By Nadira Gunatilleke
DailyNews.lk
December 11, 2013
Today,
the TNA is radicalizing and militarizing the Tamil youth: terrorism
will emerge unless Sri Lanka takes firm action against fanatics like
Sritharan glorifying terrorist-criminals. Taking action will deter the
emergence of fanatics like Sritharan in the future! Even after a huge
loss of human lives, Sritharan continued to inflame racial passions.
Like Sritharan, a few other racist leaders in the TNA suffer from an
inferiority complex.
Incapable of transcending their racial passions, it is they who want to emulate Prabhakaran, Prof. Rohan Gunaratne told the Daily News during a recent interview.
Professor Rohan Gunaratna is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore and he is the author of Inside Al-Qaeda (Columbia University, New York, 2002). Prof. Gunaratna is the lead author of Pakistan: Ground Zero Terrorism (Reaktion, London, 2011).
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Sri Lanka will take part in March 2014 UNHRC session and with the HR gains that we have made and new initiatives on the diplomatic front, how can Sri Lanka ensure a better acquittal at the sessions even if it will be dominated by the Western agenda?
A: Geneva is no longer an exercise in human rights but in geopolitics and superpower politics. After the colossal loss of human lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, the West has lost their moral right to pinpoint the finger at others. British Prime Minister David Cameron did not raise human rights issues during his recent visit to China and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his recent visit to Indonesia. If they intended to do so, they would have not been welcomed either by China or by Indonesia. The people in those countries would have immediately labeled them hypocrites after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was not human rights but domestic political compulsions that forced the Canadian, British, Mauritian and Indian leaders to take a certain stand at CHOGM. Except the Indian leader, all the others met with the LTTE front, cover and sympathetic groups. The Tamil vote in the UK and Canada has been mobilized by the LTTE to exercise constituency pressure on Cameron and Harper! In Mauritius and in Tamil Nadu, the LTTE pressurized the co-ethnics. Today, Sri Lanka is an easy target of the West and Sri Lanka should fight back but intelligently by exposing the duality of Western policy. Did the West raise human rights concerns about the violations in Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer and Bahrain, where the US maintains a military presence? With the shift in global power from the West to the East, the Western nations use human rights as a weapon but selectively. Nonetheless, Sri Lanka should plan meticulously for the March 2014 UNHRC session. The Sri Lankan response should focus on the progress it has made since May 2009.
Q: There is a call for the setting up of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sri Lanka, on the lines of the one set up by the late South African leader Nelson Mandela. Is this a practical suggestion or is the work done by the LLRC enough?
A: The LLRC is comparable to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The conditions in every country are unique and one should not impose the South African TRC on Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government and its partners should continue to implement the remaining recommendations of the LLRC. The spirit of both these commissions is similar. It is restorative justice – it is to restore life rather punitive justice – punish the perpetrators of violence. Of 12,000 terrorists, the government has rehabilitated and reintegrated 11,600 terrorists. Although they conducted border village massacres, placed bombs in public places, assassinated leaders and attacked the Security Forces, they were not imprisoned. After successful rehabilitation, they live peacefully, having returned to their families, joined university, or found government or private sector employment. The Government should continue to highlight the remarkable progress it has made to resettle in recorded time 283,000 IDPs, remove 500,000 mines, and economically develop the North and East. Although in the South, there are poorer areas as affected as the Vanni, the North grew at 22 per cent and the rest of the country at 7 per cent, but, no Sinhalese or Muslim protested.
Q: One suggestion of the LLRC was to conduct a census on the war dead, not just in the last phase but throughout the war period from 1982 onwards. How do you think this will help Sri Lanka’s cause in the international arena?
A: A census on the war dead since Velupillai Prabhakaran murdered the Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duraiapah in 1975 should be conducted. This will help Sri Lanka to set the record straight and also ask the question what did the British government do when the LTTE attacked the Sri Maha Bodhiya in Anuradhapura and massacred the monks, nuns, pilgrims and bystanders in 1985? Did David Cameron’s predecessor close down the LTTE International Secretariat in London? One of the worst human rights violators, the former LTTE Jaffna leader Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu was head of the secretariat in London. From the UK, he engaged in extortion to providing the crucial support for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination masterminded by Prabhakaran. Although Kittu was served the quit notice, the LTTE remained in the UK and its new leaders initiated the procurement of 50 tones of TNT and 10 tones of RDX killing Sri Lankan leaders, security personnel, civilians and blowing up infrastructure, property and vehicles. The UK neglected the presence of a huge terrorist support infrastructure that led to the radicalization of Tamil migrants and eventually infiltration of the British political system. Today, the same and new LTTE leaders and activists have organized themselves into the Global Tamil Forum.
Q: Sri Lanka has been accused of dilly dallying on investigations into certain conflict-related killings. Do you think Sri Lanka needs to do more to investigate these and if necessary counter any false or evidence-less claims?
A: Sri Lanka should investigate the killings in the North and South and identify its advocates, supporters and perpetrators. How practical is it to bring the 11,600 rehabilitated terrorist criminals to justice? A third left for overseas including 3,000 now living in Australia! From the earlier migrations, over 6,000 Sri Lankan terrorists are now Canadian citizens. Nearly 800 recently migrated terrorists live in Canada. Will the British prosecute or extradite Adele Balasingham, advisor to the LTTE women’s wing ? Will the US extradite or prosecute LTTE Central Committee member Vishvanathan Rudrakumaran, TGTE leader? Will Norway extradite or prosecute Perinpanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyawan, bodyguard of Prabhakaran and leader of the LTTE International Secretariat? Will Germany extradite or prosecute S. J. Emmanuel who justified suicide bombing, and leader of the Global Tamil Forum? Will France extradite or prosecute Vinayagam, the mastermind of the international airport attack and now leader of LTTE Headquarters’ group? Investigate, yes, bring them to justice, unlikely!
Q: The LTTE remnant leaders and lobby have shown signs of becoming stronger and their hand was clearly shown in relation to the British PM’s recent visit to the North and his call for an international probe while some others say our foreign missions need to do more. What do you think should be done to rectify this situation?
A: After the defeat of the LTTE in May of 2009, the Sri Lankan government made a monumental mistake. Like KP was brought home, government should file cases to bring the LTTE remnant leaders from overseas to Sri Lanka. It is not too late to execute international warrants against those who are still active! There is intelligence that most of those who are active internationally today are engaged in terrorist support and operational activity. As the government neglected this responsibility, the LTTE activists that funded terror and violence in Sri Lanka have persisted. Although terrorists are the world’s worst human rights violators, many terrorist activists reinvented themselves as human rights activists. As much as the LTTE was ruthless, it was deceptive. Today, the LTTE leaders wear three piece suits and parade in the corridors of power from the UN in New York to 10 Downing Street. It’s ironic but true, but, they hold meetings in the US Department of State, lobby British Parliamentarians, campaign as human rights activists in Geneva. Using votes and funds, they lure and trap politicians who really do not care for either Sri Lanka or human rights! As Wikileaks reported, David Miliband, who wanted the offensive against the LTTE halted, was driven by constituency pressure not by his concern for the Tamils! Sri Lanka’s criminal justice and prisons system should respond legally against LTTE remnants seeking to recuperate, mount a targeted strategic communications campaign in Tamil to reach out to the diasporas, and diplomatically reengage Western governments and leaders.
Q: From Sri Lanka’s side, Australia has taken a positive point of view in relation to LTTE activity and wartime incidents. At the same time, there is a notion articulated by the Opposition that Sri Lanka should warm up to the West generally, may be by taking certain HR related steps that could win their favour, given that most of these countries had banned the LTTE early on. What is your comment?
A: The former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, a principled leader, realized Sri Lanka had defeated a brutal terrorist insurgency. Without getting carried away by constituency compulsions and joining the Western bandwagon, Senator Carr engaged Sri Lanka. Harper and Camaron can learn from the diplomacy of Carr and his successor Julie Bishop, the incumbent Australian Foreign Minister. Both Bishop and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott built trust and has more leverage in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Parliamentary Opposition is right in its call for government to restore its relations with the West. Rather than engage in confrontational politics, the Government and parliamentary opposition should develop a bipartisan approach on national security and foreign policy matters.
