The THAMOTHERAM funeral. A Sinhala Tribute

Last week a Sinhalese thought it appropriate to fly half way round the world to attend the funeral of a Tamil, Jeyam Thamotheram, whose funeral took place in the Methodist Church, Hammersmith, London, on 4 November 2005. The Church was packed to capacity but from my perspective the highlights were the tributes paid by two exceptional Sinhalese – Adrian Wijemanne and Neville Jayaweera. The 30-hour flight seemed well worthwhile.

Rev Roger Dunlop detailed the unbelievable achievements of an extraordinary person. The first Tribute was from “Siva”, Subramanium Sivanayagam, the finest Tamil journalist, indeed Journalist of any ethnic group, that Ceylon has ever produced. It was a very personal tribute from a close friend read by Mr Sithamparapillai. I will not focus on Siva’s contribution because I am sure it will be published elsewhere. The next was from the irreplaceable Adrian Wijemanne read by myself, and the third by a relative, Dr.Karuna Alagaratnam.

This was followed by the cremation, attended by just the family. After lunch followed the many tributes from relatives, friends and representatives of the numerous organizations that Jeyam founded. I will deal with just two of these tributes because of the importance of the message, which should be heard by all, the Sinhalese in particular.

The Adrian Wijemanne Tribute.

Before I read Adrian’s Tribute, I thanked the Thamotheram family for honouring me by asking me to deliver it. Before I did so, I briefly introduced Adrian, not that he needed an introduction. I described him as a great Sinhalese whose shoelaces I was not worthy to untie. While my contribution to the Tamil struggle for justice, equality and dignity were based on emotion, Adrian’s was based on irrefutable facts, presented and argued with the precision of a brilliant lawyer (which he was not). Here is what he wrote:-

“I met Mr Thamotheram, for the very first time, in June 1994. It was at a meeting of the International Tamil Foundation to which he invited me. Within minutes of meeting, he made me feel as if I had met a long lost friend. He had a gift for friendship. It was a gift that survived the pain and trauma that our two nations were suffering in the throes of war at that time.

Soon our friendship ripened for our concerns were identical – peace and good neighbourliness between our two nations on the island which both of us regarded as our spiritual home in which we had been nurtured and in which the bones of our ancestors lay buried. We got to first name terms very soon – I called him Jeyam and we spoke on the ‘phone with each other nearly every day.

Inevitably our perceptions of the future of our two nations differed. Mine more pessimistic and shorter term than his. He had a longer term hope of eventual amity and peace. He was wiser and more humane than I and he had the advantage of moral integrity which the Sinhala people (myself included) had sacrificed to their eternal discredit. These differences did nothing to cloud our friendship which thrived as the years went by. Never a cross word passed between us and our families drew closer together. I had the advantage of knowing at first hand what a cultured, middle class, Tamil gentleman of the early decades of the last century was like. Jayam was its perfect exemplar.

The ravages of time made short work of all our hopes; the future takes dimensions unforeseen. Nevertheless as human beings we project values of eternal relevance however translated into reality of time and tide. Jayam stood steadfastly for the hope some day, even in the very distant future, our two nations would live on the island, in their own political configurations, not only in peace and good neighbourliness but even more importantly in friendship. He knew and personified the healing grace of friendship” Adrian Wijemanne

I could not have possibly delivered it as well as Adrian would have, having had no sleep for some 30 hours did not help. Just 24 hours later, Adrian was admitted to hospital with a severe pain in his back. I fear he has crushed a spinal vertebra from the relentless myeloma which I know he has. I pray for his recovery, it is about as much as is left to do.

The Neville Jayaweera Tribute.

I had not met Mr Jayaweera until I arrived in the Church. Years ago, he had been the G.A (Government Agent) in Jaffna. His address at the funeral was worth travelling 15,000 km to hear. Here is what he said:-

“Madame Malar Thamotheram, members of the Tharmotheram family and friends.

In the course of several tributes paid to the memory of Jeyam during the Church service, all speakers have referred to his many and varied endowments and achievements. Therefore, during the few minutes allocated to me to speak from this platform I will not go over that ground again. Rather, as a member of the Sinhala community, I want to dwell on an aspect of Jeyam's life which, for obvious reasons, other speakers preferred not to dwell on.

Like many others seated in this audience, Jeyam was a victim of the injustices heaped on the Tamil people by my own community. When I think of how Jeyam's career, and indeed the lives of thousands of other Tamil brethren, had been thwarted and terminated through discrimination practised against Tamil people over decades, I feel a deep shame and contrition. If Jeyam can hear me from wherever he is now I can only ask him to forgive me as a member of the Sinhala community and indeed to find it in his Christian heart to forgive the whole Sinhala community for the wrongs they have inflicted upon the Tamil people”. (I might add that Neville is a Buddhist)

“As I look around me in this very hall, I can see many other brilliant Tamil mathematicians, engineers, accountants, doctors and other professionals, all of whose services and skills are desperately need back in Sri Lanka. So then, why are they here rather than there? Why is it that a Sri Lanka, a country so desperately in need of skills and talents for nation building, squandering all these precious assets in foreign lands? When will Sri Lanka ever realise, if it ever will, that only the termination of its discriminatory policies will attract these skills and talents back to serve the country of their birth?

Fifty seven years after Independence Sri Lanka is still only a state, a state comprised of two warring nations. When will it be able to transcend the divisions that have plagued it for so long and emerge as a single nation? It was Jeyam's undying hope and prayer that some day it will.

As you have heard many speakers say, Jeyam was a brilliant mathematician, one of a galaxy of brilliant students of mathematics who came out of Hartley College Jaffna, among whom was Prof. C.J. Eliezer who went on the become Professor of Mathematics in the Colombo University, (I might add that he was the youngest Dean the Faculty of Science has ever had and the only Ceylonese I know of. who was invited to work with Einstein), but himself had to pursue his career abroad because of discriminatory policies perpetrated upon his fellow Tamils. Jeyam could have pursued a career in the prestigious Ceylon Civil Service, but instead opted for the far nobler vocation of teaching. Many leading secondary schools in then Ceylon sought to employ him as their mathematics teacher but, as a practising Methodist Christian, he opted to serve in Ceylon's premier Methodist institution, Wesley College. However, when in the fullness of time it was Jeyam's turn to be appointed Principal, the discriminatory policies which by that time were in full bloom, took toll again and he was denied what was his legitimate right. Those who knew Jeyam and who were acquainted with the rights and wrongs of the situation were aghast and outraged. Jeyam resigned his job as a teacher at Wesley, opted out of the profession, and after a short stint with the British Council (I think) in Colombo, he migrated to the UK.

However, a man so richly endowed by God would not let his many skills and attributes wither on the vine. In the UK, Jeyam went on to pioneer many institutions and activities to improve the prospects and the quality of life of the Tamil diaspora who were by the mid 70s growing into a steady stream. You have already heard several speakers pay tribute to Jeyam's qualities as an institution builder, as a pioneer and as a leader of the Tamil people.

