Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Opinion: The 2024 Winds of Change Have Not Yet Reached Southern Lanka

By Gogol G.

We're 3/4 of the way through the year of 2024. The year 2024 was considered the biggest year for democratic elections in the world. Not all elections are free and fair societies, so the real questions were/are how the elections of India, France, UK, European Union Parliament, and the US would shake out. Needless to say, what happens in the US election matters a lot, since Trump is the Republican candidate again, and Kamala Harris for the Democrats will take forward Biden's policies. The difference in the impact on the world should be well aware to anyone who isn't comatose for the past few years. What will happen? What does India's election mean? What about Sri Lanka's presidential election, where the winner was not a member of any long-time ruling family or original political party of Sri Lanka? And now that Parliament was immediately dissolved to set up November general elections, what will the result imply, and how much will it matter?

This year of 2024 is pivotal, not just for elections. We're into year 3 of the war by Russia against Ukraine and we're reaching the first full year of a war that Israel is prosecuting in Palestine and elsewhere. Even though elections are happening in Russia, Russia's society is not free, so the results of the election are not in doubt, nor will they impact the ongoing war. The war in Israel appears largely a war caused and prolonged by Israel, and it has spread to Lebanon despite strong warnings not to by Biden's administration in the US. Regardless of what the details are, most reasonable people can agree on the end result: Israel has exhausted all of its international political capital. A country that provides refuge to the survivor-victims of the Holocaust, and supporter of the mantra "Never Again" about genocides in the world, it is seen by many as aggressively doing the opposite. And since September 11, there is a seat in the UN General Assembly for "State of Palestine", just like the full fledged members of the UN. Why was this status change made on September 11, a date with strong connections to the region? Is that not inauspicious, or does it mean something?

Scary Illiberal Countries, Unite

What do Russia and Israel have to do with India and Sri Lanka? A lot. They cooperate on the same wavelength in geopolitics. Reportedly, Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has been causing massive losses of assets and soldiers. It certainly has stalled for at least a year. Facing a shortage of Russian citizens, Russia has already conscripted people from its minority ethnicities, and it still needs recruits. So India and Sri Lanka send naive poor people to fight on Russia's front lines. This German documentary shows the tragedy of India's poor getting deceived, thinking they are going to study or visit or work, and getting trapped into being canon fodder.

This is happening in Sri Lanka too. Particularly, it's from Southern Lanka, of course. Thanks to the militarised society, the military being an unaffordable welfare programme, and the inevitable total bankruptcy of the country in 2022 that still prevails in the country, the soldiers in the military have no transferrable skills to help their family. So they have decided to volunteer fighting for Russia to get the larger compensation from Russia. Remember that the military is 99% Sinhalese. And the Sinhalese military commanders have been congratulated by Russia for their contributions. It's bad.

It doesn't have to be this way. Russia didn't need to start a war that it had no chance of winning, and Southern Lanka didn't need to be such a disaster of a place that it's allowing its young able-bodied men and women to become canon fodder. If Southern Lanka were not so militarised, maybe they wouldn't be bankrupt, and thus making its people prone to this tragedy. But that would require Sinhalese to not be so genocidally racist that it could finally make major cuts to its severely bloated under-skilled military. Then the military wouldn't need to be an occupation force, despite no actual threats to Sinhalese dominance.

So why is this happening? Well, it's something that connects all 4 of these illiberal, militarised, anti-democratic countries together. Both Russia and Israel have timed their wars to prolong the current rulers in power. Voters prefer not changing their leader during wartime, and once war is over, they prefer a clear change in leader. The Russian domestic propaganda of temporary progress in the first year of Putin's war has propelled him to an easy victory in his reelection earlier this year. In Israel, Netanyahu has been in power in some way or another almost continuously since 1997, but his power grab that threatened to take over one of the three branches of government led to large sustained civilian protests in the streets happening daily, for weeks and months prior to the beginning of the war. Russia started the war in Ukraine two years before their 2024 elections. There seems to be serious turmoil in Russia now, with Ukraine's military occupying territory in Russia, and launching drone attacks deep into the territory on fuel and ammo stores. We don't know for sure the truth of what is or isn't happening, but the war holds the society still in fear.

