BETA

Based on a talk by Les Levidow of CAMPACC at the International Seminar on Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, Organised by Global Peace Support Group, UK.

The Campaign Against Criminalising Communities has relevance to this event because CAMPACC was originally founded in early 2001 to oppose the UK Terrorism Act 2000, the basis for banning the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a ‘terrorist’ organisation. 

In June 2007 the ban was used to arrest two Tamil activists, Chrishanthakumar (also known as 'AC Shanthan') and Goldan Lambert. Shanthan was charged with materially supporting the LTTE.  Golden Lambert was accused of organising a Hyde Park rally in July 2006, commemorating the 1983 Tamil massacre which had provoked the war in Sri Lanka; such involvement was treated as a crime under the Terrorism Act 2000.
 
The arrests came as a surprise because many Tamils had been openly supporting the LTTE here for a long time.  Based in the UK, Anton Balasingham had been representing the LTTE in peace negotiations around the world; his trips were financed partly by the UK and US governments.  After Balasingham’s death in December 2006, a greater role was played by Shanthan, who attended peace talks in Geneva.  As his defence lawyers argue, the UK government helped to sponsor those talks, so he has no case to answer. 

This is the moderate position on Eelam: Eelam is your right. It is not a
gift, not an act of charity but something that is already yours. As with all
things, you can claim it or lose it. Others can try to take it away from you
but that would constitute an assault, a theft.

When the founding fathers of America made the case for their nation, they
did not rely on a cultural identity that had evolved over thousands of
years. They did not rely on a common language, let alone a few thousand
years of a shared literary heritage. They did not even rely on the concept
of a traditional homeland. For, they had none of these on their side.

They relied instead on something more intrinsic and universal. They relied
on the rights of man.
And so to quote from Thomas Paine, who articulated the concept most clearly
in his seminal book of the same name:
"The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own
personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to
produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a
right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist
…"
It follows that, by these principles, the nation of Eelam, can have and does
need only one form of legitimacy: a compact entered by the people who choose
to belong to that nation.
Of course, those of us, who have a few thousand years of historical cohesion
as a "civilisation", a common culture and heritage, and more recently a
shared history of oppression and injustice, to bind us together, may not
feel the need to explicitly enter into a "compact" with each other; we may
take it for granted that it exists and that it has done so implicitly for
millennia.

The talk of the town, I mean the Sinhala town, from the beginning of the year was the 60th “Independence Day Celebrations.” There were lots of preparations made, millions and millions of rupees were spent and what happened on the 4th of February it was “Pus vaanum” - a firecracker that died away silently. There were hardly any spectators and even those who had to be there on compulsion were terrified of a sabotage act by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Even the President, what ever he may be, one has to accept him as an eloquent orator, cut his normal lengthy deliveries to a few minutes and his voice was not the same as it used to be.

Peace and Amity

60 years back, when there was no racial animosity – not superficially at least – everyone the Muslims, the Burgers, the Sinhalese, the Malays and the Tamils participated with pride and hope in the celebrations of the 4th of February 1948. Of course the Sri Lankans did not shed even a drop of blood to achieve independence. To SL independence was virtually served on a silver plate for the mere asking. I was only 15 years old then. We were supplied with “Green” shirts free at our college and we all lined up along the road and waved our hands at the procession that passed by. Frankly I feel like kicking myself now for having donned that green attire and for not knowing then what it means now to us.

As I said above, this racial hatred had not crept into us at that time. But we started feeling the pinch of it in the 1950s. The United National Party was very popular among the Tamils even then. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party was not formed in1948. It was the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) that held the monopoly one could say. Thanthai S.J.V.Chelvanayagam and others, who formed the Federal Party, were originally in the ACTC.

One should not be surprised that with the advent of internet, we are being bombarded with the weekly fiction of Tamil fiction writers, whose canvas is mainly limited to LTTE’s personalities. B. Raman, Col. R. Hariharan (Retd.), N. Sathiya Moorthy and last but not the least D.B.S. Jeyaraj have been the major names in this game of fiction writing. Here are four samples from these fiction writers, about Thamilselvan which in my opinion tell something about the incestuous thoughts of these LTTE gossip mongers.

(1) “Even before his death, the political head was No. 3 in the pecking order of the LTTE. The relationship between Prabhakaran and the late Anton Balasingham, LTTE’s sole ideologue and predecessor of Thamilchelvan at the negotiating table, was on a closer and more equitable plane than Thamilchelvan…” – Col.R.Hariharan (Retd.), South Asia Analysis Group, Note No. 413, Nov.7, 2007.

