Sunday, 29 September 2013
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Political Violence in Sri Lanka
An introduction
Prosterman in 1976 estimated that some 68 million people have perished from all forms of deliberate human violence from 1820 to 1970. Zimmerman in 2013 found that if the victims of state violence suffering from pogroms, brutal repression, and other forms of state coercion were added, the figure would be more than double this.
The discussion herein is limited to socio-structural conditions of political violence, their impact on society and the ideological tendencies such an impact compelled the Sri Lankan youth into. The short nature of this paper does not allow me to discuss the relevant historical international contexts.
Political violence – pre-colonial and colonial days
Political violence in Sri Lanka can be traced back to feudalism, as manifested in regular invasions by South Indian rulers, wars to expand feudal territories, and assassinations for the transfer of royal power, and aggression and terror colonialists committed against indigenous people. De Zoysa and Fernando (2007) refer to 32 types of torture practised in ancient Sri Lanka. As taught in history lessons, these torture methods included being trampled by an elephant, being impaled on a pointed iron pole, or being torn apart by letting loose two tensioned trees onto which victims were tightly bound. Obviously, such cruel techniques would have been ‘lawfully’ inflicted by kings’ armed forces on political opponents. Torture was perceived as a legitimate means of obtaining confessions from political prisoners for convicting, banishing or executing them.
From the Kandyan Wars in 1801, 1802, 1803, etc. the British had learnt, and would have been contemplating ways of suppressing any new rebellions peasants might launch. The Uva-Wellassa Rebellion of 1818, led by Keppetipola Disawe and others against the British rule, was the most serious political-military attempt of the Kandyans to regain their independence. The military tactics of the British included setting fire to and laying waste the property of the Headmen (Mills, 1964).
The Kandyans were starved into submission. Their land was confiscated. Their dependents were debarred from the fruits of their ancestral wealth. Being forced to live in the jungles and mountains, they had lost their means of livelihood. The rebellion had collapsed by the end of October 1818.[1] The Government declared that those who fought against colonialism were traitors. The Rebellion was drowned in blood. 10,000 Kandyans were allegedly killed in action or died from disease or famine.
In the 1830s, under the Wastelands Ordinance, the British expropriated the common land of the peasantry reducing them to extreme poverty. Despite the tremendous pressure the colonial state was exerting, the dispossessed peasantry refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-slaves. Under a notorious contract labour system, hundreds of thousands of Malaiyaha workers, at the time called ‘Tamil coolies’ were brought in from South India. Tens of thousands of them died both on the journey and on the plantations.
Economic depression in Britain had drastically affected the local coffee and cinnamon industry. To alleviate a crisis, the state imposed an oppressive direct tax regime which included a tax on labour. In 1848, a mass movement grew against the new tax regime. The same year, Gongalegoda Banda was proclaimed the king of Kandy and Puran Appu his sword bearer. In an attempt to capture Kandy from the British, they attacked government buildings and destroyed some tax records.
The Governor declared martial law, and the British army shot many people dead. Puran Appu was captured and executed. Gongalegoda Banda was arrested while in hiding and was sentenced to death by hanging. Later this was commuted to 100 lashes and being deported to Malaysia. For the first time, in the Kandyan provinces, the leadership of the rebellion passed into the hands of ordinary peasants (de Silva, 1953).
These historic events help us understand the concept of political violence as carried out by the state and peoples’ resistance against such oppression.
Post-1948 political violence
Political violence has been broadly categorised as being caused by national fragmentation, inequitable development, cultural clashes and liberation movements (Steinbach 1980). These causes do not exist in isolation, but usually interact simultaneously. Short-term but major political and armed conflicts manifested in the south in 1971 and then in 1987-1989. The JVP (Peoples’ Liberation Front) led both these insurrections. In the Tamil-dominated north and east of the island, militant ethnic nationalist groups emerged in the early 1970s demanding autonomy. Both the short-term and prolonged armed conflicts caused a massive transformation of the civil society and the country’s governance structures.
Wrecked by violence and civil war, Lanka’s post-independent history has involved paradoxical questions about democracy and peoples’ participation in decision-making. The democratic traditions including institutionalized checks and balances that allowed the disadvantaged and non-majoritarian voices to be heard and to effectively claim their democratic and human rights have been gradually made weaker. While it is impossible to sympathise entirely with the violence and methods used by groups in order to counter those trends, non-violent resistance to such trends also do not seem to have worked. One could say that many things have worsened with expanded armed forces, intensified violence and destruction, with increasingly intense opposition of a few to the material interests of the many in society.
Political threats transformed into deadly violence in a seemingly endless spiral, in 1971 and 1989 mainly in the south, and in 1970 to 2009 in the north. Despite the public exposure of violence and systematic human rights violations committed by the parties involved, a lack of judicial accountability has continued to perpetuate pervasive mistrust that undermined civil society. It has become necessary to focus on the legacy of state violence and its effects on society, in terms of justice, truth and reconciliation. We also need a critique of the often-romanticized versions of armed resistance and the notion of ‘reconciliation’ advocated or implemented that do not defuse tensions among diverse peoples.
Radicalisation of the Youth
The basis for political violence by young people, particularly in the south, is linked to the post-colonial socio-economic and political developments. The colonial rulers made privileges available to the English-educated locals belonging to all communities, while treating the rest as slave labour, thus providing a fertile breeding ground for local nationalisms. The growing influence of the left in the south and the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC)[2] in the north temporarily delayed the emergence of these radicalisations along ethno-nationalistic and linguistic lines.
The failure of the ruling elite in Sri Lanka to make appropriate socio-economic and political change alienated the majority of young people. Consequently, the country’s youth turned to radical and violent practices against the elite’s stranglehold on the levers of political patronage and economics. In the south, these revolutionary practices materialised in the form of class mobilisations. The attempts in the north and east, however, took the form of nationalist aspirations. The universal franchise and the lowering of the voting age allowed young people to take part in active electoral politics. Free education was introduced in 1945, and the medium of instruction was changed to local languages in 1956, which expanded higher educational opportunities available to youth.
The growth of the JVP and the LTTE underscored the role played by these socio-economic, political and cultural factors. The emerging political violence represented the anti-establishment sentiments of the country’s younger generations. The JVP militancy predominantly represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Sinhala Buddhist constituency (Samaranayake 2008). The Tamil militancy represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Tamil constituency from both Hindu and Christian religious backgrounds.
The JVP successfully mobilised the southern youth, but committed strategic and tactical errors. It was brutally suppressed twice, but was able to regroup and rejuvenate, changing its focus from class to nationalism. The political aim of the JVP was to replace the existing establishment with a fairer one. The first JVP insurrection in 1971 occurred predominantly in the South, because the economic and social changes they expected from the United Front government that they helped to elect in 1970 were not forthcoming.
Since 1948, the Tamils in the island have been systematically denied their legitimate rights, mainly relating to equal opportunities in areas of language, education and employment.[3] Disenfranchisement of Malaiyaha Tamils in 1949 and the implementation of the Sinhala only language policy in 1956 led Tamil political parties to demand a federal framework. The abrogation of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam pact of 1958 and the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact of 1968 created a lot of anger, frustration and disillusionment among Sri Lankan Tamils that eventually led to the birth of separatist militant movements. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution in 1976, demanding Tamil Eelam, which had a massive impact on the political landscape of the island (Nesiah 2001).
The differences between the early militant Tamil political groups in the island were based on their different interpretations of Marxism-Leninism[4], yet the idea of achieving a separate state subsequently subsumed their commitment to socialism. Following the communal riots of July 1983, the government rushed through legislation to exclude from the parliament, any party that refused to swear allegiance to the unitary state. This effectively disenfranchised Tamils in the north east and significantly weakened and isolated the democratic Tamil opposition. The Tamil militant movement was provided with a fertile ground for new recruitment. During the 1977 elections, many young Sri Lankan Tamils began to engage in extra parliamentary and sometimes violent measures in their bid for a mandate for a separate state. In the late 1980s, the LTTE emerged as the dominant Tamil militant group.
Response of the state and counter-responses
Since the 1970s, younger generations from similar socio-economic backgrounds have revolted against the erosion of their economic, political and cultural rights. All governments regardless of their political hue have failed to see the underlying socio-political, economic and psychological causes of these revolts. The more repressive the state apparatus became the more violent the youth resistance became. Many socio-economic and political conditions that underpinned and contributed to the insurrections reflected the diverse, but significant and unfulfilled aspirations of the younger generations.
The articulation and assertion of nationalistic and economic demands for justice by the youth underpinned the emergence of political violence. One aimed at the capture of state power and the other at autonomy from the existing state. The economic growth and its unequal distribution in the post-1948 era did not help placating these demands; and breaking down the barriers of ethnicity and class. Their violence was a cry of the younger generations for economic and cultural parity.
Political violence has posed a serious challenge to the existing socio-economic order and the political institutions of the country. Therefore, successive governments have more often ruled the country under the draconian emergency regulations. The state has also used brutal counter-violence strategies to neutralise and discredit its opponents. It has also used material incentives to get groups and factions of its opponents to side with the state. Generally, the state makes use of supremacist or chauvinist ideologies to divide and distract the people.
Regimes and politicians relied on committing political violence to inspire fear among their opponents and civil society, either to come to power or to maintain their power base. This vicious cycle affected all layers of society (Jayatunge, 2013). It is significant that in post-1948 Sri Lanka, any major organised political violence was absent until 1952. Ethnic political violence that commenced in 1956 was mainly due to the machinations of modern ‘democratic’ electoral politics, deliberately conceived and orchestrated as a means of capturing and keeping power in the hands of elite. Gradually but increasingly political violence became part and parcel of the island’s day-to-day life.
In the 1960s, the state used violence to suppress peaceful protests by the Sri Lankan Tamil youth. Their parliamentary representatives could not achieve any positive outcomes for their constituents through peaceful, non-violent campaigns and this led to them demanding secession. This situation led to cycles of political violence and counter violence. As political violence manifested in the north and east, the responses of the state and the Tamil militants caused an extension of this radicalisation and alienation within and among the Sri Lankan Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities. Since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, Tamil militants, in particular the LTTE came to represent a major proportion of Sri Lankan Tamils, with the exception of Sri Lankan Malaiyaha Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims.
The state’s usual reaction to any socio-economic demand was to curtail freedom, weaken political institutions, and move towards authoritarianism. So, class mobilisation in the south became totally based on social exclusion and economic deprivation. From the hartal of 1953 to the general strike in 1980, from the ‘satyagraha’ campaigns in 1956 to the protest action against the 1972 Constitution and beyond repression has been the state’s response to any demand for justice and equality[5].
Both state and non-state actors have used political violence including terror to target civilian populations, communities, their leaders and professionals. Regimes have often used ‘assassination specialists’[6] to silence their opponents, persistently interweaving it with their normal political practices. Since the mid-fifties, these ‘killer squads’ have operated in the shadows ‘committing’ disappearances and the torture of political enemies of the state. This sort of violent behaviour by the states has generated other forms of political violence including the use of terror.
