Apart from punishing Sarath Fonseka, Rajapakses want to humilate him to the maximum
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill….” - George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-four)
Some months ago, Defence Secretary and Presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapakse threatened to send the former Army Commander, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, to the gallows.
When BBC’s Stephen Sackur asked about the possibility of Gen. Fonseka testifying about possible war crimes, Mr. Rajapakse went into what can only be termed a fit of apoplexy: “He can’t do that. He was the commander. That’s a treason. We will hang him if he do that….. How can he betray the country? He is a liar, liar, liar” (Hard Talk - BBC). The verdict of the first military tribunal indicates that this is no idle ranting. The totally disproportionate, vindictively excessive sentence of the tribunal is a symbol of Rajapakse hatred and an omen of things to come.
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the innermost circles of hell are reserved for those who commit the most heinous crime and this is where the Rajapakses would send General Fonseka to, because according to their worldview, going against the Ruling Family is the ultimate crime. How else can the maliciously vengeful decision to strip Gen. Sarath Fonseka of his rank and honours and dishonourably discharge him be explained?
A guilty verdict was never in doubt. What shocks is the sheer vindictiveness of the sentence given. After all, the first military tribunal convicted Gen. Fonseka of meddling in politics while in uniform, hardly an unusual occurrence in Sri Lanka (for instance, during the last Presidential election, several top ranking army officers appeared on state TV, in uniform, defending the government and Candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, while other top officers instructed soldiers to vote for the ruling party candidate). Army officers meddling in politics is not a healthy sign; but if all army officers who meddle in politics are dishonourably discharged, the top and the middle rungs of the Lankan Army would become somewhat.
Moreover, there is not even a shadow of proportionality between the charge – meddling in politics - and the sentence – dishonourable discharge and the stripping of rank and honours. Obviously the Rajapakses not only want to punish their erstwhile ally but also to humiliate him to the maximum.
Perpetrators of human rights violations often efface their crimes by turning their victims into un-persons, ‘Untermenschens’ who do not really count as ‘human’ like the ‘rest of us’. Once this process of de-humanisation is complete it is easy to render invisible even the most heinous of crimes against the target group or individual. In the Orwellian dystopia, those guilty of ‘Thoughtcrime’ were vaporized: “Your name was removed from the registers, every record of every thing you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated…” (Nineteen Eighty-four). When non-persons disappear into jails or are snuffed out on gallows, who would notice?
Is the government implementing a similar tactic vis-à-vis Gen. Fonseka? Is his sentence (dishonourable discharge and the stripping of rank and honours) aimed at transforming him from a military ‘hero’ into a civilian non-hero in the public mind, so that even hanging him can be rendered less unpalatable to the Sinhala South? Is this one of those Rajapakse sleights of hand, so that when the former Army Commander meets his final fate (already decided on by his enemies), he will do so not as General Sarath Fonseka but as Mr. Sarath Fonseka?
Is this transformation of Gen. Fonseka into Mr. Fonseka an attempt to break the link between the man and the army he once commanded? Is this vengeful sentence aimed at habituating the army to regard its former commander as an outsider, than as ‘one of us’? Is the regime using this tactic to inculcate within the army a sense of indifference towards Gen. Fonseka’s ultimate fate? Is the stage being set, so that even if Gen. Fonseka is sent to the gallows as a traitor by some other military tribunals, he will die not as the former Army Commander cum ‘war hero’ but as a disgraced civilian?
Sarath Fonseka was a member of the Triumvirate which won the war against the LTTE. That is an indisputable, unchangeable truth. Or is it? Will the government be able to wipe out this truth by turning Gen. Fonseka’s past on its head? In the Orwellian dystopia, the aim is not just to control the deeds and the thoughts of the populace but also their memory: “The Party said that Oceania has never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness…. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’…. It was quite simple.
All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it” (ibid). Is the Family engaged in a similar exercise of changing history via effacing public memories? After all, if Sarath Fonseka is no longer a former army officer, if he is just a civilian, could he have played any role in defeating the LTTE? Consequently is there any reason mention him in any history of the Eelam War? Vellupillai Pirapaharan used ‘Reality control’ when he arrested, tortured and murdered his one time deputy, Mahattaya. Are the Rajapakses emulating the Tiger leader in this matter as they have done in so many others?
‘Reality control’ works only in a society that is willing to adjust its collective memory according to the needs of the rulers. The North, nursing its physical and psychological in silence, is unlike to forget the key role Gen. Fonseka played in the Fourth Eelam War. Will the South remember or forget? Will the Southern society accept whatever ‘anti-truths’ the regime dishes out, in a collective exercise of ‘consciously inducing unconscious’?