It would not be an exaggeration to say of Jeyam that he was to the Tamil Diaspora, in the UK as well as in other countries, what Martin Luther King had been to the black people in the USA of the 1960s. Jeyam was deeply hurt but was neither embittered nor discouraged. He had felt the searing pains and carried the scars of injustice, but would not allow himself to be deterred from his vision. Like Martin Luther King, Jeyam had caught a larger vision. To the very end he believed that it is still possible for all the communities who comprise the fabric of Sri Lanka, the Sinhala, the Tamils, the Moors and the Burghers and all religions, to live in peace and amity and without recourse to war. He hoped and prayed that the discriminatory policies followed by successive governments of Sri Lanka would be turned around and that wisdom and reason would triumph over injustice, bitterness and conflict.

Whether Jeyam's dream will ever be realised, and whether the Tamil people of Sri Lanka will ever gain the Promised Land, remains an open question. Notwithstanding, it is the measure of Jeyam's greatness and his quality as an exceptional human being, that despite all the evidence to the contrary he continued to the end to believe in his vision.

May his vision be realised in full and may his Soul Rest in Peace.

While condoling with the Tharmotheram family I thank them again for the privilege of allowing me to speak on this platform.” Neville Jayaweera

I could barely retain my seat, the urge being overwhelming to rise to my feet and applaud. I could then have said that Neville Jayaweera got a ‘standing ovation’ which he richly deserved.

When it was my turn to speak, I could say nothing, it had all been said much moré eloquently by Siva, Adrian and Neville. All I could do was to say that I was proud to identify myself as a Sinhalese at a time when there is little to be proud of in being one. I feel much less isolated to know that people of integrity and honour such as Adrian and Neville who had not sacrificed their ‘moral integrity’, as Adrian so accurately stated.

In my heart I have always had a yearning to do what Neville had just done so touchingly – to say “Sorry” to the Tamil people. As I said in one of my earliest publications on Sri Lanka The July 1983 Massacre. Unanswered Questions which was quoted by Sivanayagam in his recent monumental work Sri Lanka:Witness to History,

“It would be too revolting and unprofitable to recount details of the acts of barbarism committed by Sinhalese mobs. All that the author, a full-blooded Sinhalese, can say is that for the first time he has felt ashamed to be a Sinhalese. It is not that one identifies oneself with the hooligan mobs, but there inevitably is a collective responsibility for the behaviour of one’s countrymen – hooligan, barbarian or civilized. He who watches while a fellow human being has his limbs cut off, belly slit open, petrol poured on and burnt to death, is only marginally less guilty than he who does it. In the General Hospital, Colombo, desperately ill Tamil patients had their intravenous infusions disconnected and were thrown out of wards because they were Tamils. Tamil doctors had to take refuge in toilets to avoid assault”. What I said so long ago (1983) it is what Adrian Wijemanne refers to when he speaks of the Sinhala people sacrificing their moral integrity to their eternal discredit.

In a covering letter I have just received from Ivan Pedropillai who was the ‘Master of Ceremonies’ in the post-lunch presentations , he says

“ Neville Jayaweera's text is concise but also carries a resounding message to his misguided compatriots that unity and prosperity in a modern State can only be built on equality under the law without distinction of race, caste or creed.

Take the United Kingdom, where the Scots represent about 10% of the population and yet hold many of the senior Cabinet portfolios as well as senior positions in industry. This is not an issue here at all as it works on meritocracy. The West is able to make these strides in economic and social development because a man's race, tribe or religion is just private and personal and he is not judged by it.

When the electorate in Sri Lanka is mature enough to leave religion and race
out of politics and when there are multi-ethnic secular parties in the country shorn of corruption, we shall again have a prosperous land. As long as the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims have their own parties, and when rabble-rousers can play on the baser emotions of the unsophisticated electors, there will continue to be the bane and the stain of racial politics in the country. Brave people like you and Neville have to run the gauntlet of vicious racists on all sides to restrain the country from
continuing with its grim slide into the fate of Hades”.

I am so very glad I decided to go all the way to the UK, not only to farewell an incredible gentleman but because I was also able to meet and hear some extraordinary human beings who give me hope that there is a future, contrary to what it appears to be.

