Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

22 March 2017

Australia v Sri Lanka in Promoting  Racial Discrimination

[Are you an Anti LTTE lady. There is a difference between the government and LTTE and secondly the genocide is not only 2009 it started from 1948 when dismantling the Tamil Nation began] Email response from France to my article ‘Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka – True or False?

My response to the above was:

[I worked with LTTE to set up their Public Admin.  On what basis do you consider me to be anti  LTTE ? On that same basis am I anti Government also? If what happened from 1948 is genocide to you I respect that. To me it was racial discrimination because we fought back and prevented genocide.

What’s your name any way? Not courageous enough to reveal your name??????]

The above question ‘Are you and Anti LTTE lady?’ would mean different ‘attitudes’ to different persons. To those who know very little about Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,  it would be just a confirmation of political opposition. To me – with inner knowledge of the Tamil Community and how the name of LTTE is abused by individuals for their own narrow purposes – it was a veiled threat to put me down – so the speaker/writer could  ‘tell me’. Being able to ‘tell’ is a political win. It is to prevent this that we have Equal Opposition in Parliament. Without this Balance – a Political Body/Institution does not have the capability to formulate just laws that would, when practiced lead to Truth and therefore Peace.

I forewent my earned benefits and opportunities here in Australia – to confirm that the pain I felt was due to Racial Discrimination which is unlawful in Australia. There was/is  however no definition of Racial Discrimination in the law. As per the laws of Natural Justice – a victim is entitled to allocate the reason why for her/his own purposes. I submitted my belief  through Affidavits. But except in one civil matter – where the other side was also a migrant lady – the big shots did not turn up in Court nor did they submit their belief through Affidavits. I learnt by respecting the judges that I could subpoena someone who has provided Affidavit. When I sued members of my husband’s family for defamation even they did not express their beliefs through Affidavit evidence. Their lawyers did. Those would cover processes and not beliefs in relation to what happened between the two parties.

Here in Australia, we are currently debating in our National Parliament, amendments to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

[As of November 2016, Section 18C is worded as follows:

Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Note: Subsection (1) makes certain acts unlawful. Section 46P of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 allows people to make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission about unlawful acts. However, an unlawful act is not necessarily a criminal offence. Section 26 says that this Act does not make it an offence to do an act that is unlawful because of this Part, unless Part IV expressly says that the act is an offence.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), an act is taken not to be done in private if it:

(a) causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public; or

(b) is done in a public place; or

(c) is done in the sight or hearing of people who are in a public place.

(3) In this section:

"public place " includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, whether express or implied and whether or not a charge is made for admission to the place.]

My complaints started with the complaints against the Central Administrators of the University of NSW, who as per my assessment – were blocking my path to developing Democratic structures in Financial Management. As per my experience – one has to show outcome through an independent pathway to earn Equal position as the other side – in this instance the side with custody of  power.  Once that is produced – one cannot be told by the other. When they so tell – they are guilty of breaching the Structure of Democracy which includes Racial Equality. Tamils of Sri Lanka accumulated this natural right every time they produced independent outcomes but were ‘told’. This happened largely in Public Administration. But rebels hijacked the Agenda and ‘told’ the Government and earned the curse of Democracy.

As stated in my above response to the LTTE supporter – I did help the LTTE develop Democratic systems. The real ones showed me respect as an elder. It is this ‘inclusion’ that is now facilitating the continuity of this work in Vaddukoddai where the Political Declaration of Independence was made in 1976,  but without the appropriate Democratic Administrative structures share with wider community.

The call came through a member of the Yoga Swami group and the offer was as part of UNDP team. I naturally accepted it and delivered as per UNDP standards. THAT is true independence.

The current debate in Australia is summarized as follows:

[To coincide with Harmony Day, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his government watered down race-hate laws contained in Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Under the changes, approved at a joint partyroom meeting in Canberra on Tuesday, the words “offend, insult and humiliate” will be changed to “harass and intimidate”, making race-hate claims harder to prove.] news.com.au

Crucial to endorsing the validity of racial discrimination complaints is the role of Human Rights Commission. The name back then was Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.  But now it has been ‘watered down’ to Human Rights Commission. I concluded that that was due to that Institution not having enough belief to measure the validity of a complaint from the community. I identified with my own contribution – to this downgraded position. Unless the Commission is headed by an independent non-white Australian who believes s/he is an Australian – these institutions and laws are for the purposes of producing outcomes in favor of the producer.

The pathway shown by me – through Due Processes include the following key aspects:

(i)                 The complainant  concerned ought to have worked / operated independently to produce an outcome / show a particular conduct.

(ii)               The complainant must present this to the Commission / Courts through objectively verifiable outcomes and/or belief based Affidavit evidence through ‘what happened’ statements.

(iii)             If the other side does not produce its own evidence – in similar manner – the complainant’s presentation of the matter must be taken as correct.

(iv)             If the other side does produce and successfully establish that the complainant earned the punishment / pain as measured through merit using Common measure – then the complainant’s case is eligible for dismissal.

(v)               If the Commissioner/Judge is seen to be of different race to the complainant the reason attributed by the Complainant through Affidavit and/ or in the witness box needs to be accepted as the right reason. If the Commissioner / Judge is seen to be of the same race as the complainant – the reasoning needs to be evaluated by the Judge through her/his own belief. Discretionary powers need to be provided to the Judge for this reasoning.

In Human Rights issues why something happened is at the root of the problem and therefore the solution. In Democracy, the root is shared in common by diverse cultures and hence the form as to why something happened would be different. In business what happened is more important. To validly state in court why we ‘believe’ something happened – we need to swear. Affirmation in enough to state what happened.

Through my current Court experiences in Colombo and Jaffna, Sri Lanka, I learnt that Buddhists in Sri Lanka do not swear but only affirm. By swearing on our religious bibles – we invoke the common belief of our religious group and when we speak the Truth – their power is assures support to the one who speaks the Truth to them. In the Colombo case, the guy who occupied our land affirmed and did not swear when he gave evidence. But I swore and eventually I found the evidence that all others including lawyers and the judge missed. This Buddhist guy filed a case against a Hindu and in that the address of the Hindu is given as the address of OUR Land which the Buddhist claimed as his on the basis of Prescriptive rights. My belief  invoked the motivational powers within me to keep digging until I found the evidence that was produced through another Hindu. One who has deep need will seek and find the Truth.

Talking about Truth about Australia’s role in Sri Lanka – the picture shown through a Sydney forum is that Sri Lanka is for Sinhalese:

National Policies and Economic Affairs State Minister Niroshan Perera (right) answers a question during the Invest Sri Lanka forum held at Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel yesterday. Others from left: CSE CEO Rajeeva Bandaranaike, Fitch Ratings Lanka MD and CEO Maninda Wickramasinghe, Central Bank Director of Economic Research Dr. (Mrs.) Yuthika Indraratne,  CSE Chairman Vajira Kulatilaka and SEC Director General Vajira Wijegunerwardane 

At a time when Australia has promised to help Sri Lanka in post-war development work – the above grouping under the leadership of Politician needed to show Equal participation of Tamils. By not facilitating this our High Commissioner has failed in his duty as a Tamil in ethnically divided Sri Lanka. As an Australian Tamil I consider the above to be racially discriminatory which damages my earned opportunities to participate in such discussions. Over to you our Australian Prime Minister. Since you are neither Sinhalese nor Tamil and in the absence of an expression of belief in opposition to mine – you have the responsibility to accept my verdict and balance the powers that use Australian minds. Using your own proposal to use the phrase “harass and intimidate” I confirm that such actions to leave out Australian Tamils who have demonstrated  active involvement in Development work at grassroots level is mental intimidation by denying one her/his earned status. If you take no action, I conclude that  you are guilty of aiding the promotion of racism in Australia.