Will the Sinhala supremacists, who once hailed Sarath Fonseka as a hero, remember the past, now that according to the Rajapakse worldview he is not a hero and could not have been, since he is rank-less and honour-less? Will the absolute majority of Sinhalese who danced on the streets and ate kiribath to celebrate the victory over the Tigers, spare a thought for their former idol or will he become as much of a non-person as the dead, injured and displaced Tamil civilians? Will the Maha Sangha who once venerated Sarath Fonseka condone this disproportionate and thus unjust sentence with their silence, as they condone injustice done to the minorities?
It is one thing not to vote for Sarath Fonseka. I did not. But it is quite another thing to be silent when a man is being persecuted for political reasons. I do not support Gen. Fonseka but I do not need to like his ideas and actions in order to oppose the injustice being done to him. Had Gen. Fonseka remained loyal to the Rajapakse brothers, none of the charges which are being levelled against him now would have seen the light of day. He could have meddled in politics to his heart’s content; he could have abused his powers as army commander in favour of or in detriment to anyone; he could have broken any law of the land with total impunity.
All that was required of him was to remain subservient to the Rajapakses, and obedient to all their decisions. Had he gone along with the Rajapakse project of establishing dynastic rule, post-war, on the strength of defeating the Tiger, he would still be a free man and a honoured ‘war hero’. His real crime was not the many charges which are being levelled against him in courts of law and before military tribunals. He fell because he ceased to obey the Rajapakses. And according to the Rajapakse ethos, that is the greatest crime of all, the one most impossible to forgive or forget.
The sentencing of Sarath Fonseka by the first military tribunal concerns all of us not only because it is a travesty of justice but also because it presages the future. Sarath Fonseka is no ordinary man; he was the Army Commander who helped defeat the Tigers. If that man can be denied his own past, if he can be transformed from patriot to anti-patriot, if he can be arrested, tried and convicted in a manner which violates all norms of justice and fair-play, simply because he opposed the Rajapakses, what cannot happen to other less exalted citizens when they fail the test of unquestioning obedience to the Ruling Family?
With the persecution of Sarath Fonseka, a dangerous precedent has been created which can – and will - be used against real or imaginary opponents of the Rajapakses. If the regime is allowed to get away with this crime, it will exponentially increase the threat to the life and liberty of all Rajapakse opponents, past, present or future.
A few years ago Gotabhaya Rajapakse was an average Asian American, working as a manager of a 7-11 Store in Los Angelis and subsequently as a systems analyst at the Loyola Law School. Today he is the second most powerful man in Sri Lanka, after President Mahinda Rajapakse, his brother. This great leap, from the ordinary to the extraordinary, happened thanks to the Rajapakse presidency and is being sustained by that solely.
Many other family members made similar great leaps, from obscurity to fame and fortune. For the Rajapakse tribe, the Rajapakse Presidency has meant a collective transformation from nobodies into somebodies, very important somebodies. For almost all of them, this Cinderella type changeover would not have been possible without the Rajapakse Presidency and their continued occupation of the heights depends completely on the perpetuation of Rajapakse Rule.
The Rajapakses, having gained a world have a world to lose. That is why they react with such ‘fear and vindictiveness’ to anyone they consider to be a threat to their Familial Rule and Dynastic Project. The Rajapakses, like all political parvenus, are uncertain about their grip on power and thus very jealous of it. This sense of being hemmed in by real or potential enemies and detractors, of being threatened by any outsider is abnormally high in their case because of the narrow base endemic to Familial Rule.
The Rajapakses have no natural ideology to justify and no inherent support base to buttress their rule. That is why they embraced Sinhala supremacism and presented themselves as the creators and protectors of a Sinhala-First Sri Lanka. Gen. Fonseka is not just a military man and a ‘war hero’; he is also a strident Sinhala supremacist, and as such a contender for the same ideology and the same base. This is one more reason why the Rajapakses are reacting with such venomous anger towards his political ambitions.
The Rajapakses began by targeting those who opposed its excesses, especially in the conduct of the Fourth Eelam War. Like the Tigers, they too deemed criticism of certain individuals and entities unacceptable, equating such criticism with anti-patriotism. Until just over a year ago, Sarath Fonseka was an enthusiastic votary of Rajapakse governance. He was an architect of the myth of humanitarian operation with zero-civilian casualties. He was blasé about human rights violations and injudicious towards minorities and Southern dissidents. And within the army, his conduct was almost as virulently intolerant as the Rajapakses are within the country.
