Ceylon Today Editorial

STRANGE THINGS ‘HAPPENING’ IN THE NORTH

27 October 2016

Could the genesis of the killings of the two Jaffna University students last week have been the July 26 clash between Tamil and Sinhalese students at the Jaffna University ostensibly because the University heads had agreed to demands that a late entry application, be dismissed, for a Kandyan dance to be included in the annual traditional orientation programme of that University?

Interestingly, Minister Lakshman Kiriella casually played that incident down dismissively with the statement that 'these things happen everywhere'. Hardly the kind of response one expects from a responsible spokesman of the government.

While the mainline media failed to bring pictures of that clash to the public, several websites did so. The pictures were ugly. Among them were ones with Sinhala students brandishing clubs at the Tamil students and ample signs of blood being spilt. The Tamil diaspora and Tamil websites went to town with that incident before the first newspaper could hit the streets the next day.

That happened against the backdrop of still simmering racial tensions and a strident call for a Tamil Nationalist Renaissance spearheaded by the TNA and Tamil parties as well as the Tamil diaspora.

It also happened against a backdrop of pepped up efforts by the Tamils to turn the March 2017 UNHRC sessions into a lynch mob cry for the prosecution of former political leaders and services members for alleged war crimes at the end-game stages of the ethnic war back in 2009.

Getting things into perspective – let's record the fact that had this government not come into power, the scenario at the UN – and UNHRC level to be specific – would be one in which we will be seeing the former government leaders and services leaders dragged into the vortex of a damning war crimes lynch party led by the outgoing UNSG Ban Ki-moon. They are today running around using that freedom to very foolishly drag down the incumbent government and bring themselves to a place in which they will be vulnerable to prosecution by an international Court.

As things stand, President Maithripala Sirisena has adroitly made some deft moves in the face of massive international pressure to save not just those former political leaders and services commanders from a damning war crimes trial, but has in that process dragged Sri Lanka out of that potential cesspit of shame.

It's against the backdrop of this very real possibility that we saw five Policemen arrested over the deaths of two Jaffna University students last week, just hours after the visiting UNHRC envoy left after a week-long fact-finding visit to Sri Lanka, at the end of which she savaged the Lankan Government's reconciliation efforts as being wholly inadequate.

So, were these two deaths a sentence taken out of an odious choreography scripted by the pro-liberationist Tamils (formerly known as the LTTE) in which the Lankan Police played a part they did not know was scripted for them? Or will we later come to know, as in the Jeyaraj Fernandopulle assassination, that at least one senior SSP played a pivotal role in facilitating that assassination and coordinated it in fact with LTTE activists?

This could be why despite the CID working on the case, the Police Commission also decided to launch its own independent probe into those deaths/killings to establish whether in fact they were avoidable deaths in that the Police did not have to shoot to kill two ostensibly fleeing students after a night out with friends.

Wisely, knowing how the then government of which he was Acting Defence Minister, shoved crime by the score under the carpet, the President assured TNA Leader Sampanthan that he would order an independent probe into the incident. That independent probe is the one launched by the Police Commission.

Special Task Force troopers and Military Intelligence men had to be hurriedly deployed to ward off the danger of that violence pouring out into the streets.

In March this year, Tamil students were attacked by unidentified Sinhalese followed by Sinhala students in April assaulting a Tamil Security Guard at the University.

We then saw Sinhala students attacking Tamils at the Eastern University on 13 March this year too.
Could there be a subtle plan by extremist Sinhalese to use Sinhala university students as cat's paws to trigger a racial crisis once again as a political tool to drag the government into a crisis it cannot handle?

On a recent occasion we saw President Sirisena postponing his planned visit to Batticaloa in July 2016 after a Sinhala mob attack at the venue which he was to visit.

Last week's tragedy 'happened' just as President Sirisena was at a function with TNA Leader Sampanthan close by. Coincidence? It's beginning to look like there is a pattern to this 'coincidence'.

Daily News Editorial

Learning from past mistakes

27 October 2016

The Jathika Hela Urumaya has for the most part remained in the shadows since being part of the Unity Government, but from time to time it has come out with statements and comments that betrayed its past as an anti minority party in the days when it hitched its star to Mahinda Rajapaksa. Then it was the JHU’s proud boast that it was their party that goaded Rajapaksa to go to war with the LTTE following Mavil Aru or at least this was the contention of Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka. The party came in more than handy for Mahinda Rajapaksa who was launched on a rabid Sinhala nationalist platform but also due to its (JHU’s) support towards the continuation of the executive presidential system which Rajapaksa had anyway set his sights on.

The JHU who prided itself on having the ear of Rajapaksa, like when it persuade him to go to war with the LTTE, has now thought it fit to offer its counsel to the Yahapalanaya government. Party National Organiser Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe has prevailed upon the government to carry out a crackdown on the 12,500 or so rehabilitated LTTEers in the North and East who in all probability were behind the increasing lawlessness reported in the province. “The government should carry out a thorough check on all former LTTEers to determine their current circumstances and activities and have them arrested if found to be connected to criminal activities,” he told a media briefing. It was also his contention that the Aava and Baava groups with alleged links to criminal activity in the North were composed of Ex LTTE cadres who had come out of rehabilitation.