In addition, political leaderships of all ethnicities in Sri Lanka have opportunistically used ethnicity, language and religion as a bandwagon to establish, preserve and enhance their political, economic and social power, or to distract the people from the domestic policy and program failures of the establishment. Many analysts portray ethnicity as the central theme of the armed conflict[7] that ended in 2009, though ethnicity and culture were used as labels, economics remained the root cause of this conflict.
Causes of Violence
In the post-1948 phase of capitalism, lack of appropriate political and economic development, lack of equitable distribution of economic benefits, lack of equitable job opportunities, and lack of socially inclusive policy calculus provided the essential ingredients for the radicalisation of the youth in Sri Lanka. The post-1948 political establishment concentrated mainly on short term tactical electoral gains by engaging in nepotism, family bandyism and class collaboration. The elitist power structures have been used to achieve political control over the people. Such structures have been strengthened through various forms of patronage. The impact of these processes severely eroded whatever democratic traditions and values the country had.
The changes introduced in 1977 in the form of neo-liberalism required a drastic change in the political system. The new economic and political model introduced many features that had been previously implemented under dictatorial regimes elsewhere. The new economic policy needed the apparatus of a very repressive form of governance. A new constitution was introduced in 1978 that led not only to an executive system with immense power concentrated in the hands of the president, but also made it almost impossible to abolish the new executive presidential system. However, many amendments to the Constitution have been made to concentrate more and more power in the hands of the executive presidency, the most recent being the 18th amendment.
These measures were and are seen as necessary to ensure political stability and encourage foreign direct investment in the island. These changes that were introduced to ensure rapid economic growth, led to the alienation of generations of youth away from the establishment. Global capital, its structures and instruments will continue to use political violence through the machinery of the state and other subservient forces to repress any opposition or its likelihood by those who are marginalised by the process of neo-liberal economic restructuring. The marginalised will continue to resist against such violence, and such resistance may take the form political violence. Both the JVP and the LTTE have been the products of the failures of socio-economic and political development of Sri Lanka (Samaranayake 2008).
Reports indicate that Sri Lankan Malaiyaha Tamil youth, particularly in the south, have been at the receiving end of racist attacks. The coming decades will be critical for these youth because without significant government intervention, the number of over-educated and under-employed young people will continue to grow.
Due to several factors, the LTTE political violence turned against the Muslims. One of these factors was the opposition of Muslims to the merger of the North and East under the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord. Close to 100,000 Muslims were expelled from the North (Ameerdeen 2006).[8] Recently, incidents against Sri Lankan Muslims, boycotting of Muslim owned businesses, attacks on their mosques, and protests against Islamic practices have been reported. The underlying tensions do not bode well for the inhabitants of Sri Lanka.
Abduction of political opponents, attacks on media and journalists, and disruption of political activities by security forces, heavy military presence, land grabs and expansion of high security zones in the North and East continue to play a prominent role in the repressive agenda of the Sri Lankan state.
Conclusion
The political violence of young people is a manifestation of birth pangs of a society, in which the political transition for achieving inclusive, equitable and participative political reforms have been hindered. The post-colonial state never considered it significant to protect the dignity and security of marginalised and disadvantaged social groups. Domestic issues were viewed and dealt with in a mindset of a conflict paradigm. Unless democratic space for peoples’ participation and change is made available and movement towards an inclusive, equitable and participative future is made possible, political violence in such a society would be inevitable.
The history of the Sri Lankan state indicates that it has continuously disregarded and/or violently suppressed peaceful demands of its people for social inclusion, equity, justice, security and dignity. The indignity and insecurity imposed on the physical and psychological integrity of individuals and communities contributed and motivated them to take up arms. On the other hand, use of violence as a strategy of social transformation by small or large groups promotes the erroneous idea that, without active participation and support of the people, these groups can represent the interests of the people, act as ‘saviours’ of the people, and transform society on behalf of the people. History has repeatedly shown that such strategies have not only failed in the long term, but also caused great harm to peoples’ movements, and prevented peoples’ active participation and leadership in the process of social change.
Economic development, equitable distribution of its outcomes, social inclusion and participatory democracy are essential for a society to progress. The past violent political upheavals in Sri Lanka can be attributed to poverty, inequality and exclusion, and to growing tendencies of lack of transparency, diminishing democratic practices, totalitarianism, family bandysm and corruption. Since the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, peoples’ hopes have been centred more on establishing the rule of law, securing civilian rule over the military, ending family bandysm and corruption, and establishing a better and fairer society. However, the country seems to have been gradually transformed into an increasingly totalitarian and insecure state.
The injustices faced by the Sri Lankan Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims due to the prolonged ethnic conflict and challenges they face due to globalisation need to be recognised and addressed. Both the state and the militant organisations have been responsible for political violence and human and democratic rights violations. However, governments need to bear a heavy responsibility in this regard, as they are elected to govern all the people and communities in the island, regardless of their ethnicity, culture and political affiliations.
There is an urgent need to break with the past. Ensuring the aspirations of the marginalised are met, requires a paradigm shift in the attitudes and thinking of the majority to a critical, inclusive and constructivist mode towards the marginalised in society. The marginalised in turn need to invent the characteristics of a new society that would assist in materialising their aspirations. If the state fails to treat all communities with respect and dignity, restore the rule of law, and take positive steps to build peace with justice, there is the danger of resentments spilling over into renewed conflict.
References
Prosterman in 1976 estimated that some 68 million people have perished from all forms of deliberate human violence from 1820 to 1970. Zimmerman in 2013 found that if the victims of state violence suffering from pogroms, brutal repression, and other forms of state coercion were added, the figure would be more than double this.
The discussion herein is limited to socio-structural conditions of political violence, their impact on society and the ideological tendencies such an impact compelled the Sri Lankan youth into. The short nature of this paper does not allow me to discuss the relevant historical international contexts.
Political violence – pre-colonial and colonial days
Political violence in Sri Lanka can be traced back to feudalism, as manifested in regular invasions by South Indian rulers, wars to expand feudal territories, and assassinations for the transfer of royal power, and aggression and terror colonialists committed against indigenous people. De Zoysa and Fernando (2007) refer to 32 types of torture practised in ancient Sri Lanka. As taught in history lessons, these torture methods included being trampled by an elephant, being impaled on a pointed iron pole, or being torn apart by letting loose two tensioned trees onto which victims were tightly bound. Obviously, such cruel techniques would have been ‘lawfully’ inflicted by kings’ armed forces on political opponents. Torture was perceived as a legitimate means of obtaining confessions from political prisoners for convicting, banishing or executing them.
From the Kandyan Wars in 1801, 1802, 1803, etc. the British had learnt, and would have been contemplating ways of suppressing any new rebellions peasants might launch. The Uva-Wellassa Rebellion of 1818, led by Keppetipola Disawe and others against the British rule, was the most serious political-military attempt of the Kandyans to regain their independence. The military tactics of the British included setting fire to and laying waste the property of the Headmen (Mills, 1964).
The Kandyans were starved into submission. Their land was confiscated. Their dependents were debarred from the fruits of their ancestral wealth. Being forced to live in the jungles and mountains, they had lost their means of livelihood. The rebellion had collapsed by the end of October 1818.[1] The Government declared that those who fought against colonialism were traitors. The Rebellion was drowned in blood. 10,000 Kandyans were allegedly killed in action or died from disease or famine.
In the 1830s, under the Wastelands Ordinance, the British expropriated the common land of the peasantry reducing them to extreme poverty. Despite the tremendous pressure the colonial state was exerting, the dispossessed peasantry refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-slaves. Under a notorious contract labour system, hundreds of thousands of Malaiyaha workers, at the time called ‘Tamil coolies’ were brought in from South India. Tens of thousands of them died both on the journey and on the plantations.
Economic depression in Britain had drastically affected the local coffee and cinnamon industry. To alleviate a crisis, the state imposed an oppressive direct tax regime which included a tax on labour. In 1848, a mass movement grew against the new tax regime. The same year, Gongalegoda Banda was proclaimed the king of Kandy and Puran Appu his sword bearer. In an attempt to capture Kandy from the British, they attacked government buildings and destroyed some tax records.
The Governor declared martial law, and the British army shot many people dead. Puran Appu was captured and executed. Gongalegoda Banda was arrested while in hiding and was sentenced to death by hanging. Later this was commuted to 100 lashes and being deported to Malaysia. For the first time, in the Kandyan provinces, the leadership of the rebellion passed into the hands of ordinary peasants (de Silva, 1953).
These historic events help us understand the concept of political violence as carried out by the state and peoples’ resistance against such oppression.
Post-1948 political violence
Political violence has been broadly categorised as being caused by national fragmentation, inequitable development, cultural clashes and liberation movements (Steinbach 1980). These causes do not exist in isolation, but usually interact simultaneously. Short-term but major political and armed conflicts manifested in the south in 1971 and then in 1987-1989. The JVP (Peoples’ Liberation Front) led both these insurrections. In the Tamil-dominated north and east of the island, militant ethnic nationalist groups emerged in the early 1970s demanding autonomy. Both the short-term and prolonged armed conflicts caused a massive transformation of the civil society and the country’s governance structures.
Wrecked by violence and civil war, Lanka’s post-independent history has involved paradoxical questions about democracy and peoples’ participation in decision-making. The democratic traditions including institutionalized checks and balances that allowed the disadvantaged and non-majoritarian voices to be heard and to effectively claim their democratic and human rights have been gradually made weaker. While it is impossible to sympathise entirely with the violence and methods used by groups in order to counter those trends, non-violent resistance to such trends also do not seem to have worked. One could say that many things have worsened with expanded armed forces, intensified violence and destruction, with increasingly intense opposition of a few to the material interests of the many in society.
Political threats transformed into deadly violence in a seemingly endless spiral, in 1971 and 1989 mainly in the south, and in 1970 to 2009 in the north. Despite the public exposure of violence and systematic human rights violations committed by the parties involved, a lack of judicial accountability has continued to perpetuate pervasive mistrust that undermined civil society. It has become necessary to focus on the legacy of state violence and its effects on society, in terms of justice, truth and reconciliation. We also need a critique of the often-romanticized versions of armed resistance and the notion of ‘reconciliation’ advocated or implemented that do not defuse tensions among diverse peoples.
Radicalisation of the Youth
The basis for political violence by young people, particularly in the south, is linked to the post-colonial socio-economic and political developments. The colonial rulers made privileges available to the English-educated locals belonging to all communities, while treating the rest as slave labour, thus providing a fertile breeding ground for local nationalisms. The growing influence of the left in the south and the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC)[2] in the north temporarily delayed the emergence of these radicalisations along ethno-nationalistic and linguistic lines.
The failure of the ruling elite in Sri Lanka to make appropriate socio-economic and political change alienated the majority of young people. Consequently, the country’s youth turned to radical and violent practices against the elite’s stranglehold on the levers of political patronage and economics. In the south, these revolutionary practices materialised in the form of class mobilisations. The attempts in the north and east, however, took the form of nationalist aspirations. The universal franchise and the lowering of the voting age allowed young people to take part in active electoral politics. Free education was introduced in 1945, and the medium of instruction was changed to local languages in 1956, which expanded higher educational opportunities available to youth.
