Interview III – Dr.Jayampathy Wickramaratne

On this program Sanjana Hattotuwa talks to Dr.Jayampathy Wickramaratne, President’s Counsel

The series that gives you insights on Peace and Politics; Business and Development; Society and the Environment; Culture and the Arts.

Featuring diverse views and perspectives; informing people; contributing to the debate on important national issues – The Interview is produced by Young Asia Television.

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After fighting, Sri Lanka needs devolution: India

Thu, Mar 12, 2009 AFP

WASHINGTON, US, March 11, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka needs true devolution of power to minority Tamils if it wants to permanently end its long-running ethnic war, Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said Wednesday.

Menon, who was in Washington for talks, said the United States and the Sri Lankan government itself both agreed with regional power India on the need to quickly restore daily life in war-torn areas.

The Colombo government says it is on the verge of crushing the Tamil Tigers, who have been waging a campaign since 1972 to create a separate Tamil homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island.

India feels that along with reconstruction, Sri Lanka needs ‘to bring in the kinds of political steps including devolution which would enable the people there to feel they are in control of their own futures,’ Menon said.

‘Unless that is done in a credible fashion, we run the risk of actually continuing with this sense of alienation and displacement which the conflict has resulted in,’ he told a news conference.

Menon said that his talks with US President Barack Obama’s administration showed the two sides ‘have very similar approaches.’

‘We will continue to stay in touch to see how we can help in this regard,’ he said.

India, which has a large Tamil population, intervened militarily in Sri Lanka in 1987 and reached an accord with Colombo that would include power-sharing with Tamils in the island’s north and east.

But the accord was never fully carried out. Soon after the agreement, Indian peacekeepers became embroiled in fighting with the Tamil Tigers, with the last troops leaving the island in 1990.

The Tamil Tigers, now banned as a terrorist group by Washington and New Delhi, assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1990.

Source : AFP

LankaDissent Hot Topic : Kusal Perera

Read on (Sinhala) >> as_PDF

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Jihad, India and war in Sri Lanka

Tamil Nadu has taken almost every one on its stride, politically. The Delhi government did not anticipate the Sri Lankan Tamil issue would provoke such a ruckus in TN to catch it off guard. Although the DMK and the AIADMK still don’t sit together on the SL Tamil issue, the two rival leaders simply can not stop agreeing the SL Tamil conflict across the Palk Straits is of Tamilean concern. Thus it has compelled the Indian government to overtly intervene in stopping the war in favour of a peaceful political solution to appease TN politics.

Can India meet that challenge today ?

The government of SL has the advantage in having an India that’s different from the Nehru-Gandhi era. Present India has broken away from the traditional anti-American bloc. Therefore it makes easy alliances with all those who see this new Indian stand as a new threat. Therefore the GoSL worked towards a new foreign alliance primarily with Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia that’s comfortable without queries on HR violations allowed with impunity and a war that bleeds the public coffers blue, while the Delhi government was extremely cautious in developing open support to the Rajapaksa regime. It did not openly provide military assistance to this Rajapaksa government to carry on with its war, careful not to upset its TN partners in government. Meanwhile it could not ignore the possibility of Pakistan becoming a major influence with the Sri Lankan military establishment. Pakistan for India is a serious and a sensitive subject.

There is an unacknowledged yet a growing issue of Pakistani support for armed Islamic fundamentalists both in India and in Bangladesh. Almost six years ago in 2002, the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) an armed group from the Indian State of Assam was reported affiliated with Rohingya armed Muslim groups in a Bangladeshi Islamic umbrella organisation. Rohingyans have close ties with Al-Qaeda and the Harkat-Ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (Huji) of Pakistan. Huji is reported active in South India from as long ago as 1995. Though complex and complicated, India has its own reservations on how the Pakistani ISI works with Islamic Fundamentalists, ever since it expelled, Brig. Zahir-ul-Islam-Abbasi in 1988. He was ISI Station Chief at the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi. Abbasi was reportedly having direct links with the Huji. Pakistani army’s links with different Islamic fundamentalist groups including Huji too have become a serious issue for India.

