federalidea.com

by Dr.Wickramabahu Karunaratne

The defeat of the Opposition in the budget debate will strengthen the war mongering section within the government. The real victor of this non-battle is the Hela Urumaya’s ideological leader, Champika Ranawaka. In spite of the wavering position of the JVP, Champika went ahead with the campaign for the continuation of the war. His argument was that economic factors and social reforms are secondary to the struggle against Tamil aggression. The government should get the support of the global powers and Indian rulers to wipe out Tamil aggression. It has conducted the military deployment well and is near victory in the war. Hence unconditional support should be given to the government. He was very critical of the irresponsibility of the JVP. The latter is wrong to raise conditions, or to criticize the war policy of the Mahinda regime. Champika, while countering the arguments of the JVP, did everything to mobilize the support of the Buddhist clergy and the middle class Sinhala chauvinists.

Political reasons

He maintained that all those who are opposing the budget proposals are doing so not for any economic reasons but for political reasons. According to Champika all these people are paid agents of the LTTE. He worked in many fronts and was successful. His victory will undermine the importance of the JVP. In this event, clearly without the support of the JVP, Mahinda has conquered Parliament. This has a far reaching effect on the future of the government and its policy. Champika always opposed the Marxist rhetoric of the JVP. In the late 80s, while he was a student at Moratuwa University, he was a fellow traveller of the Desha Premi Janatha Viyaparaya maintained by the JVP. Even at that stage he opposed Marxism as an alien doctrine created by the white colonialists to dominate the oppressed people.

This domination apparently takes place through the intellectuals converted to Marxism! While harping on western domination and plunder of local resources, Champika on the other hand has no shame to get the help of western powers to wipe out the Tamil national rebellion. It is not very clear how Dravidians, who originally inhabited this part of the world and were the creators of the village tank society of remarkable resistance to decay, could be the most dangerous enemy of the Sinhala people. Are the Sinhala people aliens from Caucasia and unrelated to the South Indian megalithic culture?

Sinhala chauvinist party

The JVP is also a Sinhala chauvinist party. But there is a difference; it has a social conscience. The JVP started as an off shoot of the Ceylon Communist Party. All its Marxist slogan shouting arises out of this genesis. Though it has collected a certain working class base, it is primarily a party of the Sinhala plebian masses. It’s most active base is within University students.

Thus it is constantly under pressure of the Sinhala petty bourgeoisie. It has to voice the pains within Sinhala students and the unemployed. In addition it is sensitive to what is happening within the working class. In this clash too, it displayed these pressures by taking contradictory positions. It cannot be second to the Hela Urumaya and lose the base within professionals and small business men in the Sinhala society. On the other hand, it has to come out with slogans and agitations to satisfy the students and sometimes, the working class. On behalf of the chauvinist middle classes the JVP put forward four conditions: the absolute unitary nature of the state, the end of the peace pact, negation of all discussions for a political solution and no alien human rights investigators. While voicing these ridiculous conditions they continued with the agitations of students and unemployed graduates. In one sense, the JVP is more war mongering than the Hela Urumaya. On the other hand, they will push plebian campaigns to undermine the war effort. But Champika counters that these are only Marxist jargon and proper mobilization is through the sacrifice of the masses for the sake of the ‘Royal Court’. Royalty and the elite should be looked after while the masses sacrifice everything including their lives for identity and heritage. The JVP has got into the contradiction of campaigning for both Sinhala chauvinism and social equity. But the war ruthlessly demands allegiance at the expense of social equity.

The Media Minister has made merry that Ranil has met with his 15th defeat. Of course it is ridicule and not to be taken seriously. But Ranil has to answer why he cannot convince even right wing politicians with his political perspective. There is something wrong somewhere. Obviously, he is not a populist who can cheat the Left or the JVP into a coalition with him. But, surely he must be seen by conservatives as the serious leader who can save them from the present tragedy. They certainly don’t; that is a serious problem for the local Tories!

TRO condemns in the strongest possible terms the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GoSL) banning of TRO. The banning of TRO will result in a further restriction on humanitarian relief to the Tamil people and has the ulterior motive of unleashing untold hardships on the Tamil people as part of the GoSL’s continuing discrimination and oppression of the Tamil people.

