| by Ranga Jayasuriya
( May 21, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) One should make no apologies to celebrate the victory over one of the most egregious terrorist groups that ever walked the earth.
On the sunny Saturday morning, tanks rolled on the Galle Face Green, Kafir interceptors flew overhead and the Navy gunboats paraded in the adjacent sea on the fourth anniversary of Victory Day. (One boat capsized, during the ceremonial preparations). Even months before that momentous feat in the Nandikadal Lagoon, the text book-styled annihilation of the Tamil Tigers looked like a mere wild fantasy.
It is exactly those sentiments of an accomplishment that was achieved against all odds that the ruling cohort in Colombo wants the nation to remember. There are obvious reasons to celebrate the death of the megalomaniac leader of the LTTE, Velupilllai Prabhakaran, and his bunch of terrorists—though, the high toll of collateral damages would, sometimes, dampen the celebration and warrant circumspection.
However, set aside the often contentious and acrimonious debate on the civilian cost – which, however, is bound to happen in any counter insurgency operation of the Sri Lankan magnitude, the place Sri Lanka has turned out to be since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers is deeply disappointing.
Paranoid
The regime is paranoid, deeply illiberal and is guilty of regular human rights abuses.
None other than President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave voice to those attributes of the Sri Lankan regime when he spoke at the Victory Day Parade on Saturday.
"Foreign forces and pressures, foreign invasions are not new to us," he said.
"In the four years since this great humanitarian victory, there were many strategies tried out by these forces to rule our Motherland. These included the Arab Spring, grease demons, the independence of the Judiciary, media freedom and human rights. There were attempts to make us file answers to such charges almost every six months. It is these sinister aims that are put forward as the protection of human rights and democracy," he said.
Change the venue to Pyongyang, Khmer Rouge's Cambodia or Stalinist Kremlin, and replace the Sri Lankan interlocutor with a local despot of the geographic zone, you would hear the same rhetoric. (Perhaps, barring the grease demons, which is a unique Sri Lanka phenomenon.)
What is self evident in the verbose, like the one above, is the unique story of victimhood international pariahs and their evolving cousins have developed. Ultimately, the plight of myriad individuals, who were abducted in white vans or detained arbitrarily are discounted. The purported victimhood of the State, which is culpable of a multitude of those crimes, is shouted from the rooftop by the executive.
Old wine in new bottles
Such verbose is old wine in new bottles. Rulers have historically highlighted real and imaginary external threats in order to mobilize the local population. For international pariahs, who have failed their people in numerous ways, fear psychosis over the external threat factor provides a convenient scapegoat for their multitude of failures. In the swathes of less enlightened masses that form the receptive audience for those leaders, there are enough willing believers for those rambling.
Therefore, President Rajapaksa held sway over his gullible audience and made them believe his government was a victim of the independent Judiciary and human rights and a multitude of freedoms, the human kind is privileged to enjoy.
When the perpetrator claims for the victimhood, suddenly the victim is made the culprit.
The ex-Chief Justice, Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, who was arbitrarily removed from her lawful position or Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was gunned down in broad daylight become the culprits, not only responsible for their own misfortune, but also for slandering the otherwise lilywhite reputation of the government.
That is, however, petty talk which smacks of the lack of sophistication of those who rule this country. The Third World, with a handful of exceptions, has been condemned to such buffoonery since the independence of most of those former colonies. This, therefore, is not a new phenomenon.
Victory not savoured
However, it is petty-mindedness that failed this country in its post -Nandikadal history. The Sri Lankan Forces which destroyed perhaps the worst terrorist group could not savour their victory or keep their heads high on the international front. That is not because several thousand civilians, who were either misfortunate to be in the wrong place, or made a conscious decision to side with the terrorists, perished in the final phase of the conflict. Collateral damages are an integral part of the war and more people have perished in other wars, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Chechnya. The flip side was how the government handled those allegations. The government's conduct was characterized by its manifest paranoia, high-handedness and the resort to dirty tactics of character assassination. It was conduct that cultivated a negative reputation for Sri Lanka.
That petty-mindedness of the rulers failed the country in its post-war democratic transformation. It sanctioned war-time counter terrorism strategies, ranging from extra-judicial killings to abductions, as a solution to peace-time problems. Such warped minds sanctioned the abduction of democratic political leaders and party activists, such as Lalith and Kugan, and reigned over a culture of fear in Jaffna. They provided regular flimsy excuses for the frequent attacks on the media.
However, such antics only galvanized Sri Lanka's place as an emerging pariah. That is a sad metamorphosis for one of Asia's old democracies. And even the leaders' who have come to view themselves as the State within this uneventful island, know deep down in their hearts that they are being viewed with a varying degree of contempt in the world's practicing democracies.
Those leaders also committed a grave injustice against the servicemen, who paid with their lives and limb to defeat a megalomaniac terrorist. Not only did they rob the public adoration the soldiers truly deserve, they deprived them of their professional dignity. Had the government handled allegations of war crime like any other civilized modern military would have done, our servicemen would have been in a better position to project their professional integrity.
The strength of the Sri Lankan defence forces is its trained and battle-hardened rank and file. The rest of the military hardware that were on display, ranging from antiquated T 55 and T 72 Main Battle Tanks, Kafir and M 27 fighters to gunboats, would be turned into a scrap metal by a single advanced fighter jet that modern militaries deploy.
It was the men who flew night missions in those outdated Kafirs, which the Israeli defence force discarded long ago, or commanded gunboats against swarming Sea Tiger boats that truly defined the victory achieved four years back.
Their expertise could have been useful elsewhere in the world, be it in the UN missions or in the form of Private Security consultancy, which makes a brisk business from Afghanistan to Iraq. However, concerns over human rights hindered their optimum international engagement. And some of the battle-hardened warriors were condemned to dig trenches on the Racecourse ground.
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