Category Archives: reconciliation

September 4, 2011 · 3:43 pm

Tekwani reviews Channel 4’s ‘documentary’ and THE CAGE in the midst of an ongoing propaganda war

Shyam Tekwani, courtesy of Tehelka, where the title was “The long afterlife of war in teardrop isle”

 

Tamil civilians pass checkpoint

IT IS the first truth of war, however deplorable, that civilians die. The first casualty in war is the civilian. The real victims of war are the civilians. Particularly in civil wars, which are  about national survival. In a war zone, they are everywhere, fleeing on foot, on bicycles or handcarts or on somebody’s back, through drenching rain or blazing sun. Wandering around in circles, with no destination, to escape the hail of gunfire and rockets, all with just one question to ask: when would this madness end?

Dogged efforts by an assorted cast of actors to unearth evidence and implicate Colombo of war crimes steadily increased the pressure on the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and peaked around the second anniversary of the military victory. First, the United Nations released its controversial report of the secretary-general’s panel of experts on accountability in Sri Lanka citing evidence ‘sufficiently credible to warrant further investigations’ into the charges of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed during the last phase of military operations. The report was followed by The Cage: The fight for Sri Lanka & the last days of the Tamil Tigers, a book by Gordon Weiss, who was the spokesperson and communications adviser attached to the UN team in Colombo during the years that included the end of the war. Then came the sensational British television Channel 4’s documentary Killing Fields (not to be mistaken for the brilliant 1980s film on Pol Pot’s Cambodia). All three claimed to have ample evidence to charge the government of Sri Lanka for crimes against humanity. Continue reading →

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Filed under Eelam, gordon weiss, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, life stories, LTTE, news fabrication, power politics, power sharing, prabhakaran, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, war crimes, world events & processes

September 1, 2011 · 10:37 am

Resettlement of Tamil Refugees in India within Lanka in process

Chamikara Weerasinghe, in the Daily News, 1 September 2011

Also SEE the note circulated by an NGO friend of mine re the bureaucratic process of settling land rights in the Northern and Eastern Provinces which has been appended at the end of this item. Web editor.

With the resettlement process in the North reaching its final-phase, the Ministry of Resettlement has stepped up its resettlement drive by making moves to bring back to this country Displaced Sri Lankans living in some 31 camps in Tamil Nadu. Resettlement Ministry Secretary Uthpala Basnayaka yesterday said the Sri Lankan High Commission inNew Delhiis currently working with the concurrence of the Indian authorities to bring back the Sri Lankan Displaced living in camps in Tamil Nadu.The Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner’s office in Chennai has been asked to speed up their repatriation by organizing the necessary documents. They will be issued with non-machine readable passports as a means to expediting the returning process, he said. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNHCR) inColombois assisting the repatriation process and the Ministry’s efforts to resettle them in the North, said Basnayaka. UNHCR sources in Colombo said a number of foreign governments have provided financial support to the UNHCR’s important work in Sri Lanka this year. Continue reading →

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Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, IDP camps, life stories, LTTE, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

August 31, 2011 · 7:03 am

The Gun and the Political Solution

Izeth Hussain, in the Island, 31 August 2011

colour Pic courtesy of Tehelka

The purpose of this article is to establish that in trying to get out of our ethnic imbroglio one factor, and only one, really counts: the gun. By “gun” I refer to power in the political realm, meaning the whole range of hard power and soft power that can be deployed by antagonists. The crucial question at the present juncture is this: can the “international community” which in the present context really means the US, the EU, their allied powers, and India, deploy power against Sri Lanka of a sort that is unacceptable to the Government because it is too harmful to the national interest? If so, the Government has no alternative to stop shilly-shallying and really moving towards a political solution. In the alternative, if that is the deployment of power against us will be bearable, not something really harmful to the national interest, the Government can continue with its dilatory tactics in pursuit of a strategy of what I wound call “a peaceful solution through a process of attrition”. I have in mind a process in which dilatory tactics will hopefully lead to a peaceful solution with our Tamils coming to be satisfied with the blessings of economic development and a reasonable measure of fair and equal treatment. This seems to be the Government’s strategy at present. Either way the gun will be the final determinant: either we proceed towards a political solution now because we cannot withstand the guns of the international community, or our Tamils accept the diktat of the Government because they cannot withstand the guns of the Government.

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Filed under accountability, american imperialism, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, democratic measures, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, life stories, LTTE, power politics, power sharing, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, Tamil civilians, world events & processes

August 31, 2011 · 6:38 am

Tamil Information Centre lists Urgent Steps required for Democratic Progress

The Tamil Information Centre (TIC) welcomes the 25 August announcement of President Mahinda Rajapaksa that the State of Emergency will not be extended when it comes up for renewal before the Sri Lankan Parliament in September 2011, resulting in the termination of all Emergency Regulations. The TIC, along with several civil and human rights agencies within and outsideSri Lanka, has been campaigning against this draconian national security legislation which was used to silence critics and dissenters.

