Sri Lanka: Roadblocks To Ethnic Reconciliation

Sri Lanka army ended 25 years of Tamil separatist insurgency on May 19, 2009 when it defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But the victory in what the government called the Humanitarian War (an oxymoron as no war is humanitarian) came at a colossal cost. Three lakhs of people became destitute in the war torn Northern Province. Infrastructure and public services totally destroyed during the war are yet to be fully restored. The trauma of war is very much there in Northern Province putting strains on Sri Lankan society. And the political process to bring back the Tamils to national mainstream is not making much headway.

The book under review is a compilation of 11 research papers on managing political, socio-economic and ethnic diversity challenges faced by Sri Lanka after the war presented at a seminar organized by CSA at Colombo on conflict resolution and peace building.] The political part has some interesting papers, while socio-economic papers generally present what Sri Lanka has been doing on this front. The book opens with an introduction presenting a bird’s eye view of the contents by Brig K Srinivasan and Ms Ancy Joseph.  The quality of papers included range from the excellent to the mediocre.

Professor Tissa Vitarana, Senior Minister of Sri Lanka presents an overview on nation building process. Vitarana headed the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) constituted by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his first tenure as President. It deliberated for three years over the complex politico-ethnic problems and made 21 recommendations accepted by 13 political parties. These recommendations were widely acclaimed by civil society for evolving a lasting solution to the ethnic confrontation in Sri Lanka. Though the President did act upon all the APRC recommendations for implementation after the war APRC report remains the only all embracing document on resolving the nation’s socio-ethnic problem.

This makes Prof Vitarana’s paper the most important one in the book. Prof Vitarana takes a pragmatic look at the road blocks to the ethnic reconciliation process. The reality is the SLFP-Sinhala Buddhist lobby is holding two-thirds majority in parliament, a federal solution is unfeasible. However, the professor argues that even in unitary solution it was possible to meet most of the aspirations of Tamil minority.  However, the Professor argues that the APRC’s recommendations be the starting point for the PSC deliberations may well achieve this.

Ambassador G Parthasarthy’s ‘Emerging trends in Indian regional policies and approach to relations with Sri Lanka’ provides a regional relevance to the post-conflict analysis of Sri Lanka. While it gives a compact survey of India’s worldview shaping its regional policy, the author’s treatment of India’s relations with Sri Lanka could have focused more on dilemmas faced by India due to the tardy response of Sri Lanka to Indian concerns to relate the paper better to the theme of the book.

The scholarly papers on ethnic diversity by N. Manoharan and Gnana Moonesinghe provide a good understanding of the ethnic complexity faced by Sri Lanka in particular. Readers would find it useful to read them as they provide the backdrop for issues discussed in other papers.

N. Selvakumaran’s paper on ‘Linguistic Challenge’ presents valuable insights into the evolution of language policy in Sri Lanka. However, l have my reservations on the coinage ‘linguistic challenge’ as language policy has been used as a political tool of ethnic politics. Though much has been written on language issue in Sri Lanka I wonder whether any empirical study has been carried out by policy makers to understand its impact on society.  One hopes Sri Lanka’s recently announced tri-lingual policy would remove language as a factor in politics and make it a tool for building ethnic understanding.

Rajiva Wijesinha is familiar figure in his role as presidential advisor on reconciliation. He had been writing and speaking on the Sri Lanka perspective on reconciliation issues in many forums. Considering this, his paper on political challenges falls short of expectation. If he had included the three areas for action he had recommended in the draft National Policy on Reconciliation for action, it would have added to the value of the paper. The three action areas are: recovery from the ravages of conflict and equitable development; political participation and administrative accountability; and ensuring justice and truth and understanding to ensure restitution not retribution.The three-point concept of governance touched upon in the summing up is too brief; it kindles curiosity without satisfying the reader.

Wijesinha’s observation “government concentrates more on telling a story that would translate into electoral successes and did not concentrate on winning hearts and minds” sums up the Sri Lanka ruling coalition’s attitudinal problem in dealing with post-conflict management.

The Tamil perspective presented by Kandiah Visveswaran, political science scholar, is short on analysis and long on description. While presenting the Tamil viewpoint, he has allowed emotion to overtake critical analysis. Roughly one third of the whole paper has focused on how historically Sinhala’s have tried to deprive the rights of Tamil nation. The rest of the paper is a long chronicle of ‘Sinhala government’s calculated approach’ to subjugate Tamils in the post-conflict period, without constructive suggestions from the Tamil perspective.

The author in his attempt to vilify Sinhala-Buddhists has justified acts of violence and terrorism of the LTTE saying that the presence of Tamil armed resistance was able to prevent access to large part of the Tamil homeland and obscured structural and cultural violence against Tamils. Actually LTTE was on the offensive to carve out an independent Tamil Eelam and not fighting a defensive battle. It eliminated more Tamil political leaders than Sri Lanka State. LTTE’s assassinations and suicide bombings killing scores of innocent civilians during the ceasefire period from 2002 to 2005  ensured the disintegration of the peace process of 2002.

However, the author has chosen to wish away the negative impact of LTTE’s provocative killings which gave a lease of life to Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism after people voted for peace and looked forward to the success of the peace process.

It is true Sri Lanka’s reconstruction effort has serious flaws and its efforts at political reconciliation are tardy. But to conclude that the ‘Sinhala polity is not ready to share power because power sharing would seriously hamper the once hidden agenda, open at present – that is to establish Sri Lanka as a pan-Sinhala state’ as the author has done will be trivialising the huge sacrifices Tamils have made for nearly 60 years of their political struggle. The political struggle interrupted by 25 years of insurgency that has once again resumed after the war. The only option for Tamils is to strengthen the political process to achieve their aims as there is enough global sympathy for them after the war.

The Muslim minority of Sri Lanka has been caught between the LTTE’s armed struggle and the majority Sinhala response to Tamil militancy. So it is interesting to note the national focus of Ambassador Javid Yusuf’s piece, ‘A national perspective through Muslim eyes’ in contrast to the Tamil perspective. He focuses on the need for translating the post war achievements into meaningful and equitable benefit for ordinary man’s day to day life. It will be useful for Tamil community to heed his suggestion to introspect seriously on their role in post war Sri Lanka to decide upon their strategies.

Yusuf’s plea for the leadership of TNA to augment its moral strength by publicly declaring the LTTE’s armed struggle was a mistake is a bitter prescription. Doe the TNA leadership has the moral courage to do so, after years of living in the reflected glory of the LTTE? He is critical of the Muslim leadership for making no attempt to explain their strategies in contrast to those adopted by Tamils as a result of which they were considered as undermining the Tamil cause. He also takes to task the community’s political leadership for ignoring the sufferings of Muslim community for their personal benefit.

The book is very well edited by Lt Gen (retd.) VR Raghavan and its production values are of a high order. Overall the book fulfills its aim of providing an understanding the complexities of post-war rebuilding of society in Sri Lanka. Research scholars, think tanks and policy makers will find the book very useful.

(Colombo telegraph)

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Education Policy And FUTA’s Mandate: Some Thoughts

