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Ex-rebel groups: Politicians or
terrorists? Are the Tamil political parties of Sri Lanka running torture chambers in their camps in the north and east? This question has been brought up in the wake of an incident in Vavuniya last week, where a man escaped from the custody of one former rebel group, and ran into a church, begging the priest to save him in front of a shocked congregation. He said he had been tortured. The priest immediately sent word to the police. Members of the group had arrived a few minutes later, armed with guns and grenades and demanded that the man be handed over to them. The priest refused and stood his ground until the police arrived. The man was then taken away by the police, as a suspected member of the LTTE. The world's foremost human rights group, Amnesty International, put out a statement, a few days later, accusing both the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil (PLOT) of running three torture chambers in Vavuniya. Amnesty urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga to investigate these allegations, saying there may be as many as ten camps where opponents of these organizations are tortured. Both PLOT and TELO promptly denied the accusations. The camps, they say, are used only to house their own cadres, who take care of the security of the organizations, and also serve as a place where members of the public can come to solve their problems. TELO even wrote to Amnesty, asking them to send someone to verify the truth for themselves. This is not the first time that the existence of the ex-rebel groups in their present form has caused controversy. Nor is it likely to be the last. Yet, successive governments have chosen to ignore the issue due to political necessity. These groups, namely TELO, PLOT, Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), and Eelam Revolutionary Organization of students (EROS), are diferent from the more conservative Tamil parties, the Ceylon Workers' Congress, the Tamil United Liberation Front, and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress. The militant groups were born of the war in the early eighties, fighting the armed forces and police to set up their own nation, assassinating those who opposed them, as the LTTE is still doing. But the LTTE never accepted them, and made every attempt to wipe them out. But with the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1988, these groups accepted the terms written by the governments of India and Sri Lanka, and became mainstream political parties. However, the government accepted that members of these groups needed weapons to defend themselves from the LTTE. There was no question of guarding them with police or soldiers, since it would be a drain on the army and police. When the LTTE went back to war in June 1990, these groups offered their help to the government in fighting the LTTE. With a severe shortage of Tamil-speaking officers and men in the armed forces, it was clear that the Tamil groups would be able to provide some assistance. Armed cadres of these groups were thus deployed in all the frontline areas where there were Tamil civilians, including, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, the Jaffna islands, and Batticaloa. In addition, they all had offices in Colombo, which resembled fortresses in residential areas. However, they operated under their own control. That is, the army had no direct authority over them. When general elections were held in the north and east, some of these parties won seats in parliament, notably the EPDP, which had been given almost total control of the Jaffna islands. With elected representatives, the position of the Tamil militant groups was cemented as political parties. By allying themselves with the main party in power, first the UNP then the PA, they made themselves politically needed. Yet, ever since these groups were given quasi-police powers in 1990, there have been many accusations that they strong arm the Tamil population, including allegations of rape, murder, and torture. The government never inquired into these allegations, mostly since first the UNP and then the PA needed their support in parliament, but also partly because the alleged crimes were committed against only Tamil civilians. With policemen being reluctant to serve in the north, the EPDP was given extraordinary powers among the civilians in the Jaffna islands, virtually ruling the area. TELO and PLOT had much the same powers in Vavuniya, also reaping the benefit of levying taxes on goods sent by lorries to the north. Each trader had to pay a certain large amount of money to send goods to the north though Vavuniya. Whether this was legal is another question. But it was done with the full knowledge of the government, the police, the armed forces and the judiciary. The armed forces regarded these groups with some contempt, mainly because they were ex-militant groups, but