Sri Lanka A Victor's Peace: 2009 to 2019

By Ana Pararajasingham

In Sri Lanka A Victor’s Peace, Ana Pararajasingham, provides a perspective on events as they unfolded following the end of  Sri Lanka’s  civil war  in May 2009.

This book is a collection of articles by the author published between September 2009 and August 2019 in various journals covering events

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monitor Publications
• Release date: Nov 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648672210

Book preview

Published by Monitor Publications, Sydney, September 2019

Copyright@ Ana Pararajasingham

ISBN No: 978-0-6486722-0-3

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

The International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka

A Safer Place for Tamils

Sri Lanka: In the Eye of the Storm

Frances Harrisons’ Still Counting the Dead

Required: A Sri Lanka Policy

Colombo’s Military Build-Up: A Strategy of Deterrence

Sri Lanka’s Re-embrace of China Leaves India out in the Cold

The Tamil Nadu Factor: Demanding Justice for Genocide in Sri Lanka

Extension Given to Probe Sri Lanka’s War Crimes is No Surprise

The Politics of Persuasion-An Evaluation

Sri Lanka: Sovereignty Compromised

Trincomalee Beckons: Is New Delhi Becoming Assertive?

Realpolitik Not Humanitarian Concerns Will Decide Myanmar’s Future

Sri Lankan Constitution: The Strategy of Doublespeak

Sri Lanka’s Proposed Constitution Comes Under Attack

India’s Regional Power Credentials under Threat by China

Sri Lankan Regime Backing Away from Conflict Resolution Vows

Hindutva takes on Tamil Nationalism.

Why Is Sri Lanka Defying the United Nations?

Why Colombo Remains a Challenge for New Delhi

Can the Application of Universal Jurisdiction Foster Accountability in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka’s Chinese Connection: Beyond Bribes and Debts

Unsilenced: Male Rape by the Sri Lankan Security Forces

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Cause, a Political Football ?

Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Crisis: The Geopolitical Dimension

An evaluation of Sri Lanka’s Democratic Credentials

How Sri Lanka Wards off War Crimes Investigators

The Geopolitics of Sri Lanka’s Transitional Justice

Sri Lanka’s Muslims Bloodied by Buddhism

US Push for New Military Agreement Runs into Fierce Opposition in Sri Lanka

What Colombo-Beijing Axis Means to Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s ‘Victor’s Peace’ and the Way Forward

Endnotes

Acknowledgements

There are four people I like to specially thank for helping me get this book published.

Kulesegaram Sanchayan for his encouragement to have this collection of articles published as a book and Manjula Sri Pathma for designing a cover that graphically captures the main theme underpinning them. I am indebted to Professor Damien Kingsbury of Australia’s Deakin University for his foreword identifying the raison d’être for these articles written over a ten year period. I thank Associate Professor Jake Lynch, the Winner of the 2017 Luxembourg Peace Prize and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies (DPACS) at the University of Sydney for reviewing and commenting on the original draft.

I am indebted to the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) for the research undertaken to bring to light many of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the last phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war; the ongoing torture of detainees after the war and the Sri Lankan Government’s persistent refusal to reveal the fate of those taken into custody. I am equally indebted to the work of the Sri Lanka Campaign, a global non-partisan movement committed to achieving genuine reconciliation based on accountability for violations of international law. I thank these organizations for providing much of the material I have used in writing these articles.

My thanks, not least, to my family, for putting up with me not just for the last ten years but for almost three decades as I took away invaluable family time writing and speaking out about a conflict that had driven over a third of Sri Lanka’s Tamils out of the island and had so tragically ended in the imposition of a Victor’s Peace.

Foreword

In 2009, the Sri Lanka armed forces militarily defeated the country’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with the deaths of some 40,000 civilians in the final few weeks, mostly in what the government called a ‘no fire zone’. This event marked the end of a war that had run, in four phases, since 1983. From the perspective of many, perhaps most Tamils, the war was one about not just creating a new, independent state for Sri Lanka’s Tamils, but throwing off decades of repression, marginalization and persecution.

The war failed and, as a consequence, the repression, persecution and marginalization has continued apace. Yet the LTTE’s struggle and the government’s war with it was not just a domestic issue, but involved wider geo-politics and, it might be said, that it was those wider geo-politics that helped bring the war to an end. It is also those wider geo-politics that allow the Sri Lanka government to continue with its policies which, in many respects, have born many of the hallmarks of genocide.

Ana Pararajasingham has long been concerned with the plight of Sri Lanka’s Tamils, during the war but especially after, when all that was left were words. His articles in a series of outlets have captured many of the complexities and inter-connected issues that have continued to swirl around the Sri Lanka Tamil issue since 2009. These articles are as alive and as relevant now as when they were published.

As the author notes, events in post-war Sri Lanka have been underpinned by three key themes: Colombo’s triumphalist Victor’s Peace; the way in which Beijing’s has pursued its ties with Colombo as part of its own wider geo-political strategy, and New Delhi’s and Washington’s somewhat belated and beleaguered attempts to return themselves to positions of influence in Colombo.

