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yajitha's Blog
Taking a page from Chechnya: Sri Lanka’s insincere constitutional reform and its apologists
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[Editors note: This post which first came to me through Facebook was forwarded to Dayan for comment. His response follows. The emphasis at the end of the article is mine. It is hoped that Aacharya and Dayan will continue this debate along with others on this site, which is more open than Facebook to this type of exchange.]
The soon to come back home UN Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to Geneva, Dayan Jayatilleke has repeatedly wrote about the Chechen (Chechnya) model (yes he loves Russia) for conflict resolution in Sri Lanka:
In a recent interview with David Blacker Dayan noted:
I have long advocated the Chechen solution — an all-out, combined arms war to destroy the terrorist militia, followed by the implementation of some form of autonomy and self-governance for the area and stabilization through the rule of an elected local ally. Our military victory has to be politically conserved and socially stabilised. That’s what my advocacy of the 13th amendment is about.
Earlier this year he wrote:
Do we attempt to imitate the Israelis and practice a policy of occupation, settlements and discrimination, triggering endless cycles of conflict, or do we follow the no less tough-minded but much smarter Russian leaders, who having had to smash the Chechen terrorist insurgency with untrammeled force, have since ensured a high degree of stability by devolving power to their Chechen ally the tough young Ramzan Kadyrov, and transferring enough economic autonomy to guarantee a surge of prosperity in Grozhny?
I excerpt this paragraph from the Times topic introduction to the Chechen issue from the New York Times:
Vladimir Putin anointed Ramzan A. Kadyrov as the region’s president; his father had held the post before being killed by rebels in 2004. Mr. Kadyrov crushed the rebel movement. He has strong support in Moscow, where he is praised for quelling the insurgency, rebuilding areas devastated by the war and rejuvenating the local economy. But he has also been the focus of widespread accusations of human rights violations.
Mr. Kadyrov has sought increased autonomy for Chechnya. That goal may be helped by the official end to Russian counterinsurgency operations, announced in April 2009, a move of at least symbolic value to Mr. Kadyrov.
The announcement also underscored his success in establishing a stability that has, among other things, allowed rebuilding to begin in the obliterated capital city of Grozny. But critics charge that the peace has been achieved through campaigns of unsparing brutality that have included widespread human rights violations.
The announcement did not mention troop withdrawals, though Russian officials said they would now have more legal leeway to scale down the number of federal military and security forces. While the violence in Chechnya has declined, however, the insurgents have not been completely routed, and it seems likely that many troops and security forces will remain there for some time.
I will leave it to my readers to draw the parallels to how GOSL is positioning its local allies in the East and now in the North. It does look like the Chechen solution is taking shape except that President Rajapaksha is trying to do it without giving away anything, not even as basic as the 13th Amendment. So Dayan who presses for it is sent home. Now at least Dayan should come out and say that he was wrong to have expected from this regime anything like even the 13th Amendment and hence that his support for the regime right from the beginning was wrong. He won’t.
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Sinusoidal nature of the JVP Policy on the National Question
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The recent interview the JVP leader, comrade Somawansa Amarsinghe, conducted with Sanjana Hattotuwa and published on Groundviews clearly demonstrates the limitations, fluctuations and the non-cohesive nature of the JVP’s policy position regarding the national question.
The ruling elite and the bourgeois-nationalist intelligentsia belonging to all the communities contributed to spreading and reinforcing ultra-nationalism and chauvinism among the people in Sri Lanka. This process implanted feelings of mutual distrust and hatred against the other and their culture. These forces have attempted to make people of one community believe that their socio-economic freedom could be won only when the other is conquered and their culture is extinguished.
During the period from 1972 to 1983, the JVP advocated the policies laid out in the Policy Declaration of the JVP. It did not advocate separatism as a solution to the national question, but accepted the Tamil peoples’ right to determine their own political destiny, voluntarily and freely.
It is paramount to keep in mind that the unitary constitution was an autocratic construct of colonialism. According to the JVP, it rejects the 13th amendment to the Constitution because India imposed it on the people of Sri Lanka. Were not the constitutions of 1978, 1972 and 1948 and the unitary administration established by the British in 1833 impositions on the people?
During the interview comrade Amarasinghe cited the clauses of the Sri Lankan Constitution that related to Language provisions. Except for the issue of right to self determination, the JVP seemed to have come back to its original position as stated in its policy declaration drafted in 1973. This, I believe is a positive step in the right direction, given the JVP went through a cycle where, at the end of nineties and until recently, its leaders publicly questioned whether Tamils had any grievances at all.
The interview omits to mention the significant changes to the national question in Sri Lanka since 1972, when the late comrade Rohana Wijeweera and I formulated the policy declaration of the JVP for the approval of the party. Comrade Amarasinghe rightly points out that Sinhala and Tamil should have been included as official languages in the same constitutional clause, but avoids commenting on the major problem regarding the language issue. If the GoSL cares about its Tamil and Muslim citizens, it should have taken measures to practically implement the language provisions already available in the Constitution. When Mrs Chandrika Bandaranayake was in power, she issued a Presidential circular with an order to provide facilities for Tamil speaking citizens to make and record their complaints in Tamil at any Police Station in Sri Lanka. However, unlike President R Premadasa who monitored and implemented all his orders and projects meticulously, Mrs Bandaranayake did not have the caliber to monitor the progress of her executive order. It was never implemented. This situation exists even today. The JVP does not even seem to be aware of the existence of such a situation because it perhaps believes that Tamil people have to wait until it emancipates them from all their socio-cultural and economic ills.
Comrade Amarasinghe continues to identify himself as a Marxist. However, anyone having an understanding of the major components of a socialist program on the national question will be bewildered by his bourgeois nationalistic take on the question. It seems he has forgotten that the recognition of the right of people to determine their political destiny played an important role in mobilizing and uniting people of diverse nationalities in building the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1918 and in the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922. One major reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the autocratic over-centralisation of power under the ‘socialist’ bureaucracy at the helm of the Russian Republic and the role Russian chauvinism played in distancing its other constituent nationalities from the Russian nationality.