Unfortunately, this ban, orchestrated by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, does not come as a surprise to the organization. The Mahinda regime, has, since coming to power in 2005, been trying to restrict, and eventually completely stop, all TRO humanitarian, reconstruction, and development programs in government controlled areas and have continually put obstacles in the way of TRO relief activities in other areas of the NorthEast.

ATTACKS ON TRO PERSONNEL & OFFICES

In January 2006 paramilitary groups, known to be working with and under the direction of the GoSL, abducted, raped, tortured and killed 7 TRO humanitarian workers. The evidence of these paramilitary groups’ affiliation with and control by the Sri Lanka armed forces is irrefutable and TRO holds the GoSL responsible for these deaths.

Additionally, TRO offices in GoSL controlled areas have been attacked numerous times by paramilitary groups and persons in “military fatigues”. The Jaffna and Batticaloa TRO Offices were ransacked and set afire and the vehicles and office equipment destroyed. A staff member was killed in the final attack on the Batticaloa Office. These events usually occurred during curfew times and within 100 yards of Sri Lanka Police and Army checkpoints. Sri Lanka Armed Forces and Police also intimidated and threatened TRO staff at the office and in their homes

FREEZING OF TRO SRI LANKA BANK ACCOUNTS

When these actions did not bear results and TRO continued, despite the threats and harassament, to function in GoSL areas and deliver vitally needed humanitarian relief and development, the GoSL froze the TRO bank accounts. TRO sought to challenge the basis on which these funds were frozen and petitioned the High Court in Colombo to review and “vary or vacate” its order to freeze the accounts. The court refused, finding that it did not have the jurisdiction to do so and that the GoSL had the right to freeze the funds indefinitely “for investigation”.

TRO, on the advice of international organizations, our donors and partners, continued to pursue the case, seeking our “day in court” and the opportunity to prove our innocence of all charges. But the GoSL and the Sri Lankan judicial system are fundamentally corrupt without any concept of the notion of “justice”. The “law” and “justice” in Sri Lanka are words without meaning, political expediency, corruption and influence peddling carry more weight with this regime and the effect is that political decisions are given the cloak of legitimacy.

The GoSL never filed any charges against TRO or submitted any evidence to the public or court for cross-examination or for TRO to have the opportunity to confront its accuser. Instead the GoSL dragged the case on for over 14 months. During this time the Mahinda regime continued threatening TRO staff in Colombo office, blocked funds from overseas meant to cover the legal costs and also pressured the owners of TRO Colombo office building not to rent to TRO.

PROJECTS STOPPED IN GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED AREAS

As a result of our bank accounts being frozen, our office documents and assets being confiscated by the GoSL security forces and our offices in GoSL controlled areas attacked and destroyed, TRO was forced in 2006 to close its offices in GoSL controlled areas of the NorthEast leaving projects unfinished and war and tsunami affected persons in dire need. Through all this TRO continued to seek redress in the courts to overturn the account freeze.

CFA & THE PEACE PROCESS

TRO was founded in 1985 and prior to 2002 TRO functioned effectively in the Vanni. It was only after the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) signed between the GoSL and the LTTE in 2002 that TRO, at the urging of the international community and with the assistance and advice of international organizations, registered in Colombo as a charity/NGO (Number L 50706) under the Social Services Act.

During this period, TRO, as the largest NGO in the NorthEast, gave its full and unconditional support to peace efforts by creating confidence in the minds of the people that, after 20 years of war, the dawn of peace was at hand and by implementing development projects in collaboration with international organizations that promoted peace. TRO, due to the non-implementation of many of the promises made by the GoSL and the international community in the post-CFA period, was one of the few organizations actually delivering the “peace dividend” at the grassroots level. It is worthy to note that, for the most part, the peace dividend never materialized for the vast majority of those in the NorthEast due to the actions of the GoSL.

With the banning of the TRO the final nail in the coffin of the peace process has been hammered home. Today the pulse of the peace process has stopped and peace is a lifeless, dead body. It is a tragedy that the International Community, while ignoring the human rights abuses and violation of international humanitarian law by the GoSL, continues to dangle this “dead peace”, that the GoSL continues to show no interest in pursuing, before the Tamil people.