Q: The Indian factor is very important for Sri Lanka. But pro-LTTE elements seem to have taken the upper hand in Tamil Nadu, which has affected policy making at the Centre. Any views on how this situation can be rectified?
A: The relationship between New Delhi and Colombo is “excellent” according to the Indian government. Sri Lanka’s security is tied to the political developments in Tamil Nadu. Today, the deterioration of the law and order situation and the terrorist-criminal-political nexus in Tamil Nadu is affecting Sri Lanka. The LTTE led gangs in Tamil Nadu attacked Sri Lankan pilgrims, Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, and threatened the Sri Lankan mission in Chennai. The same gangs paraded huge cut outs of Prabhakaran, organized political and fund raising events, and established safe houses to manufacture IEDs. The LTTE has rebuilt a base in Tamil Nadu and are pressurizing Manmohan Singh. To politically survive, the Prime Minister of India is dancing to the tune of Tamil Nadu politicians. Sri Lanka should understand this reality and help New Delhi and not criticize Singh for his non participation in CHOGM.
The Sri Lankan President should give the highest priority to normalizing ties with Tamil Nadu leaders. Although the Tamil Nadu leaders supporting the LTTE are among the most corrupt, Sri Lanka should restore relations with and engage the state of Tamil Nadu. One must never forget that Tamil Nadu was not only the main source of virulent Tamil nationalism, but, the training base for the LTTE. Colombo should build its biggest diplomatic mission in Chennai and engage the Tamil Nadu government and civil society leaders by inviting them to visit Sri Lanka. Further, Colombo should build a capacity in Tamil language to counter the distorted picture Tamil Nadu politicians are giving its citizens about Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Navy should call for joint patrolling with the Indian Navy-Coast Guard to deter Indian trawlers engaged in bottom-line trawling totally destroying Sri Lanka’s marine ecosystem and habitat. As much as Sri Lanka should get its act together of intercepting any foreign vessel that crosses into its waters, New Delhi should address this issue.
If the Indian government and Tamil Nadu state governments are genuinely interested in uplifting the quality of Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen, it must stop illegal fishing carried out by Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters! If India is sincere in maintaining good relations with its neighbours, it must put a stop to its fishermen in the south crossing into Sri Lankan waters and even worse, using bottom line trawling! How can India aspire to be a regional power, let alone a superpower if it cannot control a few thousand of its fishermen engaging in illicit poaching?
Q: The NPC has again called for the withdrawal of the Army from the North and the appointment of a civilian governor soon after an MP glorified Prabhakaran in Parliament. Do you think there is a revival of LTTE-inspired sentiments in Sri Lanka as well and in any case can the military presence in the North be reduced?
A: The Sri Lankan government should initiate an investigation against anyone calling for the withdrawal of the Army from the North and they will find the hidden hand of the LTTE. With the military in the North, there will be no Tamil Eelam. While the Police should engage in day-to-day law and order functions, the military should remain in strength in the North to ensure security. As long as the LTTE remains active in Tamil Nadu, operates in the West, and its proxy the TNA is in power in the North, Sri Lanka should ensure a robust security presence in the North and East. Otherwise, like terrorism reemerged in Iraq and Afghanistan after the US declared victory, terrorism will reemerge in Sri Lanka. After the defeat of the LTTE, the strategy of the LTTE remnants and TNA is identical.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act is insufficient to deal with the current wave of ideological extremism, the precursor to terrorism. Without further loss of time, the Government should pass a Harmony Act or a Sedition Act to deter as well as charge and prosecute anyone seeking to revive separatism.
Today, the TNA is radicalizing and militarizing the Tamil youth: terrorism will emerge unless Sri Lanka takes firm action against fanatics like Sritharan glorifying terrorist-criminals. Taking action will deter the emergence of fanatics like Sritharan in future! Even after a huge loss of human lives, Sritharan continued to inflame racial passions. Like Sritharan, a few other racist leaders in the TNA suffer from an inferiority complex. Incapable of transcending their racial passions, it is they who want to emulate Prabhakaran!
Q: More than 32 countries have banned the LTTE but the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora and LTTE remnants are active in many countries four years after the war ended. They seem to be very influential and fund raising appears to go ahead under the very noses of those Governments. Should SL play a more pro-active role diplomatically and intelligence-wise in countering any threat from these elements?
A: The Sri Lankan government has won the war in the battlefield but lost the media war overseas. The Ministry of External Affairs should create a post of an Additional Secretary for Public Diplomacy and build three divisions; strategic communications, diaspora affairs and NGO engagement. It will be a mistake to staff these posts exclusively with foreign service officers. Media, security and human rights specialists should be posted to Sri Lankan missions overseas and receive support from a 24/7 Watch Centre in Colombo linked to defence, media and other ministries.
The Watch Centre should monitor mainstream and social media and correct the disinformation and misinformation creating mis-perceptions. In Canada, UK and Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan missions did not rebut the false propaganda and portray the ground reality. The government also neglected NGOs: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and International Crisis Group gave a one sided view of Sri Lanka. The new capability should expose the LTTE activists who have overnight turned human rights activists; file cases against irresponsible media; track LTTE funding and its proxies, including the TNA and investigate how the TNA is brainwashing the youth with LTTE sentiments.
Q: Channel 4 has produced yet another ‘documentary’ which apparently portrays the execution of a LTTE female journalist by the Security Forces. In a significant victory, Sri Lanka could also screen a counter film at the European Parliament. What are the ways and means through which Sri Lanka could counter these threats?
A: Sri Lanka, recovering from 30 years of brutal terrorism, should focus on twin pillars: economic development and security. Sri Lanka should not over react to threats made by its detractors. With not a single act of terrorism since May 2009, Sri Lanka is today one of the safest countries in the world. In contrast, after Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, India is the most affected by terrorism. The number one destination for global tourism, Sri Lanka should continue to improve its service sector from investment to finance. Colombo is also the cleanest city in South Asia: Sri Lanka is earning a reputation as the Garden City of Asia. Instead of taking peace for granted, Sri Lanka should change its electoral system, not permit ethnic or religious segregation, and create the Sri Lankan identity. To counter racist politicians ethnicizing its communities, Sri Lanka should ethnically and religiously mix its schools, create a national pledge, and seed Harmony clubs in every school to enhance interaction across ethnic and religious lines.
Q: How should the government deal with the TNA?
A: The LTTE cut the mainstream Tamil political leadership tree not from the branches but from the trunk. To fill the vacuum, the LTTE created the TNA, a racist party to breakup Sri Lanka. After the LTTE was defeated, the government should have proscribed the TNA, a party akin to the Nazi Party. The Sri Lankan government made a mistake by not proscribing the TNA, charging and prosecuting its leaders, members and supporters with ideological and operational links to the LTTE. They too should have been sent to the rehabilitation centres: some of them were more radicalized and militarized than hardcore LTTE leaders and members.
Although the TNA consist largely of separatists who legitimized the brutal violence and ideology of the LTTE, it has a few mainstream leaders such as Dharmalingam Sitharthan. Today, the TNA is fed by the LTTE front, cover and sympathetic organizations overseas and they are spreading the LTTE ideology in the north and east. Those with links to terrorism should never be permitted to campaign or stand for office. If future unity must be preserved, Sri Lanka should not tolerate ethnic and religious based parties but promote multi-ethnic and multi-religious parties.
Ethnicizing and religizing communities to win votes should be outlawed. If government does not take this bold step now, ideological extremism will once again poison the ground to a threshold leading to another wave of terrorism. Laws against incitement and hatred should be developed by the Attorney General’s Department and law enforcement authorities must take firm action against racism and separatist ideologies spread by individuals and groups by arresting them and confiscating their properties. The Tamil media, the main platform for disseminating racist ideas, should be closely monitored, and influenced to embrace Sri Lankan nationhood. The ruling party and UNP should recruit respectable Tamils to the national parties and government should phase out racist parties like the TNA and the SLMC by outlawing them permanently.
Q: What is the future of politics in the North and East?
A: In Sri Lanka, there is social harmony between communities until politicians interfere! Most Sri Lankans are not racists. It is the politicians that turn them to think along communal and sectarian lines! Sri Lanka is recovering and recuperating from 30 years of conflict. With the end of conflict and greater North-South interaction, I am confident that the North will produce visionary Tamil leaders that will think and act for all Sri Lankans. Coming out of racism is like coming out of a drug! I am less confident in the older generation of Tamil leaders who must share the tragedy they brought upon their community and Sri Lanka!
To rebuild inter – ethnic relations, the Sri Lankan government should invest time and energy in mainstream Tamil attitudes and opinions. The government should continue to create education and job opportunities in the North and East and build bridges with the South and West. To secure Sri Lanka’s future, the Government should recruit more Tamils and Muslims to its Security Forces, so that Tamils will feel that they have earned the trust of the other communities once more. To get rid of the suspicion and prejudice, the Government should create harmony platforms in every province, district, town and village to link all communities together through culture, education, employment, recreation etc. The government should reach out and work with Secretary General of the TULF V. Anandasangaree and other mainstream Tamil leaders who understand that like the LTTE, the TNA will never bring any joy to the Tamils, only grief.
With the return to normalcy, we are witnessing the rise of commerce in the North and tourism in the East. With infrastructure development, we are witnessing the making of a vibrant economy in the North and East. In parallel with economic development, government should link the North and South creating understanding and trust.
When the people to people contact, school to school contact, youth club to youth club contact is fostered, the Tamils will understand that the same problems they are facing in the North, the Sinhalese are also facing in the South and that there is no state or institutionalized discrimination. The visionary politicians from the South should invest resources and spend time in the North grooming a young generation of Tamils and leaders who believe in moderation, toleration and coexistence.
Incapable of transcending their racial passions, it is they who want to emulate Prabhakaran, Prof. Rohan Gunaratne told the Daily News during a recent interview.
Professor Rohan Gunaratna is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore and he is the author of Inside Al-Qaeda (Columbia University, New York, 2002). Prof. Gunaratna is the lead author of Pakistan: Ground Zero Terrorism (Reaktion, London, 2011).
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: Sri Lanka will take part in March 2014 UNHRC session and with the HR gains that we have made and new initiatives on the diplomatic front, how can Sri Lanka ensure a better acquittal at the sessions even if it will be dominated by the Western agenda?
A: Geneva is no longer an exercise in human rights but in geopolitics and superpower politics. After the colossal loss of human lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, the West has lost their moral right to pinpoint the finger at others. British Prime Minister David Cameron did not raise human rights issues during his recent visit to China and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his recent visit to Indonesia. If they intended to do so, they would have not been welcomed either by China or by Indonesia. The people in those countries would have immediately labeled them hypocrites after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was not human rights but domestic political compulsions that forced the Canadian, British, Mauritian and Indian leaders to take a certain stand at CHOGM. Except the Indian leader, all the others met with the LTTE front, cover and sympathetic groups. The Tamil vote in the UK and Canada has been mobilized by the LTTE to exercise constituency pressure on Cameron and Harper! In Mauritius and in Tamil Nadu, the LTTE pressurized the co-ethnics. Today, Sri Lanka is an easy target of the West and Sri Lanka should fight back but intelligently by exposing the duality of Western policy. Did the West raise human rights concerns about the violations in Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer and Bahrain, where the US maintains a military presence? With the shift in global power from the West to the East, the Western nations use human rights as a weapon but selectively. Nonetheless, Sri Lanka should plan meticulously for the March 2014 UNHRC session. The Sri Lankan response should focus on the progress it has made since May 2009.
Q: There is a call for the setting up of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sri Lanka, on the lines of the one set up by the late South African leader Nelson Mandela. Is this a practical suggestion or is the work done by the LLRC enough?
A: The LLRC is comparable to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The conditions in every country are unique and one should not impose the South African TRC on Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government and its partners should continue to implement the remaining recommendations of the LLRC. The spirit of both these commissions is similar. It is restorative justice – it is to restore life rather punitive justice – punish the perpetrators of violence. Of 12,000 terrorists, the government has rehabilitated and reintegrated 11,600 terrorists. Although they conducted border village massacres, placed bombs in public places, assassinated leaders and attacked the Security Forces, they were not imprisoned. After successful rehabilitation, they live peacefully, having returned to their families, joined university, or found government or private sector employment. The Government should continue to highlight the remarkable progress it has made to resettle in recorded time 283,000 IDPs, remove 500,000 mines, and economically develop the North and East. Although in the South, there are poorer areas as affected as the Vanni, the North grew at 22 per cent and the rest of the country at 7 per cent, but, no Sinhalese or Muslim protested.
Q: One suggestion of the LLRC was to conduct a census on the war dead, not just in the last phase but throughout the war period from 1982 onwards. How do you think this will help Sri Lanka’s cause in the international arena?
A: A census on the war dead since Velupillai Prabhakaran murdered the Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duraiapah in 1975 should be conducted. This will help Sri Lanka to set the record straight and also ask the question what did the British government do when the LTTE attacked the Sri Maha Bodhiya in Anuradhapura and massacred the monks, nuns, pilgrims and bystanders in 1985? Did David Cameron’s predecessor close down the LTTE International Secretariat in London? One of the worst human rights violators, the former LTTE Jaffna leader Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu was head of the secretariat in London. From the UK, he engaged in extortion to providing the crucial support for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination masterminded by Prabhakaran. Although Kittu was served the quit notice, the LTTE remained in the UK and its new leaders initiated the procurement of 50 tones of TNT and 10 tones of RDX killing Sri Lankan leaders, security personnel, civilians and blowing up infrastructure, property and vehicles. The UK neglected the presence of a huge terrorist support infrastructure that led to the radicalization of Tamil migrants and eventually infiltration of the British political system. Today, the same and new LTTE leaders and activists have organized themselves into the Global Tamil Forum.
Q: Sri Lanka has been accused of dilly dallying on investigations into certain conflict-related killings. Do you think Sri Lanka needs to do more to investigate these and if necessary counter any false or evidence-less claims?
A: Sri Lanka should investigate the killings in the North and South and identify its advocates, supporters and perpetrators. How practical is it to bring the 11,600 rehabilitated terrorist criminals to justice? A third left for overseas including 3,000 now living in Australia! From the earlier migrations, over 6,000 Sri Lankan terrorists are now Canadian citizens. Nearly 800 recently migrated terrorists live in Canada. Will the British prosecute or extradite Adele Balasingham, advisor to the LTTE women’s wing ? Will the US extradite or prosecute LTTE Central Committee member Vishvanathan Rudrakumaran, TGTE leader? Will Norway extradite or prosecute Perinpanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyawan, bodyguard of Prabhakaran and leader of the LTTE International Secretariat? Will Germany extradite or prosecute S. J. Emmanuel who justified suicide bombing, and leader of the Global Tamil Forum? Will France extradite or prosecute Vinayagam, the mastermind of the international airport attack and now leader of LTTE Headquarters’ group? Investigate, yes, bring them to justice, unlikely!
Q: The LTTE remnant leaders and lobby have shown signs of becoming stronger and their hand was clearly shown in relation to the British PM’s recent visit to the North and his call for an international probe while some others say our foreign missions need to do more. What do you think should be done to rectify this situation?
