federalidea.com

by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“If you are Tamil in Sri Lanka your trust has been spoiled. You fear rebels and you fear the government too”.

An unnamed 19 year old Tamil waiter (Washington Post–1.4.2008)

Everywhere in Sri Lanka the people are helpless, victimised by entities beyond their control and forces beyond their comprehension. Sinhalese and Muslims have to contend with Tiger terrorism and a mounting economic crisis. The fate of a Sri Lankan Tamil is infinitely worse, caught between an intolerant, anti-civilisational LTTE and a regime predisposed to regard most Tamils as Tigers. For an absolute majority of Sri Lankans life is an uphill, at times deadly dangerous, struggle. An age old proverb best describes the present Sri Lankan condition–between the devil and the deep blue sea.

‘Step Up Savannah’ is an innovative programme inaugurated in Savannah, a town in the state of Georgia, USA; its aim is to give policy makers first hand knowledge of what it is like to be poor. There should be a similar programme in Sri Lanka so that the President, his ministers and his Central Bank Governor can experience, even minutely, the debilitating and despairing struggle to make ends meet that is the lot of most Sri Lankans. In the absence of such an experience the regime will continue to impose burdens on the people until the South reaches the boiling point.

Sri Lankan leaders would do well to take heed of the unfolding US economic crisis and learn its lessons. American economic woes demonstrate the dangers of deficit financing. There are no free lunches; or free wars. The bill has to be paid sooner or later. There is a direct correlation between America’s $3 trillion Iraq war and its economic devastation, a correlation President Bush persists in ignoring. As Nobel Price winner Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author Linda Blimes point out in their new book, “Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed, that we can have both guns and butter. But of course the laws are not repealed. The costs of war are real” (The Three Trillion Dollar War). If financial/economic impunity is an illusion for the most powerful country in the world it is certainly so for Sri Lanka.

Indubitably the war against the LTTE must be prosecuted and paid for. However it must be done in accordance with Sri Lankan and international laws and the basic laws of economics. We have consistently violated all three, in the conduct of the war in particular and in the conduct of the government in general. Sky rocketing prices, mountainous debts and the international opprobrium are the results of this blind and ignorant politico-economic-military extremism. Impunity is a mirage that will destroy us if we continue to pursue it heedlessly, as we have done in the past two years.

Mutur Aid Workers Massacre

In its profoundly disturbing report on the aid workers massacre in Mutur the UTHR makes a potent point: “One thing is certain about the ACF killings. They would not have happened if minimally, timely disciplinary action had been taken against SP Kapila Jayasekere once his role in the Five Students outrage (in Trincomalee in Jan. 2006-T.G.) became widely known. Instead he was promoted to SSP in July 2006″ (Special Report No. 30: Unfinished Business of the Five Students and the ACF Cases-1.4.2008). A permissive mindset and the resulting impunity make even preventable crimes and avoidable mistakes inevitable. As the UTHR points out, if the government carried out an impartial investigation into the killing of the five students in Trincomalee, the Mutur tragedy, with all its adverse consequences, could have been avoided. By enabling the covering up of the first crime the road was cleared for a second and a far more devastating crime. By not taking action against the Trincomalee killers a message was sent down the line that targeting any Tamil is ‘kosher’ since most Tamils are somehow, in someway akin to the Tigers. The Mutur massacre would not have happened without this ethno-centric mindset.

The UTHR Report has named names, given ranks. It is now up to the government to carry out an official and impartial investigation. The only way the very serious charges made by the UTHR Report can be met is through such an effort; if that effort is not made or if it is made in a biased manner, the government will stand accused of complicity in a most heinous crime against its own citizens. So far the state and the regime have moved in a manner that lends credence to the charges of a cover up. It is time to realise that any attempt to deny the victims and their families the justice they deserve as citizens of Sri Lanka can be far more damaging than the initial crime itself. If the perpetrators of these two crimes are brought to justice Sri Lanka will get some much needed breathing space internationally. Our credibility with both the Tamil people and the international community will increase while the Tigers’ will suffer by comparison. The startling revelations made by the UTHR gives us a chance to approach the issue from a different angle. If we fail to do so, that window of opportunity will close, destroying our ability to win the backing of the international community and to regain the loyalty of our own Tamil citizens.

There is a world of difference in the way a Tamil and a non-Tamil would experience the security measures-some necessary, some excessive-taken in the context of the war. As that unnamed young Tamil man, a humble waiter by profession, pointed out, “It is not waiting in the lines or the search of our bags that trouble us as much as the chance of being picked out, arrested and never being able to see our families again. I know neighbours it has happened to” (Washington Post–1.4.2008). Most Tamils would have or know someone with similar stories, just as many a Sinhalese and a Muslim in the North-East or the border areas would have their own horrendous experiences of what it is like to live in the shadow of the Tiger. The least we can do is accept the reality of the problem and try to minimise avoidable errors and crimes by adopting an attitude of zero-tolerance towards anyone who harms civilians. If we do not draw the necessary distinction between Tamils and Tigers, how can we win the loyalty of non-Tiger Tamils? Without such loyalty how can we keep Sri Lanka whole and at peace?

