WILL COLOMBO SUCCESSFULLY OUT-SMART THE WASHINGTON/DELHI COMBINE TO ESCAPE ACCOUNTABILITY IN UNHRC?
Minister Keheliya Rambukwella responding to United States pressure on implementing the March 2012 UNHRC resolution boasted that ‘SL (is) working according to a plan’ (Daily Mirror 30, May). In effect SL is laying the ground work to successfully out-smart the international community including the US and India re-tuning those slogans that won SL’s war against the Tamils militarily and diplomatically. SL’s successful sloganeering portrayed the Tamil resistance to the SL genocide as a fight against ‘terrorism’; a phoney slogan that deceptively won SL the now regretted wide support for its anti-Tamil war.
Sloganeering of Sinhala apologists posing as intellectuals was the main driving force behind the seven plus decades of SL’s genocide on the Tamils. It began with the JVP bigot K M P Rajaratne’s war cry to return the up-country Tamils to Tamil Nadu (TN) labeling them as guest workers from Tamil Nadu. Delhi caved in to this anti-Tamil injustice. SL that had scant regard for constitutions dis-enfranchised these Tamils in 1948 within a year of SL’s independence. This was the first act of political genocide that grew more menacing and murderous to produce the iconic Mullivaykkal massacres. There are still in post- May 2009 Sinhala bigots aplenty pushing the Rajapakses to complete the genocide project and finish off (kill and or expel to TN the Tamil country) the Eelam Tamils once and for all, still in SL.
Of this crowd of apologists, Dayan Jayatileke and Victor Ivan alias Majuwana Kankanamage recently authored outlandish anti-Tamil pieces in typical Sinhala style using deceptive slogans to cajole the international community especially India to stall all actions against SL to account for their genocide and war crimes. Sinhala style of story telling presents the (Tamil) victims as villains; Dayan blaming the ITAK leadership’s keynote address at its recent conference on 1st May.
Dayan Jayatileke’s piece titled ‘ITAK’s plan of attack: the breakout strategy’ in Groundviews of 29 May 2012 holds that ITAK leader’s keynote address as an attempt to sneak its ‘separatist’ agenda through; Dayan using a more sensational slogan; a ‘breakout strategy’. Dayan brings to focus proposals In TN political circles to pursue the South Sudan referendum model as solution for the SL Tamil homelands to vote on merger with TN/India when saving the lives of Eelam Tamils has become the paramount issue; more so with SL instead of de-militarizing is strongly pursuing demographic engineering to Sinhalise the North relying on planned heavy militarization for the permanent occupation of the Tamil homelands. Though Eelam Tamils are angered over the decades long genocide they trust the 13 plus amendment devolution package within a united SL that the international community /India are sponsoring has guarantees of Delhi and or UN mandated bodies on SL observing the provisions of the 13 plus amendment. Dayan/SL finding that the ‘terrorist’ slogan has lost relevance brings in the ghost ‘breakout’ (merger with TN) slogan that for the Sinhalese is the most emotive to ensure that the Rajapakses remain in power for ever.
The ‘separatism’ slogan against the Eelam Tamils instigated Sinhala mob violence for SL’s genocide killings and ethnic cleansing in the 1950s to 1980s. Regular state sponsored mob violence killed and drove back en-masse Eelam Tamils to flee the South where they were eking out a living to the safety of their homelands in the North and East. The Sinhala slogan shouted at the Tamils then was ‘demala (tamils) Yapanayatta yanda’. Yapanaya referred was the Tamil homelands.
Now to prevent the South Sudan referendum model from gaining acceptance in India and the international community the Rajapakses and Ivan have dropped the ‘Yapanayatta yanda’ slogan and brought in the new mantra that Tamils and Sinhalas may live in safety in any part of SL, North, South or anywhere in united SL. This unknown or unheard mantra of the Sinhala leaders lacks sincerety. Eelam Tamils eking out a living have not forgotten the history of ships regularly carrying displaced Tamils from the South over days and weeks seeking safety for their lives in the ‘homelands’ in the North. The entry route to the Tamil homelands had to be by sea, the land route to the North passed through hazardous enemy Sinhala territory that the Tamils dared not to cross. For practical purposes indisputably de facto there were separate territories, the Sinhala and Tamil territories that Tarzie Vittachi in ‘Emergency’ graphically describes. SL’s record is such that will India and the international community now believe that SL will honestly observe the safety of the Tamils in any part of the country not just in the Tamil homelands? Rajapakses following the UN Kohona Palitha’s ‘winner takes all’ thinking granting security guarantees for the lives of Tamils leave alone those in the South!. The Eelam Tamils’ safety even in their homelands is under a cloud with the growing Sinhala militarization of the North and the stubborn refusal of the Rajapakses to de-militarise the North. World opinion has highly critically of the stance of SL on this.