(2) “Thamilselvan, the presumed No.3 in the pecking order of the LTTE leadership after Prabakaran and Pottu Amman, the chief of the intelligence wing of the LTTE, was the only leader not involved in any major act of terrorism either in Sri Lankan or Indian territory…” – B. Raman, South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No. 2456, Nov.15, 2007

Let us look for the answer to the simple question, after all, what is the destructive element blocking a solution to the ethnic problem? The undisputed answer is, “Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country…, which has been bestowed only to the Sinhalese. Tamils are aliens, but if they want to…, they could live under the Sinhala yoke”.
 
Always, LTTE to Get the Blame

Ever since the 2002 ceasefire was signed, the LTTE has been under pressure to make concession in return for a relatively minor role in any political settlement. The imperialistic major powers have been arm twisting the LTTE while assisting the Sri Lanka military. They never failed to brand LTTE as intransient, though the LTTE put forward an alternative to separate state, ISGA and again in his “Heroes day” speech of 2005, Pirapaharan warned in no uncertain terms that the LTTE would be forced to resume the struggle for “self-determination” in 2006, unless progress towards a satisfactory political solution was made. Though it is customary for oppressors to come down on their demands, here, the reverse has taken place.

That single name above, signifies a great deal for the Tamil nation of Eelam. It denotes a gentle; calm; unassuming man who was always smiling.  Tamilchelvan may be gone but his smile will always remain with us.

Tamilchelvam died a victim to the bombs that the Sinhalas have taken to ‘raining’ on civilian targets. The Tamil nation expected an attempt by the Sinhala government and army to try to balance the loss of face they suffered, in what the Sinhala Brigadier called the ‘debacle’ of Anuradhapure. When 21 Tamil heroes made mince meat of the Sinhala Air Force. The Sinhalas tried taking their revenge on the dead bodies of the Tamil heroes, but world opinion rebounded on them.

This attack on the administrative capital of the Tamil nation in Kilinochi, when Tamilchelvan was killed, only goes to prove that the Sinhala government will stoop to the foulest and most primitive methods in trying to regain their lost ‘prestige’ that is if they had any in the first instance.

In the death of Tamilchelvan, the Tamils have lost a long time champion there is no doubt about that. However, the Sinhalas have got mud on their face by the extermination of a face that was well known to the international world who was interested in resolving the civil war in the island.

The international media have plenty of footage of Tamilchelvan with the world’s international representatives. He has met foreign ministers of some of the leading countries who interested themselves in the problems facing the Tamil nation. My first information of his death was from the news channel of New Delhi Television (NDTV).

The death of Tamilchelvan does not mean that the Freedom Movement of the Tamil nation will crumble. No! It will make Tamils more determined that ensure that the many great people, both men and women, did not give up their lives in vain.

Prof. Jagmohan Singh writes to Kalaignar Karunanithi

Prof. Jagmohan Singh.  a political activist based in Ludhiana, Panjab wrote an open letter to Kalaignar Karunanithi, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, for writing  an elegy in the memory of Brig.S.P.Tamilselvan. We are reproducing excerpts of  Prof. Singh’s letter.

I was immensely touched by your humane gesture of writing an elegy in the memory of Tamil nationalist leader and head of the political wing of the LTTE, Suppayya Paramu Tamilchelvan, who was killed in an aerial strike by the Sinhalese airforce on 2 November 2007 in Kilinochchi. I am more amazed by the fact that though you are the head of a state, you did not hide behind the pretence of “compulsions of state” and have audaciously spoken your mind without fear of any kind whatsoever.

You are reported to have said, “The one who was killed in Sri Lanka was a Tamil. And it is Tamil blood that courses through my veins.”

The resolution of your party, the Dravida Munetra Kazagham condemning the role of Sri Lanka is timely and appropriate. Your ode to Tamilchelvan is inspiring. It is a genuine call of a person who in the early fifties had given a call for a separate state of Tamil Nadu. Every individual who is struggling for the rights of his people anywhere in the world would salute you for your courageous requiem:

“A face that was ever smiling,

A heart that singed all opposition,

A youthful man with a heart as strong as the Himalayas,

A commander who blossomed in the footsteps of Balasingham, the old lion,

A noble youth who deemed his life but a bit of manure for his liberation struggle,

"……..but if I had served God as diligently as I have done the king He would not have given me over in my gray hairs……. I am come to leave my bones among you."--- Cardinal Thomas Wolsey ( c.1473—1530).

These last words of  Cardinal Wolsey the virtual head of state and head of church in England under Henry VIII,  spoken at his execution on the orders of Henry VIII  his erstwhile ally, for High Treason may not be quite relevant to the plight of Karuna ,  but are analogically close.

The highest echelons of the state apparatus moved in unison to christen Karuna with  the name,  Kokila Gunawardene with the blessings of the  Head of a  State of Sri Lanka. For a brief while Gunawardene alias Karuna "functioned"  as Sri Lanka's Director of Wild Life Conservation well on his way to attend a climate change conference   on behalf of the Sri Lankan government as a representative attached to a department which came under the ministry of environment, on a diplomatic passport. 

