The language link to peace and unity

There are some who ask why the President had to go all the way to the United Nations General Assembly in New York to make a bilingual speech, which could be done at the BMICH.

What is not seen by such cynics is that the crisis in Sri Lanka has become so much internationalised, that it requires many more such internationally significant events to draw the attention of the world to the fact that there is every opportunity for a settlement of the conflict in Sri Lanka in a peaceful manner, with the cooperation of all its people, under an understanding leadership.

The impact of what the President said in Tamil is far in excess of the two paragraphs it was confined to in a text that had nearly 40. Leaders of countries from both East and West, our region and outside, from Commonwealth leaders and the most distinguished names in Human Rights, saw in the President’s bold move of speaking in Tamil, signs of a new thinking that is emerging in Sri Lanka.

It is a thinking that for all the success that the Security Forces are having in the battle to defeat LTTE terror, there is little being said in the international media about Mahinda Rajapaksa being a “hawk”.

We now see the keen interest that many key journalists and important news channels have in seeking interviews with a man they now consider to be a “winning leader”, which is far removed from the image they were promoting from the time of the 2005 Presidential Election of his being a hawk and a war monger.

The two paragraphs that will go down in the history of nation building in Sri Lanka, and pride for the Tamil community were:

“While my mother tongue is Sinhala, let me elaborate a few thoughts in Tamil. Sinhala and Tamil are the two languages of the people of Sri Lanka. Both these have been used through the centuries, are rich in literature, and are widely used in my country, with recognition as Official Languages.

“With the widening of democracy in our country, the bonds between the Sinhala and Tamil people of Sri Lanka will grow stronger and remain a major force for its future development. We will march towards a richer freedom and lasting unity that awaits us as a nation.”

These are words of great promise - “the march towards a richer freedom and lasting unity that awaits us as a nation.”

It is the promise of a force for future progress - “the bonds between the Sinhala and Tamil people of Sri Lanka will grow stronger and remain a major force for its future development.”

All this comes with the widening of democracy in our country, and in a great expectation of the beginning of a healing process among a people divided through three decades and more of conflict and violence, it underlines the truth of what the late Colvin R. de Silva said at the height of the Swabasha debate - that one language would lead to two nations, while two languages would ensure one.

It has taken a long time for this truth to be understood and accepted by many, although not yet by all.

It has come through many political changes that have taken place since Sinhala Only was made the only Official Language in 1956 - voted as such by both the SLFP-led MEP and the UNP; hastily altered by SWRD Bandaranaike - the so-called father of Sinhala Only - who saw the need for “Reasonable Use of Tamil”, too.

We have seen the convulsions of race riots that culminated in the Black July of 1983, the rise of terror and response of the 13th Amendment which finally gave Tamil too the status of an Official Language, albeit not to be so implemented, through a combination of political and bureaucratic manipulation.

Our war on terror

If the President’s brief comments in Tamil had important resonance in the context of the long standing ethnic crisis in the country, his observations of the need to combat and defeat terror had a wider resonance in the larger global context.

As the first speaker on the second day of the UNGA Sessions, President Rajapaksa matched Sri Lanka’s own experience with what President George W Bush had to say of terror in a much wider context as the first speaker on the opening day the UNGA Sessions, when the US President summed up that “like slavery and piracy, terrorism had no place in the modern world”.

The Sri Lankan President took the issue further in saying that: “Today, the United Nations and its people are confronted with the fast spreading menace of terrorism that manifests itself in various forms in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The United Nations has a grave responsibility to save today’s and succeeding generations, from this new and continuing menace. We have been talking for long enough. It is time for clear action in this regard.

“Like many other countries, Sri Lanka too has not been spared this global menace. Exploiting perceived ethnic grievances, that must and can be addressed through political means, the vested interests of a well organised terror group, the LTTE, indulges in blatant and brutal acts of terrorism, including suicide bombings to seek negotiating leverage, political recognition and legitimacy.

What is happening in Pakistan (he spoke soon after the Marriot Hotel bombing in Pakistan) today is the destructive policy of bloody terrorists. I am saddened by the loss of life and destruction caused by the recent terrorist attack there.

To those who were awaiting conciliatory gestures towards the forces of terror, following the build up of much “international interest” in a so-called looming humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, did not have much to be pleased with, as President Rajapaksa very clearly laid down the Government’s position vis-a-vis the LTTE and its commitment to terror as a political weapon.

Here too he spoke as a leader who represents every community in his country, which included the Tamils, giving the lie to those who would like to believe the words he spoke in Tamil was a mere tokenism and not actual recognition of the Tamil people.

The President said: “Our Government has always been ready to address the causes of these issues and effectively implement political and constitutional solutions to meet the aspirations and rights of all communities.

What the Government would not, and could not do is to let an illegal and armed terrorist group, the LTTE, to hold a fraction of our population, a part of the Tamil community, hostage to such terror in the northern part of Sri Lanka and deny those people their democratic rights of dissent and free elections. Through our past actions, we have proved it.”

“All successive governments of Sri Lanka have endeavoured to resolve the problem for over twenty five years, including through Norwegian facilitation and international Co-Chairs overseeing a so-called peace process that was treated with contempt by the terrorists.

On each occasion that talks were held seeking peace, the terrorists of the LTTE walked out on the flimsiest of excuses and reverted to terrorism of the worst kind, indiscriminately targeting innocent civilians.

Unequivocal

Laying down unequivocally the terms for any negotiations with the LTTE, the President said: “Our Government would only be ready to talk to this illegal armed group when it is ready to commit itself to decommissioning of its illicit weapons and dismantling of its military capability, and return to the democratic fold.

