{"id":194185,"date":"2018-10-08T00:38:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T19:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=194185"},"modified":"2018-10-13T13:58:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-13T08:28:18","slug":"the-lines-of-fire-within-mark-fields-paternalist-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-lines-of-fire-within-mark-fields-paternalist-message\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lines Of Fire Within Mark Field\u2019s Paternalist Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Roberts<\/a> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Michael Roberts<\/p><\/div>\n

Mark Field\u2019s visit to Sri Lanka<\/a> is very, very significant. His pronouncements are threaded by the paternalistic air of an Etonian schoolmaster pontificating to students. That should not be allowed to mask the Sword of Damocles that is above the Sri Lankan body via the UNHCR as the instrument of the Western international community.<\/p>\n

Field\u2019s title as \u201cMinister for Asia and the Pacific\u201d gives the game away. In the Pacific Ocean USA\u2019s \u201cPacific Asia Command\u201d (PAC) holds the commanding military heights. In the Indian Ocean USA\u2019s massive base at Diego Garcia plays watchdog for the West. Diego Garcia atoll and island, let me remind readers,. was handed over to USA by UK in December 1966\/68 through a process<\/a> which forcefully removed all its indigenized Chagossian inhabitants \u2013 one of the most horrendous human rights violations of the 20th<\/sup> century imposed on a harmless body of people.<\/p>\n

However, it is Mark Field\u2019s message to Sri Lankans<\/a> — threats wrapped in cotton really \u2013 that we must reflect upon. The Western power talons driving this project were displayed in a striking ethnographic encounter in the UNHRC Office\u00a0corridors in Geneva in September 2011 when the US ambassador to that Council, one Eileen Donahue, turned on the Sri Lankan ambassador in some fury and said, \u201cWe\u2019ll get you next time!<\/i>\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

This incident lays bare the roots of the Western-cum-UN project: for which we must go back to the years 2008\/09 and the last phase of Eelam War IV.\u00a0 <\/span>It is by happenchance that at this very moment I have been working up a summarizing article on the politics of Eelam War IV in its last phase. Let me spell out pertinent points in capsule form.<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A= A secret meeting was convened in Kuala Lumpur in February 2009 involving the head of LTTE International, KP Pathmanathan, plus Rudrakumaran and Jay Maheswaran plus three Norwegian diplomats — a meeting that clearly had the full backing of USA — in order to resolve the warring situation in Lanka and, ostensibly, to prevent a potential humanitarian catastrophe involving a massive death toll among the Tamil civilian population corralled by the LTTE.<\/p>\n

B = This gathering was preceded or accompanied by the insertion of a PAC recce team into the island to work out the ways and means of effecting this forcible intervention.<\/p>\n

C = The Western powers seemed oblivious (conveniently?) to the fact that the LTTE had assembled the civilians in the battle theatre precisely to invite their intervention \u2013 so that they in fact became the LTTE\u2019s partners in war<\/b>.<\/p>\n

D = The despatches disclosed by Wikileaks show that, In line with this partisanship and alliance, the US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert Blake, consistently pressurized the GoSL Ministers to institute ceasefire spells, while recognizing that Pirap\u00e4haran would never agree to the stilling of his guns \u2026 so that ceasefire in his book was a one-way street\u2026. And furthermore, \u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

E = \u2026.. that, in Despatch 32 of the 2nd<\/sup> January 2009 reporting on the outcomes of a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa to work out measures for the re-settlement of Tamil IDPS, Blake summarily dismissed any reliance on the Social Services Minister: Douglas Devananda, he stressed, \u201cwould not be a suitable choice because his paramilitary, the EPDP, had been responsible for the killings and abductions of large numbers of Tamils in Jaffna.\u201d Blake seems to have been blissfully unaware of the stark contradiction resting in his own hand: namely, that USA was sustaining the LTTE as a political entity \u2013 Tigers who had piled up a list of massacres, assassinations and huge bomb blast attacks in civilian space that was longer than the proverbial arm\u2026. While we must also note \u2026.<\/p>\n

