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.