Pakistani presence in SL is not merely an ego issue for India. It has its long term politico – military reasons that for SL too should be very relevant and serious too. The issue is about intricate Jihadi webs that develop with Pakistani connections. Here’s a quote on that. “It was Hamid Bakri (was arrested by the TN police during their investigation into the activities of the Muslim Defence Force), accompanied by one Zakkaria, who had met Abu Hamsa in Saudi Arabia and subsequently gone to Sri Lanka for another meeting, which did not materialise…….It should be evident that for some years now there have been indicators of the clandestine creation of a Jihadi web in Mumbai, South India and possibly in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, with the SIMI and the LET (both operating in Pakistan)  playing an active role in this matter, either in tandem or separately of each other. It is also evident that much of the inspiration and financial support for this came from Indian and Pakistani Jihadi activists in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.(Intelibriefs – ‘Jihadi Terrorism in South India – External Motivators’ / Paper 271 – B. Raman)

That political necessity was tied to the Indian government’s psyche of being anti – LTTE, or more precisely anti – Prabha in all calculations regarding SL. The Indian government thus tried to ride two horses at the same time and in opposite directions. It wanted the Rajapaksa regime to militarily finish off the LTTE and also devolve power. They therefore tried to tie up covert military and intelligence support to power devolution. The Indian experts perhaps took for granted they could compel the Rajapaksa government to compromise for full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution with their covert support for the war. This whole project once again is a disaster.

That’s perhaps what covert interventions with governments like the Rajapaksa government eventually lead to. No covert assistance would leave any binding on any government, for that matter. None could openly admit giving or receiving such military and intelligence support. Thus it gave this Rajapaksa government the opportunity to bargain with India when necessary and then ignore the Indians too. This was very evident on the way the GoSL treated India with the signing of CEPA during the Indian PM Dr. Singh’s visit to Colombo for the SAARC. It is evident also by the way GoSL plays between Pakistan and India now, with a quick visit to Pakistan by its Defence Secretary and only an invitation extended to Indian External Affairs Minister.

But the present Manmohan Singh government can not air drop or send humanitarian aid by boats as Rajiv Gandhi did in 1987 May. It can not intervene openly and in the manner it did with the Indo-SL Accord. It is very doubtful the Indian government could even resort to a “demarche” as in 1987 February. The Rajapaksa government, unlike JRJ’s, has truly trapped the Indian government on the diplomatic front by keeping its doors open for dialogue with Indian counterpart(s). That approach helps this Rajapaksa government to kill time for its own agenda.

But TN pressure keeps pulling the Delhi leaders out of their covert support to the GoSL, to instead support a cease fire to save what TN says is a “genocide against SL Tamils”. What now ? Can the Delhi experts carry that baggage as well ? What Indian experts on SL did not understand when they compromised covertly for war, is that any crushing of the LTTE militarily, has to have a hyped anti – LTTE campaign that rejects devolution and stands for a strong Unitary State. It thus becomes a Sinhala campaign for war and automatically leaves out the Tamils and the Muslims from its ownership of the State.

A government that installs itself on such a Sinhalised promise, when supported even covertly for war could only become politically stubborn. With a politically impotent Opposition, it carries the Sinhala society too with it, for its own advantage. Thus the very Indian logic of pushing Pakistani interests out of the island State and having the LTTE militarily crushed on the way, has caught them on the pincers of TN politics and a shrewd SL government.

Therefore for any compromise in TN, there has to be some watering down of the military thrust on ground here in SL, forgetting the “Prabhakaran” factor. That can not be achieved even by working through the Tamil politicians who are with the government. It’s very plain; all of them from Devananda to Sangaree and from Pilleyan to Karuna Amman are mere “victims” of political manipulations by the Rajapaksa government. They have been effectively reduced to pawns, moved from square to square in safeguarding the Rajapaksa government.

The only way out for India now is definitely not the way it came all these years by taking the LTTE as its common denominator in all calculations. It would now have to leave those petty politics aside and think regionally in how our societies in South Asia could be re-democratised to eliminate what most including India would wish to call “terrorism”. It thus needs a strong and open dialogue instead of behind doors and closed room manoeuvrings.

– Kusal Perera

Bombing in Sri Lanka

7 October 2008

== Media release ==

The Australian Government condemns the suicide bombing in the north of Sri Lanka on 6 October which has killed over 25 and injured more than 65 people.

Among those killed was local opposition leader Major-General Janaka Perera and his wife Vajira Perera. Mr Perera was a former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia. The Australian Government sends its most sincere condolences to the Perera family and to the families of all those killed and injured in this terrible attack.

