We men and women’s activism

“Where, after all, do human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world… Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” - Eleanor Roosevelt, 1958

“Laws will be introduced to remove inequalities among men and women… Women will be assured of enjoying equal status in the society. Within one year, a Women’s Charter of Rights, which provides protection and equality for women, will be enacted. I will arrange to increases (sic) the number of nominations of women to a minimum of 25% of the total number of candidates in respect of Provincial Councils and Local Government authorities.” - Mahinda Chintanaya

Eleanor Roosevelt accepted reluctantly the offer by President Truman to join the US delegation to the first UN General Assembly in London. Although, she wasn’t taken seriously at first, her staunch championing of the rights of refugees won friends and a year after, led to her appointment as Chair of a committee at the UN that proposed an international bill of human rights. Unanimously appointed the first Chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Eleanor played a pivotal role in the creation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Hansa Mehta, the Indian freedom fighter, and Eleanor were the only two women in the Human Rights Commission. It was Hansa, not Eleanor, who objected to the phrase in the first draft of Article 1 that “all men are brothers…”, noting that this could be interpreted in some countries to exclude women. Hansa’s persistence at incorporating an expression that fully recognised the equality of women and men resulted in the text finally adopted for Article 1, that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

I coincidentally happened to be reading about these key architects of the UDHR when the Women and Media Collective (WMC) held a retrospective and exhibition of art and photography at the Lionel Wendt last week, celebrating a quarter century of activism on women’s rights in Sri Lanka. After spousal death, through their own merit, through favouritism, clientelism and occasionally, as elected Presidents and commanders-in-chief, women have indelibly stamped their presence in party politics for decades. And yet, although women make up of 52% of Sri Lanka’s population, they have abysmal representation in Parliament and local government authorities. Problems of agency, empowerment and representation abound and sadly endure. As Chulani Kodikara, writing to Groundviews last year noted, it is the exclusive, violence and male dominated driven party political culture that is a significant obstacle to the representation of women in political institutions, though not the only one. As she notes,

The enormous costs of contesting elections, the thuggery and violence, the competition within the party fostered by the proportional representation system and the general lack of support for women candidates from male colleagues mean that even the few women who are offered, are often reluctant to accept nominations.

Chulani ends her critique by asking whether we need to “revisit and reframe the discourse on increasing political representation of women in Sri Lanka, in order to have an impact in the near future”. The WMC’s retrospective was one response to Chulani’s submission. On the one hand, petitions and letters such as those written by Kantha Handa to President Jayawardene in the 80’s, sans the dateline, articulated concerns and challenges no less dominant in the present context and under incumbent Executive. Flagging the violations of and need to strengthen key social and political rights, including the right to strike, these print and poster campaigns in Sinhala, Tamil and English from the pre-Internet, pre-computer typeset era were essentially disquieting in exposing how little had changed in our violent political culture in general, and apart from some advances, the representation and empowerment of women in particular. Images of women in mainstream politics from 1948 onwards were exceptional, both in the sense of celebrating outstanding women who challenged the status quo and their atypical nature to this day. Particularly striking was the range of rights championed over twenty-five years by women’s organisations, eschewing cultish formations around certain provisions and articles in the UDHR, as well as purely opportunistic interpretations of rights. The posters and photographs on display framed inter alia, outrage, courage, determination, resilience and the remembrances of violence past. On the other hand, WMC’s mobile phone video and photography competitions to get the public to engage with women’s rights made this not just a tired retrospective of twenty-five years, but a tableau alive to current challenges and perceptions of woman and new forms of discourse. I have on many occasions proposed that for women and other similarly marginalised and muted groups, the strategic use of new media and mobiles offer a range of ways, unimaginable even a few years ago, through which existing obstacles to expressing voice gendered concerns, political participation, identity and progressive change can be overcome, or at least, mitigated.

The juxtaposition of Eleanor’s understanding of human rights and our President’s vision for women’s rights is a snapshot of how much Sri Lanka falls short of the UN’s UDHR in spirit and fullest implementation and expression in polity and society. This essential hypocrisy of successive governments in this regard is well documented, but of serious concern is why even after twenty-five years, more women and men fail to challenge the status quo and champion change. Much perhaps has to do with diminishing returns and increasing risk of physical harm, particularly under this government and the culture of impunity it has invested in so heavily and openly. WMC’s retrospective highlighted large civil and political rights movements in the 80s and 90s involving ordinary women and men, galvanised by a common calling to rise up against hate, harm, inequality and injustice. This is rare today.