Would Southern Lanka or India start wars to deviously increase the chances of their leaders staying in power? Of course! We've been over that with Southern Lanka. We knew that Gotabaya caused the April 2019 Easter attacks as soon as they happened. It was the only logical conclusion to draw from the facts. The fact that the church that was bombed was a Tamil Christian church is further evidence that it was Sinhalese of Southern Lanka who planned it, not a random Muslim group. It took 3-4 years for independent press (outside of Southern Lanka, of course) to collect the evidence and gather the courage to write the articles that point the finger at Gotabaya, and that too only after Gotabaya and his family was deposed from power. What about India? Is there a chance that India did the same thing, just 2 months earlier in February 2019, to revive Modi's flagging support due to criticisms of the poor economy under his terrible monetary decisions, ahead of the May 2019 elections in India? There's no doubt that the narrative changed drastically, and then Modi's BJP used it to ride to its first outright majority in parliament ever. And sure enough, there's smoke. A TV reporter's text messages indicate prior knowledge of the attacks before they happened. And there are reports of intelligence warnings that were ignored. Sound familiar? Give it time for us to find out the full details of how the Oct 7 2023 attacks happened by Hamas on the border of Gaza, given that we know from Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Bibi funded Hamas.

Because of the war in Gaza (which has now spread to Lebanon in the recent few days, and now Iran is firing at Israel in the last 24 hours), there has been a shortage of labour in Israel in sectors like construction and housing because Palestinians made up a large percentage of the workforce. In order to fill those slots, India has sent labourers to fill the difference. And more recently, now Southern Lanka is sending its labourers to Israel too. These illiberal countries are thick as thieves. And who knows, maybe they also form their own secret society where the password is "We hate Muslims just like you!"

But the winds of change are blowing in 2024. Rumours are that Russia's economy is teetering, and society is upset by the heavy Russian soldier casualties and bombing on Russia soil. Rumours are that Israel's economy is more precarious than we think. The mob networks supported by these countries that fuel the various hostile influence operations in Western countries are starting to get broken up and their leaders are getting arrested. Over in India, Modi's BJP could not win an outright majority in May 2024, and it was far short of the 330 out of 543 seats they claimed they would get. Their coalition got to 291 or so, far short of the false bravado of 400 that was claimed during the campaign. Modi's coalition is still moving along because they're not weak, but they're not strong. It only takes one dissatisfied coalition partner to leave in unison for the coalition to lose its majority. And in Southern Lanka, the country is bankrupt, and it just elected yet another racist Sinhalese leader, and he campaigned on changing the IMF deal. The IMF deal is the only thing preventing the country from backsliding into unchecked inflation and misery.

Another Sinhalese Wins, Southern Lanka Loses

In the recent presidential elections, Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the "leftist" JVP party won. In this way, there were several superficial shifts in Lankan politics. The original two Sinhalese parties, the UNP and SLFP, were not represented by the major candidates. The winner is not related to any previous leader, not being among the 3 or 4 major Sinhalese political families. The JVP was once a Marxist Communist party, but it long ago dropped commitment to genuine social equality in favor of Sinhalese Buddhist racism, just as any other party that wants staying power in Southern Lankan politics.

Why are they branding him as "AKD", rather than calling him simply Dissanayake? Yes, half of the Westerners trip up over the name in their journalistic laziness. But is AKD making him sound like "AOC" (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), a charismatic "leftist" progressive Congresswoman in the US, whose 3 letter acronym was copied by rightwing airhead Marjorie Green who rebranded as "MTG" (Marjorie Taylor Green)? Whatever.

We know who Dissanayake is. He is destined to fail, just as every other Sinhalese supremacist in Southern Lanka. We've been over this, time and time again. The cycle repeats so often these days that it makes you dizzy. Dissanayake campaigned as a "leftist", as a Sinhalese Buddhist supremacist as befits the JVP, and as a "younger generation" person espousing change. If he attempts to renegotiate the terms of the IMF loan to alleviate the austerity measures, he will likely lose the IMF money, causing the already high inflation rate to runaway to new heights again like in 2022. He would then need to cut social programmes again in the face of such inflation, and if instead he tries to print money to fund the government, it will increase the money supply so much as to devaluate the currency and worsen the inflation problem. If he wants to save the social programmes, he will need to severely reduce the size of the military and the militarisation of the Tamil homeland that is Tamil Eelam. But as a strident Sinhala "populist" (racist), reducing the military is a red line that cannot be crossed. And doing nothing is not an acceptable option because it certainly would disappoint the expectations of the voters who believe the brand that he has built in his campaign.

