The Mahavir Goebbels and Justice issues

DIFFERENT VIEWS: When it comes to the LTTE's claim to concede a separate homeland for Tamils in the North and East, which it claims is the traditional homeland of the Tamils, the response of all those who are well aware of Sri Lankan history is that there is no basis for such a claim, and that it runs against current reality.

Sri Lanka is the homeland of the entirety of its people, be they Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim, Malay, Burgher and others.

Conceding a separate homeland for the Tamils in the North and East is giving into the LTTE's demand for a separate state in the North and East, which even Ranil Wickremesinghe despite his determined appeasing of the Tigers, was unable to agree to.

President Mahinda Rajapakse campaigned for the presidency on the pledge of an undivided Sri Lanka, with equal rights and opportunities for all. He made it clear that he was against any idea of a separate homeland in the North and East, and the division of the country.

When he re-stated this oft-stated position in a recent interview with Reuters, a pro-LTTE Tamil website gave it a sinister twist by using as its headline for the story that the President Rajapakse had said the Tamils had no motherland in Sri Lanka.

It would take a fool to believe that President Rajapakse would have said so even by mistake, when it is well known that he considers the Tamils very much a part of the Sri Lankan nation. However, this deliberate distortion of the truth fitted well with the propaganda plans with the LTTE.

Having failed to throw a spanner at all the work behind the arrangements for the upcoming Geneva talks, with the huge fuss made about what is now seen as the highly suspicious allegation of the abduction of some TRO members, the LTTE obviously saw another opportunity to cast a pall over the talks through its own distortion of the truth. The inherent Goebbelsian nature of the LTTE's propaganda came to the fore.

Propaganda manipulators

The false, malicious and grossly misleading headline on that website, was corrected with the least delay, and publicity given to the truth that what President Rajapakse told Reuters was that there was no place for a separate homeland for Tamils in the North and East. But that would not suit the propaganda manipulators in the Vanni.

Undeterred by the truth, the LTTE issued statements through the media controlled by it, and generally favourable to it, to state that if President Rajapakse took such a strong position with regard to a Tamil homeland, then the LTTE leader had said he would have no option to but to get such a homeland, as stated in his Mahavir Day message last November.

A dire warning indeed! It gave them one more opportunity to belittle Geneva, and the wider international assessments of the LTTE's observance (or violations) of the CFA.

This was perfect Goebbelsian strategy. Create one's own lie, the bigger better, and then use that lie to re-state one's case for intransigence.

Except at that single meeting with the media that Velupillai Prabhakaran had in April 2002, after signing of the CFA with the UNP Prime Minister, when he said they were not insisting on a separate homeland, the LTTE has never failed to insist its singular goal was that of a separate homeland.

It even caused problems for those proposing a federal solution to the ethnic problem in the South, with Tamilchelvan's recent statement that they were not for a federal solution, but for much greater autonomy.

One is not unused to the LTTE's posturing of violent and dangerous consequences on several issues. This new threat is not unlike the warnings made by those who supported Mahinda Rajapakse's rival for the presidency, that a victory for Mahinda would mean immediate war.

In the event, President Rajapakse proved the reverse with his patience and restraint in the face of mounting provocation by the LTTE.

It is time that even the LTTE learnt that its posturing about violent consequences on positions held by others can be seen for what they are the drum beats of Goebbelsian strategy of the Big Lie.

Justice forced into crisis

Following the sudden resignation of two Justices of the Supreme Court from the Judicial Service Commission, the members of civil society who are always in sharp focus whatever they may say, are carrying on a Jeremiad that the Sri Lanka's system of justice has collapsed.

The Asian Human Rights Commission, which I usually treat with respect on most of its comments, has also joined in the fray.

The Sri Lankan system of justice has many a flaw which has not drawn the attention of those allegedly concerned about this sudden threat to its edifice today.

There is very little said about the failure to establish Courts of Appeal in all provinces, a matter on which all parties in Parliament are obviously in agreement in principle.

However, the pressure from those who enjoy the high fees of a single appellate court in Colombo seems too much for at least one political party to give its full support to the move, by drawing a red herring about the powers of the Chief Justice to appoint Justices of the Court of Appeal.

Chorus leader

Leading the chorus mourners of an allegedly collapsed judicial system is Desmond Fernando, who we recall when came on TV to make a medico-legal cum political pronouncement that President Chandrika Kumaratunga's mental condition after the failed suicide bomb attack on her by the LTTE in December 1999, would render her incapable of carrying on her duties as President. So much for his expertise on anything!

Whistle-blowing, as it is made out to be is one thing. If as it is claimed, the so-called whistle-blowing has brought about the collapse of justice, one must understand that actual whistle-blowers do not paralyze institutions, but find ways of exposing the shortcomings in the relevant institutions, for necessary remedial action.

One would expect more than mere whistle-blowing from eminent Justices, who are still held in respect for the bold judgments they have given, this writer not excluded. There must have been other ways of bringing to light any conflicts of interest or reasons for their inability to serve any longer on the JSC as it was constituted, when they suddenly resigned.

Justice is still moving along, and one hopes the minority parties in Parliament can get together and agree on their nominee to the Constitutional Council, so that it could be appointed, and the Judicial Service Commission and the other Commissions under the 17h Amendment be appointed, including the Elections Commission.

It is also necessary for parliament to reach an all party consensus on remedies to the flaws in the much vaunted 17th Amendment, which has proved to have fallen far short of the expectations of those who adopted it unanimously.