And some tears cannot go uncommented…

A few years ago, when I was associated with the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT), I helped put together a booklet about media representation of the conflict.  The title was ‘Some tears are not newsworthy’.  It spoke to inequality and privileging apparent in how the unfolding events were being portrayed in certain sections of the media, both local and foreign. 

The book focused on the shameless downplaying and even non-mention of atrocities perpetrated by the LTTE.  It was wryly observed that people generally misname terrorist as rebel if the theatre of operation is in any country other than one’s own.  The complicity of certain sections of the foreign media in the terrorist project was apparent even back then, i.e. long before Channel 4 became the post-war Voice of Tigers, so to speak. 

It was all about who was crying and over what.  Reading former President, Chandrika Kumaratunga’s recounting of a phone conversation with her son Vimukthi, brought it all back to me.  Vimukthi is reported to have wept after watching the Channel 4 production about the last days of the mission to rid the country of terrorism and to rescue an unprecedented number (close to 300,000) of people held hostage by the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization, the LTTE.  He has apparently said that he is ashamed to be a Sinhalese.  His tears and words were newsworthy because he’s an ex-President’s son and of course because these things can be used to frill the tall stories that the LTTE rump led by that terrorist in a cassock, S.J. Emmanuel is getting the likes of Channel 4 to tell the world. 

I felt sorry for Vimukthi.  Honestly.  And I felt sorry for his mother too.

As I said, ‘Killing Fields – Sri Lanka’ was a production.  A good one too.  There is clever juxtaposition of image, footage, commentary and music.  There is careful editing out of available footage.  For example, the fact that one of the ‘stars’ of the show, Issipriya, is portrayed as a heart-and-soul journalist cum musician, even though Channel 4 has previously aired footage where this ‘lady’ is described as one who glorifies suicide bombers and therefore clearly a recruiter of terrorists.  Channel 4 spouts numbers but is crafty enough to keep context out, making sure that the viewer is left without enough information to work out the relevant math.  There is use of clearly tainted witnesses who have been caught lying before and have several axes to grind.  There’s scandalous glossing over of the LTTE’s considerable curriculum vitae, not just in ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity but mock-up videos, use of military fatigues robbed from captured and killed members of the Sri Lankan security forces and other productions designed for the gullible and of course the complicit. 

Every story is a lie and a good liar can tell a good story. Channel 4 is an excellent story teller and I wouldn’t blame the average viewer for believing that Channel 4 had a true story to tell.  Vimukthi, though is not your average ill-informed viewer, absorbing image and claim about a foreign context he has no clue about.  And his mother, as an ex-President ought to know better than to play sucker to mal-intention. 

For all this, I believe Vimukthi’s tears are honest.  The boy is ignorant and probably good-hearted.  Forgivable.  Kumaratunga is no innocent abroad, though.  She’s smart enough to know about media spin.  She’s supposed to have a degree in the social sciences and even though it must be several decades since she last visited a university library or listened to a lecture on research methodologies, it is hard to believe that she knows zilch about things like reliability and verification.  She’s done enough spin in her day to give Muttiah Muralitharan a run for his money.  And she’s been either orchestrator of or happy witness to mass scale electoral fraud during her tenure to know that 1 plus 1 adds up to 2 and not 11, as Channel 4 might want us to believe. 

When I think of Kumaratunga, I remember the opening song of the musical Evita where Ernesto Che Guevara, mocking the pomp, pageantry and outpouring of grief at Eva Peron’s funeral claims, ‘She did nothing for years!’  That’s only part-memory of the ex-president, though. She did a lot too and much of it unforgettable in a forgettable kind of way if you know what I mean.  And I am not only talking about the Wayamba Provincial Council Election.  It was during her tenure after all that Eelam-speak was heard loudest. Indeed among her nearest and dearest were unapologetic champions of separatism.  Her commitment to peace was amply demonstrated by the amazing twinning of the occasionally visible military offensive and the round-the-clock vilification of the military and vociferous chorusing of the line ‘the LTTE cannot be militarily defeated’.  She invited Norway to broker an agreement with a terrorist who had vowed to divide the country.  Should I say more?

Vimukthi is a Sinhalese. So too his mother.  By name and mother tongue.  Did the Sinhalese, as a community, ever sanction atrocity?  By the same token, has either mother or son ever claimed to be proud to be a Sinhalese for some random act by some Sinhalese (verifiable and without a shadow of doubt hanging over it) such as sending food and medicine to the tsunami affected brethren among the Tamils or volunteering to help those who had been rescued by the Army in the first few months of the year 2009?  Vimukthi-style embarrassment would make every single person on this earth ashamed of his/her community for all communities contain despicable people doing shameless things.  Indeed, he need not have waited for Channel 4 to air its LTTE-spin to be ashamed of his race.  His own mother could have driven him to tear and embarrassment more than a decade ago. 

Vimukthi and his mother are Sinhalese. By name.  They don’t make me embarrassed to be a Sinhalese.  They only evoke pity.  Infinite pity.  May they both be blessed by the Noble Triple Gem and someday be endowed with the wisdom to navigate the regions of avidya (ignorance or delusion). 

[This article appeared in the Daily News of July 30, 2011]

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A tribute to my friends gifted with words they seldom use

Not everyone ends up doing what he or she was trained to do.  Sometimes it seems that life is nothing but unanticipated reinventions of self.  Bends in the road don’t always come pre-announced.  We rejoice in the circumstances we find ourselves in, congratulate ourselves if this is where we planned to be and worked to get to, resign ourselves to living out our remaining useful days doing what we do because we cannot do the things we like to do out of skill-lack or opportunity-lack. 

