[Editors note: Two short testimonies on the plight of IDPs released from Menik Camp sent to Groundviews highlight significant challenges facing reconciliation and resettlement in post-war Sri Lanka and the urgent need for psycho-social counseling.]

Testimony #1
Around 50-52 IDP families from Zone 5, Menik Farm were brought outside the camp with their belongings and asked to leave without any assistance. No transport provided. No proper documentation was given to prove the release. The military brought our belongings in a tractor until the entrance of the camp and then handed over to us. We walked till the entrance. Once our belongings arrived, we were asked to go home. But we didn’t have any facility to go. We didn’t know where to go and how to go. This happened around 4.30 in the evening on 29th September.

All families had a minimum of one pregnant woman in a family. The total number of individuals were around 170.

5-6 families went to Mannar since they had relatives. But they came back midway since they got checked on the way and sent back to camps due to the reason that they didn’t have proper paper work to confirm their release. Those families came back and asked the camp police to give them a letter. Police officer signed a document and those families went back to Mannar. We don’t know what happened after that to them. Before leaving from camp, we, five families, had asked police to write down our names and ID numbers in sinhala and sign it. These are the only documents we have. Though it is signed by the police officer, there is no official rubber stamp on it. We have gone through very bad things in life. We fear what will happen to us.

Testimony #2
We are 5 families, 17 individuals, staying at this lodge somewhere in Vavuniya town. We are terrified. We were supposed to go to Jaffna and they told us that they will take us to Jaffna by bus. But see what had happened to us. We can’t trust anyone and we are terrified of talking. (This person was literally shaking as he was eating his dinner. All of them had bought food parcels.)

One from the lodge said, “This is charity. How can I let them stay outside. They have suffered enough. Please make arrangements for them to reach their homes safely tomorrow.”

There were more IDPs seen in another lodge in front of this lodge. Not entirely sure, but could be around another 5 families.We don’t know what happened to the rest of the families.

The Government Agent (GA) is unreachable. She had apparently gone shopping, when one called her home.

The UN, one of the persons we spoke to said had tried their best to give these people a ride to Vavuniya Kachcheri. But the GA refused and said that she is taking care of them. She obviously did not. The UN also said that every family has a release slip, which is supposed to be yellow in colour. However, the families in the first lodge said that they didn’t have any such slip.

Update from the field sent to Groundviews, 30th September 2009, 3.40pm SL time

Just a follow up on yesterday’s incident with those 50-52 families. The families stayed back in different parts of Vavuniya went to the kachcheri this morning. They are being assisted there in terms of obtaining necessary assistance for their return. Hopefully, soon they will be escorted to their homes in their home towns.

• ‘I want a decent Education’ – A twelve year old’s plea
• 119, Buddhism and being Sinhalese
• “We are not willing to go back to our village, till a permanent solution for the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka”
• “I need to move out of this camp and have a place of my own”
• “Some people were shot while going to see their houses on the road like dogs”

[Authors note: This was written around 4 weeks ago; the result of 48 hours of shock and anger following an Honest Penman being "put into the 'Pen'". ]

“Yellow Banana” (with apologies to the Beatles…)

In this island where we’re STILL being torn
Lived one man wrote a tale of Truth, you see.
But THEY took 20 years of his life
In this land of a Banana Republic

So they sailed on (the King; & his Princes & sons)
(Will they never be downed by the spineless Party of Green?)
but those Blues live on, enjoying the people’s waves
In their yellow banana ……..

We all live in their yellow banana
Yellow banana, yellow banana
We all live in our yellow banana
Yellow banana, yellow banana

And THEIR friends are all aboard
(Half the island just scared or bored –
Many more just lie to the next doors)
So please understand, I’m begging, what I say:

THEY all thrive in this yellow banana …
Yellow banana …, yellow banana …
THEY all connive in this yellow banana …
Yellow banana …, yellow banana …

{Full cheat ahead Mrs. Boatswain[*], full cheat ahead
Full cheat ahead it is, Mah’ King.
Cut the Internet Cable, stop the Writers who’re Able
Aye, aye, Raja Thuma,
aye, aye Princes & Mah’ King}

And they live a life of ease,
Most of us fooled by their false Royal creed
(’tho 300,000 have little to feed)
Sickly sky of Blue and spineless sea of Green
(Sky of chee chee Blue, sea of weak watery Green)
In our yellow banana
(In our yellow banana; AHO)

We all live in their yellow banana
Their yellow banana, yellow banana
We all live in our yellow banana
Our yellow banana, yellow banana

We’re all crying in this yellow banana
Yellow banana, yellow banana
We’re all dying in this yellow banana
Yellow banana, yellow banana
(// Rep-eat Rep-ublic)

——-
[* Boatswain = "officer on a ship responsible for RIGGING"...]