The most insulting and insensitive language against women is published even in newspapers with female editors. Racists in Sinhala media and online in particular use a vicious argot of profanity against women writers who they find inconvenient, and this is most pronounced in anonymous comments and contributions under a pen name. Coupled with the overarching violence against political activism against the State, a fear psychosis and quite understandably, an unwillingness to be vilified in public, WMC’s exhibition perhaps unintentionally was a record of path-breaking and courageous activism in decline. And yet, the forms of violence such activism bore witness to is evident even today, from that which is systemic and physical to that which is expressed through the media and psycho-social in nature. Perhaps twenty-five years hence, a similar retrospective will capture contemporary struggles to prop women’s and human rights as those which facilitated a more representative and equitable polity and society.

As a woman or man, wouldn’t you be proud to be part of such a progressive narrative?

Published in The Sunday Leader, 16 October 2009

War crimes

“It is lamentable that the Government of Sri Lanka continues to divert attention from the central truth in this matter – that is, the problem of impunity for serious human rights violations…”

Press released by the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), 30 April 2008

The report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, released last week, resonates deeply with Sri Lanka’s current fixation on war crimes allegations. The UN mandated mission was headed by Justice Richard Goldstone concludes that “While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operation as essentially a response to rocket attacks in exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.” Castigating Israel for violating Geneva Conventions, the mission recommends international legal actions against both Israel and Hamas for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The Economist report on the release of the report notes that the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, “has given orders for a diplomatic campaign to discredit the report and counter the mission’s effort to have Israelis charged with war crimes.” Israel did not cooperate with the fact-finding mission. A letter to Justice Goldstone from Amb. Aharon Leshno Yaar, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva noted that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had undertaken its own investigations and that  “Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Mission is… without prejudice to its conviction that any allegations of wrongdoing by Israeli forces in the course of the conflict must be investigated, and where appropriate, prosecuted.” Reminiscent of Sri Lanka’s erstwhile International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), a key recommendation of the mission is to establish an independent committee of experts in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law to monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings undertaken by the Government of Israel in relation to its own investigations. The mission’s report brings out a number of other striking similarities between the tenor and behaviour of Israel and that of the Sri Lankan government, both during war and in response to a process of investigations into alleged war crimes.

Our domestic debate on allegations of war crimes is presently informed and framed primarily by a video broadcast by England’s Channel 4, the President’s claims that the war was conducted with zero casualties and news of moves by US based Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) to obtain commercial satellite imagery and through subsequent image analysis prove the occurrence of war crimes in the Vanni. The usual conspiracy theories thrive. Anyone for example who questions the zero casualty theory propounded by the Executive is necessarily in cahoots with one or all of the parties, usually from the West, hell bent on regime change. Together with the uncertainty over the extension of the EU’s GSP Plus trade concessions, and sustained domestic and international condemnation over the continuing internment of Tamil IDPs in Menik Camp, it is understandable the government feels under siege, and perhaps rightfully so. Of concern here is that instead of addressing its own failures, the government’s pushback is anchored to the vilification of civil society and sections of the international community, including the United Nations. Prospects of meaningful accountability for the government’s policies and practices during war, reconciliation and peace in this context remain extremely bleak.

For example, the termination of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), at a time when its operation and mandate is most critical and the recall of Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, whose views on constitutional reform and IDPs were increasingly discordant with government policies and practices, suggest that the mere absence of war is, to this President and his government, perfect peace. To doubt or qualify this peace, defined by and seen through an exclusive Sinhala Buddhist mindset, is to be a killjoy and traitor to boot. Sadly then, to a much greater degree than the significantly flawed design and implementation of the peace process under the CFA, the Rajapakse regime’s approach to and understanding of peacebuilding is indubitably geared to ferment more violence. Reconciliation is an inevitable collateral. But there’s the rub. Knowing what really went on in the war, and the accountability and reconciliation that can follow, are vital for processes of healing and forgiving. To rebuild trust and positive relations between peoples who share an unequal yet common trauma of war and violence requires the restoration of, above all, human dignity. Menik Farm today is the anti-thesis of this vital need. Yet, the readership of this column emphatically do not represent a significant quotient in Sri Lanka who actually want or see any need for accountability and reconciliation thus defined post-war.

