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| The Rajapaksas have exposed themselves as liars and deceivers. It is inadvisable to believe in them and dangerous to give them carte blanche. Instead, each of their proposals/deeds needs to be approved or disapproved based on its own merits/demerits. |
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“Sri Lanka never killed any civilians as such”
President Rajapaksa (The Times – 2.12.2010)
“….it was impossible in the battle of this magnitude, against a ruthless opponent actively endangering civilians, for civilian casualties to be avoided” (Defence Ministry Report – 2.8.2011).
(August 08,Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “If you want to believe me, believe me, no civilian casualties”, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told The Australian on 23rd March, 2009. And for over two years, the Rajapaksas and their acolytes maintained that the Lankan Forces defeated the LTTE without killing a single Tamil civilian. The zero-civilian casualty claim became a Rajapaksa leitmotiv; anyone who questioned this impossibility was viciously denigrated.
Last week the Rajapaksas finally abandoned this inane-myth of their own creation. Through the Defence Ministry Report ‘Humanitarian Operation: Factual Analysis’, the government admitted the obvious truth: civilians were killed in the Fourth Eelam War. The admission is a welcome one, even though it is nothing more than a tactical ploy to deflect international criticism and a last-ditch attempt to counter the Darusman Report. (The petulant admission is the equivalent of telling the international community, ‘Yeah, yeah, we did kill some civilians; had to; no choice. Now that we have owned up, just leave us alone’!)
Unfortunately for the Rajapaksas their grudging-confession may turn out to be both too little and too late. If this admission was made soon after the war was won (together with an apology and, ideally, a promise of compensation) the brouhaha about civilian deaths would not have happened. Civilians die in wars; that foregone conclusion became a toxically contentious issue because the Rajapaksa refused to abandon the zero-civilian casualty myth.
From the inception, the Rajapaksas saw the war in Manichean terms. Consequently, there was a discernible difference in their perception of (and response to) Sinhala and Tamil civilian victims. The regime made praiseworthy efforts to assist Sinhala victims of Tiger depredations while denying any relief to Tamils victimised by Lankan Forces. This discriminatory treatment was superbly articulated by a Tamil fisherman, a victim of the 2006 retaliatory Naval-strike on St. Mary’s Church, Pesalai. Comparing the divergent official reactions to the Pesalai attack and the Kebithigollawa bus-bombing by the LTTE, the young man said: “The president went to the scene of the bombing to survey the damage. The government paid for the funerals of the victims. Nobody has come here” (AP – 18.6.2006). This initial practice of discriminating against Tamil civilian-victims became transmuted into a blanket denial of the very existence of such victims, as the war intensified and innocent deaths multiplied.
Two years and two months after the war was won, the Rajapaksas were compelled, by relentless international pressure, to admit that civilians did die. Even now the decency of an apology is beyond the regime; nor is there any sign of contrition. Still, this belated admission will facilitate the healing process, if it gives the Tamils some space to mourn their dead, in peace.
Beware of the Rajapaksas
The sorry saga contains an important lesson the Sinhala-South can ignore only at its own peril. The Rajapaksas lie; ergo, the Rajapaksas cannot be trusted. Their public volte face proves that the Rajapaksas knew, all along, about the existence of civilian casualties. For over two years, they maintained a monumental, seminal lie, with the intention of deceiving not just the Tamils and the international community, but also the Sinhalese.
Since the Rajapaksas have exposed themselves as liars, we in the South will be guilty of an unpardonable stupidity if we continue to place our trust in them. Caveat emptor (buyer beware) should be our watchword. Instead of accepting various Rajapaksa claims and contentions at face value, we need to subject each one to critical scrutiny. Old issues need to be reconsidered, in the light of new evidence of Rajapaksa-unreliability.
Why is Gen. Sarath Fonseka in jail? Is it advisable to spend billions on the 2018 Commonwealth Games? Are the Emergency and the PTA really necessity? Why does defence spending remain sky-high, post-war? Is it just to evict Colombo’s poor from their homes and subject Northern Tamils to a de facto military occupation? Are the oft-repeated Rajapaksa claims about fidelity to democracy, rule of law and media freedom credible? Is it possible to believe that the regime knew nothing about the murderous assault on the News Editor of Uthayan, Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan? (After all, Mr. Kuhanathan was assaulted with iron rods and left for dead in Jaffna, a city teeming with soldiers). Can the regime’s denial of responsibility for the murder of human rights activist Pattani Razeek be taken seriously? According to media reports, the regime’s Leadership Training Programme has claimed its first victim. Nishanthi Madushani, a 20 year old university entrant who was taken ill and admitted to the Badulla hospital while undergoing leadership training at the Diyatalawa military camp, has died: “The cause of death has been given as infection in the lungs due to being in a dusty atmosphere” (Sri Lanka Mirror – 2.8.2011). This unnecessary tragedy is an early warning about what is in store for the South, if it continues to place its trust in the Rajapaksas.
Other dangerously inane schemes are in the offing such as a plan to lower the marriageable age to 15 (according to Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister). This is an inane idea which must be opposed by all sensible citizens. If one is not considered mature enough to vote or even to drive until the age of 18, how can one be considered mature enough to marry and become parents? If this proposal is implemented, parents will not have any authority to prevent their school-going children from getting married, at will, once they reach the advanced age of 15!
The pathetic-story of Asoka Dayaratne of Nittambuwa, a disabled soldier with two children, casts serious doubts about the regime’s patriotic bona fides. Mr. Dayaratne “joined the Infantry Regiment in 1972 and served in various operations including…the counter attack on the LTTE after it attacked Sri Maha Bodhi… During a Wilpattu operation (he) received gun-shot injuries to his chest, left leg and right hand and his right hand was later amputated. In 1987 he was considered disabled and sent on retirement and was paid a monthly disabled pension which he continued to receive…even after reaching the age of 55”. Mr Dayaratne accepted the disabled pension unquestioningly because he believed in a “pledge given by President Mahinda Rajapaksa that disabled soldiers would be paid the disable pension until death”. His faith turned out to be grossly-misplaced. In May 2010, the army informed him that he had been paid “an extra amount of Rs.539,932/- by an oversight….Subsequently the Divisional Secretariat had stopped paying his pension for the purpose of recovering the overpayment” (Daily Mirror – 18.7.2011). This blatant dishonouring of a solemn public undertaking given to disabled soldiers demonstrates the visceral unreliability of the Rajapaksas.
The Rajapaksas have exposed themselves as liars and deceivers. It is inadvisable to believe in them and dangerous to give them carte blanche. Instead, each of their proposals/deeds needs to be approved or disapproved based on its own merits/demerits. This requires a paradigmatic shift in the Sinhala-South’s collective-perception of the Ruling Siblings: the Rajapaksas are power-hungry politicians and not disinterested Saviours.
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