This country belongs to......?

by Pakiasothy Sarawanamuttu

(October 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, in an interview with Stewart Bell of the National Post newspaper of Canada, published on September 23, 2008 has stated that: "I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people…We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country…We are also a strong nation... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."

Different sentiments

These sentiments have been expressed by General Fonseka on several other occasions in interactions with local and international media. At the same time that he made this statement, the President of Sri Lanka, his Commander-in-Chief, expressed very different sentiments in his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations and some of them in Tamil, one of the two official languages of Sri Lanka.

It was Talleyrand who said that war was too serious a business to be left to the generals and Clausewitz echoing Sun Tzu who made the point that war was a continuation of policy by other means. Clearly the Army Commander believes that he can mouth off authoritatively to the international media his own beliefs on the history and politics of this country, irrespective of the damage this does to the prospects for peace and reconciliation and to the basic tenets of civil/military relations in a functioning democracy.

Despite protests, even outrage, from some quarters, the Rajapakse regime has not gone public in censuring its Army Commander or in disassociating itself from his comments, which are self evidently at variance with democratic governance, the ostensible position of the regime and deeply offensive to all communities in this country, the Tamil and Muslim communities in particular.

In another country and in another era, Douglas MacArthur, arguably the most popular US general at the time, was unceremoniously sacked by President Truman for making political statements regarding the conduct of the Korean War. Clearly, Rajapakse and Fonseka belong to another tradition and not one befitting a functioning democracy.

Lack of response

It is precisely statements like this and the lack of an official response to them, which betray the ideological core of this regime and confirm the argument that this war against terrorism is primarily a war to consolidate the majoritarian political and constitutional status quo.

It is also the lack of a greater response from the public and civil society at large, especially the religious and community leaders as well as professional organisations that confirms the argument that dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy has been stifled and ethnic polarisation institutionalised as part and parcel of the popular political culture. Is General Fonseka too good or too great or too dangerous to be taken on?

We will probably be treated to a surfeit of such offensive utterances once the lion flag is hoisted over Kilinochchi and no doubt, as with what happened in Jaffna in 1995, victory scrolls will be exchanged over the liberation of the area which in turn will be referred to by its deshiya premi name of yore — whatever it is. And the conflict will be declared concluded, along with the war.

It is time that the regime came clean with regard to its intentions on the political front and time too that the international community relieved all of us from this current, tedious farce of the APRC and called the regime’s bluff on this score. There is no other earthly reason for the APRC other than for placating the international community about the regime’s sincerity in searching for a political and constitutional settlement.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the regime is interested in implementing the 13th Amendment in full either. This is another front on which they should be made to come clean — at least explain as to whether it is going to happen and if so as to why it is taking time.

Salvage plan

We are going back to the future. History is being picked up from the point at which an earlier president despatched a previous army commander to the north to wipe out terrorism some three decades ago. If he had succeeded, there would not have been a 13th Amendment, and the status quo of the unitary state and majoritarian democracy would not have needed an Indian salvage plan to keep it in place.

It is tempting to ask as to what would happen if the imminent and certain victory we have been on the cusp of, for some time, does not materialise in full measure and another protracted and miserable stalemate turns out to be the order of the future. In these circumstances, the Commander-in-Chief may well want to or have to sit around a table and compromise.

In these circumstances, if his Commander-in-Chief lends an ear or even grants these "undue things," those of us "under the pretext of being a minority" are given to demanding, what will Gen. Fonseka and his ilk do on behalf of the "strong nation" of the majority Sinhalese?

Are they the type who will ‘put up’ and ‘shut up?’- Sri Lanka Guardian