No island is an island and ours is no exception

No man is an island, they say.  No island is an island either in these globalized times. Indeed, it can be argued that islands never existed and if they did their numbers were very small.  The reference is of course to human collectives and not land masses surrounded by bodies of water.  Complete isolation has always been the exception. 

Throughout history, communities have been marked by the commerce of goods and services, gifting, invasion and embrace, plunder and counter-plunder, conversion to faith by force or threat and embracing of doctrine on conviction and so on.  Political boundaries are not cast in stone either. The world map needs constant revision. I’ve seen a version of King Lear where the kingdom is divided by the simple and dramatic method of tearing the relevant map into three pieces.  The invaders carved up the continent of Africa by simply drawing lines on a piece of paper, dividing communities arbitrarily and deliberately, engendering wars that have survived their incubators. 

No island is an island and ours is no exception to this rule.  We are linked by trade and treaty, friendship and relationship, the play of power and threat, the need to mitigate pressure from one force by seeking friendship with another. 

Nothing comes without a price.  Some use the age-old device called arm-twisting: ‘submit or else!’  Some just stuff the unpalatable down unwilling throats, causing bowel disorders and other convulsions that end up spreading a lot of blood-splattered bad news around. 

No island is an island and ours is no exception, this is true.  Does this mean that we do not have and indeed cannot have any core identity, a shared cultural ethos or some corpus of beliefs and practices that are unique and/or inform us regularly and substantially enough to allow for collective identification?  Those who for reasons they have no control over and for lack of histories they are not to be blamed for often take the convenient position, ‘we never were and we never will be’. That’s a neat mechanism to justify the most negative and pernicious forms of ‘exchange’ in this island-less world. 

It goes without saying that islands that are not islands interact more with the closest islands that are not islands. We are no exception.  This is why there’s more India in Sri Lanka than say Mozambique or Iceland.  There’s more Pakistan in India than is generally acknowledged, more Pakistan in Indian than Sri Lanka and more Pakistan in India than Sri Lanka in India.  Land-mass separation is a factor, one observes.  Size too.  Sri Lanka would spread very thin over India while India could bury Sri Lanka under several miles of earth.   Land-mass volume also counts. 

Such things, however, are not as significant when it comes to commerce of other kinds.  Culture, for instance.  Size of nation or other collective is not obstacle enough for an idea to travel the globe, encounter, embrace, subjugate and liberate that which it encounters.  History is long, longer than is convenient for some and, happily or unhappily, for us to know what really happened in those un-scribed times.  Proximate islands indulge in exchange. Perhaps this is part of human nature, I don’t know.  Today, several millennia since something was invented, we really can’t tell who the inventor was or to which community he/she belonged.  All we know is what we can conclude from what we already know. 

We have myths and legends as well as a rich folk history contained in customs and beliefs, traditional practices, song and dance.  We know of Ravana.  Even the Ramayana indicates that of the two protagonists, Rama was essentially second-best on all counts.  Add the Lankavathara Sutra and we have a Ravana whose ‘ten heads’ refers to ten times the average intellect.  Consider the fact that he is credited with the invention of chess and the violin, and as the father of Ayurveda, and we have a Lanka that dwarfs and indeed engulfed her neighbouring ‘island’. 

Let’s call all this meaningless conjecture.  We could stick to the known and focus on that which can be verified.  We are told that India made us who we are by giving us the greatest gift ever, the word of Siddhartha Gauthama, our Budun Wahanse.  The ‘word’ however existed before Siddhartha Gauthama, for there have been other articulators of the ‘Word’, other Buddhas, and there’s nothing to say that this island was bypassed by word-travel in the relevant times.  Still, let’s take the above as true. 

Here are some facts.  The Emperor Asoka sent his two children, no less, with word and artifact. They were received not by barbarians but a people ready for intellectual discourse and they chose to spend the rest of their lives in this land.  Forget Ravana and Ravana’s ‘Lanka’, Arahat Mahinda did not come to a civilizational desert or a cultural badland. The ‘word’, nevertheless, was gift and gift supreme too, let there be no doubt about this.  The question though is whether we received this gift from India.