The growth of the JVP and the LTTE underscored the role played by these socio-economic, political and cultural factors. The emerging political violence represented the anti-establishment sentiments of the country’s younger generations. The JVP militancy predominantly represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Sinhala Buddhist constituency (Samaranayake 2008). The Tamil militancy represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Tamil constituency from both Hindu and Christian religious backgrounds.
The JVP successfully mobilised the southern youth, but committed strategic and tactical errors. It was brutally suppressed twice, but was able to regroup and rejuvenate, changing its focus from class to nationalism. The political aim of the JVP was to replace the existing establishment with a fairer one. The first JVP insurrection in 1971 occurred predominantly in the South, because the economic and social changes they expected from the United Front government that they helped to elect in 1970 were not forthcoming.
Since 1948, the Tamils in the island have been systematically denied their legitimate rights, mainly relating to equal opportunities in areas of language, education and employment.[3] Disenfranchisement of Malaiyaha Tamils in 1949 and the implementation of the Sinhala only language policy in 1956 led Tamil political parties to demand a federal framework. The abrogation of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam pact of 1958 and the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact of 1968 created a lot of anger, frustration and disillusionment among Sri Lankan Tamils that eventually led to the birth of separatist militant movements. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution in 1976, demanding Tamil Eelam, which had a massive impact on the political landscape of the island (Nesiah 2001).
The differences between the early militant Tamil political groups in the island were based on their different interpretations of Marxism-Leninism[4], yet the idea of achieving a separate state subsequently subsumed their commitment to socialism. Following the communal riots of July 1983, the government rushed through legislation to exclude from the parliament, any party that refused to swear allegiance to the unitary state. This effectively disenfranchised Tamils in the north east and significantly weakened and isolated the democratic Tamil opposition. The Tamil militant movement was provided with a fertile ground for new recruitment. During the 1977 elections, many young Sri Lankan Tamils began to engage in extra parliamentary and sometimes violent measures in their bid for a mandate for a separate state. In the late 1980s, the LTTE emerged as the dominant Tamil militant group.
Response of the state and counter-responses
Since the 1970s, younger generations from similar socio-economic backgrounds have revolted against the erosion of their economic, political and cultural rights. All governments regardless of their political hue have failed to see the underlying socio-political, economic and psychological causes of these revolts. The more repressive the state apparatus became the more violent the youth resistance became. Many socio-economic and political conditions that underpinned and contributed to the insurrections reflected the diverse, but significant and unfulfilled aspirations of the younger generations.
The articulation and assertion of nationalistic and economic demands for justice by the youth underpinned the emergence of political violence. One aimed at the capture of state power and the other at autonomy from the existing state. The economic growth and its unequal distribution in the post-1948 era did not help placating these demands; and breaking down the barriers of ethnicity and class. Their violence was a cry of the younger generations for economic and cultural parity.
Political violence has posed a serious challenge to the existing socio-economic order and the political institutions of the country. Therefore, successive governments have more often ruled the country under the draconian emergency regulations. The state has also used brutal counter-violence strategies to neutralise and discredit its opponents. It has also used material incentives to get groups and factions of its opponents to side with the state. Generally, the state makes use of supremacist or chauvinist ideologies to divide and distract the people.
Regimes and politicians relied on committing political violence to inspire fear among their opponents and civil society, either to come to power or to maintain their power base. This vicious cycle affected all layers of society (Jayatunge, 2013). It is significant that in post-1948 Sri Lanka, any major organised political violence was absent until 1952. Ethnic political violence that commenced in 1956 was mainly due to the machinations of modern ‘democratic’ electoral politics, deliberately conceived and orchestrated as a means of capturing and keeping power in the hands of elite. Gradually but increasingly political violence became part and parcel of the island’s day-to-day life.
In the 1960s, the state used violence to suppress peaceful protests by the Sri Lankan Tamil youth. Their parliamentary representatives could not achieve any positive outcomes for their constituents through peaceful, non-violent campaigns and this led to them demanding secession. This situation led to cycles of political violence and counter violence. As political violence manifested in the north and east, the responses of the state and the Tamil militants caused an extension of this radicalisation and alienation within and among the Sri Lankan Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities. Since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, Tamil militants, in particular the LTTE came to represent a major proportion of Sri Lankan Tamils, with the exception of Sri Lankan Malaiyaha Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims.
The state’s usual reaction to any socio-economic demand was to curtail freedom, weaken political institutions, and move towards authoritarianism. So, class mobilisation in the south became totally based on social exclusion and economic deprivation. From the hartal of 1953 to the general strike in 1980, from the ‘satyagraha’ campaigns in 1956 to the protest action against the 1972 Constitution and beyond repression has been the state’s response to any demand for justice and equality[5].
Both state and non-state actors have used political violence including terror to target civilian populations, communities, their leaders and professionals. Regimes have often used ‘assassination specialists’[6] to silence their opponents, persistently interweaving it with their normal political practices. Since the mid-fifties, these ‘killer squads’ have operated in the shadows ‘committing’ disappearances and the torture of political enemies of the state. This sort of violent behaviour by the states has generated other forms of political violence including the use of terror.
In addition, political leaderships of all ethnicities in Sri Lanka have opportunistically used ethnicity, language and religion as a bandwagon to establish, preserve and enhance their political, economic and social power, or to distract the people from the domestic policy and program failures of the establishment. Many analysts portray ethnicity as the central theme of the armed conflict[7] that ended in 2009, though ethnicity and culture were used as labels, economics remained the root cause of this conflict.
Causes of Violence
In the post-1948 phase of capitalism, lack of appropriate political and economic development, lack of equitable distribution of economic benefits, lack of equitable job opportunities, and lack of socially inclusive policy calculus provided the essential ingredients for the radicalisation of the youth in Sri Lanka. The post-1948 political establishment concentrated mainly on short term tactical electoral gains by engaging in nepotism, family bandyism and class collaboration. The elitist power structures have been used to achieve political control over the people. Such structures have been strengthened through various forms of patronage. The impact of these processes severely eroded whatever democratic traditions and values the country had.
The changes introduced in 1977 in the form of neo-liberalism required a drastic change in the political system. The new economic and political model introduced many features that had been previously implemented under dictatorial regimes elsewhere. The new economic policy needed the apparatus of a very repressive form of governance. A new constitution was introduced in 1978 that led not only to an executive system with immense power concentrated in the hands of the president, but also made it almost impossible to abolish the new executive presidential system. However, many amendments to the Constitution have been made to concentrate more and more power in the hands of the executive presidency, the most recent being the 18th amendment.
These measures were and are seen as necessary to ensure political stability and encourage foreign direct investment in the island. These changes that were introduced to ensure rapid economic growth, led to the alienation of generations of youth away from the establishment. Global capital, its structures and instruments will continue to use political violence through the machinery of the state and other subservient forces to repress any opposition or its likelihood by those who are marginalised by the process of neo-liberal economic restructuring. The marginalised will continue to resist against such violence, and such resistance may take the form political violence. Both the JVP and the LTTE have been the products of the failures of socio-economic and political development of Sri Lanka (Samaranayake 2008).
Reports indicate that Sri Lankan Malaiyaha Tamil youth, particularly in the south, have been at the receiving end of racist attacks. The coming decades will be critical for these youth because without significant government intervention, the number of over-educated and under-employed young people will continue to grow.
Due to several factors, the LTTE political violence turned against the Muslims. One of these factors was the opposition of Muslims to the merger of the North and East under the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord. Close to 100,000 Muslims were expelled from the North (Ameerdeen 2006).[8] Recently, incidents against Sri Lankan Muslims, boycotting of Muslim owned businesses, attacks on their mosques, and protests against Islamic practices have been reported. The underlying tensions do not bode well for the inhabitants of Sri Lanka.
Abduction of political opponents, attacks on media and journalists, and disruption of political activities by security forces, heavy military presence, land grabs and expansion of high security zones in the North and East continue to play a prominent role in the repressive agenda of the Sri Lankan state.
Conclusion
The political violence of young people is a manifestation of birth pangs of a society, in which the political transition for achieving inclusive, equitable and participative political reforms have been hindered. The post-colonial state never considered it significant to protect the dignity and security of marginalised and disadvantaged social groups. Domestic issues were viewed and dealt with in a mindset of a conflict paradigm. Unless democratic space for peoples’ participation and change is made available and movement towards an inclusive, equitable and participative future is made possible, political violence in such a society would be inevitable.
The history of the Sri Lankan state indicates that it has continuously disregarded and/or violently suppressed peaceful demands of its people for social inclusion, equity, justice, security and dignity. The indignity and insecurity imposed on the physical and psychological integrity of individuals and communities contributed and motivated them to take up arms. On the other hand, use of violence as a strategy of social transformation by small or large groups promotes the erroneous idea that, without active participation and support of the people, these groups can represent the interests of the people, act as ‘saviours’ of the people, and transform society on behalf of the people. History has repeatedly shown that such strategies have not only failed in the long term, but also caused great harm to peoples’ movements, and prevented peoples’ active participation and leadership in the process of social change.
Economic development, equitable distribution of its outcomes, social inclusion and participatory democracy are essential for a society to progress. The past violent political upheavals in Sri Lanka can be attributed to poverty, inequality and exclusion, and to growing tendencies of lack of transparency, diminishing democratic practices, totalitarianism, family bandysm and corruption. Since the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, peoples’ hopes have been centred more on establishing the rule of law, securing civilian rule over the military, ending family bandysm and corruption, and establishing a better and fairer society. However, the country seems to have been gradually transformed into an increasingly totalitarian and insecure state.
The injustices faced by the Sri Lankan Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims due to the prolonged ethnic conflict and challenges they face due to globalisation need to be recognised and addressed. Both the state and the militant organisations have been responsible for political violence and human and democratic rights violations. However, governments need to bear a heavy responsibility in this regard, as they are elected to govern all the people and communities in the island, regardless of their ethnicity, culture and political affiliations.
There is an urgent need to break with the past. Ensuring the aspirations of the marginalised are met, requires a paradigm shift in the attitudes and thinking of the majority to a critical, inclusive and constructivist mode towards the marginalised in society. The marginalised in turn need to invent the characteristics of a new society that would assist in materialising their aspirations. If the state fails to treat all communities with respect and dignity, restore the rule of law, and take positive steps to build peace with justice, there is the danger of resentments spilling over into renewed conflict.
References
- Ameerdeen V. (2006). Ethnic Politics of Muslims in Sri Lanka. Kribs Printers, Colombo
- de Silva, K. M. (1986). Managing Ethnic Tension: Sri Lanka, 1880-1985. University Press, Lanham
- de Silva, C. R. (1953). Hartal!. In Ceylon Under the British Occupation, 1795-1833. Retrieved on 22 July 2013, from http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backiss/vol2/no1/hartal.html
- de Zoysa, P. & Fernando, R. (2007). Methods and sequelae of torture: a study in Sri Lanka. In Torture, 17(1), 53-56.
- Drexler, E. F. (2008). Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State, University of Pennysylvania Press.
- Jayatunge, R. M. (2013). The Psychological Impact of Political Violence in Sri Lanka. Downloaded on 15 February 2013 from http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2013/01/12/the-psychological-impact-of-political-violence-in-sri-lanka-2/
- Mills, L. A. (1964). Ceylon Under British Rule 1795-1932, Routledge.
