November 6, 2011 · 3:55 am

Sheridan on skewed perspectives that ignore LTTE threat then and now

Greg Sheridan, courtesy of the Australian Weekend, 5-6 November 2011, under a different title

THE criticism of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, when he visited Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, left the key Sri Lankan villain out of the story. The criticism was that the Sri Lankan government engaged in serious human rights abuses, shelling areas where civilians were present, at the end of its civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in May last year. Both sides committed atrocities in this war, but the defeat of the Tamil Tigers was a decisive defeat of perhaps the bloodiest and most murderous terrorist group the world has seen. Alexander Downer, Australia’s foreign minister for 11 years of the war, tells me: “I know the Sri Lankan government played very hard ball and committed some human rights abuses, but it’s a wonderful thing the Sri Lankan government won that war. I have always regarded the Tamil Tigers as absolutely a terrorist organisation.”

It is easy to forget how bloody the Tamil Tigers were. In their 2 1/2-decade campaign, perhaps 70,000 people died. The Tamil Tigers pioneered the suicide bomber, conducting hundreds of such attacks and using a woman with a suicide vest to murder India’s prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. They also murdered a Sri Lankan president. Rohan Gunaratna, an authority on terrorism based in Singapore, tells me the Tamil Tigers also pioneered suicide attacks at sea. The sinking of the USS Cole was an imitation of a Tiger operation.

 Garlanding with the suicide vial at passing out ceremony for Tiger fighters– from BBC documentary 1991 in web editor’s possession courtesy of Chris Morris

The Tigers were authoritarian under the leadership of Vellupillai Prabakaran. They murdered Tamil and Sinhalese civilians, within the areas they controlled and within Sri Lanka generally. They used civilians as human shields, engaged in forced recruitment, routinely bombed civilian targets, used child soldiers and refused to let civilians leave the combat zone. They also engaged in sectarian attacks against Muslims.

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November 4, 2011 · 7:36 am

Post-Civil War Sri Lankan Electoral Politics and the Future of Liberal Democracy

Laksiri Jayasuriya

ABSTRACT: The critical analysis of the 2010 Sri Lankan Elections – Presidential and Parliamentary – situates it within the foundational political institutions and practices of a liberal democracy which it argues have been dramatically reshaped by post-colonial politics which saw the introduction of an Executive Presidential style of government, and the regionalisation of politics resultingin a new genre of alliance politics. Post-colonial state politics have however been radically transformed by the 2010 national elections conducted immediately after the ending of the 25 year old civil war. This has witnessed the emergence of a new illiberal political culture of a partial authoritarian constitutionalism that has been fortified by the constitutional changes relating to the 18th Amendment, introduced in 2010 by the new Rajapaksa government. The paper concludes by posing the question: What are the prospects for the future of liberal democracy in Sri Lanka?

published in Asia Pacific World, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2011 , pp. 25-53(29) … details from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berghahn/apw/2011/00000002/00000001/art00003

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November 2, 2011 · 10:55 pm

Australia’s Tamil Eelam Lobby

 Harshula

Introduction: The war on the battle field may be over, but the propaganda war is alive and well. The Australian news media, particularly the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, were in an uncontrollable frenzy  two weeks before CHOGM by the predictable lobbying against Sri Lanka. There are legitimate issues that Australia will raise with Sri Lanka during CHOGM 2011. Unfortunately, these publicity stunts may derail or overshadow those conversations and harden the stance of some of the non-Western members of the Commonwealth. The first was John Dowd’s submission of a brief of evidence to the Australian Federal Police. It was timed conveniently just prior to the questioning by the Greens Senator, Lee Rhiannon, at the Senate Estimates hearings. The other was the war crimes charges by Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, also known as Jegan Waran, against Mahinda Rajapaksa. The latter is frivolous and vexatious, but the former may be of interest to researchers, if made public.

For the rest see http://jayasolutions.com/slreport/sl-Australia-Tamil-Eelam-lobby.html

 

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November 1, 2011 · 10:26 am

Pirapāharan as uncompromising killer prone to vengeance: testimonies from the Jaffna heartland, 1989-91

Ben Bavinck diary entries

See Val Daniel’s Introduction to the first volume of the diaries as well as the other items that are now apart of the thuppahi series which extract themes from the methodical commentary embodied in Bavinck’s diaries as he worked so wholeheartedly to alleviate hardships among Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese peoples throughout the island in these war years. Also note the recent article by Narayan Swamy entitled “Prabhakaran: From catapult killer to ruthless insurgent” in M. R. Narayan Swamy, The Tigers vanquished. LTTE’s story, Delhi, SAGE Publications, 2010, pp. 165-167, which meshes with the evaluations presented by the Jaffna Tamils who interacted with Bavinck  and whose readings are recorded here. However, note that these may well have been minority voices in the body of Tamil people at that time. A tough nut to crack that question: namely, how many and which proportion of the Jaffnese held similar sentiments to the body of dissidents known as the UTHR and their circle? Web Editor.