A: After the defeat of the LTTE in May of 2009, the Sri Lankan government made a monumental mistake. Like KP was brought home, government should file cases to bring the LTTE remnant leaders from overseas to Sri Lanka. It is not too late to execute international warrants against those who are still active! There is intelligence that most of those who are active internationally today are engaged in terrorist support and operational activity. As the government neglected this responsibility, the LTTE activists that funded terror and violence in Sri Lanka have persisted. Although terrorists are the world’s worst human rights violators, many terrorist activists reinvented themselves as human rights activists. As much as the LTTE was ruthless, it was deceptive. Today, the LTTE leaders wear three piece suits and parade in the corridors of power from the UN in New York to 10 Downing Street. It’s ironic but true, but, they hold meetings in the US Department of State, lobby British Parliamentarians, campaign as human rights activists in Geneva. Using votes and funds, they lure and trap politicians who really do not care for either Sri Lanka or human rights! As Wikileaks reported, David Miliband, who wanted the offensive against the LTTE halted, was driven by constituency pressure not by his concern for the Tamils! Sri Lanka’s criminal justice and prisons system should respond legally against LTTE remnants seeking to recuperate, mount a targeted strategic communications campaign in Tamil to reach out to the diasporas, and diplomatically reengage Western governments and leaders.
Q: From Sri Lanka’s side, Australia has taken a positive point of view in relation to LTTE activity and wartime incidents. At the same time, there is a notion articulated by the Opposition that Sri Lanka should warm up to the West generally, may be by taking certain HR related steps that could win their favour, given that most of these countries had banned the LTTE early on. What is your comment?
A: The former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, a principled leader, realized Sri Lanka had defeated a brutal terrorist insurgency. Without getting carried away by constituency compulsions and joining the Western bandwagon, Senator Carr engaged Sri Lanka. Harper and Camaron can learn from the diplomacy of Carr and his successor Julie Bishop, the incumbent Australian Foreign Minister. Both Bishop and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott built trust and has more leverage in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Parliamentary Opposition is right in its call for government to restore its relations with the West. Rather than engage in confrontational politics, the Government and parliamentary opposition should develop a bipartisan approach on national security and foreign policy matters.
Q: The Indian factor is very important for Sri Lanka. But pro-LTTE elements seem to have taken the upper hand in Tamil Nadu, which has affected policy making at the Centre. Any views on how this situation can be rectified?
A: The relationship between New Delhi and Colombo is “excellent” according to the Indian government. Sri Lanka’s security is tied to the political developments in Tamil Nadu. Today, the deterioration of the law and order situation and the terrorist-criminal-political nexus in Tamil Nadu is affecting Sri Lanka. The LTTE led gangs in Tamil Nadu attacked Sri Lankan pilgrims, Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, and threatened the Sri Lankan mission in Chennai. The same gangs paraded huge cut outs of Prabhakaran, organized political and fund raising events, and established safe houses to manufacture IEDs. The LTTE has rebuilt a base in Tamil Nadu and are pressurizing Manmohan Singh. To politically survive, the Prime Minister of India is dancing to the tune of Tamil Nadu politicians. Sri Lanka should understand this reality and help New Delhi and not criticize Singh for his non participation in CHOGM.
The Sri Lankan President should give the highest priority to normalizing ties with Tamil Nadu leaders. Although the Tamil Nadu leaders supporting the LTTE are among the most corrupt, Sri Lanka should restore relations with and engage the state of Tamil Nadu. One must never forget that Tamil Nadu was not only the main source of virulent Tamil nationalism, but, the training base for the LTTE. Colombo should build its biggest diplomatic mission in Chennai and engage the Tamil Nadu government and civil society leaders by inviting them to visit Sri Lanka. Further, Colombo should build a capacity in Tamil language to counter the distorted picture Tamil Nadu politicians are giving its citizens about Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Navy should call for joint patrolling with the Indian Navy-Coast Guard to deter Indian trawlers engaged in bottom-line trawling totally destroying Sri Lanka’s marine ecosystem and habitat. As much as Sri Lanka should get its act together of intercepting any foreign vessel that crosses into its waters, New Delhi should address this issue.
If the Indian government and Tamil Nadu state governments are genuinely interested in uplifting the quality of Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen, it must stop illegal fishing carried out by Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters! If India is sincere in maintaining good relations with its neighbours, it must put a stop to its fishermen in the south crossing into Sri Lankan waters and even worse, using bottom line trawling! How can India aspire to be a regional power, let alone a superpower if it cannot control a few thousand of its fishermen engaging in illicit poaching?
Q: The NPC has again called for the withdrawal of the Army from the North and the appointment of a civilian governor soon after an MP glorified Prabhakaran in Parliament. Do you think there is a revival of LTTE-inspired sentiments in Sri Lanka as well and in any case can the military presence in the North be reduced?
A: The Sri Lankan government should initiate an investigation against anyone calling for the withdrawal of the Army from the North and they will find the hidden hand of the LTTE. With the military in the North, there will be no Tamil Eelam. While the Police should engage in day-to-day law and order functions, the military should remain in strength in the North to ensure security. As long as the LTTE remains active in Tamil Nadu, operates in the West, and its proxy the TNA is in power in the North, Sri Lanka should ensure a robust security presence in the North and East. Otherwise, like terrorism reemerged in Iraq and Afghanistan after the US declared victory, terrorism will reemerge in Sri Lanka. After the defeat of the LTTE, the strategy of the LTTE remnants and TNA is identical.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act is insufficient to deal with the current wave of ideological extremism, the precursor to terrorism. Without further loss of time, the Government should pass a Harmony Act or a Sedition Act to deter as well as charge and prosecute anyone seeking to revive separatism.
Today, the TNA is radicalizing and militarizing the Tamil youth: terrorism will emerge unless Sri Lanka takes firm action against fanatics like Sritharan glorifying terrorist-criminals. Taking action will deter the emergence of fanatics like Sritharan in future! Even after a huge loss of human lives, Sritharan continued to inflame racial passions. Like Sritharan, a few other racist leaders in the TNA suffer from an inferiority complex. Incapable of transcending their racial passions, it is they who want to emulate Prabhakaran!
Q: More than 32 countries have banned the LTTE but the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora and LTTE remnants are active in many countries four years after the war ended. They seem to be very influential and fund raising appears to go ahead under the very noses of those Governments. Should SL play a more pro-active role diplomatically and intelligence-wise in countering any threat from these elements?
A: The Sri Lankan government has won the war in the battlefield but lost the media war overseas. The Ministry of External Affairs should create a post of an Additional Secretary for Public Diplomacy and build three divisions; strategic communications, diaspora affairs and NGO engagement. It will be a mistake to staff these posts exclusively with foreign service officers. Media, security and human rights specialists should be posted to Sri Lankan missions overseas and receive support from a 24/7 Watch Centre in Colombo linked to defence, media and other ministries.
The Watch Centre should monitor mainstream and social media and correct the disinformation and misinformation creating mis-perceptions. In Canada, UK and Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan missions did not rebut the false propaganda and portray the ground reality. The government also neglected NGOs: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and International Crisis Group gave a one sided view of Sri Lanka. The new capability should expose the LTTE activists who have overnight turned human rights activists; file cases against irresponsible media; track LTTE funding and its proxies, including the TNA and investigate how the TNA is brainwashing the youth with LTTE sentiments.
Q: Channel 4 has produced yet another ‘documentary’ which apparently portrays the execution of a LTTE female journalist by the Security Forces. In a significant victory, Sri Lanka could also screen a counter film at the European Parliament. What are the ways and means through which Sri Lanka could counter these threats?
A: Sri Lanka, recovering from 30 years of brutal terrorism, should focus on twin pillars: economic development and security. Sri Lanka should not over react to threats made by its detractors. With not a single act of terrorism since May 2009, Sri Lanka is today one of the safest countries in the world. In contrast, after Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, India is the most affected by terrorism. The number one destination for global tourism, Sri Lanka should continue to improve its service sector from investment to finance. Colombo is also the cleanest city in South Asia: Sri Lanka is earning a reputation as the Garden City of Asia. Instead of taking peace for granted, Sri Lanka should change its electoral system, not permit ethnic or religious segregation, and create the Sri Lankan identity. To counter racist politicians ethnicizing its communities, Sri Lanka should ethnically and religiously mix its schools, create a national pledge, and seed Harmony clubs in every school to enhance interaction across ethnic and religious lines.
Q: How should the government deal with the TNA?