Brian Senewiratne Brisbane, Australia 8.11.2005

C.J.T.Thamotheram: an End of an Era

This is not an obituary, since I am not qualified to write one. It is just a note of thanks from a Sinhalese to a great Tamil for all he has done for the Tamil cause over a very long time. He is one of the unsung heroes of the Tamil struggle. It is a struggle for justice and freedom from Sinhala oppression which has gone on for such a long time and at a terrible cost to Tamil lives, property and the complete destruction of the Tamil areas. What is unrecognized is the damage done to the much-treasured and closely knit family unit which means so much to people of Jeyam’s generation. People of that generation (and even later ones) have paid a terrible, but unrecognized, price in terms of social disruption, indeed ‘social decimation’, as a result of the violence unleashed on the Tamils by a succession of Sinhala Governments since 1956, and more so since 1983. The Thamotherams have made a major contribution to education in Jaffna. Jeyam’s father was the Principal of a very famous school, Hartley College, a Methodist mission school founded in 1838 and was, in fact the first non-white Principal of any school in Jaffna. Among the many famous people coming out of that school was the brilliant Prof.C.J.Elizer who actually worked with Albert Einstein! Later Jeyam himself joined the staff of that school, making a significant contribution to education in Jaffna. He emigrated to Britain many years ago. Unlike so many of his vintage who, having left Sri Lanka, have sat on their hands doing nothing other than hallucinating about the future, Jeyam acted in his own inimitable way. He made an enormous contribution which is largely unrecognized because of the nature of the man. A quiet unassuming, self-effacing man, modest almost to a fault, Jeyam had a vision of what expatriate Tamils could do in a positive way. He founded, among other things, the first Tamil School in the UK, the Tamil Times and the International Tamil Foundation. A few years ago he telephoned me in the early hours of the morning (!) in Australia, to say that he thought it important to get together a group if international writers to highlight the problems faced by the Tamils, would I join the group? That was typically Jeyam, his mind ever active, thinking what more he could do to further the Tamil cause. I gather that he also had the largest list of Tamils in the UK and their addresses. It was the Sri Lankan concept of an ‘extended family’ being applied on an international scale! In October 1981 he founded the monthly Tamil Times which was to be the voice of the Tamil expatriate community. This is the only journal run by Tamils that has been published uninterrupted since its inception more than two decades ago. It is most unfortunate that the founder of this journal had to distance himself from his brain-child. As another great Tamil, S.Sivanayagam, put it in his recently published monumental work, Sri Lanka: Witness to History, the Tamil Times “changed hands midway and subsequently changed direction as well….. it was thought to be, by a wide spectrum of Tamil expatriates, no longer capable of speaking up for an oppressed Tamil nation with any conviction or courage”. When I discussed this with Jeyam at our last meeting a couple of years ago, I could see his eyes brimming with tears and could sense his disappointment and sadness. I first met this extraordinary man in 1984 when I was campaigning to draw international attention to the genocidal massacre of Tamil civilians in the Sri Lankan South whose only crime was that they were where they were. They had every right to be where they were since they and generations of their ancestors had made a major contribution to the development and prosperity of the Sinhala South, Colombo in particular. Jeyam had extensive contacts with British parliamentarians, especially in the House of Lords, and kept them informed of what the Tamils in Ceylon were going through. Among them were Dame Judith Hart and Lord Avebury, the latter being the author of the first of a series of damming Amnesty International Reports on human rights violations in Ceylon that first drew international attention to the magnitude of the problem in that country. These are not people whom you can readily see. When I went to London to lobby them and ask for their help to apprise the international community of what went on behind the censored doors of the Sri Lankan Government, all I had to do was to mention that I was “a friend of Jeyam Thamotheram”. In 1991 I had a call from the International Tamil Foundation inviting me as their guest speaker to address their annual sessions on The Abuse of Democracy in Sri Lanka. I thought it was completely crazy to go more than 15,000 km for a luncheon meeting. I was then told that Mr Thamotheram had specifically asked that I be invited. I was on my way. In the packed hall, the man who was responsible for the ITF itself and should have been on the podium, unobtrusively sat in the corridor. That was the nature of the man. I am sure that the scores of people who passed him had no idea of who he was and what he had done for the Tamil cause. After the meeting he suggested that we drive up to Cambridge to see a man who makes me proud to call myself a Sinhalese – Jeyam’s long-standing friend Adrian Wijemanne who has made such a major contribution to the struggle of the Tamil people. The next day we were on our way to see Adrian, who was too ill to come down to London for the meeting. The historic photograph of that meeting is in Sivanayagam’s book. I met C.J.T once more 2 years later, also at the annual ITF meeting, this one addressed by Gajan Ponnambalam MP. I was there as a visitor who had just ‘dropped in’. Jeyam would have none of it. He insisted that I take a place on the podium and make a contribution to the meeting. That was typically Jeyam. When I heard that he had passed away, I said that I was going for his funeral? What, all the way to England? “Yes”, I said, “I want to say that I was there”. He will be cremated in London on 4.11.05, the end of an extraordinary life. When God made Jeyam Thamotheram he must have thrown away the mould. It was my privilege to have been associated with this great man. A fitting tribute to him would be to work towards the goal which Jeyam had devoted the later years of his life – a Tamil homeland where Tamils can live in safety and without discrimination and domination by the brutal and racist regime in Colombo. Dr.Brian Senewiratne                                                      Australia

Mahinda Rajapakse - the Road to Disaster

The manifesto of Mahinda Rajapakse, presidential candidate of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), is an endorsement that a leopard (Sinhala political leaders) does not change its spots (the supremacy of the Sinhalese). It is instructive to know that despite the loss of more than 65,000 lives, a devastation of the country and serious questions about its future, the thinking of Sinhalese politicians has not changed. If such people are elected to power, neither has the thinking of the Sinhalese majority changed. It is not “instructive” for us, who have known this for years, but it is instructive for the international community which is still hallucinating that there is a genuine desire of the Sinhala leadership to reach a political settlement with the Tamil ‘minority’.

Rajapakse’s manifesto titled “Mahinda Chintana” (Mahinda’s thoughts) in the setting of agreements signed by him with so-called Marxists” (read political opportunists) in the JVP, and the extreme Sinhala chauvinists among the politically active Buddhist clergy (the JHU), is the clearest indication that the concept of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation, is alive and well. If that is the score, there is no alternative to the establishment of a Tamil Nation, Tamil Eelam.

In other pronouncements of “Mahinda’s thoughts”, he has said that the ongoing Ceasefire Agreement between the government and the LTTE will have to be ‘revised’ i.e. scrapped. The concept of self determination for the Tamils will have to be abandoned and with it, Federalism as a basis of a negotiated settlement. Mr Rajapakse does not seem to realise that the bottom line in the struggle to free the Tamil people from Sinhalese domination is the right of a people to self-determination. He should note that it is this same right of self-determination that enabled his ancestors to free themselves from British domination. By rejecting this right, he is effectively closing the door to a negotiated settlement.

Rajapakse’s ‘thoughts’ and their inevitable consequence (war) is reminiscent of another Sinhala political ‘leader’ J.R.Jayawardene, from the other side of the Sinhala political divide, the UNP. In the wake of the 1977 post-election massacre of Tamils, the newly elected Prime Minister Jayawardene told the devastated Tamils “If you want a fight, let there be a fight”, and went on to attribute this to the Sinhala people - “It is not what I am saying. The people of Sri Lanka say that”. Perhaps we should ask the people of Sri Lanka whether they did say “that”.

The comparison between Jayawardene (UNP) and Rajapakse (SLFP, now in an expanded group the UPFA), is important. What it means is that Sinhala politicians from the Green or Blue (and now even the Red) camp, are the same. They are Sinhala chauvinists with whom the Tamils cannot negotiate. That is not pessimism, it is realism based on historical fact.

Since Rajapakse has effectively closed the door to a negotiated settlement that will accommodate the aspirations of the Tamil people, he leaves no alternative to the Tamils other than to achieve this by force. If Rajapakse (and his bedfellows in the JVP and JHU) want war, (and it seems so), then war is what will occur – now or in the not-too-distant future. If/when it does, it will be a war for which Rajapakse will be responsible making. Let us be clear about that. Let this be made known to the International community, in particular the crucial aid-givers who are the Godfathers who enable the Sri Lankan government to buy the necessary weapons to destroy part of the population of that country.

The manifesto is replete with glorious words : “I am dedicated to building a ….just state…..”. What? Another “Just State”? I thought Jayawardene built one in 1977 when his election campaign promised a “dharmista” (just and righteous) society. When demagoguery was replaced by realpolitic in 1983, it meant the genocidal massacre of some 3,000 Tamil civilians in the Sinhala South. This was presumably was a pre-requisite to the establishment of a ‘Just” Sinhala nation. Jayawardene, by then the self-appointed President, told Ian Ward of the London Daily Telegraph “I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people now…..Now we cannot think of them, nor about their lives or their opinion about us”. These are the Sinhala ‘leaders’ with whom the Tamils are expected to negotiate.

Rajapakse dedicates himself to achieving an undivided country. If that is so, a prerequisite would be the removal of the Constitutional provision which effectively spells out a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. Will he do that? Not likely.

He goes on to ensure that the people will be free to practise their respective religions. Well, they already can do this - give or take the burning of many Christian churches, and the destruction of even more Hindu temples, some filled with refugees. However, the fact remains that the people have been free to practise their religions. Rajapakse need not “dedicate” himself to this. What he has to do is to ensure that the Tamil people can live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth and this, Rajapakse he has carefully avoided mentioning.

