A statement from the Coalition of Muslims and Tamils for Peace and Coexistence is follows;(December 10, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka Guardian) We of the Coalition are deeply concerned about the escalating incidence of violence in the east. While the government is one on the one hand announcing in a hollow triumphant call the end to conflict and strife, it is fanning and actively engaging in whipping up ethnic animosities in the region. The eastern region with its strong multi cultural traditions of co-existence has undergone a long period of savage ethnic hostilities, in which no community has been spared. While reasons of the political economy of war might have been one cause of increased ethnic tension, the roles played by successive militarized governments, the Tamil militant groups and communal politicians, in dividing and aggravating ethnic tensions cannot be overstated.
The war with its creation of zones of ‘liberation’ and ‘occupation’ exacerbated the issue of landlessness, narrowing down pportunities for recovery and economic development in multiple ways that included a drastic curtailment of cultivation, fishing, trade and infrastructural and social and cultural development programmes.
In July 2007 when the government emerged ‘victorious’ in its war of ‘liberation’ and attrition, leaders from the area and ordinary people hoped that the unfolding processes of emocratization’ and ‘eastern development’ touted by the Government would help bring about peace in some form. We are not in any way denying some of the qualitative changes that have taken place since the military’s capture of the East. With the defeat of the LTTE in the East, the threat of war has receded offering people the possibility of rebuilding their lives from the debris of war. Especially for communities that lived under LTTE control the sensational words of liberation and development, do have some meaning; a new road, banking facilities, housing assistance programs. Despite these dramatic changes, violence and fear loom large, threatening to aggravate old wounds and grievances, and in many ways, producing new tensions and crises. We are also concerned that short term military imperatives of the central government and a disregard for the principles of coexistence and democracy are creating a situation of worsening ethnic relations; increasing the sense of insecurity felt by Tamil and Muslim communities in the region.
Why? We are compelled to ask why. The government and its apologists, including people from the left and some sections of civil society to varying degrees, is largely silent on the issue of escalating violence in the east; citing it as a fall out of the time of conflict, predicting better times ahead. But what is alarming is while the violent situation has not abated or on the way to improving, fresh issues and new configurations of power are forming that do not bode well for the region. Ironically, the escalation of violence complements and development programmes and importantly political, developments sponsored by the government and the state, compelling one to view the government’s intentions as at best either indifference of the government to the burning issues in the east, or at worst, a deliberate attempt by majoritarian chauvinist elements to fan violence as a tool for establishing their economic and political primacy.
A pyrrhic victory
For the government, a military victory over the LTTE is what matters most. Putting all its eggs in the basket of militarization and militarily defeating the LTTE, the government is making a tragic mistake; it has not capitalized on the moral victory it could have had over Tamil nationalist sentiments by pushing the agenda of peace and reconciliation in the east. The popularity of the LTTE in the East has been an open question, especially following the split. Like the Tamil National Alliance which swept the polls in elections marred by intimidation and malpractices, the TMVP also swept the polls through unfair means. Nonetheless, it also showed the political will of the Tamils to invest their future in an alternate Tamil group. Despite the possibilities provided by this opportunity, the Government how ever has not sought to address the very real grievances and fears of the mmunities that have built up over a long period. In the attempt to establish its control and command over the east in the short term, it has made politico-military alliances based purely on the need to control the Tamil people. So, we have the break away LTTE group, TMVP in an unholy alliance with the government. The TMVP, despite breaking away from the LTTE, is steeped in the violent culture of the LTTE. Even though the TMVP inducted, and even coerced, members of the general public as candidates for local government polls and to assist it in administration, the rank and file behaves with scant respect for the structures of democratic governance and are a law unto themselves. In the direct words of the people, the most affected, “different name, same people.”
