No one gives a hoot about truth, it seems

There can be no ‘reconciliation’ (whatever that means) without ‘closure’ (whatever that means).  There can be no closure without ‘truth’ (whatever that means).  It follows then that obtaining truth is a non-negotiable for closure which, in turn, is a non-negotiable in the matter of reconciliation.  The ‘whatever that means’ is a necessary interjection because politics is not clean. It is not objective.  The rhetorician lords over the logician in these things. Preferences make for privileging and suppression.  And this is why it can be ‘logically’ said that those who talk of truth, justice and reconciliation as though these are obtainable through clean and clinical cuts of reason are either utterly naïve or are charlatans disguised as benefactors of humankind. 

And yet, come ‘Geneva Time’ we hear these words a lot.  Reconciliation.  Truth.  Justice.  Accountability.  All articles of faith. For some.  Like Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament M Sumanthiran.  He wants all of it.  A few teaspoons of reconciliation, a dash of truth, a sprinkling of justice, a tablespoon of accountability and you’ve got it made.  A good speech that is, there’s no denying that.

But then again Sumanthiran doesn’s own any of these, separately or together.  Others are smart too. They too pencil in a liberal dose of the said goodies for, as I said, they make for good speeches. ‘Others’ meaning people like Ananthi Sasitharan, for example. 

They say certain towns are too small for two big persons.  Geneva is small and small-minded though both Sumanthiran and Ananthi are it looks like they both think the other is too big to share stage with.  So there was a spat. 

Now this could have been because of upstaging-need, we don’t know, and we really don’t know why Ananthi was upset with Sumanthiran.  Perhaps  she felt a pinch on her ego.  We can guess why Sumanthiran was not in a spotlight sharing frame of mind though.  She has the potential, he might have thought, of wrecking his speech; not on account of using the same vocabulary but, in fact, for the very ‘problem’ of using the same terms. 

See, Ananthi Sasitharan is not cool.  Not for people who take human rights and human wrongs seriously.  Sumanthiran is smart enough to know she’s a liability.  There’s a story she says and a story she would rather no one talks about.  She will talk of a missing husband but will not talk about the husband and what he did.

Sumanthiran is Colombo, Ananthi is not.  Sumanthiran heard of depravation, Ananthi saw it.  Sumanthiran knew that Tamil civilians were used as a human shield, Ananthi knows who the humans shielded.  Sumanthiran knows that those Tamils held hostage by the LTTE tried to flee into areas controlled by the Sri Lankan security forces, Ananthi knows who tried to stop them and how.  For Sumanthiran it was nameless, faceless ‘Butcher-Boys’, for Ananthi it was her ‘Butcher-Boy’. 

Ananthi’s husband, Elilan, was one of the butcher-boys and he played the part to perfection.  He was seen brandishing a sword with blood dripping from the blade, threatening those who would flee with dismemberment.  Some had obviously defied the order and paid the price, the relevant exchange marked on a blade-ledger with the blood of the defiant. 

Sumanthiran knows that the West doesn’t like hearing about blood, about the swipe of sword and the ‘un-limbing’ it produces.  Sumanthiran probably didn’t want those ‘specificities’ brought into the Geneva discussion because it would spoil Ananthi’s case as well as the TNA’s case.  ‘Spoil’ would not have meant the US-led resolution would have lost out. No, it would have made some people squirm in their seats.  People notice squirms.  People comment.  It’s loss of face to lose composure. 

Winning the vote is one thing, but losing credibility and sympathy is quite another. In the long run, sympathy counts.  Even the biggest hypocrites would be happier if they don’t have to field tough questions about the credibility of ‘victims’ especially if these ‘victims’ are providers of ‘evidence’ used to lengthen charge-sheets. 

The problem with all this is that it throws ‘the truth’ out of the equation.    Is Ananthi ready to be truthful about her husband?  Isn’t the truth of what he did, who he killed, who he ordered killed, the grief thus engendered, the doubts and lack of closure it all resulted in less worth investigation and comment than the truth about her husband’s fate?  Is Sumanthiran ready to talk about Elilan-truth?  How about the other fellow travelers, people like Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera, J.C. Weliamuna and Nimalka Fernando?  How about Frances Harrison and Callum Macrae?  Would David Cameron be interested?  How about a whispered query from Navi Pillay to Ananthi?  Would Al Jazeera ‘explore’? Would Channel 4 give us an exposé and air it on the sidelines of the next session of the UNHRC?

Or are they not interested in ‘the truth, the WHOLE truth and NOTHING BUT the truth’?    And if that’s the case, are we to conclude that they are not interested in justice either?  Can we all agree, thereafter, that this reconciliation talk is just a lot of hot air and that no one really cares about peace, harmony, holding-hands, singing the national anthem in 157 dialects? 

A final question:  can we just move on now?

Read more

Dr. Rajeewa Jayasinghe: He gave just by being

It’s been a year since Dr Rajeewa Jayasinghe passed away in circumstances that were tragic beyond the tragedy that the passing of any loved one usually is.  Those circumstances raised questions that are yet to be answered.  Answered or not, the fact that he is no more will not change.  And so we remember, we re-live the happy moments and lament that they will not be repeated.

