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IN 2006 the government of Sri Lanka drastically stepped up its military campaign to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The abrogation of the ceasefire agreement by the Sri Lankan government marked the beginning of what has arguably been the bloodiest phase of the 30-year war that has devastated the country. The conflict was called many things, particularly ‘Sri Lanka’s fight against terrorism’ by the state, and ‘Eelam IV’ by the LTTE; but the truth of the matter is that it was a war on the people of Sri Lanka, particularly those of the north and east where armed combat between the state and the LTTE has raged for decades. Years of real grievances including language and education policies, which ultimately resulted in disadvantaging minority groups, spawned Tamil militancy. The Tamil militant movement took on a totalitarian nature, eliminating all non-aligned Tamil voices, with the help of a majoritarian state unwilling to denounce chauvinistic policies. Challenges to a political solution abound and threaten to burry the country in political strife for decades to come. I seek to outline some, but by no means an exhaustive list, of the challenges that face the country today.
   
   History of failed promises and lack of implementation
   THE country has witnessed a history of failed promises beginning with the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact (1957). The pact signed soon after the adoption of the Sinhala Only Act in order to protect Tamil interests and allowing for devolution in the form of regional councils and recognition of the Tamil language; was abrogated due to protests by the principle opposition, the UNP, and Buddhist clergy.
   The Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act, No 28 (1958) allowed for the use of Tamil in education, public service entrance exams and administration in the northern and eastern provinces however due to a lack of political will the act was not implemented.
   The Dudley-Chelva Pact (1965) called for action to be taken under the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act, No 28; proposed the establishment of district councils and addressed land issues in the north and east, namely colonisation schemes. Again opposition, but this time from the SLFP and its left allies, mobilising support based on the false assertion that concessions to the Tamils would result in division of the country, led to the failure of the pact.
   The 13th amendment to the constitution, which sets out the formation of provincial councils under the Indo-Lanka Accord (1987), failed to be implemented for over 20 years. The All-Party Representative Committee, formed with the mandate of proposing a solution to the national question with participation from all political parties, unearthed the amendment as an interim recommendation. The 2-page report of the APRC that culminated from 18 months of negotiation was more than disappointing to most and called only for implementation of relevant provisions of the constitution not inclusive of key areas of devolution such as police powers, land and finances. Further, the 13th amendment has been criticised for not being truly devolutionary in nature.
   
   Culture of impunity
   ABDUCTIONS, disappearances, extra-judicial killings and unlawful arrest and detentions are common features of the Sri Lankan landscape while state forces and state-aligned paramilitary groups have been fiercely accused of these brutal acts. Since the beginning of 2006 at least 14 media workers have been murdered, the most recent and widely publicised fatality being that of Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor of the Sunday Leader. Sonali Samarasinghe Wickramatunga, journalist and wife of Lasantha, revealed in a letter to the inspector general of police that despite the statement of the Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, Keheliya Rumbukwella, that the government had information about her husband’s murderers; no further information has been released and there has been no progress in the investigation of his death. Fed by this same culture of impunity, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, established in 2006 in order to investigate serious violations of human rights, investigated only 7 out of the 16 cases set out in its mandate; none of the commission’s reports have been released and no action has been taken based on commission findings. In more than half of the cases, violations have been alleged to have been committed by Sri Lankan government forces. Numerous commissions of inquiry have existed since the early 1990s, many of which have identified alleged perpetrators in cases being investigated; however, few prosecutions and even fewer convictions have resulted.
   