• Belonging
• National flags and the symbolism of accomodating minorities
• Tears
• Equal Treatment
• “Hey Groundviews, keep that censorship button on mate”

Dayan Jayatilaka begins his article with the words, “I am proud of my country, Sri Lanka.” To demonstrate the differences in our points of view I would like to begin by stating that, while I am proud of some aspects of Sri Lanka I am also very ashamed of many other aspects of my country, Sri Lanka. I have publically stated that many times, over many years, beginning particularly from the cruel repression of the innocent in 1971 under the pretext of dealing with the JVP insurgency. In my book of poems, The sea is calm behind your house, I have expressed many times that when a motherland turns into a ‘murder land’ it is a matter that the citizens should begin to recognize. This theme of the motherland turning into a cruel land towards its own children is also one of the themes in the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenisyn (my book of poems is available at: www.basilfernando.net, kindly see particularly the introductory essay by Professor K.G. Sankara Pillai of India).

There are several reasons why Dayan does not think that Sri Lanka is a gulag island. One such reason is the fact that he was allowed to ‘express my criticisms on TV’ which makes him think that this would not have happened in a gulag island. The history of Russia from 1918 to 1956, which is the period referred to in Solzhenisyn’s book has examples of literally hundreds of thousands of persons who expressed themselves in varying kinds of dissident views, despite of the harshest possible repression that existed within that country. Some paid for their publishing with their lives or by being subjected to long prison sentences. Strangely, there were others who even survived within the system with all privileges despite of expressing some dissident views. In fact, such persons were kept as long as they could be used for one or another purpose. Sometimes, they were allowed to express their views for the very reason of denying that there was any repression at all.

Thus, being ‘allowed to’ express views of one or another person is not a criterion to evaluate a gulag island. The very use of the word ‘allowed’ when talking about free speech has a very sad connotation. Why should anyone be worried about being ‘allowed’ or not by somebody else when it comes to expressions of views? The very acknowledgement of having been disallowed speaks of a mentality that could only happen in a place where free speech cannot be taken for granted.

Dayan says the “defining characteristic of the Gulag is that it was a system of forced labour camps”. In fact, the defining characteristics of a gulag are many which I will mention shortly. Solzhenisyn does not use the term ‘labour camps’ at all in his book. He talks about ‘prisons’ and a secret security authority that runs the prisons. In these prisons the citizen is reduced to a zero. Virtually hundreds of thousands were just killed and millions were destroyed through this system. They ceased to exist. Ever since 1971 in the small island of Sri Lanka tens of thousands of people have disappeared in the south, north and the east. All decisions relating to such disappearances were taken by ‘security agencies’ and not by any by any judicial authority. The displacement of genuine judicial authority and its replacement by security authorities regarding the lives of large numbers of people is not a characteristic of labour camps; it is a characteristic of death camps.

Dayan also speaks of elections where a ruling regime may get even 70% of the votes as demonstration of a free country and not a gulag island. The history of Russia during the relevant period and many other countries which became gulag states is that the ruling apparatus can produce whatever result it wants because of the perfection of its coercive authority. While a democracy is a system that relies on the least amount of coercive authority, a gulag is one that has achieved perfection or near perfection in the use of coercive authority. For example, in North Korea now, if you were to hold any election the ruling clique would get, not just 70% but even 100% of the vote. In fact, rather hilariously, in some places they get even more than 100% of the vote – there being more votes than people! When the threat of a coercive authority looms large everywhere, with possibilities of abductions, disappearances, strange accidents and other forms of attacks on person and property, elections are no longer free and fair. It is no longer a test of the existence of a democracy.