Rajeewa was a friend by proximity.  We were in the university together.  He was a year junior to me.  I remember and have recalled those times; happy days that we could never convince ourselves would someday come to an end, one way or another.  We moved from year to year, in and out of the university.  Our paths didn’t cross often, we didn’t plan to meet.  We knew each other and in the manner of good friends knew where each other was and what we were about for the most part.  So when we did meet, we had things to talk about. 

And yet, there were absences. There were gaps in our perception of each other that remained right up to the point he left us all.  In the larger order of things, this does not matter much.  After all, there is emptiness within each of us that we cannot put a finger on and cannot ever fill.  All we can do is remember, remember well and rejoice that paths crossed, moments were shared, that there was knowing and there was respect.

It is customary in the writing of memorials to recount a life and trace through anecdote the sensibilities that made a name into a person. We could do this year after year and re-telling won’t make it stale. Still, Rajeewa was made of sterner stuff when it came to the eternal verities.  I would do him disservice to scatter anecdotes among unknown readers.  But there’s one thing I missed and it is not my fault: I did not know him as a teacher.  I knew him as a humble, down to earth, intelligent, friendly human being who never harboured even a trace of ill-will.  Cultured, he was.  And that was his most enduring giving.  Such things rub off on people without detracting from the giver.  What came off, we keep, even if we haven’t recognized or acknowledged the gift.  His students naturally were more aware, as were his neighbors and relatives. 

A few days ago, Rajeewa’s mother called.  The lady, whom I’ve never met but whose voice, tone and words betrayed the gentleness that I recognized in her son, told me that people close to him had written about him.  Poems of appreciation penned by a neighbour, an aunt and a student. She asked if they could be published. The poetry will speak of a man seen with eyes very different from those of a contemporary.  Let them tell their stories [See poems below]. 

For me, it’s a simple matter of knowing he is no longer around but that he lives on in ways he himself may not have envisaged.  So I am grateful, even if my gratitude he will not receive and even though there’s a line of sadness that runs through it all.

My Favourite Neighbour – Rajeewa Uncle

A warm smile, a hearty laugh,

Countless jokes, endless evenings.................

Celebrations of Joy.......

Sharing of tears........

Your Kind Heart

Cheerful personality

Will so greatly be missed...............

But in our hearts.....................

You will be always be alive.............

Young and vibrant

Just the way you always were............

The memory of you will be

Treasured, cherished and loved............

With a heavy heart

As we say Good bye,

We also want to say “thank you”  for all the

Good times and memories

Purnima

Dearest Rajeewa Sir

Your smiling face

Your laughter ... sweet thought....

Your great advices.......... lovely teaching..............

How to forget?............

Days....... Months ........ Years will roll

Since you left us.........

But your memory will be cherished forever

Though you depart  from us........

Memories of you.......... will never fade.............

Dearest  Sir!................

You will ever stay deeply in our hearts.........

We ..... Your ever loving law students miss you.......

And all always recollect your loving concern and love for us............

We pray and wish you the shortest sojourn in Sansara

May you attain the Supreme Bliss of Nirvana ......

Naduni Waidyathilake

Rajeewa

A great tree fallen

The grass greener where it was

To accept a life so brief

Deep in ocean’s sorrow

Aunty Titti

Read more

The Bodhisattva of Godavaya

Where the Walave empties into the sea all the sorrows and joys gathered in its long journey from the southern end of the central hills is a hamlet by the name of Godavaya.  What is today a hamlet was a thriving port twenty centuries ago. Indeed archaeological evidence suggests that there was human habitation in the area as far back as 7,000 years ago. 

A Brahmi script inscription states that King Gajabahu I issued an edict that customs duties obtained at the port be credited to the Buddhist monastery, Godapavata (Gota Pabbata) Vihara.  The port, according to archaeologists, probably pre-dates this inscription.  The harbour town is said to be have been an entrepot on the maritime silk route from at least the 2^nd Century CE. 

Nestled in the crook where the Walawe falls into the sea courtesy the tsunami of 2004, in this place so pregnant with history, a different kind of history is unfolding, I noticed.  Last Saturday, my friend Renton De Alwis took me to Godavaya. Accompanying us was that gentle and accomplished lady Iranganie Serasinghe. 

As we entered what proved to be a spotlessly clean facility, Renton greeted people with his trade mark ‘Ayubowanda’, followed by ‘dannavada kawda kiyala?’ (do you know who I am?).  ‘Alvis mahattaya ne!’ (It has to be Mr. Alwis) was the constant response.  We were greeted by a lady called Dharmalatha, who invited us to sit down. 

Before we could sit, we heard a threewheeler coming up to the entrance.  Dharmalatha or ‘Latha’ as everyone called her, rushed out. A few minutes later she came inside.  She was carrying an old lady.  Ivy Regina is 82 years old and very ill. She is on an exclusively liquid diet.  She had been taken to hospital to dress some wounds that had broken out on her feet.  Latha Akka carried her inside and to the toilet, upon the request of the patient.  Ivy Regina is blind.  Just like the 30 other residents of the ‘Sarana Home for the Aged Blind’, set up and run by the Sri Lanka Federation of the Blind. 

Dharmalatha Karandana, the only person who is not visually handicapped at this facility, has been working as the Deputy Project Director for the past 20 years.  She hails from Karandana, Ingiriya and had been drawn to this place on account of a personal tragedy.  She takes care of all 31 residents, 10 male and 21 female, ranging from the age of 40 to 82. She said that a resident had passed away recently at the age of 102. 

