Protests poured into Sri Lankan Embassies around the world and directly to President Rajapakse. I am aware of protests in Belgium, Austria, Sweden,, Germany, London, Pakistan, USA and Israel. Some Embassies, trying to justify the unjustifiable, tried to accuse the protestors (most of whom were non-Sri Lankans), of ignorance or of supporting ‘terrorism’. They (correctly) responded that it was indeed ‘terrorism’ but it was ‘Government terrorism’! They assured the Embassy staff that they were very well aware of what was going on in Sri Lanka and held the GOSL responsible.
Peace, justice and resistance
Sri Lankans of all ethnic groups are demanding ‘Peace’. If it is going to be a durable peace, it has to be ‘Peace with Justice’.
There can be no peace in Sri Lanka without justice and there can be no justice without resistance.
What has to be resisted is the destructive concept, even enshrined in he Constitution since 1972 (and every Constitution since) that multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist nation. If that is the objective of the Sinhalese ethno-religious chauvinists who are running that country, then there is no alternative to the establishment of a separate Tamil State, Eelam.
I have repeatedly said in addresses across the world, and in numerous publications, that a separate Tamil State is not the creation of the Tamils but of Sinhalese ethno-religious chauvinists and extremists who are determined to make Sri Lanka into a Sinhala Buddhist nation.
What has to be resisted is the attempt by the GOSL to block the development of the Tamil areas in the North and East. There can be no peace in Sri Lanka until the developmentally neglected Tamil North and East can be developed. This will not happen until the power to develop these areas is removed from the hands of the Sinhalese and put in the hands of the people in that area – the Tamils. If the GOSL, the political opportunists and the Sinhalese extremists who support the GOSL block this, their right to do so will have to be challenged.
Resistance in an atmosphere of terror
For me to speak of ‘resistance’ from the safe distance of Australia, is one thing. To put this into practice in a country with a brutal, irresponsible, repressive regime which knows no bounds to unleashing violence, is a different proposition.
With the widespread protests that have occurred, we may be seeing the first sign of ‘resistance’, this cry to “live and let live”, coming from the people, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims.
Attempts to minimize our outrage
The Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan ‘Government’, the Police, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (inappropriately called the ‘Sri Lanka Security Forces’) and the government-controlled media, will do everything they can to minimize the extent of our outrage. Nothing they can do can change the fact that there is widespread opposition in Sri Lanka to the unwinnable war the GOSL is waging against its own (Tamil) people.
Some important points
Before the significance of the protest is evaluated, some important points need to be discussed.
1. The Sinhalese people
2. The Sinhalese leadership
3. Civic society in the Sinhalese South
4. The Tamil ‘demands’.
The Sinhalese people
The Sinhalese people (74% of the population) are the only people who can save Sri Lanka from sliding into chaos, bankruptcy, and a ‘Failed State’. For them to play this crucial role, they will have to be properly informed.
Exposed to virulent anti-Tamil propaganda coming from Sinhalese chauvinists among the politically active Buddhist clergy, and political opportunists in the JVP[4], the Sinhalese are simply unaware that there are solutions to the ethnic problem that will not threaten their existence, on the contrary, solutions that will enhance their prosperity.
This will probably involve separate development of the Tamil North and East, and the Sinhalese South. It will not only be mutually beneficial but will also result in the cessation of hostilities. It will be preferable to continuing an unwinnable war which is destroying both sides and the economy.
The Sinhalese leadership
It is widely recognised that Sri Lanka is in crisis. The real crisis is neither ethnic nor economic but a crisis in leadership. The leadership of the Sinhalese has gone from bad to worse, from corruption to rampant corruption which is widespread, from favouritism to nepotism, incompetence to gross incompetence, ethnic tolerance to ethnic hatred, nation building to the destruction of a nation, from those with a poor vision of the future to those with no vision. Both the Governing and the Opposition political parties, with few exceptions[5], are politically bankrupt.
Civic society
Civic society in Sri Lanka is supine, apathetic, disinterested and inactive. There is no demand for accountability from the Government, the Opposition, the Legal system, the Police, the Armed Forces and the Buddhist clergy. Supporters of all of these groups either turn a blind eye to this unaccountability, even defend it. Each time this is done, the closer one moves to fascism.
In a situation where politicians are corrupt, and those who rule are not accountable, the Judiciary and the Police are corrupt, the Armed Forces do what they want and the Buddhist clergy have left their Temples and are out on the streets demanding ‘war’, a supine civil society is a major tragedy. It does not augur well for Sri Lanka – Peace or no-Peace.
