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Sathyam
Commentary
10 February 2009
A Response to Mr. Rajdeep
Singh
Mr. Rajdeep Singh [ [email protected]
] wrote from Los Angeles USA on 10
February 2009 - "I chanced upon your website and
found it very intense and informative. However you do
not mention anything about the LTTE's terrorism and
terrorist activities. As for the suffering of the
civilians is concerned, every country has the right to
defend its unity and the SL govt is doing just that.
Tamil people should understand it is Prabhakaran and
the LTTE that has brought such misery to them. Your
website also does not mention anything about Tamil
Tiger child soldiers....kids abducted from their homes
and forced into soldiering and to be used as cannon
fodder. Your website also does not say anything about
suicide bombings. All I can say is that once the LTTE
is wiped out peace and reconciliation will return to
Sri Lanka."
Dear Mr. Singh,
The views that you have expressed
were heard loud and clear - not only because of your
email address [email protected]
. Said that, your views are not very different from
those that appear to underpin the recent
call by the Tokyo co chairs, Norway, US, EU and Japan for
the LTTE to surrender and pave the way for 'peace and
reconciliation'. And for that reason, I felt that what
you say may be of general interest and that it will be
useful to respond to what you have said - sentence by
sentence.
You may find what I had written a
few days ago on the Jeff and Mutt Act will
also further an understanding of the international frame
in which the call by the Tokyo Co Chairs was made - and
the strategic interests that the trilaterals have sought
to secure in the Indian Ocean
region.
Let me now turn to examine the
contents of your mail.
Your first
sentence reads: "I chanced upon your website
and found it very intense and informative'.
I am glad that you found
tamilnation.org
informative. As for being 'intense' you will appreciate
that a people who have been deprived of their homeland
and compelled to live as wandering nomads without a
land that they may call their own, sometimes do get
'intense'. But I entirely agree that intensity should
not override reason. At the same time you will agree
that we need both
mind and heart.
Your second sentence reads:
tamilnation.org has not mentioned "anything about
the LTTE's terrorism and terrorist activities."
You are wrong. It has.
tamilnation.org set out its position clearly in
Violence and Integrity
written many years ago in 2001 -
"...tamilnation.org together with many Tamils,
will continue to grapple with (and agonise over) the
question of moral laws and ethical ideals in the
context of an armed
struggle for freedom. The question troubled
Arujna in
the battlefield of Kurushetra. In Pondicherry,
Aurobindo grappled
with the broader moral issues in 'The Evolution of
Man'. Kannagi in Cilapathikaram,
took the law into her own hands and burnt down
Madurai in her search for justice. The response to
the armed struggle, from those who are not members of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, must spring
from a coincidence of what they themselves say, with
what they do, and in this way reflect their own
integrity....
We ourselves believe that means
and ends are inseparable - and that the relationship
between the two is intrinsic and dynamic. That is the
first article of our creed. We are mindful that the
resort to violence to secure political ends brings in
its train consequences which offend the conscience of
humanity.
But those who would resist
recourse to war, are also duty bound to address some
of the questions that arise - would they deny the
moral legitimacy
of the struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam for
freedom from alien Sinhala rule - and what is it
that they, themselves, are doing to end the war and
secure a just peace where no one people may rule
another?
Or would they prefer to
disdainfully dismiss
the struggle for freedom by the people of Tamil
Eelam as some 'internal squabble' or 'terrorism' - and
continue to remain silent and distant spectators of
Sri Lanka's continuing discrimination,
arbitrary
arrests and detentions, torture,
extra judicial
killings and massacres, indiscriminate
aerial bombardment, artillery
shelling, wanton rape,
genocide and
state
terrorism. These are not some remote
'philosophical' questions, but have something to do
with the way in which each one of us choose to live
our lives and also our self image 'of standing for
principles'...
