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LTTE decision to return Muslim lands - a "landmark development"

by Rashomi Silva

Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe

A campaigner for peace and conflict resolution Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe heads the 'Foundation for Co-existence', a Non governmental Organisation dedicated to promoting peaceful co-existence among communities in Sri Lanka. One time Secretary General of International Alert and the International Peace Research Institute based in Oslo, Dr. Rupesinghe with his over 25 years experience in conflict resolution in an academic and research capacity has authored several books on co existence, peace and conflict resolution.

Dr. Rupesinghe spoke to the Daily News on communalties in Eastern Sri Lanka.

Q: Can you describe the role of your NGO?

A: Foundation for Co-existence basically focuses on ensuring the security of people, exploring ways of securing human rights protection and assuring freedom from fear for all the communities, in the country. A feeling of insecurity and fear is a natural consequence immediately after a civil war and specially in a no-war-no-peace situation like this. This feeling is prevalent among the people of the once war-torn North and East more than in any other part of the country. The Foundation for Co-existence wants to ensure the peace dividend enjoyed by the people in South is felt by the people in the North and East who have heavily suffered from the war.

Q: How do you view the recent announcement of the LTTE to hand back land they have taken from the Muslims?

A: This is a very important landmark in the evolution of the peace process. This means the Muslims will be able to return to their lands in time for the next cultivation season. It is a concrete manifestation of steps taken by the LTTE to restore good relationships with the Muslim community and open the way for reconciliation and co existence. The land question is one of the core issues governing relations between the Muslims and the Tamils in the Eastern region. Unlike in the other parts of the country the Muslims in the East have been predominantly an agricultural community. Due to the civil war they were unable to cultivate their lands because these lands were forcibly taken over by the LTTE. It is reported a total of about 100,000 Acres are to be handed back. The decision by the LTTE to hand back the land has escaped the national press although it is a landmark in the history of the peace process.

There are about one million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in refugee camps deprived of the right of returning to their lands and houses.

In certain instances", State security has overridden, the peoples security and in the case of 100,000 Muslim families and 25,000 Sinhalese families in the North, they were expelled by the LTTE and still feel insecure to go to their original abodes. The people chased out at a minutes notice could not be bothered to take with them their land deeds and the titles and now they cannot prove their right to the lands. This is a very emotional issue and the authorities should consider setting up an institution to clear that matter.

Q: What is the ground situation in East?

A: There were serious clashes between the Muslims and the Tamils in Valachchenai and Muttur almost a year back. Since then the ground situation has improved significantly. The calls for handing back agricultural lands to the Muslims is definitely a good sign. It is a manifestation of their (LTTE) willingness to have good relations with the other communities.

Entrance to the Eastern town of Batticaloa

There seems to be still serious violations by the LTTE such as taxation and child recruitment which should be given serious consideration. The LTTE claims that they collect taxes to pay the workers of the organisation and to control the areas under their rule. To be fair by them a mechanism should be introduced with the help of international organisations, such as United Nations, and other human rights organisations to finance them. Both parties should discuss the ins and outs of this matter in depth.

Q: Are you happy about the role played by the peace committees in the East?

A: Some peace committees seem to be very effective. They have sustained themselves through the civil war and have stood the test of time and have proved their effectiveness. Batticaloa Peace Committee, for instance, had been monitoring the human rights activities and set the standards, all throughout the civil war.

What I personally feel is that there should be a mechanism to regularise the organisations. Some of them are formed by the citizens some by the Divisional Secretariat, police or by civil society. The activists should be given a proper training and education and should strengthen their capacity.

Q: Do you think the current rift within the Muslim Congress will affect the Muslim community adversely?

A: If the Muslim Congress has any differences of opinion, that should be sorted out behind closed doors without trying to embarrass the leadership or the membership. It is reported that the leadership and the dissident group are trying to settle the matter amicably, which is welcome news.

The Muslim community has several major issues that demand serious attention: Settlement of the land question, a Muslim representation at the talks, a power sharing arrangement in North and East and security concerns of the Muslims. Any kind of a rift within the party will divert the attention from these major issues, and will affect the community badly.

Q: How do you view the ongoing peace process?

A: That the peace process has gone on for more than one year is a cause for celebration. The talks so far have been between the Government and the LTTE and they have progressed quite satisfactorily, but now it has come to a juncture where it is advisable to invite the other stake holders into the picture. Now the Government in their team of negotiators, should include an opposition representative, a representative of the President and the left parties and include a representative from the JVP. Similarly room should be given to those who are opposing the LTTE, such as EPDP, EPRLF and other Tamil political parties.

We can follow the South African example where the bilateral negotiations between the then apartheid South African Government and the African National Congress led by Nelson Mendela at a later stage, made multilateral negotiations which involved 20 odd political parties.