If indeed Ravana invented the violin and chess, if indeed he invented the first flying craft, the Dandumonaraya, if indeed he was the physician, botanist and biochemist supreme that legend claims he is, it is strange that neither India nor the rest of the world (of the 21^st Century) acknowledge that Sri Lanka or Lanka, or, more correctly, Sinhale, gave these gifts to the neighbouring ‘island’ and other islands too.  India didn’t give us Buddhism.  The Emperor Asoka sent an emissary and dharmaduta, and we are not ungrateful. India did not, because India could not, for the simple reason that India was not!  

India is a colonial construct. A man from the land that is now called India made a magnificent gesture. I am grateful.  Those who did nothing and indeed did nothing other than plunder and coerce cannot take credit, I believe.  That’s forgettable commerce, I would think. 

There are gifts and gifts. There is legitimate credit claim and credit theft too.  Not too long ago, some 5 million Sri Lankans paid homage to sacred relics of Lord Buddha, brought here courtesy the largesse of the Pakistani Government for a 17-day exposition.  That’s gift too.  Less significant of course than that which the Emperor Asoka gave two millennia ago, but still, gift.  Gift is not gift, one notes when a price is extracted openly or subtly it does not matter how. 

The Emperor Asoka, when he requested ArahatMihinda to take the Word of our BudunWahanse to Simhaladeep and to his friend King Devanampiyatissa, did not say ‘Tell him that he should redraw the provincial boundaries and enact constitutional amendment to help legitimate the unsubstantiated claims of this or that community and/or its representatives’.  That was gift and therefore I am grateful for the commerce between these two islands.  

No island is an island, and we are no exception. We give, we take.  We win, we lose out and at the end of the long days of ‘islandic’ history, one hopes, it all balances out.  Time is long and in our long-time, we will see all kinds of commerce, that of the Ravana-Rama kind, the Asoka-Tissa kind, the Rajiv-JR kind and other kinds still to come.  We are not an island, but we are nevertheless a nation.   We lack size but not imagination. We lack nuclear weapons, but we have the Word that helped us more than anything through terrible, terrible times.

That word was made of compassion.  It was made also of wisdom.  We know therefore, when to bow before greatness and when to stand firm against tyranny.  We went down, but not forever.  We know how to fall.  We know how to stand up.  We are not an island, and yet, we are a nation, a people, a civilization, a culture and a solidarity that is not contained by map-line or edict, threat or weapon-show. 

No island is an island and ours is not an exception.  It’s a good thing, all things considered. 

This article was first published on June 27, 2011 in the Daily News, for which newspaper I wrote a daily column under the title 'The Morning Inspection'

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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The ‘Ikka Affair’ and the troubled UNP-SLFP marriage

The proposed Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement between Sri Lanka and India has earned an amusing but appropriate tag in Sinhala, based on the acronym ETCA and how it is pronounced (‘Ikka Givisuma’ or the ‘Hiccup Agreement’). 

Ikka has generated some interesting debates.  Those who oppose do so on a variety of ground, 'national interest' among them.  Some of those who support it object to the objectors on account of their nationalism or else for 'standing with nationalists'.  'Free trade is oblivious to national boundaries!' the advocates scream.  Maybe in a parallel universe, perhaps in a different century, but right now, as has been the case, capital has always cohabited (happily too!) with identity, whether in the form of a nation, a city, a skin-color or family.  But right now, the issue is overlaid with the political to the extent that the economic element gets hardly any play and that has little to do with the identity and purpose of the objectors.

An Indo-Lanka agreement on things economic has been in the pipeline for a long time.  In fact it can be argued that the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 was as much about Indian’s economic interest as about her political prerogatives (yes, it had nothing about Sri Lanka’s interest). 

