Forum: Sri Lanka bans 'talk of peace'
BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOSCANBERRA â Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has banned talk of peace and for the first time in Sri Lankan history if you criticise the president, laws are used against you, Lionel Bopage from Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka told a packed Green Left Weekly public meeting on June 6.
Since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam captured Elephant Pass, the approach to the key Tamil city of Jaffna, on April 24, Kumaratunga's government has launched a concerted attack on democratic rights and shut down a number of newspapers, Bopage said. The massive cost of the war is also worsening the country's economic crisis and endemic unemployment.
Foreign powers, including the United States, Israel and India, are now becoming embroiled in the war. Already US planes can be spotted flying over Jaffna, Bopage said, and it is likely that US spy-satellite information is being regularly handed to the Sri Lankan government. Israel has sold large quantities of armaments to the government.
According to Bopage, India is concerned that if the Tamils of Sri Lanka achieve autonomy or even independence, then this will place immense pressure on India to grant more autonomy to the southern state of Tamil Nadu. It could also spur on other national struggles, such as that in Kashmir.
The Democratic Socialist Party's Peter Boyle, recently returned from meetings with leftists in Sri Lanka, said that while the DSP did not support all the methods of the Tigers, the party unconditionally supported Tamil self-determination.
He also praised the courageous anti-war demonstrations organised by the People's Liberation Front, Nava Sama Samaja Party, and Muslim United Liberation Front.
At one point, two anti-Tamil Sinhalese chauvinists attempted to disrupt the meeting, claiming that there was no discrimination against Tamils. The claim was rejected by both speakers, who pointed to anti-Tamil riots in 1958 and 1983, the 1977 ban on elected Tamil representatives in parliament and the confirmation of Sinhalese as the only official language.