Communalism: the bane of Sri Lanka’s politics
by Gunaseela Vitanage

A front page news item appearing in the Upali Group’s Sinhala newspaper, Divaina Irida Sangrahaya of September 6, 1998 under the heading A Conspiracy to Assassinate Minister Fowzie says that there was a conspiracy to assassinate Mr. A. H. M. Fowzie, Minister of Transport and Highways when he was scheduled to visit officially the Pottuvil electorate in the Eastern Province, allegedly by some members of a Muslim organisation. The news item also says that luckily for the Minister, he fell ill on his way to Pottuvil and had to be rushed back to Colombo to be hospitalised. The news item also says that before he started his journey to Pottuvil, the Minister addressed a public meeting at Weligama on the 23rd August, 1998 at which he said among other things: "Laws must be introduced to ban totally political organisations based on communalism".

This statement, coming as it does from a senior Minister of the Government, an experienced politician and a leading member of a minority community, is not only significant and timely in the present context.

We seek to ban by law something that is evil, something that is not conducive to the good and the well-being of the society at large. As far as I am aware minister Fowzie is the first politician in Sri Lanka to acknowledge the fact that communalism is an evil, a social evil that must be got rid of.

In Sri Lanka politicians, both of the Government and the Opposition, are reluctant to condemn communalism as something undemocratic and anti-social because the communalists with their "block votes" hold the balance of power in a large number of constituencies and in the Parliament. In an electorate, for instance, which has, say, 100 communal block votes, the leader of the community can tilt the results of the election, one way or the other. A Member of Parliament who attains to power by the help of the communal block vote, is obliged to please the communal boss. In the Parliament where the democrats are divided more or less evenly, the communalists can make or break governments.

Although in Sri Lanka politicians as well as the academics are reluctant to condemn communalism as an evil, politicians and academics in India seem to believe in calling a spade a spade.

For example, Dr. S. K. Vadivale, in a letter which appeared in The Island of September 15, 1995 quotes the former Prime Minister of India Mrs. Indira Gandhi as having said:

"Communalism is an evil which divide and fragments society. It goes against our cultural heritage; it holds a threat to the unity and the integrity of our country which must be our foremost concern".

All that Mrs. Gandhi says about India apply with equal force to Sri Lanka.

In a paper presented to the National Consultation on Crisis of Secularism in India held in Bombay in June 1993, Dr. George Mathew, Director of the Institute of Social Sciences, himself an eminent social scientist, says of communalism in India:

"Communalism can be explained as an attitude which emphasizes the primacy and exclusiveness of the communal group and demands the solidarity of members of the community in political and social action. Communal riots are tensions resulting in physical violence between religious communties. With the growth of fundamentalism we have witnessed the growth of communal tensions and increasing occurrence of riots.

"Communalism in India has a long history. Its modern characteristics emerged with the introduction of communal representation in public institutions by the British. The Indian national movement was based on inclusive secularism, but had to fight all along against militant Hindu and Muslim communal and fundamentalist tendencies (Crisis of Secularism in India, p. 37).

Dr. Mathew also says:

"Communalism in India is a form of Fascism".

Any one who reads former Chief Justice Mr. M. C. Sansoni’s Report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the incidents who took place between 13th August and 11th September, 1977, Sessional Paper VII of 1980 can see for himself that Sri Lanka’s leading communal party, the Tamil United Liberation Front has all the characteristics that were present in the Fascist Party in Italy under Mussolini such as the use of school children for political demonstrations, brain-washing and indoctrination of youth and using them for political purposes elimination of political rivals by assassinating them etc.

Unlike in India, communalism in Sri Lanka is of recent origin and manifestation. But like in India where communalism in its modern form was introduced by the British by making appointments to public institutions on a communal basis, in Sri Lanka too it was the British who introduced communalism by making appointments to Public Office on a communal basis. For example, as early as in 1837, the Colonial Government introduced communalism by nominating members to the Legislative Council on a communal basis. The Governor nominated Mudaliyar Johannas Godfried Philiphs to represent the Sinhalese, Mudaliyar S. Coomaraswamy to represent the Tamils and Proctor J. G. Bilderbrand to represent the Burghers.

