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Study in terrorism and peace

LTTE and IRA Combating Terrorism & Discussing Peace

Author Ranga Kalansooriya

Printed, Published and Distributed in Sri Lanka by Sanhinda Printers and Publishers

Reviewed by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

Ranga Kalansooriya's book under review is a work, whose time has unerringly come. Irrespective of the timeframe within which he conducted his research for this monograph, on a Reuters Foundation Programme, it entered the public domain during a period that ensures high topicality to the book.

The annihilation of the Twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre, on the Eleventh of September, reducing an icon of American prestige to rubble, jolted the world awake, to the benumbing proportions of devastation, mindless global terrorism is capable of unleashing upon unsuspecting men and women.

In the slip-stream of the New York assault, the expression "terrorism" suddenly took on a deeper sense of menace everywhere in the world.

At home, here in Sri Lanka too, there is currently a new alertness to the issues of terrorism, although a desentisizing immunity had set in lately, due to our long, helpless exposure to multi-form manifestations of terrorism. These stirrings of new interest in matters relating to terrorism, have been occasioned by committed overtures towards a peace process.

All these developments, both at global and at local level, have set the stage for Ranga Kalansooriya's study to be received, with a marked keenness.

At first, Ranga's title tends to intrigue one. He yokes LTTE and IRA together in the main title of the book, making us wonder what kind of linkage be wants to establish between these two. His brief but exegetic sub-title "Combating Terrorism and Discussing Peace," helps us to get at the purpose of his work.

As with any professional newsman, Ranga's usual stock-in-trade is breaking-news, which, by nature, is fugitive and ephemeral. Most newsmen handling such material secretly nurse an ambition to put it all down at book-length. But, it is very rarely that imperatives of time, yield them the leisure to sit down and write their book.

But, Ranga has fully exploited the opportunity that came his way, in the guise of a scholarship to study on the Reuters Foundation Programme, at Green College, Oxford University. In his note, titled "A word of gratitude ...." Ranga records how the dictates of the dead-line thwarted his deep-seated yearning to make "an in-depth study of the conflict in my country."

His introduction to his study, is, in effect a resume of the thesis he elaborates in the book.

Ranga's paper takes the form of a comparative study of two terrorist groups, operating in two different parts of the world. The author's exploration of the similarities and contrasts implicit in the two groups - LTTE and IRA, has entailed long hours of research. The ordeal has been worse confounded by the volatility of the subject matter, as it gets constantly affected by fluctuating social and political circumstances.

The author approaches the central issues of the work, in the accustomed style of a seasoned professional journalist. He arrests the attention of the reader, without any loss of time, by placing him pat at the stark-centre of a terrorist attack on Lake House. Suicide bombers had entered Lake House, after partially blasting our own World Trade Centre.

By recounting this incident in some detail, the author, underlines the vulnerability of the people inhabiting a social contest dominated by terrorism. Equally, the encounter emphasises, his urge to be personally committed to a peace process, calculated to rid society of the menace.

The author, posits a two-step process, which he diagnoses as the cause, that most often determines the emergence of terrorist movements. In this two-step process, the first factor is the residual legacy of an imperial rule. When an erstwhile colonial power withdraws its rule over a country, there invariably occurs (according to this author) a conflict between the majority and the minority groups.

In the second phase of this two-step process, the majority, generally exhibits a tendency to suppress minority groups, leaving them the only option of staging an armed uprising, targeting the majority rule. This in sum is the author's perception of the matter.

The author's generalized formula - one may think - does not take adequately into account, all the subtle strands that go to weave the evil web of terrorism. Upholding his theory, Author Kalansooriya quotes what to him seems "several landmark decisions taken by national leaders to appease the majority marginalising the Tamil minorities."

The author goes on to take the position that it was the frustration sensed by some Tamil sections at the disregard for pledges given during election campaigns, in addition to other perceptions of injustice, which led some Tamil Youth Groups to seek alternative avenues of redress. This move, escalated into war, from the status of a political issue relating to an ethnic minority. The war began on July 23, 1983, according to the author, and has since then claimed nearly 70,000 lives.

Ranga Kalansooriya traces the history of the LTTE, through a series of seemingly uncluttered steps.

Ranga applies the same style and technique to his recounting of the origin and the evolution of IRA (Irish Republican Army) one of the world's oldest terrorist movements. Pursuing his accustomed thesis, Ranga Kalansooriya, blames the excesses of British Colonial rule, for the emergence of the rebellions Irish Republican Movement described as The Irish Republican Brotherhood, which later gave rise to the IRA and its political wing Sinn Fein.

The IRB thrived, in spite of the escalated attempts of the British Imperial rulers to suppress it and eventually to snuff it out.

In his exposition of the unfolding of these twin strands of Terrorist Movements in two opposite corners of the world, Author Ranga Kalansooriya adopts an admirable objectivity, a pleasing candour and an aggressive clearsightedness. The author's comparative assessment of the structure of these two terrorist movements, highlights some aspects of these two groups, we may very well have seen casually but would not have registered emphatically and strongly within us.

Ranga makes the very valid and vital point that, at least in the initial days, LTTE projected the image of a group totally dominated by an entrenched oligarchy, that resented the establishment of a mass-base. In contrast to this, the IRA actively solicited popular sympathy and a mass backing, through, among other mechanisms, Sinn Finn.

This speaks volumes about the level of popular perception of these two causes.

In Part II of his monograph the author scrutinizes the paths toward peace. In this section, the author presents a pithy resume of the prolonged efforts made by Governments and Individuals - both foreign and local towards peace overtures in this irksome internecine struggle.

I would unhesitatingly commend this section of Ranga's monograph, as the most effective summing up of the ebb-and-flow of negotiations between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE. The praiseworthy distinction of Ranga's terse condensation of the to-and-fro of Sri Lanka's peace parleys, is his eschewing of the rigid dichotomy of being unswervingly either "for or against," in one's attitude towards this terrorist crisis.

Read between the lines, the material mustered by Ranga, seems quite patently to imply, that, the lack of a seamlessly continuing policy on the part of succeeding Sri Lankan Governments, was by far, the major cause of the grievous delay in reaching a viable accommodation in the peace process. Until very recent times, the LTTE, on the other hand, maintained an unyieldingly adamant position against this vacillation, Ranga's objective recounting of the facts hint at.

He has a comprehensive segment on the pursuit of peace in Northern Ireland, until the Good Friday Agreement, replete with abundant promise was reached. Part III, the last segment of the book, is an attempt to draw lessons for Sri Lanka, from the Northern Ireland experience and our own failures and successes of the past.

Drawing upon his not inconsiderable awareness of the Northern Ireland's historical evolution, Ranga itemizes five salient facts that people interested in Peace in Sri Lanka should, concentrate upon.

These factors are: Inclusiveness, Trust Commitment and negotiating skills. The gritty, and at times blurred, series of photographs, Ranga uses to make the text speak eloquently, allows rare historical scenes and personalities that very much matter in the narration of the evolution of LTTE and IRA, appear before the reader, adding to touch of visual reality to the textual presentation.

Ranga Kalansooriya's monograph is an invaluable 'vade mecum' for the student, scholar, practising politician and the statesman, to get a proper perspective on this on-going crisis. In these days, immediately after the opening of highway A9, the book acquires a special poignance, as this event gives a particularly significant point of reference, for the assessment of material gathered in this book. Without even the slightest exaggeration, one can characterize this work as an unprecedented study, for anyone who needs to have an articulated view of the history, evolution and the future prospects of Sri Lanka's troubling internal crisis.

Charming thriller novel

Cliff House Mansion

An Uncle Arthur Novel by Mahasara Gunaratna

Reviewed by Somadasa Wijeratna

A work of fiction, in a way, is a literary portrayal of one's own experiences and work of observations about his surroundings, expressed in an artistic manner to enchant and captivate the reader, allowing the reader to make his own assessment of the contents depending on his knowledge and wisdom.

A work of fiction composed in simple but flawless language, cogent in description, unique in style and novel in plot will become memorable. Mahasara Gunaratna's 4th novel "Cliff House Mansion", by any norm, is a candid fulfilment of these obligations.

The book is a Stamford Lake Publication printed by Lake House Printers and Publishers Ltd., consisting of approximately 95 pages of snow-white thick glossy paper preceded by an appropriate Line Art Drawing by Karunasiri Wijesinghe. The printing is clear and pleasing to the eye, with letters of moderate size that can be read even in a moving vehicle, a commendable job of work,in spite of a few printer's devils found at random.

In the Author's words, the book is dedicated to the memory of those craftsmen from the South of Ceylon who ventured across the seas to the Malayan Peninsula in the early part of the 20th century to establish small business houses while establishing the name of their motherland in the palaces of royalty.

The novel unfolds in the form of memories of old Uncle Arthur narrated to his nephew (presumably to the author)as they come to rest at a lonely spot by the Galle Harbour,at the end of a leisure journey in a Baby Austin car driven by uncle Arthur himself.

In a nutshell, the story is about uncle Arthur's entanglement in the victorious unravelling of a mystery, in keeping with his inquisitive, jovial and brave spirit, at the time he was convalescing from a bout of serious pneumonia in a holiday resort in the bay of Closenburg, a mile off the Galle township.The mystery itself concerns a virtuous aristocratic lady with a young son, whose wealthy husband was incarcerated in Japanese held territory of Singapore, following the fall of Singapore on 15th February 1942 during the 2nd World War.

Uncle Arthur's intelligent, brave and compassionate intervention saves the lady's family and her massive business legacy from a disaster designed by her cunning apothecary cousin who was ambitious to grab the fortune of wealth by hook or by crook.

The narration runs into 32 chapters of approximately two to three pages each, followed by an epilogue providing extremely interesting reading, to describe a messenger mission of three army personnel engaged in a thrilling flight during the war time from Singapore Harbour to the Melville Island in the Northern tip of Australian territory, separated from the big port of Darwin only by a small stretch of water.

By and large, Cliff House Mansion is a fine creation full of humour, pomp and glory as well as thrill and marvel,worthy of easy chair-reading, without strain on the nerve.

Tamil perspective of the conflict

"Fighting Discrimination in Sri Lanka" - Memoirs of a Watchdog

N. Vijayasingam

Published by AGOTIC - Action Group of Tamils in Colombo (in English & Tamil)

Reviewed by Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby

In communication studies, when we deal with the different modes of the print medium, the "book" is always mentioned first, not only because it has been there even in the pre-print era, but also because it represents (and is taken as) "Store house of Knowledge and Wisdom". There is a permanency of value attached to what is told in a book, and all religions fall back on some "book" - whether it is "Bible", "Granta" or "Kitab".

AGOTIC publication of Vijayasingam's "Memoirs of a Watchdog" brings into "book form" thus into "permanent storage" as knowledge, many documents associated with the Sri Lankan Tamil grievances in the on-going ethnic war.

Vijayasingam is eminently suited for this task. His strength is that he is not a literary person, but a strong trade unionist, a top office bearer of the G.C.S.U. (General Clerical Service Union) when it was one of the powerful trade unions in this country. The days of the G.C.S.U. are over and never to return. Vijayasingam, being an activist moved from one arena of public action to another, from G.C.S.U. to CWC (as confidante of S. Thondaman) and now finally to AGOTIC as its President.

In between he had spent nearly a dozen years in various capacities in New Delhi. His experiences stated in the book as Advisor to the Ambassador of the European Union at New Delhi, comparing Indian secularism and dynasty rule in India are valuable food for thought for all of us in Sri Lanka, even for Indians.

Vijayasingam's note on the personal losses (the death of his relatives) is as important as the major political events like the peace talks, for every Sri Lankan Tamil, the resolution of the ethnic crisis, is not just a matter of socio-political national concern, but a matter of adjusting his own personal life.

In the course of writing on grievances, he also quotes what Justice Vigneswaran and Lee Kwan Yew (of Singapore) have said - two very memorable pieces on the Sri Lankan question.

It is the duty of capable Tamils like Vijayasingam to make the average Sinhala reader know of the real and genuine grievances of the Tamils. Unfortunately the bulk of the Sinhala and the English press has failed to do it, on the contrary they have fanned it.

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