Like the many Sinhalese leaders before him, Dissanayake has split the island once again into Tamil Eelam and Southern Lanka:

See, if you try to ask Tamil speaking peoples in the island, whether TE or Southern Lanka, they will hesitate to tell you what they really think. There are undercover intelligence operatives everywhere, even 15 years after the war, given the level of militarisation and occupation still there. But these elections, as you can see, are where the higher level patterns emerge, and they emerged so clearly this time. Tamil Eelam is fully visible, from Puttalam to Amparai, minus a couple of border districts. In addition, you can see the districts where Upcountry Tamils, who are still the slave labour picking tea, are largely represented. Tamil speaking Muslims are present as well in all these areas.

Like a test for colour blindness, there are those who can see the full depth of what that map implies in full clarity, and there are those who just see a jumble of similar colours.

All Guns, No Butter: Southern Lankan Racism

In economics, the guns and butter model describes an economy during wartime. There is a limited production capacity for a country. If it produces more wartime material ("guns"), then it means that it has to produce less civilian domestic consumption goods ("butter"). How much it chooses of one or the other is a choice. Furthermore, the Production Possibilities Frontier (PPF) is a curve that depicts the theoretical maximum rate of productivity it can reach at every possible combination of guns and butter. But various factors in reality can cause the country to not achieve its maximum output rate (ex: fuel shortages being a bottleneck for getting work done, people starving due to hyper inflated food prices). The model also tells us that in a very productive society, increases in technology or infrastructure (ex: new factories, better public transit) can expand the entire PPF further than it used to be. This expansion of the PPF is what is happening in Tamil Nadu and the rest of South India, to the chagrin of Modi and to the awe of the rest of India.

When Southern Lanka went bankrupt in 2022, we reminded everyone why Southern Lanka went bankrupt, which is militarisation. Tamils have been well aware of this fact for more than a decade. How could they not? This is what it looks like when a country like Southern Lanka commits heavily to the "guns" side of the PPF curve. There's no money for "butter". As one MP said in Parliament last year, "We are among the top 10 countries with the highest number of soldiers per 100 civilians."

But Southern Lanka will never move towards "butter", not on its own. Why? The genocidal racism that crescendoed in 2009 is still quite strong. It will not allow change. Some people won't change unless they hit rock bottom and have no other choice. Countries are similar. Germany was destroyed in World War 2 and has endeavoured to reject its past as much as possible. Japan was bombed with atomic bombs twice in World War 2 and thus surrendered, even while still close to its peak strength. The anime industry continues to wrestle with themes of apocalypse, large bombs, Christian foreigners, etc from the point of view of victimhood. Has Southern Lanka learned its lesson?

Judging by Southern Lanka's continual insistence on maintaining its military's budget and size, it has its head buried in the sand. Can we replace the lion with an ostrich as the national animal?

More Racism in a Progressive Disguise?

Let's not get too enamoured with Harini Amarasuriya as the next Prime Minister. Yes, she has said the right progressive things, and she's a credentialed women who has worked and studied in fields that might contribute to social change. But she's still a part of the JVP. And the JVP has been a Sinhala Buddhist racist party for at least a few decades, which the media described as the JVP's turn to "becoming mainstream". The Southern Lankan mainstream is Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. The JVP overturned the PTOMS tsunami aid sharing structure in 2005 by taking it to the Supreme Court, as soon as it was finalised. It had no regard to the Tamils of Tamil Eelam in their time of most need, in order to preserve Sinhala Buddhist hegemony.