Three key narratives, each myopic and biased, will inform this on-going debate on accountability and war crimes. One will be defined primarily by pro-LTTE diaspora to hold the Rajapakse administration accountable for war crimes. Satellite imagery analysis by Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) may bring about evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ranting and raving aside, there is nothing the Rajapakse government can do about it. TAG’s primary sources are in geo-stationary orbit and their key witnesses are already in foreign countries. The government will obviously contest the evidence tabled, but we can be fairly certain that war crimes by the LTTE will be, at best, mentioned en passant. Eyewitness accounts such as that from Damilvany Gnanakumar published recently in the British press concur with a number of other narratives from those in the Vanni at the time of indiscriminate shelling by the Army. But while Gnanakumar’s compelling account must be appreciated for what it is and not summarily dismissed as propaganda, it does not help us address, for example, disturbing footage from an unmanned aerial drone released in May this year by the government showing what it said were LTTE cadres firing indiscriminately at people trying to flee along a beach. In comparison, Justice Goldstone’s report clearly notes that Palestinian armed groups “failed to distinguish between military targets and the civilian population” in Southern Israel and that their deliberate targeting of civilians would constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. It also notes that these armed groups contributed to heavy civilian casualties in Gaza from Israeli retaliatory fire after it launched attacks from built-up, civilian areas. The damning parallels here to the LTTE’s tactics against Tamil civilians are obvious, and must be interrogated as part of any war crimes investigations.

The Rajapakse government exclusively defines the second narrative. In its maddeningly farcical description of war as a “hostage rescue operation” and a “humanitarian mission with zero casualties”, it is obvious that the government will violently clamp down on any concerns raised over the actions of the armed forces. Critical reports from the UTHR (J) and statements from V. Anandasangaree point to the systemic and sustained targeting of Tamil civilians in the Vanni by the armed forces. They also raise concerns over the circumstances surrounding the capture and death of Prabhakaran. These concerns, from actors who were never supine apparatchiks of the LTTE or remotely interested in its revival, tellingly do not feature in the mainstream Sinhala media. The result is a public, partly because they unquestioningly consume myopic media, who will resolutely oppose calls from political parties, civil society and the international community to investigate war crimes and accountability. Mirroring the government, such calls will be seen as an affront to our sovereignty, undermining our national security and based on hypocrisy and dual standards. This same public, particularly if the EU’s GSP Plus trade concessions do not come through, contains elements that can and will be easily and effectively mobilised violently against some key actors in civil society. Examples of whipping up emotions in this regard already abound in government-controlled media. Meaningful public discussion and debate on allegations of war crimes, or even on the strengthening of domestic human rights instruments so comprehensively undermined by government, is in this context a non-starter.

The international community informs the third narrative on war crimes. In an article on Sri Lanka’s bizarre post-war foreign policy published recently on Groundviews, the author succinctly notes that,

“The confrontational stance has additionally become a election gimmick to display the regime’s bravado in confronting world powers to the largely insular rural electorate whose patriotic fervour can be easily manipulated in order to divert their attention from their own as well as the nation’s dire economic straits. The regime constantly highlights the double standards and hypocrisy of the West with regard to war crimes and human rights abuses in order to vindicate themselves of the very same injustices which is a puerile and pathetic form of defence, to say the least.”

The fiasco over Bob Rae earlier this year and the deportation and public vilification of the UNICEF spokesperson are two examples in a litany of incidents this year alone that reveal the chutzpah of the Rajapakse regime. But the underlying and enduring challenge of international calls for investigations into war crimes is that it places at grave risk domestic actors, including independent journalists, writers and human rights activists perceived to be supporting such investigations. Also, using war crimes investigations as a means of regime change by some is a covert agenda that seriously undermines processes of restorative justice and is self-defeating to boot. The Rajapakse regime will not be dislodged by international pressure, and the West must be acutely sensitive to this. Any statement calling for accountability and recommending that human rights conditionalities must be imposed on and pegged to all bilateral aid and trade even post-war, will be seen and portrayed as evidence that the West, along with its local agents, is hell-bent on regime change. Invariably, reactions to this self-serving conspiracy, from a deified, venerated government and particularly from the Executive and those closest to him, will be visceral and violent.

These three narratives, inextricably entwined, give very little space for serious truth telling and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Writing in the New York Times last week, Justice Goldstone noted that,

“Absent credible local investigations, the international community has a role to play. If justice for civilian victims cannot be obtained through local authorities, then foreign governments must act. There are various mechanisms through which to pursue international justice. The International Criminal Court and the exercise of universal jurisdiction by other countries against violators of the Geneva Conventions are among them. But they all share one overarching aim: to hold accountable those who violate the laws of war. They are built on the premise that abusive fighters and their commanders can face justice, even if their government or ruling authority is not willing to take that step. Pursuing justice in this case is essential because no state or armed group should be above the law.”

