Introducing “Numbers Game” – A Detailed Study of the Last Stages of Eelam War IV

Michael Roberts …. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/132499266/The-Numbers-Game-Politics-of-Retributive-Justice  OR http://www.margasrilanka.org/ [right panel at top—then click]

   Pic from Tamilnet, 1 May 2009  from Tamilnet, 5 May 2009, in Third NFZ  in the extreme south of the final pocket of LTTEresistance

I. PREAMBLE

Presented here is an “Introduction” and pointer to a significant visual and textual study entitled “Numbers Game: The Politics of Retributive Justice,” which scrutinizes both the data and other studies of what happened during the last five months of Eelam War IV. This was the period when a large body of people, almost exclusively Tamil in lineage, was corralled into an increasingly shrinking area by virtue of a strategic/tactical decision by the LTTE leadership. The Tamil Tigers who were now facing imminent defeat, were hoping to use the human mass to engineer a humanitarian catastrophe, thus forcing the international community to act by halting the conflict. This comprehensive survey has been assembled by a collective, the “Independent Diaspora Analysis Group.” The key hand is a person who wishes to remain anonymous and can be called “Citizen Silva.” Born to Sinhalese parents, raised and educated in the West, he has spent the entirety of his life outside the island. This foreign setting has enabled him to build close personal links with the island’s other ethnic diaspora groups, thus shielding him from the communalistic shadows that overwhelm many of his compatriots back home. As the analysis of the satellite imagery reveals, his engineering background allows him to bring to the examination a range of technical skills not usually associated with the average empirical scientist.

Under Scrutiny: FIRE AND STORM reviewed by Sanderatne

Nimal Sanderatne, courtesy of Groundviews … http://groundviews.org/2013/04/17/review-of-fire-and-storm-by-michael-roberts/

     When Michael Roberts left Peradeniya in the late seventies, he was part of an exodus of intellectuals from the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, arguably one of the best universities at that time. The exodus of academics at that time was compelled by the economic difficulties faced by university dons. It was the second wave of such emigration that diminished the intellectual life of the university and country. The Arts Faculty of the University of Peradeniya never regained its prestigious academic status after that. Today the University of Peradeniya cannot take pride in intellectuals of the eminence of E.F.C. Ludowyck, E.R Sarachchandra, H.A.de S. Gunasekera, Fr. Ignatius Pinto, Ian Van den Driesen and many others.

Standing UP against Extremism and the BBS: One Voice … “I am just plain tired”

“I am just plain tired” by An Ordinary Citizen in Groundviews

 Pic from Groundviews

This evening (Friday, April 12^th 2013) around 7.15pm on Havelock Road in front of the Sambuddhatva Jayanthi Building adjoining Lauries Road, I was reminded anew that there is no freedom in our land. I am nearly 45 years old now, and for 30 long years, I have been reminded over and over again in different places, at different times that in many ways the citizens of Sri Lanka are trapped. We have been and still are, in fact increasingly so, trapped by our fear, our intolerance, our ignorance, our sheep like obedience, either to the powers that be or to our own desperate need to play safe and stay safe.

I am not a lawyer, a journalist, an academic or an activist. I am just an ordinary citizen who is sick of being intimidated by the forces that are empowered by us to protect us. I am tired of our short sighted, nepotistic governments, our corrupt politicians, our arrogant law enforcement officers, our extremist religious leaders, and our ignorant, complacent citizenry. I am just plain tired.

This evening I walked onto Havelock Road with my husband and two children to join my sister, her husband and some friends in gathering with the many who had come to symbolically light a candle in the darkness of our land, to protest through a silent vigil, the extremist politics of the now notorious Bodu Bala Sena who were at that moment in a meeting at their headquarters in the Sambuddhatva Jayanthi Building. I was almost immediately flung into a flurry of aggressive policemen, chasing us off, shouting at us to get rid of our candles, threatening us with arrest if we did not immediately obey and disperse! Across the street two Bhikkhus were shouting and inciting the Police. Some thugs appeared to be with them, yelling and gesturing wildly at us all. We were stunned. We had expected police and Bhikkhus, but not hatred; not violence; not such flagrant abuse of power, of position.

 Pics courtesy of Nation

In a minute my sister received a call from her husband, still across the street near the petrol shed. He had been arrested for standing there holding a candle in his hand! He had just walked up Lauries Road and joined the crowd. Before he could figure out what was happening, he was in the jeep with a couple of others. No one would listen to him. They took him to the Bambalapitiya Police Station. An hour later he was released, but not before my husband was accused by a Policeman whom he went to talk to regarding my brother in law’s arrest, of being, because of his rather confusing name, wait for it – a Muslim!

At one time being Tamil was pretty unsafe to say the least, now it is being Muslim! Others who had come earlier for the vigil had already been dispersed, threatened, a few arrested and later released. I am terribly sad, angry, above all tired. My dear fellow citizens, if you have not realized this already, let me tell you, democracy is dead in our land.

My children, 10 and 15 were with me. We live nearby, it was a lovely evening, a candlelight peace vigil, and we thought it would be safe. We were wrong. My son was afraid. My teenage daughter bemused. They asked if we should migrate! I remember being 15 in 1983. A year later everyone around me migrated to Canada or elsewhere. We didn’t. My dad said this was our country, we could not, would not, be chased away. Only rats leave a sinking ship he said. He didn’t mean those who had been affected by the riots, only those who took advantage of the moment to seek greener pastures. I thought he was too harsh in his estimate. I still think he was.

We were fortunate; our Sinhalese neighbours’ protected us and kept us from being burnt. Others were not so lucky. Fear was everywhere. Many felt displaced, dispossessed. Were they Sri Lankan they wondered? Did they belong? So they left. Who can blame them? But I have never forgotten my father’s words. I understood what he meant. He meant, don’t run away when the going gets tough, stay and fight. He meant find a way to give to this land so that it will progress and prosper. He meant be proud to be Sri Lankan: In spite of everything, we are a good and able people.

But today Daddy, I wondered if you were right at all. The war is over. Though I don’t believe the means justified the end, I am glad it is over. I feel safe. I don’t wake up wondering if my children will come home from school today. I don’t hear a car backfire or hear a cracker go off and think ‘Dear God, another bomb!’ Well, almost I don’t. Peace takes getting used to for those of us who have spent most of our lives in a battle scarred land!

But there are signs of peace all around us or so we are told. Roads are being built, new ports and airports, cricket stadiums, shopping malls, the works! Never mind the land grabbing and homelessness in the North; never mind the water holes being filled to keep the errant wild animals away in the South. Forget the politicisation of sports; the skirmishes caused by ministers’ sons’, the biased, state controlled media and judiciary; forget the cost of living, the petrol prices, the electricity tariffs, disease causing garbage dumps being forcibly filled under Police cover amidst protests by the community; the incredible increase in rape and abuse, a testament to the lawlessness in the land. Forget it all. The war is over. We’ll forgive our government anything.

Harassment of Muslims?  Well they should really be more careful. After all this is not really their land right? Intimidation by Police? Just doing their jobs men! They have to keep the peace even if it takes force! The Bodu Bala Sena?  Oh just harmless Bhikkhus. Ignore them. This is all just media hype! State sponsored violence? So paranoid! They saved us from the terrorists remember? Give them time. Watch them take us forward. Just give them… time.

We are sheep. What do we have in common with New Zealand? There too sheep outnumber humans! Yet people came to protest today. Not many, but we came. We were dispersed aggressively. Never mind. We saw firsthand that the Bodu Bala Sena is backed by the forces which are controlled by the State. We saw truth. Oh, we have known it all along. But today it could not be denied. Our government is behind terror. It is behind extremist Buddhist chauvinism. It needs another cause to keep our people fear ridden, to condone military presence. This is how dictatorships are built.

The story goes a teacher once asked his students, ‘what is a democracy?’ and the reply: ‘a democracy is the freedom to elect our own dictators!’ This of course is what we’ve done. But who was it who said ‘you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.’ Ah, yes, Abraham Lincoln. So sheep no more! There are amongst us people who are good and able. Unafraid. So perhaps you were right Daddy. People came today. People who will stay and fight. The Police and the Bhikkhus made a mistake. They forgot that not all are always afraid. Sometimes aggression fuels the fire of protest. May it be so. May more of us ordinary, everyday citizens, rise up and protest. Forget our past? Forgive our governments? Give them time? No bl–dy way!

SCT – an ordinary citizen (A Personal Response to the quashing of the first anti BBS protest on Havelock Road)

                      *****

 BBS thugs abusing “NGO kaarayo– Courtesy of Nation

ALSO SEE Thrishantha Nanyakkara: “An Open Message to Gotabaya Rajapaksa,” http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/an-open-message-to-gotabaya-rajapaksa/ 

COMPARE … Malinda Seneviratne: “The BBS ‘Buddhists’, ‘Nightclub Buddhists’ And The ‘Vigil’ That I Saw,” http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-bbs-buddhists-nightclub-buddhists-and-the-vigil-that-i-saw/…….NOTE the vibrant and tetchy blog debate around this essay.

ALSO SEE “Hate has no place in Lanka,” — http://www.dailymirror.lk/caption-story/28688-hate-has-no-place-in-lanka.html

The Middle Path by Arundathi Kurukulasuriya … has been deleted at her e request.

Postcolonial Politics and History as dramatized in the Theatre

Shelagh Goonewardene

Ernest McIntyre

The ancient land of Lanka emerged as a modern state when, as Ceylon, it was granted Independence in February 1948 by Britain who had been the last imperial power to rule it following  the Portuguese and Dutch.  This meant a recognition and re-emergence of its own identity after approximately four hundred years of foreign rule.  It is a matter of history that violent episodes initiated by civilians and even the waging of war by the state have accompanied the founding of several postcolonial modern Asian states such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  In  Sri Lanka, the country this paper will focus on, armed insurrections planned and executed by disillusioned and disgruntled youth took place in 1971 and during the period 1987-1990 which had nothing to do with the birth-pangs of gaining independence but everything to do with the policies and politics practised by the main political parties which affected education  and economic development.  The objective of this discourse is to highlight both politics and history as it can, and has been, effectively  dramatized in the theatre by commenting on the theatre of that particular time in Sri Lankan history.  Included  is the detailed examination of an re-enactment of that period in a play which was written in 2009.

