Hail Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, but prevention is better than cure

Today's The Island newspaper reported in its lead news that the government had decided to rebuild the property in Beruwala electorate damaged in communal violence mid June.

According to reports, the government has allocated Rs. 200 million public money for this and Army is to provide labor free of charge.

Yesterday's reports said that the Army had already stationed in Aluthgama to start work today. 

Here are some interesting excerpts from The Island story:

"Racial violence would only strengthen the hands of those conspirators who had been pushing for war crimes probe targeting the country, he added.

Anyone with an iota of love for the country, wouldn’t attack another community, the Defence Secretary said..................

......................... "Give me just one reason why we should cause chaos as the country is heading for national elections. Having won every election, except the first Northern Provincial Council polls last September, there is absolutely no reason for the government to dig its own grave," the Defence Secretary said. "Give me one reason why the government wants to antagonize its coalition partners." 

In fact, the Defense Secretaries views are laudable although they came late. He must know that the racists that incited communal disharmony at Aluthgama have used his name to cover. Media alleged that the Defense Secretary was behind them. Be it right or wrong, the Bodu Bala Sena manipulates it for its safety. No action seems pending against the organization despite loads of complaints against it about hate speech and violence.

Ruling a country is not only trying to remedy the problems after they worsened, perhaps thanks to pressure. Wise politicians stem problems at the root. Prevention is better than cure.

The Rs. 200 million hard earned public money could be used to improve infrastructure in these areas if mobs had failed. Unfortunately, the racists were successful.

Sinhalese displaced from Jaffna and Tamils displaced from the rest of the island

(October 11, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity, Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe) Lanka, irrespective whether it is Jaffna or Hambanthota is a multi-ethnic multi-religious country since times known.

A minority Sinhalese community lived in Jaffna before the escalation of hostilities in 1980s. Famous stories say they ran the bakery business there. Several university dons, namely Sucharitha Gamlath and Sunil Ariyarathna taught in the Sinhala Department of Jaffna University before 1983.

The fond memories of multi ethnic Tamil dominated Jaffna shattered with escalation of war. Tamil Tigers resorted to military strategies that attributed to ethnic cleansing. But, a Jaffna which was meant to be out of bound for Sinhalese and Muslims soon became a hub for tens of thousands of militarized Sinhalese young men that guarded the city with suspicious watchful eyes penetrating the Jaffna Tamils.

Now the war is over although conflict drags on at different levels. An apparently organized Sinhala group of around 200 families led by yet to be disclosed elements has emerged in Jaffna seeking land to resettle in what they call either the birthplace or the former residential town of theirs. They say their claim is rational although they had no proof for land ownership there.

Jaffna peninsula is a crowded area where a large extent  of land is still under Army high security zones. It is not easy to grant the demands of these Sinhalese families, although their claims can be justifiable.

Many thousands of Tamils also lived similarly in many areas in Sinhala dominated south and they too were displaced mainly as a result of 1983 July ethnic violence against Tamils. They either resettled or began to repeatedly displace elsewhere. What can the government do if all these people come back and ask for land in the places where they lived before they were dislocated by the circumstances of history?

For instance, Anuradhapura is a city a sizable Tamil population lived.  Only a few remained there after 1983 violence and the Tamil Tiger attack in the city in 1985. Some land the Tamils owned were grabbed by others and sometimes government used them in development projects.

What if the Tamils that lived in Anuradhapura return there and seek refuge in the city railway station pleading resettlement. Is the government ready to accept the returning Tamils in the same vein the Sinhalese are admitted and provided security at Jaffna railway station.

If the government redress the Sinhala people displaced from Jaffna it will rationalize the claims of the Tamils for similar treatment. But, the problem here is if this kind of development will create any positive impact in regard of reconciliation.

Won't the Sinhalese if they would be resettled in Jaffna face hostilities from the jealous Tamils who think the Sinhalese are responsible for their plight? Are Tamils' mindset broad enough to admit them as brethren?

In such context, are Sinhalese in south ready to admit the Tamils also in similar vein, if they return to pre-1983 context?

Status quo can be a better solution for some problems although it causes injustice in some senses.


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Can Sri Lanka monk party get Russia and China to veto Ban Ki Moon?

(July 04, 2010, Colombo - Lanka Polity) In the present international political context especially related to Sri Lanka, anything seems possible. Sri Lanka once managed to defeat a proposal supported by mighty nations to investigate war crimes during the last phase of war at the Human Rights Council of UN. It is somehow eluding any punitive action of the international community regarding the human rights violation and war crime charges leveled against it.

The powerful nations are too busy to think of the repercussions of their carelessness on the downtrodden nationalities and classes. They simply cannot imagine the magnanimity of the anti system triumphal mentality of the backward political elements of this island. Following is a news story that depicts the phenomenon.