People are not one dimensional.  Many are endowed with multiple skills.  Life does not always provide time and space to explore the limits of the full range of talents.  This is why some people are occasional told ‘you’ve missed your true vocation’.  On the other hand, not having inhabited perceived ‘true vocation’, people cannot really get a sense of true-dimensionality.  We get by, all of us, though. 

I write for a living, but I never thought ‘writing’ as a possible career in the first 35 years of my life.  I have no way of knowing what people might think my career was at the point of death.  Predictability is an imperfect science in these times of road-bend and circumstance-wrecking. 

Yesterday I thought of writers and writing.  As a schoolboy I had to write.  It was part of the curriculum.  On the other hand there was some out-of-classroom writing also.  I contributed articles to souvenirs.  I took part in essay writing and creative writing competitions.  So did my contemporaries.  This is a tribute to those among them who knew word and used it effectively. 

First and foremost, there was Rajiva Weerasundera.  Rajiva won the Senior Essay Prize in the year we both competed for it.  He did not have reason to compete in the following year.  I won, probably because of the lack of competition.  Rajiva was at the time a student in the bio-stream.  I was a mathematics student.  He went on to complete a degree in medicine.  While waiting for his A/L results, Rajiva spent some time at the now defunct ‘Sun’ and probably holds a record for the longest uninterrupted column he writes in one of the Sunday newspapers. 

I still remember an article he wrote for a souvenir to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the scout troop in our school that Kanishka Goonewardena and I edited.  Rajiva poked fun at scouts and scouting in a very light and entertaining piece of writing.  I think it was the best article in that collection.  He has always been eloquent, insightful, witty, genial and most importantly never compromised his integrity.

Kanishka was the scribe of our scout troop.  His account of the 1982 Trinco Camp is the best report in that particular logbook.  He studied architecture at Moratuwa University.  Planning fascinated him more than designing houses did and he went on to complete a Masters in that subject at the University of Southern California and a PhD too, at Cornell University.   From ‘planning’ it wasn’t a long jump to political philosophy, given his interest in Marxism and social transformation.  He now heads the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto.  He hardly ever writes to audiences outside academe but the few he has written are excellent essays. 

Another regular contributor to souvenirs was Sanjeewa Jayawardena.  Sanjeewa led the school debating team (English) and he was the best speaker I’ve heard from 1977 to 1984.  He studied law and apart from a warm tribute to a much loved teacher in this year’s big match souvenir, he’s been absent in the public sphere in terms of writing.  Pity.

Finally, there’s Panduka Karunanayake.  Panduka was also a bio-student, like Rajiva.  He was not a sourvenir-person.  I remember him as a brilliant student, accomplished athlete, always good humoured and extremely sharp and thoughtful in conversation.  I had lost touch for more than two decades and was pleased to run into him recently.  A physician by training and university lecturer by profession, Panduka’s professional interest in infectious diseases has made him explore disciplines such as economics and sociology.  He has written to newspapers on occasion on areas he has invested time and reflection on.  They are masterpieces.  It is indeed a pity that he doesn’t write more often.  Perhaps then, the relevant authorities might listen to him, take heed of his warnings and build upon his suggestions. 

More than a quarter of a century after leaving school, following dreams, living realities and settling down in the unsettling contexts of being, I would not tell my friends they’ve missed their vocation.  I am sure they all contribute one way or another to make things better for their fellow creatures.  I am not a healer or a teacher, not a researcher or theorist and certainly not a lawyer.  I write by default for I wandered into this field, perhaps by mistake or having lost my way pursuing other dreams that got derailed as often happens.  My friends are not known as writers because they are known for the other things they do.  To me, though, they are masters of the word, good human beings and make good company in a strange kind of way. 

Yes, I am proud of my writing contemporaries.

[This appeared in the Daily News of July 29, 2011: http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/07/29/fea02.asp]

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Patriots were cursed not too long ago…

‘You’ve been writing a lot about intersections lately,’ a friend observed.  I don’t know.  I never planned it that way.  I’ve come to a point where I think life is nothing but a set of intersections.  We see some while some remain invisible.  We notice some and un-notice others.  Maybe this is true for coincidences too.  The how and why of it is I am sure made for stimulating exploration and perhaps it is laziness and nothing else that make me wary of engaging with such questions.  All I know is that certain things happen when they are needed. 

For several months I’ve wanted to write about a man and a book.   Since I know him and since he’s a friend, he and his book have got constantly pushed aside.  Friends can and will wait, I’ve always believed.  This morning I was determined to do justice to the book he had kindly sent me, not by way of review, but comment.  Frankly, I would not dare attempt review simply because of the voluminous nature of the information within the covers and the lack of academic training to evaluate the worth of the same.

As always, before I set out to write this column, I checked my email.  Here’s what was on top: ‘During a time of change, the patriot is a scarce man.  He is hated and scorned.  When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him.  For then it costs nothing to be a patriot.’

That was Mark Twain.  When I saw Palitha Senanayake’s ‘Sri Lanka: the war fuelled by peace’, a 600 page account of the struggle to come to terms to history, politics, deprivations, suspicion, disenchantment and terrorism and of course all the tragedies that are part and parcel of war-making and war-ending, similar thoughts about patriots and patriotism came to mind. 

‘Time of change’ is of course relative.  Sometimes change of any kind takes so long that it is tough to figure out if one is located before, during or after the relevant process.   In this case, we can safely say that the nineties and the early years of this millennium was about believing certain well crafted lies and suffer vilification for refusing to go along. 

Many went along out of convenience, fear and of course the temptation for pocket-lining.  Some did not.  They were called racists, chauvinists, extremists, war-mongers.  No one paid them any money for expressing and defending the truths they subscribed to.  No one paid them any compliments.  It was all about convictions. 

