I do not have any words to express my agony and the untold hardship that I had faced in my village during the liberation of Seelavathrai, south of Mannar by the Sri lanka Army on 01.09.04. .Having woken up to the deafening sounds of the artillery, followed by gunfire, I peeped through the window. I saw total mayhem. People running helter-skelter dragging their children, not aware where they were heading. I thought I will die along with my family. My husband said that it would be best for all of us also to run away from the house as the firing was getting very much louder and closer. Along with our children we went out of the house to be greeted with very close range firing… it was too late. We hurried back home and cramped under the bed… praying. My husband was in shock and my children were shivering.

I heard a youth groaning… I peeped out once again and saw a youth in a pool of blood at the gate of our compound… groaning. He was calling for help… no one was there to help him. After sometime we crawled out from under the bed and ran out. The youth in a pool of blood lay dead at our gate. We opened the gate and crossed over his body with our children and ran towards the church. Whilst en-route to the church we saw the landmine victims. Some dead, some still in the van trying to get out. My husband helped those who were trapped in the vehicle. By the side lay mutilated bodies as a result of the landmine. Death groans from those who virtually dying. I spotted a badly injured child not more than two years of age next to her mother who was dying. The child’s feet severed and blood all over. I left my child and carried the very badly injured child. The child was shivering and murmuring, not knowing what had happened. I held on to the child so hard to arrest the shivering…. The child then lay still… died clinging on to me. The child’s murmuring still haunts me and I do not know how I would come out of this trauma. A total of seven civilians had died. We then saw army personnel in uniform who directed us to the church. They asked us to leave the landmine sight immediately expecting more casualties.

At the church we were checked and then proceeded by foot to Nannaatan escorted by the Army. We remained in the school and were provided with relief. Later we were shifted to another location. We had no belongings and came with what we were wearing only. We need to be resettled very fast, well before the monsoon rains. Our earnest request is resettlement as the conditions in the camps will get worse with the rains. It seems that we will be resettled only next year and wonder how we can go on with life.

Early resettlement will at least allow us to start life yet again as it’s a suitable time for farming and fishing. We need to be compensated. Even if we are compensated monetarily, I wonder how I will ever forget the plight of those landmine victims… especially the child who breathed its last on my shoulder. Is all this worth it…….

Ms. Jesudhason Jeyanthi
from SP Potkernney
Mannar District,

Oct 26th 2007

It is with revulsion that I turned off the television last Thursday in the middle of what was touted to be question time with the President. The powdered faces of those who took part and the supine questioning lent it a grotesque theatricality, which of course, what is essentially was.

What was the idea of this media event? Was it really to answer the questions posed by the public? Or was it blatant propaganda, to further spread the “chintanaya” amongst a hapless population?

I go on in my article to lament the demise of politicians (who have crossed over to the government) who at one time were vociferously articulate on issues such as federalism and human rights and yet are today the servile lap dogs of the President. I also lament the fate of media in Sri Lanka that is so docile that it not just grovels in front of the President but neglects its fundamental responsibility to the public to question those in power and their actions. As I note:

ජනාධිපතිවරයා තමන්ට රට හමුවේ වැදගත් යමක් කීමට ඇත්නම් ඔහු තොරා ගන්නේ වෙනත් මාදිලියකි. ජනමාධ්‍යවේදීන්ට දේශපාලඥයින් ප‍්‍රශ්න කිරිමට අවශ්‍ය නම් ඔවුන් තොරා ගන්නේ ද වෙනත් මාදිලියකි. මේ වැඩසටහනට පෙනෙන විදියට ඇත්තේ වෙනත් ප‍්‍රායෝගික අරමුණකි.

එනම් වෙනත් පක්ෂවලින් අමැතිකම් ගැනීම පැමිණි දේශපාලනඥයිනයින් තමන්ට කොතරම් හීලෑද යන්න පෙන්වීම ය. එහිම අනෙත් පැත්ත වශයෙන් ජනමාධ්‍ය ප‍්‍රධානීන් දේශපාලනඥයන් හමුවේ සිය කොන්ද කඩා ගන්නා හැටි මහා ජනයාට පෙන්වීම ය.

