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Sinhala Sri Lanka's Genocide of
Eelam Tamils
- a Crime Against Humanity...
29 January 2009
[see also Sinhala Sri Lanka's
War Crimes: Genocide & State Terrorism
and Nadesan Satyendra on The Politics of Humanitarian
Intervention, 24 February 2009]
"...the international
community will wait till Tamil resistance is
sufficiently weakened or annihilated before it attempts to intervene 'on
humanitarian grounds' and in seeming response to 'world
wide Tamil appeals'. Meanwhile the IC will even
welcome such world wide appeals by Tamils as that will
pave the way (and establish useful contact points
amongst the Tamil diaspora) for IC's eventual
intervention with 'development aid' with the mantra of
not conflict resolution but 'conflict transformation'.
Give them cake when they ask for freedom from alien
Sinhala rule. A conquered people should be grateful for
whatever they can get - though there may not be not
enough cake to go round. The Tamil people are being
taught the truth of something which Subhas Chandra
Bose said many years ago - Freedom is not given, it
is taken... And said all that,
perhaps it is right that I should end with something
that I said in Zurich some two years ago at the
International Seminar: Envisioning New Trajectories for
Peace in Sri Lanka -" The conflict in the island of Sri Lanka can
be simply stated. The LTTE struggles for the creation
of an independent Tamil Eelam. Sri Lanka seeks to
secure its existing territorial boundaries. Stated in
this way, the conflict may appear to be insoluble.
Something will have to give. Squaring the circle may
seem impossible... (However).. I believe that it is possible to move towards a
resolution of the conflict on a
win-win basis. I am
reminded of a statement by a UK foreign minister some
years ago that 'Sovereignty is not virginity.'
Independence? Yes. But all countries in this world are
dependent on one another. After three hundred years of
wars and two world wars, the countries in Europe have
moved towards an European Union. There are different
ways in which peoples may associate with one
another in equality and in freedom - and here
there is every thing to talk about. And not much is
gained by straight jacketing the discussions on the
basis of known ideas and conceptual models..."
"
 The question is
being asked by some: why is the international community
which was willing to arm Sri Lanka and to ban the LTTE,
unwilling and/or unable to prevent the genocide
of Eelam Tamils? Suffering is a great teacher and
the Tamil people are being taught that for the
governments of the so called IC, human rights and
humanitarian law are but useful instruments to advance
their political and strategic interests.
Whilst the goal of securing peace
through justice is loudly proclaimed by the international
actors, real politick leads them to deny the justice of
the Tamil Eelam struggle for freedom from alien Sinhala
rule - justice which presumably led the US State of Massachusetts to urge the US
President in 1981 'to support the struggle
for freedom by the Tamil nation for the restoration and reconstitution the
separate sovereign state of Tamil Eelam and to recognize
publicly the right of self determination by the
Tamil people of Tamil Eelam.'
Today, the harsh reality is that on
the one hand international actors are concerned to use
the opportunity of the conflict in the island to advance
each of their own strategic interests - and on the other
hand, Sri Lanka seeks to use the political space created by the
geo strategic triangle of US-India-China in the Indian
Ocean region, to buy the support of all three for
the continued rule of the people of Tamil Eelam by a
permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of one
state. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was
disarmingly frank in the Indian Parliament in October
2008. He said -
"We have a very comprehensive relationship with Sri
Lanka. In our anxiety to protect the (Tamil) civilians,
we should not forget the strategic importance of this
island to India's interests,... especially in view of
attempts by countries like Pakistan and China to gain a
strategic foothold in the island nation."