The Federation provides a small sum of money which is not enough even to provide meals for a couple of days.  The facility depends on the alms offered by various individuals.  Food, Latha Akka said, has never been a problem.  Food however is not the only thing required.  I asked her how she manged.

‘We depend on pin vee.  When the paddy is harvested, the residents go out seeking alms. Farmers give them paddy.  This is what we’ve used to build most of our structures, the budu medura (image house), the perimeter wall and so on.  We used pin vee to paint the buildings recently.’

She told me that health clinics are conducted regularly at the ‘Home’.  The medicines prescribed are paid for by some good-hearted people working at the Hambantota Salterns.

There was order in the place. A time table that was strictly adhered to.  The residents were clean and orderly.  They knew how to smile.  They knew how to sing.  Mallika, a woman who had gone blind at the age of 45, sang Nanda Malini’s ‘Buddhanu Bhavena’ and followed this with a kavi pela consisting of stanzas expressing gratitude (to those who offer alms).  There was control, modulation and feeling in the rendition, the kind of which one does not find in the various talent shows that are telecast nowadays.  She is from Anuradhapura.  She wanted to sing a bhakthi geethaya (devotional song) she had sung while at school (Mahamewnaavata sisila genena samaadhi pilimaya – The Samadhi Buddha statue that cools the Mahamewna Gardens). We were mesmerized. 

She was not the only talented individual.  A woman in her seventies gifted Aunty Iranganie with some pieces of lace she herself had knitted.  A man in his late seventies, hunched with age, a student of Sunil Shantha, entertained us with some of the master’s songs.  His voice was not what it must have once been, but he was true to melody and beat and had not lost his sense of nuance. 

In the middle of all this, a young family arrived to celebrate their 2 year old son’s birthday by offering sweets and tea to the residents.  Malindu Rasanga is probably too young to understand the magnitude of that act of kindness.  There are many ways to celebrate birthdays. This was different, however. 

There is something about ‘Sarana’ that makes one want to visit and re-visit.  Whatever it is, I am convinced it has a lot to do with this remarkable lady Latha Akka.  She keeps things in order, keeps things clean, has won the love and respect of all the residents.  She keeps them smiling. 

The residents know the sea is not far away.  They can’t see it.  Some were almost swept away by the tsunami, but Latha and some others had saved everyone who was at risk.  It was after the tsunami that walls were built around the facility, complemented by some retaining structures at different levels. 

‘What do you need?’ I asked.  ‘We don’t need food,’ she answered.  She pointed out that there are hundreds of visually handicapped people who are abandoned by their families.  They all grow old and need to be taken care of.  There just isn’t enough space.  There is enough room for another building.  She has enough heart to take care of twice or thrice the number of people currently in residence. 

Dharmalatha has dedicated her life to taking care of the 'aged blind'.  I don’t know which paramitas she was fulfilling.  This bodhisattva will take care of all these people and whoever else takes up residence during her tenure with the same love, dedication and strength of character, I am sure.  With or without the help of anyone else.  It won’t hurt to give for there are those who can give and those who cannot.  In any event, if ever you go to Godavaya, drop in and say hello to her.  It might give you a better perspective on things.  I came away empowered. Sighted.

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more

Champions of the democracy deficit

It is pathetic, to say the least, when media rights advocates stretch and strain to scratch out some logic when they come out to defend their friends.  The Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, the Free Media Movement, and the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions are up in arms about the arrest of two persons who have nothing to do with the media, except the media exposure they seek for the organizations and politics they represent and embody.  

It is good to stand up for friends.  Nothing wrong in that. The problem is that that HR (human rights) labels don’t give immunity to anyone, especially when it comes to ensuring the security of a country that has suffered 30 years of terrorism, not forgetting that in this case hardcore LTTE operatives are involved.   Pertinent also is the fact that media rights is peripheral at best in this case.

On the other hand, no one need to be surprised about media right advocates who have a long history of being swayed by cash and prompted by political preferences firing off media releases (only) when fellow-travelers get into a spot of bother. 

But what of Ruki Fernando and Fr Praveen, the two ‘human rights activists’ we are talking about?  The usual ‘rights’ suspects, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Sudharshan Gunawardena and J.C. Weliamuna were quick to air their horror.  So too was Groundviews, the website powered by Saravanamuttu’s NGO, Centre for Policy Alternatives.  They are all upset about the arrest.  They are upset also that Jeyakumari Balendran, another ‘activist’ was arrested.  They are not upset about Jeyakumari’s connections with ‘Gobi’, a known terrorist with a criminal record.  They are not upset that Gobi, previously an understudy to the LTTE’s intelligence chief, Pottu Amman, has been involved in a network that has robbed demining equipment belonging to another NGO and has used these to look for weapons buried as the LTTE fled the advancing security forces in 2009.  

They find a contradiction between what the government is saying in Geneva and what is happening on the ground here in Sri Lanka.  This is strange.  Do they think that commitment to upholding human rights equals a license to drop guard and let terrorists roam about regrouping, re-arming, recruiting and in other ways preparing ground for another bloodbath? 

They are upset by the Prevention of Terrorism Act, under which their friends have been arrested.  That’s easy to say, because they are not in charge of national security.  In an ideal world we wouldn’t need a PTA.  In an ideal world, let us not forget, we won’t have the LTTE and its NGO sympathizers, an LTTE rump and their ‘media advocacy friends’, priests who use cross and cassock to give respectability to criminals.