FOCUS ON EMERGENCY RELIEF

Due to the GoSL actions against TRO and the return to war, TRO has been forced to move from the rehabilitation and development mode that characterized the 2002-2006 period, into a new conceptual space of emergency humanitarian relief and assistance to internally displaced war and tsunami affected persons. As in the period before 2002, TRO will engage in projects providing assistance to the war affected population utilizing our own funds. Now TRO will only need to be accountable and transparent to its beneficiaries, donors, and other stakeholders and it will not be necessary to get approval from the GoSL or be accountable to it.

MAHINDA’S REQUESTS

There are many reasons for the Mahinda regime to take this punitive step against TRO. Apart from the fact that we were an impediment to the Mahinda regime’s agenda of genocide of the Tamil people, TRO also refused to be used by the Mahinda regime to achieve the regime’s political ends. The regime approached TRO numerous times with requests that were outside the mandate of TRO and would have violated the essential principles of humanitarian action and the humanitarian community. These principles demand that humanitarian organizations must be neutral, impartial and independent.

MISSION CONTINUES

Though our organization is banned by the SL Government we assure you that our mission will continue in our homeland areas without interruption and we call on the international community and the Tamil Diaspora to continue to support TRO’s work with war and tsunami affected persons.

V.Sivanadiyar
TRO President
Kilinochchi Head Office

Condemning the attack on the Sunday Leader press as a brazen criminal act, Colombo’s Anglican Bishop the Rt. Rev. Duleep de Chickera in a hard-hitting statement yesterday warned that the continuing trend to silence the independent media had reached dangerous proportions.

The Bishop in the statement said:

“The well planned and executed arson attack on the Sunday Leader Press came as a shock to the nation. This must be seen as yet another calculated attempt in a trend to stifle the free media of this country.

The act and the hidden forces behind it must be vehemently condemned by all peace loving and democratic minded citizens of Sri Lanka.

“The continuing trend to silence the independent media has already reached dangerous proportions. A media that can freely voice dissent, advocate the freedom of expression and the right to information and engage in a discourse of critique, is indispensable for the well being of a democratic and civilised nation at all times; it is absolutely crucial in times of violence, war, social suspicion and instability.

“The people of our country must take serious note that if brazen criminal acts of this nature are allowed to occur with impunity then we have no one else to blame but ourselves for the growing chaos and destruction. I consequently call upon all responsible Religious Bodies and Groups of Sri Lankans to condemn this act and call for a free investigation and indictment of the perpetrators. We do well to remember that a free Media is an indispensable service to us and to the integrity and dignity of the Nation. The least we can do when such persons come under attack is to express our strong disapproval and ensure the Media of our solidarity. To the extent that we remain silent this trend of impunity and violent intolerance will be interpreted as complacency and will soon engulf us all.

“Given the location of the press and the circumstances of the attack there is little doubt that the Police should be able to track down the perpetrators without delay. The President’s personal initiative for a prompt investigation as well the availability of competent Police Officers enhanced by the prevailing climate of sophisticated intelligence and tight security must lead to successful Police investigations. On the other hand the inability to identify the perpetrators in spite of all these advantages will clearly signal to the whole country the involvement of a more powerful force and even suggest connivance in the attack.

I therefore urge the IGP and Police authorities to discharge their duty by the public and to ensure a speedy investigation. The Police are also obliged to ensure security for the staff and property of the Sunday Leader and Irudina Newspapers and all other Media personnel. They must be allowed to function as a crucial part of our society without intimidation or subjection to harassment, visible or subtle.

By Kusal Perera

The second reading of the budget over, the immediate outburst from the opposition UNP was that the final vote on the budget after its third reading would yield expected results. That’s defeating it comfortably. Mangala too has joined the same stable in forecasting a defeat of the government at the next and final reading of the budget. But what’s more interesting is the call for a “National Government”.

This call for national unity in the face of the North-East war, was the slogan that gave the opening for the “Karu” group to get their act together in joining the government. It was thereafter left in cold storage until the present tug of war on the budget 2008 vote came about.

This second time round, the idea of a “National Government” was proposed by former Commanders of the Security Forces at a recent meeting they had with President Rajapaksa a few days before the vote on the second reading of the budget.

Although the former Security Heads wanted a National Government immediately and was reported as saying they would also meet with other political leaders including Opposition Leader Wickramasinghe, the President was reported as having said he could give consideration to the proposal after winning the budget, lest it would be seen as a defeatist move.

