious backgrounds were welcome to enroll in the courses offered, by the organization. We were informed that the Catholic Church took special measures to provide facilities for Non Catholics to observe their respective faiths. 

After spending the night in Colombo the group then took off to Galle. One of the procedures used by the NPC to challenge the negative stereotypes of the Sinhalese South that many from the North harbored was to show examples of inter ethnic harmony in the South. One such example was the recent activities that were taking place in the “Divithura Tea Estate”, where the predominantly Sinhalese supervisors in collaboration with members from the Galle DIRC had taken measures to provide the predominantly Tamil estate workers with national documentation. The members from the North claimed that they realized two things. Firstly that their belief of being the only community being targeted by the government sanctioned hardship was indeed false and secondly that contrary to the messages spread by organizations such as the LTTE accusing the Sinhalese for their supposedly repressive actions against the Tamil community were not fair assessments. Mariamma Anthony Croos once again was one of the first to point this out:

 “We thought we were the only people who had problems. People in other areas suffer similar problems. Such an understanding of mutual grievances contributes to an environment conducive for peace.”

It was also worth noting that a former JVP Minister of the Local Council, who attended a similar occasion in Pittabadara claimed: 

“I sincerely hope that one day we can do away with the requirement to mention our ethnicity in our birth certificate. I look forward to a day when we can replace that requirement with the label “Sri Lankan.”

Having been treated with a cup of tea and traditional “halapa” (Sinhalese Sweet) the group then set off to embark on a 45 minute boat ride from Karandeniya to Balapitiya on the picturesque Madhu Oya. Sister Rita, one of the members from the Vavuniya DIRC who had never visited the South remarked at the absolute beauty of the physical environment in the region. She also had much to say about the hospitality rendered to them, “I have never received a warmer reception in my life.” The treatment that they were meted out with in Balapitiya on a conference hall located on a floating raft by several distinguished dignitaries had much to do with this.

Having received small replicas of Sri Lankan Masks, which the region was famous for producing the group set off to the Wakkwala Training Center where they were to spend the night.

The next morning the group was taken to the Hikkaduwa Coastline to witness some of the corals that managed to survive the onslaught of the 2004 Tsunami. Upon viewing these corals, Sister Rita remarked:

“Human beings are very much like the Hikkaduwa coast. On the surface just like the waves at sea, humans were tumultuous creatures while deep within just like the beautiful corals they too were capable of doing a great deal of good.”

After a quick visit to the Galle Fort the group then took off to Matara, stopping at Pittabaddara, where members of the Matara DIRC had helped in the securing of marriage certificates to 20 couples, while some of them were newlyweds, there were also those who had been married for over 30 years but had not acquired the appropriate documentation.

After spending the night at the Matara, Sarvodya Center, the group visited the temple at “Paravi Doopatha” (Pigeon Island) where all of the members from the North engaged in Buddhist Pirith rituals despite, a majority of them being Hindus. The group was also welcomed by the Deputy Inspector General of the Police in the Southern Province. Let alone meeting the group, the DIG Niel Daluwatta also arranged a special VIP Police escort during their stay in Matara. This was meant to be a symbol of utmost respect from the Matara people. Government officials from the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration facilitated the event and encouraged the government officials from the Matara district to participate. The Matara district G.A. MS W. K. K. Athukorale, participated and gave a gracious welcome speech.  After a visit back to the Sarvodya Center, the group then was given the opportunity of taking a dip in the famous scenic Polhena Beach. It truly was astounding to find grown Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslim adults to find themselves splashing around like children in the water. For that period of two hours it seemed that the scene unfolding at the Polhena Beach was the epitome of what a reconciled and united Sri Lanka should be.

In the final evening, the group was treated to an extremely colorful display of Sri Lankan Low Country Traditional Dances. While the item was occasionally punctuated by speeches given by politicians, it was clear that the group from the North was in absolute awe. Having consumed a traditional Sri Lankan Dinner consisting of the infamous “Ambul Thiyal” (Sour Fish), the group retired for the day.

