South Asia Citizens Wire | 28 April, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2243 [1] Nepal: Nepal's people phenomenon (Kanak Mani Dixit) [2] Nepal: The Americans are leaving, the State Department stays on (Tapan Base) [3] Nepal: Baburam Bhattarai's "Letter to the Editor" of the Kantipur Newspaper [4] Sri Lanka: What is wrong with the Geneva Talks and the Peace Process? (Coalition of Muslims and Tamils for Peace and Coexistence) [5] Amartya Sen speaks about his latest book, Identity and Violence (Anasuya Basu)
___ [1] The News International April 28, 2006 NEPAL'S PEOPLE PHENOMENON by Kanak Mani Dixit Hum dekhenge Jab takth giraye jayenge Sab taaj uchale jayenge Well, the virtuous people of Nepal saw to it that the crown was dashed. Very late in the modern era, long after other countries of Southasia had experienced their uplifting, cathartic moments, Nepalis by their millions stood up against feudalism. People power simultaneously pushed back a despotically inclined king, made space for pluralism, and created the conditions for peace. The mission now is to bring the Maoists in from the jungle while ensuring that the kingship is forever barred from mischief. Faiz Ahmed Faiz would have liked it here in Kathmandu this week, as would have Iqbal Bano, who sang that immortal people's anthem. A sputtering 'movement' suddenly converted into a people's movement of colossal dimensions, fuelled by the scorn Gyanendra had continuously heaped upon the citizenry. Suddenly, the weakened, the unarmed middle ground, represented by the political parties and civil society, gained the upper hand. Meanwhile, a hopefully chastened Maoist leadership saw a non-violent mass movement achieve what ten years of their war had failed. A menacing autocrat who sought to rule on the basis of dynastic right, outright misrepresentation and military might, Gyanendra was incapable of acknowledging the political maturity of the people. Taking energy from an insular, self-serving Kathmandu Valley upper class, equally contemptuous of the political parties, he began appointing prime ministers at will in October 2002 and finally took over as head of government on February 1, 2005. Gyanendra's excuse for his army-assisted takeover was to fight the insurgency, but the intent was to maintain himself as a corrupt, all-powerful autocrat. His most awful act was to militarise an innocent society, already devastated by years of insurgency. Fortunately, despite the worst of intentions, this man did not have the intellectual or organisational skills to run a police state. Another spring The people of Nepal first achieved democracy during another spring, 15 years ago, through a more modest people's movement that delivered the 1990 constitution. For 12 years till 2002, they experienced freedom and made the most of it. While the legacy of two centuries of oppression by Kathmandu's rulers was difficult to undo in a dozen years of democracy, what pluralism did for Nepal was electric. A voiceless people discovered the power of speech; they developed a confidence unprecedented in their history. This empowerment of the masses is what the feudocrat in Gyanendra never understood, and he would have been overthrown immediately after February 1 had a violent insurgency not been raging in the countryside. For a decade, that misconceived rebellion -- one of Maoist chieftains making their own grabs for power, through the barrel of the gun -- had sapped the energy of the nation. The politicians who were engaged in non-violent politics were caught between two guns. It was last autumn, when the Maoists conceded the failure of their 'people's war' and agreed to come into open politics through a constituent assembly, that the people's movement became possible. On November 22, 2005, tired of waiting for dialogue with a sneering Narayanhiti palace, and with the Maoists having already signalled their climb-down, the political parties signed a 12-point understanding with the rebels to fight the regime in parallel. The political rallies suddenly began to attract the public, now that the parties were able to promise a fight for the return of both democracy and peace. The participation in the rallies climbed to 50,000 then 100,000 and then 200,000. Meanwhile, Gyanendra continued to display a conduct specifically designed to emphasise his scorn for the common masses. Even as he was receiving felicitations as a 'Hindu emperor' from a dreadfully organised meeting of conservative Hindus in the town of Birgunj, the movement sparked and took off. The bottled-up anger against the aberrant king exploded in the heady people's movement of 2006. It was a political tsunami of a force few could believe. People in other parts of the Subcontinent have perhaps forgotten how it is to be one nation together fighting for a cause. The Nepali people's movement was a Southasian, Asian and global happening, where a people discovered the simple pleasure of fighting together for pluralism. And when Gyanendra sought to provide measly concessions -- too little and too late -- on Friday, April 22, another people's tsunami crashed against the Narayanhiti gates. Gyanendra's resolve finally crumbled. Close to midnight on Monday, April 24, he gave in to the popular will and restored the Third Parliament, asking the political parties to form a government. Coming of age This 'people phenomenon' holds larger meanings than simply the shunting aside of an active monarch. It has united a country that has been historically, socially and geographically divided. Between