Australia is deeply concerned about the increasing violence in Sri Lanka and the humanitarian impact of escalating conflict in the north of the country. Fighting has intensified as Sri Lankan Government security forces seek to establish control over territory in the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Australia recognises the right of the Sri Lankan Government to undertake measured action, consistent with international law, to secure control over its national territory. At the same time, it is vital that the Government and all institutions of the state make every effort to avoid any civilian casualties and act swiftly and on a sustained basis to mitigate humanitarian hardship from the conflict. This is, of course, a profound responsibility for any democratic government.

The Australian Government welcomes recent statements by the Sri Lankan leadership acknowledging the Government’s responsibility for ensuring that civilians in the conflict areas are protected from the fighting and that their basic needs for food, shelter and human dignity are met.

United Nations and other international agencies have been playing a central role in helping to support vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka. This role remains crucial. Australia urges the Sri Lankan Government to continue working closely with UN and other agencies to support the welfare of the large number of Sri Lankan citizens displaced and otherwise affected by the conflict. The dedicated staff of UN agencies, international NGOs and the International Committee for the Red Cross in Sri Lanka are undertaking vital work in difficult circumstances.

It is encouraging that the Sri Lankan Government is taking a constructive approach to facilitating the continued delivery of essential food and other items to displaced civilians in the conflict area. These efforts need to continue on a sustained basis so that essential supplies can reach needy populations without discrimination.

It is crucial that Government agencies and international organisations continue to work together to ensure those who flee the fighting are able to get access to essential support in a way that preserves their dignity, their family structures and their human rights. Civilians displaced into government-held areas must be given early and ongoing support and adequate welfare conditions; their basic civil liberties must be protected, including where it is necessary for people to be housed in temporary camps. Communities must also be given livelihoods and other equal opportunities once they are returned or resettled.

Australia remains committed to supporting these efforts through the substantial humanitarian assistance we provide to Sri Lanka. Australia is providing food, protection, emergency shelter, essential non-food relief items, water, sanitation and livelihood opportunities for large numbers of Sri Lankans affected by the conflict. Our assistance will continue to be delivered through multilateral agencies in cooperation with the Sri Lankan Government, helping to address the grave humanitarian needs faced by conflict-affected communities in Sri Lanka.

Both sides to the conflict need to be held accountable to their responsibilities in the conduct of hostilities. Both sides must act in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian norms.

Australia calls on the LTTE to heed international law. This means allowing freedom of movement to civilians in areas under its control, taking steps to minimise the risk to civilians from the conflict, allowing safe and unimpeded passage for humanitarian workers and essential supplies and acting immediately to end forced and underage recruitment in accordance with the Paris Principles.

Australia’s very strong view remains that Sri Lanka’s conflict cannot be resolved through military means alone. We consider a political solution to be essential for long-term peace in a country which has been suffering for so long from conflict. In this regard, it is crucial that freedom of the press and freedom of expression are upheld, allowing the democratic political process to function properly in the search for a settlement. The Australian Government urges all parties to act with urgency to bring forward a sustainable political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of all Sri Lankans.

Media inquiries: Mr Smith’s office 02 6277 7500 – Departmental Media Liaison 02 6261 1555

Source : http://www.foreignminister.gov.au

Defense and Devolution

Just as it did at the moment of decolonization and independence, the visible post-war moment provides a rare historic opportunity for nation building and the construction of national identity. We missed the first chance, but must not miss the second.

In his nationally televised dialogue with audiences in several areas on Tuesday August 19^th, President Rajapakse, speaking in Sinhala to largely Sinhala rural crowds, pledged to hold elections to the Northern Provincial Council within a year of its liberation just as he had held election to the Eastern Provincial Council. He added that he was considering elections to the local authorities in Jaffna very much earlier.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary, had already indicated the goal in his response to The Times online, stressing the need to privilege a common Sri Lankan identity over and above our separate ethnic identities, allowing for devolution of power, and reiterating the President’s commitment to it.

In the context of a negotiated settlement the post-war order is shaped by all who sit around the table, including the peacemakers. However, given the nature of the LTTE, and as Kethesh Loganathan used to point out, the appeasement by the international community and Colombo’s civil society, a peaceful settlement of Sri Lanka’s conflict has repeatedly proved impossible.