We won't stop military cooperation with Lanka says
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
October 2008
The words of Taraki some 3 years
ago will also come to mind to many Tamils -
"A CIA regional analyst in Washington said in July
2001: "containing the LTTE while stepping up pressure
on the civilian population under its control by
stepping up 'terror' bombing might create conditions
for unseating Prabhararan". " US Strategic Interests
in Sri Lanka, Taraki, 30 July 2005
The record shows that Sinhala Sri
Lanka seeks to engage in a 'balance of power' exercise
of its own by handing over parts of the island (and
the surrounding seas) to India, US and China. We have
India in the Trincomalee oil farm,
at the same time we have a Chinese coal powered energy plant in
Trincomalee; we have a Chinese project for the Hambantota
port, at the same time we have the attempted naval exercises with the US from
Hambantota (to contain Chinese presence in the Indian
Ocean); we have the grant of preferred licenses to India for
exploration of oil in the Mannar seas, at the same
time we have a similar grant to China and a 'road show' for tenders from US and
UK based multinational corporations; meanwhile we
have the continued presence of the Voice of America installations in the
island and the ten year Acquisition and
Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) was signed by the
United States and Sri Lanka on 5 March 2007.
It will not be a matter for
surprise if the US has found Sri Lanka's attempt to
engage in a 'balance of power' exercise of its own
somewhat irritating - and has cautioned Sri Lanka
privately that Sri Lanka was not a super power and should
not try to behave like one. And threats of court actions
against President Rajapaksa led by personnel in US based
think tanks will help to pressure President Rajapaksa to
fall in line with US strategic interests in the Indian
Ocean region. When that is achieved, the threats of court
action will also die a natural death. Alternatively if
President Rajapakse's internal left of centre political
constituency makes him unable to openly play ball with
the US, then other more acceptable Sinhala leaders will
be promoted to continue the rule of the Tamil people but
not before the Rajapaksa coterie has been allowed to
accomplish their genocidal task.
President Rajapaksa and those in
power in Sri Lanka are ofcourse not unaware of these
machinations. Hence the murder of Lasantha Wikremaratne,
the suppression of the media and all those
forces who may be used by the IC to promote an
alternative Sinhala leadership to continue to rule the
Tamil people after the genocidal deed is done and Tamil
resistance annihilated. After all, Sri Lanka's sixty year
record of ethnic cleansing of Tamils shows that
Sinhala chauvinism and its assimilative
agenda is not the special preserve of President Rajapaksa
alone.
And so the international community
will wait till Tamil resistance is sufficiently weakened
or annihilated before it
attempts to intervene 'on humanitarian grounds' and in
seeming response to 'world wide Tamil appeals'.
Meanwhile the IC will even welcome such world wide
appeals by Tamils as that will pave the way (and
establish useful contact points amongst the Tamil
diaspora) for IC's eventual intervention with
'development aid' with the mantra of not conflict
resolution but 'conflict transformation'. Give them cake when they
ask for freedom from alien Sinhala rule. A conquered
people should be grateful for whatever they can get -
though there may not be not enough cake to go
round.
It was after all not so long ago in
February 2008 that the International Crisis Group
(headed byLord
Patten of Barnes Co-Chair, Crisis Group Former
European Commissioner for External Relations Former
Governor of Hong Kong Former UK Cabinet Minister
Chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle Universities;
Ambassador
Thomas R Pickering Co-Chair, Crisis Group Former U.S.
Ambassador to the UN, Russia, India, Israel, Jordan, El
Salvador and Nigeria Vice Chairman of Hills & Company
and
Gareth Evans President & CEO Former Foreign
Minister of Australia) reported -
"So long as there is widespread
support for separatism and militancy in the diaspora, peace in Sri
Lanka will be hard to come by... Stronger political
and legal pressure should be applied to the LTTE
outside Sri Lanka...Western
governments' policies on Sri Lanka should consciously
include attempts to open up political
space within their Tamil communities for
non-Tiger political voices. Those governments with
significant Tamil populations should engage
representative civil society groups directly, ... (whilst) actively guarding
against any intimidation of anti-Tiger Tamil groups...
The Tigers should also be required to take some real
steps towards transformation before being accepted as a
negotiation partner. Such moves, however, may well
require new leaders (of the LTTE). Peace supporters
should consider setting a deadline for renunciation of
a separate state, after which they would actively
pursue prosecutions of current LTTE leaders for war
crimes and crimes against humanity.... Countries should
develop step-by-step benchmarks for progress towards
revoking the terrorist designation - in part to
encourage Prabhakaran's removal..."
