November 20, 2015 · 9:53 am

The Responsibility to Protect and External Interventions in the Sri Lankan Conflict

Gerald H Peiris, unabridged version of the article submitted by G H Peiris to the ‘Jagran Forum’ 2007 …. with emphases as in the original word file version. …. note that just this week an American internationalist with cross-country experience in several former colonies to whom I sent a word-file version of this article responded: “fascinating and right on target” … Editor, Thuppahi.

GERRYIntroductory Notes: The focus of this study is on ‘external interventions’ in the Sri Lankan conflict – those ostensibly intended to pressurise both the government of Sri Lanka as well as the LTTE to abandon violent confrontation and seek a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Such pressures on the government take several forms, applied with varying levels of intensity and insistence by the different countries with which Sri Lanka maintains close relations – advice and moral persuasion, economic aid being made conditional upon the resumption of ‘peace negotiations’, prohibitions on the sale of arms, providing lavish support to local NGOs that claim to be engaged in the ‘peace effort’, and, above all, threat of action as envisaged in the emerging doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (‘R2P’) against alleged violations of human rights. To the LTTE, with its proclaimed adherence to the belief that terrorist violence is a legitimate instrumentality of ‘liberation struggles’, and ranking as it does among the most violent terrorist outfits in the world, the charge of human rights violations has remained largely inconsequential except where it is given concrete expression in sanctions and proscriptions. To the Sri Lanka government, being placed at par with the Tigers in accusations of human rights violation is, of course, a damning indictment and a humiliating diminution of status in the community of nations. Continue reading →

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November 19, 2015 · 2:06 pm

Disasters from Western Action and R2P in the Middle East … “When will WE ever Learn”

GREG SHERIDANGreg Sheridan, courtesy of The Australian, 19 November 2015, where the title is “Cold War Model best for Middle East” ……. with emphases being the intervention of the Editor, Thuppahi, while the twist in the title is with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel

In response to the terrorist ­murders in Paris, the French government promised a “pitiless” response, said the terrorist attacks were a declaration of war and then bombed Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria. The French government told us it destroyed an ­Islamic State training camp as well as a munitions dump. Is there the slightest chance that this is true? Here is the logical contradiction. If such fat, juicy Islamic State targets existed the day before the Paris attacks, why hadn’t they been taken out by the US-led air campaign already? The chief difficulty with that campaign has been finding targets. The French military action almost certainly resides in the symbolic category — being seen to do something.  RAQQA 11-   France rains hellfire —newsfoxes.com Continue reading →

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November 19, 2015 · 10:23 am

Marga & CHA Press Their Views in the Washington Den, October 2014 — Two Accounts

Jeevan Thiagarajah: “Memo on Visit to Washington, 16-23rd October 2014: Resetting the Discourse on Post-War Issues of Accountability”**

The purpose of the visit was to engage with Think Tanks, Media and Eminent Persons on the work done by Marga-CHA on issues of accountability during the last phase of the war with a view to resetting the discourse, currently the subject of a UNHCR mandated investigation under way in Geneva.

The key points in regard to the issue of accountability were the following.

  • The shift in the accountability focus from war to post-war rights and governance issues.

The conversations first with the Think Tanks and thereafter with the State Department seemed to suggest greater concern and interest with post-war than war related accountability. References were made to war related gender-based violence (WIIS) and possible evidence that may be submitted in testimony by potential witnesses (Heritage Foundation). The Director, South Asia of the State Department seemed to indicate a desire and willingness to move beyond the war and engage in a fresh and open engagement on post-war issues of concern to both sides. Ambassador Schaffer in a insightful analysis of the state of bilateral relations underlined the importance of opening conversations around postwar themes and opined that it is necessary to get to a win-win situation where reconciliation was concerned.     Continue reading →

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November 19, 2015 · 4:45 am

Marga/CHA in Advocacy with BRIC Nations at Geneva, September 2014

BRIC refers to a select group of four developing countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that are believed to have promising emerging markets and economies. Together these countries make up 40% of the world’s population and were forecasted by Goldman Sachs in 2001 to become leaders of global growth, output and development by 2050….  Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/bric-countries.html#ixzz3rGHtVaZi. The Marga//CHA trio met some of the representatives of Russia and India separately and indicated what their visit was about, while deploying The Third Narrative as their documentary instrument. The emphases within this text are my interpretative additions. Michael Roberts as Editor, Thuppahi

Jeevan Thiagarah

1)   Why did you feel the need for a 3rd narrative on the Sri Lanka war?

