Carbon-dating of Mannar Mass Graves buries the 'reconciliation'-humbugs

There are words and terms that lose all meaning simply due to overuse. Sometimes, in fact, the words/terms take on meanings diametrically opposed to their original meaning. Language, friends, as we all know and often forget, is political. Words are given meanings other than those agreed upon by convention or usage. 

Take the word ‘peace’ for example. In the early years of the millennium when the federalist camp was strong, anything proposal this side of the f-thing was vilified as evidence of Sinhala Buddhist extremism and even war-mongering. What was most interesting and was, in retrospect, a major reason for the defeat of the advocates.

Let me explain. When you equate something like peace to a preferred outcome, it is almost a given that process and relevant politics will be designed and engineered respectively to obtain what’s desired. It is also a given that neglecting realities will destroy the project. 

That’s what happened to the ‘federal-peace’ project. It’s what is happening to ‘reconciliation’ too. ‘Federalist-reconciliation’ or, as they call it in reduced circumstances following the military defeat of the LTTE, ‘devolution-reconciliation’.  Read any policy document on post-war reconciliation and you will inevitably encounter something about devolution of power.  

But what is this ‘reconciliation’? It presupposes a quarrel or disagreement and naturally quarreling and disagreeing parties. Reconciliation then is about a restoration of pre-quarrel status, to obtain some kind of agreement or (and this is important) for one or more parties to resign itself/themselves to the incorrigibility of stand taken.  

Now the conflict-resolution industry (also describable as ‘conflict management industry’) has various processual mechanisms (as opposed to the objective-driven thrusts we are familiar with in Sri Lanka and which we have alluded to above) to get disagreeing parties to a point of agreement. Focusing on commonalities is a commonsensical approach. 

But no, our worthies are fixated on what they call ‘transitional justice’ and ‘accountability’.  Now ‘transitional justice’ as the word ‘transition’ implies is some half-way measure with a predetermined end in mind. That predetermined end, in Sri Lanka’s case draws from the only-devolution-gives-reconciliation thesis. 

So the entire discourse is about war crimes and mechanisms that can allow the aggrieved to obtain closure about the fate of loved ones.  ‘Closure’ is also an interesting term, as is grief and of course the ‘fate’.

Let us repeat the oft-repeated and equally often ignored truths about this affair: a) it was a 30 year long conflict and NOT something that began in January 2009 and ended in May the same year, b) the numbers regarding the dead have been grossly inflated and related claims severely compromised by the absolute lack of source-credibility, not to mention the arbitrariness of the claims, and most crucially, c) the absolute reluctance for any kind of closure/reconciliation that is not compatible with the ultimate political objective (which absolutely at odds with history, geography and demography, among other things). 

Consider for example, the response of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to the results of carbon dating tests on skeletal remains found in the much celebrated (!) ‘Mannarama mass graves. They don’t want to accept the results. They want further tests.  

This kind of obstinacy has prompted observations such as the following in social media: ‘Think about it. The way NGOs and Eelamists are trying to discredit the US laboratory results on the Mannar graves, they would even blame foreign judges if they absolved the Sri Lankan Army of genocide. Nothing will satisfy the NGOs and Eelamists unless they get decisions to suit their preconceived notions and protect their "jobs / funding flows.’

Let’s ignore jobs and funding flows. Let’s instead focus on reconciliation. It’s just not on, until such time key players in the affair such as the TNA take a break from goal-fixation.  It doesn’t look likely though. 

The most baffling element in all this is the consistent refusal of the reconciliation (as per devolution) advocates to consider the overriding commonality of victimhood at the hands of capital and political interests (which more often than not coincide) and resultant impoverishment as well as the shared horror of the wanton destruction and theft of resources.  

Capital does not come with an ethnic or any other identity. Those who destroy forests are typically identity-free, an exception perhaps is the scandalous and determined efforts to erase ‘Wilpattu’ from the ecological map of the country.  How about the complicity of politician and official to make and amend laws to facilitate corporates intent on plundering resources and the deliberate elimination of all traditional crops through the constructed extinction of seeds? How about the wresting of control over water resources? 

No. Nothing of the sort. We have on the other hand people like Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu insisting that the moves in Geneva are not against Sri Lanka but ‘on’ Sri Lanka. Why? Because an ill-informed, ill-willed and clearly incompetent government decided to put the country’s signature on a flawed document? That makes it ‘on’ and not ‘against’? But that’s the focus. That’s the fixation. That’s also the distraction and ultimately a key stumbling block in the matter of reconciliation.  A distraction as pernicious as creative historiography and indeed fixation on history and attendant myth-modeling as well as what Dr Arjuna Parakrama refers to as ‘category mistakes’, i.e. misnaming things. 