When a group of people, who have been subjected to national oppression for more than half a century, demand equality, fairness and justice one of the first weapons used against them by the ruling elite is repression. This sort of repression of the Tamil peoples’ demands has occurred since 1956. From approximately 1995 the JVP solely concentrated on putting forward slogans that only called upon the need to develop the language, culture and ‘national’ liberties of the majority community, thus ideologically influencing the majority community only along nationalist lines.
Since the late 1990s the JVP not only supported the chauvinist verbal onslaught against the Tamil people but also became an active collaborator in the brutal repression carried out by the state against the Tamil people. Thus, it has to bear some responsibility for the socio-cultural and economic outcomes that the working people of the island are experiencing today. For dividing the people by clouding its consciousness, the JVP, in particular its nationalist bloc used chauvinist and fundamentalist slogans to the maximum effect. The JVP camouflaged its ultra nationalist stance with socialist phraseology. Therefore their nationalist views and slogans were particularly dangerous for the working people. Lenin, supposedly Amarasinghe’s ideologue, uncompromisingly exposed such hypocrisy by showing that any proclamation of national equality that is not backed by the support for liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples is false and meaningless.
In 1977, when I drafted my essay A Marxist Analysis of the National question[1] based on the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, I said that the process adopted by the Tamil-speaking people at the time to find solutions to the national question was undergoing a decisive change.
The analysis I provided, which was originally drafted in 1972 while behind bars and thus with limited research facilities, was incomplete and at times incorrect, particularly, in relation to the issue of decentralisation of power and federation. I also tried to explain in the paper the role played by capitalist and nationalist forces in a neo colonial country like ours.
However, since May 1983, with the rejection of the underlying fundamental Marxist policy of the ‘right to self-determination’ of peoples, the political line of the JVP regarding the national question underwent a significant change, which was chauvinistic and opportunistic in nature. Having reversed its original position on the national question, the JVP aligned themselves with the Sinhala nationalist forces and the faction of the SLFP led by the late Mr Anura Bandaranayake
This change in political outlook of the JVP generated a policy of collaborationism with part of the ruling elite, as evidenced by the political support the JVP provided to keep part of the capitalist ruling class in power and the common platform they shared with Sinhala ultra-nationalist political formations.
Since the GoSL and the LTTE signed the Indo-Lanka Peace Treaty in 1987 at the instigation of the Government of India, the JVP and its leadership shifted its strategic political emphasis to an extreme anti-Indian and Sinhala nationalist position. The anti-Indian stand that was dropped after 1971 was revitalized.
The JVP leadership in their collaboration with capitalist and ultra nationalist forces identified the Tamil people and their organizations as the main enemy. They even sought the advice of Malwatte and Asgiriya Buddhist prelates regarding how to develop their policies and run the country. What a turnaround it was! Has the JVP in their current formulation moved away from its opportunistic ultra nationalist stance, or, is it just another reflection of the sinusoidal nature of the party’s policy on the national question?[2]
During the current interview and even earlier, comrade Amarasinghe opposed federalism and the implementation of the 13th Amendment, while accepting decentralisation as agreeable to the JVP. He has not elaborated on this point. However, the late comrade Rohana Wijeweera in his essay opposed any form of decentralization in Sri Lanka stating that it will move the country away from its centralized nature, leading the island towards fragmentation. I believe comrade Amarasinghe has moved in the right direction by accepting decentralization as a possible and acceptable solution to the national question.
While writing this response I also had the opportunity to sight the latest set of proposals proposed by the JVP to resolve the national question and resettle the people displaced by the war and interned in IDP camps. I agree that this set of proposals has many positive features regarding the language issue, especially, several practical measures. Yet this set of proposals does not go far enough because it does not talk about releasing and settling the Tamil people interned in these camps in their original places of settlement. This is no different then, when suspected JVPers were held in internment camps in 1971 and in 1989 (not many were held in 1989 as many of them were made to disappear without any evidence!) did not those who valued democracy demand their freedom?
Why is the party proposing such a change in direction at this point of time? Has the JVP forgotten when it was part of the government of Sri Lanka it opposed such measures. It also seems to have forgotten when the Tamil people were strongly demanding equality, fairness and justice, it ignored their pleas. What prevented the JVP from demanding the implementation of such policies during the initial period of the current regime? Implementation of these would have generated and improved better trust between the two communities. Nevertheless, this set of proposals will not holistically address the issues raised by the national question in Sri Lanka.
As evident from these news reports, the JVP leadership seems to attempt to emphasise the necessity to have a political solution to the national question within a unitary state or, as comrade Amarasinghe has put it recently, even within a decentralized state if such a state would lead to future centralization of the island.
In fact, since the eighties the JVP should have highlighted the necessity for and agitated politically for its implementation when it was agitating for the socio-economic and other issues affecting the working people of Sri Lanka. Yet, it did not do so. Where is the policy cohesiveness within the JVP leadership?
I would like to end this statement with a comment I made at an interview held in 2003:
I have a strong belief. A belief, that one day, when the JVP hits its next crisis point in their sinusoidal path, honest and committed people in their ranks, when they come to know the reality of the deceptive politics their leadership had engaged in, would join hands with others in forming a better organization, as the young generation of the 1960s did, when the traditional left departed from their mission and formed a bourgeois coalition.
[Editors note: Lionel Bopage was a former General Secretary of the JVP. He was involved with the JVP since 1968 and resigned in 1984. He is a frequent commentator and contributor on this site.]
[1] Bopage L (1977), A Marxist Analysis of the National Question, Niyamuwa Publications, JVP, Colombo
[2] An aside. When the JVP was in power through the formation of a coalition government in 2004-05, I requested them to present an anti-discriminatory framework that would at least allow our citizens to seek redress from the discriminatory practices they have to undergo in their life time. I explained that many Sinhalese faced this situation and such a framework would help their predicament. It went unheeded.
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The way forward in Sri Lanka: Demilitarisation, the rule of law and democratisation
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The way forward in Sri Lanka involves demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law, and democratisation. These are interlinked so closely that it is impossible to separate them, and on their fulfilment depends not only the political future of Sri Lanka, but also its economic survival.