Pic by S. Walpola

5th January 1989, Jaffna: At the beginning of 1988, a group called University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) 28 was formed. Until that time nobody had dared to say anything against the Tigers except Rajan Hoole, another lecturer. But now people became more audacious. They also more and more had to intercede for Jaffna students, who had been arrested. All this had led to the founding of UTHR (J). UTHR (J) continues to collect facts about violations of human rights and to issue reports. Those are sent to the unions of the national universities. Now a book has been published by four members of the UTHR (J) i.e. by Rajani herself, Rajan Hoole, K. Sritharan and Daya Somasunderam. It deals with the war in 1987 and is called “The Broken Palmyrah”. Continue reading →

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October 31, 2011 · 2:30 pm

Turning Tiger Personnel into Lankan Citizens?

 Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews, where it was presented on  28 October 2011, and where some blog comments will be found 

Whatever the death toll during the last stages of Eelam War IV in 2009 the official government data in that year acknowledged that 11,696 (9078 male and 2024 female)[1] of those who survived had identified themselves or been identified as members of the LTTE — whether combatants or active functionaries. There were others who had been arrested elsewhere in the island (that is beyond the battlefields), often on flimsy evidence, in the years 2006-09. Muralidhar Reddy stresses that “once bracketed in the category of a combatant, irrespective of the degree of their involvement in the war, there was no mechanism for those detained to prove their innocence.”[2]

 Distribution of Certificates-30 Oct 2011–Pic by BCGR

In parenthesis let me add that grapevine information from Tamil sources indicate that in April-May 2009 quite a few Tigers seem to have successfully merged themselves with the population that was deemed civilian and placed in the IDP camps in Menik Farm and elsewhere. Several commentators with some familiarity with the IDP camps have indicated that these detention centres were like the proverbial colander and that a significant number – estimates vary widely from 1,000 to 10,000 — slipped out of the IDP camps in mid-2009 and found their way abroad. It is alleged that at least 500 of this lot were “hardcore LTTE.”[3] Continue reading →

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October 31, 2011 · 2:07 pm

Canagaratna and trvnstar offer Alternative Perspectives on Gaddafi and the West

ONE: “The West’s hidden agende reaches fruition,”  by Selvan Canagaratna, in The Island, 29 October  2011

It’s easy to overlook what’s very important about the man President Ronald Reagan labeled ‘This mad dog of the Middle East’: that Muammar Qaddafi, since the late 1990s, had openly renounced his revolutionary heritage and, especially after 9/11, gave himself wholeheartedly to the terrorism preached by George W. Bush calling itself, funnily enough, the War on Terror. The proof of Qaddafi’s significant qualitative ‘conversion’ from ‘despotic’ terrorism to the ultra-modern ‘democratic’ version was that he readily allowed his not inconsiderably brutal prison-network in Libya to become an integral part of the archipelago of GWB’s secret torture sites used regularly by the CIA, by European intelligence and the recently-deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

 “What stories Qaddafi might have told if he were allowed to speak in open court?” mused Professor Vijay Prashad, the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT, in his piece on Qaddafi’s murder in CounterPunch magazine, then answering his own rhetorical query with Naeem Mohaiemen’s response: “Dead men tell no tales. They cannot stand trial. They cannot name the people who helped them stay in power. All secrets die with them.” Continue reading →

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October 29, 2011 · 1:24 pm

Visual Evidence I: Vitality, Value and Pitfall – Borella Junction, 24/25 July 1983

Michael Roberts, 29 October 2011

Pic by Chandragupta Amarasinghe 

The anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 in the southern reaches of Sri Lanka stirred me to the bone: generating anger and depression in alternate moods as  I ruminated from a distance in  Australia in the mid-1980s. Much later, when on study leave in Lanka in 1991, I picked up testimonies and tales about specific incidents of killing and threat during those dark days in Colombo, including one relating to the killing of Arumanaiyagam, a former young colleague.

When I flew from Katunayake to Charlottesville inVirginia for the second stage of my leave on a semester fellowship, it was in a particular mood that I sat in the planes and reflected upon that horrible occasion. The relative isolation of my quarters in Charlottesville suited that mood. It was there that I penned “The agony and the ecstasy of a pogrom: southern Lanka, July 1983” – a literary essay rather than a social science document, one that amounted to a personal statement of protest and anguish.