However, it is unlikely that the Rajapakse regime will be shamed by any war crimes investigations in the near future. At the risk of annoying some, it may be that championing war crimes investigations is precisely what the international and domestic human rights lobby should NOT be engaged in at present. Arguably more urgent would be advocacy that flags continuing violations of human rights post-war, not least of 260,000 IDPs interned in hellish conditions. Investigations into war crimes rarely explore the underlying causes of violent conflict. Systemic racism, a rampant Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism in all aspects of governance and culture, growing social and economic inequality – these are enduring challenges of post-war Sri Lanka that the defeat of the LTTE has brought into sharp relief and if unaddressed, will lead to repeated situations where crimes against humanity are alive.

With some patience, it is entirely possible that the growing nepotism and intra-party strife in the SLFP will undermine the government’s power, with no outside intervention necessary or needed for regime change. Then, not now, would be the time for naming and shaming for architects and perpetrators of war crimes alive today have few places to hide. Digital evidence and testimonies of their vile handiwork, once recorded, does not fade away with time and cannot be censored. The stigma that such material can arouse in the countries and neighbourhoods perpetrators may escape to when their domestic power wanes can be a powerful weapon of social accountability, long after crimes were committed, and beyond the control of international jurisprudence, their personal lawyers and goon squads. As Justice Goldstone notes in the New York Times,

“As a service to the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and for the equal application of international justice, the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account.”

That said, truth telling takes time, courage and an enabling environment. We must be patient and strategic.

Published in the Sunday Leader, 20th September 2009

The shame of Menik Farm

The floods that affected significant swathes of the expansive Menik Farm a week ago generated interesting responses from government. One of the most revealing was the deafening silence of the usually loquacious Rajiva Wijesinghe, and the lack of any statement over the flooding by the Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe.

On 22 July, Mahinda Samarasinghe noted during an adjournment debate on IDPs in Parliament that,

We are quite definite in our view that conditions on the so-called welfare centres and relief villages can and must be improved. As I have said on numerous occasions, these persons are not a mere statistic to be discussed as an abstract problem. These are Sri Lankan citizens with all the expectations, hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow which has been made possible by the defeat of terrorism. We must not let those aspirations wither away for want of concentrated and concerted effort on our part.

He went on to note,

… in the aftermath of a historic operation to rescue them from a ruthless terrorist organization, all necessary measures must be taken to ensure not only their welfare but also the welfare of the general populace of Sri Lanka in those areas and in the rest of the country. It is for this reason, that the freedom of movement of some of these IDPs has been restricted. We are not happy to do so nor are we totally inconsiderate of their rights. We are well aware that some cadres of the LTTE have infiltrated the ranks of the IDPs and, until and unless those cadres are filtered out, we have no option but to keep them within the welfare centres and relief villages.

I have quoted the Minister at length because his justification for the continued internment of IDPs is one that is echoed, albeit more offensively, from other quarters in government. A month after the Minister’s submission to Parliament, the divide between rhetoric and reality is acute. Even in July, he is uncertain of what really to call Menik Farm. That they offer relief, to any degree, is a farce. That they are established for the welfare of those displaced, and what is more, those of us outside, is preposterous. IDPs I doubt gladly rely on the largesse of Southern voters to keep them undernourished and interned.  Eric P. Schwartz, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at the US State Department was more forthcoming last week when he unambiguously said IDPs were confined against their will and that “people who are displaced should be agents of their own destiny”.

The Minister refers to the welfare of the IDPs and the welfare of the general populace of Sri Lanka as a bizarre justification for their internment. The argument goes on to suggest that some cadre of the LTTE reside in these camps. Fine. They do. So what? Why is this government suddenly so insecure of dealing with the emaciated remnants of the LTTE after decimating the larger movement? Surely, the swift containment of nascent terrorism would be a cinch for a trigger happy Army, even if all these arms caches buried underground somehow found their way into the hands of these under-nourished, traumatised IDPs? The Defence Secretary is on record noting that defence procurements and spending will continue unabated. Sarath Fonseka is on record saying that recruitment and fortification of the North and East will continue apace. This, lest we forget, is all post-war – when we have already been told the enemy has been decisively defeated. What is the government so frightened of then to suggest that the only reason for keeping over 260,000 IDPs interned in horrific conditions is out of care and concern for them and us?