For the record, the BBC, which made such a song and dance when these graves were discovered, went completely silent on the subject once the results of the tests were released!

Ladies and gentlemen, there are seeds, trees, sustainable practices and such that unite these allegedly ‘warring’ communities. There’s misery that is common and not born of one community targeting another. There’s commonality in victimhood on account of climate change clearly impacted by practices flowing from development ‘logic’ that is only about the sustained prosperity of a certain class of individuals who, let us not forget, doesn’t give a hoot about identity. 

If people are not interested in meaningful reconciliation, then let’s drop the term altogether, just as we need to drop terms such as yahapalanaya, accountability, transparency etc., for the simple reason that they have been made meaningless by overuse, mis-application and most seriously their pinning on things that mean the opposite.  

We can do better. We can do better if people can wrest ownership of land, resources, communities, engagement and political processes and institutions. That might deliver reconciliation. All processes, institutions and individuals currently ‘invested’ in reconciliation are operating as subversive elements. That much we can agree on. That much we can reconcile ourselves to.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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Oxymoronic Sumanthiran

This (third) version of ‘Yahapalanism’ appears to be Sumanthiran’s baby. That’s Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran. One might have even said that it’s the TNA’s baby, if one went by a news story where  TNA Parliamentarian and Leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) Mavai Senathirajah was reported to have said ‘at present, there is a joint mechanism in place where discussions are held with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) prior to Cabinet of Ministers decisions being by the Government.’  

Sumanthiran has since taken to task the relevant media institution. He clarified thus:  ‘The TNA asked that the Government consult with MPs of the area before taking cabinet decisions regarding those areas, and the Government agreed to do so. This is what the Hon. Mavai Senathiraja said. The news report states that he says there is an agreement between the TNA and Government and that no cabinet decisions can be taken without consulting with the TNA! I said that the Tamil areas in the East should also be included in this mechanism of consultation, but the news item says that I said there will be a North East merger!’ We shall return to that claim, shortly. 

In any event, it’s good that he clarified for otherwise, it would mean that the TNA is an authority that sits higher than the cabinet when it comes to decision-making, which among other things would make senior TNA parliamentarian R Sampanthan’s claims to the Opposition Leader’s post rather silly.  

And yet, he was clearly spearheading the moves to reinstate Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister after he was unceremoniously ousted by President Maithripala Sirisena on October 26, 2018. He called the shots and the calling as well as the shots are captured on camera.  Does that make him de-factor Prime Minister? Close, but we cannot make that claim.

One claim that can be made is that Sumanthran is a crafty operator when it comes to constitutional affairs, if one were to paraphrase a laudatory observation by Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole (see ‘Sumanthiran on wise verbal concessions in the art of negotiations’ published in the Colombo Telegraph in September 2018). The admiration is understandable; Hoole was the TNA’s nominee to the Election Commission. They are misplaced because sleight of hand is pernicious and not a mark of wisdom. 

The article is a comment on Sumanthiran’s ‘C.W. Thamotharampillai Memorial Lecture on September 18, 2018 but Hoole offers an aside: ‘Privately, Sumanthiran once told me that these problems of negotiation should be approached judiciously without being hung up on words that can be inflammatory. He gave the example of the brilliance in Article 18 of the Constitution. While 18(1) says Sinhalese shall be the official language of Sri Lanka, Article 18(2) brilliantly goes on to subvert it saying that Tamil shall also be an official language. If we had been stuck on objecting to 18(1), Tamils could never have been liberated through 18(2). It is an oxymoron like 18(2) that can make Tamils get powers to take decision on those matters that concern our well-being through participatory governance.’

Hoole reports that someone asked Sumanthiran the following questions: ‘Why do you say that federalism is not required? Why are you taking the party against what the people wanted and voted for?’  He then claims that Sumanthiran’s lecture on ‘The extent of federalism today’ was essentially a denial of the the allegations couched in the questions. Hoole makes the argument that Sumanthiran was being smart (or rather, devious) about it the federalist posturing. 

In his response to the fake news item referred to above, Sumanthiran observes the following: ‘[it was] falsely reported that I had stated that with the new Constitution, a separate state would be a possibility. That is completely false, and directly contradictory to what I said! One of the main things I said in that speech was that we should give up the Eelam dream.’

However, Hoole believes that Sumanthiran is ‘hoping for an oxymoron [(like 18(2)]’. He believes that ‘Sumanthiran is gambling on further oxymorons on federalism and the foremost status for Buddhism’ which according to him are necessary ‘to make minorities fell less oppressed and this country more democratic.’ In other words, Hoole is asking the Tamils to understand that Sumanthiran is playing a game, that he’s batting for federalism without using the F-word.  