- Moran M. H. (2008). Liberia: The Violence of Democracy. In Kelly, T. The Ethnography of Political Violence, University of Pennysylvania Press.
- Nesiah D. (2001). Tamil Nationalism. In Marga Monograph Series on Ethnic Reconciliation, No. 6, Marga Institute, Sri Lanka.
- Prosterman, R. (1976). IRI: A Simplified Predictive Index of Rural Instability. In Comparative Politics, 8(3), 339-354
- Samaranayake, G. (1998). Political violence in Sri Lanka: A diagnostic approach. In Terrorism and Political Violence, 9(4), 99-119.
- Sparks, C. (2003). Liberalism, Terrorism and the Politics of Fear. In Politics, 23(3), 200–206.
- Steinbach, U. (1980). Sources of Third World Conflict, in Third World Conflict and International Security. Part 1, Adelphi papers, 166, 21.
- Tilly, C. (2002). Violence, Terror, and Politics as Usual: America’s “new war” reflects an epochal change in the nature of collective violence. In Boston Review, 27 (3–4), 21–24.
- Zimmermann, E. (2013). Political Violence, Crises and Revolutions. Routledge.
[1] Pieris, Ceylon and the Hollanders, 156-7, Manball, Ceylon. 31-6, In Mills, L. A. (1964). Ceylon Under British Rule 1795-1932, Routledge.
[2]
JYC was a dominant political force in the North in 1920s and 1930s and
appreciated the harmonious and tolerant relations that existed at the
time between Sinhalese and Tamils, Moors and Burghers (Nesiah 1945)
[3] It is worth noting that such policies even affected Sinhalese in the south and led to discriminatory outcomes against them.
[4]
The EPRLF was more orthodox; the EROS was Marxist; the PLOTE advocated a
socialist revolution; and the TELO did not adhere to any ideology
except for achieving a separate state. The LTTE at times advocated
socialism, but as a whole was committed to achieving a separate state.
[5]
The common features of this repressive policy comprised of detention of
youth for extended periods of time in jails, maltreatment, torture and
death while in custody, high handed action to disrupt civil activity,
prolonged solitary confinement and holding people incommunicado without
legal or family access, enforced disappearances, killing youth in a
ratio of one to ten or more to terrorise civilians, aerial bombardment
of villages and scorched earth policies.
[6] paramilitary forces, secret police, and thugs
[7]
Ethnic conflict may occur between aggregations of people that share a
collective view of themselves as being distinctively different from
other aggregations of people because of their shared inherent
characteristics such as their race, religion, language, cultural
heritage, clan, or tribal affiliation.
[8]
Muslims saw the percentage of their population would drop after the
merger from nearly 35 per cent in the East to about 17 per cent in a
combined North and East.
18 August 2013
18 August 2013
Creating Social Reconciliation or Social Implosion?
Introduction
Lankan society in its post-1948 history has undergone many violent conflicts in the form of pogroms, insurrections, and a civil war. The latest round of violence said to have ended with the military defeat of the LTTE in 2009 continues now at a much lower level, but seems to operate throughout the land. These campaigns of violence have caused collective social trauma within the society.
With the end of the war, the opportunity was ripe to rebuild the country and reconcile the many divisions. During the war, of course, many statements, assurances and pledges were made that the issues of Tamil people that culminated in an armed conflict would be resolved through major constitutional and legal reforms including devolution of power to the periphery, though after the end of the war, such measures are yet to come to fruition.
International situation
The reports of global capitalist financial institutions indicate that the present financial and economic crisis is structural, persistent and long-term. In many countries, industrial and agricultural production is being adversely affected including in the bastions of capitalism, the EU and the USA. The dominant capitalist model of neo-liberalism, based on free-market paradigm underpinned by deregulation and privatization has not been beneficial to the working people. Relocation of industries to more favourable and profitable regions, outsourcing of labour-intensive production and application of technological innovation to reduce labour intensive work have led to high levels of unemployment.
Yet, neo-liberalism does not wish to give up their hold on the world in a peaceful manner. The current drive of global capital to acquire and control all possible resources such as hydrocarbons, land, water, minerals and forests needs to be understood in this light. In the name of combating terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights, neo-liberal forces are waging its ruthless war on resource-rich countries the world over.
A decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq has failed. Pakistan and Yemen have become destabilised. Lebanon, Palestine and Libya have been devastated. Nonetheless, neo-liberals have not given up their policies of invasion, intervention and destabilisation. Unofficially, war has been declared on Iran and Pakistan. The neo-liberal camp has been repositioning their troops, armaments, logistics and coalitions to launch a surgical strike on Iran. Iran has been subjected to sanctions, attacks on military and missile installations, killing of its nuclear scientists, and cyber warfare. The case against Iran is based on speculation, even weaker than that was used against Iraq. Iran is an authoritarian state, but surrounded by countries carrying weapons of mass destruction such as the US, Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India. On the other hand, in Iran’s favour, it has not invaded any country in its recent history. Escalation of this conflict, which may happen any time soon, will destabilise the whole world and its economy.
Last year, agitations for political and personal freedom spread from Occupy Wall Street movement through the peoples’ uprisings in the Arab world to protests against economic crises in European countries, Chile, Israel and elsewhere. Young people, mostly unemployed secular students with no future prospects in life led these protest campaigns. They were not bound by any ideology. Apparently, their demands related to dissolution of centralised power, and assurance of their rights for autonomy and personal freedom.
The outcomes of these uprisings and protests remain uncertain mainly because the ruling elites in these countries mimic compromising gestures while holding onto power in the hope that the peoples’ momentum towards democracy and threats to the ruling elite’s existence will fade away with time. The people continue to demand change for the better. The regimes are utilising sectarian divisions based on religious and tribal affiliations to contain peoples’ uprisings and to safeguard interests, privileges and power of the elite.
Neo-liberalism continues to be the main challenge facing sovereignty of developing countries like Sri Lanka. The dominant progressive forces of the working people need to determine the direction of change that will control foreign capital investment for the benefit of people, define alternate developmental processes that are sustainable economically, socially and ecologically and lead to a social system embodying the characteristics of peoples’ control, participation and co-operative ownership.
Neo-liberal agenda has made social protests and rebellions criminal offences that can be dealt with anti-terrorism laws, as the current regime attempts to do. The new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that came to effect in the US allows indefinite military detention without trial, and determines that the entire globe is a battlefield on which the war on terror is being waged.
Who are best assisting these designs in the developing countries? They are chauvinists including social chauvinists (socialists in words but chauvinists in deeds) and the opportunists of all hues. In Sri Lanka, among them are those who oppose a fair and just solution to the national question of Sri Lanka based upon the recognition of peoples’ right to determine their own political destiny that would allow all people to live in dignity and peace.
Domestic situation
Recent reports indicate that the island has achieved middle-income status. Similarly, certain surveys have found that the island’s social conditions, health and education have improved. However, let us not forget the fact that aggregated per capita figures statistically hide social inequality. Clearly, the gap between the affluent and the poor has worsened. The Gini coefficient shows that income disparities have grown significantly in the urban and estate sector and income has remained relatively static in the rural sector. The increase in consumption accompanying the affluence and service provision distribution is skewed in favour of the affluent in the land, in particular, geographically towards the western province.
The armed conflict that was concluded in 2009 has created additional disadvantages in the region of the North and East in terms of economic infrastructure, livelihood, health and education. Inequality in opportunities and income can be associated and correlated with one’s social class and political patronage, the geographic region one resides in, one’s mother tongue, caste, ethnicity and gender, and one’s special needs. Hence, in addition to per capita models, statistical growth assessment models that also take into account the deficiencies caused by such inequities and that incorporate mechanisms for addressing such inequalities are necessary.
Economic development and building a united nation
Lankan society is heavily polarized due mainly to political and economic factors. The state’s cultural policies towards non-Sinhala people are designed and implemented to build the majoritarian support for discrimination and exclusion of non-Sinhala people so that the attention of the working people can be diverted from the significant socio-economic issues that prevail at the time.
The government’s effort in building infrastructure will help the movement of people, but mainly it will be skewed for travel from the south due to the economic imbalance that exists. Providing opportunities for people within the framework of social justice, social inclusion and provision of equity will pave the way for a better future.
It is not possible to foster a harmonious environment in the island, without genuine efforts to address the sufferings of the people who have suffered due to loss of their loved ones, those who cannot grieve openly, those who do not know where their loved ones are, those who cannot visit their loved ones who are detained. People need to be given space and time to relate their stories and learn the truth of what happened so that it will provide genuine opportunities for reconciliation. Transitional justice provides such opportunities for people to collectively get over their psychological trauma. It should provide for people to come to terms with the past and get along with their future. Genuine reconciliation can be facilitated if the people are not burdened by the past that prevents them from going into the future. In particular, most of the non-Sinhala people affected by the long war, displaced from one location to another on so many occasions, do not enjoy their civil, cultural, economic and social rights in any meaningful way. They have become weaker and feebler.
The LLRC Report
The Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (the LLRC) provides us with a good opportunity to seriously explore the present state of play in the political, legislative, executive, judicial, economic, social and other spheres. That can provide us guidance on the path we need to traverse to build a united nation upholding respect for democratic values, human dignity and the rule of law.
Though the scope of the mandate given to the LLRC was limited in comparison to the scope the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the LLRC report specifically states that lack of good governance, non-observance of the Rule of Law and lack of meaningful devolution were causes for building tension between communities. It recommends creating a separate and independent police commission and provision of provincial police with better legal tools and expertise, whilst reaching out to non-Sinhala groups. It has also emphasised the necessity to have an independent Judiciary, a transparent legal process and strict adherence to the Rule of Law for peace and stability and to work towards meaningful reconciliation. What we have today is not rule of law but rule of impunity.
According to the LLRC, the lack of governance and non-observance of the Rule of Law would re-result in the creation of tension between communities. It is the view of the Commission that making visible progress on the devolution issue is of critical importance to ensure the success of any process of lasting and sustainable reconciliation. The report has also conceded that the investigation into human rights violations is a vital component to national reconciliation. We should encourage Sri Lanka to fully implement these recommendations in order to jumpstart the process of national reconciliation.
Reconciliation – Where are we?
Lanka is governed as a police state. Despite the formal ending of the country’s state of emergency, all draconian powers that were employed during the war such as disappearances, killings, arbitrary arrests and detention without trial are still in force. Thousands of prisoners that had been detained remain in custody without being charged even after three years since the end of the war.
The LTTE subjected the people in the south to terror and it was natural for them to place their trust in the government to overcome that terror. Understandably, the majority of people expressed their gratitude to the current President and the government for ending the armed conflict. On the other hand, despite many individual killings by the LTTE, many Tamil people in the North and East considered the presence and prevalence of the LTTE militancy in their region was associated with their fate and survival as a community by preventing the abuse of power the state forces and their paramilitaries had been hurling on them.