A further argument of Dayan was that “there is nothing “totally”, or “systemically” warped in a country which can be put right by restoring a basic political equilibrium, as can Sri Lanka.” There is something which is totally and systematically warped in Sri Lanka which is the constitution of the country itself. The 1978 Constitution is a constitution of a dictatorship. At the early stages of its operation the country’s institutions and the mentalities of people operating at various levels were able to resist the full impact of this terrible constitution. However, after three decades of the operation of this constitution all the institutions have virtually collapsed and the mentalities of people have become inured to the cruel circumstances that they are now faced with.

Take Sri Lanka’s policing system now. Can it be turned into at least a basic level of a law enforcement agency by even a change of government? Anyone who has that kind of illusion needs only to read the reports and comments about the police which appear constantly in the press. Take the Attorney General’s Department, does it anymore enjoy the credibility of an impartial, non politicized agency committed to the strict enforcement of the rule of law only. Take the civil service and reflect on the extent of corruption spread everywhere. Take the case of even the military itself where General Sarath Fonseka was quoted in the media about corruption relating to military purchases which amounts to around Rs. one billion. This is just to mention a few. To believe that there is nothing irrational in this country would amount to nothing less than saying that there is nothing irrational in the world at all.

What I have written had nothing to do with the UNP or any other political party although Dayan tries to see it that way. I am talking about a system that has been systematically destroyed by the very constitutional process itself and where the democratic process has been replaced with a security process. That was not the work of this government only, it is a process that began in 1972 and became worse with each year ever since.

The discussion on irrationality was relating to a remark by Dayan that his removal from the post of Ambassador to Geneva was an irrational act because it was not taken in terms of assessing merits. I did not disagree with him; I only said that it is as irrational as all other acts taken without regard to merit. The very essence of the rejection of the 17^th Amendment to the Constitution was the displacement of merit as having any relevance to appointments, dismissals, transfers and disciplinary action. The 17^th Amendment applies to all Sri Lankans. Therefore, by the displacement of the 17^th Amendment all Sri Lankans are treated irrationally. Why doesn’t Dayan who rightly complains about being treated irrationally worry about the rest of his countrymen who are also treated irrationally?

Defining characteristics of a gulag

This is a subject for a lengthy article where each of the elements mentioned below need to be dealt with at length. Such an article was under preparation at the time that Dayan’s comments appeared. I hope to publish that article shortly. I mention below the characteristics that I have identified as the defining characteristics of a gulag.

The concept of the gulag ever since Aleksandr Solzhenisyn used it in the Gulag Archipelago, 1918 – 1956, has come to mean a particular system of repression imposed within a whole country which has some definite characteristics. These characteristics may be described thus:

1. The loss of the meaning of legality within a particular country.
2. A predominant position played by a security apparatus which can virtually do whatever function relating to life and liberty of citizens without being bound by any rules.
3. The emergence of a propaganda apparatus which is not bound by any rules relating to truth or falsehood; in fact, the meaning of any distinction between truth and falsehood disappears.
4. The emergence of a superman controller who manipulates all the three elements mentioned above in any way that he wishes.
5. A doomed citizenry who keep on believing that nothing has really changed while, in fact, everything has changed and who are unable to control their own destinies in any significant manner. One particular section of citizens may by suffering the worst at a particular time, but, in fact, the entire population of the country is affected more or less with the same degree of intensity but at different times.

The position on which this article is based is that Sri Lanka is now such a gulag. All the above mentioned characteristics are now quite prominently visible within Sri Lanka. However, a phantom limb complex still continues to exist. The people wish to believe that the old legal system and the social system are still intact despite of some unhappy new aspects that cannot be denied.

In a separate article I hope to deal with Dayan’s view on the 13^th Amendment in relation to the 1978 Constitution. As much as a living branch cannot sprout out of dead wood no new political concept of democracy, participation or power sharing can arise out of the constitutional dictatorship which exists under the 1978 Constitution. What happened to the 17^th Amendment has already proved this.

• A response to Basil Fernando: Sri Lanka is not a Gulag Island
• “There is a right way and a wrong way to use violence”: Interview with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
• Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka on history of power-sharing in Sri Lanka and the 13th Amendment
• Devolution of powers under the 13th Amendment in Sri Lanka: Fact or Fiction?
• THE CONTINUING VIOLATION OF THE SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT: YET MORE UNCONVINCING EXCUSES

[Editors note: An edited copy of this article appears in the Sunday Times of 27th September 2009. This is the full version.]

