The normalisation of excess

"It is important to prevent the LTTE from raising its head. But can this be done by treating Tamils with rank injustice? When a sense of proportionality is absent, even the pursuit of justice can become unjust. That is what is happening in the Northern internment camps, where, in the absence of the rule of law, arbitrariness rules."
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By Tisaranee Gunasekara

(July 19, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The victorious finale to a war which threatened and humiliated them for quarter of a century, has won for the Rajapakse administration the ardent admiration and the overwhelming gratitude of the Sinhala majority. But in a democracy, such sentiments do not translate into electoral support, permanently. The British admired Winston Churchill tremendously and were deeply grateful to him, for the role he played in defending their country against Nazi Germany. Though Mr. Churchill remained a British hero, he did not remain the British Prime Minister. The fact that they voted him out of office did not make the British admire Mr. Churchill’s war-time role any less. His defeat did not deprive him of his deserved place in British (and world) history. More pertinently, no one, least of all Mr. Churchill, considered that the Britons who worked and voted against him to be deficient in patriotism. It was simply a robust democracy and a free electorate at work.

By defeating the LTTE, President Mahinda Rajapakse has earned his place in Sri Lankan history; most Sinhalese (irrespective of their political persuasions) and some Tamils and Muslims are grateful to him (and will continue to be so) for this reason. But in a democracy, eternal gratitude does not amount to a licence for eternal power. In a country with a mature electorate, appreciation for a politician for the role he played in a specific area and in a given time, does not mean uncritical support for whatever he, his family and his government do, evermore.

From officially sanctioned astrological predictions to the elevation of family members to high places, there are innumerable signs indicating the existence of a project to perpetuate Rajapakse rule. Since the Rajapakse Family has no axiomatic base, no class or strata with which its interests are structurally and inextricably linked, this project has to be placed within a broader Sinhala supremacist project (in the manner of a Russian doll). It was the outbreak of the war which provided the Rajapakses with both the opportunity and the instrument to create a nexus between the continuance of their rule and ‘survival of the nation’. The victory over the LTTE has strengthened this identification while, paradoxically, rendering it less relevant. Consequently the raison d’être for Rajapakse rule can be restored only via the restoration of the primacy of ‘threats to national security and territorial integrity’, over and above concerns such as poverty, economic development, democratic rights or social progress. For the Rajapakse project to be successful, politics must continue as a war by other means, a zero-sum conflict against national ‘enemies’.

Institutionalising Injustice

In his recent interview with The Hindu, President Mahinda Rajapakse reiterated his belief in a Sri Lanka divided solely between patriots and anti-patriots (‘there are those who love the country and those who don’t). According to the Oxford dictionary, a patriot is ‘one who defends or is zealous for his country’s prosperity, freedom or rights’. But what happens if the interests of a country are equated with the interests of a single ethnic group or if one party/family is perceived as the sole protector of a country, in perpetuity? What becomes of patriotism in such a context, when ensuring the primacy of a community or a family clan becomes the touchstone of patriotism? Will not this turn patriotism into ‘combustible rubbish read to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name’ and a patriot into ‘one to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole, the dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors’ (The Devil’s Dictionary – Ambrose Bierce)?

Does it advance the prosperity of a country or its rights or freedom to appoint a man, faulted by the highest court in the land for erroneous conduct in the sale of state properties, as the Minister of Justice and Law Reform (Milinda Moragoda)? Does it advance the prosperity of a country or its rights or freedom to appoint a man out on bail on a murder charge as the Minister of Cultural Affairs and National Heritage (Piyasiri Wijenayake)? Does it advance the prosperity of a country or its rights or freedom to seek to reappoint as the Secretary to the Treasury a man who was compelled to leave that post by the Supreme Court for acting ‘contrary to law and against the public interest in the conferment of benefits to a private party’ (Dr. PB Jayasundara)? Does it advance the prosperity of a country or its rights or freedom to build 150 ‘state of the art’ houses for parliamentarians, in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis? What is such conduct more consonant with – the definition of patriotism in the Oxford Dictionary or in the Devil’s Dictionary?

In his latest letter to the President (July 5th), V. Anandasangaree, leader of the TULF, highlighted a case which epitomises the lawless state that prevails in the Northern internment camps: "What provoked me to write this to you today is the denial of the authorities to release a one year old child with the 61 year old grandmother with whom the child is now staying in a IDP camp at Pulmoddai. The father of this child and the son of the grandmother had his left leg amputated and is now in Pulmoddai. His wife had a right leg amputated with a multiple fracture on the left leg and is now in Vavuniya…. What is the security risk the country faces from these four individuals?" Hopefully, the President will pay heed to this plea and enable this unfortunate family to unite in freedom. It is equally important to address the root causes of such inexcusable injustices, so that they can be prevented from becoming rooted and bearing bitter fruits of hatred and revenge, some day.