A: The LTTE cut the mainstream Tamil political leadership tree not from the branches but from the trunk. To fill the vacuum, the LTTE created the TNA, a racist party to breakup Sri Lanka. After the LTTE was defeated, the government should have proscribed the TNA, a party akin to the Nazi Party. The Sri Lankan government made a mistake by not proscribing the TNA, charging and prosecuting its leaders, members and supporters with ideological and operational links to the LTTE. They too should have been sent to the rehabilitation centres: some of them were more radicalized and militarized than hardcore LTTE leaders and members.
Although the TNA consist largely of separatists who legitimized the brutal violence and ideology of the LTTE, it has a few mainstream leaders such as Dharmalingam Sitharthan. Today, the TNA is fed by the LTTE front, cover and sympathetic organizations overseas and they are spreading the LTTE ideology in the north and east. Those with links to terrorism should never be permitted to campaign or stand for office. If future unity must be preserved, Sri Lanka should not tolerate ethnic and religious based parties but promote multi-ethnic and multi-religious parties.
Ethnicizing and religizing communities to win votes should be outlawed. If government does not take this bold step now, ideological extremism will once again poison the ground to a threshold leading to another wave of terrorism. Laws against incitement and hatred should be developed by the Attorney General’s Department and law enforcement authorities must take firm action against racism and separatist ideologies spread by individuals and groups by arresting them and confiscating their properties. The Tamil media, the main platform for disseminating racist ideas, should be closely monitored, and influenced to embrace Sri Lankan nationhood. The ruling party and UNP should recruit respectable Tamils to the national parties and government should phase out racist parties like the TNA and the SLMC by outlawing them permanently.
Q: What is the future of politics in the North and East?
A: In Sri Lanka, there is social harmony between communities until politicians interfere! Most Sri Lankans are not racists. It is the politicians that turn them to think along communal and sectarian lines! Sri Lanka is recovering and recuperating from 30 years of conflict. With the end of conflict and greater North-South interaction, I am confident that the North will produce visionary Tamil leaders that will think and act for all Sri Lankans. Coming out of racism is like coming out of a drug! I am less confident in the older generation of Tamil leaders who must share the tragedy they brought upon their community and Sri Lanka!
To rebuild inter – ethnic relations, the Sri Lankan government should invest time and energy in mainstream Tamil attitudes and opinions. The government should continue to create education and job opportunities in the North and East and build bridges with the South and West. To secure Sri Lanka’s future, the Government should recruit more Tamils and Muslims to its Security Forces, so that Tamils will feel that they have earned the trust of the other communities once more. To get rid of the suspicion and prejudice, the Government should create harmony platforms in every province, district, town and village to link all communities together through culture, education, employment, recreation etc. The government should reach out and work with Secretary General of the TULF V. Anandasangaree and other mainstream Tamil leaders who understand that like the LTTE, the TNA will never bring any joy to the Tamils, only grief.
With the return to normalcy, we are witnessing the rise of commerce in the North and tourism in the East. With infrastructure development, we are witnessing the making of a vibrant economy in the North and East. In parallel with economic development, government should link the North and South creating understanding and trust.
When the people to people contact, school to school contact, youth club to youth club contact is fostered, the Tamils will understand that the same problems they are facing in the North, the Sinhalese are also facing in the South and that there is no state or institutionalized discrimination. The visionary politicians from the South should invest resources and spend time in the North grooming a young generation of Tamils and leaders who believe in moderation, toleration and coexistence.
14 comments:
"Dixit explained lucidly New Delhi’s decision to destabilize Sri Lanka. The outspoken diplomat said that India had no option but to take measures due to Sri Lanka’s evolving security connections with the US, Pakistan and Israel. Dixit stressed that India’s motivations as well as actions Vis-a-Vis Sri Lanka should be analysed in the context of the regional as well as global political, security and economic environment during the 1980-1984 period. Dixit went on to allege that the US and Pakistan exploited the rise of Tamil militancy to create what he called a politico-strategic pressure point against India in the island nation."
Today India piously pontificates on the need for "Human Rights" in Sri Lanka, although India ITSELF was responsible for training and introducing Tamil Terrorists into Sri Lanka, and VIOLATING the HIGHEST Human Right of ALL people of Sri Lanka: the Right to Life!
Why is the World Community that weeps Rivers of Tears for Tamil terrorists not charging India with War Crimes against the Sovereign Nation of Sri Lanka?
Why is India not held ACCOUNTABLE for jump starting and sustaining the Eelam Holocaust that consumed the lives of over 150,000 innocent Sri Lankans?
Given these INCONTROVERTIBLE WAR CRIMES committed by India against Sri Lanka, why is the Government of Sri Lanka NOT DEMANDING that India BUTT OUT PERMANENTLY from Sri Lanka's internal matters?
Why is the GOSL not DEMANDING the PAYMENT of WAR REPARATIONS DIRECTLY TO THE GOSL to fund Sri Lanka's reconstruction WITHOUT direct Indian involvement on the ground WITHIN Sri Lanka?
For God's Sake ... Why?
"Given these INCONTROVERTIBLE WAR CRIMES committed by India against Sri Lanka, why is the Government of Sri Lanka NOT DEMANDING that India BUTT OUT PERMANENTLY from Sri Lanka’s internal matters?"
When has any Nation, like Sri Lanka, allowed any other Nation that COMMITTED WAR CRIMES AGAINST IT, like India, to DICTATE Human Rights to it?
Does Britain allow Germany to level War Crimes allegations against Britain?
Does the United States allow Japan to level War Crimes allegations against the United States?
In which part of the world does a criminal aggressor EARN THE RIGHT to accuse the VICTIM of Crimes?
The GOSL should use arguments like these to DEFEND Sri Lanka against pious pontifications by nations immersed upto the neck in their own War Crimes!
Do NOT ALLOW this HYPOCRITICAL DEMONIZATION of Sri Lanka to go UNCHALLENGED!
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The LATEST EXAMPLE of the HYPOCRITICAL machinations of hegemonistic powers, is the Obama Administration's move to wage war on Syria on the pretext of Chemical weapons use by the Assad Government.
This has been exposed by Seymour Hersh (who previously exposed the Abu Gharib prison abuses) in a recent article (see Huffington Post, December 08, 2013) entitled Whose Sarin?
These accusations of WMD use as a pretext to attack Syria by President Barack Obama mimics President Bush's pretext to invade Iraq in search of non-existent WMD stockpiles!
"Freedom of Expression" guaranteed by the US Constitution, is NOW INTERPRETED by the US Government to mean "The Freedom of Expression Monitored by the US Government."
NOTHING is SACROSANCT! Big Brother is HERE!
What is NEXT? Video Cameras in Conjugal Bedrooms to enforce the INALIENABLE Right of the Government to KNOW ALL?
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Tech Companies to NSA: Stop Your Rampant Spying on Americans
By Ameera Butt
News.Yahoo.com
December 11, 2013
It’s time for the spying to stop.
That’s the message eight tech giants sent to President Barack Obama and Congress earlier this week in response to the government’s mass surveillance of Americans’ personal data.
Google and Microsoft, along with Apple, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, and AOL, have outlined five principles key to global reform of mass surveillance and developed a new website called Reform Government Surveillance.
In a letter to the government, the eight companies said the government surveillance practices worldwide have encroached on individual rights in many countries.
The world first learned of the surveillance after former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked sensitive National Security Agency documents earlier this year.
The effort to protect privacy marks a watershed moment in American history; thanks to the Snowden leaks, experts say there is more information about and confirmation of how the government has used advancements in digital technology to gather information that can have nothing to do with criminal or terrorist activity.
In recent weeks, we've seen revelations that the American government has gathered information on everything from video gaming habits to emails to cell phone locations, with little restraint or need for it.
“We are sort of seeing a sea change in public perception around surveillance, and this has led to a wide variety of opportunities to rein in government surveillance for the first time since 9/11,” said Rainey Reitman, activism director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The San Francisco–based nonprofit defends free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights.