The Fate of Internally Displaced People
Perhaps the most urgent issue is the fate of internally displaced people (IDPs), especially the Vanni civilians who were displaced in the last stages of the war. Reports of conditions in the camps where they have been interned vary; but the central issue is not the conditions under which they are being detained, but the very fact of their detention. Various spurious arguments justifying it have been put forward by the government and its supporters, none of which hold water. The fact that in many cases their homes have been destroyed and the areas from which they come have been land-mined by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would certainly suggest that the government should offer them shelter until they can return safely, but that is very different from forcibly preventing them from leaving the camps, even if they have homes or relatives elsewhere. Indeed, one family has filed a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court, arguing that it is unconstitutional to detain them thus. The Supreme Court has allowed the reunification of this family within one of the camps, but the larger issue of the violation of fundamental rights still remains unaddressed.
Another argument is that LTTE cadres are hiding amongst the civilians, and therefore a process of screening needs to take place before they are released. This might have been plausible if there had been a steady stream of civilians being released as they were screened and cleared, but so far, only senior citizens have been released – that, too, after a court ruled that large numbers of elderly people were dying of dehydration and malnutrition. The plea by Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader Anandasangaree on behalf of a one-year-old child whose release had been refused by the authorities makes nonsense of the security argument: are we really to believe that it takes more than two months to ascertain whether or not infants are LTTE cadres who pose a threat to security? A report by the International Center for Strategic Defense that inmates can secure their release by bribing the military authorities running the camps 1-3 lakh rupees makes the ‘security’ claim even more farcical, and suggests that these hapless people are being held for ransom – unless, indeed, the purpose is even more sinister.
In fact, while the last batch of displaced people has now been interned for over two months, earlier batches have been deprived of their liberty for much longer. If this situation continues, it will become a Crime against Humanity as defined by the International Criminal Court (ICC), since it involves ‘severe deprivation of physical liberty’ and ‘severe deprivation of fundamental rights’ of a civilian population. With each passing day, the government’s claim that the assault on the LTTE’s last bastion was launched in order to free the civilians held hostage there looks less plausible, and the allegation that the real purpose was to effect a transfer of population – also defined as a crime against humanity by the ICC – looks more likely. It is an irony that a government that has gone to great lengths to refute the charge of war crimes should open itself up to the more serious charge of crimes against humanity, this time requiring no investigations since they are being committed in front of the whole world! Foreign governments and aid agencies involved in providing for the Vanni IDPs are understandably getting anxious about continuing to contribute to the illegal detention of innocent civilians.
The immediate release of displaced persons who have been interned, and speedy resettlement of all displaced people, including the Muslims ethnically cleansed from the North by the LTTE in 1990, must be part of any post-war programme, and foreign governments and aid agencies should insist on these as conditions for assisting the government of Sri Lanka in relief, reconstruction and redevelopment. Access to the camps and registration by the ICRC and/or UN of all inmates, both of IDP camps and detention camps where LTTE cadres are being held, is also necessary, in views of reports that abductions and disappearances have been taking place.
Demilitarisation and Restoration of the Rule of Law
In the latter stages of the conflict, the military was doubled to around 200,000 personnel, and one would imagine that with the defeat of the LTTE and end of the war it would be halved to its original size, with the demobilised soldiers being re-employed in civilian tasks like the reconstruction that so urgently needs to be done. Instead, there have been proposals that it be expanded by another 100,000. This proposal should cause concern not just to minorities, but also to the majority of Sinhalese citizens, because against whom would this enormous military be used, now that the LTTE is no more? And who would pay for it? Since IMF loans normally do not have have political conditions, it is likely that the reason why a projected loan still has not been approved is the fear that an already heavily indebted government would not be able to pay it back if it embarks on such a huge military spending spree. If the cost of military expansion is borne by the public, which is expecting living conditions to improve with the end of the war, there is likely to be protest in the South. Perhaps that is the expectation.
The government speaks with two tongues when it talks about the LTTE. On one side, it claims that the LTTE has been completely defeated and the war is over: the huge popularity of President Rajapaksa is premised on this notion, as are the celebrations that accompanied the announcement. Yet government policies, including an increase in military spending and the continued incarceration of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians, can only be justified on the assumption that the LTTE is still a potent threat. Again, paramilitaries kept by Tamil parties like the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) were earlier justified by their need to defend themselves from LTTE assassins, but this excuse no longer holds. They should be disarmed immediately.
The LTTE’s war machine has been destroyed, and its leadership, including its supreme leader Prabakaran, killed; there is no chance that it can be revived in the near future. Desperate attempts by the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora to foster the illusion that it is still alive have more to do with their claims on LTTE financial assets than with anything going on within Sri Lanka. The proposal for increased militarisation is based on a Sinhala nationalist view of the conflict, which sees it solely as a problem of terrorism and separatism. Why this terrorism and separatism arose is left unexplained, because the Sinhala nationalist narrative conveniently leaves out all the discrimination, persecution and violence directed at Tamils prior to the outbreak of the war; if the pogroms of 1983 are reluctantly admitted to have taken place, the official death toll resulting from them is cited: 300-400 as opposed to 2000-3000, which is the unofficial death toll. Hence, they argue, the way to prevent similar problems aising in the future is to militarise society even more, and keep in place the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations, which allow state actors to violate human and democratic rights with impunity. The horrible paradox is that if the real precursors to the war are recognised, it becomes evident that violation of the human and democratic rights of Tamils and militarisation are precisely what led to it! In other words, what are seen as measures to avert future terrorism and separatism could become catalysts of these very problems.
Furthermore, the destruction of the rule of law wrought by decades of the PTA and Emergency Regulations affects all sections of society in all parts of the country. A bizarre example is the public boast by Labour Minister Mervyn Silva, already infamous for his assaults on mediapersons in the state TV channel Rupavahini, that he was responsible for the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga and the brutal assault on Poddala Jayantha, general secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association. That a minister close to the president can preside over a mafia with such impunity speaks volumes about the lawlessness prevailing in Sri Lanka. The Asian Human Rights Commission reports that other ruling party politicians too run criminal gangs that terrorise the South, while the kidnapping of little girls for ransom in the East, and their subsequent murder, is blamed on one of the state-linked Tamil paramilitaries.