We judge that the struggle of the people of Tamil
Eelam for freedom from alien Sinhala rule has
justice on its side and we take the view that by
so judging, and placing in the public
domain the facts on which that judgment is
founded, we are more likely to
bring a just peace in the island of Sri Lanka
than by remaining a passive spectator."
tamilnation.org has also devoted a section to the
reports of the University Teachers for Human Rights
(Jaffna Branch) - reports which have been critical
of the LTTE. In its introduction to the UTHR reports,
tamilnation.org pointed out -
"...The struggle of the Tamil people for self
determination is rooted in that which is right and
just - and will be strengthened, not weakened by an
open examination of the issues that confront it. The
Tamil struggle for freedom has no need for a 'media
censorship' of the kind imposed by the Sinhala
dominated Sri Lankan government from time to time - a
media censorship
which has served as a cloak for genocidal
attacks by the Sinhala dominated Sri Lanka
government against the Tamil people.
An armed resistance movement is not an afternoon
tea party. At the same time, the means adopted by a
struggle for freedom and the ends that it seeks to
achieve are inseparable. Furthermore, 'humanising the
armed conflict' is a necessary objective (and should
be honestly supported). But the good faith of those
who question some of the means adopted by the armed
resistance of the Tamil people will be less open to
question, if at the same time they do not deny the
justice of the ends that the Tamils, as a people, are
struggling to achieve. Martin Luther King's words in April
1963 are not without relevance:
"Over the past few years ....I have tried to
make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to
attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is
just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use
moral means to preserve immoral ends."
Those who deny the right of the people of Tamil Eelam to
freedom from alien Sinhala rule and the legitimacy of the armed resistance
movement, may end up by making impotent pleas
for 'human rights' and 'justice' from Sinhala
dominated Sri Lanka governments who have systematically oppressed the Tamil people
during the past several decades.
The Sri Lanka government then uses these 'pleas'
and 'reports' to undermine the legitimacy of the
Tamil struggle for freedom - and continue its genocidal
attacks on the Tamil people with increased
vigour. Furthermore, given the use to which the UTHR
reports have been put by Sri Lanka, the 'sources'
(often unnamed) on whose information the reports are
based, become suspect - suspect as being agents of
the Sri Lanka government. Having said that, it will
be wrong to dismiss the UTHR reports out of hand and
without careful examination - because in the end
-
Whatever may be said, who ever may
say it - to
determine the truth of it, is wisdom - Thirukural "
Again, said that, I believe that
the epithet 'terrorism' is more often than not a
political tag used to denigrate those who would deny
the right of a people for freedom from alien rule.
Sri Aurobindo said it
many years ago -
" It is the common habit of established
governments and especially those which are themselves
oppressors, to brand all violent methods in subject
peoples and communities as criminal and wicked.
When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the
infliction of bonds, stripes, and death on any one of
them who may dare to speak or act against you, it is
natural and convenient to try and lay a moral as well
as a legal ban on any attempt to answer violence by
violence...
But no nation yet has listened to the cant of the
oppressor when itself put to the test, and the
general conscience of humanity approves the
refusal...Liberty is the life breath of a nation; and
when life is attacked, when it is sought to suppress
all chance of breathing by violent pressure, then any
and every means of self preservation becomes right
and justifiable...It is the nature of the pressure
which determines the nature of the resistance."
Michael
Schubert writing 'On
Liberation Movements And The Rights Of Peoples'
pointed out many years ago in 1992 -
"The French Chief of Staff Andre Beaufre wrote
about his own experience in Algeria and Vietnam in
his 1973 German-language book 'Die Revolutionierung
des Kriegsbildes': 'The surprising success of the
decolonization wars can only be explained by the
following: The weak seem to have defeated the strong,
but actually just the reverse was true from a moral
point of view, which brings us to the conclusion that
limited wars are primarily fought on the field of
morale.' (p.34)
In order for... states to quickly and effectively
wipe out "revolt", which could get out of hand
despite technical superiority (read: better weapons)
due to the political and moral convictions of the mass
movement, it is necessary to make comprehensive
analyses early on and to take effective action in the
psychological arena. It's no coincidence, therefore,
that military and police circles seem to stress the
benefits of "psychological warfare".