He also carefully avoids mentioning anything about addressing corruption - just as well, after dipping into the Tsunami funds to the tune of Rs.83 million (which he graciously returned in an attempt to avoid being prosecuted for fraud!). If the Sinhala people want crooks as their leaders, that is their problem. Why saddle the Tamil people with such leaders.

When Rajapakse “dedicates” himself to moulding a new Sri Lanka and creating a “prosperous peaceful country”, he will have to front up to some basic realities.

1. The Tamil people in the North and East have long since realised that they can never expect a fair deal under a unitary set-up where administrative and developmental power are entrenched in the hands of the numerically superior Sinhalese majority. If the deciding factor is the mere counting of heads and not equality of all its citizens, then a change is mandatory. A manifestation of this realization is the overwhelming mandate the Tamil people in the North and East gave their parliamentarians in 1977 to pursue the establishment of a Separate Tamil State. The brutality unleashed on these people (civilians) by a succession of Sinhala governments since 1977, in a determined attempt to crush them, has only hardened their resolve. So when Mr.Rajapakse “dedicates himself” to ensuring an undivided country, he is living in fantasy-land.

2. The Tamils have, in fact, established a Separate State in the Wanni which has its own administration, its own police, legal system and military. What is more, it seems to be far less corrupt and a far more efficient and organized administration than anything the Sinhala South has had for a quarter of a century or more. When the Sinhala South and their politicians finally wake up, they will find to their astonishment that a Tamil State has been functioning for years. What is left is for the Sinhala South to accept this reality and not fool themselves that a denial will make the reality of a Tamil State go away. It will not.

As for Mr Rajapakse and the Sinhala extremists and political opportunists in the JVP and JHU, they can hallucinate about an undivided country. If they plunge the country into war, they will be held responsible by the Sinhala people (whom they claim to represent) and the international community. He will also have to explain to the Sinhalese people why the bodies of rural youths, who will be called up to fight this war, are returning in body-bags.

What of the other side of the political divide - Ranil Wickremesinghe and his UNP? What if he becomes the next President? The Tamils do not need imagine that there will be a fundamental change. As I have said, a leopard does not change its spots. In 1983, when the Tamils were being butchered in Colombo, it was a young Minister in Jayawardene’s government who appeared on TV to say that Tamil businessmen deserved what they got. The Tamils would do well to identify that person. It is also worth remembering that after half a dozen non-productive Peace Talks and no peace–dividend for the Tamil people, the LTTE decided to abandon further peace talks “for the time being”, because Ranil Wickremesinghe (and his UNP) were dragging their feet in the implementation of what was agreed to.

What of the possibility of a so-called “National Government” (Wickremesinghe’s UNP and the Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga SLFP)? It is merely the amalgamation of two parties that have, for years, adopted more and more anti-Tamil measures to win the electoral support of the Sinhala majority. It was a combination of similar people who, in 1948, disenfranchised a million Plantation Tamils in one of the worst acts of political savagery the world has known. So let us not have any illusions that a “National Government” (read National Sinhala Government) is the answer.

The upcoming election is to elect a Sinhala President and that is a problem for the Sinhala people. It is not a problem for the Tamils. If the Sinhala people want crooks who may have had their hand in the Tsunami till as their President, that is their problem. If they want hoodlums who have wrecked the South in armed uprisings (in 1971 and again in 1989) with the murder of thousands of civilians who included University professors, leading professionals and charismatic Sinhala leaders such as President Kumaratunga’s husband, and an extensive destruction of infrastructure which included much-needed agricultural equipment, which be described as “the vandalisation of a country”, that is a choice for the Sinhalese. If they want Buddhist “monks” who are more comfortable preaching violence than the doctrine of Buddha, that is a problem for the Buddhists.

The Tamils have a problem. This is to develop the area under their control and carry this forward. The role of the international community is to assist this commendable activity. It is the role of the expatriate Tamil community to stop dreaming about a Tamil State and help in its building.

Dr. Brian Senewiratne                                                                 AUSTRALIA

EUROPEAN UNION & THE TAMIL STRUGGLE EU Credibility on the Line

I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka. I am a doctor of Medicine with no political affiliations or ambitions. I left Sri Lanka 30 years ago and the only reasons for my involvement are concerns that are humanitarian and the future of the country. I have had a longstanding interest in the on-going ethnic conflict, in particular, in achieving a solution which enables the Tamil ‘minority’ to live with equality, safety, dignity and without discrimination, in the country of their birth. I have supported the Tamil people in their struggle against a succession of Sri Lankan (read Sinhalese) governments who conceive of Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation which effectively excludes the Tamils, a concept that is even enshrined in the Constitution.

A fundamental problem is the failure to recognize the historical fact that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was not a single nation but three effectively separate kingdoms (nations), the Tamil Kingdom in the North, the Kandyan (Sinhalese) in the Centre, and the Low-Country (Sinhalese) Kingdom in the South. This separation existed for hundreds of years until the colonial British, for administrative convenience, unified the country.

When they quit (1948) they handed over the country to Governments that were, and will always be, dominated by the majority (74%) Sinhalese. Discrimination against the minorities, especially the industrious Tamils, was always a possibility, and was, in fact, articulated strongly by Tamil politicians when the British quit. This possibility became reality as competing Sinhalese political parties adopted more and more discriminatory policies against the Tamils in language, education, employment and the developmental neglect of the area in which the Tamils lived.

Over the next 50 years Tamil politicians have negotiated with a succession of Sri Lankan governments to address these problems. A series of pacts between the two groups have not been implemented, even torn up, unilaterally by the Sri Lankan government to gain the political support of the majority. The initial request of the Tamils was for a Federal State in the Tamil area. The response of the Government was to unleash violence on peaceful Tamil protests and to increase the discriminatory measures. It was then that the Tamils pressed for a Separate Tamil State (Eelam). It is important to appreciate that the Tamils are not trying to divide and destroy a country but to reverse a British colonial policy which had clearly not worked.

It was not the LTTE but the Tamil people who, in the 1977 General election(the last with a credible result) voted overwhelmingly for a Seperate Tamil State and gave their elected parliamentarians a mandate to pursue such a result. It was the abysmal failure of these elected representatives to make any headway using democratic means that resulted in the Tamil militants picking up arms to establish such a goal by force, much as what Nelson Mandela and the ANU did to get the racist South African government to abandon its policy of apartheid.

Had the Tamil militants not gone the way they did, the elected representatives of the Tamil people would still be grovelling at the feet of Sinhala politicians as they have done over the past 50 years. There would have been no Peace Talks or a search for any solution to address the problems faced by the Tamil ‘minority’. Had Mandela and his group not acted in the way they did to take on the South African government, apartheid would still be flourishing in South Africa. To White South African eyes, Mandela was a terrorist who should be jailed (and was), to international eyes he was a statesman who deserved a Nobel Prize (and got it). So also Yasser Arafat, another Nobel Prize winner, leader of the PLO whose acts of violence dwarfs anything that the LTTE have done.

