federalidea.com

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

A recent report by the International Crisis Group on Sri Lanka is titled “Sri Lanka; Sinhala Nationalism and the Elusive Southern Consensus”. The report examines the nationalism of the country’s largest ethnic community and its relationship to the almost 25-year conflict. While observing that ” the Sinhalese are not unalterably opposed to a fair deal for the minority Tamils” the report also suggests that a ” new approach is needed that addresses legitimate Sinhalese fears, so as to tackle supremacist nationalism and allow for the necessary southern consensus on devolution. ”

Originally I intended writing an article based on the report but after reading the report I changed my mind. I thought the report was a worthy effort and felt that much of the commentary should be read widely. Therefore I have taken the liberty of excerpting significant sections of the report and reproducing them here. I do hope this would help portray Sinhala nationalism in a different light and help evolve a fresh approach towards addressing legitimate Sinhala fears when trying to find a reasonable solution to the long festering ethnic crisis of Sri Lanka.

Introduction

” The legacy of colonialism hangs over Sri Lanka, not least in the form of competing nationalisms that intensified in the last years of British rule. Soon after independence in 1948, the pan-ethnic “Ceylonese” nationalism of the elites was eclipsed by the self-assertion of the Sinhala and Buddhist majority. Rooted in a desire to overcome the humiliation of colonial rule, Sinhala nationalism also aimed to resist what it saw as the excessive political demands of Tamil leaders and the disproportionate power and positions Tamils had gained under British rule.

Tamil nationalism began as a peaceful movement for minority rights, partly in reaction to Sinhala control of the state. Failure to achieve a political settlement eventually led to armed militant movements fighting for a separate Tamil state in the north east of the island. The Tamil nationalist movement came to be dominated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group many states have banned because of its terrorist tactics. Sinhala nationalism has also spawned violent offshoots but has mainly been channelled through political parties, which have used it to mobilise popular support. The competition between the two major parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), has led to destructive “ethnic outbidding”, as each claims to be the authentic representative of the majority.

Both major parties also have faced repeated challenges from smaller groups agitating in the name of the Sinhala people’s endangered rights. Sinhala nationalism and opposition to foreign interference were central to the revolutionary program of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) in its 1971 and 1987-1989 uprisings. In addition, a politically organised section of the Sangha (Buddhist clergy) has formed, together with activist laymen, an even smaller but influential minority, whose frequent interventions in the name of the Sinhala Buddhist majority have had major political effects.

Sinhala nationalism has waxed and waned in response to the political context. At times, there has been strong Sinhala support for a negotiated settlement. Nevertheless, competition between the two main parties and their inability to neutralise smaller nationalist parties have prevented governments from compromising with Tamil nationalists. The LTTE has been equally important in blocking the elusive “southern consensus”. Its violence and intransigence have provided political ammunition for the most extreme Sinhala nationalist elements.

As a general rule, it is easier to see what Sinhala nationalists oppose (federalism, the Norwegian-facilitated peace process, the LTTE, terrorism and so forth) than their positive alternatives to resolve the country’s problems. Much of their energy has been taken up with combating Tamil views of the state. While Tamil nationalists generally argue that the state is irredeemably racist, in response Sinhala nationalists question the reality of Tamil grievances and argue that it is Tamil nationalism that is racist and mono-ethnic.

1. Sri Lankan Tamils are not a nation

Central to Sinhala nationalism is the denial that Tamils are a distinct nation or people deserving political recognition that requires a restructured state. The concept of Tamils as a separate nation is generally associated with their claims to an exclusive territory or homeland-”We have our own territory so we are a nation”, Tamil nationalists say. This explains Sinhala nationalists’ strong resistance to “federalism” or any proposals that would grant significant political autonomy to the north and east. To recognize Tamil rights to determine their own affairs, even within a united Sri Lanka, would be, they say, to accept the right of full self-determination. Any concession, it is feared, would whet appetites for more, and ultimately Tamils would seek separation and sovereignty. Hence the widespread Sinhala resistance to merging north and east into a single, Tamil-majority Northeast Province, a central demand of virtually all Tamil nationalists (even those aligned with the government).

The insistence on federalism or other forms of autonomy is frequently dismissed as simply the desire of the Tamil elite to gain the political power that would flow from having their own territory. Average Tamils, the argument goes, have no interest in federalism. Udaya Gammanpila, a prominent lay member of the JHU, said, “the Tamil elite wants a political solution to enjoy power and the luxuries that come with being politicians. But ordinary Tamils only want one thing-to be liberated from their so-called liberators [the LTTE]“.

More recently, the president and others have taken to claiming that 54 per cent of Tamils now live outside the north and east. That figure-for which no evidence is given-is used to argue that devolution is not relevant, since many Tamils no longer have a connection to their supposed homeland and in any case prefer to live in the south, where a federal solution would not benefit them. That so many Tamils live outside the north and east is also offered as proof they are well treated by the government and the Sinhala majority. “There is no ethnic conflict”, Gammanpila said. “If you come to Colombo, you see every ethnic community living in harmony. Outside of the north and east, all communities are living in peace and harmony”. What all Sri Lankans suffer from, it is said, is not an ethnic conflict but terrorism, from which the government is doing its best to liberate Tamils, since they, more than any other group, suffer from the LTTE. “When we liberated the east”, Gammanpila said, “civilians came and flocked around the [armed] forces. They knew who their real liberators were”.

2. Tamil grievances

The nationalist position for the most part rejects Tamil complaints. “There are no real Tamil grievances”, said a government official, “there are only Tamil aspirations”. A nationalist commentator argued that:

Members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community, who today constitute less than 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population, keep reminding us of the need to address their grievances without specifically defining what these grievances are. Without clearly enunciating the problem, the Tamil community has come to the conclusion that the sources of their grievances is the structure of the state, and the mere transformation of the state into a federal structure, would somehow resolve their grievances.