Ever since the U.S. Defence Department organised
the first ever World Wide Psyops Conference in 1963
and the first NATO Symposium On Defence Psychology in
Paris in 1960, many NATO leaders and several
scientists have been working in the field of
psychological counter-insurgency methods (cf. The
detailed reports and analyses of P. Watson,
Psycho-War: Possibilities, Power, And The Misuse Of
Military Psychology, Frankfurt 1985, p.25ff.).
The central aim of this defence approach is to
destroy the morale of the insurgent movement at the
early stages, to discredit it and destroy it using
repressive means like long periods of isolation
detention in prisons, thereby preventing a mass
movement from starting which could be hard to control
with conventional means.
Defaming the insurgents as
"terrorists" and punishing them accordingly -
thereby ignoring international law concerning the rights of
people in war - is a particularly useful
means."
It was perhaps all this which
Hillary Clinton recognised when she declared in an interview with
Michael Romasky in October 2007
"Well, I believe that terrorism
is a tool that has been utilized throughout history
to achieve certain objectives. Some have been
ideological, others territorial. There are
personality-driven terroristic objectives. The bottom
line is, you can't lump all terrorists together. And
I think we've got to do a much better job of
clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons
d'être of terrorists. I mean, what the
Tamil Tigers
are fighting for in Sri Lanka, or the Basque separatists in Spain, or
the insurgents in al-Anbar province may only be
connected by tactics. They may not share all that
much in terms of what is the philosophical or
ideological underpinning. And I think one of our
mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush,
which has not been particularly helpful in
understanding what it is we were up against when it
comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever
ends they're seeking."
tamilnation.org has devoted a section to terrorism and the
related law and practise. Here you may find the
views expressed by UN Special Rapporteur, in his Final
Report on Terrorism and Human Rights on 25 June
2004 of special interest -
"The most problematic issue relating to terrorism and
armed conflict is distinguishing terrorists from
lawful combatants, both in terms of combatants in
legitimate struggles for self-determination and those
involved in civil wars or non-international armed
conflicts. In the former category, States that do not
recognize a claim to self-determination will claim
that those using force against the State's military
forces are necessarily terrorists. In the latter,
States will also claim that those fighting against
the State are terrorists, and that rather than a
civil war, there is a situation of "terrorism and
counter-terrorism activity"....The controversy over
the exact meaning, content, extent and beneficiaries
of, as well as the means and methods utilized to
enforce the right to self-determination
has been the major obstacle to the development of
both a comprehensive definition of terrorism and a
comprehensive treaty on terrorism. The ideological
splits and differing approaches preventing any broad
consensus during the period of decolonization still
persist in today's international relations. ...
...The Special Rapporteur has analysed the
distinction between armed conflict and terrorism,
with particular attention to conflicts to realize the
right to self-determination and civil wars. This is
an issue of great international controversy, in need
of careful review due to the "your freedom fighter is
my terrorist" problem and the increase in the
rhetorical use of the expression "war on terrorism",
labelling wars as terrorism, and combatants in wars
as terrorists, and it has an extremely undesirable
effect of nullifying application of and compliance
with humanitarian law in those situations, while at
the same time providing no positive results in
combating actual terrorism...."
You may also find that which I wrote On Terrorism & Liberation in
2006 of some relevance -
"...Do we not deliberately obfuscate when we
conflate the two words 'terrorism' and 'violence'?
... The Cuban revolution was violent but it was not
terrorism. The war against Hitler was violent but it
was not terrorism...What are the circumstances in
which a people ruled by an alien people may
lawfully resort to arms to
resist that alien rule and secure freedom? Or is it
that there are no circumstances in which a people
ruled by an alien people may lawfully resort to arms to to liberate
themselves? And if all resort to violence to secure
political ends is not terrorism, then what is
terrorism? ..to categorise a combatant in an
armed conflict as a 'terrorist' organisation and seek
to punish it on that basis, is to.. assert in effect
that a people ruled by an alien people may not, as a
last resort, lawfully
resort to arms to resist that alien rule and secure
freedom... "
Your third sentence
reads: "as for the suffering of
the civilians is concerned, every country has the right
to defend its unity and the SL govt is doing just
that."