At one level, there has been no fundamental change in the form of governance since the time of LTTE control, real or perceived. ‘Taxation’ has abated but kidnappings for ransom, crude intimidation by armed youth, and the spectre of abductions of children and adults continue. Killings at homes, paddy fields, by the road side or seaside, near check points, by temples, mosques, universities and hospitals seamlessly continue. Nor has there been any attempt at building upon the goodwill of the people following the elections on the part of the government. On the contrary, the government to all appearances has been actively promoting violent groups and political forces and alliances that are seeking to increase hostility among people. Instead of encouraging the TMVP to embrace democratic politics and shed its LTTE practices, the Government is determined to keep the TMVP a paramilitary group. The Pillayan wing of the TMVP is attempting to find its powers in the Eastern Provincial Council and demonstrate to the Tamils that a solution within one Sri Lanka can work but the Government is determined to undermine it by not granting powers or finances and thereby ensuring that real power stays with the centre dominated by increasingly jingoistic Sinhala dominant political groups. The government is either unable to demonstrate its commitment to addressing the grievances of the minority communities in the east. The Governor and two of the three District Secretaries are Sinhalese. The Government is determined to divide the TMVP by setting up Karuna as an alternate Eastern leader to Pillayan. As the two factions battle it out for control in the East, we can only expect that the fratricide in the Tamil community to worsen. The killing of the Pillayan’s secretary Kumaraswami Nandagopan, alias Ragu on November 14 is perhaps the most telling instance of this vicious struggle for power. The Government seems to fundamentally distrust its own ally, which might end up forcing the TMVP back into the arms of the LTTE. Even though for the people of this country this is a very worrying development, for this administration sustaining a permanent state of emergency may be desirable and expedient.
A region under siege
A dominant feature of the Sri Lankan conflict has been the fratricide within the Tamil community. The LTTE in particular has been responsible for decimating rivals in other militant groups, political parties and allies of the State, and independent Tamils. This bloodbath has left a deep scar on Tamil society. With the split in the LTTE in 2004, Eastern Tamils found themselves under attack as the two groups eliminated perceived enemies. While claiming that it will remove the Tiger as its symbol, the TMVP has been unable to shed its deathly stripes as it is now part of the joint military strategy - targeting anyone associated with the LTTE – even the family members of LTTE cadres in vengeance for the killing of TMVP cadres. This state sponsored fratricide may get worse as the internal struggle within the TMVP is hitting a crisis point, particularly with Karuna attempting to re-establish control.
The violence following the provincial council elections in May this year demonstrated a possible trajectory that ethnic relations could take. The killing of two TMVP cadres in Kathankudy resulted in the TMVP retaliating in a brutal manner against Muslim civilians. The violence rapidly escalated with both Tamils and Muslims becoming subject to violence and displacement. Some instances include: attacks on Muslim shops in Batticaloa Town; Tamils living in Saukadu displacement camps were forced to flee; a Muslim woman was shot dead in Eravur. For every act there is a perpetrator be it the official member of one or the other of the armed groups or a person from the ‘civilian population’. Tamils were forced to flee and the TMVP moved into Tamil areas claiming to protect Tamil areas, while Muslims were left with no protective arm to secure their safety. The Government’s significant attempt to bring about a multi ethnic coalition which could be an important step in restoring a politics of co-existence was undermined as communities were forced back into their ghettos. Above all this crisis demonstrated to all the deep-seated lacunae in the political system with regard to consensual and democratic means of governance.
While the intensity of conflict and violence subsided it continues to raise its head again and again. Just a day before Ramazan a grenade went off near the mosque by the main road injuring 24 persons. A month later, on the 24th of October, another grenade, set off by Hussainmiyah Mosque near the Kathankudy-Manjanthoduvai border injured, about 6 persons, one critically. The spectre of the mosque massacres and attendant violence of the early 1990s including the attacks on Tamil and Muslim civilians that drove a deep wedge between Tamils and Muslims in the Batticaloa region looms large in the background. It is our fervent wish that this unhealthy trend is curbed at this hopefully initial stage and all grievances of the different communities are addressed to the people’s satisfaction. Also, more importantly, it is of the utmost urgency that civil and political administration is democratized and demilitarized as a first step toward normalizing relations.
The spate of killings in the east in recent past, are of an ethnicized nature. While the violence seems mindless, there is an insidious pattern, logic, to its ethnicized nature. The logic of violence pivots on the logic of ethnic divide, calculated to aggravate the fragile peace that exists between communities, rather, between peoples and different nationalist and chauvinist forces. In recent months there have been targeted killings of Sinhalese in the East. On October 20th three Sinhala youth involved in construction work, part of the Negenahira Navodaya were shot dead in Kokkaddichcholia, Batticaloa. Why were they killed? Was it just because they happened to be Sinhalese? On October 16 two Muslim and two Tamil men were killed in a paddy field in Waddamadu, Akkaraipattu. It remains unclear as to who killed them and why. Was it the LTTE, TMVP, military or another interested party? Was it because they had crossed an ethnic boundary which prevents certain ethnic communities from accessing lands
which they claim?
