What an absurd example of rape!

“Since then LTTE used violence, sexual assaults, rape, forced pregnancies and the like on Tamil women to expand its suicide bomber numbers. Once school girls were violated by senior LTTE leaders, they had no choice but to stick with the outfit for better or worse and follow the destiny of a suicide bomber.”
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By Thomas Johnpulle

(October 11, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It was Hilary Clinton’s casual example. She was giving a list of countries that used rape as a weapon of war. Just because the war on terror had one of its episodes in Sri Lanka, it doesn’t mean it was fought the Iraqi-style. Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick alleged they were raped by (Bill) Clinton. Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, Dolly Kyle Browning and of course Monica Lewinski claimed to have had illicit sexual relations with Clinton which is not a crime. Dolly Kyle Browning alleged that she and Clinton were engaged in a lengthy sexual affair and later she began writing a book about the affair. She also alleged that Clinton tried very hard to stop its publication. She sued Clinton for damages. However her appeal was denied by the Court of Appeal. Mere allegations? That’s the point because Hilary Clinton’s casual examples of countries using rape as a weapon of war included Sri Lanka which is also a mere allegation. Before endevouring on an ambitious mission, she needs to do some fact checking.

The truth about rape in Sri Lanka

By nature rape is a difficult crime to quantify. However, based on the number of reported cases, an idea can be formed about the totality of the problem. All civilized societies have criminalized rape which means the perpetrators will do whatever they can to suppress the truth. This is a common problem around the world. Rape per capita figures show some interesting insights. South Africa (1.1953 per 1,000 people) leads the table and Australia, Canada and the United States are among the top ten. New Zealand, UK, Spain and France are ranked among the first 15. Sri Lanka too has a fairly high ranking at the 30th with 0.0599 incidents per 1,000 people. Assuming one incident relates to one culprit, there is a rapist among 16,695 people. If each incident relates to many culprits, the number of culprits among 16,695 people would be higher.

There have been incidents of rape and sexual attacks by members of the armed forces. All cases reported to the police were investigated and both the victim and the accused were given the protection of the law.

Armed forces personnel are recruited from the population of which there is at least one rapist among 16,695 persons, theoretically. Assuming men are the perpetrators and assuming an equal distribution of men and women in society, the ratio can be narrowed down to one rapist for 8,347 men. A sample of 150,000 men from the same society would have at least 18 such individuals. In other words 18 events of rape or other forms of sexual attacks may happen every year committed by security forces personnel.. Obviously it is not about following orders, but about few rotten men who could be found in any representative sample. However, actual incidence of rape and sexual attacks by security forces personnel has been very much lower over the cause of the entire war. All the cases were about a few bad men following their own little isolated agenda on innocent victims. There is absolutely no evidence of organization, command and co-ordination with higher authorities.

When the decisive Elam War-4 is concerned, incidence of sexual attacks has been even lower. The much hyped Krishanthi Kumaraswamy case occurred during Elam War-3 in the last millennium. Even the few events blamed on the army show no sings of vengeance and are acts driven by uncontrolled desire. In countries where rape is used as a weapon of war, there is the total absence of desire. Vengeance is the driving force in such cases.

Those who highlight the Krishanthi Kumaraswamy case as an example of Clinton’s allegation are ridiculously wrong. The allegation is not rape, but a much horrendous one which is using rape as a weapon of war. Let alone rape as a weapon of war, even the number of rape cases blamed on security forces is insignificantly low!

Clearly, Hilary’s rape examples lack credence and were just casual examples.

Stop demeaning Tamil women and stop demonizing Sinhala men

If rape was extensively used as a weapon of war in the ‘ethnic conflict’ that engulfed Sri Lanka for 26 years, a sizable percentage of Tamil women and girls must be raped. Going by the other two examples of Bosnia and Burma, if Sri Lanka were to share the same league, around 10%-20% of ethnic Tamil women should have been raped. Obviously every Sri Lankan knows that this is total absurd. Then why put Sri Lanka into the same classification? But the problem is deeper than that. Tamils of Sri Lanka are part of a larger Tamil cultural society spanning Tamil Nadu, Canada, South Africa, Europe, etc. According to Tamil traditional values, a rape victim is looked down upon no matter who is at fault. Should this unfortunate fate be forced upon Sri Lanka’s Tamil women?