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 Some people have made an argument that FUTA has exceeded the mandate of a trade union when it demands the government to allocate 6% of the GDP to education. This argument emanates from the position that trade unions have no business with government’s fiscal policy. According to the advocates of this position, deciding priorities and policies of allocating government expenditure is entirely the job of the government and its policy-making officials.
This essay is only supplementary to the excellent response earlier circulated by Shamala Kumar of Peradeniya.
To begin with, the argument of FUTA exceeding its mandate emanates from a narrow, minimalist, and sorry to say, outdated, understanding of trade unionism. Although trade unions have often focused their struggles on wage demands, trade unionism in general has not been confined to wage-related demands alone. Those who have the slightest understanding of the history of trade unionism in Sri Lanka would know that even during the colonial times, Sri Lanka’s trade unions combined economic demands with social and political demands as well. It is wrong to suggest that trade unionism by definition is concerned exclusively and only on wage demands.
What the critics of FUTA’s demand for increased allocation of government expenditure on public education want from FUTA is to confine its concerns to a narrow and minimalist framework. But, neither the FUTA nor many of the trade unions in Sri Lanka or elsewhere are minimalist in their orientation, agendas and demands.
This wage-related minimalism in trade union agenda is a position advocated at present in Sri Lanka by two groups of FUTA critics. The first group represents the interests and policies of the government and the Ministry of Higher Education. The second group consists mostly of economists who appear to share the view that fiscal policy decisions are the exclusive prerogative of the economists at the Treasury, and not the lesser mortals, the proletariat, organised in trade unions. The latter position gives rise to the wrong notion that ‘economists and the Treasury know best.’
The demand by the FUTA as well as well as FUTA’s responses to its critics debunks this myth of exclusive privilege of policy-making monopoly in allocating government expenditure that some economists seem to accord to the Treasury, without listening to what the society, the people, the citizens, and the so-called stakeholders have to say. In a way, it reflects a specific culture of policy-making that has been advanced in Sri Lanka and many developing countries under neo-liberal economic reforms. As many critical studies of policy making under globalization, structural adjustment programmes and neo-liberal reforms show, economic policy making has now been reduced to a small group of an exclusive elite whose members are the country’s President or the Prime Minister, Finance or Economic Affairs Minister, the Treasury Secretary, the resident representatives of the World Bank and the IMF, and a few highly-paid expatriate or self-exiled policy consultants. The majority of this group are unelected people, who are not accountable to the people. Actually, one of the most undemocratic consequences of this development for governance is that neither Parliament elected by the people nor the Cabinet of Ministers consisting of people’s representatives has any serious say in public policy-making. They can only shout in anger when they do not get enough money for their ministries! That is why our Parliament and the Cabinet have been reduced to what they are today. In fact, one major indirect implication of the FUTA demand is for the Cabinet and Parliament to retrieve their right to decide priorities of public expenditure allocations in a manner that serves the people of the country, their electors, not the agenda of a small group of economists converted to the neo-liberal ideology.
It is also necessary for our critics and for us also to recognise that wage and economic demands of trade unions are integrally linked to public policy, especially in a context where our country is in a period of rapid policy change. That is precisely why workers in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone opposed the pension reform bill and organised demonstrations to show that opposition. It was an open challenge to government policy and it reflected the fact that economic welfare of the labour cannot be detached from the policy decisions of the government. When public sector unions opposed privatisation, they were challenging government policy. When the FUTA is asking to allocate 6% of the GDP to education, it is demanding policy reforms that directly affect their wage demands as well. In Sri Lanka, many trade unions have now realised that their wage and service conditions and government policies are so intertwined that improvement in the first calls for re-orientation of the second.
Those who know about trade union politics also know that advancing wage demands alone by trade unions creates a paradoxical challenge in which the wage demands benefit only its members, not the society at large. This is a problem that has been debated in the trade union movement in the world extensively, even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Sri Lanka, employers and governments have always resorted to the tactic of branding wage demands of trade unions as having been motivated by the selfish interests of the members. This, in fact, happened during the first phase of the FUTA struggle. When a union broadens its concerns and links itself with issues of public interests that transcends the so-called selfish interests of its members, that union is accused of going beyond its mandate!
Moreover, the minimalist construction of the FUTA mandate by its critics is also a position that refuses to consider FUTA as a stakeholder in education in the country. It considers trade unions merely as organisations of wage-slaves that should not exceed their wage-labour mandate. This is actually a colonial as well as neo-liberal attitude to trade unions. It is colonial because, during colonialism, no trade union or a citizens’ organisation was expected to challenge the state, state policy or state officials. ‘Subjects’ did not have the right to challenge the rulers. They had to fight for that right. It is neo-liberal because the neo-liberal, as well as classical-liberal, ideology does not expect the citizens to be active participants in the political or policy process, except as passive individual citizens or minimally active consumers. It is social democracy that took trade unionism beyond these narrow confines and made trade unions active agents of social, political and policy change. Most of the trade unions in Sri Lanka have been nurtured in this social democratic tradition.
And it is sad that this colonial, outdated and hierarchical attitude to trade unionism is now being propagated by some of our own colleagues in the universities, some of whom are members of our own unions. May be the FUTA should organise a short course on trade unionism – Trade Union Politics 1101 –for its members who still operate on the colonial understanding of trade unions. In that course, some readings on new trends in trade union politics globally could be easily distributed for the benefit of all.
The role of trade unions as a stakeholder of public policy is a key principle that the FUTA highlights in the present phase of its struggle. This is a task that FUTA should continue to uphold as within its trade union mandate. () (Colombotelegraph)