The term "communalism", however, has a social implication as well as an anti-social one. "Communalism" in the sense of "the principle of community organization" which has as its aim and object the fostering and development of a particular religion or a language or literature or sports or any other branch of culture, is not not only harmless but useful, and, indeed, very necessary for the good and the well-being of the individual as well as the society as the activities connected with them tend to create a spirit of good will, camaraderie, understanding and co-operation between and among the members of the many and diverse communities that go to make up the nation. They also can be active agents in promoting unity in diversity which is a prerequisite to peace. They also promote civilization.

On the other hand, communal organizations, whether ethnic or religious, can be, and, in fact have been a positive danger to the society at large, if and when they become politicised, that is to say, when their overt or covert objective becomes not service to fellowmen not their edification or entertainment, not the propagation of moral and spiritual values, but power; power to dominate and control the mind and lives of fellowmen, for the greater glory and the self-satisfaction of its leaders. Such organizations naturally become dictatorial, authoritarian and aggressive. For them the end justifies the means. Invariably, they get hold of youth, brain-wash them and make them puppets in their game of power politica....

History is replete with records of the manifestation of racial and religious intolerance and mayhem resulting in the suffering and death of un-numbered innocent men and women, either in the name of unity and solidarity of religion or in the name of purity and superiority of particular race. For example, in medieval Europe, thousands of innocent men were burnt to death at the stake because they did not conform to the dogmas and doctrines formulated by the Church. The tragic-irony in this is a that it was done in the name of Jesus, who was pioneer lover of man and a Teacher of loving-kindness and compassion. In this so called enlightened twentieth century, in the so called most enlightened country in the world, Germany, the army, commanded by the country’s political leaders, put to death six million Jews, after subjecting them to atrocious torture in concentration camps, simply because they, the Jews, happened to belong to the Semitic race, a race, which according to the German Nazi leaders, was very much inferior to the Aryan race to which the Germans belonged. In fact some German scholars brought forward very learned arguments to prove that Jeus was not Jew but an Aryan. We see in this how even human intellect could become distorted by religious and racial prejudices. Again, also in this century, the Cambodian Communist Party under its leader, Pol Pot is said to have put to death some 80,000 innocent fellow-Cambodians because they would not accept the new surrogate religion of Communism. Why go so far? Here in Sri Lanka, not once or twice, but several times, since 1956, the year Sinhala was made the language of the administration in place of English, at intervals, thugs, ruffians, hoodlums, denizens of the underworld, criminals, anarchists, anti-Government elements and other anti-social elements belonging to both Sinhalese and Tamil communities went on rampage, assaulting innocent people, destroying public property, setting fire to shops, workplaces, and living houses, looting, raping and committing other anti-socials and criminal acts.

How is it that in this enlightened twentieth century, the so called civilized people could behave in this inhuman and uncivilized manner. If it is, as it often said, poverty and ignorance that makes man behave in this manner, how is it that rich people in educated and industrious countries like Germany, Italy and Japan committee atrocious deeds even before the second World War?

We have to go back to man’s origin itself to find a meaningful answer to this question, and of course to his nature itself.

Man’s tribal past
The word "communalism" as used in political language in Sri Lanka and India, is, in fact, a euphematic term for "tribalism"; tribalism in the sense of the behaviour pattern of savage tribes. Communalism as has manifested itself in both countries, has many of the characteristics of tribalism as described by anthropologists.

(Continued tomorrow)

LTTE in South Africa
by Rohan Gunaratna

(Continued from yesterdsay)

The NIA, after the Mandela Government took over, has been the NIA and the ANC’s intelligence wing combined. Many ANC intelligence types entertained the view that South Africa had an obligation to assist their former allies - meaning the groups that had helped them, including the PLO and the LTTE and the countries that had stood by them, including Iran and Libya. ANC hard-liners in the NIA were therefore annoyed that a Sri Lankan Minister was being briefed about the LTTE’s activities. Within a few days, the intelligence official was transferred. This exacerbated the tension between the NIA’s old guard and the new members.