Palitha Senanayake was convinced.  He was convinced that Eelamist posturing had no foundation in history.  He was convinced that the ‘unwinnability’ vociferously proclaimed by those in the high seats of power and their darlings in academe and the media, and of course the NGO circuit was a monumental lie.  Palitha was not alone but neither was he in the company of thousands of the like-minded.  To be honest, the numbers were hand-countable.  Some, like the indefatigable Dr. Nalin De Silva and Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera as well as the redoubtable S.L. Gunasekera were known names. They had public profiles. Palitha Senanayake did not.

And yet he wrote. And he wrote and wrote.  Not all newspapers accommodated him.  I believe he would have to write 4-5 articles before some kind editor carried something he had sent.   He was one of the few ‘scarce men’ at the time.  He called a lie a lie and pointed out that the had to be done had to be attempted.  Change came eventually and there was no scarcity of patriots after that, i.e. when it became apparent that the Palitha Senanayakes were correct: the LTTE could be and had to be militarily eliminated.  In the rush of patriotic fervour, the scarce men of that earlier time were conveniently forgotten.  They had not asked for recognition then, they did not demand acknowledgment later.  They did what they had always done: did their utmost given constraints of time, energy and ability, to protect the land of their ancestors and to defend the truths they believed in.

It was, as Palitha says, a war that was fuelled by peace.  The war came before the peace that fuelled it arrived of course and Palitha is not unaware of this.  Indeed, his book details all that history as well as the myths that Eelamist presented to the world as fact.  He traces a history which no doubt is framed by preferences (as all histories are of course).  It is open to contestation, but this book indicates that the author has not conjured things out of thin air.  It shows extensive reading and study of a wide range of material, a literature from many quarters, agreeable as well as distasteful.  That he has mixed into it thought, reflection and a an acute sense of the present and the future is itself praiseworthy.

Histories are about those who wave the flag at the tail-end of ‘change’.  They would not have got to hold flag had not others, like Palitha, stuck to their guns, bore the insults with stoicism, dug their feet deep into the soil of the land they loved and resisted.

That’s all I can say about intersections right now.  It should suffice.  As for the book, may it be read by those who remember the hard times as well as those who made those times hard.  They’ll all learn something about history and about themselves.

D

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

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Let’s talk about innovation and creativity Ms. Clinton

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has voiced concern over the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka and said that the United States was looking at some innovative and creative ideas to break the impasse over the Sri Lankan Tamils issues.  This was in Tamil Nadu, where she was being hosted by Chief Minister, Jayalalitha, once an LTTE sympathizer and a willing approver of Delhi’s policy of arming, funding and training Tiger terrorists.   Clinton, for the record, received campaign funds from a pro-LTTE group in the USA, let us not forget.

These are lovely and thought-provoking words and sentiments, though.  It is good when anyone expresses concern about fellow creatures; ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’, ‘may all beings be happy’ and all that comes to mind.  Let’s start with the IDPs.

When it became clear that the LTTE would be militarily crushed and that the hundreds of thousands held hostage by that terrorist organization, the Government of Sri Lanka knew there would be an ‘IDP-situation’. This is long before anyone in the West thought ‘IDPs’ or had their hearts bleeding on account of the same.   Not only were facilities to accommodate them constructed, it was done with the input of available expertise and maximum deployment of resources.  True, the numbers exceeded expectation but adjustments were made to make sure that things were manageable.  

The security forces at great human and material cost rescued some 295,000 from the clutches of the LTTE in what is clearly the greatest hostage-rescue operation in recorded history (and this number does not include the millions rescued from the fear psychosis that the LTTE had produced over thirty long years).   From the moment people started fleeing LTTE terrorism, the Sri Lankan authorities worked closely with UN agencies and key INGOs in the matter of making sure that relief facilities were adequate and all needs were met to the extent possible.  The whole of Sri Lanka contributed.  The voluntarism evident was nothing less than magnificent.    

The Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA) was set up in September 2006 to provide assistance to the conflict-affected population on lines suggested by the co-chairs of the so-called ‘peace process’ (Japan, USA, Norway and the European Union).   Chaired by the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, this committee included representatives of all relevant line ministries, the Commissioner General of Essential Services, Divisional Secretaries of the Northern Province, the US Ambassador (Robert O. Blake), representatives of the EU Presidency, Ambassador of Japan, UN Resident Coordinator, all heads of UN Agencies and the heads of ICRC and ECHO.  The CCHA was fully aware of the ground situation and provided relevant guidelines for the provision of immediate, medium term and long term relief, right up to war-end and thereafter.   If Hillary really wants to know, she can ask her Deputy Secretary for the South Asian region.  In fact, she can compare and contrast the Sri Lankan case with the situation following Hurricane Katrina and of course the endless miseries that those displaced by US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to suffer.  Now if Hillary has some excess creativity and innovation, that’s the geography she should be looking at.  I must caution, though.  US ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ included the illegal invasion of Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction (ref: confession by Deputy Prime Minister of UK), crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a Mother of All Mess-Ups in Libya. 

For the record, only 3% of the hostages rescued by the Sri Lankan security forces remain in IDP facilities or welfare villages, and this out of choice.  They are free to leave, but have no place to go to until all demining operations are completed.  Hillary and Jayalalitha can thank the LTTE for their extended IDP status and while they are at it, can pass a thank-you note to Father (sic) S.J. Emmanuel of the Global Tamil Forum and other LTTE-backers, fund-raisers, propagandists and facilitators of gun-running, human-smuggling, drug-trafficking, extortion and money laundering who are offered tea and cookies or wine and cheese in Washington by the likes of Blake.

Hillary has said there’s an ‘impasse’ regarding ‘Tamil issues’.  She doesn’t spell it out.  If she’s talking about citizenship anomalies, then she might be talking about constitutional reform to enhance the worth of citizen vis-à-vis the politician.  If she’s thinking ‘devolution’, she probably needs to take lessons in demography and history. 

If ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ is Hillary-speak for a re-enactment of ‘Libya’, ‘Grenada’, ‘Haiti’, ‘Panama’, ‘Iraq’, ‘El Salvador’, ‘Nicaragua’, ‘Afghanisatan’ etc etc (I pity these recipients of US largesse, by the way), not to mention poetic silence about Gaza,  then she might as well spell it out.  We are used to threat and are not unaware of global power imbalances. We know what we can do and what we need to resist.  We know that nations get bulldozed by the powerful and that it is often done in the name of things like democracy and civilization.  Hillary need not be cute about it, not least of all because we know how ‘creative’ and ‘innovative’ she was during her campaign for the US Presidency, when she talked of disembarking from a plane and having had to run for cover dodging a hail of bullets, her gaffes in Russia and about change one can Xerox (photocopy). 

Come visit, Hillary.  This is a wonderful country, doing its best to recover from a 30 year long engagement with the world’s most ruthless terrorist.  I heard you say that Sri Lanka ought to take a leaf off India’s book with respect to multi-ethnic democracy.  I think you should ask the Muslims and Sikhs in that country and while you are at it, the Dalits, the tribals, the people of Kashmir, the Christians persecuted by ‘Hindus’ and Hindus persecuted by ‘Christians’ (quotes deliberate).  So, thank you, but no.

Yes, come visit.  There’s a lot to see here that you won’t see in India, Hillary.  You might even pick up something useful about civilization, come to think of it.

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

[Courtesy 'Daily Mirror', Sri Lanka, July 26, 2011]

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Meditation on the auspicious

In my conversations with people from different walks of life and different parts of the country I’ve heard some talk of the auspicious and inauspicious. I know of one family living in Sinhapitiya, Gampola that was quite fixated with such things. If one member had to embark on an important journey, another would set off a few minutes earlier so that any ill-sign would be first encountered by this individual and the traveller spared.

I don’t know if gaze or encounter serves to depreciate power of ill-omen or make it disappear altogether upon such ‘contact’. This family firmly believed this was how it was. Back then I thought it was a simple and effective exercise to put someone at ease about the day ahead, fill his/her mind with positive and calm thoughts and divest it of uncertainty and doubt. The superstitious need such devices, I thought.

I’ve heard tell that it is inauspicious to see a bikkhu as one steps on the road to start the day. I’ve also heard the theory that this was a story propagated by Christian clergy, although that would put the propagator at odds with his faith.  In my life, given the cultures that I’ve grown up with, the sight of a bikkhu has always served to calm. Indeed this is true for clergy

belonging to theistic faiths as well.

Those who appear to have given up worldly things in search of a different kind of truth and healing inspire good and wholesome thoughts. It is good to start the day that way. 

Theoretically, the inauspicious claim with respect to seeing a bikkhu makes no sense, since it was the sight of a world renouncer that gave the disenchanted Prince Siddhartha a sense of hope and offered him a pathway towards a pathway out of sorrow.

These thoughts came to mind after reading afresh the Mangala Sutta, following a short email exchange with Gamini Gunawardena recently. We were discussing integrity, the temptation to err or stray and those who rise above such things.

Gamini Maama quoted:

Phutthassa lokadhammehi - Cittam yassa na kampati
Asokam virajam khemam - Etam mangalamuttamam

[A mind unruffled by the vagaries of fortune, from sorrow freed, from defilements cleansed, from fear liberated — this is the greatest blessing].

‘Greatest’ in this translation is perhaps not quite accurate since this discourse on blessings mentions 38 blessings and none is privileged over the other. The Mangala Sutta is often taken as a comprehensive summary of Buddhist ethics, individual and social, and constitutes a remarkable guide in the matter of facing and overcoming life’s many challenges. It is a pithy and amazing text that has the power to clear doubts and help weigh option-efficacy. Like most Buddhist teachings, this too is of immense value both for those of monastic persuasion and those less inclined to grapple with the deeper philosophical questions of existence, i.e. those who just want to get from here to there, today to tomorrow with minimal hassle and headache.   

It was, so the book says, a response by the Enlightened One to a request made by a certain deity: ‘Many gods and humans have pondered on blessings or auspicious signs; tell us which are these that make for welfare and prosperity’. It was remembered and retold by the Ven. Ananda and recorded in the Sutta-Nipata and in the Khuddakapatha. The 9th verse touched and inspired this note.

The lines speak of patience and compliance, the ‘seeing of monks/bikkhus’ and the opportune discussion of the Dhamma: ‘Khantī ca sovacassatā …Samanānañca dassanam….Kālena dhammasākacchā’. While it is hard to think that ‘seeing’ here was meant or meant to be taken literally, the literal element is most certainly as much a nimitta or a sign as was the fourth of the pera nimithi (the signs that led Prince Siddhartha to leave home and family, to seek a way out of suffering).

Different things work for different people in the matter of getting by, finding relief in the battering of the verities that one’s hours and days are made of.  When I reaffirm commitment to strive to abide by the dhamma and reaffirm decision to take refuge in the Tripe Gem, the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, I dwell on particular characteristics of each. With respect to the last, I use a name or example of a bikkhu for purposes of focus. If I see a saffron robe on the road, I see the Ven Arahat Assaji whose grace, serenity and composure inspired Upatissa and Kolitha to follow him and consequently embrace doctrine and teacher, and secure realization.

