Analysis: Southern Lankan democracy is the myth that keeps on living

By Gogol G.

The title of our recent previous analysis said it all: How Southern Lanka's Political Bankruptcy Caused Its Economic Bankruptcy. The imminent bankruptcy finally happened, and the country is amok because the Sinhalese of Southern Lanka have now experienced just a slice of what Tamils of Tamil Eelam have experienced for the past few decades of the brutalist, genocidal, destructive occupation of their land. Although the Sinhalese have accomplished the unthinkable in overthrowing the Rajapakse clan from power (for now), the Sinhalese were solely responsible in the first place for electing and re-electing them into power as heroes and gods. Ranil betrayed his lifelong power-hungry quest to make himself king president, just as his uncle JR Jeyawardene was when he created the despotic position. In order to be president, Ranil clearly struck a deal to allow Gotabaya to escape, and together they did a clumsy job of hiding it from the tens of thousands of protestors. There has been so much self-induced political instability in a period when the country has acknowledged that it is bankrupt. As we mentioned before, the military is unaffordable and the opposite of beneficial. But SL has shown no signs of demilitarising, and during this time, it was incapable of even reaching a staff-level agreement for an IMF bailout (let alone attaining the step of an executive level approval). Any surprise? In the midst of this widespread suffering and economic dysfunction, the political leaders of the country were choreographing a baton pass for a de facto crown & sceptre.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t despite the war crimes and genocide that the Sinhalese elected the Rajapakses; rather, it was because the war crimes and genocide happened against Tamils that they were elected heroes. “They saved the country” in 2009 — as if in a zero-sum way, the "country" they mean is Southern Lanka, and they instead "saved" the unemployment numbers by funding poor Sinhalese as soldiers to destroy Tamil Eelam. The last 3 months have shown that Southern Lanka is willing to destroy itself and cut itself off from trade links if it means that Tamils will not prosper one iota more, and so long as Sinhalese have enough food on the table and enough petrol in the tank. Given the level of ignorance and denial that they have for the genocide they have put Tamils through, the ostrich seems a more fitting mascot than the lion for the Sinhalese.

Just as the previous analysis was a preemptive reminder for casual observers to not superficially understand Southern Lanka’s problems through the lens of economics, and likewise its solutions through the pigeonhole of regime change, this piece will be another preemptive reminder. Given the political instability, and the constant attempts by Ranil and other establishment characters to exercise the letter of the law in order to run opposite of the will of the people, there will be lots of debate over the strength of Sri Lanka’s democracy and rule of law. However, from the outset of its independence, SL has always had a contradiction between what's legal and what’s democratic / inclusive / representative of its citizenry.

When legal is not democratic

How can the laws of a democratic country not be democratic? If the laws are enacted by the people, then surely they are democratic laws, right?

Democracy is rule by the people. The maxim is “majority rules, minority rights”. The majority makes decisions, but the rights of the people who don’t make the decisions should still be respected. So laws that do not protect the rights of everyone in the country only serve a subset of the country. If a subset of the country is oppressed, then their participation in the country is greatly diminished. What is the difference whether a subset of the population is denied the right to vote, which overtly undermines the core tenets of democracy, or whether their voice is never heard due to consistent systematic discrimination?

So if Sinhalese Buddhists decide to use their overwhelming numerical majority to consistently create laws that systematically discriminate and excludes the Tamil-speaking people and/or people of other faiths (Hindu, Muslim, Christian), then really, how is that different from just ignoring their right to vote? The history of Ceylon gives undeniable examples that laws made in an ostensible democracy can indeed be very undemocratic and undermine the tenets of equality and voting that are necessary for a democracy to function.

The following is a short list of important events in which Ceylon / Southern Lanka has, from the very beginning of its short independence in 1948, dismantled any semblance of its democratic credentials:

1948: removed 1 million Tamils' citizenship

The first major law of post-independent Ceylon was to create a law that retroactively removed the citizenship of 1 million Tamils who work as labourers on Ceylon’s famous and lucrative tea plantations. This is akin to how several slave-holding states in the United States after the American Civil War recreated the conditions of slavery in a post-abolition environment through laws known as “Jim Crow laws”, such as voting tests, voting fees, retroactive citizenship requirements based on ancestry and/or skin tone.

There is nothing more obviously inimical to democracy than denying people the right to vote. The fact that this law was enacted in the very first year of Ceylon’s independence, and which lasted until the 21st century until its begrudging and passive repeal, should tell you all you need to know about Southern Lanka

1956: Sinhala Only law

For some reason, it took 8 years for Ceylon to have its first election, even though it began its independence with a prime minister and government. Although the prime minister was a shoo-in to be re-elected, an important deputy in his cabinet (SWRD Bandaranaike) created a splinter party at the last minute and launched a campaign based on enacting an exclusionary racist law that makes Sinhalese the only official language. This immediately excluded nearly all Tamil speaking people from government jobs, and it sent a clear message of inequality and hierarchy for the people of the country.

The status of a government job in Ceylon at the time should not be underestimated. Ceylon’s government has historically had very strong social programs and benefits. A government job was highly prized because they were well-paying for the time, stable, and assured great pensions. A government job was as respectable as any other high-paying job like doctor, lawyer, or engineer would be.

The law made a deep and lasting impact in dividing the island’s people, directly and indirectly. The island has yet to recover. Even in the responses to the protests of today's 2022 economic crisis, there has been a stark difference between the Sinhalese of Southern Lanka and the Tamil-speaking people of Tamil Eelam. Sinhalese celebrated the achievement of overthrowing Gotabaya from power without acknowledging that they alone voted him into power, and then lamented the lack of participation from Tamils and Muslims. Tamil-speaking people in Tamil Eelam still live under military occupation, so demonstrations would be swiftly and violently stopped in a way that many Sinhalese are completely unaware of. Buddhist monks were spotted participating in the protests in Colombo, while in Tamil Eelam they were seen alongside military in preventing Tamil protests against military occupation of new land in which to build yet more Buddhist temples on occupied land.

1961: Colonisation via Mahaweli scheme

Borrowing from the Israeli playbook of colonisation schemes, the Mahaweli scheme was a very large scale irrigation project to enable lands in Tamil Eelam on the border with Southern Lanka to be irrigated and farmed. Importantly, the government recruited Sinhalese from the South to settle these newly arable lands. In a convenient stroke of competence, the government finished the project well ahead of schedule. The location of the colonization scheme was in the area in which the geography of Tamil Eelam land is “thinnest”, such that a Sinhalese demographic shift would break the contiguity of the Tamil demographic majority.

The Mahaweli colonization scheme was started before the war, as a legal, civilian, peace time “development scheme”, and it has had a lasting effect on the voting patterns in the island. It has also affected collective human rights inherent to the Tamil-speaking peoples to govern themselves and protect their culture and lands.

1978: Prevention of Terrorism Act (due process)

The Prevention of Terrorism Act violates many democratic norms and human rights, like the right to due process. There is no real definition of terrorism because if there were, the Southern Lankan police and military would be the biggest violators of it, to a degree far beyond anything that the Liberation Tigers or the JVP have been accused of. This law continues to be invoked to detain people, sometimes 12-18 months at a time, before they are allowed access to a lawyer or know what charges they were detained on, and trials can be often postponed repeatedly.

Only a Lankan lawyer would be well placed to indicate the full list of existing laws that the PTA violates. But the fairness and justice of due process are cornerstones of modern democracies, and the PTA persists despite constant criticism of the UN and other international rights agencies.

1983: Sixth Amendment (freedom of speech)

The 6th Amendment to SL’s constitution outlaws professing support to secession. It is one thing to exercise your freedom of speech about the state-supported genocide and the need for a separate Tamil Eelam to avoid Southern Lankan genocide. It is a totally different thing to actually launch an armed rebellion against the state. From the perspective of the law, there is no differnece.

Dissent is an important part of a healthy democracy, and you cannot criminialise dissent just because you don’t like it. But that’s exactly the point of the 6th Amendment. A country that cannot distinguish dissent from an incitement to violent rebellion reveals that is fundamentally flawed, and only bolsters the case for its radical overhaul.

1980s-now: Genocide

It is absurd that the Sinhalese Southern Lankan government, a member of the United Nations, can use its resources and legitimacy as a country to commit a genocide against Tamil-speaking peoples of Tamil Eelam. It can pit “legitimate” forms of organized violence against civilians to commit that genocide: the police plus each branch of the military (army, navy, air force, coast guard), paramilitary Special Task Force.

If the laws are fundamentally undemocratic, if the electoral systems are not truly democratic despite a veneer of such, then the civilian victims have no recourse. When other member states of the United Nations shirk their responsibility to invoke their obligations according to the Charter to intervene against a state in defense of a nationality that is a victim to genocide, they provide the excuse that it is “an internal matter”. Even though UN’s R2P (Responsibility to Protect) framework was created to reinforce that obligation after the Rwandan genocide of the mid-1990s, it has been largely ignored in the major situations where it matters, like the Tamils of the island of Eelam.

Actions of genocide take many forms, not just the killing of people but also the destruction of its economic base and its cultural identity.

Take this small sampling of historical events:

• 1981: Burning of Jaffna Library - one of the largest libraries in South Asia was burned to the ground, including irreplaceable ancient Tamil manuscripts. This was planned by high-ranking government ministers
• 1983: Black July - a week long, government planned Kristallnacht-style pogrom designed to destroy Tamil generational wealth. Read this article to understand the intentional economic impact resulting from the government-planned island-wide massacre.
• 1987: 13th Amendment - an amendment that was passed in conjunction with the Indo-Lanka Accord but that has never been implemented fully for Tamil-speaking areas. The Northern and Eastern Provinces were supposed to be merged into one, and the provinces would be given a provincial government that includes powers of police and land. The merged Northeast Province with its own government with powers of police and land have never been implemented. The 13th Amendment was constructed to only allow a weak autonomy which can be overruled by the central government (just like in India’s constitution), in which a colonial-era style governor has veto power over much of the provice.
• 1994-5: War for Peace - Chandrika Kumaratunga was elected as president in 1994 and then immediately launched the Orwellian named “War for Peace” that was a scorched earth campaign against Tiger-held Tamil areas. The blockade affected civilians and Tiger soldiers alike, and thus effectively holds the entire civilian population hostage. It included enforcing a total economic embargo on Tamil areas, which blockaded nearly everything from reaching Tamil areas, including essentials like medicines, petrol, and even batteries.
• Always: Using military against citizens - What kind of government uses its military to drop bombs on its own civilians, indiscriminately, using chemical and cluster bombs? But because the military is a part of the government, it is considered “legitimate”, and it is the only “legitimate” form of organised violence.
• Always: A culture of extrajudicial violence - The Special Task Force is a a commando police unit that has for decades supported extrajudicial activities supported by the undemocratic Prevention of Terrorism Act. The Ministry of Defense also has used proxy militia groups for just as long to commit overtly illegal and brutal, tortuous (“terrorist”) acts but provide a modicum of plausible deniability for the government

Reality for Sinhalese of Southern Lanka

Despite what some of the protesters in Colombo have started to assert in interviews to international journalists, which is that the protesters represent a broad cross-section of society, that is not true. While they may come from various socio-economic backgrounds, they are mostly Sinhalese from Colombo and surrounding areas. Tamils and Muslims who participate are few and far between, and come from Colombo. Tamil-speaking peoples of Tamil Eelam are still under military occupation, and Tamils of the Upcountry are still sharecroppers (economic slave labour), so protesting is out of the question. Meanwhile in Southern Lanka, the protests (by mostly Sinhalese) to replace Gotabaya as president are yet another regime change exercise that do not even acknowledge the country's deeply engrained systemic oppression. Most Sinhalese do not instinctively want to perform real gestures of inclusion, even at these progressive revolutionary protests, like screening the Channel 4 documentary Killing Fields in Sinhalese on the anniversary of the 2009 genocide on May 18. Even token gestures, like singing the Southern Lankan anthem also in Tamil, did not occur until after days of complaints inside the protests and on social media. Sinhalese have largely reacted negatively and in denial to arguments that their economic and political problems could be related to the systemic racist system and militarised occupation of Tamil Eelam. The country is just as divided in its “people power” during these "revolutionary" times, just as it has been divided always, as when that same “democratic people power” voted successive Sinhalese Buddhist racist leaders into power.