F = That in another despatch (No. 308 of 19th<\/sup> March 2009) Blake indicated that he had met the Foreign Minister Bogollagama on the 18th<\/sup> March and warned him that \u201cthe deaths of \u2026.\u00a0 <\/span>tens of thousands of civilians \u2026 would cause an international outcry,\u00a0likely subject the GSL to war crime charges<\/b>, and almost certainly undermine public support in the U.S. and other donor countries for future reconstruction efforts in the north.\u201d<\/p>\n

G = So that this body of evidence led me to this conclusion: \u201cthe international cabal was working within the framework of LTTE strategy [and] in effect encouraging the Tigers to sustain their use of the civilians as a defensive formation and a\u00a0raison d\u2019etre<\/i>\u00a0for international intervention. The Sword of Damocles in the form of \u201cwar crimes,\u201d therefore, was held over the head of one party to the conflict in a manner that slotted in neatly with the grand strategy of the other party, the LTTE. In other words, in blithely positioning itself as international arbiter, and wrapping itself with a \u201chumanitarian cloak,\u201d USA, the UN bureaucrats working as American agents and its other international allies (embracing AI, HRW and ICG) were aiding and abetting the LTTE\u201d.<\/p>\n

H = \u2026 and that, as revealed by Daya Gamage, the thinking behind this programme was directed by a line of policy worked out by the US embassy in Sri Lanka from the late 1970s, This policy was revealed quite explicitly by Michael Owens, an Under Secy of State in Washington, on the 6th<\/sup> May 2009: they \u201chad to\u00a0find a way for the LTTE to surrender arms possibly to a third party in the context of a pause in the fighting, to surrender their arms in exchange for some sort of limited amnesty to at least some members of the LTTE and the beginning of a political process<\/b>.<\/b>\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I \u2013 The \u201cpolitical process\u201d that Owens was referring to has always been \u201cdevolution\u201d in American eyes. It is also the trump card favoured today by such well-meaning agencies as the National Peace Council and the Centre for Policy Alternatives \u2026 and, as we can see from his benign presentation, none other than the British Minister for Asia and the Pacific, one Mark Field<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

THE YAKAAS WTHIN SRI LANKA: THAT FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION<\/b><\/p>\n

Given the demographic configuration of the different communities in Sri Lanka and its present provincial maps, can the devolution of power serve as magic panacea?<\/b> Roughly half the SL Tamil population live outside the Northern Province. Their heart may be in the north, but their feet, vote and clout are in the south \u2026 and sometimes beyond in London and elsewhere.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the Eastern Province was cut out in arbitrary fashion by the British in the 19th<\/sup> century and serves as a bone of contention because the leading Tamil forces have falsely depicted it as \u201ctraditional homelands\u201d <\/b>— a specious claim <\/b>pursued to this day in dishonest style by a long line of Tamil intellectuals.<\/p>\n

To this one must add the complication of those identified as \u201cIndian Tamils\u201d (or \u201cPlantation Tamils\u201d) who have \u2013with important exceptions \u2013 been at the socio-economic bottom of the ladder, but whose circumstances have improved somewhat and who now constitute a majority in Nuwara Eliya District within the Central Province.<\/p>\n

The issue I pose is simple: is devolution extended to the Northern Province likely to be a time-bomb? Something that will push Sinhala chauvinist extremism still further? Something that stokes the fears of a Sinhala majority that feels itself a minority in the context of looming Tamilnadu next door?<\/p>\n

I am directed here by the long view of a historian wary of well-meant \u2018solutions\u2019 that generate fresh and\/or deeper problems. From this na\u00efve position I suggest that what Sri Lanka requires is an ingenious constitutional scheme that provides the SL Tamils of the north, those of the Eastern Province and those in Colombo District some clout in the centre and in the Cabinet so that they are brought into the heart of power in an integrated manner. They must reap the benefits (and shortcomings) of any political system so that they develop a stake within it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This line of gerrymandering must also be bolstered by policies that address identity and subjectivity. The tendency for some Sinhala-speakers to equate the category \u201cSinhala\u201d with \u201cL\u0101nkika\u201d must be undermined. The categorization of \u201cethnic\u2019 in the census compilations and National Identity Card bureau must be re-jigged in radical fashion to generate a selection of labels that enables each individual a choice from; viz.<\/p>\n

