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The key draw back in Sri Lanka’s Norway backed “peace process” was that it was largely perceived as resulting from a “secret understanding” between the ruling United National Party and the terrorist group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam charged one of Sri Lanka’s leading human rights groups. A leading human rights group, the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)- UTHRJ said in a Special Report issued October 4 that rather being driven by a concerted attempt to seek a national consensus the peace process was largely perceived as resulting from a secret pact between the ruling party and a fascist terrorist group. This understanding was vastly different from a transparent political understanding reached with a democratic parliamentary party, the statement number 15 of the UTHR (J), warned. In the human rights report, entitled, “In the Shadows of Sattahip, Many Faces of Peace”, the group raising an alarm about the growing army of LTTE’s child soldiers said to quell mounting international pressure against the crime the visit of Olara Otunnu to Sri Lanka, the UN Secretary General’s special representative on Child soldiers , scheduled on August 18 was postponed. “The visit would have raised awkward questions for the Norwegians and the government on the eve of peace talks in Thailand. Out of the blue as it were, the visit was called off for the unexplained reason that Mr. Otunnu suddenly had an official engagement in Africa.” The report charged, “Nevertheless, well placed observers following the development are convinced the LTTE got the Norwegians to have the visit deferred. Glossing over infelicitous ground realities and the deleterious political trends they portend has become the current vogue in conflict resolution. It is a context in which people become mere fodder not only for the forces vying for untrammeled power , but sadly also for intellectuals thriving on superficial analyses of conflict scenarios.” The 49-page single spaced report of typed script said in playing their power games over the years the ruling UNP and the totalitarian LTTE had thoughtlessly and callously sacrificed the lives of thousands of ordinary people. “There are signs ,” the report said, “that today’s peace process , where large segments of opinion are not being reassured about its integrity is creating a dangerous political vacuum. Unless a reckoning for the past with a will to refashion our institutions, so as not to repeat it, accompanies the peace process the people have little stake in it.” Attempting to analyze the key problem in the peace process of the ruling party the report said , the UNP problem was “its inability to face up to its own violent past and its institutionalization of state terror, first against the Tamils, and then against Sinhalese opponents which brought Sri Lanka to its brink of being a failed state.” The report charged the ruling party was avoiding open discussions to evolve a consensus in the country. And the report warned, “It may prove a fatal handicap when negotiating with the LTTE.” The report also reminded how the head of the ruling party, the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was allegedly connected to the notorious torture chambers at Batalanda. “It were suddenly as though the masses of evidence documented by the Disappearances Commissions and the harrowing events at a torture camps to which the Prime Minister was closely linked . These were events that took place in the late 1980’s . During the latter years of PA government a unit of the CID and the Attorney General’s Department had been conducting investigations on testimony before these Commissions and their findings , with a view to filling indictments.” The report further said, “It is well-known that a number of UNP ministers and MPs were presiding over death squads with the aid of sections of the security forces, as is also clearly evident in findings of the commissions above. The UNP government elected in 1977 perverted the judicial process and made tampering with it a normal part of governance, whence in the early 1990s it continued to obstruct investigations into the events of 1987-1990. There is hardly a better illustration of this art than Defence Minister Tilak Marapone's earlier career in the AG's department. “As DSG, Mr. Marapone led the cover up of the Welikade prison massacre in July 1983. As AG from 1992 - 94, the case of the murdered journalist Richard de Zoysa made no progress under him, nor for that matter did those pertaining to the murders of former National Security Minister Athulathmudali and President Premadasa. A classic instance of evasion on Mr.Marapone's part was the case of the 32 schoolboys from Embilipitiya who disappeared in late 1989. (The case dragged on for over 9 years and resulted in the conviction of several of the accused, four years into the succeeding PA government.) Now as Defence Minister, Mr. Marapone has been enjoined to deploy his skills in covering up child conscription by the LTTE. His positions have proved as stable as the party's caprice of the moment. “The new UNP government was elected in December 2001 and according to our sources there was in January 2002 a meeting of some UNP ministers, including probably the Prime Minister, and a few senior police officers, some of them retired. Subsequently a highly placed emissary met the present Attorney General, Mr. Kamalasabeson, and asked him to drop all proceedings pertaining to the violations of the late 1980s. The AG, we learn, explained the position with respect to these and declined. “Subsequently, we learn, a powerful UNP group met Mr. Kamalasabeson and put it to him forcefully that he must stop the proceedings. It is now known that the police investigation unit has been wound up and proceedings have been effectively stalled since April. “This is the underlying human rights background to the current peace process. It is against this mindset