A particularly disturbing development is the branding of lawyers defending the publishers of the Sunday Leader in a case filed by the Defence Secretary as ‘traitors’ on the Defence Ministry website, a clear instigation of physical attacks on them by state-linked stormtroopers. One is reminded of the reign of terror in the late 1980s, when anyone who criticised the state was designated a JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) member or supporter and therefore worthy of death, while lawyers who defended them were tortured and killed. Unless civil society in Sri Lanka wakes up to the danger and takes action to avert it, there is every likelihood that there could be a repetition of that nightmare.
Democratic Rights and the Executive Presidency
This brings us to the issue of freedom of expression, a sine qua non of democracy. The International Federation of Journalists has called on the government to ‘Stop the War on Journalists’, and this is surely an apt expression when the numerous cases of detention, imprisonment, assault, torture and murder of journalists are considered, while several others have been forced into exile in order to escape a similar fate. According to this professional organisation, Sri Lanka has long been considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. This situation continues unabated even after the annihilation of the LTTE, which was also renowned for its denial of freedom of expression. The modus operandi of the state is in fact a mirror image of the LTTE’s crushing of dissent: those who disagree with the powers-that-be are in danger of being labelled ‘pro-LTTE’ and ‘traitors’, and thereafter subjected to arrest and detention, abduction and assault or murder by state-linked criminal gangs. This has been the fate even of people who have all along been vociferous in their criticisms of the LTTE!
It is worth pointing out that this is not just a denial of the right to freedom of expression of mediapersons, but also of the right to information of the public. As of now, the clampdown on freedom of expression is not yet complete, but if it progresses further, the public will be fed only the state’s version of what is happening in the country, and kept ignorant of developments detrimental to their own interests. The revival in June 2009 of the draconian 1973 Press Council Act, designed to protect government privilege rather than the public’s right to information, and opposed by Mahinda Rajapaksa himself while he was in the opposition, is one more step in this direction.
The use of the same criminal gangs against lawyers and opposition politicians undermines the independence of the judiciary and the right to free and fair elections. But these institutions are also undermined by the existence of the Executive Presidency. The absolute power held by this individual trumps the rights of everyone else, and makes a mockery of democracy. This is illustrated by the fate of the 17th Amendment. Passed during Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency in a rare moment of unanimity in 2001, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution attempts to curtail the power of the Executive President by appointing a Constitutional Council with representation from all parties in parliament, which in turn would select chairpersons and members to the Election Commission, Public Service Commission, National Police Commission, Human Rights Commission, Bribery and Corruption Commission, Finance Commission and Delimitation Commission; its approval was also mandatory for appointments to the offices of the Chief Justice and Judges of the Supreme Court, the President and Judges of the Court of Appeal, members of the Judicial Service Commission other than the chairperson, the Attorney-General, Auditor-General, Inspector-General of Police, Ombudsman and Secretary-General of Parliament. The aim was to ensure the independence of these institutions.
However, as the terms of these appointees came to an end during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, he started making appointments without consulting the Constitutional Council, which itself finally became defunct as the government failed to appoint a new one. This occurred despite a determined campaign by civil society organisations, spearheaded by the Organisation of Professional Associations. The consequences were disastrous for the justice system, human rights, the fight against organised crime, free and fair elections, and attempts to curb nepotism and corruption.
This whole sequence shows that any attempts to curtail the absolute power of the Executive President which depend on the concurrence of the individual in this position are pointless; neither democracy nor good governance can be ensured unless and until the post is abolished.
Equality and Democracy versus Ethnic Nationalism
The constitutional amendment that is most often cited as being crucial to a political solution of the ethnic conflict is the 13th Amendment, enacted in 1987 in the wake of the Indo-Lanka Accord. The provisions of this can be summed up as (a) granting parity of status to Tamil as an official language alongside Sinhala, and (b) granting devolution of power to Provincial Councils. The former, of course, was promised even prior to Independence: a long-overdue measure which could, if implemented, ensure a much greater degree of equality to Tamils. But it is the latter that is normally given more prominence.
At the time of the Accord, devolution was seen as satisfying the aspirations of the Tamil minority by granting Tamils a degree of self-government in the Tamil-majority Northeastern province which was created by the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces (now de-merged again). The arguments in favour of it need careful scrutiny, however. Do they suggest that Tamils in the North and East would have rights that Tamils in other parts of the country would not? Or that Sinhalese would have rights in the rest of the country which they would not have in the Northeast? What about Muslims and smaller minorities: lacking any territory, would they be deprived of self-determination?
The linking of territory to ethnicity, religion or language is always dangerous, and in Sri Lanka especially so. The fundamental argument of Sinhala nationalism is that the Sinhalese, as the majority in Sri Lanka as a whole, should have rights and privileges denied to people of other communities. Does the argument for devolution or self-determination implicitly accept this reasoning? For the LTTE, clearly, it did. For example, self-determination meant butchering Muslims in the East and ethnically cleansing them from the North. In the course of my interviews with internally displaced people in 1990, displaced Muslims told me their Tamil neighbours had wept when they were being evicted, but were unable to persuade the LTTE to allow them to stay. I came across three Tamil women in one Tamil camp whose Sinhalese husbands had been killed by the LTTE; they were petrified that their little bilingual children would say something in Sinhala and give themselves away. In a Sinhalese camp was a Sinhalese man who had managed to escape, who revealed, in hushed tones, that his wife, who was in the camp with him, was Tamil. In a country where people from different communities have lived in mixed neighbourhoods and mixed families from time immemorial, linking a particular community to a particular territory necessarily entails terrible violence, crimes against humanity, and the prohibition of genuine love and friendship, which recognise no communal barriers.
Territorialising rights suggests that rights are a zero-sum game: since the territory of Sri Lanka is finite, more of it for one community means less for another. This is why Sinhala extremists have been able to convince some moderates that recognising ‘minority rights’ means giving up part of what they legitimately see as their country. For Tamils, surely, it is the opposite: defining only the North and East as ‘traditional Tamil homelands’ entails giving up a large part of what they can legitimately claim as their country: the whole of Sri Lanka. So what is the solution?