If some of Sri Lanka’s political leaders who have directed the mass killings of Tamil civilians and the Heads of the Armed Forces who carried these out (which included mass ‘disappearances’ of those in their custody, some of whom were tortured and buried alive), are taken before the International Court in the Hague on a charge of genocide, I doubt if they will go unscathed.

The EU declaration

In the context outlined above, the recently released EU statement condemning one party ot the on-going negotiations puts the credibility of the EU on the line.

1. The declaration condemns the “continuing violence and terrorism of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)”. There is no condemnation by the EU of the much more serious violence and terrorism of the Sri Lankan armed forces and the paramilitary groups armed and supported by them.

Where were the EU nations when the armed forces launched an assault on Jaffna with half a million civilians (“Operation Thunder” followed by “Operation Riviressa” (Sun Ray)? Half a million people had to flee the city to escape the onslaught. The then UN Secretary General called on international governments to “assist the uprooted people of Jaffna”. Was this not government terrorism unleashed on the Tamil people in the North? Was this not an attempt by the Sri Lankan government to pursue a political goal, by what the EU itself describes as “totally unacceptable methods”. If so, why did the EU nations not condemn this in the same language that they have now thought fit to “declare”?

2. The EU declaration claims that “the present political goals of such totally unacceptable methods only serve to damage the LTTE’s standing and credibility as a negotiating partner”. But that is precisely what the Sri Lankan government has done over many years. The EU’s double standard is blatant hypocrisy.

3. The EU “repeats the condemnation of the shocking murder of Lakshman Kadirgamar….” For a start, there is no evidence that the LTTE were responsible unless the EU has some undisclosed information. It is more likely that the EU is acting as a mouthpiece for the Sri Lankan Government whose credibility has been questioned by internationally credible human rights groups over many years.

Could we ask the EU to turn to the shocking mass murder thousands of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces who have indiscriminately bombed and shelled Tamil civilians who had a right to be where they were i.e. peacefully living in their homes? It would appear that Tamil civilian lives are of lesser value (lesser mortals) to the EU.

4. The EU is “actively considering the formal listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organization”. Precisely what would this achieve? The exclusion of one of the main negotiators from the Conference Table? And what would that achieve?

The EU, in particular the UK “presently leading the EU”, should know that with IRA bombs exploding all over London, the British government banned the IRA. What did that achieve? Nothing. When the reality of being unable to negotiate with a banned organization dawned, the IRA was “de-banned”! The EU in general and the UK in particular, seem to have learned nothing from past blunders.

5. The EU “has agreed that with immediate effect, delegates from the LTTE will no longer be received in any of the EU Member States…” What exactly is the EU trying to achieve? To opt out of facilitating a negotiated settlement? Is that acceptable behaviour of a supposedly responsible body?

6. The EU has agreed that member States will “take necessary measures to check and curb illegal and undesirable activities (including issues of funding and propaganda) by the LTTE”. What about issues of funding, propaganda and of even greater concern, the supply of weapons to the Sri Lankan government? Is the ‘end use’ of such military assistance for a country to fight and destroy its own people, of no concern to the EU? It would appear so from the recent partisan declaration of the EU.

7. "...The EU “calls on the LTTE not least to take immediate public steps to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process and the willingness to change”. For the record, it was the LTTE that initiated the Ceasefire even befor the then Sri Lankan Government did so. The EU needs to check its facts. Would the EU call on the Sri Lankan government ”to demonstrate …. willingness to change” by abandoning its declared policy that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese Buddhist nation despite the fact that Sri Lanka is a multiethnic, multicultural and multi religious country, and repeal sections of the Constitution in which this is guaranteed? If not, why not?.."

The reality

It is time that the EU recognized the reality on the ground. Whether one considers the LTTE to be Liberation/Freedom Fighters or Terrorists, two things are crystal clear.

The first is that they are here to stay. They will not go away, be bombed out or “smashed”. That will not happen, indeed the opposite. They have grown from an insignificant group whose very existence was doubted in the early 1970s to one of the most powerful and best organized military organizations in the world. They have also established a de facto State in the area under their control (Wanni) which is far more efficient than anything in the Sinhalese area and infinitely more honest and free from corruption. The handling of the recent Tsunami disaster was evidence of this and was commended by several NGOs.

The second is that the LTTE is a key player in any negotiated settlement of the ethnic problem. It is not a “marginal player” that can be, isolated, antagonized or banned. Those who cannot appreciate this are living in the land of make-believe

To claim that the LTTE are the cause of the problem is arrant nonsense. The LTTE is not the cause of the problem but the result. The cause of the problem is Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-religious chauvinism – this destructive concept that multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural Sri Lanka is a Sinhala-Buddhist nation which effectively excludes the Tamils. If that is so, then there is no option to the establishment of a Tamil nation.

The timing of the declaration

The EU declaration is not only seriously flawed but its timing is disastrous. Sri Lanka is facing a critical period. Prime Minister Rajapakse, who is the Government-favoured Presidential candidate, has just signed a pact with the so-called Marxist JVP (read ‘political opportunists’) who have done so much damage to Sri Lanka (in two insurrections in1971 and in 1988) and the politically active Buddhist clergy who, by their ethno-religious chauvinism have prevented any solution to the problems faced by the Tamils. These extremists and opportunists have declared their crucial support to Mr. Rajapakse on condition that he tears up the Peace Pact and abandons the Tsunami relief to the Tamil areas. The recent EU declaration will give enormous support to these extremists and strengthen their hand. If these extremist forces triumph, it will be the restart of war and the total destruction of the country or what is left of it. Should this happen, the EU countries cannot absolve themselves from blame.

The EU can make a number of substantial contributions to facilitate the peace process in Sri Lanka. Issuing irresponsible ‘declarations’ will not be one.

Dr.Brian Senewiratne                                                                     Australia

One Party State in Sri Lanka: Political Ideology - Anti Tamil

Recent revelations have confirmed that there may be several political parties in the Sinhala South, but only one ideology – being anti-Tamil. There is the right wing United National Party (UNP), the supposedly socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the so-called “Marxist” Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Marxists of yester-year, the Lanka Sama Samaga Party (LSSP), the political party of not-so-clean-shaven men in yellow robes, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and many more of their ilk. In reality they are all different names for one party policy – anti-Tamil.

The only difference between these parties is the degree of their ‘anti-Tamilness’. It extends from the extreme anti-Tamil chauvinism of the JHU based on a ‘pure’ Sinhala-Buddhist State, followed closely behind by the anti-Tamil JVP based on political opportunism which has replaced their Marxism, the ‘not-to-be-left-behind’ ex-Marxists in the LSSP, and the anti-Tamil stance of the two main Sinhala parties, the SLFP and the UNP. Every one of these parties without exception tries to outdo each other in their ‘anti-Tamilness’ to secure the electoral support of the Sinhala majority which they hope will propel them to political power (the passport to mega-corruption in Sri Lanka).