Acts of aggression against unarmed Muslim communities are pushing those communities up against the wall. Muslim leadership working in tandem with the Government do not seem to have any clout in curbing the violence and making dialogue. Rather than seeking to engage the Muslim community leadership, the government is trying to circumvent them. In addition, the TMVP lacks some of the LTTE’s hierarchy so no one knows who to complain to for redress. Though, one must hasten to add, that even with the LTTE Muslim Community leaders found any redress difficult. For the Muslim Communities of the East it seems little has changed from the time of the LTTE when Muslims felt greatly threatened and marginalized.
The Muslim Community has not escaped the wave of sweeping militarization in the east and within a number of these communities armed gangs have emerged. With the War Against Terror in the back drop it is convenient to sensationalize the existence of Muslim armed men and dub them as being part of a large scale movement called Jihad in the East without any analysis of the strength and nature of these varied groups. These are not Muslim versions of the Tamil militant groups of the 1980s but small, isolated groups in some of the main Muslim population centres in the East.Their association with the State (some have received training by the state sometimes as home guards) is often conveniently downplayed. It is most often the Muslim Communities themselves that have to face the wrath of these groups. The insecure political future of the Muslim communities in the east is a fertile breeding ground for these groups and if the
grievances and fears of the community are not addressed in a timely manner including the fear of violence directed against the community, these groups will grow in strength.
The eastern province is under siege from all sides. Intimidation accompanied by harassment, abductions and killings continue. While the government is show casing the region as one that is returning to normalcy, the people are still caught in the cycles of violence unleashed by forces twenty years ago. The harthal called by Karuna to protest Indian intervention is part of the circus of intimidation and a show put on by forces allied to the government. In a throwback to the pongu thamil events organized by the LTTE in the North and East, the TMVP forced large numbers of people from far flung areas like Komari and Thirukovil into buses for a rally in Batticaloa on 26th October as a show of strength. This time though the state is backing the intimidation of Tamil civilians – the buses are also state owned and the armed forces and police watched as the TMVP cadres forced people at gun point to close shops. The state’s connivance in this abuse is nothing new; the TMVP that was allowed to operate freely in government-controlled areas and carry out abductions and killings at free will continues to do so. It is outrageous that ministers and secretaries who upbraided international figures and human rights groups for pointing out links between the state and the Karuna faction in its operations have become defenders of the TMVP, absolving them of violations of human rights.
How are we to understand this violence? Is the Government unable to control the East as it has moved the military and STF to the North and is reliant on a divided TMVP to assist its policing and security maintenance? If so it speaks badly for the success of the liberation operation as the law and order situation is rapidly deteriorating and each day brings new violations of human rights. There are rumours of the LTTE moving in more cadres into the East. The chaotic and multi layered violent situation in the east provides just the right context for the LTTE desperate to divert attention from the north. Or is the Government very comfortable in the current state of instability as the violence weakens the TMVP and dents the image of the Chief Minister. There are fears that some of the attacks are being carried out by the State so as to increase suspicion and distrust between Tamils and Muslims, and between the TMPV-Pillayan and TMVP-Karuna factions. Like the old colonialists before it, the state is using the policy of divide and rule. In such a policy co-existence has only symbolic value. The Tamils in the East are now being subject to a ‘cleaning operation’ as the state and TMVP hunts down LTTE members, sympathizers and anyone remotely associated, however remote the link, while the LTTE is trying to fight back, picking out victims regardless of whether they are combatants or civilians.
‘Colonial’ Development
Within this context the idea of development such as building roads, and rebuilding tanks are critical for the rehabilitation and development of the East. There are other ambitious plans of constructing factories, coal power stations and highways. But where the local people fit into this program of Negenahira Navodaya is still open to question. We were told by concerned parties that development programmes did not profit local communities, as construction companies are from the south, and bring their work force along with them. This leads to a sense of alienation among local communities. It is a colonial mind set – the people have to be developed, they have no agency or say in these master plans, they will be told where to work and where to move to. The east has long been a region that had been neglected by all and sundry, and a vast majority of its peoples remain marginal to development programmes taking place elsewhere.
It is also a region that had been caught in the vicious grip of violent movements and continue to be at the mercy of TMVP and the militarized regime of the government. Working in tandem with the military regime the develoment programmes too work toward further ethnicisation, exacerbating ethnic tensions; some of which are then exploited by interested groups.
