Archive for August, 2007
By Tyronne Fernando
August 8th is the 159th death anniversary of Veera Puranappu
The National Hero popularly known as Veera Puranappu was originally Veera Hennedige Franciscu Fernando. He was born on November 7, 1812 in Moratuwa and was executed by the British in Kandy on August 8, 1848.
Francisco attended the Wesleyan school in Moratuwa and was a very mischievous boy. After a fight with the village headman he fled from Moratuwa in 1825 at the age of 13. He travelled about the country, mostly the hill country – Haldummulla to Badulla and other places.
In 1840, he stayed with his uncle W. Marcellenus Franciscu Fernando, the first Sinhala Proctor who had a flourishing practice at Ratnapura. He stayed at the Kahangamuwa Walawwa in Ratnapura.
Between 1842 and 1844, he became famous as a fearless person in the Uva Province. He broke into
House of Magistrate Dawson of Badulla and was imprisoned and then broke prison. He cursed Major Rodgers who brought a false charge against him and Major Rodgers was struck by lightning in Nuwara Eliya.
The Gazette notification by the Colonial Secretary, Sir Emmerson Tennent on January 1, 1847, offered 10 pounds for his apprehension and described him as follows
“Perangappo originally of Morette, lately of Kandy, trade – unknown, caste – fisher, aged 34 years, height 5ft 71/2 inches, hair – long and black, eyes – light hazel, complexion – light, well looking, make – well made, stout, marks of punishment on the back and 4 vaccination marks.”
James Alwis writing in 1876 of the events of 1848 in the “Ceylon overland Examiner” states that Puranappu or Veerahennedige Franciscu Fernando was of the Karawa caste “in whom a bold and daring disposition was combined with a strong and healthy constitution.”
In early 1847 in Kandy he met and married Bandaramenike, the daughter of Gunnepana Arachchie.
By the time Puranappu came to Kandy, the Kandyan provinces were in a State of turmoil. The Kandyan provinces had been under British rule for 32 years. The depression in the United Kingdom had severely affected the local coffee and cinnamon industry. Also, a blight had struck the coffee plant.
Planters and merchants clamoured for a reduction of export duties. Sir Emmerson Tennenet, the Colonial Secretary in Colombo recommended to Earl Grey, Secretary of State for Colonies in London that taxation should be radically shifted from indirect taxation to direct taxation.
This proposal was accepted. It was decided to abolish the export duty on coffee and reduce the export duty on cinnamon leaving a deficit of 40,000 pounds which was to be met by direct taxes on the people.
A new Governor 35-year-old Torrinton, a cousin of Prime Minister Lord Russel was despatched to Colombo by Queen Victoria to carry out these reforms.
On July 1, 1848, licence fees were imposed on guns, dogs, carts, shops and labour was made compulsory on plantation roads, unless a special tax was paid. These taxes bore heavily on both the purse and the traditions of the Kandyan peasant.
On July 6, a multitude gathered at the Kandy Kachcheri and unarmed peasants were set upon and beaten up.
On July 8, Sir Emmerson Tennent, the Colonial Secretary told the Headman “pay two and six and keep a gun or be flogged.”
A mass movement against the oppressive taxes was developing. The masses were without the leadership of their native King (deposed in 1815) and their chiefs (annihilated after the 1817 rebellion). The leadership passed for the first time in the Kandyan Province into the hands of ordinary people.
One of the groups was Gongalagoda Banda who claimed relationship to the deposed king and got himself crowned in Dambulla.
The real hero and livewire in this group became Francicu Fernando, who having earned a name for himself in the hill provinces as a courageous man was now popularly known as Puranappu.
Professor Kingsley de Silva in his book “Rebellion of 1848″ (1965) says that “Puranappu was a most resourceful and courageous man who took a leading part in the events and died a courageous death.” (P. 22, 26)
After three weeks of preparation in the early hours of July 28, 1848, a crowd of eight to ten thousand men under Puranappu’s leadership armed with guns, spears and knives set off for Kandy from Dambulla.
The plan was for Puranappu, Gongalagoda Banda and Dingirala to go in three different directions then meet at Katugastota and attack Kandy on Sunday, the 30th of July.
Puranappu’s army first attacked Fort McDowl in Matale. Government buildings and property were ransacked – kachcheries, jails, rest houses and court house records. The coffee stores of Lieutenant General Herbert Maddock, a key adviser to the Government in Kandy was set on fire.
Meanwhile, Gongalagoda Banda was attacked by British soldiers at Wariyapola and fled. Dingirala was captured at Kurunegala and hanged.
The people then spontaneously proclaimed Puranappu as the King. Rev. Fr. S.G. Perera in his “History of Ceylon for Schools” (1932) records – “At Matale crowds became unruly and brunt and ransacked some houses and proclaimed a low country man Puranappu King of Kandy.”
Then, on July 29, Lord Torrinton, the Governor proclaimed Martial Law. Indian troops were sent for and landed at Trincomalee. Captain Albert Watson and his Javneuse soldiers were let loose on a rampage of murder, arson, rape and looting.
Puranappu himself was captured on his way to Kandy on July 29. A confidential letter dated 3rd August sent to the Government by the Kandyan Chief and a proctor of the Supreme Court (probably J.A. Dunuvilla) says that Puranappu’s capture “is winning half of the battle.” (Kingsley de Silva P. 23)
Puranappu was tried by a Court Martial for treason and having been found guilty was executed on August 8, 1848, at the age of 35. The Colombo “Observer” of August 10, 1848, states “We append a Kandy letter received by yesterday’s coach from which it will be seen that the notorious Porangappoo has been shot and two of his fellow rebels sentenced to transportation.”
Sir Emmerson Tennent reported to Governor Torrinton on August 12, 1848, that Puranappu died “most heroically.” Governor Torrinton in a letter to Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary in London dated October 9, 1849 (the original of this letter is still available at Druham University and a photocopy is in my possession) states “I remind you of the last words of Puranappu.
He held up his hands and said if there had been half a dozen such men as me to lead, there would not be a white man living in the Kandyan Province. This is true. If there had been such leaders without doubt for a time we should have lost the country.”
Veera Puranappu has permanent place in our history as a real hero and leader of the only people’s Revolution in our history – the one in 1848 which was indeed the ‘Year of Revolutions’, the world over.
The events in Ceylon had its sequel in the United Kingdom when the matter was taken up in the House of Commons by Henry Bailee, MP. A Select Committee was appointed chaired by Bailee consisting of Peel, Gladstone and Disraeli among others. (These three were later to become prime Ministers). Its report of 1850 severely criticised the conduct of Torrington, Tennent and Watson. Tennent was transferred and Torrinton was recalled. The obnoxious taxes were repealed.
In 1852, upon the fall of Lord John Russel’s Government on its colonial policies, the Colonial Secretary Earl Grey admitted that ‘much mischief had resulted from measures by my predecessors and myself, upon imperfect information not consistent with the spirit of our engagements to the people of Ceylon.” (Kingsley de Silva P. 30)
The writer, a Presidents Counsel is currently a senioor adviser to the President. He was formerly Moratuwa MP, Foreign Minister and North – East Governor. Tyronne Fernando is also a kinsman of Verra Puranappu.
August 8th, 2007
[The New York based Human Rights Watch has released a 129 page report on Sri Lanka titled "Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege".The following chapter reproduced from that report presents an overview of enforced disappearances and abductions and a selection of documented cases. In the coming months Human Rights Watch is expected to publish a detailed report on "disappearances" with detailed analysis and case studies.]
Enforced Disappearances and Abductions
International law defines an enforced disappearance as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.80
Such acts committed without the involvement of the state, such as by the LTTE or other armed groups acting alone, are considered abductions.
Sri Lanka has a long history of enforced disappearances. During the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgencies of 1971 and 1988-1989, thousands of Sri Lankans, mainly Sinhalese youths, “disappeared” and were known to have been killed or were never heard from again. In 1996, after the security forces took over Jaffna from LTTE control, more than 500 Tamil youths “disappeared” and were believed killed.81
Since its establishment in 1980, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has received over 13,000 cases from Sri Lanka.82 As of March 2007, the working group had 5,749 outstanding cases.83
In the mid-1990s the government established four different commissions to investigate enforced disappearances. In total they recorded 27,000 complaints and issued findings on 18,000 “disappearance” cases. The government issued over 15,000 death certificates and provided more than 12,000 families with compensation, but commission findings led to very few prosecutions, and there were only a handful of convictions of low-ranking officers. The state accepted some of the commissions’ recommendations, including the establishment of a special unit for “disappearances” in the police and prosecutor’s office and a legal mechanism for issuing families of victims with death certificates and compensation.
At the same time, impunity for enforced disappearances did not stop, as security officials, including commanders, remained largely unaccountable for the massive crimes of the past.
Over the past two years, enforced disappearances and abductions have returned with disturbing regularity to Sri Lanka. The overwhelming majority of victims are Tamils, although some Sinhalese and Muslims have also been targeted. Since May-June 2007, abductions of businessmen from the Muslim community for ransom have been on the rise. Reporting of these abductions to the police or other agencies remains low, largely due to fear and because family members try to secure release by paying ransom.
The precise number of enforced disappearances and abductions since the resumption of major hostilities remains unknown, but available data suggests it is extremely high. The national Human Rights Commission recorded roughly 1,000 cases in 2006, plus nearly 100 abductions and “disappearances” in the first two months of 2007.84 A government commission established in September 2006 to investigate “disappearances” said in June 2007 that 2,020 people were abducted or disappeared between September 14, 2006, and February 25, 2007 (see also below).85
The Civil Monitoring Commission, founded in November 2006 by four opposition members of parliament, has recorded details of 130 cases, 47 of them in the capital, as of April 11, 2007.86 The organization says this number reflects a small portion of the total.87
During research in February and June 2007, Human Rights Watch documented the cases of 109 people who had been disappeared or were abducted in 2006 or 2007. These included cases from Colombo, Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa.
The majority of “disappearances” appear to be perpetrated by the Sri Lanka security forces. In these cases the military, alone or in cooperation with paramilitary groups such as the Tamil political party Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) or the Karuna group, target young Tamils suspected of directly or indirectly supporting the LTTE. The clearest examples come from Jaffna, where abductions take place in areas of strict military control, sometimes at night, when a curfew is in effect (see below).
The fate of many individuals taken by the security forces and paramilitary groups remains unknown. Some of them are likely to be kept in unacknowledged detention under the Emergency Regulations reimposed in 2006, which allow the authorities to hold detainees for up to 12 months without charge (see Chapter VII, “Emergency Regulations”). Many of these individuals, however, are feared dead, especially in Jaffna, where the military has a powerful presence and LTTE activity is high. Local human rights groups believe that the security forces “disappear” and then immediately summarily execute individuals for their suspected involvement in the LTTE, or sometimes detain and torture them first at illegal detention facilities, such as military and navy bases and camps.
The LTTE is also clearly responsible for a number of abductions. In most cases the Tigers openly execute their rivals or alleged government supporters and informers to ensure the deterrent effect on the population. But it is also possible that relatives are often too terrified to report abductions perpetrated by the LTTE, fearing further retaliation. At the same time, the LTTE is notorious for abducting children, young men and women for training and recruitment purposes.88
Jaffna
According to a credible non-governmental organization that tracks disappearances, on the Jaffna peninsula alone, 805 persons were reported missing between December 2005 and April. As of May 1, 2007, 564 of these persons were still missing.89
Human Rights Watch also inspected a report from the Government Agent (GA) of Jaffna, which had statistics from April to December 2006. During that time, the GA registered 354 missing persons.90
Human Rights Watch visited Jaffna in February 2007 and interviewed the families of 37 persons who had been “disappeared” over the previous year. Of these, in 21 cases the evidence strongly suggested the involvement of government security forces. In two cases the families strongly believed that the perpetrators were members of the EPDP (based on their accents, appearance, and cars leaving in the direction of EPDP camps). In one case involving three people, the families believed the perpetrator was the LTTE.
In one illustrative case documented by Human Rights Watch, the military “disappeared” two men, ages 25 and 23, in front of their wives on December 8, 2006. That morning the military conducted a large-scale cordon and search operation in several villages in Valvettiturai area, including Samarabaachu, Naachchimaar, Navindil, Ilainthaykadu, and Maavadi. According to witnesses, the group conducting the searches consisted of personnel from Point Pedro camp, Polikandy camp, VVT camp, Udupiddy camp, and another camp locally known as “Camp David.”
The wife of the 25-year-old told Human Rights Watch that in the morning four military personnel searched their house and checked the ID cards of the family members. They returned her card, but took her husband’s with them and told him to come later that day to a playground in Navindil to collect it.
The man’s wife took their two children and accompanied her husband to Navindil. She said there were almost 2,000 people at the playground–men who came to collect their IDs, and their families. The military were calling people by name, asking some questions, and returning their ID cards. She said that they also called her husband, checked his documents again, and let him go. However, he never left the playground. The wife explained,
He got his card back, and was making his way through the crowd. There were two vehicles parked there, and as he was passing in between them, several military personnel jumped off the vehicle, picked him up, and pushed him aside. It all happened in front of my eyes–I stood with the kids some 10 meters away. I ran there, screaming, ‘Where are you taking him? Please, let him go!’
In response, one of the soldiers unfastened a strap from his gun, and lashed me, saying, ‘Go away, he is not here; if you lost your husband, go and ask the police.’ I kept crying, asking them to either release him or take me and the kids as well, because we wouldn’t survive without him anyway. One of the soldiers, moved by my tears, got inside the vehicle and I heard him asking the others to take pity on me and the kids, but he [the soldier] never came back.91
The 23-year-old also had his ID card confiscated on the morning of December 8, in his home village of Naachchimaar. He also came to the Navindil playground to pick up his card. His wife told Human Rights Watch that she came there some time later and although she had to wait behind the fence, she saw her husband, who waved to her. She said that the military checked his ID again, and returned the card, allowing him to leave. However, as he was leaving the playground two soldiers picked him up and put him into one of their Powell vehicles. The man’s wife said she then immediately ran to the vehicle, and, along with the wife of the 25-year-old, started begging the military to release the men. She said that the soldiers kept pushing the women away, saying they would hit them if they dared to come closer.
The women said that some 15 minutes after their husbands had been put into the Powell, the vehicles swiftly left the playground, and other personnel followed them. The two women told Human Rights Watch that they managed to write down the number plates of the two Powell vehicles, 40041-14 and 40032-14.
The wives of the two men immediately filed a complaint at the Point Pedro police station located inside the Point Pedro military camp. The wife of the 23-year-old said,
We gave them the vehicle numbers we wrote down, but they said, ‘e have hundreds of vehicles with the same numbers, so it is childish of you to expect us to find them by these numbers.’Next day, when we came back, we saw both vehicles leaving the camp and coming back. We told the policeman, and also talked to a female military officer who wrote something down. Then a commander–he had stars on his epaulets and a red band on his arm–came. He talked to us and to the female officer, but never returned to us. They said they did not know anything and sent us to the Valvettiturai police station.92
The Valvettiturai police registered the complaint, but advised the women to search for their men in the forest; they mentioned that previously a man taken away by the military had been dumped in the forest, blindfolded, yet alive. The families searched but failed to find their husbands there.
The two wives told Human Rights Watch that they kept visiting Point Pedro and Polikandy military camps, and that on December 25 the military from the Polikandy camp came to verify the places of residence of the two men with their village leaders. The military, however, kept denying having any knowledge of the men’s whereabouts. The women also reported the “disappearances” to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the HRC, and the SLMM. The ICRC inquired with the military, the women said, but received the same response.
At this writing, the fate and whereabouts of the two men remain unknown.
Perhaps the best known case from the Jaffna peninsula is that of Reverend Fr. Thiruchchelvan Nihal Jim Brown, a parish priest in the village of Allaipiddy on Kayts Island, who went missing with another man, Wenceslaus Vinces Vimalathas, on August 20, 2006. The two men left Allaipiddy in the early afternoon for the nearby village of Mandaithivu, but the Sri Lankan military did not allow them to enter. On the way back to Allaipiddy they were stopped at a navy checkpoint, and they have not been seen again.
Inquiries into the fate and whereabouts of the two men proved futile. The navy denied having detained them, and the investigation into the “disappearance” has so far produced no results.
Father Jim Brown was known to have helped many civilians to move from Allaipiddy to the town of Kayts after fighting in the area between the Sri Lankan Navy and the LTTE. In fighting a week before his “disappearance,” on August 13, 2006, at least 54 civilians were injured and 15 lost their lives.
Human Rights Watch asked the Sri Lankan government about the army’s authority to arrest or detain civilians in Jaffna, as well as the number of persons the army is detaining in its camps. The government replied that the army can arrest individuals under regulation 18 of the Emergency Regulations, and it is required to hand over to the police all arrested persons within 24 hours. 93
Colombo
Since August 2006 abductions and “disappearances” have also become a widespread phenomenon in the capital. Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 families of persons missing from Colombo. In seven of the cases, testimonies of the family implicate police and other security forces in the “disappearances.”
In one case, for example, the wife of a 21-year-old Tamil man said she saw the police take her husband on August 23, 2006. According to the woman, she and her husband had come to the capital from Trincomalee on June 26 so that he could obtain a visa to work abroad. They stayed at a lodge in the 14th district of Colombo while he was waiting for the visa to come through. In the early morning of August 23 the police knocked on their lodge door. She explained what happened next:
It was 12:30 a.m. We were all sleeping. The police came in uniform and we were all there. They asked for our ID cards. When they asked I saw there were two boys taken from the room next door. They threw my card away and grabbed my husband’s card, and they took him.94
The wife went to the Armor Street police station on Kotehena Road the next morning but the police refused to take her complaint. She searched at other police stations in the city and returned to the Armor Street station that evening at 6 p.m., she said. This time, the police took her complaint and provided a receipt, which Human Rights Watch viewed.
According to the wife, two men in civilian clothes subsequently came to the lodge and told the wife that her husband would be released in one week, and that they would send him by bus or train to Trincomalee. As of March 4, when we interviewed her, her husband had not returned.
Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and Amparai
In the eastern districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, and Ampara, the Karuna group has committed hundreds of abductions with the complicity of Sri Lankan security forces. The section below and Chapter IX, “Karuna Group and State Complicity,” document abductions by that group. Human Rights Watch received credible reports from Batticaloa residents and international aid groups who said the Karuna group was helping government security forces screen displaced persons fleeing into government-controlled territory, identifying those suspected of supporting the LTTE.
Responsibility in other cases is unclear. In one recent case documented by Sri Lankan organizations, unknown assailants abducted Alampalan Sivasubramanium, the head of Lingapuram village in Trincomalee district. Sivasubramanium had been a vocal advocate for the needs of the displaced. It is not known who abducted him.95
One of the most prominent “disappearance” cases in the east is of Professor Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, 56, vice chancellor at Eastern University in Batticaloa, who went missing from a High Security Zone in Colombo on December 15, 2006. The case began with the abduction in Batticaloa by an unknown armed group on September 20, 2006, of Dr. Bala Sugamar, dean of the arts faculty at Eastern University. The group said, for reasons that remain unclear, they would release Dr. Sugamar if Prof. Raveendranath resigned.
According to Prof. Raveendranath’s family, the professor and his immediate relatives left Batticaloa for Colombo on the night of October 1. The next day, he submitted his resignation. Dr. Sugama was released 11 days later.
Prof. Raveendranath stayed in Colombo, where he worked for the university grants commission. He reported receiving death threats on his cell phone. “The people who threatened him said they would punish him and kill him if he didn’t stop working,” his son-in-law told Human Rights Watch.96
On December 15, Prof. Raveendranath attended a science conference near the BMICH conference hall in Colombo, which is in a High Security Zone with a large presence of military and police. The family expected him back for lunch but he never arrived. His wife tried his cell phone several times but it was turned off. The family filed a police report with the Dehiwala police that same day. They also submitted the case to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which sent it under the urgent action procedure to the Sri Lankan government on January 9, 2007.97 At this writing, Prof. Raveendranath was still missing.
Karuna group
Over the past two years the Karuna group has been implicated in numerous abductions resulting in summary killings. Most of the victims are alleged supporters of the LTTE. The group also has engaged in wide-scale abductions of young men and boys for use as soldiers (see Chapter IX, “Karuna Group and State Complicity”).
The Karuna group has also engaged in kidnappings for ransom of wealthy, predominantly Tamil, businessmen to raise money. Such kidnappings, which one journalist called an “industry,” have happened in Colombo and other towns, most recently Vavuniya.98 A few businessmen have been killed, apparently because they or their families refused or were unable to pay, or perhaps as a message to others that they should comply. According to the Civil Monitoring Commission, out of 78 cases of reported abductions of Tamil businesses in Colombo in late 2006-early 2007, 12 abductees have been murdered, 15 released after the ransom had been paid, and 51 are still missing.99 Media reports have suggested that security forces were implicated in these abductions, either directly facilitating them or providing a cover and not taking any action against them.100
Human Rights Watch interviewed a Colombo Tamil businessman who had been abducted by Tamils he believed to be from the Karuna group but had been released after he paid a ransom. According to the man, a jeweler who wished to remain anonymous, he started getting threatening phone calls in April 2006, sometimes from people who said they were from the Karuna group. They demanded that he transfer one million rupees ($US 8,946) into a bank account.101 About one month after the first call, he was walking from his shop in Colombo when a group of men forced him to get into a white van. He explained,
At 5:30 p.m. I went to my car. There’s a bar between my car and my shop. There were two men, ages between 35 and 40. When they saw me they said, ‘We’re from CID [Criminal Investigation Division of the police]. Please show us your ID.’ I gave it. They spoke Tamil but with a Batticaloa accent. They said, ‘Our boss is there, so show him your ID.’ I didn’t ask for theirs. When I went there, immediately a white van came about 20 meters in front of my car. As soon as I got there, the sliding door of the van opened and some people inside pulled me in. I was shocked and I realized that I was trapped by some abductors. They said, ‘Don’t panic or we’ll shoot you.’ Immediately they put a white cloth over my eyes…. I don’t know exactly but more than five people were in the van.
According to the man, the van drove for about four hours, stopping occasionally. The man thought they were stopping at checkpoints, because the person in the front said, “Hello, how are you?” in Sinhala. Eventually they put him in a room and, after 10 minutes, a man arrived. He said, “We had already instructed you to pay and you did not, so that is why we abducted you. If you don’t pay we’ll kill you and even your family won’t be able to see the body because we’ll dump it in the jungle.”
The next day the man’s captors made him call his brother. They told the brother that he had to pay money to save the man’s life. The following day they put the man back into a vehicle and drove him for about three hours. They let him out at a bus stop and told him he could go home, but they warned him not to tell anyone. The man realized then that his brother had paid, although he learned later that he had not paid the full one million rupees demanded.
“They said, ‘Do not convey this information to anyone: the media, the police or human rights groups,’” the man said. “‘We have connections at each organization, so we will not allow you to live.’”
He believes the abductors were members of the Karuna group because they spoke Tamil with a Batticaloa accent (few police or military personnel speak Tamil without a Sinhala accent), and because they had no trouble going through what he believes were government checkpoints.
According to the man, who is active in Colombo’s Tamil business community, the Karuna group has extorted money from roughly 70 Tamil businessmen in Colombo, many of them with businesses on Sea Street. The Jewelers Business Association had met President Rajapaksa to complain, he said.
As in the case of the Colombo jeweler, abductions for ranson in Vavuniya are also part of a broader phenomenon of demanding money with menaces. Human Rights Watch interviewed one couple, both lawyers, from Vavuniya who fled the town after getting demands for money from individuals who identified themselves as from the Karuna group.102 One of the people who threatened the couple identified himself as Seelan, the couple said. According to the couple, who worked closely with the town’s business community, the Karuna group is believed to have abducted and killed three local businessmen who refused to pay. The first was a private teacher named Kamal Chandran, who ran a private tutoring company in town. Then N. Gunaratnam, who ran the Kapilan Transport bus company, with a route between Vavuniya and Colombo, was targeted. He apparently gave money but then informed the police. Last was S.K. Senthilnathan, who owned Elephant Soda Distribution Co. and City Agency in town.103
Most often the person demanding money on the phone used one of four names, the couple said: Robert, Seelan, Elial, or Benthan. The couple provided Human Rights Watch with the telephone numbers of the cell phones on which they received calls from these individuals.104 Some of these numbers matched numbers given by two other Tamils from Vavuniya, who also said they had been contacted by men from the Karuna group who demanded money.