eight to ten million citizens were engaged in the weeks-long agitation, coming in from the fields and terraces, trekking to the road heads, demanding loktantra, the new term for total democracy. Perhaps the greatest gift of the people's movement of 2006, besides creating conditions for an end to the Maoist rebellion, is that it sets Nepali nationalism on more inclusive and solid foundations. To date, the nationalism of the modern era, together with its reliance on xenophobia and frivolous symbolism, was based on caste/ethnic identity, the Nepali language, a 'Hindu' monarchy, and a particular brand of hill Hinduism. Each of these elements had the consequence of excluding a large section of citizens, even whole communities. Having been ushered in by citizens of all ethnicities, castes, languages, faiths, gender and regional origins, this new democracy is no longer a gift from Kathmandu's powerful clique to the country at large. The inclusive democracy, to be crafted on the basis of the people's movement through the promised constituent assembly that will write a new constitution, will at long last provide all of the people with 'ownership' of their country. The Nepal of the future will be a raucous, occasionally unruly, democracy. But the state will have the stability required for nation-building. Already, the people have gained confidence from their ability to fight a despot and to define their own future vis-à-vis a nervous international community. This assurance adds to the country's stature, and will henceforth provide it with self-assurance in the conduct of foreign relations, particularly in dealing with the overwhelming, southern neighbour, India. This new confidence will translate into numerous other dividends, including more equitable development works, where the goals are set indigenously rather than by the ubiquitous 'donor' government or agency. The path ahead will be necessarily bumpy, but the goal is clear: making inclusive democracy happen, righting the historical wrongs against the majority population in this country of minorities. The task began with the defeat of Gyanendra's preposterous agenda. The kingship has been brought to its knees, which is where it will have to be kept, if at all. Nepal needs to go back to being a country where the people smile; where villagers on the trail look at you in the eye and brightly inquire into your personal history, rather than fearfully looking away. Already, during the people's movement, the twinkle had returned to the Nepali eye. We shall see When the crowns shall be toppled When the palaces will be demolished This article was written in detention, originally for Himal Southasian magazine. The writer was released at midday, April 25. The writer is a journalist based in Kathmandu ____ [2] NEPAL: THE AMERICANS ARE LEAVING, THE STATE DEPARTMENT STAYS ON. The other day a friend told me that the US Embassy has ordered all American citizens, except those providing essential service to the US Embassy to leave Nepal immediately. A large number of Americans were seen at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport trying to catch flights to different destinations, before they got contaminated by a disease called "revolution". This gives me a good feeling. Why? Because it shows that the Nepali people have successfully resisted the USA's attempts to hijack, manipulate and subvert the mass movement. The USA tried its best and I am sure that they are going to try again. Richard Boucher the Assistant Secretary of State is due in Kathmandu on May 2, 2006. Over the past five years the State Department sent "scholars" "security advisers" and "counter insurgency experts" to train and assist the Nepali academics, researchers NGO activists in the "art and science" of in conflict resolution and strengthen local stake holders for peace. They also trained the Royal Nepal Army officials in developing modern security strategies and counter insurgency - in plain words killing the Maoists more effectively. The Ambassador of the United States never tired of comparing the Nepali Maoists with the Khmer Rogue. American experts' put out scholarly discourses, which compared Nepal with that of Peru and Cambodia. American agencies funded Nepali scholars to study techniques of "conflict analysis", "conflict resolution" and conflict transformation". Seminars were organised where doom's day scenarios were created and discussed. The Maoists were shown as a greedy lot, hungry for power, using the poor and exploiting the emotions of women and discriminated Indigenous peoples and the Dalits. The Royal Nepal Army was supplied with 20,000 M-16 rifles from Washington, 20,000 Insas rifles from Delhi, 100 helicopters from London and 30,000 Minimax guns from Belgium. At the end of the day, all the State Department experts, all the Generals of Pentagon and the other friendly governments could not spot the people of Nepal. The USA has never experienced a revolution of the kind that is taking place in Nepal. The great American Revolution was not led by the hungry and exploited masses. This happened in France, in Russia, in China and in Cuba. It is difficult to predict when the oppressed masses would overcome their fear of the oppressor. As history is witness, they do. And, when they do overcome their fear, they become a virtually unstoppable force. They change history. Remember Spartacus and the slaves. For nearly 200 years, the Shah and Rana rulers of Nepal held the people to ransom. The Hindu ruler was propped up as the embodiment of god. Ordinary