In the past few years, EFF has been at the forefront, filing lawsuits to stop the government from spying long before Snowden came into the picture.
Reitman said two dueling bills are making their way through Congress right now: the FISA Improvements Act from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she said would collect some of the worst practices of the NSA, including the bulk collection of information of people's digital communication, and an alternative being promoted by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that she said would attempt to rein in NSA surveillance and put stricter limitations on it.
“This is a fork in the road where Congress can choose to take steps to codify these terrible practices into law or make meaningful reform to stop these types of surveillance abuses,” Reitman said.
Having the companies come out right now in the middle of this debate and be firmly on the side of reining in bulk data collection is extremely useful, and it could tip the scales toward reining in the NSA in a meaningful way, she said.
Some of the principles from the eight companies dictate that the government should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications. Other principles say governments should allow companies to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information.
....Continued 1...
The eight companies’ outlining principles are a “strong first step” in the right direction, Reitman said, adding they could have done more. She cited another website, Necessary & Proportionate, that is trying to end mass surveillance globally and uses principles that are more robust.
“Many of those principles are in alignment with what these companies just signed up for,” Reitman said. “There is definitely [a] similar vein between the two [websites].”
A principle from the Necessary & Proportionate website about not creating back doors could have been included in the companies’ list, she added.
The eight companies stated in the open letter this week that they are focused on keeping users’ data secure and deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on their networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.
“We urge the U.S. to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight,” the letter said.
Mountain View–based Google’s CEO, Larry Page, echoed that sentiment and urged the U.S. government to lead the way.
Security of users’ data “is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world,” Page said in a statement.
Big Internet companies are worried dragnet surveillance is undermining consumer trust, said Reitman.
Consumer data is being stored by these companies that is sensitive and can include financial, medical, and personal information.
“Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it,” said Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft, in a statement, adding that people won’t use technology they don’t trust.
The long-term economic repercussions of the surveillance may not be known, Reitman said, noting that this type of surveillance could create opportunities for international companies that aren’t based in the United States to compete with many of these American companies that have really owned the technology field in a huge way.
“This means that we might see competitors show up in a year or two, and international folks, who are nervous about trusting their data with American companies, might trust it with a company who isn’t based in the United States,” she said.
NSA has argued it has free rein to collect information on people around the world, she said.
“There is increasing concern, especially for people who are outside the U.S.—maybe some of these big-name American companies are a little too cozy with the NSA,” Reitman said. “That’s the message that a lot of these companies are trying to push back on, [and] undermining their ability to grow their market overseas.”
The EFF has had dialogue with most, if not all, of the tech companies on the list, she said.
LinkedIn has filed a brief in one of the EFF lawsuits, Reitman said, but she didn’t know where the rest of the companies stood with their briefs.
Let Jayalalitha FUME acid VAPORS .... the more the merrier! If India will not CONTROL its citizens EGGED-ON by Tamil Nadu Politicians to ENGINEER a CRISIS, then Sri Lanka MUST DEFEND its Maritime Resources on its own ... no matter what!
Yes, indeed ... detain ALL Violators of Sri Lankan waters on a BREAD, PARIPPU & WATER diet; Acquire & Maintain INCONTROVERTIBLE video & GPS data as EVIDENTIAL PROOF of the Violations, and CONFISCATE their TRAWLERS as the bigger PENALTY!
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Tamil Nadu CM fumes over Sri Lanka Navy arresting Indian fishermen for poaching
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Dec 12, Chennai: The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalithaa today fumed over the arrest of 140 Indian fishermen and seizure of their 23 boats by the Sri Lankan Navy in the last 24 hours.
In a letter to the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh, an angry Chief Minister wrote that the Prime Minister must personally take up this issue with the President of Sri Lanka without any further delay.
She demanded to summon the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in New Delhi to the Ministry of External Affairs and lodge a strong protest.
Sri Lanka Navy Wednesday arrested over 300 Indian fishermen for invading Sri Lanka's territorial waters for fishing and later released them after the intervention of officials detaining 110 along with their 15 trawlers.
The Navy arrested another 30 fishermen from Tamil Nadu this morning and seized their 8 trawlers.
Describing the arrests as mass abduction, the Chief Minister said these are the largest and most outrageous acts of mass abduction of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy and it is done with the Sri Lankan government's "tacit" approval.
Jayalalithaa said the entire fishing community in Tamil Nadu has lost its faith in the ability of the Government of India and India's prestige and image has suffered grievous damage.
"The Government of India should not allow this issue to fester anymore through continued inaction or through a weak-kneed and timid approach towards the Sri Lankan regime which continues to perpetrate outrage upon outrage upon innocent Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu pursuing their livelihood," she wrote.
She told the PM that the fishermen community in Tamil Nadu is in a highly agitated mood and they expect quick and decisive action by the Indian Government to ensure that the 23 fishing boats and 140 fishermen apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy in the past 24 hours are released immediately without detention.
In a desperate attempt to deter the Indian fishermen crossing the Interactional Maritime Boundary Line and stealing the livelihood of Sri Lankan fishermen, the government of Sri Lanka recently adopted a policy of detaining the Indian fishermen for lengthy terms and confiscating their trawlers.
We Sri Lankans suggest that Britain follows Mandela's example of Reconciliation and RECONCILE with the Nazi's and the Al-Quaida!
When that has been done, come back and ask Sri Lanka again to RECONCILE with UNREPENTANT Murderous Racist Separatists trying to create an Apartheid Bantustan in Sri Lanka.
Until then, Britain should really mind its own business ... instead of trying to advance its Neo-Colonialist Ambitions in the developing world ... dishing out advice to others it NEVER FOLLOWS itself!
BLOODY HYPOCRITES Incarnate!
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Britain suggests Sri Lanka to follow Mandela's example for reconciliation
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Dec 11, London: Sri Lanka should follow Mandela's example to bring peace and unity to the country's people, the UK government suggests.
Paying tribute to the former South African leader, late Nelson Mandela in the House of Commons of UK parliament on Monday, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Sri Lanka should emulate South Africa's truth and reconciliation process.
Clegg said that Nelson Mandela laid down a "blueprint" that has made it possible for other divided communities, such as in Northern Ireland, to reject violence, overcome their differences and make a fresh beginning.
"That is why I hope, in communities where people are still struggling to replace violence and conflict with peace and stability, that the principles of forgiveness and reconciliation that Mandela embodied are followed by others too," he said.
He noted that recently the House debated the alleged human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
"Surely there could be no better way for that country to heal its wounds and bring peace and unity to all its people than to follow Mandela's example and emulate South Africa's truth and reconciliation process," the deputy Prime Minister of Britain said.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, already showing interest in learning more about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa and its process and the outcome, discussed the South Africa's model with that country's President Jacob Zuma when the two leaders met on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo last month.
Nazi Germany was an existential threat of the PAST to Britain, and Al-Quaida is a CURRENT continuing threat to Britain. Britain has not, and will not, "Reconcile" with either the Nazis of the PAST, or the Al-Quaida of the PRESENT.
The Tamil Separatists of Sri Lanka was an EXISTENTIAL threat to Sovereign Sri Lanka in the RECENT PAST, and is a CURRENT CONTINUING threat to Sri Lanka today.
It would be ASININE and a MONUMENTAL FOLLY for any Rational People, and their National Government, to "Reconcile" with a movement posing a IMMEDIATE and PRESENT danger to their very EXISTENCE.
There can NEVER BE "Reconciliation" with the UNREPENTANT Eelamist enemies of Sri Lanka ... because their objectives are the DESTRUCTION of Sri Lanka .... until two GENERATIONS from now when the ideology deeply embedded in the minds of the brainwashed adherents of Eelam has lost support and FADED from the COLLECTIVE MEMORY of the brainwashed and the greedy.
Until then, Sri Lankans must GIRD their LOINS, take up their ARMS, and GUARD the RAMPARTS of Sri Lanka against all enemies ... within and without, overt and covert ... who assail the shores of our beloved Motherland!
