Appeal for talks with broader section of people's struggles in the forest and mineral belt

Aditya Nigam, Dilip Simeon, Jairus Banaji, Nivedita Menon, Rohini Hensman, Satya Sivaraman, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar

In the light of the recent demands raised by sections of the intelligentsia urging the government to heed the CPI (Maoist) “offer of talks”, we insist that “civil society” should, rather, put pressure on the government to initiate talks with representatives of all struggling popular and adivasi organizations. The CPI (Maoist) cannot be treated as the sole spokesperson of all the people in the forest and mineral belt, convenient though this may be for the state and for that party. Does the government believe that violent insurgents are the only deserving interlocutors?

There is a common pattern to the emergence of Maoist violence in many areas. First a non-violent mass organisation like the PCAPA in West Bengal or Chasi Muliya Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) in Orissa arises in response to marginalisation, displacement or violence against tribals by the police and paramilitaries. Then the Maoists step in, attempting to take over the movement and giving it a violent turn. The state responds with even more violence, which is directed not only against the Maoists but also against unaffiliated adivasis. At this point, some adivasis join the Maoists in self-defence, their leaders like Chhatradhar Mahato, Lalmohan Tudu, Singanna are either arrested or gunned down in fake encounters and large numbers of unaffiliated adivasis are branded Maoists or Maoist sympathisers and arrested, killed or terrorised by the state. Clearly, Maoist violence in these cases obtains legitimacy because of the unbridled use of force by security forces and violations of the fundamental rights of the local people. On the other hand, the unilateral and doctrinal use of the language of warfare by one armed group obscures the political agency of the ordinary people who have had no say in this declaration.  It also tramples on the human rights of the often desperately poor people who are obliged to seek a livelihood in organizations of the state. Furthermore, it is not clear that the CPI (Maoist) actually shares the rejection of this kind of “development” by the people of the area, or whether it only wants to wrest control of this process from the Indian state.

Avatar: A Parable About the Encounter Between Capitalism and Indigenous Peoples

I should clarify from the beginning that this is not a film review of Avatar, more a comment on its politics, and on other commentaries on its politics.

The plot is simple. In the year 2154, a colony of humans has been set up by RDA corporation, headed by Parker Selfridge, on the distant planet Pandora, with the intention of mining its reserves of the incredibly valuable mineral unobtanium. But the indigenous inhabitants, the Na’vi, are an obstacle to this goal, since the unobtanium lies beneath the forest they inhabit, with the biggest deposit beneath their ancestral Hometree. Dr Grace Augustine heads the Avatar programme, which blends the DNA of individual human beings with that of the Na’vi to create Na’vi avatars which can be controlled by the mind of the human. Through this, they can establish contact with the Na’vi, find out about them and their habitat, and hopefully persuade them to cooperate with the company. But should they fail, the military wing under Colonel Miles Quaritch is poised to remove them by force.

Jake, a paraplegic ex-marine, gets involved in the avatar programme because his twin brother, a scientist originally involved in it, was killed in a mugging. But as the mission proceeds, Jake, like his colleagues Grace and Norm, comes to appreciate the culture of the Na’vi even as he provides strategic information about them in his debriefing sessions; moreover, he falls in love with Neytiri, a Na’vi female, and she falls in love with him. Selfridge and Quaritch get impatient and give Grace and Jake just one hour to convince the Na’vi to vacate their habitat, failing which the military will swing into action. In attempting to carry out this mission, Grace and Jake have to reveal their part in the mission, upon which the Na’vi accuse them of betrayal and tie them up, but at this point the onslaught on Hometree, in which many Na’vi are killed, begins. The human avatars of Grace, Norm and Jake are held captive by Quaritch for treason, but Trudy, a security force pilot disgusted by all this violence, flies them out, along with their laboratory, to the jungle. In the crucial battle, these four as well as another scientist, Dr Max Patel, fight on the side of the Na’vi, and Grace and Trudy are killed by the security forces, along with hundreds of Na’vi. But the attack is finally repelled, and the invaders sent back to their depleted planet earth. Jake, Norm and Max remain with the Na’vi.

Labour and Globalisation: Union Responses in India

 Introduction

The first major shock of what subsequently came to be called globalisation in India was the economic liberalisation programme initiated in July 1991. The Congress government headed by Narasimha Rao, faced with a crisis resulting from foreign exchange reserves sufficient for just a fortnight’s imports, undertook some of the measures recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in the late 1980s. The new policy included abolition of licensing procedures for manufacturing investment (which had popularly come to be known as a corruption-ridden ‘license-permit raj’), reduction of the high import tariffs on most goods (but not consumer goods), liberalising terms of entry for foreign investors, and liberalising capital markets (Balasubramanyam and Mahambare, 2001). It would be a mistake to see these changes simply as being imposed on India. Many of them were designed to encourage the expansion of big business after what were perceived as decades of stagnation, for example by removing restrictions on mergers and acquisitions, encouraging businesses to seek finance abroad, and sparking a wave of expansion into new sectors which had either barely developed (e.g. telecom), or had until then been reserved for the public sector (e.g. banking). 

The next milestone was the birth of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 1 January 1995, with India being a member from the beginning. This involved new pressures, for example to eliminate quantitative restrictions on imports, simplify and reduce tariffs, reduce export constraints, reduce the number of activities reserved for the public sector and small-scale sector, further liberalise the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime, and address the fiscal deficit (cf. WTO, 2002). The process of integrating India more closely into the world economy has been more or less continuous since 1991, despite changes of government, and the world economy itself has globalised rapidly during this period.

The Way Forward in Sri Lanka

The way forward in Sri Lanka involves demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law, and democratisation. These are interlinked so closely that it is impossible to separate them, and on their fulfilment depends not only the political future of Sri Lanka, but also its economic survival. 

Setting the Record Straight

I was surprised to see that a piece I wrote recently for Groundviews was mentioned prominently in two articles in The Island last Saturday and Sunday. Since the original article was not published in The Island, and since the rejoinders misrepresent my argument in various ways, I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

For those who would like to read the original article in full, it can be found at www.groundviews.org/2009/06/22/why-are-the-vanni-civilians-still-being-held-hostage/ . My basic argument was that the denial of freedom of movement to the Vanni IDPs and incarceration of them in internment camps (1) was a violation of their democratic rights as citizens of Sri Lanka; (2) was an insult to the soldiers who risked (and in some cases lost) their lives in the belief that they were bringing freedom to these people; (3) contradicted President Rajapaksa’s statement in his victory speech that there were no longer any minorities in Sri Lanka by creating a minority that did not enjoy rights like freedom of movement which are enjoyed by the majority; and (4) increased the chances of a new insurgency by converting Tamils who are well-disposed towards the government into people with a grudge against the government. I ended by observing that when the internment of 280,000 civilians is seen in the context of assaults on and murder of journalists, and policy proposals for the expansion of the army by 100,000 and cancellation of the presidential elections, it looks as if we could be heading towards a dictatorship. 

Why are the Vanni Civilians Still Being Held Hostage?

Throughout the last stages of the civil war, the government of Sri Lanka claimed to be engaged in a hostage rescue mission on behalf of civilians in the Vanni who were being held against their will by the LTTE. How far are its words borne out by its actions?

It is certainly true that the LTTE was keeping hundreds of thousands of civilians hostage and using them as forced labour, a source of child and adult conscripts, and a human shield from behind which they could engage in offensive operations against Sri Lanka’s armed forces. It has also been confirmed that in general the soldiers showed compassion to the escaping civilians, and some of them even risked their own lives to enable civilians to escape to safety. Although it was clear that for the political and military leadership, the aim of finishing off the LTTE involved sacrificing the lives and limbs of civilians, there did not seem to be any deliberate targeting of civilians during the war. Even the claim by some government spokespersons that shelling was necessary in order to free the hostages has some plausibility, given that the LTTE used the cessation of hostilities over the Sinhala and Tamil New Year to tighten its hold over the trapped civilians, not to release them.

However post-war, the picture gets more murky. Around 280,000 of the civilians who have suffered so much already have been kept prisoners behind barbed wire in camps where conditions are in many cases abysmal. It is clear that the government is unable to provide for them adequately, yet those with relations outside who would willingly look after them are being denied the right to join their families. If others want to check up on their homes in the Vanni or start rebuilding them, no one has the right to stop them. This denial of the fundamental right to freedom of movement is especially cruel for families which have been split up, which are thereby denied the possibility of reuniting, or even finding out what has happened to their loved ones. It is lethal for those who are physically vulnerable; senior citizens were released after a court found that many had died of starvation and more were dying daily, but the sick and injured, pregnant women and mothers with babies are also vulnerable. With the monsoon, it is likely that gastrointestinal diseases will kill thousands. Why, then, are these unfortunate people being penalised like this?