Recent debates and resolutions in Geneva have been initiated take up the position that the allegations against the government in the last phase and the army should be investigated; they also say that the government must have a credible domestic process of investigating into crimes.    The reports that have received most attention are the two – a panel appointed by the UN Secretary General (UNSG) and a commission appointed by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) – the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC). They present two sharply contrasting irreconcilable narratives of the last phase of the war against the LTTE. A wise judge knows that in the imperfect domain of human knowledge there are many versions of the truth and steers himself conscientiously through all these versions, seeking the truth. The 3rd Narrative frames and steers through the many versions of the truth presented by writings in the public domain whilst placing events of the war in the context of the battles that were fought. Continue reading →

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November 19, 2015 · 4:23 am

Marga/CHA confront the OISL Investigation in Geneva, September 2014: Godfrey Gunatilleke in Q and A with Lasanda Kurukulasuriya

Courtesy of The Sunday Times, http://www.sundaytimes.lk/140914/columns/margacha-to-sandra-beidas-remove-war-crime-charges-revisit-ihl-117469.html, where the title read  “Marga/CHA to Sandra Beidas: ‘Remove war crime charges, revisit IHL” … with emphases inserted by The Editor Thuppahi

GG-www.ft.lk An NGO submission to the OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) presented in Geneva on Monday has demanded that war crimes charges relating to indiscriminate artillery fire, driving civilians into No Fire Zones and causing a large number of casualties tantamount to genocide be removed from the slate of allegations against the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). It also asked for a revisiting of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which in its present form does not adequately take into account the context of extraordinary circumstances such as those that prevailed in the last stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

In a two and a half hour discussion with Sandra Beidas who heads the OISL, a team comprising Dr. Godfrey Gunatilleke – Chairman Emeritus of the Marga Institute, Jeevan Thiagarajah – Executive Director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) and Asoka Gunawardena – Chairman of the Marga Institute, presented their findings on the way the war was fought, based on their joint publication titled ‘Issues of Truth and Reconciliation: Narrative III – the Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka.’  Dr Gunatilleke in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Times described the Marga/CHA interactions with the OISL chief, the diplomatic community and at a side event in Geneva. Continue reading →

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November 19, 2015 · 3:11 am

Confronting the OCHR Investigation in Geneva, September 2014: Memorandum from Jeevan Thiagarajah

Jeevan Thiagarajah, whose title was  “A Note on the discussions the representatives of the Marga Institute and the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies had with the Chief Co-ordinator of the OCHR investigations into alleged war crimes committed in the last stages the war in Sri Lanka” **

The Chairman Emeritus of the Marga Inbstitute Godfrey Gunatilleke, the Chairman of the Marga Institute, Asoka Gunawardene and the Executive Director of the Consortium of Humantarian Agencies Sri Lanka, (CHA) Jeevan Thiagarajah met Ms Sandra Beidas chief co-ordinator of the OCHR investigating team on war crimes alleged to have been committed in the last stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

the circle of hope in PALAIS WILSON The Circle of Hope in front of the Palais Wilson

The discussions were held in UN Palais Wilson on the 8th of September 2014.from 8.30 a,m, to 11.a,m. The representatives of the Marga Institute and CHA formally handed over their publication titled Issues of Truth and Accountability – Narrative 111 – the Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka-. and requested that it be dealt with as their joint submission for consideration by the OCHR investigating team. They informed the Chief Coordinator that they had made a similar formal submission to the Sri Lankan Presidential Commission on Disappearances. They then proceeded to present the main findings and conclusions of their work contained in the publication. Continue reading →

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November 18, 2015 · 2:32 pm

Lilliputs in a World of Giants: Marga and CHA bat for Lanka in the Propaganda War, 2009-14

Michael Roberts

gullivers lilliput

From 2008 as most of us are aware, Sri Lanka was not only at war with a separatist insurgency, but engaged in a world-wide propaganda war. The LTTE’s international network and migrant Tamils in many lands, especially in the West and South Africa, served as efficient agents in the Tiger strategy of garnering support for Western interventions to save the Tamil civilian population whom the latter had corralled in their declining terrain to serve as “a spectre of a humanitarian catastrophe” (Roberts 2012; 2014). As the Tamil political chief Pulidevan told a supporter in Europe: “just as in Kosovo if enough civilians die, the world would be forced to step in” (quoted in Harrison 2012: 63). Continue reading →

