Sri Lanka needs to restore its lost Sovereign status

| by Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam

( March 19, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I write in response to the article ‘International Community is responsible for Sri Lanka’s present crisis’ by Dushy Ranetunge, published in Sri Lanka Guardian.

I do usually tend to disagree with Dushy but in this instance I was also thinking of the difficulties in Public Administration in Northern Sri Lanka due to ‘International Community’ showing less than International standards when donating money to Sri Lankans. Hence in this instance I was able to identify more comfortably with Dushy’s thoughts.

File Photo of Sri Lankan police officers

The sore point however is that Dushy groups only the 2009 attacks on Tamil civilians as ‘insurgency’ punishment of the kind that happened against the Sinhalese in 1971 and in 1989. By doing so, Dushy is denying his race the credit of feeling for its own people. Most Tamils who respond to my articles also leave out JVP uprisings but include all the civil riots against Tamils in showing wrong-doing by the Government of Sri Lanka. To me, both are due to emotional attachment which keeps the issue ‘local’ and therefore limits us to our own homegrown solutions.

If we take the insurgency as ‘local’ and common to all races in Sri Lanka – then the threshold required to enter the International Arena is higher. It is when we treat it as a multicultural issue that we are able to participate through a lower threshold because of UN’s laws against racial discrimination. One who believes has naturally earned the right to participate. Natural forces would support such a person. Most victims of the 1956, 1958, 1977, 1983 through to 2009 ‘punishments’ against Tamils believe that race is the reason for their pain. Until they know otherwise, the world has the duty to accept their reason as the ‘cause’. Even with the LTTE attacks against Tamils – these attacks would not have happened if not for the racial equality mandate with which majority Tamils identified. No racial riots no LTTE. This is the primary lesson we need to learn about ourselves.

Dushy states ‘Channel 4 in London, had an "expose" on Wednesday well timed for the vote in Geneva. It was no "expose" as these issues were highlighted on the day the war ended in an article titled "Was Prabakaran and his entire family executed?" It was not published in Sri Lanka for obvious reasons. The article was published on the www. It was regarded by the defence establishment in Colombo as a "party spoiler" as commented by Prof Rohan Guneratna.

Anabarasan of the BBC said that he was surprised as to what I had written. Now its on Channel 4.’

There is a saying in Tamil – that the message from the cow with a bell around its neck is given greater importance (Money kattina maadu sonna kehkum), than the message from a cow without a bell/money. Channel 4 is the cow with the bell/money in the western world. Not Dushy. Similarly, Dushy is the cow with Money/bell in Sri Lankan media – not Gaja. I respect Sri Lanka Guardian much more than Channel 4 or Sri Lankan media for this reason. This to me is possible only due to my own identification with my ‘sovereign powers’.

Through our built-in sovereign powers, we have the ability to balance our thinking by demoting those with whose authority we do not identify through our own Truth. Once we believe that our investment in an issue and/or position, is greater than that of the person with official authority/position, we would intuitively take up the higher position as an insider, to benefit the whole. We would take equal position to the other as outsiders if we do not consider ourselves to be ‘insiders’ with that person and/or the structure that the person is a part of. If Dushy is an insider with the Sri Lankan government then he is an outsider to the US in the UNHRC issue.

Dushy writes ‘In South America, Africa, Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia powerful nations, primarily the United States, has over the last century armed and trained local militaries as a bulwark against their perceived Great Satan. For most of last century the great Satan was communism, and after 9/11 it was replaced by terrorism’

I identify with this except that I call Dushy’s Satan ‘the hidden opposition’. Citizens of the above countries migrated to America and its allies. Some assimilated, few integrated and the rest remained there as the ‘hidden/silent opposition’. They are to my mind, the root cause of 9/11. From the government’s point of view, they have been the ‘ignored’ lot who became indifferent to government and therefore failed to exercise their democratic powers to oppose the government through their official positions. Their positions were hijacked by those in their countries of origin – looking for a fight with super powers. Hence in the court of Natural Justice, investment in these countries towards ‘education’ and prevention of insincere migration would be the ‘right’ to correct the wrong-migration. Like in marriage, we need to show respect for the structures of a new family that we claim to be a part of – even though we may not believe that they are family. Likewise migrants of the new nation that they claim to be a part of. Spending more than is needed to balance wrong-migration amounts to interference and indicates fear.

The Sri Lankan Government took advantage of these anxieties amongst Western Governments led by America, to list the LTTE as terrorists. That step naturally required them to be bound by the UN policies and not their own home-grown answers – for better or for worse. Had the Sri Lankan Government invested in Racial Equality, at least in its mind at this late stage, it would have not worked to ‘reject’ war-crimes allegations, but would have admitted to racial-discrimination which was beyond the control of the armed forces and hence the excesses by both sides. The belief of the deeper investor drives the issue when all or majority forces are Natural. The Sri Lankan Government failed to seek and find such believers.

Foreign monies & status coming without higher value systems would render Sri Lanka a country without real vote to influence the Natural International Community. Sri Lanka has allowed its vote to be easily ‘bought over’ by other countries but claims falsely to be a sovereign power. A sovereign power would have shared its goodness with those amongst itself who were violent. A Government that matches violence to squash violence by the People, is one that has already lost its right to claim sovereignty. Sovereign powers help us find our own solutions from within and we would not even be aware of others saying otherwise, leave alone expressly oppose them. Hence what is Dushy complaining about? - that the Sri Lankan Government was allowed to share in the global status of the UN when LTTE were listed as Terrorists and now they want to run away from their responsibility? You made your bed, now you lie in it.

When Sri Lankans restore their own credit to claim ‘sovereign’ rights – be it through family, workplace or government, all natural forces would work to help restore ‘Independence’ to Sri Lankans in common.