It was in response to the approach
spelt out by the International Crisis Group that I wrote
in "Who is lobbying whom" in
February 2008 -
"...It was not that the gross violations of human
rights by the Shah of Iran, Pinochet, Suharto and
Marcos were not known to the West (and their
legislators) - they pretended to be unaware at that
time or else advised a 'quiet diplomatic approach'.
And the flip side of this pretence is that
individual legislators often respond to lobbying
efforts by Tamils by a 'reverse' lobbying exercise.
They say for instance that the problem of securing
peace in the island of Sri Lanka is because of the
'intransigence' of the LTTE. Those Tamils who lobby
are advised that they should 'persuade' the LTTE to
'compromise' and be more reasonable - and give up
violence and give up on the demand for an independent
Tamil Eelam.
Given that the LTTE is banned in the US as well as
in Europe, and that Tamils (mostly professionals) seek
to act within the law, the 'moderate' Tamil 'lobbyist'
then persuades himself that the 'anuku murai', 'the
diplomatic way' is to distance himself from
'terrorists' and 'intransigence'. The words of Frantz
Fannon in The Wretched of the
Earth in relation to Kenya and the Mau Mau come to
mind -
"..the leader of the ('moderate')
nationalist party... loudly proclaims that he has
nothing to do with these Mau-Mau, these terrorists,
these throat slitters. At best, he shuts himself off
in a no-man's-land between the terrorists and the
settlers and willingly offers his services as
go-between; that is to say, that as the settlers
cannot discuss terms with these Mau-Mau, he himself
will be quite willing to begin negotiations.
Thus it is that the
rear-guard of the national
struggle... find themselves somersaulted into the vanguard of
negotiations and compromise - precisely because that
party has taken very good care never to break contact
with colonialism..."
And so
the
rear-guard of the national liberation struggle persuade
themselves that they are in the vanguard
of
'negotiations and
compromise'. The 'moderate'
Tamil lobbyist offers his services as a go
between. He persuades
himself that the way forward is to distance himself not
only from those labelled as 'terrorists', but also
distance himself from the 'ends' that the Eelam Tamil
resistance movement seeks to achieve. He is persuaded
to gloss over the political reality that the demand for
an independent Tamil Eelam did not originate from the
Tamil Eelam armed resistance movement - and that the
demand originated in the declaration of the Gandhian
(yes, Gandhian) Tamil leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam in
1975.
"Throughout the ages the Sinhalese and Tamils in
the country lived as distinct sovereign people till
they were brought under foreign domination...
We have for the last 25 years made
every effort to secure our political rights on the
basis of equality with the Sinhalese in a united
Ceylon."
"It is a regrettable fact that successive
Sinhalese governments have used the power that flows
from independence to deny us our fundamental rights
and reduce us to the position of a subject
people. These governments have been able to do so
only by using against the Tamils the sovereignty
common to the Sinhalese and the Tamils."
"I wish to announce to my people and to the
country that I consider the verdict at this election
as a mandate that the Tamil Eelam nation should exercise the
sovereignty already vested in the Tamil people and
become free."
The 'moderate' Tamil lobbyist is then taken down the
slippery slope of 'federalism', 'devolution',
'decentralisation', the comic opera of the 13th
Amendment, and so on without knowing how to stop -
or where to go. He rationalises his approach by
speaking of the pressing need to end the suffering of
his kith and kin in the Tamil homeland and speaks of
the urgent need for 'peace'. He chooses to forget that
the conqueror is always a lover of peace.
"The would be conqueror is always a lover of
peace, for he would like to enter and occupy our
country unopposed. It is in order to prevent him from
doing this that we must be willing to engage in war
and be prepared for it." Clausewitz quoted in Philosophers of Peace
and War, edited by Professor Gallie
The 'moderate' Tamil lobbyist persuades himself
that the 'international community' is actually
engaged in the business of dispensing 'justice' and
'equality'. And the 'international community'
concerned to further its own
strategic interests actively encourages (and
it now appears, is intent on creating the political
space for) such Tamil 'lobbying'. The question here
is: who is lobbying whom? ..."