The previous government backed off and Mahinda Rajapaksa, following representations by the business community especially the ‘local’ big boys, said he wouldn’t sign any agreement until and unless all relevant sectors approved the document.  But then again, he was a shrewd politician who knew that Indians don’t have votes in Sri Lanka and secondly, was a man for whom elections and power meant more than vague ‘promised lands’ described in economic plans. 

The present Government, in contrast, appears to be in an insane and even indecent hurry to get ‘Ikka’ inked.  There are reasons to be suspicious and we shall briefly flag them.

First, it is India.  Now that’s a red flag anyway.  Secondly it is an agreement with India.  The history of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, India not fulfilling her part of the deal and insisting that Sri Lanka does, the shove-down-the-throat that accompanied the secrecy of the whole affair, the pernicious and arrogant interfering, the Big-Brother’s Burden type of condescension, the economic benefits (to India) scripted into what was marketed as an altruistic helping-hand from a lovely neighbor, and the legitimation of Tamil chauvinistic land-theft designs, left more than a bad taste in the mouth. 

Third, it is being pushed by the same people who applauded and facilitated the expansionist putsch by India in 1987 (remember, Rajiv Gandhi said ‘what we are seeing is the beginning of the Bhutanization of Sri Lanka’), namely the United National Party and Ranil Wickremesinghe.    It was Wickremesinghe who presented the bill in Parliament but more damningly he presented it in part!  His endorsement of secrecy in dubious deals had graduated into a penchant for secrecy by 2002, when he signed the insidious Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE.  These histories count, politically. 

The word ‘cooperation’ has been over-used to sugarcoat all kinds of skewed bilateral agreements that its employment here also raises suspicion.  There is no ‘cooperation’ between ‘big’ and ‘small’.  There’s diktat.    The author of the Sunday Island’s ‘Political Watch’ put it this way [with regard to India]: “The Indians always had plans for Sri Lanka most of which were not in consonance with the plans that the Sri Lankan government of the day had.”

Overall, as of now, objection to Ikka is on the rise and not just by an Opposition operating according to the minimalist and pernicious understanding of role as ‘Opposition must oppose!’  Many individuals and organization including political parties and civil society outfits that helped bring this Government to power have taken strong anti-Ikka positions.  Respected individuals from the full range of professions and professional organizations have said ‘No’ to Ikka. 

The objectors are currently being vilified as playing into the hands of the Rajapaksas or else dismissed as rabble-rousing trade unionists or, as mentioned above,  dubbed ‘nationalists’ (as though that’s a cuss word!), but the political relevance of their opposition is that it weakens a Government that is already plagued by the natural insecurities of coalition-arrangements.  Worse, these objections are in fact adding to rising displeasure among sections that previously supported the anti-Rajapaksa thrust on grounds of a) being no different with respect to corruption, mismanagement and nepotism, and b) being utterly incompetent. 

Finally there is the damning issue of the economy being in crisis.  Wickremesinghe himself, while outlining mismanagement and corruption by the previous regimes and the impact of these factors on the economy, acknowledged to Cabinet that ‘the Sri Lankan economy could have coped with (such) adverse revelations if not for the global economy taking a nose dive during the last few moths, adversely affecting our economy’. 

The bottom line is that this Government (like its green predecessors) has shown utter servility to India and the West, led by the USA.  Anything that any one of these ‘big brothers’ say is taken as ‘good’, with the belief that they are actually Sri Lanka’s ‘friends’.  Reality kicks in though, a good example being the Government being forced to go on bended knees to China, after vilifying the Rajapaksa regime for its choice of friends. 

All of the above considered, the Government’s Ikka-Fascination seems suicidal.  The ‘Political Watch’ referred to above offered what might be the best explanation of the prevalent insanity. Well, if not ‘best’, let’s say ‘the kindest’:

“It could also be the PM’s way of scuttling ECTA himself. Trying to tell the Indians at a governmental level that this ETCA thing will never work is too much hard work…So perhaps the PM has hit upon a way of getting the Indians off his back for good – by frightening the whole of Sri Lanka into uniting against ETCA so that he is saved the trouble of explaining matters to the Indians. As of now, he who has done the most to drum up opposition to ETCA is not the GMOA or the JVP and certainly not the Joint Opposition but the PM.” 