I myself take the view that no
country has the right to resort to genocide to defend
its so called unity. The sixty year record of
successive the Sri Lanka governments is proof
enough that Sri Lanka is doing just that. Ethnic
cleansing is about assimilating a people. It is about
destroying the identity of a people, as a people. And
it often occurs in stages. The preferred route of a
conqueror is to achieve his objective without resort to
violence - peacefully and stealthily. But when that
fails, the would be conqueror turns to murderous
violence and genocide to progress his assimilative
agenda.
In the island of Sri Lanka, 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. Rule by a
permanent ethnic majority within the confines of a
single state is the dark side of democracy. The
Sinhala Buddhist nation masquerading as a
multi ethnic 'civic' 'Sri Lankan' nation set about
its task of assimilation and 'cleansing' the island of
the Tamils, as a people, by
- depriving a section of Eelam Tamils of their
citizenship,
- declaring the Sinhala flag as the national
flag,
- colonising parts of the Tamil homeland
with Sinhala people,
- imposing Sinhala as the official
language,
- discriminating against Tamils students
seeking University admission,
- depriving Tamil language speakers of
employment in the public sector,
- dishonouring agreements entered into
with the Tamil parliamentary political
leadership,
- refusing to recognise constititutional safeguards
against discrimination,
- later removing these constitutional
safeguards altogether,
- giving to themselves an authocthonous Constitution with a
foremost place for
Buddhism,
- and changing the name of the island itself
to the Sinhala Buddhist name of Sri Lanka -
appropriately enough, on the 'tenth day of the
waxing moon in the month of Vesak in the year two
thousand five hundred and fifteen of the Buddhist
Era'.
When these attempts at ethnic cleansing were
resisted by the Tamil people by non violent
means and parliamentary
struggle, Sinhala governments resorted to violence
in 1956, in 1958, in 1961 and again in 1977 - a murderous violence directed to
terrorise the Tamils into submission.
The inevitable rise of Tamil armed resistance to State terror was then met with enactment
of laws which were an 'ugly
blot on statute book of any civilised country',
with arbitrary arrest and detention,
torture,
extra judicial
killings and massacres, indiscriminate aerial bombardment and
artillery shelling, wanton rape, and
genocide - together with press
censorship, disinformation and murder of
journalists. And the impunity granted to Sinhala armed
forces, para military groups, goondas and Sinhala thugs, exposed the
encouragement, support and direction given by
successive Sri Lanka governments for the crimes
committed against the Tamil people.
The current President Rajapakse government has
pursued the Sinhala assimilative agenda by reneging on the 2002 Oslo
Declaration, by refusing to recognise the existence of the Tamil homeland, and
by perpetuating a Sri Lankan state structure within
which the Tamil people may continue to be ruled by a permanent Sinhala
majority. And in January 2008, the Sri Lanka
government unilaterally abrogated the ceasefire agreement which it had
solemnly entered into in February 2002 and which
agreement had received internationally recognition.
The genocidal intent of the President Rajapakse
government is proven by the war crimes
committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces under the
President's command and by the Sri Lanka para military.
They have raped,
murdered Tamil Parliamentarians, Tamil journalists, executed
Tamil students with impunity, arbitrarily arrested and detained Tamil
civilians, abducted Tamil refugee workers,
orchestrated
attacks on Tamil civilians and Tamil shops,
bombed Tamil civilian population
centres and displaced
thousands of Tamils from their homes.
I believe that there is an urgent need to attend to
the words of Yelena
Bonner (widow of Andrei
Sakharov) that
"the inviolability of a country's borders against
invasion from the outside must be clearly separated
from the right to statehood of any people within a
state's borders."