Life-threats as Possible Prospect for Sri Lankan Cricketers at IPL

Michael Roberts

PART ONE: A gnawing fear resides today in my guts. I fear that one or more of the Sri Lanka cricketers at the IPL matches in India will end up maimed or dead. This is an imminent and distinct possibility – a slim one I admit, but not wholly fanciful.  I earnestly wish I am wrong; but I think that either a lone ranger or a clique of Tamil zealots is quite capable of carrying out such an attack in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi or Calcutta. Security precautions can go only so far. Individual cricketers are highly vulnerable.

Anticipated but avoidable extremisms, machinations, failures

Kalana Senaratne in The Island, 27 March 2013 where the title is “Geneva and Bodu Bala Sena: Two Dimensions of a Crisis“

There are tensions and schisms erupting, there is a crisis in the making. One dimension of this crisis is the unfolding diplomatic debacle: the Geneva-crisis. The group Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) represents, and gives expression to, another dimension. The emergence of both was to be expected; both, however, were avoidable.

Geneva-crisis: After Sri Lanka’s sui generis performance in 2009, the Geneva-story has been a depressing one to a lot of people. Sri Lanka’s support-base has dwindled drastically. India which, in 2009, opposed a Western-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka stood up to remind the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, where to get off. Today, India is endorsing Western or US-sponsored resolutions, and acknowledging in the process reports produced by Ms. Pillai. The contrast couldn’t have been more damaging than this.

Racism and Irrationality as Bedfellows: The Halal Issue and Sinhala Buddhist Extremists

Izeth Hussain, in The Island, 16 March 2013

Gnanasara Thero of the Bodu Bala Sena declaims –Pic by Daminda Harsha Perera

It is questionable whether there are today any purely internal problems, serious internal problems, without any external dimension to them at all. It is true that governments frequently try to explain away internal problems, for which they alone are responsible, by alleging foreign interference. It is true also that there is the human propensity to indulge in conspiracy theories. In certain situations of stress people can become paranoid and imagine that sinister foreign forces are at work behind practically every serious problem. While all that is true, it is also true that in today’s highly interdependent world foreign interference takes place on a scale never before known in human history.

Against Hate Speech and Graffiti directed at Our Muslim Brethren: FRIDAY FORUM addresses President Rajapaksa

President Mahinda Rajapaksa,
President of Sri Lanka,
Presidential Secretariat,
Janadhipathi Mawatha,
Colombo 1.
7^th March 2013.
Anti-Muslim Hate Campaign: The Government Must Act Decisively
Dear President Rajapaksa,
The Friday Forum urges you to act immediately and decisively to counter the increasingly venomous and strident anti-Muslim hate campaign launched by a few extremist groups claiming to represent the majority Sinhala community. As you are aware, this campaign has intensified over the past several months. The country has witnessed attacks against mosques, and the circulation, on social media, public posters and web-sites, of obscene and vituperative messages that are offensive to religious beliefs. It has witnessed anti-Muslim public rallies and processions, including a call to boycott Muslim business establishments.

 Mahara mosque – 03rd March Mahara mosque – vandalised

Marakkala Kolahālaya: Contemporary and Secondary Literature on the Anti-Moor Pogrom of 1915

Compiled by Michael Roberts to assist present-day debates on Sinhala -Muslim tensions …with RED identifying contemporary material

Abdul Rahiman, W. M. 1915 Letter from WM Abdul Rahiman to Sir Robert Chalmers [Governor], 1 July 1915, in Colonial Office 54/782.

 Ameer Ali, A. C. L. 1981 “The 1915 racial riots in Ceylon (Sri Lanka): a reappraisaof its causes,” South Asia 4: 1-20.

Amunugama, Sarath 1978 “John de Silva and the Sinhala nationalist theatre,” Ceylon Historical Journal 25: 285-304.

Not Shirani! Not Mahinda! The Real Issue is the Independence of the Judiciary

S. L. Gunasekara, in the Sunday Leader, 23 December 2012

The current imbroglio relating to the attempt to dismiss the present Chief Justice has obscured the real issue facing the country which is whether the independence of the judiciary and hence civilized governance will prevail or not. What the people must understand is that Mahinda Rajapaksa is unimportant as are Shirani Bandaranayake, and the other actors in this sordid drama – for they all fade into wholesale insignificance when compared to that real issue. The independence of the judiciary connotes a buffer between the government and the people: between the rich and the powerful on the one hand and the poor and helpless on the other. The judiciary is the last resort of the citizen when he is oppressed whether by governmental authority or by the power of money, connection or wealth. That presumably is why so many attempts have been made by successive governments to subdue and destroy the independence of the judiciary. Can one imagine a country where the judiciary is like our public service including the police, and subservient to those in the corridors of power, their kith and kin, the wealthy and the influential? The country will surely be then a lawless place where order and discipline are unknown; where ‘might is ‘right’ and where the poor, the powerless and the law abiding are trampled upon.