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Sri Lankan government moves to gag web sites

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Sri Lankan Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella announced on July 12 that the government planned new regulations under the draconian Press Council Act to control web sites. Once the cabinet approved the amendments he would present them to parliament for approval within weeks, Rambukwella added.

The regulations would extend the coverage of the Press Council, a government tribunal that can fine and jail journalists, to web sites as well as other media outlets. This step is part of an intensifying attack on media and democratic rights, designed to strengthen the police-state apparatus developed by President Mahinda Rajapakse amid an intensifying economic and political crisis.

Rambukwella did not specify all the details of the proposed measures but said the government would charge 100,000 rupees ($US770) to register a web site and 50,000 rupees every year to maintain the registration.

The minister said the provisions would apply the same rules to web sites as to news sources. “If any person or institution is disturbed or defamed by erroneous news reports, photographs published in any newspaper they could complain to the Sri Lanka Press Council,” he said. These rules against so-called “mudslinging” or “disturbing” anyone give enormous scope to the government to crack down on dissent.

Rambukwella claimed: “The free media is not under threat.” Yet, the announcement came just two weeks after the police raided and sealed off the offices of pro-United National Party (UNP) opposition web sites, Sri Lanka Mirror and Sri Lanka X News, and arrested nine workers, accusing them of “conspiracy against the government.” The police also seized computers and documents.

To justify the June 29 arrests, the police cited penal code 118, which prohibits the publication of articles defamatory of the president. When the defence lawyers explained that the clause had been repealed in 2002, a magistrate ordered the release of those arrested. However, the police are now seeking to charge them under other provisions in the penal code.

The government’s Press Council (PC) has the powers of a district court. Its chairman and members are appointed by the president. It can hold an inquiry into a complaint and censure the proprietor, printer, publisher, editor or journalist of a newspaper, and also direct them to publish an apology and correction.

If a complaint amounts to defamation, a defendant can be punished with a fine of up to 5,000 rupees or two years’ imprisonment, or both. Penalties can also be imposed for publishing cabinet proceedings, “official secrets,” government financial information or defence matters. Contempt or disrespect for the authority of the PC is an offense punishable by the Supreme Court, but no legal action can be instituted against PC members.

The Press Council Act (PCA) was introduced in 1973 by the coalition government of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Stalinist Communist Party. The legislation was adopted after the crushing of the abortive 1971 guerrilla uprising led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, during which the military killed 15,000 rural youth.

Facing increasing opposition from the working class and rural poor against attacks on their living conditions under conditions of economic crisis internationally and in Sri Lanka, the SLFP-led coalition government invoked draconian emergency laws and imposed the PCA to muzzle the press.

Since then, governments, politicians and companies have used the PCA to witch-hunt newspapers, editors and journalists. Among them was Kamkaru Mawtha (Workers’ Path), the newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist League—the forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party.

A right-wing United National Party-led government temporarily rendered the infamous law defunct in 2002 during negotiations with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end the island’s protracted civil war. However, it did not abolish the law.

The Rajapakse government that came to power in 2005 as part of its renewed communal war against the LTTE sought to intimidate and suppress the media. Under this government, 16 journalists and media workers have been killed by pro-government death squads and at least another 25 journalists subjected to physical attack. Others have fled the country, fearing for their lives.

In June 2009, just two weeks after the war ended in the military defeat of the LTTE, Rajapakse reactivated the PC to further intimidate the press.