I take the view that the people of Tamil Eelam have
the right to be free from alien Sinhala rule and I
agree with
the views expressed by 15 Non Governmental
Organisations (consisting of the International
Organisation for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination, International Educational Development,
Centre Europe Ties Monde, International Indian Treaty
Council, Fedefam, Association paur la Liberte
Religiose, Codehuca, World Christian Community, Pax
Christie International, International League for the
Rights and Liberation of Peoples, Movement contra le
Racisme, International Association of Educadores for
World Peace, International Association against Torture,
World Confederation of Labour, and International
Movement for Fraternal Union among Races and Peoples)
at United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, Geneva 8 February
1993 -
"..The Tamil population in the North and East, who
have lived for many centuries within relatively well
defined geographical boundaries, share an ancient
heritage, a vibrant culture, and a living language
which traces its origins to more than 2500 years ago.
A social group, which shares objective elements such
as a common language and which has acquired a
subjective consciousness of togetherness, by its life
within a relatively well defined territory, and its
struggle against alien domination, clearly
constitutes a 'people' with the right to self
determination.
Today, there is an urgent need for the
international community to recognise that the Tamil
population in the North and East of the island of Sri
Lanka are such a 'people' with the right to freely
choose their political status. It is our view that
such recognition will prepare the ground for the
resolution of a conflict which has taken such a heavy
toll in human lives and suffering during the past
several years.
Accordingly, we request that the delegates to the
49th Session of the Commission on Human Rights give
their urgent consideration to these matters and (a)
accord open recognition to the existence of the Tamil
homeland in the North and East of the Island; and (b)
recognise that the Tamil population in the North and
East of the island constitute a 'people' with the
right to self determination''
I also find persuasive the
views expressed by Prince Hans-Adam II of
Liechtenstein, at the International Institute
for Strategic Studies in
2001 on Self Determination & the Future of
Democracy -
"...Let us accept the fact that states have
lifecycles similar to those of human beings who
created them. The lifecycle of a state might last for
many generations, but hardly any Member State of the
United Nations has existed within its present borders
for longer than five generations. The attempt to
freeze human evolution has in the past been a futile
undertaking and has probably brought about more
violence than if such a process had been controlled
peacefully...Restrictions on self-determination
threaten not only democracy itself but the state
which seeks its legitimation in democracy"
Your fourth sentence reads: "Tamil people should understand it
is Prabhakaran and the LTTE that has brought such misery
to them."
But what are the facts? The struggle for an
independent Tamil Eelam did not begin with Prabhakaran
and the LTTE. Long before the rise of Tamil armed
resistance, the Gandhian Tamil leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam
had declared
in 1975 -
"Throughout the ages the Sinhalese and Tamils in
the country lived as distinct sovereign people till
they were brought under foreign domination. It should
be remembered that the Tamils were in the vanguard of
the struggle for independence in the full confidence
that they also will regain their freedom. 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."
And here the truth of something which Professor
Marshall Singer said in 1995 must be borne in mind
-
"...One of the essential elements that
must be kept in mind in
understanding the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict is that,
since 1958 at least, every time Tamil politicians
negotiated some sort of power-sharing deal with a
Sinhalese government - regardless of which party was
in power - the opposition Sinhalese party always
claimed that the party in power had negotiated away
too much. In almost every case - sometimes within
days - the party in power backed down on the
agreement..." - Professor Marshall Singer, at US
Congress Committee on International Relations
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific Hearing on Sri
Lanka November 14,1995
The Tamil armed resistance arose in response to the
dismal record of broken Pacts and evasive proposals by
successive Sinhala governments - a record
that speaks for itself. The Tamil people are not
stupid. They know that it is not 'Prabhakaran and the
LTTE that has brought such misery to them' but a
murderous Sinhala
Buddhist ethno nationalism which dare not speak
its name and which seeks to masquerade as a Sri Lanka
'civic' secular nation albeit with the Sinhala Sri
Lanka name which it gave
itself unilaterally in 1972 and with Buddhism
enthroned in its constitution.