On February 28, 2007, the Vavuniya Bar Association decided to boycott court proceedings due to threats from the Karuna group. The association said that a person calling himself Seelan, who identified himself as from the Karuna group, had been threatening some members of the Bar, demanding large sums of money. “This Bar has not experienced any such demand by any militant group in the past. This demand has caused anxiety in the minds of the members of the Bar, affecting their professional performance. The Bar Association of Vavuniya has brought this matter to the notice of the High Court Judge and the District Judge, Vavuniya,” the Vavuniya Bar said.105
Karuna group spokesman Azad Maulana said the group had a political officer named Seelan in the east, but he was not involved in any threats or intimidation. “Do you think someone will call and give his name while making threats,” Maulana said “Someone is obviously using Seelan’s name and making threats. We respect the legal profession.”106
The government’s response
In late 2006 and early 2007 the Sri Lankan government began to react to the growing chorus of complaints about abductions and “disappearances” from within Sri Lanka and abroad. On the one hand, the government adamantly denied responsibility for the spree of “disappearances,” and dismissed human rights groups and journalists as the disseminators of “LTTE propaganda.”107 On the other hand, the authorities made numerous pledges to investigate and stop the abuses. To date, however, the steps have failed to yield tangible results.
On September 15, 2006, the president’s office announced the creation of a special police unit to investigate abductions, “disappearances,” and ransom demands.108 A few days later the president announced the creation of a one-man commission consisting of former judge Mahanama Tillekeratne to look at abductions and enforced disappearances across the country. Judge Tillekeratne submitted his interim reports to the president on December 12, 2006 and March 23, 2007. The government has not made either report public.
In a media briefing on June 28, 2007 Judge Tillekeratne said that 430 civilians had been killed between September 14, 2006, and February 25, 2007, almost all of them Tamil. Many of the victims were shot through the head with their hands tied behind their backs, he said.109 In addition to the deaths, 2,020 people were abducted or “disappeared” during those five months, he said (1,713 “disappeared” and 307 abducted). An estimated 1,134 were later found alive (1.002 of the “disappeared” and 132 of the abducted) but the fate of the rest remains unknown.
Judge Tillekeratne said that he recommended the government take strong action against policemen who had failed to investigate complaints of abductions and “disappearances.” According to evidence before the commission, he said, the police had not recorded some complaints even after complainants had come to the police station multiple times.110
The commission’s media statements are quite strong but it remains unclear whether the government will make any details of its findings public, or act on its recommendations. Human Rights Watch asked the government whether it would make public any of the commission’s reports, but the government did not reply to this question.
As public criticism of the rising abductions mounted, on March 6, 2007, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Victor Perera announced that the police had arrested a “large number” of police officers and soldiers, including deserters, among 433 people arrested on charges of abduction and extortion since September 2006. “There is a lot of attention by foreign organizations on the human rights situation here and these killings and abductions cause big problems for the government internationally,” he said.111
The government has yet to provide any details of those arrests, let alone whether those arrested face prosecution. On June 18 Human Rights Watch asked the government how many soldiers and police had been arrested, and on what charges. The government replied that “this information is being tabulated by the police, which maintains detailed records of persons arrested and places of detention.”112 Why the government could not provide any information on this issue remains unclear.
A government statement two days after IGP Perera’s announcement took issue with security forces’ involvement in the abductions, effectively raising questions about the authenticity of the 433 arrests. The government’s peace secretariat rejected all allegations and accusations against the government for complicity in abductions and “disappearances” as “unfounded.” It said that police investigations “substantiate the fact that neither the Security Forces, nor the Police, have been involved, directly or indirectly, in the alleged abductions and disappearances” and led “to the inescapable conclusion that much of the accusations were stage managed for mere propaganda purposes.” The statement also dismissed allegations of “disappearances” as coming from people with ulterior motives:
It is evident that many of the [disappearance] cases reported below were clearly and intentionally manipulated, with the ulterior motive of gaining some personal advantage. This was in some instances to gain entry to a foreign land. In other instances, it was to avoid a Customs penalty or a consequence of not adhering to a Court order. Other cases reveal the negligence on the part of those who were allegedly abducted, of not informing their parents or guardians about their fate or whereabouts. Some others also show that underworld criminal gangs have been conveniently mistaken to be armed groups consisting of SL Army and Police personnel.113
Three days later, on March 11, the president’s office shifted the blame for abductions and “disappearances” back on the police. “President Rajapaksa expected responsible intervention by the police to stem a wave of killings, abductions and extortion rackets, some of which have been linked to police and troops,” the president’s office said in a statement. “The President expects a more responsible intervention from the police to prevent the current wave of crime, the violence, extortion, human rights violations.”114 (For the president’s April 2007 recirculation of presidential directives on the arrest and detention of individuals, partly a response to “disappearances” as well as to spiraling detentions, see Chapter VII, “Emergency Regulations.”)
On June 18 Human Rights Watch asked the government how many people the police had arrested over the previous year on charges of kidnapping or other involvement in abductions or enforced disappearances, and the current status of those cases. The government replied that this information was being tabulated by the police.115 Again, the government should be able to provide at least some information on this issue.
Local and international organizations have repeatedly criticized the ineffectiveness of Sri Lanka’s existing national mechanisms and the government’s failure to address the problem of “disappearances.” The Asian Human Rights Commission, for example, noted in September 2006 that “within Sri Lanka at the moment there is no government authority with the capacity to efficiently investigate the disappearances,” and that “the assurance of some state authorities to the effect that if soldiers are found to be guilty of such acts they would be punished is a mere rhetorical gesture in the face of heavy criticism from local and international sources.”116
In April 2007 a group of relatives of the “disappeared” supported by the Civil Monitoring Commission petitioned the government, expressing their despair at the government’s unwillingness to investigate “disappearances.” The petition said,
We are saddened that the present government, headed by a President who had been at the forefront of the struggle against disappearances many years ago along with the family members of the disappeared, has chosen to dismiss the disappearance of our loved ones as something that is not worthy of local and international attention. We are particularly pained at the inability or unwillingness of the government to adequately investigate this situation and their rejection of our efforts and those of local and international groups trying to help us.
Although the government says it is taking steps to address this situation through the Tillekeratne Commission and the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) and the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) etc., none of these mechanisms have helped to bring back our loved ones and to know the fates of them. Setting up of these two commissions and group did not prevent disappearances even after they have been set up.117
The government’s lack of commitment to address “disappearances” was also evident in its continued failure to cooperate with international mechanisms. For example, the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances sent a request in October 2006 to visit Sri Lanka in early 2007, but the government responded that it would not be possible for the visit to take place at that time.118
On June 27 the government took another step to address the growing concern about “disappearances,” announcing the creation of a special center under the direction of President Rajapaksa for gathering information on abductions in and around Colombo.119 It remains unclear how this center will function, and whether it will help end the rash of abductions and “disappearances” that continue to occur.
In response to queries from Human Rights Watch, the government said on July 12 that the Disappearance Investigation Unit (DIU) of the Sri Lanka police is mandated to investigate cases of enforced disappearance. The unit is under the purview of the police deputy inspector general in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), currently D.W. Prathapasingha. The CID also conducts a few investigations into “disappearances,” the government said.120
80 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, E/CN.4/2005/WG.22/WP.1/Rev.4 (2005), art. 2. Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the convention, which has yet to enter into force.
81 D.B.S. Jeyaraj, “An Overview of the ‘Enforced Disappearances’ Phenomenon,” Transcurrents, April 13, 2007, (accessed May 15, 2007).
82 “ICJ Urges Sri Lanka to Ratify Convention against Enforced Disappearances,” International Commission of Jurists press release, January 24, 2007, http://www.icj.org/news.php3?id_article=4096&lang=en (accessed May 29, 2007).
83 Interactive dialogue at the Human Rights Council with the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, March 21, 2007.
84 Gardner, “Abductions, Disappearances Haunt Sri Lanka’s Civil War,” and “Sri Lanka Police, Soldiers Arrested over Abductions,” Reuters.
85 “US Concerned about Disappeared,” BBC Sinhala.com.
86 List of the Civil Monitoring Committee, April 11, 2007, on file with Human Rights Watch.
87 Human Rights Watch interview with Mano Ganesan, member of the Civil Monitoring Commission, Colombo, March 6, 2007.
88 See Human Rights Watch, Living in Fear.
89 For security reasons the NGO did not want to be identified. However, details of the 805 cases–names, ages, dates and locations of the incidents, and brief descriptions–are on file with Human Rights Watch.
90 In the same period, according to the Government Agent’s report, 381 were killed and 204 were injured.
91 Human Rights Watch interview with wife of “disappeared” 25-year-old man, Jaffna, February 28, 2007.
92 Human Rights Watch interview with wife of “disappeared” 23-year-old man, Jaffna, February 28, 2007.
93 Sri Lankan government response to Human Rights Watch, July 12, 2007.
94 Human Rights Watch interview with wife of “disappeared” 21-year-old man, Colombo, March 4, 2007.
95 Centre for Policy Alternatives and International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, “Tricomalee Fact-Finding Mission,” April 2007, http://www.imadr.org/en/news/TRINCOMALEE_APRIL_2007.pdf (accessed May 30, 2007).
96 Human Rights Watch interview with M. Malaravan, Colombo, March 4, 2007.
97 Letter of receipt from the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, reference number G/SO 217/1 Sri Lanka, March 26, 2007.
98 Jeyaraj, “An Overview of the ‘Enforced Disappearances’ Phenomenon,” Transcurrents.
99 Figures cited in “Abductions spread to Wellawaya,” LeN, April 10, 2007. Representatives of the Civil Monitoring Commission told Human Rights Watch that abduction for ransom is one the most underreported categories of cases, as families who manage to secure the release of their relatives are very reluctant to report even to human rights groups, fearing further prosecution. Human Rights Watch interview with Mano Ganesan, Colombo, February 20, 2007.
100 D.B.S. Jeyaraj, “Dear Ones of ‘Disappeared’ in depths of Despair,” Transcurrents, April 12, 2007, http://transcurrents.com/tamiliana/archives/310 (accessed April 15, 2007).
101 Human Rights Watch interview with formerly abducted Tamil businessman, Colombo, October 2006.
102 Human Rights Watch interview with couple from Vavuniya, Colombo, March 4, 2007.
103 According to Tamilnet, Senthilnathan was a senior member of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress. “Senthilnathan Shot and Killed in Vavuniya,” Tamilnet, April 26, 2007, http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=17922 (accessed June 28, 2007).
104 Human Rights Watch interview with couple from Vavuniya, Colombo, March 4, 2007.
105 Easwaran Rutnam, “Vavuniya Bar Alleges Threat by Karuna Faction,” Daily Mirror, March 2, 2007, http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/03/02/news/06.asp (accessed June 28, 2007).
106 Ibid.
107 For example, in a March 2007 press interview Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe responded to accusations of abductions by dismissing it as the LTTE’s “propaganda strategy” used to “paint a bleak picture internationally to bring pressure on the government so that our resolve will be weakened.” See “You cannot expect everything to be normal,” The Nation (Colombo), March 18, 2007.
108 “Special Police Unit to Probe Incidents of Killing,” Office of the President media release, September 15, 2006, (accessed May 15, 2007).
109 “US Concerned about Disappeared,” BBC Sinhala.com, and Official website of the Government of Sri Lanka, “Majority of ‘Disappeared’ Had Returned–Commissioner,” June 29, 2007, (accessed July 27, 2007)
110 Susistha R. Fernando, “Majority of ‘Abductees’ Found to Have Returned,” Daily Mirror (Colombo), June 29, 2007.
111 “Sri Lankan Police, Troops Involved in Abductions: Police Chief,” Agence France-Presse, March 6, 2007. “Sri Lanka Police, Soldiers Arrested over Abductions,” Reuters, March 6, 2007.
112 Sri Lankan government response to Human Rights Watch, July 12, 2007.
113 SCOPP, “Baseless Allegations of Abductions and Disappearances.”
114 “Sri Lanka President blasts police dept for handling of abductions and killings,” ColomboPage, March 11, 2007, http://www.colombopage.com/archive_07/March11175225JV.html (accessed May 15, 2007).
115 Sri Lankan government response to Human Rights Watch, July 12, 2007.
116 “Sri Lanka: White vans without number plates; the symbol of disappearances reappear,” statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, AS-213-2006, September 13, 2006, http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/729/ (accessed April 17, 2006).
117 Civil Monitoring Commission, “Petition to Help Find our Disappeared Family Members and Friends in Sri Lanka,” April 9, 2007.
118 Interactive dialogue at the Human Rights Council with the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, March 21, 2007.
119 “Media is Commended for highlighting HR violations; government sets up a special center to avert abductions,” Ministry of Defence news release, June 28, 2007, http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20070628_01 (accessed June 28, 2007).