It was a relief to hear that the government was at last responding to mounting domestic and international criticism, and had begun releasing the Vanni IDPs. Perhaps the shocking report in the Sunday Times on 6 September about human trafficking at the internment camps was partly responsible. An exemplary piece of investigative journalism, it revealed that up to 20,000 IDPs have been ransomed by desperate relatives who are able and willing to pay lakhs of rupees to secure their release, and have left the camps. This exposes so-called ‘screening’ for what it is: a cover for a lucrative flesh trade, carried out with the collusion of elements in the government and armed forces who get a cut out of it. It also explains why the camp authorities refused to release a one-year-old child to leave with its grandmother, in a case cited by Mr Anandasangaree: since an infant could hardly be suspected of being a dreaded LTTE terrorist, the reason was surely that a ransom had not been paid.

One would have to be naïve indeed to believe that those who have been ransomed are ‘innocent’ while those who remain are more likely to be LTTE cadres. On the contrary, anyone in the camps who had any value for the LTTE diaspora would certainly have escaped by now. Conversely, we can be sure that the unfortunate souls left rotting in these camps are of no interest to whatever remains of the LTTE. They are the victims, not perpetrators, of crimes. The UN too seems to have woken up to the fact that by funding these camps it is colluding, willy-nilly, in a crime against humanity – the denial of liberty and other fundamental human rights to a civilian population – and has made it clear that it cannot continue doing so much longer. UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reiterated the demand that the Vanni IDPs should be granted freedom of movement during his recent visit.

While we welcome the government’s announcement that it is willing to release IDPs from the camps to relatives willing to house them, it is a matter of concern that even while President Rajapaksa was telling Mr Pascoe that the reason why so few IDPs had been released to live with their relatives was that there were so few applications, the GA of Vavuniya was refusing to release IDPs to their relatives! This suggests that ransoms are still being demanded, and IDPs unable to pay them are not being released. The condition that IDPs should be released only to relatives makes sense for unaccompanied children, but why can’t adults go and live in rented accommodation instead of staying with relatives if they so choose?

Furthermore, the whole farce of ‘screening’, which has been dragged on for four months, should be stopped. The best proof that the LTTE is no longer a threat in Sri Lanka is the release of top LTTE cadres Daya Master and George Master, who were with Prabakaran almost to the very end. Would the authorities have released them on bail if there were any danger from the LTTE? Hardly. If they can be released, why are lakhs of innocent civilians being detained? Did the President avoid the UN General Assembly because he is unable to answer this question?

Release should not be confused with resettlement. IDPs who wish to go and live outside the camps should be free to do so. Those who wish to remain in the camps until their original habitats are de-mined and reconstructed should be allowed to remain, but should be free to move in and out of the camps instead of being imprisoned in them as they are now, and free to leave permanently as and when they wish. The only condition attached should be that they inform the international and local agencies which are providing for them whenever they leave for good, to make it clear that there is no need to feed them any longer. The resources freed by their departure could be used to speed up de-mining and reconstruction in the war-devastated areas, and will undoubtedly improve conditions for those who choose to remain in the camps. The visit of the UN Secretary-General’s envoy for refugee rights Walter Kalin provides an ideal opportunity to announce the release of all the Vanni IDPs and end this shameful chapter in our history.

Resettlement
Pressure on the government to ensure speedy resettlement of all IDPs should also be kept up. This should include not only IDPs who fled the recent fighting but also those who were displaced earlier, including Muslims displaced in 1990. Citizens’ committees would need to be set up to deal with problems such as those which occur where others are living in the homes of displaced people who wish to return. It will not be easy, but with goodwill, these problems can be resolved, and the sooner the better. All those who want to return to their original homes should be accommodated, if not in their original homes, at least in the neighbourhood, or in some other place of their choice. This is the only way to reverse the ethnic cleansing drives carried out by both the state and the LTTE, and rebuild integrated communities.