Nepalese were not even allowed to look at his face. They kept up the most archaic Hindu customs to hold the people down. Through alliance with the British colonial masters of India and later with the rulers of independent India, Britain and the USA they perpetrated their rule. Their main business was to supply poor Nepali men as mercenaries to foreign governments as cheap canon fodder. On each Nepali mercenary the rulers collected commission. The agreement between Nepal's King and the British allowed the British to pay the Nepali Ghurkhas in British army a paltry sum as they salary and pensions ranging from five to fifteen pounds sterling per month for a life time of service in her majesty's government. The Royal Nepal Army even today deducts a hefty sum from the compensation received by the Nepali peacekeepers in the employment of the UNO. After the USA began its global war on terror and President Bush "privatised" security services, hundreds of Nepalese were recruited into so-called "ancillary" service of security companies like group Four, Executive Solutions, Ghurkha International and Blackwater Inc. As the dead bodies of Nepali workers started returning from Iraq, Ache and Afghanistan, it became clear what this so-called ancillary service really was. Even today, American recruited Ghurkha guards protect Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. The King of Brunei does not trust any one but Ghurkhas for his personal safety. In Nepal it is an old fashioned revolution led by the poor oppressed masses. The people are united in their struggle against the king, the symbol of oppression. It is not an ethnic strife or a religious or a sectarian war. Those are the wars that the State Department knows and likes. They have hordes of experts and advisors who are waiting in various "think tanks" and universities to be sent to all places where such conflicts/wars are raging. But a revolution of the kind that is unfolding in Nepal is not something that the USA knows how to deal with. Now the king has revived the House of Representatives, which he dissolved on the advice of Mr. Sher Bahadur Deuba in October 2002. Mr. Deuba had already lost the support of the majority in the house when he advised the king. The king was happy to dissolve the house as the house was opposed to the extension of the state of emergency. The house elected in May 1999 has already completed its term of five years under the 1990 constitution. Yet the leaders of the seven parties were adamant in their demand for the revival of this house. Why one might ask. What was the need to revive a dead house which could only be done by the king, whom the people hated? There are no obvious answers. The Maoists have been insisting that the seven party alliance should hold a national convention and declare the formation of a national government as an interim measure. The seven party alliance did not agree. Seems they were afraid that neighbouring and other governments might not recognize their government. They were also afraid that they would be seen as having come under the influence Maoists, who were branded as "terrorist" by USA and India. The US Ambassador has been pushing the leaders of the seven parties to renounce the 12 point agreement with the Maoist. But this did not happen. On the nineteenth day of the mass movement the king and the Royal Nepal Army was faced with the prospect of a crowd of five million people surrounding the capital city of Kathmandu. I am told, as the palace rats started to desert the sinking royal ship, the king finally lost his nerve. He was ready to compromise with the leaders of the seven parties. There are credible reports that he sent his emissary to the head of the UNDP in Nepal to intervene in the "backdoor" negotiations with the leaders of the seven party alliance leaders in crafting the proclamation that the king read out in his midnight proclamation of April 24, 2006. This was "accepted" by the leaders of the seven parties. What Nepalese want is a new political system - an inclusive democracy, freedom from exploitation and discrimination, respect for human rights and a new society. The women of Nepal, who were out in large numbers want equal status in society. The marginalised communities, the indigenous people (janajatis), the Dalits, Muslims and Madhesis want an end to discrimination. They want a federal system of governance which will guarantee their "autonomy" and their "culture, language and identity". The people want the new government to guarantee their right to work, right to housing, right to water, health and education. The leaders of the seven parties will soon return to the House of Representatives. They are now preparing to form an interim government. They have also made it clear that they will not deviate from their commitment to holding elections for a constituent assembly. Several mass organisations including trade unions, teacher's associations, organisations of Janajatis and Dalits have announced that they would encircle Singha Darbar, where the parliamentarian would meet on Friday (April 28). The State Department has said that the king should continue to be the "ceremonial head of state". The majority of the people of Nepal want an end to monarchy. They want the king and his family to leave. They see the king as the symbol of the old system which perpetrated the control of the feudal classes and sold the country's economic and political independence to foreign governments and multinational companies for personal gain. Is this the end of