The Tamil people are being taught
the truth of something which Subhas Chandra
Bose said many years ago - Freedom is not given, it
is taken. Stephen Covey was right when he
declared: 'Borrowing strength builds weakness. It
builds weakness in the borrower because it reinforces
dependence on external factors to get things done. It
builds weakness in the person forced to acquiesce,
stunting the development of independent reasoning, growth
and internal discipline. And finally it builds weakness
in the relationship. Fear replaces cooperation, and both
people involved become more arbitrary and defensive... '
'Thongura' power is no power. It builds weakness, stunts
independent growth and replaces cooperation with
fear.
And those who may be seduced by 'thongura power' will
find the words of Sri Aurobindo helpful -
"Our appeal, the appeal of every high souled and
self respecting nation, ought not to be to the British
sense of justice, but to our own reviving sense of
manhood, to our own sincere fellow feeling - so far as
it can be called sincere - with the silent suffering
people of India. I am sure that eventually the nobler
part of us will prevail, - that when we no longer
obey the dictates of a veiled self interest, but
return to the profession of a large and genuine
patriotism, when we cease to hanker after the soiled
crumbs which England may cast to us from her table,
then it will be to that sense of manhood, to that
sincere fellow feeling that we shall finally and
forcibly appeal."
And to those Tamils who ask in despair: what shall we
do - the answer must be that what each one us can do is
limited only by what each one of is prepared to put on
line. And it will be presumptuous for any one Tamil to
tell another Tamil what he should or should not do. But
to those who believe that the answer lies in lobbying,
may I repeat something which I wrote in "Who is lobbying whom"
in February 2008 -
"...It is not that each of
one us should not tirelessly, fearlessly and openly
lobby against the genocidal onslaught launched by Sri
Lanka on the people of Tamil Eelam. We must. But at the
same time, we must equally tirelessly, fearlessly and
openly espouse the lawfulness and justice of the Tamil
Eelam struggle for freedom from alien Sinhala rule.
It is not either or - it is both. The charge is genocide - but
the struggle is for freedom.
We must tirelessly, fearlessly and openly point out
to those who speak to us about a creating a multi
ethnic Sri Lanka that the conflict continues not
because of the LTTE but because a Sinhala Buddhist nation seeks to
masquerade as a 'multi ethnic' 'Sri Lankan civic nation', with a Sinhala
Lion Flag, with as yet unrepealed Sinhala Only Act, with
Buddhism as the State religion,
and with an occupying Sinhala army in
the Tamil homeland - a Sinhala army of occupation which
was first sent to
the Tamil homeland in 1961, long years before the demand
for an indedependent Tamil Eelam in
1975.
We need to ask those whom we lobby to respond to our
concern that in the same way as in the 1980s, when
India sought to use Sri Lanka's violations of the human
rights of Tamils
to move Colombo away from the West, today both the
West and India are seeking to use Sri Lanka's
violations of the human rights of Tamils to move Sri
Lanka away from
too great linkage with China - and when that is
secured, we will be offered 'comic
opera' reforms such as the 13th Amendment and
Provincial Councils, with a Provincial Governor
appointed by a Sinhala Sri
Lanka President who will exercise executive power in
respect of provincial matters.
We need to ask those whom we lobby some simple
questions which may help to focus their minds (as
well as ours). Let us say:
"Yes, let us forget a separate state. Let us
forget the Gandhian leader,
S.J.V.Chelvanayagam's independence declaration of
1975. Let us forget the
Vaddukoddai Resolution of the Tamil United
Liberation Front (TULF) of 1976. Let us forget
the TULF Manifesto for independence which
received the overwhelming support of the people of
Tamil Eelam in 1977. Let us forget S.J.V.Chelvanayagam.
Let us forget the
LTTE. Let us forget Velupillai
Pirabakaran.