A large number of local Tamil girls especially from the North hope to get married to Canadian, Australian and European citizens of Tamil origin. By spreading falsehoods, these selfish and ignorant individuals are trying to dash their expectations. Unfortunately those who are blind with separatism, racial enclaves and racial politics fail to see the degree of damage they cause to their own society.

Foolproof evidence completely demolishing the rape charge

If rape was used as a weapon of war in Sri Lanka anytime during the war, there must be visible social consequences of it. It would have affected both the warfront and civilian life in a substantial manner. If rape was used as weapon of war, this war would never have gone for 34 years. Despite it being an utterly unpleasant subject to discuss, for the sake of the record, it must be investigated in detail.

If rape was used as a weapon of war, it would have immensely helped one party to the war. However, security forces personnel never even attempted such horrendous crimes on their own sisters and brothers who happened to be of a different race. No regular army in the world sends women to the battlefront. Even in cases where women are sent, their numbers are far less than their male counterparts and in most events they perform noncombat duties. This trend is also seen in all rebel groups except two groups, Iraqi suicide bombers and the LTTE. LTTE used women both as suicide bombers also as regular fighters. In contrast Sri Lankan security forces don’t use females in warfare. This makes the LTTE female cadres vulnerable for possible sexual attacks but this risk doesn’t affect security forces.

Security forces man a large extent of land formally held by the LTTE. This trend was there since the beginning of the war. This allows ample opportunities to use despicable sexual violence as a weapon of war as seen in Iraq, Bosnia and Burma. LTTE was not in such a position. The sheer number of security forces personnel over the few men in the LTTE makes this disparity even larger.

Above mentioned three (3) reasons favour one party to the war at the severe detriment of the other. If it had happened, it would have affected LTTE recruitment very badly. LTTE recruits are considered an honour to their family members. These families are named, ‘Mahaveer’ families (families of heroes) and mothers of LTTE recruits are adorned with various honourable terms. These families get special attention by the LTTE in regards to basic food provisions, priority in administrative work and protection. LTTE has gone to great lengths in sustaining the ‘nobleness’ of its fighters. It even violated Hindu customs when it used cemeteries for dead cadres. All these factors eased its recruitment pains.

In South Asian communities both offenders and victims are treated with same level of disrespect and disgust. If rape was used as a weapon of war, family members of potential LTTE fighters would never allow their kith and kin to join the LTTE knowing fully well their fate which will be a disgrace to the entire family. This would have drastically cut down on LTTE’s recruitment of fighters, especially highly dedicated and fearsome female fighters. However, this never happened, which means rape was never used as a weapon of war.

Second foolproof evidence comes from the Tamil Diaspora. Today the Tamil Diaspora exceeds a million. In other words, about a quarter of Ceylon Tamils live abroad. Most of those who migrated obtained humanitarian visas and thereafter got their family members down. Even today thousands of Tamil humanitarian arrivals take place in Australia as it has happened for the past 26 years. In 95% of the cases, its men, and only men, who make this journey leaving their female family members home. Once they obtain residency, their family members join them. If rape was ever used as a weapon of war, even in the remotest ways, this would not be the trend! In that event women would brave the seas to reach safer countries and then get their male companions down. If rape was used as a weapon of war, no man would leave his female family members and old parents and go on an unknown journey. This clears the matter without a hint of a doubt; rape was never ever used as a weapon of war. Also it proves that rape was never significantly associated with the war. Men confidently left their wives, sisters, daughters, sons, etc. in Sri Lanka for months; at times years; in search of greener pastures.

Third indisputable evidence comes from pregnancies that are associated with rape. In Bosnia and Burma a very large number of unwanted pregnancies occurred due to mass rape. This created a huge social problem among small ethnic groups victimised by this barbaric act. Not only it destroyed the number of potential family units, but also changed the community from within. This had a double impact on reducing the victimised ethnicity. Not a single case was reported in Sri Lanka! Abortion is illegal in Sri Lanka and if mass rape ever happened, even locally, surely there would have been thousands of pregnancies and childbirths as a result.

Clinton said it happened in Sri Lanka without pointing fingers

Hilary Clinton didn’t say these atrocities were committed by the Sri Lankan government troops. She only said these acts take place in Sri Lanka. She ought to have been more specific. Wars have two parties to it and any one of them may have committed these offences according to her. This gives little comfort to those who jumped the gun and started to point fingers at government forces. In fact most sexual offences, violence against women and children and rapes that occurred in Sri Lanka were committed by Tamil Tigers with blessings from the Eelam campaign around the world.