monarchy and the beginning of a new era? Will the people of Nepal defeat the new imperialists? We are yet to see. Tapan Kumar Bose South Asia Forum for Human Rights Kathmandu 12.30 P.M., April 27, 2006 ___ [3] BABURAM BHATTARAI'S "LETTER TO THE EDITOR" OF THE KANTIPUR NEWSPAPER (Tuesday, April 25, 2006) http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bhattarai260406.html [The revolution in Nepal has led to the recall of the Parliament dismissed by the King in 2002, which shall meet on Friday, April 28th. The leading force of the revolution, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), control more than eighty percent of the country. On April 26th, the CPN(M) agreed to call off their blockade of the capital pending the meeting of the Parliament, in which the CPN(M) is not formally represented, on Friday, April 28th, but warned that if the first meeting of Parliament failed to decide to hold constituent assembly elections unconditionally, the blockade would resume. On April 25th, a "Letter to the Editor" appeared in the leading Nepali language Kantipur newspaper from Baburam Bhattarai, one of the leaders of the CPN(M). The letter sets out a clear understanding of the revolutionary moment, and warns the parliamentary politicians that were they to attempt a new arrangement with the King they would be swept aside. This important letter has not previously appeared in English translation.-John Mage] It has been widely felt that the present revolution in Nepal has brought a revolutionary change in the communications sector. In this context, the "letters to the editor" seem more interesting, lively and factual than the editorials, articles, and news in established newspapers. Perhaps this is the sign of political consciousness among the masses rising higher than that of the established political leadership and intelligentsia. Perhaps this is the proof of the saying that revolution makes smart people dumb and vice versa. Accepting this new development in Nepali society, I too feel it is more appropriate for me to share my views as a "letter to the editor" than by articles or statements. Perhaps only the future generation will be able to better assess the historic revolutionary tsunami going on in Nepal from Chaitra 24 [April 6, 2006]. The degree of active participation of the common people, the nature of that participation, the level of their motivation can only be compared with that of major revolutions in history. Especially the active and self motivated participation in this revolution of the extremely poor, the unemployed youth, students, women, those discriminated against [because of their clan or caste], the indigenous ethnics, the higher professionals and the workers has surpassed all other revolutions in Nepali history since the revolution of 2007 BS [1950-1]. The scene of people gallantly resisting the Royal Armed Forces with whatever they could get their hands on has raised all Nepali heads high, and has established our reputation as freedom fighters rather than as mercenaries for foreign armies. Since the revolution is still going strong, what will be its climax has eluded and worried many people. In the last leg of this revolution, the danger has increased of polarization between, on the one hand, the international power centers, the palace and the leadership of the established parliamentary forces, and, on the other, the revolutionary masses of common people, civil society and other political forces, leading to factionalism in the revolution. Especially the current situation in which the conscious revolutionary forces demand a Democratic Republic, and the established political leadership is unable to rise above their demand for the reinstatement of the dissolved parliament, has posed an immediate danger of factionalism in revolution. Since in the face of revolution the consciousness of the common people develops with great speed, it is necessary for the political leadership to develop their consciousness at an even greater speed. Similarly the slogans and programs proposed at the beginning of the revolution need to be revised and developed accordingly. When the whole of Nepal has approved chanting slogans to end the monarchy and to establish a Republic, there is no reason why the political leadership has to hesitate to formally endorse and move forward with the republican slogan. Even the international power centers which until yesterday were unaware of the Nepali peoples' actual consciousness and power shall eventually have to understand the ground realities of this revolution. In this context, the failure to move forward with the slogan that incorporates the people's aspirations and the nation's need in order to bow to international pressure will be a huge mistake and highly ironic. If even today the political leadership only considers the slogans for a democratic republic to be a Maoist slogan, then they would be seen by history to have made the millions of people and their own political activists chanting this slogan in the streets, "Maoists." The CPN-Maoist is flexible and responsible and, keeping in mind the international situation, has been proposing the elections for Constituent Assembly as a meeting point for all. The path for that which will prove correct, scientific and permanent is not the Merciful Reinstatement of Parliament by the King, but the parallel government declared and established by the revolutionary forces. That is crystal clear. Those who argue for the reinstatement of the parliament for legitimacy and historical continuity