Archive for January, 2008
by Rajan Philips
The candidates are off and running in the year long marathon that will determine the successor to George W. Bush and bring to an unremarkable end his beleaguered presidency of eight years. The 2008 presidential election is expected to be a decisive verdict against the incumbent Republican President, and the Democratic Party has to do something really stupid to lose this one. Even if a Republican victory were to materialize, although highly unlikely as things stand, it will not be because of President Bush but in spite of him. Such is his stock in the land that no Republican candidate is ready to risk the mention of President Bush in the campaign, let alone solicit his involvement.
Bush was a surprising and controversial winner in the 2000 election that was remarkable for the lackluster campaign of the then Vice President and Democratic candidate Al Gore, the Florida fiasco over voting chads, and the intervention of the Supreme Court to pick George Bush as the winner despite his losing the popular vote to Gore. Dismissed as a one term nondescript, President Bush found his moment nine months into his presidency, in the aftermath of 9/11, and transformed himself as a war President, first pummeling Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11 and then invading Iraq without justification. Because of the war he easily won reelection in 2004, without it he would not have lasted beyond the first term. Bush would have also found it uncomplicated and easy to lead America into war than to manage the routine tasks of the world’s most complex administration. It is the same old story whether in the big US or little Lanka-war is elemental and elementally popular, but civil administration and making peace require cerebral stuff.
America is reaping the harvest of what Bush sowed. Afghanistan has flared up again and the fire is spreading to Pakistan, while the war in Iraq has proved every official prediction, including the Presidential declaration of victory, wrong. If the American people were ready to rebuke him just for that, they now have an even more pressing reason to punish their President. “It’s the economy, stupid”. That was Bill Clinton’s rallying message, crafted by his wily strategist, James Carville, for the 1996 election, but there is a difference now. It was then a message of empathy to the swing voters who wanted their President to feel their pain. Now the whole country wants someone to fix its pain.
Election and the economy
And the pain has spread globally causing stock markets to tumble from London to Sydney. America is heading towards a recession if it is not already in one, the pundits say, some of whom have also let out the ‘S’ word-stagflation, the scourge of the 1970s and 1980s. It is the deadly cocktail of economic stagnation and sustained inflation. The Administration is categorically dismissing stagflation warning as scaremongering and insists that the numbers (unemployment rate plus inflation rate) are nowhere as bad as they were in the 1970s. The price of oil was a major factor in the 1970s, while it is being brought down by the current downturn. There are new factors now, both local and global.
The immediate cause of the current crisis is the business of sub-prime mortgage loans in the US, a crisis that illustrates well the market madness and its global reach. The madness of mortgage lending targeted the have-less of American society-a majority of them African Americans, with lending agents inducing vulnerable homeowners to take a second mortgage or a home renovation loan on low start-up interest rates without explaining to them that the interest rates and the monthly payments will increase rapidly after one or two years. In many instances, lenders worked in collusion with corrupt and sometimes phoney building inspectors. The inspectors would first warn vulnerable homeowners that their dwellings were sub-standard and required fixing to avoid penalties, and were followed by lenders with the paperwork to sign up loans. When the mortgagees with fixed and limited incomes invariably fell back on their monthly payments as the interest rates went up, the banks called for foreclosures and the upshot has been a wildfire of diminishing property values, home evacuations and bankruptcies.
Home ownership is central to the “American Dream” and its realization throughout the twentieth century has been the result of America’s vast natural endowments of land and materials, a highly productive home-building technology, and the facility of financial credit as mortgage that home buyers are able to pay off during their working life. Housing construction starts and sales became a strong indicator of the state of the economy. During the housing booms before the depression and after the War, however, many African Americans and poor new immigrants were shut out of this dream because of their low income and lack of creditworthiness. The areas where they lived were notoriously ‘redlined’ (on maps) and disqualified for loans by banks and lenders. In a perversely historical irony, lending institutions have now been targeting low-income African Americans in the sub-prime loans swindle.
[Watching the volatile Sensex, on Mon Jan 21, 2008-Pic Courtesy NYTimes.com]
The global spread of this crisis was caused by the primary lenders repackaging their loans and selling them up as secure investments through the global chain of financial institutions and investors. As the housing loans started going bad in American towns and cities, the ramifications spread up as well causing share prices to fall and credits to be reduced. The traditionally cautious Indians who were lured into playing the Mumbai stock market for quick earnings have become bitter for the experience. The Bush Administration and its free market advisors saw the financial storm brewing but chose to leave the market alone to regularize itself. The logic that the market got screwed in the first place by unscrupulous lenders and needed state intervention, and not just the “hidden hand”, to stop the mess did not obviously appeal to the Administration.
The story would have been different if the crisis had originated in China or India, as indeed was the case during the Sars and Avian Flu pandemics when every relevant international agency was ordered to step in and do some thing. Bush finally acted a week ago when the hemorrhage in America became too serious to be ignored in an election year. However, his stimulus package of $150 billion has been criticized as too little, too late, and his economic performance is causing greater concern than his failure in Iraq. The onset of recession has made the economy more than a partisan issue, and the presidential candidates from both parties are challenged, not just to criticize Bush, but to show how they would lead America out of its difficulties.
The long way to the White House
Bush inherited a prospering economy from President Clinton, although as the Clinton Administration objectively acknowledged, it was (computer) technology more than presidential policy that was the main source of high economic growth and low unemployment, not to mention the hi-tech boom, of the 1990s. Early in the election year of 2000, before the first election of George Bush, technology gurus were confident that the computer revolution had enough steam left in it not to require a great man as President, but only someone who wouldn’t do too much damage. Paul Krugman, the Economist, called it “reassuring thought” given the likely choices at that time.
[President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton at a Campaign stop in Davenport, IA]
Eight years later, it is clear that Bush has belied that reassurance by being damagingly ordinary. He has presided over war-driven increases in debt and deficit, and implemented regressive tax breaks favouring the top 20% of Americans. Bush’s privatization agenda has worsened the problems of social security of aging Americans retiring from the workforce, and aggravated the health care and education concerns of more than half the Americans. By Krugman’s measure, America needs a great President now, and the question then is whether there are any among the aspiring candidates with the potential to be great. The next President, whether great or not, will have a plateful-not only pulling the nation’s economy out of a recession but also pulling its troops out of Iraq, not to mention the long list of priorities at home and the continuing challenge of defining America’s relationship to the ‘globalized’ world.
[Sen. John McCain was held captive in Vietnam-Pics: John McCain.com]
None of the candidates running to succeed George Bush has shown any outstanding potential for greatness, although most of them have greater qualifications than President Bush had when he won the presidency. On the Republican side, the field is still open as to who will be the eventual nominee for the Party, although the signs are that John McCain will win the Republican ticket. A longstanding Senator from the State of Arizona, son and grandson of two Navy Admirals, and a respected Vietnam war veteran, McCain is a socially progressive fiscal conservative and one of his more popular policy planks is his commitment to reform the opaque and corrupt system of financing political campaigns in the US. On the Iraq front, he was initially skeptical about the US going into war without a UN mandate, but he is now opposed to the US pulling out without finishing the job. His main hope and strength in the presidential campaign leading to the election in November will be his capacity to attract independent swing voters and form a winning coalition with the traditional Republican core voters.
The candidates to beat are of course on the Democratic side, with Senators Hillary Clinton (New York) and Barack Hussein Obama (Illinois) being the two clear contenders for the Democratic ticket. Senator Clinton, former First Lady and wife of President Bill Clinton, is eminently qualified to enter the White House in her own right, but having been the front runner for over an year, her campaign suffers from appearing to be a little too choreographed and managed. Senator Obama, on the other hand, is a fresh face on the political stage and capable of oratorical flights that are a fusion of Robert Kennedy’s inspiring idealism and Martin Luther King’s verbal cadences. Obama’s weakness is that his spontaneity comes with the sense of being a little too green and a little too much in a hurry for the big office.
[Barack Obama's Candidacy Announcement, Springfield, IL, Feb 10, 2007]
The zeal and zest to their respective campaigns stem from Hillary Clinton’s gender-as the first woman to have a good shot at the presidency, and Obama’s race-the son of a Kenyan father and white middle-class American mother, and the first man of colour to have an equally good shot. Although both insist that the election is not about race or gender, it has overtones of both and in complex ways. Hillary Clinton was the first choice among African Americans, Hispanics and low-income Americans until Obama entered the fray. Her advantage of having the conjugal support of President Clinton whom many African Americans fondly consider to be the first Black President in American history, is being steadily diluted by the Obama campaign and the fillip it received from the endorsement by the popular African American talk-show hostess, Oprah Winfrey. Hillary has the endorsements of many other African American leaders, especially the Church ministers, although the congregations are leaning towards Obama. Among the Whites, Obama is attracting the support of more educated, young and high-income groups, while Hillary has the backing of the opposing cohorts. Hillary also has the bigger support among the Hispanics, the second largest minority groups after African Americans, and it is the split between these two groups that is the source of new racial tensions.