A few Sinhalese have the courage to say the simple truth that Tamils have always known. Here are samples of that from the internet:

A man like @RW_UNP, who was rejected by the people, managed to become the prime minister and then acting president & now trying to be the successive president through inside deals without public approval shows how F**** up our constitution is.#lka #SriLanka #GoHomeRanil

— Prasad Welikumbura (@Welikumbura) July 17, 2022

It's been 74 years & 5 months since we received independence from the British. Since that day, our country has been mainly ruled by three families. All of them were legally elected according to the constitution. Interesting, isn't it.#lka #SriLanka #Politics #SystemChange pic.twitter.com/BavWvnL6e6

Family	Years	Months	As a % Since Independence
Senanayake / Jayawardene Family	24	18	34.27%
Bandaranayake Family	25	14	35.16%
Rajapaksha Family	11	10	15.90%
Total Time of Rule	63	6	85.33%
Total Time Since Independence	74	5

— Prasad Welikumbura (@Welikumbura) July 17, 2022

You are saying appointing a man who was rejected by the people during an election and later came into the Parliament using a national list which was intended for something else appointing into the prime minister then the president is a characteristic of a democratic country?

— Prasad Welikumbura (@Welikumbura) July 17, 2022

RW's #Democracy:
- Lose Parl' election➡️Sneak in on Nat' List✅
- Protect GR➡️Become PM✅
- Don't resign after GR➡️Become act' Pres'✅
- Mass outcry➡️Order force against citizens, update IG pg✅
- No legitimacy to be Pres'➡️Criminalise pressurising MPs, Bribe MPs with houses✅

— Amal de Chickera (@Amal_deC) July 17, 2022

As the above comments show, they also realise that was / is legal is not truly representative and democratic.

Reminder

It’s not clear what India and America want to see out of Southern Lanka, given that India likely saved Gotabaya. India probably did so because it has always preferred the Rajapaksa family to stay in power, while America has been distinctly anti-Rajapaksa. India can't keep bailing out Southern Lanka with money permanently even if it wants to, whereas America has shown little interest in granting much short-term “bridge financing” bailout money altogether. Yet they both need the country to be stable to prevent further Chinese influence on the island.

So over the next few days, you will see political moves to see Ranil sworn in as acting president, and a new prime minister sworn in, and a new president elected. Ranil is the likely president, but he is disliked very much by the protester movement. And these political moves need to be settled so that a stable government can take hold before any economic bailout and restructuring can take place, so political moves ought to move fast.

But it should be clear that Ceylon has squandered its head start at independence of 1948 as the jewel of South Asia, and it started immediately with laws that undermined its own democratic credentials.

When international reporters start coming out with talk about saving Southern Lankan democracy, just remind them that you cannot save what does not exist. You have to throw away the scraps and build something new.

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Analysis: How Southern Lanka's Political Bankruptcy Caused Its Economic Bankruptcy

Southern Lanka has finally gone bankrupt -- out of money. But how? It's simple, so let's uncomplicate the stories you will hear elsewhere. Ceylon has spent its entire independence squandering its economic advantages in order to promote Sinhalese and Buddhism over all other people and religions. Because the violent politiics separated everyone into included and excluded, the island went from a multinational post-colonial country into a divided land where Tamil Eelam and the remaining Southern Lanka as separate single-language regions. Southern Lanka has spent so much money funding its military (army, navy, air force) and police to perpetrate violence on Tamil-speaking peoples, in order to allow Sinhalese to take over Tamil businesses, rather than peacefully building up the economy for everyone.

Sinhalese of the South are protesting against the current leaders, the Rajapakse family, for their decisions to ignore the foreign trade deficits, IMF requests, and to deflect the problem by banning foreign non-organic fertilizer. But in turn, the Lankan leaders instead would prefer blaming Covid for the huge deficit caused by lower tourism and tea exporters. But is Southern Lanka the only country that experienced the Covid-19 pandemic? No. In fact, every country has been going through the pandemic. So much for easy answers. What about the idea that SL's economy going into debt because the Rajapakses took easy money from China to build vanity projects with no utility? Well, SL and Pakistan are not the only countries that has taken Chinese money for questionable projects, but not all ended up like SL. And not all countries facing serious economic problems right now took money from China, like Russia. The China explanation doesn't work, even though you will surely hear it if you ask America.

So how do we draw a direct line from Southern Lanka's ethnic chauvinism and genocide, which is its political and moral bankruptcy, to its current economic bankruptcy? Easy, not only did Southern Lanka spend all that money destroying Tamil Eelam, and hurting its own economic prospects in the process, but the key is what it did after the war, during so-called "peacetime". Instead of moving resources from the military to peacetime economy building work, SL expanded its military after the end of the war in 2009, using the military as a glorified welfare program in the most expensive way possible. Keep in mind that the military is 99% Sinhalese, and the police is 95% Sinhalese. The military is larger than the UK's military while SL has only 1/3 the population of the UK. 7 of 8 army brigades were deployed in Tamil Eelam, with a 6:1 civilian to soldier ratio in TE, and a 2:1 civilian to soldier ratio in Jaffna. After the war, instead of creating peacetime economy building activities, SL just took away jobs from Tamils and gave them to the Sinhalese soldiers. The military is the most expensive, most destructive, most violent form of welfare for Sinhalese at the expense of Tamils.

Just as the 1983 pogrom Black July was premeditated violence against Tamils in order for Sinhalese to take over their businesses and factories in Colombo, the growth of the mliitary in the post-2009 "peace" period only makes sense when you realize that the military was a huge, violent, welfare program for Sinhalese. It's important to not let people use the story of Tamil suffering for the narrow goal of regime change against the Rajapakses. The island will never get better without true meaningful justice and reparations for the Tamil-speaking peoples, and that can only happen with a political solution that is Tamil Eelam. The Sinhalese have always voted for violent racism against Tamils, which is how they got the Rajapakses since 2005 -- it's the cresendo of what they want. The Sinahelse desire to oppress Tamils and Muslims is too easy to manipulate.

You reap what you sow. And here we are.

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Interview: C. V. Vigneswaran: "Presidential Election: On Our Thirteen Requests"

By C.V. Wigneswaran

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/presidential-election-on-our-thirteen-requests/

Someone asked: “I saw your thirteen demands. As a minority group how could you demand a division of the Country? It seems presumptuous on the part of the five Tamil Political Parties to demand so. Your comments?”

My Response was: They were our sincere and essential requests not demands. These need to be considered by those who aspire to rule this Country as President. The Sri Lankan Tamils are not minorities. They are the majority in the North and East even from pre Buddhistic times. The recent excavations in Keelady in Madurai District prove the antiquity of the Tamils. The remains found in Madurai resemble Mohenjadaro – Harappa civilization in Pakistan. The Tamil language is a Classical Language accepted Internationally. The Tamils have occupied this Country from over three thousand years ago. No doubt several influx of Tamils took place at various times in history. But they added to the population of indigenous Tamils resident from pre Buddhistic times. The five Shivalingams in Thiruketheeswaram, Naguleswaram, Koneswaram, Munneswaram and Thondeswaram (in Dondra) were here long before Buddhism came here and long before the Sinhala language was born in the 6th or 7th Century AD. Merely because history was doctored and distorted during the past hundred years, historical facts cannot be hidden for long.

Let me take you through each of the requests and their purpose.

1. Recognise the individuality of the Tamils and grant a Federal Constitution

The Sri Lankan Tamils are a Nation. A Nation is a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture or language inhabiting a particular country or territory. The doctrine of sovereignty has developed in two distinct dimensions: the first concerned with the “internal,” the second with the “external” aspects of sovereignty. What we refer here is internal sovereignty. That is to live in amity within one Country but looking after our affairs in our traditional areas without external interference or compulsion because we as a Nation are entitled to do so. That is, by virtue of the right of self determination recognized by International Law, the Tamils of the North and East have the right to determine their future political status over their territorial unit without external compulsions. That the North and East are the traditional homelands of the Tamils has been recognised in many Agreements including the 1987 Indo Sri Lanka Accord. Under the Thirteenth Amendment there are severe external control and compulsions. Why should the Sinhalese feel that it is essential that Tamils need to be controlled and kept under surveillance? Are we not part of this Country? Do we not have a history from pre Buddhistic times here? Are we not entitled to look upon this Country as ours just as others feel so?

Secondly, would difference in population give the group having more numbers the right to control the other groups? Even so the Tamils are the major community more in number than other communities in their traditional areas. The right of self determination is not based on population. It is based on the individuality of each group. Twenty or more Cantons exist in Switzerland each with its individuality in a Country smaller in extent than Sri Lanka.

Such individuality distinguishes the Tamils from the Sinhalese. So we Tamils have a distinct identity and Law recognizes self determination for such distinct units within a country. The ideal form of government in such countries which have distinct units of people is federalism which is a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units. Unless the Sinhalese political leaders are only interested in Sinhala domination and Sinhala hegemony, our claim for a federal constitution must be acceptable to the Sinhalese if they think upon us as equals. It is the Sinhala politicians for their personal gains during the past hundred years who poisoned the Sinhalese people against the concept of Federalism. Mr.SWRD Bandaranaike supported Federalism in 1926; the Kandyan Sinhalese supported Federalism before the Donoughmore Commisioners, both before Independence. Many Countries whether USA, Canada or Switzerland have federal constitutions. Switzerland is smaller in extent to that of Sri Lanka. India is quasi federal. In Sri Lanka the areas where the Tamils have lived for centuries could easily be identified to form a federal unit. It is stupid to say the Tamils would get 1/3rd the sea front far in excess of their population if given federalism. They are not to be considered only from a demographic stand point. Compare the annual rainfall in the North East with the rest of the Country. North East is arid and the living conditions are arduous on land. Only Mother Ocean could help them to prosper.