120 Sri Lankan government response to Human Rights Watch, July 12, 2007.
August 7th, 2007
by Nadira Gunatilleke
Some time back I received a very funny e-mail which named the five worst women in Sri Lanka. This e-mail was circulated all over Sri Lanka for a long time.
According to the e-mail the worst five women in Sri Lanka were four Indian women who play the main roles in four imported Indian teledrama series continuously telecast over a local television channel and the Sri Lankan woman who watches them all! In order to check the meaning of this e-mail I started watching these teledaramas and guess what gradually I understood how true that e-mail was.
About four women are the main roles of four popular Indian tele series telecast over one of the local television channels.
Two of the series were produced using local actors and actresses but only their speech is Sinhala, all the other things (sets. costumes, traditions etc.) are Indian. The four series are being telecast over a period of several years continuously in the peak hours and viewers are being given valuable prizes in order to be attracted to the tele dramas.
One can name it as importing ‘Made in India violence’ and distributing it in Sri Lankan society which is not violent when it comes to women, marriages and dowry. These teledramas purely promote violence against women in Sri Lanka.
They cause severe damage to the Sri Lankan women in various ways. First of all they encourage Sri Lankan men to administer violence against women. The majority of men in these teledramas act violently against women or torture them psychologically.
The worst thing is, it shows how the culture can be used as a weapon to torture women and new techniques of executing violence against women.
One can argue that all these women are fighters for justice and live according to traditions. It is true. The problem does not lie in these four women, but the contents of the teledramas and in the other characters.
A feature can be written if all the incidents on violence against women telecast over all five teledramas are described in length.
May be there is an argument stating that the teledramas (soap operas) imported from other countries are same and have a negative impact, but usually such teledramas are in English and viewed by a limited number of viewers and such teledramas are not dubbed in Sinhala, not telecast during the peak hours and do not run over years.
Sri Lankan actors and actresses star in two of those Indian teledramas. The main damage is caused by these two teledramas because it is closer to the Sri Lankan viewers because of the Sri Lankan actors and actresses. In this teledrama it shows how an unmarried girl is being kept in a house purposely where a married couple is living.
This girl is in love with the married man and knowing this fact the parents of the man keep her in their home. This is not Sri Lankan culture and the Sri Lankan younger generation may tend too think that this type of a situation is just normal.
In another instance it shows how a woman is being ill-treated and discriminated by all of her family members and outsiders and how they make trouble all the time expecting her downfall. In other words this teledrama tells the viewers that a strong woman who becomes a challenge to the male domination should be defeated and crushed.
In the other two teledramas there are many incidents which show how culture is being used to torture women, such as preventing her from taking part in family ceremonies etc.
We cannot forget the fact that India records around 1,000 dowry related female deaths per year and some married women are being murdered by their husbands and in-laws by setting fire.
Some husbands and in-laws threaten the women to commit suicide. Sometimes women are tortured to fleece more money out of their families and then they are being killed or forced to commit suicide. There are several instances where young mothers are burnt to death by husbands and in-laws. After this the husband is free to re-marry and get another big dowry.
The imported tele series telecast in Sri Lanka has been produced using this background which causes immeasurable harm to Sri Lankan women.
August 7th, 2007
by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai
Jagath Weerasinghe is an Artist and Archaeologist. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Post-Graduate Institute of Archeology of the University of Kelaniya.
Very few artists bring out creations on the prevailing socio-political climate of the country. For Jagath Weerasinghe, the imagery of the infamous photograph of a Tamil youth stripped naked at Borella bus stand and killed in July 1983 focuses his work on these issues . This particular photograph has haunted Jagath Weerasinghe for almost a decade. The image came to dominate his paintings. Later he drew a painting similar to the photograph.
“1983 was a turning point. Most Sinhalese do not want to talk about it seriously, and want to be very silent about it. This is like a major stigma in your background. And nobody wants to see deep into it why and how it could happen in front of our eyes” said Jagath Weerasinghe.
He further said that, “I arrived at the Pettah main bus stand from Dambulla while the riots started to erupt in the city. There were seeds of racism within me, so that I could be manipulated. I wasn’t totally innocent, because, these seeds of racism were within me for a moment, although I never took part in any act of violence. My family protected Tamils in 1983″.
He also queries about how many tears have been wiped out by the peace process. Jagath says that, peace process is not all about stopping the fight, but about looking at each other’s suffering and sharing and changing the social relations.
His recent works were displayed at the Red Dot gallery in Pittakotte for three days-August 4 th, 5th and 6th 2007. Red Dot Gallery is contemporary-artist- run gallery, and first of its kind in Sri Lanka.
His paintings speak for humanity. Correct colours are used according to the circumstances. Saffron is often used to depict the Buddhist nationalism. There was pin drop silence in the gallery to view and absorb the paintings. The paintings made to realize the violence deepens daily, and we accept it as another daily routine.
He was commissioned by the then Sri Lankan government to design the monument of a ‘Monument for Democracy-Shrine for the Innocents’ as a remembrance for the innocent victims of the ruthless violence that the Southern part of the country experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was completed in 1999. This monument was dedicated to the victims of political violence and human rights abuses in late 1980s and early 1990s which happened in Southern Sri Lanka.
“I was overthrown about hearing that, the Tamils in lodges have been evicted, and started to draw a series called “Eviction of Tamils” said Jagath Weerasinghe
A journey of a vagabond
His recent works were drawn in 2007
Dances of Shiva is devotional. But at the same time it can be used for religious violence according to Jagath Weerasinghe
Celestial Violence:Mics and Knives from Heaven
“His paintings show the current situation under which we all are living. The paintings speaks the truth,” said Artist Lalith Manage
A series of “Who are you soldier?”
Jagath Weerasinghe discusses about art with the students from Institute of Aesthetic Studies
Series of armoury
Violence is institutionalised according to Jagath Weerasinghe
Art lovers said that, very few artists bring out creations on the prevailing socio-political climate of the country
Political violence takes cover in religions
The public had a chance to meet and talk with the artist
Pin drop silence was maintained in the gallery
There is an urgent need to show signs of humanity
[Courtesy: HumanityAshore]
Email: dushi.pillai@gmail.com
August 6th, 2007
Return to War: Human Rights under Siege in Sri Lanka
This is the summary of the latest report released by the New York based Human Rights Watch organization on Sri Lanka:
What I am saying is, if there is a terrorist group, why can’t you do anything? It’s not against a community… I’m talking about terrorists. Anything is fair.
–Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, June 12, 2007
My wife was bathing at the well near my hut. I heard one big boom and saw smoke…. Then I saw her lying near the well…. Blood was all around. I called her but she didn’t speak.
–Father of two whose wife died in the army shelling of the displaced persons camp at Kathiravelli on November 8, 2006
We just want to know where he is. He can even be in prison but let us know where he is.
–Mother of “disappeared” son, Colombo, March 2007
Sri Lanka is in the midst of a human rights crisis. The ceasefire between the government and the armed secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) exists only in name. Since mid-2006, when major military operations resumed, civilians have paid a heavy price, both directly in the fighting and in the dramatic increase in abductions, killings, and “disappearances.” The return to war has brought serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The LTTE is much to blame. The group, fighting for an independent Tamil state, has directly targeted civilians with remote-controlled landmines and suicide bombers, murdered perceived political opponents, and forcibly recruited ethnic Tamils into its forces, many of them children.1 In the areas of the country’s north and east under its control, the LTTE harshly represses the rights to free expression, association, and movement.
Human Rights Watch has long documented abuses by the LTTE, particularly the LTTE’s systematic recruitment and use of children as soldiers, the targeted killings of political opponents, and its abusive fundraising tactics abroad.2 We will continue to report on LTTE abuses and press the LTTE to change its practices.
This report, however, focuses primarily on abuses by the Sri Lankan government and allied armed groups, which have gotten decidedly worse over the past year. As the hostilities have increased, the government’s respect for international law has sharply declined, with it often appearing indifferent to the impact on civilians in the north and east.
This report does not aim to be a comprehensive account. Rather, it highlights with examples the main areas of concern, from violations of the laws of war and extrajudicial killings to unlawful restrictions on the media and nongovernmental organizations and the widespread impunity enjoyed by state security forces. It uses victim and eyewitness accounts to document indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the forced return of internally displaced persons, and the spate of arrests and “disappearances” by government forces and allied groups. Case studies reveal how the rights to freedom of expression and association are increasingly under threat from a government intolerant of criticism and dissent. Ethnic Tamils have suffered the brunt of abuses, but members of the Muslim and majority Sinhalese populations have also been victims of government rights violations.
Sri Lanka’s defense establishment is particularly responsible for abuses. The security forces have driven policy on the ethnic conflict since President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected in November 2005, led by the president’s influential brother, Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa. After an LTTE attempt on the defense secretary’s life, the government expanded draconian Emergency Regulations, in place from the previous government, that grant the security forces sweeping powers of detention and arrest. The government has used counterterror legislation against journalists who expose human rights abuses, official corruption, or otherwise question the government’s handling of the conflict with the LTTE.
Even top government officials have expressed concern. In a private letter to President Rajapaksa on December 13, 2006, then-Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera warned that the government must do more to address the deterioration of human rights. Leaked to the press after Samaraweera was sacked, the letter noted “persistent reports about alleged abductions and extra-judicial killings attributed to government forces as well as the [allied] Karuna faction and the LTTE” in areas controlled by both the government and the LTTE. “Whether or not these were committed by terrorist groups or government agencies,” Samaraweera wrote, “it is the responsibility of the government to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators in keeping with Sri Lanka’s treaty commitments.” He added, “Even when fighting a ruthless terrorist group like the LTTE, the Government must not be seen as using the same tactics as a terror group. The rule of law must always be respected by all arms of the government.”3
Ironically, the serious deterioration in the government’s human rights record is taking place under a president who was once a human rights activist, known for getting dossiers of the “disappeared” out of the country to the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights in 1990. President Rajapaksa’s official biography trumpets him as a “champion of human rights,”4 but he has failed to demonstrate those qualities during his presidential term.
Abuses during armed conflict
Some of the most serious international law violations have taken place during armed hostilities, when civilians have died in unlawful attacks and others were displaced. Both the government and the LTTE have shown a brazen disregard for the well-being of non-combatants.
In one of the most deadly incidents of recent years, government shelling in the eastern Vaharai area on November 8, 2006, hit school grounds that were housing thousands of displaced civilians, killing 62 and wounding 47. Government forces failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians and may have purposely targeted the school. Based on interviews with a dozen witnesses and other information, Human Rights Watch found no evidence to support government claims that the LTTE had fired that morning at government forces from the vicinity of the school or had used civilians as “human shields” to protect themselves from attack.
The treatment of internally displaced persons remains a paramount concern. Some 315,000 people have had to flee their homes due to fighting since August 2006; 100,000 fled in March 2007 alone. This comes atop the 200,000-250,000 people made homeless by the December 2004 tsunami–many from the same areas as the recent fighting–and the approximately 315,000 displaced by the conflict prior to 2002. Since January 2006 more than 18,000 Sri Lankans have fled to India, often on rickety boats, as refugees.
Both the LTTE and the government have failed adequately to provide for the needs of the displaced. The LTTE has at times blocked civilians from leaving areas of conflict, while the government through its indiscriminate shelling and restrictions on humanitarian aid has compelled civilians to flee. The government has forcibly returned displaced persons after it deemed their home areas “cleared” of the LTTE, often without adequate security or humanitarian assistance in place.
Humanitarian aid agencies and nongovernmental organizations, domestic and international, are finding it increasingly difficult to service populations in need, and have sometimes come under direct attack. According to the United Nations, 24 aid workers died in Sri Lanka in 2006, including 17 local staff of the Paris-based Action Contre Le Faim who were murdered in August. The Sri Lankan authorities have not arrested anyone for that crime.5
Abductions and “disappearances”
The number of abductions and enforced disappearances is spiraling. The national Human Rights Commission (HRC) said it recorded roughly 1,000 cases in 2006, plus nearly 100 more in the first two months of 2007.6 A government commission established in September 2006 to investigate “disappearances” said in June 2007 that 2,020 people were abducted or “disappeared” between September 14, 2006, and February 25, 2007. Approximately 1,134 of these people were found alive but the others remain missing.7
On the Jaffna peninsula alone, an area under strict military control, more than 800 persons were reported missing between December 2005 and April 2007. According to a credible non-governmental organization that tracks “disappearances,” 564 of these persons were still missing as of May 1.
