What motives of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa push him towards a 'Truth Commission'?

(May 07, Colombo - Lanka Polity) After winning a second term as President and consolidating power through a general election, Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to appoint a committee to probe any right abuses committed during the decade-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) and to compensate the victims and their families who suffered during the conflict that killed nearly 100,000 people.

The President will shortly appoint a commission to report on the 'Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation' with regard to the difficulties and troubled times that Sri Lanka had to undergo due to the terrorist inspired, maneuvered and created conflict situation in recent years, the government media unit announced today.

The commission outwardly appears as a Truth Commission that can lead to a genuine post-war reconciliation if it proceeds in a genuine path. But it is not an international commission of eminent persons. Still there is no guarantee about the ethnic balance of the commission. The guarantee of the safety of the witnesses is something unachievable in the present context of Sri Lanka. Yet, the Sri Lankan government needs to ensure accountability for serious violations, an absolutely vital precondition for genuine reconciliation and lasting peace. Let us wish the proceeding of the commission may find solutions for these basic issues. But, does Sri Lanka have capacities for a commission of this nature? Why does it not go international?

In the present context, President Mahinda Rajapaksa is so powerful that the international community will not consider penalizing him. Instead, they can help to build up a productive mechanism for a true reconciliation process. The President needs to understand that reconciliation cannot be imposed. It should generate on its own. He can facilitate it efficiently to achieve positive outcome.

Last May, President Rajapaksa promised UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to investigate allegations of laws-of-war violations.

Western governments and right groups have accused Sri Lanka military of war crimes during the final phase of its bloody offensive with the LTTE in which the military crushed the rebel outfit and all of its senior leaders last May.

This commission seems a result of US pressure. In October, the US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp called on the Sri Lankan government to "develop an accountability process that respects the interests of all."

In November, the publication of the State Department report compelled Rajapaksa to appoint a six-member committee of "experts" to "examine [its allegations] carefully." The committee's only mandate was to provide recommendations to the president in December (later postponed to April), and its members appeared not to be independent-minded.

Now that committee has gone and a new committee appears before the world that has all reasonable doubts on such moves of Sri Lankan rulers. Once the President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) to probe a number of serious violations of human rights. But the IIGEP ended with no productive result and the conclusion of some members of the group that the government lacked the political will to hold accountable the perpetrators of these egregious crimes.

However, we think that it is not fair to be totally pessimistic regarding the fresh move of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa since it is a move for his benefit in the present context than one that can cause damage to him as it could happen before April 08 general elections.

The President is using the present political stability and outward return of normalcy in the country as an opportunity to mend ties with the Western governments that were traditional allies of Sri Lanka and also to emerge in international politics as a recognized leader that defeated terrorism.

The Commission in assessing the 'Lessons Learnt' from the recent conflict phase will search for any violations of internationally accepted norms of conduct in such conflict situations, and the circumstances that may have led to such actions, and identify any persons or groups responsible for such acts, the government announced.

The government says the findings will help to ensure that there will be no recurrence of such tragic conflict in the future. The words alludes a general amnesty although it is not directly connoted.

The Commission comprises seven eminent Sri Lankans that live in the country and abroad. They will evaluate the nature of compensation to be granted to the victims of the conflict or their dependents.

It will also make recommendations for the reconciliation process among the communities, reconstruction, and rehabilitation and recommend the legislative and administrative measures that may be necessary in order to prevent such situations in the future.

The Terms of Reference for the Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation are to be Gazetted in the next few days.

Sri Lankan Tamil journalist Tissainayagam released; his friends unhappy

(May 05, Colombo - Lanka Polity) We hail the Presidential pardon to English writing Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam who was sentenced to twenty years by a Sri Lanka court for charges framed under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). This move can lead to building up of national harmony and promotion of democracy.