Sri Lanka has been ruled under emergency for a considerable proportion of its modern history – more than 35 years out of 63 years of independence –  which has permitted serious  violations by successive governments  of the rights protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other international human rights instruments. Emergency Regulations (ER) issued by the President, have the legal effect of overriding, amending or suspending any law, except the provisions of the Constitution. The declaration of Emergency cannot be called into question in any court and there is insufficient parliamentary control over the ER. The ER have been almost exclusively used against the Tamils. Thousands of Tamils were arrested each year and detained and a large number of Tamils are still in detention under the ER. Continue reading →

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August 30, 2011 · 1:55 am

A “Negative Peace” for some Tamil Tiger families in Sri Lanka

Kate Mayberry for Al-Jazeera, 29 August 2011, with different title = In Sri Lanka, a ‘negative peace’ prevails

Seriously injured in a shell attack, his Tamil Tiger comrades dead, Mano (pseudonym) tried to end his own life by biting on the cyanide pill that, like all hardened fighters, he wore around his neck. But an elderly woman nearby rushed to give him water and he survived. Alone, he languished on the sand for six days, surrounded by the bodies of his friends and the ruins of war. “There wasn’t anybody there, not a drop of water. I was just lying there in the sun,” he said as he recalled the final days of the fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military. “Then I heard voices and, 200m away, saw soldiers advancing. They took me away.”

More than 11,000 people were detained [1] by the Sri Lankan authorities at the end of the war on suspicion of being members of the Tamil Tigers, who fought a 26-year battle for an independent Tamil homeland. Some gave themselves up, but no detainees have access to lawyers and few are charged, their families left to find out for themselves the location of their loved ones. More than two-thirds have now been released, but amid a pervasive military presence many struggle to resume a normal life. “A sense of impunity and that the worst can happen is still prevalent,” said Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the National Peace Council in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. Continue reading →

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August 29, 2011 · 9:21 am

Working with Children through Art at the IDP Camps in 2009 et seq

Kumudini Hettiarachchi,  in the Sunday Times, 30 August 2009

I came across this item by accident and reproduce it here because I had been shown one of the Psycho-social units by Dr. Safras when he showed me round two ot the Menik Farm camps in 2010 around mid-day when the tent for children’s art play was empty because it was still school time. This tale -mostly unknown except for the odd nws report like this one by Hettiarachchi, is relevant becasue of the continuous misrepresentatiosn by the Tamil migrants abroad, one recent example being the author who has chosen the nom de plume Niromi de Soyza. Web Editor

No words are needed. Their colourful and vibrant paintings speak volumes…..and it is important to take heed, for in most instances they are the unheard voices in any situation. These are the voices through art of children ranging from as tiny as four years old to that vital teen-age of 15 years old. Clearly and visually their thoughts and innermost feelings have been put on paper, being made possible by an ‘Art Camp’, the first of its kind to be held among the children who have lost home and hearth but found some semblance of stability in the camps for the internally-displaced in Vavuniya. The Art Camp was held in Zone 4 in two open tents on August 16.

Three Pics taken by Roberts in June 2010–click to enlarge

It had a two-pronged objective, the Sunday Times learns. It was an attempt to do something different to enable the channelling of the children’s creative energies while also making art a form of therapy to identify children whose mental wellbeing had been affected by what they had gone through. It all began with a first visit to the camps by IT specialist Manori Unambuwe in late April soon after the “mass exodus” of men, women and children to Vavuniya in the last phase of the war. Continue reading →

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August 23, 2011 · 10:41 am

Ru Freeman criticises Hillary Clinton’s rendezvous with Jayalalitha

Ru Freeman, nee Seneviratne, writing for an Amercian audience in the Huffington Post after her own visit to Sri Lanka

Pics from Padraig colman’s review of this meeting in http://pcolman.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/new-chief-minister-for-tamil-nadu-well-not-very-new/

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake recently told the Indian Express that the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Chief Minister for Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, occurred “in the context of this recent film, the Channel 4 documentary that’s gotten a lot of attention around the world, including here in the United States.” Too bad for both the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary of State that the claims made in the Channel 4 documentary have been discredited by both the United Nations and a second documentary, Lies Agreed Upon, (now viral on YouTube), which provides background and evidence to refute every single claim made in it.

It is usually the case that America’s foreign policy spokespeople are misinformed to say the least. Here’s a little context as to why neither Clinton nor Blake (who is shown in Lies Agreed Upon meeting with a man who has lectured terrorist cadres on how to raise funds abroad for the procurement of weapons for the LTTE, an organization banned by the US government!), has a clear picture. It is called missing “the ground situation.’ Continue reading →

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August 23, 2011 · 9:48 am

History as a Charter for Sinhala Buddhist Hegemony: “History” after the War

Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri

Abstract of a talk to be delivered at the ICES, Colombo, Friday, 26 August 2011: While it is well-known that the interpretation of the past of the island is one of the battlefields of the Sinhala and Tamil ethnic politics in Sri Lanka, there is no adequate explanation as to how the ethno-political function of “history” has been possible irrespective of the presence of strong empirical scholarly tradition in the historical scholarship. The explanation has to be found in the way in which methodologically empirical and ostensibly ideologically-neutral scholarly discourse and the hegemonized popular understanding of “history of Sri Lanka” have been articulated into one discursive construction.