While the LTTE has long been responsible for abductions, the majority of recent “disappearances” in Jaffna and the rest of the country implicate government forces or armed groups acting with governmental complicity.
While many of the “disappeared” likely have been killed, some may be in detention, held under the newly imposed Emergency Regulations (see below). If so, the government should announce the names of such persons, as well as any charges against them, and list the locations where they are being held. Those not charged should be released.
Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with the family members of 109 people who said their relative had been abducted or “disappeared” since 2006. These included cases from Jaffna, Colombo, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa. The cases can largely be grouped into two basic types: those by the state in the name of counterinsurgency, and those by allied armed groups or the LTTE to eliminate rivals, recruit fighters, or extort funds.
In the lawlessness that has grown in the past two years, criminal elements also appear to have committed some of the abductions. Over the course of late 2006 and 2007 scores of abductions were accompanied by huge ransom demands and the victims were mostly businessmen from the minority Tamil community. By May-June 2007, members of the Muslim community, particularly in the eastern district of Ampara, were targeted as well.
Under growing pressure from within Sri Lanka and abroad, the government has taken some steps to address abductions and enforced disappearances, including some arrests of alleged perpetrators, but none of these steps has significantly slowed the abuse. A one-man government commission on “disappearances” established in September 2006 has issued strong statements about the abuse and the government’s inability to halt it, but the government has not made public any of the commission’s interim reports, nor is it obliged to implement any of the recommendations.
Public statements by the government have rejected the overwhelming evidence of government involvement as “unfounded” and cast those who accuse government forces as sympathizers of the LTTE. President Rajapaksa, once an advocate for the “disappeared,” has dismissed many of the cases as fakes. “Many of those people who are said to have been abducted are in England, Germany, gone abroad,” he said in May 2007. “They have made complaints that they were abducted, but when they return they don’t say.”8
Arbitrary arrests and detention
In August 2005, after the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, the government of then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga imposed Emergency Regulations drawn from the Emergency Regulations of 2000. Long a controversial measure in Sri Lanka, the regulations granted the security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention, allowing the authorities to hold a person without charge based on vaguely defined accusations for up to 12 months.
Over the past 18 months, the Rajapaksa government has detained an undetermined number of people reaching into the hundreds under the regulations. The primary targets are young Tamil men suspected of being LTTE members or supporters, but the government has recently cast a wider net, arresting non-Tamils for allegedly supporting the LTTE.
The overbroad and vaguely worded regulations allow for the detention of any person “acting in any manner prejudicial to the national security or to the maintenance of public order, or to the maintenance of essential services.” The authorities may search, detain for the purpose of a search, and arrest without a warrant any person suspected of an offense under the regulations.
The regulations also provide for house arrest, restrictions on the internal movement of certain persons or groups, prohibitions on an individual from leaving the country, and limitations on an individual’s business or employment. They allow for the censorship of articles related broadly to “sensitive” issues, and the disruption and banning of public meetings.
The number of people arrested under the Emergency Regulations remains unclear. In March 2007 the government announced it was holding 452 persons under the Emergency Regulations (372 Tamils, 61 Sinhalese, and 19 Muslims), among them 15 soldiers, five policemen, one former policeman, and three military deserters.9 Human Rights Watch requested updated figures in June, as well as the status of cases and the locations of detention, but the government failed to provide the information requested.
In December 2006 the government introduced another Emergency Regulation called the Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities. The broad, sweeping language allows for the criminalization of a range of peaceful activities that are protected under Sri Lankan and international law. Some of the regulations could be used to justify a crackdown on the media and civil society organizations, including those working on human rights, inter-ethnic relations, or peace-building. The authorities could also use the wide immunity clause to exempt from prosecution members of the security forces deemed to be acting in “good faith.”
Karuna group abuses
The Sri Lankan government has failed to take action against the abusive Karuna group, a Tamil armed group under the leadership of V. Muralitharan that split from the LTTE in 2004 and now cooperates with Sri Lankan security forces in their common fight against the LTTE. With the LTTE’s loss of territories in the east, the Karuna group has exerted de facto authority in the districts of Ampara, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa. The group also expanded its operations in the northern Vavuniya district, engaging in extortion and abductions.
Despite ongoing international scrutiny and criticism, including from the United Nations, the Karuna group has continued to abduct and forcibly recruit children and young men for use as soldiers, with state complicity. Between December 2006 and June 2007 UNICEF documented 145 cases of child recruitment or re-recruitment by the Karuna group. The actual number is likely to be higher because many parents are afraid to report cases, and these numbers do not reflect the forced recruitment of young men over 18.
In February 2007 Human Rights Watch observed armed children guarding Karuna political offices in plain view of the Sri Lankan army and police. A top Karuna Eastern commander was seen riding atop an army personnel carrier. Armed Karuna cadre openly roamed the streets in Batticaloa district in sight of security forces, and in some cases they jointly patrolled with the police.
President Rajapaksa and other Sri Lankan officials have repeatedly promised that the government would investigate the allegations of state complicity in Karuna abductions and hold accountable any member of the security forces found to have violated the law. To date, however, the government has taken no effective steps. No member of the security forces is known to have been disciplined or prosecuted for committing these illegal acts. There is now a clear pattern of complicity by the security forces in abductions, extrajudicial executions, and extortion committed by this group.
Human Rights Watch asked the Sri Lankan government the status of the investigation announced by President Rajapaksa. Prior to any announced results, the government said that it “has no complicity with the Karuna group in any allegations of child recruitment or abduction.” This calls into question the sincerity of the government’s commitment to an investigation.
Crackdown on dissent
The government has increasingly sought to silence those who question or criticize its approach to the armed conflict or its human rights record. It has dismissed peaceful critics as “traitors,” “terrorist sympathizers,” and “supporters of the LTTE.” And it has used counterterror legislation to prosecute those whose views or versions of events do not coincide with those of the government.
Humanitarian and human rights organizations, both Sri Lankan and international, have come under sustained pressure. The government has dismissed their allegations of human rights violations as “baseless” and influenced by propaganda of the LTTE. “Any group or organization, falling prey to this malicious propaganda of the LTTE, without prior inquiry, investigation or reliable verification, could as well be accused of complicity in propagating and disseminating the message and motives of the LTTE,” the government’s peace secretariat said in March 2007.10
Given Sri Lanka’s Emergency Regulations, which criminalize “aiding and abetting the LTTE,” this broad lumping of human rights groups with the LTTE seems aimed at silencing organizations working to report objectively on human rights, including groups also highly critical of the LTTE.
The climate of fear for human rights activists is intensified by death threats some individuals have received over the phone in the past year, in which unknown individuals warn activists that the government should not be condemned.
In December 2005, a parliamentary committee established to monitor the influx of aid organizations after the tsunami expanded its scope to organizations that work on human rights, democratization, and peace-building. The committee required NGOs to submit their internal records from the past 10 years, such as lists of publications and organized functions, including attendees.
Freedom of the press has taken a serious blow. Eleven Sri Lankan journalists and other media practitioners have been killed by various parties to the conflict since August 2005. To date, no one has been convicted for any of the killings.
Tamil journalists work under severe threat from both the LTTE and government forces. In LTTE-controlled areas media freedom is severely restricted. The LTTE has been implicated in abductions of media practitioners and the killings of journalists. It has routinely pressured Tamil journalists and attempted to force Tamil media practitioners to resign from state-owned media. The circulation of some Tamil newspapers was unofficially banned in parts of the north and east. In October 2006 and again in January 2007 the Karuna group blocked the delivery of the newspapers Thinakural, Virakesari, and Sudar Oli in Batticaloa and Ampara.
The Sinhala-language media is not exempt from government pressure. On November 22, 2006, agents of the police’s Terrorist Investigation Division arrested Munusamy Parameswary, a reporter for the Sinhala newspaper Mawbima, accusing her of “helping the LTTE and a suspected suicide bomber.” Parameswary was apparently targeted because of her writings on human rights violations, including enforced disappearances. The police released her on March 22, 2007, when a court found insufficient evidence to continue her detention.
On February 27, 2007, the Terrorist Investigation Division arrested the spokesperson and financial director of Standard Newspapers Ltd., which publishes Mawbima and the English-language weekly Sunday Standard. Under the Emergency Regulations they detained him for over two months without charge. On March 13, 2007, the government froze the company’s assets, forcing Mawbima and Sunday Standard to stop publication. On May 30, the police arrested the owner of the company under the Terrorist Financing Act on suspicion of providing material and financial assistance to the LTTE.
Over the past year President Rajapaksa has held regular breakfast meetings with media editors. According to participants, he has at times admonished editors for their “unpatriotic” writing. His brother the defence secretary has been more direct: in April 2007 he telephoned the editor of the Daily Mirror, an English-language daily, and told her that he would “exterminate” a journalist who had written on human rights issues in the country’s east.
Impunity reigns
Impunity for human rights violations by government security forces, long a problem in Sri Lanka, remains a disturbing norm. As the conflict intensifies and government forces are implicated in a longer list of abuses, from arbitrary arrests and “disappearances” to war crimes, the government has displayed a clear unwillingness to hold accountable those responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Government institutions have proved inadequate to deal with the scale and intensity of abuse.
One barrier to accountability lies in the failure to implement the 17th amendment to the constitution, which provides for the establishment of a Constitutional Council to nominate independent members to various government commissions, including the Human Rights Commission. Ignoring the amendment, the president has directly appointed commissioners to the bodies that deal with the police, public service, and human rights, thereby placing their independence in doubt. The 17th amendment has been similarly bypassed in the unilateral appointment of the attorney general, which undermines the independence of that office.
In response to rising domestic and international concerns about human rights violations in Sri Lanka, and to preempt proposals for an international human rights monitoring mission, in November 2006 the government established a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate serious cases of human rights violations by all parties since August 1, 2005. Instead of an international commission, as many human rights groups had urged, and as President Rajapaksa had initially agreed, the commission is composed of Sri Lankan members, who are assisted by a group of international observers, called the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP).
The Commission of Inquiry has serious deficiencies, and it remains to be seen whether it can effectively promote accountability where state institutions have failed. First, the commission does not appear to have made much headway in the 16 serious cases it has the mandate to investigate, while additional atrocities by all sides continue to occur. Second, the commission can only recommend to the government the steps to take, so its findings will not necessarily result in prosecutions. Third, investigations are stymied by an inadequate witness protection program that would encourage rightly fearful victims and witnesses to testify about abuses by government security forces. Fourth, the attorney general’s office has a direct role in commission investigations–a potential conflict of interest that may undermine the commission’s independence. Finally, the head of the commission is limiting the work of the international experts to a narrow observer-only role, which would prohibit them from conducting investigations and speaking with witnesses.
In its first interim report to the president, the IIGEP warned that the success of the commission was at risk. It expressed concern that the government had not taken adequate measures to address crucial issues, such as “the independence of the commission, timeliness and witness protection.”11 In its second report, the IIGEP questioned the role of the attorney general’s department in assisting the commission, highlighting examples of lacking impartiality. The report said the commission’s conduct was “inconsistent with international norms and standards” and that failure to take corrective action “will result in the commission not fulfilling its fact-finding mandate in conformity with those norms and standards.”12
All of these problems suggest that the Commission of Inquiry is unlikely to make significant progress to change the climate of impunity in Sri Lanka today. The Rajapaksa government has not seriously addressed the escalating human rights crisis, and measures by the government and the CoI to address issues such as the independence of the Commission and witness protection are falling short. The Commission of Inquiry seems more an effort to stave off domestic and international criticism than a sincere attempt to promote accountability and deter future abuse.
An international role
Foreign governments were especially supportive of the Commission of Inquiry, and its increasingly evident failings highlight the need for concerned governments to rethink their approach to human rights protection. In particular, international donor states should intensify their expressions of concern, urging the government to end abuse and punish those responsible. The Sri Lankan government time and again has pledged to its people and the international community that it will protect human rights and hold abusers accountable; it has routinely failed to fulfill that pledge.
The international co-chairs for the peace process (the United States, Japan, the European Union, and Norway), as well as other states, should use their leverage with both the government and the LTTE to encourage respect for international law, including the protection of civilians during hostilities. Financial aid is one lever that international governments have, and states such as the United Kingdom and Germany have recently elected to limit their assistance until government practices improve.