should know that the King has already torn the constitution in pieces and in this situation there is no legitimate way to solve the present crisis. Furthermore this revolution is not demanding historical continuity but has already demanded historical discontinuity. There has been no revolution in history by following the old constitution and laws, and it is not going to happen in Nepal. At the time of revolution, the people's will is the most legitimate of all, and the Nepali people have already provided that legitimacy to the revolutionary leadership. In this context, the suggestion coming from even the imprisoned senior civil society activists to form a parallel government and move on to a Constituent Assembly is the most appropriate and correct way. If the political leadership fearlessly makes a decision to that effect, then it is almost certain that sooner or later, the international community will recognize such arrangements. But by giving this and that reason for a compromise to be reached with the King again by the Parliament reinstated by the King's Mercy, then no one can say who will not be swept up and burnt along with the King in this great revolutionary conflagration. BRB CPN-M ___ [4] SRI LANKA: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE GENEVA TALKS AND THE PEACE PROCESS? In this analysis of the situation of war and peace following the recent violence in Trincomalee, the Coalition for Muslims and Tamils speaks for and pleads for once again placing people at the centre of peace and the need for the peace process to work towards justice for all peoples in this country. The Coalition for Muslims and Tamils was formed during an intense period of violence last year between Tamils and Muslims in the East, culminating in the grenade attack on the Grand Mosque in Akkaraipattu in November, which took the lives of 6 persons and intensified the already strained relations between Muslims and Tamils in the region. Despite repeated pleas by the communities concerned, the State and civil society took little notice of this incident. Today, the killing continues. Killings that are politically and ethnically motivated and steeped in the violence that has become an intrinsic part of the peace process as we know it. The peace process and its violences The current peace process, Geneva Talks I, picks up the thread of negotiation from the stalled talks between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), the LTTE and the donor community that commenced with the Ceasefire Agreement of February, 2002. It adopted a two pronged approach to the conflict. 1. The idea of cementing good relations between the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka through confidence building measures. 2. Initiating talks on power sharing between these two actors. This strategy was hailed as pragmatic and realistic by political scientists, diplomats, conflict resolution experts and others. Politicians, political analysts, activists and the business communities considered it as the way to peace. But the success story left out a crucial aspect, critical to any successful resolution or transformation of conflict. The realism of the strategy did not bring realistic relief to the people in the areas where the war and the conflict had been most intense. As a result, this approach to peace is flawed in its very fundamentals. The failures of the peace process can be categorized, not necessarily exclusively, as follows: a. The singular focus on the LTTE as the main actor on behalf of the Tamils and the concern with cementing ties between the organization and the Government give undue legitimacy to the LTTE, riding roughshod over any concern over its outrageous track record of human rights where people of all communities, particularly Tamils and Muslims, have been the main target; its blatant and repeated acts of ethnic cleansing targetting Muslims and Sinhalese in the north and east; and its repeated reneging on its promise of desisting from carrying out violent acts against the Sri Lankan State, particularly the forces. The current wave of attacks on armed personnel by the LTTE is strong evidence of the organization's inability to transform itself into a democratic movement, concerned about solving the conflict and work within a 'peace' setup. Leaflets have appeared in Batticaloa announcing that war is imminent, while leaflets in Jaffna have called on people to vacate the area and go into the Vanni. The LTTE is able to function only within a language of militarism. This is most apparent in the way it conducts negotiations by flexing its muscle. b. The Peace Process is sadly lacking in another aspect. It holds the State to no account over the lives of large numbers of ordinary people from different communities caught within the conflict. With immense pressure brought to bear on the government to concede to the demands of the LTTE at almost every turn in the name of confidence building measures, the substantive issue of devolution of power was relegated to the background. Most crucially in this regard, the important issue of Muslim representation, both within the peace process and in any solution to come, was deferred too. The Muslim question, whether it concerned the north or the east, was treated as a secondary and temporary problem of managing conflict and not as a fundamental part of the solution to the ethnic conflict. The State, dominated by diverse Sinhala dominant factions including chauvinist elements, has not committed itself to a peaceful and just solution, in