When PM Ratnasiri Wickramanayake visited Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olemrt advised him, ‘Do not give into terrorism because it will only bring destruction to your country”. Many hardliners in the Rajapakse administration, from his Defence Secretary to the JHU, would regard Israel as a model state which does not give the enemy any breathing space. Israel leaders steadfastly adhere to their policy of defeating terrorism by any means necessary irrespective of any other consideration, economic or political, humanitarian or legal. However the war still continues; the suicide bombers still come; Israel’s borders are not secure and there is no internal security either. The harsher the Israel policy gets the more dogged becomes Palestinian resistance. Both nations are caught in a vicious cycle of death and destruction seemingly with no end because the moderates are not strong enough to impose possible compromises on the polity and the society. The most potent lesson provided by Israel is therefore a negative one: how not to deal with the people from whose midst terrorists-and suicide bombers-come forth. If repression and military measures alone can succeed in a political vacuum, the Palestinian problem would have been solved long ago.

According to the UTHR Report the actual killing of aid workers was done by a Muslim homeguard and two Sinhala policemen. The Muslim homeguard’s brother, a member of an armed Muslim group, was shot dead the day before by a Tiger operative masquerading as a Karuna cadre. Here we have in microcosm the tragedy of Sri Lanka, created by unthinking extremism and maximalism; here we see in miniature the consequences of the enmity between Sinhalese and Tamils, between Tamils and Muslims, deadly legacies of Sinhala extremism and Tiger terrorism. If this vicious cycle is not broken we will never know peace and normalcy. The Tigers do not want that vicious cycle to be broken; in fact they want it to become more poisonous and more relentless. It is the responsibility of the government to break this cycle of hatred by offering the community from whom the LTTE gains nourishment a fair deal. A never ending conflict which saps the energies of all parties will be the only future we can expect unless we draw that critical line of demarcation between the LTTE and the Tamil people and offer the latter a just deal even as we resist the former with all the strength at our command.

Dangerous Regression

As we have seen, time and again, the Tigers do not respond positively to political measures; a peace process for the LTTE is merely a time to recuperate for the next war. Appeasement does not work with entities such as the LTTE. But while using military measures to face the undoubted threat posed by the Tigers political measures are necessary to engage and win over the moderates and the ordinary civilians. Negotiating with the Tigers is an exercise in futility; all the more reason why we should bypass the Tigers and offer the Tamil people a reasonable power sharing deal. Unfortunately the regime is unlikely to come up with a power sharing package because it does not accept the reality and validity of Tamil grievances. A government that is proud of 1956 and ignores 1983 cannot offer justice to Tamils because in its eyes no injustice has been committed in the first place. Similarly the regime will not be able to take actual measures to minimise human rights violation because it does not understand the reality of Tamil suffering and the validity of Tamil fear.

Given these critical absences, the Eastern province election will not help address Tamil grievances or Tamil fears. The recent local government election was free of violence but that is because it did not involve a contest and its results were a foregone conclusion. Given the deal between the PA and the Pilliyan group no one had any doubts as to which way the elections would go. The provincial council election can be another affair, if the opposition parties contest and actively campaign. And even if the election is free and fair what we are offering the Tamil people is nothing more than a return to status quo ante, an existence in a unitary state of Sri Lanka where the majority community has the whip hand, politically and militarily. Pilliyan group, given its anti-civilisational practices and its lack of a political programme, cannot be considered anything other than an appendage of the regime, a group of Tamil politico-military auxiliaries used by Sinhala hardliners to keep not only Tamils but also Muslims quiescent. Elections, even if they happen to be free and fair, will therefore not present the Tamil people with a different and a better option. This critical absence of an alternative will enable the LTTE not only to harden its resistance in the North but also to make a comeback in the East.

Politically and economically the danger signals betoken stormy seas, yet the government remains unheeding. The already debased living conditions of the masses will become further endangered as the looming global food crisis becomes a reality in the coming year. At a time when we need all the international assistance possible, help will be denied to us because of ‘good governance’ issues. The President seems intent not to appoint Constitutional Council, irrespective of these consequences. Everywhere the people are unprotected militarily or uncared for economically. A government that ignores the economic misery of its own Sinhala constituents is unlikely to care about the problems of minorities. Where are we headed in these troubled times? [courtesy: The Island]