Relentlessly insisting on equality, the bedrock of democracy, would disarm the Sinhala chauvinists, because it could be pointed out that the minorities are simply asking for equality before the law and equal protection of the law, equal rights and opportunities, and not demanding that anything be taken away from the Sinhalese. Sri Lankadoes not have the same language problems as India, since there are only three national languages, Sinhala, Tamil and English. In India, children routinely learn three languages at school, and children in Sri Lanka could easily do the same; indeed, some have already begun to do so, and if the effort is continued and expanded, the next generation would not have the same linguistic problems as this one. In the meantime, it would be necessary to recruit Tamil-speaking people and interpreters to all government offices, police stations, courts, army outposts, and so on, so that parity for Tamil can be implemented properly. If all children could be educated in the medium of their choice and all citizens could communicate with the state in the national language of their choice, practice the religion of their choice in the way they choose or practice no religion if they so choose, and develop their culture individually and collectively in all parts of the island, there would be no need to make special provisions for Tamil-majority provinces.
Even the demand for devolution needs to be reframed as a demand for democratisation that brings government closer to all the people, not just minorities, apart from being made far stronger than the 13th Amendment, which has loopholes allowing the Centre to take back the devolved powers. Along with the demand for abolition of the Executive Presidency, and further devolution to smaller units, it would give all the people of Sri Lanka more control over their lives, instead of having their lives ruled by a remote power in Colombo that knows little and cares less about their needs. Admittedly, the history of Sri Lanka from Independence has been one of oppression of minorities, and while some wrongs have been righted (e.g. disenfranchisement of the plantation workers, discrimination against Tamil by law and constitution), new injustices have arisen, foremost among which is the denial of liberty to the Vanni IDPs. Therefore some mechanism to guard against such injustices would be advisable, and this can partly be achieved by giving minorities more power at the Centre through a Second Chamber.
However, the best safeguard for the equal rights of minorities would be the understanding throughout society that democracy is not a zero-sum game, but the very opposite. As Pastor Niemoller wrote in the poem quoted by Lasantha Wickrematunga in his last article, published posthumously, if we don’t stand up for others when they are under attack, then there will be no one to stand up for us when we are attcked. In other words, by defending democracy for others, one is defending democracy for oneself. All but the oppressors have an interest in maximising democracy, and solidarity between different sections of the oppressed (including women, workers and the rural poor, as well as minority communities) is essential if the struggle for it is to be won in Sri Lanka.
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Sending Dayan home: the triumph of folly in Sri Lankan politics?
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I was tempted to write this article after a few days of reading different news reports about the ‘sacking’ of His Excellency Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Different explanations have been provided by different quarters about the ‘reasons’ that led to Colombo’s decision to recall its most gifted diplomat. This article does not attempt at analyzing such explanations, or at making any judgments. Concerning Dr. Jayatilleka’s writings on Sri Lanka’s ethnic relations, his personal views expressed on the electronic media since his appointment to Geneva, and his work as Permanent Representative, there are many points that this writer and many others may not agree with. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Dr Jayatilleka remains one of Sri Lanka’s best political analysts, scholars and public speakers.
Diplomacy is a strange professional domain, where high skills in many areas are appreciated. These generally include foreign language skills, a sound education in the areas of international relations, politics, history and related (and overlapping) academic disciplines, and excellent presentation skills. Most importantly, a good diplomat is marked by his/her ability to network thoroughly, defend his/her opinion in a logical, clear and graceful mannerism, and a strong resolve to defend the interests of his/her state in the international arena. However, the mere possession of these skills does not make a successful diplomat. To begin with, working for the diplomatic corps has been the reserve of the upper echelons of society in almost all states. Browsing through a list of French diplomats in office, one may notice that very few do not have a nom de famille à particule (i.e. a family name beginning with the preposition de, e.g. de Villiers) traditionally a sign of aristocratic descent. Those familiar with Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry and diplomatic apparatus may know the high utility of ‘contacts’ in making one’s way inside the Republic Building.
At the beginning of his term of office, President Rajapakse made a timely speech before diplomats of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service, at a workshop held at the Presidential Secretariat. In his speech, the President clearly stated that the job of a career diplomat is not limited to organizing evening receptions and providing a good education to one’s children. The overall objective of the speech appeared to be that of adding increased professionalism and credibility to the Sri Lanka Foreign Service. Three years later, one wonders what improvements have taken place.
Readers familiar with the Sri Lankan diplomatic corps may agree that the accusatory statements made by the President in the above-mentioned speech bear a fair degree of truth. The Sri Lanka Foreign Service (SLFS) is a service of lavishness, and consists of the most lucrative of government jobs. Diplomatic officials not only enjoy a very generous salary (when posted abroad), but are also provided with free accommodation, a considerably high entertainment allowance, business travel at state expense, and many other perks. One may note that these are normal privileges provided to diplomats by any state, and that Sri Lanka is no exception. I agree. Nevertheless, what leaves one perplexed is the Republic Building’s notions of the management of financial resources. Due to reasons of budget management, the Swedish Foreign Ministry has decided to close several of its embassies/consulates abroad, including their embassy in Colombo. Given the shape of our economy, it is extremely advisable that the state takes prompt measures to ensure that the diplomatic service, one of the most costly government services, is managed in a more cost-effective manner.
Visiting some diplomatic missions of Sri Lanka abroad, one is struck by the feeling that the massive budgetary allocations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are largely spent on paying salaries, perks, business travel and the comfort of diplomats; very little investments are made on embassies, providing efficient and fast services (especially in consular divisions), and in promoting the image of Sri Lanka abroad. A visit to Sri Lanka’s embassy in Paris is a fine example. The waiting area for visitors resembles an outdated government office in the deep recesses of Sri Lankan provincialism. It is completely cramped with visitors, and people queue up literally behind the back of one another, leaving very little room for privacy when dealing with personal issues related to civil status and immigration. There are no basic facilities such as a vending machine or a fountain. There is one counter, and on busy days, the consular division turns nightmarish. The ordinary man and woman visiting the embassy are therefore made to feel unwelcome, and as per customer services, the mark is a clear 0 out of 100.
