Rohan Edrisinha, Senior Lecturer of the University of Colombo and the Head of the Legal Unit CPA, talks in detail about and through three key points, critiques the flaccid proposals submitted recently to the President by the APRC. Also read APRC: The Year of the Rat has begun.

Anudhradapura District, mid October 2007

The huge, busy conurbation of Anudharapura—once a sacred city—has become the major transit centre for military forces en route to and from the current war zones. The ancient archeologically important ruins for which Anudharapura is famous are dwarfed by the sprawling modern developments. An informal economy has grown up in which small traders sell the debris of militarism: single T56 bullets for 15 rupees each. Many young girls have come to the city to sell their favours to the military personnel. Guesthouses built for tourists who rarely come any more are now informal brothels. A trader approaches asking, “What do you want? Bullets? Weapons? Girls?” If you want a bullet, he takes one from his pocket. If you want a weapon, he guides you to a secret stash in this sacred city. If you want a girl, he directs you to the guesthouse. Three-wheeled taxis, Tri-shaws, fly around the city doing this business.

At Madawatchiya on the edge of the city, where the armed forces set off for the conflict area, I meet a trader who transports food and supplies into Vayvuniya. He is happy that the country has returned to war because he now carries far smaller quantities of goods than in peacetime and is making a much higher profit.

On my way from Anudharapura to Horowpatana, there is a big tank called Mahakanadarawera. As I sit by the tank watching the beautiful scenery; large green heavy-duty Tata trucks suddenly speed past full of proud soldiers with their guns at the ready. In the front seat next to the driver, his elbow resting on the windowsill, his orange robe fluttering in the wind, sits an equally noble Buddhist monk. The label on the front of the truck reads, Jathika Saviya (National Strength).

At a small tea stall beside the tank, I have a little chat with the owners. They too are very happy with the new war situation: lots of young villagers, girls as well as boys, have got good local jobs as Home Guards and no longer worry their parents by going off to Colombo looking for work. They are well paid; they have job security and social status as never before. So the youth are happy and their parents are happy that the war has brought this improvement in their lives. On the billboards along the roadside of this agricultural district, amongst the ads for fertilisers and weed killers, are others which encourage and praise our valiant troops.

In Horowpatana town, where there’s not even a petrol station, you see plenty of people walking around with Nokia N70 mobile phones. Small as it is, there is a lot of traffic in Horowpatana because the government is clearing the thick forest and building condominiums for the security forces. This construction of 3000 new houses in the town will bring new businesses, more money, perhaps a shopping mall; so all the locals are in a good mood, looking forward to richer times.

Beyond Horowpatana, there is a modest little temple by the side of the road. The Buddhist monk here spent the past several years working with the peace-building network run by Colombo NGOs. He is more interested now in searching for Buddhist archaeological sites between the Eastern and North Central provinces where, he says, Tamil and Muslim people have destroyed many of these ruins in order to establish their farms. But his main work is in response to a request from the government to persuade local army deserters to return to their old posts or to take new positions in the Home Guards. During the past 30 years of civil war, each village had an average of 30-40 deserters. It will be good to get them back into the army because they were well trained in the past, unlike the new Home Guards. Besides, when they left the army, these deserters took their weapons with them and have been using them in an unregulated manner since. This holy man is very happy to have these new responsibilities. He has also been asked to participate in the Peace and Democracy rallies in Colombo and to bring 40 people with him each time. Although these rallies are not called every month, so many local people have now joined the Home Guard they don’t have time for the five or six-hour journeys to and from Colombo. He is a bit worried about this.

At his temple I also meet a Montessori School teacher from Welioya. In her after-school time she is being trained in the use of weapons. She is pleased about this as she is earning more money than before and is treated with greater respect by her community. She tells her young girls seeking employment to join the Home Guard. They are very happy with this alternative as the only other jobs are in the Free Trade Zones where they are sarcastically referred to as ‘garment items’ and forced to supplement their meagre pay by working as prostitutes. As Home Guards—in their uniforms, carrying guns like the boys do—they get a good salary and a level of social dignity unimaginable before. A proper government job like this confers the highest possible status in their villages.

Along the roadside, the huge government-owned rice storage barns, where farmers have long delivered their harvest to be bought at controlled prices, have been converted into storage sites for military hardware. As a result, the farmers have to sell their rice to private companies or to individual buyers for the best price they can get. Nonetheless, they regard this as a temporary sacrifice for the bright future they expect once the war is won.

Also read:
Travels in a Militarised Society — 1

The APRC has behaved as feared. It has delivered for the regime and not for the country. Clearly Professor Vitharana could not hold out – encomiums about his persistence notwithstanding. He obliged his president and produced the Interim Report of the APRC eighteen months after it was convened. The Majority Report and the Vitharana Report are all history – His Excellency demanded and determined and hey presto they produced a mouse, heralding in, in our inimitable way, the Chinese Year of the Rat, no doubt !

Why on earth did the APRC have to sit some sixty four times over eighteen months to recommend that less than the Thirteenth Amendment be implemented in the interim, whilst they sit or swan around the world indefinitely to produce a final report on the never, never ? Everyone who signed on to this document bears responsibility for one of the more pathetic farces that have characterised our politics in recent memory. And there is no mitigation of this responsibility in emphasizing the “interim” nature of the proposals. Given what is on offer and given what is likely to be implemented, it is not beyond the realms of probability that this APRC, eighteen months and sixty four sittings later will come back and say Thirteenth Amendment in full !!

What is most interesting is the Indian reaction of welcoming the Interim Report as the “first step”. Much is being made of this as indeed much can be. At one level, Delhi is not being negative but cautiously encouraging . Devolution and the limits thereof were set by Delhi way back in 1987. Whilst Delhi acknowledges that more is needed – the mantra of not so long ago -Thirteenth Amendment Plus- it is willing, even relieved to give the Rajapakse regime time to develop its ideas and attitudes further to address the roots of an ethnic conflict. It has given the regime time and given itself time. Yet the question remains as to what Delhi’s policy will be if the APRC and the regime are stuck at this “first step”, unwilling or unable to move beyond it ?

No doubt the denizens of South bloc thought long and hard about the choice of phrase to couch their lack of policy towards the procrastination and prevarication of this APRC process and accordingly the search for a political settlement of our ethnic conflict. They have not let themselves off the hook, though. Welcoming a “first step” clearly indicates the expectation of movement thereafter. I submit, it also entails a responsibility for ensuring this and accordingly, cogent policy options for the eventuality of disappointment.

Gone are the days when Delhi could be looked upon as the primary and proactive ally in the cause of meaningful devolution, if not power sharing in Sri Lanka. Now it is almost a case of Panglossian benevolence towards even the whittling down and erosion of what it considered possible and handed over twenty years ago. The priority is a defeat or irreversible military weakening of the LTTE with the removal of Prabhakaran from the scene, followed by, as they know full well, a fudge. Underpinning this is the containment of Chinese interests - political, military and commercial - in their back yard. Whilst of course there will be denials, it would be no surprise if these denizens allow themselves a fanciful release from the tedium of this festering sore that is our ethnic conflict by entertaining the prospect of military victory and the possibility of it constituting an end to the conflict The whole damn mess will be done with. At least it will not keep cropping up, to harass and embarrass.

As always is the case with our politics though, there will always be a case for defending the Thirteenth Amendment and for calling for its implementation in part or in full. The JVP we are told will take to the streets to prevent its implementation in whatever form in the north and east. Implicit in this, given its espousal of the provincial councils elsewhere in the country, must surely be the JVP’s belief that the north and east are different and require different political arrangements to the rest of the country ? Or is it devolution for the south and zero nothing for the north and east ?

The JVP will demand the disbanding of the APRC and make much of it when it happens. They will claim to have saved the country yet again from a sly, insidious scheme to introduce federalism. In the tawdry smoke and mirrors word of our politics they will be feted by the fearful faithful and further convinced that they have indeed performed a historic duty, when in effect they would be providing euthanasia to the terminally ill. Not unlike the CFA, this.

It is working out nicely for the president and the JVP. The APRC has delivered an interim report , thereby holding out the prospect of a final report. However, the interim report, which recommends less than what is in the constitution, will not be implemented because the JVP will ensure this. And when the time is right, they will demand that the APRC be disbanded. On the military front, if there is victory the JVP will claim that they kept the regime on the straight and narrow and if there is none, it can turn its venom on the regime and/or exact a price from it, which in its desperation to hold on to power it will have to pay.

What was it that Lincoln said about fooling the people ?