It is still early days in the long journey to the White House, and the candidates are vigorously campaigning in the primaries to win the nomination of their respective parties. The system of primaries is over hundred years old and was introduced to directly involve the voters in the selection of candidates rather than have them anointed by party bosses. Primaries or variations of them are held in each state to select the delegates who will ultimately vote for the candidate in the Party conventions held in July/August of the election year, three or four months before the main presidential election in November. However, candidates who win the early primaries gain momentum and seal their nomination long before the convention. The Clinton-Obama contest for the nomination is still evenly poised, and may go all the way to the wire at the Democratic Convention in late August, in Denver, Colorado. The last time the contest went to the convention floor was in 1976 when President Ford, the then incumbent, defeated his challenger Ronald Reagan. Ford eventually lost the election to Jimmy Carter, who was in turn defeated by Reagan in 1980. Reagan famously created the so called “Republican Democrats” and their votes ensured his two victories in 1980 and 1984. Barack Obama wants to repeat for the Democratic Party what Reagan did for the Republicans. But the Democratic Party establishment is not amused by his gate crashing what was meant to be Hillary Clinton’s nomination party.
January 26th, 2008
by Izeth Hussain
There have been several obituary tributes paid in the newspapers to the late US Ambassador Jim Spain. This is understandable because Spain chose to spend many years of his retirement in Sri Lanka, showing thereby that he had a real affection for this country and its people, and that certainly has been comforting to many of us who have felt dismayed by Sri Lanka`s rather poor international image. Evidently he was loved by his many friends for his exceptional human qualities. What interests me is that he was also seen as exemplifying the best of America.
In this article I will focus on my official relations with Spain, which suggest that he played a far more important role in the developments leading to the Peace Accords of 1987 than is realized. But first I will make some remarks on him as an emblematic personage, someone who stood for what is decent and wholesome in America, the opposite of the greedy and brutal America that has provoked a visceral anti-Americanism on a global scale.
The latter America can be clearly seen in the American performance over Iraq. It has left over 600,000 Iraqi deaths, possibly over a million, and around 4 million internally and externally displaced persons. Furthermore there is the distinct prospect of Iraq breaking up into three separate countries. All that horror has been visited on the heads of a people who were simply going about their business, without posing a threat to any foreign country, under a dictator who did not have possession of a single weapon of mass destruction. All that represents arguably the greatest crime against humanity ever perpetrated in the entirety of history. The horror of Iraq should be seen in the perspective of all the other horrors perpetrated by the Americans, beginning with the genocide against the Red Indians.
But there is also another America, a civilized one, that made New York the world capital of the visual arts after the Second World War, and created a great literature which included the greatest English-language poet of the second half of the last century, Robert Lowell. The political expression of that America is to be found in the fact that a cardinal place has been given in US foreign relations to democracy and human rights. Certainly there have been hypocrisy and double standards in the pushing of democracy and human rights. But those very precious positives have to be seen as there at the core of America, right from the time of the declaration of independence from Britain, and the Americans seem to really want those positives to provide the moral and civilizational validation to their super-power status. That is why they intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo to save people from their impending genocidal fates. In neither place were US interests-economic, political, strategic-involved to any significant extent.
I come now to Jim Spain in relation to our ethnic problem. As second-in-command in the Foreign Ministry from the beginning of 1986 to late 1988 I interacted often with Spain, his very able second-in-command Ed Marks, and other members of his staff. I also headed talks with several American delegations which came to Colombo during that period. American interest in our ethnic problem at that time was focused almost exclusively on the human rights aspect of the problem-or so it seemed to me. What struck me most was that there was nothing censorious in the American approach to the problem. Instead, there seemed to be an understanding that armed forces without a tradition of dealing with conflict situations could find it difficult to avoid excesses. The impression was given of American goodwill and an underlying willingness to help us. All that could have been influenced by the role played as Ambassador by Jim Spain.
But I was mistaken in my initial impression that the American interest was focused almost entirely on the human rights aspect of the ethnic problem, with everything else tangential to that aspect. I began to suspect after some time that the centre of American interest was really elsewhere because of Spain’s constant reiteration to me that his Government did not want Trinco, meaning that it was not interested in having a base in Trincomalee. Other members of his staff also used to exclaim, “We don’t want Trinco.” I needed no persuasion on that point because it always seemed to me a ridiculous expectation that we could give the US a base in Trinco and then ask the Indians to go to hell. I always believed that India would be prepared to occupy Sri Lanka militarily and fight a war to prevent any other country establishing a base in Trinco. But evidently illusions about the potential usefulness of Trinco as a counter against India persisted at the top decision-making levels of the SL Government, and the Americans were deeply concerned about it. I also came to form the impression that the Americans had at one time fostered that illusion and came to feel remorseful about having wrecked Sri Lanka’s relations with India as a consequence.
My argument will make sense if it is seen in the perspective of developments in Afghanistan since the late `seventies. After having installed a communist regime in Kabul, the Soviet Union thought it necessary in 1979 to send in its troops to bolster its puppet regime. Archival material released since the collapse of the Soviet Union shows that its enterprise in Afghanistan was really of a defensive order, since it was motivated by anxieties that the US and the West would shortly use Islamic fundamentalism to destabilize the Central Asian Republics. But no one believed it at that time, apart from the Soviet satellites and India. The rest of the world saw the Soviet Union as engaging in aggressive expansionism. The US and Pakistan were on one side, the Soviet Union and India on the other, and South Asia had become an area of great power rivalry as never before. It was at that moment that the then SL Government chose to get closer and closer to the US, inevitably rousing dangerous anxieties in India. The virtual support of India for the LTTE over many years has to be seen in that context.
It should be understandable-given the fact of great power rivalry as never before in South Asia-that the US could have wanted to foster the illusion that Trinco could be made a trump-card against India with the help of the US. But in the course of the `eighties it became more and more apparent that it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. By 1985 there were clear signs of a US-Indian rapprochement taking place. There was no longer any prospect of using Trinco as a trump-card against India. But evidently foolish illusions on that point persisted among the top decision makers in Colombo. It was a situation in which the US could help-more perhaps than any other power-in bringing about an Indo-Sri Lanka rapprochement.
On the day of the air-drop in 1987 a clear sign was given that the US role over the ethnic problem was much more than that of a benign onlooker with not much more than a perfunctory interest in trying to ensure that human rights were respected. I am now going into oral history as it does not seem that the information I have has ever appeared in print up to now. On that morning Jim Spain sought a meeting with the Foreign Minister as he had to convey a very urgent message from his Government. My recollection is that the message consisted of three points. Firstly, the US Government believed that in turning back the Indian flotilla bearing food the Sri Lankan Government had missed an excellent opportunity of defusing an extremely dangerous situation. The second point was that on that day India was going to do something that would be extremely upsetting to Sri Lanka. The third point was that it was crucially important for the Sri Lankan side not to over-react in any way.
On the face of it, all that was happening was that the CIA had got hold of information about the forthcoming air-drop and the US Government was alerting us about it. But there was much more than that in the message. In saying that the Sri Lankan Government had missed an excellent opportunity of defusing a very dangerous situation, the US was conveying to us that international sympathies were not with Sri Lanka. In asking us not to over-react the US Government was playing an active role and trying to influence the course of events. It seems reasonable to think that the US was privy to a game-plan that was unfolding, which had its approval, and that it’s Ambassador was serving as the virtual emissary of the Indian Government.
Suddenly the diplomatic corps in Colombo was abuzz with rumors that an Indo-Sri Lanka agreement on the ethnic problem was about to be signed. The abrupt transition from warlike hostility to the friendliness implied by an agreement on a contentious problem was certainly very surprising. I told the then Foreign Secretary, W. T. Jayasinghe, that almost certainly a third party was involved acting as a catalyst to bring the two warring sides together. He was present at the signing ceremony and told me next morning that my guess was correct. Just after the signing of the documents was over, and the formal speeches were made, Jim Spain handed over an envelope to Rajiv Gandhi. Obviously it was a congratulatory and goodwill message from President Reagan. Clearly the contents of the agreement were already known to the US Government.
Dixit in his book Assignment Colombo says that just after the signing and the speeches Spain requested to be taken to Rajiv Gandhi so as to hand over the message from Reagan. He adds that it was obvious that despite the confidential nature of the Agreement President Jayewardene had conveyed its contents to the US Government through Spain. However, it is also obvious that the US Government saw no reason for clandestinity over its interest in the Agreement. Dixit brings out the curious detail that Spain had been instructed to hand over the message if possible even before the signing of the Agreement. I believe that the US was signaling to the international community that the Agreement, so far from representing a set-back for US diplomacy, was a triumph and that the Agreement had its full and enthusiastic support.
There are some lessons to be learnt from that phase of our ethnic problem. The Indian side in the diplomatic encounters had a high degree of Foreign Service expertise, the Sri Lankan side none whatever, except for a very brief period when Foreign Minister Hameed was brought into the picture prior to the air-drop. As long as prominence is given in our diplomacy to absurd figures like the then President’s son and even worse, his Private Secretary, Sri Lanka can expect to be worsted at practically every adversarial diplomatic encounter in the future. The second lesson is that the US had decided in the aftermath of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan that India was to be the South Asian regional great power in a new world order replacing the one initiated at San Francisco in 1945.
But what interests me most in this article which focuses on the US role in 1987 is the major reason behind the failure of the Peace Accords and the IPKF intervention. It can be seen as a specifically American type of failure. That superlative pragmatist and wise old statesman, Lee Kuan Yew, wrote in the second volume of his memoirs, “Many American leaders believed that racial, religious, and linguistic hatreds, rivalries, hostilities, and feuds down the millennia could be solved if sufficient resources were expended on them.” President Jayewardene, our Indian and American friends, all, all of them meant well, but they did not take sufficiently into account the horrible complexity of the ethnic factor. One who did so was a Tamil, Venkateswaran, the former Foreign Secretary who was removed from his post by Rajiv Gandhi. After the signing of the Agreement he remarked, “It will blow up in our faces.”