It is silly to think that these lovely gentlemen are unaware of what the Jeyakumaris and Gobis of this world are up to; after all they are also friends or else friends of friends of key individuals in the GTE, TGTE, TCC, HQGP and other would-be successors to the LTTE.  If they indeed were that ignorant, by now they would know who is who and what is what.  Even if they continue to feign ignorance, there is no hiding the fact that Jeyakumari is two-faced and that her activism was cover for activity that is of serious concern to those responsible for national security.  They would love the security establishment to look the other way, it seems. Fortunately it has not.

Groundviews is right in one thing.  There is a democracy deficit in this country.  That deficit is enshrined in the constitution and made more pronounced by beneficiaries of that same deficit who do little or nothing to bridge it.  On the other hand, you can also say goodbye to opportunities to close to gap if you are openly supporting moves to make for an LTTE resurrection.  That’s what Jeyakumari is about.  That’s what those who are championing her ‘cause’ are about. 

It is no wonder that both the USA and UK, the key movers and shakers against Sri Lanka in Geneva, appear to have swallowed their proverbial tongues with respect to Jeyakumari.  They are focusing on Ruki and his priest friend.  The reason is simple. They are interested in regime-change. They are not gung ho about an LTTE reincarnation.  What all these people are missing is that such a rebirth requires midwives, facilitators such as Ruki and Fr Praveen, and a veritable army of attendants, mostly donor-dependent nobodies who are forced therefore to call themselves ‘civil society’.

It would lovely if this country didn’t have a PTA.  It would be lovely if people who believe they have been wronged can protest at will.  It is sad that there are people wearing multiple hats, just like LTTE cadres who switched from military fatigues to sarongs, just like suicide bombers who dressed up as pregnant women, just like the LTTE’s propagandists who went around with Media IDs.  We don’t live in a happy world.  But if we are to aspire to any reasonable degree of happiness, we need to be alert.  We cannot afford another thirty years of bloodshed. 

There’s a case being made for strengthening the PTA.  That case is being made by a lot of people.  Let us name some. We have Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, J.C. Weliamuna and Sudharshan Gunawardena.  We have The Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, the Free Media Movement, and the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions.  We can’t really say ‘Thank you gentlemen for the sustained development of the democracy deficit’. 

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more

The relative merits of Jeyakumari, Ruki and Fr Mahesan

An activist is an activist is an activist.  This means there are all kinds of activists.  An activist is someone who engages in or advocates activism.  Activism is defined as ‘a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue’.  The moment we bring ‘vigorous’ into the equation we are talking about an even bigger can of worms. 

The advocates and practitioners of drone attacks, for example, would be ‘activists’.   Those who throw Molotov Cocktails, deploy suicide bombs and explode themselves in public places, and who take pot shots at people are being active and vigorous. They are, therefore, activists.  Barack Obama is an activist. So was Osama bin Laden.  Prabhakaran too. 

And how about aggressive corporate takeovers?  How about vigorous price wars?  Is there activism there? Are there activists involved?  Are thieves activists and is theft activism? 

So there are activists and activists. There is activism and activism.  It makes for selectivity, depending on who is doing the selection.  There are some who would call human rights advocates employees of rent-a-protest outfits.  There are people who would be dismissive of such tags but would never call those who flock to Bodu Bala Sena protests ‘activists’. 

So activists and activism can be classed.  We have environmental activists of many kinds, focusing on different aspects of the broader issues.  Some would be professional greens, activism being a vocation.  The same goes for peace activists, women’s rights activists, temperance activists and of course human rights activists. 

Let’s toss in some names here.  There’s Jeyakumari Balendran. There’s Ruki Fernando.  There is also Father Praveen Mahesan.  Jeyakumari is new to ‘activism’, the other two are not.  Jeyakumari hit the headlines, the others did too but not before they tagged themselves to Jeyakumari-News. 

How did Jeyakumari become ‘news’?  Who made her ‘news’?  

Well, first of all, she was an activist. Her sons were willing or unwilling members of a terrorist organization.  One of them, she claims, was ‘disappeared’ by the security forces. So she became a ‘disappearance activist’.  What she herself had wanted ‘disappeared’ was her sons’ LTTE connections.  She also wanted ‘disappeared’ the fact that she was cozy with some hardcore terrorists who also had criminal records.  She marketed herself as ‘activist’ and some people actually purchased the lie.  Ruki and his friend Fr Praveen Mahesan for example. 

Actually, we don’t really know if there was ‘purchase’ here because that would imply naiveté.  Ruki is a professional activist.  If Ruki and his friend, Fr Mahesan were not in the know, they make poor apologies for activists. 

That’s beside the point.

The point is that here we have an activist (Jeyakumari) being arrested and two other activists who came to inquire about her also being arrested, followed by expression of umbrage from Washington (Jen Psaki of the US State Department) and London (Hugo Swire, UK Foreign Office Minister).  Psaki and Swire are upset about Ruki and Fr Mahesan, but nary a word did they utter about Jeyakumari. 