   Lack of political will
   The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, fully formed in late 2007 in order to observe the work of the CoI, released its final statement on April 15, 2008 announcing its self-termination and citing, ‘… an absence of political and institutional will on the part of the Government to pursue with vigour the cases under review with the intention of identifying the perpetrators or at least uncovering the systemic failures and obstructions to justice that rendered the original investigations ineffective.’ The progress of the CoI was wracked by allegations of witness harassment, lack of independence and transparency and the conflicting role of the attorney general. The course of 2008 witnessed not only the departure of the IIGEP, but also the resignation of several commissioners and finally on November 4, 2008 the retirement of civil society from its standing before the commission, based on the factors mentioned above as well as lack of progress in the work of the commission and continued de facto absence of video conferencing.
   Ineffectual commissions formed usually at the behest of domestic and international criticism is a familiar occurrence in Sri Lanka including eight presidential commissions of inquiry to investigate enforced disappearances between 1991 and 1998; a commission of inquiry into the alleged establishment and maintenance of an unlawful detention and torture facility in 1995; a commission of inquiry into the killing of 27 Tamil inmates of the Bindunuwewa Rehabilitation Centre in October 2000; and in 2001, the Presidential Truth Commission on Ethnic Violence covering events of 1981-1984. Little justice resulted from these commissions and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry established in 2006, and disbanded in mid June of this year, can be added to these ranks.
   One of the reasons for the establishment of the 2006 CoI was to deflect attention away from the call for an international monitoring presence in the country due in part to the ineffectiveness of the National Human Rights Commission. In blatant disregard of the 17th amendment to the constitution which has remained inoperative since 2005, the president directly appointed members to the NHRC, thereby sacrificing the independence of the institution. The 17th amendment, passed in 2001, was an attempt to depoliticise key institutions including the National Police Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the Attorney General’s Office by requiring that nominations to these bodies be agreed upon by a Constitutional Council composed of both ruling and opposition party members. Since 2005 the president has made appointments to several key institutions including the attorney general. This lack of political will to maintain just and independent institutions has drained any remnants of faith left in them.
   The APRC, mentioned above, is yet to produce a final document outlining a solution to the national question. The approaching end to the Peace Secretariat, which also operates as the APRC Secretariat, almost certainly guarantees that a genuine solution is far from the horizon. The sabotaging of the APRC process, and therefore recommendations for a genuine political solution, reveal the unwillingness of the current government to address the underlying causes of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
   
   Majoritarian politics
   MANY point to the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 as the catalyst of the long-standing political conflict in Sri Lanka. SWRD Bandaranaike, who campaigned on the platform of the act in an effort to make political gains, implemented the act after his landslide victory, making Sinhala the only official language. One result of implementation of the act was that all non-Sinhala speaking government employees lost their jobs. Tamil was made a national language in 1978 and an official language in 1987; however on the official languages, the current constitution reads, ‘The Official Language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala, Tamil shall also be an official language.’ The inferior status of the Tamil language as evidenced in the wording of the constitution is also visible in the difficulties faced by non-Sinhala speakers in corresponding with state institutions; and even the availability of documents, notices and signs only in the Sinhala language. The lack of political will to implement the provisions set out in the constitution has ultimately made the status of the Tamil language, as an official language, superficial. The flexing of nationalist muscles also enshrined Buddhism as the state religion.
   ‘I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna people... now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion... the more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy.’ A quote from then president JR Jayewardene during the 1983 riots is revealing of the toll that majoritarian politics has taken on the country.
   
   Conclusion
   HOWEVER, the most difficult challenge to a resolution to the conflict in Sri Lanka is the deeply entrenched division and psychological damage that decades of conflict has produced. The militarization that has equipped Singhalese youth with AK 47s and that has popularised the phrase ‘one only opens one’s mouth to eat’ in the north has sown and bread the seeds of hate and violence over the many years of civil war in the island nation. Today both Tamil and Singhalese nationalism exist threatening a peaceful settlement to the conflict. One can only hope that one day
   freedom and democracy will prevail.
   ZNet, August 25.

ISRAELI newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world. Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren’t signing on. A global boycott inevitably elicits charges – however specious – of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one’s own nation.
   It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
   I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country’s future.
   The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.
   The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
   There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
   The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
   The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.
   Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, ‘on the ground’, the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.
   Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1 per cent of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support bi-nationalism.
   For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.
   So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?
   I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.
   It is, therefore, clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
   I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
   In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a ‘gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity.’ For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.
   Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.
   Counterpunch, August 24. Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Anti-corruption utopia

Corruption culture is a very complex socio-political phenomenon. It is absolutely beyond the capacity of an undemocratic regime to weed out corruption even if the person is a committed ‘crusader’ and strong like a general or a retired general.
   In fact, corruption gets more corrupted in undemocratic environment.
   M Emad
   Oxford, UK

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