If that’s not the case, the Government is clearly on the path to self-destruction either in the form of a coup whereby the President and his predecessor bury hatchets and come up with a working arrangement that unseats Wickremesinghe and sell it off as an arranged marriage necessitated by the national interest.  Simply put, if Wickremesinghe backs off he would do so with egg on his face, but if Sirisena says ‘No’ he  

There a the limits of free trade.  The ideological premises have deep flaws.  Even the grandmasters of capitalism in the 20^th Century, namely the USA, appear to have realized this.  Sooner or later, the glass-bubble doctrine runs into a solid wall called ‘Identity’ (yes, ‘nationalism’ is part of the story and it is China, a nation and not a corporation, that’s defining the do’s and don’ts of capitalism these days). 

On February 3, 2016, the seed giant Sygenta (based in Switzerland and generating about one-quarter of its sales in North America, where it is a top pesticide seller and supplies an estimated 10% of U.S. soybean seeds and 6% for corn) agreed to a US$ 43 billion take over by ChemChina, which is Chinese government controlled entity.  This has alarmed US legislators.  Senator Charles Grassley last week called for a ‘national security review of the proposed ChemChina-Syngenta deal’ claiming that ‘the government must ensure that too much of the food industry is not being sold off’.  The worry is that the buyer is a government-controlled entity. 

“We need to consider the long-term implications of letting foreign entities control significant market share in U.S. agriculture, especially in consolidated markets, like the seed market has become,” Grassley said. 

Sri Lanka is not the USA and India is not China, but the principle of ‘security’ is the same.   And why should ‘security’ be an issue if it is all about free markets and multilateral drives to make national boundaries meaningless?  The answer is ‘identity’ and in the case of the USA (as evident in the Sygenta matter – which is not yet a done deal by the way) and Sri Lanka (the Ikka-Affair) it is about ‘nation’.  It would seem, to put it crudely, that the extrapolations of Samuel Huntington (‘Clash of Civilisations’) are proving to be more accurate than those of Francis Fukuyama (‘The End of History’). 

Sri Lanka is not as big as China or India, true, but the size of ‘national interest’ in terms of emotional appeal and even theoretical construct is certainly not diminished on account of being geographically ‘small’ or an economy that is weak.  It produces a discontent this Government can ill-afford.  This Government has been hiccupping on a lot of counts of late.  It can think ‘what’s one more ikka?’ but this might be the ‘ikka’ that brings it down. 

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ETCA hush-hush a typical UNP/Ranil preference?

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was spot on when chided those who are raising a hue and cry about the proposed Economic and Technology Cooperative Agreement (ETCA) with India.   His point was simple: how can you object to something that does not exist?  Correct.  There’s no ETCA.  Yet. 

That’s the catch.  Yet.  And it works both ways.  The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Harsha de Silva responding to those who have expressed various concerns about ETCA has affirmed his Prime Minister’s position.  However, he has thought fit to comment on possible content.  De Silva chose to focus on the issue of whether or not Indian IT professionals could open up businesses in Sri Lanka and thereby post a threat to local IT professionals.  He points out that three of the four modes of the international service trade are already in operation in Sri Lanka but that the fourth, ‘the presence of a natural person’ is not under discussion. 

All good.  But all beside the point. And this holds for all the lovely 'don't-worry' statements coming from Government spokespersons on matters relating to trade and other relations between India and Sri Lanka. 

First of all, if objection, as the Prime Minister correctly points out, is out of order considering the (as yet) non-existence of an agreement, then defense is as silly.  Now as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and one who has told us that the thrust of foreign policy as far as this government is concerned is ‘economic diplomacy,’ De Silva certain should be privy to what’s being discussed.  However, if free and fair discussion is important, then you can’t have some people tossing stones from behind a wall at others who are by definition unarmed. 