January 26th, 2008
By G.A.D. Sirimal
A newspaper published an article on December 29, 2007 that the well acclaimed archeologist and historian, Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero had reportedly said that the Indian labour force brought to this country by the British has become an unwanted burden on Sri Lanka.
Without berating the ill-informed monk, it is considered best to educate him by quoting from an address to the second annual Agricultural Conference in Ceylon on March 11, 1927 by the then Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford where he states the circumstances which forced the government to bring Indian labour. Quoting Emerson Tennent-”No temptation of wages and no prospect of advantages has hitherto availed to overcome the repugnance of the Sinhalese and Kandyans to engage in any work on estates except the first process of felling trees.”
He further goes on to say, “It will be observed from the above quotation that though the Sinhalese of the middle of the last century displayed an unconquerable repugnance to undertake work upon the European estates-disliking wage labour on its own account but detesting even more the cold and the wet amid which that work had to be carried out up yonder on the mountain heights and slopes which the Europeans had converted from forest into coffee gardens.”
“That the Ceylon estates enjoy a perennial supply of voluntary immigrant labour is one of the happy accidents which have contributed to the welfare of this fortunate isle; but if the soil of the districts of the Madras presidency from which that supply is drawn were as fertile as is that of the most thickly populated parts of Ceylon, the estate owners might whistle in vain for Tamil labourers to flock to their assistance, and our principle agricultural industries would quickly languish on the place of these workers on the upland tea estates at least could never be taken by the people of this land. The repugnance to work upon the upland estates to which Emerson Tennent bore testimony in 1857, I believe, as unconquerable today as it was 70 years ago.”
The British planter who brought the South Indian labour in view of the reluctance of the Sinhalese to work in the estates as stated above, also had the foresight and interest in the island, not to burden this country by giving them citizenship rights and at the end of their period, they were sent back. In those good old days there was a regular train service to Donuskodi, especially to transport these men back to India.
It would be of interest to Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero to know, that during the State Council days, Sir Claude Corea, as labour minister, initiated a programme to recruit in the 1930s, to replace the Indian labour force. I am personally aware, as my elder brother who was in the planting section, joined the Labour Department to implement this project. As a school boy I remember very vividly, him holding meetings at several Buddhist temples in Nawalapitiya, where I was born and schooled, to recruit.
The first meeting was very successful as several families showed eagerness. These families were transported to the estates, given a settling down allowance and dry nations for a month, till they received their first salary. But soon they were back, preferring to idle and do odd jobs as done earlier. A couple-husband and wife, who assist us in our household work, cleaning, washing etc., Horatala and Silindu by name, were also back and the complaint was that they had to get up at 5 a.m. to go to the perettu to get their assignments for the day.
They also complained of having to work in the cold, although they were provided with a kumbili to keep them warm. The scheme was an utter failure. So the Indian labour force had to be retained due to our inherent laziness. Otherwise, the tea estates, which bring valuable foreign exchange, today would be thick jungles. Our political leaders, without continuing the practice of the British planter to send them back after retirement, thought it fit to grant them citizenship rights for political gain.
The Nawalapitiya electorate which was held by R.E. Jayathilaka as a member of the State Council fell into the hands of the Indian Tamils and so did the other electorates in the plantation areas. With this the estate workers formed a political party under S. Thondaman, named Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), and today they are the kingmakers, who could make or break a government. That is the real history of the Indian estate labour force which the Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero would have been unaware of.
In conclusion, published is a poem composed by me and which appeared in the Watawala Estates journal titled Letchumie which speaks of the life led by these workers and the contribution they made to the prosperity of this blessed isle.
Letchumie
Here lies an unknown letchumie
Under the tea bushes green and shady
From where she came and where she went
None cares to know how her life was spent
Rises to the beat of ‘Tom Tom’ in misty morns
Wrapped in a kambili to keep her warm
To the perettu she walks to earn her wage
Sun or rain, to her is the same
Up the hills and down the dales
Every tea bush she reaches with an eager face
Her fingers go clip clap plucking the leaves
When the basket is filled, with smiles she beams
The shouts of Sinna Dorai, Kanakapulle and Kangany
She is accustomed to that endless daily symphony
She bears all that for the love of her brood
Her naked children await her return with eager looks
When the day’s work is done, she hastily walks
To her ‘Line Room’ for her household chores
Lovingly she pets her dog, cat and the hens that lay
The only leisure and pleasure she gets for the day
Sitting, dining, bedroom all in one, except for the ‘lat’
The floor is cleaned to spread her mat
A tin contains her savings of few rupees and cents
Her world revolves in this room, ten by ten
Ebony coloured skin, tanned in sun and rain
Her lips are red, with betel stains
Hair parted with Pottu on her radiant face
She is a beauty on a Thai Pongal Day
Huddled in this only room, she goes to sleep
With her brood and pets around her feet
Thus ends the day with no regret
With daily duty duly done to her ability best
Far away from her homeland now she rests
After her blood, tears and sweat she has shed
Offering her bones and flesh to nourish her alien soil
For prosperity and peace of this beautiful isle
Her blood runs in our country’s veins
And her toils are to our national gains
Future generations could live without any need
For she has left a fortune in a cup of tea
Let not racists speak or look with scorn
As she, to this world, was lowly born
She has done her part well in her struggled life
Let us be grateful and not be unkind
When she is judged on Judgement Day
She would head the list for the sacrifices she made
For her merit is boundless and sins are less
Her place in Heaven is assured, with eternal bliss
January 23rd, 2008
by Rohan Wasala
The Mahavamsa or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon (to use the title of the English translation by Wilhelm Geiger of the ancient classic) is a book of history in the form of a poem in the Pali language composed by a Bhikkhu named Mahanama at Anuradhapura around the latter part of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century CE (Common Era). This work was commissioned by King Dhatusena (c. 460 -478 CE). Professor Wilhelm Geiger translated into German his own revised critical edition of the Pali original, which had been published in 1908. He added an introduction, appendices and notes to the German version. Mabel Haynes Bode put Geiger’s German translation into English. Professor Geiger then revised Mrs Bode’s English translation. Geiger’s Mahavamsa is in prose. Its first edition, prepared by T.W.Rhys Davids , was published in 1912.
The Mahavamsa is a cherished symbol of the national identity of the Sinhalese, the builders of the unique two and a half millennia old island civilization. This land abounds in the ruins of ancient monuments and also restored edifices that bear testimony to that unbroken island-wide historical achievement. There is no evidence of any other independent parallel civilization within its boundaries. The Mahavamsa gives the Sinhalese a feeling of continuity of nationhood. The danger of the Mahavamsa becoming an unnecessary casualty of ethnic politics is real, but such a fate is something unthinkable for us as a race with a distinct history. It is criticized by some because it does not provide a historical precedent that might support their unjust political claims. Some others treat it with contempt claiming that it divides the Sri Lankans. The truth is that the Mahavamsa refers to the close links that existed between Lanka and South India in propitious circumstances in early times, which should actually unite rather than divide different races. Then there are those enlightened individuals who just cannot tolerate even the mention of the legitimate claims of the Sinhalese!
The Mahavamsa is a serious book of history. Bhikkhu Mahanama, the author, at the very opening relates himself to the existing historical literature and popular traditions thus: “That (Mahavamsa) which was compiled by the ancient (sages) was here too long drawn out and there too closely knit; and contained many repetitions. Attend ye now to this (Mahavamsa) that is free from such faults, easy to understand and remember, arousing serene joy and emotion and handed down (to us) by tradition,-(attend ye to it) while that ye call up serene joy and emotion (in you) at passages that awaken serene joy and emotion.” Mahanama’s Mahavamsa comes to a conclusion in Chapter 37, which deals with the reign of King Mahasena (c. 325-352 CE). The subject of the Mahavamsa is the early phase of the history of the Sinhalese race and that of the establishment of the Buddhist faith in the island. But the Mahavamsa was later continued up to the end of the 18th century by different authors at different times (in the form of the Culavamsa ). The Culavamsa opens in the middle of the 37th chapter where the earlier Mahavamsa came to an abrupt end, and completes the 101th chapter which ends thus: “After they had brought the King, the torturer of his people, to the opposite coast the Ingirisi by name seized the whole kingdom” (i.e. the British took possession of the whole island with the capture of the last king of Sinhale Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe). The Mahavamsa has been updated since, and now comprises the whole history of the island to date.
So the 6th century Mahavamsa covers roughly the first eight hundred years of the island civilization since the legendary Vijaya, which period ended about one hundred and fifty years before the reconstruction of its history by Mahanama. However, the book cannot be dismissed offhand as a mere imaginative concoction by a partisan Buddhist monk obliged to obliterate certain important details unflattering to his royal patron or his own race.
In any case, since the Mahavamsa is not sacred dogma it can be subjected to academic and scientific scrutiny, as it has already been. What is of enduring significance to the Sinhalese, however, is the fact of its existence, not the presence or absence of absolute historical validity of its contents, which is something nearly impossible for any historiographer to achieve. It is also a fact that it remains the principal source of the island’s history. And that is a rare treasure for any particular nation.