Now after the budget vote, the call is on with leading Buddhist monk Ven. Galaboda Gnanissara Thera, making a request to both the President and the Opposition Leader to form a National government, without giving into the demands of “minority” political parties. Then come the Maha Nayake Theras of the Three Chapters. They want a National government to find a lasting solution to the national issue.

Thereafter a local news website reported that Presidential Secretariat sources have also indicated the President may give thought to discussing the issue with the Leader of the Opposition. In Sri Lanka the call for a National government has cropped up on and off when the government in power finds it difficult to contain the opposition, especially with the protracted North-East war tying up Southern politics in jumbles.

What then is a “National Government”? According to ‘Wikipedia’ a National government (alternatively national unity government or national union government) is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties (or all major parties) in the legislature and is often formed during times of war or national emergency. This basically is the understanding of a National government on historical experiences.

Yet it needs to be stressed that in history, National governments have all been campaigned for or formed during wars that are considered as and are, external threats. That war or crisis is taken as a decisive condition in coalescing all the parties in the legislature into a National government to face the crisis that needs to be averted nationally.

Which also means such a coalition would have one single focus and that is to face the crisis together, leaving aside all other political differences.

Why do we in Sri Lanka want a National government ? Those who call for a National (Unity) government wants every one to accept that Tamil terrorism is the only major issue and it should be militarily crushed.

They assume the government should not have any opposition in fighting “separatist terrorists”, whatever mess the government creates on other issues of governance. Therefore this National government is called in to defeat LTTE terrorism that stands for a separate state without paying any heed to all the massive corruption, inefficiency and catapulting col, for which the government is responsible in every way.

Thus it provides an opportunity to the government to tame the opposition in the name of “separatist terrorists”.

That apart, this call for a National government is in no way to face an external threat. It’s not against any foreign invasion. Fight for a separate Thamil Eelam by the LTTE for sure is an internal political crisis to begin with. In fact when the JVP and the JHU oppose international facilitation in any form, they agree that this is an internal issue, although it has grown out of national proportions. It is a political crisis that had its beginnings in modern politics, since independence.

During the first part of this political crisis, there were no armed conflicts or political campaigns for a separate Thamil Eelam. Tamil political leaderships starting from Chelvanayagam was always willing to settle down within the Soulburry Constitution for regional / provincial administration as agreed by two Prime Ministers, once in 1957 and again in 1966. It was not the Tamil leadership that gave up on those agreements, but the two Prime Ministers who went back on their pledges purely to satisfy Sinhala sectarianism.

During all those times, Tamil agitations were nothing less democratic or more undemocratic than “pada yathras and jana goshas” led by the then opposition MP Mahinda Rajapaksa of the SLFP. Throwing away all agreements that Tamil leaderships consented to and then crushing their very civilian democratic agitations led to the radicalization of Tamil politics. It was such fundamental blunders of the Sinhala leaders that paved the way for armed Tamil politics. Over two and a half decades of stupid blundering brought all Tamil leaders including armed groups to formulate the Joint Thimpu Declaration in July 1985 on which the then UNP government had to sit for negotiations. It declared Tamil society as a Nation with a right for self determination and North – East as their homeland.

This assumption of a historically established Tamil Nation in this island has been contested and is being contested by Southern Sinhala historians, while Tamil historians claim they have historical proof to establish their case. But what is most interesting is the argument in favour of the Tamil homeland that was recorded at Thimpu by Nadesan Sathyendran as follows.

“A point was made by a member of the Tamil delegation yesterday and it was a point that was movingly made. He asked: ‘where do we go for safety, when we are assaulted in the South of Sri Lanka? Where does the government of Sri Lanka send us when there are riots in Colombo? We seek sanctuary in our homeland in the North and East of Sri Lanka. That surely must be the best test of all, because we all know where we go-and so we say, once again, very respectfully, please do not seek hide that which is a self evident truth. Please do not deny the existence of our homelands.”

That is reason why, even Douglas Devananda and Anandasangaree cannot dispute Thimpu principles. They cannot run away from Thimpu positions politically, although they both detest and hate the armed authority of the LTTE, which is a dispute of political strategy among them. This thus brings us back to the question of a Tamil homeland.