The vision of a democratic, liberal Sri Lanka that treats all its citizens as equals continues to be defended strongly by most Sinhala nationalists. Gammanpila and the JHU maintain that “in Sri Lanka, everyone is equal before the law. Tamils have no right to self-determination or political independence but they have equal citizen rights and equal human rights”. There is genuine bemusement among many Sinhalese at Tamil complaints of discrimination. They argue that earlier Tamil problems concerning education, language and employment have been corrected: university policies favouring Sinhalese are a thing of the past, Tamil is now an official language for official documents and signs, and Tamils have more than their proportionate share of state and private sector jobs.

These claims are formally accurate but ignore the history of discrimination and oppression, which governments have not adequately acknowledged, and that formal legal equality does not always translate into equal treatment in practice. It continues to be difficult for many Tamils to do government business in their language. Even in the Jaffna peninsula and Tamil areas of the east, official forms are more often than not in Sinhala. Few police stations, even in the north and east, have Tamil-speaking officers. Almost all government activities and many government signs, even in multi-ethnic Colombo, are only in Sinhala. Governments have promised to fix these problems but they persist.

Ongoing security force harassment is generally explained as the effect of the war and accompanying security measures. According to a senior official, “if the violence stopped, the harassment would stop too”. This is true to a large degree but discounts the impact on Tamil society and the resentment of the militarisation of communal relations. There is no evidence of serious attempts to reduce the discriminatory effects of security policies.

The Sinhala nationalist concept of a land of liberal equality is ill-equipped to comprehend the continued inability of Tamils to receive justice for the many massacres and gross violations of human rights they have suffered at the hands of the security forces over the past three decades. Sinhalese have also suffered from the brutality of an unaccountable military and continue to suffer police abuse. Nonetheless, it is hard to maintain that the justice system fails all equally. There have been too many killings and disappearances of Tamils in which the legal system was unable to convict anyone despite overwhelming evidence of security force involvement.

3. Myth of one nation

Consistent with the vision of a liberal, “colour-blind” state is the argument that Sri Lanka is already one nation. In 2007-as the army was clearing the Eastern Province of LTTE fighters at the cost of displacing hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians-a government poster campaign in Colombo showed attractive children from all three major ethnic communities-Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim-accompanied by the slogan, “One nation, one people, one Sri Lanka”. The suggestion that there exists a nation encompassing all its ethnicities and able to overcome all differences is particularly attractive for many liberal Sri Lankans tired of war and conflict. The same approach was evident in discussion of the national cricket team. In response to Amnesty International’s “Play by the Rules” campaign, which tried to use Sri Lanka’s participation in the 2007 Cricket World Cup to raise awareness of the human right crisis, several voices objected, asserting that the team represented an already existing multiethnic identity.

While this approach has certain attractions, echoing more considered arguments for a civic nationalism rejecting both Sinhala and Tamil nationalist views, it is but a step away from a dangerous attempt to subsume Sri Lankan identity into a Sinhala identity that recognises some cultural differences but not the Tamils as a distinct community deserving political and legal recognition. A Sri Lankan identity overriding ethnic differences might be welcome but cannot be achieved while much of the state’s symbolism and reality is Sinhalese.

Both the liberal “one nation” rhetoric and more obviously Sinhala nationalist defences of the state are blind to the symbolic marginalisation to which Tamils and Muslims are subject. State symbols are essentially Sinhalese. The flag is dominated by a lion wielding a sword, the ancient symbol of Sinhala kings; Muslim and Tamil communities are represented by two coloured stripes along the side. State ceremonies are intimately tied up with Buddhism; ministers regularly seek monks’ blessings; each full moon is an official holiday. Coins and paper money show only Sinhala and Buddhist cultural objects and symbols. The military is imbued with Sinhala patriotism. Regiment names are taken from Sinhala kings: the Gemunu Watch, named after Duttugemenu, who defeated the Tamil king Elara, the Sinha Regiment, the Gajaba Regiment, and the Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment. Even the economic development plan for the newly “liberated” east is called in government statements by its Sinhala name Negenahira Udanaya (Rising of the East), though more than two thirds of those in the Eastern Province speak Tamil.

The exclusion of Tamils, Muslims and other minorities from collective state symbols is consistent with the majoritarian vision of democracy accepted by most Sinhalese and virtually all nationalists. Democracy means majority rule, even if that means a distinct, stable minority is unable to have any significant policy influence. On this view there is no need for or right of Tamils to be a majority with their own political power anywhere on the island, especially as this would likely result in restrictions on the freedom of Sinhalese to settle where they want. In practice, then, only Sinhalese have the right to be represented collectively, either politically, through elections and the political system, or symbolically, through state symbols, ceremonies and connections to Buddhism.

4. Sri Lanka as “Sinhale”

While Sinhala nationalists at times invoke the liberal vision of Sri Lanka as one nation, they have another, more troubling and explicitly exclusionary vision of the country as culturally Sinhala and Buddhist. That the cultural practices of most Sri Lankans come from Sinhala and Buddhist traditions is argued to give the state the right to institutionalise those practices in the political system and the society as a whole. The JHU’s Gammanpila said:

We know there are English in England, French in France, Thai in Thailand, and Japanese in Japan. They are the people who created the civilization in those countries. This doesn’t mean there aren’t minorities in those countries. Likewise, Sri Lanka is the country of the Sinhalese and Sinhalese civilization was born in Sri Lanka. The British name Ceylon was derived from “Sinhale”, which means land of the Sinhalese. What’s the country for Tamils? They should also have a country. Everyone accepts that Tamils emigrated from India. Tamil Nadu means “land of the Tamils”. No nation has two homelands. Tamils admit their civilization was born in Tamil Nadu, and they immigrated to Sri Lanka.

Tamils thus have equal rights, but must on this view remain content with being a minority on a Sinhala and Buddhist island. Rather than seeing Sri Lankan-and even Sinhala-culture as a complex co-creation, the JHU and other Sinhala nationalists propound a vision of “Sinhalese civilization” as separate, distinct and rightfully dominant in Sri Lanka. There can only be one civilization in any country, the argument goes, and in Sri Lanka it is Sinhala and Buddhist.