The Government has also made it clear that the elected Government cannot and will not permit undermining of the territorial integrity of the sovereign UN Member State of Sri Lanka and the division of its territory. We are clear in this message.

“The Government’s objective is to enable the people to enjoy the benefits of the democratic processes and to speed the development activities in those areas where there is a heavy presence of terrorists.

This would be similar to the fast tracking of economic development taking place in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, where former terrorists now function as democratically elected Provincial Councillors, and a former child soldier conscripted by the LTTE is now the elected Chief Minister, having abandoned terrorism and embracing democracy. Significantly, the restoration of democracy in the East of Sri Lanka was achieved in less than one year of it being freed from the clutches of terror.”

It is now clear to the world, and the oft-quoted “international community” the exact stand of Sri Lanka on the need to eradicate terrorism; the need to bring the freedoms of democracy to its entire people, including the Tamils; and, the very important need to free the Tamils held hostage by the LTTE from the clutches of its terror.

Travesty of truth

It was not unexpected sections of the Tamil Diaspora in the North America, that still believe in the LTTE and funds its terror, much against US and Canadian law; had chosen the same day that President Rajapaksa addressed the UNGA to hold a demonstration near the UN targeting Sri Lanka and its President. There were nearly 300 protestors, not all from New York, with many from distant Toronto and the Tamil precincts there, as well as from other parts of the US too.

It was a well organized charade that tried very hard to portray Sri Lanka as a state that oppresses its people, accusing it of all possible crimes against humanity that included genocide. But in the eagerness of the organisers, which included some megaphone wielding whites to whom some of the Tamil protestors seemed shamefully subservient, they lost the irony in their star attraction.

It was huge photograph of President Rajapaksa shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, with a caption below that said: “Sri Lanka Joins the Axis of Evil”.

It may have pleased the rapidly shrinking US citizens who believe in the foreign policy of George W Bush and Dick Cheney, but it certainly failed to impress the many New Yorkers and other US citizens who passed by or even paused to watch the protest.

Had the organisers asked Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, they would have readily given them a photo of the two presidents in a much closer and tighter embrace.

But the folly of the organisers lay in the fact that while trying to identify Sri Lanka as apart of the Bush-Cheney Axis of Evil - an axis where North Korea’s presence if now uncertain - they had forgotten the fact that the LTTE itself remains banned by the US as an organisation of international terror.

So, here was an international terrorist organisation, so identified by the US Government, accusing Sri Lanka, a full democracy fighting the forces of terror, that are jointly decried by the US and Sri Lankan Presidents at the UN, making a futile efforts to link Sri Lanka to an axis of terror about which most US citizens have many doubts today. It appears that not only is the LTTE losing fast on the battlefields in the Vanni, it are also fast losing grip of its once formidable propaganda capability when such asinine comparisons are made before a New York audience.

There were also many placards that said how the Sri Lanka Government was denying food and medicines to the Tamil people of the North, and a whole barrage of such bunkum that had already been well answered by the President in his address to the UNGA; where he explained the continuing irony of the Sri Lankan situation in dealing with the terror of the LTTE.

The President emphasised that: “The Government of Sri Lanka continues (its) humanitarian policy even today although we know that the terrorists seize a good proportion of these humanitarian supplies. Our supplies are not confined to food; they extend to medicines, and all other essentials as well as schools and hospitals, with teachers, doctors, nurses, and all other essential staff.

This is not all, the government also purchases the paddy and other foodstuffs produced in those areas. I do not think there is any country in the world where there is a government that provides such humanitarian assistance to terrorists that attack it. Our government considers the supply of humanitarian relief to its people as its prime responsibility.”

Transparency what?

This is an aspect of Sri Lankan policy that is being steadily recognized by international observers, and key opinion makers who make a careful study of the situation here, unlike the knee-jerk reactions of humanitarian do-gooders who they come as the vanguard of the R2P, or in purple robes of bishoprics, and the many other variations of interfering busybodies, who see much promise for profit in the still monumental financial resources of the LTTE, obtained through its friendly or cowed down Tamil Diaspora, or both.

Fire-bombing a home of any citizen is contemptible, and deserves the strongest condemnation. Thus the recent reported attack on the home of Attorney at Law JC Weliamuna, who is also the local representative of Transparency International, deserves all condemnation, and the search for actual culprits.

Yet, the speed with which fingers are being pointed in the direction of the government, through both covert and overt statements from wide ranging sources both local and foreign, religious and trade union, and the all embracing “civil society” types, raises much questions about the motives behind such hasty accusations.

The type of protest that has emerged after this incident has more than a touch of seeking to embarrass the government, and particularly President Rajapaksa, himself a lawyer by profession, at a time when he is at the helm of a campaign to rid the country of terror. There seems to be more than copy cat protest actions borrowed from Pakistan, where the conditions were far different from what it is here.

I am no particular fan of Mr. Weliamuna, and his style of “civil society” exercise, and our differences are well known. Yet, while vigorously condemning the attack on his home, one considers it necessary to pause and think of the many other reasons that there may be for a not so cheap lawyer’s home to be attacked, with no harm to his or family, other than his exposure of corruption in the State alone.

While the ball is squarely in the court of the IGP to find the culprits, it is best that those who know the follies of rushing into hasty conclusions and imputing motives, even at the drop of a firebomb, exercise some caution in both word and deed.

Let their actions too be transparent as Transparency International wants of others.