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Lost in translation?

26 Sep 2021

  • The Tamil community’s response to the President’s reconciliation promises
By Sumudu Chamara In an unexpected move, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa last week said that he is willing to hold talks with the Tamil diaspora. In a discussion with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the President had further highlighted the importance of a domestic mechanism to address Sri Lanka’s internal issues. The President made these statements while he was in New York, USA, to attend the UN General Assembly session. In a context where talks between the Government and representatives of the Tamil community have been in an unpromising state, this statement was called unexpected and progressive by both local and foreign media. Tamil diaspora’s response The President’s statement was subsequently welcomed by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), a group of Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates representing the Tamil diaspora, as “progressive”, while questioning the current state of relationships between the Sri Lankan Government and Tamil community/representatives. GTF Spokesperson Suren Surendiran noted that the GTF is prepared to talk to anybody if the grievances of the Tamil people, and all Sri Lankans, are resolved. “However, when requests are made by democratically elected representatives of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka to meet with the President, they are deferred with flimsy excuses. Now, from New York, USA, he has declared that he wants to engage with us, the Tamil diaspora. We wonder why this sudden change of mind has occurred, when only six months ago, in March 2021, his Government proscribed organisations like the GTF and individuals like myself as ‘terrorists’,” Surendiran said. Surendiran added that the President must first justify the latter’s actions. Through a gazette notification dated 2 February 2021, Sri Lanka announced the amended list of proscribed organisations and persons under Regulation 4 (7) of the UN Regulations No. 1 of 2012. It included several diaspora organisations including the GTF, British Tamil Forum (BTF), Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC), Australian Tamil Congress (ATC), National Council Of Canadian Tamil (NCCT), Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), and the World Tamil Co-ordinating Committee (WTCC), as well as hundreds of individuals including GTF Spokesperson Surendiran. In March 2014, under sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 4 of the UN Regulations No. 1 of 2012, the Sri Lanka Government proscribed 16 such organisations including the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), as well as over 424 individuals. The list included GTF and GTF Spokesperson Surandiran as well. However, it was amended in 2015, and a large number of organisations and individuals were de-proscribed. According to the GTF, owing to this ban, the potential loss of foreign currency income for Sri Lanka is over $ 300 million per year.  Surendiran added: “As for the domestic mechanism that the President wants to talk to us about, in transitional justice, there are judicial and non-judicial processes. We will be very happy to engage and discuss the latter, but, as for the judicial mechanisms, the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 describes what exactly needs to happen.” Resolution 30/1 was adopted in 2015 by the UNHRC, during the previous United National Front (UNF)-led Government’s tenure. The then Government co-sponsored this Resolution and agreed to establish a judicial process which would include foreign legal personnel to promote reconciliation and accountability of human rights violations allegedly occurred during the war. However, this mechanism was not established.  At the 48th UNHRC Session earlier this month, Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris used the backlash to Resolution 30/1 to reject Resolution 46/1 adopted by the UNHRC earlier this year, claiming that Resolution 46/1 would polarise the Sri Lankan society the same way Resolution 30/1 did. Surendiran added that if the President wishes to hold talks, the latter can engage the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the relevant UN bodies, and special mandate holders (Special Rapporteurs), and they will be very willing to progress the already adopted Resolutions. Talks with SL-based Tamil political parties However, the President’s statement about his willingness to hold discussions with Tamil diaspora organisations comes in a context where a much talked about discussion between him and Tamil political parties was cancelled or postponed indefinitely in June this year. The meeting was scheduled to be held with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) – the foremost alliance of Tamil political parties comprising the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) – on 16 June, and according to TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, the meeting had been organised mainly to discuss necessary constitutional reforms. The meeting was to be the President’s first meeting with the TNA. According to ITAK Parliamentarian of the TNA Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, even though the President holding talks with the Tamil diaspora would be beneficial, the President should first focus on holding discussions with democratically elected public representatives who have been trying to avail themselves of such an opportunity.  He made this statement when The Morning queried whether the Tamil diaspora is the best representative of the Tamil community. “It is a very obvious answer. The Government should respect elected representatives of the people, and a dialogue should be initiated with those elected representatives. We, as elected representatives, represent the entire northern-eastern part of the country. So there is no debate or question as to with whom the President should speak first or who should be prioritised. Tamil diaspora organisations are not democratically elected entities.  “However, Tamil diaspora organisations are also important, because there is a significant number of people who are a part of the Tamil diaspora. Even though some Tamil people left the country as skilled migrants or as students, some were forced out of the country. If the President wants to speak with them, we welcome that. We are not saying not to speak to anybody; by talking with the Tamil diaspora, it would be possible to understand the perspective of the people in the Tamil diaspora.”   Meanwhile, senior Sri Lankan journalist and political commentator V. Thanabalasingham had expressed similar opinions speaking to The Hindu. He had said that “although Tamil diaspora groups have been backing the call for a political solution to Sri Lanka’s Tamil national question, they are no cohesive political force”. “You cannot consider them to be representatives of Sri Lankan Tamils, either. They left Sri Lanka and have obtained citizenship elsewhere,” he had further said.  Stating that the President’s statement is a wonderful move, Rasamanickam claimed that there is, however, a question as to how honest that statement is.  “I am yet to believe that the President honestly wants to meet the Tamil diaspora. I think it was stated just to ease the pressure off him,” he opined. Speaking further about the Government’s intention to hold discussions, Rasamanickan said that some of the statements made by the Government have shown a certain incompetence on the part of the Government in terms of policies and decisions, and that there is no consistency in those policies or decisions.  With regard to the policies and decisions that affect the relationship with the Tamil community, he added: “A few months ago, the President, after the March session of the UNHRC, proscribed some Tamil diaspora organisations. However, some of these banned organisations were very progressive ones that had the most progressive ideas.” Moreover, speaking on the indefinite postponement of the meeting with the TNA and the Government’s stance in March this year, Rasamanickam said that the Government’s stance seems to have changed completely within a period of six months, which raises a question as to how consistent and genuine the Government’s policies are. “But if I am to give a direct answer to the question as to why the governments are hesitant to talk with the Tamil community, it is because they believe that they can hold on to the little nationalistic base they have,” he opined. “They (Sri Lankan governments) fooled the entire world for 13 years. After the end of the war, there were talks about things such as reconciliation. They managed to fool the world for the first few years. Almost two years have gone by since the present President got elected, and they have been very unsuccessful in trying to fool the entire world. But, what is significantly different this time is that not only are they unable to fool the international community and the Tamil community as a whole; they are also unable to fool the entire population of the country.” He also told The Morning that although polarising the citizens may help a government come to power, it cannot be used to retain power. He added that even though governments, foreign ministers, and national leaders may change with time, commitments promised by a country to the international community cannot be changed. He stressed that in this context, Sri Lanka has to stick to its promises to the international community, and that the repercussions of breaking such promises, like holding dialogues to establish reconciliation which the world believed and supported, are beginning to show.  Speaking of these repercussions, Rasamanickam also pointed out the risk of losing the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) trade concessions. In June this year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the European Commission to consider a temporary withdrawal of the GSP+ trade concessions granted to Sri Lanka, taking into consideration Sri Lanka’s prevailing human rights situation. The resolution made specific references to the use of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (PTA), and controversial arrests and detentions of several prominent figures, and also pointed out discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the infringement of judicial independence, and the militarisation of civilian government functions. When asked about Tamil political parties’ plans and ideas of future discussions with the Government, he said that they are looking forward to holding fruitful discussions, adding that their stance (about their demands) has not changed. He pointed out that they do not do politics for the sake of doing it and that their policies receive priority. Further he mentioned that this is why the number of representatives from Tamil political parties has decreased, adding that Tamil political parties focus more on solutions, than gaining attention by using fancy words. “We have not gone out of our way to increase our voter base. We are always ready for discussions, and since we want to resolve the existing issues, we do not want to drag this further. We do not want more problems that go on for like another 20 years unresolved. We do not have any expectation of taking this dialogue for another 20-30 years. If we can resolve these issues tomorrow, we are happy to engage (with the Government).”  Despite The Morning’s attempts to contact other political leaders such as Parliamentarians C.V. Wigneswaran and M.A. Sumanthiran, who have been vocal about holding discussions with the Government, they were not reachable for comment. Drawn-out issues affecting the country’s Tamil community, as well as the Sinhala community’s relationship with the Tamil and other ethnic minority communities, have been plaguing the country’s unity for decades, and according to Tamil politicians, these issues have contributed to the war between State-led forces and the LTTE as well. However, the reluctance to address these issues, if not addressed, is likely to cause bigger issues than the war, and the repeated postponements of talks with representatives of the Tamil community, is worrying. Although there are massive differences between what is being demanded by each party, at some point, talks have to start in order to address those differences.  


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