Narration of historical events, especially events said or believed to have happened in another age or in another place than those in which the narrator happens to live involves the use not only of tangible sources such as literary works and popular traditions, but also of imagination. In other words history is, at least partly, a form of story telling: it is literature, the use of the creative possibilities of human language. The Mahavamsa can be regarded as both literature and history. As literature it conforms to the conventions of a particular literary genre. It is a kavya constructed according to alankara conventions accepted in ancient Indian literature and as such it harks back to earlier models. Professor Geiger warns us (in his foreword to Dr Mendis’s work referred to above) that we should remember this in judging the more recent parts of the book. This is not to belittle the value of the Mahavamsa as history. In western literature also there are books that are acclaimed as histories, but are admired as artistic masterpieces as well , e.g. Herodotus’ The Histories and Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War. (I mention the last two because they seem to enjoy readier acceptance as history among some local scholars than our own Mahavamsa. ) The fact that Bhikkhu Mahanama used the Pali language to write his poem does not necessarily mean that the Sinhala language was at that time too primitive for that purpose. Professor Geiger refers to Atthakatha (commentary literature) composed in old Sinhalese prose as one source that was available for the author of the Mahavamsa. Bhikkhu Mahanama’s adoption of Pali may be compared to our use of English as the chosen medium for a special purpose such as education or business.
The grand purpose of the monk’s whole endeavour was, after all, to compile this history “…for the serene joy and emotion of the pious”, (as the less than ideal English rendering of the original Pali phrase tells us). The book is intended to generate ’serene joy and emotion’ in the pious. Each chapter of the Mahavamsa and its sequel the Culavamsa ends with the postscript “Here ends the … chapter, called ‘…….’, in the Mahavamsa, compiled for the serene joy and emotion of the pious”. (Prof. Geiger glosses the two terms pasada (serene joy) and samvega (emotion) thus: ‘Pasada signifies the feeling of blissfulness, joy and satisfaction in the doctrine of the Buddha, samvega the feeling of horror and recoil from the world and its misery’. So the Mahavamsa does not sound like political propaganda bolstering the claims of one race against those of another. The Mahavamsa author makes Buddha’s Passing Away coincide with Vijaya’s arrival with his followers in Lanka. The Buddha, on his death bed, requests Sakka, the king of the gods, to ‘protect him (Vijaya) with his followers and Lanka’. The king of the gods entrusts this task to ‘the god who in colour is like the lotus’ i.e. Vishnu. By this the poet historian seems to be accommodating a contemporary popular belief of the Sinhalese that they had been assigned a special destiny as the Protectors of the Buddha Sasana by none other than the Guide of the World Himself. So what better medium than Pali to record the history of the ‘chosen’ race of the Sinhalese (Pali being the language of the sacred texts of the Buddhists)? In his introduction to the Mahavamsa Professor Geiger avers that both the anonymous author of the fourth century CE Dipavamsa and Bhikkhu Mahanama of the Mahavamsa used an older work ‘a sort of chronicle of the history of the island from its legendary beginnings onwards’ in compiling their works, and that this work formed part of the Atthakatha (commentaries) ‘in the canonical writings of the Buddhists which later Buddhaghosa took as a basis for his illuminating works’. Geiger thinks that the author of the Mahavamsa not only knew the Dipavamsa , but also consciously and intentionally rearranged it, so that the Mahavamsa is a sort of commentary to the earlier work (i.e. the Dipavamsa ).
Professor Geiger refers to the various degrees of skepticism with which the European orientalists of his time treated the Ceylonese Chronicles as historical sources. His own opinion about these works supports the more favourable judgement of Rhys Davids, which he represents with a quotation from the latter’s Buddhist India (1903): “The Ceylon Chronicles would not suffer in comparison with the best of the Chronicles, even though so considerably later in date, written in England or in France”. Geiger also refers to another contemporary researcher in the same field H.C.Norman as sharing similar views. Both the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa contain many stories of miracles orchestrating the historical events that they record, like the arrival of Arhant Mahinda with his companions flying through the air by their miraculous powers, and his making his followers invisible to the King until he was prepared to face them without fear. Such normally incredible details are only part of a tradition . They are meant to reflect the attitude of owe and piety of the faithful towards those events which were extraordinarily significant for them. The coming of Buddhism to the island, whether it happened over a period of time or during a single visit of some missionaries, actually took place; it is a historical fact. So is the conversion of the King of the land to the new faith. The extraneous mythical, legendary details express a people’s unconscious desire to emerge out of their own insignificance.
In the Prologue to his book The Footprint of the Buddha (Buddhist Cultural Centre, Dehiwaela, 2000) Professor E.F.C. Ludowyke writes: The myths and legends which accompany every stage of a people’s history need not be accepted as anything but the mode in which a people has attempted to satisfy its unconscious needs. Not only the poet who has given the legend artistic form, but all those who have handed down the tradition of some mythical event, like the descent of the founder of the race from the sun-god, receive gratification for the deepest unknown longings through their fantasies. And if for man there exists something that is supernatural, then he may be able to raise himself from his insignificance through participation in this supernatural. The garb in which these fantasies appear says more perhaps of the cultural and social circumstances of a people than its recorded history. To discard legend, and myth, and fairy tale would just as much rob one of one’s most valuable sources of information about a people as to reject its art and literature as unimportant (p.1) So the presence of myth and legend in popular tradition or literature including the Chronicles serves an essential function, and it does not falsify by itself the history that the Mahavamsa records. It is the historian’s job to remove the external additions and check the remainder for trustworthiness through internal and external evidence (to borrow from Geiger again).
That the authors of the Chronicles wished to tell the truth and that they did not intend to deceive the hearers or readers is clear, as Geiger points out. Both the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa represent the deadly enemies of the Sinhalese kings – the foreign conqueror Elara, and the usurpers Sena and Guttika – as righteous rulers. Geiger also mainatains that there is a clear and consistent endeavour to make out a systematic chronology so as to inspire confidence at the outset. Whole sections of the Dipavamsa are devoted to the purpose of synchronizing the history of the Buddhist church with the secular history of the island, and the latter with the history of India, an exercise that would lend more credibility to the contents of the book. There is more important external support for the Chronicles. For example, the list of Indian kings before Asoka, and the statements about Bimbisara and Ajatasattu as contemporaries of the Buddha agree with the canonical writings according to Geiger. A Chinese pilgrim by the name of Hiuen-thsang mentions the name Mahendra as the missionary who spread the true doctrine in the kingdom of Sinhala.
Also the history of the Missions in the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa is corroborated by inscriptions discovered in India.
This brief reference to internal and external evidence is meant to demonstrate the fact that the Mahavamsa is not a mere imaginative fabrication that deliberately omits to mention actual events that support one racial community’s claim to the sovereignty of the whole island in order to reinforce another’s similar claim. If the book was considered such a fabrication, why didn’t this allegedly misrepresented group write their own equivalent of the Mahavamsa , especially when they were supposed to be of a superior culture? (This is not meant to be so much a challenge as a suggestion for further inquiry.) Any racial or ethnic community has an inalienable right to assert its particular identity as a distinct group and realize its human potential, while acknowledging the right of other communities to do the same, and promoting friendly coexistence with them as members of the same human race. The past history of any particular race is part of its unique identity. No racial community, large or small, should be asked to forget or ignore its past on fabricated evidence in order to gratify ephemeral political sensitivities. The ability to live in harmony with others in spite of differences of culture is an essential characteristic of civilized humanity. A community’s enjoyment of its distinct identity is not bigotry. Bigotry results when members of one group refuse to recognize the worth of another group because of a strong belief in their own racial or other superiority. The vast majority of ordinary Sinhalese are not guilty of such bigotry. They may appear bigoted to the really bigoted.
Partisan judgements on the Mahavamsa range from popular uneducated scoffing to more serious academic stigmatization. An example of apparently serious academic censure of the classic is its inclusion (Chapters 6 to 14 of the Mahavamsa ) in the External GAQ syllabus (2003) of the Sri Jayawardanepura University under ‘Mythology’.The syllabus for the First Examination in Arts of the External Programme of this university offers four subjects for study, out of which the students must select three for their examination (English I – English IV). Of these English III covers ‘Classical Literature’. It has two papers: Paper I – An Introduction to Epic, and Paper II – An Introduction to Mythology.
The Mahavamsa is prescribed for Paper II, i.e. under Mythology. The other texts recommended for this paper are Greek Myths by Robert Graves, The Metamorphosis by Ovid, and The Book of Genesis from The Authorized Version of the Bible.
Following are the titles of the nine chapters from the Mahavamsa : Chapter 6: The Coming of Vijaya Chapter 7: The Consecrating of Vijaya Chapter 8: The Consecrating of Panduvasudeva Chapter 9: The Consecrating of Abhaya Chapter 10: The Consecrating of Pandukabhaya Chapter 11: The Consecrating of Devanampiyatissa Chapter 12: The Converting of Different Countries Chapter 13: The Coming of Mahinda Chapter 14: The Entry into the Capital So according to the scholars who drew up this syllabus the arrival of a north Indian conqueror in the island, and the introduction of Buddhism by a group of missionaries from India, and the other events recorded in the book are just myths like those Greek myths, and the stories in the Bible (Whether the wisdom of classifying the Genesis chapters from the Holy Bible as mere mythology is acceptable to the Christian faithful is doubtful ).