Without a federal constitution being enacted the Tamils will always remain in a subordinate position. At every stage the majority community would dictate to the Tamils what to do and what not to do in their own areas. Presently the traditional homelands of the Tamils are being colonized by Sinhalese because we Tamils have no legal control over our areas. If we had proper devolution of powers like under a federal constitution we would have had the power to check on the intrusion of people from other areas coming and expropriating our lands and resources. It is out of our desire to preserve our identity that we clamour for federalism. Not to set up a separate Country. If we do not preserve our identity now we could never do so in the future because certain elements among the Sinhalese Community including diehard Buddhist Monks are hell bent to make the Tamils integrate into the Sinhalese losing their identity.

Lastly we have all the right to ask for federalism since until 1833 the Tamils ruled themselves in their own traditional areas. Even now we occupy a distinct portion of this Country. We are the majority there. So what is wrong in federalism? Some say if you grant federalism the Tamils will separate. Firstly there is nothing wrong with separation because the Sinhalese never occupied the North and East to the exclusion of Tamils and if it is the desire of the Tamils to separate why not? But we are not interested in separation. Secondly the Tamils occupied these areas from pre Buddhistic times and the Sinhala language was very recent having come into usage about thirteen centuries ago only. Mahawansa was not written in Sinhala but in Pali. There was in fact no Sinhala language at the time Mahawansa fiction was written in Pali solely for the glorification of Buddhism. Thirdly the Sinhala leaders gave assurances to the British when they took over the reins of Government from the British in 1948 that they will not do any act prejudicial to the minorities but would look after them “in a husband like manner”. Soon after Independence they deprived the Up Country Tamils of their voting rights. Simultaneously they started colonizing traditional Tamil areas in the North and East with Sinhalese. Then they brought Sinhala Only. They enacted several pogroms and riots to drive away the Tamils from Sinhala majority areas. Then standardization in higher education was adopted. Now planned intrusion into Tamil areas are taking place to disturb the demography in our traditional Tamil areas. There is slow pulverization of the Tamils going on. This is genocide. What is wrong in our asking that we be spared the right of looking after ourselves before we become minorities in our own areas?

2. Proper investigation must take place through ICC and allied organizations with regard to war crimes, human rights’ violations and genocide carried out at the concluding stages of the War

Only if anyone indulged in these crimes should he be upset in agreeing to such inquiry. All the principal actors at that time claim they did no wrong. So why are we delaying these inquiries? Some politicians are claiming they are standing by their brave soldiers who brought victory to their Country. They have not said we would stand by them even if they committed any crime however brutal or hideous they may have been. So what prevents them from allowing the International inquiries? The inquiries are only to ascertain whether any War Crimes or Crimes against Humanity have been committed. If not committed well that is the end. Surely these politicians do not claim that they will stand by the Armed Forces even if some of the members of the Military committed hideous crimes? If they say so then they would be on the side of criminals. Do these Politicians want to be identified as Criminals themselves? Some say allowing International organizations to conduct war investigations would be a slur on our sovereignty. We complain that successive Sri Lankan Governments have been acting against the interests of Tamils. So, are they asking those who have been acting against Tamils’ interests should conduct the War Crimes inquiry themselves? That would be a slur on Tamils’ sovereignty! Would it not be? This is like asking the very parents of one of the life partners who have worked for their offspring’s divorce to conduct the Divorce Inquiry!

3. Abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act

The country has already consented to do so before the World body (U.N.). We are only asking for implementation. There is no dispute that the Act is draconian.

4. Release all Tamil political prisoners

Once the PTA is found to be contrary to all legal norms both local and International, with it being jettisoned, all those who were arrested and punished under the said Act need per force be freed. I had said in one of my judgments in the Supreme Court that there must be corroboration of the contents of confessions at least, to ensure some sort of decency to the Draconian Law. This had not been followed. So a bad law going must take with it bad arrests, bad convictions and bad punishments. None could complain against the Tamil political Prisoners being freed on this account. In fact I have written to the present President that he should release the Tamil political prisoners before he closes his innings. There is only one Poya Day before the curtain falls on his period of office. He is the last to enjoy all privileges of an Executive President which prompted JR to say he had all powers except to make a Man a Woman and vice versa!

5. Enforced disappearances – Justice to be found through International mechanism

This is a matter that concerned those in the South as well. I do not have to belabour myself to prove to you that Justice must be found for the families of those who were forcibly made to disappear.

6. Resettlement of our People on Private and State Lands after evicting the Forces

Over 60000 acres of State Land are occupied by the Forces. They are cultivating valuable agricultural lands selling their produce in competition with locals. Or they are sending the vegetables and other produce to their Army Camps. If they did not do so our farmers would have benefited. Their Camps are to be seen as you travel along in the Northern Province everywhere. A Mayor from Canada, Hon’John Tory, was surprised at the number of Army Camps remaining in the Northern Province ten years after the War. It is so in the Eastern Province too. Why should we continue to keep so many Military Camps ten years since the War came to an end? If the Government is doing so on grounds of security consideration of the area, these days with modern technology it could be accomplished from within a limited area with modern gadgets. But the decision to have more than a lakh of soldiers in the Tamil areas savours of other priorities on the part of succesive Governments. Still private lands have not been handed over to their legitimate owners or erstwhile occupiers before the war or at least to the local authorities to be handed over to entitled persons. It is high time the Forces left our areas. We are not here to be treated like a vanquished nation. We need to earnestly start our agricultural activities, fisheries, tourism, continue with our education without fear and intimidation and become a free Nation (a group of people with individual distinctive traits relating to land, culture, language etc. distinguishing them from others) within Sri Lanka.

7. To stop immediately Sinhalisation, Buddhistisation and Sinhala Colonisation in the North and East taking place with State connivance

This is indeed a very urgent request to be attended to. The question is often asked how could you stop Sinhala and Buddhist intrusion in the North and East when Tamil and Hindu plus Christian and Islamic activities are allowed in Colombo and elsewhere? Let me limit my observations to Tamil Hindu activities as opposed to Sinhala Buddhist activities. Up to 1958 Tamil Hindus were allowed to remain in the South. They had farms, Estates, business places and what not in several parts of the deep South. Kathirgamam was a Hindu Shrine when I went in early forties by bullock cart. There was always the chorus of Arohara then. A friend of my father and his brother owned acres and acres of paddy lands in Tissamaharama. They had tractors in later times. Similarly all seven Provinces south of the North East had a considerable number of Tamils. I knew the identity of Tamils who owned lots of lands in Anuradhapura (Old Town), Polonnaruwa, Kekirawa and so on. The pogrom of 1958 chased the Tamils away from almost all Southern areas except the Greater Colombo area. Even now lands belonging to Tamils in Matara and other areas are held by Sinhalese who chased off the Tamil owners and held the properties by sheer force. Their title deeds will prove it.

Colombo is a cosmopolitan area. It is not Sinhala nor Buddhist. In fact the total population of all communities and religious groups other than the Sinhala Buddhists in Colombo exceed in number the Sinhala Buddhists. So allowing Tamils in Colombo has nothing to do with Sinhala Buddhist tolerance. Pogroms after pogroms decimated the Tamil population outside the North and East. 1983 riots sent our best Tamil brains out of the Island. They are doing well abroad due to their sheer hard work, studiousness and the existence of meritocracy in those Countries.

When riots and pogroms happened in the South (seven provinces south of North and East) it is to the North and East the Tamils were sent by the Government by boats and other means proving North and East as the traditional homelands of the Tamil speaking people. Having chased out the Tamils from the South the successive Governments seem to be now interested in chasing out the Tamils from the North and East too. So the argument as to why Sinhalese should not intrude into the North and East is not tenable. The Tamils have been chased out of Sinhala areas and now there is an attempt to colonize the Tamil areas with Sinhalese. If the Tamils had been allowed to continue in Sinhala areas without staging all the brutal pogroms and riots against them earlier, this argument might have held water. Not now. The present intrusion is part of a plan to decimate the Tamils in their own areas with a view to commit genocide.

Buddhist temples are coming up where no Buddhists live. The Buddhist monks are able to indulge in high handed acts of encroachment and forcible intrusions without obtaining the relevant permission from local authorities, by the overt support given by the Armed Forces who are majority Sinhala Buddhists.

The Mahaweli Development Authority having entered the North promising to bring Mahaweli waters to the North is only interested now in setting up Sinhala colonization in the North and East. Not a drop of water from Mahaweli has come our way. Our Engineers tell us the Mahaweli water would never come to the North as envisaged now.

Departments such as Archaeology, Forest, Wild Life etc are expropriating our People’s lands. Similarly large scale expropriation of our resources are taking place. The Government in the Centre is only interested in fattening itself at the expense of the periphery. Hence our request to stop immediately Sinhalisation, Buddhistisation and Sinhala Colonisation in the North and East taking place now with State connivance.

8. Jurisdiction of Mahaweli Authority and the application of the provisions of Mahaweli Development Scheme in the North and East must be terminated forthwith

The reasons are already clear as to why the jurisdiction of Mahaweli Authority which is only interested in Sinhala Colonisation in traditional Tamil areas, should be terminated.

9. Moragaskande Irrigation Scheme and its recent programme of Sinhala Colonisation of the Vanni must be stopped

Under the pretext of helping us these Schemes are only helping the majority community to displace the indigenous people from their traditional homelands.

10. Expropriation of People’s lands and illegal construction of areas of worship

As earlier said Departments such as Archaeology, Forest, Wild Life etc are expropriating our People’s lands. Further large scale expropriation of our resources are taking place. The Government in the Centre is only interested in fattening itself at the expense of the periphery. Illegal construction of Buddhist places of worship are taking place with the help of the Forces without obtaining local Authorities’ permission. The mode of involvement in these matters is one of threat and violence. This should stop. Lands already expropriated by Departments must be freed from the effects of the Gazette Notifications that allowed these Departments to so expropriate.

11. Legal obstacles placed on our youth and others receiving help from diaspora and elsewhere must be removed

Lots of obstacles remain in our people obtaining help for youth education and family livelihood projects. All such legal obstacles must be removed.

12. Priority to locals in obtaining jobs

Now lots of people from outside the two Provinces are given employment within the two Provinces overlooking the needs and wants of the locals. This practice must be done away with. The idea among the Governmental authorities seem to be to mix the People as much as possible so that the Tamils will not ask for any exclusive rights. They do not seem to realize that such mixing enures to the benefit of the majority community and to the detriment of the minority groups. They forget that such planned intake of outsiders at the expense of jobs for locals amount to a form of genocide.