What Hoole seems to have missed is that Sumanthiran has not balked at using the F-word. Here’s what he said at the Parliament debate on the interim report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly (as reported in the Daily Mirror on November 2, 2017: We have very clearly stated that Sri Lanka shall be a secular state, and that Sri Lanka must be federation.’

Let’s observe that the Prime Minister has stated that the status of Buddhism (Article 9) will not be amended in any constitutional amendment.  Let’s note also that Articles 10 and 14(1)(e) effectively negate Article 9, very much like 18(2) making 18(1) meaningless.

What’s important here is that even as he denies federalism, Sumanthiran affirms it. Why? Well, Hoole gives us the explanation: Sumanthiran has a penchant to be oxymoronic and it is deliberate, not an accident. Hoole is stretching the meaning of the word, but we’ll let that pass — the intention is clear. 

In that same speech, Sumanthiran argues for the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces — so much for his self-righteous posturing on people being mislead with false news!  In that speech, following what has become customary in Tamil nationalist rhetoric, insisted on being for ‘a united, undivided country’. Indeed, he said ‘we have gone one step further and said, an indivisible country even in the future.’

So what? Hoole ends his article with the following key observation on which rests the subterfuge of Sumanthiran and his ilk: ‘Words do not matter so long as we get what we need.’

Hoole knows, as Sumanthiran obviously does, that you can throw in words that negate previous wording. Yes, like 18(1) and 18(2). We saw that in the 19th Amendment with respect to the dissolution of Parliament as well and Sumanthiran, interestingly, had a lot to say in the drafting of the 9th, it is reported.

He knows what’s what, Sumanthiran does. He knows he can say one thing and do something else. He knows that it is substance that will count at the end of the day, not rhetoric and not misleading, grey, vague and weak articles in the constitution. 

He does het his knickers in a twist, though. He got them twisted when he said that Buddhists, as per the doctrine, cannot support Article 9, forgetting that as a Christian, following Matthew 5:39, he should not be in politics, arguing for the redressing of perceived grievances through federalism. Maybe he’s actually read the Gospel According Matthew closer than we think, noting perhaps that 10:34 contradicts 5:39 and ‘wise’ about the fact that there’s a lot in the Old Testament to justify horror and the horrific, even terrorism and terrorists (as the TNA did for decades).  

In this instance, though, we must take cognizance only of one fact: Sumanthiran is a master at subterfuge, a man absolutely lacking in integrity. He’s a good politician in this sense. He knows what he wants. He has the Prime Minister’s ear or indeed, he is in a position to manipulate the Prime Minister or twist his arm. He is counting on a play with oxymorons delivering federalism in a way that sets the stage for separation later as per the Chelvanayakam Doctrine (‘A little now, more later’), for federalism in essence refers to disparate entities coming together, implying that they can, if so desired, come apart.  

Hoole is correct, ‘words do not matter’ if desired outcome is obtained. It is clear what Sumanthiran wants. All the more reason to be wary of his words.

Related articles:

The Mangala-Sumanthiran bluff on secularism

Bombs in Parliament need to be diffused 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawordsblogspot.com

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A tutorial for federalists

Three senior TNA politicians, R Sampanthan, M Sumanthiran and S Sridharan are reported to be on their way to Britian to study the power-sharing arrangements in that country.  This reminded me of an article I wrote for the Sunday Island more than 10 years ago when a team of Parliamentarians went to Brussels to study federalism.  Re-posting because I believe there are relevant lessons.
 

Ranil Wickremesinghe has realised one thing. He knows he can promise heaven and earth to Anton Balasingham in Oslo, Thailand and goodness knows where else, but at the end of the day he has to come to parliament and talk "co-habitation" because promises have got to be translated into constitutional enactment. And for this he needs the numbers.

There are two ways of obtaining the numbers. He could obtain public support for one’s proposal in 
overwhelming proportions so that the opposition will be politically forced to toe the line. This "option" is out as far as Ranil Wickremesinghe is concerned because the "peace" lie has lost its currency. This is why he has to go for the second option, that of buying/convincing the opposition. This is the secret of the everything-paid tours that have been arranged for PA parliamentarian so that they can benefit from the best lectures on federalism around.

There is nothing wrong in people studying federalism or anything else for that matter, not least of all because studying anything is something that parliamentarians never do. Getting idea-less people who know nothing of historical process and historicity lectured to about these things is a good strategy because the chances are that they will swallow the line whole, ill-equipped as they are to offer counter arguments.

There is another side to the political equation, however. If politicians make up one side, on the other side there are the people. Ranil has lost the people. This he knows. What he might not count on is that people are better students than politicians. They will listen to federal proposals, look at federal models and if there are holes to pick in these arguments they will pick them. They will do this objectively and empowered with an historical perspective, the things which politicians lack most.