Tissainayagam was sentenced to twenty years rigorous imprisonment by a motive to teach a lesson to the pro-Tamil nationalist media. President Mahinda Rajapaksa provided amnesty to him a year after the victory in the war against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) to show how democratic his rule is now and to mend the friendship with the Western countries that were traditional allies of Sri Lanka. This action looks directly linked with the government's attempt to regain G.S.P. Plus tariff concessions from European Union.

Amidst war, a number of journalists that criticized the military project of the government were killed and some were harassed and detained. After the war, another set of journalists that were supporting ex-Army Commander and Presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka's power project were either arrested or intimidated.

Few social activists of Sri Lanka were bold enough to take part locally in the international campaign to get Tissainayagam freed. The organizers of the meeting held in Colombo last year to protest the sentence and to urge the release of Tissainayagam were in utmost difficulty to find a venue for the meeting. Even the administration of the Jayawardhana Center where the meeting was held eventually wanted to cancel the event. Journos were scanty among the around one hundred participants of activists of this event. Tissainayagam's elderly father delivered a marvelous speech, I remember.

The fate of Tissainayagam also opened doors for  a flow of money for some NGOs appearing to fight for press freedom and democracy.

Some mean characters that were holding the positions of these organizations stopped all media activities they were engaged in, if there was any, and began to find avenues to migrate to Western European countries that are socially better developed. Some of Tissainayagam's political friends were so organized that they were able to get the entire families migrated manipulating the news stories they themselves got planted in friendly media.

There are some others that fled the country actually to get rid of their wives and children. Some persons were responsible for swindling huge sums of money from the accounts of the organizations for press freedom.

Some of these thieves are now writing sensitive poetry while the majority of them do nothing except greedily devouring the newfound fantasies. The major thing they were not doing while they were in Sri Lanka also was non other than writing to media.

Most probably Tisainayagam will also migrate out of Sri Lanka with his family possibly to join the lot above mentioned. But we think Tissainayagam still can do a service to his community he fought for if he remains Tissainayagam. He will be like jailed for life if he will be caught again in another unscrupulous project of some of the artful dodgers he was in association earlier.

Wimal Weerawansa; completion of capitalist metamorphosis of an our time revolutionary

(May 02, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Wimal Weerawansa is my friend one time if not now. I do not have any reason to consider him as an enemy despite whatever the role he played in Sri Lankan politics in which, I think, he did what history asked him to do as same as Vepupillai Prabakaran did. I am not aware if he has any such enmity with me. We have not met for as long a time as two decades.

We both entered politics in latter half of the 1980s as activists of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) that was underground by the time. I was several years senior to him. He hailed from a lower middle class family.

After the defeat of the 1989 insurrection, I quit JVP but he continued in it while working as a journalist. He gradually went up in the power ladder of the JVP and became the Propaganda Secretary and the Parliamentary Group Leader.

He is very famous for his eloquence in disseminating radical ideas deep fried in Sinhala chauvinism. But, Wimal was not as much popular among party cadres as he was popular among less educated masses. He was  actually sacked from the party in 2007 and he quickly responded by putting together several disgruntled and sacked party groups to form a political party. The beginning of the party was half-hearted but soon it gathered momentum and moved with new hopes of creating an alternative for the JVP.

Wimal's party National Freedom Front (JNP) introduced a new culture that deviated from the traditional JVP professional revolutionary cadre. But the journey was brief since the people gathered around Wimal were too ambitious and power greedy. Wimal too was not in a caliber to give leadership to such a greedy and opportunist lot.

A good example is Kamal Deshapriya Mannawaththa, an old colleague of Wimal that broke away from the party with a group in late 1990s due to an internal power crisis. Mannawaththa was swiftly ushered to the post of National Organizer of the JNP after a decade of political inactivity. Wimal praised the man too much to make him think he could be the real leader of the party. He wanted his group to get washed into the Provincial Councils but the circumstances were extremely difficult and Wimal had to thwart Mannawaththa. The party was losing elections and ultimately, he left with his group sparing ex-JVP politburo member Nandana Gunathilaka who remained in the party for opportunistic reasons. Sometimes later, he also joined the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party. While he was a cabinet Minister, Mannawaththa was in his staff. He left Gunathilaka since the latter did not give into his need of having a nominal party instead of directly joining the ruling party. Mannawaththa could have secured a national list seat through his strategy that Gunathilaka spoiled.

