Haniffa, F 2015 Competing for Victim Status: Northern Muslims and stability the Ironies of ’s Post-war Transition. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 4(1): 21, pp. 1-18, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5334/sta.fj

RESEARCH ARTICLE Competing for Victim Status: Northern Muslims and the Ironies of Sri Lanka’s Post-war Transition Farzana Haniffa*

The northern Muslims together with all protracted IDPs displaced prior to 2008 became a low priority caseload for return and resettlement assistance in the aftermath of the ‘end’ of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009. Framed in terms of an ethics of ‘greatest need’ connected only to funding availability, all old IDPs lost out in the resettlement process. This paper attempts to decentre this idea of economic limits and humanitarian need by discussing the manner in which such ideas of ‘greatest need’ actually emerge from discourses about victimhood that are part of an ethical humanitarian project to which local politics are irrelevant. This paper will show, however, that these initiatives consistently intersect with local power hierarchies and local ideas of legitimacy and belonging. Therefore, this paper will look at the manner in which the war related victim discourse of international humanitarianism, helped to exacerbate northern Muslim’s own marginality and continued exclusion from the north. This paper will also look at the manner in which victimhood narratives are mobilized in Sri Lanka by electoral politics and displaced IDP activists themselves, and will speculate about the efficacy of the victim identity for political and social transformation during this time of transition in Sri Lanka.

Introduction among the priority caseloads of internally In October 1990, the Liberation Tigers of displaced persons (IDPs). This was the first Tamil Ealam1 (LTTE) expelled the entire time I had officially heard this claim. She Muslim population of five districts in the explained the position to me in the follow- North of Sri Lanka. Close to 75,000 northern ing terms: ‘Vanni2 IDPs have nothing; the Muslims were summarily evicted and most northern Muslims have a plan B, because of their assets confiscated. In January 2012, they have had assistance for 20 years.’ Then less than three years after the end of the war, she also told me that ‘the northern Muslims a representative of the United Nations High have a right to return, but assistance is a dif- Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) field ferent matter.’ office in Mannar, north-western Sri Lanka, This statement took me aback because told me that the northern Muslims were not it pointed to the substantial disjuncture between the perspective of local human rights activists and researchers and that * Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of , Sri Lanka of humanitarian agencies (led by UNHCR) [email protected] regarding the predicament of northern Art. 21, page 2 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status