Our politicians are touring Europe, "studying" federal models. There are four such "models"; Italy, Austria, Germany and Belgium. Apparently, our political worthies are going to design the political solution to our "ethnic" problem after considering these models. As the eventual "beneficiaries" of these deliberations, it would be useful for us to study these models and the historical contexts within which they were developed.

Let us start with Italy. In Italy, "the problem" was referred to as "The Roman Question". It arose in 1870 when the newly formed kingdom of Italy annexed the Papal States. The issue was resolved through the Lateran Treaty in 1929, signed for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, papal secretary of state. The agreements included a political treaty, which created the state of Vatican City and guaranteed to the Holy See full and independent sovereignty. Also agreed on were a concordat establishing Roman Catholicism as the religion of Italy and a financial arrangement awarding money to the Holy See in settlement of all its claims against Italy arising from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

At the end of the day, what does the Italian Constitution have to say? Article 5 says that "The Republic, one and indivisible, recognises and promotes local autonomy, it shall apply the fullest measures of administrative decentralisation in services dependent on the State and adjust the principles and methods of its legislation to the requirements of autonomy and decentralisation. Let’s talk about Italians now. Ninety eight per cent of them are Roman Catholic. Everyone speaks Italian. The people are 100% ethnic Italians. It is a homogenous country in this sense. The constitution reflects the socio-political-historical picture.

On to Austria. It is a federal state, made up of 9 autonomous states, all German-speaking in a country where 99% of the population is ethnic Austrian. Historically a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, when it became a republic, the states made up of ethnic Austrians came together to create present-day Austria. Article 8, pertaining to the official language says, "German is the official language of the Republic, without prejudice to the rights provided by federal law for linguistic minorities. In a nutshell, it is a mono-ethnic, mono-lingual state with an 80% population of Roman Catholics.

How about Germany? The Federal Republic of Germany is a federal union of 16 states. A region with a long and complex history, Germany did not become a unified nation until 1871. Before that time, Germany had been a confederacy (1815-1867) and, before 1806, a collection of separate and quite different principalities. Protestants live primarily in the North and the majority of the Protestants are Lutherans and they make up about 37 percent of the people. This is what is key: It is an almost 100% ethnic German state, and everyone, including the Turks (4% of the population) speak German and in fact have been naturalised to speak German. It is basically a mono-ethnic, mono-lingual and mono-religious (Christian) country.

Finally we have Belgium and there are good reasons why I left this for the last. In Belgium there are two distinct communities. In the North, there are the Flemish who speak Dutch and in the South the French speaking Walloons. Flemish outnumbered Walloons, but French was the language of the upper classes who controlled much of Belgium’s wealth. Thus, Walloon interests were disproportionately represented in the government, and only the small segment of the Flemish who were bilingual could participate equally. The expansion of suffrage began to redress this imbalance, forcing the government to accord equality to both languages when transacting official business.

The Walloons have inhabited the region now known as Wallonia for thousands of years, descending from an ancient Celtic people known as the Wala. The historic Flanders region (the Flemish North) was an economic power during much of the Middle Ages, and included parts of what are now the Netherlands and France. When Belgium gained its independence in 1830, it retained from this historic region only the area that became the provinces of East and West Flanders.

Wallonia was not recognised as a region until the early 1960s, when Belgium was partitioned along historic language lines (with the exception of the city and suburbs of Brussels, which remained bilingual). Between 1970 and 1993 constitutional revisions transformed Belgium into a federal state, with most governmental authority devolving to Flanders and the other two administrative regions, Wallonia and Brussels.

Belgium’s history could have unfolded in other ways. For instance, the South could have joined France and the North, the Netherlands, based purely on linguistic considerations. Being neither Dutch nor French, ethnically, they chose to remain separate.

So, in summary, in Belgium we have a union of two states, made up of the Dutch speaking Flemish and the French speaking Walloons. However, they have one thing in common; the vast majority of them (80%) are Catholic. There will be no wars, no crusades. "Ethnic harmony" is guaranteed, because they are beholden to the spiritual leadership of John Paul II.

Let’s summarise these findings. In Italy, we have a mono-ethnic (Italian), mono-religious (Roman Catholic), mono-lingual (Italian) unitary republic. Then we have a set of mono-ethnic (Austrian), mono-religious (Roman Catholic), mono-lingual (German) independent states coming together to form Austria. Germany is a mono-ethnic (German), mono-lingual (German), mono-religious (Christians of various denominations) federation.

Now we come to the real focus of Ranil’s Federal Tuition Exercise: Belgium. In the end, it will be the Belgian model that will be considered. This is why we should compare the Belgian example with Sri Lanka. Belgium and Sri Lanka are roughly equal in size and both have (on the face of it) a North-South issue on linguistic and ethnic lines. This is where the comparisons stop.