Nevertheless, there are French nationals who work in the sectors of economic cooperation (who are paid by the Sri Lankan tax payer). Their officers resemble a world apart from the consular division’s waiting area. Adorned by state of the art furniture, Sri Lankan ornaments, paintings and other décor, one is left wondering if the two sections are part of the same establishment. Upstairs, the ambassadorial offices are also lavish, and the government of Sri Lanka owns an extremely sumptuous ambassadorial residence in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the top-most high residential area of Paris, which is also President Zarkozy’s constituency (he became the mayor of Neuilly at the early age of 28). Diplomats roam in the streets of Paris in luxury vehicles with diplomatic number plates, as the Sri Lankan taxpayer fuels their luxuries.
The point I making is that the Sri Lanka’s Foreign Service establishment is in need of a more cost-effective approach to management. There are many embassies abroad where next to nothing is done as prompt services to the nation, to expatriates, or to anyone else except to the diplomats in office. By adopting an approach based on quality services, maintenance of essential services and cutting down on the less essential, the state can save billions, and use that money for crucial sectors such as healthcare and education.
As some readers have noted on Groundviews and elsewhere, the skills’ of some of our top diplomats have been amply displayed in the last few months, on foreign media. It is an unarguable truism that some diplomats in office (in extremely crucial duty stations) are thoroughly incapable of defending Sri Lanka’s interests in an articulate manner. Public speaking and presentation skills of some senior diplomats are appalling; and very few can stand up and make an eloquent oration in a language other than Sinhala, Tamil or English. It is no exaggeration to state that in the absence of Ambassador Dr Jayatilleka, the Sri Lankan government would have faced major problems in the last few months. While expressing disagreement on some of his positions, it needs to be mentioned that no other serving diplomat would have been capable of defending the Sri Lankan state the way Dr Jayatilleka did in Geneva.
The misfortune of our land is that high talent is seen as something venomous, which requires different degrees of ‘elimination’. There are those who believe that in order to possess the skills mentioned earlier, one needs to come from an upper class background. If that is not the case, your skills may value less. Then, there are individuals, especially in the Foreign Ministry, who desperately cling to perks knowing that they are thoroughly unqualified for the positions they are in. Such personae share a high level of wrath towards anyone capable of shining more than them, surpassing their meager levels of skill, and demonstrating outstanding talent. They would make all possible efforts to promptly eliminate such rare talent from the Republic Building. This, together with the adamancy of the Sinhala nationalist far right, explains the brief fax message carrying the news of Dr. Jayatilleka’s ousting.
One is left perplexed, and wonders what would be the fate of Sri Lanka if practices of this nature are to be continued. This is a vicious circle, and breaking it is a common challenge faced by all Sri Lankans at home and abroad.
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Out in the Wilderness — Dayan Jayatilleka on 13th Amendment and getting sacked by Boggles
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Sri Lanka’s soon-to-be-ex-Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva took time off from his busy schedule of sipping martinis, getting up the Americans’ noses, and fighting on the Western Front, to have a little chat with us. This is his first interview since the Foreign Ministry announced that he has been recalled from Geneva, effective August 20th.
David Blacker: First off, there seem too be two opinions on your sacking. One, that you were too pushy about the 13th Amendment. Two, that you pissed off the Israelis. Which is it?
Dayan Jayatilleka: It could be either, both or neither. The editorials in The Island and the Daily Mirror on July 20th, indicate that it could have a personal aspect. Let’s unpack the other opinions. If I were ‘pushy’ about the 13th amendment I was only pushing a line that was the official stance of the government of Sri Lanka as contained in two post-war joint statements, of May 21st and 23rd. I was doing so in the English language, trying to convince the international community and the Tamil Diaspora of the sincerity of the Government’s commitment to devolution and a political solution, in a context where there was and is a powerful campaign calling for international intervention of one or other sort on the grounds that the Government will not implement such reforms. I was also waging an ideological struggle against those hard-line fringe elements who were opposed to the 13th amendment and playing into the hands of Sri Lanka’s enemies. I was not instructed to do otherwise.
As for the charge that I should not write to the papers or express my views in the media, I have always done so with the disclaimer that these are strictly my personal views. There are other diplomats who have done the same. The controversial articles in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, by Dimitri Rogozin, Russia’s serving ambassador to NATO in Brussels, and a political appointee, not a professional diplomat. The respected diplomat, Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore was a star speaker in New York’s seminar circuit where he would preface his remarks by saying ‘these are not the views of the permanent representative of Singapore but simply of Mahbubani’. In our own diplomatic history, there is the example of Ambassador Ernest Corea, the former editor of the Daily News who was posted by President Jayawardene to Washington DC, precisely so he could use his journalistic skills.
The Israeli story is old hat. That issue came and went, and I was sent a letter signed by the Secretary to the Foreign Ministry which said that H.E. the President wished me to stay on in my post until May 31st 2010. Furthermore, after I received instructions, I have stayed off the Israeli issue. Therefore, that is probably just an excuse.
DB: For months, there have been ominous warnings of your head being on the block — particularly over the Israeli issue, but these seemed to come to nothing, and you say you were personally assured of your position by The Man himself. So is this sacking in deed a personal vendetta by the Foreign Minister? The Island suggests he feels upstaged by you. What do you have to say about that?
Dayan Jayatilleka: What I have is a letter dated March 26th, signed by the Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which says that H.E. the President has decided that I should stay on until May 2010. This was after the initial controversy involving Israel. Even if some one had a personal vendetta against me, I am not naive enough to think that this sort of decision, in the wake of an earlier unsuccessful effort to remove me and in the aftermath of the successful Special Session of the Human Rights Council, would have been implemented without some semblance of a green light, however fleeting and flickering, from the top political leadership. So it was probably a confluence of factors.
DB: Many people feel you’d make a better Foreign Minister than Rohitha Bogollagama, and he knows it. Do you agree?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Is that meant to be some kind of a compliment?
DB: Maybe. Were you seen as such a threat to the Foreign Minister?
Dayan Jayatilleka: That’s insane. I am neither a cabinet minister nor even a parliamentarian, nor have I displayed any interest in contesting an election. How could I be a threat to any minister?
DB: Oh, come off it. Lakshman Kadirgama himself came in via the National List, and if they can bring Karuna in as a minister, is it such a stretch to consider Sri Lanka’s pointman in Europe as Foreign Minister?
