Focus

> Something funny happened on the way to nirvana  (...Thelma)

> Emergence of another 'Royal Family?' (...Serendipity)

War crimes: Winners are angels

War crimes are as old as all history. The 'Greats' of history from Darius and Xerxes to Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Crusaders, Napoleon, 'Greats' of colonial empires to Hitler, the Japanese militarists andcontemporary leaders of democratic nations fighting  for democracy - all couldbe accused of having committed war crimes of horrendous nature. Massacres not only of their opponents in war but of innocent civilians by hundreds of thousands - at times indigenous inhabitants of entire continents such as the Americas, Australia - and parts of Africa and Asia, are part and parcel of these 'great' conquests.

Breaking the ice - Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao

The term 'war crimes' came into vogue and applied only after World War II. Curiously enough, those nations found guilty of such war crimes are the losers in war - Germany and Japan. The winners, the Allied Forces - Britain, United States and their allies were the 'good guys'- the angels. The losers, Germany and Japan, were those that had produced war criminals. Even today the losers - Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia is being tried by the International Court for war crimes but the sole superpower, the United States refuses to accept the jurisdiction of such courts.

The paradox

During the past few weeks there have been vast demonstrations in many cities of China against alleged attempts by the Japanese government to whitewash war crimes committed by Japanese troops on Chinese civilians during World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week at Jakarta expressed "deep remorse" and "heart felt apologies" for the crimes committed by Japan against Asian countries during World War II. His predecessors and key Japanese officials too have been apologising and expressing the remorse of the  Japanese nation for decades, but that does not seem to satisfy some Asian nations who suffered at the hands of the Japanese militarists during the last war, particularly China and Korea.

Most nations are rather eclectic about singling out nations, for having committed war crimes. For example, the Hiroshima nuclear disaster that wiped out well over a 200,000 innocent civilians in a matter of secondsand three days later another similar nuclear disaster, Nagasaki that too accounted for the death of about 70,000 innocent people are not considered as war crimes. The hypothesis is that they had to happen in order to save a larger number of innocent people being killed to end World War II. On this hypothesis many of the low intensity conflicts raging around the world today could be ended by dropping nuclear weapons on them, irrespective of innocents being killed and the other fallouts of nuclear warfare.

Whether these arguments are acceptable or not, the paradox is that Japan that suffered the most horrendous acts committed against humanity, 60 years ago, is today in the dock alone for war crimes of the Second World War.

The Chinese are furious for what they term as attempts to whitewash the gross crimes committed against China by Japanese militarists who invaded China. After 60 years an attempt is being made to downplay crimes of the Japanese in school history text books, it is alleged. China has also taken umbrage at the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo which honours the Japanese war dead including the military leaders of Japan who are held responsible for the war crimes committed.

The recent demonstrations in Chinese cities against Japan according to political commentators have resulted in Sino-Japan relations being brought down to the lowest levels since 1972, when relations between the two countries were resumed after World War II. Prime Minister Koizumi and the Chinese President Hu Jintao met last week at Jakarta during the Afro-Asian summit, in what has been described as 'ice breaking' talks and had agreed to mend the ruptured ties but the course of future developments between the two Asian giants cannot be predicted because the antagonisms between the two nations are much more deep seated and involve vital geopolitical and economic interests of both nations.

Despite Japan being the second most affluent nation in the world,having risen literally from the ashes of a nuclear holocaust, in terms of national sovereignty and military power, it is relegated to the status even below a lesser developed country (LDC). Firstly, under the terms of the constitution imposed on it by the United States after the last World War, Japan cannot have a defence force that could operate beyond its territorial limits. Some Japanese argue that it ceased to be a state after the war.

Nationalist revival

It is argued that a sovereign state should have the right to use force as an instrument of state policy. That is denied by the pacifist constitution itself. During the past 60 years Japan has been totally dependent on the United States. The US-Japan Security Treaty has been of even greater importance to Japan than its pacifist constitution, Japanese critics who want to break out of the limitations placed on them point out. But whatever Japan wants to do with regard to limitations placed on it, would have to be with the blessings of the United States.

In recent times Japan has been attempting to break out of the limitations of defence placed on it. A new law was enacted to permit Japanese soldiers to join the UN's Blue Berets as peacekeepers and they have been to the Golan Heights, Mozambique and Somalia. They are now in Iraq, 600 of them to assist the US troops as part of the 'coalition of the willing.' These new moves together with the common stand taken by the Bush administration on Taiwan with Japan is obviously of concern to Beijing.