We live in a world that is filled with the inauspicious and auspicious. We don’t have the eyes or the wisdom to see and differentiate accurately. In days that are like fractured mirrors, I think it is a blessing indeed that there are things we can identify with wholesomeness, things we can let mind and eye graze upon, for such grazing opens windows to truths that liberate or else offer a small guideline to a benign and beneficial engagement with the world, such as that 9th stanza of the Mangala Sutta.

I see a bikkhu on the road and I find it easier to focus on the Triple Gem. We make our auspicious signs. We are our own inauspiciousness too. The Mangala Sutta helps me.

Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta; May all beings be happy.

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Let’s be real about Wikileaks, shall we?

First some caveats.  I am not gung-ho about Wikileaks. As someone pointed out, much of the pernicious intent of US diplomats and the atrocities committed against innocent peoples all over the world and especially in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent times, is known. Even a regular browsing of mainstream media by someone emboldened with an iota of intelligence and the most rudimentary of skills in reading between the lines would have been sufficient to elicit a fair enough picture of what’s happened and what’s been happening in the world and who has been doing what. 

Secondly, it is clear now that the ‘leaks’ are being processed carefully for public consumption by the mainstream media in ways that legitimate the general policy designs of the bigger thugs in the international community, led of course by the USA: the vilification of Iran and justification for attack. 

As for the ‘Sri Lanka files’, only the naïve and ignorant would have believed Particia Butenis (like her predecessor and now confidante of Barack Obama, Robert Blake) was not an interfering, viceroy wannabe who actively operated (and failed) to defeat President Mahinda Rajapaksa in January 2010. Bottom line: it is not news. 

Finally, we are in the early days of Wikileaks and involuntary transparency.  The signals are mixed, whichever way one looks at it. Right now it looks as though the benefits are accruing to US foreign policy prerogatives. The Isrealis are cheering Wikileaks because it has been ‘revealed’ that Arab governments, in secret, are scared of Iran’s potential nuclear threat, never mind the fact that nothing’s been proven yet about Iran’s plans to develop a nuclear weapon.  "We come out looking very good," a senior Israel official has said and he  "They confirm that the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran." 

         1.       2.       3.  

                           4.         5.  

 Round Table - Prime TV on Wikileaks

Noam Chomsky has a telling response: ‘To tell the world– well, they’re talking to each other- to pretend to each other that the Arab world regards Iran as the major threat and wants the U.S. to bomb Iran, is extremely revealing, when they know that approximately 80% of Arab opinion regards the U.S. and Israel as the major threat, 10% regard Iran as the major threat, and a majority, 57%, think the region would be better off with Iranian nuclear weapons as a kind of deterrent. That is does not even enter. All that enters is what they claim has been said by Arab dictators – brutal Arab dictators.’

So is the news all bad?  Hard to say,.

Tom Flanagan, a senior advisor and strategist to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called for the assassination of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. He even wanted Obama to put out a (murder) contract on Assange and said he would not be unhappy if Assange ‘disappeared’. He’s echoing Republican presidential hopeful Sarah Palin here.  Meanwhile Assange is being charged with rape.  This is all classic silencing tactics. 

Let’s assume that Assange is a rapist. Let’s imagine an Assange-less world.  Let’s assume that he’s indeed a willing or unwilling pawn of a larger game that anticipates an ending antithetical to those who truly believe that Wikileaks will help tilt the world in favour of the insulted and humiliated, the beaten and downtrodden, the exploited and plundered. Let’s assume that the howls of protest about ‘leaks’ have been carefully scripted, even if cannot forget that the howlers are actively, deliberately and consciously making plans whose implementation would eliminate thousands of lives even as I write; lives that have caused untold suffering to hundreds of thousands of people, have pillaged and destroyed nations and poisoned the earth, the seas, the waterways and the skies.  Let us assume that Patricia Butenis and other officials whose missives have been ‘leaked’ are indeed dispensible creatures and will be happily sacrificed to achieve larger US foreign policy objectives. 

There are things that are indisputable. Last year, this time, the world did not know of a Julian Assange. Today the man is all over the place and inside the closets of big-name people and big-weapon nations, pulling out skeletons by the thousands.  He’s unceremoniously knocked people off the moral high ground, made hollow the high-minded pronouncements of the self-righteous and basically stripped thugs and thug-nations of saintly garb and halo. In particular Assange has showed us the true face of the US democracy (which Malcolm X correctly described as ‘hypocrisy’ more than 40 years ago).  

Let’s assume that they take him out of the equation. They still have a problem: they can’t take the equation out along with him. The Prophet of Involuntary Transparency, as he’s been dubbed, can fall or be eliminated, but there’s no stopping involuntary transparency now. 

Even if Assange is Obama’s accomplice and Netanyahu’s pawn, even if Wikileaks is used to set up world opinion to attack Iran (not that the thugs that have run and still run the United States of America ever required permission for thuggery), we still have a mechanism that is getting word out. Sooner or later, it will be impossible to lie. People will have to come clean, warts and all or else opt for systemic thuggery in the form of constitutional dictatorships or straight forward military juntas. Works. For a while. 

I believe therefore that what’s happening is that a can has been opened, an idea formulated and a process set in motion that the setters-in-motion might not be able to contain or manage. That’s the flip side of Wikileaks.

It all boils down to what we do with Wilileaks and Wikileaking, if you will. It depends on what we do with involuntary transparency, how we use it or abuse it. Let us not have illusions. The powerful are better positioned to use and abuse. The weak have to strive. It is not impossible. It is high time that people stripped the Obamas of this world of the literature of liberation. ‘Yes we can’ does not belong to Obama; it is something that Obamian victims must embrace and put to work. That’s how Wikileaks can work for us. 

Until such time, it is perhaps prudent to say that the jury is out on Wikileaks. We shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves, should we?