Add to this the proposals for providing land for Sinhalese and the restoration of Buddhist sites and the scene is set for unnecessary tension. In two of our previous reports we focused on the fears of the local communities of state sponsored colonization efforts in the militarized region. The government website carries a page on its programme for the next three years for cultural and archaeological preservation which is almost wholly of Buddhist sites. We note with surprise here, that not a single Muslim site has been ear marked for cultural preservation or as a heritage-site. Also, the omission of Koneswaram, Trincomalee, parts of whose ancient Pallava structure from the destroyed are in the nearby sea bed is telling. Attempts by authorities to ‘flood’ the area with modern Buddhist are visible. Is there an attempt to reconstruct a Buddhist heritage of the east anew? It is also our contention that in the land scarce eastern province, particularly the coastal areas, where population density is the highest in the country, the question of land has to prioritize the interests of living and local peoples.
Boundaries are being marked in blood. Individuals who have crossed ethnic borders and administrative divisions to carry out livelihoods as they have or had done for years pay the ultimate price. The identity of the killers and their motives may remain unknown but it is speculated that four farmers were killed in Akkaraipattu, two Tamil and two Muslim for trying to cultivate paddy land which had been declared off bounds by one or other of the Tamil militant groups. A group of 26 Muslim wood collectors from Pottuvil found themselves at the mercy of the STF. There are rumours that they were beaten up in the camp and were accused of assisting the LTTE. On September 24, one of the incarcerated Muslims died in the jail. Flashback to September 2006 when 11 Muslims were hacked to death in Radella. The murders were not followed by any investigation; the local Muslim community fears the hand of the military in this gruesome act. People in the area link these incidents to colonization moves.
While we cannot vouch for the veracity of these speculations, Tamil and Muslim communities base their fears on their experiences since 1948. The communities in the region are feeling the brute brunt of militarization heralded by both the government’s military organs and its proxy Tamil groups. In turn, the situation continues to be volatile and can lead to developments that threaten to mire the region in a culture of fear, paralysis and an endless cycle of violence. We, the Coalition do not oppose the distribution of land or the preservation of an ancient history and culture in a fair, unbiased manner, but express deep reservations about the manner in which they are being currently undertaken with groups like the JHU using their proximity to power to carry out their chauvinistic agenda.
Militarizing Education
On 16th Nov Palithakumara Pathmakumar, a doctor serving in Naavatkaadu hospital in Vavunatheevu was killed within the hospital premises. As a result the GMOA went on strike demanding better protection for doctors in the North and East. This killing highlighted the crisis of violence in the East. At the same time it also showed how security is understood by the various actors. The Health Minister called for only Tamil doctors to serve in the North and East while the GMOA called for more security. For each community security means something different. The presence of police officers or armed military personnel or militant groups do not result in greater confidence as each community has fears and violent memories of each of the armed actors.
Political violence permeates and controls the actions of civil society. The Eastern province boasts two universities; one in the Batticaloa District, located in Vantharamullai and the other, South Eastern University in Oluvil in the Amparai District. Established in the early 1980s and 1990s, both serve the people of the region and in the post-LTTE era would have or should have become sites of collaboration for the state and civil society organizations in their efforts toward greater democratiziation and toward constructive change. But the violence permeating political society in the region has got the universities in a stranglehold.
Eastern University has been a site of conflict and battleground for long years now. Over the years various armed groups attempted to establish their presence in the university, with the LTTE taking extreme measures to control the expression of staff and students. During the split in 2004 in the ranks of the LTTE, academics and others came under extreme scrutiny; academics, journalists and others suspected of being loyal to this or the other side were abducted, cautioned and on occasion murdered. Prof. Santhanam, former Vice Chancellor was abducted by the LTTE and later released But the University continued to function, limping along with depleted resources.. With the establishment of control by the army and police and TMVP, the University has come under increased surveillance from these quarters aligned to the state. Today, TMVP continues to exert its coercive measures on the community. In an effort to establish control of the Eastern University the TMVP abducted, the Dean of the Arts Faculty in late 2006. Then the Vice Chancellor Prof. V. Raveendranath disappeared in broad daylight from the heart of Colombo city, from an area marked for its high security check points. The TMVP is believed to be behind this abduction. The Vice Chancellor is widely believed to be dead today.
The South Eastern University is also facing similar problems. The university has a 90% Muslim majority student population. During the Ramadan holiday in September, the Government placed a new unprecedented security system in the university, with many checkpoints and over 60 police guarding the entrance alone in addition to STF and armed military patrolling the surrounding area round the clock. One of the observation points of the security personnel has been erected in very close proximity to the women’s hostel. When any of the staff forget to bring their vehicle pass along, they are refused entry into the university premises by the police. There are increasing fears that the university is under surveillance. Many complaints have been made to the UGC and other related administrative bodies in relation to normalization of University functions especially with regard to establishment of police within the university premises, but to no avail. In this pathetically oppressive situation, the two universities function with the barest minimum of security when it comes to aggression by forces allied to the government. It is within this miserably disempowering situation, that on August 22 of this year Sucharitha Pasan Samarasinghe; a 4th year Sinhalese student at Eastern University was killed, purportedly by a force from outside the university.