In the same vein we need to understand that the terror unleashed against Tamils, simply just because they were Tamils, was a non-issue until the counter-terror of Tamil militants started reaching the doorsteps of the people living in the south. Many disagreed with me in mid-2009, when I took the position that the conflict did not end with the military defeat of the LTTE. My conclusion was based on the simple fact that the armed conflict was a continuation of the political conflict in a heightened form, and the end of the armed phase of the conflict will be construed and interpreted as seeking solutions to the political conflict (national question) is not significant. Now hardly anybody would disagree with me that in a political sense, the conflict remains much more heightened with international attention set upon the ways the state and its people handle the broader governance issues of democracy and reconciliation. Such issues also include extension of equitable opportunities for all people based on protection and the application of the principles of rule of law, democracy and human rights. It is evident, that such an endeavour will require changing the ways the legislative, executive and judicial arms of the state operate today in political, social and religious domains.
Achieving the current ‘no-war’ situation after more than three and half decades of armed conflict has been enormously expensive. Yet we have not been able to achieve a state of positive peace due to the recalcitrant interest, thinking and attitudes that continue to prevail. With no self-critical reflections and all the bitterness and hatred being passed on to the next generations, the process of reconciliation has become a non-starter. Thus, the process of reconciliation has become extremely difficult and complex.
Measures for reconciliation
Following the termination of the armed conflict, the government has embarked upon huge business, infrastructure and community development programmes (with all their apparent deficiencies and shortcomings). Building highways and roads, providing vocational training, assisting in many small-scale industrial and agricultural projects, teaching English, and training in IT continue, with the help of many individuals and organisations, both local and overseas, and not for profit and for profit. There also have been many allegations that local communities do not get opportunities to contribute in terms of decision making or concretely taking part in any of the developmental activities that would generate income opportunities for themselves.
If the state intends to reconcile the Lankan people, one important symbolic step would be to free all political prisoners, who have been held with no charges being made against them. Those who have been tried and convicted through adjudications of institutions, not properly constituted, because of political and personal vendettas also need to be freed. Those against whom charges can be filed may be charged in properly constituted courts following proper rule of law. From a state and a government who had to conduct a ruthless and destructive war to end the armed conflict, this is not an easily achievable task. However, I am still confident that there will be a day when the country opens up its closed doors, as has just started to happen in Burma (will all best wishes for the process to continue unabated without being influenced by opportunistic, corrupted and corroded political advisors).
As we are aware, the island have been searching for an apparently dignified political solution for the last half a century with many discussions held; many agreements and pacts signed and then annulled unilaterally; many commissions and all party conferences appointed, reported and then such reports dumped into dustbin of history; and many study tours undertaken with no lessons or experiences apparently learnt.
Search for a solution
We have searched enough. We do not need to wait for international intervention to occur in these matters. If we consider Tamils and Muslims as our own brothers and sisters, then the state has the primary responsibility and accountability for looking after them and protecting their rights as fellow human beings. In the current global climate acquiring or restricting ourselves to a superiority complex of making the other submissive is impracticable, unethical, non-cognisant of the diverse nature of today’s Lankan society and its richness, and unrepresentative of our traditions of harmony and co-existence.
As many international experiences have shown, if we take positive steps to build lasting peace, the chances and opportunities for the so-called western conspirators to interfere and meddle in the country’s internal affairs, its sovereignty and territorial integrity will become minimal. Such measures will not only unify communities of people as a nation, but also unite as a bulwark against foreign interference. More significantly, such measures will create the basis for preventing another ethnicity, language and/or religion based insurgency in the island.
Lessons of the past should guide the future socio-economic and cultural changes that are required in our attitudes and actions for us to progress towards a peaceful society based on justice and equity. The three-decade long war created hostilities and strengthened animosity against each other, which strengthened the isolationist and exclusionist policy calculus of the state, thus generating sentiments and attitudes of bitterness, suspicion, hatred, prejudice and un-compromise towards each other. The Tamil community, in particular, has been dealing with the armed forces and their paramilitaries.
Needs of the ruling elite
It is in the best interests of the ruling elites for Lankan society to remain fragmented so that no united effort on the people’s part will threaten their power, control, interests and privileges of the regime. When a crisis looms, as our own historical experiences indicate, such layers and individuals will do everything at whatever cost to safeguard their regime. Pretexts are generated; news are concocted; and misinformation campaigns are carried out, so that these could be used to present a situation as if concrete and objective threats to the country emanating from such a so-called public enemy exists. Then, the cycle of violence commences.
Need for a new public enemy
The syndrome of a ‘new public enemy’ that needs suppressing through a new insurgency seems was created soon after the termination of armed conflict in May 2009. In 2010 itself, the state, its intelligence services and the government declared that they were aware of another insurgency to be launched soon using university students. This was made in an environment of a crackdown targeting the university students across the country, aimed at suppressing opposition to its planned measures for privatisation of education.
The proposed new University Act to establish private foreign universities in the island has been in preparation since then. Currently, the state and the government have become hyperactive in making Gobbelian type allegations of another insurgency led by a breakaway group of the JVP allegedly having links with pro-LTTE groups. As practised in the eighties, repressive measures have been used against any genuine political or trade union opposition to government policies.
The President himself warned in 2010 that students would face the law prevailing in the country. He was not talking about the rule of law, but the prevailing law. Hundreds of students have been suspended or detained, mainly for protesting against government policy. The burden of the current economic crisis will be placed on the shoulders of working people with public services being gradually cut down through privatisation policies following demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the budget deficit.
The state has been in readiness to swoop on any protests by incorporating emergency laws into normal laws of the land; by centralising most of the power in the hands of President; by censoring the media; and by increasing disappearances and detentions without trial. Freedom of information in the land is becoming increasingly applicable in the way ruling elites and states interpret what that freedom should be. A strong example is Wikileaks, where attempts are being made to hide information about war crimes from the very people in whose name such crimes were committed. So, the political challenge will be to build a coalition under the leadership of the working people to resist the impending state repression.
The need for social implosion
Periods of intense cycles of violence have commenced with the violent suppression of freedoms and repression of rights of the ordinary people. Cycles of violence that commenced with the suppression of dissent ended up creating valleys of death. This vicious cycle would escalate spirally due to the situation that is made to prevail. Such artificial constructions are made for imploding a society from within, and I call this social implosion by a state, as against creating social reconciliation.
Past experience
Despite its alleged democratic traditions, Sri Lanka has half a century of recorded history of using violence and terror to subjugate and suppress political opponents with the overt or covert use of a plethora of repressive legislation and state forces and through the maintenance of a culture of impunity among its security establishment. For example, the President and the government in the early eighties faced a crisis, which I would see as a parallel situation with many similarities to what the people in the island are experiencing today. In 1983, the government sponsored, pre-planned and launched the anti-Tamil pogrom, on the one hand, to ‘teach Tamils a lesson’ using violent means to favourably shift the economic power balance towards Sinhalese business interests and on the other hand, to crush the growing left movement in the country.
The repression the state launched then, developed into a massive spiral of violence leading to the insurgency in the 1988-89 period, killing about 60,000 people. Incidentally, several political and military personalities, who had been involved in serious human rights abuses such as disappearances, death and destruction on their political opponents at the time, continue to hold responsible positions under the current status quo. It is worth noting that in the 1988-89 period when university students protested against privatisation of education, several student leaders were tortured to death.
Another cycle of violence?
Many people pose the question whether Lanka is entering into another cycle where violence will reign supreme, as it experienced three times before. One can only compare previous contexts, developments and experiences with the situation that is developing now. For simplicity, I will limit myself to comparing the context, development and experiences of the valley of death that commenced in 1983 and continued until mid-2009, where disappearances, arbitrary detention without trial, torture and extra-judicial killings by death squads associated with military have been used against political opponents.
What can be done?
As we have witnessed many times before, when international pressure, particularly from India, is exerted, the President would announce that the 13th Amendment in the Constitution or a plus version of it would be implemented. However, as time passes, artificial opposition campaigns will be created or allowed to be built to give a false impression to the outside world that there is enormous resistance against the devolution of power to the periphery. The only time, such a situation did not materialise was at the presidential elections held in 1994, when a consistent and persistent campaign for devolution of power was successfully carried out. Yet, due to the nationalistic and chauvinistic pressures that were created by small groups within the governing coalition itself, the proposed devolution package was neither widely discussed locally nor even presented to the parliament. Though concerns were expressed if the proposed devolution would be meaningful and adequate to guarantee the Tamil people’s physical security, the outright rejection of the extent of proposed devolution and the LTTE’s persistence on separation destroyed the Sinhala people’s trust in resolving the conflict through power devolution to the periphery.
The entire country should have the opportunity to reflect on the human misery that the conflict had caused. All the people in the country need to learn about the root causes of the conflict, the common experiences of social trauma that they have undergone, and the ways and means to prevent recurrence of such events.
I consider the first political indicator of a government that is candidly bent on reconciling its fractured society will be a genuine national campaign intended for that purpose. Even if it is only relating to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, or a plus or minus version of it, the south of Lanka should be convinced of the necessity to look after and protect all citizens of the island in the same way the Sinhala citizens are being looked after and protected. Significant rights could be bestowed on non-Sinhala people with the consent of the island’s southerners. Perhaps, starting with what has been already guaranteed by the Constitution, but have not yet been fully and robustly implemented could be taken up for consultation and dialogue at national level.
Such rights will obviously be subjected to a barrage of criticism from the diverse spectrum of views held by many. For example, such a national discussion may commence with the topic of the necessity to include a legal framework that makes discrimination on the basis of one’s race, caste, religion or spoken language a punishable offense in law; the termination of current practice of providing unequitable opportunities on the basis of preferential treatment; establishment of effective mechanisms to handle and resolve all issues that arise in this context in an accountable manner adhering to the principles of openness, justice and fairness; making use of all three languages holistically in public communications and correspondence; ensuring that there are adequate numbers of Tamil speakers to handle issues of Tamil and Muslim people, particularly, where they are predominant; and devolution of power so that the people in provinces could look after affairs that matters in their day to day lives.
Attitudes of the Left
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine. This was Che’s indomitable leftward attitude towards injustice. In keeping Che’s sentiment in our hearts and minds, we of the left needs a critical look at the things we have done and we used to do.
Sadly, many in the left have helped and are still helping bourgeois ruling elites in diverse ways to implement their neo-liberal agenda. No wonder why the left is in a crisis. I believe that even those who do not think or act this way still need to rethink their strategies. From the experiences in 1971, 1988-89 and the long-term insurgency from 1983-2009, one needs to learn that they cannot break new ground or hold on to their social bases merely basing themselves on military strength. The major lesson to be taken from these experiences is that despite multiple provocations of the state and their cohorts, military strength is not a substitute for political work among the people and independent political initiatives. 2012 will be a year of high significance for the people of Lanka in terms of greater political initiatives and closer interaction between the Left and democratic forces.
Ultimately, it was the bourgeois ruling elites such as the UNP led coalition in 1977, the SLFP led coalition in 1994, and the SLFP led coalition in 2005, who took advantage of the disunity in the left and their failed tactics, as evidenced by them later wiping out the new left in the electoral front. These are not personal mistakes, but essential ingredients and manifestations of the ultra-left adventurist line taken in confronting the provocative violent and armed repression of the state and its cohorts. Though the new left only genuinely and determinedly implemented that political line, it led to the political process of isolation and then to the eventual military and electoral debacle, thus revealing the bankruptcy of the tactics used.