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Representations to the LLRC

~ Transcipt of evidence ~

 Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission

Colombo, Sri Lanka

14th January 2011

 

         1.     2. 
   

         3.      4.  

PREAMBLE

My representations are framed by my understanding of the teaching of Siddhartha Gauthama, in particular the Charter on Free Inquiry, the Kalama Sutra.  As such I would hope that my submissions privilege reason over emotion and moreover call for the same privileging in the matter of learning lessons and imagining and implementing measures of reconciliation subject to the caveat that conclusions drawn are regularly verified in practice and adjusted in accordance to flaws discerned.  My appeal is further framed by the two principle drivers proposed by the Buddha: wisdom and compassion.

Reconciliation connotes a bridging of difference, a coming together.  It assumes therefore disjuncture, disunity, dissatisfaction and disagreement.  In the matter at hand the operative term would be ‘grievance’.  I am of the view that if grievance is perceived then it is real.  Grievances can be imagined of course, but to the extent that even such constructions factor into real life politics and provoke outcomes, they need to be treated as real for the aggrieved.  To the extent that such grievances are felt by a citizen then it is incumbent on the state to ensure that there is a mechanism to address these grievances, ascertain their true dimensions and deliver redress. 

Grievances, as articulated by Tamil representatives, self-appointed or otherwise, are broadly of two kinds: the traditional homeland claim and inequalities or anomalies pertaining to citizenship. 

TRADITIONAL HOMELAND CLAIM

History

With respect to the first, that of traditional homelands, I submit the following:

On February 14, 1766, Kirthi Sri Rajasinha, the King of the Kandyan Kingdom ceded a stretch of land in the Eastern part of the island, 10 miles in width from the coast to the Dutch East India Company.  The relevant maps are contained in Fr. S.G. Perera’s ‘The History of Ceylon’.  Prof. James Crawford refers to this treaty in his book ‘The creation of states in international law’ as one of the earliest such agreements recorded.  Prof. S Arasaratnam’s work on the Dutch Period refers to the details of this treaty and points to the issues pertaining to sovereignty.

The implication is that the Kandyan Kingdon had the right to cede that portion of land and that it continued to have sovereignty over the rest of the territory until the British obtained full control of the island in 1815. 

In 1766 therefore there was no question of sovereignty of any other polity and when the relinquished sovereignty was recovered and reasserted in 1948 by the State of Ceylon it naturally reverted to the political geography prior to the signing of that treaty. 

That treaty, moreover, is the genesis of the demographic realities of today’s Eastern Province where the bulk of the Tamil population lives on that 10 mile wide strip of coastal land.  Their ancestors were brought there by the Dutch to grow tobacco. Even today the majority of the Grama Niladhari divisions contain a Sinhala majority population. 

If the issue of homeland requires a longer throw back into the past, we can go to the 10^th Century, to the golden period of Chola expansion/invasion and the invasion of the island by Raja Raja Chola in the year 993.  Raja Raja Chola is also known as a builder of Hindu Temples.  The inscriptions at these places, according to the Archaeological Survey of India, resolve all doubts about traditional homelands and sovereignty.  The inscriptions at the temples in Tanjavur and Ukkal speak in glorifying vein that Raja Raja Chola conquered many countries, including one ‘Ila-mandalam’.  The inscription elaborates that this ‘was the country of the warlike Singalas’.  The plunder of wealth, one notes, is not from ‘Singalas’ who lived in ‘Ila-mandalam’ (which is a corruption of ‘Sihala’ or ‘Hela’) but the land of the ‘Singalas’, whether they were warlike or not being irrelevant to the issue. 

The archeological evidence shows that what is today called the Northern and Eastern Provinces were at one time the heartland of Buddhist civilization in the island.  Although there have been claims that these were the work of Tamil Buddhists, the thesis is not supported outside the rhetoric. 

I conclude that the claim is a fiction and one which was not only a key element of Tamil chauvinistic propaganda but a notion that stands squarely in opposition to reconciliation among communities. 

I submit however, that to the extent that history is version, there is a manifest need to have the issue cleared once and for all so that no doubts remain regarding the issue of sovereignty, ownership and claim. I propose that a historical audit be administered where all claimants are required to provide adequate substantiation divested of rhetoric and buttressed by independent authority and corroboration.  I submit that reconciliation requires a resolution of competing theories about exclusive rights to territories, while offering the caution that the notion of ethnic enclaves rebels against reconciliation and moreover is not supported by demographic and geographical realities. 

Devolution

In this regard, let me speak to the much-bandied term pertaining to ‘resolution’, i.e. devolution and within it in the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution. 

I submit that devolution as a constitutional and political mechanism for resolution makes sense only if history, geography, demography and economic/development prerogatives support it. I submit that devolution fails on all counts and as such the 13^th Amendment is an aberration for all these reasons, not to mention its illegality, its violation of democratic spirit in enactment and implementation and delivery failure. 

Even if ethnic enclaves do not exacerbate mutual suspicion among communities, they need to exist for devolution to sit in concord with reconciliation.  The demographic reality is that the majority of Tamils live outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces and this face cannot be attributed to the conflict alone.  The geographical reality includes the fact that in the Eastern Province that majority of the land area is inhabited by communities where the Sinhalese form the vast majority. 

Devolution, as per the 13^th Amendment, has been proven an economic and political failure, with two-thirds of monies allocated being spent on maintaining political structures with the benefits accruing in proportions horrendously skewed in favour of politicians. 

Devolution, moreover, rebels against current economic thinking on development. The unequal distribution of resources does not support development models that envisage multiple economic and commercial hubs. 