5. Sinhalese as a majority under siege

Strident versions of nationalist ideas permeate the heart of the present government. The denial that Tamils are a constituent people of Sri Lanka, the refusal to accept their claims of discrimination, and the repetition of dubious statistics can at times be explained away as products of cynical quests for power. But they also suggest a deeper psychological dynamic. The international emphasis on Tamil suffering has been viewed as one-sided, ignoring the historical problems faced by many Sinhalese.

A recurring theme in nationalist writings suggests it is not Tamils who are the targets of discrimination but Sinhalese. This mindset, which has led many scholars to characterise the Sinhalese as a majority with a minority complex, explains some of the lack of confidence with which Sinhala nationalists approach minority issues. The rise of the JHU and the growing appeal of Sinhala supremacist positions have much to do with the widespread view among Sinhalese that they are, regionally speaking, a threatened minority, potentially at the mercy of the 70 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu and their foreign supporters, and thus in need of someone who can speak on their behalf and defend their rights.

This viewpoint draws on what is seen as the long history of excessive demands by Tamil nationalists, beginning with G.G. Ponnambalam’s request for “50-50″ representation in the electoral reform debates of the colonial Donoughmore Commission in the 1930s and concluding with the demand for a separate Tamil Eelam, first by the Tamil United Liberation Front in the 1976 Vaddukoddai Declaration, then in the subsequent armed struggle. These have contributed to a feeling among many Sinhalese that Tamils are unreasonable on the ethnic issue.

Sinhalese fears grew stronger with the peace process, as the LTTE flouted the ceasefire and carried out political assassinations and child recruitment with impunity. The appeal of nationalist visions is partly due to their engagement with issues ignored by many liberal anti-nationalists. The Sinhala nationalist critique of the exclusive nature of some Tamil nationalist voices, its strong rejection of LTTE brutality and suppression of pluralism and its highlighting of human rights abuses suffered by Sinhalese, such as the expulsion of many from parts of the north and east in the early 1990s, resonate widely. Many of these issues have been glossed over in the liberal, pro-negotiation approach to the conflict; there has been insufficient understanding of the extent to which LTTE attacks, on Buddhist monks in 1987 for example, and on religious sites have deepened fears and exacerbated militancy.

Conclusion

Peace is a long way off. The LTTE has demonstrated a clear lack of interest in a negotiated settlement. The government is beholden to and sympathetic with forces that conceive of Sri Lanka as an essentially Sinhala and Buddhist nation. Denying the existence of legitimate grievances specific to Tamils and the need to accommodate their concerns in a settlement, the politically dominant forms of contemporary Sinhala nationalism assert that the central problem is a terrorist threat that needs to be crushed.

[Professor Tissa Vitharana, the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) chairman & Minister of Science and Technology and a member of Peoples Alliance discusses with Udaya Gammanpila Legal Adviser of Jathika Hela Urumaya, during a Symposium on Indo-Lanka Accord - Pic: By Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai]

Despite claims to be committed to a political solution, the decision to rely on hardline Sinhala nationalist parties with an ideological commitment to the unitary state has left the government with little option other than to pursue the LTTE’s military defeat. Any meaningful southern consensus on devolution-necessary for a lasting solution-will take time but without much stronger international efforts to persuade both the government and the UNP to find common ground beyond unitary and federal labels, there is little chance the APRC will produce a political package attractive to Tamil moderates and able to win two-thirds support in parliament. Reaching a sustainable settlement will be even harder if government plans to establish new Sinhala settlements and weaken the power of Tamil and Muslim political parties and civil servants in the Eastern Province are in fact carried out.

Moving away from supremacist versions of Sinhala nationalism and toward the conditions for sustainable peace requires a new long-term strategy for both domestic and international actors that addresses the sources of that nationalism and supports development of a truly multi-ethnic identity. The first step should be to take Sinhalese fears and concerns more seriously. Too often they are dismissed as irrational or majoritarian intransigence. Sinhala nationalism, both in its intensity and content, shifts with the political context. Recently it has fed off the mistakes of its liberal critics and their international supporters but there is ample evidence Sinhalese are not unalterably opposed to a fair deal for Tamils. Peacemakers must learn to distinguish the legitimate concerns and grievances from positions that consciously or unconsciously render many Tamils and Muslims second-class citizens. The most extreme views of Sinhala supremacists exploit the wider community’s unaddressed fears but are the preserve of a small minority whose links to the government and domination of the media give it disproportionate influence.

The past decade’s slow progress in gaining Sinhalese acceptance of the legitimacy of Tamil grievances and the need for devolution was reversed in large part thanks to the unprincipled nature of the 2002-2006 peace process, which gave human rights little consideration and allowed the LTTE to further consolidate its power, even as neither side made any serious attempt to address Tamil grievances. There is considerable truth in the Sinhala nationalist critique of the 2002 ceasefire agreement, the peace process and LTTE violations. A new peace process must directly and convincingly address Sinhalese fears and sense of insecurity.

To be sustainable, the next attempt at peace also needs to be conceptualised and presented as part of a larger project of state reform and good governance from which all communities benefit, not merely a deal in which Sinhalese trade territory for an end of war and terror. State reform can begin immediately and, with human rights protections crucial to guaranteeing Tamils and Muslims equal citizenship, should be framed to invite Sinhalese endorsement. Thus, attempts by civil society groups to address human rights violations connected with the renewed war could be linked more effectively with police reform and anti-corruption efforts, whose benefits could be seen by average Sinhalese. Stronger efforts are also needed to reconstitute and strengthen the independent commissions-most importantly the Human Rights, Police and Judicial Services Commissions-established under the Seventeenth Amendment, which are crucial for more accountable governance and on which professionals and civil society groups of all ethnicities have already begun to cooperate.

Language policy offers another area for reforms that could build bridges between communities. Since the advent of “Sinhala Only”, the absence of state services in Tamil has been a major cause of Tamil discontent. Linguistic barriers have also been a source of much misunderstanding, while the lack of English competence has blocked youth of all communities from better jobs and fuelled economic grievances that have historically been channeled in Sinhala nationalist ways. A serious long-term commitment by the government, donors and civil society is needed to address the three issues in a program of “language rights for all”: expanded training in Tamil for government services and wider availability of translators; expanded instruction in Tamil for Sinhala speakers and Sinhala for Tamil speakers; and expanded access to quality English instruction.