It’s the secrecy of the whole thing that is of immense concern.  As of now, it’s all hush-hush.  We cannot have a situation where on the one hand the government talks of a democratic climate of discussion and consensus building while it keeps deals with foreign governments under cover.  We were told, after all, that the Rajapaksa-past of mega-deals behind closed-doors was buried once and for all.  We would love to believe that it was not all empty rhetoric for purposes of securing political power, despite the cynicism that this government has invited due to many acts of omission and commission. 

The other problem is the fact that this is an agreement with India.  India, a relatively new nation that came into being only in 1858 courtesy the Government of India Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. C. 106), is essentially a nation-wannabe political entity that poses off as a superpower-wannabe one.  India claims to be ‘shining’, but on all counts India is dull.  It is a struggling nation.  Sri Lanka is certainly not ‘shining’, this is true, but if we are beggarly, it is silly to thrust hand out at a fellow mendicant.

Yes, the option is China, but that’s another story.  Related, but different. Suffice to say that for all the anti-Rajapaksa noises made by India, the USA, UK and other ‘big countries’ on account of the previous regime’s alleged China-leanings, some of them would sink if not for China.  India’s debt is not owned by China, unlike the debts of the USA and UK, but India is not doing great either.  

And there’s history.  A history of India meddling in the affairs of Sri Lanka.  There’s the whole story of supporting terrorism with arms, money and training (before the idea backfired).  Then there’s the Indo-Lanka Agreement.  That’s important and relevant because it was thrust down Sri Lanka’s throat. No discussion.   No entertainment of query.  The then government submitted meekly.  The people had to pay a heavy price. 

Ranil Wickremesinghe's involvement in that hush-hush affair was damning.  He presented the bill in part to Parliament.  His preference for the hush-hush was more openly demonstrated on February 22, 2002, when he signed the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the terrorist leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. It is amusing that some people still argue that the CFA was the catalyst for the split in the LTTE (Karuna-Faction breaking away)  and on the basis of this claim that Ranil paved the way for the defeat of the LTTE.  Only the half-blind and diehard loyalist would indulge in that kind of reductionism.  What ensued was not amusing.  The LTTE regrouped, recruited, re-trained and re-armed.  The people had to pay for Ranil's 'innocence' (let's be kind here).  

But what is so wrong (and so relevant in these ETCA-talking times) is the hush-hush nature in which the CFA was signed.  Ranil's cabinet hadn't seen the document.  The then President hadn't seen it.  It was not 'up for discussion'.  Its constitutionality was not raised.  It was hush-hush.  

ETCA is not an agreement like the Indo-Lanka Accord or the CFA of course, but the secrecy of the affair does nothing to alleviate doubts about claims about benefits to Sri Lanka.   What we know is that India hasn’t been Sri Lanka’s best friend.  We saw India’s ‘friendship’ in the eighties.  We saw India’s ‘friendship’ at the UNHRC sessions.  India offers aid, but it has always come with a price tag.  And it’s paltry compared to what the country has received from China and Japan.  Of course, bilateral agreements are not about love but about business, this we know.  However, when there are conditions that clearly seek to tinker with constitution, it’s even more difficult to digest.  India is like that.  Give a little, take a lot; build a few kilometers of road, build a few houses, and expect us to go overboard with gratitude.  Take China out of the equation, replace with India, and it will take India centuries to help us ‘develop’.

The Prime Minister knows what the last secret deal with India cost us.  To be fair, this ETCA thing might do us a whole lot of good, but keeping it hush and worse, getting the likes of De Silva to offer convoluted defense, is bad. 

The other pertinent issue is the history of such hush-hush agreements.  

Perhaps the Prime Minister could sort it all out by saying something on the following lines.