also because these organizations are of little value militarily, since they don't take on the LTTE head on, preferring to hunt for Tigers in army-controlled areas. Sometimes, these bad relations actually flared up into violence, such as the incident on Kayts earlier this year, which this column wrote about, where navy and EPDP men opened fire on each other after a disagreement. More seriously allegations have been made by none other than Chandrika Kumaratunga. When she was heading the PA's general election campaign in 1994, she publicly said, repeatedly, that the UNP had hired the EPDP to murder her. The EPDP's leader, Douglas Devananda, denied the charge. But she said that one of her first acts in power would be to disarm the EPDP and all the other militant groups. However, when she became president, the tune changed. With such a slim majority in parliament, the PA desperately needed, and still needs, the small parties, especially the EPDP. So the militant groups could keep their guns. One thing that has to be accepted is that these groups still need to keep their guns. It's unfortunate, but repeated attacks on their cadres and leaders, notably on Douglas Devananda, has driven home the point that the LTTE still considers them to be rivals for leadership of the Tamil people, and wants to wipe them out. The question that needs to be addressed, is whether these groups still stray into terrorism, against Tamils, from time to time, to obtain their own ends. This is why allegations of torture should be taken seriously and investigated. It is in everyone's interests, including the militant groups, to clear up the allegations, one way or the other. After all, Sri Lanka's image is the ultimate loser, no matter who does the torturing. Cats
Eye By the end of September, the north-east monsoon will begin to dump its rains on Jaffna peninsula. By the end of September, the vast, low-lying expanse of land known as Chemmani will begin to flood. By the end of September, the water collected in this basin will begin to soak the land until the land can hold no more. For months the water will stand...will deepen...will wash away the hopes (what little there were) of the mothers and the fathers - the wives, the sisters and brothers, the daughters and sons - the activists and humanists who stand in solidarity. But the rains cannot wash away the truth. Human rights and the rule of law Since that time, Chemmani has stayed in the headlines. Despite a constant string of newspaper reports alleging that the Human Rights Commission, CID, Commander of Northern Forces, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and/or Attorney General are all in some way investigating, clearing or generally giving the go-ahead, no one seems to be doing much of anything. If the government really expects us to believe its rule of law rhetoric, it has no choice but to act with speed and competence to exhume the grave at Chemmani. There is no excuse or justification for further delay. Yes, the government of Sri Lanka is fighting a war. But, no, the war does not necessitate the brutal rape, torture and murder of civilians. Furthermore, the war does not mean that there can be no justice. The Krishanti Kumaraswamy case was an apparent victory for human rights. The lack of an effective response to the Chemmani mass grave allegations threatens to undermine the victory by confirming the sceptics who believe that nothing much has changed. By the end of September, the north-east monsoon will begin to dump its rains on Jaffna peninsula.. By the end of September, the vast, low-lying expanse of land known as Chemmani will begin to flood....By the end of September, the government's commitment to human rights and peace (the two cannot be separated) will be revealed. More than two months have passed since those convicted in the Krishanti Kumaraswamy rape and quadruple murder case revealed their knowledge of the existence of a mass grave at Chemmani. In their first statements in open court (allegedly, their lawyers had stopped them from taking the stand prior to their conviction), the five accused told the court and the stunned courtroom that the bodies in this case had been taken from a mass grave at Chemmani. The grave, they said contains more than 300 bodies - bodies of those disappeared and arbitrarily executed on the peninsula in 1996 after the government captured Jaffna. In the meantime, Cats Eye has learned that the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology team is ready and willing - at the request of the government - to come to Sri Lanka to lend their expertise and assist in the exhumation. Similar offers in respect of other mass graves have, however, been rebuffed by the government in the past. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also has been approached for international assistance and has, reportedly, agreed to provide such support. Why has nothing happened? No more delays First, the site must be protected. Such protection must be provided in a transparent fashion. Second, the site must be photographed or video-taped by an independent body in order to visually document and preserve it. Third, international experts must be officially invited (and all arrangements made) to come to Sri Lanka to undertake an assessment mission. This should be done before the onset of the north-east monsoon so that, during the months of the monsoon, all preparations can be made and funds secured for the exhumation. Talking peace at home What Cat's Eye found particularly interesting was the lecture that was given by Dr. Carmel Roulston, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Ulster, Nothern Ireland and a member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition who assisted the two-elected leaders from his group at the multi-party peace talks. The central concern of Dr. Roulston's lecture was to consider the role of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition in the peace process-most particularly, the drafting, signing and campaigning for the acceptance of the Agreement. The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition The NIWC was one of the only three parties elected to the Forum and the peace talks - the other two being the Alliance Party and the Labour Coalition - which could claim to have 'cross-community' membership and support. While it could not claim to have the support of, or represent all women, the NIWC did have members and supporters from all parts of the Northern Ireland population - including men. What particularly distinguished their group was that they were able to fuse together the issues of the injustice of women's exclusion from political structures with a broader package of ideas about dialogue and conciliation, justice and equity. The women's experiences in working in many different contexts - families, communities etc - and their first hand knowledge of exclusions and its effects, made them particularly adept at facilitating and ensuring that the peace talks would be respectful and accommodatory of difference. When translated into the hard realities of Northern Irish politics, this meant that it was only the NIWC which consistently and often solely - called for the inclusion of all parties in the peace talks, without preconditions, and occasionally intervened as mediators between parties in disagreement. The NIWC was also fully committed to one of the key principles of the talks which was that 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.' This meant that no party could hope to secure agreement on issues of importance to itself without contributing to compromise on other issues. Parties in the talks had to remind themselves continually of the importance of the process as a whole and to weigh their 'bottom line' issues againsat the possiblity of undoing the achievements that had already been reached, however insufficient or tenuous they may have appeared at any time. The NIWC's style of leadership, during the talks, which showed that women could be resolute and consistent in the pursuit of goals without appearing tough or domineering, their openers to building alliances, and their commitment to a particular type of process affair, inclusive, based on mutual respect, empathy and dialogue across differences - succeeded in winning the admiration of the public which recently elected two of its members to new Assembly. Sri Lankan peace talks From the book 'The Palm of His Hand'
by E.C.T. Candappa Chapter 14 About the author Continued from yesterday ‘The Tamil kingdom was established by South Indian invaders and their followers. But they grew in strength and influence to such an extent that they were able to demand and obtain tribute from the Sinhalese kingdoms in the south. ‘All that ended with the arrival of the Portuguese invaders in 1505. After a few battles, and especially after a fierce persecution of Christian converts by a Tamil king, Sankili, the Portuguese conquered Jaffna, and like the rest of the country it later came under the Dutch and the British.’ ‘That’s a lot of history,’ said Bill stretching himself on the cane chair so far back he was almost in a straight line. ‘As the Yanks say,’ Raj smiled, ‘you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. Even before the Sinhalese landed in Ceylon, and that’s way, way back, and two thousand years before that there were tribal people here, a pastoral people, tending cattle and horses and yes, even sheep. They were here from the earliest times. And where did they get horses and...and...sheep? We don’t have any sheep now. They must have come from some other civilisation that tended such livestock.’ Raj paused to let the sense of time sink in. But Bill interrupted that line of thought. ‘Well, we’ve had our aborigines for forty thousand years...’ ‘Like our veddhas,’ said Raj. ‘But what did our veddhas or your aborigines achieve? In what way did they advance civilisation? All right, all right. They did leave behind some cave drawings, indicated they knew how to make permanent pigments. Did they leave a single feat of engineering or a single mathematical problem of some elegance? Did they invent anything that moved mankind, humanity forward? They survived. They passed on some pretty basic survival skills. And some legends...’ Bill rumpled his red hair impatiently. ‘You grossly under-estimate the contribution made by aboriginal people,’ he said. ‘They represent what is pure and unsullied in human history. They were the true children of nature. It is we who corrupted life at the spring.’ Raj watched Bill and this unexpected show of warmth. He let it go. He pondered awhile in silence on what might have happened to Australia had the European settlers never come. Or what it would be like if every trace of European civilisation were to be wiped out of the enormous continent, if every building made of brick and mortar and concrete and steel and glass, every road and highway and rail track, every modern means of transport and communication, every newspaper and book, every cultivated tree, if all of this were to disappear, what would be left? Bill, in the meanwhile, pursuing his own line of thought cut in almost in answer to Raj’s reflections: ‘It is European settlement that disturbed the serenity of native ways. It was civilisation that introduced ills they could never have dreamt of before.’ ‘So what is the solution? A return to the Stone Age?’ Raj asked. ‘Let us leave the issues of antiquity alone and survey the yesterday of history.’ From somewhere inside the building a clock struck eleven. ‘Eleven already,’ said Raj, ‘and I’m hungry. And you haven’t had your dinner either. What do you say we go out and have some egg hoppers?’ Bill did not seem reluctant. ‘Next coffee shop?’ he asked eagerly. ‘That’s it,’ said Raj without comment, for what Bill called a coffee shop was in fact was one of the thousands of tiny tea kiosks which littered the country. They were uniformly squalid, were owned by a single proprietor, employed almost slave labour and nearly all called themselves hotels when they could not even be called restaurants and usually sported some grand prefix usually related to royalty. ‘You haven’t lived in Colombo until you have eaten egg hoppers* late at night,’ Raj said, and added, ‘besides, I need a change of scene and mood after what happened.’ ‘You still thinking about that? Forget it,’ said Bill. ‘You know the saying, ëdogs bark and the caravan moves on’.’ ‘Dogs is right,’ said Raj with feeling. They dropped the subject. The tiny eating house favoured by the grand name of Sigiri Hotel, a far cry from the famous rock fortress or a lodging place of any sort, was right next to the YCW headquarters. It had a bright neon sign outside casting a garish blue light. Under it, a man dressed in a cotton sleeveless vest and sarong was baking hoppers. His bronzed face, neck and arms were shiny with sweat. The air was filled with the smells of smoke, oil and burning crusts. Bill stopped to watch, fascinated. His face, ruddy from the glow of the fire, bore a child-like smile of discovery. ‘Let me explain,’ said Raj. ‘You see, he takes a deep spoonful of the batter and pours into one of the six heated pans before him. The batter is made of a mixture of flour, coconut milk, salt and water, which had been leavened some hours earlier with coconut toddy to make it rise. Observe how he swirls the pan as he pours in the batter. That’s to get a frill which turns into a crisp, brown crust, leaving a white circular centre. If you want an egg hopper, you break an egg into it, cover it with a lid and let it bake. Hoppers are eaten either with spicy gravy or with red chilli sambol, very spicy, very hot.’ They went in and sat at a vacant table. ‘Now then,’ said Raj, resuming his lecture: ‘After four and half centuries of foreign rule and a total social upheaval, after many wars of occupation and resistance, Ceylon obtained independence from the British in 1949. It has often been claimed, and with pride, that this was achieved without any bloodshed. The fact of the matter was that after the fire of the local heroes had run out, both literally and figuratively, the population, by and large, had settled down to enjoy the blessings of a time of peace and stability. The British had, indeed, accomplished what had seemed impossible for two thousand years ñ achieved national unity. There was now an unified administration. ‘An export based economy that quite suited an imperialist regime kept the populace well-fed and contented. The British made tremendous contributions in transport, development of plantations, and justice. For the first time since the Portuguese invasion, there was freedom of religion. Education, once again to suit the needs of colonial rule, spread rapidly, but not to the rural areas because the British regime needed a peasant class as well. It wouldn’t have done to transform the whole populace into clerks and administrators. ‘So, as I was saying, the desire for freedom was confined ironically to the English educated, Western-oriented, upper middle classes, many of whom had gone to England to continue their studies at Oxford or Cambridge or at the London School of Economics. ‘Like Marx himself, some of them absorbed radical ideas from the home of the British Establishment. It is this class which agitated for constitutional reforms and obtained, by slow degrees from a reluctant regime, independence at last.’ The aromatic arrival of the hoppers turned their attention to food. Raj instructed the hesitant Aussie on the art of eating this type of food. ‘You take an ordinary hopper, break it and with one portion attack the centre of the egg hopper. You eat both together, and then you turn your attention to the plain ones which you dip in gravy or eat with sambol. Even the bravest among us,’ he said by way of a note of caution, ‘go easy on the sambol. It looks like fire and it tastes like it.’ Bill watched it for a few seconds and his face turned red even before he had taken a single bite. They began to eat, and they ate in silence. The brave Bill was, at the conclusion of the meal almost as red as his hair. His eyes were filled with tears, and a fine sweat covered his face. ‘Well?’ said Raj wiping his own face. Bill blew a low whistle. ‘Splendid,’ he said, ‘but it takes getting used to.’ ‘You said a mouthful,’ said Raj, punning unwittingly. They ordered tea. Raj returned to his lecture: ‘And with Independence many things began to happen almost immediately. The nation, kept in subjection for centuries with its collective self-esteem submerged, suddenly began to stir. A wave of nationalism began to sweep across the land. Peasants who felt inferior, and who were made pointedly to feel inferior because they did not know an alien, foreign ruler’s tongue, wanted their language restored. They wanted their religion, which had been shoved into a kind of embarrassed background by a kind of militant Christianity, restored. But then which language, which religion? This is where history reared its inevitable head. The British had forged a unified nation by means of a common language of administration, English. ‘But when the British left, two nations began to emerge. The early settlers, the Sinhalese who had espoused Buddhism wanted the Sinhala language and Buddhism restored. ‘The Tamils, who came later with the South Indian invaders, and who had lived a separate life after the decline of the Sinhala kingdoms of the north and north central areas, now wanted their own separate identity recognised not so much in religion as in language. ‘It was a matter that could easily have been arranged. All they wanted was to be able to transact business, especially with the Government, in their own language. This was quite a reasonable aspiration. Quite as reasonable as the parallel aspirations of the Sinhalese. ‘But now there was parliamentary democracy where heads were counted and majorities mattered. ‘We now know that only the British can carry the parliamentary system because it evolved in Britain and suited the genius of that people. Only they understand the term ëHer Majesty’s loyal Opposition’ in the way it should be understood. ‘Like their cricket. ‘So the first general election after Independence brought a host of independent candidates who cocked a snoot, as it were, at the Whitehall model with the party system. ‘The independents wanted to represent themselves most of all. ‘The right wing ultra-conservative party, the United National Party, UNP, feared it might not win an absolute majority amidst such a plethora of candidates. The Marxists were seen as a real threat. A coalition of Marxists and any other elements could spell disaster to a new dominion within the Commonwealth. ‘So the man acclaimed the Father of the Nation, D†S Senanayake, leader of the UNP, a rough and ready man more at home in the jungles and fields, raised the religious cry. As with most politicians religion sat lightly on him but like most of them he used it shrewdly for political gain. ‘His rallying cry was Save Ceylon from the flames of Marxism. This was translated into Sinhala and Tamil and plastered on the walls of all religious places of worship. The fear of Communism was very real at the time. China’s revolution was only an year old. Marxist posters claimed CHINA TODAY. CEYLON TOMORROW. Russia was eyeing Asian countries too. ‘But the call to save religion brought some Buddhist monks and Catholic priests into the fray. In many instances they were pressured in. ‘The Marxists saw this as a reaction against the threat of inevitable nationalisation when the Communists gained power. ‘Privately, heads of Buddhist temples and the bishops of the Catholic Church were told that they would lose their lands, and both the Buddhists and Catholics had very broad acres of land belonging to them. ‘So, both from the point of view of enlightened self-interest and pumped-up patriotism or, in some cases, from a genuine fear that the ascent of Marxism would mean an assault on religion, Buddhist monks and Catholic priests were coaxed into taking an active part in politics. ‘Political parties in our country use monks and priests to play their own dirty games, but condemn them when they are used by other political parties against them. ‘One argument runs: priests and monks, or the Temple and the Church, must not dabble in politics. They must stick to their proper sphere, which is religion. But when it is expedient to use people of religion then they call upon them to give leadership in partisan causes. You will be able, Bill, to observe how this has got out of hand. Buddhist monks in particular are not merely giving leadership. They have become leaders themselves in politics and business. One of them, Buddharakkita Thero, is a Buddhist monk only in name. He is a very high-profile politician and businessman. Foreign correspondents who visit him, almost mandatorily, are likely to see him dressed in western clothes, resembling a corpulent and suave Yul Brynner, and offering them a wide range of alcoholic beverages and the best of imported cigarettes. ‘One of these correspondents, from the New York Times, recently asked me whether it was true that our Minister of Health, a very attractive lady, was this monk’s fiancee.’ Bill’s mouth fell open. ‘Is that a fact?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know. Some say this and some say that,’ said Raj evasively. ‘Shall we say they have a business and political arrangement with some other overtones. But I anticipate events: ‘After the first General Elections since Independence, the right received a shock. Divisions in the country and hidden fears surfaced. The three Marxist parties secured eighteen of the one hundred and one seats, the Tamils obtained seven and the Indians six. The estate workers made up mainly of migrant Indian labour voted squarely for the Tamil Congress. In effect the old nightmare of the Sinhalese ñ fear of domination by the Tamils ñ was active again. This would have passed if the country had been ready, economically, for independence. ‘Education was now free from kindergarten to university in the state system. More and more educated youth were emerging and they were unwilling to go back to the land. They were seeking softer white-collar jobs or university education. And there were not enough jobs to go around. ‘The public sector anywhere can have just so many jobs to remain viable. These were more service-oriented. There were hardly any industries worth talking about in the public sector. ‘The first Prime Minister D†S Senanayake attacked the problem from another front. He tried to increase the size of the cake. ‘Ceylon at the time was spending an enormous sum of money to import rice and sugar, apart from other smaller items which could well have been home-grown or produced locally. ‘Ceylon in her heyday exported rice to neighbouring countries and even came to be known as the Granary of the East, would you believe it? But owing to foreign invasions, South Indian and western, the water tanks and irrigation canals went into disuse and the jungle tide covered the rich fields of paddy. ‘D†S wanted to go back to the glory days. So with the help of his son, a Cambridge educated man himself, Dudley, who was Minister of Agriculture in the first government, he set about restoring old tanks and so on in order to make Ceylon self-sufficient in rice. He also opened up land for cultivating sugar. This was in the Eastern Province, where many Tamils and Moslems had settled for scores of years. This was seen in different ways by different groups.’ Bill looked puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’ he said. ‘It could only mean prosperity for the whole country.’ ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said, ‘the country was no longer a whole. It was beginning to crack up, politically, socially, economically, religiously and class-wise too.’ Raj explained: ‘The Tamils saw this move as an attempt to colonise with Sinhalese areas which they believed to be the traditional homelands of the Tamils. ‘Some Sinhalese saw D†S’s action as an attempt to distribute the population away from the towns, to colonise the jungles, to open up new land for cultivation, to break the import stranglehold. ‘Others saw it as a way of putting the Tamils down, of winning back land they had lost centuries ago. ‘Now that the Sinhalese were free and had the whole cake, they did not want to share it with the historical outsiders. ‘The Sinhalese wanted to revive their language and culture, which they felt was unique to Ceylon. They did not regard the Tamil language, religion and culture as being any part of the Ceylonese. These belonged to South India from where the Tamil invaders had come.(C) E.C.T. Candappa |
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