Devolution, if its logic is played out to the end, could for example result in vast regional anomalies, with the Western Province, for example objecting to surpluses generated therein being handed out to non-performing or less affluent provinces. 

Accordingly, I submit that the 13^th Amendment be reviewed in its entirety, especially on its predicate, that of claimed grievances.  If grievances pertaining to territory are found untenable then all territory-based proposals, I submit, are unscientific and therefore require rejection.  A pandering to political realities based on constructed mythologies can tide a country over in the short term but necessarily generate further rupture down the line.  Constitutional enactment should not be frivolous and should not pander to the whims of the most skillful rhetorician.  It should rather be sober, realistic, reference the past and look to the future.   

My contention is that the traditional homeland thesis is flawed and therefore resolution on relevant lines doomed to failure.  In the absence of a robust case for devolution, minority grievances must necessarily defer to the notion of citizenship. Let me therefore comment on the second element of the grievance thesis, that of citizenship anomalies.   

CITIZENSHIP ANOMALIES

I have no doubt in my mind that there have been numerous instances where minorities, particularly Tamils have suffered injustice and been at the wrong end of citizenship anomalies in terms of access to services, language-related obstacles and opportunities.  In many instances, constitutional provision has proven inadequate in resolving inequities.  Sloth, lack of political will, inefficiency, lack of resources including skilled personnel and also racism have resulted in ensuring that minorities are short-changed in many areas of social, economic and political life.   

Let me interject here the caveat that citizenship anomalies are not the preserve of any particular community.  Who after all talks of the grave injustices done to the Kandyan Peasantry and the related dispossessions?  Who talks of regional disparities and class-related anomalies?  Who talks about the injustices done to Buddhists and the vandalism, dispossession and cultural genocide they’ve been at the receiving end of?  The truth is that societies are not flat, they are made of hierarchies. There are institutional and processual factors that privilege some and marginalize or irrelevance large sections of the population.  It is true also that many of these anomalies are ethnic-free. 

On the other hand the existence of one disjuncture does not justify the perpetuation of another. We are talking about reconciliation here and it pertains principally to the issue of inter-ethnic harmony.  I submit that there are three areas that require urgent attention and relevant resolution: citizenship rights, security and sense of belonging. 

Citizenship rights

Citizenship is a notion that derives principally from constitutions and legal provisions. It also pertains to administrative sensitivity to particularities and mechanisms to address these.  I contend that resource lack is a factor, but nevertheless insist that not all delays and non-implementations can be attributed to this.  A more robust regime of implementation is required to resolve the day-to-day problems of the citizenry which find exacerbated articulation among minorities in certain instances. 

Citizenship rights can resolve many anomalies but subject to the qualification of adequate constitutional provision to insulate the citizen from the politician or the powerful.  They therefore are predicated on there being adequate systemic checks and balances to correct institutional flaws in terms of transparency and accountability.  They are not about special privileges for anyone but about ensuring equality across the board. 

I submit that the 1978 Constitution is patently anti-citizen and that well-being is largely dependent on the benevolence of the powerful.  Given power imbalances across society the overall health of society is therefore a lottery.  This needs to be corrected immediately so that institutional arrangement is sturdy enough to override whim and fancy of particular ruler.  I submit that the 18^th Amendment was a step back in terms of this objective and that whatever ‘resolution’ of minority grievance that ensues would be in the form of ruler-largesse and not citizenship right. 

Security

It is natural that security is a serious concern for Tamil people, given the context in which these hearings are being held.  Propaganda-led suspicion and the reality that the vast majority of personnel engaging the LTTE were Sinhalese overrides often the reality that the very same personnel rescued a population largely made of Tamils from the clutches of a terrorist and the agonies of protracted war.  The degree of threat required part suspension of normal legal provisions and the law turned a blind eye to a lot of informal processes.  I submit that while such departures are inevitable in times of war and create and feed a culture of lawlessness, post-war realities require a return to and a more stringent reiteration and enforcement of the law. This has to include a correction of flaws existing in the overall framework. 

The issue of ‘security’ is not a concern peculiar to minorities. It is a concern for all citizens. In this regard due acknowledgement is necessary of the fact that destabilizing forces exist and exist in vibrancy, both here and abroad, and that they operate in concert and possess a well-oiled mechanism to paint fiction as realities, exaggerate anomalies, and move powerful players in the international community against the state and by extension the people of this country. 

While the end of war considerably alleviated the sense of insecurity among all communities and especially Tamils in the Northern and Eastern Provinces who were unfortunately resident in the principal theatre of conflict, this fact is only consolation and relative merits should not and cannot be allowed to be turned into perpetual excuse for system-leak.

I acknowledge that courtesy of rabid pro-LTTE propaganda and meanness of spirit of certain key players in the international community, serious questions have been raised about the conduct of the military operation to eliminate the terrorist threat. Although these allegations even in aggregate do not indicate systemic violation of accepted practice, although they are utterly insignificant when one compares the track record of countries that have been raising shrill objections and demanding investigations, I submit that they need to be addressed in order to ward off unnecessary and distracting pressure on the country as it strives to move forward in the aftermath of a long and bloody war and in order to ensure more stringent submission to the basic norms of humanity in the future.  I submit the following points in this regard.  

1.      One of the important and critical issues that the LLRC has to address is the issue of ‘accountability’; i.e. how proper investigations and inquiries into allegations of crimes committed by all parties during the last stages of the armed conflict are to be conducted.

2.      I strongly believe that the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka did not pursue a policy of intentional and systematic harming of civilians. There is no evidence to prove that the Armed Forces carried out such a policy. And, the massive and remarkable humanitarian mission of saving the lives of some 300,000 civilians from the clutches of the LTTE during the last stages of the conflict could not have been carried out so successfully had the government pursued a barbaric policy of killing or harming innocent civilians.