13. To proclaim North and East as war affected areas and set up an Independent development mechanism under the supervision of Elected Representatives of the People

Ministers from the Centre trying to develop the North and East without proper planning and proper understanding of the local culture, climate, terrain and conditions must be done away with. Our People should be allowed to fend for themselves giving them adequate powers and authority to do so.

I have given you the thirteen requests and the reasons that prompt us to make those requests. We are the majority in the North and East and we continue to be so for centuries. We have not asked for a division of the Country. The reason you feel it is presumptious on our part is because you have been conditioned to believe this Country is Sinhala Buddhist and the Sri Lankan Tamils are a minority group which entered this Country only a thousand years ago during Chola Conquest. Truth is otherwise. We Hindu (Saivite) Tamils are the original inhabitants of this Country and we have lived in determinable distinctive areas of this Country from pre Buddhistic times. There was a time when many Hindu Tamils converted to Buddhism but after some time Buddhism got integrated with Hinduism. Even now many Buddhists go to Hindu Temples and worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Our wanting to look after our affairs without outside intrusions and interference is a very reasonable request if only the Sinhala Buddhists come out of their questionable Mahawansa mentality.

The war had severely damaged the economy and infrastructure of the North and East. Also, the war had a devastating impact on the Tamil people. Post-war governments have failed in their responsibility to rebuild the war ravaged North and East. The post war development activities did not carry any hope or potential of creating a congenial situation to achieve sustainable peace and create a better and more stable future for the Tamil people in the North-East. The activities and the economic programmes that have taken place in the North East have completely failed to meet the needs of our war affected people. Abject poverty and misery are still dominant in many parts of the North and East. There should have been an interim special economic mechanism to rebuild the North and East soon after the war. But that did not come to be. On the contrary the successive governments did not even allow the Northern Provincial Council to setup a Chief Minister’s Fund to get assistance from Tamil diaspora to help our war affected people. Private investments from abroad continue to be thwarted. For example a Middle East project in the Vanni to cultivate vegetables and fruits for export has been cruelly prevented from materializing. Relief and assistance to our war-affected people cannot be delayed anymore. There is a pressing need to take immediate steps to embark on a comprehensive programme of development in the North and East. This can only be done by establishing an Independent Economic development mechanism through which Tamil Diaspora organisations and International Development Organisations would directly be able to engage in aiding the resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction process.

Out of the above requests those that should be immediately solved must be found solutions within three months of the New President taking office.

*Justice C.V. Wigneswaran -Former Chief Minister, Northern Province and Secretary General Thamizh Makkal Kootanii

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Opinion: What GoT and Black Panther teach us about Southern Lanka and Tamil Eelam

by Gogol G.

It is easy to analyse popular media, which is dominated by Americans, and find all the clues pointing to the American mentality and decision making that fueled the crescendo of GoSL genocide against Tamils in 2009.  After a full decade of suffering of Tamil-speaking peoples, there have been no real improvements, save the absence of outwardly-visible violence.  And unsurprisingly, there have been no serious attempts at improvements in a full decade.

It is important to dissect these past mistakes if we are to find a better way forwards.

For example, at the time of this writing, the US govt is withdrawing its remaining military personnel and assets from Northern Syria, allowing the loyal Kurds to be defenseless to the fresh genocidal military onslaught from Turkey.  Tamils and Kurds see kinship in one another on account of their liberation struggles being so similar.  In both, they have a distinct language, religion(s), culture, territory, and historical rule that has been usurped.  They have fallen through the cracks of geopolitics, at the intersection of more than 2 competing world powers, meaning they receive support from no one and exist in a limbo statehood.  Their ethnic group is spread across multiple recognised political states as minority percentage nationalities and bear discrimination in each, leading to a diaspora population of refugees in exile.  They both commenced the armed phase of their liberation struggle in an official sense in 1983.



There are plenty of examples within the US in recent days of recognising how damaging the betrayal of Kurds is.

The Tamils in the island of Eelam have been betrayed since 2009.  Actually, longer, since the donor conference co-chairs in 2006 drafted the plans for the genocide in 2009.  Tamils still remain loyal to the Western liberal order, despite being "left to the wolves" time and time again, just like the Kurds.

Once again, the Kurds and the Tamils find themselves in similar places in their quest for liberation: just about nowhere.  How long can someone be betrayed before they take matters into their own hands?  Is anyone listening?

Being clear about how we got here is important now more than ever, since a full decade after 2009, we are witnessing a resurgence of the same perpetrators of 2009 genocide, with smoke and mirrors to distract from the source.  We cannot be so easily distracted.  But more importantly, the same conditions that gave rise to these people still exist, which is why attempts at "good governance" (Ranil) or "regime change" (Sirisena) have been abortive.

If you have been a fan of Game of Thrones or Marvel's Black Panther, then you can understand better why we continue to make the same miscalculations.

Game of Thrones and Southern Lanka

It has been mentioned here repeatedly how the structure of the island's political structure needs to break up and re-form itself.  Until then, you will only have selfish small-minded actors thriving in such an environment which funnels everyone into overtly racist politics.  It was also mentioned here, years before the Sirisena-Ranil "good governance" government came to power, that mere regime change will not change anything.

And isn't that why Game of Thrones describes Southern Lanka so well?  It's an environment where various factions fight viciously for the right to rule over everyone else, but in the end, everyone perpetuates the cycle of violence and injustice.  In the game of thrones, you either win, or you die.  The only thing that everyone can agree on is those people to the North are evil and sub-human and need to be annihilated.  The extermination of the people of the North only focuses our attention on what existed all along -- a world that despairs in its yearning for justice and freedom, in which the only thing reliable is a bleakness summed up in "valar morghulis" -- "all men must die".

It is important to note that the analogy breaks down if we consider the people of the North (Whitewalkers) as "invaders from the North" and not just people whose mission is to protect their homeland at all costs.  Because Tamils were not invaders to the island.  If anything, the recent Keezhadi excavations in Tamil Nadu show a deep connection between ancient Tamils and the Indus Valley Civilisation to such an extent that Tamil civilisation is more likely a continuation of this highly-advanced 4500 year old pre-historic tradition.  If anything, the island of Eelam, as it was first called, was a Tamil island, and the Sinhalese are the "invaders".  After all, Tamil civilisation in the southern part of Tamil Nadu is at least as old as 580 BCE, so it only lends to reason that a society with perpendicular streets and underground sewers that traveled all the way to Australia also had established itself in Eelam in pre-historic times.  So if Tamils were in Eelam 2580 years ago, and if that date will get pushed back further as the research literally digs deeper, and if Singalese founder Prince Vijaya only arrived in Eelam 2500 years ago, then Tamils are the original inhabitants of the island. That is, of course, looking past the clear problems of the Mahavamsa as a historical source, unless we're ready to accept that Vijaya is the grandson of a lion and has a family tree that does not fork.  As a compromise, Tamil-speaking peoples deserve their claim to rule themselves in Tamil Eelam, from Chilaabam to Ampaarai -- no more, and no less.

One final connection between ancient Tamils and Game of Thrones is that the story of "Valyrian steel" is based heavily on "Tamilakam steel" aka wootz steel  Even though it came to Europe under the name "Damascus steel", it was only produced by Tamils in modern day Tamil Nadu, even the contemporary ancient recipes in modern day Karnataka could not compare.

Let's talk about Season 8, the final season.  It seems that most people detested it so much that they don't want to talk about.  Fair enough.  But it's important to look at why we don't like it.  The most common reasons given are that the writing is poor, the writers were lazy, the plot progression was rushed, and that the characters changed abruptly without warning.

Hmm, the characters changed abruptly?  But did they really?  In a bleak world where everything built up ultimately gets torn down, in which "all men must die" and no one is spared, one of the lead characters Danaerys committing genocide is not a shock to the world they all live in.  And to close observers, the signs of Danaerys of betraying her publicly espoused principles of equality, justice, and righteous rule were present all along.  Her obsession for power allowed her to coldly kill her brother as a youngster and to wholesale kill entire battalions of defeated soldiers that refused to  pledge fealty early in Season 7.

Some people point out that the TV show's Seasons 7 and 8 were only written by the TV's show runners and head writers from an outline by author George R. R. Martin of how the yet-unfinished books will proceed, and that difference is the cause of the bad writing.  Others point out the head writers are capable of writing compelling plot-driven fiction on their own, so they are not lacking in skill.  So what gives? 

The best explanation is that the lack of already-written books for Seasons 7 and 8 revealed the mistakes that the show runners and the audience make when approaching the story.  Specifically, they see the story as a story of individuals rather than a story of a society (or as the article puts it, a "psychological" rather than "sociological" storytelling perspective).  But if we dig into the explanation, we see that GRRM's novels "seemed to specialize in having characters evolve in response to the broader institutional settings, incentives and norms that surround them".  And we see that "society" and "sociological" refer more specifically to the system of rules and forces within that society.

And when you understand how the Southern Lankan political system is a cynical self-reinforcing racist genocidal machine, you instantly understand Game of Thrones.  Of course genocide is committed in the climax.

In Southern Lanka, how will we "break the wheel" -- end the proverbial wheel of power that crushes innocent underneath and pulls the rest into its cycle of violence?

Of course, we should not be asking "who" will break the wheel.  We should be asking "what" will be the agents of change to dismantle this system.

Black Panther and Tamil Eelam

This "psychological storytelling" method is "the main, and often only, way Hollywood and most television writers tell stories".  Americans' focus on the individual is a well known thing.  Even in American superhero lore of the last 70 years, we see several instances of a lone hero (Batman, Superman) who single-handedly saves "society" repeatedly.  In other cases, we have small teams (X-Men, Avengers, Justice League).  Movies tell similar stories of the individual (Rocketeer, Rambo, Rocky, Mission Impossible, James Bond, Terminator).

American politics often times seems similar, or at least the political rhetoric around it does.  In a country that espouses its egalitarian credentials, it heavily focuses on the leaders of countries as the reasons for their ills or successes.  American political calculus simplifies situations into binaries, you're either with us or you're against us.  But situations like the Kurds in Syria can only be handled best with nuance, and the lack thereof is disastrous, as we see currently.

So why is it that the Tamils of Eelam have not been afforded that nuance of wisdom and clairvoyance?  Instead, the US govt's treatment of Tamils in 2009 is similar to its fictionally depicted counterparts in Marvel's 2009 animated series of the Black Panther comic.