Concerned governments should also use the United Nations Human Rights Council to initiate and support strong resolutions to promote compliance with international law by the government and the LTTE. Most importantly, the international community should work at the Human Rights Council and with the government to establish a United Nations human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka to monitor, investigate, and report on human rights abuses and laws of war violations by all sides–the government, the LTTE, and Karuna forces.13
Key recommendations
Human Rights Watch urges the Sri Lankan government, the LTTE, the Karuna group, and key international actors to respond with urgency to the human rights crisis in Sri Lanka. Specifically, we call on all relevant actors to:
Establish a human rights monitoring mission under United Nations auspices to investigate abuses by all parties, report publicly on abuses to enable prosecutions, and facilitate efforts to improve human rights at the local level.
Improve humanitarian access to populations at risk, including by ending unnecessary restrictions on humanitarian agencies.
Cease all deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, facilitate rather than prevent civilians leaving areas of active fighting and provide humanitarian agencies safe passage to populations at risk.
End use of Emergency Regulations to clamp down on and threaten media, humanitarian and human rights groups, and other civil society organizations.
Regularly publicize the names of all persons detained by the military and police under Emergency Regulations and other laws, and provide detainees due process rights, including access to their families and legal representation and to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
Cease the forced recruitment of all persons, end all recruitment of children, and permit those unlawfully recruited to return to their families.
Full recommendations can be found in Chapter XI.
Methodology
This report is based primarily on field research in Sri Lanka in February-March 2007. Human Rights Watch visited Colombo and its environs, and the districts of Batticaloa and Jaffna. The names of many interviewees are redacted or removed, usually at the interviewee’s request, to protect that person from potential harm.
On June 18, Human Rights Watch wrote to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, requesting replies to 33 questions on a range of issues. The government replied on July 12. Relevant answers are included in the report. On some central issues the government did not provide the requested information, such as the number of people arrested under the Emergency Regulations, the number of people arrested on charges of kidnapping or abductions, and the status of the government’s investigation into alleged state complicity in abductions by the Karuna group.
1 In this report, consistent with international law, the words “child” and “children” refer to anyone under the age of 18.
2 See Human Rights Watch, Funding the Final War: LTTE Intimidation and Extortion in the Tamil Diaspora, vol. 18, no. 1(C), March 2006,; Human Rights Watch, Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, vol. 16, no. 13(C), November 2004,
“Sri Lanka: New Killings Threaten Ceasefire,” Human Rights Watch news release, July 28, 2004.
3 The Sunday Times Online, vol. 41-no. 39, February 25, 2007, (accessed July 2, 2007).
4 Official website of the President of Sri Lanka, (accessed May 21, 2007).
5 Security Council Briefing by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, June 22, 2007, (accessed June 25, 2007).
6 Simon Gardner, “Abductions, Disappearances Haunt Sri Lanka’s Civil War,” Reuters, March 5, 2007, and “Sri Lanka Police, Soldiers Arrested over Abductions,” Reuters, March 6, 2007.
7 “US Concerned about Disappeared,” BBC Sinhala.com, June 28, 2007, (accessed July 2, 2007).
8 Teymoor Nabili, “Peace Through War in Sri Lanka,” Al Jazeera, May 31, 2007, (accessed May 31, 2007).
9 The figure is mentioned in a report by the International Crisis Group, “Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Crisis,” June 14, 2007,(accessed July 18, 2007), which cites “Sri Lanka Human Rights Update,” INFORM and Law and Society Trust, March 15, 2007.
10 Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), “Baseless Allegations of Abductions and Disappearances,” March 8, 2007.
11 “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons Public Statement,” June 11, 2007. For the full text of the statement see (accessed June 28, 2007).
12 “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons Public Statement,” June 15, 2007. For the full text of the statement see (accessed July 2, 2007).
13 A UN human rights monitoring mission would entail a field office of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with a mandate of protection, monitoring, capacity building, and public reporting.
August 6th, 2007
Killings, Abductions and Displacement Soar as Impunity Reigns
(New York, August 6, 2007) – The Sri Lankan government is responsible for unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations since the resumption of major hostilities with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Human Rights Watch documented a dramatic increase in abuses by government forces over the past 18 months, and called on the country’s donors and concerned governments to support a United Nations
The LTTE, an armed Tamil secessionist group, is responsible for serious crimes such as targeted civilian killings, extortion and the use of child soldiers, which Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented and condemned.
The new 129-page report, “Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege,” uses accounts by victims and eyewitnesses to document the shocking increase in violations by government forces. Ethnic Tamils have borne the brunt of these violations, the report said, but members of the Muslim and majority Sinhalese population are not immune to government abuse.
“The Sri Lankan government has apparently given its security forces a green light to use ‘dirty war’ tactics,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Abuses by the LTTE are no excuse for the government’s campaign of killings, ‘disappearances’ and forced returns of the displaced.”
A 2002 ceasefire agreement between the government and the LTTE technically remains in force, but major hostilities resumed in mid-2006. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, have pursued military operations in the country’s north and east, with little regard for the security of the civilian population, Human Rights Watch said.
Security forces have subjected civilians to indiscriminate attacks and impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid. Some 315,000 people have had to flee their homes due to fighting since August 2006, the vast majority Tamils and Muslims. About 100,000 were displaced in March alone. Government authorities have forced some to return to areas that remained insecure.
Human Rights Watch documented a disturbing rise in abductions and “disappearances” over the past one-and-a-half years. More than 1,100 new cases were reported between January 2006 and June 2007, the vast majority of them Tamils. While the LTTE has long been responsible for abductions, the majority of recent “disappearances” implicate government forces or armed groups acting with governmental complicity.
On the northern Jaffna peninsula alone, an area under strict military control, more than 800 people were reported missing between December 2005 and April 2007, 241 of whom were subsequently found. In the vast majority of cases, witnesses and family members allege that security forces were involved or implicated in the abduction.
In August 2006, the government reintroduced Emergency Regulations, which criminalize a range of peaceful activities protected under Sri Lankan and international law. The government has used the regulations to prosecute political opponents and members of the media.
The report documents the deterioration of media freedom in Sri Lanka, where 11 media workers have been killed since August 2005. Tamil journalists in particular work under severe threat from both the LTTE and government, but the government has also pressured Sinhala-language outlets that present critical news and views.
The government has tried to silence those who question or criticize its approach to the armed conflict or its human rights record. It has dismissed peaceful critics as “traitors,” “terrorist sympathizers,” and “supporters of the LTTE.”
“The government is using its conflict with the LTTE and the rhetoric of counterterrorism to suppress dissent in Sri Lanka,” said Adams. “This is an extremely disturbing turn in a country with a long tradition of free speech even during times of conflict.”
Human Rights Watch found that the Karuna group, a Tamil armed group that split from the LTTE in 2004 and now cooperates with Sri Lankan forces against the LTTE, continues to abduct and forcibly recruit children and young men into its force with the complicity or acquiescence of the Sri Lankan government. UNICEF has documented 145 cases of recruitment and re-recruitment of children by the Karuna group since December 2006, and the real number is most likely higher.
The Karuna group has also kidnapped for ransom scores of Tamil businessmen in Batticaloa, Vavuniya, and the capital Colombo. Despite repeated promises to investigate state complicity in Karuna group abductions, the government has thus far not indicated that it has taken any steps to investigate, and the abductions have continued unabated.
In a January 2007 report, Human Rights Watch documented the pattern of Karuna abductions with the complicity or willful blindness of the Sri Lankan government.
Impunity for human rights violations by government security forces, long a problem in Sri Lanka, remains a disturbing norm. As the conflict intensifies and government forces are implicated in a longer list of abuses, the government has displayed a clear unwillingness to hold accountable those responsible for serious violations.
A Presidential Commission of Inquiry created in 2006 to examine specific cases of serious human rights abuse by the government and the LTTE has proven inadequate to handle the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, the report concludes. The commission seems an effort to stave off domestic and international criticism rather than a sincere attempt to promote accountability and to deter future abuse.
“The government has repeatedly promised to end and investigate abuses, but has shown a lack of political will to take effective steps,” Adams said. “Government institutions have proven unable or unwilling to deal with the scale and intensity of abuse.”
Human Rights Watch called on Sri Lanka’s international donors to use their leverage with both the government and the LTTE to encourage respect for international law, including the protection of civilians during hostilities. International aid is one lever, and governments such as the United Kingdom and Germany have recently elected to limit aid until government practices improve.
Concerned states should also work within the United Nations Human Rights Council to initiate and support strong Council resolutions on Sri Lanka to encourage a change in practices of both the government and the LTTE, the report said.
Most importantly, concerned countries and the Sri Lankan government should work to establish a UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report on abuses by the government, the LTTE and the Karuna group.
“A UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka would help protect civilians, end impunity and promote a resolution to the conflict that respects human rights,” Adams said.
August 6th, 2007
By Dharman Dharmaratnam
The Eastern Province has a land area of 9,361 square kilometers (3,613 square miles). The Tamils have had a presence in the region that goes back two millenia. Successive post-independence governments in Sri Lanka, backed by hardline Sinhalese nationalists, have attempted to deny the Tamil Hindu character of the region. They have attempted to do so through dubious efforts to distort history. This entails a highly selective read of the Pali and Sinhalese historical chronicles while suppressing the Sanskrit and Tamil literary evidence, the evidence of archeology and the records of outside travelers to the contrary.
This attempt to Sinhalize the East and to give it an exclusively Buddhist historical color is seen in the efforts of the current Percy Mahinda Rajapakse administration. It is a naked attempt to grab Tamil land and to de-Tamilize it using history as one tool of many to legitimize the Sinhalization of the East. The declaration of Sampur as a High Security Zone, failed attempts to secure UNESCO World Heritage status for Seruvila, the demerger of the North and the East, the Government’s Neganihara Navodaya program, and post-Thoppigala celebrations are examples. There is a veritable industry to roll back the Tamil character of the region.
This article presents some of the rich evidence that demonstrates the centuries old Tamil Hindu presence in the region. The East has been Tamil despite the efforts of independent Sri Lanka to settle Sinhalese peasants through land colonization schemes of dubious economic value.
Early Iron Age
Megalithic urn burials have been excavated in Kathiraveli in the Batticaloa district and north of Nilaveli in the Trincomalee district. This included black and red ware pottery tentatively dated to the 3rd century BCE and iron tools (Sudarshan Senivaratne, The Archeology of the Megalithic Black and Red Ware Complex in Sri Lanka, Ancient Ceylon, 1984). The ethnicity of these people can not be verified but remarkable parallels exist between these urn burials and those excavated in the Kaveri, Ponnaiyar, Tamraparani and Vaigai rivers in Tamil Nadu. Similar sites have been excavated in the Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mannar districts. The Jaffna islands and the Aruvi Aru, Elapat Aru, Modarakam Aru and Kal Aru basins stand out. North Sri Lanka shared the same early iron age culture as did Tamil Nadu. Preliminary evidence suggests that the ‘megalithic culture’ witnessed the introduction of iron, the potters wheel, the plough, rice cultivation and minor tank irrigation.
Trincomalee
The Siva temple at Trincomalee known as Koneswaram is of considerable antiquity despite the strenuous efforts of Sinhalese nationalist historians to deny the Tamil Hindu character of the ancient port city. The earliest reference to a Hindu temple is in fact the Pali chronicle, the Mahavamsa, where chapter 35, verses 40 to 41, indicate that King Mahasena destroyed three ‘Deva temples’ in Gokarna (Trincomalee), Erakavilla (Eravur?) and in the village of the Brahmin Kalanda to atone for his defiance of orthodox Theravada Buddhism. He reportedly built Buddhist viharas in their place. This was in the 4th century CE.
Gokarna in Sanskrit translates as the “cow’s ear” and signifies a place of Saivite Hindu worship. The place name Gokarna recurs in western Karnataka and in Nepal, where both sites boast of ancient Siva temples! The Buddhist vihara evidentally did not last long if one were to accept the tradition of the Vayu Purana dated to the 4th century CE. Chapter 48, verses 20 to 30, refers to the ‘Siva temple on Trikuta hill on the Eastern coast of Lanka’. While Sinhalese nationalist historians have tried to put a spin on the alleged Buddhist antecedents of Trincomalee, the evidence is clear that the ancient port city of Trincomalee or Gokarna was a Hindu place of worship since antiquity. Further, the Tamil Saivite saint Tiru Gnanasambandar sang of the glories of the Siva temple in Trincomalee in the 7th century. The Nilaveli inscription in the 10th century refers to a land grant made to this temple.