3.      But we need to understand that given the nature of the terrorist group that the Armed Forces had to confront and given that group’s tactics and mode of operation, there could have been instances when the Armed Forces would have been faced with the enormous difficulty in distinguishing combatants and civilians. This is natural in any type of armed conflict and in one especially between forces of a State and a terrorist group which contains combatants (and suicide bombers) dressed as civilians.

4.      In such a context, there could have been instances when innocent civilians were harmed. And where allegations and accusations have been leveled (and these allegations, accusations and concerns relate in particular to those raised before this Commission by people especially in the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka), such allegations should be properly investigated.

5.      In addressing this issue of ‘accountability’, there are, I believe, two important issues that ought to be borne in mind. Firstly, that investigating alleged violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law does not diminish, but only enhances, the image of Sri Lanka. Investigating allegations of crimes and prosecuting those who may have committed those crimes is something that responsible States do. It is something that irresponsible States do not do. And there are plenty of examples of powerful States which have, and are, acting in such irresponsible ways in this world.

6.      The objection to outside investigation is a question of sovereignty, for it assumes that all allegations leveled against a state, include petty pilfering from the Treasury, needs to be appraised by a neutral umpire. On the other hand the absence of adequate and reliable independence in arbitration can and does give strength to the call for such interference.

7.      Secondly, Sri Lanka should not be seen to be a State which is unable or unwilling to carry out domestic investigations when and where necessary. The inability or unwillingness to investigate allegations through domestic investigative mechanisms gives rise to a consequence that Sri Lanka should do well to avoid: ‘international investigation’.

8.      I am referring here to the notion of ‘complementarity’; one frequently referred to in the discipline of international criminal law, and one which is referred to even in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (e.g. in Article 17(a) of the Statute). Therefore, a State should not be “unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation and prosecution” that is made necessary when allegations are leveled by people, especially, in those areas where the armed conflict took place. Also, to carry out such investigations, the State should have proper, credible and independent institutions and mechanisms.

9.    Therefore, I believe it is the duty of this Commission to come out with clear and concrete suggestions as to how such investigations should take place. This is of utmost importance. The LLRC comprises of distinguished members who are qualified and experienced to make such recommendations and suggestions to the government.  

Reconciliation is a matter that can flounder on inadequacies in dealing with mal-intentioned entities as such level these allegations.  One lesson that cannot be dismissed is that the LTTE’s intransigence and power derived to a large extent from its success in one particular sphere of operation: propaganda.  A comprehensive mechanism needs to be established to counter outrageous claims as being part and parcel of the overall national security requirement. 

In addition, it should be recognized that one of the most effective means of rendering such moves ineffective is a happy and thriving Tamil community living in harmony with their brethren among the Sinhalese, Muslims and other communities. Development is only one part of the answer. 

Sense of belonging

Let me touch upon the issue of belonging.  This is a matter that constitutional amendment alone will not resolve.  I believe that we have a long tradition of compassion, forgiveness and accommodation that makes inter-communal embrace possible.  Regardless of histories, regardless of wrong done to one another, regardless of vandalism and desecration, the validity or otherwise of claim, the name, identity and political persuasion of wrong-doer it is clear that this island belongs to all the citizens resident in it and that progress in any sphere will be hampered if we cannot live together and respect one another. 

Wars are about the clash of arms among parties at odds with one another. And yet, wars produce commonalities that are largely unrecognized. There is commonality in the suffering, the loss of life, dismemberment, displacement, orphaning, widowing, destruction etc.  There are also commonalities in hope and fear, sorrow at the loss of comrade, outrage at atrocity perpetrated. There is commonality in heroism too.  Such things don’t have an ethnic identity. They have a human quality; that of inadequacy as well as ‘exceptionalism’. 

Close to a hundred thousand people died over the last 30 years.  Regardless of who fought who over what and with whom, there is a need to recognize that there was heroism among all groups involved in the conflict.  There is a need to recognize that every person who died, every person who lost a limb or an eye or was in one way or another incapacitated and every person who was dispossessed in one way or another, was born on this land; that everyone had a mother and a father and perhaps a son, daughter, lover, spouse or friend.  They are lamented as son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, lover or friend more so than as champion of cause or defender of principle. 

In addition to all mechanisms and processes of reconciliation stated above, I propose that a monument be designed and constructed dedicated to what I would call ‘The Unnecessarily Dead’.  It should contain the names of everyone who died an unnatural death directly consequent to the conflict, not just the combatants but those who were at the wrong place at the wrong time or was thought to have spoken out of turn or opposed when support was considered non-negotiable and regardless of name, identity and political affiliation of assassin, manner, place and moment of death. Side by side.  They were all our fellow-creatures regardless of arguments over claims and counter-claims, right and wrong, the justice or otherwise of particular strategies and their implementation.

There are everyday acts of rebellion. There are everyday acts of rupturing inter-ethnic amity. There are everyday acts that enhance our worth as human beings. These cannot be legislated.  They are born, nurtured and find articulation based on the individual’s particular understanding of the eternal verities. 

As a Buddhist I can do no better than referring to the Word of the Buddha, in particular to the Sathara Brahma Viharana or the four sublime modes of living: Metta, Muditha, Karuna and Upekkha (Loving kindness, compassion, the ability to rejoice in the happiness of others and equanimity).  Even as we employ wisdom and reason, the unguent that heals terrible wounds must contain the ingredients of compassion and humility.  That is something every individual would do well, I believe, to take cognizance of. 

I thank you for your patience and once again express my gratitude for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts.

Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatta.

May all beings be happy.

Malinda Seneviratne

January 14, 2011

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