Sri Lanka will get beyond the war to a post-war situation because of the military victory scored by the Sri Lankan armed forces, made possible under the political leadership of the Rajapakse presidency. In a context where the post war moment is the result of a war, the post-war order is decided upon by those who led, fought in and supported the war.

There can be no national identity without a unified national territory. It is unrealistic to expect those – national or international, Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim– who opposed the war of liberation, those who practiced a policy of appeasement, who acted as proxies for the enemy, to be stakeholders in deciding or shaping the post-war order. Notwithstanding the academic exercises debating Sri Lankan identity by those who opposed the necessary war through which Sri Lanka must be reunited as a single sovereign territorial space, the post-war order, the crucible of evolving national identity, will almost certainly be decided by those – Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim; national, regional and international-who stood shoulder to shoulder in, or stood with, or at least did not stand against, the anti-fascist war of national reunification.

As we make the transition into the last stage-though not phase-of the conventional war against the LTTE, it is wise to have a clear idea of what comes after. It is in this context that the debate on devolution must be placed.

Those who advocate the non-implementation of the 13^th amendment, as well as those who advocate only its partial, rather than full implementation, have not taken into account the realities of post-mid intensity conflict warfare, that is the low intensity conflict that will doubtless follow the defeat of “the conventional military power of Tamil Eelam” — as the late columnist “Taraki” used to call it.

The Sri Lankan military and STF will doubtless be required to follow up the conventional military victory with the complete and final elimination of the LTTE as a military force, destroying its columns in jungle warfare, its cells in urban counter-terrorist warfare, uprooting its organisational infrastructure and its weapons caches.

What has to be avoided is a situation in which the Tigers, their proxies or substitutes, succeed in winning by other means that which they could not win by military means. The mighty USSR fell without a shot being fired, having defended itself, Europe and the world, against the armies of Nazi fascism. Therefore it is necessary to avoid what the Chinese Communist leadership has correctly called the dangers of “peaceful evolution”.

Even after the shooting stops, the 6^th amendment to the Constitution which bans secessionism must be strictly enforced with regard to the LTTE and its proxies. The LTTE should be banned. Its proxies should be treated as Spain, a member of the EU, treats Herri Batasuna, the parliamentary party of Basque separatism, which has been proscribed by the respected judge Baltazar Garzon as a party which “maintains links with an underground armed organisation”.

There is however, an important corollary. The ban on the espousal of separatism in Spain and India is regarded as legitimate because it takes place in a system that contains generous autonomy for ethnic or ethno-lingual regions. Therefore, the implementation of the devolution of power to the provinces must parallel this strict enforcement of the ban on separatism.

The Sri Lankan armed forces will have to stay in the North and East for as long as is needed but not a moment longer than is needed. If we pull out prematurely due to manipulated demands from Tamil politicians, endorsed by regional or global players wielding carrots and sticks, it will be at the risk of the reactivation of the Tigers and/or the Tamil Eelam struggle.

There will have to be a long-term Sri Lankan armed forces presence in the North and East, positioned in such a configuration and of such a strength that can suppress, pre-empt and deter any sign of separatist-terrorist activity.

As importantly or even more so, there will have to be a constantly modernised Sri Lankan combined services presence guarding our porous borders against the largest source of anti-Sri Lankan sentiment, namely Tamil Nadu.

However, if the Sri Lankan armed forces presence is too large, too obtrusive, remains largely mono-ethnic and mono-religious, and has too many abrasive functions in relation to Tamil society and public life, we risk exactly the same danger. Our armed forces would then have the profile of an army of occupation, with peaceful protests erupting, and violent incidents being flashed around the world, giving credence to the cause of separatism. We must avoid a replay of the whole experience ranging from the socially insensitive conduct of TAFAII through the suppression of the Satyagraha of 1961 to the brutal retaliatory tactics of the early 1980s.

Let us learn the lesson of Israel. It is a society and a people whose achievement ranges from the ancient Biblical texts to ultra-modernity: instead of resting on its heritage which is a foundational part of Western civilisation, in the 60 years since its founding it has produced eight Nobel Prize winners. However, Israel is locked in conflict, unable to fulfil its brilliant potential in the world. The turning point was in 1967. Neither Moshe Dayan and his Generals who won the Six Day War so spectacularly, nor Prime Minister Golda Meir, ever planned to remain in permanent occupation of Arab land. When he saw his paratroopers praying at the Wailing Wall, Moshe Dayan snorted “what’s this, the Vatican?” and ordered the pulling down of an Israeli flag flying over a sacred Islamic site. Today, his daughter Yael Dayan, a decorated war veteran, writer and Deputy Mayor, is a leading figure protesting against the building of the “security wall”.