This discursive construction functions as a “Charter of Right” for the Sinhala-Buddhist, especially in the context of the escalating ethno-nationalist tension. In other words, it was through a particular version of the past of the island that Sinhala-nationalists built their case against the ethno-nationalist claims of Tamils. Quite understandably, Tamil nationalists are vehemently opposed to this construction, but still failed to build a more attractive version to the public as well as to the scholars. Subsequent to the military defeat of Tamil Ethno-nationalism, the importance of non-military battle-fronts has gained momentum. Sinhala-Buddhist pilgrims flocking in to Jaffna peninsula and sites claimed to be linked with the early Buddhist activities of the island have become their popular destinations. These visitors are highly emotional about the “historical significance” of these places and being watched by politically sensitive Tamils with utmost caution. To add more fuel to the tension, Sinhalized names of these places, which were hitherto restricted to the discourse of virtually unknown group of Sinhala intellectuals, are now displayed openly in these places. In the meantime archaeologists are also busy with making further inroads to this “territory of distorted history” in order to discover remnants of the “true history”, again to the delight of Sinhala-Buddhist pilgrims and to the fury of politically sensitive Tamils.In this intervention I will try to shed some light on this unfolding warfare in this intensifying battlefield of conflicting discourses of the past

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August 22, 2011 · 12:59 am

Ancestry and Ethnic Identity in the Australian Census: Lessons for Sri Lanka

Michael Roberts, 22 August 2011, courtesy of GROUNDVIEWS, where it is already generating vibrant comments — SEE http://groundviews.org/2011/08/20/ancestry-and-ethnic-identity-in-the-australian-census-and-thus-to-sri-lanka/

The 9th of August was census night in Australia. The census form has three boxes relating to “Country of Birth,” one’s “language other than English at home” and “Ancestry”— all interesting formulations that bear on one’s ethnic subjectivity and one’s explicit identity.

Ethnicity is a complex phenomenon that is nourished over the years by the influence of many factors. Ethnic self-perception is always inter-relational and thus inter-subjective.[1] It can rest lightly on some and weigh heavily on others. Ethnic terminologies deployed in official domains and brought into everyday speech are among the factors that mould these self-perceptions. As the subaltern historians of India have revealed, census making and bureaucratic categorization in the everyday world had a considerable bearing on the shaping of ethnic identities from the colonial period onwards.

Placed within this introductory note let me refer to the decision taken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to seek information not only on the “Country of Birth” in Question 12, but also to pose Question 16 as “Does the person speak a language other than English at home?” and press forward with Question 18 on “Ancestry.” It is the last that is the most significant and can generate both amusing and confusing results.

    Question18 is posed thus: “what is the person’s ancestry”… followed by several boxes below catering to specific ethnic identities:

English

Irish

Scottish

Italian

German

Chinese

Australian

Other – please specify… with four lines left for this last miscellaneous section. Continue reading →

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August 21, 2011 · 4:47 am

Another Demidenko? Niromi de Soyza as a Tiger Fighter

Michael Roberts, 21 August 2011

Niromi de Soyza

I began reading de Soyza’s Tamil Tigress in a relaxed moment while at tennis and was captivated by its readability and the author’s capacity to create atmosphere. I was fascinated by its casting, that is, her skill in crafting the work. De Soysa begins with a striking incident where she is introduced to the world as a neophyte fighter in an incident marked as “Ambush” – where she is lucky to survive even while ten comrades, including platoon leader Muralie, perished. De Soysa then plunges her readers back in time by moving to her autobiographical family history and its various ethnic, intra-ethnic and caste tensions. Each chapter ends on a note of suspense and/or moment of change in life world, so that the readers are kept on their toes so to speak.

 Tiger fighters — source unknown

Niromi de Soysa (generally a Sinhalese name) is a nom de plume – as she has indicated during radio interviews on ABC. She told Margaret Throsby that it was adopted in honour of Richard de Zoysa,[i] a TV personality who was murdered by state agents during the Premadasa regime. She herself is a child of a love marriage between a Jaffna Tamil gentleman from the north and a lady from a merchant family from the Malaiyaha Tamil (that is Indian Tamil) peoples of the central regions of Lanka, a cross-community connection that created intra-familial tension according to her autobiographical account. This was a Catholic family, a background that is of considerable significance in the story line because she tells us she attended a Catholic school inJaffna and then again inIndia after she managed to secure her release from the ranks of the LTTE at some point in 1988. Continue reading →

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