Indeed, let us go further. Let us forget
federalism. Let us forget devolution - yes, even
devolution.
Let us also forget decades of murder,
torture and
rape
which led Paul Sieghart Q.C. to conclude in 1984
that "communal riots in which Tamils are killed,
maimed, robbed and rendered homeless are no longer
isolated episodes; they are beginning to become a
pernicious habit."
Let us forget 1956, 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977 and 1983. Yes,
even 1983.
Let us forget decades of broken
pacts and dishonoured agreements entered into
by the dominant Sinhala majority with the Tamil
political leadership.
Yes, by all means, let us forget the past. Let
us live in the present and look to the future. Let
us explore dispassionately the 'disinterested'
advice of the 'international community' that the
answer to the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka
lies in a multi ethnic secular Sri Lanka.
Let us then ask: Will this unitary (yes,
unitary) 'multi ethnic secular state' renounce the
Sinhala flag as its 'national' flag
and adopt a
tricolor as its national flag? If not, why
not?
Will this 'unitary multi
ethnic secular state' repeal the Sinhala Only Act
and declare explicitly and without subterfuge that
Sinhalese and Tamil shall have parity throughout
the island? If not, why not?
Will this 'unitary multi ethnic secular state' repeal the Constitutional
recognition given to Buddhism? If not, why
not?
Will this 'unitary multi ethnic secular state'
agree to renounce its Sinhala name which it
gave
itself unilaterally in 1972? If not, why
not?
Will this 'unitary multi ethnic secular state'
stop changing the demography of the land by
state
sponsored Sinhala colonisation? If not, why
not?
Let us then ask -
If the Sinhala political leadership cannot,
even today, (yes, even
today) remotely consider doing any or all of this,
would the 'disinterested' international community
please tell us why that is so? What is it in the
Sinhala political consciousness that prevents it
agreeing to a truly unitary (yes, unitary) 'multi
ethnic secular state'? And given the existential
reality of that Sinhala political consciousness
what does the
mantra of a 'multi ethnic plural soceity'
actually mean - despite its meditative ring?
Let us ask those whom we lobby -
Would you deny that Sinhala ethno nationalism is
a nationalism that dare not speak its name?
Would you deny the reality that in the island of
Sri Lanka a Sinhala
Buddhist ethno nation seeks to masquerade as a
'multi ethnic
civic Sri Lankan nation' so that it may
further its assimilative agenda?
Would you deny the political reality of
the homogeneous Pan
Sinhala Ministry of 1936 - yes, in 1936 under
British rule when separation was not even a remote
threat, and devolution was not on the
table?
Would you deny that the record shows that
during the past sixty years and more, the intent
and goal of all Sinhala governments (without
exception) has been to secure the island as a
Sinhala Buddhist Deepa ?
 Would
you deny that Sinhala
Buddhist ethno nationalism existed long before
Tamil demands for devolution or federalism or an
independent state - and that Sinhala Buddhist ethno
nationalism
has its roots in the Mahawamsa and in
Duttugemenu and that it has continued to assert
its hegemony with increasing
ferocity?
Would you deny that Sinhala Buddhist ethno
nationalism did not arise
as a response to the Tamil demand for federalism or
an independent state?
Would you deny that Sinhala Buddhist ethno
nationalism is not the creation of S.J.V.Chelvanayagam
or Velupillai
Pirabakaran?
Would you deny that in fact and in truth,
it is the other way
around?
Would you deny that it this political reality
which prevents the Sinhala political leadership
even today, (yes, even today) from agreeing to a
truly unitary 'multi ethnic secular state' without
a Sinhala Lion Flag, without the
Sinhala Only Act, without Buddhism as the State religion, and
without the Sinhala 'Sri Lanka' name
Would you deny that it this political reality of
the existence of two nations in the island of Sri
Lanka (one which dares not speak its name, and
the other which does) that any meaningful
conflict resolution process will need to
address?