Read my article in full on Vikalpa here.

When John Stuart Mill wrote his seminal essay of the same title as this column, he set out, elegantly and persuasively, the foundation for much of the political liberalism of the next two centuries all over the world. He was, however, the member of a society and citizen of a country that gave the world the Magna Carta and parliamentary government, and continues to extol, celebrate, and practice the ideal of human liberty as its central and inalienable value. Last week, the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, decided to tackle his recent trough in the polls by making a major speech at the University of Westminster on the subject of liberty. In it, he promised a new Bill of Rights which would entrench and enhance the freedoms of expression, information and association, a review of laws and practices that hinder the full enjoyment of these rights, a new commitment to open government, judicial scrutiny and parliamentary oversight, and in an imaginative new idea, the exploration of institutionalising a ‘freedom of expression audit’ for all new legislation. All of these would be a continuation of the modernisation of the British constitution and public law undertaken by his predecessor though such measures as the Freedom of Information Act of 2000 and the Human Rights Act of 1998. Brown is a cerebral politician and legatee of the Scottish Enlightenment and fine intellectual traditions on both left and right, which include Adam Smith and David Hume, Walter Scott, Daniel Defoe and Fletcher of Saltoun, and in the present, Tom Nairn, Niall Ferguson and Neil MacCormick. His speech on liberty, therefore, was a display of great erudition, sense of history, and a gratifying affirmation of the values of liberalism.

How is all this relevant for us here in unhappy Sri Lanka? It is interesting that a British Prime Minister should choose the subject of liberty in an attempt to regain the political initiative. In Sri Lanka, this would never be considered to be a worthwhile subject even among the few politicians who would have the interest or the capacity to put together a speech on a matter of political principle. Why? Because there is no connection between democracy and liberty in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka, to use Fareed Zakariya’s term, is an ‘illiberal democracy’ in which the dominant discourse of politics which animate the formal institutions and procedures of democracy is ethno-nationalism, not liberty.

If we were a liberal democracy, people would uphold individual liberty, which stems from the principle of self-ownership over mind, body, life and property, over all other competing political values. It would imply a rejection of paternalism and moral homogeneity, a commitment to a notion of objective truth discovered through sufferance of critique, an intuitive distrust of power-wielders, and resentment at the slightest hint that credulity and goodwill is being taken for granted. This is how the value of individual liberty results is such principles of liberalism as limited and constitutional government, the rule of law and fundamental rights, which remain untouchable even by the greatest of democratic majorities. Quite clearly, these are not recognisable features of Sri Lankan democracy. On the contrary, the two Leviathans in the public realm – the Sri Lankan State and the LTTE – are shaped and enlivened by social values of their respective constituencies which are concerned more about the glory of a mythical past and its re-establishment in the future. Thus people’s expectations of democratic government as well as liberation movements are that they would do whatever is necessary in order to deliver the nationalist paradise on earth. The latter condition is one that involves racial purity and religious supremacism, and is necessarily exclusionary for those outside the project. That is how the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism of the majority feels entitled to the exclusive control of the State, and which pushes others into forms of opposition outside institutional politics. In respect of the Tamils, this opposition has evolved into a political and military programme of secession, pursued by an organisation which is itself as much or more autocratic and brutal as the State. In the course of its consolidation, the LTTE has demonstrated violent antipathy to dissent, political pluralism and the individual liberty and self-worth of members of the Tamil community without restraint, and is responsible for the emaciation of a generation of Sri Lankan politicians and intellectuals both Sinhala and Tamil. Moreover, the blatant racism that characterises the behaviour of the State works in favour of the LTTE, for even those Tamils who would otherwise find it repulsive understand that only it has the capacity to fundamentally challenge the State in a way that would make the State take heed.

Yet, the constituencies from which both the State and the LTTE draw sustenance have been largely supportive of their behaviour, largely because the normative premium in the people’s conception of democracy is about the triumph of the ‘us’ against the ‘them’, and not about a form of government (or nascent government in the case of the LTTE) that delivers peace, good government and prosperity in a way that respects the sphere of liberty of the citizenry. Individual liberty is thus a wholly secondary and negotiable value, which can be trumped at any time by the exigencies of real or perceived threats to the wellbeing of the ethno-political community.

Consequently, there is not merely the tolerance but the expectation that power would be exercised autocratically and without limit, because the vaunted ends of communal interest justify the means. How else does one explain what is currently going on in this country, in terms of what appears to be the uncritical acceptance of increasing authoritarianism of the government? Just take three examples of what happened in politics in the past week.

The week began with a spectacular setback for the military and major embarrassment for the government by the LTTE’s attack on the Anuradhapura Air Base. The government’s response of prestidigitation and prevarication in coming out with the truth should have, in a liberal democracy, fatally undermined public confidence in both the government’s capacity and programme. There should have been resignations at the highest levels and transparent reviews undertaken. None of this has happened and there is no public expectation of such either. A week later, the Defence Secretary went on air in what can only be described as a Soviet-style agitprop ‘interview’ to state: (a) that criticism of the government and the military is certainly unacceptable and invalid, if not seditious; (b) there is no value or truth in media scrutiny apart from an unconscionable degradation of the morale of the armed forces; (c) the people do not have to know what the government is doing in respect of military action; (d) the fact that he is the President’s brother should inspire public confidence in the war effort because he has an filial influence over the chief executive that a public official would not otherwise have; and (e) every norm, value and principle of democratic government must be subordinated to support for the government in its pursuit of a military solution to the problem of terrorism. There is little doubt that this display of autocracy, and redefinition of the vices of nepotism and unaccountability into democratic virtues, would be applauded in the rural hinterland of southern Sri Lanka, because here is after all a leadership figure speaking the language of Dutugemunu. Discontent, both economic and political, is largely a phenomenon found among the Western Province middle classes, which as the government’s strategists would know fully well, can be ignored without any electoral disadvantage by a presidency whose leitmotif is ethno-religious nationalism.

Then there was the arrest and harassment of Arthur Wamanan, which would have been a farcical interlude of Ministerial ineptitude and police bungling, had it not also revealed the pervasive racism, incompetence and moronic zeal that characterises governance in Sri Lanka today. Finally, there was the shutting down of five radio stations belonging to the ABC Radio network on account of an incorrect news report (later corrected by some but not all of these stations). The disproportionate heavy-handedness and arbitrary caprice of this governmental response requires no further emphasis.

What do these actions of the government represent if not a pernicious and severe assault on the liberty of the citizenry? The point, however, is that this kind of behaviour is made possible by a democratic mandate and is maintainable by popular support. The overwhelming majority of voters and citizens would not find anything inherently objectionable in an authoritarian government usurping their liberties, provided that enough is done to keep the great vision of the promised land of ethno-religious glory alive. This is how in illiberal democracies, populist tyrants come into and sustain power. In the context of plural nationalisms with a capacity to sustain their political projects through the use of military means, however, the great tragedy of Sri Lanka is that democracy of this nature means conflict in perpetuity.

I am a veteran internally displaced person (IDP), if that is a status that I could be given and everybody could be proud of. I am originally from Vavuniya and the conflict many years ago displaced the whole of my village and many adjoining villages. We, as so many others, fled for our lives forgetting all our valuables, given the assurance that we will return within days. I was young and with my parents, we moved to be temporarily located in Kala – Oya, Anuradhapura. It was a massive hall without any partitions and deprived all of us from privacy. Change of clothes was also done in the open or we had to wait till it was quite dark. We lost our modesty as the days passed by. The once conservative families we were took a sharp turn within a few days.

We had no source of income and we were a forgotten entity no sooner the euphoria of the newly displaced title disappeared. Finding jobs in Anuradhapura for us tamils was a tedious task. There was no trust and we were not hired even for unskilled work. The males were forced to go to other districts to find jobs leaving most of the women to fend for their selves. The lack of income forced us women to take upon the oldest profession. The support by non-government organizations at that time was very limited, unlike after the tsunami where there is a lot of support. Children had to be taken care of and the income from the men was not forthcoming, as a result most of us had to sell our bodies along with our dignity. As time went along, the facilities did not improve and many of us fell ill and became victims of contagious diseases. The camp also had a very bad reputation with regard to prostitution.

The village elders decided to change location and that’s how we ended up in Puttlam. We got together, found a location and built the place similar to that of our original village in Vavuniya. Currently we’re residing in an IDP location called Karikattai in Puttlam. Each of our family have been given a plot of 10 perches land, and we’ve built a hut each. I continued my education in the Kurunegala district but was compelled to stop it without continuing further due to economic constraints. Then I had to go abroad to support my family. On my return from the Middle East, I married and had two children. I left to Kuwait once again and returned due to difficulties there and my children needed care since they had to go to school. Now I’m working in a private shop in the local town and taking care of my children’s education through that earning. My parents are living with me and have got older than their age due to the constant worries and hardships.

We all want this war to end and get back to our simple care free lives back in our villages. A generation has passed and is likely that another would. The warring parties do have all the benefits being totally unaware of our innocence and the hardships we go through. We do not need NGO suport or any other form of support. What we are looking for is peace. If the NGOs can give us peace in this country, that’s all we require.

Name: Mrs.Jasmin
Age: 26
Place of origin: Vavuniya

By Victor Ivan

The forthcoming budget will be decisive to the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

The 1978 Constitution gave absolute power to the president. Defeating an incumbent president is all but impossible. The only realistic possibility of throwing out the current President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to defeat him in the next presidential election of 2011.

In spite of all the allegations — corruption, large scale human rights violations, unprecedented nepotism and rising cost of living — the President will remain in office until the end of his term. This pattern cannot be altered except by a crisis caused by a complete collapse of the political system, and certainly not by political manoeuvering by the opposition.

At this time, when the political system is being driven towards yet another historic crisis, the opposition parties as well as the government party are compelled, yet again, to conduct themselves as a group of comedians in a circus.

The system is such that the people have no role to play. The only actors are the 225 Members of Parliament, who at best can topple the ruling party in parliament and force a parliamentary election. Even then it is the President who will play the most decisive role in deciding who will form the next government.

Under the parliamentary system that existed before 1978, the ruling party could be changed at least once in five years. It was possible to topple a government by a motion of no confidence or by defeating a money bill. However, J.R. Jayewardene introduced the present system, not to change the ruling party every five years, but to enable a party that comes into power to remain in power continuously as long as it does not ‘drop the ball.’

The UNP ruled for 17 years at a stretch, from 1977 to 1994. And this was despite the 1983 riots and ensuing separatist war, the intervention of Indian troops, the second JVP uprising and the biggest blood bath ever witnessed in the country, massive corruption, and the use of terror to control any form of opposition to the government.

But in 1994, President D.B. Wijetunga ‘dropped the ball.’ He refused to contest the general election with the small minority parties such as the Muslim Congress and the Ceylon Workers Congress. If the UNP had done so, the results of that election and the presidential election that followed could have been different.

Despite being in power for 17 years and the UNP contesting alone and despite Chandrika Kumaratunga creating a broad alliance of all anti-government groups, the People’s Alliance won just 113 seats in Parliament. It is very perceivable that the UNP regime could still be in power if not for President Wijetunga ‘dropping the ball.’

Thereafter, the People’s Alliance has ruled the country for 13 years from 1994 to date, with a two-and-a-half year break when the UNP won the general elections. The allegations against this government are the same as in the 17-year-old rule of the UNP —corruption, disappearances and violation of human rights.

Complaints about the rising cost of living have been made against every successive regime. But it did not create a situation in which a government was forced out of power. The ruling party remained in power in the midst of all the chaos.

The people supporting the opposition parties were waiting with great expectation for the fall of the government, but the opposition had no understanding of the fundamental rules governing politics. That is exactly what is happening today.

The UNP would be able to defeat the budget proposals only if it can enroll the support of the JVP. Even then, the opposition has to persuade convince or bribe at least eight government Members of Parliament to cross over. The JVP has an unending hatred towards Ranil Wickremesinghe. The reason for this is that it believes that it was Wickremesinghe who masterminded the crackdown against the JVP in 1987-89. At every opportunity it got, the JVP took its revenge.

The JVP compelled the former President, Chandrika Kumaratunga to use her powers and dissolve parliament where Wickremesinghe had a majority. Then the JVP entered into an alliance with the SLFP, denying Wickremesinghe the opportunity to come back to power at the election that followed.

At the last presidential election too, the JVP played a role as decisive as the LTTE in defeating Wickremesinghe. The JVP has hidden and will continue to hide its personal hatred by articulating policy differences it has with the UNP, specifically on the ethnic and economic issues.
However, recently the JVP’s K.D. Lalkantha gave Wickremesinghe an important character certificate, much to the surprise of the people. He said that Wickremesinghe was a leader who has not robbed a cent from the people.

Although it may be one of the most valuable certificates Wickremesinghe has received, it does not imply that the two parties have come to a position where they would work together against the Rajapaksa regime.

At present, it is not in the JVP’s interests to topple the government and force another general election. The JVP will never get votes from the hardcore UNP vote bank. What it can hope for is for disillusioned PA supporters and the youth voting for it. But by defeating the government, it would upset a vast majority of PA supporters and part of its own vote bank.

To add to this equation the JVP can still get political and personal favours from the current government. The other important reason is that the JVP cannot forego the artificial strength it has achieved in parliamentary representation by contesting in an alliance with the PA.

If the JVP joins with the UNP and brings down the government, the JVP will have to contest alone at the elections. That might reduce the JVP’s representation in Parliament by more than half.
The JVP is not prepared to incur such a great loss by moving towards bringing the government down. As a result, the JVP leaders are chanting, for public consumption, that they are not with the government, but are following a policy of defending the government indirectly. The people will see this strategy in action at the next budget.

UNP Leader Wickremesinghe knows that this is his last opportunity to gain political power. Therefore, he has to show an unaccustomed militancy now for the purpose of pleasing what is left of his party. Wickremesinghe is not unaware that there is no possibility of a fundamental change prior to the next presidential election.

However, he also knows that a large group of his party people is not prepared to wait such a long time. Therefore, he also has to at least pretend that he is working towards toppling the government. He knows that the budget is decisive for him too.

The only way to stop another batch of UNP MPs from joining the government is to promise them political power soon. He is well aware that there is a group of MPs in his party who cannot afford to wait long due to their age or other reasons. If nothing positive can be done at the budget, Wickremesinghe will face another internal crisis in the party.

In this game, the millions of Sri Lankan people become important ONLY at the time of elections. What is most important is the allegiance of the 225 MPs in Parliament. They are more decisive than the electorate.

Although the frustration of the people is extreme, a decisive victory will go to President Rajapaksa if he can maintain the support of a majority of the 225 parliamentarians. If Wickremesinghe is able to get the support of a majority, he will be able to create a serious crisis for the Rajapaksa government.

However, the rules of the game are framed so that the President rather than the Leader of the Opposition has the advantage. Consequently, there is a greater likelihood of President Rajapaksa winning this round.

It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the opposition to persuade MPs to topple the government, knowing very well that the President will immediately dissolve Parliament. As history has shown, no government MPs will be tempted to vote against even an unpopular government and lose all the perks sooner than they need to. History has also shown that the only way to do that is to pay them huge bribes running into hundreds of millions of rupees.

Even here, it is the government that has the upper hand. With billions of rupees available in the government coffers, offering ‘bribes’ in the form of perks to keep MPs in line is not difficult. In the end, the people’s discontent with the current regime, which is clearly evident, amounts to nothing.