Facing a deepening economic crisis and developing resistance by workers, poor and young people, the Rajapakse government—like other governments around the world—is fearful of popular means of communication and web sites.

The government is notorious for blocking web sites critical of it, or which expose the corruption of ruling party politicians and the use of military intelligence to attack opposition and workers’ protests. Last November, without any legal basis, the media ministry requested all web sites to register with it.

In March, the Defence and Urban Development ministry imposed new restrictions on widely distributed SMS news alert services. Any news related to national security, the security forces and the police must now get prior approval by the Media Centre for National Security.

In May, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the closure of four web sites that had failed to register with the government. The court ruled that freedom of expression in Sri Lanka was not an absolute right and could be restricted, even without passing a law to do so.

The government’s latest move has been condemned by international media organisations. “We view this move as the third stage in a crackdown on user generated content on the web, following the ban of four web sites in November last year for their failure to register with the Ministry and the police raids carried out on the office premises of two news portals in June,” the International Federation of Journalists said.

This intensifying repression is an attempt to counter deepening disaffection among workers, the rural and urban poor, and youth and students. The government is imposing a series of austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that drastically affect living standards.

This month, the IMF backed the austerity measures by approving the final instalment of a $US2.6 billion loan, which was granted in July 2009 to avert a balance of payment crisis. The government is now seeking another $500 million from the IMF, on terms that will inevitably mean even more severe cuts to public spending and price subsidies for essential items such as food and fuel. (WSWS)

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President Mahindha & Sri Lankan Economy

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Sri Lanka Free Education Ministers' Paradox

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Mannar Muslims against Pro LTTE Judge

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The shooting order was released by the Mannar Judge. It should be noted that according to the civil law of Sri Lanka, a judge is not capable of issue in shooting order at a public consign. By reality, this case should be raised against the judge for criminal act. This judge already has some internal conflicts with the Muslim community, he made use of this issue in order to create problems among the Muslims. As Hon. Minister Rishad Bathiudeen is one of the main leader of the Muslim community, the judge turned this issue on the other side and placed the blame on Hon Minister.Therefore the whole Muslim community should raise against this problem makers and show that we are all united cause we a Muslims.* Note - This mail has also been forwarded to Non Muslims cause this type of issues may be raised against other community also generate a new route for the establishment of terrorism in the peaceful country.

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රත් වු මන්නාරම ගැන අමාත්‍ය රිෂාඩ් කතා කරයි.... from Young Asia Television on Vimeo.

State of Human Rights: Briefing the Media

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Sri Lanka: Pro-government thugs kill two JVP supporters

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Government-backed thugs gunned down two members of the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) at a political meeting on June 15. The murders are part of the ruthless, anti-democratic methods being used to stifle any opposition to the government’s imposition of austerity measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund.

A group of eight to ten thugs arrived on motorbikes, armed with T-56 weapons, and opened fire on a JVP campaign meeting at Katuwana in the Hambantota district. The gunmen killed Edirimannage Malani, 51, a mother of three, and Nimantha Heshan, 18, a carpenter, and injured more than a dozen others.

A JVP provincial councillor was addressing the local “pocket meeting” of about 80 people as part of the party’s 45-day national campaign against government measures that have led to sharply rising prices for essential items including food. It is a desperate attempt on the JVP’s part to boost its sagging base of support.

The JVP supported the election of President Mahinda Rajapakse in November 2005 and had previously been part of a ruling coalition with his Sri Lanka Freedom Party. The party, however, went into opposition and has since split twice—a group broke away and joined the Rajapakse government in 2008, and this year another faction split to form the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP).

Neither the JVP nor any of its breakaways represent socialism, but are based on a combination of Sinhala extremism and empty populist promises. All of them backed Rajapakse’s ruthless communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Both the JVP and FSP are seeking to exploit the widespread popular anger over deteriorating living standards and the government’s deepening attacks on democratic rights.

The Rajapakse government, however, cannot tolerate any, even limited, political opposition. The attack in Katuwana is particularly significant as it is President Rajapakse’s hometown.