sihala l<\/i>\u0101nkika\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

demala l<\/i>\u0101nkika.<\/i><\/p>\n

marakkala l<\/i>\u0101nkika<\/i><\/p>\n

ja l<\/i>\u0101nkika<\/i><\/p>\n

lansi l<\/i>\u0101nkika<\/i><\/p>\n

kolomba chetti l<\/i>\u0101nkika<\/i><\/p>\n

mishra l<\/i>\u0101nkika<\/i><\/p>\n

AND last but not least\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

l<\/i>\u0101nkika..\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Without addressing and reforming the political vocabulary in the vernacular, we cannot expect constitutions to yield the fruits fondly imagined by their framers.<\/p>\n

Again, the national anthem must be re-jigged for state occasions so that it is sung in Sinhala and Tamil in the alternate style favoured by the Kiwi and South African rugger teams. The unveiling of this operation to the Sri Lankan people should be at Premadasa Cricket Stadium where a trained choir as well as the pre-prepared cricket team introduce this scheme of patriotic commitment to the public.<\/p>\n

Such measures will not produce immediate results. Collective identity and <\/b>belonging<\/b><\/a> are subjective conditions of being \u2013 moulded over time by many factors. There is no quick fix here.<\/b><\/p>\n

The steps that I have indicated here have to be backed up by intelligent use of cartoons and by the work of such playwrights and film-makers as Dharmasiri Bandaranayake<\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>as well as leading musicians in all three languages. Baila<\/i>, in particular<\/a>, is a medium for cross-communal togetherness. I note, here, that during the height of the Sinhala Buddhist movement in the third quarter of the century featured by the slashing criticism of the Catholic schools, such artistes as Sunil Shantha<\/a>, Lester James Peries<\/a> and Ivor Denis (all Catholic) collaborated innovatively with a range of other artistes to create music and film in erudite and meaningful styles attuned to indigenous sensibilities. More recently, Vasuki Amunugama and others at the advertisement agency, Triad, showed us how an intelligent programme such as Api Wenuwen Api<\/i> can mobilise personnel to commit themselves to the deadly professions encountering fight and death.<\/p>\n

Thus, many hands and many modalities of expression must be deployed in the hard yards required for the mind-work that is involved in moulding subjectivity in ways that will assist reconciliation.\u00a0 <\/span>There is no quick fix.<\/p>\n

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/b><\/p>\n

Carey, Sean <\/b>2009 The UK’s role in Diego Garcia: green fingers or red faces?\u201d.,<\/p>\n

7 September 2009, https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/international-politics\/2009\/09\/diego-garcia-chagos-british<\/a><\/p>\n

D\u2019A Vincent, P.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> 1883 Forest Administration of Ceylon, <\/i>Colombo, Govt Printer, being Sessional Paper XLIII of 1882.<\/i><\/p>\n

Donaldson, Tony<\/b> 2016 \u201cTony Donaldson to introduce Sunl Santha and His Sinhala Music to Contemporary Lankans,\u201d 26 October 2016, \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026. https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2016\/10\/26\/tony-donaldson-to-introduce-sunil-santha-and-his-sinhala-music-to-contemporary-lankans\/<\/p>\n

Field, Mark<\/b> 2018 <\/b>\u201cBritish Minister stresses Importance of Reconciliation.\u201d <\/b>4 October 2018,<\/p>\n

https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2018\/10\/04\/british-minister-stresses-importance-of-reconciliation\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Gamage, Daya<\/b>\u00a02014 \u201cThe American Agenda for Sri Lanka\u2019s National Issues,\u00a01970s-2014<\/b><\/a>,\u201d<\/b>\u00a05 July 2014,\u00a0 <\/span>https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/05\/the-american-agenda-for-sri-lankas-national-issues-1970s-2014\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Gunasingam, M.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> 2012 The Tamil Eelam Struggle. State Terrorism and Ethnic Cleansing<\/i> (1948-2009)<\/i>, Sydney, MV Publications.<\/p>\n

Gunasingam, M.<\/b> 2014 Tamils in Sri Lanka: A Comprehensive History (C. 300 BC – C. 2000.<\/i> Sydney.<\/p>\n

Hattotuwa, Sanjana<\/b> 2018 \u201cIdentity, Belnoging, Dignity. Lessons from Francis Fukuyama for Srri Lanka Today,\u201d 2 October 2018, <\/b>https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2018\/10\/02\/identity-belonging-dignity-lessons-from-francis-fukuyama-for-sri-lanka-today\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Kearney, Robert N.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> 1967 Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon<\/i>, Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press.<\/p>\n

Kearney, Robert N. <\/b>1973 The Politics of Ceylon<\/i>, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.<\/p>\n

Kulendiren, Pon<\/b> 2017 \u201cWhere Music transcends Ethnic Divisions: Sinhala Nona,\u201d 21 March 2017, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2017\/03\/21\/where-music-transcends-ethnic-divisions-sinhala-nona\/#more-24614<\/a><\/p>\n

Kunanayakam, Tamara 2016 \u201c<\/b>A Tour de Force by Tamara Kunanayakam <\/b>\u2026,\u201d 23 February 2016,2016 https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/23\/a-tour-de-force-by-tamara-kunanayakam-in-reviewing-the-rajapaksa-years\/<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Peiris, Gerald H. <\/b>1991 \u201cAn Appraisal of the Concept of a Traditional Homeland in Sri Lanka,\u201d Ethnic Studies Report<\/i>, Vol IX, pp. 13-39.<\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael <\/b>2013 \u201cEthnic Identity in Sri Lanka\u2019s Pre-capitalist Past: Shanie, Darshanie and Roberts,\u201d 15 August 2010, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2010\/08\/15\/ethnic-identity-in-sri-lanka%e2%80%99s-pre-capitalist-past-shanie-darshanie-and-roberts\/<\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>2013 \u201cBBC-Blind: Misreading the Tamil Tiger Strategy of International Blackmail, 2008-13,<\/b>\u201d<\/b>\u00a08 December 2013,https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2013\/12\/08\/bbc-blind-misreading-the-tamil-tiger-strategy-of-international-blackmail-2008-13\/#more-11221<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael <\/b>2014\u00a0\u201cGenerating Calamity, 2008-2014: An Overview of Tamil Nationalist Operations and Their Marvels,\u201d<\/b>\u00a010 April 2014, http:\/\/groundviews.org\/2014\/04\/10\/generating-calamity-2008-2014-an-overview-of-tamil-nationalist-operations-and-their-marvels\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael <\/b>2014\u00a0\u201cBall-by-Ball through Wikileaks: US Embassy Despatches from Colombo, 2009:\u00a0ONE<\/b><\/a>,\u201d<\/b> <\/b>27 August 2014, <\/b>https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/27\/ball-by-ball-through-wikileaks-us-embassy-despatches-from-colombo-2009-one\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael <\/b>2014\u00a0 \u201cSaving Talaivar Pirap\u0101haran<\/b>,\u201d 6 April 2016,\u00a0<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026 https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/06\/saving-talaivar-pirapaharan\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael <\/b>2014 Tamil Person and State. Essays<\/i>, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications.<\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael<\/b> 2014 Tamil Person and State. Pictorial<\/i>,<\/b> Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications.<\/p>\n

Roberts, Michael 2014 \u201c<\/b>Winning the War: Evaluating the Impact of API WENUWEN\u00a0API<\/a>,\u201d <\/b>1 September 2014, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2014\/09\/01\/winning-the-war-evaluating-the-impact-of-api-wenuwen-ap\/<\/b><\/p>\n

Michael Roberts <\/b>2015 \u201cTargeting Sri Lanka by playing ball with Tamil Extremism,\u201d 24 July 2015, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/wpadmin\/post.php?post=17127&action=edit&postpost=v2<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Roberts <\/b>2015 \u201cAmbassador Blake in Never-Never-Land: Misreading LTTE Capacity in Early 2009,\u201d 26 August 2015, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2015\/08\/26\/ambassador-blake-in-never-never-land-misreading-ltte-capacity-in-early-2009\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts,<\/b> Michael<\/b> 2015 \u201cAmerican Action and Inaction on Sri Lanka, 2008\/09: A Critical\u00a0Evaluation<\/a>,\u201d 15 September 2015, https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/15\/american-action-and-inaction-on-sri-lanka-200809-a-critical-evaluation\/#more-17725<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts,<\/b> Michael<\/b> \u201cWhere USA sought to arm-wrestle Sri Lanka in March-April-May\u00a02009<\/a>,\u201d 11 May 2018,https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2018\/05\/11\/where-usa-sought-to-arm-wrestle-sri-lanka-in-march-april-may-2009\/<\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0<\/span>The population was small, maybe only about 1,000 or so, but that does not alter the iniquitous character of the operation. See Carey 2009.<\/p>\n

2. See Kunanayakam 2016. I stress here that Kunanayakam is a Ladies College product who has spent several decades in Europe and is not only Marxist in political leaning, but also married to a member of the French Communist Party.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. For pertinent details, see Salter 2015: 348-49 & 364-65; Roberts, \u201cSaving Pirapaharan,\u201d 2016.<\/p>\n

4. Roberts, \u201cSaving Pirapaharan,\u201d 2016 & Roberts, \u201dWhere USA sought to arm-wrestle Sri Lanka \u2026,\u201d 2018.<\/p>\n

5. <\/span>Roberts, \u201cGenerating Calamity,\u201d 2014.<\/p>\n

6. See Roberts \u201cAmbassador Blake in Never-Never Land \u2026,\u201d 2015 and Roberts, \u201cBall-by-Ball through Wikileaks,\u201d 2014.<\/p>\n

7. See Roberts, \u201cBall-by-Ball through Wikileaks,\u201d 2014.<\/p>\n

8. Roberts, \u201cSaving Talaivar Pirapaharan<\/a>,\u201d 2016.<\/p>\n

9. See Gamage 2014 and Roberts, \u201cAmerican Action,\u201d 2015. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

10. \u00a0<\/span>This concept was initially introduced on the 18th<\/sup> December 1949 by the ITAK or \u201cThe Federal Freedom Party of the Tamil-speaking Peoples of Ceylon\u201d (for the full manifesto, see Roberts, TPS. Pictorial<\/i>, 2014, pp. 273-92).<\/p>\n

11. Its historic and cartographic basis has been comprehensively decimated by Gerald Peiris in his article in the Ethnic Studies Report<\/i> in 1991. Also see my essay \u201cEthnic Identity in Sri Lanka\u2019s Pre-capitalist Past: Shanie, Darshanie and Roberts,\u201d 2010. Those interested in this knotty issue should also scour D\u2019Vincent 1882.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

12. Thus, several Tamil writers (abroad) have written whole books that pretend that the Peiris article does not exist and promote the concept of \u201ctraditional homelands (see\u00a0 <\/span>Gunasingham\u00a0 <\/span>2012: 9, 21). They do not attend to the fact that the boundary lines of the Eastern Province drawn up by the British in the 19th<\/sup> century are quite arbitrary and encompass regions along its western border that were sparsely peopled \u2013 and these were either V\u00e4dda hamlets or purana<\/i> hamlets with Sinhala villagers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

13. Note this statement from an MP in 1962: \u201cthe problem of the Tamils is not a minority problem. The Sinhalese are the minority in Dravidistan. We are carting on a struggle for national existence against the Dravidian majority<\/b>.\u201d (quoted by Kearney 1973: 267). Robert N. Kearney\u2019s two books should be compulsory reading for all students of modern of Sri Lanka.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

14. This merger is evident in the Anagarika Dharmapala\u2019s writings (Roberts 1978: 365) and has been a strand in the Sinhala campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s directed at the English-speaking middle class. I have identified it in Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s populist presentations of self (Roberts)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

15. Note Kulendiren 2017. However, as medium, baila<\/i> and songs can cut both ways.<\/p>\n

16. Roberts \u201cWinning the War \u2026\u2026\u2026,\u201d 2014,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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