that the LTTE has been given a virtual free run to conscript children and to deal with its political opponents. Cynicism about the Government's attitude to law and order, the atmosphere of vituperation in political life and the uncertainties surrounding the Government's dealings with the LTTE have together resulted in an air of confusion, distrust and volatility in the South. “Instead of being dignified, we have a government quite willing to ditch the Tamil opposition and its ministers shamefully performing the gratuitous service of exonerating the LTTE from charges of child conscription, extortion and planned attacks on Muslims. “We moreover have reports, the undignified fallout from which surfaces in media gossip, of rival groups of ministers falling over and undercutting each other to cultivate advantageous relationships with the LTTE, presumably with an eye to the millions of dollars expected as rehabilitation aid. According to sources close to the LTTE in Vavuniya, Poovannan, an important LTTE figure there who deals with NGQs, had visited Colombo twice recently. First as a guest of one minister, and then of a minister in the rival camp. “We are seeing today a strange arrangement where the Tigers claim to be moving towards Eelam, while the Government congratulates itself before the Sinhalese claiming to have saved the Unitary State. In the meantime we are hearing the same old UNP claim that the country is moving towards becoming an El Dorado, and would get there but for the Opposition. Hence a demand for absolute control over Parliament, clipping the President's wings etc. There are also strong indications that the Government is preparing for repression in the South. “Ghosts from the UNP's cupboard of skeletons are being rehabilitated in key security positions. Among them is retired Senior DIG Merril Gunaratne who was linked to the Batalanda operation during the Southern insurgency. Soon after last December's election, we learnt of talk in the Polannaruwa area that the UNP planned to recruit a large number of youth at Rs. 2,000 a month. The intended target of their activity was said to be the JVP that had significantly improved its electoral standing. Recently we had the Youth Corps Bill, which envisaged paying Rs. 2,000 a month to selected youth who are to be are trained in a variety of skills. While the reason sounds legitimate, one cannot forget the Prime Minister's close association with the late Minister Cyril Mathew of the JSS, who recruited UNP goons by offering them jobs in state corporations. “Those were the days when the Government shut its eyes and ears to the violence it was inflicting on the Tamil civilian population and was nasty to anyone telling the truth. Now the process has reached a strange phase where the present heirs to that UNP government, contrary to basic common-sense dictates of security, do not want to have eyes and ears in the North-East to see what the LTTE is cooking. The Press on 14th September carried Defence Minister Marapone's response to President Kumaratunge's letter concerning an arms build up, recruitment of children and harassment of Muslims by the LTTE. “The Defence Minister's response summarised briefly, reads: "The Government sees little in the North-East and has evidence of even less, so why worry?" Some columnists thought it was brilliant. The attack on the Hartley Principal by a group that spent nearly two hours just outside the Pt. Pedro army camp is an instance of how much the Government wants to see. The Defence Minister knows that he is not being serious. On the contrary, the Government thinks it is being clever in seeking a US-sponsored 'safety net' as a substitute for sound intellectual labour and organisational effort. Does that mean repression in the South and typically American press-button destruction in the North-East in the event of the LTTE not playing by Oslo rules? “While the present cessation of hostilities is welcome, it is not an end in itself. It is in part a product of war weariness among the parties to the conflict. While the Government may have dangerously dissipated its ability to respond militarily, there is also mounting evidence of dissatisfaction with war among the LTTE's older cadre. However, the leadership cannot be flexible on its goal of a totalitarian state. “As we have repeatedly stressed, a heavy responsibility falls on civil society to raise the issues that the Government will not raise, so as to make the prospects for permanent peace real. Efforts in this direction have been feeble.” The report also pointed out facts how the so-called liberal section of the South and the so-called free media is keeping silent over fascist acts of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The report said, “Some strange things are happening in the South. The sections now most articulate about the democratic and human rights of Tamils in the North-East are those once regarded as extremists. The so-called liberal sections have on the other hand maintained pin drop silence on Tamil opponents of the LTTE being abducted under the cease-fire, although they know what it might snowball into, once the group has complete control over the North-East. Even their token concern about child conscription and democratic and human rights in the North-East may not have been voiced had these issues not been raised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. “Last Christmas, a drunken brawl at the Thinakkathir newspaper office in Batticaloa was elevated into a story of persecution of the editor of Tamilnet by an influential free media lobby in Colombo. Amidst expressions of condemnation, Reporters sans Frontiers too was moved to express its concern. Today, a destructive night raid by the LTTE has stopped the publication of the Thinakkathir, and what do we have from the lobby? Pin-drop silence! “The liberal sections have rightly pushed for the investigation of the murder of Nimalrajan, who also threatened fellow journalists in the name of