Upon the conclusion of the visit, the attitudinal change towards the South in the Northern participants was quite palpable. Sister Rita who had witnessed the worst that the Sri Lankan war had to offer claimed:

“It was only when I attended this trip that my perception of Sinhalese Buddhist monks changed after having met Rev. Chandrarathana.”

Before this particular visit she had always perceived the Buddhist clergy as being another face of the alleged Sinhalese chauvinistic attitude towards the Tamil people. It was not only the attitudes of the Tamil participants that had changed, it was also a similar case with the one or two Sinhalese participants who came from the South. Priynaka Priyadarshani, a “Daham Pasal” (Buddhist Religious School) said that:

“Initially I was extremely reluctant to take part this visits because I was not sure how I would be able to get along with a predominantly Tamil group of people for a period of five days. However now I can safely say that I enjoyed it very much and I had no problems whatsoever in getting along with my Tamil colleagues. I hope they organize similar programs for youth in Daham Pasals and their Hindu Equivalent.”

When we look back at this visit, it’s clear that as the name suggests, that for reconciliation to take place, the conflicting parties should first be exposed to each other and provided an opportunity to get to know each other at a personal level. The positive responses of many of the participants are a testament to what could be achieved at the national level if indeed it was possible within this small group of 22 people. Mariamma Anthony Croos describes it best when she says that “Reconciliation begins with a Hello.”

 A Paragraph on the EU DIRC Project implemented by NPC:

 The EU funded project named “Enabling humanitarian solutions through multi-religious and cohesive community response in Sri Lanka” will cover a period of 24 months focusing on a specific objective of “Promoting multi-religious community responsiveness of groups who have been divided by the conflict and enable them to find appropriate humanitarian solutions to care for conflict –affected women and children. To achieve the objective, the project has panned out to 12 districts, covering the North, East and the South of Sri Lanka and currently 747 active members actively participate in the project. The National Peace Council is working towards achieving four main results that will pave the way to peace and reconciliation in the island and will create peaceful relations between all communities in Sri Lanka’s diverse population contributing to a healing society in a post war context.

The Article was written by Yohan Senerath, An Intern June 2010- August 2010. 

Fostering not one but many Mandelas By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene

Atrocities happen during war. This is a disturbingly cynical one-liner that we hear all too often these days. At one level of understanding, this reminder is quite true. This is precisely why, at the end of a long period of conflict and bitterness, enlightened people try to recognize historical atrocities and make reparations for them so as to move forward, not as a fractured nation but as a collective whole.

Political dilemmas and blatant selectiveness

Insofar as Sri Lanka is concerned, atrocities by governments, past and present, have been equally matched by the atrocities of non-state actors, and in the current context, by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The frequent lamentation of this government has been that normal standards of national or international law cannot be utilized when dealing with terrorist non-state entities. The opposing rationale is that a government cannot be expected to behave like terrorists. These arguments and counter-arguments, if one recalls, were pursued not only during the war between the government and the LTTE but also during the insurrections of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) particularly during the 1980's. They are therefore disconcertingly old in their intellectual logic but are nonetheless quite unresolved in the political dilemmas that they pose.

So what we see is blatant selectiveness in dealing with these difficult issues. On the one hand, the government refuses to critically review its own actions particularly post war, in dealing with complex questions of reconciliation. On the other hand, those bent on castigating the country for war crimes internationally refuse to see the complicity and singularly brutal contribution of the LTTE in bringing about a situation in which the worst elements of nationalist consciousness now hold sway. This best illustrates the myopic shortsightedness of extremists on both sides of the ethnic divide.

Comparative illustrations of a different response

Let us look at other comparative illustrations. South Africa is a classic example of a nation once rift by intense hatred and saved by the humanity and vision of a Mandela. But the South African people must also be credited for creating an environment that allowed a Mandela to rise up from the ashes. It was not that Nelson Mandela did not have opponents when many in his own party argued that post apartheid policy must concentrate on punishing those who had raped, tortured and killed. For those in any doubt about the opposition that he faced, viewing 'Invictus' in all its profoundly moving glory should put their doubts to rest. Yet the South African people had the wisdom to listen to the voice of reason rather than be swayed by racism that would have been as indefensible as white supremacist polices.