Sri Lanka's Sinhala Buddhist monk-led political party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) says it has decided to urge Russia and China to use veto power not to let UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon to contest for a second term.

Moon’s first term ends in December 2011 and needs the blessing of the five veto power holding nations to vie for a second term, said a Sri Lankan Sinhala newspaper Lankadeepa that quoted a senior spokesman of the JHU.

JHU has decided to hold a march to Russian and Chinese embassies soon and to hand over letters to the Ambassadors of the two nations urging them to use veto to deny Moon a second term, said the newspaper.

The JHU spokesman said to the newspaper that the request is made from these two nations since they have already protested the UN General Secretary’s panel to advise him on Sri Lanka’s accountability issues.

Will these countries use veto against Ban Ki Moon? There is ample time to wait and see. But the pressure on Ban Ki Moon will work on him and his panel.



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A corpus for Sri Lankan English

(April 28, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  In linguistics, a corpus (plural corpora) or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts. They are used to do statistical analysis and hypothesis testing, checking occurrences or validating linguistic rules on a specific universe.

Now, a corpus for Sri Lankan English is being compiled under the International Corpus of English project (ICE). The International Corpus of English (ICE) began in 1990 with the primary aim of collecting material for comparative studies of English worldwide. Twenty research teams around the world are preparing electronic corpora of their own national or regional variety of English. Each ICE corpus consists of one million words of spoken and written English produced after 1989. For most participating countries, the ICE project is stimulating the first systematic investigation of the national variety. To ensure compatibility among the component corpora, each team is following a common corpus design, as well as a common scheme for grammatical annotation.

The Sri Lankan component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-SL) is conducted by the university of Giessen in Germany, with the coordination of several Sri Lankan Universities.

As research assistant Tobias Bernaisch mentioned to Daily News, the written component of the ICE-SL is completed and the compilation of the spoken data will start in June.

'ICE-SL project is considered as the first systematic investigation of the Sri Lankan English (SLE). It reflects how SLE is actually being used by the competent speakers of it,' says Daily News adding 'This will be of immense use for investigations on how SLE is really used in various communicative contexts and will help to identify characteristics of SLE.'

A debate is ongoing among Sri Lankan academicians about the legitimacy of SLE as a separate dialect.

Michael Meyler that wrote 'A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English' highlights the need to codify standard Sri Lankan English and draw up a guide for English teachers. 'With the added advantage of taking ownership of the language, and stripping away the colonial baggage which comes with the traditional British model,' he says.

Following is what Wikipedia says about Sri Lankan English.

Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the English language as spoken in Sri Lanka.

The earliest English speakers in present-day Sri Lanka date back to the days of the British Empire, the era of Royal Navy dominance, and the British colonial presence in South Asia.

An SLE consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary and author of the book Knox's Words[1][2] notes that British readers first encountered loan words from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) in a book published in 1681 entitled An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies. Words from that book became used internationally: the best known is Buddha but others include Anaconda[3], betel leaf, bo tree, puja, rattan, rillow, Vedda, and wanderoo.

SLE became more indigenous in the mid-19th century. In addition to the usual terms for flora and fauna, new idioms, referred to as Ceylonisms, emerged.

Some years after independence in 1948, English ceased being the only official language of Sri Lanka, but it remained in use across the island's ethnic groups. It evolved to incorporate more Sinhalese vocabulary and grammatical conventions such as the use of "no?" as a tag question at the end of a sentence.

In spite of English's long history in Sri Lanka, 21st century Sri Lankans academicians debate about the legitimacy of SLE as a separate dialect.

A significant difference between British English and Sri Lankan English usage is its use of particular tenses. Many educated Sri Lankans would use past perfect tense to talk about things that happened at a fixed time in the recent past instead of past simple. Many Sri Lankans still use words such as frock (to scold) and the question form 'to whom' which are not familiar to modern British English speakers. Another example of typical Sri Lankan English is posing questions by changing the intonation, e.g. "you are hungry?"

There are certain nouns added to English by Sri Lankans and therefore a native English speaker coming to Sri Lanka for the first time would not know what Shorteats (snacks) and string hoppers (a typical Sri Lankan food) mean. If you read a daily newspaper, you may find a number of typical Sri Lankan usages, which may not be accepted in standard British English: such as 'lots of equipments', 'information system', 'education minister'.

Sri Lanka's JVP again resorting to anti devolution politics

(April 23, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Sri Lanka's prominent left movement People's Liberation Front (JVP) that lost a number of parliamentary seats they held since 2004, seems to resort to anti devolution politics once again to find a path to get out of the stalemate they are stuck in now.

JVP, that sprang out of village Sinhala youth in late 60s and early 70s inherited a mint of anti Tamil Sinhala chauvinism from its beginning and it widely resorted to anti devolution politics in its second uprising in late 1980s.