Season 1, Episode 1, 3:15:



Military General 1:  They can't do that!  We're the United States of America.  Where all did a bunch of savages get off, telling us that they got a No Fly Zone?  Hey, what are they gonna do, fly spears at our jets?
[glare from black female Secretary of State resembling Condoleeza (Condi) Rice, nervous silence from other meeting attendees]
Military General 1: Did I say something wrong?  [to Secretary of State]  My god, Dondi, you know I didn't mean you when I say--
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: Shut up, Wallace.
Military general: I mean, they're nothing like you.
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: Shut up!
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: Is there someone here who can give us some accurate intel on these people?
Everett Ross: Uh, that would be me, Ms. Reece.
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: Mr. Ross.  Uh, who the hell are these people, Everett?
Everett Ross: Wakanda is a small country in Africa notable for never having been conquered in its entire history.  When you consider the history of the region, the fact that the French, the English, the Belgians, or any number of Christian or Islamic invaders were never able to defeat them in battle -- it's unprecedented!  The Wakandans have a warrior spirit that makes the Vietnamese look like, well, the French.  They've also maintained a technological superiority that defies explanation.
Administrator 1: Where'd they get their tech from?  Soviets?
Everett Ross: No Cold War alliances with either side, and no contemporary alliances with the Arab world, including OPEC.  Geologists estimate that they have large oil deposits.
Administrator 2: That's what our boys at Halliburton said.
Everett Ross: They don't even pump it.
Administrator 2: That is crazy.
Everett Ross: Apparently, they don't need it, as an energy source or a financial base.  They have a variety of eco-friendly power sources, like solar and hydrogen.
Military General 2: Who's in charge?
Everett Ross: He's called the Black Panther
Military General 1: What does this have to do with the price of tea in China, gentlemen?  Since when has beating the French meant anything?  You give me a 12 man Black Ops squad and I'll--
Everett Ross: It's been tried, general.  With the best
Military General 1: The best? As if you had a day of military training.
Everett Ross: The..best.
[flashback to Captain America fighting and being handily defeated by Black Panther and then immediately let go by Black Panther with a mild chiding]

Season 1, Episode 1, 17:09:



Secretary of State Dondi Reece: So, what we've got here is a highly militaristic culture with no ties to the United States.
Administrator 3: They're a rogue state.
Everett Ross: Before you go adding them to the Axis of Evil, I should point out that they have never invaded anyone.  The only time they have taken hostile action is defending their own borders.
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: But a regime change could bring about a change in that policy.  Look, I don't want to jump the gun here, but it's standard operating procedure to have a military option in place for any potential threat to the United States. 
Everett Ross: Now, I certainly don't want to speak in the place of our recently departed general, but with our military forces stretched all over the Middle East, do we even have the resources?
Secretary of State Dondi Reece: You're right, Mr. Ross, that is certainly not your area of expertise.  You just keep providing accurate information.  Besides, this conflict would not be appropriate for conventional forces.  This is a job for special forces.  Very special forces.


Lest we consider the analogy from this episode of Black Panther as a hyperbole, let me remind you about Operation Unceasing Waves 1, 2, and 3. After the success of Unceasing Waves 1, the Tigers launched Unceasing Waves 2, where the SL army fell like ninepins and lost 3 years of captured territory in just 3 days. The US and UK militaries stepped in to help GoSL fortify Elephant Pass and make losing that military base impossible, on top of the fact that it is the bottleneck to Jaffna. Instead, Operation Unceasing Waves 3 successfully captured Elephant Pass, leaving the US and UK dumbfounded and proving that the LTTE was a fully conventional military whose success defies expectations. Ironically, the fall of Elephant Pass was engineered in part through the same tactic in the real-life US Civil War battle depicted in the movie Glory.

Edit: And this fact bears repeating every single time: the LTTE won the war militarily in 2000. As D. Sivaram pointed out, after the fall of Elphant Pass, the Liberation Tigers marched on Jaffna successfully, trapping the 40,000 SL Army troops stationed there. Given that 40,000 soldiers was half of the entire SL Army, and that they were trapped, to the point that GoSL asked India to intervene and airlift all 40,000 trapped soldiers:

The Sri Lankan army was on the brink of its most catastrophic defeat in 17 years of bitter civil war with the Tamil Tigers last night, and reports said the country's president had asked India to evacuate 40,000 troops trapped by a rebel offensive.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga's reported plea for help from India follows a series of stunning military advances by the Tigers during the past two weeks. They have now advanced to within 25 miles of the main northern town of Jaffna, which they fled five years ago. "Sri Lanka's first appeal has been to India," one official told a Sri Lankan TV station last night.

An official close to the Indian embassy, speaking on the condition of anonymity, yesterday confirmed that the Sri Lankan government had requested India's assistance....

Tamil Tiger rebels took control of the key Elephant Pass military base on the northern Jaffna peninsula on April 22; the base had never before fallen to the rebels.

Eight days later the Tigers consolidated their hold on the peninsula when they captured another crucial military base, at Pallai.

The Tigers vowed three months ago to recapture Jaffna, their former stronghold, which they lost to government troops in 1995. The town can now be supplied only by military aircraft and most analysts believe its fall is inevitable. "It is not a question of when, but how," one defence expert said last night....

As Brigadier Balraj put it: "He who holds Elephant Pass owns Jaffna". As India Today put it, "With LTTE knocking at the doors of Jaffna Peninsula, Kumaratunga presses the panic button". As The Economist put it, Few people in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, expect the army will be able to hold on to Jaffna. ... The government would then, for the first time, lose its foothold on the Jaffna peninsula.

As the politico-military analyst par excellence D. Sivaram (aka Taraki) observed, "The failure of Operation Agni Khiela in April 2001 eventually showed that the military power that the LTTE had developed in the Vanni was equal to more than 83 per cent of the total fighting component of the Sri Lankan armed forces."

Although he noted India's unwillingness to provoke the Tigers into direct conflict, India was reported to have told the Tigers to "stop, or else" at the outskirts of Jaffna and not advance, allowing India to perform the airlift of half of GoSL's military without issue. Most Tamils understood that threat to mean that India would isolate Tamil Eelam diplomatically forever even if the Tigers ignored their warning and followed through with their military victory and declared independence.

And if that wasn't enough, less than a year later, GoSL used the ceasefire declared by the Tigers in 2000 to regroup and launch a new attack and lost again, this time with Western knowledge, as Sivaram noted: "The army may not have been able to achieve the necessary concentration of force to launch Op. Agni Khiela if not for this window of opportunity that was opened by the LTTE's ceasefire. Norway, Britain and the US were not unaware of the preparations for the offensive by the SLA."

American miscalculations

Can we say that the Americans calculated well vis-a-vis Tamils?  Or even in regards to their own interests, which are firmly defined by A2/AD (Anti-Access / Access Denial)?

Obviously, if China's influence is slowly constricting around the neck of Sri Lanka, with no end in sight, then America's policy continues to be an utter failure, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  Needless to mention the complete moral failure and failure of moral leadership, given that Tamils have seen no improvement, no freedom, and continue to live under military occupation.

It is said that the treatment of Eelam Tamils has followed the prevailing winds of the global order.  The global geopolitical order is not an immutable thing, but rather one that shifts with time. 

The Cold War was an unusual period of 2 main superpowers (US, USSR) fighting each other across the globe, and anything communist or remotely close to it (socialism) was considered a threat to the US.  That's why the US needed War Plan Red in case of emergency.  Even though the Tigers espoused a vision of Tamil Eelam that looked like a Western European Democracy -- democratic socialism -- they were viewed with heavy suspicion.  Even though the Tigers' most desired goal was not a pure military means to secure Tamil Eelam but rather international acceptance of Tamil Eelam's freedom.

After the fall of the USSR in 1991, the world saw a most unusual thing for the next 20 years -- a unipolar world with America on top of everything.  Any challenge to this flimsy balance in the form of wars that challenge the borders of a country was seen by America as a threat.  These threats were labeled as terrorism, and the Tigers were finally added to the US and UK's lists in 1997.  The obvious reason for this is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.  The evidence shows it was planned out in advance by the CIA, which looking for one of the many disaffected groups in India to carry it out (Punjabis, Assamese, Kashmiris, etc), and it was facilitated by very high-ranking members within the ruling Congress party.  Maybe that is why it took the US and UK 6 years to make the designation, whereas India made it immediately?  And perhaps George W Bush's administration, especially after 9/11, lost any nuance of the situation and brandished all "terrorists" the same?  Or, maybe it was the fact that the War for Peace and anti-humanitarian genocidal economic blockade by the Kumaratunga government did not succeed in dampening the Tigers' military or public support, while Operation Unceasing Waves I in 1996 gave proof to that fact.

The military defeat of the Tigers and the overt genocidal onslaught of the Tamil people in 2009 coincided with the rise of China.  Mahinda Rajapakse is what connects these 2 large scale changes, and he & his familial accomplices thus receive focal point of the praise and resentment for the genocide that they committed.  The military successes of the LTTE that led it from strength to strength in the following years resulted in the US taking an aggressive militaristic approach to the LTTE.  It superseded concern for Southern Lanka's genocidal system but competed with the optics of human rights that was useful to American diplomacy.  Genocidal politics inherently lacks much nuance, so the perceived contradictions by Americans was a threat to GoSL for which an emerging China was the answer.

But let's back up to that "Cold War" period, the period before 1991, the year when the Soviet Union collapsed and Raji Gandhi was bumped off.  Was it all miscalculation there?  Did the US really believe GoSL when the GoSL blamed Black July on the Leftists and the Tamils and said the Tamils were Leftist terrorists?

Surprisingly, the answer is no.  In 1989, the West-aligned UNP member Premadasa was elected president to SL, continuing the faithful role of the UNP in supporting American / Western liberal interests.  Just a year later, the US govt wrote this now-declassified letter to its aid agencies about GoSL:

One Hundred First Congress
Congress of the United States
Committee on Foreign Affairs
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.   20515

October 19, 1990

The Honorable Ronald W. Roskens

Administrator
Agency for International Development
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20523-0001

Dear Mr. Roskens:

We write to urge that human rights issues be a high priority item for the United Sates during the Sri Lanka aid consortium to be held in Paris next week.

As you know, Members of Congress have long been concerned about reports of violations of human rights in Sri Lanka, including killings and other abuses against non-combatants in the context of civil conflict political killings in the south, disappearances, failure to inform family members of the arrest of suspected insurgents, failure to adequately investigate and bring prosecutions against those responsible for human rights abuses, and failure to ensure equitable distribution of humanitarian relief supplies.

We understand that the Sri Lankan Government confronts several terrorist groups that have been responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.  Nonetheless, abuses by terrorist groups do not justify abuses by Sri Lankan security forces, and do not diminish the importance of government efforts to address the concerns we have raised.

In view of the fact that some one million Sri Lankans are now displaced as a result of the conflict, we are particularly concerned about provision of humanitarian aid, and we hope that you will urge the Government to do everything possible to ensure that food and medical assistance reach people in urgent need.

We urge that you make it clear during the meetings in Paris that these are issues of great concern to the United States and to the donor community.

