rethinking strategy some reflections on political structures and accountability

8/10/2019 Rethinking Strategy Some Reflections on Political Structures and Accountability

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Rethinking strategy: Some reflections on

political structures and accountability

The following remarks were made by senior journalist J. S. Tissainayagam at the

meeting of the International Association of Tamil Journalists held in London, 11

October 2014

BY JS TISSAINAYAGAM-22 OCTOBER 2014

It gives me great pleasure to speak to you today as part of this

distinguished panel. I wish to thank the International Association of Tamil Journalists

or IATAJ which has organised this forum. I also wish to thank the individual sponsors

who back this effort through their varied contributions, all coming together to create

this event.

So why are we here? We are here because such an exchange of ideas and

opinions is impossible in Sri Lanka today. The trend of suppressing free

institutions, including the media, which began in the 1970s, has continued,

reaching an all time high in the past five years or so. Therefore, any exchange of

political ideas other than those which the Colombo regime supports is best

undertaken overseas.
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Having said that, we have to also understand that sections of the Tamil media

which are strongly critical of the Sri Lanka Governments handling of the Tamil

question have come under particularly vicious attack. The reason for such

sustained attack is obvious.

Sri Lankas ruling establishment believed that Mullivaiykal had sounded the death

knell on any Tamil future other than a future dictated or supported by the majority

Sinhalese. What emerged when the fighting ended came as a surprise to Sri

Lankas Sinhalese leaders. Because not only did the Tamils pursue their right to

determine their political future more keenly, but they also focussed their

unremitting attention on something else accountability: Accountability for the

multitude of human rights violations committed and continuing to be committed

against them.

So the Sri Lanka Government targets the Tamil media because it plays a crucial

role in keeping in the public sphere certain central Tamil political concerns despite

the harsh restrictions imposed by censorship. I think we could examine these

concerns under two headings: a) the quest for robust political institutions that

better protects Tamil freedom and allows them to participate better in the political

process and b) Tamils campaign for accountability for the violation of their rights.

But we should know Tamils aspiration to determine their political future and to

see that their tormentors are held accountable does not involve only the media. It

can be realised only through social and political processes in which the media

play a part. It might be an important part and guiding role but it will be in

conjunction with other forces also at work.

The process, if we simplify it, has basically two important set of actors playing

critical roles. These roles are not mutually exclusive but are interconnected each supporting and enriching the other. The first set of actors of course is Tamils

living in the island of Sri Lanka and Sinhalese and Muslims who support them;

the second are Tamils living outside Sri Lanka. This group include Tamils living in

Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, Mauritius and other countries with significant Tamil

populations, but also the Diaspora of the Tamils from Sri Lanka and important

pockets of Sinhalese many of them activists and journalists who support


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them.

I am conscious of the crucial indeed seminal role that is played by Tamils

within Sri Lanka and their brethren who support them from among the Sinhalese

and Muslims in their quest for more meaningful political institutions andaccountability. But my speech will not be focussed on that. There are many

people here who either live in Sri Lanka or have visited Sri Lanka more recently

than when I departed from its shores, and who are better placed to give more

comprehensive accounts as to what that role should be.

What I would like to do in the rest of my time, is to speak a little about the Tamil

Diaspora and how we could enrich the social and political processes towards the

twin goals of effective political structures and accountability. To do that I will usesome of the experiences I have had when speaking about issues concerning

Tamils of Sri Lanka in the US. I do not think that my experience is necessarily

universal, nor do I have a tightly knit argument to put forward. What I hope is that

this would provoke some questions in the audience. Such a dialogue will, I think,

contribute, if in but small measure, to the conversations we should be having: And

which the media should lead.

One of the issues that come up when you try addressing the Tamil question in theUS and I suspect in other parts of Western Europe as well, is the centrality of the

13th Amendment to any political settlement to satisfy Tamil aspirations. It is

sacrosanct. It is the pivot around which the debate revolves. Many believe that the

13th Amendment is the mantra for Tamils to win back their rights and equip them

with adequate political power to participate as equal citizens in the political

process.

What many people fail to understand is that the 13th Amendment is already in thestatute books and has been in existence for most part of Sri Lankas civil war. But

it has proved utterly inadequate as power-sharing mechanism. In fact, even those

who seriously believed that it might provide some answers to power-sharing if

fully implemented have recommended substantial changes such as the

recommendations of Committee A of the All Parties Representative Committee

or APRC in 2006.


