Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

25 April  2019

Defence Intelligence or Social Information ?

Today we celebrate ANZAC union of beliefs in Defence. This memorial is  important to both countries during times of heightened use of weapons. Some news reports stated that there were possibilities that the Christchurch attack and the Sri Lankan attacks were connected. The New Zealand Prime Minister stated that there was no intelligence to confirm this. Can both be true at the same time? Yes. If true one would be belief based and the other intellectual. From the point of view of victims of the NZ attack  - the NZ Prime Minister became part of the Muslim community – sharing in their pain. This sharing would render access to their inner beliefs and hence when the NZ Prime Minister states that there is no connection – that is a true statement on behalf of all New Zealanders. Australian leaders for their turn condemned the attacker. Then there is closure at the political / emotional level and the matter then gets elevated to the intellectual level. At this level, one needs to take into account the interests of wider world and hence need to measure through common principles and laws. The intelligence gained through such an inquiry would benefit wider world and help them prevent such attacks in their own countries.

As a Tamil I just could not accept suicide bombings. But after spending time with the Tamil Tigers during ceasefire time in 2003  - I stopped rejecting such bombings as evil.   That belief  gradually and quietly educated me. By then I knew about isolation due to my experience at the University of NSW. Those who benefited from my services did not come forward to show support. But within me I lived off the genuine appreciation of my contribution by a few from time to time. That was belief based. But to my mind, I also committed suicide at  paid work level.

The Christchurch attacker did not kill himself because he believed in the justice system in this area through regular life as a White person in a White majority kingdom. But in environments where  minorities are punished proportionately more harshly than the  ethnic group of the custodians of power, the gap accumulates including through the experiences of others in their circle of belief - until they feel enough courage to retaliate.  Individuals and small groups would then pick those in high positions – usually politicians and senior government officials as their target. To them living at the lower level would be less satisfactory than the pleasure of winning at that point of time. If not for that Jesus would have avoided being put to death.

The difference between these suicide bombers and Jesus is that  the bombers need to see to believe while Jesus knew he was the leader also of those who attacked him.  Former is at quid pro quo level and the latter is philosophical level. Former is social media information while latter is Governance intelligence. This would lead to the question as to how the intelligence from Indian officials was treated by their Lankan parallels:

As per the Guardian report headed ‘Sri Lanka told of extremist network months before blasts – sources’ :

[Sarath Fonseka, a Sri Lankan field marshall and politician, told parliament the attack appeared to have been “seven or eight months in the making” and exposed a “monumental lapse in intelligence gathering”.

“In any other country, the entire government would have had to resign for making a mess of things like this, but it won’t happen here,” he said. “Security has become a joke.”]

Mr Fonseka was committed to the order in his work and hence could not be killed by the LTTE at a time when Mr Fonseka was conscious of his need to live. Hence to that extent we could accept his conclusion from a defence angle. But it was not any ‘intelligence’ that saved him from the suicide bomber. He was in his home territory where common belief protects. Some die and others live in the process. Mr Fonseka through his work protected the people in common and his work got protected.  In the case of those who sacrifice  the physical – the value of their belief is preserved and only their bodies die.  They are all heroes.

Mr Fonseka moving into politics does not carry that protection unless it is deep belief where commonness is strongest. Mr Fonseka and other military leaders who accepted diplomatic postings are part of the reason why the local military intelligence got weakened. The intelligence from Indian officials became social information.

Indians have common belief bank about rebels through their investment in Tamil militants.  In 1983, Tamil youth enrolled  themselves in high numbers because they could not bear the fact that Their community was defenceless against mobs who attacked them. This is likely to have happened with young and restless Muslims in Sri Lanka after the attacks on their community, by Buddhists. It is indeed a divine duty to preserve one’s dignity as a human being. To the extent of their belief based connection with Tamil community  they were within their natural rights. But with time, recruitment happened from communities that separated themselves especially on caste basis. Hence the belief based connection got weakened and the militants got defeated.

Through my life with Toddy Tapper group in their separated area I learnt that they are not able to genuinely take junior positions with educated people but rather include themselves for quid pro quos. In contrast – those who live in multicultural areas are able to take the junior positions in secular structures more comfortable and demonstrate greater accountability. Combatants from the isolated groups would have had difficulty taking junior position with politicians who according to them could not save themselves from the Government’s attacks. Politicians have the duty to include them also and that is a huge challenge to maintaining reliable intellectual order.

Politics without common belief is as damaging as information through social media. Since politicians kept singing the ‘War against Terrorism’  song – for political purposes – their mind order dropped to social level where there are more buddies than seniors and juniors. Those politician who ‘used’ the military as door mats to claim political victory diluted their reception of information through orderly process. If Karuna – the Eastern Province LTTE leader had remained in defence mode – he would have picked up the warning signs at grassroots level.

Sri Lanka has weakened its defence capacity by taking ‘wins’ after conclusion of the war for political purposes. That is the root cause of negligence at government level. At people’s level – those who left it to the government did not have the capability to pick the minds of local rebels at their levels. Intuition would warn them as per their depth in commonness. To that extent they are responsible to the victims.

To most resident Sri Lankans – analyses by the educated living outside Sri Lanka are hearsay. Such is like education for the status only. The educated Muslims in the group are no exception. As per ABC news:

[Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed one of the suicide bombers responsible for the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks attended an Australian university.

Key points:

One of the suicide bombers completed his post-graduate education in Australia

The death toll from the deadly attacks was revised up to 359 on Wednesday

Investigators say the attacks were retaliation for the Christchurch shootings

Sri Lankan Junior Minister for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said the bomber completed his post-graduate education in Australia.

It comes after the death toll was revised up to 359 earlier on Wednesday.

"What I can say is this group, some of the suicide bombers, most of them are well educated and come from maybe middle or upper-middle class," Mr Wijewardene said.

"Some of them have studied in various other countries, they hold degrees and they are quite well-educated people]

If ‘education’ is not the highest priority to the Muslim community – then those pathways could be used for lesser purposes. The next time a Muslim student from Sri Lanka is arrested under suspicions of terrorism – as Nizamdeen was – here in Australia – one needs to not oppose due process by Defence. When our pathway is reliable - we get the behaviour we reward.

Once the mind is lowered to easy levels – we get taken over by traders in arms who promote death as ticket to paradise.

Finding the external reasons is the Government’s Administrative Responsibility. This needs to demonstrate firm logic to global participants who have had similar experiences – India and the USA being two examples.

Finding the weak links in belief network and repairing them  is the responsibility of the People and the leaders as representatives of the People. This can be achieved only through sharing of  Victims’ pain as if it happened to us. That is what the New Zealand Prime Minister did – as if she was the mother of all victims. This strengthens the value of migrants from diverse cultures to complete globalization of New Zealand.