which the interests and concerns of all communities in the north and east are addressed. c) The peace process has also betrayed the people in the role played by donor community, especially the Norwegian facilitators. Heavy on conflict resolution theory and weak on their preparedness for the task at hand, the Norwegian facilitators were mostly concerned about going home with a success story for the media; they did not hear the bombs going off, the pistol cracking even in Colombo, the cry of a mother when her child was conscripted. The international communities and the Norwegian facilitators should look beyond the LTTE at the people; the Tamil, Muslim, Sinhala and other people in the north and east. The realistic approach of the international community should look at the needs of "real" people. d) Discussions on power sharing have dealt largely with issues of rehabilitation of the north and east, particularly on dividing financial resources between the two parties. This is where the donor agencies were crucial to the settlement and the process. Whether it be discussion on the ISGA, P-TOMS or after the arrival of President Mahinda Rajapakse on the scene, RADA , power sharing has dealt with financial management of aid and other funds. The tsunami, which in its initial stages, brought the Muslim, Sinhala and Tamil people together, compounded ethnic tensions when aid poured in, bringing in its wake monies unaccounted for and a greater disparity between the haves and the have nots. The peace process has miserably failed the people of Sri Lanka in healing old wounds; instead it has exacerbated those wounds and created new ones. While the LTTE, GoSL and the donor community carried on with their bargaining over the spoils of the tsunami, the north and east simmered with its own violences, new and old. In 2004, the break within the LTTE caught many political analysts and activists by deep traumatic surprise. Not knowing how to react, they pinned the 'blame' for the break up on the machinations of Colombo and India. Political wisdom in the country, caught up in the realism of aid, was neither able to identify the resistance welling up from within the Tamil polity nor understand and react to the increasing violence in the east in the past year or so. Preoccupied with cementing ties between the GoSL and the LTTE, they and we could not see LTTE implode, taking the east down with it. The Violence of Trincomalee and the ongoing crisis on the ground Over the past few years, Trincomalee has been at the centre of Tamil-Sinhala tension, most of which is aggravated by the LTTE on the one hand and Sinhala chauvinist and anti-Tamil political mobilizations on the other. ON 2nd January, 2006, personnel of the State forces, in response to a grenade thrown at a truck by unidentified persons, killed five young men who were mere bystanders at the incident. No State agency claimed responsibility for this wanton killing at that time. Given this scenario, the State should have been alert both to the LTTE's tactic of provoking armed personnel to retaliate against people and the mounting tension within the personnel as well. It should have taken measures to avoid further deterioration of relations between the Government and the Tamil people. But when a bomb exploded in the market place on the 12th of April, killing a soldier and civilians belonging to all communities, anti-Tamil and -Muslim riots took place and spread to other places. While the rioting continued, the LTTE too did not let up. In further provocation, they undertook to kill Sinhala civillians, successfully turning such incidents into attacks on pockets of Tamil habitation in the Trincomalee district. We watched with sadness the grief of the families of bereaved soldiers on the media as the President publicly consoled them. And in that same spirit, we also waited to hear a word of consolation for those families, Muslim, Tamil and Sinhala, who had lost their loved ones in the destruction, rioting and looting, but heard none.. Most of the families were Tamils and Muslims. This partiality is unwise politically. It serves to alienate minorities, Tamils in particular in this instance, from the State polity, pushing them heedlessly into the hands of the LTTE. As the attacks on armed personnel in the north and east by the LTTE continue, thousands of refugees have crowded schools and other places in the Trincomalee District. While the LTTE is on a path of schizoid destruction, the State is waiting for the next round of peace talks in Geneva, hoping for calm. This waiting game brings no relief to the soldiers at the front, the LTTE cadres, many of whom are young and forcibly recruited, political activists, and 'ordinary' people. It brings no relief to those who feel they cannot expect justice from the State. It means nothing to those who are not represented either by the State or the LTTE, the majority of the people in the north and east. . The State must undertake the following measures to bring relief to those suffering people and to gain the confidence of minority communities. 1. The State must make provision for immediate relief to those who have been forced to flee their homes by the recent wave of violence in Trincomalee. 2. It must also develop mechanisms that protect Tamils at times of raids and checking, to safeguard them from Human Rights abuses at the hands of the forces. 