“Don’t worry.  Once the draft is ready, we will put it before the people for scrutiny.   Let the criticism be comprehensive.  Let the discussions be lengthy.  A quick signing will not take place.  We will be transparent.  We will be patient.  We will in thought, word and action, affirm all the principles of good governance.  There is no ETCA, but there could be.  However, we are open to the possibility that we may err and as such we might never have an ETCA or its equivalent.”

Let us see.    

A version of this article was published in the 'Daily Mirror' (February 27, 2016).  

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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March of folly or opportunity

March is about ‘Geneva’ and has been for the past several years.  March is also time for opinions from all quarters about how to handle ‘Geneva’.  Naturally policy decisions and choices will be called ‘correct’ by some while others would use the word ‘folly’.  The word in the street regarding ‘Geneva’ (which is, for those who might wonder, about human rights and violations thereof, allegedly, by Sri Lanka, along with candy-words such as reconciliation and accountability) is ‘negotiation’, i.e. finding a way to work the voting arithmetic in Sri Lanka’s favor.  Let’s consider the word. 

Negotiation is only necessitated by recognition that one of two (or more) warring parties believes that comprehensive victory is not possible.  That kind of ‘recognition’ can be manufactured, as we saw for at least two decades vis-à-vis the LTTE.  Easy words and arguments rolled off ready tongues: ‘invincible’, ‘cannot be militarily overcome,’ ‘too costly,’ and ‘politically injudicious’.  On the other hand, just because Sri Lanka un-manufactured or dismantled that lie, it doesn’t mean the principle does not hold elsewhere. 

We are talking about Geneva, the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), and the power of key players such as the USA, European Union and India.  In this case, there are two factors that need to be addressed.  First, there is the claimed poverty of Sri Lanka to prevail. Secondly, we are not talking about winning a war.  We are talking about defending fact over fiction.  That makes a difference.

There are those who argue that appeasement would work; appeasing India that is. The assumption that underlies this argument is that India (or anyone else for that matter) cannot be contained if not brought around to stand with Sri Lanka.  Now it goes without saying that one-on-one or head-to-head, Sri Lanka cannot best either India or the USA and as such it is a tall order to take on a ‘coalition’ made of these two countries, be it in Geneva or the beaches of Colombo or the air over the city.  On the other hand, negotiating such issues is not a simple matter of comparing and contrasting military might. 

Sri Lanka proved that there are moments when the composition of the UNHRC voting group makes it possible to turn things around; that and of course effective diplomacy.  By and large, however, the odds are stacked against countries such as Sri Lanka whenever big name nations decide that it is in their interests to censure.  It is not about right or wrong, not about truth and falsehood.  It is about power. Geneva, plain and simple, is not ‘home turf’. It’s a game where the rules are skewed against Sri Lanka.  It is a fight that’s scripted to yield victory to the powerful. Sri Lanka cannot change the venue.  Sri Lanka can, however, play with the players in ways that can bring balance (not ‘fair play’ for that’s a nonsense-term that’s good for diplo-speak but for little else) into the equation.  

In this instance, those ‘balancing out’ forces are principally Russia and China. Gaddafi played appeasement and lost, let us not forget; Assad has prevailed, so far.  It is not whether or not these were ‘bad’ guys, for no bad guy can hold a candle to the mother of all bad guys, Washington.  It is about playing the cards right. The options, whether we like it or not, therefore, are about defence and trade pacts with China and Russia (and perhaps ASEAN) for the simple reason that the mala fides of India and the USA (and it’s European client states) are established beyond a shadow of doubt. 

There are other ‘soft’ ways of dealing with these ‘forces beyond our strength’.  If ‘Geneve’ is a theater with the purpose of turning Sri Lanka into audience that takes away a sense of guilt for crimes uncommitted, then the guilt card can be tossed back.  In India’s case, there’s a four-letter ‘word’ that can shut up Manmohan Singh: IPKF.  There, we would be talking not of ‘allegation’ but proven crimes against humanity.