Boralla Junction, Colombo – October 2007

I am waiting for a bus holding a small transparent plastic bag of fruit for my mother. As usual, the buses are sounding their horns, conductors are shouting out the stops on their route, lottery ticket sellers are offering fortunes. In the middle of Boralla Junction there is a Bo tree by a little temple from which a loudspeakers project Pirith chanting. On every corner of the busy crossroads large posters bless our three military forces – air, land and sea — faithfully pursuing their duty until the final victory. Other posters advertise the Superstar competition on Sirasa TV, modelled on American Idol, encouraging us to text in and record our votes for the candidates. Prostitutes and beggars who have worked Boralla Junction for years, older now but still plying their trades, move amongst the crowds.

Suddenly, an ordinary person in civilian clothes accosts me, “Can I check your ID?” I am taken aback for a moment; then ask politely, “Who are you?” “You don’t have to know who I am. I am a Boralla Junction Civil Guard. We work for the Police.” I hand over my card. Twice he asks me, “Are you Sinhala?” Twice I answer, “Yes, you can see it on my ID card.” He checks my transparent bag, “What’s in it?” “Fruits.” He throws my ID card back at me, turns away and accosts another person.

I spot my bus with its slogan: “This is The Nation of Buddha” and climb up. Inside a sticker reads, “This bus does not charge for Buddhist Sunday School children or Buddhist monks”. After herding people onto his bus from the footboard until it is crammed full, the conductor moves up and down amongst us, gesturing aggressively with his hand and shouting: “Give me your money! Your money!” Honking its horn, the bus jerks forward and starts chasing another bus.

At the next stop, the Castle Maternity Hospital, many pregnant women are pushing to get out. The driver has no patience and the bus starts to move again, making the women jump off. Every ten metres along our route, on both sides of the road, is a member of the Home Guard, the Police, the Army or the Air Force. After a few more stops we are nearing the Parliament Junction and pass the Ambilipitya monument. It was designed by Jagath Weerasinghe as a memorial to the students massacred in the late 1980s. The small temple-like structure is overgrown with weeds and has become a security checkpoint. The guards go into the little hall to have a piss when the need occurs. This and many other checkpoints are sponsored by banks and private companies nowadays: their banners are pasted on the walls, roofs and barriers of these security posts.

When I reach home, Mother is watching an old Hindi movie on TV. From time to time the film is interrupted by an ad break made by one of the country’s finest filmmakers. It’s a beautiful ad; with emotive music and spectacular images it summons our brave population to join the armed forces and defend the motherland. (This highly respected filmmaker has also recently published a book for the peace industry that analyses the relationship between the nation’s conflict and its cinema.) Other less elegant TV ads exhort people to be vigilant, to suspect everyone, including members of your own family—even yourself; advising that bombs can be hidden anywhere, that we are all in danger and must report our suspicions immediately day or night to the military or police authorities.

Shortly after 7 p.m., in the midst of the News, another ad pops up for “Prayathna (Effort) for the Peoples’ Movement”, giving a website address. We are not told what this “movement” is; in fact, its existence is limited to posters and these TV ads. With only 3% of the population computer literate, it cannot be a very big movement, whatever it stands for. Immediately after the Prayathna ad another pops up for “Mindada” (two hearts joined by the arrow of love), telling viewers they need not wait for tomorrow to arrange their marriage, it can be done today! Of course, given that 28% of the country’s women are war widows; this is more likely to generate a social movement than the other summons to make an effort.

Switching to another channel, there is a serious discussion in progress about how to conquer the Vanni, the Tamil district in the centre of the country. The panel of civilian men, who call themselves academics, and Buddhist monks, are making war in the TV studio in their immaculate saffron robes and well-ironed shirts, with benefit of AC and bottled mineral water. Loudly, belligerently, they outdo each other, shouting “We will win!” “We will crush the Enemy!” “We will prevail!” “We will have a proper Sinhala New Year in April!”

On a third channel another big discussion is going on between members of the Sangha and some more self-designated academics. They are devising a Buddhist justification for war; how to legitimate the process of annihilating non-Sinhala elements of the nation. A listener phones in to protest that this is not the Buddhist way. The panel of authorities strongly and unanimously reject this. Ours is a revised Buddhism; a Sangha-ism that accepts no dissent.

Deception has two extreme poles at each end of the untruth. One end is witty, subtle, astute and artistic. A magician, for example, perplexes us with pleasant surprise, tickling our innocent perception of truth as something illusive, though the deceptive role involved in the trick is taken for granted by everyone, magician and spectator alike. And, this trick, as long as it is not disproved hangs in suspension as an “untrue truth”. It is this that mesmerizes us and makes us his easy prey.