Your fifth sentence states: "your website also does not mention
anything about Tamil Tiger child soldiers....kids
abducted from their homes and forced into soldiering and
to be used as cannon fodder."
You are wrong. Yes, it does. tamilnation.org
has devoted a whole section to
an examination of the question of child soldiers.
tamilnation.org has pointed out -
"...Having in 2002 adopted a double standard in the
Optional Protocol to the Convention
on the Rights of the Child for the age of
recruitment by States and Armed Groups, States have
then been concerned to secure the implementation of the double standard.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1612 (2005) and the
establishment of the "Council Working Group"
served as mechanisms to advance
the political agenda of states concerned to prevent
armed resistance movements from recruiting 16 year
olds whilst States themselves continue to recruit 16
year olds to their armed forces. States
would like to offer 16 year olds in their own schools
' a career' in the armed
forces, produce video games (given free to 16
year olds and freely seen by 12 year olds) and in
this way encourage the child recruitment process and
at the same time shout 'child soldiers' and 'war
crime' where under 18 children, without schools to
attend, and in many cases without families to look
after them, join a movement resisting oppression and alien rule of their
homeland."
You may also find the communication in August 2007
by Karen Parker, International
Educational Development to the UN Security Council Working Group "Children affected
by the war in Sri Lanka; legal problems with the age of
combatants" as well as the Observations by
International
Federation of Tamils on the Report of Under
Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Sri
Lanka" instructive.
Your sixth sentence states: "Your website also does not say
anything about suicide bombings."
You are wrong. Yes, it does. tamilnation.org does have a section on Black
Tigers which sets out the countervailing views on
suicide bombings. Said that I am also mindful that
"Throwing a bomb is bad,
Dropping a bomb
is good;
Terror, no need to add,
Depends on who's wearing the hood."
R.Woddis 'Ethics for Everyman'
quoted by Igor Primoratz in State
Terrorism & Counter Terrorism
I believe that it is important to pay attention to
the words of the
Geneva Declaration on the Question of Terrorism by
International Conference on the Question of Terrorism
in 1987 -
"...The peoples of the
world are engaged in a fundamental series of
struggles for a just and peaceful world based on
fundamental rights now acknowledged as
sacred in a series of widely endorsed international
legal conventions. These struggles are opposed in a
variety of cruel and brutal ways by the political,
economic and ideological forces associated with the
main structures of domination present in the world
that spread terrorism in a manner unknown in prior
international experience... The terrorism of modern
state power and its high technology weaponry exceeds
qualitatively by many orders of magnitude the
political violence relied upon by groups aspiring to
undo oppression and achieve liberation. Let us also
be clear, we favour non-violent resistance
wherever possible... We
condemn all those tactics and methods of struggle
that inflict violence directly upon innocent civilians as
such...but we must insist that terrorism originates
with nuclearism, criminal regimes, crimes of
state, high-technology attacks on Third World
peoples, and systematic denials of human
rights. It is a cruel extension of the terrorist
scourge to taunt the
struggles against terrorism with the label
"terrorism". We support these struggles and call
for the liberation of political language along with
the liberation of peoples. Terrorism originates from
the statist system of structural violence and
domination that denies the right of self-determination to
peoples..."
I believe that it is a cruel extension of the
terrorist scourge to taunt the
struggles against terrorism with the label
"terrorism" and that "terrorism originates from the
statist system of structural violence and domination
that denies the right of self-determination to peoples."
I believe that there is a need to "call for the
liberation of political language along with the
liberation of peoples".
Your final sentence states -
"all I can say is that once the LTTE is wiped out peace
and reconciliation will return to Sri Lanka."
I am reminded of the
words of Professor Johan Galtung in an interview with
Namini Wijedasa reported in the Sinhala owned Sri
Lanka Island on 2 February 2007, some two years ago
-
"..But imagine it happens:
Killinochchi is flattened, Mr P is
dead, LTTE dissolved. Will the Tamil
dream of a Tamil Eelam die? Of
course not. It will be revived, and new cycles of
violence will occur. And probably new CFAs. And possibly the same
mistake, confusing ceasefire with peace,
using it as a sleeping pillow to do nothing..."