We would also appreciate your expressing concern about several recent instances in which the Government of Sri Lanka has confiscated human rights documents in an apparent attempt to suppress information about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.  In particular, we are disturbed by the reported seizure on September 11 of over 500 documents from human rights activist Mahinda Rajapakse, who was planning to present them to a meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Disappearances in Geneva.  According to Asia Watch, this was the latest in a series of attempts by the government to prevent Sri Lankan human rights activists from sending information overseas.

We look forward to hearing from you on these most important matters.

Cordially,

STEPHEN J. SOLARZ
Chairman, House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs

GUS YATRON
Chairman, House Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations

Let me repeat an important paragraph with added empahsis:

We understand that the Sri Lankan Government confronts several terrorist groups that have been responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. Nonetheless, abuses by terrorist groups do not justify abuses by Sri Lankan security forces, and do not diminish the importance of government efforts to address the concerns we have raised.

And let me also repeat the last paragraph with added emphasis:

We would also appreciate your expressing concern about several recent instances in which the Government of Sri Lanka has confiscated human rights documents in an apparent attempt to suppress information about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.  In particular, we are disturbed by the reported seizure on September 11 of over 500 documents from human rights activist Mahinda Rajapakse, who was planning to present them to a meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Disappearances in Geneva.  According to Asia Watch, this was the latest in a series of attempts by the government to prevent Sri Lankan human rights activists from sending information overseas.

Assuming your brain didn't melt already, you could write an entire Greek tragedy with the amount of irony in the sentence: "In particular, we are disturbed by the reported seizure on September 11 of over 500 documents from human rights activist Mahinda Rajapakse, who was planning to present them to a meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Disappearances in Geneva."

But the other sentences about the government "attempts" to suppress HR activists, including Mahinda Rajapakse, should give you pause.  Because those "attempts" were ultimately successful over the long run.  Human rights lawyer Mahinda Rajapakse went on to commit the largest genocide of South Asia, still possibly worse than the genocide of Rohingyas by the Burmese in Myanmar.

He may be out of power now, thanks to "regime change".  But nothing really changed, because that same political structure is in place, perpetuating things.  It is no surprise that his brother Gotabaya, a US citizen up until this past April, the scariest most racist candidate in the field, is also the frontrunner considered very likely to win the upcoming presidential election.


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Analysis: Something is rotten in the state of Southern Lanka

By Gogol G.

Only something is rotten in the state of Southern Lanka? No, everything is rotten in the state of Southern Lanka. Only a full day has passed since the Easter Day bombings in Southern Lanka, but the world is watching closely. These bombings were dastardly, devastating, and coordinated. But be careful to trust the easy explanations that have come out from the SL govt or India because their easy explanations don't add up. To understand why, let's consider each possibility, find where they break, and use what we learn to the most plausible theory for who's behind the attacks (hint: the call is coming from inside the house!)

Popular but deceptive narrative

So many articles like this one declare that we were so close to reaching peace after the Tigers were defeated in 2009 (nevermind the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians who were killed; the use of chemical bombs and cluster bombs when doing so; the bombing of hospitals; the lack of accountability, demilitarization, rebuilding).

First of all, when there is, still to this day, 1 soldier for every 2 civilians in the North, for the last 10 years, that is not peace. That is occupation, militarization, harassment, and an intentional prevention of rebuilding. With no truth finding allowed, there can be no justice, and without justice, there can be no reconciliation, and thus no peace. Peace is much more than the absence of violence. And we should know that threat of violence is tantamount to violence, right, if the intimidation achieves the same oppressive result as actual violence. Armed military going to your kids elementary school to get involved in their affairs, military occupying your farms and selling your vegetables -- this is not peace.

Second of all, reaching a full 10 years without a major explosion does not get you a certificate for peace. You were not close. It's just that SL has been clever to use superpowers against each other to deflect negative attention. SL and Myanmar continue to follow parallel trajectories, and while the world already became fully disillusioned with Myanmar's genocide continued by Aung San Suu Kyi's government, it is time for SL to receive the same spotlight.

Who do they currently say did the bombings?

Some reports say that the bombs were suicide bombs. This has been reported in a few major international publications. But these are govt sources. The same govt that claimed 0 civilian casualties in their genocide of Tamils in 2009 using multi-barrel rocket launchers, and chemical and cluster bombs. Right now, some of these publications are using that info to infer that it could only have been ISIS, and if they don't explicitly say so, then they're implying so.

But the motives don't match up to the targets and the timing. Why target rich foreign (Western) tourist civilians and local Christians? Why do so in SL? (Most of those Christians happen to be Tamils, keep in mind.) Why wait until Easter Day in 2019, almost a full 10 years after the end of the war against Tamils?

Who can we rule out?

We can rule out the Tamils from involvement -- many of the Tamils are Christian, and many of the Christian victims in these attacks are Tamil. It couldn't possibly be done by the Tigers, who were defeated in 2009. The Tamils (and Muslims) of the Northeast (Tamil Eelam) have been defenseless since the absence of the Tigers and suffering under oppression. With the heavy military and intelligence presence in their homeland, and the oppressive conditions they live in, forcing them into economic hardships, there is little willingness to resume violence and worsen their already terrible conditions. Less than their willingness is the sheer possibility of any attack, let alone such a complex and coordinated one.

It wasn't done by the Muslims of SL. While the majority of them speak Tamil, they identify separately as Muslims. But they have peacefully coexisted with Tamils for several centuries in the Northeast. It was a little more than a year ago that they were victims of right wing Buddhist mob violence. Those "riots" were coordinated by nationalist Sinhala Buddhist groups, most notably the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) ("Buddhist Power Brigade"). The BBS is known to mutually support Mahinda Rajapakse, and by extension, his crazier brother Gotabaya, both who were deeply involved in the genocidal war against Tamils. The BBS escaped any sort of punishment during that episode last year, but it was clear that Sinhalese were the perpetrators, and that the government was to blame. So wouldn't local Muslims want to get revenge on either the hardline Sinhala Buddhist nationalists or the SL govt? (Let's be real - since Ceylon's independence, there's no difference between those 2 options.)

What's worse, last year after those anti-Muslim attacks, in order to shirk responsibility, the "progressive" Sinhala intelligentsia attempted to use the backlash against social media to deflect any criticism to Sinhalese or the Sinhalese-dominated government. In a time when Facebook was increasingly being scrutinised for its role in helping elect Donald Trump as president in the US, and Facebook was being blamed by the Burmese govt for allowing Burmese racism to spread, SL jumped on the irresponsibility bandwagon too, blaming its racist history on social media. Where was social media when the SL govt systematically executed Black July in July 1983 for a full week, shutting off media to the outside world, allowing mobs to use voter lists to target and kill Tamils, and deploying police and army to the scene who just stood by and watched? Where was social media for 1981, 1977, 1974, 1971, 1958? SL is a racist country, full stop. The problems well precede social media. So, now, knowing how cavalier the Sinhala Buddhist establishment has been to Muslims, why would SL Muslims decide to attack Christians and rich white people, on Easter day, no less? Why create new enemies instead of targeting the real enemies? It makes no sense.

It's not the US or the West -- this much is obvious.

Now, does India stand to benefit? Perhaps a little, if only because it makes Western influencers (donor countries, foreign investors, rich tourists) much more hesitant to engage with SL. This allows India to maintain its relative control over the region despite the increasing US involvement. But it would be foolish to do so because the bigger concern for India is the accelerating Chinese involvement that has past the point of no return. After the last presidential election, when people heralded the joint govt of Wickremasinghe and Sirisena as some liberal Western-oriented surprise outcome, in which they would cut down their ties to China created by the Rajapakse family's tenure, it took less than a year for SL to reverse course and re-embrace China. Most notably, the big project in Colombo gives China a 99-year lease on the city that it's building off the shore of Colombo for itself. To announce its arrival to the region, China docked a submarine in Colombo twice within a month in 2014, and despite India's immediate anger after the first time, China did it again with impunity. China is here to stay in SL. More obviously, India would have a lot of money to lose from Western companies with manufacturing hubs in India and Western IT companies with offices in India if they found the region to be unsafe and unstable.

Who stands to benefit the most?

What will happen if this period of uncertainty and panic persists? Well, a more exaggerated example of that happened in July 2001 when the Liberation Tigers cut through a wire fence and blew up a dozen parked fighter jets and a half-dozen parked empty passenger planes at the Colombo airport and adjacent air base. The shipping and insurance companies immediately levied high premiums, and the export- and tourism-based economy contracted for the year 2001 by 7%. The economic woes resulted in pressure on the ruling govt, so the president dissolved parliament to force new elections for Dec 2001 which were duly won by the opposition. This kind of event leads to an inevitable change in government.

Gotabaya and the Rajapakse family by extension are the clear beneficiaries of the attacks. There is already a growing resentment with the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena joint govt that has been ruling since 2015. The tensions between them boiled over just 6 months ago and almost resulted in Mahinda Rajapakse being instated as prime minister. That attempt ultimately failed, and term limits prevent Mahinda from running again, so it is Gotabaya who must carry the torch. The popularity of Mahinda is still palpable. Even though Ranil is a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist with the best of them, in the same way Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese nationalist who is unmoved by the genocide of Rohingyas, SL's populace had concluded long ago that he was not Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist enough. He was not anti-Tamil enough. So a regime change would see Ranil out, the Rajapakses back in. Sirisena, who used to be Defence Minster when the Rajapakses executed genocide of Tamils in 2008-2009, will humbly step aside in that eventuality. Even most Ranil supporters cannot deny that he was not effective at executing any of his own policies. The Rajapakse family's strong authoritarian persona is currently seen as a positive by the Sinhala populace in the face of security concerns -- after all, they "ended the war" in 2009.

Furthermore, the next SL presidential elections are happening in 6 months. What does an attack on a country like this do in the lead up to an election? It tilts support in favor of the more hawkish candidate. The Indian elections are currently ongoing, and just 2 months ago in February, PM Modi was looking weak in the polls and unlikely to get back to being PM. The Pakistan attack in Kashmir at the time, and his response a week or so later with fighter jets in Pakistani territory made him look tough, and he used the opportunity to gain a lot of PR and sympathy, to the point where it's not clear any more how the election results will end up. Attacks between India and Pakistan are not common, so the timing of this attack was quite convenient for Modi. The pre-election timing in SL is similar, but the scale of these attacks will make the coverage last longer, and the effect greater. SL election campaign coverage will be dominated by this issue.

And then there's China who is the secondary beneficiary. The Rajapakses will come back to power, and when they do, any previous notions of "re-balancing" between China-India or China-West go out the door. China, with its newfound wealth, encourages its people to become tourists to SL. China cannot replace the West's entire budget for SL exports, but it can certain fill the void left by the West's imminent reduction in demand.

Why Gota on Easter?