As well as firing at the crowd, the thugs also severely beat up those in attendance, and destroyed their vehicles and property. The attack continued for almost half an hour, but the police did not intervene even though the local police station was less than three kilometres away. The police ignored phone calls from wounded victims and did not arrive on the scene for more than two hours.

The delay points to police connivance in the violence, allowing the criminals plenty of time to escape. The area is a designated High Security Zone in the president’s home town and is always heavily guarded by police, Special Task Force (STF) and army units. No one could flee the scene of such a crime without the backing of the security forces.

Within hours of the shootings, before any investigation had begun, the director general of the Media Centre for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalle, issued a statement asserting that the incident resulted from a clash between two JVP factions. This claim was flatly rejected by the JVP and the FSP. In all previous such attacks, the government has made similar claims, in a crude attempt to disguise its role.

Despite eyewitnesses identifying some of the gunmen, the inspector general of police told a press conference that he needed more evidence to make any arrests. When a journalist pointed out that one of those involved was the subject of several arrest warrants for previous crimes, he cynically asked the public to provide information on where the wanted man was hiding.

Fearing protests at the victims’ funerals, the police obtained a court order banning marches, the hoisting of black flags, the distribution of leaflets, the pasting of posters and the display of banners in the area. Undeterred, thousands of people attended the funerals, held amid tight security.

Widespread anger over the cold-blooded attack on a political gathering made it impossible for the police to ignore the crime. Normally in case of crimes by government-sponsored thugs, the police do nothing and simply declare that “investigations continue”.

This time, however, the police were forced to produce the main suspect, Gamage Amarasiri, who surrendered to the Thangalla High Court on June 19. According to media reports, Amarasiri is an underworld gangster with close political connections to some local government members.

In court, Judge Chandrasena Rajapaksha said more than 100 arrest warrants had been issued against Amarasiri, “but police never arrested him.” The mainstream media reported this as a “shocking disclosure”. Actually, this record illustrates how the so-called law enforcement agencies routinely protect the pro-government thugs.

The apparent use of such gangsters is just part of the police state apparatus built up by the government, with the backing of all the establishment parties, including the JVP, during the civil war against the LTTE. Now the government is using similar measures not only against opposition parties, but against working class opposition to its austerity program.

Last June, when Free Trade Zone (FTZ) workers agitated against the government’s desperate move to appropriate the Employees Provident Fund by investing it in the stock market, the police opened fire, killing Roshen Chanaka, a young FTZ worker, and injuring several others. No investigation was conducted to punish those responsible for the police violence.

In January this year, when the fishermen protested in Chilaw, on the west coast, against the government’s fuel price hikes, police shot dead a fisherman and maimed several others. These killings are just the sharpest expression of the government’s anti-democratic methods.

The brutal killing of JVP supporters at a public meeting must be condemned. But the JVP itself bears political responsibility for helping Rajapakse into power and supporting the build-up of the state apparatus and its crimes during Rajapakse’s renewed war against the LTTE that ended in May 2009.

The leader of the pseudo-radical Nava Sama Samaja Party, Wickramabahu Karunaratne, took part in a press conference with the FSP over the incident. He boasted to the audience that he was “forcing the government to bring the killers to courts.” Such claims serve only to foster the dangerous illusion that the Rajapakse government, which is implicated in the attack, can be pressured into respecting democratic rights.

The Socialist Equality Party warns workers, youth and the rural poor that their basic rights can be defended only in the struggle to oust this government, and overturn capitalist rule altogether. Even if, for tactical political reasons, the hired hands who executed the latest killings are brought before courts, the government’s underlying course will not alter, and its austerity agenda will require ever-more violent and anti-democratic methods of rule. (WSWS)

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Sri Lanka tilts toward the US

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As the Obama administration escalates its diplomatic and strategic moves in Asia to undercut Chinese influence, the Sri Lankan government is shifting course—distancing itself somewhat from Beijing and attempting to draw closer to Washington.