Having experienced climate change first hand by moving from things "hotting"    up   exacerbated by the  arid heat of the east of Sri Lanka to the salubrious autumn weather of Kensington in London  there is no better person in Sri Lanka today more  qualified  to attend a conference on climate change than Karuna himself and speak to it. We have in these columns predicted that Karuna when he passed his use by date would be thrown away like an old shoe. We even recommended that he be offered a diplomatic posting to join the array of those distinguished persons most of whom hold office, it appears, at the will of men of straw.

It is unfortunate that most foreign writers and journalists tend to describe the Tamil freedom fighters of Eelam as ‘terrorists’. The west has, particularly after the 7/11 incident in New York, USA, tended to describe any individual or organisation not with the establishment, as a terrorist or a terrorist organisation.  Journalists and newspapers are happier with labelling individuals or organisations. If a label is not available, they are always ready to create a catchy label. As an example, till recently, Ken Livingstone the Mayor of London was described by the British media as ‘Red’ Ken though he was never a communists, that did not matter to the media since the label was catchy and looked sensational in print. In Sri Lanka today, most Sinhala politicians and military spokespersons as a rule, always describe the LTTE as ‘terrorists’. Sadly in their case, it is because their vocabulary is sorely limited even in their mother tongue, as one would have noted on the rare occasions when an individual or a military spokesperson was interviewed by the newspapers or on television.

This brings me to a recent article by Karen Parker, the American Human Rights lawyer that I read recently. Karen Parker holds that if one was to use the same yardstick with which Americans describe the Tamil freedom fighters as terrorists, George Washington, the first American President, could be termed a terrorist. Most students of American history are aware of what is described as the ‘Boston Tea Party’, when a group of American rebels, dressed as Native Americans, boarded a tea clipper in the Boston harbour and dumped the crates containing processed tea leaves into the water.  This incident is what was said to have started the American freedom movement that was soon to develop into a war of independence. Today, journalists  would have referred to them as ‘terrorists’.

Revisiting the Views of Kumar Ponnambalam

Ponnambalam Jr.’s Assertions

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) is the public house built by Dr.Neelan Tiruchelvam (born 1944), in 1982. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of ICES, and its opportune to think a little about the deals of Dr.Neelan and why ICES came to be built. One should search for clues beyond what is presented in the website of ICES. The ICES was built at the time when Cold War rhetoric was flourishing. The chief patron of ICES was the Ford Foundation, one of the grand wands of American philanthropy cum diplomatic maneuvers.

Until Neelan Tiruchelvam’s assassination on July 29, 1999, I had read a few disgruntled commentaries penned by anti-Tamil polemicists such as Dr.Susantha Goonetilake and H.L.D.Mahindapala on the pernicious influence on the Sri Lankan policy making by the local relays of Yankee imperial agents (read as Dr.Neelan Tiruchelvam) and their public house of dubious repute (read as ICES).

I had initially felt that these were sour grape comments of Sinhalese analysts who lacked Neelan Tiruchelvam’s talent in attracting American funding. However, following his assassination such overt criticism on Neelan became muted, since projecting Neelan (a fellow Tamil ethnic) as an unfortunate victim of LTTE brutality was good for pro-Sinhalese propaganda. Thus, a ‘dead Neelan’ became the darling of these same carrion-feeding commentators.

Tiruchelvam was a CIA agent

The situation in Sri Lanka is clearly an armed conflict governed by only humanitarian law. But the Sri Lankan authorities never failed to make serious efforts to seek to avoid application of humanitarian law at all but rather to have the international community view the armed conflict as a ‘terrorism/counter terrorism’ conflict. In this regard the United States has been very forward, putting a great deal of pressure on other states, notably the U.K., Canada, and the EU, to join it in listing the LTTE as a terrorist group.

 It is in fact unfortunate that these great nations failed to understand or rather appreciate that there is no rule in international law that forbids either civil wars or wars of national liberation in the exercise of self-determination. These struggles are simply not terrorism. Also obvious is the fact that the LTTE is not seeking the Sinhalese areas in the south but seeks to defend itself and the Tamils in the traditional Tamil areas. In this sense, the Tamil areas, the Sri Lankan forces are seen as a Sinhalese occupation.

Sri Lankan government has twin intentions. One was to seduce the international community by their charm offensive and to engage in a covert and overt genocide war against the Tamils. It is a natural event that the International Community is gradually and carefully coming out of the seduction. The actions of the USA, the UK, the EU in particular attributes to this state of affairs. It is high time that they accepted that Sri Lanka is a failed state: an out-law state that has the blood of the Tamils in their hands which has no regard for international law. The West can not be pretending any longer to be snoring while being wide awake.