Most people are not discussing the elephant in the room, here. Gotabaya is going to run for president, and as part of the rules, he must first give up dual citizenship status, so he is renouncing his US citizenship. In order to not lose the opportunity for universal jurisdiction, Tamils based in the US are filing lawsuits against him for his role in the human rights abuses in 2008-2009 before that citizenship is fully processed for revocation. Gotabaya see those court cases as purely made up to prevent him from contesting for president, or at least a cloud that would hang over him if done so. Previous attempts against Mahinda were thrown out in the courts because the courts believed that such an action is political, and as such, the US govt must authorize an action against a head of state in a manner that defies norms of diplomatic immunity. So not only would Gota think the court cases against him now are political, but that they are tacitly supported by the US all of a sudden, in a change of policy. Remember how Gota said, immediately after the defeat of the LTTE, that before the West criticizes SL for war crimes, the West should first prosecute themselves (US and UK) for war crimes? Of course he hasn't forgotten. And let's be honest, the BBC Hardtalk interview in 2010 showed how crazy Gota can be. So it wouldn't be beyond Gota to be willing to knowingly harm the country's economy just to send a message to the West that he should not be trifled with. It has been only 10 days between the news of the lawsuit and these attacks. And Gota has kept up the tradition he started in 2009 (start at 18:34 mark) of flying off the handle in interviews with those manic eyes and wild anger that causes his words to jumble up. Or the creepy smile of disingenuous talk worthy of a Bond villain. If what I am suggesting is true, it also means that planning the bombing of places frequented by rich tourists from Western countries (including the US) would incur the intense active opposition from such countries. But then again, the Rajapakses have played a dangerous game of angering the West since 2009 and have faced virtually no consequences yet.

Why it is not Islamic State

This theory of Islamic State, aka ISIS, aka the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, being the organization to have carried out these attacks is also far fetched. Even though they have fought a coalition of rich Western countries whose citizens are victims in the attack, the strategic value of SL, all the way across the Indian Ocean from Iraq and Syria, is very dubious. Besides, any sort of international group capable of carrying out such attacks still needs a locally-based cell to carry out the attacks. And with the level of military presence and surveillance all around the country, even 10 years after the war, it is highly unlikely that such a locally based group can exist without the knowledge and tacit support of the SL govt.

Why it is not other far-feteched reasons

Do not be fooled by made-up self-serving theories peddling by the various actors in the region. For example, the Indian publication The Times of India is peddling the idea that a violence Muslim group based in Tamil Nadu is responsible for the attacks. The plausibility here suffers for the same reason as the Islamic State theory -- how could such a group coordinate without local assistance that wasn't carefully monitored by the SL govt? Such a theory plays well into the hands of Indian PM Modi as he continues to campaign while the voting process rolls on for another few weeks and are counted a few weeks after that. Modi has already benefited in opinion polls from the Kashmir attack due to his persona of toughness on security matters. Modi has always wanted to punish South India for resisting his BJP party, especially Tamil Nadu, in the most stereotypical North Indian condescending way possible. This theory seems to be in the minority currently.

Taking a tragedy that you caused and blaming it on your opponents is exactly what GoSL did during Black July in 1983. They first blamed the Communist political parties for a day before blaming the Tigers, even though they coordinated the whole week long attacks.

Not fully convinced?

Take a look at these tweets:

(read the tweets above in the stream, all 1-5 points)

https://twitter.com/CChristineFair/status/1120023625493614592

and as a follow up to reserve judgement but hold suspicion for GoSL statements and motives:

https://twitter.com/CChristineFair/status/1120083048329089027

In conclusion

Keep following the news for updates, but keep your thinking cap on. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.



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Opinion: The search for leadership in defending Tamil rights

by Gogol G.

The Presidential election of January 2015 has passed, and Mahinda Rajapakse and family were dethroned, nominally by Ranil Wickremasinge with the help of Maithripala Sirisena. But to no surprise of Tamils, nothing has changed in Tamils' day to day lives, nor the island-wide discourse of Tamil rights & grievances, nor has the political structure changed much. Mahinda Rajapakse, to his credit, not only has not gone away timidly, but has inserted himself front-and-center in the recent election-dominated politics of the SL Freedom Party. Meanwhile, the Tamil National Alliance has delivered precious little on their promises of Tamil rights and upliftment since their election. Why is there so much movement, staying in one place, with no progress? (Beyond the obvious, correct, fundamental reason: the political structure needs fundamental change.) Let's decode what is going on in Southern Lanka, and take a look at the dynamics among Tamils in the Northeast.

Southern Lankan politics

As many will point out, the US and India have been fighting over Sri Lanka ever since the pro-US JR Jeyawardene became prime minster and created the position of overly-powerful president and made himself the first one. When he committed the anti-Tamil pogrom (genocide) in July 1983 -- Black July -- this was Indira Gandhi's moment to train Tamils to become militants and destabilise the pro-American, anti-Indian government in India's close neighbour. India was (and still is) close to the Soviet Union (now Russia) during this Cold War period. So domestic politics became split in 2 parts along Cold War lines. The Marxist Communist JVP had a huge resurgence and attempted a rebellion that GoSL brutally put down with an all-out massacre. And there were even attempts to fit domestic politics into the narratives that veiled global geopolitical divisions, such as GoSL falsely accusing the LTTE of being Communist, mimicking how the South African Apartheid regime had curried favour with the US in their brutal suppression of Blacks and Nelson Mandela's African National Congress by stating that the ANC were Communists.

So when the US inserted itself back in the affairs of the island during the 2000 unilateral ceasefire by the LTTE (via Norway, which is American's "handmaiden", as Sivaram says) and the 2001 peace process between the LTTE and GoSL, this was not so much of a renewal of the US-India competition for SL since the US never left! The only thing different was that China became economically and politically powerful enough to assert its interests in SL from 2005 onwards.

(Side note: The history of the back-and-forth between US and India has seen both of these countries view the LTTE as an unnecessary variable and a hindrance to their 'great game' of geopolitics. But time and time again, India has suffered from its short-sighted enmity of Tamils and the LTTE, and as we will mention below, the US is equally complicit in short-sighted destruction of Tamil civilians and the LTTE. The predictions by Tamils in 2009, including by Neelan Thiruchelvam's widow, that the absence of the LTTE will make the ethnic divisions and the plight of Tamils worse, not better, have proven to be absolutely correct.)

The politics of Ceylon/Sri Lanka has been dominated by Singalese, due to sheer numbers and bolstered by a paranoid, racist superiority complex ("Mahavamsa Mindset"). Amongst the Singalese, there are 2 main parties that are usually tied in popularity. One way to interpret a polity defined by neck-and-neck competition between 2 main parties is as akin to American politics. In fact, the United National Party (the party of Jeyawardene and his nephew Ranil Wickremasinge) has styled itself as a cousin to the modern day Republican Party of the US. The UNP represents business elite, is pro-West/America, stokes communal racism (for political success by converting the working-class victims of their economics into supporters), and its symbol is the elephant. When Jeyawardene visited Ronald Reagan and brought along a gift of a real, live elephant, the purpose wasn't to help out an American zoo by giving over an animal. The political symbolism was deeper than the fact that the UNP and Republicans share the same animal as their symbol -- it was a large, implied statement that the UNP is just like the Republicans. But the US-SL polity comparison breaks down quickly when we look at the SLFP, which was literally founded on the racist Sinhala-only campaign pledge, and which has flirted with nationalising industries. This is quite a bit more socialist than even leftist European parties, let alone the Democrat Party in the US. And the SLFP has proven itself to be "stronger" (more racist) than the UNP for the last few decades, except during Jayawardene's time.

The other way we can interpret SL's polity is as a tussle between the world powers of US, India, and now, including China. The UNP has been pro-America/West for at least a generation, while the SLFP has been pro-India, and recently, also pro-China. And the history of these parties correlates well with the ebb and flow of the influence of their respective superpower nation backers, as well as the foreign coverage of events even in very recent times. Chandrika Kumaratunga, an SLFP member and former 2-time president, tried to blame the West for her predicament in the Tamil conflict, during which she got slammed in response, and Ranil W. was elected as prime minister within 3 months and led the 2001 peace process. Not happy with her diminished influence as the peace process progressed, CBK publicly called the Norwegian mediators "salmon-eating busybodies". We can even see evidence of the alignment in the way that various media, especially Western/American media, covered the January 2015 Presidential election. It was stylised as a regime change (sounds like Iraq War/Arab Spring rhetoric), but always in the same breath, it was mentioned as a success for democracy and good governance. It's as if America shot their wad (spent all of its money) on engineering the Sirisena revolt within the SLFP so as to bring Ranil back to power as they did in 2001, and after their pent-up fantasies of defeating Mahinda Rajapakse became real, they were glowing in the copious media coverage and shot their wad again. Even in the analysis in Western media of the Rajapakse resurgence and the upcoming 2015 parliamentary elections in 15 days, we can take an example and replace the myriad instances of the words of "democracy", "freedom", etc. with "West"/"America"/"not India, not China" and it would come across just as clearly.


So if we see the UNP and SLFP as representing the 2 sides of the long standing proxy struggle of the Cold War and its re-emerged form, what else can we infer? With Southern Lankan politics as a reflection of international politics as it is, the notion that Sri Lanka is sovereign and is too dignified to always oblige the wishes of foreign entities is patently baseless. It is laughable to read arguments that a bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka would "heavily damage the territorial integrity" of Sri Lanka.

To Rajapakse's credit, his 'bold' mix of shrewd strategy, dictatorial politics, extreme anti-Tamil racism, and shameless selling out to the highest-bidding country (China) has given him a legacy that is keeping him relevant. There are also hints and accusations that Chinese support is also keeping him around. What remains to be seen is how Rajapakse and the SLFP will do compared to Ranil and the UNP. But given that President Sirisena has committed himself to supporting Ranil's agenda since declaring his presidential candidacy, even if Rajapakse's party gets a plurality or even a majority of votes, Sirisena may utllise a technicality in reading the SL constitution that says that the President appoints the person whom he deems most fit to lead as the prime minister. But would the Singalese accept Ranil as the prime minster? If not Rajapakse, then whom would they accept? It will be interesting to see what happens and what the consequences are.

Tamil politics

This election cycle is seeing a little more diversity of parties in the Tamil political spectrum vying for the Tamil vote who are worth some consideration. The reason that the Tamil political scene is more interesting now is not because there is an increase in compelling ideas, but rather, that the Tamil National Alliance is running out of excuses and time-buying tactics that cover their complete lack of effort and results. The TNA is led by a coterie of very few individuals, including R. Sampanthan, and M.A. Sumanthiran, and a couple of others. Sumanthiran was appointed through Sampantha's influence as an (unelected) TNA MP through the "national list" mechanism in the SL election process. Sumanthiran quickly worked his way into a position of influence behind Sampanthan. The TNA leadership participates in secret meetings with international bodies, a fact that they brag about to Tamils and use to justify their worth. Some Tamils believe that the TNA leaders sometimes visit foreign governments to receive instructions on exactly what to do. Since 2010, the first elections after May 2009, the Tamil people have voted in large numbers for the TNA. The reasons for this voting is that Tamils no longer had their long-time vanguard of Tamil resistance, so the only leaders that Tamils were left with were the TNA. Furthermore, since the formation of the TNA in 2001, the TNA had accepted the LTTE as their sole representatives in their official election manifesto every time. The TNA served as the strongest link back to the Tigers to fill the void left in the hearts of Tamils by the absence of the LTTE.

