Re-thinking 'reconciliation' as a doctoral candidate
on 'SL Tamil activism in Canada':
Deficiencies in logic, truth and language
Art of leaving a better impression without making any
comments:
Prof Rajiva WIJESINHA MP
I am writing in response to an article by Amarnath Amarasingham about
Post-War Sri Lanka, which seems to have been motivated by an interview I
gave on al-Jazeera. Amarasingham, a doctoral candidate at Wilfred
Laurier University, declares that his response to queries as to why he
had not 'weighed in on the recent Channel 4 documentary, Sri Lanka's
Killing Fields,' is that he had not gotten over his 'moment of sheer
speechlessness'.
Then, as though to make it clear that this was just a figure of
speech(lessness), he changed tack to say that there was nothing left to
say, given the horrors of what the 'documentary' had portrayed,
culminating in what he tellingly describes as 'cameras stalking the
hollow cries of a mother clutching the tiny body of her bleeding child'.
Channel 4 footage
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha |
A doctoral candidate would be intelligent enough to realize that
these stalking cameras indicated, not just footage taken by innocent
fellow victims as Channel 4 pretended, but rather skilful filming by
propagandists such as that which was highlighted in a recent case in
Canada.
Astonishingly, after reference to a 'fictional movie portraying an
attack on Sri Lankan army forces. The movie also showed LTTE fighters
training and engaging in hand-to-hand combat', the lawyer for a migrant
who was judged to have contributed to terrorist activity by his
participation in this movie argued 'that the movie could have been
entertainment, or even a spoof.' Doubtless a doctoral candidate at the
level of Mr Amarasingham would find it difficult to ignore this
indication of the breadth of LTTE propaganda efforts, given that he is
supposed to be working on 'Sri Lankan Tamil activism in Canada'.
But I presume that, instead of revealing information about whether
his research included study of entertainment or spoof films of LTTE
fighters training and engaging in hand-to-hand combat, he will seek
refuge again in his philosophic claim that 'No, there was nothing to be
said.'
But it seems that I have stirred him out of silence. Without any
attempt to meet my arguments, he claims that attempts to 'downplay' the
revelations of the Channel 4 document are 'farcical' (though presumably
not entertaining or a spoof).
More seriously, he then concentrates his fire on what he describes as
'another line of argument' that 'has recently gained some fanfare'.
Heinous atrocities
This focuses on reconciliation, and Amarasingham says he agrees 'with
the overall vision', But he demands that those 'responsible for heinous
atrocities not be allowed to walk, head held high and cleansed of wrong
doing, beside me while I take these "steps" towards reconciliation.
An individual, regardless of whether they are dressed in SLA or LTTE
uniform, cannot kill your family, and then flippantly tell law
enforcement officials who come to arrest him that they are living in the
past'.
Whether deliberately or not (and if not deliberately, then with
astonishing myopia for a doctoral candidate), Amarasingham misrepresents
the position.
He fails to distinguish between the need to deal judicially with
crimes where law enforcement officials have evidence to arrest and the
endless trumpeting of generalizations without details. He resembles in
this the late Senator Joe McCarthy who believed that evidence against
individuals different from himself must necessarily exist, and who
therefore launched a witch-hunt to justify his belief.
Rousing emotions
Amarasingham's own rhetoric suggests he is a past master at rousing
emotions against those he dislikes. Thus one wonders whether his claims
about being in favour of reconciliation are quite honest. Certainly one
saw no sign of any resistance to previous LTTE rhetoric, which led to
forced conscription, child soldiers and the corralling of hundreds of
thousands of civilians as hostages, to be used as human shields.
More insidiously, he uses any material he finds to deplore
reconciliation. Thus he quotes Jayadeva Uyangoda's assertion that the
"preoccupation with regime consolidation over reconciliation constituted
the core of Sri Lanka's political trajectory in 2010" to declare that
'to demand a conversation on reconciliation is to put the cart before
the horse.' Anyone with a doctoral candidate level knowledge of English
would realize that Prof Uyangoda was rather deploring what he termed
regime consolidation as opposed to reconciliation.
Logic and Truth
Amarasingham's deficiencies in logic and truth and language lead him
to claim that the Sri Lankan government 'continues to insist that it had
a policy of zero civilian casualties, and, ipso facto, any evidence of
civilian deaths is either doctored, manipulated, or part of a broader
conspiracy.' It is obviously beyond him to understand that this
insistence could just be because the claim is true - which is why more
logical if less truthful people claim that government insists there were
no civilian casualties.
The latter claim, which I believe would be false in any protracted
conflict, might lead, ipso facto, as a good doctoral candidate would
say, to a claim that evidence of civilian deaths is not credible. But
not just the government, but even agencies not supportive of the
government, have made it clear that
a) There were civilian deaths caused by the LTTE
b) Such deaths were deliberately caused
What government contests then is evidence of deliberate causation of
civilian deaths by Sri Lankan forces as a matter of policy. It need not
even contest evidence of civilian deaths caused by the action of Sri
Lankan forces, if those actions were in the course of attacks on enemy
forces and fire, and any civilian deaths that occurred were not
disproportionate.
A great pity
However that should not lead to complacence about such deaths. That
is why I said it was a pity if our shelling caused such deaths, which
Amarasingham perverts, by omitting several steps in my argument.
He blithely says that, 'When asked about the deliberate shelling of
hospitals, Wijesinha responded that they had evidence of the LTTE
placing heavy weapons near hospitals and "if" such shelling actually
happened, it is a "great pity."
What I actually said was that it was clearly acknowledged that the
LTTE did place heavy weapons near hospitals which presented a dilemma:
did one ignore the use of such weapons and permit them to wreak damage
or did one fire back, knowing there was a risk that areas close to the
target would be affected? My view was that one had to fire back, to
prevent further damage to one's own troops as well as continuation of
terrorism, but one had to be extremely careful. If however the shelling,
which I believe was a necessity, so that there was no 'if' about it
happening, caused civilian deaths, that was regrettable.
Different versions
Collateral damage does not contradict the fact that our policy was to
avoid civilian deaths. If however evidence is presented to suggest that
civilian deaths were caused by our forces apart from such damage, or
disproportionately, we have said that we will certainly investigate.
However no such evidence has been thus far produced, except
generalizations and a couple of tendentious incidents such as the one
that Channel 4 has now shown in several different versions. It has
already been proved that the film has been tampered with, whereas
earlier it was claimed that it had not been edited. However, even though
it is granted that what was shown was in the wrong order, and included a
sequence that was filmed at another time and perhaps another place, we
have made it clear that we will look into it if we are actually
presented with direct evidence rather than doctored versions.
Doctoral candidate
Channel 4 refused to give us the original video. It did not provide
this to the UN, which had to make do with a different version provided
by a shadowy organization called Journalists for Democracy, the one
known member of which had to leave Sri Lanka when he was suspected for
fraud.
And still Amarasingham, trumpeting the fact that he is a doctoral
candidate, who should understand something about induction and
deduction, attacks us for claiming that the Channel 4 film is
manipulated, and instead claims, on the basis of the dramatic scenes he
dramatizes further that reconciliation needs to be reconsidered. |