Personally, I like the Belgian model. It is the product of historical geo-political realities expressed in the form of a constitutional document. Like in Austria, Germany and Italy, it is the representation of the true state of affairs, not a historical fabrication or an imposed "geo-political reality".

What of the Sri Lankan case? Just as the historic Flanders region (Flemish North) was an economic power during Middle Ages, the Sinhala Nation was during the same period (Anuradhapura-Polonnaruwa) a flourishing economic power. Like the Flemish in the North outnumbering the Walloons, the Sinhalese outnumbered the Tamils. We had a rich Tamil upper class dominating politics, the public service and the economy at the time of Independence. Like the Belgian Walloons. They controlled much of the country’s wealth. Tamil interests, like those of the Walloons were disproportionately represented in the government and the public service and only a small segment of the Sinhalese who were bilingual could participate equally (just like the Flemish). In Belgium this historical anomoly was corrected through federalism. After Independence, this skewed political culture began to correct itself. What federalism would do, is to reverse this and re-entrench the anomaly.

In Sri Lanka, furthermore, the "issue" does not "enjoy" a similar history or historical span. In Sri Lanka the geo-political-historical reality was one where the Sinhala Buddhist Nation flourished from Nagadeepa to Deegawapiya and from Mahatitta (Mannar) to Gokannatitta (Trincomalee). The evidence is irrefutable. The Sinhalese, however, made two historical mistakes. The first was when the Dutch and Portuguese traders were harassing the Muslim traders. When they ran to the Sinhala king, he granted them relief. Traders became "temporary inhabitants" then "permanent residents" and later "refugees". Now they are claiming a historical mono-ethnic/mono-religious enclave and are moving towards a separate state.

The second historical mistake was when the British decided to plant coffee. The Sinhalese could have worked in the coffee plantations (and later tea), poisoned or otherwise sabotaged the destructive enterprise. Instead, they refused, making room for the influx of indentured labour from Tamil Nadu. Today, the descendants of these Tamils who arrived after 1853 are also making "traditional-homelands" noises. These plantations were set up consequent to evicting the Sinhalese from their ancestral lands and destroying the forests that they had preserved for centuries.

In both cases, the Sinhalese cannot blame the Muslims, Tamils, the Dutch, the Portuguese or the British. They were/are merely pursuing their self interest. The Sinhalese ought to have pursued theirs. The Sinhala leaders and the clergy of that time, instead, colluded with these invaders and betrayed the Sinhala people.

Things could have been much worse. When coffee went into decline during the 1850’s and 1860’s, successive governors undertook an ambitious task of rehabilitating the complex tank systems that existed the North Central and Eastern Provinces. This began in 1855. Governors such as Hercules Robinson and William Gregory intensified this effort. The objective was to develop paddy cultivation in the Vanni, Ampara, Polonnaruwa, Ganthalawa (Kantale) and Mahatitta areas. These areas, by that time, were sparsely populated. There was a large land mass, countless acres of abandoned paddy fields and a dilapidated irrigation network. They used the Indian labour in these regions to begin the shift from coffee to paddy. Fortunately for the Sinhalese, a tiny insect called Anopheles struck a cohabitational arrangement with the malaria parasite to drive away the invaders. Had this not happened there would have been nothing for Balasingham to discuss in terms of "political realities". The Sinhalese would have been an almost extinct minority.

These are mere facets of how the "ethnic equation" came about. The historicity, however, is not easily obliterated. Unlike in Belgium, the Tamils don’t have any historical basis comparable with that of Walloons or the Flemish who have been living in those areas for thousands of years. In none of the four "federal cases" under study was an immigrant or transient population granted autonomy. In our case, the Tamils either came to grow tobacco (for the Dutch) or coffee and tea for the British. The Muslims came as traders. The Sinhalese built this civilisation and all the archaeological remains in every nook and cranny of the country (and especially in the North and East) and the irrigation works similarly scattered all over the island stand as incontestable evidence of continued Sinhala presence. That they are no longer the dominant community in some areas is due to systematic evictions due to invasions beginning from the Anuradhapura period right up to the recent exercises carried out by Prabhakaran.

The "Belgian Way" proposal can only be met with a two-word response: "NO WAY". There is nothing wrong with federalism per se. It works, but only when the political and historical realities and antecedents point to such arrangements. Sadly for Ranil and for Balasingham, our history and our political reality do not extrapolate towards federalism. In Sri Lanka, the indisputable historical fact is that of an unarmed peace loving peoples continuously subjected to the terrorism of successive invaders. Accepting the product of such violent processes amounts to one thing. Abandonment. Of the Sinhala people. It is possible that Ranil is too poor to do anything else, but we are not.
There is another "way". The solution to a political crisis is best obtained when a truly representative body engages in a frank discussion. All this time politicians have ruled the country. It is high time that they give way to human beings. I once again reiterate the need to establish a "Constitutional Commission" representing all segments of the citizenry. The result of deliberations engaged in by such a body will necessarily be representative of historical and political realities.

The monopoly enjoyed by the politician in constitutional reform has to be done away with. Constitutional reform has been a business for the politicians. We have had parliamentary select committees, all-party conferences, individual pacts between politicians, and now study tours in the name of familiarisation, all of which soak up large amounts of public funds. They have had serious political repercussions as well. This has to stop. Citizens have to put a stop to this.

Sarath Amunugama and others need not have gone all the way to Brussels to study federalism or the Belgian model. Someone could have breathed a simple word in their ears, "libraries". However, now that they have gone, I would like to ask them one question (and of course Ranil and G.L. Peiris and anyone else can also answer it if they like): "Where does history start for you?" Is the answer 1983? 1956? 1948? 1853? 1815? 1505? For me, it goes back at least until Pandukabhaya. Belgium, ladies and gentlemen, resolved its case based on a history that for them began in the Middle Ages. In any case, Sri Lanka’s history does not begin with the demarcation of High Security Zones or the mapping out of "traditional homelands" of Tamil separatist imagination.

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Blessed are those who can walk and those on crutches too

It is now two years since the entire country was liberated from the threat of terrorism.  Slowly but surely, normalcy is returning to this land.  As is prudent in any society that is emerging from a 30-year long conflict the Government has adopted a strategy of phasing out security mechanisms.  ‘Prudent’ on account of the nature of the enemy and the fact that thousands of people associated with the terrorist outfit mingled with those who were not when the security forces finally rescued them. 

One by one, however, the barricades have gone, checkpoints have disappeared, and summary stops gave way to random checks which too became less and less frequent.  We are not completely free of these security measures, but there is certainly reason to feel freer than we were, less on account of the downgrading of these mechanisms than the removal of principal threat. The barricades could of course come. They could go away too, perhaps even permanently.  That requires two hands; two hands belonging to two people or two communities.  There's no reconciliation where reconciliation-need does not exist and where such need is non-existent, typically, no-need people will play a game called 'Let There Be No Healing And Let Non-Healing Begin With Me'.

Conflicts leave scars, some visible and some not.  There is greater scar-visibility in places where the fighting was most intense, in our case, the Northern and Eastern parts of the country.  This conflict, nevertheless, spilled over the relevant boundaries in many ways.  First, anything and anyone was ‘fair game’ to the LTTE.  The Central Bank was attacked, a President was assassinated, and therefore the point does not require elaboration.  It ‘spilled out’ because those who had to take out the enemy and save fellow-citizens came from all parts of the country.  Economies depended on the salaries of the troops, and their death or maiming caused grief. Yes, some scars are more visible than others.

 

We move on, though. As so we should.  That which was damaged gets rebuilt.  The dead are remembered by those they left behind. Grief is not a collective thing. It is personal, regardless of the identity of the dead or the aggrieved; regardless of loyalties and preferred political outcomes.  If we lamented mass slaughter in greater degrees of collectiveness then, we now focus, if at all, on our individual losses.  Here in Colombo, as the city becomes more beautiful by the day, conflict-signs have all but disappeared.

Invisible, however, does not mean ‘non-existent’.  There are times, for example, that we remember, if something triggers reflection.  Today is a day like that, as the second anniversary of war-end is celebrated.  Remembrance came to me in a different way, though.  I saw a young man on crutches. I immediately thought, ‘Johnny Batta’, the name given to the anti-personnel mine that the LTTE buried in their thousands all over the Vanni and which cost hundreds of soldiers their legs. 

I remembered, then, the tireless and dangerous work carried out by the security forces to clear the Vanni of landmines, one square inch at a time, with no map or reliable information about location, those responsible for burying being dead or (naturally) averse to offered guide-services.  My thoughts also went to a day in either April or May 2009.

At that time, the LTTE leadership had decided that it could no longer depend on the support of Tamils living in areas under their control.  The days of volunteering were long gone.  The retreat that began when the LTTE lost Silavathura marked the beginning of comprehensive hostage taking. All civilians had to flee with the LTTE leadership.  As the troops moved relentlessly forward, the LTTE had to increase the speed of retreat. They were hampered by the slow. They knew they could only be as fast as the slowest in the group.  The slowest, naturally, were those who had lost their legs to the very devices the LTTE had planted to stop or delay their pursuers.  There was an easy solution. ‘Easy’ because it was the LTTE that had to come up with it and because the LTTE is what many always knew believed it was.