This anti-Tamil game has been played since Independence, indeed well before that. While still under British rule, Sinhala politicians even decided to have a pan-Sinhalese Board of Ministers, excluding the Tamils despite the fact that they had some outstanding Tamil politicians supporting the Government, some even in it. The alarm bells should have rung then. However there is no point in bells ringing if there are no ears open to hear them. The ears were shut, and these included those of the British who were more interested in leaving the country in the hands of Sinhalese capitalists who would play ball with them. Safeguarding the interests of the Tamil people was as far from British thinking as was their land from Ceylon, as it then was.

It is this single factor, this obsessive anti-Tamil populism, that has prevented the building of a nation. After 57 years of Independence, Sri Lanka is still a State with two warring nations, a Sinhala nation and a Tamil nation. The country had been unable to emerge as a single nation thanks to the lack of vision, and of integrity, of a succession of Sinhala politicians. This has not been recognized by the international community because of a massive propaganda campaign mounted by successive Sri Lankan governments, especially in the last three decades. What exists is a Sinhala-Buddhist State that has effectively excluded the Tamils who form some 18% of the population.

It is not possible to look at the future without looking at the past. I therefore make no apology for doing so. In the run-up to Independence, two groups of anti-Tamil Sinhala chauvinists (Senanayake and Bandaranaike) sunk their minimal differences and combined to form the UNP. They then sucked in some ‘hopeful’ Tamils (who blindly hoped that a single nation was a possibility), to present a united front to the British. The British were not unaware of the ethnic tensions and serious Tamil fears of discrimination under Sinhala rule after they left, but were ‘happy to be bluffed’.

This charade of Sinhala-Tamil unity started falling apart within months of Independence when the anti-Tamilness of the Sinhala leadership showed its hand. In one of the first acts of Independent Ceylon, a million Plantation Tamils were disenfranchised and decitizenised in one of the worst acts of political savagery in modern times, indeed of any time.

A few Tamils saw the writing on the wall and split from the UNP to form the (Tamil) Federal Party recognising that a Federal Tamil State was necessary for co-existence with the Sinhalese.

Following the breakup of Senanayake’s UNP because of the personal ambitions of one man, S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, the current President’s father, the Sinhala voter had a choice between a blatantly anti-Tamil SLFP under Bandaranaike and the equally anti-Tamil UNP under Senanayake. Political power has regularly oscillated between the UNP and the SLFP based, not on any material difference in policy, but on the degree of anti-Tamil measures on offer to the Sinhala majority.

As the anti-Tamil measures adopted by successive Sinhala ‘leaders’ came into effect, the numbers in the Tamil Federal Party swelled and the demand for a Federal Tamil State was replaced by a call for a Separate Tamil State, Eelam. Eelam is effectively the creation of Sinhala politicians with no vision and no interest in nation-building.

The blatant anti-Tamil stance of the SLFP under Bandaranaike, his wife and daughter have been matched by a similar anti-Tamil stance by the UNP under Senanayake, Jayawardene and Wickremasinghe (all of them kinsmen).

Over the years, Tamil political parties have merely been suckers who have been conned into supporting one or other of the main Sinhala parties, which were trying to get into power and then being ignored once they did.

The plight of the Tamil civilians has been pathetic. They have been subjected to mass murder, bombing with a total destruction of their property, rape, arrest and detention without charge or trial, “disappearances”, torture – in fact every human rights violation that has filled the publications of internationally credible human rights organizations for the past three decades. Even the former UN Secretary General has expressed concern at what has been done to the Tamil people. Yet, the world has done nothing other than to arm the Sri Lankan Government to bomb and kill its own people.

With a succession of General Elections in the recent past, I have repeatedly pointed out that Sri Lankan Elections are to elect a Sinhala Parliament – the Tamils being no more than spectators, if that.

The country now faces a Presidential Election to elect a Sinhala President. It is not an issue for the Tamils although they are nearly a fifth of the population. The two leading Sinhala candidates – Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, the SLFP nominee, and ex-Prime Minister Ranil Wckremasinghe, the UNP nominee, are as anti-Tamil as each other.

Rajapakse’s anti-Tamil stance has been obvious, made even more so after he signed a pact with the anti-Tamil extremists in the JVP and JHU. The blatant anti-Tamil acts of the out-going President, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the leader of Rajapakse’s party, are too well known to be detailed here. Her 12 year rule has been described as the worst the country has ever had. If her nominee, Rajapakse, succeeds her in next week’s ballot, it will be more of the same, perhaps worse.

From the other side of the Sinhala political divide, Wickremasinghe’s anti-Tamil stance, has recently been clearly exposed by two UNP stalwarts. Naveen Dissanayake, the son of a former UNP Presidential hopeful, has recently boasted that it was the UNP which engineered a split in the Tamil Tigers by ‘arranging’ for the renegade Tiger commander Karuna to break away from the Tigers. The report claims that this had the full support of Wickremasinghe who had signed a Peace Pact with the Tigers and was supposedly negotiating with them.

The sordid details are interesting but of little importance. One of Wickremasinghe’s nominated MPs, a Muslim from the volatile East, ‘arranged’ the split in the Tamil Tiger camp by offering various rewards to a Tiger leader from the East to break ranks. The MP has left the country for greener pastures, so has the family of the renegade, now luxuriating in a house in Malaysia, generously provided by the Sri Lankan government using tax-payers’ money. What has been left behind is a complete mess in the East, the new ‘killing fields’ of Sri Lanka. In effect a match was tossed into a tinder box, which was the ethnically volatile East. The ethnic flames may well be uncontrollable, even with the unlikely possibility of the introduction of an international peace-enforcing force. Such are the irresponsible acts of Sri Lankan ‘leaders’. Small wonder the country is in a mess. With leaders such as this, who needs enemies?

Dissanayake goes on to explain Wickremasinghe’s strategy to deal with the Tigers – to get the Americans and the Indians to fight the Tigers should the war restart. Apparently this was arranged with George Bush and Sonia Gandhi when Wickremasinghe was Prime Minister, despite his peace pact and on-going peace negotiations with the Tigers. Presumably, inviting the Indians to take the oil tank facility in Trincomalee on the Eastern seaboard, was part of Wickremasinghe’s ‘strategy’. The Indians can now be invited to defend their property, in the process killing even more Tamils than they did when Rajiv Gandhi marched his troops into Northern Sri Lanka at the invitation of Wickremasinghe’s kinsman, the then President J.R.Jayawardena. The actors are different but the games are the same.

Dissanayake’s claims were confirmed by Milinda Moragoda, a close confidante of Wickremasinghe, who was a member of the UNP government’s negotiating team for talks with the Tigers between September 2002 and March 2003. If evidence of Sinhala duplicity is needed, there it is in full measure.

What amazes me, a Sinhalese, with no political barrow to push, or reward to gain, is that the Tamils, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, still feel that it is possible for the Tamil people to negotiate with the Sinhala government of whatever political complexion, to enable them to live in equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. As I have said, the Sinhala political parties, irrespective of their label, have in effect one political ideology – of being totally and shamelessly anti-Tamil. This anti-Tamil outfit has now put forward two Presidential candidates who are two sides of the same coin. ‘Heads” the Sinhalese win, ‘Tails’ the Tamils lose.

If anti-Tamil candidates are all that the Sinhala polity can come up with, and the inevitable outcome, an anti-Tamil President and a Sinhala State of which he is the President, then there can be no alternative to the establishment of a separate Tamil State, Eelam. It confounds me that .. the international community, cannot see this stark reality. This article is written in the hope that they will. A remote possibility, since there are none as blind as those who will not see.

Dr. Brian Senewiratne                                                         Australia

The Situation in Muthur

Refugee camp in Muthur

I enclose, with minimal comment, a letter I have just received. I think it is from a former student of mine.  The only comment I will make is that what is going on in Trincomalee is, in my book,  “mass murder’ or even ‘genocide’. One could ‘dress’ these up and call them by some other name eg ‘fighting terrorism’, ‘defending the nation’ etc, but mass killing is mass killing, genocide is genocide, whatever the dressing.  It is for us to point this out to the international community which continues to supply the gun boats, bombs and rockets for these atrocities to continue. 

Can I comment further on this letter? Of course I can but I will not do so in any detail. I will leave it to you to decide, now that I have drawn your attention to the facts on the ground. I will only make few observations which you might not appreciate. 

1. What the Sri Lankan Armed Forces are doing in Trincomalee is not “bad”, it is much worse than “bad”. It is not cruelty, it is beyond cruelty and into the realm of barbarism or savagery, take your pick. By extension, those who direct such behavior and/or are in a position to stop such atrocities, are guilty of the same.  

Am I accusing President Rajapakse of barbarism? Yes I am. Am I accusing President Kumaratunga of barbarism a la the bombing of Jaffna with half a million people in 1995 and the 'disappearances' of people who have been held without charge or trial in custody, their bodies subsequently recovered from mass in Chemmani? Yes I am. Do I believe the Sri Lankan Army Corporal, a Sinhalese, I might add, when he gave evidence under oath in the Supreme Court in the Krishanthy murder trial, that he and his fellow soldiers were asked to bury people (it was he who told us where they were buried) who were not yet dead? Yes I do.  Am I accusing President Jayawardene of barbarism a la the July 1983 massacre of Tamil civilians in Colombo when he and his cronies opted to watch the massacre or even encourage it? Yes I am. 

Let us not try to do some ‘dressing up’ to make these (including what is now going on in Trinco), look better than they are. Let us tell it like it is. This is barbaric. Full stop. End of story. Amen. 

2. If the Sinhala South wants to be ruled by a barbaric regime, that is their choice. There is no need for the people in the North and East to be ruled by this same regime. The latter have voted overwhelmingly for a separate Tamil State ( at the 1977 Elections). There is no evidence to date that they have changed their mind, Mr Karuna not withstanding. 

Will the Tamils be better off under the LTTE? I do not know. What I do know is that they cannot possibly beworse off. As I have said in an earlier communication, a recent (2005) survey in the Government-controlled areas in the North East, showed that some 85% of people wanted the ISGA implemented i.e. to be ‘ruled’ by the LTTE. Are they wise or mad? I do not know, but it is their choice. Had such a study been conducted in the LTTE-controlled area, I’d say the result would be somewhere near 100%. That is speculation, so shall we have a vote? And will the international community force the Sri Lankan Government to accede to the wishes of the people, as shown by that vote? If not, then there is no point getting the information. 

3. To negotiate with such a regime is an exercise in futility, comparable with the folly of prolonged negotiations with the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime. All that it achieves is for the Sinhala regime to be given time to enhance its destructive power, the evidence of which was seen in Jaffna in 1995. We are going down the same road, with predictably the same results. I have no doubt that the LTTE realises this. Our role is to make sure that the International community knows this. That is where we, in the expatriate community, have failed so miserably. 

4. There is concern, justifiably so, of child recruitment by the LTTE. Just look at the right column in the table given below – the children under 5 years of age who are going though what they are.  That is where the LTTE recruits are going to come. I can be sure of 3 certain recruits. These are the 3 children who watched their mother bleed to death with a severed hand, the ICRC desperately trying to get her to Trincomalee Hospital, and being not allowed to do so by the Army. There, for sure, are three ready-made recruits for the LTTE, the ‘Black Tigers’ and the suicide squad. 

5. The Sinhala Government is too stupid to realise that Eelam is not a creation of the Tamils or even of the LTTE. It is a creation of Sinhala ethno-religious chauvanism and State brutality. The division of the country is not going to come because the Tamils wanted it, but because it was forced on them by the abysmal stupidity of a succession of Sinhala Governments since Independence, especially since 1956. It is too late now to turn the clock back. Indeed, the events now unfolding in Trincomalee are turning the clock forward at a spectacular rate."..The Sinhala Government is too stupid to realise that Eelam is not a creation of the Tamils or even of the LTTE. It is a creation of Sinhala ethno-religious chauvanism and State brutality. The division of the country is not going to come because the Tamils wanted it, but because it was forced on them by the abysmal stupidity of a succession of Sinhala Governments since Independence, especially since 1956. It is too late now to turn the clock back. Indeed, the events now unfolding in Trincomalee are turning the clock forward at a spectacular rate..."

My first reaction on reading the letter I received was to catch the first plane and get to Trinco to be with my people in their greatest hour of need. Yes, they are my people although they speak a different language. However, I think that I will be of greater use to them if I stay alive here than go to Trinco and be killed like my friend Joseph Pararajasingham.

The very least I can do for these people, who are paying for what they have not done, is to apprise the International community of what is going on. This is what I tried to do in my earlier article on The killing of innocents in Sri Lanka(27.4.06). Here is now a Report from the ground, the ‘ground reality’. You can do what you like with it. If it is going to the dustbin, let it go. If mass murder and genocide are acceptable, so be it.