Also know that Southern Lankan politicians seem to have perfected the art of ignoring its responsibilities in the most creative ways. Prior to the PTOMS structure, Ranil Wickremasinghe used his tricks to slow down actual progress to peace during the Peace Process of 2002-2009. He created committees and infinite bureaucracy to pretend to negotiate and implement changes according to the ceasefire agreement. When their ineffectualness was pointed out, the committee members would point fingers at each other creating so much confusion that no one is held accountable. A few "joint committees" were created to implement the elements of the ceasefire agreement, and because Ranil's tricks caused the joint committees to accomplish nothing, the LTTE and GoSL agreed to focus on just the one subcommittee that directly would help the Tamil people, the Sub-Committee for Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs (SIHRN). When Ranil's tricks slowed down SIHRN into uselessness, the peace talks were stopped because the ruse was clear to anyone who was paying attention. Ever since 2009, and the United Nations' concern about the genocide and human rights violations that strongly requested Sri Lanka to investigate its own war crimes via OHCHR of the Human Rights Council, what did Sri Lanka do? More committees, more bureaucracy (ex: Office of Missing Persons), and ultimately, zero progress. When it comes to responsibility, accountability, and integrity to their own actions, Southern Lanka is repugnant.

Did we forget? As we mentioned, once upon a time, Mahinda Rajapaksa was described as an honourable human rights lawyer whom the United States defended against Southern Lankan persecution. Human rights lawyer Mahinda Rajapakse went on to commit the largest genocide of South Asia in the 21st century. Later on, Chandrika Kumaratunga became president in 1994 on the promise of implementing peace. After her husband was assassinated, presumably by Sinhalese hegemonists to stop the potential for peace, Chandrika Kumaratunga went on to launch the Orwellian "War for Peace" scorched earth campaign against the LTTE and the Tamils of the North, including an embargo on essential needs to the entire civilian populace like medicines, food, and fuel. Let's be real about Southern Lanka: it is an abusive place whose most notable industries are all extractive operations, mostly on the backs of women:

  • Remittances from domestic workers in the Middle East (women)
  • Textile factories (women)
  • Tea (Tamil women)
  • Tourism (2nd to Thailand in the world for sex tourism)
  • Wages for Sinhala soldiers occupying Tamil Eelam

This Sinhala Buddhist hegemony is a systemic problem that abuses everyone. It is a deep systemic problem that a single token progressive person will naturally fail to solve. Unless you're a first time reader here, you already knew that, though.

Modi and India's Stature in the World

As we mentioned, Modi's BJP won the elections with the help of its coalition partners. Journalists dubbed it "Modi 3.0", glossing over the real dangerous fascist trend of Indian society under the BJP since 2014, and also glossing over the humbling downturn of BJP strength. What will happen to Modi and India, now? The Ukraine war has brought into focus on the world stage that India is not a reliable partner for Western liberal countries at all.

About the RSS/BJP's India being fascist and an unreliable actor on the global stage that likes to partner with other illiberal anti-democratic regimes, unless you understand the issues I've written above, this image will break your brain. You've been warned. Also know that the BJP is well known for having a large, well-oiled "IT cell" operation that runs disinformation and propaganda campaigns regularly on social media. In fact, you've probably already been a target of some of the propaganda from the BJP's IT cell in India and just didn't know it.

Well, do we remember the assassination of a Sikh leader in Canada in 2023, and how Canada suggested that India was behind it? And how in response, India went on a months-long gaslighting campaign of sharp insults against Canadian PM Justin Trudeau? India even made Southern Lanka take its side. But after those few months, the US made it clear that they gave the information to Canada, and they thwarted an attack of a Sikh American at the same time. Although not reported much, at the same time, a Sikh in the UK died under very mysterious circumstances, and the British police did not follow their usual procedures at all in the autopsy. Sikhs in Australia have been regularly threatened, too.

In the end, not only was this a huge blow to Modi & India's diplomatic stature in the world, but this is a downright brazen act. To think that India can extrajudicially kill people in other countries, in America, Canada, and the UK no less, is lawless, disrespectful to those countries, and dangerously out of control. You know that countries as powerful as those, that guard the primacy of their democratic institutions, will not let that go unpunished. It should be a matter of "when", not "if", but so far, nothing overt has been obvious.