NO RECONCILIATION with UNREPENTANT ENEMIES of Sri Lanka, EVER, for ABJECT RECONCILIATION amounts to no more than APPEASEMENT of the TRAITORS, and CAPITULATION to Sri Lanka's AVOWED Enemies!
Let them FIRST come to their senses, acknowledging their crimes against the Nation, committed to citizenship of Sri Lanka with EQUAL RIGHTS, not demanding one iota more than other citizens receive, committed to ONE Indivisible Nation, of ONE Inseparable People, sharing ONE National Destiny, and committed to the EQUAL RESPONSIBILITY to Love, Protect and Defend our Mother Lanka against all its enemies.
Then RECONCILIATION will no longer be an issue, for it will have been achieved by transformation of the descendents of the Separatist Racist Eelamists, inn mind, body, and spirit into Loyal non-Racist Sri Lankan citizens.
My Comments at LankaWEb.com:
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Fran,
Yes… the GOSL is already auctioning off confiscated trawlers to Sri Lankans fishermen.
India, if it does not understand that TN leaders are behind these violations with an agenda in mind … will retaliate in kind to placate the TN Racists. As we well know, they are already doing that …. tit-for-tat.
So, this could become an even exchange of detainees and confiscated trawlers.
But, somewhere along the line, India will come to the realization that this cannot continue, and will pressure TN to END IT.
To make sure that in the end India will act against TN and not keep bullying Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka must develop an INCONTROVERTIBLE BODY of FACTUAL EVIDENCE that will stand up in ANY INTERNATIONAL COURT.
Sri Lanka should OPEN a case at the United Nations, and other International Maritime bodies, and keep supplying this data to them and to the Govt of India to ENSURE that India acts RATIONALLY.
An IMPORTANT CAVEAT is that Sri Lanka should NEVER take any action that is NOT JUSTIFIED and NOT SUPPORTED by the EVIDENCE!
Fran,
In addition to the GOSL acting against Indian poachers, Sri Lanka should take EVERY POSSIBLE STEP to ensure that Sri Lankan fishermen stay within Sri Lankan waters, and PROSECUTE & PUNISH them as well if they violate India's waters. This RECORD of ENFORCEMENT against Sri Lankan fishermen should also be a part of the EVIDENCE supporting SRi Lanka's case
In that way, we can make sure that the NUMBER of Sri Lankan fishermen and trawlers detained by India is FAR LESS than the number of Indian fishermen and trawlers detained by Sri Lanka.
If India does not fake the violation records, that should drive the number of violators in favor of Sri Lanka.
To achieve that, Sri Lankan authorities should provide written REGULATION documents spelling out GOSL policy to every licensed Sri Lankan fisherman, and a GPS unit ... at a discounted price, or free of charge ... to assist the SRi Lankans to remain within Sri Lankan waters.
This is important, because some of these Sri Lankan fishermen are VERY LIKELY to be Eelamists COLLABORATING with Tamil Nadu Politicians to ENGINEER a Crisis between Sri Lanka and India. WE should NOT BE NAIVE on this.
Thank you Darshini Wimalasuriya!
Ragging existed when I attended the Engineering Faculty at Peradeniya (Graduated in 1969); but it was never as vicious and degrading as described in this article!
Speaking for myself, I was a student TOTALLY dedicated to learning at eFac, to make the optimum use of the opportunity that I had won; I had NO TIME or INTEREST in doing anything else! I ADMIT that I was the quintessential NERD for what I had won was TOO VALUABLE TO WASTE to me and my family.
I believe that most students who enter university today, from various strata of Sri Lankan society, are NO DIFFERENT from me: they come to get an education that would serve them all their lives.
Therefore, Ragging and Politics within the Universities have to be STOPPED COLD NOW by DRACONIAN MEANS if necessary! The University Administration must RULE, not the students!
These young people, the best and the brightest in the country, who like me so many decades ago, have struggled mightily to win a place in a University to acquire an INVALUABLE free University Education, MUST BE GUARANTEED THAT OPPORTUNITY to fulfill their hopes and dreams, and those of the Nation, free of intimidation and extraneous barriers to education.
EDUCATION, and EDUCATION ALONE, must be the ONLY FOCUS & PERMITTED ACTIVITY in our Universities!
If CIVILIANS cannot run the University Administrations and CONTROL the troublemakers, let the GOSL assign the Armed Forces to ADMINISTER the Universities while the TEACHING is done by the ACADEMIC FACULTY!
I am so DISTURBED by this article, about the declining standard of University Education in Sri Lanka, PARTICULARLY at Peradeniya University, that I am contemplating volunteering to serve as a full-time University Professor in an Engineering Faculty in Sri Lanka, if the Government takes the INITIATIVE to restore student (and faculty) discipline, so TEACHERS can TEACH, and STUDENTS can LEARN, free of intimidation!
I urge all other patriotic expatriates, with the necessary skills, to volunteer as well.
AFTER THE APARTHEID: Truth and reconciliation in South Africa
by Victoria Brittain
mondediplo.com
December, 1998
A small, slightly balding, white man sat in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the last two days of its sittings this summer in a discreet Capetown building, fighting to hold on to the secrets of the apartheid regime’s covert programme of chemical and biological warfare. Poisoning its enemies, including Nelson Mandela in prison, creating racially specific vaccines, experimenting with infertility among blacks, and flooding the townships with tons of Mandrax and Ecstasy drugs, were Dr Wouter Basson’s preoccupations in his work in the Ministry of Defence under apartheid, according to others in the programme who confessed to the TRC earlier. Anthrax, cholera and botulus cultures, cyanide, aldikarb, thallium, paroxon, and a tear gas called CR, ten times more potent than CS gas, were all in the repertoire of Dr Basson’s Project Coast. Lethal bicycle pumps, screw drivers, walking sticks and umbrellas were also made.
This super-secret project, with its echoes of Nazi racial experiments, was well known in some circles outside South Africa. As a military doctor with the rank of Brigadier and heading a programme of great interest to several governments, Dr Basson was at a closed conference on biological and chemical warfare in San Antonio in the US in 1983. In the next few years he also visited Taiwan, Israel, West Germany and Croatia on official business. He was well known enough to the British and American governments for the former to approach President de Klerk’s government before the 1994 elections, suggesting that his assassination would be in everyone’s interests.
It was the CIA who tipped off the South African military in January 1997 that their man was about to leave the country, with his skills and his secrets. For all they knew he could have been taking with him some of his deadly arsenal. Conveniently for the Mandela government, Basson’s house was found to be filled with vast quantities of Ecstasy and Mandrax, and he was arrested. Later this year he will face a court case not only involving these drugs which he is accused of manufacturing in massive quantities, but also charges of murder, fraud and theft.
The scene in an anonymous Cape Town office building on that last day of the highly charged emotional TRC hearings was of a very different nature from a trial. The TRC, which been held throughout the country over four years in rooms like this, was a microcosm of the new power relations in the country, and of the implacable resistance of the old to the new.
On one side sat Dr Basson flanked by four heavy-set Afrikaner lawyers AND young trainee solicitors with mobile phones bring them messages. On the tribunal facing Dr Basson were the TRC chairman, lawyer Dumisa Ntsebeza, Dr Fazel Randera, Joe Slovo’s personal doctor, Dr Wendy Orr the police surgeon in Port Elizabeth who revealed systematic police torture in the apartheid period, and Yasmin Sooka. Dr Orr is a white woman whose conscience turned her against her job in the apartheid machine, and the others on the panel are black and Asian professionals who grew up to exclusion or exile. The panel met Dr Basson’s repeated denials, refusal to answer, or to remember events, and his lawyers’ stonewalling with elaborate patience and courtesy. "Dr Wouter Basson, I would like you to relax - the allegations may be outrageous, but they are not meant to rile you, the important thing is that you testify on the things attributed to you - you can reply," said Mr Ntsebeza after an outburst of rage in Afrikaans from Dr Basson.
.....Continued 1....