For China, a strategic hold in Sri Lanka places the island state in a prime position in its global Belt and Road strategy to become the world’s economic superpower, as well as being a key part of its ‘String of Pearls’ strategy which locates strategic bases across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Critically, too, after India’s blundered intervention in the Sri Lanka-LTTE war in 1987, China has taken advantage of underlying anti-Indian sentiment and distrust, building a forward base – nominally a port – at Hambantota, just a short distance from China’s key regional rival, India.

India has been keenly aware, even alarmed by this shift in regional influence, seeing the regional strategic balance tilted in China’s geographic favor, and has sought to rekindle positive relations in Colombo. While this may be too little, too late, it has helped create a situation where China and Indian compete with each other for Sri Lanka’s favors, benefiting the government in Colombo. This has not least been at the expense of the forsaken Tamils who are metaphorically and sometimes literally kicked around as a political football. So, too, the US as a global actor has found itself engaged in Sri Lanka’s politics, by way of attempting to thwart its growing global rival, China’s influence.

But most importantly, Ana Pararajasingham’s articles show that in defeating the LTTE, successive Sri Lanka governments have not wanted to heal past wounds and repair a deeply damaged polity, but have embarked on a triumphalist Victor’s Peace at the expense of building unity and equity.

Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese Buddhist population has always had a chauvinist nationalist inflection to its political expression but, in the later years of the war and in its peace, this has metastasised to the point where the country’s minorities are only suffered as unwanted guests.

Though no longer at war, Sri Lanka’s Tamils continue to live at the country’s social and political margins in lands still, a decade later, under military occupation.

The author has documented these events and issues in his articles, retaining a clear eye for fact where so many have been persuaded by a regrettable, often confrontational, emotion. For anyone wanting to understand post-LTTE war Sri Lanka, these articles offer invaluable insight. For anyone wanting to understand Sri Lanka’s place in the wider geo-strategic field, and to get a glimpse of how global politics can play out in a corner of the world, these articles are enlightening.

I recommend them to you.

Damien Kingsbury

Personal Chair, Professor of International Politics

Deakin University, Australia

Introduction

This book comprises articles of mine published between September 2009 and August 2019 in various journals covering politics and current affairs with a particular focus on Asia and the Pacific. They are commentaries and background pieces as events unfolded in post-war Sri Lanka.

Events in post-war Sri Lanka have been underpinned by three distinct themes: Colombo’s pursuit of a Victor’s Peace; Beijing’s determination to strengthen the Beijing-Colombo axis and New Delhi’s and Washington’s attempts to re-assert their influence over Colombo. I have included in this collection two articles on developments in Tamil Nadu as a direct consequence of the happenings in Sri Lanka. The first of these was published in April 2017 by Open Democracy under the heading The Tamil Nadu Factor: Demanding Justice for Genocide in Sri Lanka and the second, Is Sri Lanka’s Tamil Cause a Political Football? in Asia Times in October 2018.On further reflection, I have included a paper published in Asia Times in February 2018 under the heading "Hindutva takes on Tamil Nationalism" exploring the contest between the ruling Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) and the state of Tamil Nadu which has resolutely defied BJP’s Hindutva based nationalism. In view of the strong empathy for the Tamils of Sri Lanka in Tamil Nadu and BJP’s desire to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, the situation has the potential to impact New Delhi’s Sri Lanka policy and hence its inclusion in this collection. Also included is an opinion piece I wrote for the Canberra Times in November 2009 in the context of the refugee flow from Sri Lanka following Colombo’s brutal persecution of those suspected to be former Tamil rebels and their families. The piece titled "Realpolitik Not Humanitarian Concerns Will Decide Myanmar’s Future" draws a parallel between the roles played by international actors in the conflict in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. An article in Asia Times in June 2019 titled Sri Lanka’s Muslims Bloodied by Buddhism attributes the violence unleashed against Sri Lanka’s Muslims to triumphalism, the victory over the Tamils having given the Sinhala Buddhist hardliners the impetus to subjugate another non-Sinhala Buddhist group and re-assert Sinhala Buddhist hegemony. The last article in this collection headed Sri Lanka’s Victor’s Peace and the Way Forward appeared on 20 August 2019 in Daily FT, an online journal published in Colombo. I chose the Daily FT in order to reach out to a Sinhalese readership as the article was based on the premise that the peace that ensues depends on what the victor decides and should Sri Lanka which has pursued a Victor’s Peace wish to move beyond it, the responsibility lies with the Sinhalese.

Not surprisingly there is some overlap between articles as they reflect the main themes identified above-the Sri Lankan State’s coercive pursuit of a Victor’s Peace and the self interest-driven activities of the US, the global superpower, China, the aspiring superpower and India, the regional power.

I have scrupulously followed the oft-quoted dictum of C P Scott, the legendary editor of Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian), "Comment is free, but facts are sacred". All facts have been supported by end notes and articles appear as they were originally published with weblinks replaced by endnotes in respect of those published in online journals.

Although I live in Sydney, a great distance from Sri Lanka, I have closely followed events in that country. I believe distance has given me a perspective that is not readily available for those living close to