Separatism is an SL emotive issue; a ‘reality’ that Ivan and the Rajapakses dismiss casually to ‘.. ..claim that the Northern and Eastern Provinces are Tamil homelands is based on a conceptual myth’ rejecting the historically accepted demographic areas of habitation of the Tamil homelands that Delhi and the international community is pressing SL to grant autonomy. Safety for Tamil lives from Sinhala state sponsored mob attacks gave birth to ITAK in the early 1950’s for agitating for Tamil rights, (amongst others language rights and jobs/livelihood rights stolen by the Sinhala only legislation, right to protection for Tamil homes/assets from being torched by Sinhala mobs, Tamil lands stolen by the state giving varies reasons, military bases and house Sinhala soldiers).
The SL state’s response to the birth of ITAK that is strongly committed to democratic, non-violent, satyagraha agitation to fight for the rights lost was suppression using brute force. SL’s violent suppression resulted in the Tamil homelands in the North demographically shrinking and disappearing fast since May 2009 that in the minds of Sinhala activist Dayan and Victor Ivan alias Majuwana Kankanamage Tamil homelands have been downgraded to a conceptual myth status. Hence both challenge the relevance of devolution projects to solve the Tamil trauma. Accordingly Ivan in ‘13 Plus amendment, Could It Be The Best Solution’ (dbsjeyaraj.com, 4 May 2012) re-writes SL history to argue for Rajapakses’ against genocide and war crimes charges the international community is following up on the UNHRC March 2012 resolution to find a political (devolution) solution to the Tamil trauma.
‘Colombo humbles Delhi over its 13 Plus Amendment to redress the SL Tamil trauma’ in Groundreport May 26, 2012 discusses why the Rajapakses and their apologists are dead set against the devolution prescribed in the 13 Plus Delhi project, though they promised to implement the 13 plus umpteenth time. Under ‘the winner takes all’ thinking the Sinhala regime’s project is to convert SL a multi-cultural country at independence into a pan Buddhist-Sinhala country using demographic engineering in its favour, re-writing SL history and planting archeological remains in support of SL’s new history. Places of worship of other communities destroyed (not only in the North but also in Dambulla) to provide the space to plant Buddhist/Sinhala archeological remains to confirm SL’s pure Buddhist heritage.
Angered victims of SL genocide who resisted at first peacefully then resorted to armed struggle and lost; the pain and loss suffered leaves behind indelible marks on the Eelam Tamils that the bona fides of SL’s promises will be suspect though decades if not centuries may pass.
Rajapakses are not seriously debating substantive issues; not a viable devolution, not de-militarization and so the Tamil trauma goes on. Adverse comments on the levels of militarization in the North come not only from the harassed Tamils but from the reputable members of the international community and human rights bodies. Between (1948) independence and today according to the latest census (census under war time conditions are suspect more so in SL) demographically the number of SL Tamils has shrunk to about a million. Estimates of those living in the South is .5 million; that leaves only .5 million in the North, a substantial shortfall that the Rajapakses have to account for. Sovereignty is not license to play with lives.
To quote from ‘Colombo humbles Delhi over its 13 plus amendment’ Groundreport 26 May “The Rajapakses demonized the Tamil insurgency to annihilate the Eelam Tamils; over a couple of millions killed or massacred, displaced, starved, deprived of livelihood and driven out of SL as refugees… the excesses of the SL genocide ..world opinion changing into supporting the Eelam Tamil cause which is basically about saving Tamil lives..The Rajapakses shut the world out to.. the Rajapakses brutally massacring Eelam Tamils civilian in tens of thousands and waging a wantom scotched earth destruction of homes, hospitals..As these crimes unraveled the civilized reacted with horror on learning how brutal the Rajapakses were compared to the ‘terrorism’ of the Eelam Tamil insurgency..had the media provided the images of horror of the Rajapakses’ counter terrorism war that the Channel 4’s classic documentary presented to the world, the West would have reacted faster as it..reacts to the Syrian horrors today’…. International community is convinced enough that SL’s genocide is a more menacing evil disturbing peace in the region..’
‘To the Eelam Tamils who faced the savagery of decades’ long SL genocide, the 13 plus amendment is also not the best solution unless it is underwritten (by external agencies-India or UN mandated bodies)..A pre-requisite for the Tamils is SL recognizing that it is a multi-cultural country and has entrenched provisions to ensure that the Rakjapakses are not given the space to play truancy with the constitution and the lives of innocent civilian Tamils.’
The Rajapakses have stalled the current debate on a political solution to the continuing Tamil trauma. ‘The world that once failed to notice SL’s callous indifference to the letter and spirit of the unitary Westminster constitution under which the British entrusted the lives and future of the communities ..that inhabited the island… The world awoke late when SL produced in the Rajapakses the likes of Idi Amins who ruthlessly rid … Britain had not diagnosed accurately the narrow tribal malady afflicting the Buddhist/Sinhalas..That a federal constitution.. a model for linguistically and culturally diverse countries..(will not work unless like India) SL observed minority rights and norms for minority safeguards sensibly and sensitively.’ Hence the ITAK’s call for arrangements guaranteeing that the R2P provisions be built into the political solution for the SL’s situation is most reasonable. Dayan; this is not a breakout yet but it will come if SL pushes TN/Delhi/International community to go that route, China or no China.