The impulse for encroachment on and annexation of Arab/Palestinian land, turning a brilliant military victory into the political quagmire of permanent occupation, came not from the largely Westernized, sophisticated Israeli politico-military ruling elite, but from native Jewish ultranationalist religious fundamentalists.

This is where devolution comes in. The issue of land is at the heart of civic conflict in many regions of the world, Israel/Palestine being only the worst or the best known. Nothing is as emotive and nothing is guaranteed to give any armed forces presence a profile of an army of occupation as unsettled questions of land, involving the peasantry.

An exhaustive discussion on Land in relation to devolution took place between the Governments of Sri Lanka and India and a complex formula was arrived at. Whether or not it is adhered to, one can envisage land being a bone of contention in the North and the East, but the danger in non-adherence is that we shall not have India on our side or even neutral in any such dispute. If India is alienated from us, so too will be everyone else. A land dispute in the East is also likely to involve the Muslim community, and if so, our valuable support from Pakistan, Iran and the OIC (the 52 nation Organization of the Islamic Conference) will stand in jeopardy.

If the Tamil citizens of the East, especially the peasantry, are locked in a protracted confrontation with the Sinhala community, the state or the armed forces over land, it will be impossible for our Tamil allies the TMVP to stand aside. If the TMVP were to move against the Tamil people it would weaken their base. If they moved against the Sinhalese it would weaken our profile, reducing it to a Sinhala Only one.

It would therefore be profoundly counter-productive for us NOT to implement fully, the 13^th amendment, including on the subject of land.

Matters are as clear when it comes to the issue of police powers. Unlike in the case of a conventional war, no low intensity conflict/counter-insurgency has ever been won without a major role for local forces and this still truer when the conflict has a dimension of identity, i.e. when the insurgent and state’s armed forces are drawn from different ethno-national, linguistic or religious groups. “Chechenisation” was a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s victory over the ferocious Chechen secessionist terrorist army.

In the absence of local forces, the conflict becomes one between an army of occupation and the people of the area. The state requires an intermediary layer to avoid such polarization. If these local forces are not to remain irregular militia which could lapse into banditry, they have to be incorporated into the system and subject to the rule of law. This is where the granting of police powers to the Provincial Councils as per the 13^th amendment, comes in handy.

In a recent, widely reported speech in Canada, Prof Ratnajeevan Hoole, whose scholarly credentials I greatly respect, has made an incomplete identification of the choices facing the Tamil people. He lists separation, federalism and assimilation. Having obliquely indicated a preference for the first option, he rules it out as unfeasible. He concludes with a robust call for federalism through international involvement. Prof Hoole unwittingly gives comfort to those Sinhala extremists who argue that Tamil moderates are closet Eelamists who prefer Tamil Eelam if it were feasible, would settle for federalism only because separation is not an option at the moment and would stretch federalism to the point of separation if given half a chance.

This leaves one with the realisation that the only realists among the moderate Tamils are not in the Diaspora, but on the island, and represented by Douglas Devananda, Chief Minister Chandrakanthan and Col. Karuna, i.e. the EPDP and TMVP.

Prof Hoole also makes a grave analytical error in his identification of options. A glance around the world would show him that there is a fourth option, namely the devolution of power/autonomy within a unitary system, as practiced in the UK, China and the Philippines (if I were to name but three diverse examples). This is the option arrived at under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which could not be implemented primarily (but not exclusively) because the LTTE went to war against the IPKF. Once that armed spoiler is out of the way, the devolution option becomes practicable.

Provincial autonomy as contained in the 13^th amendment must be saved from two quarters: those who would seek to move beyond it by vaulting over it, and those who seek to dismantle, delay or dilute it.

The Tamil community must be liberated from the structural political impasse they find themselves in. The Sinhalese must be emancipated from the structural economic-developmental, institutional and human resources impasse they find themselves in. Post-war Sri Lanka needs to catch up with the rest of Asia, the high growth area of the world. These objectives require a policy of Defence and Devolution.

Source >> groundviews