Today he is at the receiving end of those Rajapakse practices which he approved of and implemented not so long ago. Gen. Fonseka’s story is a morality tale: a citizen cannot tolerate injustice, condone impunity and practice abuse, without sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Irrespective of whether we agree with Sarath Fonseka or not, we cannot remain silent in his moment of peril, without imperilling ourselves.
23 Comments
Thisaranee, my dear remnant child of a distant imperial past reduced to toothless growls or regular moans against the new order, do not imperil yourself to return to imperial rule.
Never start a war that you can not win. You imperil others if you do.
The writer of this article says in the last paragraph that "we cannot remain silent in his moment of peril.....". What happened to the countless Tamils in the last stages of the onslaught cannot be described as space is not enough but who was the Army Commander at that time. It was none other than SF. Prabakaran sinned and the Tamils paid a heavy price. MR and company including SF sinned. What is going on now is very obvious and who knows the worst is yet to come for MR and company. Divine retribution.
T'Ranee..... Yes, Gots was right when he told Sukkur the Stephen had Sarath Fony (No more general) would be sent to gallows.......
T'Raneeeeeeee............
Gota did mean what he told Sukker the Stephen.............Gallows....
Yes. THERE ARE NO GOOD & BAD TRAITORS....... A Traitprs is a TRAITOR Whether good or bad.
We the citizens can tolerate this justice but not a harpoon like you.
Guilty verdict was never in doubt when (02) parlimentarians came forward to give evidence against Fonseka and his Defence Counsel became helpless to decamp and absent himself on some flimsy grounds.
THE TRAITOR WAS ABONDONED BY HIS OWN DEFENCE COUNSELS UNABLE TO DEFEND AGAINST CONCRETE EVIDENCE.
What would T'Ranee would have done ? Lifted her sari Pota and run ??????????????
Even a Peanut farmer became the President of USA. Why not Gota's assension ?
This is the Rajapaksa’s hallmark
Fonseka is opposition leader punished and humiliated to the maximum !!
The Tamils are punished collectively and humiliated to the maximum !!
One example – the concentration camps are called the “ welfare villages’
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Today let's us remember the children !!!
Aug 14, 2006, Chencholai children’s home Massacre
PRESS RELEASE
UNICEF: Children are victims of the conflict in Sri Lanka
Colombo, New York, Geneva, 15 August 2006 – The bombing on Monday of a Vallepuram compound in Mullaitivu district that reportedly killed dozens of girls and wounded many more is a shocking result of the rising violence in Sri Lanka, UNICEF said today.“These children are innocent victims of violence,” said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director. “We call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm.”
The compound in the northern part of the country was bombed, reportedly killing as many as 40 adolescent girls. Some 100 children were wounded, many critically. Girls from various schools in the nearby district of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi were staying overnight at the compound, attending a two-day course in first-aid.
UNICEF staff from a nearby office immediately visited the compound to assess the situation and to provide fuel and supplies for the hospital as well as counselling support for the injured students and the bereaved families.
This latest incident comes amidst escalating hostilities in Sri Lanka in recent weeks, where tens of thousands of children were displaced from their homes. Hundreds of children have been injured, lost family members, and live in constant fear of the violence and continuous shelling of their communities.
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Here is a comparison of key players from both sides who terrorised lankans:
Mahinda - Prabhakaran
Gotabaya - Pottu Amman
Sarath Fonseka - Karuna Amman
Basil - Tamilselvan
Namal - Charles
As you'll see both Sarath and Karuna killed (ordered) many innocent civilians and towards the end try to beat their bosses, switch side and became traitors.
:-)
Fonseka brought this upon himself. I only quietly remind people what would have been the result of the Rajapakses if he won the election?
JAIL? EXILE?, or DEATH?
Fonseka's plans for the Rajapakses and Sri Lanka were far worse that what is happening to him now. Don't cry crocodile tears for him, our country would be under MILITARY COUP and MARSHALL Law if FONSEKA won.
The trials and tribulations of Sarath Fonseka take on epic proportions due to the sheer misuse of power and impunity of the President of a country taking it out on the one who who opposed his presidency. In fact that could be the only crime for which he is so persecuted. Hence this will go down in the history of this country as a story of greed,skulduggery and intolerance. What is the right of Rajapakse to withdraw the respect and recognition won on the battle field by sheer guts and dedication. This story is far from over and as people sow so shall they reap.
The big question here is whether Rajapakses are really
ready to loose power and if and when that happens,to
whom? Apart from military victory,chances for the 2nd
term was already there sitting comfortably for MR.UNP
did that great job.
MR has three main sources of strengths.India and china
Southern province and Ranil's UNP.Bonus:Nationalism
triggered by communalism.Hambantota harbour,airport,
southern expressway and few more magics are underway
for whatever election comes first in five years.A young charming prince is being groomed to carry the
torch forward.
SF alliance with JVP is not heping him in a big way.
Instead it helps MR in many ways to stop the public
from being sympathetic to him.He should get down his
loved ones to fight along side and test the pulse of
the general public.SF winning this battle means,end of Rajapakses and don't forget that.Imagine the rest.
".....General Fonnseka's is a morality tale, a citizen cannot tolerate injustice...."
This unfortunately is the way of this world.The Kissengers get the Nobel prize while the Ortegas, Millosovichs, and Sadam Husseins of the world get tried and bumped off,but in Sri Lanka ex Gen. Sarath Fonseka is gets cashiered.Not bad.At least he is alive and kicking.
Ultimately it all depends on the magic circle one is associated with.Convenient alliances between power and wealth coalesce with fraudsters,drug smugglers, mass murderers and thieves regardless of merit or integrity.They will all join in if the price is right and the bandwagon will continue merrily with snake oil lubricating it's axle.This is what is happening in paradise isle now.
".....General Fonnseka's is a morality tale, a citizen cannot tolerate injustice...."
This unfortunately is the way of this world.The Kissengers get the Nobel prize while the Ortegas, Millosovichs, and Sadam Husseins of the world get tried and bumped off,but in Sri Lanka ex Gen. Sarath Fonseka gets cashiered.Not bad.At least he is alive and kicking.
Ultimately it all depends on the magic circle one is associated with.Convenient alliances between power and wealth coalesce with fraudsters,drug smugglers, mass murderers and thieves regardless of merit or integrity.They will all join in if the price is right and the bandwagon will continue merrily with snake oil lubricating it's axle.This is what is happening in paradise isle now.
I dont give a damn, sarath fonseka paying his price now because law cast sinhala what he done to our people. not to worry mahinda mad govigama will pay soon.
DEAR writer, do you know about semmani grave ask mr fonseka, he will explain you, for your information. god still in this world karma not decided in hell but in world. so we can see it. you know he was commander and in charge of semmani grave because of uniform better strip include cloth. rajapakse will get same situation,wait and see. these all sinhaleese habbit& nature, that is why people migrate by ship,kill & eat like lion. and die last in jungle alone.same
Reading you, dear Tisaranee, is to remind even the most pessimistic of those who believe the flickering flame democracy is gradually dying out - there remains hope - for the regaining of that decent plural society we killed; for that future beyond the Rainbow where all communities can march hand in hand in unity, peace towards reconciliation (Desmond Tutu)
For a semi-literate lot that grabbed power in a grotesque form of democratic elections hijaclkng Buddhism as well "the Presidency i collective transformation from nobodies somebodies...from the ordinary to the very extra-ordinary.." They are not going to give up the plums without a decent fight - and that is for sure. Equally certain is that the services of the Vermin and his criminal goons - the equivalent of Saddam's Presidential Guards and Ahmmedinajed's Revolutionary Guards - cannot be done away with. They will re-emerge - as they gave that sample at Kelaniya junction 2 days ago. "The familial rule and dynastic project" must survive and flourish. Any - even just dissent to this is unpatriotic, against the Buddhist religion and inspired and paid upfront by that dirty Tamil diaspora. Hon. Champika Ramanayake and those patriots around him - more equal than other Buddhists and those from other religions - are well aware "those who control the past, control the future. And those who control the present control the past" So they are busy defacing archeological and historical records and treasures "to fall in conformity" with manufactured instant history for they control the present. But carry on, Lass, you battle for the rights and future of all of us. We are with you. Those ringing words of Bobby Kennedy comes to mind "the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die"
Always a pleasure and intellectual treat to raad you.
ISS
A Sinhalese (? ) writer with so much venom and hatred towards Sinhala Buddhists now pleading to the Maha Sanga to help her beloved mate Fonseka is hilarious.
What is the catch to bat single handed for a Sinhala Buddhist who was openly hostile to the Tamils. gave continuous guarantees to kill 1000 Tigers a month and issued the cumulative total every month.
Rajapaksa has been a politician for nearly forty years, without a single blemish when several high flying leaders fell way side with not so good report cards.
Rajapaksa on the other hand went from MP to PM and then to EP.