The same scholars prescribe Herodotus’ The Histories (Books 1 to 5), and Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War (Books 1 to 3) for Paper II of English III – Classical Literature for BA Part II of the said External Degree Programme, which covers ‘Greek and Roman History’. Both these works predate the Mahavamsa by about a thousand years. Herodotus has been considered as the Father of History in the Western World, but he has also been ridiculed as the Father of Lies by his successors. It is said that he traveled extensively in the Middle East in order to collect data for his great pioneering work, which deals with the wars between the Greeks and the Persians (490, 480 – 479 BCE). Just as our Mahanama, the author of the Mahavamsa, refers to supernatural events in his narrative, so does Herodotus meditate on divine interventions and other similar miracles in his; he also records popular beliefs when evidence is lacking. Herodotus’ immediate successor Thucydides (c. 460 – 400 BCE), was obviously more committed to accuracy of information. His work is a factual record of the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BCE) waged on the imperialist Athens by Sparta and its allies on land and sea, that devastated the entire Greek world. The Mahavamsa shares the ‘defects’ of Herodotus’ The Histories (if its inclusion of myths and its dependence on popular beliefs can be called such) and the strengths of Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War ( its commitment to the representation of events as they really occurred). It also stands comparison with the other two in terms of a clearly conceived and well articulated authorial purpose: Herodotus writes so ‘that the great deeds may not be forgotten … whether Greeks or foreigners: and especially, the causes of war between them’ (Herodotus – The Histories , Penguin Classics, 1972 ed. Intro. P.7); Thucydides aims to produce a piece of writing that would last for ever, not one devoted to the ephemeral dreams of an immediate public; Thera Mahanama of the Mahavamsa compiles his book ‘for the serene joy and emotion of the pious’.
Of the three monumental works the Mahavamsa comprehends the widest scope, being an attempt to record the entire history of a people: whereas Herodotus and Thucydides deal with two wars of a few years’ duration and some related events, Mahanama initiates a history that extends over many centuries. Although it is a work of history in conception, in tone it is more a work of religion intended to generate ’serene joy and emotion of the pious’. This partly accounts for the author’s attitude towards the material he is dealing with: apparently he sees the history of the island as a fusion of the Buddhist faith and the Sinhalese nationhood. Of course as history Mahanama’s Mahavamsa is lopsided in that the author focuses on the rulers’ acts of devotion towards Buddhism such as the building of viharas, dagabas, preaching halls, hospices for monks, etc. to the almost complete exclusion of problems of statecraft and economy, the stability of which he seems to take for granted; at the same time it should be pointed out that the ancient classic enjoys a high level of credibility in its representation of the succession of Sinhalese monarchs who held general sway over the whole island despite temporary breaches of its continuity due to foreign invasions or internal divisions.
The Mahavamsa records the historical and cultural heritage of the Sinhalese which spans over two thousand five hundred years. It gives them a sense of continuity from time immemorial to this day. It is a treasured national possession which they cannot allow to be devalued or desecrated as a mere tissue of myths by those who wish to obliterate that unique history.
Courtesy: The Island
January 23rd, 2008
At a time when charges are being made in various circles that xenophobic and racist tendencies are on the rise in Sri lanka, a UN body has elected a Sri Lankan envoy to the UN as its new chairperson.
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations at Geneva, H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka was elected by unanimous acclamation as the Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
Ambassador Jayatilleka’s candidature was presented by the Asian Group, on the initiative of the African Group and supported by the Latin American Group (GRULAC).China introduced the nomination, which was seconded by Egypt on behalf of the African Group.
Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/68, created the IGWG to follow up on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in South Africa in 2001.
The mandate of the IGWG was to: “(a) Make recommendations with a view to the effective implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action; (b) Prepare complementary international standards to strengthen and update international instruments against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in all their aspects.”
The IGWG has devoted an important part of its mandate to discussions on the following questions: (i) are there gaps in the legal framework for countering racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance; (ii) if so, how are they to be filled and by what.
At its fourth session (Geneva 16 – 20 January 2006), the IGWG “identified and/or considered” certain specific areas of substantive and procedural gaps and recommended that with regard to procedural gaps, CERD is to be requested to conduct a further study on possible measures to strengthen implementation through additional recommendations or the update of its monitoring procedures.
Regarding the substantive gaps, OHCHR selected five highly qualified experts to study the content and scope of the substantive gaps in the existing international instruments to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Following the submission of the two studies on complementary international standards, by the experts (A/HRC/4/WG.3/6) and the CERD (A/HRC/4/WG.3/7) the Human Rights Council created an Ad-Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary International Standards (HRC Decision 3/103 of 8 December 2006).
Hence, the fifth session of the IGWG marked the conclusion and closure of the Working Group’s debates and deliberations on the question of complementary international standards.
During the first part of the sixth session of the HRC, on 25 September 2007, the Chair of the IGWG transmitted the report of the five experts to the AD-Hoc Committee. In a letter date 25 October 2007, the Chair of the IGWG informed the Chair of the Human Rights Council (Doru Romulus Costea) of his resignation as Chair of the IGWG.
Given that the Chair resigned immediately after the session of the IGWG, the regional coordinators met three times in light of the facts that; (i) Human Rights Council decision 3/103 of recommended that the 5th session of the IGWG marks the conclusion and closure of the latter’s debates and deliberations on the question of complementary international standards; (ii) the IGWG does not have a chair to stir its work; and (iii) that the IGWG is to contribute to the Durban Review Conference to be held in 2009.
The coordinators did not reach consensus as to the programme of work of the IGWG for its sixth session. It was expected however that during the session, the IGWG would be electing a Chair and that the programme of work will be discussed.
This expectation was met during Durban – 2 when Ambassador Jayatilleke was elected unanimously as chairperson.
January 22nd, 2008
By Latheef Farook
What on earth was the purpose of the TNL program on “animal slaughtering” on Wednesday 26 December 2007 night? This question becomes more relevant especially because it was televised at a time when the country is bleeding due to the devastating ethnic war which has brought nothing but misery to people from every community though politicians, their side kicks and other merchants of death flourish on this human misery.
Almost three decades of ethnic fighting has created hatred and discord among communities and has virtually turned this paradise isle into a hell hole. Sri Lanka today is ranked as one of the worst killing fields the world has known. Under the circumstance it is common knowledge that animal slaughtering, especially slaughtering cows, remains a very sensitive issue among certain sections of the Sinhalese Buddhist community. In this highly charged communal environment raising this issue is bound to generate hatred and exacerbate the divisions within communities.
Thus the inevitable question is why a television network would raise such an issue which could pit Sinhalese against Muslims. The need of the hour is for TV stations to use their powerful medium of communication to bring about peace and harmony in the country. Perhaps TNL could lead the way?
A Muslim was asked during this programme for his comments on animal slaughtering as if only they slaughter animals. No such question was posed to any non-Muslim who too slaughter not only cows but goats, sheep and pigs. Immediately after a Muslim explained on the phone what the Holy Quran stated about the treatment of animals slaughter came a gory video film showing the extremely cruel manner a cow was slaughtered.
Deliberately or otherwise this video clip, appeared to have been produced especially for the programme, indirectly implied that that this is the manner the Muslims slaughter animals and thus conveyed a distorted and dangerous image to the non-Muslim viewers.
Contrary to the cruel images depicted on TNL, Muslims do not slaughter animals in such a manner. Instead Islam has clearly and specifically stated the method to be adopted and the type of knives to be used in slaughtering animals causing the minimum possible pain. The severing of the carotid artery which the method involves causes the animal to die a rather painless death as this particular artery supplies blood to the brain and its severing causes a natural anesthesia. It has been proved time and again that the Islamic method of slaughter is the most humane method of slaughtering compared to other methods such as stun gun for cattle commonly followed in the so-called civilized west.
Also slaughtering animals for food is not something done by all and sundry as only Muslims who have been trained in the field and strictly abide by the rules laid down in Islam when taking the lives of animal for food, are permitted to carry out the slaughter.
Every time the topic of animal slaughtering crops up the spotlight is turned on the Muslims who are projected as villains as if the entire non Muslim population in the country and the world were harmless pure vegetarians. Here the issue is the mindset conditioned over centuries against Islam and Muslims.
There are around 55 Muslim countries in the world and all of them slaughter animals for the consumption of their people. No Muslim country slaughters animal as an industry for exports unlike the so-called civilized west that kills them for controlling market prices and for pleasure. Like Muslims Jews also slaughter animals for consumption.
The entire Christian world eats meat and some of these special meat items constitute an extremely indispensable part of their special traditional Christmas dish. Christian world starting from United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Holland, Scandinavia and other countries in Europe, from Australia to New Zealand slaughters millions of cows, goats, and pigs year in and year out for export and domestic consumption. To these countries meat industries and meat exports which provide jobs for millions constitute an extremely important part of their national economies involving billions in export earnings.
It is also well known practice in the U.S to cull millions of cattle, chicken or other livestock for the simple purpose of controlling market prices whenever there is over-production that does not suffice for market needs. These countries prefer to destroy their surplus animals rather than sell them for a lesser price. Further in countries like UK, we often hear of millions of cattle being culled simply because one or two cows contract the harmless hoof and mouth disease which could be treated by a simple medical solution. This needless killing is simply done for the purpose of restoring confidence in their meat industry.
Do the animal lovers in the Island know the type of methods used by these meat exporting countries to slaughter animals? The meat from these countries are prepared and packed in different forms and sold in almost every super market chain all over the world including Sri Lanka. Despite religious beliefs even local television networks display, in their colorful advertisements, a wide variety of tempting sausages and other items enjoyed by happy families.
One also comes across the practice of killing animals for pure pleasure such as bird shooting in the US, fox hunting in the UK and bull fighting in Spain . To this must be added the terrible experiments on animals that go on in many laboratories across the world. Such barbarities needless to say are unheard of in the Muslim world as Islam clearly prohibits the killing of animals except for food or in self-defense.
Did the TNL ever produce a program on this meat industry in the non Muslims countries? NO! Did any animal lover in this country object to the large scale slaughter of animals in these meat exporting countries. No! Did any of them write to these countries asking them not to slaughter but be kind to animals? No! Did any of them raise this issue with diplomatic missions of these countries? NO. In fact the Island’ s animal lovers have not even thought about it so far.