There is room for engaging more skillfully with Sinhala nationalism by addressing its causes and responding to the sense of grievance and insecurity that gives it power. But until it is taken more seriously and made a central focus of peace building, it will continue to challenge attempts to formulate a political settlement to Sri Lanka’s conflict.

DBS Jeyaraj can be contacted on: djeyaraj@federalidea.com

by Gomin Dayasri

While the military marches forward regaining lost Sri Lanka, heart and mind operation must commence to satisfy the Tamil speaking people by attending to their prime grievances. It’s a shame that this has been neglected for so long when such aspirations can be assuaged instead of permitting them to remain unattended due to the apathetic attitude of the political leaders of the majority community, while the leaders of the minority communities have concentrated on making political demands that are of a fissiparous nature.

Nobody seems to be concerned of the core problematic issues of the Tamil speaking people, which are of a more immediate concern to them, instead of being permanently cocooned disputing an idealist framework of a future constitution. They are only chasing a rainbow without focusing on the eye of the swirling cyclone and permitting tropical depressions to grow into category five hurricanes.

It is a forgotten chapter that Muslims have been comprehensively cleansed ethnically from the North and parts of the East by the LTTE. Did we hear any reverberations from the human rights tourists and their local vocal teachers and students of human rights, except for a few curt and crappy statements? A terrorist group, engaged in an armed struggle alleging minority discrimination, terrorised a still smaller helpless minority community and drove them away from their homes to take shelter in refugee camps. Why did the human rights angels not take LTTE?

Worse, there are Muslim parties prepared to eulogise the perpetrators of the crime in death and pay homage to those alive for effective ethnic cleansing of their tribe.

The All Party Representatives Committee (ARPC) report is permanently round the corner like the permanent revolution of the past with a champagne socialist of that era at the helm acting as a tsar.

Perhaps, expectations placed on it were too high, when it is a mere reflecting silhouette of Parliament, converting an aimless talk shop into a useless workshop. It dented its credibility when UNP decided to stay away and the JVP left it in disgust. With three major parties constituting nearly 100 parliamentarians out of the reckoning, it lost the required momentum; the remainder consists virtually of government representatives.

Meanwhile, international pressure is being exerted to pronounce that minorities are being discriminated against and subjected to human rights violations and treated unfairly by the governing Sinhala majority. It is on this basis that foreign interference or intervention is being contemplated. Irrespective of the shortcomings of these human rights expeditions, they cannot be ignored, as Sri Lanka is held answerable at international forums, though most of the strictures have been made not considering the limitations within the confines of a democratic framework and the rule of law that a State has to meet the onslaught of a terrorist outfit. Our record is respectable if compared with the slate of those offenders who are petted and patted by western powers and handled gently by human rights interventionists. This is not to whitewash our few infirmities, which with proper guidance and management can be eliminated. Today, the determination of ‘who is a terrorist’ or ‘what is terrorism’ is the province of the powerful western agencies who define it according to a flexible agenda that suits their interest.

A telling answer is within our grasp. There is one area of a common denominator reached by the so called Experts Committee as both the Majority and Minority Reports arrived at a consensus on the identification of the prime areas of minority grievances:

1. Failure to implement the language provisions enshrined in the law meaningfully.

2. Security concerns including abductions

3. Acquisition of lands for security concerns

4. Rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Persons

5. Child recruitment

6. Lack of development in the North and East

7. Multi ethnic defence forces/Police

8. Discrimination in recruitment for employment

9. Inadequate infrastructural benefits

10. Irregular manner of land alienation, especially Mahaweli lands

The majority report revealed a framework which requires an overhaul of the Constitution with a federal complexion with the merger of the North and East while the minority report suggested curative treatment within the present Constitution with ordinary legislation and by administrative regulations in addition to a decommissioning of arms. Let the alleged grievances be tested independently and relief granted expeditiously and equitably without permitting it to fester, not necessarily based on the recommendations of the Reports.

What is of importance is not the formulation of the suggested rectifications but the common identification of legitimate minority grievances which can be attended to forthright within the present constitutional framework. It can be fulfilled with simple majorities, setting of genuinely independent permanent commissions with powers of speedy implementation, departmental efficiency and due administration.

On that count, the ball is in the government court and why it allows it to be hanging in mid air without smashing it with an ace? Pure ignorance, lack of initiative and more likely neither reports have been scanned by those who matter? The rule is to appoint a commission or committee and to go to sleep.

It is time the majority patriotic forces made a unique gesture by pressing the government to initiate a course of action to attend to the grievances of the minorities while pressing for a unitary state. It will give them more stature and make the term patriotic more meaningful in their ventures as it is more inclusive.

It will send a strong message to the international community and the foreign interventionists. It is the patriotic forces that can pressure the State to give relief to the established minority grievances more effectively than the secessionist columns.

Time is running out as the bondage of the forces that brought the President to power stand together only on one premise-supporting the armed forces. The government holds the support of divergent elements (SLFP, CWC, SLMC and varying shades of Muslim representation, JHU, UNP rebels) with carrots, oatmeal and poonac. The JVP has come out more strongly and strenuously on the national issue than any other yet it doesn’t spell out a solution for political expediency.

However, in a period where the JVP is attempting to hold out as a national party, minority interest should be attractive to a party that stands for universality. The JVP support is essential to win over the remaining Sinhala majority as it is emerging as a convincing bulwark of national interest.

In future neither this nor another government may be able to gather such broad spectrum support on the national issue

Of course, the UNP will oppose for the sake of opposing but within the UNP support groups are still the faithful nationalists with the interest of the country at heart but sidelined and remain tongue tied. Rethreading, Recycling, Rebranding Ranil Wickremasinghe will not make him a Reincarnated Nationalist.

The UNP has discredited itself thanks to its leaders.

We can overcome the problem but the time is precious to the President, as election year draws closer, more will look to the departure gate.