Some 40 women, all on crutches since they had all lost at least one leg, were ordered to get into a bus.  Then they blew it up.  They were all Tamils; Tamil civilians injured by devices set by terrorists in the name of liberating the Tamil people, terrorists supported by word, action and funds by sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora and whose crimes were regularly whitewashed or responded to with silence by the Tamil National Alliance.  They were all, in one massive flash of fire and brutality unburdened of all scars, visible and invisible. 

We are told to be grateful for small mercies. We are told not to complain about the lack of shoes, because some people don’t have feet.  These are ‘grin and bear’ recommendations. They are not always sourced to a will to subjugate though. 

Right now, I believe those who can walk and dance are blessed.  Thinking of the 40 plus women whose bodies were broken to pieces and who were instantly robbed of the right to dream, I think even those without legs, can feel blessed.    

msenevira@gmail.com

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Blessed are the Tamil politicians for they can recover their tongues

Power imbalances make for two things: voice and echo.  The degree and nature of the imbalance determines the volume of voice and the throw back compulsion of wall and the distance the echo travels and of course its clarity. Complete servility or a monumental slant in favour of one entity over another gives us a ventriloquist and a dummy. 

For a long time, for all rhetorical claims of them representing the future and reference in fond terms such as ‘boys’, Tamil youth were seen by the Brahmins of Tamil politics, i.e. the Anglicised, mostly Christian, Vellala politicians who either lived in or hailed from Jaffna, as means to an end.  They were add-ons, the energy-givers, the ‘necessary numbers’.  As often happens, though, things did not unfold according to plan.  The baby that was fed with communal poison and whose nails were allowed to grow, clawed and stung the parent.  The creator, by and by, was overpowered by the created.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is the nutshell version of the rise and fall of the TULF and its later avatars, including the ITAK/TNA. 

From Amirthalingam to Sambandan and perhaps, in time, to Sumanthiran and Wigneswaran, not a whimper of condemnation did the world hear about the atrocities perpetrated by the LTTE.  Not even when key leaders of that party were killed in cold blood.  The perpetrators were referred to (at best) as unidentified gunmen.  There was of course condemnation, followed by a long wail about problems not being addressed and emphatic chest-beating about not being ready to give up the struggle.  It was a script they had to pull out regularly for decades. Until 2004, that is.

The year 2004 saw the formalization of reality; the power imbalance was recognized and acknowledged.  It was put in black and white. There was, thereafter, no need to indulge in shy making or take refuge in tortuous word-twist and punctuation rearrangement.  The Tamil National Alliance, in its election manifesto of 2004, made it abundantly clear that it was Prabhakaran’s mouthpiece. ‘Shame’ was duly abandoned.  Those were the shining days of ignominy.  

Dignity that is squandered takes time to be regained. Two years after the slave driver was taken out of the equation, not enough time seems to have passed for slave to convince himself that the relations of production have been transformed.  Having been echo for so long, it is perhaps difficult to think of ‘voice’ as option.  For tongue to bend to speak of duress, disagreement and articulate condemnation, echo needs to find tongue. The LTTE-echo is getting there and even though the confused sounds that comes out is a throwback to the Square One of the Chelvanayakam Doctrine, ‘A little now, more later’, and continues to treat myth as fact and regurgitates old lies.  

Most importantly, Tamil politicians can now speak the truth and lie of their choice without worrying about being shot dead the next moment.  The LTTE assassinated thousands of Tamils who opposed them.  These included politicians and academics.  Some had known names. Many were names known only to family and friends.  They were unarmed. They weren’t militants. They were not combatants.  They were just peaceful objectors who held different views.  

The TULF/TNA knew what the LTTE could do to the unarmed. They knew what they had done to those who were armed, those who had the guns and had undergone relevant training. The LTTE annihilated the TELO, and rendered ineffective the EPDP, the EPRLF and PLOTE.   It is in this context that the likes of Sambandan and Sumanthiran regularly touched Prabhakaran’s feet in veneration.  

That’s all gone now.  The ITAK/TNA is yet to admit that Prabhakaran was master and it was slave.  On the other hand, they are not interjecting ‘LTTE’ after every other word in the sentences they utter and write.  There is no need now to pay obeisance, no need to acknowledge and salaam, as they were wont to do not too long ago.

Those who have voice can articulate grievance. Those who have voice can confess to error.  The TNA is yet to get there of course, but that which had robbed them of humanity and dignity, the LTTE, is no longer around.  Their servility to anti-intellectualism and penchant for articulating myth belongs to them; they are not Prabhakaran’s proxies any more.  