An unnecessary obstacle to resettlement is created by the government’s designation of some of the areas from which people have been displaced as ‘High Security Zones’ (HSZs), some of which double as ‘Special Economic Zones’(!). Earlier attempts to dismantle these were stalled by the argument that they were necessary so long as the LTTE had not been disarmed. Now that the LTTE has definitively been disarmed, they serve no justifiable purpose. The only way their persistence can be explained is as a form of ethnic cleansing, since in practically every case, the people displaced by them are Tamils and Muslims. A good example is Sampur in the East, where the inhabitants were driven out by shelling and are now being denied the right to return, while India colludes in this crime against humanity by undertaking to build a coal-fired power plant on their land. The process of resettlement cannot be regarded as complete until people displaced by HSZs have also been granted the right of return. But, some people argue, the LTTE is still a threat, and therefore we need to retain the HSZs, along with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency provisions. Is this true?

Is the War Over? Or Was the President Lying?
Back in May, President Rajapaksa gave a speech in which he claimed that ‘our Motherland has been completely freed from the clutches of separatist terrorism’. He spoke of ‘the proud victory we have achieved today by defeating the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization’ and ‘the defeat of the LTTE and the breakdown of their armed strength’. There was no ambiguity about his words: he told us that the war was over, the LTTE defeated, their armed strength broken down. On this understanding, there were widespread celebrations, and the President gained enormous popularity.

There is no reason to suppose that the President was lying. Yet last month a senior government official was reported as saying that the LTTE was still capable of reorganising in Sri Lanka, and this month IGP Jayantha Wickramaratne reiterated that the threat of the Tamil Tigers is still alive in Sri Lanka, and they have not been completely defeated. On the face of it, these people are implying that the President was a liar when he said that Sri Lanka had been completely freed from separatist terrorism, and a fraud for claiming credit for the defeat of the LTTE. So why does the President tolerate such insults from his underlings?

The reason seems to be that the government is caught in the same trap of war-dependence which was the downfall of the LTTE. A war justifies repressive measures that would never be acceptable in peacetime, and the LTTE would have been unable to function without these. That is why it broke one ceasefire after another, let slip one opportunity after another to negotiate a just peace. But this had a disastrous effect on its support base. With all due respect to the soldiers who risked and lost their lives in the war, their courage alone would not have brought about the defeat of the LTTE. The Israeli armed forces are many times stronger than the Sri Lankan military, and the Palestinians’ arsenal is pathetic by comparison with that of the LTTE, yet the Palestinian resistance has survived for over sixty years. That is because it has the support of the people: precisely what the LTTE lost due to its dependence on war.

The last straw appears to have been the peace process which began in 2002. It ushered in an unprecedentedly long cessation of hostilities, and made it clearer than ever that the LTTE was incapable of handling peace. I was among those who criticised the 2002 CFA for allowing the LTTE a free hand to kill Tamil dissidents, conscript children and prepare for war, but in retrospect, I can see that it also served a positive purpose. Karuna’s defection was only the visible tip of a vast iceberg of discontent, as Tamil people who had hoped the LTTE would deliver them from fear, humiliation and violence realised that it offered them only more of the same. Their disillusionment and consequent withdrawal of support allowed the state to defeat the LTTE.

Now the Rakapaksa regime faces the same dilemma that Prabakaran faced earlier: if the war is over, how can it justify the measures that give absolute and unaccountable power to the state? So it has to invent an ‘LTTE threat’ in order to continue with policies that would be unacceptable in peacetime. But the Sinhalese people of Sri Lankaare not fools. They will realise, like the Tamil people before them, that this ‘threat’ is simply being concocted to justify disastrous economic and political choices. With all the fire and brimstone directed against foreign-funded NGOs, it is amusing to note that we now have a government that is dependent on foreign funding. The Ministry of Finance and Planning reported in August 2008 that the national debt stood at over 3 trillion rupees, with 1.39 trillion being foreign debt. The IMF loan has eased the immediate problem, but at the cost of getting us deeper in debt: in other words, we can repay our debts only by expanding them, placing an ever greater burden on the people. If the EU GSP+ facility is lost, the economy will plunge even deeper in the red. In this context, detaining lakhs of civilians and expanding the armed forces constitute unnecessary and ruinous expenditures.