Self-determination, Sovereignty and Democracy: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric in Sri Lanka

Introduction

Journalistic accounts of the crisis in Sri Lanka refer to it as an ‘ethnic conflict’ between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority, and there is an element of truth in this perception: the war that broke out in 1983 and has continued ever since, despite periods of ceasefire, is primarily between the armed forces of a state dominated by a Sinhala nationalist agenda and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for a separate Tamil state. Yet this description is inadequate to capture the complexity of the situation in Sri Lanka. It simply cannot account for episodes like the following:

Norms of civilisation and humanity today seem assailed from all quarters, leaving one sickened, bewildered and despairing as never before. The actors in this grim scenario include the forces of the state, violent forces opposed to the state, shadowy vigilante groups…The gruesome tally of deaths mounts daily.

 

Those killed during the past three months include Kandy District MP Anura Daniel, shot in his office by men in military type unforms; General Secretary of the LSSP Trade Union Federation, P.D. Wimalasena, shot by gunmen who stormed his headquarters and set fire to its press; lawyer Charita Lankapura shot in his residence;..Chairman and Director-General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Competent Authority of the Independent Television Network, Thevis Guruge, shot on his morning walk; television and radio announcer Premkeerthi de Alwis, abducted from his home and killed; the Ven. Kotikawatte Saddhaissa Nayake Thera killed in his temple at Kolonnawa; Chief News Editor of Rupavahini, Kulasiri Ameratunga, shot in his home by unidentified gunmen; the Ven. Soragune Pannatissa Thera, taken out of his temple in Haputale and shot; young lawyer Kanchana Abhayapala shot at his home by an unidentified gunman; seventy-five-year-old Wellatota Pannadassi Nayake Thera shot when returning to his home in Kamburupitiya, and burnt; SLFP organiser in Kurunegala, H.P.Wijesekera, shot in Dompe; Rubber Research Board Chairman and former Deputy Minister Merril Kariyawasam shot in his office at Ratmalana; seventy-five-year-old Kahawe Wimalasiri Thera shot by an unidentified gang in his temple at Kala Oya, Anuradhapura; Moratuwa University Vice-Chancellor  Prof. C. Patuwathavithana and Chief Security Officer P.A.K.Ranaweera, slain on the campus premises at Katubedde; State Pharmaceuticals Corporation Chairman Dr. Gladys Jayawardene, shot in her car at Slave Island on her way home from office.

 

These are some of the names that made the newspaper headlines in recent times. The fact and manner of these deaths is at least known. In addition there are the eyewitness accounts of unidentified corpses, of headless bodies floating down waterways, of numerous bodies – sometimes singly, sometimes in heaps, often hideously mutilated – burning on the roadsides. (Civil Rights Movement 1989)

This is an account of what was happening in the rest of Sri Lanka when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) occupied the North and East after the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987. While the total death toll has never been established, it amounted to tens of thousands – some estimates say 60,000, including disappearances – so the carnage was on a scale comparable to the loss of life in the war between the government and the LTTE. But this was not an ethnic conflict; it was a conflict between the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) and the government, with both sides killing others who did not belong to either side, like the 32 schoolchildren of Embilipitiya killed by the state. It was a case of Sinhalese, including Buddhist monks, being killed by Sinhalese. Both sides used shadowy death squads: several squads in the case of the state, with names like the ‘Black Cats,’ ‘Yellow Cats,’ ‘Eagles of the Central Hills’ and ‘Scorpions,’ while the JVP used the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (DJV or Patriotic People’s Movement).[i]

In the case of Tamils, the killing spree started earlier, continued into 2008, and included the internationally recognised war crime of conscripting children and sending them to the battle front:

The LTTE took on the TELO at the end of that month [April 1986]…The manner in which the TELO members were killed shocked Tamil people everywhere. Many died without knowing what hit them. Twelve were killed near Manipay while they were asleep. Several were caught unawares, shot and burnt at junctions at Thirunelvely, Mallakam and Tellipallai. Eight persons were killed at the camp behind St John’s principal’s bungalow…The people were so terrified that few had the courage to give shelter to the fugitives…Some went home saying things such as: “We have produced our own Hitlers”. (Hoole et al. 1990, pp.81-82)

 

In the early 1990s, very young children from poor families taken by the LTTE in Jaffna were corralled in camps…In July 1991, most of the thousand or so killed in the LTTE’s desperate bid to overrun Elephant Pass were women and children…A woman in the Vanni regularly met young members of the LTTE fighting cadre who told her about their gruelling life…They told her, “Once you come into this organisation, there is no alternative. You must make up your mind to die. When volunteers are called for a dangerous job, we all raise our hands”. (Hoole 2001: 404, 415, 416)

These aspects of the LTTE’s politics have aptly been described as ‘the political culture of auto-genocide,’ (Hoole 2001: 403), and this epithet could apply equally to the politics of the state and JVP in the late 1980s. A characterisation of the crisis in Sri Lanka must account for these phenomena as well as the fighting between the state and the LTTE.