An 8th century Sanskrit inscription was excavated in Tiriyai. The inscription engraved in the South Indian Grantha script, refers to merchant mariners from Tamil Nadu who endowed this Mahayana Buddhist shrine dedicated to the Bodhisatva Avalokitesvara and his consort Tara. It was interesting that the inscription was recorded in Sanskrit and not in Pali. Neither was it inscribed in early Sinhalese characters. It relied on the South Indian Grantha script instead. Neither was Thiriyai a Theravada Buddhist sanctuary dominant in Sinhalese history. The Grantha alphabet was used to write Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu and is similar to the contemporary Malayalam script!
The inscriptions dated to the kings Udaya III and Mahinda IV in the 10th century refer to Tamil lands (Demel gam bim) in the eastern coast of Sri Lanka.
The Cholas
The Chola interlude in Sri Lanka’s history dated from 993 CE to 1070 CE. This period marked a deepening of the Tamil historical presence in the East. Inscriptions dated to this period refer to a Tamil village in Kantalai called Chatur Vedimangalam. This village, consecrated to the performance of Hindu religious rituals, had a local assembly that administered the community. (S. Gunasingham, Trincomalee Inscription Series, Peradeniya, 1974). Archeological ruins dated to the Chola period have been excavated in Trincomalee, Kantalai and Padavikulam. (S. Pathmanathan, The Kingdom of Jaffna, Colombo, 1978, page 44).
Chola-era inscriptions record the activities of Tamil mercantile communities in Padavikulam (renamed Padavi Siripura in Sinhalese). The mercantile groups referred to were the Ticai Aayirattu Ain Nurruvar (Velupillai, Ceylon Tamil Inscriptions, Peradeniya, 1971) and the Ayyavole. Taniyappan, a mercant from Padavikulam, laid a foundation stone for a Siva temple there. A Tamil inscription by Raja Raja Chola refers to Ravi Kulamanikkeswaram Siva Temple in Padavikulam. (K. Indrapala, Epigraphia Tamilica, Jaffna Archeological Society, 1971 – page 34). A 13th century Sanskrit inscription excavated here mentions a Brahmin village in the area. The paddy fields of Padavikulam were watered by the Per Aru river (renamed Ma Oya in Sinhalese).
The Cholas also expanded a Buddhist shrine, Vilgam Vihara, which they called Raja Raja Perumpalli near Mudalikulam (renamed Moraweva in Sinhalese). Other inscriptions mention a Chola prince – by the name of Lankeshwara Devar who administered Trincomalee.
A 12th century Tamil inscription from Kantalai refers to the Siva temple of Ten Kailasam. (Epigraphia Zeylanica). Another inscription from Palamottai from the Trincomalee district records a monetary endowment to a Hindu temple by a Tamil widow for the merit of her husband. This was administered by a member of the Tamil military caste – the Velaikkarar (Epigraphia Zeylanica, Volume 4, Number 20).
Chola era inscriptions refer to a settlement of the Velaikkarar in Kottiyaaram, known today as Sampur and Mutur. Kottiyaaram was divided into two Chola administrative units i.e. Raja Raja Valanadu and Vikrama Chola Valanadu. (T.N. Subramaniam, South Indian Temple Inscriptions, Madras 1953). These examples prove without doubt that the Trincomalee district had a distinct Tamil Hindu presence in the 11th and 12th centuries, a point denied by the Sinhalese nationalist historians of today who legitimize attempts to suppress evidence of the Tamil historical presence.
The Pali chronicle, the Culavamsa, mentions that King Aggabodhi II built an irrigation tank in Gangatata in the 7th century. Latter day Sinhalese nationalists identify Gangatata with Kantalai but the link is unclear. Tamil literary sources of a later date acribe Kantalai reservoir to Kulakoddan, a Chola prince. The evidence is once again uncertain.
Magha of Kalinga
The invasion of Magha of Kalinga (Orissa) in 1215 CE deepened the Tamil historical presence in the East. Chapter 83 of the Culavamsa refers to Magha’s garrisons in Kottiyaaram, Trincomalee, Kantalai, Kattukulam and Padavikulam. The temple of Tirukovil in the Amparai district was built by Magha (Ceylon Tamil Inscriptions, page 6). Archeological evidence indicates that the Siva temple in Kokkadicholai in the Batticaloa district dated to his time i.e. the 13th century.
The Tamil lands of what is today Amparai and Batticaloa were traditionally divided into several principalities or ‘pattus’. These included Manmunai-pattu, Palukamam-pattu, Natukaatu, Eravur-pattu, Porativu-pattu and Koralaipattu. Pattu in Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam denotes a territorial division consisting of several villages ( T.V. Mahalingham, Administrative and Social Life under the Vijayanagara, P 81). Medieval Tamil texts dated to the 15th and 16th centuries, such as the Mattakalapu Manmiyam, the Konesar Kalvettu and the Dakshina Kailasa Puranam, not to mention the later Mattakalapu Purva Caritram, provide useful insights on the political conditions in what is today the Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts in the 13, 14 and 15th centuries. Sinhalese nationalist historians question the historical rigor of such textual evidence but the same critique could then be applied to the traditional Buddhist chronicles in Sri Lanka such as the Mahavamsa, the Culavamsa and the Pujavaliya!
The Vaiya Paadal, a late Tamil historical text dated to the 17th century, refers to the Brahmin Cupatittu who ruled Tiriyai, a Aanasingam who administered Kattukulampattu, a Maamukan who ruled Verukal and Thampalakamam, and a Mayilan who ruled over Kottiyaaram in the 1400s CE. The arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century and of the Dutch in the 17th century led to turbulence in the eastern districts of Ceylon. Many of the old Tamil principalities sought protection from the Kandyan kings. But this does not deny the early Tamil presence in what is today the Eastern Province. Muslims from Sri Lanka’s west coast fled to Kandy to seek protection from the Portuguese and were resettled on lands in what is today Amparai. The Kandyan kingdom was itself a multi ethnic one. The last four kings there were infact from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu! One Kandyan king built the Siva temple in Thampalakamam in the early 1700s.
While Buddhist remains in the East such as Deeghavapi and Seruvila do exist, these do not detract from the early Tamil association with the region just as the Tamil Hindu historical presence in the deep south of the island does not remove from the Sinhala character of the latter. I have highlighted a few of the many pieces of evidence that proves that the Tamil presence in the East is of considerable antiquity. The Tamils were a clear cut majority in that region until post-independent governments resettled Sinhalese in the region. Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism endeavors to suppress the historical evidence, but facts are stubborn. The Tamil Hindu historical claims to the East will not be forfeited regardless of the attempts by Percy Mahinda Rajapakse to transform the ethnic character of that land.
August 5th, 2007
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
The economy has ever been the weakest link of SLFP led governments. The current administration is no exception to this general rule. The regime’s handling of economic issues is characterised by incomprehension akin to senselessness, sanguinity akin to frivolousness and unconcern akin to ruthlessness. If the existence of an unbridgeable chasm between objective reality and its subjective perception is what makes and marks the insane, the label of economic insanity would not be inappropriate for the Rajapakse administration.
On midnight, last Saturday, fuel prices went up, again. Five days later milk powder prices went up, again. According to a list compiled by Bloomberg Sri Lankan Rupee has the dubious honour of being the fifth worse performing currency in the world. The connection between price hikes and the debilitation of the Rupee is self-evident – as long as the Rupee continues to weaken price hikes would be unavoidable, which, in turn, will contribute to the further weakening of both the economy and the currency. As economic woes exacerbate, the regime clings harder to its myth of economic well-being. Ministers announce unreal price reductions and hail non-existent development successes. A mood of collective dementia prevails when economic issues are under discussion.
The worsening financial crisis is not the sole danger point. Our international situation is more precarious than it has been for decades. A particular cause for concern is an observation made by the head of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans about the applicability of the Right to Protect (R2P) doctrine to Sri Lanka, particularly in the context of a full scale Northern War. Though direct military intervention is unlikely, there exists a very real possibility of the international community effecting political, economic and legal measures against Sri Lanka, if the Lankan Forces commit major human rights violations in the coming Northern war.
Our Imaginary World
An independent and sovereign country cannot permit the world to decide its national agenda. However a rational government, in constructing the national agenda, cannot ignore the concerns of the international community nor act totally at variance with these concerns. If a country is financially dependent on external sources, as Sri Lanka is, political autarky becomes even more unaffordable. Such a country should try to take a sober view of its problems, prospects and options and come up with the most optimum compromise possible, by balancing varying and conflicting interests.
Eastern reconstruction is a case in point. Normalcy cannot return to the East without development, which requires substantial influxes of foreign aid and investment. This necessary international funding will not be forthcoming if the regime tries to implement a Sinhala First agenda in the East. If there is discrimination against the minorities in reconstruction and resettlement, if human rights violations continue in the name of pacification, if state sponsored colonisation schemes are undertaken, if elections are manifestly unfree and unfair, foreign funding will be jeopardised. For Eastern development to happen in reality (and not just in the regime’s febrile imagination) attention must be paid to minority interests and international concerns. If we do not, funds will be unavailable, the East will rut and the Tiger’s dream will come true.
The LTTE is not like the IRA or the ANC. Its mental landscape is the polar opposite of the mental landscapes of these and countless other national liberation organisations. Therefore trying for a negotiated settlement with the LTTE is an exercise in futility. Though the Rajapakse administration would be loath to admit it, the best counter to the attempt to push the country back into an appeasement process is the fact that the Tigers helped engineer the defeat of the unquestionably pro-LTTE Ranil Wickremesinghe at the last Presidential election. If the Tigers could be satisfied with even a de facto Eelam they would have allowed Mr. Wickremesinghe to win. But the Tigers want nothing less than de jure Eelam, won in battle. Consequently they will never agree to any political solution to the ethnic problem, however generous.
Given the maximalist nature of the LTTE the Northern war is unavoidable. The Tigers will begin it, at a time favourable to them, even if Colombo does not. The regime has no choice but to prepare for the war. This necessitates not only new weapons and new recruits, but also the support of Tamils (and Muslims) and the world. A real – and not just verbal – commitment to the protection of human rights and a sensible power sharing package based on democratic devolution are thus imperative for a successful Northern war against the Tigers.
The world will understand and accept that Sri Lanka cannot be bifurcated; it will understand and accept that terrorism must be resisted. But as long Colombo is perceived to be permissive towards rights violations and a political solution to the ethnic problem remains in abeyance, neither the Tamils nor the international community will be willing to ditch the Tigers completely. After all, if the Tigers cease to exist tomorrow, would the regime and the Sinhala polity agree to devolve power to the North and the East? If there is no Vellupillai Pirapaharan, will we see any political currency in a Douglas Devananda or a V. Anandasangaree? Since the regime does not believe in the existence of an ethnic problem independent of the LTTE, will we not return to that time before Eelam wars, when legal measures, interspersed with outbursts of violence, were used to keep the ‘encroaching’ Tamils in check?
Last month marked the 24th anniversary of Black July – the time we taught our Tamils, in the most unmistakable and unforgettable manner, that they need a protector who is at least as vicious as we can be on occasion. As the 2006 mini-riot in Trincomalee demonstrated, when we think Tamils are weak (and there is a tough regime committed to Sinhala rather than Sri Lankan interests), we have no compunctions about resorting to violence to teach ‘encroaching Tamils’ their place. (After all the first anti-Tamil riot happened when Mr. Pirapaharan was a toddler and the LTTE did not exist). The Trinco mini-riot could have developed into a full blown one, as it had the backing of certain state actors, had it not been for Indian ‘intervention’. Therein lies the crux of the matter – that it took outside intervention, in the form of a call by the Indian PM, for Lankan authorities to quell the attack on Tamils. The lesson of that incident would be lost neither on the Tamils nor on the international community. Sri Lankan state – or at least some Sri Lankan regimes – cannot be trusted to protect the country’s Tamil citizens and therefore they need non-state actors or external players as protectors.
As the Northern war is not sustainable without international assistance, it behoves the regime to take some urgent steps to prove its commitment to basic rights and to democratic devolution. If the war happens before these political preconditions are in place, we will find ourselves facing an insurmountable financial crunch and perhaps even military sanctions. That is what Gareth Evans was hinting at, and we can ignore this warning only at our own peril.
