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Home > Tamil National Forum > Selected Writings - Nagalingam Ethirveerasingham > The Magna Carta and the British Terrorism Act
Selected Writings by Nagalingam Ethirveerasingham
8 March 2001
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"...It is the act of terrorism the law should proscribe, not an organisation of people who are engaged in a war of liberation from an oppressive and racist government. The least Britain could do to redress the wrong they have done to the Tamils, by their inaction, since the Fifties, is to respect the freedom of speech and assembly of its residents and citizens to align themselves with the proscribed organization through expressions of solidarity and advocacy of their causes, and provide medicine, food or religious materials to them and to the civilians under their care...." |
[see also LTTE included in Draft Order of Organisations to be Proscribed under UK Terrorism Act 2000 ]
King John, on June 15, 1215, in Clause 61 - the 'safety' clause - of the Magna Carta legalised rebellion should he himself break the charter, and permitted the establishment, under those conditions, of a committee of 25 barons to supervise the government. The relevant section of Clause 61 reads:
"If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon" (From The British Library's Online Information Server)
The spirit of Clause 61 is relevant to resolving ethnic conflicts in many
former colonies, including Sri Lanka, where two or more self governing language
or ethnic communities were brought together by the colonialists to form a
government.
The predominantly
larger community invariably discriminates, enforces their own values and
identity, and commits human rights abuses against the minority communities
through the machinery of majoritarian democracy and its armed forces. Such
actions in Sri Lanka are performed under the veil of
public
pronouncement of being multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual,
multi-cultural state to please the Western diplomatic community while the
political, civil and military actions reflect otherwise.
At the time the Magna Carta was issued, Tamils were a free nation of people
governed by their own King in the North and East of the Island. Though at
different times they paid a fee to Sinhala Kings in other areas of the Island
like the Barons did to Kings of England. Clauses 52 and 53, and 56 and 57 with
respect to land are also relevant to the colonization of Tamil lands by
successive Sinhala governments since 1948 that continues to this day. The result
of such Gerrymandering is a reduction of Tamil representatives in Parliament as
votes are predominantly cast on the basis of the ethnicity of the candidates.
Tamils were a free nation until the Portuguese and the Dutch colonised the Tamil
areas. The British then brought the whole island under their government of
Ceylon.
At independence in 1948, instead of letting the Tamils have their own nation
state back, they kept the two nations together with the covenant Section 29 in
the
Soulbury
constitution. Britain guaranteed legal protection with recourse to the Privy
Council in the event the covenant was broken. The government of Ceylon with more
than two-thirds Sinhala majority in parliament
disenfranchised
Tamils in the Hill country in 1948, and
in 1956 broke the covenant with the introduction of the Sinhala Only Act. In
1970 it took away the rights of the Tamils to appeal to the Privy Council and
dropped Section 29
altogether in the 1972 Republican constitution. Britain failed to bring
legislative, legal or coercive remedies to right the wrong when the Sinhala
government rebelled against the Tamils.
John Locke and the Concept of Covenant
John Locke, in 1681 in, The Second Treaties of Government expressed that in
the state of nature, people are free and have the right to defend themselves and
their property from others. In effect, each individual is a sovereign. The
implicit agreement that the individual and the state enter into is a covenant or
contract. When the individual violates the sacred covenant, the individual is
punished. When the state violates it, the individual is no longer bound by the
covenant. The person is free to protect his liberty and property and to put down
the government's "rebellion." He specified that the term "rebellion" indicates a
return to the state of war and denial of the principles of civic society. Locke
concluded his treatise with the justification of the people's right to overthrow
governments that violate the trust.
In Sri Lanka, the
Sinhala government is the abuser of the Tamil people. It is the Sinhala
government that broke the covenant that the British brokered between the Tamil
and Sinhala peoples. It is therefore the Sinhala government that has rebelled.
Under these circumstances it is the Tamil community that stands for law and
order and puts down the rebellion by the Sinhala government.
Locke in Chapter Three: "Of the State of War," in, The Second Treatise of
Government, has this to say about the state of war between two individuals (in
the case of Sri Lanka, the two communities):
"17. And hence it is he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him. It being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be so to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as my enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it. So that he who make an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me."
Prime Minister Tony Blair, not withstanding the spirit of Clause 61 of the
Magna Carta, and John Locke's postulation on the sanctity of a covenant and the
right to rebellion when the covenant is broken,
labels the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as terrorists when they took up arms
to rebel on behalf of the Tamils. Proscribing the LTTE is in effect a
proscription of the just war of liberation after twenty years of passive appeals
and demonstrations. What King John giveth, Prime Minister Blair taketh away.
Rights of the Tamil People
The British Parliament should not take away
the right to rebellion of the Tamil people against an oppressive Sinhala
regime. The United States, which rebelled against King George III for lesser
grievances than those of the Tamils, has already listed the Tamil liberation
movement, the LTTE, as a terrorist organisation. But it levies no sanctions on
the Sri Lanka government.
The difference between the US proscription and that of Britain is that, on March
5, 2001, the US Supreme Court in upholding the designation
also upheld the appeals court ruling, that people under its jurisdiction can
provide medicine or religious materials; can provide personnel or training to
designated organizations; and people remain free to align themselves with
designated organizations through expressions of solidarity and advocacy of their
causes. (The cases are Humanitarian Law Project v. Ashcroft, 00-910, and
Ashcroft v. Humanitarian Law Project, 00-1077. See
Appeal Court ruling in Humanitarian Law Project v. Reno)
The similarity between Britain and the United States is that they both supported
armed intervention for self-government in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, but
deny any form of assistance to Tamils to establish their own government. When
self-interest determines foreign policy of states, and Tamils have very little
to offer now, that has any market value; they have to depend on themselves for
their safety, to regain their rights and to achieve their aspirations. Quotes
from two famous Americans illustrate the right of the Tamil people to fight for
their liberation from the oppressive Sinhala government when peaceful
demonstrations and negotiations fail. Abraham Lincoln said that,
"Finally, I insist, that if there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions." (In, Living Lincoln, P.M. Angle and E.S. Miers, Barnes and Noble, New York, 1992.)
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter, dated July 23, 1925, to Harold Laski wrote,
"I have always said that the rights of a given crowd are what they will fight for." (In, Holmes - Laski Letters Vol.I, ed. Mark Howe, Harvard, Cambridge, 1953. p 762.)
An Appeal
We appeal to the British Parliament and the House of Lords to lift the
proscription of the LTTE as it is rebelling to right the wrong against a regime
that has perpetrated crimes of genocidal proportion with impunity against the
Tamils. It is the responsibility of Britain to right the wrong it has done to
the Tamils.
In the event the Parliament approved the Proscription of the LTTE, we appeal to
the House of Lords and the Queen to protect the rights to rebellion given by
King John of England, in Clause 61 of the Magna Carta.
It is the act of terrorism the law should proscribe, not an organisation of people who are engaged in a war of liberation from an oppressive and racist government.
The least Britain could do to redress the wrong they have done to the Tamils, by their inaction, since the Fifties, is to respect the freedom of speech and assembly of its residents and citizens to align themselves with the proscribed organization through expressions of solidarity and advocacy of their causes, and provide medicine, food or religious materials to them and to the civilians under their care.