the LTTE. But they also know well that the selective focus on Nimalrajan grossly distorts the real threat to free expression and right to representation in the North-East. During the same period Cheliyan Perinpanayagam, senior journalist, writer and PA candidate, and Nimalan Soundaranayagam, popularly elected MP, were both gunned down by the LTTE. These murders were hardly mentioned although the same persons who campaigned on Nimalrajan occupy commanding positions in fora focussing on aspects of civil rights other than strictly journalism. “Only one recent political abductee of the LTTE, a member of the EPDP, has so far been released due to pressure from the South - nothing to do with any liberal advocates of human rights. The Sihala Urumaya publicised the sorry plight of the victim's Sinhalese wife and children! All this goes to show the general lack of conviction among so called liberals. Their excuse is that any criticism of the LTTE would topple the boat of peace - their kind of peace. The peace of fraudulent accounting, where a market boom is inevitably followed by a precipitous bust. The peace of an order that forces 11-year-old school children to charge into an army camp, while those who forced them wait eagerly for reports of casualties. “This is the civil society that accomplished little while the Tamil problem festered for more than 20 years. Whether they are serious about ending the war, and whether they care, are matters of conjecture. Take the circles in Colombo active in concerns for peace. A key task identified by them is building confidence between the Government and the LTTE. That could be surreal, if one delves deep into the nature of the LTTE, or banal depending on how one looks at it. The banal view would involve trying to hammer in honour between thieves. They may also believe that they can trap the LTTE in this peace process, while finding it impolitic and mean to say so openly. So they must wiggle about with noble pronouncements, avoiding responsibility for the tragic effects of their strategic calculations. “There are, however, more important questions for peace activists in civil society: Have they succeeded in building confidence between themselves and the Tamil people? There are two kinds of Tamils attending peace seminars in Colombo. One kind having LTTE affiliations or sympathies comes with an agenda and is very articulate. Members of the second kind having reservations about the LTTE are stone silent or play safe. They cannot ask their most pressing questions, nor can they expect answers. Take some of the prominent Tamil church leaders. In public they may aver that the Tamils [by voting TNA] have chosen the LTTE as their sole representatives. “Nevertheless, we know for a fact that some very prominent and influential church leaders in the North-East have told the Government that handing over the region to the LTTE would be to create hell on earth! Telling the truth at peace seminars in Colombo, which these leaders regularly attend, would be frowned upon as a breach of the rules of hospitality. “The Government (especially the UNP) has no moral qualms over the LTTE's methods. They share the same instinct. However, the former's obligation to function under a quasi-democratic dispensation sets a limit to its excesses. To the class in Colombo inured to the violence the UNP and PA inflict on each other at election time, the violence in the North-East may look tame. This is reflected in objections raised by civil society activists in Colombo to the label 'fascist' in relation to the LTTE. Unlike in the South the political violence in the North-East is not the uncoordinated actions of local henchmen. It comprises the carefully calibrated thrusts of a force reinforcing a totalitarian order, with proper attention given to economy of action. Herein lies the stark difference in quality. “We can see the rocks confronting the peace process that are being ignored. This is why writings in the Press of even the more liberal Sinhalese columnists do not convey much to North-Eastern readers other than platitudinous generalities. Their constant equivocation when it comes to the harder issues is puzzling considering their prominent role in the peace process. “Take the following from the Peace Support Group's statement of 16th September: "In Valaichenai and some other parts of the Eastern Province, a clash between Muslim and Tamil civilians could not be controlled for several days." The reality is that twelve Muslims were killed as against one Tamil shot dead by a policeman. To say it was a clash between civilians or communities (also the official Government position, e.g. Defence Minister's statement, Island 14.9.02) is to discredit the ordinary people in order to let the LTTE off the hook as the peace game demands (see our Special Report No.14 The report said the current euphoria regarding negotiations in Sri lanka criticism might be dismissed as irrelevant. But the report warned if it was not addressed in time the peace process might degenerate into pure strategic manipulation. The report said, “its main purpose would be the survival of actors who are rigidly circumscribed by their political history .This can hardly ensure peace.” The UTHRJ warned that in today’s world the marketing of reactionary and virulent political agendas by giving them liberal and progressive facelifts had become a lucrative industry. The technique was to generously invoke the jargon in vogue . the catch words or phrases such as right to self-determination, democracy, socialism, human rights and peace. The report said they persistently highlighted the fiendishly distorting nature of internal terror, in particular the culture of violence imposed by the LTTE over Tamil society. “It is our responsibility to raise these issues rather than white wash a specious political drama by waving the peace and development flag only to duck out after letting the people down.” (EOM) To read the full report go to (02/10/07 go2lanka.com) |