When the monster spawned by the TULF found voice, the leadership of that party gradually lost their vocal chords. The TULF’s political offspring and heir, the ITAK/TNA was offered the echo-option when the LTTE was vanquished, and they took it.  Today that can legitimately dream of becoming ‘voice’ once again.  I am yet to hear them express appreciation to voice-giver or, let’s say, those who make it possible for echo to be replaced by voice.  Perhaps they lost integrity along with voice. Perhaps they were born without it, who knows?  

All we know is that voice is better than echo, and that those who are able to voice without being asked to voice are truly blessed. If they know how to use voice that is, let us not forget.

msenevira@gmail.com

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The TNA and the ‘Trust Issue’

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) does not trust the Government.  Nothing wrong in that.  If all political entities trusted and agreed with one another there wouldn’t be separate political parties for too long, never mind the fact that politics would be quite boring.  Mistrust, however, is not a one way street.  Those who do not trust and harp on the fact all the time in order to play ‘No Show’ can but expect their political ‘others’ to distrust in return.  If ‘trust’ is an issue to say ‘no’ to all exercises initiated by the Government, it amounts to a ‘no’ to all discussion on all issues. 

The TNA has every right to say ‘We don’t trust you’, after all no entity, least of all political ones, can be trusted totally.   The TNA has on this basis repeatedly refused to submit names to the Parliamentary Select Committee set up to deliberate on grievances and formulate solutions to alleviate the same.  Now the TNA has said that it will reject the findings of the census on missing persons. One of the reasons cited for this rejection is ‘circumstances of disappearances and deaths not accommodated’.  This is a barefaced lie and has been roundly refuted by the Department of Census and Statistics. 

Director General of the Department D.C.A. Gunawardena, while pointing out that the exercise was modeled on international standards and practices of data gathering, responded to the TNA’s concerns thus:  “If it’s a loss of life we even inquired into who the people they thought were responsible and whether it was people in civilian clothing or in uniform. We also checked the documents or any other material evidence of the relatives or family possessed in order to ascertain the authenticity of their claims.”

The TNA could of course charge that numbers and information can be fiddled around with.  That’s always a possibility.  However, if all relevant information was made public there would be ample opportunity for any interested party, the TNA included, to point out any error.  As things stand, the Director’s assertion that the TNA was merely ‘playing politics’ seems to be an accurate sum-up. 

Let’s flip the story.  Is the TNA scared of the truth?  Is the TNA scared that the numbers won’t support party rhetoric?  Is the TNA scared that it would be revealed that many of the allegedly ‘disappeared’ are alive and kicking outside Sri Lanka?  Are interested sections of the expatriate Sri Lankan community scared that the world would have to acknowledge that their perennial whines are based on falsehoods? 

Some in the TNA have said the party will carry its own census.  Even if we assumed that a political party has the money, personnel and expertise to conduct such an exercise, why on earth should anyone trust the outcome, considering the TNA has its own ‘trust issues’? 

The TNA, after all, was the mouthpiece of the LTTE. The LTTE not only held Tamil civilians hostage but fired on those who tried to flee.  The TNA remained silent through it all.  The TNA claims it speaks for the Tamil community and voices their grievances, but remains silent about the greatest threat to the livelihoods of Tamil fisherman – Indian poachers. The TNA does not acknowledge that such an issue exists in the first place only because Sri Lankan Tamil fisherman can take to the sea, a privilege that accrued to them thanks to one fact alone: the military defeat of the LTTE by the Sri Lankan security forces. 

There’s a lot of half-talk from the TNA.  Those silences do not help build trust.  If it’s all about ‘independent inquiry because of trust-lack’ then the TNA can move to reject all state programs in the Northern Province.  Roads, after all, may be mined. Vaccinations maybe doctored.  Curricula could be full of ‘distortion’.  There is a Government minister at one end of each one of these programs. 

The absence of wholesale rejection can be defended on the case-by-case principle, but then again the TNA has appeared to follow a principle of ‘outright distrust’ and given its long history of servility to gun-rule by a thug and a manifest tongue-twist when it comes to censuring even a single act of Thug-Thambi, the charge of ‘Political Fraud’ will be made.  It will stick too. 

Brinkmanship is allowed of course, but this is not a matter of trying to get the other to blink first.  The TNA seems to be scared out of its wits to confront issues head on.  Instead it draws from myths and legends, tendentious claims and outright lies.  Rhetoric is good for elections but can be disastrous when it is pushed beyond the point of sobriety. 

As of now the TNA is on the verge of falling from the edge of reason.  That is not astute representation of constituency.  That’s the art of political survival.  That has been the bread and butter of the likes of R. Sampanthan and S. Premachandran.  The tragedy is that people like C.V. Vigneswaran and M. Sumanthiran can do no better than tagging along behind these two-bit politicians.  Perhaps they like the ‘Spoiler’ label. 

 msenevira@gmail.com

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