The result of this lack of demand for accountability is that there is a weakening of the foundations of democracy – Parliament, the Courts of Law, free and fair elections or simply the right to exist. The checks and balances that form the very backbone of democracy are destroyed.
The only response by the populace seems to be to go on blaming politicians, and leaders, demanding from them a morality they do not possess. There is something tragic and pitiable in a people who constantly bemoan their leaders. They claim that they have been let down. It is possible that civic society (by failure to demand accountability from their leaders) has let their leaders down.
The Tamil demands
There is a complete lack of understanding abroad, and even in Sri Lanka, of what the Tamils are seeking. This is the result of a highly ‘successful’ disinformation campaign mounted by the GOSL and a complete failure of the Tamils, both in and an outside Sri Lanka, to effectively counter this patently false propaganda.
It cannot be overemphasized that all that the Tamils are asking for is to be left alone, to live in an area they have lived in for centuries, and to develop this area so that they can survive. A succession of Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Governments for at least the past three decades, have simply refused to allow this to happen. Neither will happen as long as administrative, developmental and military power rests solely with the Sinhalese Government and its overwhelmingly Sinhalese (99%) Armed Forces.
It is the right of the Tamil people to exist without harassment, discrimination and the violation of every human right in the UN Charter on Human Rights to which Sri Lanka is a signatory. It is not merely a denial by the State of the right of Tamils to exist but a determination to militarily crush them. This has been portrayed to the International Community by the GOSL as a ‘war on Terrorism’. The massive supply of arms to the GOSL which this has generated, has enabled the GOSL to markedly increase its terrorism of the Tamil people. I have repeatedly pointed out that the GOSL has been the greatest beneficiary from the ‘9/11’ attack on New York. It was a bonanza for a Government bent on crushing its own people. The suppliers of military hardware could not care less as to what the GOSL does with the weapons..
The Tamils have never posed a threat to the Sinhalese South nor is there the slightest possibility that they will in the future.
The Tamil community in Sri Lanka, and the expatriate Tamils, now more than a million strong have failed to address this crucial problem of a lack of understanding of what the Tamil struggle is all about.
With a repressive, brutal and violent regime in the South, supported by Sinhalese extremists whose violence has been amply documented, the Tamils in the Sinhalese South are in no position to act. When they do, the fate that befell Raviraj and many others before him, is almost a certainty. It is therefore up to the Sinhalese in the South to distance themselves from ethnic chauvinism and play a lead-role in highlighting the injustices done to the Tamils over the past 50 years.
As for expatriate Tamils, the need to inform and mobilize the international community and, even more important, the methods of achieving this, have not been critically analysed, much less implemented. This complex problem will be analysed in a separate paper.
The significance
Too many conclusions should not be drawn from a single protest, however impressive it was, nor should a protest of this size, cutting across ethnic, religious, and political divisions, be ignored.
1. The protests in the Tamil North and East were, as would have been expected, at the murder of one of their potential leaders. What was remarkable was the defiance of thousands of people who live in fear in an area that is essentially run by an ‘Army of Occupation’. Protesting in such an environment calls for courage, with consequences which might be very real.
2. The protest in the Sinhalese South (Colombo) was much more significant. Here were thousands of people, many of them Sinhalese, giving up a days work, to protest at the murder of a Tamil politician who has forcefully voiced the problems faced by his people. It can only be hoped that the Sinhalese are waking up to the reality of their Government having nothing to offer the Tamils except violence and murder.
3. The action taken by the Plantation Tamils shutting down large areas of the economically crucial tea plantations is most important. Here are people who have nothing to gain from a solution to the ethnic problem, and who can ill afford to lose a days wages, still prepared to act. They can, if they choose to, bring the GOSL to its senses in a very short time. They are the Achilles Heel of the GOSL.
4. The participation of significant numbers of the Buddhist clergy cannot be ignored. I have always opposed the involvement of Buddhist monks in politics and was strongly critical when Venerable Baddegama Samitha Thero, entered Parliament in 2001, the first Buddhist monk ever to do so. Subsequent events proved me wrong. Samitha Thero was one of the few rational Sinhalese voices in Parliament.
Whatever one’s views on Buddhist monks in politics, to be realistic, it is not a phenomenon that will go away. If that is the case, then to marshal the support of the monks who attended the ‘march’ and get them to influence their brethren who hold extremist views, is a possibility that must be explored.
