The talk of the town last week was Sri Lanka’s epic victory at the UN Human Rights Council. The resolution brought by Switzerland against Sri Lanka at a special session of the UNHRC convened especially to discuss Sri Lanka, backfired against its Western European sponsors. What this victory showed was that the world community was becoming aware that this tendency to use human rights issues by certain western nations to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries was going to pose a grave danger to the sovereignty of all nations and not just of Sri Lanka. The surprisingly vehement statements made by countries that normally do not seek prominence on the world scene is a clear indication that with this abortive session of the UNHRC, the world has moved an inch closer to becoming multi polar and little Sri Lanka has been able to do its part to fashion the new world order. Western countries accustomed to using human rights issues for political purposes will henceforth have to think twice before using international fora, to wage war by other means.

The prime movers of this special session in Geneva were Britain, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Their attempt to corner Sri Lanka was defeated not once but twice. When Switzerland presented a resolution against Sri Lanka, demanding among other things that Sri Lanka should investigate alleged human rights abuses committed during the war, Sri Lanka presented a counter proposal stressing among other things the principle of non-interference in matters which are within the domestic jurisdiction of sovereign states. This counter proposal was a brainchild of our intrepid Ambassador to the UN, Dayan Jayatilleke. On Wednesday, the Swiss tried to bring some amendments to Sri Lanka’s counter-proposal stressing among other things the need for ‘accountability and follow up’ on the recent events in Sri Lanka.

Dayan’s showmanship

Cuba presented a motion against debating these amendments brought by Switzerland to the Sri Lankan counter proposal and this won by 22 votes against 17. Then the Swiss called for a vote on the Sri Lankan counter proposal and this final vote was also won by Sri Lanka with 29 in Sri Lanka’s favour, 12 against, and seven abstaining. This whole special session on Sri Lanka was a fiasco for its sponsors. Pakistan, ever a good friend of Sri Lanka, congratulated Sri Lanka for its victory over one of the most dangerous, ruthless, and vicious terrorist organizations and said Sri Lanka was right to protect its territorial integrity by all means at its disposal against LTTE terrorism.

Seventeen countries signed the proposal, calling for a special session. But when the final vote was taken, only 12 voted against Sri Lanka. One of the original sponsors of the special session, Mauritius, abstained. The vehemence of many countries that spoke in Sri Lanka’s favor may have surprised the sponsors. Among the seven countries that abstained from voting for or against, the two most important countries were Japan and South Korea. Judging by their speeches made at the special session and the consultations that preceded it, their abstaining did not mean that they were against Sri Lanka or for the European sponsored motion.

Japan had called for constructive engagement and cooperation with Sri Lanka to bring about consensus and also called for international assistance to Sri Lanka. South Korea had been more outspoken. They had said that any attempt to interfere with the internal affairs of sovereign states and to impose solutions should be rejected and the international community should cooperate with the Government of Sri Lanka. Korea was also gravely concerned over the politicization, selectivity and double standards that were practiced by some by singling out Sri Lanka for purposes other than genuine human rights while ignoring gross human rights violations including civilian killings as a result of bloody wars that were carried out by powerful countries elsewhere in the world. Never have the European nations ever had their snouts rubbed on the ground like this. Ambassador Jayatilleke should be commended for being able to do what would have been considered impossible by lesser men. Clearly, it was Dayan’s influence that got Cuba presenting a motion to block the debate on the Swiss sponsored amendments to Sri Lanka’s counter proposal.

The most important political event of this moment is the opening up of new space to manoeuvre in the wake of the LTTE defeat. An opportunity to remake Sri Lanka anew has now presented itself. It will take more than a year for the realities accompanying the defeat of the LTTE to sink into the Tamil community. The LTTE has been a part of the political landscape for so long that it is difficult to conceive of life without it. Some Tamils had expressed surprise and others were chagrined that the Sinhalese were still eating kiribath days after the LTTE had been finished off. For the Sinhalese to celebrate the demise of a hate figure is nothing new. Many celebrated the death of Rohana Wijeweera, in 1989 and the death of R.Premadasa in much the same way even though the celebrations were not stretched out over a number of days. But then the JVP’s second insurrection lasted only for two and a half years and President Premadasa ruled the country only for around four years. But the LTTE did as they pleased for over 30 years and one has to suppose that the celebration has to be proportionate to the harassment faced.

Even-handed treatment

During the heady days when the death of Prabhakaran was announced, I got several calls from Sinhalese acquaintances that Tamils were huddling in fear in their houses as the Sinhalese and to a lesser extent the Muslims celebrated on the streets. This to some extent is inevitable because the terrorists killed were Tamil. But to suggest that there were any ethnic undertones in the way the Sri Lankan armed forces went about crushing the LTTE, is plain nonsense. The forces have been very even handed in its treatment of terrorists belonging to all ethnic communities. Sinhalese terrorists were treated even more harshly than the Tamil terrorists in many respects. I remember going to see TNA parliamentarian N.Srikantha some time after the JVP’s second insurrection of 1989 and he was shocked at the casualty figures given in my articles in the Island. I had given a figure of 40,000 dead on both sides during the two and a half year JVP insurrection and Srikantha said that in ten years of fighting, that many had not been killed in the Tamil separatist conflict. Of course since then Eelam Wars 2,3, and 4 has seen the northern score outstripping that of the south.

When the Chandrika Kumaratunga government came into power in 1994, it instituted four commissions of inquiry into the alleged disappearances during the JVP’s abortive insurrection. I had the opportunity to express my opinion at a seminar at which the PA government’s three commissioners dealing with the disappearances of Sinhala youth were present. What I told them was that terrorism can be quelled only by a greater terror and that then UNP government was fully justified in what it did; and that what everybody should do is to go home and sleep over it instead of wasting time talking about human rights. The Sinhalese terrorists got what they fully deserved and so did the Tamil terrorists.

Hence if anybody sees any ethnic bias in the way Sinhala terrorists and Tamil terrorists have been treated, that is not consonant with the facts and is due to self-pity and shock. The problem with the northern and eastern Tamils is that they have never had a leader worth the name. The eastern Tamils never actually had leaders of their own until Karuna and Pillaiyan emerged and were hitherto led by northern Tamils who themselves were seriously short of leadership talent. When Saumyamoorthy Thondaman died, I described him as "the D.S.Senanayake of the Tamils". Thondaman was a careful conservative leader, the likes of which the Ceylon Tamils have never had. He initially joined the TULF but hastily distanced himself when they adopted a separatist stance. Thondaman, an Indian Tamil, who was not as well educated as the northern Tamil leaders, knew instinctively what was feasible and what was not. The problem with the northern Tamils is that even though they have produced professionals in many fields, their politicians never have had basic commonsense.

Carnival of clowns

G.G.Ponnambalam who led the Tamils in the pre independence era, could have, if his demands were reasonable, convinced the British framers of the independence constitution of the need to have some special provision for the Tamils - perhaps some regional autonomy or something like that. But the demand he made was so outrageously unacceptable that the Soulbury commission thought nothing of rejecting it out of hand. Since the British had the discretion at that time, the Sinhalese could not have blocked whatever was given to the Tamils. Ponnambalam had a God given opportunity and he blew it. He asked for too much and got nothing. That pattern would sound familiar even when it comes to Prabhakaran – he too asked for what could not be given and in the end got nothing. In sixty years, nobody had learnt anything. In between this, there have been plenty of others masquerading as Tamil leaders who were no better.

Chelvanayagam and Amirthalingam started something that they could not control. The Vadukkodai resolution calling for an independent state for Tamils was made in 1976. Barely four years later, they had completely lost control over things. According to Anuruddha Ratwatte’s biography, by the time Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike visited Jaffna in 1980, Amirthalingam was so much a prisoner of the terrorist groups that had sprung up, that Mrs Bandaranaike’s visit was coordinated by young terrorists on behalf of the TULF. If Amirthalingam had taken the cue from Thondaman, he may have been able to live until he died of natural causes. Chelvanayagam fortunately died before he needed to be eliminated. But Amirthalingam lived on to reap what he had sowed in a hail of LTTE bullets. Even Neelan Tiruchelvam was wanting in foresight. He should have had sufficient intelligence to understand that there was nothing that someone like him could do in the present context and he should have either left the country or kept away from politics. As it is, he died for nothing.

For six decades, the northern Tamil leadership has been nothing but a carnival of clowns, much more so than even in Tamil Nadu where being a film personality is the prime criterion for political leadership. Even those film industry clowns have had instincts and horse sense far superior to that of the educated Ceylon Tamil leadership. No Tamil leadership anywhere in the world, India, South Africa, Malaysia or Singapore have brought suffering upon their populations the way the Ceylon Tamil leadership has on their people.

This is a part of the tragedy of the long suffering northern Tamils. They have never produced a careful conservative leadership. Another dangerous trend among the Tamils in general is the lack of plurality and the tendency to gravitate towards ‘sole representatives’ of the community. At first the sole representative was G.G.Ponnambalam, followed by Chelvanayagam and Amrithalingam. The mantle thereafter fell on Prabhakaran and now with the latter’s death, they have no leadership at all. Had the other Tamil armed groups like PLOTE, EROS, TELO and EPRLF that were formed parallel to the LTTE, been able to fight off the LTTE in the mid-1980s, the Tamil community may not be in this sorry plight today because the leaders of those other armed groups were more intelligent than that of the LTTE. But the whole trend in Tamil society was in favour of one leadership.

There was also the question of spinelessness of these other armed groups. In the mid 1980s, Rohana Wijeweera’s brother-in-law, H.N.Fernando, who was the head of the Ceylon Teacher’s Union was involved in a conspiracy against the J.R.Jayewardene government. He had to flee to the north where he found refuge with PLOTE. One day he had woken up in the morning to find the whole house deserted. Wandering about the house in search of his Tamil comrades, he had glanced out of a window and seen some young men with their guns pointed at the house. Those were the days that the LTTE was eliminating rival armed groups. Immediately realizing what was going on, Fernando had come out of the house with his arms held high shouting in Sinhala "Don’t shoot, I’m Sinhalese!". The LTTEers outside, after they got over their surprise, had ascertained Fernando’s identity and put him on a bus to Colombo. His PLOTE hosts, on learning that an LTTE contingent was on its way to their house had fled, leaving their guest to fend for himself.

Such a lily-livered attitude does not conduce to plurality in any society. Even among the Sinhalese, there are plenty of people who would like to become sole representatives of this community; but the dynamic in Sinhala society gravitates against that. Tamil society has also got used to a policy of dishonesty. At least the LTTE was consistent in their demand for an Eelam. But moderate Tamils were happy to ride piggyback on the LTTE and keep shifting the goalposts. In 1981, the Tamil leadership agreed to the District Development Councils and were very satisfied with what they had got. Then when the LTTE and other Tamil groups said that was not enough and the Indo-Lanka Peace accord saw the introduction of the provincial councils system. When the LTTE rejected that too, the Tamil moderates were happy to shift the goal posts once again and say that what the Tamil community needed was something in excess of the 13th amendment. Thus came the constitutional proposals of the PA government in 1995 and 2000. Every time the LTTE carried out a successful attack on a military or civilian target, the demands and ‘aspirations’ also increased. The entire devolution debate and the Tamil agenda was driven by terrorism.

There are natural consequences of this kind of approach. If terrorism is the driving force of devolution, then with the defeat of terrorism the concept of devolution also must necessarily suffer a setback. I read a document signed by some prominent Tamil citizens before the LTTE was finished off that talked about the draft constitutions of 1995 and 2000 and even the ceasefire agreement of 2002. What that shows is that the ground realities of the new situation have not sunk into the Tamil elite as yet. Terrorism driven demands cannot be sustained without terrorism. Even the 13th amendment was the result of terrorism. It’s only the DDC system that was obtained without the aid of terrorism. Once the LTTE has been eliminated, it is not realistic to expect to carry on from where the LTTE left off. What Sri Lanka needs now is not talk of Tamil aspirations, but addressing the just grievances of the Tamil people. Victor Ivan in a series of articles to The Island boiled these down to just two issues. The Tamils were on a heady roller coaster ride for three decades and, as Kumar Ponnambalam pointed out, Tamil grievances were replaced by Tamil aspirations and many people have forgotten where it all started.

Ambedkar’s achievement

The first of the points raised by Ivan was the use of Tamil language in dealings with the state. The second was media wise standardization in university admissions. One of these issues have been solved largely due to Prabhakaran. Because of the war, the Jaffna district fell behind in educational achievement and in the late 1990s hundreds of Jaffna students went in a procession to see Minister Douglas Devananda and demanded that Jaffna district be downgraded in the district wise standardization system so that more students could enter university. Devananda told the students that 30 years ago he had gone in a demonstration down the same street demanding that the standardization system be abolished! "This is what Prabhakaran has done to our community", Devananda had told the students. Hence one of the main causes that created despondency among Tamil youth is now gone. The issue that remains is that of making it possible to use the Tamil language in dealings with the state and judiciary, as provided for in the constitution. The laws are already in place but their implementation must be effected.

It is also not practical to give one community exclusive land rights in any part of the country out of proportion to their percentage of the population. Besides, no community should have exclusive rights to a part of the country and there has to be complete freedom of movement within the country. What Sri Lanka now needs at this historic moment is a complete overhaul of the system of government which has been thrown into confusion by piecemeal, unplanned additions like the 13th amendment and the 17th amendment. Sri Lanka needs a new constitution and this new constitution will have to be a well thought out one like the Indian model which works just fine because the Indians took the time to produce a workable system of government. In Sri Lanka constitution making or amending has been driven by the need to give into the demands of terrorists and other political reasons like the need to clip the wings of dictatorial presidents. Probably no country in Asia has such an unsatisfactory constitution as Sri Lanka and one has to seize this historic moment to put that right.

The whole devolution debate has also been skewed towards accommodating the demands of terrorists. No system of government should be decided at gunpoint. Why the Indian system works is because a constitution was put in place and nobody is allowed to detract from it. Dr B.R.Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution, devolved certain powers to the linguistic regions because that was the only way a huge and unwieldy country like India could be governed. Likewise, the foremost place should be given to practical considerations and not to titillating one community or another. When Jawaharlal Nehru introduced anti-secession provisions into the Indian constitution, the politicians in Tamil Nadu at that time who were for separatism would not have been happy; but they fell in line nevertheless. A state sometimes has to curb the ‘aspirations’ of some sections of the population. Otherwise it would be impossible to govern.

The next Tamil leadership to come up, if they are wise, will concentrate on getting outstanding grievances such as the implementation of the language provisions in the constitution addressed instead of running behind unattainable ‘aspirations’. Aspirations are open ended, and there is no way that Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim aspirations can practically be fulfilled. Aspirations, is a term that should no longer be in the vocabulary of Sri Lankan Tamil leaders. And when it comes to rights, this should be equal rights with the Sinhalese and the Muslims and not to enjoy rights which are not enjoyed by other communities.