Disingenuous, selective and championing of polarization

Response to TNA statement (March 14, 2012) :

[Continued from yesterday]

Arun TAMBIMUTTU-SLFP organizer for Batticaloa

The TNA fails also to delineate the context of the process. There were national security issues that had to be taken into account during and in the immediate aftermath of the war and releasing the full commission reports may have been seriously prejudicial to the said national security concerns. Such national security concerns are a sine qua non in any war situation, and be it in the United States of America or any other democracy, national security concerns always impede full disclosure. I am not only confident that given the space for democracy and the rule of law obtained by the elimination of the LTTE, these issues could see closure either with further investigations, or through the release of the relevant commission reports and those responsible brought to justice. I emphasize the fact that I will continue to urge all relevant authorities to ensure that justice is done, in my capacity as a citizen and as the SLFP Organizer for Batticaloa.

With respect to other issues of human rights violations I note that the TNA is in fact celebrating the fact that the LLRC has indeed done its work admirably, despite vociferous reservations expressed by the TNA about its lack of will to do so. This, the TNA does repeatedly in the document.

In point of fact the TNA quotes from the document to say that certain persons in government are now culpable in certain violations of the provenances of good governance, for instance. The LLRC report commissioned by the government this means, has put various people in the dock of public scrutiny - in the courts of public opinion - and with time it is certain that whether they are indeed guilty or not will be determined after due process of application of legal or other instruments. But it is hilarious that the TNA cites the LLRC document itself to insist that the government is ignoring legitimate human rights concerns, unaware that its slip shows considerably; i.e.: citing the document itself is an unequivocal admission that considerable progress has been made by the government in the area of human rights.

Institutional freedom

The TNA refers to ‘the spate of killings and abductions’. I concur with the TNA that there is no place for such things in a democracy, and while noting that there is inherent hyperbole in saying that ‘there were such a number of abductions in so many months’ - thereby discounting for regular criminal acts carried out by undesirable elements which is not unusual but is in fact the norm in any polity - I assert that the TNA itself does not state that these incidents were politically or racially motivated. While noting that no country is immune to such acts, it must be mentioned that the conclusion of the war has enhanced considerably the space and institutional freedom for investigating them and to bring to book those responsible.

It is regrettable that the TNA, instead of referring to contexts and constraints or the vast positives that resulted from the end of the war, resorts to inflating the errors and negatives that persist. Other vague allegations in the statement, such as those that preposterously allude to procurement of women for the ‘comfort of armed forces’ I am sad to note, are mere figments of imagination, are grossly irresponsible and counter-productive to reconciliation, and lead us to conclude that the TNA is only interested in continued polarization and cannot deviate from the party’s tried and tested stratagem of sowing discord and wanton mischief.

The TNA also refers to proportions of communities in the public sector. The TNA does not mention that 30 years of terrorism effectively wrecked the education of the Tamil community and created conditions where Tamils were either discouraged (by the LTTE) to join the public sector or hesitated to do so for fear of reprisals from the LTTE. Today, conditions are improved and continue to improve and I am hopeful that these anomalies will correct themselves over time.

I regret to note that the TNA cites isolated incidents without substantiation to indicate some kind of deliberate state-led policy of marginalizing minorities. There is for instance no state led campaign to destroy Hindu temples though some rouge elements may have done so in the fog of war, in isolated documented instances. This sort of hyperbole and mischievous misrepresentation is irresponsible on the part of the TNA and I am forced to conclude that such ‘incidents’ are part of the TNA’s wish-list in its determination to entrench polarization.

It is symptomatic of this desire for discord, that the TNA chooses to loosely and irresponsibly portray all efforts at rebuilding conflict-ravaged areas as attempts to ‘bribe the Tamil youth.’ Its leader has in fact once gone on record saying so. Interestingly, the TNA says nothing of the LTTE’s considerable role in devastating the said areas and this begs the question whether the TNA prefers there to be no development or reconstruction in the North and East.

The conduct of the war

The matters raised with regard to the conduct of the war are consistent with the positions taken by the TNA from its formation, namely an abject deferment to the will, dictates and propaganda of the LTTE. There is absolutely no mention of the fact that it was the LTTE that put hundreds of thousands of civilians into danger by forcing them at gunpoint to join its retreat - holding them hostage continuously until they were rescued at great cost by the Sri Lankan Security Forces. The TNA ignores evidence of the LTTE shelling a church which had been turned into an orphanage, the deliberate pilfering of supplies amounting to deliberate starvation of civilians, the shooting of civilians fleeing into government controlled areas and the deployment of suicide bombers (including children strapped with explosives) to deter such movement.

The TNA statement quotes a section of a speech made by its leader, R. Sampanthan in Parliament (January 21, 2009) regarding death and destruction.

This quote does not contain one word of censure on what the LTTE was doing at that point and must therefore be read as symptomatic and confirmation of the TNA’s complicity in the designs and atrocities of the terrorist organization.

I note with regret that the TNA has chosen to regurgitate widely exaggerated numbers in trying to determine how many died in the last stages of the war.

The TNA, in its calculations, leaves out LTTE cadres who perished in battle, those who died of natural causes, those who fled to other parts of the country and abroad without registering at receiving centres, and those who were killed by the LTTE as they tried to flee.