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the Tamils to be able to participate meaningfully in Sri Lankas political system.

But the international community perceives it as the yardstick to measure whether

there is adequate power-sharing or not. To them the full implementation of the

13th Amendment means that Tamil political aspirations have been met.

I believe there are two reasons for the unshakable faith the international

community seems to be having in the 13th Amendment. The first is that Indias

consistent advocacy that devolution within a unitary government as per the 13th

Amendment is all that the Tamils could be permitted to enjoy. Changing that

perception will require a huge effort, in which, hopefully, our brethren from Tamil

Nadu will play a big role.

The second reason for the international community to be fixated on the 13thAmendment is because many organisations in the Tamil Diaspora look at the

answer to inadequate devolution under the 13th Amendment only as a separate

state. No alternatives in between are offered.

The problem is that the moment a separate state is mentioned in the US and I

believe in other parts of Western Europe too you have lost your audience. Now I

am not suggesting even for a moment that peaceful secession is not an option. I

am not suggesting that there are no precedents in history that make it unjustifiedfor Tamils to have a state of their own. Nor am I saying there is no moral

argument for a separate state. All I am saying is that we should be more inclusive

in types of political models we are prepared to examine, to debate and comment

on. That gives out political worldview greater sophistication.

Eventually it might be secession that Tamils choose. But the Tamil Diaspora

organisations, pushing secession to the exclusion of other options to decision-

makers in the international community right now, only makes both parties speakpast each other. Therefore the Diaspora and hopefully Tamil political parties

working in Sri Lanka while showing up the 13th Amendment for its hollowness

as a model for effective power-sharing could be open enough to say that other

models should be tried, while of course keeping secession as an option.

Now let me go to the second issue that is of paramount concern to Tamils:


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accountability. Now as we all know the Government of Sri Lanka, the Liberation

Tigers of Tamil Eelam and other Tamil guerrilla groups, as well as paramilitary

forces working with the government, have committed grave human rights

violations throughout the 30-year civil war. As such they all should be held

accountable. Further, and worse, rights violations by the Government and

paramilitaries continue.

However, due to the sheer level of savagery during the final few months of the

civil war it is this period that has kindled the publics abhorrence and called for

investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity. The evidence gathered

by sections of the Tamil Diaspora and the many Sinhala journalists and activists

in support of this is, in many ways, unprecedented.

This has today resulted in an investigation by the Office of the High Commissioner

for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the conduct of both the LTTE and Government

troops. The interim report was presented in September and the final report is

expected in March 2015.

As we all know, while the international investigation is important it is not the be all

and end all in accountability. What is unfortunate is that the international

community meaning in this instance the western democracies and theirsupporters appears to be quite content to allow the OHCHR probe but little else.

And that, as we all know, is hardly sufficient. That is because even after the report

is presented in March, the UN Human Rights Council is expected to vote on the

follow-up action. That will involve diplomatic manoeuvring and political bargaining

and the Government of Sri Lanka has begun doing that already.

With Sri Lanka not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the case cannot go directly

before the International Criminal Court. Therefore, dealing effectively with theperpetrators will depend on the vagaries of international politics. So what we can

see is that as for the near future, other than a credible, legitimate international

panel (as the OHCHR panel is), listing patterns of deliberate violations and chains

of command in its report very little more is going to happen.

Hopefully the perpetrators will at least be named, but we do not know for sure. If


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they are indeed named and shamed, it will undermine the credibility of the

Rajapakse regime and its legitimacy in the eyes of his constituency. But

realistically, if advantage is to be taken of that situation to bring about

accountability there have to be other diplomatic and political initiatives set in

motion by the international community.

Let me go back once again to my US experience to illustrate. When you speak to

diplomats, legislative staffers and others in Washington DC about applying

pressure on Colombo, they point to the UN Human Rights Council resolution

sponsored by the US government.

Now that was a great initiative and we are grateful for it. But that cannot be the be

all and end all of diplomatic efforts concerning the Government of Sri Lanka.What is amazing is that when you try to steer the conversation to what steps other

than the UNHRC resolution can be taken, you hear the refrain The US no has

leverage. That just cannot be! While the UN is a collective multilateral body,

individual counties have bilateral leverage as well.