The Writer is a senior lawyer and a member of the experts panel appointed to assist the APRC.

by Kusal Perera

Terrorism is easy meat these days. Very often with totally incompetent political leaderships who are also ethnically or religiously egoistic and therefore not prepared to meet the challenge of finding answers for political issues, “eradicating terrorism” turns out as a good pasttime. Such political leaderships gain their strength in society from nurturing an ideology to suit their incompetence in governing and for their chauvinism. It is this ideology of the incompetent that is reflected in a recent article.

What ever Hillary Clinton’s motive is and whatever the future of the USA is if she is elected President, her statement that “all terrorists cannot be lumped together even though they are connected by the thread of terror tactics, because the goals they are fighting for are different.” is the dividing factor in terrorism.

It is therefore important to understand that “terrorism” in this modern world is a different phenomenon and within that there is a demarcation between Al Qaeda and most other armed groups that use terror tactics. Al Qaeda is a totally different organisation from Al Fatah, Hamas, Kurdhish Liberation Fighters, El Salvadorean National Liberation Front and the Sendoro Luminoso of Peru, or for that matter the LTTE.

Al Qaeda has no national political objective that could be considered as liberation of a society. It is not an organisation that had its birth from opposing oppression or injustice in a society. Al Qaeda is the off- spring of CIA activities as Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars claim. Harrison has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia and was quoted in The Times of India (March 7, 2001) in an article titled “CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban” as saying, “The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.” Harrison then said “The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.” That is the birth of Al Qaeda which is only targeting American people any where in this globe.

Montasser Al-Zayyat, an ex-hardcore Islamist activist who had worked in Egypt in the formative days of fundamentalist Islamist groups from 1975, sketches the ideology and commitment of the Al-Qaeda ideologue and right hand man of Osama bin Laden in the bok “Road To Al-Qaeda” and says, “Not only did Zawahiri influence bin Laden, the latter impacted the philosophy of Zawahiri and of Islamic Jihad.”(p/69) Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri now a full time terrorist and considered the second in Command of Al-Qaeda is the Guru of Al-Qaeda ideology. Now what was this philosophy in its operational mode ? In a fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden in February, 1998, he called for continued attacks against Americans any where in the world. This was justified by saying their tax dollars support policies that lead to the death of Muslims.

That is the difference between Al-Qaeda and all other armed guerrilla groups fighting for a political cause that affects a community. While no one including George W. Bush Jnr. would call late Yasser Arafat a terrorist any more, he was one of the few who first organised the Al Fatah that took to armed rebellion against Israel and Zionism “for the liberation of the Palestinian people by establishing a Palestinian State”. It was accepted as a right to launch any armed attack or use terror to advance the cause of the Palestinian people. That was the motivation for Leila Khaled to hijack a plane load of passengers taking them hostage. Today Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is no more the feared terrorist he was when he led the Sandinista Movement that took military leaders as hostage and ambushed and killed government security forces. He became the saviour of all oppressed Nicaraguans when he marched into Managua with his ragged and bearded guerrillas to take over Nicaragua, defeating the government of President Somosa.

The difference was and is politics. Continuous political blundering of governments that marginalise and eliminate communities from sharing political power and make them feel oppressed are communities that nurture a political grievance. This given an ethnic, religious or class distinction becomes a commitment for political struggle. The content and direction of the struggle is not decided by those oppressed people only. That is decided by many other factors that bond together with a political synergy through a long period of time. It is easily understood when tracing the history of Tamil politics in Sri Lanka.

President Rajapaksa went on record more than once accepting the need to propose a political solution to the problems of Tamil people. While a Presidential candidate in 2005 he promised in his famous “Mahinda Chinthanaya” that he would while initiating a national dialogue to find answers for the North – East conflict “would also go into direct discussions with the LTTE that has not entered democratic politics as yet.” (p/29) And then adds he intends meeting its Leader as well. Why should a prospecting Presidential candidate promise to meet a “terrorist” leader like Prabhakaran ? What is this North – East conflict that he was referring to in his “Mahinda Chinthanaya” booklet ?

This North – East conflict that has to be provided with a political solution even according to highly respected military campaigners like Late Brigadier Kobbekaduwa, is reason why the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran is there. He is the unfortunate result and not the cruel origin of the problem which “Mahinda Chinthanaya” refers to as the North – East conflict.

Given that there is a conflict that needs a political solution, if the D.S. Senanayake led first independent government of Ceylon didn’t disfranchise the plantation labour, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress would not have broken up to form the Federal Party in 1950. If the Sinhala government of SWRD Bandaranaike was not short sighted to make Sinhala Language the only Official Language in 1956, the FP would not have radicalised to produce Suntheralingams who initiated an ideological discourse on Tamil nationalism. If the same SWRD had the political will to implement the B-C Pact in 1957 that gave the Tamil people an opportunity to administer themselves in their own majority areas, the FP would not have been organising civil disobedience movements in early 1960’s.

If Dudley Senanayake the much respected gentleman politician he was, had learnt any lessons from past follies of playing with Sinhala sentiments, he would not have defaulted on his own Dudley – Chelvanayagam pact in 1968 that resulted in the unwanted killing of a Samanera monk, Dambarawe Rathanasara and the FP would have remained in government with the Ministerial post. If the government of Madam Bandaranaike with leading Left Leaders as her major flanks didn’t leave out elected Tamil representation from drafting the 1972 republican Constitution that dropped the constitutional safety of the minorities entrenched in Article 29 of the Soulburry Constitution, the FP would not have mobilised all the Tamil political parties into the TULF. If her government wasn’t biased in implementing the Standardisation for University Entrance in 1974, the TULF would not have had pressure from its Tamil youth to campaign for a separate Tamil State, which resulted in the 1976 Vadukkodai Conference passing a resolution to establish a Thamil Eelam.