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November 17, 2015 · 11:48 pm

Introducing Book on Buddhist Poetry in Portuguese Ceilao

BUDDHIST POETRY AND PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM IN EARLY MODERN SRI LANKA by Stephen C. Berkwitz, Oxford
University Press: Oxford, 2013, xv + 308pp. ISBN-13: 978 019 993578 5, US $99.00 (hardback); ISBN-13: 978 019993578 9, US$45.00 (paperback)

BUDDHIST POETRY-www.amazon.comABSTRACT: Many researchers have explored the impact of British and French Orientalism in the reinterpretations of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Less noticed, however, and infrequently discussed is the impact of Portuguese colonialists and missionaries upon Buddhist communities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries across Asia. Stephen C. Berkwitz addresses this theme by examining five poetic works by Alagiyavanna Mukaveti (b.1552), a renowned Sinhala poet who participated directly in the convergence of local and trans-local cultures in early modern Sri Lanka. Berkwitz follows the written works of the poet from his position in the court of a Sinhala king, through the cultural upheavals of warfare and the expansion of colonial rule, and finally to his eventual conversion to Catholicism and employment under the Portuguese Crown. In so doing, Berkwitz explores the transformations in religion and literature rendered by what was arguably the earliest sustained encounter between Asian Buddhists and European colonialists in world history. Continue reading →

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November 17, 2015 · 8:54 am

Caution-in-Reaction: do not give ISIS what it wants

Stephen M. Walt  Courtesy of Foreign Policy, 16 November 2015 … with emphases added by Editor Thuppahi; and so too the pictorial images

Voice

stephen waltWhen a shocking event like the Paris attacks occurs, we know how the world will respond. There will be dismay, an outpouring of solidarity and sympathy, defiant speeches by politicians, and a media frenzy. Unfortunately, these familiar reactions give the perpetrators some of what they want: attention for their cause and the possibility their targets will do something that unwittingly helps advance the perpetrators’ radical aims. What is most needed in such moments is not anger, outrage, or finger-pointing, but calm resolution, cool heads, and careful thought. What happened in Paris is an untold tragedy for the victims and deeply offensive to all we hold dear, but we must respond with our heads and not just our hearts. Here are five lessons to bear in mind as we reassess the dangers and search for an effective response.

No. 1: Keep the threat in perspective.

The sudden and violent deaths of some 130 innocent people in a peaceful city invariably grips our attention. But an event like this cannot shake the foundations of society unless we let it. The deaths in Paris last Friday, Nov. 13, are tragic, but these and similar incidents pale in comparison with the carnage and inhumanity Europe suffered from either 1914 to 1918 or 1939 to 1945. For all its current troubles, Europe today is richer, freer, safer, more open, more equal, and more stable than it has been since any other time in its history, and those achievements must not be surrendered. If France or its neighbors turn their backs on what has been built in Europe over the past 60 years, it will be a victory the attackers would welcome but most emphatically do not deserve. Continue reading →

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November 16, 2015 · 2:07 pm

When will they ever learn! Long time passing — in France and Europe

Editorial in The Island, 16 November 2015

francois hollandeFrench President Francois Hollande has declared war on terror. ‘France will be merciless’ in responding to ‘barbarians’ who carried out the recent terror strikes which left about 130 people dead and more than 350 others injured in Paris, he has vowed. His consternation is understandable. The civilised world has condemned Friday’s cowardly attacks on civilians unreservedly. The barbarians responsible for them must be hunted down. The attacks have jolted Britain into taking all precautions. Special Forces have been deployed in the streets of London to face any eventuality, we are told.

The right of any country, big or small, to respond to terrorism with might and main must be recognised if the scourge of mindless violence against civilians in the name of various causes is to be eliminated, root and branch. But, unfortunately, France and Britain have become havens for terrorists of all sorts who pose a threat to other countries; these nations have a history of seeking to save terrorists responsible for far worse attacks elsewhere than those in Paris on Friday. The way these two countries reacted to Sri Lanka’s efforts to rid itself of terror is a case in point. Continue reading →

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