The question of what is “National” when Tamil politics inclusive of anti-LTTE and LTTE, have a common agreement on their homeland in the North-East. Therefore any decision by Devananda and Sangaree to accept a coalition of Southern political parties as a National government would be purely a-political against the LTTE and such a Southern coalition would leave out the unarmed North-East representation of the Tamil people, the TNA.

That accepted, this National government that the Buddhist monks are calling for and what the former Security Commanders proposed could have only the Southern political parties in it.

It would completely cover Southern representation if the JVP accepts to sit with the UNP and if the UNP opts to further scale down their position on the North-East war, which is possible the way they clamour for political power. It would be a grand alliance of Southern politics against the North – East, although such a government would want to call itself “National”.

What would then be the ultimate result ? First and most clearly, it would polarise the two societies into two distinctly marked entities. It would be polarised as Sinhala and Tamil, forcing other minority groups to choose their affiliation with due respect for their own safety.

Therefore the ensuing war would be more clearly seen as a war waged by a pedigreed Sinhala regime against the Tamil people. Leaving out the TNA would give that image more strength and more credibility, not only among the Tamil people, but in Tamil Nadu, within the Indian government and internationally.

A National government of such strong Sinhala flavour would prove to the world that Tamil people have absolutely no space to negotiate. This therefore would be the ideal political polarisation Prabhakaran would wish for. What better guarantee than that could he have from the South, for a separate State ? [dailymirror.lk]

By Jayadeva Uyangoda

Many readers have responded to my last week’s opinion piece in the Daily Mirror. Their reactions were very encouraging. All of them shared my prognosis of the intensifying crisis.

I was particularly struck by one suggestion made in one response. While agreeing with my analysis as a whole, a reader commented that it did not offer any hope for people like him, activists engaged in the politics of peace restoration. I reflected a lot about that comment. The following are my tentative thoughts.

Prevention

The first question that we need to explore, arising from an analysis based on war-escalation hypothesis, is how to prevent it. That in my view is also the most crucial challenge before the Sri Lankan people today. I emphasize, the immediate challenge is preventing escalation and not stopping the war.

There does not seem to be any possibility of stopping the war, because the war is now both a military and political necessity not only for the government and the LTTE, but also for influential forces who shape and even live by Sri Lanka’s current crisis.

The war is politics conducted by other means and politics is the war conducted by military means. In this rather unusual context, the only plausible and realistic goal one can strive for is prevention of war escalation.

Then, who can prevent war escalation? It is quite difficult to identify any major domestic political force that can successfully prevail upon either the Rajapaksa administration or the LTTE in dissuading their commitment to war escalation. In fact, the emerging re-configuration of political forces in the South and around the government is likely to push the state armed forces even towards what the hardcore Sinhalese nationalists would imagine as a ‘final war’ against the LTTE.

The LTTE, on the other hand, does not respond to any domestic pressure.

The LTTE’s military actions are primarily designed in a framework of strategic calculations, which includes both military and political goals. In this, the LTTE is largely immune to social pressures.

In brief, the military decision-making processes in both Colombo and Mullaitivu have acquired a considerable degree of relative autonomy from any domestic constituency that would argue for de-escalation. In this backdrop, all the major internal actors can only push the conflict forward, continues to re-militarize it, and re-escalate it. There still is a dim hope that the government and the LTTE might think in terms of de-escalating the war only if they realize that the present war preparations will soon create a costly stalemate.

This realization has to be grounded on a fairly clinical assessment of the destructive consequences of war escalation, because both sides have acquired huge destructive capacities. But, there is a pre-condition for such a realization of costly stalemate.

Both the government and LTTE leaders should examine the consequences of the war option rationally, and not guided by an ideological agenda or momentary political expediency.

‘Enlightened self-interest’ is the name of the game in this scenario. We will know how it works in Sri Lanka in the coming weeks or months.

External actors

Under these conditions, only the external actors can have some leverage over the government and the LTTE enabling them to re-think their current military plans. Here too, one must not underestimate the capacity of the present Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to act independent of international pressure.

What has happened during the past few years in relation to the international dimension in Sri Lanka is quite astounding.

The LTTE and the Kumaratunga administration during 2003-2004 de-internationalized the peace building and conflict management process. Meanwhile, the Rajapaksa administration in its turn has de-internationalized the conflict process in the sense of reducing the space for international actors to make any impact on the conflict-war trajectory.

If the international actors are to influence the parties not to slip back to a period of intensified internal war, like in 1995-2000, they will have to design a new framework of engagement in Sri Lanka. This is one area where peace constituencies can make a significant contribution in terms of generating new ideas and proposing policy options.

Some ideas

Let me suggest a few ideas for reflection. The model of international engagement experimented in 2002-2004 is no longer valid. Sri Lanka is in a post-Norway and post-Co-Chairs phase.

The focus of international engagement required right now is not on a new ceasefire agreement or peace negotiations, but essentially on de-escalation. Only a sustained period of de-escalation can create conditions conducive for a new ceasefire and a new phase of negotiations.

One useful option would be a stronger coalition of international actors, led by major global and regional powers that should include the USA, EU, India, China, Japan as well as Russia, to prevail upon the direct as well as indirect parties to the Sri Lankan conflict and provide disincentives for war and incentives for de-escalation.

A concrete agenda for such a policy of international re-engagement and re-internationalization needs to be carefully worked out. One suggestion would be for the global actors to call a high-profile international conference to explore how a new political process can be launched in Sri Lanka with international support. The best place to hold such a conference is New Delhi with joint regional and international sponsorship. For such an initiative to produce any positive outcome, it should be totally separated from the global war against terrorism and the global counter-insurgency discourse.

In reflecting somewhat deeply about the limited possibilities for peace restoration in Sri Lanka, it occurred to me that the path to a solution for Sri Lanka’s conflict has to begin outside Sri Lanka. That path does not seem to commence either in Colombo or in Mullaitivu. Not at present. To put in other words, although this conflict is an internal one, its effective management and resolution is no longer a domestic affairs.

It has moved beyond the confines of Sri Lanka. There are several good reasons for this shift. First, no domestic actor is committed to a comprehensive political solution to the conflict.

All influential actors are for military escalation. Second, regional and international actors, from USA to Pakistan and India via Japan, as well as the donor community have become parties to the island’s conflict. Third, war as well as peace cannot be sustained without external backing and linkages. Fourth, whatever the little that has emerged in Sri Lanka as providing a framework for a resolution has come from outside, and in fact imposed by external actors. India’s role in introducing the idea of devolution in 1985-1986 and establishing provincial councils in 1987 is the case in point.

Meanwhile, any external re-engagement in Sri Lanka’s conflict needs to be politically crafted in such a way that it will produce constructive outcomes, as it has been the case in Northern Ireland, Mozambique, Indonesia and Nepal.

One key lesson to be learnt from all these four experiences of successful external engagement in managing an internal conflict is that the parties to the conflict did not perceive the external role as a threat.

Rather, they saw the external role as necessary, helpful and an integral to the overall process of transition.

In Sri Lanka, as we saw during the past five years, the LTTE, the Kumaratunga administration, the present Rajapaksae administration, the JVP, JHU and hardcore Sinhalese nationalists, some Muslim political groups and influential sections of the nationalist media saw the external engagement as a threat for their own partisan interests. And that eventually led to the collapse of the 2002-2003 peace process.

Sri Lanka’s peace constituencies need to recognize this problem and propose creative solutions.

Protect the space

While working on a strategy for de-escalation of Sri Lanka’s war, the peace constituencies should also keep the argument and conversation for a negotiated political solution alive.

As the experience shows, in times of war escalation, the space for peace through political solution conversation becomes quite restricted. Society also becomes deluded by the expectations for military victories.

Rhetoric and propaganda for war militarizes mass consciousness.

The past experience also shows that when the war drags on with inevitable human, social, economic and other costs, space for renewing the argument for peace through political means re-emerges.

Therefore, what is absolutely necessary in times war escalation is to keep the peace argument alive.

Even in the present restricted political space, there are opportunities for the peace constituencies to work towards social mobilization for peace, even though such mobilization might not have immediate political impact.

In a context where radical-nationalist mobilization for war has occupied most of the public space, civil society intervention has taken back seat.

Nonetheless, movements like Prayathnaya, which was launched last week in Colombo, have significance and relevance, because they keep the discourse of peace active while preventing militarism from monopolizing the public space and militarizing the political consciousness of the masses. [Courtesy: Daily Mirror.lk]

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

The wheels of justice are grinding slowly but surely for ex – Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia. Though Pol Pot is no more and some others too are dead, there are a few yet remaining.

Now some have been arrested and will face trial at the hands of a” hy-brid” tribunal set up by the United Nations and the Cambodian government.

Since most leaders are Septugenarians and Octogenarians and also ailing, there is a race against time to ensure that these perpetrators of massive crimes against humanity get the retributive justice they deserve.

Among those arrested are the husband and wife duo Ieng Sary and Ieng Thiirth; Ieng Thirith’s real name is Khieu Thirith. Her sister’s name was Khieu Ponnary. The sisters married Pol Pot and Ieng Sary who went on to become the leader and deputy leader of the Khmer rouge regime.

[Former Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary, right, and his wife Ieng Thirith, left, arrive at a polling station in Pailin in this July 26, 1998 file photo. Police entered the home of Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, early Monday, Nov. 12, 2007, in an apparent move to arrest him for trial before Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)]

Both sisters were close relatives of Khieu Samphan ex – president of the Khmer rouge and former head of state.. Cambodians referred to the Khmer rouge regime as the Pol Pot – Ieng Sary regime.

Ieng Sary was both foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Ieng Thirith was Social services minister. They had met and fallen in love in Paris. Their arrests have made Cambodian seekers of justice happy.

According to a “New York Times” report filed by Thomas Fuller, Ieng Sary, was also charged with war crimes.

The two were arrested at their Phnom Penh home, where they had lived for the past decade under a government amnesty granted to Ieng Sary in 1996. That amnesty may complicate his prosecution it is felt. The charges against the couple were brought by a special court that was created with assistance from the United Nations to bring the Khmer Rouge leadership to justice. With the arrests on November 12th , the court has charged and detained a total of four people. It was expected to arrest a fifth, Khieu Samphan , former member of the leadership soon. After a decade of preparation and delay, the first trials against the aging former leaders are likely to begin next year, said Helen Jarvis, a court spokeswoman.

According to court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Ieng Thirith is accused of involvement in the “planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges,” as well as the “unlawful killing or murder of staff members from within the Ministry of Social Affairs.”

The specific charges against Ieng Sary are not public, but scholars say he had knowledge of massacres carried out by the government, citing telegrams he had received from officers in the field.

One Khmer Rouge telegram sent to him and other leaders on April 10, 1978, referred to “internal enemies.”

“We are continuing to wipe out the remaining elements,” the telegram said. “They were against our revolution both openly and secretly.”

The documents have been compiled by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent research organization.
Testimonies by survivors say Ieng Sary persuaded diplomats, students and other Cambodians living abroad to return home; many of them were subsequently killed.

Ieng Sary has consistently denied any involvement in any killings. “Pol Pot made all decisions on all matters by himself,” he said in a statement when he surrendered to the government in 1996 as part of the amnesty deal. Pol Pot, he added, “killed people without careful consideration.”

At the time, Ieng Sary’s surrender was welcomed by the Cambodian government because it effectively brought an end to the Khmer Rouge as a fighting force, although some holdouts, including Pol Pot, remained in the jungles of northwest Cambodia . After his surrender, Ieng Sary received a royal pardon, rescinding the death sentence that had been handed down in absentia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge to Vietnamese-backed forces. That pardon covered genocide. Judges will presumably weigh its relevance against the current charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Khieu Samphan whose arrest was widely anticipated has suffered a stroke.Mr. Khieu Samphan’s daughter, Khieu Rattana, said he was stricken just a day after two of his colleagues-Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith-were arrested by the tribunal and charged with crimes against humanity.

The tribunal has already detained Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was in charge of the Khmer Rouge Security Prison 21, where thousands of people were tortured and killed; and Nuon Chea, former Prime minister and the chief of ideology for the Khmer Rouge. A panel of three Cambodian and two foreign judges will hear the trials.

The special tribunal is known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).The plenary session commenced in early June this year.The Internal Rules are expected to meet the highest standards of international justice.

In June 2003, the United Nations and the government of Cambodia signed an agreement to establish the ECCC to bring “to trial senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea and those who were most responsible for the crimes and serious violations of Cambodian penal law, international humanitarian law and custom, and international conventions recognized by Cambodia, that were committed during the period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979.”