5. The charge that Sri Lanka has a spineless civic society has to be reviewed. Here was ‘civic society’ turning up in full force to ‘march’ for peace and justice. That this was done in a setting of unpredictable safety, offers a ray of hope. It was only a few months ago when a ‘Peace rally’ in Colombo organised by the same group that organised the recent ‘march’, was broken up by Buddhist monks who physically assaulted the Buddhist monks who took part in the peace rally. That people, including monks, are not prepared to be intimidated by hooligans, some in yellow robes, offers some hope for the future.
6. The most encouraging aspect of this ‘march’ and the peace rallies that have preceded it, is that there are Sinhalese such as Dr Kumar Rupesinghe and Dr Nimalka Fernando, who have the courage to provide the necessary leadership. Needless to say, they have been threatened with assassination, threats that cannot be taken lightly. They (and others of their ilk, many of whom were at the ‘march’), are people with a vision and the necessary courage and integrity to take a stand, whatever the consequences.
They are the ‘ray of hope for the future’ in a country which increasingly appears to be a country with no hope or future. They can play a lead role in rescuing Sri Lanka from the dark hole of anti-Tamil ethno-religious extremism and intolerance. The real problem they face is the same that faced other rising Sinhalese leaders such as the charismatic and sincere Vijaya Kumaratunga, ex-President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s late husband. This is assassination by those whose extremism and lack of vision has been challenged[6] and who do not have an waser other than a bullet..
7. The protest has thrown up Sinhala politicians from both the major Sinhala political parties who can rise above the ethnic chauvinism of their political parties and are prepared to do ‘the right thing’. To see parliamentarians from the SLFP and the UNP protesting at the killing of a Tamil is a hopeful sign.
8. It has also drawn attention to political leaders from the minor parties such as Sirithunga Jayasooriya (United Socialist Party), Dr Wickremabahu Karunaratne from the ‘New Left’[7], Vasudeva Nanayakkara (Democratic Left Front), and Wije Dias (Socialist Equality Party), who have not prostituted their parties by going down the well-trodden path to power by adopting an anti-Tamil stance. All of these political leaders are Sinhalese. Jayasooriya also heads the Civil Monitoring Committee on Abductions, Extrajudicial and Arbitrary killings (of which Raviraj was a member). He has extensive grass roots Sinhalese support.
One cannot refer to these people without including another Sinhalese, Victor Ivan, the outstanding Editor of the Sinhalese paper Ravaya that has adopted a principled stance on the ethnic issue. As would be expected, his life is in great danger at the hands of those who have no answer to his rational arguments.
The fundamental problems
The fundamental problems that will have to be addressed are
1. Making Sri Lanka into a Sinhala-Buddhist Nation
2 Maintaining the developmental neglect of the Tamil areas.
A Sinhala-Buddhist Nation.
I have dealt with this already. If the Sinhalese want to make Sri Lanka into a Sinhala Buddhist nation, then there is no alternative to the establishment of a separate Tamil State, Eelam. It is as simple as that.
What we have seen in Sri Lanka for the past 60 years, and even before that, is the politics of exclusion. If the Tamils are excluded from governance, which they have been and will be, then they will want a separate administration for the area they have lived in for centuries.
The developmental neglect of the Tamil areas
I have briefly referred to this earlier. Sri Lanka as a single country is a British colonial construct. This has clearly failed, as has been the case with several other former colonial constructs – not necessarily British.
For hundreds of years, Ceylon (as it then was), was divided into three separate Kingdoms (effectively three separate States), - the Jaffna Kingdom (Tamil) in the North, the Kandyan Kingdom (Kandyan Sinhalese) in the centre, and the Kotte Kingdom (low-country Sinhalese) in the South. In 1833, the colonial British, reacting to a major uprising by the Kandyan Sinhalese (1818), decided to centralise power in Colombo and improve road and rail access to all parts of the country (to control any further uprisings). The effect of these disastrous Colebrooke-Cameron ‘Reforms’ (1933), was the developmental neglect of the entire periphery. This included the Tamil North and East and the Sinhalese ‘deep-South’. It is not a coincidence that the two majoe youth uprisings that have occurred, the Tamil youths in the North and the Sinhalese youths in the South (both of them around the same time,1971-2, and for similar reasons,) came from these developmentally neglected areas.