The struggle for an independent
Tamil Eelam did not begin with the LTTE and therefore
will not end with the LTTE. 'Peace and Reconciliation'
are soothing words. We all love
peace. But peace comes in
many different forms. We have the peace of the
graveyard as well. If it was simply peace that the
Tamil people wanted they may have been well advised to
willingly submit to alien Sinhala rule - many years
ago.
"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 bottom line is that the conflict in the island
will be resolved only if we honestly pay attention to
the deep felt differences which had given rise to the
war in the first instance - deep felt differences
which has led so many to give their lives
and give
of their lives. We need to address the conflict
which had not been amenable to peaceful resolution and
which had led to war. And something that I have said
elsewhere will bear repetition yet again -
"Yes, by all means 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' and our 'disinterested
friends' 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 Lion flag as its 'national'
flag and adopt a tricolor
as its national flag? If not, why not? After all the
English Lion does not rise rampant in the flag of the
United Kingdom, does it?
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
and our 'disinterested' friends 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 then ask our 'disinterested' friends
-
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."
Dear Mr. Singh, I do not suggest that you are a
knave. I do suggest however that you are being somewhat
naive when you say that 'once the LTTE is wiped out
peace and reconciliation will return to Sri Lanka'.
Again, perhaps it is because the Tamil people know that
if the LTTE is wiped out, peace and reconciliation will
not come to Sri Lanka, that
the LTTE will not be wiped
out.
Be that as it may, I believe that peace will come
only with justice. And justice is not an empty
platitude. So long as the Sinhala people believe that
they can conquer the Tamil homeland and rule a people
against their will (perhaps through quislings,
mercenaries and collaborators), so long will they fail
to see the need to talk to the Tamil people on equal
terms. So long also will they fail to see the need to
recognise the existence of the Tamil people, as a
people, with a homeland and with the right to freely
choose their political status.
So long also will they fail to see the need to
structure a polity where two nations may associate with
each other in equality and in
freedom.
So long also will they fail to see the force of
reason in that which 17 non governmental
organisations (consisting of International
Association of Educators for World Peace, International
Educational Development, International Indian Treaty
Council, Consejo Indico de Sud America, Comision de
Deeches Homonas de El Salavador, Commission for the
Defence of Human Rights in Central America, World
Council of Churches, International Movement against all
Forms of Discrimination and Racism,Action des
Christians Pour L'Abolition de la Torture,FIMARC,
International Council of Women, American Association of
Jurists, Centre Europe-Tiers Monde, Servieiv Pax
Justica America Latina, Pax Romana, International
League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, and
World Christian Live Community) told the UN
Commission on Human Rights at its 50th Sessions in
February 1994:
'' There is a need to recognise that the deep
divisions between the Sri Lanka government and the
Tamil people cannot be resolved by the use of force
against Tamil resistance. The Tamil population in the
North and East of the island, who have lived from
ancient times within relatively well defined
geographical boundaries in the north and east of the
island, share an ancient heritage, a vibrant culture,
and a living language which traces its origins to
more than 2500 years ago.
...Before the advent of the British ..., separate
kingdoms existed for the Tamil areas and for the
Sinhala areas in the island. The Tamil people and the
Sinhala people were brought within the confines of
one state for the first time by the British in 1833.
After the departure of the British in 1948, an alien
Sinhala people speaking a language different to that
of the Tamils and claiming a separate and distinct
heritage has persistently denied the rights and
fundamental freedoms of the Tamil people. ..
It is ...our view that the Secretary General
should consider invoking his good offices with the
aim of contributing to the establishment of peace in
the island of Sri Lanka through respect for the
existence of the Tamil homeland in the NorthEast of
the island of Sri Lanka and recognition for the right
of the Tamil people to freely determine their
political status.''
Yours Sincerely,
Nadesan Satyendra
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