Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam – 29 January 2016
Buddha Sasana or Rome
Statute?
The Hon Ranil
Wicremesinghe’s voice welcomed me back to our cottage in Thunaivi, when I
returned after training teenagers at Vaddukoddai where the seeds of separation between
Tamils and Sinhalese were sown. My husband was listening to the news after a
day with our painters from that area. The Prime Minister’s voice sounded
emotional. One of the topics discussed by me during training was the separation
between Emotions and Intellectual Discrimination. It started with an old guy
inquiring about my training when I was assisting one of our trainees to decide
between training in teaching Hindu Culture on the one hand and teaching Special Needs
Children (largely victims of war) on the other. I was urging the trainee to
list the natural strengths and weaknesses and those requiring conscious learning
in the future when this friendly looking guy voluntarily included himself.
Soon a small group
of men joined in – largely as listeners. The volunteer spoke well and had all
the news correct. He said that the sons of Velupillais caused us much
damage! The only one I could work out
was Tamil Tiger leader Prabhakaran. I
asked who the others were? He said SJV Selvanayagam – the founder of Thamil
Arasu Katchi – the main Political party within Tamil National Alliance. I
learnt that the initial V stood for Velupillai. After listening to his
narration of what happened – I said much of it was through his ‘sitrarivu’/
surface brain – which also counts in Majority Rule within the system of
Democracy. The speaker said that when these sons of Velupillais spoke – the listeners
went with them like cattle and now they are suffering. There was no blame
attributed to Sinhalese Government. That is the way with separation. Finally I
asked him to make a statement on the basis of ‘Pahutharivu’ / Discriminative
thinking through common measure. One listener said he had used Pahutharivu and
hence he did not join the LTTE whereas this speaker was with LTTE as well as
other Rebel groups. The speaker smiled and walked away peacefully. He had had
his time to show off his hearsay knowledge and he knew that he had little
active power in that circle. The heritage left behind by him for the younger
Vaddukoddai groups was a little bit cleaner than it would otherwise have been.
The Colombo Gazette article ‘Ranil fumes in
Parliament over media and war crimes issue’ reports as follows:
[Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremessinghe today in Parliament slammed some media
institutions on the manner they had reported the issue over the involvement of
foreign judges in the accountability process on the war. He insisted
that the government will not agree to an international war crimes tribunal
on the Sri Lanka issue. “We have not signed the Rome statute,” he said.]
We committed ourselves to Buddha Sasana
through article 9 of the Constitution. Had we followed that genuinely – we would
not have had to face the war-crimes accusation. Buddha Sasana is a political
measure included in the constitution to facilitate the Buddhist Politician. The
Buddhist Institution and the Secular Institution are the respective parallels of the Executive
and the Judiciary. One uses the one way path and the other the two way balance.
The Sri Lankan Judiciary failed to successfully separate itself from the
Executive and hence is carrying high dose of Political infection leading to one-way
thought order. Hence the low usage of two way discriminative thought order on
the basis of current merit.
A local war-crimes inquiry is likely to be through the one-way track even if it includes
Tamil members of the Judiciary. The Chief Minister of Northern Province and retired
judge – the Hon Wigneswaran is an example of the high dosage of Political infection
in the heritage being handed down to the next generation Tamil Leadership.
As per the above report:
[The
Prime Minister however said today that foreign judges cannot get involved in
the process unless they have the approval of the local Supreme Court and the
Bar Association of Sri Lanka.
Wickremessinghe
said that Sri Lanka will conduct the probe on the war within the framework of
the Constitution.]
A local inquiry is for internal correction
and as per my assessment that would be acceptable to the folks of Vaddukoddai –
provided it is through Buddha Sasana and is therefore fairly easily
comprehensible by Hindus – making up majority power in the Tamil Community. To meet
the requirements of Natural Justice – Tamils must be facilitated to hear all
Terrorism inquiries through Hindu pathway, Muslim pathway and Christian pathway
as per the religion of the person. That would
be our first foundation-stone in Democracy within Judiciary as it is currently
in Sri Lanka.
As per the above report: [The Prime Minister also accused some media
institutions of attempting to instigate communal disharmony.]
If the inquiry is local and there is no specific
parallel to Article 9 of the Constitution,
for minority religions the seeds of
communal disharmony are already germinating. The media may be adding its own
desires to it but it is not the origin.
To the extent we seek to become global – and
participate in global experiences without leaving Sri Lanka, we need global
minds in this very significant event in
Sri Lanka which is a tragedy to majority Tamils. Amongst Tamils there is little
ownership demonstrated in terms of the tragedy. We need to blame others to the
extent we need external benefits. We would take responsibility for our part to
repair our internal system. Sri Lankan leaders on both sides need to go through
the Internal process and publish their ‘reports to shareholders’ about internal
failures. As I pointed out recently also – LTTE was clever and was used by
those seeking shortcuts to ‘freedom’. The deterioration in young ones is confirmation
of this Ravana quality which is not limited to the Tamil side. By limiting the
inquiry, Sri Lankan government is
obviously trying to protect its armed forces and therefore its own political
wins. This is fine – so long as we do not desire use of global resources beyond
our own investment in global principles including the Rome Statute – through PRACTICE. If even one Sri Lankan has genuinely
practiced the Rome Statue – knowingly or otherwise – all Sri Lankans are
entitled to be administered by the principles of Rome Statute. If this is not
facilitated – then the system of Natural Justice would keep contradicting the
Government – through acts of god.
In Vaddukoddai – it is not difficult to
overpower the Sinhalese Officer one way or the other. At Mallakam Courts in
North – the new system is to handover our mobile phones to a private store on
the other side of the road, instead of the Jaffna practice of turning it off or the Colombo
practice of handing it over to the Administration and collecting it at the end.
The above demonstrates lack of consistency in Judicial Administration – despite
North having a retired Judicial leader in the high position. The way the
war-crimes inquiry outcomes are received by various participants would likewise
vary. Such diversity requires ‘localization’ towards internal transformations.
The rest need to be through Global Measures to settle Sri Lanka’s dues to the
Global Community – largely through those who truly practice global values even
in remote areas of Sri Lanka.