Excerpts from an article written by Dinesh D. Dodamgoda for a Sri Lankan news paper The Morning Leader.

The question of destroying LTTE’s military capability has dominated our strategic discourse for more than three decades. The answer of a war of attrition against the LTTE, has been as immutable and inscrutable as religious belief. The present government has clearly indicated their determination to continue fighting against the LTTE and they believe that this strategy would ensure their victory over terrorism. However for those strategists who accept terrorism as a tactic but not as an ideology, the process of weakening the LTTE’s military capability prior to political negations is of paramount importance. This article is an attempt to assess ‘the question of destroying the LTTE’s military capability’ as a means of reaching a permanent political solution.
 

Despite many interpretations of our history, theoretically and empirically it is evident that Sinhalese and Tamils display two different identities. We have few similarities and many differences. Historically, culturally and politically we are two divided ethnic groups and history has produced more evidence to prove division between Sinhalese and Tamils than to prove harmony between them. The Tamil secessionist movement was born with the gradual enlightenment of many Tamils who now believe and advocate the idea that the Tamils can have neither justice nor a future from a Sinhalese government. Therefore, there will be no harmony between Tamils and Sinhalese and this reality has emerged as a result of historical, cultural and political polarisation.

Sole representative

In occurrence more unexpected could not be imagined at the Cricket World Cup 2007. The defeat of the Sri Lanka cricket team in the hands of the mighty Australians was less surprising than the campaign launched by the international human rights organisation Amnesty International.

Amnesty’s campaign that used dummy cricket balls which said, “Sri Lanka, play by the rules,” was distributed at the playing venue. Other material that exposed the government’s dismal human rights record and democratic practices as the state intensified its war against the LTTE was also distributed but not at the cricket matches.

The government expressed its indignation: “One expects international human rights organisations to respect the spirit of cricket and not intrude the game with such slurs,” Lucian Rajakarunanayake, director of the Sri Lankan president’s Media Division, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

“One would like to ask Amnesty International whether it plans to take up the issue of human rights violations by the U.S. government in Iraq or in Guantanamo Bay at the Super Bowl match or the National Basketball League championship,” he said.

Though the government’s rejoinders in the past to international issues that place it in an embarrassing situation have been to adopt an air of injured indignation, the bluff did not work on this occasion. No sooner than Amnesty’s campaign played the spotlight on the problem than an avalanche of international criticism began pouring out from different quarters.

The visit of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs Richard A. Boucher, to Colombo and Jaffna with a definite itinerary, and agenda has brought to light a lot of information, regarding the sacred and genuine struggle of the Tamils of Eelam. The timing of the visit is important and the fact that the report of The Asia Foundation, under the caption ‘The United States’ Role in Sri Lanka's Peace process 2002 – 2006’ was realised almost at the same time, gives credibility to this analysis

Incorrigible, the Government of Sri Lanka!

At the press conference on May10, 2007 at Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo Richard Boucher thanked the government and the people for helping him understand what was going on as if he was not aware of what was happening there. This can be passed as a formal comment. But his further statement that, "We recognize that the people of Sri Lanka continue to face the threat of terrorism. They face the threat from the Tamil Tigers (should have said ‘The Liberation Tigers of Tamils’), an organization that continues to be a terrorist group, continues to be a group that recruits child solders, extorts money, kills people, blows up buses and attacks government facilities", is unfair and wrong. But it was also reported that at the meeting with the President, Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse and other officials, he said in no uncertain terms that US had serious concerns about the human right violations in the country, particularly in relation to abductions and disappearances and the climate of intimidation of confronting the media.

Division of the Sri Lanka – Imminent

" It is undoubtedly inevitable that what you might call surgical military action against terrorism should take place". This is certainly not the voice of God, the product that all religions go about seeking to advertise.  This is the voice of the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend and Hon. Doctor Rowan Williams and the most lack lustre of them all.

It is not customary for an Archbishop of Canterbury to proffer temporal advice on political or military matters either to the head of state (monarch)  or the head of government (Prime minister) but it is enigmatic as to why the Most Rev. Williams as head of the Anglican communion in Sri Lanka volunteered advice of such nature to the head of  the Sri Lankan state and government.

The term “surgical military action” suggestive of Hitlers’s “Final Solution” to the Jewish question, in Sri Lankan terms and in the current context has  seriously sinister connotations. Military action taking place in Sri Lanka is not against the LTTE but directed against the innocent Tamil civilians through aerial strikes, shellings, disappearances displacements starvation and abductions.  It is for these that the Mahanayake of the Asgiriya Chapter Most Ven. Udugama Sri Buddharakkitha Ratnapala stated: “…. it is the bounden duty of the clergy and religious leaders to extend the hand of support and not interfere with the administration, and bring undue pressure and distract him (President Rajapakse) from the course he is following " (Ceylon Daily News May 09 2007); appended.