In the strange world of unresolved old scores which is South Africa today, Dr Basson is still employed by the Ministry of Defence, and in the public seats behind him sat Surgeon General DP Knoebel, once Basson’s boss in the dark days under scrutiny, and also still in the Ministry. By chance, Knoebel found himself sitting next to the wife of a defence ministry official, a leader of Umkhonto wa Siswe (the ANC’s clandestine army) whom Dr Basson had sought to eliminate.
Basson explained to the panel how he and his apartheid bosses had protected Mr Mandela while he was in prison, when their intelligence reports showed how he was to be killed in prison by "certain members of the ANC for whom he was not radical enough." There were options to poison him, to weaken him, to make his hair fall out, his eyes to blur, for him to look old. "The responsibility for saving him rested on my shoulders," said Basson. Not a muscle moved on the faces of the polite commissioners. For hours he outlined to the TRC the rationale of his crucial work - stemming a tide of Soviet and Cuban communism which threatened to overwhelm South Africa.
The Capetown hearings of Basson ended only the first of the TRC’s three phases - the hearings on amnesty (2) and reparations continue. The half-empty room and the flat press coverage mask the enormous importance of this process which has for ever changed white attitudes to the country’s history. "Whites can still say, ’I didn’t know’, but never ever can they say again that ’it didn’t happen’", said one ANC minister.
The TRC’s final public report, five volumes and more than 3,000 pages released at the end of October, contained little new of substance beyond the massive volumes already in the public domain after more than two years of public and private hearings. The horror in the detail of the crimes, and the ruthlessness of the perpetrators which came out in the TRC hearings and is in these transcripts by far eclipses what was already known about apartheid, and is incommunicable in words.
It was highly symbolic that one of the key figures in the apartheid regime - F W de Klerk - should use the courts to have the page which mentioned him censored at the 11th hour. A court hearing over the blacked out page will be held early next year and TRC officials are confident that his attempt to drop out of the history books will not succeed. It was not surprising either that some ANC officials too should challenge the report which besides its wholesale condemnation of apartheid as a crime against humanity, also criticised the liberation movement for such actions as the use of landmines and the torture and killing of individuals suspected of treachery. The political compromise made two years ago by the ANC leadership to include their own war experiences in the TRC’s hearings was deeply unpopular with many of their own cadres for whom it remains a compromise too far with the remnants of an illegal regime (3).
Myth of a communist threat
The spectre of communism by which Basson and others from the apartheid regime’s security forces justified the killings, torture, displacements, dehumanisation which were the stuff of their racially-obsessed lives, seem ludicrous today in a post-Cold War world. In reality, it hid a real racial obsession. In that period the myth of the communist threat was extremely convenient and today Basson is still holding on to it. Psychiatrist Dr Sean Kaliski has explained the legitimacy constructed in the past around extreme violence. "The lawgivers made the laws, the lawyers executed them, and they were assisted by a whole lot of other professions. This created a normative structure that legitimised the killings."
....Continued 2...
The basis was not a fear of communism, he added: "we believed black people were not human; they were a threat, they were going to kill us all, and then waste away the country until it was nothing but another African disaster area." In fact, of course, it was apartheid South Africa itself which did so much to create so many of the disaster areas on the continent. Proxy wars in Angola and Mozambique were funded and led by the South African military, neighbouring countries were bombed, or subjected to commando raids, Namibia was illegally occupied and used as a military springboard into Angola. And in all of these, mainly clandestine, theatres of war and destabilisation, Western governments were complicit in South Africa’s actions and no attempt to end them was ever made.
Basson and his lawyers in that Capetown room were the embodiment of the old South Africa - unable to face the truth-telling about the abhorrent acts he committed, which is the route to amnesty laid down in the new democratic constitution. Nor have the Western governments felt any pressure to come clean on what they knew, or what they helped with (even on the issue of nuclear weapons). Nor have any of them apologised, much less thought of reparations.
Eugene de Kock and Dirk Coetzee, better known Afrikaner killers who have taken that other choice, confessed and sought amnesty, illustrate the particular personality structure that Afrikaners evolved which made the authoritarianism which underpinned apartheid, so attractive to them. Andre Brink’s fictional portraits of the brutalised upbringing of boys like these by fathers capable of the most intimate acts of cruelty, is the backdrop against which apartheid crimes were to them merely banal (4).
Evil did not register on their moral code, as they reveal themselves in casual descriptions of the personal corruption - fake expense sheets, stolen cars - which ran alongside the equally casual torture, harassment, killings which the TRC heard about in excruciating detail from these men’s victims. That these men should be granted amnesty for expressing regret has been a bargain that some victims’ families can not accept. However, there have been many confessions which have indeed allowed families’ old wounds to close with a ceremony of burial of a handful of bones. But the widow of Steve Biko, the daughters of Ruth First, the husband of Jeanette Schoon are among the people who have opposed amnesty for those who killed or ordered the killing of their loved ones.
The passion to know more is no different, but where the chain of responsibility simply disappears, and a man such as the apartheid spy Craig Williamson - responsible for the letter bombs designed to kill the two women teachers, Ruth First in Mozambique and Jeanette Schoon and her daughter in Angola - can be an accepted and successful citizen in the new South Africa, justice has been sacrificed. Reconciliation cannot follow. The ruling on Williamson’s amnesty request will not be made until next spring. He is expected to get amnesty, though there remain serious question marks over whether he has told all he knew, not only in the case of Ruth First’s assassination, but by his amnesty documents’ passing reference to Henri Curiel - the only non- South African cited (5) - as a Soviet surrogate helping the ANC. Curiel is the only non-South African mentioned.
....Continued 3....
But it is in the economics of South Africa that the greatest crimes of apartheid are reflected, and where the greatest test of reconciliation will have to come.
The country had the highest inequality in wealth distribution in the world - 20 per cent of the population owning 75% of the wealth (6). The TRC’s final report went a long way towards putting business in the dock for sustaining apartheid and contributing to the legacy of the gap between rich and poor. It suggested the implementation of a wealth tax, a one-off levy on corporate and private income and a retrospective surcharge on corporate profits. These were crimes whose results will live on into generations who have long forgotten the names of those responsible for them. This crime against humanity - as racial segregation has been recognised - stands along with Nazi Germany in the record of shame of the 20th century.
Self-sufficiency in Chillies is GREAT, but is NOT ENOUGH!
We need self-sufficiency in other foods like rice, parippu, maldive fish etc etc.
But, Self-Sufficiency in ENERGY through massive development of RENEWABLE energy sources (solar, wind, wave, in both concentrated large plants and distributed rooftop systems), of energy STORAGE methods (hydrogen gas using electrolysis of water and generation using fuel cells), and electrification of TRANSPORTATION through complete transformation of Sri Lanka’s vehicle fleet to all-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles should be the HIGHEST PRIORITY!
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Govt on chillie self-sufficiency drive
by S.M. Wijayaratne, Kurunegala Cor
SundayObserver.lk
December 15, 2013
The annual requirement of dried chillies for the consumption of Sri Lankans is 50,000 metric tonnes. The Government still imports 35,000 metric tonnes of chillies annually to meet the local demand.
The Department of Agriculture made Sri Lanka self-sufficient in dried chillies during the period from 1970-1980. Now, under the guidance of Director General of Agriculture, Dr. Rohan Wijekoon, a massive program to encourage farmers islandwide towards the cultivation of chillies is to be launched by the Department.
Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena has instructed top officials to allocate funds to motivate farmers islandwide to cultivate chillies locally, to make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in chillies again, President, Kurunegala District Small Farmers’ Association, S.M. Wimalasena told a conference of representatives of small farmers’ societies in the Kurunegala district. He said the Government will invest Rs. 150 million for this purpose. Under the Divi Neguma national development program of the Ministry of Economic Development, 15,000 farmers in the Kurunegala and Puttalam districts of the North Western Province would be encouraged to grow chillies, fruits and vegetables during the next three months.
Quality chillie and vegetable plants would be provided free to interested farmers by the Government through Divisional Agricultural Instructors, Wimalasena said.
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