The mediocre con artist occupies the other pole of deception. A bald man selling some indigenous oil as a sure remedy for falling hair fits this category. His deception works not in his own smartness but in others’ naivety.

Rajapakse regime resembles the latter who has no finesse at all in his subterfuge. As there is a large section of naively vulnerable population any deception can work for some time. However, another group of people who can hardly be deceived but who pretend not to notice the deception for their own reasons are the worst lot. In Sri Lanka we can identify these people as veteran leftists.

At present, those so-called progressives in the Samasamaja and Communist parties are busy with publicizing political statements mildly criticizing the government decision to abrogate the Cease Fire Agreement and the President’s efforts at derailing the independent proposals of the APRC. Furthermore, they express their concerns at the President’s apparent subservience to hasty diktats of the JVP.

Their present misgivings are so pathetic that one gets the impression that these people could not have been in this country for the last two years, for they had not apparently known that there was no credible solution for the ethnic question in the Mahinda Chinthana Manifesto except within a unitary state structure. They don’t seem to have known all this time that the maximum devolution possible within such a unitary system could not go beyond the 13th amendment. Nor had they known that this same cease-fire agreement had been castigated in the same Manifesto as a conspiratorial act committed by Ranil Wickremasinghe in collusion with imperialist forces.

It is almost two years since this undeclared war by the government has started with all its collateral destruction being widely covered in the media. During this period not a single murmur of these people against that war waged by the government in which they hold ministerial portfolios has been heard. It is only now that their tongues have started to wag feebly over the inappropriateness of the cease-fire abrogation. The Communist Party of Sri Lanka issuing a statement on the said abrogation says that the government could have achieved all that it wanted while keeping the CFA as well.

In this respect, I believe the JVP is much more genuine than these veteran leftists. The campaign of the JVP against the CFA while clamoring for war is complementary. Their thinking that a document (CFA) even if it carries no weight had to be scrapped is consistent with their belief that even a symbolic paper should not be left to stand in the way of an all out war. The reason why those conventional leftists raise their voice against this abrogation is not that they stand for peace but that they fear of losing international backing thereby frustrating Rajapakse’s overall plan, including the possibility of war being carried out to a victorious finish with international blessing. If the CFA was there government could always portray their major military thrusts as defensive or preemptive measures. The JVP, on the other hand, would not want to camouflage anything regarding their war intention, which makes them more honest than these leftists.

Certain terms are in use not because they mean anything but because they are habitually used by a sizable section of the people. All Parties Representatives Committee has been such a term in common parlance for some time now. In the first place, all parties are not represented in this Committee. For example, the main Opposition in the Parliament, the UNP that has stood for a negotiated settlement all along does not participate in this Committee. The JVP, the main party in the Parliament that stands for war opposing any political settlement with the LTTE is boycotting this Committee. The main Tamil party in the Parliament that opposes the war and defends the rights of Tamils in the country, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is not there, though they were the ones a solution is sought for. In fact, all the parties included in this futile exercise are none other than the very coalition partners of the government.

Among them there may be some groups or parties that stand for a credible devolution of power. The final report of the APRC is to be out tomorrow. But I have no qualms about being too hasty in proclaiming today the outcome, which I know, would not be liable to be changed tomorrow. From the very beginning Rajapakse regime’s intention was to defeat the LTTE militarily first and then to think about a political solution if there is any one left to ask for it. This is common knowledge from among the ignoramus to our Professor Tissa Vitharana, the chairman of the APRC.

But in this logic there is an inconsistency perhaps not easily grasped by the normal layman but could not elude an academic’s scrutiny. First, it was the LTTE that made the South to acknowledge for the first time that there is an exclusive problem for the Tamils living in the country. Secondly, it was not the collaborative politics of the EPDP but the incessant pressure exerted by the LTTE that drove the South to be ready, at least in principle, for a political settlement, whatever that settlement is. In this context, militarily defeating the LTTE would amount to killing the messenger with its message swept under the carpet until another type of the LTTE springs up from among the Tamils. It is interesting to note that even under heavy pressure of a brutal war the South has only agreed today to grant the mere 13th amendment, even that, 20 years after it was enacted. So, one can easily imagine a South not under any pressure acquiescing to granting a fare share of power to the minority, perhaps in the next century!