They restrict their compassion only to local animals and that too only to cows as if other animals such as goats and pigs were without life. Once again it is the conditioned mindset moulded against Muslims who are easy prey in the local media, especially in the absence of an organized Muslim media that might put across their views to educate the masses on the Muslim bashing that we see too often in the media.
Meanwhile starting from Burma, Thailand , Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam , South Korea, North Korea to Peoples Republic of China and Japan are all predominantly Buddhist countries. Are the people of these countries vegetarians? Instead millions of all kinds of animals, especially pigs, are slaughtered on a daily basis for the consumption of people there. In Thailand various types of animals are slaughtered and consumed with relish while people in some countries in the Far East eat the monkey brain as a fabulous delicacy as other vital parts of rare animals.
Here in Sri Lanka which is a multi national, multi religious, multi linguistic, multi racial, and multi cultural country despite the unrealistic claim of Jathika Hela Urumaya, a political outfit with a racist ideology which has all potentials to take the country back to the dark ages, to sole ownership, slaughtering cows has been an issue of concern. But this issue needs to be sorted out certainly not by politicians who ruined this country but by enlightened and not racist religious and civil society in a peaceful manner.
After all this is a human problem based on individual urge, liking and disliking. Irrespective of religious beliefs human beings in general eat meat, take liquor, smoke, and gamble, commit adultery, crime and the like. How can one legislate against these individual desires and pleasures?
In fact this is not the first time the TNL has produced such a program as this has been an on going issue for a long .Earlier they had televised programmes worse than the one shown recently depicting the torture and agony caused to the animal before it dies.
Did the TNL ever produce even a five minute documentary on the sufferings of Muslims, more than 70 percent of whom live below the poverty line, northern Muslims languishing for more than 17 years in refugee camps in and around Puttalam or the plight of Muthur Muslims who were made refugees in their own homes destroyed by the LTTE-Government aerial bombings?
One should not forget that we live at a time when the Muslims all over the world are demonized as terrorists harassed, persecuted, tortured and killed under a ferocious global campaign unleashed by the United States President George Bush together with Europe and Israel. Sri Lankan Muslims can ‘t be exceptions.
It is therefore not unreasonable when Muslims suspect that unnecessary programmes on animal slaughtering are nothing but an extension of the Jewish engineered Anglo – American media campaign against Islam and Muslims. The pressing need of the island today is to seek means to end the ethnic war and stop the slaughter of human beings before we think of animals. Ends
“Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, & that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah; that which hath been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by being gored to death; that which hath been (partly) eaten by a wild animal; unless ye are able to slaughter it (in due form); that which is sacrificed on stone (altars); (forbidden) also is the division (of meat) by raffling with arrows: that is impiety. This day have those who reject faith given up all hope of your religion: yet fear them not but fear Me. This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, & have chosen for you Islam as your religion. But if any is forced by hunger, with no inclination to transgression, Allah is indeed Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.”
(Al-Qur ‘an, 5:3 (Al-Maeda [The Table, The Table Spread])
January 22nd, 2008
By Subra S. Massey
In the name of peace and prosperity prudence is the only weapon
I ponder and pondered. How to solve this circle of violence in Sri Lanka? History tell us that most problems were solved by one party to the conflict becomes the victor and the other party becomes the vindicated. To solve the problem in Sri Lanka we need a strong force, which can respect human rights. That will be hard to find. Foreign powers are reluctant to get involved unless they see some opportunity for them. Sri Lankans are not ready to invite any foreign powers. So this avenue is closed. So how do we solve this challenge? I have an idea.
I am a businessman in Canada. I make decisions based on prudence. What do I need today, tomorrow and down the road? Sri Lanka must think in those terms, what do we need to make our country livable? Will arguments help? NO. Will fighting help? NO. Will patience and tolerance help? May Not, but will help preserve what we have. If we can preserve what we have today, tomorrow we can build on it. I do not know if I can convince the Singhalese leaders. But there is window of opportunity with the Tamils, as a Tamil may be some Tamils may consider this idea.
This war is not going anywhere; only innocent people are getting killed.
It also appear the rhetoric is being turned on; emotions are turned on. The recent killing in Okkampitiya and Thanamalwila are to stir up the emotions and hatred for Tamils. The forces in the field are usually motivated with liquor. But revenge is a better motivator. People say that the 911 attacks in USA was a motivator to go after the Middle East extremist. The Sri Lankan government took a leaf from the 911 pages to motivate their people and forces to go after the LTTE and the Tamil people. Remember that Gothabaya Rajapaksa is US citizen he may have studied 911 well and trying the same psychology to instigate the forces. If you can give the right kind of stimulus a man can be turned into suicidal and that is what exactly the Sri Lankan government is doing with its own people, turning them into cannon fodder. It is an institutionalized from of suicide squad.
It is time for cooler minds to get involved and bring about an end to this carnage.
The government is bent on using force to bring about peace but the LTTE is undefeatable in the short run but they may develop technologies that may give them superior firepower.
I think they are working on it. Prabaharan understands the dynamics of the functioning of the mind of people very well, combined with his genetical makeup and his experience he is a formidable opponent. Even though Sri Lanka forces are trying hard, he is resolute and calm but you will see his execution when he execute with precision. He knows the army in the battlefield is not his main objective but the vital centers are his aim. Soldiers fight with their stomach and he demonstrated well at the elephant pass take over. In the Middle East 1967 war Moshe Dayan captured 100,000 troops in one night next day there was nobody to feed them. He accomplished that with a few soldiers and couple of tanks. It is not the number that counts in modern warfare it is how it is being executed. War is a very expensive way of solving problems and no body benefits from a protracted war. In Sri Lanka it is going on for the last 20 years and how it is being financed no body knows. All arms are imported and have to be paid with hard currency; hard currency means loans and interest payments. Once the war is over it will be paid with exports unless Sri Lanka unilaterally writes it off. They cannot, so it has to be paid. The current debt cannot be paid for the interests will keep it growing. Don?t the politicians know about it? Sure they know about it. They have bureaucrats who will advice them. So what is purpose of the war? Is it to line their pockets? The only way we will know is if the senior politicians voluntarily disclose their foreign bank balances. There is rumour that there is lots of activity in Gothabaya Rajapaksa?s bank account outside the country. He is an American citizen.
Then this war is a private family owned business and the inputs are arms and outputs are destitute families and the profits are deposited in foreign bank accounts. Once they have built up enough money they leave the country in shambles. No patriotic leader will sell out his country and will prolong the war. Sri Lanka is a sovereign nation in the eyes of the UN and other nations so they cannot intervene, any intervention is regarded as foreign involvement and the UN charter will not permit it. So there is a stalemate. How do we break it in the interest of the well being of Sri Lankans? Once side has to give in so that the other side may also give in. The Cease Fire Agreement did exactly that, but when the three stooges got into power they started disrespecting the agreement and the trouble flared up again. Why would anyone restart the war that was put to rest? No peace-loving citizen will repeal an agreement conducive for further negotiations.
It appears that the JVP and the Buddhist monks are the problem. They do not want any Tamils in Sri Lanka. The government in 1971 decimated the JVP and it is flaring up again. JVP and religious fanatism grow when there is no economic emancipation. The governments should have addressed the economic problem but they did not, instead they kept up the anti-Tamil anti. It is an easy way to get elected. Basically speaking Sri Lankans lack social capitalism. Social capitalism allows the whole society to rise economically thus alleviating social imbalances.
Trust and Responsibility are the hallmarks of modern politics. The Europeans and the Americans and very recently the Japanese, Chinese, Indians are embracing the collective mentality to move forward. But for some reason the Sri Lankans are moving back wards. The country has gone back 3 generations of social development. It is hard to built a sustainable economy without a strong social system. The social institutions are being systematically destroyed in Sri Lanka through ignorance. The country is going back to nature where the citizens become the subjects.
Subjects are not very far away from animals in nature. This is evident from the rampant abuse of civil rights and the atrocities committed by the paramilitary groups. When the very protector of civil rights encourages people into extra judicial executions that land has gone to dogs.
The foreign organizations are trying vainly to educate the government to be more judicial and prudent in their approach but they are bent on peace after war or peace through war. To defeat the LTTE will take years. They are well entrenched in naturally defensible area, they have an air force which is unimaginable. They are very inventive and adapt to changing situation on the ground, besides they are fighting for a cause not for pay cheques. One well-motivated man is worth a million troops, Late Albert Einstein and Opphemnier demonstrated to the world.
The Tamils are some times compared to the Jews for there are lots of parallels in their history and their response to their problem. There are about 500,000 Tamils living in countries conducive to their intellectual development. what will be the major outcome of such richness. These countries may harness their richness to their own benefit and give them something in return as they did with the Jews. This is a serious possibility. How will India react to it? It is in the interest of India to bring Tamils under their wings but there is no leadership in India to do so. We need a Winston Churchill in India. India is a benign democracy there is no drive to live their life fully. I live in the west and I trust people a lot. Once I had to convince an Indian man with so many proofs. We don?t do that in the west, to us money is a state of mind, so what if I lose some money today I will make it tomorrow but this not in the mind of an Indian. Money they see is different from the way we see money in the west. It may be changing. To them work is travail but to the people in the west it is a pleasure and good health too.
