Sri Lankan MP killed in Colombo, BBC News, November 10, 2006.
Vindya Amaranayake and Anurangi Singh, Massive demo for Raviraj, Nation on Sunday, November 12, 2006.
Violent cult: Bring it to book, Nation on Sunday, November 12, 2006.
***
November 14 addition: Statement by Civil Society Organizations on the Human Rights and Humanitarian Concerns, Colombo, November 14, 2006.
***
Most of Sri Lanka's leading newspapers are online but access to articles is restricted to paid subscribers. Hence, our inability to link to more commentary by Sri Lankan observers. With Jehan Perera's permission, we are copying his views here:
----------------------------------------------
Jehan Perera
THE LOGIC OF VIOLENCE IS ESCALATION
November 13, 2006
The month of November is awaited with trepidation in times of war, because it is the month that LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan makes his annual address. This is a time of war, even if limited and undeclared, and the run-up to Mr Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech has been anything but positive. The past few days have seen firing on schools in LTTE-controlled areas that housed internally displaced persons causing heavy casualties, naval battles that killed dozens, and now the assassination of a prominent Member of Parliament of the Tamil National Alliance, Nadaraja Raviraj, who represented the Jaffna District. The stage has been set for the announcement, if not actual occurrence, of a deadly escalation of violence. Already notices have appeared of retaliation.
The logic of violence is more violence on the premise that violence begets violence. In the absence of successful initiatives to resolve the ethnic conflict by negotiations, the use of violence has been the dominant mode of conflict resolution. While the practice of state repression and of Tamil militancy over the past two decades testifies to this grim reality, the silencing of contrary voices has been the primary preserve of the LTTE. Its claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people has led to much blood being spilled in the pursuit of that goal.
Ever since the assassination of Alfred Duraiappah, the Mayor of Jaffna, in 1975, allegedly by a group that included the LTTE leader, the LTTE has had a horrendous track record of killing those within the Tamil community that thought differently. Even during the most peaceful period of the Ceasefire Agreement, the residual fear of the LTTE’s treatment of those who thought differently and critically about them remained. During visits to the north east it was evident that nearly all people were unwilling to say anything critical of the LTTE in public, but some of them would be critical in private. There was no such constraint when it came to the government.
There can be no doubt that the people’s willingness to be critical of the government derived from the wrongs committed by the government. But the willingness to be bold in criticism of the government also stemmed from a degree of confidence in the democratic structure of the government that made its power holders more accountable and permitted dissent. However, it now appears that an equivalent change has taken place and the LTTE’s methodology to silence those who dissent is being emulated by those who oppose that very practice.
FIGHTING FIRE
The assassination of Raviraj follows a large number of killings and abductions for ransom that have taken place in government-controlled territory, including the capital. Despite many of these incidents being within high security zones, the perpetrators have been able to get away on a regular basis. This has given rise to the reasonable inference that there is collaboration with sections of the government’s security apparatus that deals with counter-terrorism. This fighting of fire with fire will tend to have the effect of silencing the pro-LTTE voices from within the Tamil community, as much as earlier there was a silencing of the anti-LTTE voices within the Tamil community.
Raviraj was a Tamil leader who helped to educate the non Tamil population about the perspectives of the Tamils and their sufferings. On Tuesday November 14 he had agreed to be a speaker at a Religious-Political Dialogue organised by several civic organisations. He was friendly with all, and always prepared to engage with others, even with those of a very different political mind set. Although the Sinhala language skills at his disposal were limited, he courageously made use of them to debate the representatives of the nationalist Sinhalese political parties and provide another perspective on current and national issues. With his killing this important avenue of information is likely to close for both the general public and the international community to whom he spoke with a measure of credibility.
It was perhaps not coincidental that the day before his assassination, Raviraj had played an important role in the demonstration by MPs belonging to the Tamil National Alliance in front of the UN office complex. They protested against the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the north east, primarily its Tamil-inhabited parts. Those who took part in the demonstration lay the blame for the crisis on the government while sparing the LTTE. But whether it is the food crisis or the civilian casualties from military action, the LTTE hand in making the crisis worse cannot be denied. But this is what is glossed over in the propaganda war. For instance, the TNA protested against the government’s refusal to open the A9 highway to Jaffna to supply the civilian population with essential supplies. But they had nothing to say about the LTTE’s refusal to permit the ICRC and UN from taking those supplies to Jaffna by sea.
Another of the issues that the TNA group raised in their protest was the tragic event that took place in Vakarai in the east. Long range artillery fire from government-controlled territory had slammed into LTTE-held territory and hit two schools in which civilians displaced due to previous fighting had been housed with dozens of deaths and a large number in the hundreds being injured. Although the military claimed that they retaliated against artillery fire directed against them from the direction of the schools, the government has been severely condemned for this incident. While the international monitors contradicted this claim by the military, an international news agency has carried a story that confirms the military version.
POSSIBILITY
Raviraj, as a TNA member, took up public stances that often corresponded to the LTTE’s position. One of the charges levelled against the TNA has been that it is either unwilling or unable to take up public stances that are different from those of the LTTE. One inference is that the LTTE’s positions are also those of the Tamil people which the TNA is mandated to politically represent. The opposing inference is that the TNA, like other unarmed Tamil organisations that work out in the open, has to be deferential to the viewpoint of the LTTE if they are to be spared their lives.
The message of the Raviraj assassination is that there is, and will be, countervailing terror unless a new approach to conflict resolution is charted. This will now mean that the pro-LTTE Tamil voice will also be silenced whereas in the past it was the anti-LTTE Tamil voice that was silenced. In this situation, only those in the middle who make bland non-committal statements, or those who say nothing at all, will be able to survive. Or they will have to speak privately and hope that someone will take notice.
Like this letter I received from an elderly person from Jaffna. In quaint language he wrote, “Now in Jaffna everything has worsened. Famine, hunger and thirst, poverty, LTTE-Army fighting one another, cost of living has gone up, acute shortage of food items, every field and walk of life affected, at a standstill, collapsed, neglected. The innocent men, women, youngsters, patients, handicapped persons, destitutes, dogs, cats etc have to undergo much hardships and grievances… The political leaders, JVP, are playing with fire since 1957, especially from 1977 onwards. Large sums of money are squandered on weapons without solving the ethnic problem. I know the LTTE is following the wrong path and pushing the innocent Tamils to poverty…”
But as the assassination of Raviraj shows, it is not only the LTTE that is taking the wrong path. There is the possibility that the killing of Raviraj will jolt the political establishment into realising that the culture of killing is not going to solve the country’s problems. The fact that the JVP, whose political philosophy on the ethnic conflict is opposed to that of the TNA, also condemned the killing indicates a closing of ranks. Perhaps the politicians who cannot agree on virtually anything will now agree on the necessity of a cessation of all violence before the rising tide of violence claims more valuable lives. As the Anti War Front’s mass protest against the Raviraj killing stated, join the march for the right to live, live and let live, because nothing is more important than life.
----------------------------------------------
Other:
Dilip Ganguly, Sri Lanka endures a war neither side acknowledges, AP/Mercury News, November 12, 2006.
Irfan Husain, Letter from London: Driven away by the Tigers, Daily Times, November 13, 2006.
Peter App, WITNESS: Waking up paralyzed in Sri Lanka's war zone, Reuters, November 10, 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment