Revolutionary movement and the “spirit of generalisation”

Pratyush Chandra

“There are no miracles in nature or history, but every abrupt turn in history, and this applies to every revolution, presents such a wealth of content, unfolds such unexpected and specific combinations of forms of struggle and alignment of forces of the contestants, that to the lay mind there is much that must appear miraculous”. V.I. Lenin

Can there be a Maoist movement or for that matter, a Marxist movement? We have been using the phrase “Communist Movement” for a long time, but what does it signify? What is the utility of these phrases in the context of today’s people’s and working class struggle? In my view, these terms at best can help us identify particular ideological streams in that struggle. But to present them as “movements” themselves demonstrate a “sectist” tendency to extol or deprecate particular ideological currents within the larger people’s movement, separating them from class practices in which they are grounded.

I

There can be a Maoist current that represents a particular tenor emerging from a particular location within the working class politics. So are many other kinds of isms and the so-called “movements” – they represent diverse levels of consciousness (which include its absence too) within the working class movement.

Until and unless we locate these “ideological” currents in larger class processes or struggle, their critique will falter into futile exegetics of particular historical events or documents related to them. For example, much has been talked about Maoism in terms of what Maoists have done, or what Mao said, or what happened to the Maoist “movements” in China, Cambodia and Peru. In this critique, what is missed out is the very ground that they hold – the working masses who identified with these practices and who gave new meaning to Mao’s words. By locating Maoisms in class struggle, we provide scope for their critique too – of their programmes and their particular practices.

II

Karl Marx, during the First International, talked about “the spirit of generalisation and revolutionary passion” that constituted revolutionary subjectivity which could actualise the possibilities inherent in the objective conditions. He visualised the role of a party or organisation, which was for Marx at that time the International Workingmen’s Association itself, in incubating this spirit. As Henri Lefebvre once said, the task of the revolutionary political party is to recognise the spontaneity and revolutionary instinct of the working masses and unite them with the theoretical knowledge of larger processes elaborated by intellectuals organically grounded in the working class praxis.(1) The spirit of generalisation is based on self-emancipatory practices of the working class (at all levels). It is nothing more, nor less, than recognising and vocalising the evolving revolutionary class logic through and within diverse practices grounded in various spatio-temporal locations.

The problem occurs when instead of parties being founded and refounded in this conscious process of generalisation, their institutional logic overpowers and stunts this spirit – i.e., the forms that the working class movement takes at particular space-times are frozen and “extrapolated”. Thus in place of generalisation, over-generalisation of a particular class practice takes place, leading to sectism.

However, the critique of this over-generalisation cannot be done by externalising and then rubbishing these particular class practices as simply ideological problems or deviations. In fact, this so-called ‘critical’ current too is nothing but a representation of sectarianism. By naming movements in terms of ideologies articulated in particular locations of class struggle, rather than visualising those ideologies as simply symptomatic of those locations, we homogenise and externalise those locations, thus once again distorting the spirit of generalisation. Interestingly, unlike what various brands of Marxists do nowadays (leave aside the upcoming breed of civil society intermediaries, forget them “for they know not what they do”), Marx’s assessment of the Paris Commune as a revolutionary working class upsurge was not based on the counting of number of Marxists in that struggle. Lenin notes that before the Paris uprising, Marx warned the French workers that “insurrection would be an act of desperate folly”, but when it was unavoidable,

“Did he use it …to “take a dig” at his enemies, the Proudhonists and Blanquists who were leading the Commune? Did he begin to scold like a school mistress, and say: “I told you so, I warned you; this is what comes of your romanticism, your revolutionary ravings?” Did he preach to the Communards… the sermon of the smug philistine: “You should not have taken up arms?” No… And he has words of the highest praise for the “heroic” Paris workers led by the Proudhonists and Blanquists.”

III

The ideological externalisation of various political experiences of the working class is one of the most detrimental tendencies in its movement that thwarts the possibility of the emergence of revolutionary subjectivity in India today. It is not that this externalisation is done only by the critics, but more so by the admirers of the tendencies that dominate particular political experiences. Both do that by reducing the experiences’ particularity to either locational or ideological exclusivity. By relegating solidarity efforts to symbolic association with and external troubleshooting for the struggle going on ‘elsewhere’, the sympathisers too shirk the responsibility of politicising their own everyday life, and thus of generalising the movement.

At a critical juncture like today’s, despite a dramatic rise in local unrests throughout India, the ruling classes and the Indian state seem to be overconfident and increasingly becoming unilateral and authoritarian. It is only by constantly stereotyping the unrest, that they can delegitimize and pre-empt the efforts of revolutionary generalisation, for which the sectarian externalising / competitive tendencies within the movement itself have provided readymade vocabularies and agencies.

Now, the sense of being dispossessed is rampant among the rural poor, those who are ready to take up arms. Whatever be their identity, they come mostly under the class of allotment-holding workers, a term that Kautsky and Lenin used to characterise the majority of the so-called “peasantry” – land in whose possession is just for reproduction of their own labour-power. Hence, rural struggles today, including against land acquisition and those led by the Maoists, are not merely against threats to their livelihood but to life itself – to the very sphere of their reproduction.

Today, rural and urban workers are increasingly getting organised, becoming conscious and militant. Under neoliberalism, their footlooseness (beyond the urban/rural divide and other identitarian boundaries) is progressively making them realise the socialised nature of their labour, while encountering capital as social power in every facet of their lives.

These are the “objective conditions” in which various “forms of struggle” are evolving. What we need today is the urge to move beyond existentialist boundaries, of local and particular experiences, relocating them as diverse moments in the same struggle against capital. There must be a conscious realisation of “the spirit of generalisation” that can recognise the underlying unity between these forms and moments, and strategise on its revolutionary potential.

Reference:
(1) Henri Lefebvre (1969), The Explosion: Marxism and the French Upheaval, Monthly Review Press (Reprinted by Aakar Books, 2009), p.38-39

Sri Lanka: Post-War Internment Hell (V)

Ron Ridenour

First Article
Second Article
Third Article
Fourth Article

“The impunity with which the Sri Lankan government is able to commit these crimes [referring to 2009 war atrocities, including brutal internment of 300,000 Tamils] actually unveils the deeply ingrained racist prejudice that is precisely what led to the marginalization and alienation of the Tamils of Sri Lanka in the first place. That racism has a long history – of social ostracism, economic blockades, pogroms and torture. The nature of the decades-long civil war, which started as a peaceful protest, has its roots in this,” wrote author Arundhati Roy.

“’This is something similar to what occurred in Gaza or worse, because neither observers nor journalists had access to the war zone,’ stated a UN source who asked for anonymity. The army acknowledges that 6,200 soldiers and 22,000 guerrillas died in the last three years of the longest civil war in Asia. The UN affirms that between 80,000 and 100,000 persons died in the conflict,” wrote Elisa Reche of Prensa Marea Socialista.

“During the war,” Reche continued, “the army had 200,000 troops. Now with peace, 100,000 are being incorporated… A strange peace it is that requires more troops than in actual combat.”

More troops are needed because systematic ethnic cleansing is now the order of the day for the Tamil people. Their Homeland will be obliterated by introducing more Sinhalese settlers. The same strategy, as John Pilger pointed out, that Israel uses against Palestinians.

This is what M.K. Bhadrakumar, an ambassador for India who served in Sri Lanka and other countries, wrote about the day after Sri Lanka declared victory.

See, they have already solved the Tamil problem in the eastern provinces… The Tamils are no more the majority community in these provinces. Similarly, from tomorrow, they will commence a concerted, steady colonization program of the Northern provinces where Prabhakaran reigned supreme for two decades. They will ensure incrementally that the northern regions no more remain as Tamil provinces… Give them a decade at the most. The Tamil problem will become a relic of the bloody history of the Indian sub-continent.

Ethnic cleansing goes hand-in-hand with the policy of imprisoning and mistreating hundreds of thousands of Tamils. For more than a year before its military victory, the Sri Lanka government enticed Tamils, wishing to flee the war zone, into so-called “welfare” centers or villages. Tens of thousands became “Internally Displaced Persons” (IDP), and are thus subject to United Nations regulations concerning decent living conditions, food and water, freedom of movement and the right to leave and rejoin families. All these rights and necessities have been denied them.

“Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy,” President J.R. told the Daily Telegraph, (UK) on July 11, 1983.

A quarter-century later, the current president is striving to fulfill his predecessor’s genocidal intentions. Mahinda Rajapakse has claimed that no IDP is held against his/her will and all are treated well. However, the few United Nations visitors—there are no official investigators into abuses since the Human Rights Council majority blocked such a possibility—who come to observe have quite another picture.

When UN’s political chief, Lynn Pascoe, visited camps in September he said people were not free or well treated… “this kind of closed regime goes directly against the principles under which we work in assisting IDPs all around the world.”

Rajapakse told Pascoe another tale about “free movement”. He said that detention was necessary because the army was clearing the area for mines, and it was still looking for guerrillas hiding among civilians. However, as the UN resident coordinator reported, and Amnesty Internationalquoted: “Under international humanitarian law, captured combatants…may be held pending the cessation of hostilities. Once active hostilities have ceased, prisoners of war must be released ‘without delay.’”

At of July, there were 9,400 individuals with purported links to the LTTE held separately from the rest of the population. They have not been released nearly half-a-year after internment.

Amnesty International also reported that the camps are clearly militarized. The 19-member Presidential Task Force established in mid-May “to plan and coordinate resettlement, rehabilitation and development of the Northern Province” is headed Major General CA Chandrasiri, who was also appointed governor of the province. All inmates are enclosed by barbed-wire fences, guarded and brutalized by well-armed soldiers.

“Arrests have been reported from the camps and Sri Lankan human rights defenders have alleged that enforced disappearances have also occurred,” wrote Amnesty.

“Sri Lanka’s history of large-scale enforced disappearances dating back to the 1980s, and the lack of independent monitoring… raises grave concerns that enforced disappearances and other violations of human rights may be occurring… Previous research [shows] that [persons] suspected by the government of being members or supporters of LTTE are at grave risk of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearance, and torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.”

“Although the government calls these facilities ‘welfare villages,’ they are effectively detention camps…” Amnesty International also reported that not only are people not free to move as they wish, women and girls are raped by soldiers, and people live in sewage, disease-infested conditions, with little food and water and medical attention. They die in droves because of these imposed conditions.

Women and children are especially mistreated, which was the subject that James Elder, spokesperson for UNICEF, complained about to Sri Lankan authorities, who then expelled him from the country. Elder described the “unimaginable suffering” of children caught in the fighting, including babies he had seen with shrapnel wounds.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had refrained from criticizing Sri Lanka’s government, leveling his critique only at LTTE for carrying out atrocities. But when he briefly visited one camp less than a week after the end of the war, he said:

“I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen…I sympathize fully with all of the displaced persons,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told CNN after visiting Manik Farm, the most presentable of Sri Lanka’s squalid and dangerous internment camps for Tamils civilians. The UN Chief has also promised international action regarding the heavy shelling of civilian populations during the recent fighting.

Out of the 280,000 IDPs after the end of the war (there were nearly one-half million over a year’s period), only between 15,000 and 40,000 had been released by November 1. Half of them, perhaps, have been ransomed. The Sunday Times wrote about “human trafficking at the internment camps.” Relatives were made to pay camp authorities in order to secure their release.

Future

A week after the end of the war, the LTTE communicated that several of its leaders were killed, but the organization would continue struggling for an independent Tamil Eelam in peaceful ways. July 22, the LTTE announced that its chief of international relations, Selvarsa Pathmanathan—known as KP—was made the new leader, and that a new strategy for a “free Tamil Eelam” would occur. On August 8, England’s The Independent wrote that Pathmanathan was under arrest by Sri Lanka and held incommunicado.

For us solidarity activists, left-wing organizations, and governments considered to be progressive-socialist-communist-revolutionary, I believe that our task must be to press for the lives and rights of the Tamil people. Australia’s Democratic Socialist Perspective and Socialist Alliance said it well in its October 2009 international situation report:

Now the Tamil struggle has entered a new phase. The immediate campaign must focus on defence of basic human rights, release and resettlement of the Internally Displaced Persons currently held in SL government concentration camps, an end to murders, torture, rapes, and provision of basic housing, food and drinking water to the Tamil people under brutal occupation.

As a solidarity activist, who advocates the right to resist and the necessity to conduct armed struggle once peaceful means fail to induce oppressive and terrorist governments to engage in a process aimed at peace with justice, I condemn all perpetrators of terrorism and demand they change tactics to ones that are morally in accordance with our ideology for socialism, for justice with equality.

I find that most, if not all, armed movements commit acts of atrocities, even acts of terror in the long course of warfare. This has sometimes been the case with FARC and PFLP, for instance. But I support them in their righteous struggle. They are up against, as was the more brutal LTTE, much greater military and economic forces that practice state terror endemically. Remember the ANC in South Africa’s war for liberation. They committed much the same.

The main reason why I am on their side, why I have been a leftist solidarity activist and writer for nearly half-a-century is a matter of basic ethics. I define ethics in this way: Life shall not be abused or destroyed by our conscious hand—without being attacked, invaded, oppressed beyond bare. A moral person, organization, political party, government acts in daily life and in the struggle for justice with that ethic in mind. These are my thoughts on morality.

1. We act to so that no one person, race or ethnic group is either over or under another.

2. In combat against oppressors and invaders, we do not kill non-combatant civilians nor forcefully recruit them, or use them as hostages.

3. We struggle to create equality for all.

4. We abolish all profit-making based upon the exploitation of labor or the oppression of any person, group of people or class. Instead, we build an economy based upon principles of justice and equality, one in which no one goes hungry, sharing equitably our resources and production.

5. We struggle to create a political system based upon participation where all have a voice in decision-making of vital matters, in local, national and international policies.

6. We struggle to eliminate alienation in each of us.

After following liberated Cuba for half-a-century, having lived and worked there for eight years, I find that during its guerrilla struggle, which fortunately only lasted two years, it acted in a moral manner. Cuba’s revolutionary armed struggle was exceptional in this way. The Vietnamese struggle against the invaders of France and the USA was so conducted as well. There are a few other examples: the original Sandinistas is, perhaps, one.

I think that the key reason why so many millions of people the world love and respect Che Guevara is because of his moral stance, of his example as a just revolutionary leader. I conclude this all-too-long essay with these oft-quoted words from Che’s Socialism and Man.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love… Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, the most sacred cause, and make it one and indivisible… one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

The Sri Lankan National Question and the People’s Right to Self-Determination

Asvaththaamaa

Introduction

Post-war Sri Lanka has taken new directions in its political form with the LTTE militarily defeated and the liberation struggle of the Tamils facing a major setback. Against this backdrop, triumphalism of the Sinhala majoritarian chauvinism in its different forms is placing new constraints on the resolution of the Sri Lankan national question. Its impact has been almost instant.

The latest line of the NGOs and ‘civil society spokespersons’ is the idea of “non-devolutionary constitutional reform”. Newly coined terms are used to persuade the government that it could introduce constitutional reforms with little consideration for the rights and aspirations of the people. On the other hand the Tamil nationalists among the diaspora remain stuck to the mythical notion of Vaddukoddai resolution and claiming that separate state Tamil Eelam is the solution for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Both approaches contain their fair share of vested interests.

Although the thirty-year civil war is over, the causes of the conflict still remain to be addressed. The national question, remains the main contradiction in Sri Lanka, and unresolved. Chauvinistic oppression and denial of the basic rights of the minorities remain strong, the oppression being two-fold, political and military. The reluctance of the government to propose a political solution has serous long-term implications.

While a just solution to the national question should be based on ensuring the right to self determination of all the nationalities in Sri Lanka, the term ‘right to self determination’ itself is being interpreted by different political actors, each in a way to suit its own agenda. Thus there is a need to understand the concept of the right to self determination and examine its role in finding a solution to the Sri Lankan national question.

Right to self determination

The concept of the right to self-determination has its origins in the Russian revolution. The founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 brought together more than 120 distinct peoples, each with its own language and culture, who had been oppressed by the fallen Russian Czarist Empire. This great achievement was made possible by the 1917 October Revolution. Elimination of national oppression and arriving at a correct position on what was then known as “the national question” would not have been possible without a profound struggle.

Marx’s analysis of the Irish question was a pioneering contribution to the understanding of self-determination for oppressed nations. Marx, who initially doubted the ability of the Irish nation to achieve independence on its own or even the need for it, expected that the Irish nation and workers would be liberated when the English working class overthrew the English bourgeoisie. His view was based on the idea that the English workers living in an advanced capitalist country were best placed to overthrow capitalism in the colonizing country of Britain. By the late 1860s, on recognising the virulent racism and chauvinism among the English workers themselves against the Irish people, he supported the right to independence of the Irish nation as the best means for the Irish workers to fight capitalism. He urged the English workers to stand up for Irish independence.

Marx further argued that an English workers’ party, representing workers of an oppressor nation, was duty bound to support an oppressed nation’s independence. This attitude became a central aspect of Lenin’s stand on the national question in relation to oppressed nations. Lenin was later to write: “The policy of Marx and Engels on the Irish question serves as a splendid example of the attitude the proletariat of the oppressor nations should adopt towards national movements, an example which has lost none of its immense practical importance”. Lenin, in upholding the Marxist approach, had to struggle repeatedly against other socialists who were opposed in principle to the right to national self-determination.

Lenin explained the right to self determination thus: “The right of nations to self-determination means only the right to independence in a political sense, the right to free, political secession from the oppressing nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom to carry on agitation in favour of secession, and freedom to settle the question of secession by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede. Consequently, this demand is by no means identical with the demand for secession, for partition, for the formation of small states. It is merely the logical expression of the struggle against national oppression in every form. The more closely the democratic system of state approximates to complete freedom of secession, the rarer and weaker will the striving for secession be in practice; for the advantages of large states, both from the point of view of economic progress and from the point of view of the interests of the masses, are beyond doubt, and these advantages increase with the growth of capitalism. The recognition of self-determination is not the same as making federation a principle. One may be a determined opponent of this principle and a partisan of democratic centralism and yet prefer federation to national inequality as the only path towards complete democratic centralism”.

It was after Lenin explained and defined the right to self determination that others, notably Woodrow Wilson, defined the right to self determination as the right of peoples to govern themselves. Right to self determination implies that no one can legitimately govern a people without their consent. Wilson promulgated the right to self-determination in his “Fourteen Points” speech. The fundamental difference between Wilson and Lenin was that the latter accepted the right to secede, if it becomes impossible to stay together so that self determination meant the right to secede but not necessarily the act of secession. Lenin illustrated this with the example of the right to divorce, which does not mean that every marriage should be dissolved but ensures that every person gets into the contract of marriage while reserving one’s right to divorce. Without the right to divorce, marriage does not guarantee the survival of marriage. The right to separate makes the relationship more equal and stable than without. Lenin thus argued that by giving the right to secession the nations or nationalities in a union explore possibilities to coexist.

In the later years, the right to self determination acquired political as well as legal meanings, with the political principle having a wider scope than the legal. Article 1 (2) of the United Nations Charter, drawn up in 1945, stipulates that the UN is to “develop a friendly relationship among nations based on respect of the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and to take other measures to strengthen universal peace”. Further, the principles of self-determination were embedded in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of the 1966. These covenants affirmed self-determination as a “right of peoples” and guaranteed it by treaty laws. The impact of these UN ratifications of the right to self determination were more political than legal; and for political reasons the right to self determination is being interpreted and explained in different ways.

Right to self determination in Sri Lanka

The Marxist Leninist position on the national question in Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, has been unambiguous. It has historically identified the development of chauvinism and its development into national oppression, and recognised the development of the national contradiction into the main contradiction in Sri Lanka. Marxist Leninists have always maintained that ensuring the right to self determination of all nationalities in Sri Lanka should be the basis for the solution to the national question. Any proposal for a solution undermining the right to self determination of the nationalities in Sri Lanka is of dubious value.

The class and class interests that constitute the essence of the national question in Sri Lanka are not readily visible. Thus, limiting one’s search for solutions to the existing political framework, the executive powers of parliament within it, and to legislation will not permit one to appreciate the national and class aspects of the national question or the need to recognise the right of the nationalities in Sri Lanka to self determination. Hence claims of finding a solution within the existing framework will fail to address the root causes of the conflict and the issues involved. It has to be recognised that during the last thirty years, the contradictions among nationalities which constitute the main contradiction have grown and need to be addressed in a way that satisfies all the communities. Thus, when the government or the spokespersons for the “civil society” talk of non-devolutionary reforms, they implicitly declare that they are unwilling to accept the people’s rights as the cornerstone of the solution.

The Marxist Leninist position, to be valid, should look closely at the development of the national question, which has entered a phase where national oppression involves local and foreign elements. When a nation, a nationality or a community is oppressed as a social group, inevitably its struggle against oppression will be based on its identity. Marxist Leninists hold that to deny the right to such struggle is to support social oppression. It is on this basis that they have supported anti-colonial liberation struggles as well as liberation struggles of oppressed nationalities and social groups.

Tamil nationalism in all its forms and identities is a product of history. The evolution of Tamil identity into a Tamil national identity was due to various social, economic and historical factors. Tamil national identity itself has kept changing, and its form today is markedly different from the one that preceded it. In the 1970s Tamil nationalist leaders propagated the notion of a “separate state of Tamil Eelam” and passed the Vaddukoddai resolution in 1976 for opportunistic parliamentary political reasons. The solution for the problems faced by the Tamils cannot be based on that resolution. To be fair, any solution put forwarded on behalf of the Tamils should duly recognise the rights of the other minorities, especially the Muslims and Hill Country Tamils. But the Vaddukoddai Resolution calling for a separate state of Tamil Eelam failed to address the issues of the Muslims and Hill Country Tamils. Notably, until recently, Tamil nationalist parties have been reluctant to seek solutions based on ensuring the right to self determination for all the nationalities.

The concept of the right to self determination is not a product of bourgeois democracy but of the revolutionary ideology of the working class. The national question in the post-colonial era qualitatively differs from that in the colonial era; and self determination needs to be seen in a broader perspective than at the dawn of the 20th Century when the question mainly concerned an oppressor nation and an oppressed nation. One should also take a historical view of how imperialism has used session to advance its hegemonic interests. Tamil nationalists calling for secession, based merely on the right to self-determination, have their interests tied up with the imperialist agenda. While Marxist Leninists accept the right to secede, they do not see secession as a panacea for national conflicts. They have, in particular, warned against the prospect of imperialists using secession to serve their interests, the recent example being Kosovo. Thus seeking secession as solution for the Sri Lankan national question is not likely to be in the interest of any nationality.

The need of the moment is to ensure the right of all the nationalities in Sri Lanka to self determination. Sections of the Tamil Diaspora and Tamil media propagate the view that the right to self determination is merely a right to secession. This is misleading and harmful. The right to self determination is much more than the right to secession. Tamil nationalists as well as Sinhala chauvinists continue to mislead the masses on the principle of right to self determination. Meanwhile, some Tamil parliamentary politicians talk about “internal self determination” as a solution to the national question. This once again is an effort to dismantle the concept of self determination and in the process reject the right of the nationalities in Sri Lanka to self determination.

At this point it is important to reiterate the stand of the Marxist Leninists on secession. The use of secession as an imperialist tool does not make it right to oppose the right to secession. The right to secession is an integral part of the right to self determination and not a licence to secede at will. If at all, it is a proven way to avert secession and conflicts between nationalities. The vested interests of Sinhala chauvinism and Tamil narrow nationalism ensured that they always undermined people’s struggles for social justice. Their conduct in the past and present merely confirms their aim to retain their political power by dividing people and denying the rights of the nationalists.

Conclusion

The right to self-determination cannot be applied blindly or be imposed on a nationality or an ethnic group. A nationality struggles for its right to self-determination or for secession when its identity or its very survival is threatened. Struggles of oppressed nationalities are complex and continuously evolving, with no two struggles alike. In several instances, including Sri Lanka, issues have been made more complex by foreign intervention driven by hegemonic intentions. The situation in Sri Lanka is worrying, with rights of the nationalities under great threat, and upholding the rights of the minorities has become a momentous task. It is time for the progressive forces to unite and fight for the right to self determination of all nationalities, to ensure a just solution to the Sri Lankan national question.

Courtesy: New Democracy 35 – Theoretical Organ of New Democratic Party (Sri Lanka)

The Terrorists: International Support for Sri Lanka’s Racist Discrimination (IV)

Ron Ridenour

First Article
Second Article
Third Article

The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism, passed May 29, 1987 by the UN general assembly, points out that the main perpetrators of terrorism are governments striving to keep down parts of their populations or other peoples. In this document, at that time, the main culprits are the United States, Israel, South Africa and the many dictatorships in Latin America at that time.

State terrorism manifests itself in: 1) police state practices against its own people to dominate through fear by surveillance, disruption of group meetings, control of the news media, beatings, torture, false and mass arrests, false charges and rumors, show trials, killings, summary executions and capital punishments;

The terrorism of modern state power and its high technology weaponry exceeds qualitatively by many orders of magnitude the political violence relied upon by groups aspiring to undo oppression and achieve liberation.

…peoples who are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination have the right to use force to accomplish their objectives within the framework of international humanitarian law.

This document applies to the situation of the Sri Lankan governments since 1983 as well as to the LTTE, and the proportions of the use of violence are as written by the general assembly. The LTTE did, however, after time, go beyond the framework of international humanitarian law.

One voice regarding terrorism and what lies behind these atrocities appears so credible to me, and so tragic in itself, that I quote him extensively to show that all warring parties in Sri Lanka acted as terrorists. Here are some of the last words of Sri Lankan journalist Manilal Wickrematunge Lasantha, a Sinhalese, who predicted his assassination shortly before it occurred, on January 8, 2009. His newspaper, The Sunday Leader, published his own “obituary” three days later.

Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty…

Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy… Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united…

…we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens…

The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma [the teachings of Buddha, which lead to enlightenment] is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship…

What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect…

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda [Rajapakse, the president] and I have been friends for more than a quarter century… “Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you…”

When Lasantha’s dramatic editorial appeared, he had already been murdered on his way to work by four men on motorcycles. The probable conspirator behind the execution was Lasantha’s “friend’s” brother, war secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, a naturalized citizen of the USA. In December 2008, he had censored the Sunday Leader from publishing any criticism of his actions. He had earlier threatened the careers and lives of other journalists.

A week before Lasanth’s murder, G. Rajapakse’s army captured the capital of the de facto Eelam state, Kilinochchi. LTTE guerrilla army fled but not all the civilians had evacuated before the government’s troops entered and butchered scores or hundreds. On August 25, 2009, England’s Channel 4 News broadcast footage showing Sri Lankan forces executing nine Tamils stripped naked. One of the military’s soldiers had filmed this atrocity on his mobile telephone. Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (Sinhalese and Tamils) obtained the film and presented it to Channel 4, which showed it after verifying its authenticity.

The United States government praised Sri Lanka for its military offensive. The US embassy in Colombo issued this statement: “The United States does not advocate that the Government of Sri Lanka negotiate with the LTTE…”

Following this crushing defeat, the LTTE was reduced to an area of a few square kilometers. Many thousands of civilians had left their homes to reach so-called No Fire Zones, which the S.L. army began setting up on January 20th. Conditions were sub-human (and they continue to be so for over two-hundred and fifty thousand interned civilians in various camps as of this writing), and they were (are) forced to remain. Amnesty International—more often than not a reliable observer of international conflicts, one of the few NGO’s that does not take money from any government or political party—recently published a report about these camps. Sri Lanka is violating rules established by the United Nations, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, applying to displaced persons.

Here is an excerpt from a civilian inmate.

“Knowing that many civilians were not able to move, the government restarted shelling. They even hit the No Fire Zone so even that small area was not protected…When we heard the supersonic Kfirs [Israel jets] overhead we used to rush to the bunker and hide…That was our life for months just squatting in bunkers.”

Amnesty stated: “The Government of Sri Lanka exacerbated this isolation by restricting access by outsiders to the conflict area. In September 2008, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaska issued a directive ordering all humanitarian and UN agencies to leave the Vanni and remove all equipment and vehicles.” This order also applied to journalists, opposition politicians and humanitarian organizations.

John Pilger described Sri Lanka’s isolation strategy this way:

The Sri Lankan government has learned an old lesson from, I suspect, a modern master: Israel. In order to conduct a slaughter, you ensure the pornography is unseen, illicit at best. You ban foreigners and their cameras from Tamil towns like Mulliavaikal, which was bombarded recently by the Sri Lankan army, and you lie that the 75 people killed in the hospital were blown up quite willfully by a Tamil suicide bomber.(John Pilger, “Distant Voices, Desperate Lives,” New Statesman, May 13, 2009.)

From 2006-7 onward President Rajapakse was spending nearly one-quarter ($1.5 billion) of Sri Lanka’s national budget of $7.5 billion (2008 figures) on war. By January 2009, the Sri Lankan military, refortified especially by Israel, Pakistan and China, had recaptured much of the Tamil Homeland. From the end of 2008 to Sri Lanka’s military victory over LTTE, it had indiscriminately bombed Tamil civilians even in the “safe zones” where the government had told them to flee. Many thousands were killed.

After the fall of Tamil Eelam’s de facto capital, it still took the far superiorly armed and manned army four and one-half months to defeat the guerrilla army. There were few close contact battles. The LTTE fighters and civilians in the remaining Homeland area were subject to shelling from the air and by long-distance artillery. Amnesty International reported:

Eyewitness accounts of the final months of the war painted a grim picture of deprivation of food, water and medical care; fear, injury and loss of life suffered by civilians trapped by the conflict… both the LTTE and Sri Lankan government forces committed violations of international humanitarian law… The LTTE forcibly recruited children as soldiers, used civilians as human shields against the Sri Lankan army’s offensive, and attacked civilians who tried to flee. The Sri Lankan armed forces launched indiscriminate attacks with artillery on areas densely populated by civilians. Hospitals were shelled, resulting in death and injuries among patients and staff.

Sri Lanka’s military achieved victory by murdering any Tamil “in its way”, and because of the extensive military force provided to it by many capitalist and so-called socialist states. Here are the major players:

1. India has provided weaponry, radar and training to Sri Lanka’s military since 1987. It often hides what aid it gives or sells since so many of its citizens are against S.L.’s brutality against Tamils. After a period of providing little military assistance, it increased its aid at the end of 2008 when the government launched its all-out offensive. As late as April 2009, India sent three fast attack boats and a missile corvette (INS Vinash), part of $500 million in total aid. It has also turned over LTTE fugitives to S.L. India sees its traditional role as the dominant nation in South Asia being replaced by China’s fast-growing presence, which is another reason for its support to Sri Lanka’s Buddhist government despite the fact that 80% of India’s 1.2 billion people practice Hinduism with less than 1% Buddhists. On the world plan, India hip hops from one antagonist force to another. There is no clear direction.

2. The United States of America has been arming and financing Sri Lanka for most of the civil war period. The Indian Ocean is a vital waterway in which half of the world’s containerized cargo passes through. Its waters carry heavy traffic of petroleum products. The US signed a ten year Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with Sri Lanka on 5 March 2007 which provides, along with other things, logistics supplies and refueling facilities. The US already has Voice of America installation at Tricomalee, which can be used for surveillance. From at least the 1990s, the US has provided military training, financing and weapons sales averaging $1.5 million annually. During the cease fire, in 2002, this sum went down to $259,999 for military training only. Bush was especially glad for Sri Lanka’s terrorism, and encouraged Colombo to resume the civil war, in 2006, which his government financed with $2.9 million. The Pentagon provided counter-insurgency training, maritime radar, patrols of US warships and aircraft. At the end of Bush’s second term, the US was forced to cut back on aid given that it was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq. That, coupled with critical public opinion, organized by the Diaspora, of state terrorism and systematic discrimination of Tamils, prompted congress to make noises about abuses of human rights by not only LTTE but also about the use of children in “paramilitary forces of the Sri Lankan government.” Nevertheless, in 2008, $1.45 million in military financing and training was granted the government out of a total of $7.4 million in total aid. The US made noises about killing a ‘humanitarian crisis’ when the Sri Lankan army was about to finish the war but it never took affirmative action to bring the war to an end. It’s howling about human rights is only a veiled threat to the Sri Lankan government, that it should not do anything prejudicial to its interests, that is, keep China at bay.

3. Israel was officially re-awarded diplomatic relations, in May 2000, after Sri Lanka had severed them, in 1970, in protest at Israel’s continued illegal expansion into Palestinian territory. Nevertheless, Israel continued to operate inside S.L. out of a special interests office set up in the US embassy. Under the table, however, Sri Lanka’s successive regimes embraced Israel’s military advisors, a special commando unit in the police, and Mossad counter-intelligence agents—who sought to drive a wedge between Muslims and Tamils. After S.L. military defeat at Elephant Pass, it appealed to Israel for military aid. Israel sent 16 of its supersonic Kfir fighter jets, some Dvora fast naval attack craft, and electronic and imagery surveillance equipment, plus advisors and technicians. Israel personnel took part in military attacks on Tamil units, and its pilots flew attack aircraft. Tigers shot down one Kfir. Just before the end of the war, Prime Minister Wickremanayake was in Israel to make bigger deals with Israeli arms supplies.

4. U.K./EU In 2005, British arms export rose by 60%, according to John Pilger (12). In 2008, £1.4 million in arms export was approved. France sent patrol boats, and other EU countries continued but reduced military aid. The EU had never been required to offer much aid given that its major allies were so much engaged.

5. Japan has long been Sri Lanka’s greatest economic donor until China overtook that position in 2008-9. Japan has sold technology and offered generous loans, but it has also outright donated millions more every year. In 1997, for instance, it granted $52 million outright but $26 in technical cooperation. In 2001, aid was at $310 million. It also paid for the government television station, Rupavahini. While Japan’s aid, sales and loans are not directed at defense, these huge sums allow the Sri Lanka governments to use more of its budget for war. This is the case as well with several other Asian countries.

6. Iran “We don’t need your money (with all those strings)”, a Sri Lanka treasury functionary purportedly told World Bank officials last year. “The international community” (US-EU governments) had begun to cut back on aid and even to ask questions about treatment of Tamil civilians, whose cries were being heard from the Diaspora. So, Sri Lanka played one power against another: India-Pakistan/China, US-China, Israel-Iran/Libya—the West-NAM. In 2008-9, Iran provided $1.9 billion in credit to build an oil refinery, in order to process S.L.’s crude oil, and it donated $450 million for a hydropower project. Iran is US’s most important inside ally with the Quisling Iraq government. And Libya has most recently been approached for a $500 million loan by Sri Lanka. Libya is with and against Iran.

7. Pakistan came into the Sri Lanka debacle, in 2008, at the encouragement of China. At the beginning of 2009, it provided $100 million in military assistance loans; it gave Chinese-origin small arms, and offered pilot training for S.L.’s new Chinese aircraft. Pakistan is also an ally of the US in its terror war “against” terror. Its governments are part of the war against Afghanistan, which has spread throughout most of Pakistan and split the population. Here have we a country allied with Cuba and ALBA et al. in NAM at the same time a partner with the world’s greatest terrorist state.

8. China entered the picture in 2005.China is the world’s no 2 oil consumer after the United States. China has stepped up efforts to secure sea lanes and transport routes that are vital for its oil supplies. In April 2007, just one month after the US’s ACSA deal with SL, China’s Poly Technologies supplied $36.5 million arms to Sri Lanka. A $150 million contract was given to China’s Huawei, which has close links with the Chinese intelligence wing MSS, to build a country-wide infrastructure for communications. In 2008, China invested five times over what it did in 2007. Its biggest investment is a vast construction project at Hambantota on the southern coast, which it will use as a re-fuelling and docking station for its navy. “Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West,” wrote The Times (London). China acts without asking questions about the treatment and conditions of workers and minorities. In April 2007, S.L. made a deal to buy Chinese ammunition and ordnance for is military. China gave it six F7 jet fighters after a Sky Tiger raid that destroyed ten military aircraft, in 2007. One Chinese fighter was soon shot down by Tigers. China has also given or sold on credit: an anti-submarine warfare vessel, gunboats and landing craft, battle tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and air surveillance radars. In June 2009, after the conclusion of the civil war, it signed an $891 million agreement for the Norochcholai Coal Power project. Chinese companies were granted an Economic Zone for 33 years. Huichen Investments Holdings Limited is to invest $28 million in next three years in the Mirigama Zone. For the first time a specific area was given to a foreign country. China is making major inroads into Sri Lanka, causing concern in the US-India Axis.

In the last few months of the war, Sri Lanka’s military used China’s weapons to systematically bombard what was left of the Tamil Eelam homeland. British media reported that 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed just in the last five days. Yet President Rajapakse claimed that “not one Tamil civilian was killed by military shelling.”

According to the pro-imperialist The Times (London), “aerial photographs, official documents, witness accounts and expert testimony” tell a story of the Sri Lankan’s “fierce barrage” of three weeks constant shelling in a five-kilometer area where 300,000 Tamil civilians were. The Times’ estimated that about 1,000 civilians were killed each day for three weeks until May 19. With most of the leadership dead, and tens of thousands civilians slaughtered, the LTTE surrendered.

One of The Times’ sources for these figures, and that responsibility lay with SL military, is the Catholic priest Amalraj, who was there until May 16. At the time of article, May 29, 2009, he was interned in the militarized Manik Farm camp along with 200,000 others.

Even the editor of the pro-imperialist Armed Forces of the UK magazine contended that it was not the Tigers who fired upon their own people but that is was the Sri Lankan government, which used imprecise air-burst and ground-impact mortars to annihilate anything alive.

The Times piece ended on this sad note: S.L “was cleared of any wrongdoing by the UN Human Rights Council after winning the backing of countries including China, Egypt, India and Cuba.”

For other articles by the author visit his website.

War against the Maoists: But who are they and what do they want?

Rita Khanna

The Indian government is launching a full-scale war against the Maoist rebels and the people led by them in different parts of the country. The initial battles, without any formal announcement, have already started. For this purpose, they intend to deploy about 75,000 security personnel in parts of Central and Eastern India, including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. The government will organize its regular air-force in addition to paramilitary and specially trained COBRA forces. The air-force has begun to extend its logistic support. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have declared the Maoist rebels to be ‘the biggest internal security threat’ to India and a hindrance to ‘development’. The mainstream media seem to have taken them at their face value. Their publications and television programmes seem to be building a war-hysteria against the Maoist rebels regardless of the fact that this attack by the government will be directed against some of the most deprived of the Indian people. Indeed this is turning into a war of the state against its own people!

While paying lip service at times to the notion that the current people’s insurgency led by the Maoist rebels has its root in decades of vicious exploitation of the poor, especially the dalits and tribals, the blare of government propaganda tries to convince us that the Maoist rebels are dangerous, blood-thirsty terrorists determined to establish their areas of influence. The Government is preaching that the Maoists can go to any extent to maintain their influence in these areas – by either preventing the government from undertaking development activities or using the power of their guns, killing disobedient individuals. Their ideology is to terrorise the common people, wrest power from the democratically elected governments and destroy the entire fabric of the society. The government and the media want us to believe that the only people, apart from a few romantic misguided intellectuals, who willingly support Maoists are the poor, ignorant, uneducated, uninformed tribal people. They seem to claim that no sensible, intelligent person living in a society like ours would support them voluntarily. But is this a true picture?

Could it be that the Maoist rebels are supporting and organizing the poor, exploited people to fight oppression, to establish a more egalitarian society where the wealth of our growing economy will be spread among all, not merely among a very small minority? Could it be that in the name of suppressing the Maoists, the state is going all out to break the backbone of these poor peoples’ fight? Could it be that the government is planning to wage a war, in our name, against our own sisters and brothers to help line the pockets of the rich?

In this hour of crisis, we must ask those questions that the government seeks to suppress.

What do we really know about the Maoist rebels, their ideology, their plans and programs? Why does the government need to go to war against its own people and inside its own territory? Are the Maoists really blocking development? Who are these Maoists anyway and what do they want?

Let us take one question at a time.

Who are these Maoists?

The Maoists are revolutionaries mainly consisting of the extremely poor people including a large number of dalits and tribals. They come mainly from the toiling masses of India and they are trying to organize the vast population of such masses of this country. They seek to arm and train them so that these masses can resist the onslaught of the rich. In this effort they go beyond the idea that mass movements should focus on some specific issues like increase of wages, better health care, more honesty of public servants and so forth. The view of the Maoist rebels is that the poor and exploited people must first and foremost establish their own democratic political power and their own state power in various places. This is because without controlling state power, the poor and the exploited can at most hope for only limited improvements in their living conditions, i.e., so long as it does not inconvenience the rich who usually control the state power. So, the Maoists mobilize the poor to fight against the existing state, even armed fight if possible, as they consider the existing state to be a set of agents acting for the big multinational corporations, rich landlords and the wealthy in general. The fight is an extremely challenging and unequal one as the rich are aided by the government bureaucrats, the police and even the military. Also, contrary to what the Government and the mainstream media are propagating, the Maoist rebels are actually completely opposed to individual killings, they openly denigrate such stray terrorism-like acts. What they have been attempting to build up is a mass movement, even armed, to take on the violence of the ruling classes and its representative state machinery.

The Maoist movement was born in India in the late 1960s, after a radical section of political workers broke away mainly from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) because they felt the CPIM and other such parties like CPI, RSP, etc. had discredited themselves with their opportunist politics of placating and compromising with the rich. The movement has a long history of development. The present party, CPI (Maoist), came into being in 2004 by the merger of a number of fraternal organizations.

Is development in India arrested because the Maoist rebels are blocking it?

What is the state of the people of India at present? With its current high rate of growth, this is also a country of abject poverty and extreme inequality. Home to 24 billionaires (second largest in Asia according to Forbes), India can also boast of 230 million people who go to bed on a half empty stomach (Source: World Hunger Report).

A country whose economy grows at 9% cannot feed its own population – at least 50% of the people live below the official poverty line and 47% of children below the age of three are underweight [World Bank report; Undernourished children: A call for reform and action]. In this so called ‘hub of knowledge economy’, only 11% of the total population can afford higher education and 50% of the students drop out before class eight to start living as casual labourers (Source: Education Statistics, Ministry of Human Resource Development). This is true of most of India not just the areas where Maoist influence and control is high. Then how can we say that development in India is being blocked by Maoists?

Maoists do not oppose `development’ at all, they only oppose the `pro-rich development’ at the expense of destitution or often total destruction of the poor. For example, in Dandakaranya region of Chhattisgarh they oppose setting up of helipads but there, the poor themselves, led by the Maoist rebels, have built irrigation tanks and wells for help in agriculture something the Indian government did not bother to do. The Indian government routinely blames the Maoist rebels that they blow up schools! But what the Government tries to suppress is that these blown-up school buildings were actually being used or requisitioned to become camps for security personnel!

And what changes do they want? Why do they want these changes?

(1) Overhauling the entire structure of oppression instead of piecemeal reforms

In addition to all the woes described above, India is also a country, where thousands of Muslims can be butchered in broad daylight by fascist Hindu forces (the most widespread and gruesome such pogrom in recent times happened in Gujarat in 2002), while the ministers and police look the other way. And these features are not stray results of the misdeeds of a few villains. The existing socio-political system in India has a built-in mechanism which ensures that the common masses would be oppressed by a rich and powerful few. Widespread systemic violence is required and is routinely applied by the Indian state so that common people remain disciplined and do not revolt in the face of oppression.

(2) Land to the tillers and destruction of the landlord class

About 60% of the Indian population is still dependent on agriculture. However the primary input, land, is predominantly concentrated in the hands of a few landlords and big farmers. Close to 60 percent of rural households are effectively landless [NSS report]. The elite in the villages, by their collusion with the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats have blocked any meaningful land reforms. In the last four decades the proportion of households with little or no land (landless and marginal farmer households) has increased steadily from 66% to 80%. On the other hand the top ten percent rural households own more land now than in 1951 (Source: NSS report).The Maoist revolutionaries want to change this to ensure equitable distribution of land. They do not deter from collective armed fight of the landless and poor peasants and the poor rural labourers against the existing state power for achieving this goal.

(3) Freedom from moneylenders and traders

Indebtedness in rural India has been increasing by leaps and bounds especially in the recent decades. Public rural banks are closing down due to relaxation of government regulation. Therefore, instead of securing credits from public institutional sources, rural folk are now being forced to approach the village money lenders (who are often big landlords or rich farmers as well) on a larger and larger scale. Unscrupulous traders are adding to the misery of the poor peasants. They sell spurious inputs to small and marginal peasants at exorbitant prices. They also make huge profits by buying their harvest at throwaway prices and selling them in urban areas at a premium. Not-so-well-off peasants, in this no-win situation, of course end up needing substantial credit. Private moneylenders and various for-profit financial companies take advantage of this situation by extracting enormous sums from peasants. Interest rate could be as high as 5% per month. The BBC News reported that more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 under the pressure of such indebtedness. The Maoist rebels want to change this.

(4) End of caste system and eradication of untouchability

It is well known that the caste system is still thriving in India. Economically it keeps the overwhelming majority of the people in dire poverty and politically it suppresses their fundamental democratic rights. Often the lower castes are robbed of their human dignity. They are even denied access to public facilities like some sources of drinking water, schools etc. An expert group of the planning commission reports that in 70% villages lower caste people cannot enter places of worship and in more than 50% villages they don’t have access to common water sources (Expert committee report to the Planning Commission).

According to an NCDHR report, on average, 27 atrocities (including murder, abduction and rape) against dalits take place every day. The well-off landed sections in the villages still come mainly from the upper castes. They use brahminical ideology to try to keep all other sections of the population under domination. The same is true for usurers, merchants, hoarders, quarry owners, contractors–all mainly come from the upper castes. In short, the upper castes are still very much in command in all aspects of rural life. Often with their own private army of goondas they run a parallel raj. The Maoists want to break this stranglehold of the upper castes and ensure equal rights for dalits and adivasis.

(5) Freedom from exploitation by foreign multinationals and its local partners

Since 1991, foreign capital in alliance with big capitalists like Reliance, Tata and state bureaucrats, has penetrated vast sectors of the Indian economy. Every sphere of our life, starting from road construction, electricity generation, communication networks to food retail, health and education are under direct control of this coterie. In the name of ‘development’ thousands of acres of land are being transferred to big business and multinationals. For example, in Bastar, Chattisgarh, in the name of Bodh Ghat dam, tens of thousands of Adivasis are being forcibly evicted from their “jal-jangal-zameen” (water-forest-land). In Niyamgiri, Orissa the land which is the abode of several Dongria tribes has been handed over to the multinational Vedanta group which will completely destroy the livelihood of these tribes affecting more than 20,000 people. The state government and the mainstream opposition parties of the state are actively supporting such activities. The Maoists, over the years, have been resisting such plunder.

(6) Ensuring people’s democratic rights

It is well known that elections are often a sham in India. The parliament, as we have seen several times, is a bazaar where the rich and the super-rich can buy the MPs. According to ADR (Association of Democratic Reform), the average asset of an MP has gone up to 5.12 crore in 2009 from Rs 1.8 crore in 2004. In our democracy the erstwhile rajas and maharajas, like Scindias, are still proliferating and controlling the local economy and polity at many places. And we also know the state of judicial system in our country. Salman Khans and Sanjeev Nandas can kill by running cars over common people and still they can escape the law for very long, perhaps forever. B.N. Kirpal, the judge, who arbitrarily ordered that Indian rivers be interlinked, ignoring the resulting ecological and human calamity, joined the environmental board of Coca-Cola after he retired. The Maoists want to establish people’s court where poor people can get true justice. In fact, such courts run in many places where the Maoist movement is strong.

(7) Self-determination for the nationalities

The Indian government ruthlessly suppresses national aspirations of a number of people. These people and their land became part of India by accident – because the British raj annexed their homeland or a despotic king wanted their land to be a part of India. Lakhs of Indian troops have been deployed in Kashmir and north-eastern states to curb such struggles of the people in these states for their national self-determination. Since 1958, AFSPA has been imposed in north-eastern states, which allows armed forces to conduct search and seizure without warrant, to arrest without warrant, to destroy any house without any verification and to shoot to kill with full impunity. In Kashmir, there is 1 military personnel for every 15 civilian. Cold blooded murders, like those of Thangjam Manorama Devi, Chungkham Sanjit, Neelofar and Asiya Jan, are carried out frequently in the name of ‘countering terrorism’. The Maoist rebels seek to establish freedom of self determination for all nationalities.

So, to sum up, the new society the Maoists want to establish will have the following components:

Land to the poor and landless. Later on cooperative farming is to be established on voluntary basis.

Forest to the tribal people.

End of rule of the rich and the upper caste in villages and uprooting of caste system. Uproot all discriminations based on gender and religion.

Seizure of the ill gotten wealth and assets of multinational corporations and their local Indian partners.

Self determination for the nationalities, political autonomy for the tribes.

Establish a state by the poor, for the poor where the present day exploiters would be expropriated.

Participation of people in day to day administrative work and decision making. Democracy at the true grassroot level with people having the power to recall its democratic representatives.

In summary: ensuring that all types of freedom, rights and democracy for all sections of toiling masses.

What have the Maoists-led people’s struggles achieved so far?

Information in this section is taken, purposely, from the expert group report to the planning commission, which is available on the web.

Contrary to what the media try to portray, the government’s own report says that the movement led by the Maoist rebels cannot be seen as simply blowing up of police stations and killing individual people. It encompasses mass organization. Mass participation in militant protest has always been a characteristic of such mobilisation.

Although the Maoists by their own admission are engaged in a long term people’s struggle against the oppression by the present India state, their movement has already achieved some short term successes in improving the condition of the poor people.

Maoist movement in India was built around the demand of ‘land to the tillers’. Numerous struggles, led by the Maoists, have been fought all over the country especially in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, to free land from the big landholding families. In many such cases landlords have been driven away from the villages and their land has been put in the possession of the landless poor. But the police and paramilitary do not allow the poor to cultivate such lands. In Bihar, landless Musahars, the lowest among the Dalits have struggled and have taken possession of fallow Government land. This has had the support of Maoists.

Under the leadership of the Maoists the adivasis have reclaimed forest land on an extensive scale in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. The adivasis displaced by irrigation projects in Orissa had to migrate to the forests of Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh in large numbers. The forest department officials harassed and evicted them on a regular basis. The movement led by the Maoists put an end to this.

In rural India the Minimum Wages Act remains an act on paper only. In the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, non-payment of the legal wages was a major source of exploitation of adivasi labourer. Maoists-led struggles have put an effective end to it. These struggles have secured increases in the rate of payment for picking tendu leaves (used for rolling beedies), washing clothes, making pots, tending cattle, repairing implements etc. The exploitation previously had been so severe that as a result of the sustained movement led by Maoists the pay rates of tendu leaves collection have over the years increased by fifty times.

The movement has given confidence to the oppressed to assert their rights and demand respect and dignity from the dominant castes and classes. The everyday humiliation and sexual exploitation of labouring women of dalit and tribal communities by upper caste men has been successfully fought. Forced labour, begari, by which the toiling castes had to provide obligatory service for free to the upper castes was also put an end to in many parts of the country.

In rural India, disputes are commonly taken to the rich and powerful of the village (who are generally the landlords) and caste panchayats, where the dispensation of justice is in favour of the rich and powerful. The Maoist movement has provided a mechanism, usually described as the ‘People’s Court’ whereby these disputes are resolved in the interests of the wronged party.

Why then, does the government need to go to war against its own people led by these rebels instead of hailing them as true patriots?

There is a simple answer. Chattisgarh, Orissa are rich in mineral wealth that can be sold to the highest multinational bidder. The only obstacle standing between the corrupt politicians and ALL THIS MONEY are the poor, disenfranchised tribal people (and the Maoists leading them). So, this war. This is not something new in India or for that matter in other parts of the world. Mobutu’s corrupt regime selling off the Belgian Congo piece by piece to the US, Belgium and other countries comes to mind. In the sixty years of independence from direct colonial rule, the Indian state has been doing the same. It has systematically impoverished the overwhelming majority to serve the interest of a powerful few and their foreign friends.

The impending war to evict the tribal people from their villages, in the pretext of eliminating the Maoists, will be fought at the behest of big corporations, who want to control and plunder our resources such as mineral, water and forest. It is high time that we recognize this pattern of waging war which will be fought by the poor on both sides, but will benefit only the big capitalists and their cheerleaders in the government.

Note: This is meant to be a simple and brief exposition of the goals and strategies of the Maoist movement in India for people who may not have much awareness about it and are confused by the propaganda in the mainstream media. This does not go into the arcane debates about mode of production in India, the debates among communist revolutionaries over strategy and tactics etc. This aims at people who, for example, are perplexed why the Maoists, instead of trying to ensure safe drinking water like an NGO, rather, often resort to violent activities against the Government. We have deliberately kept references to a minimum in the body of the text. For an interested reader, the webpage: bannedthought.net contains an enormous wealth of information about the Maoist rebels, including their own documents.

Sri Lanka: Equal Rights or Self-Determination (III)

Ron Ridenour

First Article
Second Article

“At independence, in 1948, the new political elite, in its rush for power, cultivated ethnic support in a society whose real imperative should have been the eradication of poverty. Language became the spark,” journalist-documentary filmmaker John Pilger recently wrote.(1)

The Tamil people in Sri Lanka had expectations that they would achieve equal rights and power with the Sinhalese once independence was won from the British colonialists. As the independence movement was winning over colonialization there was no talk of any Tamil separatism.

Even before the defeat of the Axis powers, Britain prepared to decolonize Ceylon. In 1943, the colonial secretary of state stated that a constitution would be drafted will all parties involved. A condition would be that “The Parliament of Ceylon shall not make any law rendering persons of any community or religion liable to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other communities are not made liable …”(2)

Britain established the Soulbury Commission in 1944. The leading Sinhalese politician was D.S. Senanayake—a conservative, who founded, in 1946, the rightist pro-independence and pro-capitalist United National Party (UNP). Senanayake became known as the “Father of Sri Lanka.” He convinced a leading Tamil politician, G.G. Ponnamblam—who founded the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), in 1944—to partake in independence negotiations.

Another provision of the Soulbury Commission (Constitution) was that any bill which evoked “serious opposition by any racial or religious community and which, in the opinion of the Governor-General is likely to involve oppression or serious injustice to any community must be reserved by the Governor-General.”

The vote on the third reading of the “Free Lanka” bill was supported by all the Muslim members and by most Tamil and Sinhalese groups. “Some of the other minority members who did not want to openly support the bill took care to be absent or abstain. Finally, the debate and the vote of acceptance on the eighth and ninth of September 1945 was the most significant indication of general reconciliation among the ethnic and regional groups. Far exceeding the 3/4 majority required by the Soulbury Commission, Senanayake had 51 votes in favor, and only three votes against the adoption of the constitution. The vote was ‘in many ways a vote of confidence by all communities…and the minorities were as anxious as the majority for self-government.’”

Senanayake’s speech in proposing the motion of acceptance made reference to the minorities and said … “throughout this period the Ministers had in view one objective only, the attainment of maximum freedom. Accusations of Sinhalese domination have been bandied about. We can afford to ignore them for it must be plain to every one that what we sought was not Sinhalese domination, but Ceylonese domination. We devised a scheme that gave heavy weightage to the minorities; we deliberately protected them against discriminatory legislation. We vested important powers in the Governor-General… We decided upon an Independent Public Service Commission so as to give assurance that there should be no communalism in the Public Service. I do not normally speak as a Sinhalese, and I do not think that the Leader of this Council ought to think of himself as a Sinhalese representative, but for once I should like to speak as a Sinhalese and assert with all the force at my command that the interests of one community are the interests of all. We are one of another, what ever race or creed.”

The first national election was held August 23-September 30, 1947. 1,887, 364 people voted for 95 MP (members of parliament). There were six parties and many independents. The results were:

UNP with 39.8% (42 MPs)

LSSP 10.8% (10)

BLPI 6% (5)

ACTC 4.4% (7)

CIC 3.8% (6)

CPC 3.7% (3)

Labor 1.4% (1)

Independents 29% (16) (3)

“We are one of another, whatever race or creed,” swore the “Father” of the new independent State. It looked good for all ethnic and religious groups, but then the deceit became evident with the new citizenship act.

On February 4, 1948, the new government introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Bill before Parliament. The outward purpose of the bill was to provide a means of obtaining citizenship, but I think its real purpose was to discriminate against the Indian Tamils by denying them citizenship. The Ceylon Citizenship Act no. 18, August 20, 1948 denied citizenship to 11% of the population.

Although the All Ceylon Tamil Congress opposed the bill, it had joined with the UNP. This provoked half of its members to form the Federal Party, led by SJV Chelvanayakam. Next year, the Indian and Pakistani Residents Act, no.3, disenfranchised nearly all Tamils, who were originally from India. Their seven MPs were kicked out of parliament and there were no Indian Tamils in the 1952 parliament elections. It wasn’t until 1988 that the Sri Lanka government granted citizenship to stateless persons, who hadn’t applied for Indian citizenship. In 2003, 168,141 descendants of Indian Tamils were allowed citizenship.

The new government allowed Sinhalese to appropriate land on the Tamil traditional homeland in the north and east. Entire villages were driven out—ethnic cleansing—which the Sinhalese settled, aiming to break a geographic continuity of the Tamil homeland.(4) Within time, Sinhalese settlers had taken over 30% of Tamil lands and homes—a la Israel in Palestine.

In 1956, The Sinhala Only Act became law. It mandated Sinhala as “the sole official language”, which, at that time was spoken by 70% of the population.

Supporters of the law saw it as an attempt by a community that had just gained independence to distance themselves from their colonial masters, while its opponents viewed it as an attempt by the linguistic majority to oppress and assert dominance on minorities. The Act symbolizes the post independent majority Sinhalese to assert its Sri Lanka’s identity as a nation state, and for Tamils, it became a symbol of minority oppression and a justification for them to demand a separate nation state, which resulted in decades of civil war.

Tamils protested the discriminatory law by using Gandhian tactics of non-violent sit-ins. Although stated advocates of non-violence, Buddhist monks led Sinhalese mobs against Tamils.

The Gal Oya riots… were the first ethnic riots that targeted the minority Sri Lankan Tamils… The riots took place from June 11, 1956 and occurred over the next five days. Local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya settlement board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils… It is estimated that over 150 people lost their lives due in the violence. Although initially inactive, the Police and the Army were eventually able to re-take control of the situation and brought the riots under control.

Tamil political leader SJV Chelvanayagam began to organize a massive Satyagraha (non-violent resistance). In order to avoid even more bloodshed, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranayaka signed an agreement with Chelvanayagam promising to restore Tamil as the (or one of two) official language(s) in its minority areas. This infuriated many Sinhalese, especially monks, and they assaulted and sometimes killed Tamils in many areas. Buddhist monks even besieged the official residence of Bandaranayaka demanding that he abandoned the agreement, which he did. But, in 1958, the Sinhalese-led parliament, pressed by the violence and the pro-Moscow and Trotskyist Sinhalese parties, passed an amendment to the Sinhala Only Act (called “Sinhala Only, Tamil Also”) restoring Tamil as a co-official language in their areas of the North and East. Frustrated at the compromise, Sinhalese mobs murdered 200-300 Tamils, including some Sinhalese who gave Tamils refuge. Many Tamil women were raped and some Tamil boys were stripped, bound, and burned alive. This violent hatred evokes the lynching and burning alive of black people by whites in the southern USA.

Some Buddhists were angry that the Sinhalese Prime Minister Bandaranayaka had tried to compromise with Tamils. In 1959, a Buddhist monk assassinated him.

The language law had its intended effect. In 1955, the civil service had been largely made of Tamils, who had benefited more than Sinhalese from western style education provided by missionaries. This fact was used by populist Sinhalese politicians to come to power—or retain power—on the promise of providing more civil service jobs to Sinhalese by demanding that their language be the only one used in public service. By 1970, the civil service was almost entirely Sinhalese. Thousands of Tamil civil servants were forced to resign due to lack of fluency in Sinhala. In the1960s, government forms and services were virtually unavailable to Tamils.

Confrontation became the modus operandi; Sinhalese were the Zionists and Tamils the Palestinians!

It is important to stress, especially with progressive-revolutionary governments, such as the ALBA alliance in Latin America, and their supporters throughout the world, that the Tamils’ history in Sri Lanka is one of constant and widespread discrimination. They are also subjects to a policy of genocide as defined by the United Nations.(5)

Sri Lanka made world headlines in 1960 when a woman, Sirimavo RD Bandaranaike, was elected prime minister—the world’s first female leader. Being the widow of the martyr and founder of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was an asset. She immediately brought Sri Lanka into the Non-Alignment Movement, founded in 1961. The originators—India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, Yugoslavia’s Tito and Ghana’s Nkrumah—sought support for each other’s sovereignty without aligning with either super-power bloc at that time.(6)

Nevertheless, Sri Lankan leaders of both predominantly Sinhala major parties continued to be dependent upon economic and military ties with India, the US, the UK, and Israel. Social welfare programs were carried out within a capitalist economic structure. This was a cause for radical opposition. In 1971, thousands of Sinhalese students, and Indian Tamil plantation workers, under the leadership of a new nationalistic and Marxist-oriented political party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramana (JVP), translated as Peoples Liberation Front, engaged in anti-government clashes. Fifteen thousand protestors were killed in the uprising.

Once in power, Bandaranaike’s widow did not alter the Sinhalese policy of genocide: “…an ingenious device was resorted to deprive the Tamils of the constitutional safeguards and the characteristics of the conditional polity. A coalition of three Sinhalese political parties, led by Mrs. Sirimavo R.D.Bandaranaike, called upon the people to give a mandate [in the 1970 General Elections, during her second term] for a new Constituent Assembly to scrap the 1948 dominion polity and create a new Republic of Sri Lanka. Whilst the voters in the seven Sinhalese provinces gave Mrs.Bandaranaike the mandate that she had requested, the Tamil voters in the Northern and Eastern Provinces summarily rejected her call. In the North and East, a mere 14% of the votes polled supported the call for a new constituent Assembly.”

Laws protecting rights of racial and religious minorities were abandoned and Buddhism was made the constitutional religion of Sri Lanka.

Sinhalese claimed 5000 acres in the Tamil farmland “Nochikulam” as theirs, renaming it “Nochiyagama.” Next year, 10,738 Sinhalese families settled in Trincomalee illegally.

“The sovereignty of the Tamil people (who were ethnically, geographically and linguistically separately identifiable and distinct) revived.”

With this setback, a reinvigorated ACTC joined with the Federal Party, in 1972, to form the Tamil United Front (TUF). Separatism or autonomy now became the cry for nearly all Tamils, who sought an Eelam part of Sri Lanka. Thirty Tamil militant groups emerged.

“The operative part is Thamil Eelam and it means the Tamil part of Eelam. The term Eelam is a synonym for Sri Lanka and has been in use in Tamil literature right from the Cankam Period dating as far back as 200 B.C. to circa 250 A.D.”

The second government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike enacted a discriminatory double standard law for admission grades to universities, requiring Tamil students to achieve higher grades than Sinhalese.

Throughout the 1970s, Sinhalese mobs clashed—with impunity—not only with Tamils but also Muslim Moors. In 1976, Sinhalese burned 271 houses and 44 shops, murdering a score of Muslims.

In 1976, the Tamil United Front Party changed its name to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TUFP) at the Vattukottai Conference, and adopted a demand for an independent sovereign state in traditional Tamil homeland in the north and east to be known as the “secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam.”(7)

By 1975, Tamil militancy increased with the birth of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, who considered himself a Marxist and follower of Che Guevara. The LTTE engaged in small armed clashes with the military.

The conservative UNP won a landslide victory in the July 1977 elections. But the pro-independence TULF won 6.4% of the popular vote, winning all 14 seats in the Tamil homeland area, and four more seats of the 168-member parliament. In response to Tamil’s peaceful struggle and its parliamentary victory, Sinhalese mobs, led by Buddhist monks, again destroyed many Tamil homes and shops and murdered up to 300 Tamils.

In July 1978, the UNP, led by Prime Minister Junius Richard Jayewardene, changed the constitution and renamed the country the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. An executive presidency was established, allowing the president greater powers than the prime minister, whom the president now appoints. The president is also the commander-in-chief and head of the cabinet. He can dissolve parliament and has judicial impunity.

Jayewardene became the first president and appointed Ramasinghe Premadosa (UNP) prime minister. Despite the new name, “democratic socialist republic,” the capitalist government began deregulating much of what had been government run enterprises. Private enterprise was priority.

On May 31, 1981, the TULF held a rally in Jaffna in the north. Police clashed with Tamils and two policemen were killed. For three days, Sinhalese mobs, policemen, and soldiers went on a rampage. Several Tamils were taken from their homes and killed. The TULF headquarters, a newspaper office, presses, and shops were destroyed. Worst of all was the total destruction of the Jaffna library and its 97,000 volumes of books and irreplaceable historical manuscripts, some made of palm leaves. It is now well known that the fire that destroyed this unique institution of the Tamils in their homeland was masterminded by a handful of ministers of the Sinhala Government in Colombo, who were present in Jaffna the night of the fire.

“The national newspapers did not carry information about the incident and in subsequent parliamentary debates some majority Sinhalese members reminded minority Tamil politicians that if Tamils were unhappy in Sri Lanka, they should leave for their homeland in India. This is a direct quotation from United National Party member MP WJM Lokubandara:

“If there is discrimination in this land which is not their (Tamil) homeland, then why try to stay here? Why not go back home (India) where there would be no discrimination?”

“Twenty years later, the mayor of Jaffna, Nadarajah Raviraj, still grieved at the recollection of the flames he saw as a University student. He was later killed by unknown gunmen in the capital Colombo, in 2006.”

Civil War and LTTE

By summer 1983, the then small guerrilla army of LTTE was well settled in most northern and eastern areas. Their first major assault against the state’s military took place at Jaffna peninsula, July 24. LTTE ambushed a convoy of soldiers passing through land mines and killed 15.

This could have been in response to many random attacks upon Tamils in various areas. One example is in Trincomalee where, on 10 April 1983, a young Tamil died in police custody after having been held without charge for two weeks. At the judicial inquest into his death, on May 31, the Jaffna Magistrate returned a verdict of homicide. Three days later, the government changed the rules permitting the police to bury or cremate bodies without a post mortem or an inquest.

Amnesty International cabled President Jayawardene expressing concern that such a regulation could give rise to grave human rights violations and appealed to him to rescind it. But he did not. On the contrary, on June 3, 1983, the day that the new Emergency Regulation was brought into effect, the attacks on the Tamils in Trincomalee commenced in earnest.

R. Sampanthan, M.P. for Trincomalee, described that mobs of Sinhalese went from village to village setting fire to Tamil houses and shops. A particular modus operandi was observed. Heavily armed service personnel would enter a Tamil area and carry out a search alleging that explosions and dangerous weapons were hidden in that area. Invariably nothing would be recovered other than implements that would normally be available in any house. Sometimes Tamil youths would be arrested on “suspicion” and taken for questioning. After a month of many pogrom raids, the LTTE struck the army convoy.

That night and for weeks Sinhalese rampaged against Tamils, especially in the Colombo area where some Tamils youths were stripped naked and burned alive in petrol. Black July ended with between 2000 and 3000 dead Tamils, among them 53 prisoners, including key political leaders, who were murdered by Sinhalese prisoners at Welikadai. One political prisoner, Kuttimani, had his eyes gouged out and stomped upon under a soldier’s boots.

One hundred thousand Tamils were rendered homeless and that many and more fled to India.

Even non-violent advocates of separatism or independence, such as the TULF, were pushed out of the democratic process. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted in August 1983, classified all separatist movements as unconstitutional. That meant that all its members of parliament—16 then—lost their seats. Thousands of Tamil youth joined militant armed groups, especially the LTTE, which became the most disciplined and well organized.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the LTTE established a de facto state, called Tamil Eelam, and managed a government, which provided a judicial court system, a police force, and social assistance in health and education and for the poorest. LTTE ran a bank, a radio station (Voice of Tigers), even a television station. Guerrilla leaders helped organize small cooperative farming units based on traditional methods. The LTTE dismantled the caste system and officially stopped discrimination against women. The LTTE organized a civilian administration under its command. There was order and peace in these areas, as long as everyone obeyed and when the Sri Lanka army did not bomb.

In the 1980s, there was much discontent in other parts of Sri Lanka. Radical Sinhalese youths, such as the JVP, demanded going further towards socialism. In 1987, JVP engaged in another armed uprising. But after 1989, it entered into parliamentary politics. It participated in the 1994 parliamentary general election and joined conservative and liberal party coalitions in opposing equal rights with Tamils.

Ranasinghe Premadasa was prime minister from February 1978 to January 1, 1989, under President Jayewardene, and then he became president until his assassination on Mayday 1993. Many Sinhalese elitists thought he was too common to be their leader and too compromising with Tamils. Controversial policies under his terms included the matter of language, ethnic cleansing, and the role of India in internal affairs. The first controversy was the constitutional amendment allowing “equality” of languages in the Tamil areas: “National languages shall be Sinhala and Tamil,” although, “The official language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala. Tamil shall also be an official language. English shall be a link language.”

This compromise spoke in double tongues. Why not just make Sinhala and Tamil equally official, as India has done with a score of languages?

Alienated Tamils

Even a U.S. Library of Congress study characterized Tamils as alienated. In 1988, it published, SriLanka: a Country Study. In the chapter entitled, “Tamil Alienation,” the authors wrote:

Moderate as well as militant Sri Lankan Tamils have regarded the policies of successive Sinhalese governments in Colombo with suspicion and resentment since at least the mid-1950s, when the “Sinhala Only” language policy was adopted…

Several issues provided the focus for Sri Lankan Tamil alienation and widespread support, particularly within the younger generation, for extremist movements…Sinhalese still remained the higher-status “official language,” and inductees into the civil service were expected to acquire proficiency in it. Other areas of disagreement concerned preference given to Sinhalese applicants for university admissions and public employment, and allegations of government encouragement of Sinhalese settlement in Tamil-majority areas.

“Government-sponsored settlement of Sinhalese in the northern or eastern parts of the island, traditionally considered to be Tamil regions, has been perhaps the most immediate cause of inter-communal violence. There was, for example, an official plan in the mid-1980s to settle 30,000 Sinhalese in the dry zone of Northern Province, giving each settler land and funds to build a house and each community armed protection in the form of rifles and machine guns. Tamil spokesmen accused the government of promoting a new form of ‘colonialism’,” but the Jayewardene government asserted that no part of the island could legitimately be considered an ethnic homeland and thus closed to settlement from outside. Settlement schemes were popular with the poorer and less fortunate classes of Sinhalese.”

Che Guevara made no bones about the significance of alienation: “…the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration (is) to see man liberated from his alienation.”(8)

India’s Vacillating Role

The role of India in Sri Lanka’s civil war was a major problem. India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, son of assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, first supported the LTTE. His air force even dropped 25 tons of aid in their territory in Jaffna (Operation Poomalai). A month following this, the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed between Gandhi and the reluctant Prime Minister Ranasinghe Presmadasa, under pressure from his president, JR Jayewardene. The July 29, 1987 accord was expected to resolve the ongoing civil war. Colombo agreed to devolution of power to the Tamil provinces, and its military was to withdraw in exchange for the Tamil rebels’ disarmament. The LTTE had not been made party to the talks but reluctantly agreed to surrender arms to the Indian Peace Keeping Force. Within a few months, however, both sides flared into an active confrontation. Indian soldiers died in far greater numbers than Tamil rebels: 1,500 killed and 4,500 wounded.

In January 1989, Premadasa was elected President on a popular platform promising that the Indian Peace Keeping Force would leave within three months. The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially with some 50 million Tamil Nadu people. Gandhi refused to withdraw India’s troops, however, believing that the only way to end the civil war was to politically force Premadasa and to militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord. But, in December 1989, Vishwanath Pratap Singh was elected India’s Prime Minister and completed the pullout.

On May 21, 1991, in an act of revenge over India’s militarist actions, a female LTTE member blew up Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb attack. In 1992, India became the first government, even before Sri Lanka, to declare the LTTE a terrorist group.

President Premadasa resumed the civil war, which became stalemated. Many forces were angry with him, including a rival Sinhalese leader Lalith Athulathmudali, who sought an impeachment motion against Premadasa, in 1991. Lalith was an adamant supporter of Zionism.

When Athulathmudali, a pro-Israeli power broker, challenged Premadasa two years ago with an impeachment motion in the parliament, Premadasa openly accused Mossad, the intelligence agency of Israel, of trying to topple him. In his address to the Sri Lankan parliament, Premadasa said,

“…I had Israeli interests section removed. In such a context there is nothing to be surprised about the Mossad rising up against me. Please remember that there are among us traitors who have gone to Israeli universities and lectured there and earned dirty money…”

cited Sachi Sri Kantha, quoting the prime minister in “The Puzzles in President Premadasa’s Assassination Revisited.”

In April 1993, Athulathmudali was murdered. Eight days later, on Mayday, Premadasa was murdered. The LTTE did not claim responsibility for these assassinations but were so blamed by Sinhalese and the mass media.

“When Athulathmudali was assassinated last April, the members of his party immediately accused Premadasa for ordering the killing. The murder of Premadasa could have been a return hit planned and executed by the Mossad which had lost its major card in Sri Lankan politics.”

The second Eelam war lasted from 1989 until November 1994 when the People’s Alliance (led by SLFP) candidate, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, won the presidency. But peace negotiations broke down and the war continued from 1995 until the end of 2001 when ceasefire negotiations made progress. But not before the LTTE proved to the Sri Lanka government and military, with 230,000 well armed troops, that it was its equal. With somewhere around 5000 guerrillas—along with a small Sea Tigers boat unit, which made some pirate hits for funding, and even a few light civilian aircraft, the Sky Tigers, which sometimes made damaging raids against the Air Force—the LTTE won many military victories.

The Sri Lankan military often bombed civilian Tamils in the LTTE-controlled zones. It claimed that they were legitimate “collateral damage” given that the guerrillas allegedly forced them to remain against their will. The civilian hostage charge was widely reported as truth by the west and its mass media, as was the allegation that the LTTE forces children into armed combat.

On January 31, 1996, the LTTE stunned the nation when it bombed the Central Bank in Colombo, which managed most financial business accounts. One suicide bomber with 200 kilos of explosions drove through the main gate and exploded, wiping out many bank floors and several other buildings. Behind him came a vehicle with two cadres firing rifles and launchers. They escaped but were later captured. Material damage was tremendous but more so was the loss of 53 lives and injuries to 1,400 people, most of them not military targets.

On July 24, 1996, LTTE forces bombed a commuter train killing 70 Sinhalese civilians. By the end of the 1990s, both sides had killed tens of thousands of people. Civilians were targeted by both sides. The Tigers claimed that civilians were targeted only when associated with military installations. But some attacks, such as the train, were unjustifiable. Furthermore, the LTTE has often murdered other Tamils who also seek autonomy but were not part of the LTTE or had made public critiques. It has, for example, killed several leaders of the TULF.

On April 22, 2000 LTTE forces surprisingly overran Sri Lanka’s Elephant Pass military base on Jaffna. Over 1,000 troops were killed and huge quantities of arms and ammunition were taken.

On July 24, 2001, the LTTE again stunned the nation and the world when it attacked the only international airport and the nearby military base.

Around 3:30 am on July 24, 14 members of the LTTE Black Tiger suicide squad infiltrated Katunayake air base… After destroying electricity transformers to plunge the base in darkness they cut through the barbed wire surrounding the base to begin their assault. Using rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons and assault rifles, the militants attacked the air force planes. They were not able to attack the aircraft in the hangars but did destroy eight military aircraft on the tarmac: three Nanchange K-8 trainer aircraft, one Mil Mi-17 helicopter, one Mil Mi-24 helicopter, two LAI Kfir fighter jets, and a Mig-27. Five K-8s and one MiG-27 were also damaged. A total of 26 aircraft were either damaged or destroyed in the attack.

Eight Tigers and three air force officers died in the battle at the air base. The six remaining LTTE members then crossed the runway to nearby Bandaranaike Airport. Using their weapons, they began blowing up any civilian aircraft they could find, which were all empty. One Airbus340 was destroyed by an explosive charge; an A330 was destroyed by a rocket fired from the control tower. In addition, an A320-200 and an A340-300 were damaged in the assault.”

All 14 guerrillas were killed, along with six Sri Lankan air force personnel and one soldier killed by friendly fire; 12 soldiers were injured, along with three Sri Lankan civilians and a Russian engineer… The cost of replacing the civilian aircraft was estimated at $350 million USD. The attack caused a slowdown in the economy of Sri Lanka, to about -1.4%. Tourism also plummeted, dropping 15.5% at the end of the year.

Cease Fire

During two decades of civil war, the LTTE had several times offered a ceasefire on the condition of negotiations to establish peace and ethnic equality. With this military victory, the guerrilla army offered a unilateral ceasefire. Some national voices and many international ones were also pressing for a ceasefire. Norway took concrete steps, but it was this spectacular military victory and the loss to the economy that forced the government to the bargaining table.

The formal Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) was signed on February 22, 2002. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and LTTE leader Velupillai Pirabakaran signed the agreement, alongside mediator Jan Petersen representing Norway’s foreign ministry.

Provisions provided for each side holding their ground positions. Neither side was to engage in any offensive military operation or move munitions into the area controlled by the other side.

The LTTE proposed an Interim Self-Government Authority (ISGA) to administer the Tamil homeland, pending final agreement and elections. The ceasefire was monitored by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. It was staffed by designees from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. The US, UK and other EU countries had observers. Headquarters were established in Colombo, and there were 60 monitors in six district teams and two naval ones. The SLMM monitored violations and mediated between the two parties but could not enforce sanctions. Many Sinhalese considered the Monitoring Mission, especially Norway, of being partial to the Tigers.

During the ceasefire, progress was made in agricultural development and general infrastructure in the Tamil Homeland. Many foreigners were invited to observe and participate in building Tamil Eelam. Impressive first-hand accounts have been written about the progress in many areas: administrative, economic and a social welfare network. While voices friendly to this process praised the advances made, many also questioned the lack of civilian input in the decision-making process.

The LTTE did not emphasize an international political solidarity movement. It did appeal for economic donations, which poured to it, especially from Tamils in the Diaspora. The LTTE stopped speaking of Marxism or building a socialist independent state. It emphasized winning militarily—if Sri Lanka continued preventing an autonomous Tamil homeland—and constructing a social welfare state with cooperative and private enterprises. The Tigers became so respectable they could openly purchase weaponry from some countries not directly under the thumb of US-EU-Israel or their partial antagonists: China, Iran and Pakistan. A May 29, 2009 Times Online piece quotes the editor of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, saying that the LTTE used 11 merchant ships to deliver weapons, many of which they got from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, Thailand and Croatia. Even the World Bank recognized the LTTE as an unofficial State, according to its representative in Sri Lanka, Peter Harrold, in 2005.

The LTTE was even building a Tamil University where Tamils in the Diaspora would have taught. I spoke with one of them, a man who had earned a doctorate degree in environmental science and taught in European universities. He frequently visited the homeland he had left three decades previously. He hoped that he would return and teach once the university would be opened.

An activist in independence forces using peaceful methods, he wished to remain anonymous. His impressions were that the Tigers were the dominating factor in civilian administration but that as long as no one objected one felt safe in the Homeland areas whenever Colombo’s armed forces were not bombing. He was critical that the LTTE armed forces had resorted to terrorist methods in their history, such as assassinating political critics. The professor, however, did not think the LTTE forced children into combat or used civilians as human shields, generally.

“Tigers were good people, intelligent and sensitive to people and nature. But contradictions did exist. They were a strange animal.”

Cease Fire Ends

On December 26, 2004, the greatest earthquake-tsunami ever recorded (9.3) hit Southeast Asia. Eleven countries were deeply affected: 230,000 were killed or missing. Sri Lanka was one of the worst disasters. About 40,000 people were killed or missing; 1.5 million were displaced from their homes. International aid poured in but did not arrive in the North and East due to Sinhalese political party opposition. The LTTE organized all the aid it could muster for hundreds of thousands in the Tamil homeland. Foreign volunteers and emergency relief organizations praised the LTTE for its effective and caring work. There are many accounts of this.

Mahinda Rajapakse was appointed prime minister April 6, 2004, and then elected President on November 19, 2005 with just 50.3% of the vote. He was the pro-war candidate of a new coalition, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). Tamil political parties and many foreign relief groups accused Rajapakse of diverting Tsunami relief funds designated for their homeland. In this complex reality, those parties most adamant about refusing aid to suffering Tamils and who demanded an end to the ceasefire with the objective of launching an all-out war were those claiming to be either hard-core Marxist-Communist-Trotskyists or self-proclaimed non-violent Buddhists.

United People’s Freedom Alliance [is] undoubtedly the broadest coalition of progressive forces in the country. This coalition, which came into being in 2004 upon a platform of new liberal socio economic program and a resolve to defeat separatist terrorism, has since mobilized people around a social democratic agenda.”

This coalition is not just made up of alleged “progressives” but of “social” capitalists and self-styled “democratic socialists.” At the start, the coalition parties were: Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya, Muslim National Unity Alliance, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, Democratic United National Front, and Desha Vimukthi Janatha Party.

The Communist Party of Sri Lanka and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party signed a memorandum of understanding with the SLFP so their candidates would take part in parliamentary elections in the new coalition. They also joined the UPFA. On April 2, 2004, the alliance won 45.6% of the popular vote and took 105 out of 225 seats.

A Buddhist political party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), was founded in February 2004 and participated in the 2004 parliamentary elections, winning 6% of the vote for nine seats. In 2007, it formally joined the hodge-podge UPFA coalition government and was given a ministry post.

On April 3, 2008, JHU’s leader gave his reasons for warring against Tamils to the United States government financed Voice of America radio station.

Athurliye Rathana, a Buddhist monk who heads the Jathika Hela Urumaya party in Sri Lanka’s parliament, wants to end the suffering by putting a quick end to the war. Speaking with VOA at a seaside hotel in this former tourist haven, Rathana says he supports the government’s latest military offensive to quash the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“Anytime a militant group is harmful to peaceful people, then government should have the right to exercise constitutional law and order,” Rathana said. “And, LTTE is unlawful and so, under our constitutional law, anyone cannot exercise militancy. But [with] the LTTE separatist movement, the government has some duty to control their military activities. I say only one thing, ‘Please do your duty.’”

For comments like that, the Sri Lankan media has branded Rathana the “war monk,”… his sentiments are common in Sri Lanka’s majority ethnic Sinhala community.

Rathana is a celebrated figure in this predominantly Buddhist nation, where monks are cherished for their spiritual guidance. The pro-war activism of Rathana and others has spurred as many as 30,000 Sinhalese young men to join the army in the past few months.

The UPFA alliance of apparently conflicting ideologies and economic policies is so strange that one can easily be confused about who is who and why their politics are such that they are. After a month’s research, having begun as a total novice to this region, I am unclear about why various political forces take the position they do not only about the Tigers but about the entire Tamil ethnic group. For many Sinhalese, an engrained racism is clearly a major motivation. But how can one explain that a Tamil group, Eelam People’s Democratic Party, also takes part in this coalition of Sinhalese racists? The EPDP is a paramilitary group fighting against the LTTE alongside the government. It even has one member in parliament. EPDP also assassinates civilians, including BBC reporter Nimalarajan Mylvaganam.

The Cease Fire Agreement was a thorn in the side of the new ruling coalition. Although the government claimed that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission favored the Tiger guerrillas, its monitors had lodged 3006 violations committed by the LTTE and only 133 by the government, as of June 30, 2005. From May 2006 onward to its termination in January 2008, the Monitoring Mission was hampered by worsening hostilities, especially following a Sea Tiger boat attack on a navy convoy, May 11, 2006.

The European Union then placed the Tigers on its terrorist list, while appearing to be even-handed by calling upon the Sri Lankan government to end its “culture of impunity” and to “curb violence” in its areas of control.

Sweden, Finland and Denmark, as members of EU, also considered the Tigers to be terrorists, and the LTTE objected to their membership on the Monitoring Mission. They withdrew leaving only Norway and Iceland with 20 monitors. The reduced Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission disbanded in 2008. The path for a full war was clear.

Notes:

(1) John Pilger, “Distant Voices, Desperate Lives,” New Statesman, May 13, 2009.

(2) See Article 29 of Soulbury Commission.

(3) LSSP=Ceylon Equal Society Party comprised of Sinhalese Trotskyists; BLPI=Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India also Trotskyists; CIC=Ceylon Indian Congress, which soon changed its name to Ceylon Workers Congress, represented the Indian Tamils of the Estates Workers Trade Union; CPC, the Communist Party of Ceylon, with a pro-Moscow line; Labour was fashioned after Clement Attlee-led British Labour party. The Marxist parties later colluded with capitalist Sinhalese parties in opposing equality with Tamils. The CPC is now the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, which is part of the United People’s Freedom Alliance that includes the Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led government of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

(4) “The Unspeakable Truth,” British Tamil Forum, 2008, p.8.

(5) See part 1, “Justice for Sri Lanka Tamils.”

(6) In 1976, Colombo was the summit site. In 1979, the Havana Declaration ensured “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their struggle against “imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and racism.” In 2006, there were 118 member nations, representing 55% of the world’s population. Many of these nations have been at war with one another, and many have aligned with one or other of the previous super-powers.

(7) My reading of Tamil history shows many discrepancies in dates and events. Different writings on the LTTE contend it was created at different times, either in 1972, 1975 or 1976.

(8) Che Guevara, Socialism and man, Marcha, Uruguay, March 12, 1965.

For other articles by the author visit his website.

Sri Lanka: Emergency powers against workers

Saman Gunadasa, WSWS

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse imposed an Essential Services Order from midnight on Sunday on unions and workers at four state-owned corporations, banning their work-to-rule campaign for pay demands in the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Ceylon Electricity Board, the Water Board and the ports.

Under an Essential Services Order, all strikes and industrial action are illegal. Workers breaching the order can be punished, including by sacking. Legal action can also be taken against workers, as well as unions and union leaders. In the guise of “maintaining supply of services and goods essential for the life of the community,” the government can mobilise the armed forces as strike breakers.

Rajapakse has previously threatened to invoke his draconian emergency powers, but this is the first time he has done so. The government has maintained a state of emergency—even though the army defeated the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May—on the pretext that security threats remain. The Essential Services Order makes clear that the real target is the working class.

The government is confronting a deepening economic crisis produced by huge military budgets and compounded by the global financial crash. Amid his victory celebrations in May, Rajapakse declared an “economic war”, insisting that workers had to sacrifice to build the nation.

In July, faced with a looming balance of payments crisis, the government was compelled to accept an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan with stringent austerity measures attached, including slashing the budget deficit and restructuring the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). Rajapakse has imposed a freeze on public sector wages and jobs, fuelling resentment and opposition among workers whose pay has been undermined by soaring prices.

The limited pay campaign by unions linked to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the United National Party (UNP) in the CPC, CEB, Water Board and the ports takes place amid protests and industrial action in other areas. Following previous protests, the JVP-and UNP-led unions called a three-day work-to-rule campaign from November 11 to demand an additional 5,000-rupee ($US44) interim monthly allowance.

President Rajapakse denounced any industrial action from the outset. At a meeting of loyal trade union bureaucrats on October 26, he attacked unions allied to the opposition JVP and UNP as “conspirators” destabilising the country. He warned they would be dealt with sternly.

Opposed to any political struggle against the Rajapakse regime, the unions attempted to strike a deal in a meeting with government representatives on November 9. The government offered a 22 percent increase—considerably less than the unions’ original demands. While the increase was to be payable from November, the payments would only begin in January 2010. Well aware that the offer would be unacceptable to workers, the unions announced their work-to-rule campaign.

At the same time, K.D. Lal Kantha, head of the JVP’s National Trade Union Centre (NTUC), indicated the willingness of the unions to compromise and called on Rajapakse to intervene directly. He told the Daily Mirror that the NTUC would accept a 22 percent increase if paid from January 2009 and consider “payment of arrears on a stage by stage basis staggered even for three years”.

The unions’ concessions only encouraged Rajapakse to prepare tougher measures. On November 10, pro-government unions staged a menacing demonstration in central Colombo against the work-to-rule campaign. Many of those involved were not union members or workers but street hawkers rounded up for the protest.

In a press briefing on November 11, army spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara warned that the armed forces were “on standby” to maintain essential services if the industrial campaign went ahead. On the same day, the government tried to deploy navy personnel in sections of the Colombo port but they were forced to withdraw after workers protested and threatened to walk off the job.

Pro-government thugs, some armed with clubs, were also brought into the port. As the port is under tight security, that would only have been possible with the sanction of the military or police. A crane operator was critically injured and hospitalised after being assaulted.

Last Friday, thugs were brought to the CPC storage terminal at Kolonnawa, on the outskirts of Colombo. Workers chased them away, denouncing them as provocateurs. The incident fuelled widespread anger, forcing CPC union leaders to call an “indefinite strike” over the pay demands.

The unions had already exempted “essential services” from the strike and directed workers to provide fuel to hospitals, government-owned bus and train services, the military and police. The government, however, prevented workers entering the CPC fuel storage on Sunday and the same night imposed the Essential Services Order.

The following day, the CPC unions called off the strike and sent workers back to work. CPC trade union leader D.J. Rajakaruna told the WSWS that this was not “a retreat” and discussions would be held about future action. The port unions quickly followed suit, calling off their work-to-rule campaign in return for a 1,000-rupee monthly increase to the basic wage and a 2,000-rupee allowance, payable from January 2010.

The Water Board union leaders had already called off their bans last Friday, directing workers to wear black armbands in an impotent display of opposition. A two-hour protest stoppage is due to be held at noon today. The CEB unions have continued the work-to-rule but, according to Ceylon Electricity Workers Union secretary Ranjan Jayalal, the campaign will end today.

Rajapakse’s use of the emergency powers against workers is a warning that the government will stop at nothing to suppress any resistance to its harsh austerity measures. In the course of the war over the past three years, Rajapakse repeatedly denounced striking workers for undermining national security and the military. Now he is using the police-state measures built up during the conflict directly against the working class.

Without a political struggle against the Rajapakse government, it is impossible for workers to defend even their most basic rights. The trade unions have functioned throughout the pay dispute as the industrial policemen for the government, deliberately limiting the scope of the demands and the campaign. The JVP, which supported the government’s war to the hilt, is now subordinating workers to Rajapakse’s so-called nation building.

After the LTTE’s defeat in May, the Socialist Equality Party warned that the government would turn the war against the country’s Tamil minority into an economic war to impose the burdens of the worsening financial crisis onto working people. The only way forward for workers is to break out of the shackles of the trade unions, unite across Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnic lines and mobilise independently against the Rajapakse regime in the fight for a workers’ and farmers’ government based on socialist policies.

Courtesy: World Socialist Web Site

Tamil Eelam: Historical Right to Nationhood (II)

Ron Ridenour

Click here for the first article in this series

Sri Lanka—formerly Ceylon, in English, and Serendib in Arabic (which gave rise to the word serendipity)—is commonly referred to as the “pearl of the orient” due to its beauty and wealth of natural resources, flora and fauna. Today, it is a land torn apart by hatred: racist government policies, ethnic cleansing, and terror war just ended albeit continuing in the form of incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Tamil people in the north. A key reason for this brutal hatred is the dispute over whether a minority of its people, the Tamils, should have: equal rights with the majority Sinhalese, and if this is denied (as will be shown it has), should they have the right to their own autonomous territory.

Sri Lanka’s first aborigines with continuous lineage are the Tamil people. It is not precisely known when they came to the island, but perhaps as many as 5000 years ago. Archaeologists date the first humans in Sri Lanka to some 34,000 years. Scientists call them Balangoda people, the name of the location where artifacts were found. These hunting-gathering cave dwellers have no current lineage.

Tamils were also known as proto-Elamites or Ela. These people in Sri Lanka call themselves Eelam Tamils, meaning “earthly people”. Tamils speak a Dravidian language, which has no ties to other language families. It was, perhaps, associated with Scythians and Urals. The Dravidian language and Tamils originated, perhaps, from Sumer and Ur: the “cradle of the first civilization”, now Iran. The Sumer and Tamils formed the first language of proto-grams on clay tablets. Tamil inscriptions and literature are at least 2500 years old. Today, 100 to 200 million people speak Tamil.(1)

The Christian Bible refers to Elam as “maritime nations in various lands, each with a separate language”.(Genesis 10) In the myth of Noahs Ark, Elam was thought to be a descendant of one of Noah’s three sons on the ark.(Genesis 5-9) Tamils were the first to use the wheel for transportation. They traveled to India and the island Sri Lanka, which had been connected to India. The first known manuscripts in India were written in Tamil. Other Tamils inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Thailand.

About 2500 years ago, the first Sinhalese came to Sri Lanka from India. This was hundreds of years after Tamils were settled in the kingdom in the north at Jaffna (Yazhpanam). Sinhalese is, perhaps, a term originating from King Vijayan, who was expelled from the kingdom of Sinhapura in India and arrived in Sri Lanka 543 BC. He and his people engaged in combat with the Tamil aborigines. They established the Kandi and Kottai kingdoms in the central and southern areas.

The Sinhalese are among many ethnic groups who speak an Indo-Aryan language, Pali, believed to have developed in Sindh, Gujarat and Bengal areas about 3000 years ago. They early became practitioners of Buddhism, an off-shot of Hinduism, which is the religion that most Tamils adopted. Buddhism was created by the prince, Siddhartha Gautama, in the 6th century BC. Most Sinhalese adopted Buddhism but some were converted to Christianity, which was first introduced by traders from Syria, in the 1st or 2nd century after Christ.

The Sinhalese and Tamils have distinct ethnic backgrounds, languages and religions. The vast majority of both peoples has always lived in separate regions of Sri Lanka and they have often been at war. The Sinhalese adopted the chauvinistic attitude that their language and religion were the only true ones and they must reign throughout Sri Lanka. All other religions were alien. This notion seems to have originated, or been fortified, by the historical poem Mahavamsa (“Great Chronicle”) written in Pali by the Buddhist monk Mahatera Mahanama. It covers nearly one thousand years of Sinhalese kingdom history in Sri Lanka.

Sinhalese maintain that Sri Lanka must be a Buddhist nation because, they claim, it has been so throughout history—although they count the beginning of national history with Mahanama’s account of the first Sinhalese kingdom of Vijaya, in 543 BC. The fact that Tamil Eelams had kingdoms in Sri Lanka for many hundreds of years is ignored.

When the first Europeans, Portuguese traders, landed in Sri Lanka, in 1505, they encountered three native kingdoms: two Sinhalese kingdoms at Kottai and Kandi, and the Tamils in Jaffna peninsula. Although the Portuguese were traders, they brought fire power and eventually seized power militarily from the Kottai kingdom. Despite their superior weaponry, it took them decades to defeat the kingdoms at Jaffna and Kandi, yet resistance remained throughout Portuguese occupation. The Portuguese named the island Ceilão, which the English later transliterated as Ceylon.

In 1658, Dutch invaders arrived. The Dutch United East India Company sided with the Kandi resistance to defeat the Portuguese. But when the natives realized the Dutch sought total control, the Kandians organized guerilla warfare. In 1766, the Dutch took sovereignty over the entire coastline but not the entire island where some Tamils and Sinhalese remained independent.

In 1795, the British landed and kicked out the Dutch within a year. They realized there were two separate nations of natives. In June 1796, the British Colonial Secretary, Sir Hugh Cleghorn wrote to his government:

“Two different nations, from a very ancient period, have divided between them the possession of the Island: the Sinhalese inhabiting the interior in its southern and western parts from the river Wallouwe to Chilaw, and the Malabars (Tamils) who possess the northern and eastern districts. These two nations differ entirely in their religion, language and manners.”

It took the Brits a generation to defeat resisting natives. In 1811, they defeated Bandara Vanniyan and his guerrilla resisters in the Tamil Vanni territory. In 1815, the British finally captured the last of the Kandyan kingdom.

The European invaders were only interested in the riches they could steal. They converted the peasant based agricultural economy into an export one. The island was rich in cinnamon and other spices, coconuts and graphite. English colonialists converted much of the land into tea, coffee and rubber plantations.

Religion was used by the colonialists to dominate and pacify the natives. The Portuguese spread Catholicism in an organized manner. Some Tamils and some Sinhalese converted or were forced to convert. Both the Dutch and English continued the process with their Protestant missionaries, yet most natives held onto their beliefs in either Buddhism or Hinduism. Islamism was also introduced by Arab traders.

“Sri Lanka as British-ruled Ceylon was subjected to a classic divide-and-rule.”, wrote John Pilger.

The English had to have their tea so they created tea plantations in the mountainous regions, especially in the center of the country where Sinhalese lived. But Sinhalese would not work them so the Brits “brought Tamils from India as virtual slave labor while building an educated Tamil middle-class to run the colony,” continued Pilger (2). Only a few indigenous Tamils, however, ran anything, but some educated ones took the opportunity to sit on top of the bottom castes.

A hierarchy of “races”, classes and castes was perpetrated among native ethnic groups and new arrivals. In the mid-1800s, English and German scholars adopted an ideology of superiority first based on language and then on race. The English viewed Sinhalese as cousins in the large Aryan family. Brits (and Germans) were the “superior” white Aryans; the Sinhalese lesser Indo-Aryans, and Tamils were the colonialized proletariat, the “black inferior race”. This fit in nicely with the Sinhalese elite notion of superiority, based on their precious book of mythology, Mahavamsa. In the 1870s, a German scholar, Max Muller, writing about language origins, especially Indo-Aryan, first coined the term “Aryan race”—something he later regretted.(3)

Europeans took it for granted that Greek and Latin were superior languages, and they saw affinities with Sanskrit, from which Sinhalese is derived. Given this identity, it was easier for the colonialists to drive a wedge deeper between the indigenous peoples, and all the more so by allowing Sinhalese to own land without having to work the British tea and rubber plantations in the center of the country. The Brits left the aborigine Tamils stay in their homeland in the north and east, but brought between 800,000 and 1.5 million Tamils from India to work the fields; nearly one-fourth died in route. It is estimated that 70,000 Tamil Nadu died on route in the 1840s. Their story parallels that of Africans forced into slavery and brought to the Americas.

Ironically, it was protestant missionaries who contributed greatly to the development of political awareness among Tamils in the north and east, and led to a revival of the Hindu faith as a reaction against Christian domination. We find many examples of this in modern history, such as the increasing interest among Arabs in practicing strict Islamic customs, including separate gender rules, as a reaction to the invasions and occupations of Western imperialism in the Middle-East. Something similar is occurring in Palestine in response to the apartheid enforced by Zionist Jews.

Led by revivalist Arumuga Navalar in the mid-1800s, Tamils in the north and east built their own schools, temples, associations and presses. Literacy was used to spread Hinduism and its principles. Tamils published their own literature and newspapers to counter the ideology-religion of the missionaries. Tamils thought confidently of themselves as a community, thus lending to the legitimacy of their later assertion of the necessity to be treated equally with the Sinhalese or be granted—or take—their own autonomy as Eelam Tamils.

For some of the time that Britain ruled the island different colonial governors recognized equality of the native peoples, yet played one against the other. In 1833, the British mandated the administrative unification of the country while incorporating the different native administrative structures that existed earlier. The new legislative council was composed of three Europeans and one representative from the Sinhalese, the Ceylon Tamils and the Burghers—a Euro-Asian minority, Creole descendants of European colonialists who spoke a mixture of Indo-Portuguese. They had been converted to Protestantism.

Tamil laborers brought from India had no say nor did the few Arab Muslims. Racist Sinhalese massacred many in 1915. In 1930, another hard-working minority, Malayali plantation workers, were attacked by Sinhalese and most fled back to Kerala.

In 1921, the colonialists altered the legislative council so that Sinhalese acquired 13 seats to three for the Tamils. From here on out, Tamils developed a communal consciousness as a minority. In 1931, the Brits changed the rules again by incorporating the notion of universal franchise—one man one vote including for castes. Most Sinhalese opposed this progressive measure, seeking to maintain classes and castes while agreeing to part of the rule allowing them, as the majority, to have a decisive say over the minority Tamils. The issue of representative power-sharing, and not the structure of government, was used by nationalists of both communities to create an escalating inter-ethnic rivalry, which has been the dominant trend since.

Britain’s vacillating ruling strategy throughout their 150 year domination led to sporadic episodes of violence between Sinhalese and Tamils, often expressed as religious conflicts between Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims. More often than not, it was Buddhists who first attacked other ethnic peoples who held other faiths. The Brits often held police on the sidelines.

In the 1930s, and especially during World War II, Sinhalese and Tamils spoke out for independence. Various left-wing parties and coalitions arose, and some conservative groupings as well. Many natives hoped for a German victory over the hated English colonialists.

Tamils struggled to have their language placed on equal terms with Sinhalese, and replace English as the official language. Some Sinhalese leaders agreed but many did not. In 1939, a Tamil leader, G.G. Ponnambalam, spoke against the common Sinhalese notion, taken from the Mahavamsa, that their language should be the only official language and Buddhism the only official religion. Angry at the speech, Sinhalese mobs bashed and killed many Tamils. This time the British stopped the riots, but the roots to the upcoming 26-year long civil war had been laid.

Once WW II ended, the British Empire realized it had to give in to so many native peoples struggling for sovereignty. India won dominion status in 1947, a slight reform until full independence in 1950. The civil disobedience movement led by Mahatma Gandhi had succeeded yet he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist on January 30, 1948. Gandhi sought unity among all Indians, but most Muslims wanted their own State after colonialism. Many Muslims were killed in riots; many lost their homes. Gandhi believed it morally correct for India to compensate them with finances. Many Hindu nationalists opposed this, and it led to his murder.

Great numbers of Hindus in India discriminated against non-Hindus just as Buddhist Sinhalese discriminate against Hindus and Muslims. The percentage of Tamils in Sri Lanka has been reduced from 30% to 12.6%. Tens of thousands have been murdered before and during the recent war, and as many as one million have fled the country, part of a massive Diaspora, like the Jews.(4)

Notes:

(1) This condensed history is gleaned from many sources: author Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan; Latin American Friendship Association, Tamilnadu, India; Wikipedia; many articles about Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka and their histories, religions and languages; www.tamilnation.org/heritage/index.htm and many other sections in this comprehensive Tamil self-determination website. I am uncertain about the exactitude of origins, who came first, specific dates, or how to determine linguistic lineages. The record is unclear. But what is clear is that Sinhalese have judged and treated Tamils as inferior beings.

(2) John Pilger, “Distant Voices, Desperate Lives”, New Statesman, May 13, 2009.

(3) See chapter, “Understanding the Aryan Theory,” by Marisa Angell, a Usamerican Jew. The chapter is part of Culture and Politics of Identity in Sri Lanka, edited by Mithran Tiruchelvam and Dattathreya C.S., published by International Center for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1998.

(4) Current population statistics of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka—so named since 1978—show a population of 21 million people. 74% (15 million) Sinhalese; 12.6% (2.5 million) Tamil; 7.4% (1.5 million) Moors; 5.2% (1 million) Indian Tamil. 93% of Sinhalese are Buddhists, and the remainder Christian. 60% Tamils are Hindus, 28% are Muslim and 12% Christian.

For other articles by the author visit his website.

The New Farm Owners

Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland

GRAIN, October 2009

Click here for the table accompanying this article

With all the talk about "food security," and distorted media statements like "South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s land,"1 it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today’s global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments.

"This is going to be a private initiative."

– Amin Abaza, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture, explaining Egyptian farmland acquisitions in other African nations, on World Food Day 2009  

Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).2 This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them.

 "What started as a government drive to secure cheap food resource has now become a viable business model and many Gulf companies are venturing into agricultural investments to diversify their portfolios."

– Sarmad Khan, "Farmland investment fund is seeking more than Dh1bn", The National, Dubai, 12 September 2009

Moreover, there’s a tendency to assume that private-sector involvement in the global land grab amounts to traditional agribusiness or plantation companies, like Unilever or Dole, simply expanding the contract farming model of yesterday. In fact, the high-power finance industry, with little to no experience in farming, has emerged as a crucial corporate player. So much so that the very phrase "investing in agriculture", today’s mantra of development bureaucrats, should not be understood as automatically meaning public funds. It is more and more becoming the business of … big business.

The role of finance capital

GRAIN has tried to look more closely at who the private sector investors currently taking over farmlands around the world for offshore food production really are. From what we have gathered, the role of finance capital — investment funds and companies — is truly significant. We have therefore constructed a table to share this picture. The table outlines over 120 investment structures, most of them newly created, which are busy acquiring farmland overseas in the aftermath of the financial crisis.3 Their engagement, whether materialised or targeted, rises into the tens of billions of dollars. The table is not exhaustive, however. It provides only a sample of the kinds of firms or instruments involved, and the levels of investment they are aiming for.

Private investors are not turning to agriculture to solve world hunger or eliminate rural poverty. They want profit, pure and simple. And the world has changed in ways that now make it possible to make big money from farmland. From the investors’ perspective, global food needs are guaranteed to grow, keeping food prices up and providing a solid basis for returns on investment for those who control the necessary resource base. And that resource base, particularly land and water, is under stress as never before. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, so-called alternative investments, such as infrastructure or farmland, are all the rage. Farmland itself is touted as providing a hedge against inflation. And because its value doesn’t go up and down in sync with other assets like gold or currencies, it allows investors to successfully diversify their portfolios.

We are not farmers. We are a large company that uses state-of-the-art technology to produce high-quality soybean. The same way you have shoemakers and computer manufacturers, we produce agricultural commodities.”

Laurence Beltrão Gomes of SLC Agrícola,
the largest farm company in Brazil 

But it’s not just about land, it’s about production. Investors are convinced that they can go into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc to consolidate holdings, inject a mix of technology, capital and management skills, lay down the infrastructures and transform below-potential farms into large-scale agribusiness operations. In many cases, the goal is to generate revenue streams both from the harvests and from the land itself, whose value they expect to go up. It is a totally corporate version of the Green Revolution, and their ambitions are big. "My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector," said Joseph Carvin of Altima Partners’ One World Agriculture Fund to a gathering of global farmland investors in New York in June 2009. No wonder, then, that governments, the World Bank and the UN want to be associated with this. But it is not their show.

From rich to richer

"I’m convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that’s a long ways away yet."

– George Soros, June 2009

Today’s emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like. The pace and extent of their appetite is remarkable – but unsurprising, given the scramble to recover from the financial crisis. Consolidated data are lacking, but we can see that billions of dollars are going into farmland acquisitions for a growing number of "get rich quick" schemes. And some of those dollars are hard-earned retirement savings of teachers, civil servants and factory workers from countries such as the US or the UK. This means that a lot of ordinary citizens have a financial stake in this trend, too, whether they are aware of it or not.

It also means that a new, powerful lobby of corporate interests is coming together, which wants favourable conditions to facilitate and protect their farmland investments. They want to tear down burdensome land laws that prevent foreign ownership, remove host-country restrictions on food exports and get around any regulations on genetically modified organisms. For this, we can be sure that they will be working with their home governments, and various development banks, to push their agendas around the globe through free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and donor conditionalities.

 "When asked whether a transfer of foreign, ‘superior’, agricultural technology would be welcome compensation for the acquisition of Philippine lands, the farmers from Negros Occidental responded with a general weariness and unequivocal retort that they were satisfied with their own knowledge and practices of sustainable, diverse and subsistence-based farming. Their experience of high-yielding variety crops, and the chemical-intensive technologies heralded by the Green Revolution, led them to the conclusion that they were better off converting to diverse, organic farming, with the support of farmer-scientist or member organisations such as MASIPAG and PDG Inc."

– Theodora Tsentas, "Foreign state-led land acquisitions and neocolonialism: A qualitative case study of foreign agricultural development in the Philippines", September 2009

Indeed, the global land grab is happening within the larger context of governments, both in the North and the South, anxiously supporting the expansion of their own transnational food and agribusiness corporations as the primary answer to the food crisis. The deals and programmes being promoted today all point to a restructuring and expansion of the industrial food system, based on capital-intensive large-scale monocultures for export markets. While that may sound "old hat", several things are new and different. For one, the infrastructure needs for this model will be dealt with. (The Green Revolution never did that.) New forms of financing, as our table makes plain, are also at the base of it. Thirdly, the growing protagonism of corporations and tycoons from the South is also becoming more important. US and European transnationals like Cargill, Tyson, Danone and Nestlé, which once ruled the roost, are now being flanked by emerging conglomerates such as COFCO, Olam, Savola, Almarai and JBS.4 A recent report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development pointed out that a solid 40% of all mergers and acquisitions in the field of agricultural production last year were South–South.5 To put it bluntly, tomorrow’s food industry in Africa will be largely driven by Brazilian, ethnic Chinese and Arab Gulf capital.

Exporting food insecurity

Given the heavy role of the private sector in today’s land grabs, it is clear that these firms are not interested in the kind of agriculture that will bring us food sovereignty. And with hunger rising faster than population growth, it will not likely do much for food security, either. One farmers’ leader from Synérgie Paysanne in Benin sees these land grabs as fundamentally "exporting food insecurity". For they are about answering some people’s needs – for maize or money – by taking food production resources away from others. He is right, of course. In most cases, these investors are themselves not very experienced in running farms. And they are bound, as the Coordinator of MASIPAG in the Philippines sees it, to come in, deplete the soils of biological life and nutrients through intensive farming, pull out after a number of years and leave the local communities with "a desert".

 "Entire communities have been dispossessed of their lands for the benefit of foreign investors. () Land must remain a community heritage in Africa."

– N’Diogou Fall, ROPPA (West African Network of Producers and Peasant Organisations), June 2009

The talk about channelling this sudden surge of dollars and dirhams into an agenda for resolving the global food crisis could be seen as quirky if it were not downright dangerous. From the United Nations headquarters in New York to the corridors of European capitals, everyone is talking about making these deals "win–win". All we need to do, the thinking goes, is agree on a few parameters to moralise and discipline these land grab deals, so that they actually serve local communities, without scaring investors off. The World Bank even wants to create a global certification scheme and audit bureau for what could become "sustainable land grabbing", along the lines of what’s been tried with oil palm, forestry or other extractive industries.

Before jumping on the bandwagon of "win–win", it would be wise to ask "With whom? Who are the investors? What are their interests?" It is hard to believe that, with so much money on the line, with so much accumulated social experience in dealing with mass land concessions and conversions in the past, whether from mining or plantations, and given the central role of the finance and agribusiness industries here, these investors would suddenly play fair. Just as hard to believe is that governments or international agencies would suddenly be able to hold them to account.

 Some companies are interested in buying agricultural land for sugar cane and then selling it on the international markets. It’s business, nothing more”

Sharad Pawar, India’s Minister of Agriculture, rejecting claims that his government is supporting a new colonisation of African farmland, 28 June 2009

Making these investments work is simply not the right starting point. Supporting small farmers efforts for real food sovereignty is. Those are two highly polarised agendas and it would be mistaken to pass off one for the other. It is crucial to look more closely at who the investors are and what they really want. But it is even more important to put the search for solutions to the food crisis on its proper footing.

References

1 – It was not South Korea, but Daewoo Logistics.

2 – See GRAIN, "Mauritius leads land grabs for rice in Mozambique", Oryza hibrida, 1 September 2009. http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221 (Available in English, French and Portuguese.)

3The table covers three types of entities: specialised funds, most of them farmland funds; asset and investment managers; and participating investors. We are aware that this is a broad mixture, but it was important for us to keep the table simple: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266

4 – COFCO is based in China, Olam is based in Singapore, Savola is based in Saudi Arabia, Almarai is based in Saudi Arabia, and JBS is based in Brazil.

5 – World Investment Report 2009, UNCTAD, Geneva, September 2009, p. xxvii. Most foreign direct investment takes place through mergers and acquisitions.

Cuba-ALBA Let Down Sri Lanka Tamils (I)

Ron Ridenour

Those who are exploited are our compatriots all over the world; and the exploiters all over the world are our enemies… Our country is really the whole world, and all the revolutionaries of the world are our brothers. – Fidel Castro (1)

The revolutionary [is] the ideological motor force of the revolution…if he forgets his proletarian internationalism, the revolution which he leads will cease to be an inspiring force and he will sink into a comfortable lethargy, which imperialism, our irreconcilable enemy, will utilize well. Proletarian internationalism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary necessity. So we educate our people. – Che Guevara (2)

I think that the governments of Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua let down the entire Tamil population in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as well as “proletarian internationalism” and the “exploited”, by extending unconditional support to Sri Lanka’s racist government.

Cuba did so—along with the Bolivian and Nicaraguan governments and members of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America)—on May 27, 2009 when signing a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution praising the government of Sri Lanka for “the promotion and protection of human rights”, while only condemning for terrorism the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which fought the government in a civil war since 1983 until their defeat on May 19, 2009.

During the last year of war, the Sri Lankan government illegally and brutally interned nearly half-a-million Tamil civilians; 280,000 of these civilians were entrapped in several “welfare centers” upon the LTTE’s surrender. Half-a-year later, only a few thousand have been released. Their conditions are the opposite of “promotion and protection of human rights”. Hundreds have died and are dying for lack of food, water, basic health care.

Since advocating for and signing the unbalanced HRC resolution, I have found no text or evidence that these progressive-revolutionary-socialist governments of ALBA have criticized Sri Lanka for routinely practicing brutality and neglecting basic life necessities of these illegally interned people. The conduct of Sinhalese-led governments towards Tamils ever since Sri Lanka’s independence from Great Britain, in 1947-8, has always been one of mistreatment and inequality, even genocide.

While ALBA leader Venezuela is not a member of that council, President Hugo Chavez followed suit by applauding Sri Lanka’s victory.(3) I hope that these revolutionary leaders will undo that damage by coming to the aid of the interned and all 2.5 million Tamil survivors of this horrible carnage and condemning Sri Lanka for its beastly and racist conduct. Tamils national rights must also be recognized, especially by governments representing other indigenous and once enslaved peoples.

In this first of a five-part series, I begin to lay the case that Sri Lanka’s governments practice genocide. I will also speculate about why the four ALBA countries involved in this matter could have decided to ignore this reality, why they disallowed an investigation into the assertion, and why they support such a cruel, chauvinistic regime. In the forthcoming parts, I will sketch the history of the Sinhalese and Tamils; outline the right and necessity for Tamil nationhood; delineate their struggles for equal rights; and show the geo-political power game being played out between the west and its’ sometimes antagonistic counterpart regimes in China and Iran; and conclude with the present state of affairs for Tamils.

Human Rights Council Resolution S-11/1: Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and protection of human rights

Upon the end of the war, 17 countries on the 47-member Human Rights Council called for an extraordinary session about the Sri Lankan situation. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, spoke for an “independent and credible international investigation” into the reports of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law on both sides of the civil war.

“For its part, the Government reportedly used heavy artillery on the densely populated conflict zone, despite assurances that it would take precautions to protect civilians”… and the “reported shelling of a hospital clinic on several occasions”…”

“These people are in desperate need of food, water, medical help and other forms of basic assistance… there have already been outbreaks of contagious diseases.”

“The images of terrified and emaciated women, men and children fleeing the battle zone… must spur us into action.”

Pillay’s professional, compassionate and balanced proposal was not tabled or even discussed. Instead 17 members—mostly EU countries and Canada, but also Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile—proposed only that an investigation into these charges of human rights abuse be pursued by the Sri Lankan government itself, that is: the government investigating its brutality, hardly anything radical or effective. This, and the call for “rapid and unhindered access” for humanitarian aid from the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross, was the only significant difference from another resolution proposed by the majority, mostly Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries. Chile was the only NAM member to vote against the majority, which wanted no investigation at all. And the “rapid and unhindered access” for humanitarian aid was reduced to: “provide access as may be appropriate”, thereby giving Sri Lanka’s government the power to use food/water/medicine as a weapon against their enemy: the Tamil people and not the now defeated LTTE.

Sri Lanka was present at the HRC sessions as an observer. It had been a member from 2006 to 2008 when it lost reelection as one of the six Asian State members. Poignantly overlooked by most NAM members assembled a year later, it had been severely criticized by Tamils around the world and by internationally respected Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

“The systematic abuses by Sri Lanka government forces are among the most serious imaginable. Torture and extrajudicial killings are widespread [as is] kidnappings of its own people,” said Tutu in May 2008 when opposing its seat on the Human Rights Council.

A year later, the HRC majority unfastidiously praised Sri Lanka for continuing “to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law”. The key promoter of the majority resolution was, to my dismay, Cuba—the homeland of my heart and where I had lived and worked for the government for eight years.

The Cuban ambassador to the Council, Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios—who also spoke on behalf of the NAM—praised Sri Lanka’s governments over the years, and “congratulates” it on “putting an end” to the armed conflict. A key sentence is: “Sri Lanka’s sovereign right to fight terrorism and separatism within its undisputed borders must be respected.” The words “separatism” and “undisputed borders” will be dealt with at length later. But no one familiar with the history of Sinhalese and Tamils for decades since independence and centuries before could have chosen to speak of “undisputed borders”. Tamils had a homeland, two kingdoms, for centuries before the Sinhalese came to the island and for centuries afterwards.

Cuba also acted as a special advocate for Sri Lanka as an “interlocutor”, in addition to Egypt, India and Pakistan. The resolution about Sri Lanka was actually its own draft, which Cuba tabled.

Just before the vote, the Bolivian HRC ambassador, Ms. Angélica Navarro Llames, made it clear she was perturbed by the manner in which many of the 17 countries had presented their resolution and for insisting upon a special meeting just a week before the scheduled one. She objected to “neocolonialist attitudes”. The Bolivian then spoke of LTTE terrorism used against the people and the government and people, and defended its right to fight for its sovereignty.

Resolution S-11/1 adopted by the majority (29 members for, 12 against, 6 abstentions). Here are pertinent excerpts:

Reaffirming the respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and its sovereign rights to protect its citizens and combat terrorism,

Condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields…

Welcoming the conclusion of hostilities and the liberation by the Government of Sri Lanka of tens of thousands of its citizens that were kept by the LTTE against their will as hostages, as well as the efforts by the Government to ensure safety and security for all Sri Lankans and bringing permanent peace to the country…

Emphasizing that after the conclusion of hostilities, the priority in terms of human rights remains the provision of the necessary assistance to ensure relief and rehabilitation of persons affected by the conflict, including internally displaced persons, as well as the reconstruction of the country’s economy and infrastructure,

Encouraged by the provision of basic humanitarian assistance, in particular, safe drinking water, sanitation, food, and medical and health care services to the IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] by the Government of Sri Lanka with the assistance of the United Nations agencies…

1. Commends the measures taken by the Government of Sri Lanka to address the urgent needs of the Internally Displaced Persons;

2. Welcomes the continued commitment of Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of all human rights and encourages it to continue to uphold its human rights obligations and the norms of international human rights law;…

5. Acknowledges the commitment of the Government of Sri Lanka to provide access as may be appropriate to international humanitarian agencies in order to ensure humanitarian assistance to the population affected by the conflict, in particular IDPs…

In Favour: Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Uruguay, Zambia;

Against: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;

Abstaining: Argentina, Gabon, Japan, Mauritius, Republic of Korea, Ukraine.”(4)

I will show in upcoming articles how points 1, 2, and 5 cited here have never been the reality; Sri Lanka has not respected Tamils lives or their rights nor provided them their “urgent needs.”

Terrorism and Genocide

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was first dubbed a terrorist organization by India, in 1992. Ironically, it wasn’t until 1998 that Sri Lanka’s government so characterized them, and it did so only after the US did, in 1997. On May 30, 2006, the EU placed LTTE on its terrorist list and banned the organization. It made it a terrorist crime to economically or military aid LTTE, and it froze all LTTE bank and financial assets in Europe. The EU appeared to be even-handed by calling upon the Sri Lankan government to end its “culture of impunity” and to “curb violence” in its areas of control. At the time of LTTE’s defeat, 32 countries had defined them as terrorists.

Never having been in Sri Lanka or South Asia, it is difficult for me to know whether LTTE was a decidedly terrorist organization or not—that is, one which seeks to terrorize civilians. After reading many accounts of atrocities, such as killing hundreds of civilian Sinhalese in their homes, on buses and trains, I conclude that this once Marxist revolutionary organization resorted to terrorism.

At the same time, it must not be forgotten that any liberation movement the world’s greatest state terrorist, the United States of America does not agree with is “terrorist” and therefore illegitimate. Other terrorists, such as the government of the separatist state of Kosovo, are no longer considered terrorist although its drug-smuggling paramilitary organization had been so described, even by the US. Superpowers support or oppose autonomy-independence when it suits their interests. This is also the case with Ireland, the Basques in Spain, and the Palestinians.

Furthermore, the US systematically practices terrorism in its permanent war—invading or “intervening” militarily in 66 countries, a total of 159 times since World War Two.

We must lament the unacceptable methods the LTTE used against many people, and do so without ignoring the history of why and how it was born. Nor must we reject out-of-hand the basic rights and needs of the Tamil people. Their plight must not be abandoned, especially by governments and organizations grounded in anti-imperialism and equality amongst peoples.

Sri Lanka’s history since independence is one of conducting genocide against the Tamils. Genocide is defined by the UN, and Sri Lanka ratified its promise to adhere to it on October 12, 1950.The Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted December 9, 1948 and entered into force, January 12, 1951, states:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

   (a) Killing members of the group;

   (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

   (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

   (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

   (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.(5)

Destroying “in whole or in part” an ethnic group is certainly what Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese governments, as well as Buddhist monks, have been doing to the Tamils for six decades. Evidence will be forthcoming. There is so much evidence that even a former US deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration filed a 12-count indictment against S.L. defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka for “perpetrating genocide against Tamil civilians.”

The suit was filed by Bruce Fein, in February 2009, in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

The case can be filed in the US because G. Rajapakse is a naturalized citizen and Fonseka holds a resident green card. They are charged with responsibility for: “3,750 alleged extrajudicial killings, with 10,000 suffering bodily injury and more than 1.3 million displacements,” which, according to Fein, “far exceed displacements in Kosovo which led to genocide counts before the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”

Fein noted that G. Rajapakse said in a BBC interview that, “if you are not fighting the Tamil Tigers you are a terrorist and we’ll kill you.” The attorney represents Tamils Against Genocide. He believes that G. Rajapakse will be “the best witness of the genocide.”

Why ALBA voted as it did: Some points of contention:

I ask the three ALBA governments, which voted for the above resolution, to take Sri Lanka’s government to account on the serious charge of genocide against the Tamil people. At the very least, ALBA should be able to see that hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are brutally treated, and that routine discrimination and abuse have been the Tamil’s plight at the hands of Sinhalese. This is a dichotomy to ALBA’s ideology of equal rights for all: in language, in religion, in the economy, in all aspects of life. In fact, the very new constitution of Bolivia recognizes itself as a pluri-nation in which all the languages and religions of all the peoples are recognized equally. The same is the case in Venezuela with its new constitution.

How can it be, then, that these peoples’ governments have fallen in the arms of such an oppressive, racist government? Possible reasons are:

1. Separatism! It is ironic and ideologically insupportable that anti-imperialist progressive and revolutionary leaders in Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia—mainly dark-skinned peoples, and many of them, especially in Bolivia, are Original Peoples long abused by many whites and creoles—side with the Sinhalese chauvinist elite in Sri Lanka. Perhaps they have not studied the sordid history of Sri Lanka. But more certainly is it that they do not support separatism or dual nationhood within one land mass. Cuba especially has, from its revolutionary start, argued for unity. What Cuba and the others fail to realize or acknowledge is that the Tamil people had tried for decades to achieve equal rights with the Sinhalese, many of whom assert adherence to Marxism, yet to no avail. Most Sinhalese do not wish to unify equally with the other ethnic group. Once peaceful means are exhausted, armed struggle is the only means to achieve liberation, as was the case with Cuba and other Latin American guerrilla movements.

In the case of Sri Lanka and separatism, ALBA governments could be prompted to side with it because of, in part, the role of China! The threat of separatism, which has been the desire of many Tibetan Buddhists, is an impelling factor for China’s position of one nation in its own region, and may be how it views the situation of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Here, China sides, ironically, with Buddhists against Hindus-Christians-Muslims.

Bolivia and Venezuela, too, are pressed by separatist demands but they come not from an ethnic group but from a rich class of Whites-Creoles, which has no historic ethnic Homeland.

2. Geo-politics! Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-dominated governments have been supported militarily and economically by many States, some of which are sometimes antagonistic to one another. Some leftist governments and leftist organizations often operate on the notion that the enemy of my enemy is a friend. If that is the way some socialist-communist-revolutionaries view China and Iran, both totalitarian regimes, in regards to US-Europe-Canada-Australia-Japan imperialism when it comes to Sri Lanka they are mistaken. Surely there are economic and geo-political interests on the part of China and Iran in investing and trading with countries in development, including Sri Lanka but also Cuba and all in Latin America. Fortunately most Latin Americans and the majority of their governments have ceased jumping when a US president or general barks, and they are combining in regional alliances and seeking foreign investments and aid from non-traditional partners.

Since China and Iran began extending their interests into Sri Lanka and sided with its brutal treatment of Tamils, many leftists and progressive governments could think in the black-white geo-political manner. The US-EU states, for their own propaganda image, question Sri Lanka for possible abuses of human rights against Tamils. Ah, no one with experience or knowledge about the duplicity of the empire and its allies could side with them so one must back the other side.

But China is no longer socialist, rather its economy is mainly based on government-sponsored private enterprise with exploitation of labor in the extreme: no union protection, long work hours, low wages, child labor, no say on the job or national and international policies. The working class no longer even has access to full education and health care without paying on a capitalist basis. In fact, workers in most capitalist countries in Europe have better access to health care than workers do in China. Millionaire capitalists now sit on leadership bodies of the so-called Communist Party, and make important decisions over the heads of workers and the population. China is interested mainly in accumulating capital in the grand old raw capitalist style, and it owns more of the US economy (8%) than any other government or economic entity. China’s economy is intricately interdependent upon the US’s capitalism and its imperialist wars.

Iran is run by fundamentalist religious fanaticism. Its economy is basically a capitalist one. Its working class, just as the working class in China, is not a decision-maker. Iran is also a warring partner with US imperialism in its illegal war against Iraq, whose troops are a key factor in the violence against millions of Iraqis. Iran supports their co-religious Muslims in the Quisling government under US domination.

Is it possible that the developing countries, which back Sri Lanka against the Tamil population, do so out of economic reasons? China and Iran provide needed investments and technology and thus one must not criticize. Is that possible, and if so is it ethical, is it consistent with our humanitarian principles and socialist ideology? Cannot one be a trading partner without cowing politically?

Another issue is secularism. The ALBA countries and all truly socialist oriented governments are not and cannot be theocracies! How can secular nation states and organizations consider the Sri Lanka state “democratic socialist” when it declares a religion, and only one, as THE national and official religion? Secularism is the only common ground by which all can be united.

Conclusion

I concur with progressive Tamils in the Tamil Nadu state of India, who have for decades supported Cuba and the new ALBA formation. The Latin American Friendship Association there has held many solidarity activities for these countries, and published scores of books by Latin American authors, including Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Upon learning of the HRC resolution, they were appalled. The author of the excerpted letter below is Amarantha Visalakshi. For 25 years, she has translated books about Latin America into Tamil and written some herself.

We here in Tamil Nadu celebrated the 80th birthday of Comrade Fidel by releasing eight books on Cuba’s achievements in various fields… and are in the midst of our preparation for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and evaluation of the consolidation of Latin American countries in ALBA…

We are struck dumb and rendered disheartened and disillusioned by this act [the HRC resolution] by those countries of Latin America on which we have pinned our hopes for the future—Socialism of the 21st century.

Why do these countries wish for wiping out the Tamils from the Sri Lankan soil where they rightfully belong? What are the sources of information for these Latin American countries to decide against the Tamils and in favour of the racist Sri Lankan government in the UN Human Rights Council?… more than any other time we feel the absence of Che Guevara, the true internationalist, who laid down his life for the oppressed people of the world.

I also concur with Australia’s largest left-wing organization, the Democratic Socialist Perspective and Socialist Alliance, which publishes greenleft.org.au.

We need “to undertake work to help convince the revolutionary governments of Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, to cease support for the Sri Lankan government, and to recognize the national rights of the Tamil people. There is a long-run danger if revolutionary governments, for whatever reason, fail to support genuine movements for national self-determination in Third World countries, and endorse repressive regimes on the basis of a bogus ‘anti-imperialism…’”

Notes:

(1) Fidel told writer-photographer Lee Lockwood: “Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel”, Macmillan, N.Y. 1967.

(2) “Socialism and man”, Marcha, Uruguay, March 12, 1965.

(3) “Hugo Chavez praises President Rajapaksa’s leadership in defeating LTTE”, Sri Lanka Daily News, September 4, 2009. In this piece, published by a pro-government newspaper, there is not one quotation by Hugo Chavez, who spoke with Rajapakse when they were in Libya. The piece paraphrases what the anonymous writer asserts Chavez said—an example: Chavez apparently said that the defeat of LTTE terrorism “is a glowing example to other countries beset with the same problem,” words of the writer. Chavez allegedly praised Rajapakse for his leadership.

(4) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/11specialsession/S-11-1-Final-E.doc; http://portal.ohchr.org/portal/page/portal/HRCExtranet/11thSpecialSession;
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/270638,un-resolution-commends-sri-lanka-on-human-rights–summary.html

5. http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm. Although the US signed the 1948 convention, it did not accede to it until November 1988. As of 2008, 140 nation states have acceded.

For other articles by the author visit his website.