- What is the solution to this perennial threat to the poor Tamils, posed by the availability of another power center besides Colombo?
by Sebastian Rasalingam
(December 14, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Interfering in Sri Lanka's domestic affairs as usual, Ambassador Blake has once again claimed that the "US was certain that the right time for a political solution was now". The US was once even more certain ("slam dunk") that Iraq had weapons of Mass Distruction. Which envoy in Washington tells the US government in public that the time is now ripe for the US to impeach Mr. Bush for misleading the world and launching a war which has killed thousands of people, made terrorism rampant, and tanked the world economy as well?
Meanwhile the All-Party Representative Committee (APRC) now claims to have got its act together. APRC Chairman, Minister Tissa Vitharana tells us that "The provinces will be ensured of no interference by the centre. The government will set up a second chamber - an Upper House - comprising eight representatives from each of the provinces. They will as a safeguard ensure that no legislation seeking to take away devolved powers is enacted. Any such legislation has to be passed at a joint parliamentary sitting, Professor Vitharana said adding that the Local Government, the Village Committee system would be restored. He said the provincial administration was seriously handicapped by the failure to fully implement the devolved powers under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution".
We have yet to see the full document. However, knowing the history of the APRC, I am sure it has failed to take account of the most important problem faced by the Tamils of Sri Lanka in a post-Prabakaran setting. In this article I will set out these problems as they are rarely stated and discussed.
Expatriates and Indian Power Centers.
I append with this article a picture of three men who need no introduction, and who were the architects of Tamil Nationalism and separatism which raised its ugly head in the 1940s. It degenerated into terrorism as the Arasu program of these Tamil leaders was met by Sinhala antagonism. All three of them were born outside Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to ex-patriate parents. They served the British Raj with greater devotion to the empire than to Ceylon itself. The children and grand children of these three men are also expatriates. G. G. Ponnambalam's grandson is a member of the much-reviled Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a mouthpiece of Prabakaran; TNA came to parliament by force, subverting the vote.
These men, and their Colombo counterparts are what I have labeled the "Thimpu Tamils". (Read )They constitute a powerful fringe of the the Expatriate community of Today, and are made up of some individuals who are not Tamils even by name (e.g., Wakeley Paul), up-bringing or sometimes even their DNA might belong to a British mother.These TNA politicians and Thimpu Tamils always run to Tamil Naadu and use it as a lever to create trouble in Sri Lanka. In fact, they hand over their sovereignty to the Tamil Naadu politicians without the slightest remorse. It was precisely this attitude of
servility to Tamil Naadu which led to the hijacking of the more moderate Tamil Nationalist movement by Prabakaran. Prabakaran found that he can kick Amirthalingam and others out, and obtain financial support in millions of rupees from Nedumaran, Ramachandran and others. The Indian central government itself helped out with training camps and backup support. Even when the Center fell foul of Prabakaran and sent the Indian peace Keeping force, Prabakaran could depend on Karunanidhi for support, and for providing opposition to Indian soldiers. Today vaiko is acting in open treason with respect to an impotent Indian government.
The "Third Chamber" of the proposed legislative system.
Thus we see that even the slightest devolved power is likely to be put into leverage by abrogating to the power centers in Tamil Naadu. These power centers are NOT controlled by the "second chamber" that Dr. Tissa Vitharana talks of. While Dr Vitharana may provide yet more room to provide political patronage to the his friends via 72 more politicos and their flock, the country will be further overlaid with a surfeit of legislative machinery. The expatriates and the Tamil nadu power centers form a Third chamber not considered by the APRC.
Consider one of the devolved regions - presumably run by a provincial council. If the Thimpu Tamils were to have it their way, it would be an upper-caste/upper-class Tamil from the Thimpu set who will get himself elected to power. Even if the Thimpu Tamils fail to get a place under the domination of the Rajapaksa regime, we would certainly end up with some regional war lord who would easily subject himself to Tamil Naadu money bags like a modern day Nedumaran. Such regional lords will have little regard for the problems of the local Tamils. The low caste Tamils, the poor Tamils and peasants have always been suppressed by self-serving Tamil leaders. The hierarchic nature of Tamil society is so ingrained that, when the present Fascist structure imposed by the LTTE disappears, then old hierarchic structure would
re-appear. In fact, a political pamphlet circulated among the Tamils under the title "Son of Eros" already talks of imposing the Hindu hierarchic systems in the Post-Prabakaran era.