The TNA leadership spent more than a year in 17 or so rounds of talks with GoSL on a political solution, to no avail. The TNA leadership kept insisting that Tamils should afford them patience and trust. During the 2013 Northern Provincial Council elections, the TNA election campaign was not garnering much support until the official party magazine ran an issue whose front cover had a picture of Prabakaran in military fatigues with a title with Tamil nationalist innuendo. Tamil nationalist innuendo is another trick of the TNA in order to flip-flop in the future, and the trick is being used for the current 2015 elections by the UNP candidates' Jaffna district leader. By the time of the 2013 elections, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam had created the Tamil Nationalist People's Front party since India had told him to leave the TNA because Gajendrakumar was too pro-Tamil, articulate, and vocal for India's liking. Gajendrakumar and the TNPF campaigned during 2013, but the TNA convinced Tamils to vote for the TNA exclusively by claiming that voting for TNPF would split the Tamil vote and diminish their numbers in the NPC elections. The symbolism of the TNA rout in the elections as an affirmation of Tamil nationalism was perceived strongly. And furthermore, most of the Jaffna newspapers, almost as if by coordination, did not publish any coverage of Gajendarkumar's electionneering. There are also reports that the TNA manipulated the NPC vote count so that Ananthy Sasitharan, the wife of Trincomalee area LTTE political leader who went missing, didn't come first in the vote count list. At this point, one individual (whom I will call "TNA Leader #1") began to relax more in his 2nd home in India that RAW must be keeping clean for him, while another individual (whom I will call "TNA Leader #2") began to take more control of the secret decision-making. TNA Leader #2 began making several promises that all were either ignored completely or were insincere.

TNA Leader #1's favourite diversionary tactic is to promise everything to everybody, but in private, and carefully, so that he can continue to lie to everyone and use technicalities and language/wording to justify previous deceit. For TNA Leader #1, the preferred tactic is to ask people to wait for just another year or two and he will deliver "a just political solution for all Tamils", because he and TNA Leader #2 "have contacts with powerful people in the International Community and foreign governments". In reality, TNA Leader #1 is in bed with India, and he has been for more at least more than a decade. It's not clear who TNA Leader #2 is working for, besides himself, but my best guess is that he has been picked by the US to represent their interests when the right time comes along. Until then, Tamil people are astute and can infer all of the above themselves, which means that TNA Leader #2's supreme arrogance and know-it-all attitude have rightly alienated him from the Tamil people, the people he ostensibly is representing. TNA Leader #2 is not even close to being a statesman, and even as a politician, he is doing a piss-poor job. He is someone who is not fully trustworthy. It is like dealing with Southern Lanka -- at your own risk, but you get what you pay for.

If the US were to support TNA Leader #2 now or in the future, they would risk the ire of the Tamil people. As Tamil and Tamils become a strong and critical part of the shifting landscape of the Indian Ocean, that would be yet another a short-sighted strategy play. There are other Tamil leaders who are capable of commanding the trust of the Tamil people now and over the long-term, and who can work for both Western liberal values and Tamil interests. It is no secret that Tamils have long ago lost faith in all of the world's major powers, including the international bodies that the West still bears a majority influence over, as exemplified by the comments of this Tamil's interview:

MCCARTHY: Anthony Quinn lost his home to the Sri Lankan army at age 17. He's now 45. He badly limps in injury from shelling during the long war that ended with the government forces crushing the separatist Tamil Tigers. Ever since the military seized his family's house near the airport of Jaffna, the provincial capital of the north where the fighting raged, Quinn has lived in assorted crude encampments - no privacy, no sanitation. In this one with its barking dogs and corrugated tin walls, he raised four children.

QUINN: And they're asking me, papa, why we are staying here? We don't have our own land. We don't have our own place. We don't have our own house. We hate that place. We hate it.

MCCARTHY: He hates the squalor he and 685 other families in his camp have endured since being displaced inside their own country.

QUINN: Shame on our politician. Shame on our country. Shame on the United Nation also.

India has invested in supporting the TNA because it ultimately takes direction from a fellow who is clearly in the pro-India camp, and India uses the TNA as a proxy for its own agenda, including blunting pro-Tamil sentiments. For the future of TNA Leader #2's political relevance, the writing is on the wall, and for the future of TNA Leader #1, well, the writing is in the actuarial tables.

During the 2015 election campaign, TNPF activists have been getting arrested by the police on false charges and released the same or next day, as a clear intimidation tactic. The police also filed a case against the TNPF recently in a similar vein. The TNPF is by far the strongest opposition to the TNA. Their pro-Tamil stance has been vindicated clearly, so the actors who stand to benefit most in hindering the TNPF are: TNA, Southern Lanka, and India. Coverage of TNPF on the most popular Tamil news websites is also conspicuously absent, while there is frequent coverage of the TNA. The same is still true of Jaffna-based Tamil-language newspapers. But these built-in pro-TNA biases are not enough to save the TNA entirely from their past promises and from their recent deceits coming to light.

Most recently, it came to light that the UN, through its NYC-based Under-Secretary General's office, had secretly worked on an agreement with the SL govt to make the process for investigating 2009 war crimes, which is expected to follow the September release of the OISL report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for HR, an entirely domestic process. Dubiously, the UN agreement with GoSL included the Northern Provincial Council, even though the plan was never shared with the NPC Chief Minister. Sources on the ground indicate that the real story of the agreement is that TNA Leader #2 had been secretly consulted by the UNP based government on a completely domestic mechanism for war crimes investigation and development funding disbursement. It would isolate Tamils from the international community and make them dependent on Colombo entirely. Because Colombo has been blocking reasonable efforts by the NPC to get funding for development projects and to demilitarise for the purposes of carrying out those projects, the NPC Chief Minister sought money from international institutions such that funding would come directly to the NPC without going through Colombo and its manipulations. Upon hearing this request, the Resident UN Coordinator for SL updated the secret UN plan to include the Northern Provincial Council. It would allow TNA Leader #2 to borrow the social credibility that the NPC and its Chief Minster C.V. Wigneswaran have built up, and when Tamils become unhappy once they know about the domestic process in the future, TNA Leader #2 could blame Wigneswaran. Because TNA Leader #2's secret domestic deal is an insult to Tamil people and would exacerbate the injustice they face, and that it goes against what Wigneswaran stands for, he publicly raised a red flag that he did not want to touch that plan with a 100 ft. pole. Meanwhile, because everything is in secret, TNA Leader #2 can get away with claiming that he has nothing to do with the plan. TNA Leader #2, if he were motivated enough, would even consider showing up to a meeting of NE Tamils agreeing that an international investigation of 2009 war crimes is essential just to be able to use that fact in his defense among Tamils in the future.

Many Tamils compare TNA Leader #2 to Amirthalingam, and the comparison is apt. Amirthalignam inherited the leadership of the TULF after Chelvanayagam passed away, and through strange electoral politics, the TULF became the opposition in parliament. Amirthalingam got caught up in playing politics instead of carrying out the TULF policy enshrined in its manifesto of the year before in rejecting the political structure of GoSL. Amirthalingam squandered a good opportunity in Tamil history to democratically assert Tamil grievances. The TNA leadership, too, has come through the backdoor to his position of influence -- they were the only group that had any claim to be recognised as leaders among Tamils. TNA Leader #2 continues to work solely within the boundaries set by his Colombo-based Singala politician friends through deals that he keeps secret from the Tamil people of the Northeast. The difference between Amirthalingam and TNA Leader #2 in squandering the Tamil political strength is that TNA Leader #2 is supremely arrogant about his ignorance, but Amirthalingam wasn't at all. Their fate in history will be similar, though -- a footnote reserved for people who weren't even good politicians, let alone true statesmen. TNA Leader #2 will be judged more harshly, as is fitting. It takes someone with a head as big as his to not be tired from the constant mental gymnastics he does.

A new development during this electoral cycle is the introduction of a party led by former Uthayan editor N. Vidhyatharan that is comprised entirely of former LTTE cadres, called Crusaders for Democracy. The more candid Tamil activists who have commented on this development have said that Vidhyatharan is naive and is being propped up by people working behind the scenes. Many have pointed out that Tamils are politically astute, and will not endorse this party even if they endorse the goals and dedication of the LTTE. Tamils have historically been able to separate electoral politics of people with LTTE affiliations from what the LTTE symbolise to the people. If and when this Crusaders for Democracy party gets soundly rejected by the Tamil voters, the party will receive the majority of its media attention as a sign that the Tamil people reject the LTTE. It is argued that this is the real reason that people are interested in propping up this party. Any party or organization whose name or motto contains the words "democracy", "good governance", etc., it is a good sign that such a party has strong backing from the US. It is very well possible that Crusaders for Democracy has Western backing. And if that were the case, it would backfire, since Tamils would recognize the duplicity and think even more negatively of the West and international institutions which continue to fail them and prop up the perpetrators of anti-Tamil genocide. After all, reports indicate that the US government was well aware of the intent to kill Tamil civilians wholesale much earlier than we thought, which means that whatever Robert O. Blake admitted to BBC Sinhala about his culpability is just scratching the surface. These injustices need to be redressed for true peace to prevail in the region.

If the US is behind Crusaders for Democracy, as well as the renaming of the UNP-led coalition from UNF to "UNF for Good Governance", it is an interesting attempt to introduce concepts to their respective vote bases that have fallen by the wayside. For Tamils, the LTTE was run undemocratically, albeit with a sense of progressiveness in the direction of Western liberalism, in a way, similar to the late Lee Kuan Yew. Meanwhile, Southern Lanka has a party with "good governance" in its name, and Southern Lanka, since its independence, has been an illiberal and backwards nation whose genocidal racism drive itself poorer, more violent, and more paranoid. Curing Southern Lanka of racism is a much harder task than convincing Tamils to vote (which they already do).

But I believe that the US ultimately can and will be a force for good in the region in the long run. The US will make win-win positive changes if, and only if, it sincerely addresses the Tamil national aspirations that is guaranteed within an appropriate political structure for the island. Until meaningful progress is made and conveyed, Tamil patience for poor leadership -- TNA or otherwise -- will rapidly dwindle, Tamil cynicism will reach new heights, and India will continue to be an obstacle on the road to progress.

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