Unfortunately, in 1994 and 2005 the JVP, and in 2005 the LTTE was being made use of by the bourgeois ruling elites to further their own interest. These ruling elites have used them and would use them again for electoral benefits. Is not this habit of getting used for the sake of gaining temporary and partial political benefits, acting as pawns in the hands of reactionary political forces, right opportunism of the worst kind? Yet, curiously, this sort of surrendering political independence of the left was sought to be concealed at times under ultra-left phrase mongering.
Conclusion
We do not need a telescope or a microscope to see that the national question persists and needs to be solved justly and fairly. The majoritarian state being chauvinist and the civil administration being increasingly militarised, armed violence has become an entrenched characteristic of the Lankan political landscape today. The past violence of the Sinhalese against Tamils, later on Tamils violence against Muslims, violence by the armed forces and their paramilitaries against civilians to generate pretexts for implementing their own agendas of domination.. One community’s sufferings have been pitted against another community’s sufferings by scapegoating that community as the cause of sufferings. So, re-examination of our own politics, our own actions, assertions and silences is extremely important in this context.
The question of power sharing, equal rights and equity of opportunity confronts the whole of Lanka. Inter-ethnic reconciliation and dialogue between communities should be the precursor to a long-lasting sustainable just and democratic political solution. Any one community in isolation cannot proceed towards a unilateral solution without taking into consideration the concerns of other communities.
The President and the state currently do not seem to be even in favour of fully implementing the 13th Amendment, though the current constitution already accommodates provisions for devolution of police and land powers. The Lankan state points to a national security threat posed by attempts to create political instability following the example of Arab Spring. This clear warns that the focus of the security establishment is now on scheming ways and means to repress the activities of the discontented workers and youth in the country. The working people and the youth are opposing the government’s push to implement the demands of the IMF by privatising services such as education and health, thus lowering public spending, wages and cutting down working conditions of people.
As has been done before, the communal card is currently being played again to reinforce division of the working class and the poor and prevent unity being achieved in the struggle to defend living conditions and democratic rights. To do this the security establishment under the political guidance of the ruling elite is reviving a threat posed by pro-LTTE groups both local and overseas and linking individuals and organisation with progressive leanings to such groups without any evidence to substantiate their allegations. This bogus threat is also being used to justify the increased expenditure incurred on maintaining and expanding the security establishment. Such attempts of the state can be thwarted only through the united action of the working people for abolishing social inequality and for protecting their democratic rights.
Our task today is to initiate a process to keep the momentum of the processes that have been initiated to include diverse progressive views into a coherent strategy and a minimum program of social change. We need to adopt a less dogmatic and less sectarian approach towards new social thinking and developments with more tolerance and critical assimilation. Building an extensive island-wide mass movement based on a broad political agenda that would focus on issues immediately affecting the working people such as corruption, capitalist globalisation, violation of individual and collective human and democratic rights of people and environmental issues is urgent. In order to sharpen and consolidate the political power of the working people, special emphasis should be placed on developing unity in action among all left formations in the short run and working towards unifying all socialists under the banner of a single party in the long run. If we are to be successful in this endeavour, then we in the left need to honestly and critically look at our past actions, alliances and programs.
13 February 2012
Lankan society in its post-1948 history has undergone many violent conflicts in the form of pogroms, insurrections, and a civil war. The latest round of violence said to have ended with the military defeat of the LTTE in 2009 continues now at a much lower level, but seems to operate throughout the land. These campaigns of violence have caused collective social trauma within the society.
With the end of the war, the opportunity was ripe to rebuild the country and reconcile the many divisions. During the war, of course, many statements, assurances and pledges were made that the issues of Tamil people that culminated in an armed conflict would be resolved through major constitutional and legal reforms including devolution of power to the periphery, though after the end of the war, such measures are yet to come to fruition.
International situation
The reports of global capitalist financial institutions indicate that the present financial and economic crisis is structural, persistent and long-term. In many countries, industrial and agricultural production is being adversely affected including in the bastions of capitalism, the EU and the USA. The dominant capitalist model of neo-liberalism, based on free-market paradigm underpinned by deregulation and privatization has not been beneficial to the working people. Relocation of industries to more favourable and profitable regions, outsourcing of labour-intensive production and application of technological innovation to reduce labour intensive work have led to high levels of unemployment.
Yet, neo-liberalism does not wish to give up their hold on the world in a peaceful manner. The current drive of global capital to acquire and control all possible resources such as hydrocarbons, land, water, minerals and forests needs to be understood in this light. In the name of combating terrorism and promoting democracy and human rights, neo-liberal forces are waging its ruthless war on resource-rich countries the world over.
A decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq has failed. Pakistan and Yemen have become destabilised. Lebanon, Palestine and Libya have been devastated. Nonetheless, neo-liberals have not given up their policies of invasion, intervention and destabilisation. Unofficially, war has been declared on Iran and Pakistan. The neo-liberal camp has been repositioning their troops, armaments, logistics and coalitions to launch a surgical strike on Iran. Iran has been subjected to sanctions, attacks on military and missile installations, killing of its nuclear scientists, and cyber warfare. The case against Iran is based on speculation, even weaker than that was used against Iraq. Iran is an authoritarian state, but surrounded by countries carrying weapons of mass destruction such as the US, Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India. On the other hand, in Iran’s favour, it has not invaded any country in its recent history. Escalation of this conflict, which may happen any time soon, will destabilise the whole world and its economy.
Last year, agitations for political and personal freedom spread from Occupy Wall Street movement through the peoples’ uprisings in the Arab world to protests against economic crises in European countries, Chile, Israel and elsewhere. Young people, mostly unemployed secular students with no future prospects in life led these protest campaigns. They were not bound by any ideology. Apparently, their demands related to dissolution of centralised power, and assurance of their rights for autonomy and personal freedom.
The outcomes of these uprisings and protests remain uncertain mainly because the ruling elites in these countries mimic compromising gestures while holding onto power in the hope that the peoples’ momentum towards democracy and threats to the ruling elite’s existence will fade away with time. The people continue to demand change for the better. The regimes are utilising sectarian divisions based on religious and tribal affiliations to contain peoples’ uprisings and to safeguard interests, privileges and power of the elite.
Neo-liberalism continues to be the main challenge facing sovereignty of developing countries like Sri Lanka. The dominant progressive forces of the working people need to determine the direction of change that will control foreign capital investment for the benefit of people, define alternate developmental processes that are sustainable economically, socially and ecologically and lead to a social system embodying the characteristics of peoples’ control, participation and co-operative ownership.
Neo-liberal agenda has made social protests and rebellions criminal offences that can be dealt with anti-terrorism laws, as the current regime attempts to do. The new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that came to effect in the US allows indefinite military detention without trial, and determines that the entire globe is a battlefield on which the war on terror is being waged.
Who are best assisting these designs in the developing countries? They are chauvinists including social chauvinists (socialists in words but chauvinists in deeds) and the opportunists of all hues. In Sri Lanka, among them are those who oppose a fair and just solution to the national question of Sri Lanka based upon the recognition of peoples’ right to determine their own political destiny that would allow all people to live in dignity and peace.
Domestic situation
Recent reports indicate that the island has achieved middle-income status. Similarly, certain surveys have found that the island’s social conditions, health and education have improved. However, let us not forget the fact that aggregated per capita figures statistically hide social inequality. Clearly, the gap between the affluent and the poor has worsened. The Gini coefficient shows that income disparities have grown significantly in the urban and estate sector and income has remained relatively static in the rural sector. The increase in consumption accompanying the affluence and service provision distribution is skewed in favour of the affluent in the land, in particular, geographically towards the western province.
The armed conflict that was concluded in 2009 has created additional disadvantages in the region of the North and East in terms of economic infrastructure, livelihood, health and education. Inequality in opportunities and income can be associated and correlated with one’s social class and political patronage, the geographic region one resides in, one’s mother tongue, caste, ethnicity and gender, and one’s special needs. Hence, in addition to per capita models, statistical growth assessment models that also take into account the deficiencies caused by such inequities and that incorporate mechanisms for addressing such inequalities are necessary.
Economic development and building a united nation
Lankan society is heavily polarized due mainly to political and economic factors. The state’s cultural policies towards non-Sinhala people are designed and implemented to build the majoritarian support for discrimination and exclusion of non-Sinhala people so that the attention of the working people can be diverted from the significant socio-economic issues that prevail at the time.
The government’s effort in building infrastructure will help the movement of people, but mainly it will be skewed for travel from the south due to the economic imbalance that exists. Providing opportunities for people within the framework of social justice, social inclusion and provision of equity will pave the way for a better future.
It is not possible to foster a harmonious environment in the island, without genuine efforts to address the sufferings of the people who have suffered due to loss of their loved ones, those who cannot grieve openly, those who do not know where their loved ones are, those who cannot visit their loved ones who are detained. People need to be given space and time to relate their stories and learn the truth of what happened so that it will provide genuine opportunities for reconciliation. Transitional justice provides such opportunities for people to collectively get over their psychological trauma. It should provide for people to come to terms with the past and get along with their future. Genuine reconciliation can be facilitated if the people are not burdened by the past that prevents them from going into the future. In particular, most of the non-Sinhala people affected by the long war, displaced from one location to another on so many occasions, do not enjoy their civil, cultural, economic and social rights in any meaningful way. They have become weaker and feebler.
The LLRC Report
The Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (the LLRC) provides us with a good opportunity to seriously explore the present state of play in the political, legislative, executive, judicial, economic, social and other spheres. That can provide us guidance on the path we need to traverse to build a united nation upholding respect for democratic values, human dignity and the rule of law.
Though the scope of the mandate given to the LLRC was limited in comparison to the scope the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the LLRC report specifically states that lack of good governance, non-observance of the Rule of Law and lack of meaningful devolution were causes for building tension between communities. It recommends creating a separate and independent police commission and provision of provincial police with better legal tools and expertise, whilst reaching out to non-Sinhala groups. It has also emphasised the necessity to have an independent Judiciary, a transparent legal process and strict adherence to the Rule of Law for peace and stability and to work towards meaningful reconciliation. What we have today is not rule of law but rule of impunity.
According to the LLRC, the lack of governance and non-observance of the Rule of Law would re-result in the creation of tension between communities. It is the view of the Commission that making visible progress on the devolution issue is of critical importance to ensure the success of any process of lasting and sustainable reconciliation. The report has also conceded that the investigation into human rights violations is a vital component to national reconciliation. We should encourage Sri Lanka to fully implement these recommendations in order to jumpstart the process of national reconciliation.
Reconciliation – Where are we?
Lanka is governed as a police state. Despite the formal ending of the country’s state of emergency, all draconian powers that were employed during the war such as disappearances, killings, arbitrary arrests and detention without trial are still in force. Thousands of prisoners that had been detained remain in custody without being charged even after three years since the end of the war.