Would you deny that
Velupillai
Pirabakaran was right when he declared many
years ago -
"We are not
chauvinists. Neither are we lovers of violence
enchanted with war. We do not regard the Sinhala
people as our opponents or as our enemies. We
recognise the Sinhala nation. We accord a place of
dignity for the culture and heritage of the
Sinhala people. We have no desire to interfere in
any way with the national life of the Sinhala
people or with their freedom and independence. We,
the Tamil people, desire to live in our own historic homeland as an
independent nation, in peace, in freedom and with dignity."
Would you admit that to deny all this is to
display the simple mindedness of the naive or the
trickery of the knave."
We are a reasonable people and we will listen to
reason. But let us say to those whom we lobby (and
who may be lobbying us) that thousands upon thousands
of Tamils, young and old, men and women, and children
as well, have died and suffered so that we, their
brothers and sisters, may stand up and declare openly
and fearlessly that we will not be browbeaten by
those who would deny us reason.
We need to say openly and fearlessly to those whom
we lobby that former US Ambassador Jeffrey Lumsted was disingenuous when
he declared some months ago in a
paper on the 'United
States Role in Sri Lanka Peace Process 2002-2006'
-
"..With
the end of the Cold War, U.S. interest in Sri Lanka
waned... Political-military interests are not high,
and the U.S. has no interest in
military bases in Sri Lanka."
We need to
openly and fearlessly point out that US
Ambassador Jeffrey Lumsted
failed to mention that with the
end of the old cold war a
new cold war has started and that he failed to
address the issues raised by United States Lt.Col.
Christopher J. Pehrson in
'String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China's
Rising Power Across the Asian
Littoral'
"Militarily, the United States
must bear the cost of maintaining superior military
power to guarantee security and serve as a hedge
against a possible future China threat. In the
"String of Pearls" region, U.S. efforts should be
aimed at broadening and deepening American
influence in ways that have wide appeal among the
various regional states."
We need to openly express our concern that Sri
Lanka is intent on using the political space created
by the uneasy balance
of power in the Indian ocean region to further
its genocidal onslaught on the people of Tamil Eelam
and to terrorise them
to submit to permanent rule by an alien
Sinhala majority within the confines of a single
state. Again, it is true that individual
Congressmen, Senators and Parliamentarians may not
have the same understanding that those at the highest
levels of their Governments may have - and indeed
they may not be privy to all the information and
strategic reasoning on which their own government may
choose to act. It is also true that individual
legislators may be impelled by immediate
considerations of securing votes in an election and
that therefore they may be influenced by the presence
of a significant number of Tamil voters in their
electorate.
Said that, the responses by individual legislators
will also be limited by that which they may perceive
to be the strategic interests of the country to which
they belong. It is usual for the US State
Department,the Canadian External Affairs Ministry and
the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office to provide a
briefing note to individual legislators explaining
the stand taken by their governments on important
foreign policy issues. "
In Tamil Eelam today, though the charge is
genocide, the struggle is for freedom. And the words of
Ernest Renan in 1882 remain true one
hundred years later -
"...Where national memories are concerned, griefs
are of more value than triumphs, for they impose
duties, and require a common effort. A nation is
therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the
feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past
and of those that one is prepared to make in the
future..."
And said all that, perhaps it is right that I should
end with something that I said in Zurich some two years
ago at the
International Seminar: Envisioning New Trajectories for
Peace in Sri Lanka -
"Ayubowan.
Vannakam.
The couple
of words that I spoke in Sinhalese and in Tamil reflect
in a small way the divide across which we meet here in
Zurich. Language is not only a matter of semantics. It
also has something to do with our feelings and the way
in which we segment the world in which we live. And
often something may be lost in the
translation.
Having said
that, the few moments that we stood up last evening in
memory of those who have died in the conflict in Sri
Lanka brought us together in recognising and indeed,
feeling the pain and suffering that this conflict has
brought in its train - a pain and suffering that moves
us to commit ourselves to contribute in whatever small
way we can, to help bridge the divide that exists
amongst the peoples who live in the island of Sri
Lanka...