And does the traditional media feature in this debate? Who in traditional media has questioned the plans of raving megalomaniacs in the Ministry of Defence who have a muscular grip over the fate of these IDPs? All SMS news services, that never fail to deliver cricket scores minutes after events on the pitch, were silent for over 3 days after the devastating floods in Menik Farm. Only Tamil media featured news of the flooding the day after the floods. The plight of IDPs was, shamefully, a non-issue for Sinhala newspapers last Sunday, with no front-page coverage whatsoever. This was despite a number of reports which suggested that toilet pits were overflowing, floors of tents were soggy and wet, IDPs had no change from wet clothes, a lack of dry firewood for cooking, that roofs of some tents blown away are increasing concerns over health and sanitation conditions with the impending monsoon. Erased by a supine traditional media, many in the South do not know the real ground conditions faced by IDPs. Worse, in a damning display of indifference, the South does not care enough to find out and demand this information.

Parading patriotic piffle, the catastrophic failure of this President and his government to adequately care for those interned in Menik Farm calls for a recalibrated purpose in aid and advocacy, not redoubled effort to keep these concentration camps intact. We cannot assuage our guilt for what we know is wrong by the occasional cover story, donation, photo op or sanitised visit. My commitment to the immediate release of these IDPs is not based on some Western funded conspiracy to resurrect the LTTE, which the government never tires of accusing civil society of, or on the submission that no LTTE cadres reside in Menik Farm. So what if they do? As I have noted earlier, why isn’t human dignity more important to establish, and an effective counter against residual terrorism, than the inhumane, degrading open-air imprisonment of IDPs? However much the government tries to identify and contain, elements of the LTTE will persist locally and globally. Surely a better way to address this threat is to ensure that legitimate aspirations of all communities, especially those who have been historically marginalised, are negotiated and met?

The rabid racism of the Rajapakse regime that Sri Lanka’s erstwhile Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Dayan Jayatilleke tragically defended, was nevertheless a socio-political phenomenon he critiqued when he noted that,

One of the basic errors of Sinhala ultranationalists’ discourse is the conclusion that Tamil ethnic politics or identity politics died on the banks of the Nandikadal.  There can be a military victory over a military challenge but there cannot be a purely military victory over a political challenge. An enemy army can and must be defeated, an armed opponent can be killed, but a political challenge requires a political response and an idea can be defeated only by another idea.

Dayan’s post-war critique of the regime is congruent with Mahinda Samarasinghe’s submission that the aspirations of IDPs must be allowed to “wither away for want of concentrated and concerted effort on our part”. And yet where is this alternative vision and idea? Who in government is championing it? Why does the Ministry of Defence continue to have such a stranglehold on our imagination and media that we see all these IDPs as LTTE, or those who gave the LTTE succour and therefore fit to be treated in the manner they are? In an interview with the relative of a family interned in Menik Camp I listened to last week and published online, the speaker notes “The President of Sri Lanka, Hon. Mahinda Rajapakse says these people are his own citizens, but how they treat these people you can’t believe.”

But to even disbelieve and contest, citizens need to know what conditions are in Menik Camp. The lack of access to media is a problem, but not an insurmountable challenge. It is now sadly a convenient excuse for so-called independent media, fearful of the repercussions of investigative journalism, to turn a blind eye to the plight of these IDPs. Ironically, this lack of scrutiny guarantees precisely that which the government seeks to avoid – condemnation, wholly justified, of violent policies and practices that will invariably put paid to reconciliation and tragically erase our best chance of peace in decades. The call for the release of these IDPs is not a traitorous one. It is the moral and the right thing to do. It is not a call to support or reignite terrorism. It is to demand for government to stop mirroring the insensitivity of the LTTE and its abhorrent violence against civilians. It is to demand government to urgently act like they really give a damn.

As a Southerner and a Sinhala Buddhist, I am ashamed of what we have become, and how we silently countenance, nay justify, this significant post-war violence against fellow Tamil citizens. We were silent patriots during war, because we thought they were all terrorists. We are silent patriots after war, because we think they must still be terrorists. Menik Camp is a litmus test of our real commitment to peace. We do not need more support to strengthen it. We need resources and the political will to urgently to dismantle it.

Glass jawed patriots and others who don’t demand this, and worse, feel they don’t need to, will be the chief architects of a new LTTE.