The TNA does not dispute the comprehensive account of relief supplied to the conflict zones put together by the Commissioner of Essential Services and says nothing of the many congratulatory notes to the Sri Lankan government authored by independent international organizations that were privy to the indefatigable work done by state agencies including the security forces in ensuring that the maximum was done to alleviate the suffering of those held hostage by the LTTE. These absences in the TNA statement severely compromises that party’s integrity and stated concern for Tamil people and its commitment to peace and reconciliation, I note with considerable regret.

The TNA fails to acknowledge that after the LLRC report deals with every aspect of the conduct of the war, going to the extent of saying that military fire may have been directed at No Fire Zones. This again is an acknowledgment by the TNA itself that the government has been sincere and its appointed commission has done its job and done it well. To reiterate, the TNA’s slip shows when instead of waiting for the government to take the next step which is to act upon the LLRC’s findings on the conduct of the war, the TNA repeats ad nauseam the mantra that ‘the conduct of the war was deplorable.’ No doubt some aspects of the conduct of the war weren’t wholesome. This is precisely what the LLRC concludes, and which finding is precisely what the Sri Lankan government has committed itself to act upon.

Criminal acts

However the TNA typically ignores this sanguine reality, or the fact that concrete steps have been taken since the release of the Report (in addition to already operational policy decisions on rehabilitation, reconstruction, demilitarization and democratization) with respect to accountability issues.

For example, the Attorney General is to be tasked to investigate and prepare indictments on criminal acts committed during the war. Additionally Commissions of Inquiry have been instituted by the Army and Navy to investigate all allegations of wrongdoing while the Attorney General’s Department has been mandate to investigate all civilian killings. Therefore the claim that ‘promises have not been kept’ is, sad to say, a barefaced lie on the part of the TNA.

I note that the objection raised by the TNA regarding the military conducting inquiries shows only ignorance on its part about procedures accepted all over the world where the first step is in fact a military inquiry, subsequent to which, if necessary, judicial oversight come into play.

Even cursory knowledge of how the United States, for example, has and is carrying out investigations into grave instances of abuse would lay to rest the concerns expressed by the TNA. Sadly, it is unthinkable that lawyers of the calibre of TNA MP M. Sumanthiran are unaware of all this and it only reinforces ones perception that the TNA is intractable and averse to progress on the fronts of democratization and reconciliation. Since the TNA could not have been ignorant of what has been pointed out here it seems its leadership intentionally intends to mislead the readers of the document in this, as in many other issues.

With respect to the issue of law and order, I welcome the LLRC recommendations and I am hopeful of speedy implementation, especially considering the significant improvements that have taken place in the aftermath of 30 years when entire institutional arrangements were rendered ineffective, mostly courtesy of the LTTE. While I note that there is rehabilitation on multiple fronts (e.g LTTE cadres in rehabilitation facilities, former combatants entering the democratic process, including some in the TNA) I will continue to agitate for full investigation of all allegations with no impunity granted for any offender.

On the whole, the TNA has not acknowledged the development, poverty alleviation, reconstruction, restoration of infrastructure, clearing of land mines, resettlement and the rehabilitation of LTTE cadres and their reintegration into society after being given training and skills necessary for them to obtain gainful employment, a procedure that is unique and indeed unthinkable in the case of corresponding categories such as the Al-qaeda and Taliban.

It leads me to conclude that the TNA is not interested in giving internal mechanisms and processes the time and space needed to be effective.

UNHRC action

I regret to note that the TNA has endorsed moves in the UNHRC that violate the spirit of that institution and seek to impinge on the sovereignty of our nation.

I wish to state unequivocally that if these insidious moves bear fruit, it will most certainly polarize our society and derail the reconciliation process. I hope that the TNA will rethink its strategy of bartering the return to normalcy and the real chance of peace and reconciliation in order to retain its political relevance.

The TNA statement has tried to mislead the UNHRC by mentioning (vide para 1.3) that the Official Language Act of 1956 made Sinhala the official language but fails to mention that by subsequent legislation Tamil is also now made an official language.

The TNA statement ends by making all manner of ex cathedra assertions to the effect that the Sri Lankan government either cannot come up with a political solution, or is chronically unwilling to make good on commitments regarding human rights and other governance issues.

It is again amusing that the TNA makes this assertion in the same breath as it were after having cited the LLRC document liberally.

The TNA must be congratulated for so firmly jettisoning the bottom off its own argument, with such great dispatch. Which government that cannot make good on its commitments releases a report for instance which is tantamount to, in effect, being the basis for the TNA’s own indictments against the Sri Lankan government?

As surely as the Sri Lankan government has thereby delivered on the commitment to take a substantial leap towards reconciliation, it will deliver on the next step, which is to implement the LLRC report through its own devices and not through redundant interventionism.

This kind of banshee signing-off statement of the TNA document that loudly screams that the Sri Lankan government is insincere or duplicitous - while at the same time acknowledging government’s own LLRC report’s efficacy repeatedly - is needless to say confirmation of what is generally known about the TNA, that it is a party of scaremongering untruthful mischief makers to put it mildly, whose only intention is to sow discord and misrepresent the facts to serve its own narrow political ends, that I might add do not even today, jettison the madness of espousing separatism without any just cause or reason for having to separate.

Concluded