Are some activists more active than others?  Are some activists worth only until their true identities are discovered?  Heck, it’s the lady that got Ruki and Fr Mahesan some media coverage; surely they should say ‘Thanks Jeyakumari’?  Surely they should express outrage over Psaki and Swire giving her the cold shoulder in the political economy of umbrage?  Surely they should ask if it’s an example of discrimination along gender lines? 

Well, it is doubtful that Ruki, Fr Mahesan or any of activists and activist championing journalists, diplomats and UN officials will direct such questions to Washington or London.  We can draw some conclusions though.

First. Jeyakumari’s shelf life expired.  She had her script, read her lines and now she’s done.  She’s outlived usefulness.    Exit. 

Second.  It means that a lot of other ‘activists’ may have shelf-lives too; perhaps too, skeletons in cupboards that not all of their fellow activists know about.

Third.  The likes of Psaki and Swire were quicker than those wooly headed rights activists in Sri Lanka who allow regime-hatred to dull further their dull intellect.  They know, perhaps, that Jeyakumari is such a hot number that if she were to be waved about they might produce so much fire that other things that don’t buttress their lie might come to light.

But activists, so the HR handbooks say, are activists are activists.  Activism is activism is activism.  You cannot differentiate.  Now the onus is on Jeyakumari’s fan club to come out and say ‘Hey, she fooled us all!’  They won’t do it, I am willing to wager.  They just have too much to lose.  Credibility, for one thing.  Jobs, for another.  Careers.  

They picked poorly when they identified Jeyakumari as ideal pin-up girl for agitation purposes.  Can’t blame them.  After all, they even called terrorists ‘boys’ and said a thug called Velupillai Prabhakaran is a freedom fighter. 

Those with any intelligence, if they were to be generous, would call Ruki Fernando and Fr Mahesan ‘suckers’.  If they weren’t generous, they would call them ‘aiders and abettors of a well-orchestrated vilification campaign that has nothing to do with human rights, disappearances and such’.  Either way, Ruki and Fr Mahesan need not worry.  It is not on the intelligent or intelligence that they count on. 

The future must look bright for them, and they must be grinning in private even as they talk of ‘fear’ and ‘hurt’ and wax lyrical about democracy deficits.  It’s all good at the end of the day, never mind the fact that poor Jeyakumari is left in the lurch, sold down the river and all that kind of thing.

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more

The wages of flirtation

There are road blocks again in the North.  That’s an ominous sign.  If the threat of terrorism is the reason then let it be recognized, again, that terrorism is something that is never restricted to a particular territory. Road blocks have their purposes in terms of ensuring security of course. All countries have them. Borders, after all, are guarded.  But terrorism is not contained by road blocks alone.  Those road blocks will, if things don’t get better, start appearing in other parts of the country.

Does this mean that the government has failed? Yes and no.  Yes, because it can be said that the moves to resurrect the LTTE is deeply rooted in an inability to address grievances.  On the other hand, there are grievances and grievances, those that demand and deserve redress and those that are so colored by grab-intent, exaggeration and goalpost-shifting that no government can even begin to address them.  The history of communalist politics of Tamil leadership speaks of the latter more than the former.  So, ‘no’ is also a legitimate answer the question raised.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t take too many spoilers to precipitate anarchy or wreck the peace that has been achieved at great cost.  Societies therefore can never afford to drop their guard.  Vigilance is one thing, outright invitation to peace-wreckers is another.  Development and even constitutional re-arrangement can only do so much in these days of globalized arms-movement, cross-border surveillance and machinations to obtain instability. 

It is in this context that we have to first take stock of omission and commission that facilitated the now all too evident return of the worst elements in Tamil society. 

We had the likes of Mahendran Jeyakumari in the forefront of agitation.  Only the naïve would think that these protests were innocent initiatives of the aggrieved.  Jeyakumari, it is now established, was fronting for known terrorists with criminal records, ‘Gobi’ being just one.  If the Tamil National Alliance as a whole or its key spokespersons such as C.V. Wigneswaran, M. Sumanthiran and R. Sambanthan couldn’t figure out what’s what, they should retire not least of all because they would be the first to be ‘got out of the way’ in the event the LTTE rump graduated into even a pistol-gang. 

But it was the TNA that invited these people in.  All TNA leaders have at one time or another hobnobbed with key members of the LTTE resident in Europe and North America, all of whom have blood on their hands for funding and arms procurement, not to mention blanket approval of the LTTE.  The aforementioned gentlemen would know if and how much they owe these elements for supporting their political careers.  Prabhakaran’s pawns need not have agreed to be pawns of his successors, but there you have it; the TNA never got out of its shell, it can be concluded.   

How is inconvenience?  Who suffers?  Why, the people in the Northern Province, mostly Tamils.  They will see policemen and soldiers manning these roadblocks.  They won’t see that these policemen and soldiers were put there by those who in their very name birthed death, destruction, dismemberment and displacement for more than thirty years.  They can come to that conclusion though.  And they can thank the TNA for flirting with the most pernicious and ruthless elements of the LTTE rump for the inconvenience. 

Read more

Blessed are the rain-makers for they make the earth yield hope

I was not anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon during the last stages of the struggle to save the thousands upon thousands held hostage by the LTTE. In fact the ‘war’ came to me second-hand, i.e. in terms of people I knew who died, the question marks that descended like the monsoon rains and flooded household and sensibility on account of terrorism spilling over ‘contested’ territory and all wrecking everything associated with the word ‘civilization’.  I believe firmly, though, that all nation and all communities are made of roughly the same proportion of crooks, tyrants, sycophants and cowards, and the same percentage, roughly, of kind, compassionate, wise, generous and heroic people.