Dayan Jayatilleka: I have never shown interest in entering parliament, or in becoming a member of one of the two major political parties. In any case, given the evolution of Sri Lanka’s political culture, isn’t this speculation irrelevant?
DB: OK, moving along, the more right wing elements in parliament such as the JVP and the JHU are rabidly against the 13th. Has your vocal defense of this amendment lost you influential friends within the GoSL?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Oh dear, you forgot the NFF — though Nandana Goonetilleke is rather more pragmatic on devolution and the ethnic question than his comrade. They and the elements you mention weren’t my friends to lose. What is a little sad is that I seem to have lost the confidence of the President.
DB: The GoSL has resolutely maintained that it is committed to the 13th Amendment, and indeed it’s probable that a lot of India’s support during the war was conditional to this. However, now that the war is over, the JVP and JHU — and the NFF — seem keen to have the 13th removed from the table. Do you think they could be successful, and is this sacking an instrumental step down that road?
Dayan Jayatilleka: I sincerely hope not. If they are successful in such an endeavour, it would automatically mean that the balance of social, political and ideological forces is such that there would be no improved or even equivalent replacement, and that would mean a renewed cycle of ethnic polarisation and conflict, though not in the form of a war. It would also mean greater political space for the Tamil separatists especially in the Diaspora, and international pressure on and erosion of support for Sri Lanka. As for my sacking, I really do not know how the minorities and the international community will interpret my removal, though I have seen some Indian newspaper reports. They know that I have a track record of staunch opposition to Prabhakaran, the LTTE and Tamil separatism, have been a critic of centrifugal ethno-federalism and Western ‘liberal humanitarian’ interventionism, but have also stood for the implementation of the limited autonomy provisions of the Sri Lankan Constitution.
DB: In addition to the right-wing, there has been some celebration in the pro-LTTE circles over your sacking. Isn’t this embarrassing for the President, and would a reinstatement or promotion seem inconceivable at this stage?
Dayan Jayatilleka: I’m not in the least surprised to hear from you that the pro-LTTE circles are celebrating. As for your question, it isn’t my call to answer, but it is clear from the decision that this is not thought to be the case.
“The atrocities committed on the innocent people of Gaza should not be permitted to be obscured, obfuscated by lies, deception, half-truths and selective reordering of facts and chronology.”
DB: These were your words when addressing the UN Human Rights Council Special Session on Gaza. But they could very well have been used by critics of the GoSL’s anti-LTTE war. Given that the Israelis have remained a staunch ally – if not a friend – to SL over the years, don’t you think your speech was ill-timed?
Dayan Jayatilleka: They have indeed been used by critics of GOSL’s anti-LTTE war, but used unsuccessfully! Had they been successful they would have won the vote at the UNHRC, not lost it so badly. They were unsuccessful because the charge is not credible or accurate, which is why those who have strong views on Gaza and are thoroughly familiar with all its details are among our strongest political and diplomatic supporters.
What is unsaid by my critics is that in every one of my speeches, I have underscored the right of the state of Israel to exist behind secure borders and to combat terrorism. I have opposed the rocket attacks on civilian targets in Israel. I have even defended the policy of selective liquidation of terrorist leaders. I was one of the few Third World ambassadors to attend the 60th anniversary celebrations here in Geneva, of the founding of the state of Israel. Furthermore, the only time that I held a position at variance with that of Cuba as Non-Aligned Movement chair here was when I spoke up in support of the abortive effort by the Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, Emeritus Professor Richard Falk, to re-define his mandate to include the acts of terrorism committed against Israel!
Was my speech ill-timed? Hardly — it was within traditional pro-Palestinian GoSL — and SLFP, I might add — policy. Furthermore, I had, in the speech, pre-emptively demarcated the contrast between the wars in Sri Lanka and Israel/Gaza; I had already made the case for the battle I knew was to come, because I knew — and advocated — that we would have to go in for a military endgame, and that there would be a international campaign against us.
Israel has been a source of sales of military equipment to us. So too have they to many others, who spoke and voted against Israel in the Gaza special session at the UN HRC.
DB: Sri Lanka has often been compared to Israel of late whenever a hardline stance against terrorism is discussed. You, however, in your speeches, have often gone to great lengths to distance the two conflicts. Why?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Some try to divert attention from Gaza by pointing the finger at Sri Lanka. We must not allow ourselves to be used as a red herring. Sri Lanka has never invaded any other country and occupied the lands of others. We are not in violation of any UN Security Council resolutions. Ours is a strictly internal conflict. Under international law, Israel and Sri Lanka are two very different cases. It is also because I have successfully argued this at the UN HRC that while there is a UN HRC mandated probe headed by Justice Richard Goldstone currently holding public hearings in Gaza, there isn’t one gearing to go to Sri Lanka, which was the aim of the Special session!
DB: Was there really a single moment when world opinion turned against the LTTE? Was it really the aftermath of 9/11 or the killing of Lakshaman Kadirgama? Or was it more a collection of trickles that became a river?
Dayan Jayatilleka: No, there wasn’t a single moment. World opinion didn’t turn against the LTTE to the point that it would have opposed the evacuation option for the Tiger leadership that some seemed to have had in mind following a so-called humanitarian pause, but it had turned to the extent that there was indifference to the fate of the Tigers as distinct from the Tamils, and that those who wanted such an “honorable exit” couldn’t mainstream it. It was really a cumulative affair — one had to remind audiences of the litany of Tiger crimes and the track record of repeatedly sabotaging chances for a negotiated settlement. If you want a turning point, it was the murder of Rajiv Gandhi, which pretty much ensured that a Sonia-led Congress administration would not save the Tigers nor join the West in pressurizing to stop the final offensive. If India had been on the other side of this, we would have been in a fix.
DB: What’s your view of the IDP camps? Do you think they are the necessary evil that the GoSL claims they are?
Dayan Jayatilleka: When an 18-person Task force was set up to manage the IDPs, it was originally pan-Sinhala. There was not a single Tamil to handle the fate of a purely Tamil populace of IDPs! Later, two Tamils were inducted, but not at the very top. There should be someone in charge who can speak to the IDPs in their own language and is sensitive to their predicament as a member of the same community — someone who would be motivated at least because these are his potential constituents. This would fast-track things. The sole Tamil Minister in the Cabinet, Douglas Devananda, should be co-chair of the Task Force set up for the IDPs and the North.