On November 2006, the ECCC published a draft of the Internal Rules and invited submissions from civil society. The Internal Rules define their purpose to “consolidate applicable Cambodian procedure for proceedings before the ECCC and, pursuant to Articles 20, 23, and 33 of the ECCC Law and Article 12.1 of the Agreement, to adopt additional rules where these existing procedures do not deal with a particular matter, or if there is uncertainty regarding their interpretation or application, or if there is a question regarding their consistency with international standards

The Khmer rouge had its genesis in the Paris students group set up in the early fifties in France during French colonial rule. This radicalized leftist group consisted of upper and upper middle class Cambodian youths. Their families were from the landowner class or top echelons of the bureaucracy. They were brilliant students who got government scholarships to study in Paris. They began as young communists inspired by the French communist party and subscribing to Stalinist ideology.

After returning to Cambodia the Khmer Rouge began evolving and developed its own indigenous ideology. The leadership consisted of intellectuals educated in France. This core leadership of Khmer rouge continued unchanged from the sixties to the nineties.

The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge’s Central Committee (”Party Center”) during its period of power consisted of:

-Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) “Brother number 1″ the effective leader of the movement, General Secretary from 1963 until his death in 1998

-Nuon Chea (Long Bunruot) “Brother number 2″ Prime Minister – alive, arrested in 2007

-Ieng Sary “Brother number 3″ Deputy Prime Minister – Pol Pot’s brother-in-law – alive, arrested in 2007.

-Ta Mok (Chhit Chhoeun) “Brother number 4″ Final Khmer Rouge leader, Southwest Regional Secretary – died in custody awaiting trial for genocide.

-Khieu Samphan “Brother number 5″ President of the Khmer Rouge – alive but suffered a stroke.

-Son Seng Defense Minister -dead.

-Yun Yat – dead.

Ke Pauk “Brother number 13″ Former secretary of the Northern zone – dead.

-Ieng Thirith – alive,arrested in 2007.

According to published reports the ” Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency , outlawing all religions confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into “Old People” through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.”

“In Phnom Penh the capital and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about “two or three kilometers” outside the city and would return in “two or three days.” Some witnesses say they were told that the evacuation was because of the “threat of American bombing” and that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would “take care of everything” until they returned. These were not the first evacuations of civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge. Similar evacuations of populations without possessions had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.” say reports.

According to reports “The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population (”New People”) into agricultural communes. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state including intellectuals and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.”

“Cambodians were expected to produce three tons of rice per hectare; before the Khmer Rouge era, the average was only one ton per hectare. The Khmer Rouge forced people to work for 12 hours non-stop, without adequate rest or food. They did not believe in western medicine but instead favoured traditional peasant medicine; many died as a result” reports further said.

” Family relationships not sanctioned by the state were also banned, and family members could be put to death for communicating with each other. In any case, family members were often relocated to different parts of the country with all postal and telephone services abolished. The total lack of agricultural knowledge by the former city dwellers made famine inevitable. Rural dwellers were often unsympathetic or too frightened to assist them. Such acts as picking wild fruit or berries was seen as “private enterprises ” for which the death penalty applied.” added these reports.

The Khmer Rouge government arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed “enemies”:

-anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments

-professionals and intellectuals – in practice this included almost everyone with an education , or even people wearing glasses (which, according to the regime, meant that they were literate)
ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monks

-Homosexuals

-”economic sabotage ” for which many of the former urban dwellers were deemed to be guilty of by virtue of their lack of agricultural ability.

Through the 1970s, and especially after mid-1975, the party was also shaken by factional struggles. There were even armed attempts to topple Pol Pot. The resultant purges reached a crest in 1977 and 1978 when thousands, including some important KCP leaders, were executed.

The exact number of people who died as a result of the Khmer Rouge’s policies is debated, as is the cause of death among those who died.

Modern research has located thousands of mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era all over Cambodia, containing an estimated 1.39 million bodies. Various studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3,000,000, most commonly between 1.4 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of those deaths being due to executions, and the rest from starvation and disease.
The US department of State and the State Department funded Yale Cambodian Genocide Project give estimates of the total death toll as 1.2 million and 1.7 million respectively. Amnesty International estimates the total death toll as 1.4 million.

One of the Khmer Rouge sayings about the urban residents forcibly re-located to rural areas was “To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.”.

Ironically the same saying can apply to those Khmer rouge leaders as awaiting justice as well.

DBS Jeyaraj can be contacted on: djeyaraj@federalidea.com