transcurrents

Rajapakse Brothers Must Get Out of Racist Mindset

December 5th, 2007

After Thursday’s attempted assassination of Cabinet Minister Douglas Devananda and the bomb blast at Nugegoda junction that killed 20 people and wounded many others, police and the security services have made arbitrary arrests of over two thousand Tamils in and around Colombo and incarcerated them.

These two terrorist attacks certainly called for strict security measures to protect all citizens and prevent recurrence of such terrorism but great care should have been taken not to violate the rights of citizens and subject them to indignities and harassments.

It is apparent that the arrests were made without evidence against the vast majority taken in or even suspicions being entertained against them. This style of blanket arrests is also not the answer for the lack of intelligence particularly from an administration which boasts that it can target the LTTE leadership in the Wanni through aerial bombardment. How is it then that they cannot cover the security loopholes in the city?

The lead story of the state controlled Daily News saying that President Mahinda Rajapakse has ordered the immediate release of all innocent (emphasis is ours) persons is proof that the arrests were made blindly. Being a Tamil was enough to be suspected as a terrorist. Being released after a few days is poor consolation after being arrested and herded together into detention camps with their fundamental rights violated.

All Tamil parties, the UNP and even the JVP have condemned this action of the government. Those affected deserve an unqualified apology from President Rajapakse and his government. They must remember that all Tamils are not members of the LTTE or terrorists as much as all Sinhalese were neither terrorists nor JVP members during the two insurrections launched by the Marxists in the 1970s and 1980s.

The President and the wise men around him should have expected a situation like what happened on Thursday to take place. We in these columns have said that Velupillai Pirapaharan will hit the government hardest, where it hurts most. Earlier they attacked only military targets probably to avoid international condemnation. Now Pirapaharan has lost the confidence he had in this international community and has commenced attacking civilian targets to turn the opinion of the Sinhalese against the President.

It must also be remembered however unpalatable it may be for the hard line Sinhalese that the twin attacks came amidst allegations by the Tigers that the security forces had killed 13 civilians including 11 school girls just 24 hours earlier. Therefore the government should have been all the more alert for possible attacks without harassing innocent civilians after the fact.

Mass arrests of Tamils will not appease the Sinhalese particularly those who have lost their friends and relations as well as the injured. These terrorist attacks are likely to continue. The President and his advisers should have planned ahead for this eventuality and it is likely to happen again. Has he any strategy to counter such attacks on civilians or is it that no such strategy is possible against terrorist attacks?

President Rajapakse and his defence experts are helping the LTTE to achieve its main objective: a separate state. They are not only isolating the Tamils who are not with the LTTE but are creating two de facto regions, if not states, by preventing people crossing over from government areas into LTTE controlled areas and vice versa.

The Omanthai check point has been closed even to government officials. The rail service too has been halted at Medawachchiya. All this is said to be done to prevent infiltration of terrorists from the Wanni. Paradoxically Tamils in Colombo are being rounded up because terrorists are said to be present in large numbers in Colombo and the suburbs! If Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother Gotabaya had been playing football in their days, they would have been very adept at kicking into their own goal.

They should be well aware that thousands of Tamils have fled to Sinhalese areas to escape the terror regime of Pirapaharan and save their children. This fact alone shows the folly of the Rajapakse regime by routinely rounding up Tamils.

The mass arrest of Tamils last week is bound to increase the pressure exerted by the UN, Western nations and NGOs for the appointment of a UN Human Rights Monitoring Committee to Sri Lanka. Many Western leaders have called upon President Rajapakse long before last week’s incidents to permit such a commission to operate here but it has been stubbornly resisted The demand for such a monitoring committee by the UN itself is a clear indication of the belief that such violations are taking place here. It is also believed that the presence of such a committee would deter the military option that the government is pursuing with vigour.

A report this week said that the government is considering permission for such a monitoring committee to operate here if the committee is ‘home grown’ – comprising Sri Lankans. Whether the UN would be willing to accept such a recommendation is not known.

The best way to avoid the appointment of a UN human rights committee on Sri Lanka should be to stop violations of such rights by the Sri Lankan government. It would then compel the UN to focus all their attention on the LTTE’s violations. It will be recalled that it was the former Foreign Minister, the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, who first raised the issue of recruitment of child soldiers for war by the LTTE, with the UN. The LTTE has ignored such UN appeals but has been clever to get the Rajapakse regime under surveillance for its violation of human rights.

Mahinda Rajapakse is a seasoned politician with 37 years of experience behind him. He should realise that a country cannot be governed without its minorities being treated as all citizens with equal rights whatever his brothers who are neophytes in politics may say. If terrorists have to be weeded out of the community it cannot be done with mass arrests and herding them into detention camps for selective weeding.

What happened after Thursday will deservedly be condemned by the international community as it has been done by all right thinking people of this country. And we tell the Rajapakse brothers with the best interest of Sri Lanka at heart: For Goodness sake get out of your racist mindset.

EDITORS NOTE: This excerpted editorial from “The Morning Leader” of December 5th 2007 was originally headlined “Gross Violation of Tamil Rights”.

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