DB: The LTTE’s aggression – the boycotting of elections, the throwing out of the EU members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission – created a lot of sympathy for the GoSL overseas. This sympathy possibly was justified with the victory against the LTTE. Is the GoSL in danger of squandering this goodwill over the IDP camps issue in a similar way that the Bush administration did by invading Iraq, creating Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Any administration and any society, would do well to be mindful of the lessons of History, which is that one can win a war but lose the peace and that winning the war is different from a successful and sustainable occupation of the ground which requires the winning of hearts and minds. The Six Day War was one of the most stellar military victories of the 20th century, but look at the endless quagmire that has resulted from the policies of occupation. I have long advocated the Chechen solution — an all-out, combined arms war to destroy the terrorist militia, followed by the implementation of some form of autonomy and self-governance for the area and stabilization through the rule of an elected local ally. Our military victory has to be politically conserved and socially stabilised. That’s what my advocacy of the 13th amendment is about. As for the IDP camps, I think I made clear that our Tamil partner, Minister Devananda, Minister of Social Services, should be mandated to co-manage the problem.
DB: While INGOs and certain groups within international bodies such as the UN have been heavily critical of the GoSL, during the war and since, the latter have managed to keep the head of the UN and most heads of state more or less onside. Given this, don’t you think that the GoSL’s siege mentality over certain issues such as the IDPs is an overreaction – and even bordering on paranoia?
Dayan Jayatilleka: The world has given us six months, which is the period of time within which we said we hoped to re-settle the bulk of the IDPs, though that was, as the president said, a target rather than a pledge. We will be evaluated by how much progress we have made towards that target. Conditions are better than made out in the Western media, but I guess the real moral test is whether we would like our grandmothers, mothers or kid cousins to be in these same conditions. Even from a counter-insurgency point of view, having large numbers in camps for a prolonged period is counterproductive.
DB: The loss of Lakshman Kadirgamar was a great blow to the GoSL’s fight against pro-LTTE international opinion. However, do you think that the GoSL would have been able to conduct the war in a similar manner had Kadirgamar been the Foreign Minister?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Kadirgamar would not have interfered in the conduct of the war. What he would have done was to provide, on the international front, a diplomatic and policy leadership parallel to and as good as the defence and military leadership was this time around.
DB: Velupillai Prabakharans’s death remains shrouded in mystery. Do you agree with the GoSL’s version of events – in effect, that he was ambushed by chance and killed, or do you have your own theory?
Dayan Jayatilleka: No theory of my own. The man is dead, that’s for sure and that’s all that counts. I lost just too many friends and acquaintances because of that predator. Kethesh, Neelan, Lakshman Kadir, Pathmanabha, Ossie Abeygoonesekara, Premadasa. I’ve been for too many funerals and know more dead people than live ones because of that man.
DB: While your use of blogging and other online media has made you one of the most accessible members of the Sri Lankan administration – at least to the IT generation – it has been counterbalanced by your often archaic ‘60s revolutionary stance – quoting Lenin and Castro for example in your writings. Deep inside, do you see yourself as a Commie hippy?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Ok, I’m a modernist, not a post-modernist, but Che is never archaic, anymore than Jimi Hendrix is or will be. And hey, check out Slavoj Zizek, the trendiest of philosophers in Europe today. He’s hardly archaic and he uses Marx and Lenin extensively. Commie hippy I don’t know, but I dig Lenin and Leonard Cohen. Lenin, not as Commie ideologue but as political thinker, Mao as philosopher, but I’m heavily into Nietzsche as well, at least after my parents died within 18 months of each other and I found myself a middle-aged orphan. I am more a Social Democrat or on the liberal-progressive wing of the US Democrats than a Commie, but I used to be one and a dedicated revolutionary too. So then, an ex-Commie who is a big fan of Barack Obama and one who predicted his victory and the dawn of an Obama Age, in print, while he was still behind in the primaries. Plenty ex-revo Commies who are pro-Obama, in nationalist, progressive and leftwing Latin American governments today – most of whom voted with Sri Lanka at the UN HRC special session — but unfortunately not a mix or profile you find in Sri Lanka!
DB: It’s rumored that you wear a Che T-shirt around the house, and that your ringtone is La Marseillaise. True?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Nope, I have a Che T-shirt, a gift from Havana, but I hardly get the right occasion to wear it and my phone has a standard nondescript ring tone. If I had a moment to change my ring tone it would be either to blues guitar prodigy Derek Trucks’ So Close, So far Away or Richie Havens’ Hands of Time. Around the house I do have, let’s see, an op-art Che poster (also a gift from Havana), a Sri Lankan woodcut of Christ with a crown of thorns, both books by Barack Obama, a picture of my parents with Indira Gandhi, one of me at age seven with my dad at the second Non-Aligned Movement conference in Cairo, CDs of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tom Waits and John Maclaughlin, and a small stack of DVDs of Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Lou Reed, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Carlos Santana, all in concert. I also stay up late to watch BBC 2 re-runs of my favorite TV series The Wire — It used to be The Sopranos, Millennium and NYPD Blue, and in the 1980s, Miami Vice.
So what’s next ? Some of your more vocal critics have suggested you be made ambassador to Havana. What do you see in your immediate future?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Our current ambassador to Havana, Ms Tamara Kunanayakam, is a literate, multi-lingual, well educated intellectual and researcher whose views on foreign and domestic policy I share. She is perhaps the most intelligent of our DPLs and is doing an excellent job in Havana.
DB: OK, OK, I get it. So, before I let you go, who do you think is hotter — Arundhati Roy or MIA?
Dayan Jayatilleka: Man that is easily the easiest question I have been asked in quite a while. Arundhati Roy, for sure, though her political writing has declined from a superb initial critique of the Iraq war to an all points of the compass loony left nihilism.
[Editors note: This interview was first published on David Blacker's blog. It is reproduced on Groundviews with his permission and at the request of Amb. Jayatilleka.]
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