An additional factor affecting the Tamils, was anti-Tamil discrimination by a succession of Sinhalese political parties trying to get the votes of the majority (74% Sinhalese), to get into power.The Tamils launched a series of non-violent protests at this (and other) blatant discrimination. The Sinhalese-dominated Government responded by unleashing Sinhalese hoodlum violence on the protesting Tamils.
Non-violent protests having failed, the Tamil youths decided on an arms struggle to liberate the Tamil areas from Sinhala domination and discrimination. The Government responded by a massive military onslaught on the Tamil people in the North and East to force them to submit to Sinhala domination. What the Tamils are asking for is a reversal of a British colonial construct which, thanks to the exclusive politics and political opportunism of a succession of Sinhalese-dominated Governments, has failed.
The developmental neglect of the Tamil areas cannot be addressed unless/until developmental power is handed over to the people in the affected area. In the North and East it means handing over the administration of the area to the Tamils. If this is not done, Sri Lanka will be bogged down in a war which will destroy both the Tamil areas and the economy, with inevitable consequences on the Sinhalese people.
The Challenge As I have said, there can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice without resistance. The challenge is to mount this resistance, not only in the Tamil areas, but even more importantly, in the Sinhalese areas.
What will have to be challenged are:-
1. The attempt by the GOSL to wipe out the Tamil people in the North and East. This has now taken on the features of genocide
2. The determination of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces to destroy the Tamil people and the areas they live in by unleashing massive military force and even resorting to the deprivation of food as a weapon, to starve the civilian population. The closure by the Army of the A9 highway, the only road access to the Jaffna Peninsula with half a million people, is a clear indication of this.
3. The blatant violation of 29 of the 30 Articles in the UN Human Rights charter to which Sri Lanka is a signatory.
4. The totally false assertion by the GOSL that what is being fought is a “War on Terrorism”. What is being waged by the GOSL is a “War of Subjugation”.
5.The slaughter of thousands of Tamil civilians, several Tamil journalists, and now Tamil Members of Parliament, by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Tamil paramilitaries working with them, who act with impunity. It is this lack of a demand for accountability that has resulted in the escalation of major human rights violations by the Armed Forces. This onslaught on the Tamil people will ensure that nothing short of a separate Tamil State will be acceptable to them.
6. The massive expenditure of public funds for ‘Defence’ (up by 40% this year) by a country with no external enemies. The ‘enemies’ are part of the population of the country.
7. The right of sections of the Buddhist Clergy to leave their temples and parade the streets demanding ‘war’ and the crushing of the Tamils.
8. The escalating corruption at all levels across the board.
The work ahead
There should be no illusions about the work ahead to bring a brutal, fascist, irresponsible, murderous regime to its senses. The ‘work ahead’ involves those in Sri Lanka and those abroad.
In Sri Lanka
The Sinhalese people, the most uninformed people in Sri Lanka, must be informed that there are solutions to the ethnic problem which will markedly improve the quality of their lives, and also ensure that bodies of their rural youths do not return in body bags.
The Sinhalese people will have to be told that contrary to claims by the Armed Forces, drunk with military power, the ‘war’ cannot be won (or lost). What will be crushed with certainty is the economy, which will have disastrous consequences for them.
The Sinhalese will have to be told that if Sri Lanka is to be a Sinhala-Buddhist nation, then a separate Tamil State will be inevitable.
Mass action will have to be taken to bring the country to a halt and send a clear message to the Government (present and future), that this war must stop. This will include action by
Government servants
Trade Unions
Workers in the crucial Plantation sector
to bring the Sinhala South to a halt. Will this hurt the country? It will, but not half as much as the relentless pursuit of an increasingly costly war.
There can be no let up in the pressure that has to be exerted on the Government. It is obviously impossible for people to go on protesting, but unfortunately this is the only way that the necessary pressure can be generated to get the Government to see reason.
The next protest must be a demand that the A9 highway be opened. Half a million civilians in Jaffna are being deprived of food. It is a humanitarian crisis which must be brought to the attention of the Sinhala people, the Government and the international media..
Outside Sri Lanka
Those who have opted out of living in that country have a major responsibility in taking the type of action which those in Sri Lanka cannot take.
They will have to:
1. Apprise the expatriate Tamil community, now a million strong, as to what is happening to their people. It seems an absurd suggestion which implies that the expatriate Tamils do not know what is going on. Having addressed scores of meetings of expatriate Tamils, I know for a fact that they do not know, do not want to know or do not care. If that is the score, they must be informed or their inaction challenged.
I believe that the most powerful ‘weapon’ the Tamils have is a million strong ‘force’ of expatriate Tamils, who live and work in countries which sustain the brutal and irresponsible regime in Sri Lanka. It is a ‘force’ that has not been mobilised.
2. Expatriate Tamils will have to apprise their Members of Parliament, the media and, most importantly, the civil population in the country they live in, of what is going on in Sri Lanka. I cannot overemphasise the point that it is the population in these countries who can pressure their MPs and media to focus on Sri Lanka and act.
3. The intimidation of Tamils in Sri Lanka is well known. What is not known is that expatriate Tamils suffer the same intimidation in the so-called democracies they live in. Tamils in countries such as the USA, UK, Canada and Australia are fearful of doing anything to help their people in war-torn Sri Lanka because they fear a knock on the door and find themselves accused of helping ‘terrorists’. This must be challenged whatever the consequence. The atmosphere of fear has been carefully crafted by the GOSL – cooperating with foreign governments which, in turn, ‘play ball’ with the GOSL for their own geopolitical or economic gain.
4. A boycott of goods from Sri Lanka and visits to that country has been suggested and must be explored. Will it hurt the country? Yes it will, but not half as much as a continuing war.
5. Tamils, and those of us non-Tamils who support the entirely just cause of the Tamil people for justice, have an obligation to inform non-Sri Lankans in their countries of the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. The GOSL is spending millions of dollars in an international disinformation campaign. We who oppose this do not have and will never have the unlimited funds to match this. All we have is a just cause and this must be explained to the international community.
6. It is no longer acceptable for even a conflict-fatigued international community to accept the canard of countries where major human rights violations occur, that it is an ‘internal affair’. The world stepped in to address the injustice in apartheid South Africa, which was an ‘internal problem’ if ever there was one. The world cannot watch the murder of Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and say that it is ‘an internal affair’. These are the hard questions that will have to be asked and an answer demanded if the rule of terror, destruction and injustice in Sri Lanka is to end.
7. It must be pointed out that a devastating conflict in any country can, and does, have a fall-out in other countries. As the GOSL intensifies its attempt to crush a people, and the humanitarian crisis and atrocities escalate, those who can will escape in whatever way they can and arrive on our doorstep – adding to an already serious refugee problem.
8. In the long term, when the war ends (as it most certainly will – since no war goes on forever) the responsibility for rebuilding the devastated country will fall on foreign countries. East Timor is one of many examples. We in Australia (and the UN) watched and waited till the Indonesian Government decimated East Timor. East Timor was reduced to a shell with extensive destruction of its infrastructure, indeed all structures. The near-impossible task of rebuilding this devastated country and saving it from becoming a ‘failed state’, has now been laid at the feet of Australia and the rest of the world.
History has a habit of repeating itself – which is what will happen in Sri Lanka unless we cry ‘halt’. The international community has a major role to play in making a positive contribution in sorting out the problem in Sri Lanka. If it does not, it will become part of the problem and will pay its own price.
Brian Senewiratne, BrisbaneAustralia
15.12.06
[1] Eelam People’s Democratic Party – the leader being a Minister in Rajapakse’s government.
[2] United National Party – the main Opposition Party
[3] Sri Lankan Freedom Party – the main Governing Party
[4] Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna – originally Marxist Sinhalese youths who later replaced Marxism with anti-Tamil ethnic chauvinism as a short-cut to political power.
[5] The exceptions are the ‘New Left’ and similar Socialist parties.
[6] Vijeya Kumaratunga was assassinated by the Sinhalese extremists in the JVP, his father-in-law, S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, by a Buddhist monk – so much for non-violence..
[7] NLSSP Nava Lanka Sama Samaja Party
Brian Senewiratne MA, MBBChir (Cantab), MD (Lond), FRCP (Lond), FRACP Physician Brisbane, Australia Thousands of Sri Lankans shut down parts of Colombo in the Sinhalese South, large areas of the tea plantations in the Central hills (‘Indian’ Tamils), and the entire North and East (Sri Lankan Tamils), demanding an end to war and violations of human rights. It was an unprecedented protest which cut across ethnic, religious, political, and social boundaries. There were even international protests, interestingly by non-Sri Lankans. It followed the assassination in Colombo of the young Tamil politician, Nadarajah Raviraj (44), Member of Parliament for Jaffna in the Tamil North. 
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