It really makes you wonder about the recent timeline of events. Several things happened in a short 3 week time span. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister recently went to the US and score huge contracts for TN manufacturing, expanding the jobs into other parts of the state. Then Modi comes to the US ahead of the UN General Assembly for the Quad meeting at Joe Biden's house. The Quad is the group of 4 countries allied in the Indian Ocean region: US, India, Australia, and Japan. During the Quad meeting, each country leader had separate 1-on-1 meetings with the others after their group meetings. What must have the US and Australian leaders said to Modi during their 1-on-1 meetings? Soon after the Quad meeting, the UN General Assembly lasts for 2-3 days, Modi arrives back in Delhi immediately afterwards, and within a day, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister pays a visit to Modi and officially complains about all of the different ways in which the Indian Union government has been completely stiffing the Tamil Nadu government out of its rightful share of government programme funds. Surely, Modi would not desire to entertain such a meeting with Tamil Nadu when the topic of the Union government's refusal to pay Tamil Nadu has been discussed in Tamil Nadu for the prior several days. Tamil Nadu is accomplishing what Modi is not capable of. Is the United States starting to notice?

This excerpt of a Modi speech to Congress in the US, in the presence of Vice President Kamala Harris, is completely cringe. It's even worse when you realise that it happened in June 2023, and this is the US visit before which Modi wanted the worldwide assassinations of Sikhs in Western countries to be completed.

The foundation of America was inspired by the vision of a nation of equal people. Throughout your history, you embrace people from around the world. And, you have made them equal partners in the American Dream.

There are millions here who have roots in India. Some of them sit probably in this chambre. And, there is one behind me, who had made history. I'm told that the Samosa Caucus is now the flavour of the House. I hope it grows and brings the full diversity of Indian cuisine here.

What?? And doesn't his speaking cadence sound like Bane from The Dark Knight Rises?

Not every seemingly scripted moment with Modi's name on it works out to a fairy tale ending that Modi and the RSS/BJP want you to imagine. The 2023 Cricket World Cup final held in India in Narendra Modi Stadium stunned the cult-ish crowd into silence.

There is a such thing as overextending yourself beyond your means. Will comeuppance come for India, not just in sports, but in areas that matter much more in the real world, like justice and stability and democracy and security in the Indian Ocean?

Upcoming US elections in 2024

Most honest observers of the US election will tell you that Kamala Harris is the clear frontrunner for president over Trump. Her party just might retain control in the Senate, and there is a good chance of regaining a majority in the House of Representatives. What will that mean?

Don't expect Kamala Harris to know Tamil or be in touch with her Tamilness on that level. It's just not clear. Does she identify as Tamil or Indian? Most people have not had a chance to know more about who she is. At the same time, also don't expect her to be in touch with the Brahminness of her mother's family. Such hereditary lifelong discrimination as the caste system creates is exactly the experience of Black Americans, and the comparison is quite apt. And we know Kamala Harris's identity as a Black American woman, and we know the freedom and civil rights ethos of her mother's family, too.

As the top prosecutor for the state of California, and given the connection between public prosecutors and law enforcement, Kamala Harris was referred to as "Top Cop" for her hard stance on really dangerous criminals. We do know that Kamala Harris will be bringing people to justice as president by choosing such an Attorney General to lead the Department of Justice.

And we know that she is an American patriot, and will pursue America's interests throughout the world. The question still remains: will America see the larger strategy? Will it make long overdue moves in the region? If Tamil already has been a key link to the Indian Ocean over a decade ago, and if that is much more true today than it ever was, then Madame President can teach us to say "vanakkam", not "namaste" or "ayubowan", to a resurgent, progressive, healthy democratic trend in South Asia. If that future shall come to pass, then that future might be hard to see now because it is a tiny speck in our sightline on the Indian Ocean, far away and shrouded in the fog. But the winds of change are blowing in 2024.
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Monday, July 18, 2022

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:

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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Posted by Voices in Exile at 8:03 AM
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Sunday, April 17, 2022

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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Posted by Voices in Exile at 10:22 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019

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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Posted by Voices in Exile at 8:07 AM 0 comments

Monday, October 14, 2019

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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