...we
cannot understand each other with our minds alone. We
are not desiccated calculating machines. To use a
felicitous metaphor that some of you may have come
across before, a metaphor used by Roger Fisher - to
understand a beetle, it is not enough to think like a
beetle - you must also begin to feel like one. You
must begin to truly feel what it is like to be a
beetle.
But the
invitation to reach to our hearts is not an invitation
to descend into sentimentality - a sentimentality which
is transient and quickly evaporates with time. We need
heart. But we need mind also. We need both mind and
heart. It was Martin Luther King who said somewhere
that we must combine a tough mind with a tender heart.
Here, I was
touched by something that Peter Senge wrote a couple of
years ago. I truly cannot put it better than in his own
words. I will therefore read what he said.
"We are
unable to talk productively about complex issues
because we are unable to listen. ... Listening
requires opening ourselves. Our typical patterns of
listening in difficult situations are tactical, not
relational. We listen for what we expect to hear. We
sift through others' views for what we can use to
make our own points. We measure success by how
effective we have been in gaining advantage for our
favored positions. Even when these motives are
covered by a shield of politeness, it is rare for
people with something at stake to truly to open their
minds to discover the limitations in their own ways
of seeing and acting.
Opening
our minds ultimately means opening our hearts. The
heart has come to be associated with muddled thinking
and personal weakness, hardly the attributes of
effective decision makers... (But) The path forward
is about becoming more human, not just more clever.
"
In the
conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, too, the path
forward is not about being clever. We can all be
clever. But the path forward is to be become more
human.
The
conflict in the island of Sri Lanka can be simply
stated.
The LTTE
struggles for the creation of an independent Tamil
Eelam. Sri Lanka seeks to secure its existing
territorial boundaries.
Stated in this
way, the conflict may appear to be insoluble. Something
will have to give. Squaring the circle may seem
impossible.
Some of you may
have heard of the story about the two professors Ury
and Fisher. It is a story. There were these two
professors in a room. One wanted the windows
open and the other wanted the windows closed.
So there was this big dispute about open - and close.
Ury insisting that the window be open and Fischer
saying no, it must be closed. The conflict went on for
sometime and Fisher eventually said let us sit and talk
about this. The response he got was "What is there to
be talked about - I want the window open, you want it
closed. So what is there to talk about?' . And then
Fisher asks, 'Yes, OK - but why is it you want the
windows open?' So, behind your stated position what is
your interest?. And Ury replied 'I want it open because
I like the fresh air and the breeze and so on.' Ury
then asked 'Yes, but, then why do you want it closed?'
Fisher replied 'Because papers are flying around, I
cannot control it.'
And then the two of them jointly
started examining ways in which they could get a
win-win solution so that Ury could have the fresh air
and Fisher would not have his papers flying about. They
discussed the idea of positioning the tables
differently, then putting up screens and so on and so
forth. But the point of the story was not so much
about the end result - it was about the fact that the
two parties to a conflict were able to jointly engage
in a dialogue and the synergy that was created
resulted in solutions which neither of them may have
thought of on their own.
In the case of
the conflict in Sri Lanka we may want to look behind
the stated positions of the LTTE and Sri Lanka. We may
want to look at the interests that the Tamil people and the Sinhala people want to secure. I
believe that it is possible to move towards a
resolution of the conflict on a
win-win basis. I am reminded
of a statement by a UK foreign minister some years ago
that 'Sovereignty is not virginity.' Independence?
Yes. But all countries in this world are dependent on
one another. After three hundred years of wars and two
world wars, the countries in Europe have moved towards
an European Union. There are different ways in which
peoples may associate with one
another in equality and in freedom - and here
there is every thing to talk about. And not much is
gained by straight jacketing the discussions on the
basis of known ideas and conceptual models. I thank
you."
Opening Remarks by Nadesan Satyendra at
International Seminar: Envisioning New Trajectories for
Peace in Sri Lanka Organized by the Centre for Just
Peace and Democracy (CJPD) in collaboration with the
Berghof Foundation, Sri Lanka Zurich, Switzerland 7 -
9 April 2006
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