We can remind India that on Deepavali day, October 21, 1987, soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force went on a killing spree that left over 70 dead, including three leading medical specialists, Dr.A.Sivapathasuntharam, Dr.K.Parimelalahar and Dr.K.Ganesharatnam, as well as nurses, attendants, patients and other civilians.  They were shot in cold blood; Dr Sivapathasuntharam was helping an injured worker and was shot even as he pleaded that he was a doctor.  The same day the building that housed the OPD was shelled by the IPKF, killing 7 people. The victims were all Tamils.   

That’s Indian regard and concern for equality, dignity, justice and self-respect for Sri Lankan Tamils, spoken with such fervor by Indian Foreign Secretary Shrimati Sujatha Singh, who seems to be Geographically-challenged and quite myopic considering she doesn’t know what her countrymen in Tamil Nadu think about such sentiments when it comes to Sri Lankan Tamil fisherfolk and their livelihoods.

Sri Lanka, thanks to meticulous documentation by the LTTE during the ‘IPKF times’ of such atrocities (note that neither the LTTE nor its apologists abroad came up with anything close to such horrible crimes with respect to the Sri Lankan security forces, giving further credence to the claim of manufacturing such crimes post-2009), is in possession of a massive dossier of Indian brutality in Sri Lanka.  That’s ‘usable’ material in ‘negotiations’. Anything in any document that India puts her signature on will, potentially, be ‘usable’ against India herself.  Today’s friend can be tomorrow’s enemy. Diplomacy is not a one-day match, history is long and India knows that while it can talk down to Sri Lanka, it cannot do the same to certain other nations. 

There’s also the fact that in the long run, India might not last.  It is a country that is made for break-up.  India would do well not to provide would-be enemies with extra ammunition.  India must take the longer view. 

Then there is the issue, the second one, of fact over fiction.  It is important to know the truth.  It is important, also, to market the truth.  There’s this figure of 40,000 being bandied about by persons, organization and countries with abysmal track records when it comes to political chicanery.  The circumstantial evidence rebels against any systematic push to kill civilians.  The large number (inflated to 75-150,00 by Tamil National Alliance MP M Sumanthiran) of bodies, moreover, would have had to be disposed of.  The question ‘how?’ has not been answered. Instead, there is ‘evidence’ in the form of testimonies of people who are politically compromised or are plain and simple untrustworthy.  The ICRC which was ‘on the spot’ until very close to the end, tellingly, has not come out in support of these claims. 

The conundrum has been commented on, editorially, in The Nation:

“A ‘curious’ individual has offered a ‘solution’ to explain the vexed numbers problem.  A simple question has been asked: ‘Eta katu ko?’ (where are the bones—read, ‘remains’).  The contention is that if indeed 40,000 were massacred by the troops in Mullivaikkal, the remains, if piled up, would make a tower that puts Pisa to shame.  No bodies have been found there.  Were the remains vaporized, the writer asks. 

“Let’s remember that there’s satellite footage available of the LTTE shooting at Tamil civilians fleeing into Government controlled areas.  That place was watched from above.  It is also clear that there are many who want to hang this Government over war crimes.  As of now their ‘best’ has been cleverly edited videos that is good as ‘collage’ but thin if they want to paint ‘systematic’, never mind the fact that the sources of the sources of the sources cited are hardly reliable given their loyalties.  If these people really, really, really, want to get the job done, they’ve had ample time (more than 4 years) to mine the relevant aerial footage.   It is, after all, a thin strip of land that we are talking about. 

“The fact remains that getting rid of 150,000 corpses is not easy.  Not in the 21^st Century.  Forget 150,000 or even the 40,000 that is being waved these days; ‘disappearing’ even 100 would be messy.  We are told, after all, that soldiers themselves were clicking away on their mobile devices to capture ‘trophy photos’.”