The social and political costs are equally huge. Horrific reports of police brutality, including the murder of two boys, Dhanushka Aponso and Dinesh Fernando, at Angulana and the abduction and torture of student Nipuna Ramanayake by SSP Vaas Gunawardene and other officers of the Colombo Crime Division, are reminiscent of the murders of the schoolboys of Embilipitiya, and result from the same conditions: rampant impunity for crimes committed by politicians in power, the state security forces and the police. This impunity, in turn, is fostered by the suspension of the rule of law resulting from the PTA and Emergency Regulations, which can only be justified by claiming that the LTTE is still a threat.

The only way to reverse the degradation of our economy and polity is to acknowledge that the war is over and take the appropriate measures: release all the Vanni IDPs immediately, slash military spending, dismantle the paramilitaries, redeploy demobilised soldiers to civilian reconstruction tasks, replace military and ex-military administrators with civilian ones, dismantle the HSZs, resettle all displaced civilians including those displaced by HSZs, repeal the PTA and Emergency Regulations, restore democratic rights, especially to freedom of expression, and release J.S. Tissainayagam and others incarcerated for exercising this right. The best way to ensure that Sri Lanka retains its EU GSP+ facility is to do the right thing, failing which, the government must take full responsibility for the lost jobs and revenue.

• Why are the Vanni civilians still being held hostage?
• Setting the record straight: Challenges of internment for IDPs
• Vaharai starves – International Community is Silent
• Vanni displaced: when will they be free from clutches of tigers and lions?
• BATTICALOA CONSORTIUM OF HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES FACILITATING TO THE BATTICOLA IDPS

I am proud of my country, Sri Lanka, which has just been able to vanquish a formidable, ferocious and fascistic foe, despite its vast global network and in the face of considerable external pressure. I am proud that my country Sri Lanka has been able to restore its territorial unity and integrity and reasssert its independence and sovereignty. I am proud of the Sri Lankan armed forces which have achieved that which the armies of major powers have been unable to in many parts of the world. I am proud that Sri Lanka has been able to defeat not one but two armed totalitarianisms, South and North, Sinhala and Tamil — the JVP and the LTTE- while maintaining at least the rudimentary foundations of an electoral democracy.

The very fact that I am able to express my criticisms on TV gives the lie to the description of Sri Lanka as a Gulag Island.

In the first place, the defining characteristic of the Gulag is that it was a system of forced labour camps. Sri Lanka is not and not even the IDP camps fit this description. The Gulags also had execution by firing squad.

In the second place there were no multi-party elections in the old USSR – the Opposition was IN the Gulag. By contrast there is an election imminent in the Southern province of Sri Lanka , which would be actually competitive if not for the present state of the Opposition, which is cannot be blamed on the Sri Lanka state or regime but on the internal supineness of the UNP itself. ( By the way my betting is that the UPFA will secure over 70% of the Southern vote).

In the third place there is nothing “totally”, or “systemically” warped in a country which can be put right by restoring a basic political equilibrium, as can Sri Lanka, by a simple substitution of the current leadershipof the opposition, which resonates more with mainstream opinion. There is nothing more irrational in this country today than the non-replacement of an individual who has caused the meltdown of the UNP’s earlier irreducible mass base to the point that the Opposition is in electoral and social free-fall, and looks like a tribe facing (peaceful) extinction.

[Editors note: This is a response, at the invitation of Groundviews, to an article by Basil Fernando that was published on Sri Lanka Guardian, titled Sri Lanka, the Gulag Island (2) – Zero Status of Citizens- Dayan’s problem. Mr. Fernando calls Sri Lanka a Gulag Island based on Alexander Solzhenitsyn's, The Gulag Archipelago and notes that in this work, "Millions of Russian citizens were turned into zeros just by somebody knocking on their doors or telling them that they were under arrest. The citizens began to expect such a call at any time".]

• Heeding the voices of the North
• Analysis of how Jaffna voted and why the EPDP feels defeated in Sri Lanka’s first post-war elections
• What options now for the TNA and Douglas? – An unambiguous message from Jaffna
• TO THE TAMILS IN THE NORTH: WHY DIDN’T YOU VOTE?!
• Understanding electoral results in Sri Lanka: Beyond winners and losers