The LTTE subjected the people in the south to terror and it was natural for them to place their trust in the government to overcome that terror. Understandably, the majority of people expressed their gratitude to the current President and the government for ending the armed conflict. On the other hand, despite many individual killings by the LTTE, many Tamil people in the North and East considered the presence and prevalence of the LTTE militancy in their region was associated with their fate and survival as a community by preventing the abuse of power the state forces and their paramilitaries had been hurling on them.
In the same vein we need to understand that the terror unleashed against Tamils, simply just because they were Tamils, was a non-issue until the counter-terror of Tamil militants started reaching the doorsteps of the people living in the south. Many disagreed with me in mid-2009, when I took the position that the conflict did not end with the military defeat of the LTTE. My conclusion was based on the simple fact that the armed conflict was a continuation of the political conflict in a heightened form, and the end of the armed phase of the conflict will be construed and interpreted as seeking solutions to the political conflict (national question) is not significant. Now hardly anybody would disagree with me that in a political sense, the conflict remains much more heightened with international attention set upon the ways the state and its people handle the broader governance issues of democracy and reconciliation. Such issues also include extension of equitable opportunities for all people based on protection and the application of the principles of rule of law, democracy and human rights. It is evident, that such an endeavour will require changing the ways the legislative, executive and judicial arms of the state operate today in political, social and religious domains.
Achieving the current ‘no-war’ situation after more than three and half decades of armed conflict has been enormously expensive. Yet we have not been able to achieve a state of positive peace due to the recalcitrant interest, thinking and attitudes that continue to prevail. With no self-critical reflections and all the bitterness and hatred being passed on to the next generations, the process of reconciliation has become a non-starter. Thus, the process of reconciliation has become extremely difficult and complex.
Measures for reconciliation
Following the termination of the armed conflict, the government has embarked upon huge business, infrastructure and community development programmes (with all their apparent deficiencies and shortcomings). Building highways and roads, providing vocational training, assisting in many small-scale industrial and agricultural projects, teaching English, and training in IT continue, with the help of many individuals and organisations, both local and overseas, and not for profit and for profit. There also have been many allegations that local communities do not get opportunities to contribute in terms of decision making or concretely taking part in any of the developmental activities that would generate income opportunities for themselves.
If the state intends to reconcile the Lankan people, one important symbolic step would be to free all political prisoners, who have been held with no charges being made against them. Those who have been tried and convicted through adjudications of institutions, not properly constituted, because of political and personal vendettas also need to be freed. Those against whom charges can be filed may be charged in properly constituted courts following proper rule of law. From a state and a government who had to conduct a ruthless and destructive war to end the armed conflict, this is not an easily achievable task. However, I am still confident that there will be a day when the country opens up its closed doors, as has just started to happen in Burma (will all best wishes for the process to continue unabated without being influenced by opportunistic, corrupted and corroded political advisors).
As we are aware, the island have been searching for an apparently dignified political solution for the last half a century with many discussions held; many agreements and pacts signed and then annulled unilaterally; many commissions and all party conferences appointed, reported and then such reports dumped into dustbin of history; and many study tours undertaken with no lessons or experiences apparently learnt.
Search for a solution
We have searched enough. We do not need to wait for international intervention to occur in these matters. If we consider Tamils and Muslims as our own brothers and sisters, then the state has the primary responsibility and accountability for looking after them and protecting their rights as fellow human beings. In the current global climate acquiring or restricting ourselves to a superiority complex of making the other submissive is impracticable, unethical, non-cognisant of the diverse nature of today’s Lankan society and its richness, and unrepresentative of our traditions of harmony and co-existence.
As many international experiences have shown, if we take positive steps to build lasting peace, the chances and opportunities for the so-called western conspirators to interfere and meddle in the country’s internal affairs, its sovereignty and territorial integrity will become minimal. Such measures will not only unify communities of people as a nation, but also unite as a bulwark against foreign interference. More significantly, such measures will create the basis for preventing another ethnicity, language and/or religion based insurgency in the island.
Lessons of the past should guide the future socio-economic and cultural changes that are required in our attitudes and actions for us to progress towards a peaceful society based on justice and equity. The three-decade long war created hostilities and strengthened animosity against each other, which strengthened the isolationist and exclusionist policy calculus of the state, thus generating sentiments and attitudes of bitterness, suspicion, hatred, prejudice and un-compromise towards each other. The Tamil community, in particular, has been dealing with the armed forces and their paramilitaries.
Needs of the ruling elite
It is in the best interests of the ruling elites for Lankan society to remain fragmented so that no united effort on the people’s part will threaten their power, control, interests and privileges of the regime. When a crisis looms, as our own historical experiences indicate, such layers and individuals will do everything at whatever cost to safeguard their regime. Pretexts are generated; news are concocted; and misinformation campaigns are carried out, so that these could be used to present a situation as if concrete and objective threats to the country emanating from such a so-called public enemy exists. Then, the cycle of violence commences.
Need for a new public enemy
The syndrome of a ‘new public enemy’ that needs suppressing through a new insurgency seems was created soon after the termination of armed conflict in May 2009. In 2010 itself, the state, its intelligence services and the government declared that they were aware of another insurgency to be launched soon using university students. This was made in an environment of a crackdown targeting the university students across the country, aimed at suppressing opposition to its planned measures for privatisation of education.
The proposed new University Act to establish private foreign universities in the island has been in preparation since then. Currently, the state and the government have become hyperactive in making Gobbelian type allegations of another insurgency led by a breakaway group of the JVP allegedly having links with pro-LTTE groups. As practised in the eighties, repressive measures have been used against any genuine political or trade union opposition to government policies.
The President himself warned in 2010 that students would face the law prevailing in the country. He was not talking about the rule of law, but the prevailing law. Hundreds of students have been suspended or detained, mainly for protesting against government policy. The burden of the current economic crisis will be placed on the shoulders of working people with public services being gradually cut down through privatisation policies following demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the budget deficit.
The state has been in readiness to swoop on any protests by incorporating emergency laws into normal laws of the land; by centralising most of the power in the hands of President; by censoring the media; and by increasing disappearances and detentions without trial. Freedom of information in the land is becoming increasingly applicable in the way ruling elites and states interpret what that freedom should be. A strong example is Wikileaks, where attempts are being made to hide information about war crimes from the very people in whose name such crimes were committed. So, the political challenge will be to build a coalition under the leadership of the working people to resist the impending state repression.
The need for social implosion
Periods of intense cycles of violence have commenced with the violent suppression of freedoms and repression of rights of the ordinary people. Cycles of violence that commenced with the suppression of dissent ended up creating valleys of death. This vicious cycle would escalate spirally due to the situation that is made to prevail. Such artificial constructions are made for imploding a society from within, and I call this social implosion by a state, as against creating social reconciliation.
Past experience
Despite its alleged democratic traditions, Sri Lanka has half a century of recorded history of using violence and terror to subjugate and suppress political opponents with the overt or covert use of a plethora of repressive legislation and state forces and through the maintenance of a culture of impunity among its security establishment. For example, the President and the government in the early eighties faced a crisis, which I would see as a parallel situation with many similarities to what the people in the island are experiencing today. In 1983, the government sponsored, pre-planned and launched the anti-Tamil pogrom, on the one hand, to ‘teach Tamils a lesson’ using violent means to favourably shift the economic power balance towards Sinhalese business interests and on the other hand, to crush the growing left movement in the country.
The repression the state launched then, developed into a massive spiral of violence leading to the insurgency in the 1988-89 period, killing about 60,000 people. Incidentally, several political and military personalities, who had been involved in serious human rights abuses such as disappearances, death and destruction on their political opponents at the time, continue to hold responsible positions under the current status quo. It is worth noting that in the 1988-89 period when university students protested against privatisation of education, several student leaders were tortured to death.
Another cycle of violence?
Many people pose the question whether Lanka is entering into another cycle where violence will reign supreme, as it experienced three times before. One can only compare previous contexts, developments and experiences with the situation that is developing now. For simplicity, I will limit myself to comparing the context, development and experiences of the valley of death that commenced in 1983 and continued until mid-2009, where disappearances, arbitrary detention without trial, torture and extra-judicial killings by death squads associated with military have been used against political opponents.
What can be done?
As we have witnessed many times before, when international pressure, particularly from India, is exerted, the President would announce that the 13th Amendment in the Constitution or a plus version of it would be implemented. However, as time passes, artificial opposition campaigns will be created or allowed to be built to give a false impression to the outside world that there is enormous resistance against the devolution of power to the periphery. The only time, such a situation did not materialise was at the presidential elections held in 1994, when a consistent and persistent campaign for devolution of power was successfully carried out. Yet, due to the nationalistic and chauvinistic pressures that were created by small groups within the governing coalition itself, the proposed devolution package was neither widely discussed locally nor even presented to the parliament. Though concerns were expressed if the proposed devolution would be meaningful and adequate to guarantee the Tamil people’s physical security, the outright rejection of the extent of proposed devolution and the LTTE’s persistence on separation destroyed the Sinhala people’s trust in resolving the conflict through power devolution to the periphery.
The entire country should have the opportunity to reflect on the human misery that the conflict had caused. All the people in the country need to learn about the root causes of the conflict, the common experiences of social trauma that they have undergone, and the ways and means to prevent recurrence of such events.
I consider the first political indicator of a government that is candidly bent on reconciling its fractured society will be a genuine national campaign intended for that purpose. Even if it is only relating to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, or a plus or minus version of it, the south of Lanka should be convinced of the necessity to look after and protect all citizens of the island in the same way the Sinhala citizens are being looked after and protected. Significant rights could be bestowed on non-Sinhala people with the consent of the island’s southerners. Perhaps, starting with what has been already guaranteed by the Constitution, but have not yet been fully and robustly implemented could be taken up for consultation and dialogue at national level.
Such rights will obviously be subjected to a barrage of criticism from the diverse spectrum of views held by many. For example, such a national discussion may commence with the topic of the necessity to include a legal framework that makes discrimination on the basis of one’s race, caste, religion or spoken language a punishable offense in law; the termination of current practice of providing unequitable opportunities on the basis of preferential treatment; establishment of effective mechanisms to handle and resolve all issues that arise in this context in an accountable manner adhering to the principles of openness, justice and fairness; making use of all three languages holistically in public communications and correspondence; ensuring that there are adequate numbers of Tamil speakers to handle issues of Tamil and Muslim people, particularly, where they are predominant; and devolution of power so that the people in provinces could look after affairs that matters in their day to day lives.
Attitudes of the Left
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine. This was Che’s indomitable leftward attitude towards injustice. In keeping Che’s sentiment in our hearts and minds, we of the left needs a critical look at the things we have done and we used to do.
Sadly, many in the left have helped and are still helping bourgeois ruling elites in diverse ways to implement their neo-liberal agenda. No wonder why the left is in a crisis. I believe that even those who do not think or act this way still need to rethink their strategies. From the experiences in 1971, 1988-89 and the long-term insurgency from 1983-2009, one needs to learn that they cannot break new ground or hold on to their social bases merely basing themselves on military strength. The major lesson to be taken from these experiences is that despite multiple provocations of the state and their cohorts, military strength is not a substitute for political work among the people and independent political initiatives. 2012 will be a year of high significance for the people of Lanka in terms of greater political initiatives and closer interaction between the Left and democratic forces.