Commentators say that an issue causing even more concern to China would be the so called nationalist revival. There is a revival of aikokushin (love of the country) in Japan after 60 years of passivity. It has been reported that there are moves such as within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to amend the education law to make Japanese students more 'patriotic.' Such moves together with attempts to downplay Japanese crimes during their occupation of China and Korea are indeed the cause for the mass demonstrations in recent weeks in Chinese cities. These demonstrations, political observers have noted, obviously have the blessings of the Chinese government because such public dissent has not been tolerated since the events in Tiananmen Square over 10 years ago.

Besides the speculation there is evidence that the two nations are in competition with each other for influence and be the dominant power in the South and South East Asian regions. Recently, the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabo was on a 'charm offensive' in these regions on a whistle stop tour of South and South East Asian countries and last week it was announced that Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi will be in India and Pakistan. The immediate reason cited for Koizumi's visit is that he wants the support of these two South Asian countries for Japan to be a member of the UN Security Council. However, whether China, already a member of the Security Council will want Japan in as an additional vote for the US in the Security Council is much in doubt.

Japan's splash of US$ 500 million as tsunami aid is cited as another instance of an attempt to garner Japanese influence in the region. Immediately after the tsunami, Japan announced an offer of US$ 30 million, doubling the US offer. The US then upped its pledge to $ 350 million and Japan followed it by increasing its own to $ 500 million. Some commentators speculate that this was an attempt to demonstrate to Asian nations that Japan was the dominant power in the region and China could not match it.

Political commentators have drawn a parallel between two contending powers in Europe - Germany and France, after the end of World War II deciding to end their rivalry and come together in a united Europe. Such speculation however seems far fetched right now, with Japan trying to break out of the seclusion it has been in for 60 years and be a world power.

Nationalism

China no doubt has the fastest growing economy in the world and could wield tremendous influence in South and South East Asia. Chinese nationalism too is by no means dormant. Some China watchers say that the ancient belief of China being the centre of the universe, the Middle Kingdom dream, is still ingrained in the Chinese psyche.

Despite the rivalries, vital economic links exist that bind the two together. China has also replaced the US as Japan's latest trading partner and the association of Japanese corporations, the Keidanren, has warned Koizumi against locking horns with China. That is perhaps the reason why the two at their 'ice breaking' talks decided to de-escalate growing tensions.

The significant feature of this recent Sino-Japan encounter is that Japan does appear to come out of its shell into the international political scene and be a player and not limit itself solely as an economic power. The rise of Japanese nationalism even after 60 years of quiescence is indicative that despite talk of the disappearance of nation states, nationalism is still live and kicking, even in nations that appear to have forsaken it.

Something funny happened on the way to nirvana  

By Thelma 

Darling Satty 

It's like in the year Nineteen Eighty-Nine dear...or thereabouts. Bodies floating down rivers like nobody's business. If ever there was a road that did not lend itself to its salubrious surroundings and to its pacifist name, it is the potholed street winding itself towards the Kotte leda wattuwa, behind the posterior of the House called. wait for it.. Japan Sri Lanka Friendship Road. If ever there was a road that spat - assuming roads can spit - on the good relations of two nations, then that road was this road. In a way, good thing the bally road leads to the local leda wattuwa.

You remember the good ole days darling? I bet your red members like the Wee Wees and the Tilvin Silvas do. To say nothing about the Somawansa Amarasinghes and the. the.the, ..blast it, who else is there in that bally red brigade? I may as well tell you dear, these red chaps have been doing their damnedest to come in to Thellie's radar screen by scribbling something here and screeching like turkeys with laryngitis there. but you know me. What with my thoughts on loftier, more vital matters such as the best champagnes and the next candle light supper, it's hard to keep these proletariat ticks on my mind. Besides the bally 'yeller' livered cowards tend to scribble and shout in the vernacular. You know; the language of the slaves. And dearest, my best work in that respect has been a smattering of sentences such as 'the genna', 'methane athuganna' or surely even. 'kema lasthida?'  

But back to the road that leads to hell. Last Friday another scribe shot and floating in the canal on the road of friendship. Let's talk to the Japanese and get the bally road name changed to The Road of Sino Japanese Infinite Suspicions or some such thing darling. Really dear, you must do something about all this pollution in the Diyawanna Oya. I mean to say I've seen a man catch fish there. What if the bally fish makes its scaly way onto the dinner table of the likes of you and me. Goodness knows what dead men floating in the sea did to my much loved seafood diet these past months. Only just now is the sweet and sour prawn warily making its aromatic way back onto my luncheon table.