All this is succinctly summed up in the Joint response of the Tamil Delegation on the concluding day of Phase II of the Thimpu talks – 17 August 1985; as follows. [Quote] More than 50 years have passed since 1928 and we have moved from Provincial Councils to Regional Councils and from Regional Councils to District Councils and now from District Councils back to District/Provincial Councils. We have had the ‘early consideration’ of Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike and the ‘earnest consideration’ of the late Dudley Senanayake. There has been no shortage of Committees and Commissions, of reports and recommendations but that which was lacking was the political will to recognise the existence of the Tamil nation. And simultaneous with this process of broken pacts and dishonoured agreements, the Tamil people were subjected to an ever widening and deepening national oppression aimed at undermining the integrity of the Tamil nation [Unquote]

It is this huge difference of ” politically committed terrorism” that some find difficult to understand though in the midst of corrupt and chauvinist politics of Sri Lanka while Ms. Hillary Clinton seems to grasp the difference quite well from the smoky shadows of the September 9/11 disaster. It’s a plain truth that all of them using arms are not plain terrorists as easily said and comfortably believed.

by Kusal Perera

Terrorism is easy meat these days. Very often with totally incompetent political leaderships who are also ethnically or religiously egoistic and therefore not prepared to meet the challenge of finding answers for political issues, “eradicating terrorism” turns out as a good pasttime. Such political leaderships gain their strength in society from nurturing an ideology to suit their incompetence in governing and for their chauvinism. It is this ideology of the incompetent that is reflected in a recent article.

What ever Hillary Clinton’s motive is and whatever the future of the USA is if she is elected President, her statement that “all terrorists cannot be lumped together even though they are connected by the thread of terror tactics, because the goals they are fighting for are different.” is the dividing factor in terrorism.

It is therefore important to understand that “terrorism” in this modern world is a different phenomenon and within that there is a demarcation between Al Qaeda and most other armed groups that use terror tactics. Al Qaeda is a totally different organisation from Al Fatah, Hamas, Kurdhish Liberation Fighters, El Salvadorean National Liberation Front and the Sendoro Luminoso of Peru, or for that matter the LTTE.

Al Qaeda has no national political objective that could be considered as liberation of a society. It is not an organisation that had its birth from opposing oppression or injustice in a society. Al Qaeda is the off- spring of CIA activities as Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars claim. Harrison has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia and was quoted in The Times of India (March 7, 2001) in an article titled “CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban” as saying, “The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.” Harrison then said “The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.” That is the birth of Al Qaeda which is only targeting American people any where in this globe.

Montasser Al-Zayyat, an ex-hardcore Islamist activist who had worked in Egypt in the formative days of fundamentalist Islamist groups from 1975, sketches the ideology and commitment of the Al-Qaeda ideologue and right hand man of Osama bin Laden in the bok “Road To Al-Qaeda” and says, “Not only did Zawahiri influence bin Laden, the latter impacted the philosophy of Zawahiri and of Islamic Jihad.”(p/69) Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri now a full time terrorist and considered the second in Command of Al-Qaeda is the Guru of Al-Qaeda ideology. Now what was this philosophy in its operational mode ? In a fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden in February, 1998, he called for continued attacks against Americans any where in the world. This was justified by saying their tax dollars support policies that lead to the death of Muslims.

That is the difference between Al-Qaeda and all other armed guerrilla groups fighting for a political cause that affects a community. While no one including George W. Bush Jnr. would call late Yasser Arafat a terrorist any more, he was one of the few who first organised the Al Fatah that took to armed rebellion against Israel and Zionism “for the liberation of the Palestinian people by establishing a Palestinian State”. It was accepted as a right to launch any armed attack or use terror to advance the cause of the Palestinian people. That was the motivation for Leila Khaled to hijack a plane load of passengers taking them hostage. Today Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is no more the feared terrorist he was when he led the Sandinista Movement that took military leaders as hostage and ambushed and killed government security forces. He became the saviour of all oppressed Nicaraguans when he marched into Managua with his ragged and bearded guerrillas to take over Nicaragua, defeating the government of President Somosa.

The difference was and is politics. Continuous political blundering of governments that marginalise and eliminate communities from sharing political power and make them feel oppressed are communities that nurture a political grievance. This given an ethnic, religious or class distinction becomes a commitment for political struggle. The content and direction of the struggle is not decided by those oppressed people only. That is decided by many other factors that bond together with a political synergy through a long period of time. It is easily understood when tracing the history of Tamil politics in Sri Lanka.

President Rajapaksa went on record more than once accepting the need to propose a political solution to the problems of Tamil people. While a Presidential candidate in 2005 he promised in his famous “Mahinda Chinthanaya” that he would while initiating a national dialogue to find answers for the North – East conflict “would also go into direct discussions with the LTTE that has not entered democratic politics as yet.” (p/29) And then adds he intends meeting its Leader as well. Why should a prospecting Presidential candidate promise to meet a “terrorist” leader like Prabhakaran ? What is this North – East conflict that he was referring to in his “Mahinda Chinthanaya” booklet ?

This North – East conflict that has to be provided with a political solution even according to highly respected military campaigners like Late Brigadier Kobbekaduwa, is reason why the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran is there. He is the unfortunate result and not the cruel origin of the problem which “Mahinda Chinthanaya” refers to as the North – East conflict.

Given that there is a conflict that needs a political solution, if the D.S. Senanayake led first independent government of Ceylon didn’t disfranchise the plantation labour, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress would not have broken up to form the Federal Party in 1950. If the Sinhala government of SWRD Bandaranaike was not short sighted to make Sinhala Language the only Official Language in 1956, the FP would not have radicalised to produce Suntheralingams who initiated an ideological discourse on Tamil nationalism. If the same SWRD had the political will to implement the B-C Pact in 1957 that gave the Tamil people an opportunity to administer themselves in their own majority areas, the FP would not have been organising civil disobedience movements in early 1960’s.

If Dudley Senanayake the much respected gentleman politician he was, had learnt any lessons from past follies of playing with Sinhala sentiments, he would not have defaulted on his own Dudley – Chelvanayagam pact in 1968 that resulted in the unwanted killing of a Samanera monk, Dambarawe Rathanasara and the FP would have remained in government with the Ministerial post. If the government of Madam Bandaranaike with leading Left Leaders as her major flanks didn’t leave out elected Tamil representation from drafting the 1972 republican Constitution that dropped the constitutional safety of the minorities entrenched in Article 29 of the Soulburry Constitution, the FP would not have mobilised all the Tamil political parties into the TULF. If her government wasn’t biased in implementing the Standardisation for University Entrance in 1974, the TULF would not have had pressure from its Tamil youth to campaign for a separate Tamil State, which resulted in the 1976 Vadukkodai Conference passing a resolution to establish a Thamil Eelam.

