Letter to the Editor, ‘The Island’ dated June 8th 2008 - 10 June 2008

The Editor

‘The Island’

Colombo 13

Dear Sir,

I am sorry to take up more of your space, but this time I need to respond to an even lengthier critique by Shanie. This time she has expanded the area of debate even more widely, and evidently feels I must be brought to book for every issue on which she and I seem to disagree.

These are not as many as she would like to suppose. She has still not grasped the original point on which I took issue with her, which was to point out that, far from justifying civilian deaths, I had only responded to criticisms that claimed the government deliberately targeted civilians in the course of operations. This is completely untrue, and Shanie indeed proves my case through the various incidents she cites. None of these fall into the category of shelling or aerial attacks that target civilians, the latest nasty formulation that is designed to stop our progress on the battlefield, and with which I have again recently taken issue.

Shanie, who is more circumspect, thankfully this time leaves out the incidents at Kathiravelli and Sencholai, which are those most often cited by those who fraudulently attack our armed forces. No one has yet responded to my detailed accounts of how, in the one case, the LTTE used the IDP camp to fire what mortar locating radar responded to, and in the other how pictures prove that the LTTE was providing military training to girls it had – forcibly and therefore the more tragically – turned into legitimate military targets.

In almost none of the cases she cites have there been suggestions that they occurred in the course of military operations, and I have not therefore commented on them save in the case of Muttur, to point out how critics ignore the background to what happened, and that some of the original categorical criticism, by for instance General Henricsson and the bounder from the International Commission of Jurists, Nick Howen, was clearly untrue. Indeed, while I cannot comment on the veracity of the latest UTHR report on the subject, the fact that it contradicts previous reports as well as Gen Henricsson’s ruling and Nick Howen’s nasty insinuations, makes clear the rationality of my previous comments. With regard to claymore mine attacks in uncleared territory I have pointed out that unquestioning attribution to the army was inappropriate, in particular given that UTHR had in an early instance attributed the attack to civilians resident in the Vanni.

With regard to some of the other cases, Shanie should note that, while some indictments have been issued, I have indicated the need to expedite others, and pointed out that this does not require a cast iron case, since it is up to the courts to pronounce judgment. I would suggest Shanie study my statements in this regard, and perhaps supports them, instead of continuing with blanket criticisms. In particular I believe the cause of human rights would be better served if those with genuine concerns stopped relentless attacks on the forces who are in the thick of operations.

The record of our forces is extraordinarily good in this respect, certainly much better than that of many others engaged in fighting terror, as was obvious from the speech of the new hero of the chattering classes, Philip Alston, whose speech in Geneva was most prominently critical of NATO operations in Afghanistan. If ongoing efforts to stymie our forces stopped, there would be much more progress on incidents which occur outside the battlefield, in which as mentioned indictments have been and should be issued.

The other issue on which Shanie berates me is my optimistic view of the TMVP. She says I must be naïve, a conclusion I do not challenge, though I would prefer to say I am optimistic, even while I do my best to look at evidence. Sometimes my optimism is justified. In the early eighties, though Shanie may be too young to know all this, I was critical of the deafening silence of the then NGO leadership for failing to condemn abuses as I did, the deprivation of Mrs Bandaranaike’s Civic Rights, the assaults on intellectuals such as Prof Sarachchandra, attacks on Tamils in Jaffna and elsewhere in 1981, when the Public Library was burnt. When Chanaka Amaratunga made excuses for his silence, I continued to engage with him because I assumed he would stand up when the time came, and so he did, admirably so over the Referendum and beyond.

Radhika Coomaraswamy took a bit longer, but despite family connections she ceased to be a government groupie after the horrors of July 1983, and – though the predilection for the UNP still pops up occasionally – has generally worked consistently for human rights since. I was even optimistic about Ranil Wickremesinghe, despite his involvement in the worst horrors of the Jayewardene government, the collection of undated letters of resignation, the attack on the homes of Supreme Court judges, the extra-judicial measures used to target the JVP in the late eighties. In his case I was proved wrong, though the latest reports about his dependence on astrology suggest that he is more tragic than villainous.

If I could extend indulgence to the elite, there is no reason not to do so to someone like Pillaiyan who was victimized from his childhood by deprivation and terror. Unlike those who, having failed to make similar assertive noises when the name of the game was appeasing the Tigers from 2002 to 2005, now jump on the child soldier bandwagon, I have actually studied the issue. I am aware that, when Karuna split from the LTTE in 2004, 1800 cadres were disbanded, but no one did anything for them. The former Actg. Vice-Chancellor of the Eastern University, who had had to come to Colombo because he was under threat from the Tigers after the Ceasefire, has described to me his efforts to persuade the government and the UN system to help in rehabilitation, but his pleas were ignored. Those after all were the days in which the Tigers were the flavour of the month, given $1 million for rehabilitation which never took place. Prof Thangarajah was kidnapped by the Tigers for his pains, and would have been killed had his brother-in-law the journalist Sivaram not intervened, after which he had to go into exile.

It was for that reason, the then Karuna faction claimed, that they had to reabsorb cadres under threat, who were either being killed or re-recruited by the LTTE. There is ample evidence that this was happening, if you look at figures for recruitment by the LTTE during that period. And even if you do not want to believe the Karuna faction claim entirely, it is a fact that there has never been any allegation that under age children were used in combat by them after they split from the LTTE, as opposed to the continuing if less flagrant use of them by the LTTE up to now.

It is also a fact that, long before Karuna went to England, the Pillaiyan group asked for democracy training, and this was conveyed to the National Democratic Institute. This was refused at the time, on technical grounds, but it seemed to us a reason for optimism, and we are now pursuing the possibility again. We also asked then about child soldiers, and were told that, as far as they knew, the number was much smaller than was publicly alleged, but they would look for them – in an in any case fraught situation – and try to have them surrendered. Shanie may not be aware of surrenders that took place last year, when there was some confusion because of continuing distrust of UNICEF, given the previous Country Director’s association – I saw it rather as gullibility, since the poor woman used to quite seriously talk about impossibilities such as LTTE legislation – with the LTTE. That distrust has now lessened, and we are thankful to the new Country Director for his efforts to bring UNICEF practices into line with the accountability and responsibility to the country government that is normal, but was forgotten during the ‘balance with the LTTE’ that was encouraged during the Wickremesinghe regime.

Shanie is of course entitled to her own view of the situation in the East now. All I can say is that, when one went carefully through the reports of the chattering classes calling for a cancellation of the Batticaloa Municipal District elections, it was clear that things were much better than they wanted them to be, as Shanie would see if she read my article on ‘Idealists against Democracy’. Of course the situation is still not settled, but to hold the TMVP alone responsible for this is not naïve, it is plain idiotic. To look at nothing else, she must be aware that the murders that have taken place with regard to elections or the elected have had only TMVP members as victims.

A thirst for revenge is understandable in this context, as it was in 2006 when the LTTE which had decimated other Tamil groups in the North during the so-called Ceasefire was finally vulnerable. But such a thirst is not acceptable, and both the government and the Chief Minister of the East are determined not to allow it, and the manner in which escalation of conflict has been avoided in the East must be admired. There is obviously much further to go, but so long as the elected representatives of the people lead the way in promoting pluralistic democratic ideals, so long as they promote development of infrastructure and skills and investment, that Province, and the country as a whole, will soon be rid of the scourges of terrorism and selective development from which we have suffered for too long. I hope Shanie will support this process, and look for evidence of improvement, not only material with which to attack all those whose perspectives seem – but are not necessarily – different from her own. Yours sincerely,

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary-General

Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process