I was not anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May 2009.  I saw footage of people fleeing the LTTE.  I saw them helped by soldiers who were well aware that among the escapees were thousands who were either trained terrorists, had helped them in any number of ways, identified with their objectives and/or saluted their methodologies.  I saw fear and doubt in the eyes of the rescued. There was resignation on some faces, I noticed.  I saw gratitude too.  Relief there was in abundance. Courage and character came undisguised.   And there were blank faces, blank eyes, lips that would not move to smile and brows that did not wrinkle to indicate any sentiment. 

I have no idea of the average sense of fear among those who were later rescued.  I have no idea how such questions as there must have been were resolved or got entrenched in mind and heart.  I can surmise, however, that in those last moments that I did not witness, there would have been hard choices for those who for whatever reason and regardless of ideology or outcome preference wanted out. 

They had to dodge bullets from the would-be liberator, the LTTE, and run into the arms of the purported ‘enemy’, the Sri Lankan security forces. Those with families, had to make split-second decisions about priorities; which child to carry, for example.  Some would have to choose between mother and child, the sick and the elderly, the wife and the father. Self-preservation or the protection of the loved, some would have had to ask themselves and answer in the matter of a second or less.  In the rush, some would have stumbled, some would have fallen and those who didn’t would have had to decide whether to tarry and risk death or keep running leaving behind mother, wife, child or friend. 

I wasn’t anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May 2009, but I am convinced that there were many who chose ‘poorly’, that is, against all logic and all wisdom, confounding all theories about the primacy of self-preservation.  Among them, many would have perished. Some may have stopped not to help ‘loved one’ but total stranger, in the same manner in which hundreds of soldiers would have died trying to save those who were seen as ‘enemy’ or those who saw them as ‘enemy’; not only because they were following order, but they were different kinds of human beings.  And, I am certain, there were LTTE cadres who trained gun on the fleeing but could not pull trigger. 

A few days ago, I heard an old song from an otherwise pedestrian album by Nanda Malini (‘Pawana’ or ‘Wind’): Vahinnata heki nam (if I could be the rain).  

‘Vahinnata hekinam gigum dee viyali gam bim valata ihalin; idennata hekinam bathak vee bathak noidena pelaka rahasin. Randenna hekinam lamaa kela handana detholaga sinahavak vee; pipennata heki nam thudin thuda nelaa gatha heki vana malak vee.  Nidannata heki nam deneth thula sabae vana subha sihinayak vee; gayennata heki nam dorin dora lovama pubudana geethayak vee.‘

It is a wish and a recommendation about a different kind of being, encountering and embrace.  The following is a rough translation:

‘If I could, I would be like the rain, falling upon the parched and thirsty earth and village; I would, if I could, boil like a pot of rice in a hut that hasn’t seen food.  If I could, I would reside as a smile on the lips of children who are in tears; I would, if I could, bloom from every bough as flowers whose picking is not forbidden.  If I could I would sleep beneath eyelid as a pleasant dream that will turn true; I would, if I could, be a song that goes from door to door awakening the entire world.’

Our nation, our world, is not without individuals who are like rain that falls on earth decorated with radiating cracks, like rice in a hungry household, like smiles upon faces that have only known tear-stain, like flowers that can be picked, like songs that kindle hope and tomorrows.  I am sure that if there’s reason to hope for a different kind of national resolve, inter-communal embrace and a tomorrow that is determined not to return to war, it is because such people lived and still live, because such people lived and perished so others could live and dream. 

We were a land that was desert-made and out-of-bounds for flower and song.  We were a nation that dreamt of drizzle but was given flood. We were a people who wanted to smile but whose lips bent involuntarily into grimace.  We were a no-hope community. For three decades. In the aggregate, that is.  Through it all there was rain. There was flower and song.  There were smiles and dreams. There was giving and giving and giving until there was nothing more to give.   

This earth is fertile. Its fertility breaks down and neutralizes the poisons that ignorance, arrogance and hatred have sown.  This is why we are still a nation.  This is why we can remember and yet forgive one another. This is why, I am certain, we can talk of togetherness.  ‘Togethernesses’ too, in fact.  And this is why we don’t need to be lectured to, prescribed for and made to inhabit the reality-versions dreamed up by those who do not care, did not sacrifice and did not embrace. 

The rains that will slake our national thirsts have to fall from our own skies. No one can make us smile, except ourselves. No one can make the harsh earth yield flower and grain, except ourselves. 

There’s rice on the hearth.  It should mean a lot.

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more

Blessed are the resilient for they shall protect this land and our children

The days following the elimination of the LTTE leadership were justifiably joyous for a nation that had been plagued and held hostage by terrorism for three decades.  Joy, however, is relative to place and person.  I am thinking about the three hundred thousand plus who were in IDP facilities at the time. 

True, they were no longer being held hostage by a ruthless terrorist outfit that did not think twice about axing limbs of 5-year olds trying to flee or opening fire on the elderly, the pregnant and the sick as thousand (including LTTE cadres) saw perhaps for the first time the true face of the ‘liberator’ and crafted upon that terrible countenance megalomania, revenge-intent and self-preservation.  They had left a diet of one glass of rice gruel a day.  Their children would not be taken from them.  Even if what they arrived at did not have ‘Paradise’ written all over it, they knew they had escaped from hell and hopelessness.

