Opinion: In Sri Lanka, the structure hasn't yet changed

by Gogol G.

In Sri Lanka, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sri Lankan politics is a hellish merry-go-round. People come and go, parties take turns in power, but they just go around in circles. The parties also take turns being more hawkish and anti-Tamil, or just plain anti-minority, than the other, and that is the only facet in which there is change. Negative change. Sri Lanka is structurally set up to be governed by and for the majority only, with no permanent rights for the minorities possible. Ranil Wickremasinghe recently bragged in April about the military help from India in 2002-2003 when he was supposed to be pursuing peace during talks. The following is an interview by Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga on Oct. 31, 2001 to Tim Sebastian of the BBC, with selected quotes from the transcript for each of the 3 segments:

Part 1

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, on Sept 17, 2001: "When countries like Sri Lanka fought against terrorists, developed nations only worried about human rights of terrorist organisations."

Q: Its okay when you say that not once have you allowed any physical excesses against the Tamil people, you said this in a BBC interview the other day. You would stick by them? Not once have you allowed any physical excesses...

Q: Let me quote the State Department report on your human rights practices, "since April '95 at least several hundred persons have been killed extrajudicially by the security forces, or have disappeared after being taken in to security forces custody, they’re presumed dead." That doesn't accord with your, not once have you allowed any physical excesses against the Tamil people.

Part 2

Q: An year ago, young Tamils held in a government rehabilitation camp, in central Sri Lanka were hacked to death, because police failed to protect them, from the organised Sinhalese mob, how did that happen?
A: These are organised things that are happening, we are taking... the investigation is on, there is a commission doing investigation, just before I came I told them, that they are taking too long; it happened six months ago,
Q: So why were... Young survivors were actually cuffed to their beds, weren't they?
A: No, no, no, they were just hacked to death.
Q: This is something the Red Cross drew attention to?
A: Bindunuwewa, no!
...
A: There was no single survivor. There wasn't a single survivor.

Part 3

A: Firstly the majority Sinhalese which constitutes about three fourths of the total population did not until we came into power accept that the Tamil people and the other minorities, especially the Tamil and Muslim minority in Sri Lanka, were discriminated against; they preferred to forget and sweep under the carpet that the minorities in Sri Lanka had problems, all Sri Lankan governments for the 53 years of independence did not accept that the Tamil people and other minorities had problems.
Q: And you have a economic blockade against the Tamil people now.
A: We came in telling the Sinhala people first that we have to apologise to the minorities of the country for all that we have not done.
Q: But do you apologise for the economic blockade?
A: There is no economic blockade, that is nonsense.
Q: No blockade?
A: absolutely not.
Q: Humanitarian blockade?
A: Absolutely not.
Q: Why are people living so poorly in the Vanni areas, and the areas that are held by the Tamil Tigers, why do international aid agencies estimate that 40 percent of children in the Vanni areas are under-nourished or malnourished?