This speaks to the way ethnic tensions and divides are exarcerbated by the worsening security situation. Following the killing, all academic programmes of the University were temporarily suspended. Soon after the incident the police moved into the University and established special security procedures. The University’s own security system was removed replaced by a police check point at the university entrance. One of the staff quarters which is in close proximity to the student hostel has been converted into a police billet. Occasionally the police will move about the university in civvies, mingling with the students. A Tamil student was taken for inquiry after this incident and to date he is being detained by the CID without any charges. For the Tamil civilian population the police does not signify security – they are the people who arrest and detain, who claim that they released people who mysteriously disappear from police custody, who refuse to record complaints when family members to the police stations to report about the abduction of their sons and daughters. On October 6 when the University opened many students were absent – the Muslim and Sinhala students had been temporarily transferred and to date are demanding that they are not sent back to the Eastern University for security reasons. The Tamil students who form the majority in the Eastern University are highly apprehensive of entering the university and some have even moved out of the hostel. The authorities in Colombo do not seem to understand that it is important to work with all communities. When the University Grants Commission Chairman visited the Eastern University in August this year he talked to the Sinhala students and assured them of their safety. He did not see the need to allay the fears of the Tamils or Muslim students.
The precarious security situation at the two universities does not bode well for any return to normalcy. With a view to ‘protecting’ the Sinhala students, the government has amassed a large number of security personnel outside and within premises of these two universities. This places the university community in a very precarious position. The presence of police or army within universities is seen as problematic in any university in Sri Lanka. As state forces are perceived as being antagonistic to local Tamil communities, and sometimes to Muslims, their presence in university premises aggravates relations between the military and the University community at large. Also, as importantly, it unnecessarily brings in rifts between the Sinhala students and the other students and staff as loyalties and alliances are deemed to be divided. The role that the state plays contributes to intensifying ethnic divides and perpetuates the need for intense and violent forms of ethnicised surveillance on the student and staff populations. The government works on a purely military logic. There is a serious concern among many from the two university communities that certain sections of the students are being used for surveillance purposes, regardless of their ethnicity. This increases the sense of fear widespread among the student body increasing the sense of being hemmed in from all sides; increasing the sense of sheer hopelessness. The measures of the state are counter productive and destructive of any possible contribution that civil society could make to social cohesion and initiative, leading to greater democratization. The two university communities are under great strain and feel a sense of being besieged.
Hopes and fears
We the Coalition have serious concerns that those who wield power have no real regard for the civilians in the East and North. It is our hope that sober forces in the south and elsewhere, particularly left wing forces would rally round to ease the crisis situation in the east and more importantly insist on and work toward a political situation, but our hope is ebbing away. Beyond the immediate and long term measures needed to restore normalcy in the region, we feel that only a political solution that devolves power to the regions or provinces would bring about sustainable stability in the region in the final analysis. We are greatly disappointed with the left groups working with the government in this regard as they seem to have completely abandoned the project to find a negotiated political solution, and are passively condoning all the acts of intimidation and violence perpetrated by state forces. It is indeed doubly sad that those persons who were very vocal about the government’s commitment to a political solution, today express nothing but unequivocal support for the government’s majoritarian administration and worse its unabated condoning of violence in the east. While we write, the war rages on in the north. But none of the political forces, none of the leading left wing activists who support the war have voiced their concern about the lack of the political will on the part of the government to devolve power to the east and the north. Instead they are unabashedly touting the dangerous and myopic line that a political solution will be created after the victory of state forces. We cannot afford to be silent at this critical juncture of strife. We cannot let the government myopically triumphant today to say that once the war is won all that we need to do is ‘develop’ the region along with limited devolution within the present constitution which, in real terms, means no devolution. We cannot let any of these forces rewrite fifty years of political struggle in the country. The government’s strategy of unfettered and anarchic violence is not a
tenable or sustainable solution to the ethnic conflict. Serious and sincere attempts at devolution of power are the call of the day. It is the way to strengthen democracy and eliminate the need for militancy, it is the only way in which we can move toward power sharing among all communities, plan our development programmes through negotiation and consultation and hope for peace and prosperity. - Sri Lanka Guardian
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