An Open Letter To The High Commissioner For Human Rights – IV

By Brian Senewiratne – APRIL 5, 2019

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

The 6th Amendment to the Constitution must be scrapped

Introduced in August 1983 by Sri Lanka’s first dictator, J.R Jayawardena, the 6th Amendment states that:

“No person shall directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment f a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka”.

In other words, one cannot even discuss a separate state for the Tamils.

The penalty for violating this Constitutional Amendment is severe. It includes confiscation of movable or immovable property.

While those outside Sri Lanka do not need to worry about this nonsense, those in Sri Lanka do have to worry because the full force of the law can be applied. It might, in fact, even be applied to those outside Sri Lanka who have property in Sri Lanka.

It is imperative that this absurd Constitutional Amendment is removed.

A Referendum in the North and East

It is important to have a Referendum in the North and East to ask the people what they want. Are they happy with what is going on or do they want a separate State, Tamil Eelam?  It has to be a proper Referendum. A poorly conducted Referendum could be more dangerous than no referendum. It has to be a UN conducted Referendum with UN Forces replacing the Sri Lankan Armed Forces as was done in East Timor. If the result is “We want a Separate State,” then the UN will have to deliver, as was done in East Timor.

For an effective Referendum to take place in the North and East, the Sri Lankan government will have to cooperate. I cannot see any Sri Lankan government, now or in the future, conducting a proper Referendum as set out above.

The only way an effective Referendum will take place is if there is massive pressure from other countries. I cannot see this happening. The only country that might do so is India, or to be more specific, Tamil Nadu. However, India is run from Delhi, not from Tamil Nadu. As such, hoping that India will act is a futile thought.

Tamils without a leader

 After the death of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam in the 1977, there has been no Tamil civilian leader worth talking about. The TNA (Tamil National Alliance) is a joke and the Sri Lankan government treats it as such. The TNA spokesman is effectively supporting the Sri Lankan government, not the Tamil people who elected him.

For several years the Roman Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Rt Rev Dr Rayappu Joseph was the unofficial leader of the Tamil people. I was worried about his survival and wrote an entire booklet: “Sri Lanka: Rt Rev Dr Rayappu Joseph and others in danger”.  He had a devastating stroke and is unable to speak. Whether this was due to medical causes or whether he was poisoned I do not know. What I do know is that the Tamils lost an invaluable leader,

An upcoming leader is the former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, a former Supreme Court judge, C.V. Wigneswaran.  I gather that M.A. Sumanthiran, the spokesman for the TNA, has demanded that Wigneswaran be removed from his position.

At a recent event in the Jaffna Hindu College, three young Tamil boys with exceptional courage, got on to the stage and said, “Sumanthiran must resign from Parliament since he does not represent the Tamil people any more. He is with the Government”. These are, hopefully, the future leaders of the Tamil people.

The absolute need to have human rights monitors in the Tamil areas

When there is a violation of human rights such as rape by the Armed Forces, Police or paramilitary Tamil groups working with the government, there is nowhere that the victim, a Tamil woman or girl, can lodge a complaint.  To go to the Police is not only useless but might even be dangerous. In my book on Sexual Violence of Tamils by the Armed Forces, I have said that if the victim goes to the Police station or the Army Camp, there is a risk that the victim or whoever accompanies her, getting raped or the details taken, not for any action but for a midnight ‘visit’ by the Police or the Armed Forces.

The claim that international human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group are allowed into the country is not good enough. For a start, if/when these organisations visit the Tamil areas they are accompanied by members of the Armed Forces or Police who take notes of who was visited and what was said.  This even happened when the former UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navaneetham Pillay, visited the area. Before her visit, people were told that any complaints to her would be noted and the consequences could be serious.

There is no alternative to having set places manned by Tamil civilians to whom victims of human rights abuse could complain without fear.

It will take years before this serious problem is resolved and it will not be resolved until the Armed Forces are removed from the area and Sinhalese Police are replaced by Tamil Police.

The potential for development of the Tamil North and East

There are several economists who have said that the Sri Lankan North and East have the greatest potential for development. It is this that has been, to a large extent, taken over by the Armed Forces to run commercial projects.

The Sinhalese Armed Forces in the North own a 180 acre farm, many hotels and resorts, a golf course, three cricket stadiums, a ferry service, two whale watching tours, two air lines and numerous cafes that dot the roads in the North and East. These are just the ones we know about. Many have been opened after President Sirisena got into power.

Some of these can be seen in the outstanding publication by the British Tamils Forum that I have referred to.

The land for all this has been seized from the Tamil people without the payment of compensation.   

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