Attention of Dr Brian Senewiratne                                Muthur.      5 May 2006 The situation in Muthur Dear Dr Senewiratne, Despite the chaos here, we have seen your recent article on the killing of innocents in Trincomalee. We are grateful you, a Sinhalese, for pointing this out, when the so-called Monitoring Mission does not seem to have the guts to do so. We are sending you some facts and figures to apprise you of the extent of the suffering. People in Muthur are being displaced some 15 km to areas of supposed safety. I doubt if any place here is safe. It certainly does not seem so from what has happened so far. People are on the road, literally camped under trees. I enclose a photograph but I have far worse ones which I am not sending you for obvious reasons. A few days ago, people with no where to go and tired of wandering about, decided to move back since the bombing seemed to have stopped. But then the shelling from the Naval boats started again, and the people are going back to ‘safe places’ again. The SL military is preventing people from moving to safe areas, both in Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Sampoor Hospital, which is the nearest hospital to these people, is essentially closed because there are no doctors. Eachchilampattu Hospital is the same. Doctors are understandably reluctant to come because of the bombing.   The LTTE Thileepan mobile medical service is giving emergency medical and wound care, but there is a limit to what they can do. You would have read that a mother of three children died of bleeding following the severing of her hand by a missile. ICRC tried to carry her to Trincomalee but was stopped by the Sri Lankan Army and she bled to death. Here are some statistics from Health Care Centres in the region which you might have already seen: Location Families Individuals Under 5  years of age 1.Thankapuram 402 1308 75  2. Partarlipuram 1505 4660 175 3. Nallur 189 615 unknown number 4. Illankai thurai 674 2470 240 5. Punnaiyadi 507 1911 96  6. Kalladi 145 425 26  7. Verukal  298 1680 61  Total 3720 13069 673+  This is the same area which has been devastated by the Tsunami and about which the Sri Lankan Government, despite claims to the contrary, has done absolutely nothing. They are now being bombed by Forces of the same Government. Doctor, we really have no one to turn to. The children and infants are in real risk of dying unless help arrives fairly soon.Thank you, doctor, for what you have done to tell the world of our plight. Kind regards Sivakumaran

Solving the Ethnic Problem - Foreigners Have the Answer

I have been going through my analysis “Sri Lanka.The Peace cannot be abandoned” written after the January 2002 Ceasefire and still on the net, looking at the current impasse and where we are heading. I was about to put pen to paper to analyse the events that have occurred in the past three years, with the Ranil Wickremasinghe Government dragging its feet, the failure of the Kumaratunga Government to even move its feet, and the JVP threat to derail the Government if it did, and finally the post-tsumani reconstruction effort which treated the devastated Tamil area in a step-motherly fashion, if that. Where do the Tamils stand? What are their options? Is it to wait in hopeful anticipation, something they have done for years? Is it to watch the Sri Lankan Armed Forces go on yet another military hardware buying spree, tsunami or no tsunami? To watch and wait while their people starve? What are their options?


Trying to get an article together, I had a sudden wind-fall. It had all been done, far better than anything I could have produced. By whom? A foreigner, Ms Verena Graf, Secretary General of the International League for he Rights and Liberation of Peoples. This is a Geneva based NGO with Special Consultative Status at the United Nations. Here is what she said at the 61st Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights on Friday 19 March 2005.


The Tamils in Sri Lanka 


"The hopes for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Sri Lanka in the wake of the ceasefire agreement of February 2002 between the then government and the LTTE as sole authentic representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils have largely proved illusory. 


"Long before disaster struck the island on December 26, 2004, negotiations had been suspended, cooperation largely ceased in the face of the continued occupation of huge tracts of land in the North East by the Sri Lankan army in the name of 'high security zones', of hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons waiting in vain to be able to return to their homes, of lack of investment for the reconstruction of the destroyed countryside. 


"The new government that came to power in 2004 has not advanced the peace process, on the contrary it contains parties totally opposed to any negotiated settlement. If anything, the tsunami that has particularly affected the coastal areas in the North East, already suffering from war related destruction and very poor in comparison to the rest of country, has worsened the situation. 


"While it galvanised the common people of all communities to come to each others‘ help, the government did not follow suit. Instead of a joined effort at reconstruction and national integration the international aid has been instrumentalised for political purposes. In the name of relief measures, the distribution of aid and the planning for reconstruction have been highly centralised in the president’s office and handpicked committees at the expense of the immediate victims, including local NGOs or the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation working in the LTTE controlled areas. 


"International media accounts as well as local parliamentarians have complained of government inefficiency, if not outright discrimination of the people in the North East, that includes Tamils and Muslims. More over, emergency regulations have been reintroduced, and the army put in charge of the welfare centres. Following the most recent official arms‘ purchases or the government‘s refusal to allow the UN Secretary General in early January to visit LTTE controlled areas devastated by the tsunami, have further raised suspicion that the government‘s true intentions aim not just at isolating the Tamils and their leaders but to use the catastrophe to change the balance of forces on the ground and to effectively renounce any negotiations. 


"In the Norwegian facilitated peace talks, the LTTE had agreed to renounce for the time being the Sri Lankan Tamils' right as a nation for an independent homeland Tamil Eelam and to explore the possibilities to redress decades of collective discrimination within the frame-work of large-scale internal autonomy. 


"The developments during the last three years compounded by the post-tsunami experiences raise the spectre that time is running out; that there is no hope for the Tamils within a united Sri Lanka, that their only chance lies in fighting for external self-determination." 


Ms Graf has got it right first shot! What she said could have been said, indeed much of it has been said, by Adrian Wijemanne, Subramaniam Sivanayagam, Wakeley Paul, Satchi Sri Kantha, Kumar Ponnambalam, Brian Senewiratne, and numerous others. But they are all “Tigers”! Thank God the above quoted gem came from someone who could not possibly be a Tiger or a Tigress.


Two things are important:


1. That we go in search of other ‘Verena Grafs’. They sure are around. It is only a question of contacting them and soliciting their help. Arundhati Roy, the outstanding Indian author and human rights activist, one of the best brains in India who is not afraid to say things that have to be said, Bishop Desmond Tutu who has, for years, expressed serious concern at what is going on in Sri Lanka, Malcolm Frazer, former Prime Minister of Australia, who has increased in stature in leaps and bounds after he quit politics, the outstanding former Irish President and later the head of the UN Human Rights Commission, the incomparable Mary Robinson, are just a few who spring to mind. I am sure there are many more. They are the people who are in a position to generate international pressure, particularly on the crucial ‘aid givers’. Rather than hallucinate about ‘Peace’ in Sri Lanka and then being surprised when fighting breaks out again, this is what we should be doing.


2. That we send a copy of Verena Graf’s 2005 presentation to every member of Parliament in whatever country we live.


Let us get this straight. Without sustained and massive international pressure, not a speech here and a speech there, we will get nowhere. It is this type of pressure that enabled the outrageous apartheid policy in South Africa to be dismantled. It is this that is needed if Sri Lanka is to be saved from total destruction, both physical and economic.


If we do nothing and wait for Eelam War 4 or 5 or whatever it is (I have lost count) to break out, we are as guilty as the JVP, the politically active Buddhist clergy, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Arms dealers who are currently in the economic doldrums, and President Chandrika Kumaratunga whose prime interest is in manipulating the situation to continue her political career rather than doing what has to be done to achieve, not just ‘Peace’ but ‘Peace with Justice’ in Sri Lanka. Let us not claim that we have no role to play. We have a vital role, which we prefer to ignore, since it is more convenient to put the blame on someone else. It is pathetic when we demand from politicians and political opportunists a level of integrity and responsibility which they simply do not possess. 


Brian Senewiratne                                                                   Brisbane, Australia