With this, Wimal was entirely surrounded by a naked lot of power greedy, ambitious, inefficient guys that wanted Wimal's shoulder to go up before they kick the ladder. The best example is Achala Suranga Jagoda, national list MP of the JNP, a notable absentee of this set of photos who is now to cross over to the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

Wimal was in a path that there was no return. He could not lose because the militant JVP was after him. Just before the presidential was called, Wimal was almost alone in late 2009. When ex-Army Commander Sarath Fonseka posed a serious challenge to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Wimal gambled his future taking his side boldly while the others were waiting and seeing. He won the gamble and the pictures of his assuming duties as a powerful cabinet Minister shows what he achieved in return.

Many blame Wimal and the blamers have reasons since so many JVP cadres and sympathizers sacrificed their lives and day for the party to achieve socialism. Instead leading the party towards socialism, a set of bureaucrat have settled in a game of power play and Wimal is a winner for the moment, while the likes of Somawansa Amarasinghe, Anura Kumara Disanayaka and Lal Kantha have lost. Then why blame Wimal alone?

Now, gone is gone. Wimal is now in the core of Sri Lanka's capitalist politics. His former colleagues have failed in whatever their targets. Wimal is a creative man in many senses. Let us see what changes he may do in capitalist politics.

But our warning is beware of those who are around you!
-Ajith Perakum Jayasinghe

How the rulers of Sri Lanka broke the promises given to working class during elections

(May 01, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  The working class of Sri Lanka is facing the harsh reality of the rulers they secured in power even before a month passed after they swept Mahinda Rajapaksa regime into the parliament with a close to two third majority.

The government has completely forgotten the promises to increase salaries of the 1.2 million public sector employees and 4.5 million private sector employees. Even the government employees that voted overwhelmingly to the regime has forgotten the promises they were given. Our observation was that they did not take these promises seriously.

But, the state-run media brightened the spirits of the voters by igniting the hopes of important statement from the government on May Day. Working class had hopes in the back of their minds that the government would not totally forget them.

Now, all hopes are gone. The hyped salary increase for the employees that come under the Wages Board control is also proved a fraudulent propaganda piece.

Minister of Labour Relations and Productivity Promotion Gamini Lokuge announced that the minimum wages of the private sector employees that are covered by Wages Boards would have an increase to their minimum salary from 20% to 45%. The Minister stated that the minimum salary of the employees would be increased from Rs. 7000 to 10,000 accordingly.

However, the Secretary of Free Trade Zone Employees’ Union Anton Marcus said that Wages Boards could decide only the minimum wage of a sector of employment that is covered by Wages Boards. He pointed out that practically the minimum wage of the employees in these sectors are above that is specified by the Wages Boards. Therefore, the employees will not have any salary increase, he says.

Marcus also said that of the above 4.5 million private sector employees of the country, only 2.5 million are subjected to the Wages Board wage control. Twenty million have been totally left out, he says.

Setting up of 'Sri Lanka Sea Police'; a far-sighted decision

(April 30, Colombo - Lanka Polity)  Sri Lanka Coast Guard Department has decided to set up coast guard units in each fisheries harbor of the island, said the Director of Department Rear Admiral Daya Dharmapriya.

Sri Lanka is an island that has a large sea area in its control. The country's sea is now seven times bigger than the land area and after 2027 Sri Lanka will own a sea area of 25 times of the landmass. The island has made requests to the UN authorities to claim for the sea above the continental shelf of the island and the request will be considered after 2027.

The island communities were seafarers since ancient times. However, the sea around the island was a dangerous place in past three decades since the activities of the Sea Tigers of Tamil rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam and the counter-terrorism measures of Sri Lanka Navy. Fishing was also thoroughly restricted for many years before the end of war.