What Warnasinghe should realize is that the bulk of these LTTEers were released under the Rajapaksa regime which the JHU was supporting at the time and that they were doubly screened before being set free. Besides it was the proud boast of Rajapaksa that all these LTTEers were reintegrated into society after providing them with vocational training to enable them to seek employment not only locally but overseas as well. Only the most hardcore of them numbering a few hundred are currently being held under the PTI pending the hearing of their cases or to be released. There was a time in the Rajapaksa era when newspapers were full of stories and captions of rehabilitated and reintegrated LTTE cadres entering into holy wedlock, with one such event graced by Namal Rajapaksa in Jaffna.

True, there may be some among those released who had gone astray and engaged in criminal activities. This was even the case with the rehabilitated JVP cadres following the 1971 uprising. While some took to a life of crime, a whole host of them joined the mainstream of society, with a good many of them later entering politics and even appointed Ministers. As far as one may recall, there was no special call made to the law enforcement authorities by the government of the day to keep close tabs on the rehabilitated JVPers then and likewise there should be no cause for throwing a dragnet to net in the ex-LTTEers who have undergone rehabilitation. It not only smacks of discrimination based on race but also an act that would once again sow the seeds of suspicion among the Tamil community at a time moves towards reconciliation are gathering pace.

Let the normal law take its course without special surveillance cast on those deemed ex-LTTE cadres. If an offender arrested turns out to be an ex-Tiger so be it. There should not be mass hunting for former LTTEers. Besides, the government would not want a situation akin to that caused by Brigadier Tissa (Bull) Weeratunga in the early eighties. On that occasion JRJ granted carte blanche to Weeratunga to root out the nascent terrorist movement in the North by whatever means. The rest, as they say, is history. Bull Weeratunga who was a nephew of JRJ did exactly that. Using “whatever means” to deal with the youth in the North. The result. The terrorist movement snowballed almost overnight, with even those innocent bystanders joining the ranks due to the heinous atrocities that were committed before their very eyes.

The immediate mission was accomplished, but at massive cost, that was to see the country engulfed in a three decades long ethnic conflagration that claimed the lives of some 50,000 combatants.

The government, it is hoped, would act with circumspection and not repeat past mistakes. Thankfully, in the President and Prime Minister the country has two leaders who would not be given to precipitate action. The situation today has changed a great degree. There is no enmity and hostility towards the government that was prevalent among the Tamil youth then, aberrations such as the student shootings in Jaffna notwithstanding. There have been plenty of goodwill visits undertaken by the duo to the North since the new government was elected to office, cementing ties and building new bridges with a once estranged community. The government, no doubt, would not want to spoil this positive build up towards cohesion between the two major communities.

The Island Editorial

A wake-up call

27 October 2016

Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran has appealed for calm while protests are being held against the killing of two undergraduates in Jaffna. Had the police acted cautiously and responsibly, that unfortunate incident and the attendant problems could have been avoided.

It is wrong to drink and drive or ride and one asks for trouble when one defies police orders to stop, especially at checkpoints, but the two undergrads shouldn’t have been shot. For, they posed no threat to anyone. The guardians of the law would not have acted in that manner if a powerful politician or his son had defied their orders and driven away. There have been instances where armed policemen, roughed up by VVIPs’ sons, took it lying down.

The police have earned notoriety for opening fire on people for defying their orders to stop in other parts of the country as well and there have been public protests against them. It was only natural that undergrads and others took to the streets condemning the killing of the students and demanding justice. Protests are to be expected when such incidents occur.

The northern hartal was, however, different. The government, to its credit, ordered a probe and took prompt action against the police personnel concerned, who were immediately arrested. The matter should have been left to the judiciary thereafter. All right-thinking persons condemned the tragic incident unreservedly and demonstrations were held in Colombo as well against it. The government and the police got the message loud and clear.

But, some sinister political elements in the North seem to be fishing in troubled waters and advancing a hidden agenda. There have been attacks on policemen in some parts of the North. It looks as if the disruptive elements had been waiting for an opportunity to swing into action and wreak havoc. The shooting incident served as a trigger. They seem to be limbering up and the government must remain vigilant without lowering its guard.

Those behind the well organised protests have demonstrated their ability to cripple the entire North and stop the writ of the state from running there. Even the public institutions and the state-run bus service in the North did not function during the hartal. Were public officials under duress to stay away from work?

If only the people of the North and the East had taken to the streets and staged hartal when the LTTE started violently suppressing dissent, extorting money from them, abducting their children who were turned into cannon fodder. They chose to dree their weird without offering any resistance. It is a supreme irony that among the organisers of the hartal against the recent police shooting are some politicians notorious for commemorating dead Tiger leaders who once perpetrated heinous crimes against civilians, and making not-so-surreptitious attempts to revive the LTTE. How can they reconcile their new-found concern for human rights with their desire for reviving terrorism? They are sure to do everything in their power to provoke a backlash so as to give a turbo boost to their political project.

The government must not make the mistake of taking the situation in the North lightly. Most of those at the levers of power have a history mismanaging national security and appeasing terrorists and terror backers in the name of peacemaking. They should also realise that the country is in no mood for levity. That is why, on Tuesday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s jokes about the Ava group, which is active in the North, went down like lead balloons in Parliament instead of providing a moment of levity.

It is good that Wigneswaran has appealed for calm. However, he and others of his ilk have to act with restraint without resorting to rabble rousing to achieve their political ends. Their irresponsible utterances and actions are fraught with the danger of letting the genie out of the bottle once again. They ought to learn from the mistakes of the Tamil political leaders who created conditions for terrorism to thrive and paid with their dear lives for that.