History’s Prisoners
Sinhala Buddhists are an endangered species, politically, economically, socio-culturally and demographically. Sri Lanka is the ‘One and Only country’ which is constantly in danger of being defeated by external enemies or subverted by internal foes. Much of what happened to Sri Lanka in her post-Independence history are sourced in these twin beliefs, the irrational fears they gave rise to and the maniacal manner in which we reacted to those fears. That our case is far from unique, that there are many ethnic/ethno-religious communities faced with similar circumstances would in no way diminish our fear psychosis. Blinded by our own myths we see enemies on all sides, and therefore embrace positions which all too often unite the many against us.
Our belief of the perpetually endangered ‘One and Only Country’ turns the defence of ‘living space’ – land – into a sacred duty, a duty to be carried out, irrespective of the cost, to others and to us. Thus living space – the notorious Lebensraum – becomes a determinant factor, at the local and the national level, in renting a house or in devolving power. In this worldview, the enemy can be a Tamil householder, a Muslim merchant or a Christian pastor as much as a gun toting Tiger. Traces of this psychological condition can be found in our historical memory; the best case in point being the lament of young Prince Gamini (King Dutugemunu) to his mother: “Over there beyond the Ganga are the Damilas, here on this other side is the Gotha-ocean, how can I lie with outstretched limbs?” (Mahavamsa). For Sinhala supremacists, this lament is expressive of our current predicament vis-ˆ-vis minorities in general and Tamils in particular. And nowhere would this fear of encroachment, of encirclement seem more pertinent than in the pluralist East.
The story of King Dutugemunu’s conscience is as important as his lament about shrinking living space. The victorious king tells the eight arhats of Piyangudipa about his regret at having caused ‘the slaughter of a great host numbering millions’. They reply, “From this deed arises no hindrance in thy way to heaven. Only one and a half human beings have been slain here by theeÉ The one had come unto the (three) refuges, the other had taken on himself the five precepts. Unbelievers and men of evil life were the rest, not more to be esteemed than beasts” (ibid). A religion that is premised on loving kindness to all living beings is thus made to stand on its head, so that the slaughter of innumerable humans in the name of faith can be justified. This declaration – that the slaughter of enemies of the race is not a sin because the survival of the faith is interwoven with the survival of the race – probably marks the point of conscious transformation of Buddhism into Sinhala Buddhism. This Sinhala-Buddhism – as distinct from Buddhism – is inherently incapable of acting as a restraint on horrors such as Black July or on human rights violations, if the targets are the enemies of the ‘religious-nation’. The following comment by JHU parliamentarian Ven. Ellawala Medhananda indicates the divisive and destructive potential embedded in this racial-religion:
Q: “As compensation for defamation you have requested Rs. 2.5 billion. Why such an exorbitant amount? Wouldn’t a public apology suffice?”
A: “It is tit for tat. If they come with sword, we answer with sword. If they come with kindness, we answer with kindness. Otherwise you cannot live in this world. Even Lord Buddha approved of this and said that you should not remain silent in the face of provocation. The proper response should be given when the situation demands it” (The Nation – 22.7.2007)
A poster currently on display in Nugegoda (by a new organisation), warns of alien conspiracies to kill Sinhala Buddhists through accidents and diseases The political and economic dangers ahead of us cannot be met if we succumb to unreason, regarding minorities as inherently untrustworthy and suspecting them of conspiring to take our country away from us, either for their exclusive use or to hand over to a foreign power. The politico-financial conditions needed for a successful Northern war cannot be achieved if we adopt a policy of ‘tit for tat’, failing to act with restraint towards civilian Tamils and justifying the wrongs we commit by hiding behind Tiger crimes. That after all is the Way of Vellupillai Pirapaharan – he used Black July to justify Black Tigers and declared all those not with the Tigers ‘enemies of the nation’. And he has brought his people to the very brink of ruin
COURTESY:SUNDAY ISLAND
August 5th, 2007
By Prof. Kumar David
It seems that Ranil Wickremasinghe has decided to put his eggs in the Mango basket – no innuendo implied! He is willing to ignore the displeasure of SB Dissanayake and others and offer Mangala Samaraweera the number two position in a possible future UNP led government. Chandrika Kumaratunga’s electorally useful and SLFP-destabilising support has, obviously, been prearranged and, counting his chickens before they are hatched, Ranil seems to believe that about 17 SLFPers are biding their time to follow the Mango trail at an opportune moment. It is also being said that some of the Karu – Rajitha earthworms may shunt backwards again. Why earthworms? When I was a kid and played in the mud, earthworms looked like they had a head at each end and shunted in either direction, with equal ease, in search of filth.
The game plan however is to widen the net and build a far wider alliance to be known as the National Convention (NC). It is known that a large and varied – to say motley would be unfair – collection of entities has been approached. Numerous NGOs, small left parties, women’s organisations and individuals have been courted; surely the CWC, Hakeem’s Muslim Congress and Mano Ganesan’s Western Peoples’ Front have been sounded.
Ubiquity, however, makes the ideological spectrum so wide that many are perplexed and uncertain whether to yield to the temptation or not. Take for example the United Socialist Party (Siritunga Jayasuriya) and the New Left Front (Wickremabahu Karunaratne), red in tooth and claw, on the one hand, and say the Centre for Policy Alternatives (Pakiasothy Savaranamuthu) closely associated with the neo-liberal agenda on the other. I am aware that the first two have been approached and are mulling over the proposal, while I presume the latter, a seasoned UNP fellow traveller, will certainly participate in the NC. On socio – economic perspectives, relationships with global capitalism and the stance on Washington are worlds apart, so it’s going to be a pretty bewildering menagerie.
Within the NGO scene itself a variety of ideological orientations are manifest – pre – modern Luddites, an assortment of anti – globalisation activists, pro-business lobbies, neo-liberals, black and white or yellow robed eminences of the faith, professional associations and learned societies. It is too early to say what success the NC recruitment drive will manage, but it is known that some at least of those named here have agreed to sign up. What could they have in common? What common programme can bind them together?
The common minimum programme at its seductive minimum is that all good and true men should unite to abolish human rights violations, protect democracy, search for a negotiated peace as opposed to the government’s war option, and eliminate corruption. The erosion in the body politic in these respects has been so dreadful in recent times that a mass expression of public revulsion is justified. There also seems to be a growing consensus within the emerging NC grouping that federalism is the answer to the national question.
To add grist to this mill, the Rajapakse Brotherhood and the close military and civilian cabal through which it functions has accumulated so much opprobrium in the last eighteen months that there is a straightforward adversary whom these forces identify as logical to unite against. Finally, the quantum difference between the federalism/devolution option and the SLFP – JVP – JHU formula marks an unmistakable watershed.
There is no denying that the government has committed hara – kiri, it has shot itself in the foot, the mouth and the vitals. To put it in the simplest possible words, the state of the nation is very, very, bad, and in the public mind the erstwhile steward is held indisputably culpable. Therefore the war euphoria will count for nought if it soon becomes election time. In a worst case scenario, if the multi – million rupee LTTE payoff scandal is substantiated to a degree, it will evoke serious political instability. Even if this story is proved apocryphal there seems little hope that the government can raise its head again.
The omni – party opposition now readying to mount the barricades has got the taste of blood, and, who knows, perhaps nothing will hold back the baying pack anymore.
It is easier to go for the Government’s jugular than to know what to do on the morrow. Let’s face it, as far as Ranil and the UNP are concerned it’s not just about democracy, probity and human rights, that is just in passing, it is all about the next elections and forming the next government. The NC, for Ranil and his Mangoes, is an electoral alliance in the making. On the other hand, for the left and radical political parties and for activist NGOs, the need of the hour is for a fighting issue based alliance and campaign; for them a mechanism for putting a UNP – Mango – Chandrika government in power is anathema. So there’s the rub. They are caught by the short and curlies; it is not possible to refuse to join a struggle on these issues, but it is obvious that the jam is for the UNP and its allies. It will be most interesting to watch how the different players resolve these conflicting interests in the next six months. The talk in town is that the Government will be spared its final denouncement till about December, as a simple political commentator not a soothsayer, I have no views to offer in respect of the timeline, but will keep the political commentary on the NC abreast of events for kind readers who will indulge me with a little attention.
August 2nd, 2007
By Rajpal Abeynayake
See something clearly – see a double standard?
Ven. Somarama, an ordained Buddhist monk pulled the trigger on S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the man who ushered in the sanga veda guru govi kamkaru Sinhala Buddhist revival of 1956.
Bandaraniake died as a result. Somarama and his mentor, the senior Ven. Buddharakitha were jailed and sentenced to die, in the sensational assassination case that followed.
Universal condemnation followed the shooting of Bandaranaike, the man widely credited with the post Dharmapala Sinhala Buddhist resurgence.
From every buth kadde to every appa kadde from Dompe to Dondra to Angunakollapelessa, outrage was expressed at the assassination engineered by monks who were antagonized by Bandaranaike’s shipping-policy that did not cater to the business whims of the wheeler dealing monks. The condemnation was righteous – - and aptly so. Bandaranaike himself had previously referred to Buddharakitha as ‘that buddy Racketeer” (hilariously corrupted in some quasi literate Colombo circles as “bloody racketeer”…) in those more spacious times when the silver tongued champion of the Sinhala people could get away with anything.
Bandaranaike was subsequently vindicated anyhow — if he did indeed make those remarks. Hours before his death he said ‘a foolish man in yellow robes shot me’ — and asked for forgiveness for the assassin.
But that did not inure the monks from the universal reproach that was to follow – - from every tea boutique and every temple and isthopuwa in this country.
The matter is settled therefore. It’s not as if Buddhist monks are beyond reproach. Precedent has it that one does not need a nod from a Sangaha Councilor Sabha to reproach a Buddhist monk — and precedent has it that the rights to the reproaching of a Buddhist monk are not preserve of other monks only. That very thought that such rights are limited to monks, expressed by some recently minted pundit, would have been repugnant to those who looked upon the Bandaranaike assassination as a heinous act of subterfuge that invited the fullest censure possible from the collective elements that formed Sri Lankan society then.
So it’s not the censure of the monks that is at issue; it’s the nature and the extent of the crime or the transgression.
What must be settled, is not whether monks could be subject to lay censure, but what the effective bar is? Where could the tables turn, and when could laity in this country of ostensible piety, turn around and censure the monks?
Ranil Wickremesinghe came in for some strong invective last week, for his words of censure on some alleged acts of two Buddhist monks belonging to a certain political party.
It appears that the polity in general did not consider that Wickremesinghe’s censure had qualified by passing the bar. The act or the alleged act of the monks, was not qualifying for censure, even from the leader of the Opposition. Or so it was said by many.
Perhaps it was Wickremesinghe’s characterization of the Thoppigala victory as a ‘overrunning of a jungle’ that was the greater of his faux pas of the fortnight.
It’s difficult to enter into debate as to whether Wickremsinghe’s censure of the monks passed the bar or didn’t. Such is the nature of our polity. In certain matters, even the discourse is shut out completely.
But, while we reserve comment on whether Wickremesinghe’s comments called for a rap on the knuckles or not, its curious to observe the glaring double standard that hides behind all of the words that were uttered in censure of Wickremesinghe for his censure of the monks last week.
There was a time when one Mervyn Silva manhandled the gonads of one of those JHU MPs in parliament, and also a time when almost the entirety of the Government benches spewed invective over the behavior of the monks when they voted against the Government in the election of the Speaker.
This is not something that I’m inventing. The JHU monk is on record saying that his gonads were manhandled, and the TV footage is there to examine. This story was quoted widely in the wire services; I was in Bangkok, and I distinctly remember a friend saying he read it over the wires. Anyway, who doesn’t remember this?
About the time the JHU abstained in the election of the Speaker, thus facilitating the election of a UNP speaker, those such as Wimal Weerwansa went on record calling the JHU monks the “Jathika Hela Karumaya’. (”The Hela National Curse.”) Some said the monks have turned Buddhism on its head; the Buddhist philosophy was for forgiveness, they said, not the Judaic philosophy of ‘an eye for an eye.”
We did not hear a whimper about the Sanga Sabha having to endorse any of those vituperative comments against the monkhood at the time they were aired.
Or do we have to suppose then, that the Sangha sabha did indeed endorse the manhandling of a monk’s gonads/privates? As we say, who knows, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s allegations did not pass the bar for being passable to qualify as criticism of the monks. But for a nation that seemed to condone the manhandling of a monks gonads (Mervyn De Silva has not moved an inch out of parliament) the furore over Wickremsinghe’s statements about the JHU seems – - to say the least — too curious. It seems that our gonad filibustering parliamentarians want Wickremesinghe to play in an entirely different ballpark.
COURTESY:Lakbima News
August 2nd, 2007
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