But, in the post-war era Sri Lanka government seems understood the potentials of the island nation to fish prosperity from the sea around the island.

Therefore, the decision to set up a 'Sea Police' can be considered a far-sighted initiative.

The Coast Guard Department will establish main coordinating centers in Colombo, Mirissa in South, Oluwil in Ampara district, Kalpitiya and Mannar in northwestern coast, Trincomalee in the Eastern Province, Point Pedro and Punarin in Jaffna peninsula.

The Coast Guard Department is now equipped with 250 personnel and four crafts. The Director of the Department said that the proposals have been mooted to recruit 2000 more personnel to the coast guard and fast moving crafts also will be acquired.

Recently established Sri Lanka Coast Guard is not an armed force. It is considered as a ‘Sea Police’ that is empowered in prevention of smuggling, piracy, sea pollution and it is also expected to act in lifesaving, protection of property and sea species conservation in the 485000 square kilometer sea area belonged to Sri Lanka.

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'.

Re-'regaining Sri Lanka', LTTE and the JVP

(April 28, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Tamil nationalist politics appears to moving towards a further distant goal that is apparently building of a Tamil nation in a broader perspective in a global context.

What is the reason for this drastic shift? Do the leaders of the Tamil nationalist movement think they were betrayed by Sri Lankan Tamil polity?

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea, Mao Tse-Tung said.

Were the slain leaders of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) among people in their last phase of struggle? If they were not, was it a fault of the people? If the answer is yes, who decided the nature of this polity in the last thirty years?

Tamil polity of Sri Lanka is in the most pathetic situation of their history now. No need to mention the harsh conditions they undergo in the present context.

The remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) that are well-secured in the economic and social fortitudes in the green pastures of Western Europe have betrayed them. They are let alone to deal with the Sinhala dominated Colombo government on their own. The 'knowledgeable' expatriate patriots that are called Tamil Diaspora wait and see until the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that won 14 parliamentary seats in the recent elections fail to achieve a negotiated settlement with the Rajapaksa regime. They wait until Rajapaksa regime fails and an anarchy is built up in the state.

TNA may fail not because they are foolish to trust the Sinhala chauvinist rulers. They may fail because of the folly of the Sinhala polity and their leaders that fail to build up trust among the communities that live in the island.

Rajapaksa regime will definitely fail if they will not change and if they will proceed in the ways they are in now. However, they will fail in a different context after exposing the country into a rapid capitalist growth and a social change that follows it.

This is the same change the LTTE and the brethren Sinhala peasant movement People's Liberation Front (JVP) were terrified by the United National Party (UNP) regime during 2001 - 2004. These two forces joined hands in political underneath to defeat the UNP's 'Regaining Sri Lanka' programme that was launched in a neo-liberalist pro-Western context.

Now the same capitalist programme is set forth by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime but in a very anti-democratic and a propagandistic anti-Western outlook.

As same as the UNP targeted to obtain a massive loan of Rs. 4.5 billion from West, the Rajapaksa regime is obtaining massive loans from China and open financial markets chaining generations of Sri Lankans in a massive debt burden. Growth strategy is same, developing infrastructure to attract foreign investment. One visible deviation is the existence of strong state enterprises. But one should not mistake them as public enterprises. They are sheer companies from which the political and official elite profit.

The final solution of the UNP and the Rajapaksa regime for the ethnic problem is the same, i.e., liquidizing the Tamil nationalist armed forces. UNP wanted to do it through a negotiated settlement but the Rajapaksas resorted to ethnic war although the pundits argue the peace achieved through it is not sustainable.

The social change that is to follow the targeted rapid growth is yet to be observed. All in all, the mass movements like the LTTE and the JVP have to go for a serious retrospection and they have to review and make drastic changes in their strategies if they want to re-emerge as deciding factors of the politics of Sri Lanka.