All this is succinctly summed up in the Joint response of the Tamil Delegation on the concluding day of Phase II of the Thimpu talks – 17 August 1985; as follows. [Quote] More than 50 years have passed since 1928 and we have moved from Provincial Councils to Regional Councils and from Regional Councils to District Councils and now from District Councils back to District/Provincial Councils. We have had the ‘early consideration’ of Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike and the ‘earnest consideration’ of the late Dudley Senanayake. There has been no shortage of Committees and Commissions, of reports and recommendations but that which was lacking was the political will to recognise the existence of the Tamil nation. And simultaneous with this process of broken pacts and dishonoured agreements, the Tamil people were subjected to an ever widening and deepening national oppression aimed at undermining the integrity of the Tamil nation [Unquote]

It is this huge difference of ” politically committed terrorism” that some find difficult to understand though in the midst of corrupt and chauvinist politics of Sri Lanka while Ms. Hillary Clinton seems to grasp the difference quite well from the smoky shadows of the September 9/11 disaster. It’s a plain truth that all of them using arms are not plain terrorists as easily said and comfortably believed.

by Kusal Perera

Terrorism is easy meat these days. Very often with totally incompetent political leaderships who are also ethnically or religiously egoistic and therefore not prepared to meet the challenge of finding answers for political issues, “eradicating terrorism” turns out as a good pasttime. Such political leaderships gain their strength in society from nurturing an ideology to suit their incompetence in governing and for their chauvinism. It is this ideology of the incompetent that is reflected in a recent article.

What ever Hillary Clinton’s motive is and whatever the future of the USA is if she is elected President, her statement that “all terrorists cannot be lumped together even though they are connected by the thread of terror tactics, because the goals they are fighting for are different.” is the dividing factor in terrorism.

It is therefore important to understand that “terrorism” in this modern world is a different phenomenon and within that there is a demarcation between Al Qaeda and most other armed groups that use terror tactics. Al Qaeda is a totally different organisation from Al Fatah, Hamas, Kurdhish Liberation Fighters, El Salvadorean National Liberation Front and the Sendoro Luminoso of Peru, or for that matter the LTTE.

Al Qaeda has no national political objective that could be considered as liberation of a society. It is not an organisation that had its birth from opposing oppression or injustice in a society. Al Qaeda is the off- spring of CIA activities as Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars claim. Harrison has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia and was quoted in The Times of India (March 7, 2001) in an article titled “CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban” as saying, “The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.” Harrison then said “The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.” That is the birth of Al Qaeda which is only targeting American people any where in this globe.

Montasser Al-Zayyat, an ex-hardcore Islamist activist who had worked in Egypt in the formative days of fundamentalist Islamist groups from 1975, sketches the ideology and commitment of the Al-Qaeda ideologue and right hand man of Osama bin Laden in the bok “Road To Al-Qaeda” and says, “Not only did Zawahiri influence bin Laden, the latter impacted the philosophy of Zawahiri and of Islamic Jihad.”(p/69) Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri now a full time terrorist and considered the second in Command of Al-Qaeda is the Guru of Al-Qaeda ideology. Now what was this philosophy in its operational mode ? In a fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden in February, 1998, he called for continued attacks against Americans any where in the world. This was justified by saying their tax dollars support policies that lead to the death of Muslims.

That is the difference between Al-Qaeda and all other armed guerrilla groups fighting for a political cause that affects a community. While no one including George W. Bush Jnr. would call late Yasser Arafat a terrorist any more, he was one of the few who first organised the Al Fatah that took to armed rebellion against Israel and Zionism “for the liberation of the Palestinian people by establishing a Palestinian State”. It was accepted as a right to launch any armed attack or use terror to advance the cause of the Palestinian people. That was the motivation for Leila Khaled to hijack a plane load of passengers taking them hostage. Today Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is no more the feared terrorist he was when he led the Sandinista Movement that took military leaders as hostage and ambushed and killed government security forces. He became the saviour of all oppressed Nicaraguans when he marched into Managua with his ragged and bearded guerrillas to take over Nicaragua, defeating the government of President Somosa.

The difference was and is politics. Continuous political blundering of governments that marginalise and eliminate communities from sharing political power and make them feel oppressed are communities that nurture a political grievance. This given an ethnic, religious or class distinction becomes a commitment for political struggle. The content and direction of the struggle is not decided by those oppressed people only. That is decided by many other factors that bond together with a political synergy through a long period of time. It is easily understood when tracing the history of Tamil politics in Sri Lanka.

President Rajapaksa went on record more than once accepting the need to propose a political solution to the problems of Tamil people. While a Presidential candidate in 2005 he promised in his famous “Mahinda Chinthanaya” that he would while initiating a national dialogue to find answers for the North – East conflict “would also go into direct discussions with the LTTE that has not entered democratic politics as yet.” (p/29) And then adds he intends meeting its Leader as well. Why should a prospecting Presidential candidate promise to meet a “terrorist” leader like Prabhakaran ? What is this North – East conflict that he was referring to in his “Mahinda Chinthanaya” booklet ?

This North – East conflict that has to be provided with a political solution even according to highly respected military campaigners like Late Brigadier Kobbekaduwa, is reason why the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran is there. He is the unfortunate result and not the cruel origin of the problem which “Mahinda Chinthanaya” refers to as the North – East conflict.

Given that there is a conflict that needs a political solution, if the D.S. Senanayake led first independent government of Ceylon didn’t disfranchise the plantation labour, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress would not have broken up to form the Federal Party in 1950. If the Sinhala government of SWRD Bandaranaike was not short sighted to make Sinhala Language the only Official Language in 1956, the FP would not have radicalised to produce Suntheralingams who initiated an ideological discourse on Tamil nationalism. If the same SWRD had the political will to implement the B-C Pact in 1957 that gave the Tamil people an opportunity to administer themselves in their own majority areas, the FP would not have been organising civil disobedience movements in early 1960’s.