In Northern Ireland the solution was arrived at by the consensus of all the major political parties and a referendum was held to obtain a fresh mandate and to test public support.

Any negotiating process needs to expand the basis of citizens involved. A lot more work has to be done in that aspect: to enlighten the public on what transpires and to invite public participation. There seems to be a big gap between the citizens and the negotiators which has to be overcome.

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Rectifying past blunders

by Rev. Anura Perera

We are living in a country where ethnic demarcation lines are very clearly drawn specially in political sphere. We can see this when we look at the previous nation building projects, democracy and even in the non-violent political actions. We could see the clear emergence of ethnic divisions in every important political juncture.

The concept of nation state has also failed us. It has failed to accommodate all ethnic groups in the project of 'nation-building' and state formation after independence. The Sri Lankan experience since independence is marked by the assertion of ethnic differences by Sinhalese and Tamil nationalist groups, in order to demarcate their own spheres of politics within the nation-state.

In Sri Lanka a parallel nation-building process, based on the doctrine of Tamil nationhood, contests the nation-building project of the majority Sinhalese community. What we then see is a process in which contrasting and competing nation building projects - one dominant and official, the other subordinate and unofficial - are emerging and defining the political process and change.

Secondly, a salient device of the modern state has been the majoritarian democracy on the basis of 'one person one vote'. This has had a bad effect on the deeply divided society of Sri Lanka where the mainstream politics became divided over religion, language and ideological differences. In such a context, democracy itself has spurned violence.

When societies are divided, democracy adds depth to that sense of division. As Arend Lijphart accurately observed, the central problem of democracy in ethnically divided societies is the institutionalisation of majoritarian democracy.

Permanent majority rule in a plural society is unacceptable and unsuitable if the permanent minority is excluded from political power and the benefits of power. Then the majority vote evolves the most dangerous weapon in democracy by using their majority votes in parliament, can discriminate against the minorities. Our political history to provides many example of this.

We can also see the same communal differences present even in non-violent struggles in Sri Lanka. The non-violent struggle was a response to the problems created by the ethnic majoritarian elements. However, what we have seen in the recent history is a failure of non-violent struggle to overcome ethnic divisions. Already enhanced by the concepts of 'nation-state' process and majoritarian democracy, the non-violent struggle, too, became imprisoned in the same majoritarian paradigm.

The most unfortunate element in non-violent struggles in Sri Lanka is the clear visibility of ethnic divisions within that movement. Cross participation of ethnic groups has been very rare or non-existing. These types of non-violent struggles only further enhance ethnic cleavages. It has already created pessimistic attitudes towards non-violence amongst the public and especially among the minority.

Here, I would like to illustrate in brief some of the non-violent actions, which took place along communal lines.

The first non-violent action organised by the Tamils took place in 1956 soon after the introduction of the 'Sinhala Only Bill'. One Tamil party organised a 'satyagraha' outside parliament, and the activists were exclusively Tamil. Of course, the issue affected all minorities but mainly Tamils.

At the same time the Sinhalese political leaders convinced the majority Sinhalese that this non-violent action meant that the minority had been grossly unfair to the majority in their emphasis on their own minority demands.

Newspapers were replete with rhetorical questions - for example; "Minorities have been given everything at the expense of the majority. What more do they want?" - suggesting that the minorities have far exceeded the 'natural limits' of their behaviour.

The Sinhala extremist mob used physical violence against the Tamil activists. The Tamils had to abandon the protest. Violence broke out in Colombo, and then spread to the Gal Oya area in the east of the country, where the previous government had moved a large number of Sinhala settlers into a colonisation scheme in a Tamil area.

The police adopted a nonchalant attitude of ignoring the violence, apparently not without the acquiescence of the Government.

When the Tamil MPs returned to Parliament, one with a bandaged head, the Prime Minister of the day showed little sympathy for them. On the contrary, they were received with ridicule, if not scorn. The response to the non-violence of the Tamil leaders was the violence of the mob, the indifference of the police, and the ridicule and the scorn of the responsible political leadership.

Two years later however there was a compromise on the language issue between the Government and the leader of the Tamils. The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact (B-C Pact) was the result of continued non-violent actions by the Tamils. It made provisions for the use of Tamil in Tamil areas and provided for Regional Councils with powers in agriculture, education, and in colonisation schemes.

This time nationalists resorted to a non-violent campaign to oppose the implementation of the B-C Pact. Non-violent actions started to interplay clearly on ethnic lines. Two leaders, the late Prof. Felix Jayasuriya and K. M. P. Rajaratna undertook a fast on the steps of the Town Hall in Colombo, and about 2,000 Buddhist monks launched a march towards the house of Prime Minister, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike to protest against the B-C Pact. It is believed that the Prime Minister had torn the Pact in front of the monks to convince them that the government listened to the voice of the monks.

It seems that even non-violence is biased in favour of the majority as is democracy and while non-violence is a good means to achieve political-ends, it does not necessarily mean that the purpose for which it is used is good in itself. The opposition majority party, at that time the UNP organised a famous march to Kandy, led by J. R. Jayawardene, for the same purpose. The same person thirty years later accepted the legitimacy of the Tamil nationalist demand for power sharing in a devolutionary manner, after he became the president of the country.

The same issue also sparked off the next outbreak of 1958. Tamil activists in the North refused to incorporate the Sinhala 'Sri' character on to their vehicles and to the vehicles of the Ceylon Transport Board in the North and East.

A train carrying Tamils, who were thought to be on their way to a conference to discuss a further 'Satyagraha' on the issue, was ambushed and the passengers beaten up at Anuradhapura. The rioting spread to Colombo and to other urban areas where Tamils were in the minority. In all, up to 400 people were killed and 12,000 made homeless, almost all of them Tamils, and about 50,000 Tamils were chased away from the South. In this situation the government was inactive for some days.

Here too there was a situation of mob violence and relative passivity of the police and the armed forces, at least for a few days in some areas.

At that time many well-to-do Tamils left Sri Lanka due to insecurity. Young Tamil children were deeply shocked by this violence. This is a bitter memory in the Tamil community and a spur to their determination to struggle for their security. In 1961 the Tamil leaders organised a non-violent protest in the North, - as they could no longer expect respect for non-violence in Colombo.

They held a Satyagraha campaign in front of the Jaffna kachcheri (Assistant Government Agent's Office) in the North. They defied the government by activities such as an alternative postal service. The State interpreted this attempt as trying to establish a rival government to divide the country.

To meet this protect the army was sent North to stop it. The army, however gently it might have operated in carrying away the protecting leaders, is not a non-violent machine. It is backed by the use of force.

The political leadership of the South again failed to listen to the cries and aspirations of the minority. Gradually the conviction began building among the Tamils that non-violence, even in the North, would be met by the violence of the State's force.

Subsequently when the UNP government under Dudley Senanayake came to power after the general elections of 1965, it attempted to implement the agreement concerning the use of the Tamil language, called the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact. Then the opposition led by the SLFP and the LSSP and CP engaged itself in non-violent protest.

What we see in this is how the non-violent struggle in Sri Lanka was divided along ethnic cleavages. No cross community or cross-national participation occurred in the non-violent political struggle.

Even civil society peace activists appear to work within the ethnic divide, without making conscious efforts to transcend it. For example, there are organisations of disabled soldiers working for peace, which do not include disabled guerrilla cadres in the North and East. It will certainly be a great achievement if we can establish Sinhala-Tamil disabled persons' working for peace.

Today what we need most is cross-national participation in our political as well as peace activities, which will strengthen the process of reconciliation and trust building that is a sure way to redress and not to repeat the mistakes committed in the past.

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Building peace on the rights of the young

The participants of the first international conference held in Sri Lanka on the impact of armed conflict on children, "Bringing Children Home" wish to convey the following message to those responsible for negotiating peace in Sri Lanka for their consideration.

The conference brought together researchers and practitioners, mainly working in Sri Lanka, but also from 10 other countries, to discuss the impact of war on children from many different viewpoints. Presentations were made by representatives from both sides of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

The conference overwhelmingly re-confirmed the widespread, devastating and cumulative effects of prolonged armed conflict on children, and in particular the children of Sri Lanka.

Ensuring the rights of the young generation who have grown up under armed conflict is not only a humanitarian concern, but is also of significant political importance in ensuring human resources needed to develop post-war societies and in the interests of national security.

It is the most important investment that can be made in the interests of peace, development and human security. In view of this, the participants of the conference strongly urge those engaged in the peace process to take the historic step of including in the peace agreement a commitment to a comprehensive plan of action for children built on the Convention of the Rights of the Child. A rights-based plan for children should include:

* Urgent measures to strengthen the education systems and ensure access for disadvantaged children in the war-affected areas, and concrete steps to address adolescent education.

* Revitalisation of health services relevant for children.

* Demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of children associated with armed forces, as well as amnesty for all children who have left armed forces for whatever reason.

* Urgent effective support to children with disabilities due to the direct/indirect effects of war.

* Approaches to alleviate the psychosocial impact of the armed conflict on children.

* Support to ongoing efforts to resettle and reunite children with families.

* Measures to reduce the number of children in institutions through family reunion.

* Empowering mothers on both sides of the conflict to bring up their children.

* Observance of the principles embodied in the Ottawa Treaty on Landmines.

* In the interests of the continued protection and promotion of children's rights, the establishment of an ombudsman-function for children.

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