Still, life ‘after’, did not seem rosy in the least.  In the early days, facilities and resources did not match will.  The massive influx proved hard to deal with.  Feeding three hundred thousand people, caring for the sick, bringing together families that had got split in the mad rush out of Prabhakaran’s hell was not an easy task.  The Government and the security forces had to make sure that water and sanitation met minimum standards, even while being hampered by the reality that many among these people were LTTE cadres or sympathetic to their cause and ever conscious of a trigger-happy international community ready to fire accusation mortars their way. 

It was easy, back then, for bleeding heart I/NGO personalities who had bet on the LTTE prevailing over the security forces, to complain about the situation, accuse the Government of running open air prisons, wail about freedom of moment being curtailed etc.  They were lucky.  Un-elected and answerable to no one except those who pumped dollars into their bank accounts, they did not have to deal with logistics associated with the above reality. 

I visited the Menik Farm IDP facility in Cheddikulam in July 2009.  I realized that had it not been for the discipline and structured authority of the Army, things would have been far worse.  The authorities were in constant communication with the I/NGOs and UN agencies that had offered to help but naturally on their terms and not those of these agencies whose track record in helping the LTTE was common knowledge.  By that time, there was order.  The day-to-day was streamlined.  Conditions in these facilities were not ideal, but still better than in some other parts of the country. 

I was impressed by the untiring efforts by the security forces to make sure that everyone had food to eat, that the sick were taken care of, that families were reunited etc.  I was impressed by the volume of relief items that were pouring into the area.  I was impressed by the fact that there were dozens of doctors who had volunteered to work round the clock attending to the sick. 

I remember being horrified by some of the stories these unfortunate people related.  I was impressed that despite all the trials they had been put through, most of them retained their dignity, self-respect and humanity.  Thinking back, I believe that nothing impressed or inspired me more than how these people asserted their will to live and prosper.

I visited all the relief facilities. In each unit, regardless of size and population, I encountered ‘education’.  There were hundreds of teachers among the IDPs and many principals as well.  Naturally, there were thousands of children. Each and every one of them had ‘returned’ to school, so to speak, almost all of them after many months.  The authorities facilitated it all.  The largess of their fellow-citizens and well-meaning non-governmental organization had ensured they would not lack in stationary.  

The people themselves, despite all the trauma they had been through and indeed had not yet overcome, had decided that the children must learn, even under the harshest of conditions. 

There were ‘classes’ under the trees and inside tents.  They were organized according to age.  The children were being taught English, Tamil, Mathematics and Science.  Some of the instructors were teachers attached to the Education Department. Some were older students or adults who had been trained in other professions.  I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the teachers and the students.  I remember thinking, ‘this country has reason to hope’. 

That was resilience.  Resilience is what our nation is all about. We’ve suffered enough but have always made sure that the foundation of our civilization has remained intact.  Five hundred years of colonial rule which included the killing of thousands, burning of libraries and destroying of temples, had not succeeded in destroying the faith of the people and their sense of identity.  A tsunami did not demoralize a people into mass suicide. Two insurrections did not see the consecration of anarchy.  A thirty year long war against terrorism had not made embrace among communities impossible. 

No, we are not a people ready to roll over and die, whatever the odds.  In Cheddikulam, the teachers were not unlike teachers elsewhere, teaching under different and far more hospitable circumstances. They were dedicated, disciplined and strict.  Worthy of utmost veneration and admiration.

I have no idea what their ideological preferences are. I don’t know if they identified with the LTTE or with the idea of Eelam. It does not matter. What counts is that they exemplified something beautiful about the human condition: the will to live, to do one’s best, to think and live ‘community’ and ‘solidarity’.  To me, these are the same qualities that those who contributed in whatever way to rid the country of the terrorist menace were endowed with. 

I know we have our identity-preferences, but we also have all that it takes to be a single people. 

msenevira@gmail.com

Read more

Ananthi Sasitharan remembers (well)

[In a parallel universe, of course]

I am aggrieved and so are my children.  I don’t know where my husband is and they don’t know where their father is.  Some may not know who my husband (their father) is and was so let me tell you briefly. 

I met him while I was still a schoolgirl.  Even then Sasitharan was very active in the political wing of the LTTE.  He was called Elilan.  He didn’t recruit me although he recruited many a young schoolgirl and approved of and oversaw the forcible conscription of thousands of children.  That’s love.  My love made a career in the LTTE. He was the political head of Trincomalee, until the LTTE was evicted from the Eastern Province. He came back to the Vanni.  I studied, as he wanted me to, and then took up various government jobs.  I was paid by the very government that my beloved Elilan fought.  Our children went to schools run by that very government.  When they were sick, they were treated by government doctors and with medicines provided by the same government. 

I was not a member of the LTTE but at no point did I ever disapprove of what Elilan or the LTTE did.  Not even when we, along with tens of thousands of others, were corralled and forced to accompany retreating cadres to make up a ‘human shield’.  I didn’t complain when we were all held hostage. I didn’t complain when there was very little food even though I knew (being Elilan’s wife) that the LTTE was deliberately hoarding food and medicine for the organization’s top brass.  I couldn’t.  I was a good wife. 