There are number of areas where the US does have leverage. The US, and

western European countries are the biggest importer of Sri Lankas largest export:

garments. Travel bans could be imposed on a much wider range of Sri LankanGovernment officials than it is today. At present under the Leahey Amendment,

military personnel involved or units accused of war crimes cannot enter the US for

training. But that has to be expanded to include more people for which legislation

is already in place in the US such as the expansion of the Magnitsky Act.

To US diplomats and the few US legislators interested in Sri Lanka the phrase

The US has no leverage, is usually followed by We have to engage. This

means that rather than treat the Sri Lanka as a pariah they wish to resumebusiness as usual while preaching to Colombo the error of its ways. In fact there

is a US Senate resolution before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee calling

upon the President of USA to develop a comprehensive and a well-balanced

policy towards Sri Lanka that reflects US interests including human rights,

democracy, rule of law as well as economic and security interests (my

emphasis).


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Now we know that does not work. The more pressure applied on the Colombo

regime by exclusion, sanctions and travel bans by the international community the

better it is, and not the other way around. But there it is. I am told there is similar

resistance in countries in Western Europe despite the enormous leverage they

possess by threatening to impose wider travel bans, and sanctions through trade

in garments and tourism.

So why is this? Why is it that western democracies, by and large, believe a

accountability only the OHCHR investigation? The reason is very simple. As in

other situations there is a contest whether individual national interest lies in

enforcing norms for bad behaviour by blacklisting a country for the criminal

conduct of its leadership. Or take the easy way out by being pragmatic, which

means invest, trade resume diplomatic relations etc with a regime of war criminals

with a wink and a nod.

It is the second that the Rajapakse regime is hoping for and for which it is using

Chinese investments, arms exports and regional presence as bait. India has long

fallen for it grumbling that Colombo is moving deeper and deeper into Beijings

sphere of influence but in its actions giving into the whims of the Rajapakses. It

appears that important groups in the West believe this too, and could very well

follow New Delhi and its new BJP ministrys lead. Of course the other reason is

that India is always wary of international investigations on sovereign countries in

its region because its a precedent for its own violations in Kashmir and other

places to be examined.

It is here I think that the Tamil Diaspora and sections of Sinhalese who have

supported it can do much.

I think every opportunity should be used to lobby countries in Western Europeand the US that engaging with Sri Lanka by enhancing their ties with the

Rajapakses is not going to work. The structures and institutions in place in Sri

Lanka today have been perverted by a long war, impunity and systematic abuse

and cannot be undone by calling for cosmetic changes. If there is going to be real

emancipation for the Tamil people change has to be effective. It has to be an

effective check on the central governments powers by the provincial authorities,


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at least in some areas. This can be done either by either creating strong

institutions of checks and balances under the present constitution, or devising a

new product with shared sovereignty and other federal features, which admittedly

is more difficult.

This role of pressuring international governments can be played by the Tamil

Diaspora. Because, do not forget, how far it has come from when soon after the

fighting ended in May 2009 it was portrayed as unreliable, politically immature

and at best only a tool in the hands of governments and international NGOs to do

their bidding. Today that has been disproven.

If political change as to come in Sri Lanka the most important thing is that

pressure has to be relentless. And while governments and even someinternational NGOs have flip-flopped on some crucial issues it as been the

consistence of the Diaspora that has channelled energies and arguments that

has, in fact, forced the international community to even to do this little. And just

how formidable the Diaspora has become for the regime in Sri Lanka is seen by

the new laws that sought to place 16 organisations and 424 individuals on a list of

terrorists.

You might ask: where does all this fits in a meeting of journalists? I think it does. Itdoes because journalism engages the public to have conversations. And more

people engage in the conversation the better. And newspapers, the internet,

television and radio are ideal vehicles for those conversations.

But there have to be other instruments too. The Diaspora has to have multiple

voices through organisations, media outlets and personalities. All opinions have a

right to be expressed and have to be respected. But unless we realise the

importance of forging common understanding but not a single position onimportant issues, we will find it difficult to influence international actors decisively,

which will only be detrimental to all Tamils.

JDS


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JS Tissainayagam, a senior journalist and former Sri Lankan political prisoner, is a

Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard. He won Peter Mackler Award for Courageous

and Ethical Journalism (2009) and the CPJ Press Freedom Award (2009).

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