US is our best hope but Mr. George Bush cannot understand the Tamil problem to him we are terrorist but we are not we hard working people. We have demonstrated time and again with our new inventions that benefit the West. They are beginning to see us as their counter parts in the east. We need s strong man to stand behind the two boys who are fighting each other for 50 years. It is the role either India or US has to play. European Union is another good choice.
These are excellent countries with superb social institutions.
The EU and US can exert a lot of influence in the UN, but current US administration is not interested. The way the democrats are coming up we may stand a good chance of this problem getting resolved. Some super power has to guarantee the safety of the Tamil before LTTE can lay down the arms as they did in Cyprus. But to get them interested we have to offer them something in the form of new technology, this is where the Tamil businesses and the Tamil scientists have to show their colors. I am sure we are capable of inventing some thing new.
The EU and US has a tract record of encouraging new technologies.
So what can Tamils living outside can do? They have to put their creativity to the wheel and develop the wealth needed to support the cause of the innocent people living in Sri Lanka.
When we become part of the Euro-American enterprise they will listen to us, until such time folks work hard and stay united the days are not too far away.
January 21st, 2008
by SD
Questions after questions come pouring into my mind disturbing an already disturbed mind. I was at the Tinakural Rest and had very little sleep. Being disturbed by constant shelling. And as I sat on my bed I prayed that we should succeed in our efforts. As religious groups, our attempt is to bring peace and love which are inalienable and fundamental to our nature, into human relationship without which we cannot live as human beings interacting harmoniously with one another.
[Jaffna Public Libraray-File Photo]
Our International Summit was in the Public Library. Religious leaders From Sri Lanka and a multi-religious delegation from six countries of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, met in Jaffna on the 12th and 13th of December 2007. Jaffna was made the location of the summit merely to express solidarity with all those who continue to live in situations of violence, despair and conflict. They did see the massive destruction of infrastructure and housing, the loss of villages and very fertile agricultural lands now part of the High Security Zones. They were able to feel the fear and insecurity in the lives of the people, especially the youth-all of which are dehumanizing to all those affected.
As I sat in the bus waiting to be transported to town, a young disgruntled looking army person carrying a gun stood at the entrance to the bus. He was looking tired and forlorn and if he went berserk and decided to machine gun all of us in one stroke what do we do. I whispered to Ela who was seated next to me. She took a good look at him and said, “Yes he looks disgruntled all right. Any thing could happen. Let’s pray that nothing will happen,” she sighed.
In the spiritual scheme of things, “Religion does not want cohorts to march before its paths and clean its way. Wisdom and philosophy do not march upon bleeding human bodies, but on the wings of peace and love,” are words that ring true at these times of uncertainty when our leaders seem to have putthe peace process on hold! However, we seem to have moved away from this dictum making the story of Jaffna very sad. Peace seems elusive and one wonders where one is to begin to write about the colossal and gruesome tragedy of Jaffna.
Perhaps I would begin with the story of a girl who tried in vain to get a letter across to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ever since her brother went missing. Where does one appeal for succor? Then in another instant a little one saw a man who was kneeling perhaps asking to be saved, shot through his head with the brains blown out. Then in yet another instant we hear of a young boy saving his younger brother’s life by scooping his intestines back into his torn belly and holding him till he was given medical attention. Are these, man’s inhumanity to man? Could we Sri Lankans be so brutal-army or otherwise? These are little children whom we cherish and protect from such brutality. Or are we driving our people into other hands?
One realizes that here in Jaffna five persons are killed every day and four to five are abducted never to return. Whom are they killing and why are they abducting only to kill if ransom is not paid. Perhaps all this mounts to our karmic actions. And today’s perpetrators will reap the effects of their karmic action in time to come. The Law of Karma is inexorable-every action has a reaction and no one escapes this-king or beggar.
Another story tells us that a young Ordinary Level student who was to appear for the examination did appear battered and bruised crying that she was assaulted mercilessly and that her parents had been abducted the previous night. Why? O Why? I keep asking and find no answers. Have we Sri Lankans become so heartless?
Hundreds of prisoners are cramped into a tiny room with no proper sanitation nor facilities sharing their living space with their cell mates. Some of these men are ill perhaps with contagious diseases. But who cares?
Are the authorities concerned? Some of these so called prisoners are not criminals-they have been taken in for questioning and kept for how long? No one knows! I asked one of the ladies who was in charge of the arrangements whether I could visit these unfortunate persons and she was a aghast. “Are you crazy,” she asked me, looking not only terribly frightened but wondering whether I was nutty! Had we asked for permission I may not be
here to write the story!
We were told that once a young man was severely beaten up for what reasons one does not know and was thrown aside and left to die. Another young man seeing this happening went up to the young man and tried to help revive and perhaps take him to the hospital. Alas, he was tracked down, beaten and asked to mind his business. Can our own soldiers be so cruel? Or are they carrying out orders? Both the boss and the soldier seem to have forgotten their Buddhist inheritance?
You could just imagine our panic and fear when we heard that the owner of the Communication Centre we had gone to on that 12th afternoon, was killed that very evening-perhaps an hour or so later. We were told that he was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the heart of the city.Why? Why? I keep asking.
During the lunch time, I tried to step out just across the street to have a look at my ancestral home that was in shambles. “Oh no. You cannot go out of these premises miss,” said the official clad in fatigues. “Come with me, please,” I begged and he started muttering something in Sinhala. He was one of the better behaved young men but he too had to carry out orders.
Most of the homes are in this state-bombed and shelled or with the frontage barred and the place deserted. One cannot even go by to see ones own home leave alone go outside for a walk.
To make thing worse, most of the roads are closed and out of bounds. You turn a corner and there stands a couple of sentries with wire mesh barring the road. This was our home territory and we do not have access to our homes. Intellectuals may want to deny that there is no homeland of the Tamils. The simple fact that we have been living here for the past several centuries nay even a millennia alone tells us that these are our homelands. With successive invasions around the 11th -12th centuries large numbers of immigrants from South India came into the North leading to the concentration of Tamils of various professional groups in the Northern part of the Island becoming our homelands and being gradually transformed into a cohesive homogeneous agrarian society. These are the homelands that belong to us Tamils. Where are we now? We are often told that this idea of a homeland is a myth! Today it is Tamil diaspora-dispersion away from our home. Authorities may feel happy that we are leaving yet the brain drain will surely affect the future of Sri Lanka. Aren’t we Sri Lankans? Why are we being hounded?
The International Delegation together with local participants left Colombo by a Charter flight and just six other local passengers were traveling wit us. Each of us had to take three copies of our Identity Cards and these were taken in at the port of landing together with our tickets. And after a very long wait and having been shunted from one building to another, an army vehicle left with all of us on board together with the civilians. And to my horror, the names of each of the other passengers were taken down separately and were photographed at close range! Why? I simply couldn’t understand. To me it was inhuman and a violation of that individual’s rights. We were exempted because we belonged to the delegation. But those young and old just accept it-when you keep punching all the time, one gets tired and simply gives in!
These civilians stay in these camps for several hours just waiting and hoping that they would be released soon. Travel to town is only by army vehicles.
I am reminded again of another elderly lady whose card of 4 batteries was confiscated! While I was talking to her a few hours later while we were still in the Camp, I said that I had a few batteries that I had in my clock and torch and said that I would quietly give it to her. She shuddered and said , “No I cannot take it because our bags my be checked and if this is seen I will get into severe trouble and maybe I will be compelled to say that I got it from one of you. And this would be trouble for you.”
By three in the afternoon Jaffna starts closing down and by sundown it is a ghost city with sentries in every nook and corner. Electricity is available for certain hours only. A cylinder of gas is Rs5000! can any one afford this? The mobile phones are disconnected and the telephone connections to Colombo are very intermittent. All essential items that are available are expensive. The farmers’ crop of onions is now sold in Colombo but the payment for same is very late that the farmers are unable to get ready for the next crop. Groceries, dry rations and essential medicines are available at a price. Is any one concerned? One could scream from the roof top but all seem deaf and relentless.
Where are our leaders-Sinhala and Tamil?
What is happening in Jaffna? Is no one seeing these atrocities and is no one doing something to alleviate the situation. Jaffna is in turmoil. Rightly or wrongly the youth took up arms having been worst affected by policies in education and employment, the land colonisation schemes in predominantly Tamil areas, the disenfranchisement of estate workers, the destruction of life and property in several race riots. These helped our politicians to mobilize the youth into thinking that a separate state would solve these problems. A militant movement developed. Unless a negotiated political solution is reached, the conflict will continue. Such movements may go underground only to appear again. Will this be the scenario in our country for years to come?
The authorities are not bothered and the government thinks in terms of a military solution. One can go on and on relating the brutality that is perpetrated in Jaffna. It is sad. Are we traveling from one country to another? Are the Identity Cards our visas?
There were several University professors and lecturers who were really thrilled that we had atlast come to Jaffna bringing international guests. The Japanese Peace Envoy Akashi, Ela Gandhi, the Norwegian Envoy, the EU envoy, the Niwano envoy together with the Secretary General of the World Peace Conference of Religions for Peace and a few other dignitaries from the Asian Conference were some of the important international delegates. From Sri Lanka, there were several Catholic Bishops who were taking very important roles, Buddhist monks, Moulavis and I represented the Hindus together with several Temple Kurukkals. I seem to have left out something in my tale of woe. Who are these sentries? Are they not someone’s children? Are the sentries happy in doing what they are forced to do? Perhaps not. The stories that they have to tell are equally pathetic. During wars, soldiers are often given leave to go back to their families. This is done so that they do not become blood thirsty. Do these young soldiers go on leave? While we were there, we understood that some who were expecting to go on leave and who had purchased Jaffna mangoes for their families, were told that their leave had been cancelled. How could they sustain their sanity? Once, I heard a young soldier remark to his newly wedded wife who was very reluctant to let her husband go to the battle front saying in Sinhala, “Mang petti puruallaa gennawa; naththang pittiathula ennawa,” meaning when I come I will bring boxes of things (loot) or I will come inside a box meaning that I will come as a corpse in a coffin. A gruesome story for a young bride.. What becomes to the women who have lost their husbands in the battle front.