I remember those last days.  It was terrible.  There was very little food.  There were tens of thousands who begged my husband (among others) to let them leave the No Fire Zone.  Elilan did not relent.  Neither did his comrades.  Some of them attempted to flee out of desperation.  I am not sure if my Elilan ordered LTTE cadres to shoot at the fleeing, but that order did come and shoot they did.  I don’t know if Elilan arranged for a little boy to be strapped with explosives and sent to the Army Receiving Point and then trigger an explosion by way of deterring those who wanted to flee and those ready to receive the fleeing.  That arrangement took place though. 

My Elilan is no more.  I tell the world that he was taken by the Army and therefore if he is no more it means he was done away with. Extra-judicially.  Actually I’ve told many stories. To some, I say he surrendered to the Police.  To others I say that we were together.  But to all I talk about me not having a husband and my children not having a father. I don’t talk about all the children rendered fatherless and all the women rendered husbandless by the deliberate decisions taken by my Elilan.

I talk of appalling conditions in refugee camps, although I know for a fact that it was a million times better than the conditions created for Tamil civilians by Elilan and his comrades.  I don’t tell people that no UN agency or state agency could have done a better job under the circumstances; I know because I worked in such agencies.  I talk of ‘structured genocide’; I know but don’t talk of real genocide, the kind which my Elilan aided and abetted. 

I know the Vanni.  I know what it was during the long years of fighting. I know it’s different. I benefit from that difference.   So do my children. 

There are times I wonder how I lie so much; times when I wonder how I can conceal so much (for I do know a lot about my Elilan and his friends).  Then I think of my children. I think of the larger benefits that deceit yields.  It is all good.  As for those other women and children who lost husbands and fathers so my children and I can live, can scream, can vilify and I can strut around as pin-up girl of gun-runners and other criminals, well…I really don’t give a damn about them. 

Read more

The Great(er) Elephant Torture Chamber and other tidbits

The Great(er) Elephant Torture Chamber

An elephant 'torture chamber' has been discovered in Pannipitiya.   Apparently the creatures are held in horrifying conditions.  This is strange news considering that the entire country is a veritable torture chamber as far as jumbos go.  There's been so much wincing-in-pain for years and years. Each time elections are called, it's akin to being jabbed with the henduwa in some tender part of the body.  Each time results are announced, jumbos groan with agony.  So what's this about Pannipitiya?  That's just a small part of a large torture chamber, isn't it?

Man rearing 4 baby elephants fined Rs. 100,000

Elephants are hogging the headlines, it seems.  Another man has been fined for illegally rearing four baby elephants.  It's a Rs. 100,000 fine.  That's Rs. 25,000 per elephant.  Cheap.  After all, some jumbos claim that their fellow-pachyderms have been purchased and kept for millions and millions of rupees.  Indeed, if 'keeping elephants' is a violation of the law, the relevant judge ought to slam hefty fines on the United People's Freedom Alliance.  That's if the AG's Dept can be persuaded file charges of course.  That's an elephantine process, we hear. 

Suresh Premachandran's idea of 'news'

'India sure to vote for UNHRC resolution,' Suresh Premachandra says.  That's 'news'?  Maybe Suresh actually believes the courtesies mouthed by Indian politicians and diplomats about Sri Lanka been India's friend and vice versa.  People may have believed that some time ago...well, a few decades ago, let's say in the 1960s, but not anymore.   Can you wake us up when you have something to tell us that we don't already know Suresh? 

Wild IDs

Around 10,000 ahiguntikas or gypsies are to be offered the option of obtaining special identity cards.  What's funny about this is that it is the Ministry of Wildlife Resources Conservation that is making the offer.  So they are 'wild', like wild boar, wild buffalo, wild elephants etc?  Animals, then? Would the ministry proceed to give the same option to the val aliya, kulu meema, val oora, mee minna, diviya, thith-muva etc., etc?  And how about politicians who operate as though they've just come out of the jungle?  Would they also be offered 'Special ID Cards?

Foreign Policy not Parippu-Policy, not Mallum-Policy either

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a not-so-veiled reference to India, has said that Sri Lanka's foreign policy cannot be a 'parippu policy', where foreign forces are brought into the country and the country's security forces restricted to barracks.  The parippu of course is a reference to India dropping dhal when the Army was about to capture Velupillai Prabhakaran.  President Rajapaksa, like the people of Sri Lanka, know the costs the country had to incur on account of that 'dumping'.  So he's right.  We can't have a 'parippu foreign policy'.  On the other hand we can't have a pol-mallum  or fruit-salad foreign policy either.  Especially when it comes to appointments in diplomatic missions abroad.  It's one thing to pick people outside the foreign service because of a human resource problem in the ministry, but quite another to treat the Ministry of External Affairs as a Retirement Option for 'friends of the regime'. 

Woman harbouring terrorist arrested

Balendran Jayakumari has been arrested for 'harbouring a terrorist'.  We know that few countries if any would think twice about arresting anyone harbouring a terrorist in these days of terror.  We hear even high ranking officials in the UN system talking about 'zero-tolerance of terrorism'.  So when is Ban ki-Moon going to move for the arrest of a lady called Navi Pillay?  She's being harbouring terrorists for years now.  The LTTE kind, that is.  

Read more