Does Sri Lanka have that same sagacity and that courage to allow not one but many Mandelas to rise up from our towns and our villages, Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim and other? This is a difficult question but is nonetheless a question that should be asked. When towns like Omanthai on the A-9 road to Jaffna are renamed with Sinhalese name boards in the context of the heightened militarization of the peninsula, are we helping the minorities to feel equally at home as the majority?

When pristine Buddhist festivals such as Vesak which have a special place in all our hearts, are paraded by the government in a way that speaks more to its own political ideology rather than the incomparable message of the Gautama Buddha, are we agreeing with this ideology? When ordinary meetings of scholars and community leaders in Jaffna are rudely interrupted or when political meetings are disrupted and those participating are assaulted, what message are we passing to the people?

Confronting the sins of the past

To be quite clear, this is to challenge official policies taken by the government and not to put in issue, the actions of individual solders. Barring a minority, these ordinary soldiers attempt to understand peoples' problems and assist in whatever way that they can. Unfortunately these efforts are completely undermined by government actions that are shortsighted in the extreme.

This is also not to minimize the intransigence of the Tamil political elite who, quite in the way of the Sinhala political elite, try to use political rhetoric to further their own agendas. This has been the way of history in Sri Lanka and will, quite probably continue to be the case. In the meantime, it is the common people who suffer. It is between the common people that the distrust and the mistrust increase. Politicians, irrespective of their ethnicity, should own up to their distinct historical responsibilities in this regard.

Defending Sri Lanka with more finesse

At a more general level, to say that not one but many Mandelas should arise from post war Sri Lanka is certainly not to agree with those, not necessarily only from the government ranks, who take the line that confronting the sins of the past would only inhibit post war development.

In an echoing query posed during the 13th Kanchana Abeyapala Memorial Lecture, former Attorney General of Sri Lanka, the late Mr K.C. Kamalasabeyson P.C. asked succinctly whether it was more important to build roads rather than to have a peaceful and law abiding society where the Rule of Law prevails?

This was one rare example of an Attorney General who, within the most difficult confines of his office, attempted to do his best to preserve his constitutional role, not as defender of the government but as defender of the state. It is a pity that state law officers, since then, have not shown similar sensitivity to this most crucial distinction or indeed, to issues of paramount concern to the Rule of Law. If so, perhaps, Sri Lanka's brief may have been defended with far more finesse at international fora and far more successfully against propaganda tactics of separatist advocates than what we have (generally) seen so far.

Equally, if we had preserved the integrity of our police, our prosecutors and our judiciary, we could have justifiably told any outside interventionists, regional or international as the case may be, to direct their well intentioned or ill intentioned lectures, as the case may be, elsewhere, with far more credibility than the hysterical outpourings that we hear now.

What is the future that we want?

So is meant by restorative justice? When we argue that it is best to forget the bitterness of the past and focus on the future, what do we exactly mean? Is this the future that we want for our country, where young female factory workers of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) protesting against a proposed pensions bill are stamped on, dragged by their hair and subjected to unspeakable brutalities by policemen and policewomen gone wild or when a young boy dies as a result of this?


Where is the report of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the government to look into this incident? Where is the cry of civil society, (the media and the ordinary public along with non-governmental organizations), asking for the report of this most recent Commission to be made public?

Is it to go by the way of the Udalagama Commission of Inquiry report which still remains unpublished except for certain 'planted' reports in some newspapers? Can we hope for any credibility regarding the forthcoming report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in the background of a dismal history regarding past such bodies, whatever may be the intentions of the Commissioners?

Again, these are good questions that we must ask ourselves as literate and 'patriotic' citizens and not merely direct them towards our politicians who are beyond redemption in every sense of the word. It is only then that the emphasis on restorative justice in Sri Lanka will have any meaning other than the sad jargon of government rhetoric.

Taken from the Sunday Times Sunday, June 19, 2011