Logic, however, does not have ‘enough legs’ to see Sri Lanka past the winning post, in Geneva or elsewhere on matters of what is unadulterated harassment by bullies who don’t have the moral authority to ask questions or demand answers.  Truth doesn’t purchase in Geneva.  This has to be recognized. 

It will boil down to how Sri Lanka builds relations with China and Russian, both countries which, unlike India and the USA, have not back-stabbed.  Sri Lanka has walked long enough along the appeasement road to understand that it is going to a place called ‘Nowhere’, not forgetting that this appeasement business includes a caveat where Sri Lanka is required to confess to crimes uncommitted, with important implications for national dignity and sovereignty.  So when some argue ‘appeasement’ they are either Indian agents, downright cowards or clearly incompetent in analyzing realities. 

Sri Lanka has not played all her cards, that much is true. Diplomacy has not been robust enough, this is also true.  It is time that the right choices are made and the right signals sent to both enemy and friend.  For starters, Sri Lanka can make a policy decision on coal power plants.  Nothing for India and all future plants to be located in the Western part of the island, for security reasons.  That might amount to ‘signal’ enough. 

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Fishy business

Daya Dissanayake, bi-lingual novelist and commentator on all things he believes deserve comment, offered one of the most pertinent observations on the Indo-Lanka spat over fishing rights.  The following is a rough translation of Daya’s thoughts:  ‘I am reminded of the Aggangnga Sutta when I think about people make claims on the fish in the sea.  I cannot understand how the fish could belong to the Indians or to us.  They belong to the ocean.  They were born and they exist but not to satisfy our hunger.  There are enough things in this good earth for us to consume; we don’t have to kill fish or any other creature.’

This is the real question of tenure but one which no one bothers to address.  Instead we have Tamil Nadu politicians up in arms over the way the Sri Lankan Navy treats fishermen from that Indian state. We have Sri Lankan fishermen who have strayed and are languishing in Indian jails like their Indian counterparts do in our jails. 

It is the contradictions that fascinate.  Tamil Nadu politicians often behave as though they love Sri Lankan Tamils more than Sri Lankan Tamils love themselves.  Sri Lankan Tamil politicians behave as though Tamil Nadu politicians are their saviors.  The fishermen themselves must wonder who their leaders really love; if they can love in the first instance of course. 

Now there are some hard facts that Tamil politicians on either side of the Palk Straits simply don’t want to talk about.  First, this was a non-issue while the LTTE was THE ISSUE in this corner of the Indian Ocean.  Both groups either loved the LTTE or were forced to claim that they loved the terrorist group.  At worst they would mutter ‘de facto sole voice of the Tamil people’.   During ‘LTTE Time’, the fish had a lovely time.  The fishermen didn’t have cause to complain and the politicians didn’t have to shoot accusing arrows in both directions on account of fishing brethren being ill-treated.  They simply didn’t fish.  They simply couldn’t take to the seas.  There was a war and it was fought as much on water as it was on land. 

But all that ended in May 2009. Now what?

Well, by and by, those who lived by the sea and believed they owned the lives of fish began to claim self-granted right. They went to sea.  They strayed, knowingly or unknowingly into ‘foreign waters’.  That’s how we came to where we are on the vexed question of fishing rights and all related issues. 

And yet, the TNA which so loves the Tamil people and believes the ‘Sinhala’ (sic) Government is out to do in the Tamils, not only does not say ‘thank you’ for creating conditions that allow these people to engage in chosen livelihood, but indulges in navel-gazing when they ought to be looking 

Jayalalitha and other in Tamil Nadu in the eye.  The Global Tamil Forum and other groups who toed Prabhakaran’s line and even now spend their time practicing Eelam-Speak, don’t seem to care about the plight of their fishing brethren.  Lesser citizens of the ‘traditional homelands’, are they?

We don’t know if the fish are aware of these political realities, but if they’ve studied the political and economic commerce between the two countries and are aware of the relevant rhetoric, AND if they could utter word, one can be sure they will whisper, ‘Hypocrites All!’   

msenevira@gmail.com

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