Ultimately, it was the bourgeois ruling elites such as the UNP led coalition in 1977, the SLFP led coalition in 1994, and the SLFP led coalition in 2005, who took advantage of the disunity in the left and their failed tactics, as evidenced by them later wiping out the new left in the electoral front. These are not personal mistakes, but essential ingredients and manifestations of the ultra-left adventurist line taken in confronting the provocative violent and armed repression of the state and its cohorts. Though the new left only genuinely and determinedly implemented that political line, it led to the political process of isolation and then to the eventual military and electoral debacle, thus revealing the bankruptcy of the tactics used.
Unfortunately, in 1994 and 2005 the JVP, and in 2005 the LTTE was being made use of by the bourgeois ruling elites to further their own interest. These ruling elites have used them and would use them again for electoral benefits. Is not this habit of getting used for the sake of gaining temporary and partial political benefits, acting as pawns in the hands of reactionary political forces, right opportunism of the worst kind? Yet, curiously, this sort of surrendering political independence of the left was sought to be concealed at times under ultra-left phrase mongering.
Conclusion
We do not need a telescope or a microscope to see that the national question persists and needs to be solved justly and fairly. The majoritarian state being chauvinist and the civil administration being increasingly militarised, armed violence has become an entrenched characteristic of the Lankan political landscape today. The past violence of the Sinhalese against Tamils, later on Tamils violence against Muslims, violence by the armed forces and their paramilitaries against civilians to generate pretexts for implementing their own agendas of domination.. One community’s sufferings have been pitted against another community’s sufferings by scapegoating that community as the cause of sufferings. So, re-examination of our own politics, our own actions, assertions and silences is extremely important in this context.
The question of power sharing, equal rights and equity of opportunity confronts the whole of Lanka. Inter-ethnic reconciliation and dialogue between communities should be the precursor to a long-lasting sustainable just and democratic political solution. Any one community in isolation cannot proceed towards a unilateral solution without taking into consideration the concerns of other communities.
The President and the state currently do not seem to be even in favour of fully implementing the 13th Amendment, though the current constitution already accommodates provisions for devolution of police and land powers. The Lankan state points to a national security threat posed by attempts to create political instability following the example of Arab Spring. This clear warns that the focus of the security establishment is now on scheming ways and means to repress the activities of the discontented workers and youth in the country. The working people and the youth are opposing the government’s push to implement the demands of the IMF by privatising services such as education and health, thus lowering public spending, wages and cutting down working conditions of people.
As has been done before, the communal card is currently being played again to reinforce division of the working class and the poor and prevent unity being achieved in the struggle to defend living conditions and democratic rights. To do this the security establishment under the political guidance of the ruling elite is reviving a threat posed by pro-LTTE groups both local and overseas and linking individuals and organisation with progressive leanings to such groups without any evidence to substantiate their allegations. This bogus threat is also being used to justify the increased expenditure incurred on maintaining and expanding the security establishment. Such attempts of the state can be thwarted only through the united action of the working people for abolishing social inequality and for protecting their democratic rights.
Our task today is to initiate a process to keep the momentum of the processes that have been initiated to include diverse progressive views into a coherent strategy and a minimum program of social change. We need to adopt a less dogmatic and less sectarian approach towards new social thinking and developments with more tolerance and critical assimilation. Building an extensive island-wide mass movement based on a broad political agenda that would focus on issues immediately affecting the working people such as corruption, capitalist globalisation, violation of individual and collective human and democratic rights of people and environmental issues is urgent. In order to sharpen and consolidate the political power of the working people, special emphasis should be placed on developing unity in action among all left formations in the short run and working towards unifying all socialists under the banner of a single party in the long run. If we are to be successful in this endeavour, then we in the left need to honestly and critically look at our past actions, alliances and programs.
13 February 2012
An Eternal Hope, Mandela!
People usually pay tribute to great individuals, once they are no
more. However, I wrote this poem about Nelson Mandela, in order to pay
homage to him, while he is still with us.
Lionel Bopage
###
Would you soon bid farewell to this world?
May be, may be not
but darkness cannot drown your light
as you will live in all our hearts
you have done us proud
and will leave us with pride
as a prisoner, a president and
an ambassador of the voiceless!
A slave caged for 27 years
Condemned to hard labour; breaking stones
But none could break the dignity and humanity in you
Instead you broke apartheid forever
standing up with a straight backbone!
being the master of your fate
and the general of your soul!!
I also sat alone like you
in dungeons for a decade
surviving torture, trauma and tricks
keeping my back straight
and my head unbowed
full of hope and aspirations
dreaming of justice
and a better future for humanity
You kept your ideals
moving from authority to morality
walking from arms to talks
but never giving up the struggle for peace
leading your people to freedom and dignity!
I too wonder sometimes
Seeing my comrades move
from morality to authority
to build a land full of wrath and tears
destroying our ideals
have I wasted my life?
Clouds of darkness, fogs of fear
hover over my land
after years of menace and devastation
we have made a new apartheid regime
As a great man, who hoped for a better world
you destroyed apartheid in your land
made a hopeful land for your people!
Yet, in a South Africa without you
would your comrades be true to your ideals?
Our future generations
deserve a decent and better world
I hope and wish
you will never fade into oblivion
as your ideals will keep shining!
inspiring those yet to be born!
How many Mandelas does the world need
to lead us towards justice and freedom
from discrimination and exploitation?
Mandela, our Mandela
you will never be forgotten!
May your ideals never be abandoned
we live in that eternal hope!
The author was a former General Secretary of the JVP. He was involved with the JVP since 1968 and resigned in 1984.
Lionel Bopage
###
Would you soon bid farewell to this world?
May be, may be not
but darkness cannot drown your light
as you will live in all our hearts
you have done us proud
and will leave us with pride
as a prisoner, a president and
an ambassador of the voiceless!
A slave caged for 27 years
Condemned to hard labour; breaking stones
But none could break the dignity and humanity in you
Instead you broke apartheid forever
standing up with a straight backbone!
being the master of your fate
and the general of your soul!!
I also sat alone like you
in dungeons for a decade
surviving torture, trauma and tricks
keeping my back straight
and my head unbowed
full of hope and aspirations
dreaming of justice
and a better future for humanity
You kept your ideals
moving from authority to morality
walking from arms to talks
but never giving up the struggle for peace
leading your people to freedom and dignity!
I too wonder sometimes
Seeing my comrades move
from morality to authority
to build a land full of wrath and tears
destroying our ideals
have I wasted my life?
Clouds of darkness, fogs of fear
hover over my land
after years of menace and devastation
we have made a new apartheid regime
As a great man, who hoped for a better world
you destroyed apartheid in your land
made a hopeful land for your people!
Yet, in a South Africa without you
would your comrades be true to your ideals?
Our future generations
deserve a decent and better world
I hope and wish
you will never fade into oblivion
as your ideals will keep shining!
inspiring those yet to be born!
How many Mandelas does the world need
to lead us towards justice and freedom
from discrimination and exploitation?
Mandela, our Mandela
you will never be forgotten!
May your ideals never be abandoned
we live in that eternal hope!
The author was a former General Secretary of the JVP. He was involved with the JVP since 1968 and resigned in 1984.
Friday, 18 January 2013
Father Tissa Balsuriya’s struggle for social justice will continue
Father Tissa Balsuriya’s struggle for
social justice will continue
We
heard the sad news that the internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan catholic
priest and theologian Father Tissa Balasuriya (Fr Tissa) has passed away. His
exertions on the Catholic Church about the nature of Jesus Christ and his
teachings, and how to adjust to the realities of life in the developing world are
not well known. Nevertheless, he became famous internationally when he was
ex-communicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1997 for the book he
authored, Mary and Human Liberation, which took a feminist perspective
on her life, such as the issue of ordaining women as priests in the Church. Obviously,
his dynamic interpretation of the mother of Jesus was quite different from the
traditional interpretation. There was intense international pressure from
within and without the Catholic Church to rescind the excommunication. Fr Tissa
did not admit to doctrinal error, but acknowledged perceptions of error, for
the sake of a compromise. After a week-long negotiation, the excommunication
was rescinded in 1998.Being a critic of the iniquities of the global capitalist system, he sought to reconcile the teachings of Christ with the global quest for social justice. He was well known for his track record in defending human rights. He won the prestigious Khan Gold Medal when he graduated in economics. He entered the Novitiate the same year and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1949. As an economist, he became convinced of the need for economic justice for the working people and became a strong advocate and lobbyist for social justice and equity. He was strongly opposed to neo-liberal economic policies and crony capitalism, the creation of a liberal economic system in which only some cronies gained political and economic power in return for supporting the regime. He provided leadership for coordinating inter-religious and inter-racial activities with the aim of working towards achieving social justice, freedom and lasting peace in Sri Lanka. Fr Tissa was the founder of the Centre for Society and Religion (CSR) in 1971 set up for studying the burgeoning social, economic and political problems of Sri Lanka, and the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians in 1975. In the process, Fr. Tissa had been misinterpreted both by sections of the Church and the ruling interests.
 |
| The Maligawatta school for slum children built by CSR: Preparation, Opening by Fr Tissa, Demolition and Burning down by the Colombo Municipal Council |
Father Tissa is/was a good friend to both Chitra and me.
Chitra used to work for Centre for Society and Religion under the guidance of
Fr Tissa, with the aim of trying to assist those families who live in slum
areas in Colombo. She studied at the Aquinas University College where Fr
Tissa was Rector. My first
contact with him occurred in 1978, when I was presiding over a public May Day
rally held by the JVP at Town Hall in Colombo. He had come closer to the stage
and sent me a message to meet him for a couple of minutes, to which I obliged.
This infuriated our leader. Since then I had met him on several occasions while
attending public seminars at the CSR. His close connection to our family strengthened
during the period of terror and repression in 1988-89, when he arranged an Australian community to assist
Chitra and the two children to visit Australia, while I had to find refuge in
Japan due to death threats to my life.
Fr Tissa’s death also brings back memories of Fr. Michael Rodrigo, who was a follower of Fr Tissa’s life traditions of
simplicity, humbleness and servitude to the people. He was assassinated in 1987,
while conducting a sermon at the pulpit of the church. We cannot forget Fr Tissa’s
political activities in Canberra opposing the US led war in Iraq during one of
his visits. Despite becoming frail due to age and sickness in recent years, he
carried out his work in promoting not only social justice but also religious
and racial harmony.
We will not only remember and respect his contribution to the betterment of socio-economic conditions of working people in Sri Lanka, but on a more personal level, we will never forget his genuine love and offer of help for the needy, irrespective of their socio-cultural background.
We will not only remember and respect his contribution to the betterment of socio-economic conditions of working people in Sri Lanka, but on a more personal level, we will never forget his genuine love and offer of help for the needy, irrespective of their socio-cultural background.
We salute him for his immense contribution for the
betterment of society. He will be remembered with gratitude. We extend our
deepest sympathy to his bereaved family and friends.
Fr Tissa’s struggle for social justice will carry on and be
strengthened by his peerless example.
Lionel and Chitra Bopage
19 January 2013
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