"I am in prison now…. Of course I am getting all these comforts. But what is comfort? This is not comfort. I can’t get out, I can’t drop in on my friends, I can’t bring them here. I can’t enjoy anything" – that was President Rajapakse (in his recent interview with The Hindu) expressing universal human (and animal) desire to be free. President Rajapakse can walk out of his ‘glorified prison’ a free man, any time he wants to; all he has to do is to resign from his job. The nearly three hundred thousand Tamils interned in ‘welfare’ camps do not even enjoy that theoretical freedom. What places the Northern camp system beyond the pale is not the lack of adequate facilities, but the total absence of freedom. "All Tamil people in this country are not terrorists. But a majority are involved with terrorism", government spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella once stated baldly at a media briefing (Lankadeepa - 13.12.2007). This is the basis of the camp system, the belief that all the displaced Tamils are guilty until they can be proven innocent. This mindset lends credence to the rumours of a secret plan to turn the camps into permanent structures (rather like the Strategic Hamlet System adopted by the US in Vietnam to isolate the Vietcong from the people).

It is important to prevent the LTTE from raising its head. But can this be done by treating Tamils with rank injustice? When a sense of proportionality is absent, even the pursuit of justice can become unjust. That is what is happening in the Northern internment camps, where, in the absence of the rule of law, arbitrariness rules. There have been persistent stories of visiting relatives (some coming all the way from Colombo) being denied access to some camps. Since there are no clear rules, much would depend on the whims and fancies of camp authorities, including the guards, especially in a context in which the inmates are considered de facto prisoners, rightless and defenceless.

The manner in which the IDPs are treated is a defining issue in post-war Sri Lanka. And here, both the Sinhala polity and Sinhala society have failed, as had the Tamil Diaspora. The latter is too preoccupied with the dead Tiger to be concerned about the living IDPs. Our echoing silence concerning the incarceration of the displaced Tamils makes us complicit in this horrendous injustice. Surely Sri Lanka can do better, be more organised and more humane. In the aftermath of the tsunami, hundreds of thousands of people lived in camps, as free men and women; they enjoyed freedom of movement, the right to live with a relative, the right to search for a family member. That did not create a state of anarchy in the affected areas. Why cannot the regime adopt a similar policy here? The argument that these men and women are war displaced does not suffice, because that does not turn them into a security threat, unless we accept the Tiger identification of Tamils are Tigers. If we maintain that the war was a ‘humanitarian operation’ to liberate Tamils from the clutches of the LTTE, how can we justify treating every displaced civilian Tamil as a real or potential Tiger or detain every single one of them simply to catch a few Tigers? Is this the liberation the Tamils were promised?

An Insensate State

Post-LTTE, post-war, devolution will be deemed necessary only by those who believe in the existence of a Tamil ethnic problem, which preceded the creation and survived the demise of the LTTE. Consequently devolution would seem unnecessary and irrelevant (if not dangerous) to the real power wielders in the Rajapakse administration who disbelieve in the very existence of an ethnic issue. (Some may admit to the Tamil people having ‘problems’ but often these ‘problems’ are seen as a function of the war or of underdevelopment. The analogy would be of a man who admits to the existence of a trunk or a tail or a pair of ears, but never the elephant). This is why the latest ‘devolution debate’ turned into just another storm in a tea cup. The President used his outstandingly specious interview with The Hindu, to lay down the ground rules. Whatever the political solution may be, indicated Mr. Rajapakse, it will come only "after my re-election (as President). I must get the mandate. After that, the political solution comes". The devolution issue was thus pushed into hibernation, yet again. It will stay in this comatose state until Indian pressure compels the government to reignite it, on some future date, in yet another exercise of ‘smoke and mirrors’.

The insensate nature of the Rajapakse administration is evident in many of its actions, from the internment of the displaced Tamils to the tolerance of corruption and waste in high places, from the unwillingness to make any political concessions to the minorities to the furtherance of a climate of impunity. The reply given by President Rajapakse to The Hindu editor’s question about attacks on media personnel (specifically the killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga and the abduction of Kishini Kandasamy Ifham) indicate that the regime has no intention of either taking steps to prevent such attacks or to bring to justice those who are responsible: "Most of these cases were created, I would say. If you fight someone in the street and the man that comes and hits you can the government take responsibility?" This is not only a trivialisation of criminal acts; it is also a green light to more attacks on dissenters (under the guise of a personal vendetta).

Even in a democracy, public pressure is necessary for course corrections, and that, in turn, depends on public awareness. What the public does not know, it cannot oppose. A free media is of seminal importance in this regard, since it is the medium through which the public gets to see beyond the beguiling propaganda into the stark reality. When the public does not know what the rulers are up to, when exposures and criticisms are labelled unpatriotic, a climate of impunity is created. When rulers feel that they do not have to pay a price for wrongdoing, they are encouraged to engage in more (and not less) wrongdoing. The time to stop such a dangerous trend is when it is still in its infancy.

-Sri Lanka Guardian