This manoeuvring was evident at the Shangri-la security dialogue in Singapore earlier this month. Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris met with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Martin Dempsey, on the sidelines of the talks on June 5. In response to a Sri Lankan request, Dempsey agreed to provide military assistance, in particular to the Sri Lankan navy.

Few details have been published. But the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry web site noted that the US and India had “responded positively” to Rajapakse’s request for “enhanced training opportunities for capacity building of defence personnel.” Gotabhaya Rajapakse is President Mahinda Rajapakse’s brother.

The report also noted: “As a coastal nation, the meetings recognised the pivotal role that the Sri Lanka Navy could play in strengthening the security of sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and resolved to co-operate closely in drawing on their synergies in combating international terrorism.”

The reference to “combatting international terrorism” simply obscures the real aim of this developing naval collaboration. At the Singapore meeting, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the US would be building up its naval presence in the Asia Pacific region to 60 percent of its total forces by 2020.

The US focus on naval power is aimed at controlling key sea routes used by China to ship energy and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa. In the event of a conflict with China, the US navy would be able to mount an economic blockade by halting vital Chinese imports.

Sri Lanka is strategically positioned at the southern tip of the Indian sub-continent near key routes across the Indian Ocean from the Middle East and Africa. It could play a vital logistical role in any US-China conflict, as it did during World War II for British imperialism. After the fall of Singapore and Burma to Japanese troops, the headquarters of the Allied Southeast Asia Command was relocated to Kandy in the central hills area of Sri Lanka.

President Mahinda Rajapakse relied heavily on China for economic, political and military support in his government’s communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In return, he allowed China to build a major port at Hambantota on the southern tip of the island.

In December 2009, a report by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, entitled “Sri Lanka: Re-charting US Strategy after the War,” declared that the US could not afford to “lose” Sri Lanka. It called for intensified efforts to bring Colombo into Washington’s orbit.

The Sri Lankan military waged a brutal war, costing the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, before the LTTE was defeated in May 2009. The Obama administration, which backed Colombo’s war, has nevertheless used the threat of war crimes investigations in order to pressure Rajapakse to align more closely with Washington.

In March this year, a US-sponsored resolution was passed at the UN Human Rights Council, calling on the Sri Lankan government to ensure “justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation.” The resolution was never intended to defend the democratic rights of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. Rather, it was a warning that the US could intensify the diplomatic pressure on Sri Lanka.

The Rajapakse government decided to mend its bridges with the US. It dispatched External Affairs Minister Peiris to the US on May 19, nominally to present a report on what the government was doing for post-war reconciliation.

According to media reports, US military chief Dempsey and Indian Defence Minister A. K. Antony expressed their appreciation in Singapore for Peiris’s report on the government’s “rehabilitation and reconstruction” work in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The US and India turned a blind eye to the fact that these predominantly Tamil areas remain under military occupation. Democratic rights are seriously curtailed and about 17,000 people are still languishing in refugee camps unable to return to their homes.

The Rajapakse government’s adaptation to the Obama administration’s aggressive intervention into Asia is revealing. Like its counterparts throughout the region, the Sri Lankan ruling class confronts a fundamental dilemma. It continues to rely heavily on China as an export market and source of aid and investment. At the same time, it cannot afford to alienate the world’s strongest military power, which also plays a significant role in determining financial assistance from international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Colombo’s room to manoeuvre between Washington and Beijing is vanishing. Rajapakse and his government still continue to cautiously denounce “the international conspiracy” of war crimes accusations against Sri Lanka—as a means of diverting the anger of the masses over deteriorating living standards. Increasingly, however, the tilt is toward the US. (WSWS)

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Muslim & Non Muslim Integration; by A.P.M. Abbas (Plus*)

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(Plus*; Holy quran says....man was created weak...TMQ 4:28)

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Sri Lankan president’s salute to militarism

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Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse used the third anniversary of the defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to stage an unprecedented show of military might. The parade only underscored the degree to which his government rests on the country’s huge military apparatus.