You must tell these insurgent types to find another dumping ground for their works of art. This is exactly how residents kept dumping garbage in front of the imposing Central Environmental Authority in the heat of the night. Dumped two day old crabs and out of date caviar slap in front of the Environment thingie and stole away quietly in their Jaguars. Only Fowsie by putting his kunu police a.k.a. kunu kaakkas in strategic areas was able to stop this menace. May be you too should tear a page off Fowsie's potha and install mini kaakkas like Fowsie's kunu kaakkas in strategic points. None so strategic I stress, as the Japan-Sri Lanka Friendship road.

Odds fish m'dear. After a hurried cup of tea and some kiribath, the last thing a conscientious dosthara nona and mahatthaya desire to see on their way to work is a bally dead journo on the Japan Sri Lanka friendship path to perdition. And is this the first time? No. I mean to say dear, we might as well be living in the dark dungeon of horrors conjured up for the Paradisians by the JVP in the late eighties.

You know the time. Nary a Paradisian could raise his or her head. Mostly because the JVPers had cut the bally things off the day before. Surely, you remember the days. The days when many a man would set out to the kaday down town to buy a sheaf of betel having first waived a cheery pip pip to his wife and family saying I'll be back shortly; and was later found floating headless down a river. But then again may be he told his family I'll be back 'shorter', that would make it alright then wouldn't it? Can't blame the reds then can we? You remember the moment darling. The moment when a man you knew well stepped out into his garden in Polhengoda only to be shot in the face by the bally red brigade?

Darling, you and the extremist JHU and the JVP may believe in nirvana or samsara or something, but I believe in hell on earth. I'm ignorant of the philosophy you chaps live by, but I'm learning fast. To attain nirvana, you must, according to what I see, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, burn churches, kill journos, make speeches calling on patriotic Paradisians to spit on certain people etcetera etecetera. Honey, nirvana is not a state I'll ever reach. There will be no Thelma column in the rags they print in this State of Nirvana. Prepare m'dear for a string of tedious Sundays.

In any case darling, don't these bally village bumpkins know that it is rude to spit at all, leave alone on people? I mean to say what a ghastly idea. The very fact that Wimal Wee could even say it makes me shudder down to my aristocratic toes. Spit indeed. I can't imagine how poor Clinton endured his company at that banquet you gave. I can bet my bottom dollar the Wee Wee gargled and rinsed his mouth with the table water and then to top it off washed his hands over the plate with what was left of it.

Shame on you dear, to let these posterior holes with foul table manners run Paradise by your side.

But then when did shame ever stop you from doing anything?

Emergence of another 'Royal Family?'

Does the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka have royal families?

One such family does presume and act as if they belong to royalty. Now, there appears to be another family emerging in the jungles of the Wanni - Pirapaharan's family.

A military escort

A Sunday newspaper reported that last week a military escort by the security services had been provided for Pirapaharan's sister-in-law to travelfrom Omanthai to the Bandaranaike International Airport. She had arrived from Denmark to attend her father's funeral. The escort had been arranged by the Peace Secretariat, it was reported.

We wonder whether an ordinary citizen of the north would have been provided with such privileges, had they requested for it. Most probably they would have had to travel on their own and pay 'visa fees' and other forms of extortion to LTTE goons for entry and exit from Pirapaharan's Raj. And all this has been arranged, courtesy, the Sri Lanka government's Peace Secretariat, presumably for the sake of better understanding with the LTTE and the promotion of peace.

Velupillai Pirapaharan's reciprocal contribution to peace is not known but there has been the abduction of a police inspector of the Mt. Lavinia police. Most probably he would have disappeared for ever and the three police teams appointed by the IGP to investigate the disappearance will come up with nothing, if we are to go by past performances. And the Sri Lanka (Norwegian) Monitoring Mission has thrown up their hands and exclaimed - as usual - that they have no mandate to investigate the disappearance. The family of the police inspector who disappeared would indeed be wondering whether there are two classes of Tamils in this country: One ordinary law abiding Tamils who have little or no protection provided by the government and the other being entitled to right royal protection such as what was provided to Pirapaharan's family.