The suicide bomber was Tamil Tigers’ weapon of choice. Tigers started to build a storage of suicide bombers following a series of rapes committed by the IPKF in 1987-89. Tamil society just like most Asian societies looks down upon victims of sexual violence denying the victim any further interactions with the society. They were destined to live in complete misery for the rest of their lives. Tigers exploited this and recruited these victims into their suicide brigade. Results were remarkable and Tigers went on to build world’s most formidable suicide brigade. In 1989 Rajini Rajashingham (Tiranagama), a lecturer at the University of Jaffna launched a brave campaign to rehabilitate these victims. She drew anger from both the IPKF and the LTTE that eventually led to her killing by the LTTE. Her campaign dragged many potential suicide bombers away from violence and they were inducted into the society as good citizens once again.

Since then LTTE used violence, sexual assaults, rape, forced pregnancies and the like on Tamil women to expand its suicide bomber numbers. Once school girls were violated by senior LTTE leaders, they had no choice but to stick with the outfit for better or worse and follow the destiny of a suicide bomber.

The suicide bomb attack on Lt General Sarath Fonseka, Army Commander of Sri Lanka, in 2006 is a case in point. The suicide bomber was a pregnant Tamil woman. Obviously she became pregnant not by artificial insemination! Tigers made her pregnant by way of rape and then urged her to kill. Being a pregnant woman, she was able to bypass security checks, suspicion and restrictions at checkpoints to approach her target easily.

There is another very strange thing about LTTE female cadres. LTTE went to extraordinary lengths in asserting that its female suicide bombers were “virgins”. This is an obvious misstatement carefully crafted to drag attention away from the reality. If they were not violated, they would have had no problem returning back to their families. LTTE used sexual attacks on female cadres to keep them from returning home. It is a well known fact that LTTE female cadres were much more loyal to the outfit than their male counterparts.

However, as the war has ended, this no longer happens.

Going forward

Following from President Obama’s statement that America is not going to solve world problems anymore, Clinton advocates a participatory approach by UN agencies and member states. This further disappoints Eelam dreamers who want outsiders to come and interfere with Sri Lanka’s governance mechanism over false allegations. It is not going to happen. Perhaps this is an indication of Clinton’s understanding of real perpetrators. It is a good and timely move provided it is applied right across the world irrespective of religion. Muslims and non-Muslims cannot have two different standards; it should be the same standard.

In the case of Sri Lanka the few rapes that were blamed on the armed forces have a much larger context. Rape was never used as a weapon of war and therefore attention must be paid to the general crime rape. As mentioned above Sri Lanka ranks high in the per capita rape ranking. It is unfortunately a common occurrence in the society. What’s worse is that studies show that in most cases, perpetrators are closely known to victims. This makes it all the more difficult to contain. The Lankan society tends to shy away from discussing boy friend-girl friend issues in open. This is highly damaging to relationships of ignorant youth. All successive governments put off uplifting the spiritual standards of its population citing the war. Now the war is no more, it is time to restart wide spread spiritual upliftment programs around the country targeting both the young and the old. Law enforcement agencies should remove embarrassing moments for victims during the investigation and legal processes.

Sri Lankan forces in Haiti were blamed for sexual offences. Sexual offences by UN troops are common. It happened in Congo, Haiti, etc. However, Sri Lankan troops must have conducted better. Educating them about adult recreation activities and about common pitfalls in unknown lands, rather than considering the subject taboo, would have yielded better results.

Sexual offences involving defence troops, defence mechanisms and the police must be thoroughly investigated. Culprits in these capacities tend to block the process of justice which is another crime. These offences threaten ethnic harmony very badly. If any sexual offence is committed in today’s post-war era, its impact would be even higher. Government is responsible to regulate not only the collective conduct but also personal conduct of armed forces personnel. A very large army is stationed in the north following the war. Foolproof systems of prevention must be put in place subject to civilian representatives’ review. It makes little sense doing damage control after the event. As the war has ended, it is easier to discipline the armed forces taking drastic action, if required. These measures will ensure even the few bad people in uniform will be put out of business.

-Sri Lanka Guardian