In all, more than 13,500 members of the security forces paraded in Colombo: 398 army officers and 4,628 soldiers, 115 naval officers and 2,651 sailors, 78 air force officers and 1,383 airmen, together with the civil defence force and the police, including the notorious Special Task Force. The parade was accompanied by 148 vehicle columns, a fly-past of 33 war planes and a naval convoy of 72 warships off the coast.

The roads leading to the Galle Face Green were all closed for a week to allow for rehearsals, causing serious disruption to traffic to the central city area. On May 19, the day of the celebrations, ordinary people were totally absent. The event was an entirely military affair—even the children who were brought in to wave the national flag came from a school exclusively set up for the sons and daughters of servicemen.

The stench of militarism surrounded the entire affair. It was deliberately designed to intimidate working people and youth amid growing opposition to the Rajapakse government’s austerity measures. The parade and speeches were broadcast at length on radio and television.

Rajapakse’s speech again hailed the “victory” over the LTTE. Hundreds of thousands were killed in more than a quarter century of a criminal war to defend the power and privileges of the dominant Sinhala ruling elites. In the last months, the Sri Lankan military killed tens of thousands of civilians. After the last pockets of LTTE resistance were crushed, the army herded nearly 300,000 men, women and children into detention camps. Three years later, there are still 17,000 languishing in the camps.

Rajapakse referred to “war heroes and veterans” more than 15 times in the first 10 minutes of his speech. He boasted of the benefits his government had given to veterans: the largest housing project in Sri Lanka, a separate school for “war heroes”, care for disabled veterans, and grants for their children. “I do not think any other country in the world respects its heroes and veterans in such a manner,” he declared.

In reality, the ranks of the military were filled out with economic conscripts, young people driven to join up by poverty and unemployment. They were used as cannon fodder in a ruthless war of attrition that left many dead or disabled, with their families subsequently struggling to survive.

Referring to the role of the military, Rajapakse declared that the “war heroes” who established peace now have “the task of rebuilding the country and adding to its beauty.” Over the past three years, the government has extended the military’s ambit into many areas of the economy. The Urban Development Authority (UDA) has been placed under the defence ministry. It is overseeing the eviction of more than 70,000 families from shanties in central Colombo as part of the government’s plans to transform the city into a finance hub.

Rajapakse bragged that his government had ended the country’s state of emergency, but most of its provisions remain in force in separate legislation. Thousands of Tamil youth are still being held without charge or trial as “LTTE suspects” under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Abductions and “disappearances” by pro-government death squads colluding with the security forces continue unabated. The government-appointed Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has reported 21 disappearances from the beginning of the year to April 18. No one has been arrested for these crimes, let alone punished.

Towards the end of his speech, Rajapakse rejected calls for an end to the military occupation of Sri Lanka’s North and East. “We must ask if we are in a position to remove the armed forces camps in the north and reduce our attention on national security,” he declared. “That is not possible. Armed services camps are not found in the north alone. They are seen throughout the country. They are seen in Colombo and Giruvapattu in the south.”

The continued heavy presence of the military, not just in predominantly Tamil areas but throughout the island, points to acute underlying social tensions. The Sri Lankan military has not been reduced in size since the end of the war and remains, per capita, one of the largest in the world.

Rajapakse declared that the war had “compelled us all to live in the midst of many restrictions and obstructions” but insisted that “today, the country that faced such restrictions has returned to normal.” For working people this merely sounds like a bad joke. Rajapakse hinted at the growing opposition to the government when he appealed for “patience to save the victory we have won.” Workers expected that the end of the war would bring an improvement in living standards, but conditions have only worsened.

The government is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to slash social spending and implement pro-market restructuring. Rajapakse has reduced price subsidies on a range of basic items, including fuel and essential foods. A virtual wage freeze is in place, even as prices rise and the rupee has devalued by nearly 20 percent. Only the wealthy elite has profited from the Rajapakse government’s projects to “rebuild the nation.”

The huge security forces and police state apparatus built up over nearly three decades of war is above all directed at defending the power and privileges of the ruling elite against the growing resistance of the working class. That was what was on parade at the “victory” celebrations. (WSWS)

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