The LTTE’s influence continued to grow in South Africa through 1996. As a mark of respect for President Mandela, LTTE’s magazine Hot Spring, which is published from the U.K., carried messages and quotes from the celebrated African leader.

The October 1997 issue of Hot Spring provided wide coverage of Mandela’s visit to Libya and criticised the U.S.’s role in Libya. The December 1997 issue of Hot Spring carried two quotations next to each other. The first quote, which was from a woman from Johannesburg on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s role in several apartheid-era murders and abductions, said: "Winnie is a murderer. What can a murderer do for our country?" The second quote by a Johannesburg-based nurse, Jemina Litabe, said: "Whether she killed people or not, she was fighting for the rights of our people."

The LTTE even managed to obtain a message from Mandela for a conference organised by it in Australia in June 1996. The Peace with Justice International Conference, co-organised by the Australian Human Rights Foundation and the Australasian Federation of Tamils, two LTTE front organisations, was attended by Lawrence Thilagar, who headed the LTTE International Secretariat at that time, and Pravin Gordhan, an influential South African supporter of the LTTE. The LTTE had obtained the message from Mandela through Gordhan, a former ANC leader and currently a parliamentarian representing the ANC. Gordhan, who secured the message in the form of a letter from Mandela to the "human rights conference", was an ANC ideologue rather than a terrorist. His ANC background made him a powerful figure in Mandela’s South Africa. He served as the co- chairperson of the Transitional Executive Committee and was engaged in drafting the new South African Constitution. Some of his South African colleagues believe that he was duped by the LTTE into believing that its struggle against Colombo is similar to the conflict between white and coloured South Africans during the apartheid regime. Although there is no evidence to indicate that Gordhan accepted money from the LTTE for his services, there is evidence to show that the LTTE paid for his travel to Australia in mid-1996. Even some of the better educated South Africans, particularly those of Indian Tamil origin, view the war being waged by the LTTE through the lens of apartheid.

Some Sri Lankan organisations overseas wrote to Mandela, protesting against the message he had issued to the LTTE.

The LTTE’s network in South Africa is both a covert and an overt one. At the political level, it mobilises Tamil support in South Africa for demonstrations, rallies, seminars and for lobbying. For instance, when Sri Lanka’s national airline Air Lanka started flights to South Africa on June 4, 1996, around 100 Tamils held a demonstration in Durban. The placards read: "Sri Lanka go home, Stop fighting before flying." The placards also called for South Indian intervention in Sri Lanka. The flight’s first stop was at Durban, which has a strong Indian Tamil community.

With the help of its ANC friends, the LTTE monitored the deliberations of the Sri Lankan delegation engaged in promoting the airline. (The delegation arrived in South Africa on May 28, 1996). The LTTE also infiltrated Travel Directions (Pty), Air Lanka’s general sales agent in South Africa. For economic reasons, Air Lanka stopped flying to South Africa from April 1, 1997.

Sri Lanka, however, continued to make efforts to influence South Africa in its favour. For instance, Sri Lanka’s Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris met his counterpart in South Africa in early 1997. However, without a Sri Lankan mission in South Africa, Colombo could not advance its foreign policy goals because the LTTE’s propaganda machinery was already operational.

A key figure in the LTTE’s propaganda network in South Africa was Father S. J. Emmanuel, former vicar-general of the Jaffna Diocese. Emmanuel, who is a key figure in the LTTE’s international network, used his association with Archbishop Desmond Tutu to cultivate key figures in South Africa. In addition to attending a series of high-power meetings, Emmanuel gave a damning interview to South African radio. His book, Let My People Go, published by the Tamil Catholic Chaplaincy, Osnabrueck, Germany, drew its title from the autobiography of the great South African leader Albert Luthuli, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1961.

By drawing parallels between Sri Lanka and South Africa, the LTTE attempts to equate the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka to that meted out to the coloured people during the apartheid regime in South Africa. It claims that Sri Lanka was the "only South Asian country that maintained economic ties with the (old) South Africa during the dark days of apartheid" at a time when "India, Pakistan and Bangladesh found it morally wrong to deal with the criminal regime." It alleges that "Sri Lanka had no feelings about the oppressed people of South Africa," and that like the "ANC’s Umkhonto weSizwe, the Tamil youth had no alternative but to take up arms when all peaceful means failed." The LTTE further claims that the "fertile land of the Tamils" was taken over by the Sinhalese with financial assistance from the state and the use of arms. The propaganda further claims that the Tamils are treated as "foreigners in their own homeland."

Drawing parallels with the ANC, the LTTE alleges that just as the ANC was discredited by apartheid governments, the Sri Lankan Army and politicians too blamed the LTTE for terrorist acts committed by them (the Army and the politicians). The propaganda alleges that Tamils have been detained, tortured and sentenced to death without trial. "There are thousands of Steve Bikos in Sri Lanka," the propaganda material states. "Just as the apartheid government financed and provided military training to opportunist black parties in South Africa, the Sri Lankan government has done the same with opportunist Tamil parties in Sri Lanka." It further adds: "The 120,000 members of the Sri Lankan armed forces are almost exclusively Sinhalese and utilise 20 per cent of the national budget, similar to the white dominated armed forces of old South Africa." The propaganda material also draws parallels between modern Sri Lanka and old South Africa vis-a-vis the regulation of the press.

Comparing its leader V. Prabakaran with Mandela, the LTTE claims: "Just as the ANC and many other liberation movements in Africa were labelled terrorist organisations by some Western powers that had interests in South Africa, the LTTE has been labelled as a terrorist movement by the U.S., which has significant military and economic interests in Sri Lanka."

This kind of sustained propaganda helped the LTTE increase its influence in South Africa. One of the direct effects of the propaganda was South Africa’s ban on the sale of weapons to Sri Lanka. Despite the efforts made by the Sri Lankan Government to explain its position to Ibrahim Ibrahim, Chair, Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Kader Asmal, Chair, Portfolio Committee on Defence, South Africa has not revoked its decision.

Meanwhile, the LTTE continues to lobby and receive support from some of the 11 South African Indian parliamentarians. The South African Tamil parliamentarians appear to be more easily influenced by the propaganda.

Sri Lanka set up its mission in South Africa in late 1997 after it realised the need for stronger ties between Pretoria and Colombo. South Africa will prove to be a major challenge for the current Sri Lankan High Commissioner to South Africa, Gamini Munasinghe, who assumed office in March 1998.

Since March 1997, leaks within the 37 South African Government led Sri Lankan Government officials to believe that LTTE combatants were present in South Africa and that some of them were receiving specialised training. There were also reports that the ANC had provided funds to the LTTE. Based on intelligence reports provided by South African and other foreign agencies, Lanka Outlook, a magazine published by the International Foundation of Sri Lankans (IFSL), a prominent Sri Lankan expatriate association in London, prepared a cover story on LTTE activity in South Africa. The article, which questioned whether the LTTE was taking South African leaders for a ride in the same way that it had deceived Indian leaders, cautioned the South African leaders.

During this period, President Mandela visited London. At a reception for foreign envoys, he met Sri Lankan High Commissioner S. K. Wickramasinghe and asked him: "How is President Chandrika?" Perceiving that Mandela was well disposed towards Sri Lanka, Wickramasinghe persuaded the IFSL against carrying the article. He said that the Mandela Government fully supported the Sri Lankan Government. Wickramasinghe further argued that the LTTE had no presence in South Africa. After holding discussions with Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry officials dealing with South Africa, the IFSL decided against publishing the South Africa cover story on national security considerations.

Wickramasinghe’s assessment was not new. Various Sri Lankan leaders have made similar flawed assessments when India was providing sanctuary, training, finance and weapons to some 20,000 Sri Lankan militants in 33 camps from October 1983 to June 1987.

Fifty years after Independence, Sri Lanka’s decision making process continues to be flawed because successive governments failed to build the institutions and processes necessary for collective thinking and the country lacks the political, military and foreign policy think tanks needed for formulating immediate and long-term policies.

(Concluded)

Rohan Gunaratna, who is currently a British Chevening scholar at University of St. Andrews in Scotland, is the author of Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Crisis and National Security.

Up