3. There must be a check on the growing culture of impunity. The state must hold itself accountable for the acts of the armed forces. As an immediate measure, it needs to carry out an independent and thorough investigation of what happened in Trincomalee to provide justice for the victims of violence and ensure that the findings are made public. Trincomalee cannot be looked at in isolation. What happened in Trincomalee in April 2006, is what happened in Akkaraipattu in November 2005; or in Batticaloa and Ampara in April, 2004; in Eravur in 1990, in Pesalai in February 2006; in the Northern Province on October 23rd 1990; in Anuradhapura in 1985; or in July1983 in Sri Lanka. Our task then as a community is to raise the cry of democracy, accountability on the part of the State for all its people, and to demand a people-centred approach to peace and not a war centred or partisan approach. Toward Peace: what must the Process do? The peace process must at this point prioritize above all the following issues. a) De-militarize the north and the east by curbing all armed activity in the area, Including that of the LTTE. b) Safeguard the Human Rights of all communities. c) Protect all communities against the terror of armed groups, above all that of the LTTE and chauvinist forces. d) Address the concerns of Muslims in the north and east. e) Address security concerns of Sinhala people in the north and east, particularly in the border areas. f) Address the fears and insecurities of minorities, especially Tamils in this instance, with regard to State forces and State patronage. g) Immediately set to work on a programme of power sharing in the north and east and work toward a pluralist structure that would accommodate representation of all communities and political allegiances. Coalition of Muslims and Tamils for Peace and Coexistence The coalition of Muslims and Tamils is a Sri Lanka based organization comprising Muslim and Tamil identified persons who as a general principle are committed to pluralism and social justice in all its forms. Specifically, we are committed to the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Tamils in the country, particularly in the north and east, and to a just and equitable solution to the ethnic conflict. We can be contacted at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ [5] The Telegraph April 19, 2006 THOROUGHLY ENGAGED Nobel laureate Amartya Sen speaks to Anasuya Basu about his latest book, Identity and Violence, and his future projects Planning for the future With The Argumentative Indian and Identity and Violence, Amartya Sen seems to have ventured into a different genre of writing. Was it a conscious decision prompted by recent developments? Sen: These two books deal with rather different problems from most of my earlier work. I recognized that I was getting into other territories. But it was a deliberate decision. It is not the case that I wouldn't have done these studies - respectively dealing with Indian intellectual heritage and the confusion generated by identity politics and communitarian theories - without there being the Hindutva-oriented violence or Islamic terrorism in the world and so on. But I had conceived of them as primarily intellectual, if not academic, projects. I didn't see them as being immediately relevant for policy here and now. I was going to try to explore the long intellectual background to contemporary India. But because of Hindutva violence, as well as the miniaturization of the idea of India that happened in that politics, the focus had to be not just on historical interpretation in the context of understanding contemporary India and Indian modernity but also on those sectarian and rather divisive issues which Hindutva brought out. As a matter of fact, it turned out that the broader intellectual project I was following had a lot to say (or at least so I think), and was a response to precisely these subjects of divisiveness and sectarianism. So I think if politics hadn't intervened, The Argumentative Indian would still have come out. But I brought it forward in my programme of work and pushed back my book on Theory of Justice that Harvard University Press has been promising to publish over the last ten years. But I had to postpone it given the urgency of the politics in India. The same thing happened with Identity and Violence. I pulled that forward into immediacy because of 9/11 and the violence that we have seen since then. Three years before that, in 1998, I gave a talk in Oxford called 'Reason Before Identity'. This was my Romanes Lecture in Oxford, quite an old series, originally given by William Gladstone in 1892. That came out as a pamphlet. My intention was to pursue the issue of identity as a philosophical question at leisure. I brought it forward and I think the casualty was the Theory of Justice book again because I had to postpone it, sadly. Now that the second book has been published also, I am back to working on the Theory of Justice, which is a rather ambitious project in moral and political philosophy. Q: In Identity and Violence, you say that the tendency to classify people according to their religion or civilization is wrong. Why are you equating religion with civilisation? Is not civilization a much broader category to which people must belong and identify with? Sen: Civilizational partitioning need not be identified with religious identification, in general. But, unfortunately, that's the way civilizational "classifiers" have tended to see it. Like Samuel Huntington. His categories are Hindu civilization, Muslim civilization, Buddhist civilization, Western or Judaeo-Christian civilization and so on. These have ended up largely as