Partial towards LTTE

This incident also provides a paradox about attacks on the Norwegian Monitoring Mission as well as some representatives of foreign embassies and international organisations by certain sections of the media as well as Sinhalese political organisations. They froth, fume and berate at those like the Norwegian Special Representative, Erik Solheim and World Bank Representative, Peter Harrold for their partiality towards the LTTE and the patronising attitude they adopt towards this organisation that has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation in some Western countries. But what are they to gather from the 'courtesy' extended to Pirapaharan's family by the government? This is only one such instance.

Unlike in most countries where restrictions are placed on diplomats and journalists roaming through any part of the country, in Sri Lanka today, even those not under government control are open sesame to one and all. They could meet any one they wish to, are provided with transport and even helicopter rides. All this conveys the impression that consideration of the LTTE as a separate government or administrative entity is no offence, to say the least. This is what the World Bank representative said recently and found himself in hot water,

Those who berate the Norwegians - earlier facilitators, then monitors and now even administrators - for their partiality towards the LTTE as against the Sinhalese and Muslims should realise that while the primary objective of these foreigners is maintenance of peace, they have been consistently for the LTTE. From the 1970's Norwegians have been involved in pro militant organisations and have infiltrated bothestablishments of the SLFP and UNP. They have with them Sri Lankans who have many chips on their shoulders and are hell bent in the destruction of the existing Sinhala Buddhist culture. An in-depth investigation of the involvement of Norwegians in Sri Lankan affairs is called for.

Monitoring the peace process

In 1994 they were invited by President Chandrika Kumaratunga for monitoring the peace but disappeared or were in the background when the LTTE re-commenced hostilities.When Ranil Wickremesinghe became Prime Minister, they gate-crashed into the peace process from out of the blues. It was quite obvious that if there was to be a durable peace, it would have to be agreed on not only by Pirapaharan but Premier Wickremesinghe and President Chandrika Kumaratunga as well. But the President at that time was sulking after her defeat in the parliamentary elections and was in no mood to make Wickremesinghe a prince of peace.

The wily Norwegian peace makers realised this and got Pirapaharan and Wickremesinghe to agree and brought about a ceasefire. It was a fait accompli because President Chandrika Kumaratunga could not go back to war and the ceasefire held to the acclaim of the outside world. But it was no durable peace. There is the absence of a military conflict but with LTTE preparing for war and killing Sri Lankan state officers it is certainly no peace.

Pirapaharan being held by the bonds of peace, after the ceasefire agreement commenced his preparations for war. He re-commenced smuggling of arms, recruitment of children amidst other activities to establish a de facto state in the area under his control and even outside it. The Norwegian monitors looked away deliberately to favour the LTTE and save their peace process as well. Wickremesinghe could do nothing about it for the fear of jeopardising peace. And Chandrika Kumaratunga came back on it accusing him of jeopardising the security of the state. The rest that followed is now history.

On almost every major violation of the peace agreement, the Norwegians have looked away to the advantage of the LTTE and there is nothing the Sri Lankan government, which even includes the JVP which is threatening to walk out of the government almost daily on this issue could do.

ISGA proposal

The Interim Self Government proposal of the LTTE has been a non-starter from the word go but now once again an attempt is being made to introduce it through the tsunami joint mechanism for distribution of tsunami aid in the north and eastwith the government and the LTTE working together. This is considered by some as a prelude for the introduction of the Interim Self Government proposal.

When we look in retrospect at the Norwegian involvement as well as the involvement of Western nations on the Sri Lankan issue, their main objective appears to be to bring about peace but peace any cost. The LTTE has well appreciated this position and knows to get their demands by threatening to wreck the peace process. On the other hand our foreign well-wishers know very well that the Sri Lankan government does not want and cannot afford to jeopardise the existing peace.

Thus, the LTTE gets away with every demand they make, from a military escort for Pirapaharan's sister-in-law and even committing blue murders of police officials on the track of LTTE terrorists in Colombo.

The only countervailing force is the JVP that is opposing the joint mechanism but they seem to be NATO - No Action Talk Only - enamoured by the perks of government office.

The Norwegians have the solid backing of Western nations, particularly the United States. US ambassadors here have consistently expressed their confidence in the ability of Norwegians as peace negotiators. Not all have this confidence. Yasser Arafat with whom the Norwegians brokered peace in Palestine, shortly before his death cried out in desperation: 'Look at my plight. I do not even have the choice of a place for my burial!'