This essay eventually appeared in an anthology of my essays, namely, “The agony and the ecstasy of a pogrom: southern Lanka, July 1983,” in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation. Sri Lanka. Politics, Culture and History, Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 317-27. An invaluable facet of this presentation was the inclusion of two photographs from the Tamil Times of November 1983 depicting mob scenes at Borella Junction on the night of 24/25th July 1983. Extracted from the poor reproductions in the Tamil Times, these photographs would have made a fastidious cameraperson squirm because they lacked sharp definition. But the definition was good enough to reveal striking content – content of the sort that would make viewers squirm because of the inhumanity of man-upon-man they revealed to all and sundry. Better versions of these pictures that are now reproduced within this post would already have bought this point home to readers. Continue reading →

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October 28, 2011 · 12:32 pm

Jehan Perera & Banyan on double standards in international politics

ONE :  Way forward internationally after war crimes,  by Jehan Perera, in The Island, late October

 Pic accompanying the article from Banyan in The Economist, 24 Oct 2011 — see below

The war in Libya has something in common with the last phase of Sri Lanka’s own war, and can provide perspective on how Sri Lankan society must deal with its fallout. Like it happened inSri Lankawith the LTTE, the remnants of the former Libyan army were encircled in the city ofSirtewhere, in the midst of civilians, soldiers fought their last battle to save their leader. The air bombing of Sirte by NATO aircraft and the presence of Western coalition military personnel, including advisors inLibya, means that responsibility for this extra judicial killing, and for the killing of an unknown number of civilians, has to be shared. It will strengthen the argument of those who say that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as well.

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October 27, 2011 · 2:28 am

Niromi de Soysa’s Path of Redemption with Deception? or Both?

Michael Roberts, an original article drafted in early October [but see NOTE ** at end]

Young Pirapaharan

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka arising from the Tamil struggle for liberation spanned the years 1983 to 2009 and went through several phases. In one phase the Indian government intervened forcibly by injecting the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in July 1987 to protect the Tamils (allegedly). This act in pursuit of their own geo-political designs was resented on the Sinhalese side of the ethnic fence in Lanka; while being deliriously welcomed by the Tamil populace of the north.

    However, the LTTE had reservations and cleverly engineered a turning of Tamil sentiment against the presence of the IPKF. From early October 1987 the LTTE took on the IPKF in sustained guerrilla warfare. This battle lasted till late 1989. Consult any book on the “Indian intervention” or any specialist and you will find confirmation of a FACT that everyone in Sri Lankawas fully aware of: viz., the Sri Lankan Army was confined to barracks and did not engage the Tigers. Eventually, a complicated series of political events led to the withdrawal of the IPKF in early 1990.[1]

 Such details are not widely known in the West. Understandings today are coloured by the emotion-laden details on the last stages of Eelam War IV in early 2009 disseminated by the world-wide Tamil migrant lobby acting in cahoots with powerful media outlets in various centres in the Western heartland. Allen & Unwin is exploiting this market through Niromi de Soyza’s purported autobiography in Tamil Tigress. Continue reading →

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October 26, 2011 · 1:49 pm

Sheridan challenges Jegan Waran’s attempt to universalise rights and McClelland trumps it

ONE: Universalizing rights does no justice” by Greg Sheridan, in The Australian, 26 Otober 2011.

 THE trend for private citizens in Western nations to launch prosecutions against international government figures for alleged human rights abuses or war crimes is a bad trend. It does not serve the cause of justice and it militates against effective international relations, on which peace, stability and prosperity ultimately depend. There is little doubt that both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war committed atrocities at different times. This is not remotely a matter on which Australian courts can or should adjudicate. Nor should it remotely be up to private citizens to initiate such prosecutions.

The charges brought against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa by an Australian citizen who was formerly a Sri Lankan would have failed, even had Attorney-General Robert McClelland not quashed them yesterday. This is because Australian law has not yet reached the absurdist stages of European law.

However, the increasing role of loosely worded UN conventions in Australian law, as in the recent High Court decision outlawing the Gillard government’s proposed Malaysian people swap, suggests our law is heading broadly in that direction. It is a direction the Liberals under Tony Abbott have foolishly reinforced, both by their refusal to pass government legislation overcoming the High Court’s ruling, and by their attempt to include the UN refugee convention as an element of Australian law. This is an extremely bad trend that is anti-democratic, by usurping the normal role of parliament, and does not serve justice. Continue reading →

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