After the repression in 1989 in which almost the entire leadership was eliminated, JVP re-entered mainstream politics in 1994. Since then, the JVP's political strategies were decided in a fear psychosis vis-a-vis breakaway Sinhala arch nationalist leader Champika Ranawaka. JVP was always in fear that Ranawaka would win the Sinhala radical youth from them and moved in nationalist path in a race with Ranawaka trying to overtake him.

This conflict paved way Mahinda Rajapaksa, a capitalist politician with a background of rural nobility, to rise in power yielding what sown by the nationalists turned radicals. With the nationalist war and the victory of the Rajapaksa-led Sinhala forces, JVP that grudgingly evaded practically supporting the war was alienated from the nationalist state set up in which Champika Ranawaka had fairly consolidated as an individual.

JVP contested the 2010 general election in a coalition with ex-Army Commander and defeated Presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka who was jailed by the ruling regime and secured four seats for the party while the coalition won seven seats.

However, the party is no more a king maker in Sri Lankan politics and the leadership is facing a fast deteriorating party support base that is frustrated with the party's failure to achieve tangible gains for them.

At this juncture too, some of the prominent JVP leaders still seem to think that they may find a way out of this trouble via anti devolution politics since the newly mandated government is tended to go for devolution as a solution for the ethnic problem in an understanding with the major Tamil constituent Tamil National Alliance and India.

This can be very well observed in the present content of the JVP's propaganda organs like Lanka Sinhala newspaper and Lanka Truth website. These media try to portray a picture that the government is conspiring with India to set forth a set of proposals to devolve power to Northern and Eastern Provinces to address the long standing demand of the Tamil politicians to strengthen their national identity in politics.

We do not think this is a right moment for a campaign like what JVP led in 1987 against Provincial Councils that were introduced under Indo-Lanka peace accord. After all the Provincial Councils were in practice for more than 20 years. JVP also represented them. The major Tamil force that rejected the Provincial Councils targeting a separate Tamil state is too a non-entity in practical politics in Sri Lanka. Tamil National Alliance is also ready to accept a solution that goes a little distance beyond the Provincial Council system under the present unitary state structure.

Progressive forces of the country should try at this moment to push the government to begin a new dialogue with the minorities that are fighting for identity in politics and to come to a settlement. This will not only benefit the capitalist development but it will also enhance the development of society and polity. Leftists should not worry about what the capitalism achieves through a compromise in national issue. The solution will also pave way for broader unity among downtrodden masses as well superimposing the national divisions that restrict their struggles against evils of capitalism.

by Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe

International Crisis Group on Sri Lankan issue

(February 24, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups should move away, once and for all, from the failed agenda of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and instead put their energies into the quest for a sustainable and just peace in a united Sri Lank, says International Crisis Group, a think tank studying the conflicts in the world.

Following is the full text of their report:

The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora after the LTTE,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines political dynamics within the Tamil diaspora since May 2009, as Tamils abroad adapt to the LTTE’s defeat. It also looks at the potential for new forms of militancy within the diaspora, especially among the younger generations, radicalised by the deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final months of the war. While there is little chance of the Tamil Tigers regrouping in the diaspora, most Tamils abroad remain profoundly committed to a separate state of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

“New diaspora initiatives attempt to carry forward the struggle for an independent state in more transparent and democratic ways, but they must repudiate the LTTE’s violent methods”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “And they must also recognise that the LTTE’s separatist agenda is out of step with the wishes and needs of Tamils in Sri Lanka”.

The gap between the diaspora and Tamils in Sri Lanka has widened. Most in the country are exhausted by decades of war and are more concerned with rebuilding their lives under difficult circumstances than in continuing the fight for an independent state. Without the LTTE to enforce a common political line, Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka are proposing substantial reforms within a united Sri Lanka. While Tamils have the democratic right to espouse separatism non-violently, Tamil Eelam has virtually no domestic or international backing. With the Sri Lankan government assuming Tamils abroad remain committed to violent means, the diaspora’s continued calls for a separate state feed the fears of the Rajapaksa administration and provid e excuses for maintaining destructive anti-terrorism and emergency laws.

The Sri Lankan government must address the legitimate grievances at the root of the conflict: the political marginalisation and physical insecurity of most Tamils in Sri Lanka. The international community needs to press Colombo much more strongly for political and constitutional reforms. Donors should insist that money given to redevelop the north and east is tied closely to the demilitarisation and democratisation of the region. This should include giving Tamils and Muslims a meaningful role in determining the future of the areas where they have long been the majority. Donor governments and the United Nations must also insist on an independent investigation into the thousands of Tamil civilians killed in the final months of 20fighting in 2009.

“Tamils in Sri Lanka currently have little appetite for a return to armed struggle”, says Robert Templer. “But should the Sri Lankan state continue to fail to respond to their collective aspirations, some may eventually seek a solution through violence and could find willing partners in the diaspora”.