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The Cynicism of Real
Politick
March 1994
''When governments pretend not to notice
suffering, to whom can peoples.. turn for help? The
United Nations? Alas, the deeper you delve, the
redder the faces. The cynicism of realpolitik extends
even to the UN Commission on Human Rights..."
Amnesty International Advertisement, 12 March
1994
Arulappu Jude Arulrajah was arrested on
2 October 1993 at about 1.30 a.m. from his lodge at
Bambalapitiya, Colombo by armed men in civilian
dress.
Arulrajah was never told the reason for the
detention nor was he brought before a court or accused
of having committed any crime - because the only
'crime' that he had committed was that he was a Tamil.
During most of the two months he was held at this first
place of detention, Arulrajah was blindfolded, with his
hands and feet chained and he was kept in a darkened
room usually naked. He was regularly beaten and on one
occasion he was hung from a wooden pole suspended
between two tables and his genitals cut, possibly with
a hacksaw.
Arulappu Jude Arulrajah was, ofcourse, not the only
Tamil to suffer in this way at the hands of the Sri Lanka
authorities. Amnesty reported last month that
''thousands of Tamils are being arrested every month
in Colombo, most without any valid reason...The way in
which people have been recently abducted in Colombo by
army in civilian dress, blindfolded with their own
shirts and taken away in unmarked vehicles to secret
locations where they have been tortured is a
particularly chilling echo of the past...''
But then again, recent events in Colombo are nothing
new. As long ago as June 1983, Mr.Timothy
J.Moore of the Australian Section of the International
Commission of Jurists wrote:
''The author accepts that it is the almost
universal practice of the (Sri Lanka) military
authorities to physically assault and mistreat those
persons who have been in their custody... (and) that
this treatment is.. carried out on a systematic
basis...''
Today, whilst Tamils in Colombo and other Sinhala
areas are arbitrarily arrested and tortured, Sinhala
forces who dare not set foot on the Tamil homeland in the
North, have taken to the skies to rain terror on the
Tamil people. Here again, there is no lack of reports and
statements by Amnesty and other independent
observers.
On 7 November 1990, Deanna
Hodgin, a journalist from Insight Magazine wrote to
Congressman Gus Yatron, Subcommittee on Human Rights,
Washington:
''I attended a press conference where (Sri Lanka)
Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne told the press that
there had been no civilian casualties despite heavy
bombing. When I volunteered that I had seen many
bomb-blasted bodies, and many hundreds of people
injured by helicopter strafing and more, the Defence
Minister told me it was a pity I had not been shot.
That's the mentality you are dealing with - human
rights is not an idea with much currency for the Sri
Lankan government. Quiet diplomacy is not an option for
our policy in Sri Lanka...''
The British Refugee Council publication Sri Lanka
Monitor commented in July 1993:
''Over 1,000 civilians have been killed in the three
years bombing of Jaffna.. Daily life in Jaffna is
conditioned by the distant drone of aircraft engines
and the run to the bunkers behind almost every house.
There were no warnings, no air-dropped leaflets
announcing operations. Why should there be? After all
no one is watching ... There will be no international
protest or outcry''
This year on February 28 at the 50th Sessions of the
UN Commission on Human Rights 18 Non Governmental
Organisations including International Educational
Development, Pax Romana, Centre Europe Tiers Monde,
Survival International,and Organisation Mondiale Contra
la Torture, declared in a joint statement:
''For the past ten years this Commission has heard
hundreds of statements raising grave concern... During
recent months the Sri Lanka government has intensified
its indiscriminate aerial bombardment of the North of
the Tamil homeland and the three year old economic
blockade continues.''
Hundreds of reports by human rights organisations
and hundreds of expressions of concern - but to what end?
More reports and more expressions of grave
concern?
Amnesty in a full page advertisement in the London
based Guardian on 12 March 1994 commented on the cynicism
of real politick in the context of East Timor - comments
which are equally applicable to the situation of the
Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka:
''When governments pretend not to notice
suffering, to whom can peoples.. turn for help?
The United Nations? Alas, the deeper you delve,
the redder the faces. The cynicism of realpolitik
extends even to the UN Commission on Human
Rights...
When Amnesty attended the Commission in Geneva
last month to urge action on Indonesia and East Timor,
we met only embarrassment. The governments to which we
spoke repeated what they have been promising us for
thirty years: they will pursue a policy of 'quiet
diplomacy'''
To Amnesty's question, to whom can a people turn when
governments (around the world) pretend not to notice
their suffering, Tamil Eelam leader Velupillai
Pirabaharan provided the answer on Maha Veerar Naal in
November 1993 when he said that they can only turn to
themselves. His words bear repetition yet again:
''...we are fully aware that the world is not
rotating on the axis of human justice. ...International
relations and diplomacy between countries are
determined by the self interest of each country.
Therefore we cannot expect an immediate recognition of
the legitimacy of our cause by the international
community. But at the same time we must agitate for
that recognition... In reality, the success of our
struggle depends on our own efforts, on our own
strength, on our own determination...''
And we are reminded of the late Sathasivam Krishnakumar,
the charismatic intellectual and man of action of the
LTTE, who sometimes quoted the words of his leader with a smile:
''You know, you can wake up someone who is asleep,
but it is much more difficult to wake up someone who is
pretending to be asleep.''
The Tamil people, by their untiring efforts, by
their strength born from their suffering, and by their
steadfast determination, can (and will) make it more and
more difficult, for those who pretend not to see, to
persist in their pretence with any degree of credibility.
And there will come a time when the same real politik
that renders some 'blind' today, will press upon them the
need to 'wake up' to the justice of the Tamil
cause.
Background
''Arulappu Jude
Arulrajah was arrested on 2 October 1993 at about 1.30
a.m. from his lodge at Bambalapitiya, Colombo by armed
men in civilian dress... Amnesty International
interviewed him during a recent visit to Sri Lanka and
collected evidence suggesting that he had been held in
two unauthorised places of detention in Colombo until
he was transferred to the custody of the CID on 15
December 1993.
It also found that he had been
tortured and ill treated at his first place of
detention which is thought to be an army camp by the
sea, off Galle Road, Kollupitiya, Colombo.
During most of the two months he was
held at this first place of detention, Arulrajah was
blindfolded, with his hands and feet chained and he was
kept in a darkened room usually naked.
He was regularly beaten and on
one occasion he was hung from a wooden pole suspended
between two tables and his genitals cut, possibly with
a hacksaw... Arulrajah was
never told the reason for the detention nor was he
brought before a court or accused of having committed
any crime.''
''Amnesty International is calling
for an end to secret and illegal detention of people in
Sri Lanka. To date, the Government has not responded to
reports received by Amnesty International that people
have been held at a secret place of detention located
by the sea off Galle Road, Kollupitiya, behind the
Indian High Commission and the American Information
Centre, thought to be an army camp. Nor has it
responded to reports that he was tortured in military
custody during his period of illegal
detention.'' (Amnesty
Report, ASA 37/13/94, February 1994)
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