This achiement was is more remarkable because he had fight the combined might of the Right Wing Money Bags and their Enforcers , the Christian lobby , the Western masters of the UNP the previous President of his own party ,the Diaspora backed VP and even the Millibands and Solheims of the West.
Give me another example of such acheivment of any politician in the history of democracy.
If you care to read articles by Mr Jeyarag and his followers here you must have noticed that Gotabaya in fact was the architect of holding the Tigers at bay in defending Jaffna against all odds.
So don't waste your time (unless you have nothing else to do) trying to discredit, creditable people because nobody will take notice.
Hello Iss,
The work goes on,the cause endures,the hope still lives on and the dream shall never die:Ted Kennedy.
we shall not stand by or be aloof,we will move on:Bobby Kennedy.
Cheers.
With all due respect to Tisaranee, it should be pointed out that Gotabhaya Rajapakse's words on Hard Talk should be taken in the context of Sri Lankan usage. To say 'We will hang him' is not as bad as it sounds in English English - cf 'we'll hang all the thoras on the kadju-puhulam tree'- any more than saying 'I will have sexual intercourse with his mother'.
As for the Rajapakses being nobodies, they were no more parvenus than the rest of the Sinhalese Buddhist elite before 1956. They may have been poor, but they were not nobodies. The clan was a prominent Matara SGB family, with links to other transitional bourgeois families. The brothers DS and DA were in the State Council and Parliament, while Lakshman and George were both prominent politicians. Of course, like the rest of the Sinhalese Buddhist elite, they could not aspire to the heights of the trans-ethnic Anglican compradore-aristocracy.
It is their roots in the Dharmapala constituency which tend to make their views Sinhala-Buddhist oriented.
Tisaranee should learn to make her analysis free of personal animosity if she is to be taken seriously.
With all due respect to Tisaranee, it should be pointed out that Gotabhaya Rajapakse's words on Hard Talk should be taken in the context of Sri Lankan usage. To say 'We will hang him' is not as bad as it sounds in English English - cf 'we'll hang all the thoras on the kadju-puhulam tree'- any more than saying 'I will have sexual intercourse with his mother'.
As for the Rajapakses being nobodies, they were no more parvenus than the rest of the Sinhalese Buddhist elite before 1956. They may have been poor, but they were not nobodies. The clan was a prominent Matara SGB family, with links to other transitional bourgeois families. The brothers DS and DA were in the State Council and Parliament, while Lakshman and George were both prominent politicians. Of course, like the rest of the Sinhalese Buddhist elite, they could not aspire to the heights of the trans-ethnic Anglican compradore-aristocracy.
It is their roots in the Dharmapala constituency which tend to make their views Sinhala-Buddhist oriented.
Tisaranee should learn to make her analysis free of personal animosity if she is to be taken seriously.
Dear Mr Serengutuan,
The semi literate Vermin has a PhD. What have you got ?
Semi literate President has a Bachelor of Laws and what have you got ?
Literate people must have more convincing, intelligent and convincing arguments and points to discuss matters of importance, rather than calling the opponents illiterate or semi literate.
Well writer nothing but another failure to get credit for his views. He completely ignored the rule of the army, yes SF he was the commander was in the army who follow the order from his boss. And he just executed the plane to his best, he being paid for that and given power to enjoy its privilege but he misused all the benefits. He didn’t stop there he fall in to the most Kalakanni JVP trap. So let him pay the consequences’. If I were president I will shoot him on the firing squad.
In responding to "illiterate" I am all too aware MR has passed his law degree. I am equally aware he was Asst to the Registar in the Parliament Library. I need say no more of this man who is affable, soft-speaking and friendly. As to this PhD of Dutugemunu from Kelaniya we had some respect for our friend Acupuncturist Dr. Ranjith (?) Jayasuriya until he disgraced himself conferring this valueless title on a gangster-criminal. After he died mysteriously, the family spoke in whispers it may be the job of some of his "new found strange friends" with connections to the underworld - who may have had their eyes on
the doctor's valuable cars. How he died and who did it nobody knows.
You certainly fit in to the pen-name you have chosen for yourself. Little wonder the country is in shambles with those like you who back and support dregs, drug-traffickers and socially undesirable.
ISS
Dear Mr Sengertuan,
You didn't answer my simple question. Are you a diplomate graduate or have at least an honorary Doctorate like the Doctor you love to hate.
To call yourself literate you must show some proficiency in at least a little bit of economics.
May I suggest that you read the latest publications from the IMF. WB and Central Bank about the economy of Srilanka before you make ill informed comments about the country.
Illiterate (Aug 18) I responded toyou on the same day.
ISS