{"id":18028,"date":"2012-03-26T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=18028"},"modified":"2012-03-19T11:21:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T11:21:53","slug":"reconciliation-is-not-happening-in-sri-lanka-and-the-problem-isnt-a-question-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/03\/reconciliation-is-not-happening-in-sri-lanka-and-the-problem-isnt-a-question-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconciliation Is Not Happening In Sri Lanka, and the Problem Isn’t a Question of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tamil call for independent statehood stemmed from a very basic need for security against genocide. For many, including the next generation of Tamil youth activists, the events of 2009 consolidated this need.<\/em><\/p>\n

Three years since the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended, the Tamil speaking areas remain gripped by repression, ethnic tension and widespread suffering, rather than emergent reconciliation and peace – and the problem is not a question of time.<\/p>\n

The war itself ended in a cataclysm of violence in which, according to a UN expert panel\u2019s report<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>, over 40,000 Tamil civilians were massacred, largely by government shelling of safe zones and hospitals<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>. The period after the war\u2019s end in May 2009 saw the internment of hundreds of thousands of shell-shocked civilian survivors in squalid camps<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>(run by Sri Lanka\u2019s ethnically pure Sinhala military), from which reports of deprivation, abductions, torture and rape were persistently emerging. Although after intense international pressure the camps were eventually closed, large numbers of Tamils are still prevented from resettling.<\/p>\n

It is against this recent history, quite apart from the decades of ethno-political strife and quarter century of war, that today, \u2018reconciliation\u2019 is being discussed as a necessary step towards a lasting peace. So it is unsurprising that the question of how to achieve reconciliation or, more importantly, what exactly it entails, has only become more contentious.<\/p>\n

Whilst the Tamils, eminent human rights organisations and leading democracies have called for accountability for the horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleged to have been committed by both sides, as the first step towards meaningful reconciliation<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>, Sri Lanka dismisses such calls as ‘neo-colonialism’. Instead the Colombo government has tried to enforce its own brand of reconciliation \u2013 one that denies the military\u2019s slaughter of large numbers of Tamil civilians, refuses to meaningfully address the Tamil people’s long-standing political grievances, and seeks to ruthlessly impose its own idea of what \u2018national\u2019 identity should be.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s understanding of reconciliation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even a cursory look at resolved past conflicts and successful efforts at reconciliation underlines how mutual recognition, acceptance and tolerance of communities once seen as the enemy is fundamental. However, Sri Lanka’s vision of reconciliation is not constructed on this model. Instead, denying the very existence of an ethnic crisis on the island, Sri Lanka purports the problem to simply be one of \u2018terrorism\u2019. Within this framework, having now claimed victory over the LTTE, Sri Lanka asserts that given time and space reconciliation will naturally follow, and any voices of dissent are remnants of the original \u2018problem\u2019, that of \u2018terrorism\u2019.<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka, reconciliation between the Sinhalese and Tamils is seen as one of all people adopting a \u2018Sri Lankan’ identity. In principle, this need not be problematic as an inclusive identity of equals fosters mutual tolerance and a celebration of differences. However, the inherent flaw \u2013 and, incidentally, the raison d\u2019\u00eatre for the Tamil people\u2019s original call for autonomy soon after independence from Britain \u2013 is that the ‘Sri Lankan’ identity is essentially a Sinhala Buddhist one.<\/p>\n

Whilst the government purports that Tamils, and those of the island\u2019s minority communities, are welcome into and belong within an overarching \u2018Sri Lankan\u2019 identity, this welcome is in fact offered on the premise that a Sinhala Buddhist identity is adopted, feigned, or at the very least, its hegemony over the island is willingly accepted. That such an identity should be seen as the righteous and natural state of the island has long been enshrined within the country\u2019s constitution and its numerous amendments, including the Sinhala Only Act and the state\u2019s explicit duty to \u2018protect and foster\u2019 Buddhism, giving it the \u2018foremost place\u2019 on the island.<\/p>\n

Thus enforced through parliament, the ideology of Sinhala Buddhist supremacy is exalted and effectively indoctrinated through the institutionalised Sinhala Buddhist text, the Mahavamsa. Taught to school children from an early age, the Mahavamsa\u2019s claims of Sinhala Buddhism\u2019s primordial ownership over the island is a theme that has run through the discriminatory and persecutory rhetoric of successive Sinhala governments fuelling the race riots, pogroms, persecution and genocide of the Tamils.<\/p>\n

It is not only Sri Lanka\u2019s refusal to accept the Tamil identity as a rightful and equal part of the island that discredits its claim of seeking \u2018reconciliation\u2019, but that any assertion of the legitimate, long-standing grievances of the Tamil people, or their desire for self-determination as a means to escape Sinhala Buddhist domination, is denounced as an inherent threat to the majority and vilified as ‘terrorist ideology’. \u00a0Even the dominant Tamil political coalition in the island, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), despite its extensive democratic mandate within the Tamil areas as seen in the 2010 elections, has been accused by the government of propagating \u2018extremism\u2019, in calling for autonomy<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>.<\/p>\n

The only Tamils considered acceptable to the Sri Lankan government are those that accept Sinhala Buddhism\u2019s dominance on the island \u2013 a state of perpetual submission and oppression that has never been accepted by the overwhelming majority. \u00a0Tamils who endorse accountability, greater autonomy, or self-determination are condemned as \u2018war-mongering\u2019, \u2018radical\u2019, \u2018seeking revenge\u2019 or as part of a Western \u2018conspiracy\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan government\u2019s delegation to the 19th session of the UN Humans Rights Council this month, illustrated the state\u2019s fa\u00e7ade of reconciliation. Whilst representatives of the TNA said they felt compelled to forego the event fearing reprisals on their return, the government\u2019s delegation included an unelected Tamil mayor and a dubiously elected Tamil paramilitary leader (and now minister) who is indicted in the government\u2019s own investigatory report into the final stages of the armed conflict. \u00a0This self-selected pool of \u2018Sri Lankan Tamils\u2019 is used to claim that \u2018Sri Lankans\u2019 have no appetite for accountability<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>, and would under no circumstances accept international intervention to secure an independent process, viewing such measures as neo-colonialism. Yet once again, whilst this may resonate with \u2018Sri Lankans\u2019, for the Tamils this is far from the truth.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, the Tamil people have consistently called for an independent, international investigation into the credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as the only means of securing accountability. From the TNA, youth activists and civil society groups on the ground, to activists within the diaspora (criminalised by senior government ministers as the \u2018LTTE rump\u2019) there has been unanimous consensus. Sri Lanka cannot be left to investigate itself.<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, crimes of such appalling gravity warrant an adequate investigation in and of themselves. Victims\u2019 families and survivors have a right to justice. Knowing that those who perpetrate crimes will be held to account and that the rule of law holds (let alone questions of reparation or the sense of closure) are basic steps that allow a community, or nation, to take stock, grieve and renew. This is not a ‘Western’ concept of justice, or a ‘Western’ idea of morality, but a universal notion inherent to humanity. Looking forward, if Sri Lanka is serious about ceasing the relentless ethnic repression, there has to be meaningful accounting for the past.<\/p>\n

Structural genocide <\/strong><\/p>\n

The government’s rhetoric about reconciliation thus belies a now relentless project<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>to impose a Sinhala Buddhist identity throughout Tamil areas. Tamil place names are replaced with Sinhala ones; the national anthem is prohibited from being sung in Tamil, and Hindu and Christian places of worship remain destroyed across the Tamil areas, as Buddhist stupas are constructed. All the while, militarised repression seeks to stifle and violently stamp out any Tamil dissent and protest<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Whilst Tamils are prevented from resettling, the government is building militarised Sinhala settlements over their homes, to accommodate the increased deployment of the military, (almost exclusively Sinhala) to the North-East. At a time when the military should be scaled down, the government has announced increased military expenditure, and proposed grants for military personnel who extend their family by having a third child. Meanwhile, the government\u2019s expropriation bill, changes to land registry and ownership, and dual citizenship amendments, disenfranchise and alienate the large swathes of Tamils who fled during the 80s and 90s \u2013 a diaspora that has and continues to be the backbone of the economic development and capital in the North-East.<\/p>\n

Whilst proclaiming to potential investors and tour operators that \u2018peace\u2019 now prevails in Sri Lanka, the government has cracked down on press freedoms, increased political interference within the judiciary and imposed a militarised governance on Tamil areas<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>, where aid agencies, foreign reporters and independent observers are unable to operate without close government supervision. In short, for the Tamils, the question is not one of reconciliation, but the absence of basic freedoms.<\/p>\n

The effect of decades of pogroms and persecution of the Tamils – through the displacement, fleeing as refugees, seeking exile, disappearances and deaths – is that the very demographics of the island have now changed. The targeted, systematic massacre of the Vanni population, together with the subsequent arbitrary arrest and systematic rape of young Tamil men and women in the immediate aftermath, ensures that the full extent of demographic changes are yet to be seen. To the Tamils, the island\u2019s changing demography is not an unfortunate after-effect, but an aim that spurred the structural genocide that continues to unfold.<\/p>\n

Foundational crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is an extensively documented, if often forgotten, fact that the Tamil demands for autonomy \u2013 in the form of federalism – first appeared as a direct result of the relentless \u2018Sinhalisation\u2019 of the then post-independence state of Ceylon. When these calls, supported by mass demonstrations through the sixties and seventies, were met with anger and state-backed rioting, Tamils united behind a call for an independent statehood. The call received overwhelming popular endorsement in the 1976 elections when the TNA\u2019s predecessor, the TULF, swept the polls – a full six years before Tamil militants began an armed struggle.<\/p>\n

It is this popular desire, shared by peoples in other parts of the world, such as in Scotland and Quebec, that is denounced by the Sri Lankan state and its majoritarian supporters as \u2018terrorist ideology,\u2019 \u2018extremism\u2019, \u2018fascism\u2019, and so on. Sri Lanka\u2019s sixth amendment to the constitution enshrines in law the criminalisation of Tamil calls for independence. That the TNA has \u2018moderated\u2019 its stance to ask for autonomy, rather than independence, has made no difference.<\/p>\n

Calls by the international community \u2013 including those like the US, India and European Union who supported Sri Lanka\u2019s military campaign against the LTTE – for a political solution involving talks with the TNA and power-sharing with the Tamils have been met repeatedly by histrionic denunciations for supporting \u2018separatism\u2019 and \u2018terrorism\u2019.<\/p>\n

The cynicism behind the rhetoric of reconciliation adopted by the government and its supporters is underlined by its evolving responses to accusation of mass atrocities by its armed forces \u2013 arguably the most serious charge citizens can level against the state. From the outset it reacted with unrestrained anger and indignation.<\/p>\n

Beyond the government’s own predictable reaction to the atrocities, what is perhaps most striking is that this reaction is almost unanimously shared by the wider Sinhala polity, mainstream press, and especially, the majority of the Sinhalese people.<\/p>\n

The well supported reports<\/a> \u2191<\/a> <\/sup>, including one from the UN Panel of Experts, of over 40,000 Tamils (supposedly fellow citizens) being killed, have been met with the same dismissal, outrage and indignation as that of the government. The government\u2019s claims of \u2018neo-colonial\u2019 bullying are lauded, whilst the TNA, other Tamil critics, and the few Sinhala critics, are denounced as \u2018traitors\u2019 and threats to national security. In short, the government enjoys the unqualified support of the Sinhala majority on the issue of accountability for atrocities against Tamils.<\/p>\n

Thus, even without the prevailing climate of militarised repression, replete with abductions, \u2018disappearances\u2019 and murders of critics, the wholesale rejection and criminalisation of the aspirations of an entire nation ensures that the frank and open dialogue required for reconciliation cannot take place in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Breaking the cycle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today in Sri Lanka, in the name of reconciliation, an escalation of ethnic polarisation is unfolding, as the state strives to impose a Sinhala Buddhist hegemony over the Tamil areas.<\/p>\n

The discrimination, persecution and genocide of the Tamil nation by the Sri Lankan state, supported and endorsed by the Sinhala majority, has been on-going for over seven decades \u2013 before, during and after the armed conflict. So too, has been Tamil resistance to this oppression.<\/p>\n

Even after the end of the war, and in spite of state intimidation and militarised repression, the Tamils continue to support political parties and civil society groups, including resurging youth activism, that are torch-bearers for self-determination and independence. The TNA\u2019s victory in last year\u2019s polls is an irrefutable collective statement by the Tamil people that white-washing the past with promises of \u2018development\u2019 is no substitute for accountability, a meaningful addressing of legitimate grievances, and a just peace.<\/p>\n

The events of the Arab Spring amply demonstrate that when people are faced with perpetual persecution by the state, their resistance is inevitable. When legitimate grievances and protests are met with violent state terror, then rebellion eventually follows. This is what happened thirty years ago in Sri Lanka, and it is a history poised to replay today. It is after all not merely past injustice that fuels the Tamil people\u2019s demand for accountability and a lasting political solution, but that the grievances, which spurred resistance, are being added to day by day.<\/p>\n

The Tamil call for an independent statehood stemmed from a very basic need for security against genocide. For many, and including the next generation of Tamil youth activists, the events of 2009 consolidated this need. The fact that the genocide continues to unfold today, only serves to vindicate it. The notion that today\u2019s perpetrators can be relied upon to be tomorrow\u2019s protectors is viewed with arguable cynicism and distrust, no more so than by the Tamil youth, looking to the future.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s rhetoric of \u2018reconciliation\u2019 and ensuing lasting peace could not be further from reality.<\/p>\n

Also read:<\/p>\n

Reconciliation in Sri Lanka means the youth must lead the way<\/a>, Sanka Abayawardena<\/p>\n

‘What Sri Lanka is…’: acknowledging the ethnic conflict in post-war reconciliation<\/a>, Ambika Satkunanathan<\/p>\n

‘Reconciliation in Sri Lanka means the youth must lead the way’: a sceptical response<\/a>, Asanga Welikala<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 opendemocracy.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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