If Dudley Senanayake the much respected gentleman politician he was, had learnt any lessons from past follies of playing with Sinhala sentiments, he would not have defaulted on his own Dudley – Chelvanayagam pact in 1968 that resulted in the unwanted killing of a Samanera monk, Dambarawe Rathanasara and the FP would have remained in government with the Ministerial post. If the government of Madam Bandaranaike with leading Left Leaders as her major flanks didn’t leave out elected Tamil representation from drafting the 1972 republican Constitution that dropped the constitutional safety of the minorities entrenched in Article 29 of the Soulburry Constitution, the FP would not have mobilised all the Tamil political parties into the TULF. If her government wasn’t biased in implementing the Standardisation for University Entrance in 1974, the TULF would not have had pressure from its Tamil youth to campaign for a separate Tamil State, which resulted in the 1976 Vadukkodai Conference passing a resolution to establish a Thamil Eelam.

All this is succinctly summed up in the Joint response of the Tamil Delegation on the concluding day of Phase II of the Thimpu talks – 17 August 1985; as follows. [Quote] More than 50 years have passed since 1928 and we have moved from Provincial Councils to Regional Councils and from Regional Councils to District Councils and now from District Councils back to District/Provincial Councils. We have had the ‘early consideration’ of Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranaike and the ‘earnest consideration’ of the late Dudley Senanayake. There has been no shortage of Committees and Commissions, of reports and recommendations but that which was lacking was the political will to recognise the existence of the Tamil nation. And simultaneous with this process of broken pacts and dishonoured agreements, the Tamil people were subjected to an ever widening and deepening national oppression aimed at undermining the integrity of the Tamil nation [Unquote]

It is this huge difference of ” politically committed terrorism” that some find difficult to understand though in the midst of corrupt and chauvinist politics of Sri Lanka while Ms. Hillary Clinton seems to grasp the difference quite well from the smoky shadows of the September 9/11 disaster. It’s a plain truth that all of them using arms are not plain terrorists as easily said and comfortably believed.

By K. Godage

The Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram delivering the Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Oration is reported to have said that neither side in the Sri Lanka conflict could prevail over the other through conflict, and peace must be forged at the negotiating table.

Responding to a question from the audience as to what there was to negotiate as the LTTE was uncompromisingly and irrevocably committed to establishing a separate state having sacrificed 17,000 young lives for the cause, the visiting Minister skirted the issue and stated that the two sides may be far apart but that it was only through negotiations that a settlement could be arrived at.

I presume that the person who asked the question did not wish to corner the Minister by recounting the fact that we have gone down that road before no less than five times but that the LTTE has never indulged in Talks in good faith – the incontrovertible fact that they have used every ceasefire agreement to rearm and reorganize their cadres to resume their march towards Eelam.

India should be reminded that the LTTE killed off 1200 plus Indian troops in their march towards Eelam and that they have themselves proscribed the LTTE and classified it as a terrorist organization and as to how India could now ask us to negotiate with the terrorists who assassinated their own one time Prime Minister and the grandson of Shri Nehru and the son of Indira, is incomprehensible.

A few years ago an Indian Foreign Minister stated that this was an internal problem of Sri Lanka and that they should have nothing to do with it. If so please let us handle it our way. It was not long ago that their National Security Advisor informed us that we should not purchase weapons from Pakistan or China but only from them and that they would only give us defensive weapons!

It can never be forgotten that they once offered us ships to evacuate our troops from Jaffna when the LTTE was at the gates – we were provided with the means to beat back the enemy by Pakistan; the country may have been divided had it not been for them coming to our aid.

If they wish to see an end to the conflict they should, in the first instance call on the LTTE to give up their pursuit of a separate state in return for a situation where power is devolved and not shared other than in vital areas of national security. As long as the LTTE pursues their goal of a separate state it is absolutely incumbent on the Sri Lanka state to seek to end the insurgency by military means.

India is doing the same in its Northeast so if India wishes to see an end to the conflict it should prevail upon the LTTE to end their insurgency.

The Indian government should next help the government to forge a set of proposals that would address the problems of the Tamil minority. We need to either move beyond the 13th Amendment or remove the Concurrent List in the 13th Amendment or revise it.

It is simple as that and surely the Indian government should have the political will to do at least that minimum particularly because the devolution of power was a part of the Indo-Lanka Agreement. Is it not in their interest too to see an end to the conflict? Or is it that they, as a certain Sri Lankan analyst once stated, find utility in the continuance of the conflict so long as it does not spill over to their side.

This situation does not obtain anymore as the insurgencies in India and not just in the North East, are assuming disturbing proportions and the networking between terror groups (and with the financial support which the Tamil Diaspora gives the LTTE), there is little doubt that the LTTE could go international and hire out their services and make know-how available to these militant groups.

There would also be external forces hostile to India who may help-so ‘our’ conflict, created by India of course, is certainly not ours alone. So, India should instead of preaching and making pious statements should read the riot act to the LTTE, give them an ultimatum, tell them that India would obtain for the Tamil people equality in every sense of the word with the right to manage their own affairs within, as it states ‘a united Sri Lanka’.

There is the fear on the Indian side that if the LTTE ceases to exist, the temptation might be too great on the Sinhalese side to fall back on the exclusion of Tamils. The possibility of this happening might be less today than it was in the 1980s but it has not completely disappeared. If India genuinely wants to see an end to the conflict she should act.

If the Indian government reads the riot act to the LTTE and gives them an ultimatum they would then have a moral right to read the riot act to the Government of Sri Lanka as well –and then we could certainly realize your negotiated settlement and make the words of the oft quoted Indian position meaningful: the Indian mantra has been that ‘India supports the process of seeking a negotiated settlement acceptable to all sections of Sri Lanka society within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, consistent with democracy, pluralism, and respect for individual right.

India maintains an abiding interest in the security of Sri Lanka and remains committed to its unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity’.

Let us wait and see whether India really means what she says.
[Courtesy:DailyMirror]