Can we have an end to domination by local Lords?
The Tamils have always been plagued with these inhuman, insensitive chieftains and Lords, be they in Jaffna or in Colombo. The APRC is just another new formula which ignores the political reality that these Thimpu Tamils and TNA vipers would get political and financial support from outside . They will oppress the poor Tamils, as they have done in the days when the Cholas and the Pandyans were running India, or when the British were running Ceylon, or when the Nedumaran were powerful in Tamil Naadu. If the APRC proposals are accepted, it will still be the expatriate lunatic fringe and the Tamil Nadu power brokers who would rule the destinies of the poor Tamils.
What is the solution to this perennial threat to the poor Tamils, posed by the availability of another power center besides Colombo? Evidently, Ambassador Blake has little knowledge of Sri Lankan history or even US history to understand this persitant threat (US was the threat, and so Ugly Americans don't ever get it). The men that Dr. Vitharana has assembled around him in the APRC have more to do with the Thimpu Tamils and their Sinhala collaborators than with the grass roots Tamils who have been gasping for breath and liberation from bondage since ancient times.
The war has made INTERNALLY displaced person (IDP) from low-caste Tamils as well as high-caste Tamils. Tamils who prevented other Tamils from even drawing a bucket of water from a well are now forced to drink water from the same tap in the camp for the displaced people, irrespective of social hierarchy. But when the war is over, and when power is devolved, these same men will use the devolved powers to set up the hierarchic society condoned by the Kovils. We must remember that even the churches have condoned this system by allowing some church grave yards to be sectioned according to caste. Even in Scarborough, Canada we now have Hindu Kovils which maintain a tacit caste system.
When the Paddy Lands act and other socialist legislation was enacted, a certain social revolution took place in the South. A similar social revolution did not take place in the North where a Vellalar can still hold onto his land even when living in New Jersey, thanks to the iniquities of the Thesawalam law. Is the ARPC goinging to further perpetuate such regional atrocities which do not ensure a uniform playing field for every one?
Tissa Vitharana and the APRC are a stale hang-over from the days of Ranil and Chandrika. The ARPC should be scrapped. The tiny island, Lanka is smaller than the New York-Boston corridor. It should be more fully integrated by a fast rail system. Every citizen should have the same rights, and every region should have the same powers, and this uniformity cannot be ensured if power is devolved according to language and race, as envisaged by the APRC. The best guarantee of that is ensuring free mobility of all populations, irrespective of labels like "Tamil", "Muslim" and "Sinhala".
How about some power devolution in the US?
It is indeed strange that Ambassador Blake has become a prisoner of the Thimpu Tamils, given that in his own country, thousands of times larger than Sri Lanka, the Hispanics have not been granted even one iota of power, even though it was the Hispanics who first arrived in America. Even today, California, New Mexico, Texas etc., show their Hispanic roots and Hispanic populations which continue to use their language, with no recognition from the US constitution.
But then, what is good for the US is not good for the others. The US can run torture prisons and carry out pre-emptive wars. It can have the world's largest prison system where the number of young blacks inside the prisons is nearly equal to the number outside! But the rest of the world is required to behave differently.
The APRC is also a concession to the hippocracy of the International set. It does NOT safeguard the interests of the minorities of Sri Lanka. Instead, it is trying to write into
legislation, racial enclaves which are an affront to democracy.
Mr. Blake should take Dr Vitharana with him to the US, when the Envoy goes back, as there is much to be done in the US, in the Post-Bush era. A bit of stale Trotskyism, as embodied by Vitharana would perhaps be helpful in the US. I for one, would be gald to see both Vitharana and Blake well outside the shores of Sri Lanka. - Sri Lanka Guardian
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