Do they have a chance to even give them a funeral? Perhaps not because these corpses would have been burnt en masse to play down the death toll? In the early years of the conflict many of our civilians were burnt in one heap in front of the Jaffna hospital.
This is Jaffna and the suffering is untold, unbearable and unheard. Will our story be an unfinished symphony? Perhaps it will be until the guns are silenced.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Let us get together in the name of religion whether we be Buddhist, Hindu, Christians or Muslim and work as a team in an attempt to bring sustainable peace into our war torn country.
_________
[A Sri Lankan solider blocked traffic on the main road in Jaffna to allow a military convoy to pass through the city at high speed: Photo Courtesy: J Adam Huggins-NYTimes.com-More Photos-June 2007]
January 17th, 2008
Sri Lanka Withdraws from Cease Fire Agreement
iTRO is shocked and concerned that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has unilaterally abrogated the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) it entered into with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in February 2002. The abrogation of the CFA by the GoSL will plunge the country back into all out war and the effects on the civilian population will be devastating.
This callous act has extinguished any hope that the international community and the Tamil people had in achieving a peaceful resolution to the Sri Lankan conflict and is the culmination of the GoSL’s rejection of the legitimate expression of the Tamils’ fundamental rights.
Restricting Humanitarian Relief and Removing International Witnesses
The current environment in areas controlled by the GoSL is well documented and the international community is aware of the atrocious human rights record of the GoSL: the rising human rights violations, the climate of impunity, the extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture, a silencing of press freedom, an elimination of dissenting views by intimidation and death, a silencing of Tamil voices within and outside Sri Lanka, the assassination of Tamil Members of Parliament, and a political climate that stakes its survival on the expression of military might and an authoritative and hawkish administration. The abrogation of the CFA and the departure of the independent Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will further exacerbate the situation by removing the one impartial third party witness that was able access the conflict areas of the NorthEast and make regular public reports.
Over the past two years the GoSL has sought to remove international organizations from the NorthEast so as to reduce the witnesses to the violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and to restrict the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the Tamil people. Many international NGOs have been forced to leave the country due to the pressures exerted on them by the GoSL and in some cases have been expressly ordered to leave by the government. Others have not had their international staff’s work visas or work permits renewed and thus have had to leave the country or have been unable to access the NorthEast.
Over 50 humanitarian workers have been killed over the past two years, the Action Contra La Faim 17 and the TRO 7 were the two major incidences, and there have been numerous attacks on NGO offices and personnel. The GoSL has also sought to hinder the work of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) by first freezing its bank accounts and then by “banning” it.
These actions have been aimed at reducing the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the NorthEast and preventing the international NGOs and UN Agencies from speaking out for fear that they will be forced to leave the country. The intention of the GoSL is now unequivocal and signals the imminent humanitarian devastation of the Tamils of the NorthEast.
Development, Relief and the Diaspora during the CFA
Over the last 6 years international and local organisations have worked tirelessly to keep the hopes of peace alive despite the numerous threats to their personal safety. Humanitarian workers, media personnel, members of civil society and parliamentarians have been assassinated, executed, abducted and otherwise harassed by the GoSL, its affiliated paramilitaries and the state sponsored media.
During this period international and local NGOs, parliamentarians, peace builders, and UN executives have been accused of being “terrorists”, “terrorist sympathisers” and of “funding terrorism” by the GoSL. Civil Society has been pressured through intimidation and executions to prevent any effective humanitarian interventions. All avenues for the protection of Tamils and their right to life with dignity have been systematically eliminated. Now, even the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), a strong witness to atrocities against Tamils, has been forced to leave.
The unilateral withdrawal by the GoSL from CFA has effectively closed the door to development for the people of NorthEast. The GoSL has also seriously hampered the delivery of relief and rehabilitation to the war and tsunami affected populations over the past 2 years and the Tamils areas lag far behind in tsunami recovery with Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) reporting that its investigations reveal that over US$535 million have gone missing in Sri Lanka.
After the signing of the CFA the International Community encouraged the Tamil Diaspora to become more directly involved in the peace process and development. The Tamil Diaspora contributed time, expertise and funds to help alleviate the suffering of the civilian population and deliver the expected “peace dividend”.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case and some countries over the past two years have actively sought to restrict the ability of the Tamil Diaspora to provide humanitarian assistance to those in the NorthEast. This is due to the negative campaigns and propaganda of the GoSL that attempt to characterize all Tamil voices critical of the GoSL as being “terrorists” or “terrorist supporters”.
APPEAL
iTRO appeals to these countries to allow space for the Tamil Diaspora to provide much needed humanitarian assistance to their people. International organizations have been restricted in their ability to access the affected areas and deliver the necessary relief and the GoSL has restricted food, medicine, fuel and construction materials to the Vanni. As a result in many areas TRO is the only organization with access to the war and tsunami affected populations.
iTRO wishes to clearly state that the IC, through its policies and the exertion of power and influence, has had a significant degree of influence in engineering and steering the course of this conflict and the failed “peace process” to its current state of affairs and thus is culpable and must accept some responsibility for the impending calamity that is facing the Tamils.
__________________________
Arjunan Ethirveerasingam
UK Mobile: +44 77 58 649 198
Skype I.D.: arjunan1
iTRO London
500 Sunleigh Road, Wembley, HA0 4NF, UK
Tel No: + 44 (0) 208 733 8283
Connecting people for effective and efficient village recovery in the NorthEast of Sri Lanka
January 16th, 2008
Press statement issued by Lars J Solvberg, Head of Mission of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), on closing operations at 1900 hrs, Jan 16, 2008:
[Nordic truce chief monitor Major General Lars Solvberg listens to journalists during a news conference in Colombo January 16, 2008-Pic:by Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi, via Yahoo! News]
Full text of the press release follows:
SLMM press statement 16 January 2008-01-16 Status
Today, January 16 2008, marks the final day of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) period in Sri Lanka, that has lasted for almost six years.
The Agreement signed by the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in February 2002 outlined the mandate for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, as a tool to watch the CFA implementation.
Thus, the abrogation of the CFA also implies the termination of the SLMM. In practical terms, this means that the Nordic monitors will leave Sri Lanka today and early tomorrow morning, leaving behind only a few personnel to wrap up administrative obligations related to the closing down of the mission.
A short recap of history
During the first years of the CFA period, there was seemingly a general spirit of cooperation between the Parties. Violations were relatively few. But lack of progress on critical issues nurtured distrust between Parties, giving set backs in the peace process. Gradually the conflict level increased, involving more military activities, more violence affecting civilians, more signs of insecurity, and more displacement of people. Today, the ground situation displays a reality very far from what is outlined in the CFA.
The SLMM reality
The purpose of SLMM presence in Sri Lanka has all the way been to support the peace process. Defining how best to implement the potential of the SLMM mechanism, has however at times been a huge challenge. As the conflict level gradually increased, the mission re-evaluated its approach, pursuing strategies and working procedures relevant to the situation. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has been appreciated and slammed, loved and hated, over these six years. Some have expressed their support, saying; “Without the SLMM we will be doomed”, or “Without the SLMM many more lives would have been lost”, or “We are scared for what will happen if SLMM leaves Sri Lanka”. Others have preferred to portray SLMM as powerless, inefficient and utterly biased.
[SLMM Official in Vaaharai, Nov: 2006-Photo: LTTEPS.org]
The final report
The SLMM has been present in the North and the East of Sri Lanka, as well as in the capital, every single day for nearly six years. Through on the ground monitoring, we have learned to recognize and respect the complexity of the conflict. Based on this knowledge, the final report from the operation is this:
The SLMM is absolutely convinced that this complex conflict can not be solved by military means. The Head of Mission finds it to be his duty to draw this conclusion as the operation is about to be terminated. It is not a task for the SLMM, however, to advice the parties to the CFA, nor other actors, how to find viable solutions. This has to be left to the people of Sri Lanka themselves-supported by facilitating actors of their choice.
Concluding remarks
The Head of the SLMM uses this final opportunity to thank the GOSL and the LTTE for inviting SLMM to serve them, in their search for a negotiated solution to the conflict between them. It is with sadness that we leave this resourceful and beautiful country at this point of time. It is hard to leave behind people all over the island that we have learned to know, and come to love and respect. We will miss out on the opportunity to further adapt and contribute in the present situation,-and we would like to believe that Sri Lanka misses out on something valuable too.
In the time to come, fortunately, many actors both inside and outside Sri Lanka, will continue to contribute to the search for a solution to the conflict. Hopefully, wise choices will be made at all levels by those who possess the power to make decisions.
Future heroes in Sri Lanka will be those who recognize the complexity of the situation, and prove able to manage this complexity in a way that reduces rather than increases human pain, fear and hopelessness-those capable of respecting people with different perceptions, and bringing them together. The SLMM will close its operation at 1900 hrs today.
To the people of Sri Lanka; Thank you and farewell
Colombo, 16 January 2008
Lars J Solvberg
Major General
Head of Mission
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission
January 16th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts