Majority in this country eat rice

When it comes to matters of governance in Sri Lanka, there is a pithy Sinhala saying that 'Me Rate Inne Bath Kana Minissu'. This denotes that the majority in this country eats rice instead of grass or fodder and therefore the course the country takes in keeping with majority aspirations has to be in the right direction. Democracy is all about people's aspirations and thus those who respect democracy, including those who claim to, have little alternative but to respect the wishes of the people and uphold their sovereignty in matters of governance.

It is in this context that the wider global community have to view this controversial Darusman Report, now before them, seeking to castigate the Sri Lankan government with allegations of 'violating International Humanitarian Law and for committing crimes against humanity'. Thus the verdict of the people of Sri Lanka is what matters as they are the best judge of the situation in deciding whether human rights of the people on this country have been violated to an extent that warrants an international inquiry in to the activities of its forces during the last stage of the conflict with the LTTE. Even morally such a stand is tenable because it is the people of Sri Lanka that suffered through the shenanigans of the LTTE and also of the government forces during their operations against the LTTE. And therefore it is the people who are in a position to pass judgment as to the excess of one against the other.

JVP insurrection

In the larger picture the people in this country also experienced the government forces when they overcame armed threats posed to the democratically elected government, by the JVP in 1971 and in 1989. The JVP, just as the LTTE had its own share of grievance but their armed revolt too was crushed by the forces at both those instances quite effectively. The message again is that the legitimate government of a country cannot entertain anarchy that seeks to overpower the will of the people and destabilize the country. Both those situations however, were also instances where the forces took full control until normalcy was restored and sooner such normalcy was restored the better it was for the people because that limited the uninhibited power of the forces to reign.

Nevertheless, those instances were situations where extra judicial states reigned in the country and under such circumstances it is always possible that excesses would occur. But again it is the people of this country who should stand in judgment on those excesses and decide whether the situation warranted such excesses. We are particularly aware that during the second JVP insurrection in 1989 there were large scale excesses often going beyond justification, but still the majority of the people in this country bore those excesses and voted the same party into office at the 1989 elections. Ironically, not even an internal inquiry, leave alone a Darusman Report, was called for by those with pretensions on 'human rights'.

The UNP government was in power then and may be their political lineage to the Western block was strong enough to make the West ignore such excesses. The motto of the 'international community' then seemed to be that 'human rights or human wrongs, after all it is our political ally'.

Colonial powers

Now this same block of Western nations are engaged in a 'witch-hunt' against Sri Lanka alleging that human rights were violated even disregarding the fact that such allegations were turned down initially by the UN protocol. What the people in this country and the global community should bear in mind is that this self styled 'international community' is made up of former colonial powers who pillaged and plundered small countries for centuries violating human rights and hence they may still entertain ambitions to dominate world affairs. In the present day world this exploitation is less physical, more economical and psychological and the tools too have changed to trade barriers and propaganda. It is in this context that we have to view the objective of this Darusman Report that the West has now aimed at Sri Lanka.

On May 1 the ruling government party staged a massive rally, more or less to get the message across to the Western block that the government has the backing of the people. Further the ruling party has now won all the elections that were held, resoundingly putting the people's support to the post war government beyond doubt. The war effort and its eventual victory, in any case has been so popular in the country that even the Opposition UNP had to borrow a 'war hero' whom it castigated before, as its candidate at the post war elections.

All this points to the reality that the people in this country are fully aware of the; shenanigans of terrorist activities and the anarchy such actions could usher; the excesses of the armed forces and the consequence of overlooking such excesses. Just as law and order is important to a country so are basic human rights of the people, but what is important is that none of those should be tainted with political interests, locally or internationally. If the West respect democracy they have to respect the will of the people in this country. People in Sri Lanka are quite capable of deciding for themselves and the majority of them eat rice instead of grass of fodder.

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