Internal Political Power Bashing in the Name of

Justice for War Victims

Object 1

by Rajan Hoole and N. Sivapalan, University of Jaffna,

Ahilan Kadirgamar,-March 5, 2015, 8:04 pm

an independent researcher in Jaffna, and K. Sritharan
The UN Human Rights Commissions decision to investigate violations and the huge loss of
life during the last months of the war concluded in 2009 was a significant victory for the
victims. The dignity of the victims required that the truth must be told without fear or favour,
and processes of justice and restoration set in motion. And the wrong was not all on one side.
Dignity also demands that we await the verdict of the judges with restraint and reverence for
the name of justice.
But in Jaffna, all hell broke loose over the coming UNHRC report in an orgy
of mud-slinging, recrimination and effigy burning for Tamil leadership
spoils. Some academics in Jaffna University led by taking on themselves
the task of identifying and upbraiding traitors to the race in a return to
dangerous heroics. MPs Sampanthan and Sumanthiran were excoriated for
attending the Independence Day function. The first shot in virtually
christening the coming UN report a genocide report was fired by Northern
Chief Minister Justice Wigneswaran on 10th February 2015 in the Provincial
Council resolution he advanced.
The opinion held by a sizeable portion of the university teachers was not to

politicise the coming UN report, so as to allow Sinhalese to read it with an

open mind. There was no opposition to delay, as requested by the new
government. But this moderate stance got lost in the rush of events. It
was presented to the media on 13th February as the University Teachers
demanding the release of the report as scheduled in March. Suresh
Premachandran MP, the same day, welcomed Wigneswarans genocide
resolution and called upon India and the US to ensure the release of the
UN report. Later he supported the call of the University Teachers to
undertake a march to present the demand for early release of its report to
the UN.
A UN report that was meant to help the victims was getting lost amidst the
extremism of pied pipers encouraging students to abandon moderation in a
University that now has a large number of Sinhalese and Muslim students,
and put up notices recalling the rallying cry of PonguThamil (Arise Tamils)
during the LTTEs heyday, but over a petition for the release of a report the
UN Human Rights Commissioner has assured he would.
On 21st February 2015, Mr. Sumanthirans effigy was burnt at a
demonstration in Jaffna Town organised by the Womens Front for
Disappeared Persons, thus politicising the all-important issue in a manner
very detrimental to the victims. Soon afterwards another leader, Mr.Mavai
Senathirajah, perhaps to stop more effigy burning by those trying to
capture the TNA leadership or its place, announced his support for the
supposed University Teachers protest.
The pretext for the attack on Sumanthiran was his engaging with the
Government on implementing a local mechanism to give effect to the
coming UN reports recommendations. This is the best we could expect
from a government we helped to elect. Without a change of government
the UN report would have been simply rejected, and getting any benefit
out of it would have been an arduous process. To start by dismissing
internal mechanisms as hopeless without engagement is to destroy any
possibility of national reconciliation which is our only hope. The UN would,
rightly, not recommend international prosecution until domestic
mechanisms are exhausted. Engagement means for example that we must
demand legislation for command responsibility.
Moreover the public is being duped by creating an expectation that the UN
will charge the Government with genocide. The coming UNHRC report will
build on the UN Secretary Generals advisory report of 31st March 2011,

but one hardly expects any significant deviation in the conclusions. The
UNSGs report faults the Government for (i) killing civilians through
widespread shelling; (ii) shelling of hospitals and humanitarian objects;
(iii) denial of humanitarian assistance; (iv) human rights violations
suffered by victims and survivors; and (v) human rights violations outside
the conflict zone [such as persecution of the media and abductions].
It faults the LTTE for: (i) using civilians as a human buffer; (ii) killing
civilians attempting to flee LTTE control; (iii) using military equipment in
the proximity of civilians; (iv) forced recruitment of children; (v) forced
labour (e.g. using civilians to dig bunkers); (vi) killing of civilians through
suicide attacks.
The nature of the LTTEs violations which Tamil nationalists systematically
deny or obfuscate makes allegations of genocide solely against the
Government hard to sustain. The propensity to lie and avoid the truths
most crucial to giving the Tamil community a decisive change of direction
has been the way of Tamil politics from the earliest times. Take for
example Wigneswarans recent statement. It has listed the International
Tamil Research Conference Tragedy of January 1974 under the heading of
genocide.
But the facts were established by a professionally conducted citizens
inquiry headed by Justices O.L. de Kretzer and V. Manickavasagar and
Bishop S. Kulandran. Their verdict did not deny the Polices right to arrest
Janarthanan, a Tamil Nadu politician who illegally entered the country and
participated in the conference, in which they failed. The judges held that
knowing the probable result, i.e. a stampede, the Police should have
adopted a course of quieta non movere leave well alone but had
instead acted recklessly. That is a far cry from genocide.
But what Tamil nationalist politics did was to, without any basis, accuse
Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah who was already branded a traitor
deserving death from a nationalist platform, as having instigated the police
action which caused the deaths. Duraiappah was killed the following year
by the incipient LTTE, which in turn branded several Tamil nationalist
leaders traitors for negotiating a political settlement and killed them over
the coming years. This politics of assassination inaugurated by the Tamil
leadership culminated 35 years later in 2009 in the gigantic tragedy at
Mullivaykkal, and continues to haunt the Tamil nationalist leadership.

The last event has been described in Wigneswarans statement as the

Vanni genocide. However, it was the LTTE that held masses of people
hostage, allowing the Government to claim its action, as in January 1974,
as legitimate. The people concerned however preferred quieta non
movere on the Governments part and rescue by a less costly international
initiative. Our judgment of the Governments military action is inevitably
coloured by decades of the peoples experience of the security forces and
in the run-up to the finale, the wanton killing of five young Tamils in
Trincomalee on 2nd January 2006 and the massacre of ACF aid workers in
Mutur that followed; by its military strategy involving total displacement by
shelling with a view to acquisition of lands to change their demographic
composition and the relentless shelling of locations the Government itself
had declared safe zones. These we trust will be dealt with by the UN
report.
For the civilians caught up in the war in 2009, matters were made worse
by the Tamil leadership denying that the LTTE was holding the people
hostage and was shooting escapees. It is this long history of lying and
refusal to examine its responsibility for the politics of assassination that
makes the Tamil leadership so vulnerable today. And the madness goes on.
Wigneswarans genocide statement has let loose demonization of those
who engage with the Government, purely for political one-upmanship.
Genocide is a word loosely used for political rhetoric, too often by
politicians who themselves have blood on their hands. It is a fact that the
war was waged by all sides without any concern for civilian well-being. The
LTTE continuously trapped the people in a destructive war and consciously
worked towards scenarios where the Army would kill large numbers of
civilians. It created conditions where civilians will be forced to identify with
it in one form or another to make sure that when that Army enters, they
will all face the wrath of the Army. That fear itself forced the people to join
the movement or to move with them. Have we forgotten the Exodus of
1995, the chasing away of Muslims in 1990 and many other atrocities
unleashed in the name of liberation?
Could we say that the LTTE was involved in genocide against its own
people by quoting all the massive killings it carried out at various times
from trapping people again and again into wars they did not want and
forcing them along a suicidal route?
Could the chasing out of Muslims and massacring them in Mosques be

legitimately raised as genocidal acts of the LTTE? There are many sides
and narratives to the conflict. It is very sad that the University which
needs to create space for people to re-evaluate the past and critically
analyse what went wrong that allowed suicidal politics to ensnare the
community, is now again blindly promoting the same politics which
destroyed our community.
Indeed, the Sri Lankan state failed miserably in protecting the minorities
and evolved as a Sinhala state. There are many Sinhalese intellectuals and
politicians who recognise this, but whenever there were initiatives towards
addressing the issues, extremists from both sides undermined them. It is
important that Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims engage in an open manner
to nullify the legacy of the past and build a wholesome political culture.
That can happen only through internal processes and we need to identify
resources and potential already present within each community, and work
towards slowly building trust. Sri Lanka, as a UN Member, has a
responsibility to respect all norms enshrined in its treaties and covenants
and when it fails to protect the rights of its citizens, we would all sooner or
later face the consequences. But international initiatives are often
controlled by the limited vision of those in charge and have many a time
failed to give priority to the internal potential, and the results had very
limited impact. Our main focus must be to strengthen the democratic
process and work towards building broad alliances among all communities
to address the many issues facing the nation.
The president must expeditiously fulfill the just demands of the Tamil
peoples, who in trust and goodwill gave him an overwhelming mandate.
The large numbers of people who are internal refugees owing to the war,
now ended, should be urgently resettled in their former homes. The
persons, who have long languished in detention on mere suspicion without
charges being filed, should be released without delay. In order that all
communities could live together in understanding and goodwill, moves
should be set in motion without delay, to resolve the national question.
We have a responsibility to engage with the government, we helped to
elect and make a start on what is best for the people not just the Tamil
people but for all the people in the country. Our name calling of opponents
and the government is only helping the Sinhalese extremists who do not
want any solution to the national question and we need not spell out the
consequences, especially when political conditions in the South are also
unstable.The Tamil leadership has a major responsibility in addressing the

fears of the ordinary Sinhalese people and to be open about their failures
in the past. There are many Sinhalese who are ashamed of the way the Sri
Lankan Army carried out operations where large numbers of innocent
civilians were killed and many surrendered persons were massacred. Tamil
politics can either strengthen them or isolate them. The LTTE continued to
undermine the peace constituency in the South by sticking to its
maximalist position but opportunistically demanded addressing immediate
issues to buy time and materials to strengthen its military capability. The
peace lobby in the South tried to justify the LTTEs position genuinely
hoping that it may transform, but the resulting ground reality gave
opportunity to the Sinhalese extremists who argued that only a military
solution was possible and undermined the Peace Lobby with relative ease.
The situation in the South is fragile. There being Sinhalese, Tamil and
Muslim students in Jaffna University, it will be much more productive if the
students engaged among themselves to understand each other rather than
wallow in a bankrupt political discourse that destroys all hope. And Tamil
politics would remain, as the left leader V. Karalasingam said in 1963, in
the wasteland of burning itself out in impotent rage and despair against
the government than permit a critical re-examination of its politics.
Those trying to edge out the present Tamil leadership with hysterics of
betrayal over the UN report are certainly marginal elements. Their barely
hidden rhetorical demand for Tamil Eelam recalls Marxs aphorism that
events in history occur first as a tragedy and for the second time as a
farce. The elements carrying us through the farce today could easily be
tackled if the Tamil leadership would apologise to the public openly for its
Himalayan blunder of original tacit support for the politics of assassination
against opponents, and explain the grim choices confronting the Tamil
people today and the urgent need to advance reconciliation on equal
terms.