religious categorizations. This, I believe, is one of the problems in Huntington's thesis. Second, even if civilization is more broadly categorized, we still have a further problem. Take Indic or Arabic or Chinese civilization. They have a lot of interconnections between them. So the idea that they have evolved separately and are competing for our attention and indeed will undermine each other, given an opportunity - that view is not a good way of understanding civilization. But it is the view you get from theories of 'civilizational clash'. Third, a person's identity includes many things, all of which cannot be put into the basket of civilization as such. Like class, gender, political belief, profession, literary taste, language, interest in sports or games. And all these would take a variety of forms in any country, culture or civilization or among followers of any religion. In some ways, a very basic mistake is to see a human being in terms of only one identity, the civilizational identity, no matter how civilization is defined. Q: You have devoted a chapter to West and anti-West. Is not anti-West a product of post-colonialism? Sen: Anti-West attitude and post-colonialism are both products of imperial history. If you look at the history of the world over the last few centuries, some people have been extraordinarily powerful - some white people - and some coloured or non-white people have been subjected to Empires. This has changed the landscape in which we see countries and the people. There is here a reality of power difference and there is also a perceptual difference that goes with it. Now in that context, those who contrast themselves with the Western people react to it sometimes in the form of great admiration for the powerful West, great envy - how can we be more like it. A good example is what we call in Bengali 'Anglicization'. But there can be, also, much hostility to the West. Another more dialectical feature of anti-West attitude is found in Asian values. The attitude, as I have discussed in my book, of Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of east Asian resurgence. He says, "You say you people (the West) have a great history of liberty and freedom. We in Asia don't. All right, we accept that. But we have something much better, namely discipline." That is an anti-West attitude. We cannot lose the tradition of thinking about freedom in Asia so easily. You cannot even begin to think about Buddhism without bringing Mukti into the story. That is diminution. Similarly, what Akeel Bilgrami, quoted in my book, discusses that the people living in colonies tend to think of themselves as 'the other', not the sahibs as it were. That again is a result of the imperial past. The sense of great anger and getting even, not imitate them but defeat them, which is reflected in the terrorism of the anti-Western kind and particularly of the Islamic anti-West terrorism, also comes out of the general anti-West idea. This, too, is much influenced by the real history of imperialism and takes a particular form. These different forms of being 'anti-Western' may be easy to understand or at least explain, but they all involve diminishing ourselves by a self-vision only in the light of our relations with the West, parasitic on the West. It is an odd way of seeing oneself, not in terms of what we stand for, but as people who have been maltreated by the West. Q: Will you tell us about the health programme for India that you are involved with, along with the support of Manmohan Singh's government? Sen: It is a programme of a collaborative kind. We are very grateful for Manmohan Singh's support. It is an interactive programme involving an initiative to make a change in the public health situation in India. It is a quite dreadful situation which many people active in the field of public health had been agitated about for a long time. And I too got involved, insofar as I got into it and partly in terms of my writing about Indian society, its people, and its economy. But partly also after I set up the Pratichi Trust - our studies were concerned with the delivery of not only basic education but also basic health services. It became clear how imperative it was to change the situation. So a lot of us became involved. It is going to be a combination of certain individuals, foundations, the government and some private firms, hopefully more than has emerged so far. The project must involve public health personnel in India, who will have a dedicated and informed understanding of the nature of public health problems and how they can be addressed and dealt with. Besides, a lot of organizational changes are needed in the delivery of public healthcare. For example, to make sure that doctors turn up when they are needed, patients, particularly poor patients, are not referred to private medication which they cannot afford and get thoroughly exploited by a combination of quackery and crookery. We want to make a change in the way public health delivery functions in India, especially for the rural poor. Q: How often will you be coming to this part of the country now? Sen: I used to come six times a year when my mother was alive. She died at the age of 93. I visited this part partly due to her and partly for other work. The latter has not changed. So I expect I will be coming here four to five times a year. I don't see that changing radically. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ Sacw mailing list [email protected] http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net