Muslims on the issue of local integration precisely in order to address the insufficient and return. Despite substantial evidence3 attention paid in narratives of the Sri Lankan regarding the ambivalent relationship of conflict to the story of northern Muslims. most northern Muslims IDPs to the areas Though difficult and long delayed, one prob- they were compelled to live in for over 20 lem the project did not encounter was a lack years and the fraught and difficult relations of sympathy from its interlocutors – the Sri between them and the local Muslim commu- Lankan human rights community.6 However, nity, the UNHCR insisted that ‘local integra- it should be noted that despite repeated tion’ must have occurred owing to years of requests, the UNHCR was never available for assistance and aid delivery. a meeting with the Commission. Conceived With the end of the war in May 2009, aid as a community-based ‘truth telling’ transi- delivery prioritised the thousands displaced tional justice project, the Commission articu- in the final stages of the war; all those dis- lated the northern Muslims’ experiences of placed prior to 2008 were rendered low pri- expulsion and protracted displacement as ority caseloads. This manifested itself most well as their expectations of and encounters clearly in the UNHCR cash grant for returnees during return in its report entitled The Quest for which only the ‘new’ IDPs were eligible. for Redemption: the Story of the Northern I was taken aback by the UNHCR delinea- Muslims (QFR 2011). In so doing it sought to tion of their position on northern Muslims legitimise the claims to suffering of northern because I had assumed its position on ‘old’ Muslims in a country replete with different IDPs was an act of omission not commission, and competing notions of victimhood. and as being based more on government The notion of victimhood that QFR illus- priorities than UN interests. The fact that trated and victimhood deserving of humani- the UNHCR had clearly worked out a narra- tarian intervention according to UNHCR tive about why it should not assist northern were clearly different. In fact the UNHCR Muslims was a surprise. and the northern Muslims used different I have chosen to understand the UNHCR’s definitions of ‘displacement.’ As I will show, position on northern Muslims as part of the for UNHCR, ‘displacement’ was a techni- humanitarian establishment’s problematic cal term indicating need, but for northern hierarchisation of victimhood in Sri Lanka. Muslims it was a political term that had This, I argue, is influenced not by any specifi- defined them for over 20 years (Brun 2008). cities of the context but by a philosophically The manner in which the UNHCR framed its specific delineation of victimhood within position and operationalised it had conse- international humanitarian discourse.4 As quences beyond humanitarian aid delivery. I will show in this paper, UNHCR’s position Its policies and the underlying justification was problematic in Sri Lanka because while it seriously undermined the efforts of local drew from a logic of humanitarian assistance actors and activists to raise the profile of the that had very little to do with the local con- northern Muslim IDPs. text, it helped reinforce prevailing ethnicised notions regarding return that caused distress Background: Northern Muslim IDPs to the local populations and boded ill for and The Sri Lankan Context prospects of post-war reconciliation.5 Since their expulsion from the Northern The UNHCR representative’s position was Province by the LTTE in 1990, northern surprising to me because I was just emerg- Muslims have constituted a community in ing from a two-year project documenting protracted displacement with large numbers the ‘social suffering’ of the displaced north- concentrated in the economically depressed ern Muslims. The project took the form of areas of District in north-western a Citizens’ Commission of Investigation Sri Lanka. In years of war and periods of Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 3 of 18 peace that followed, their return was always there are many disputes between the return- compromised by the possibility of another ing Muslim and Tamil communities over land expulsion (Hasbullah 2001). The defeat of and rights to engage in livelihoods. the LTTE in May 2009 augured the first real Some northern Muslims built up fairly instance of possible return in large numbers. successful lives in Puttalam where the com- However, neither the state nor international munity settled in large numbers after their humanitarian actors shared the enthusiasm expulsion. But others eked out an existence of northern Muslims who wanted to return. with great difficulty given the economic Five years on, despite on-going resettlement backwardness of the region; some were also and development work in the war-affected missed by housing assistance programmes.9 North and East, the return of northern But most secured access to basic necessities Muslims is beset with problems.7 such as schooling, some transportation and The government – for the first two years minimal health care. Return is therefore a after the end of the war – concentrated fraught prospect for many of them – even on resettling the ‘new’ IDPs who had been those committed to rebuilding their lives displaced since 2008 in a manner that in the North. They want – and in certain paid scant attention to restoring a decent instances are compelled by circumstances standard of living. Their return was riven – to maintain their linkages with Puttalam with problems of security, the lack of sus- while attempting to resettle in the North. tainable livelihoods, minimal consultation The lack of housing, basic infrastructure, of IDPs and little transparency. Moreover, schools, etc., in the North makes return a dif- the peace itself was securitised, by a heavy ficult short-term prospect.10 military presence and the militarisation of As the Citizens’ Commission process docu- governance in the conflict areas, and all mented, prior to their expulsion, the Muslims, civilian activities were viewed with intense especially the middle-classes, had been a suspicion. While the state continues to pub- community with considerable social capital, licly highlight the massive infrastructure some political capital and economic power projects completed in the North as post-war (QFR 2011; Thiranagama 2011; Mohideen reconstruction, many have argued that this in Thiranagama). Many owned large tracts has benefitted the people minimally (Thahir of land and most had access to well-func- et al. 2014).8 tioning schools, mosques and other social The post-war return of Muslims began institutions.11 But virtually all Muslims were in this strained and difficult context where rendered destitute by the expulsion, and as a suspicious military watched over a war- Thiranagama (2011) notes, were compelled fatigued and resentful Tamil civilian popula- thereby to think of themselves as ‘northern tion. Additionally the North was mono-ethnic Muslims,’ a group identity that arguably did for 20 years and many had all but forgotten not exist prior to the expulsion. They were the presence of a substantial community of unable to recover much of what was stolen Muslims in the area. Northern political and by the LTTE, and therefore they expected not civil society leaders are adjusting slowly and only to return and assistance to return but sometimes reluctantly – amidst dealing with also at least a discussion regarding compen- the many other post-war problems– to the sation for the losses they suffered.12 Therefore prospect of Muslim return. Muslim villages large groups of northern Muslims were com- were decimated and their homes destroyed mitted to the reestablishment and restora- during the 20 years of displacement; addi- tion of their communities in the North and tionally families have expanded and return- wanted the government to deliver on their ing Muslims’ need for land, infrastructure expectations. The UNHCR position, however, and livelihood assistance is great. Currently reflected a singular lack of awareness and Art. 21, page 4 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status interest in the northern Muslims despite all the northern Muslims but also all ‘old’ IDPs of the readily available information. were declared a low-priority caseload. The I explore this problem of ‘misunderstand- head of mission also said that, despite this ing’ outlined above using two specific ideas. agreement, the UNHCR was being pressured Firstly, using Giorgio Agamben’s idea of ‘bare by the Minister of Industry and Commerce, a life,’ I delineate the logic UNHCR in Sri Lanka Muslim politician, to assist returning north- used to hierarchize recipients of its aid – both ern Muslims. the northern Muslims and the Vanni IDPs. The UNHCR was resentful of the pressure This logic dictated that victims most worthy placed on it by government Minister Rishad of assistance are those that are only capable Bathiudeen to assist returning northern of suffering but not politics or speech. Such Muslim IDPs in Mannar and Mullaitivu dis- victims can only be either sacrificed or saved tricts. Bathiudeen, a northern Muslim him- and are themselves incapable of action. The self, was Minister of Resettlement at the time politics that motivate northern Muslims to the war ended in 2009. Given the politics of ask for redress for their expulsion and assis- that time, Bathiudeen was compelled in the tance to realise their right to return are irrel- midst of much anger and resentment to ask evant and illegible within such a framework. fellow northern Muslims, also his constitu- Such a depiction made it possible and legiti- ency, to wait until the resettlement of the mate for UNHCR to read northern Muslims Tamils was completed. Then in late 2010 as somehow misrepresenting their own pre- and early 2011, Bathiudeen began to pres- dicament as victims. sure the UNHCR and INGOs. According to Secondly, I also argue that the predica- UNHCR officials, Bathiudeen would call up ment of northern Muslims, including their UNHCR head and field offices and insist that aid seeking behaviour that UNHCR found they provide non-food relief items (NFIs) to objectionable, was itself ‘formed’ by two sets returning northern Muslims. The UNHCR of governmentalities – those of humanitari- and other humanitarian actors who were anism and that of the state in the middle of subject to it resented the minister’s pres- a conflict. I use the term governmentality sure; the humanitarian community insisted in its fullest Foucauldian sense – that of a on their own ‘objective’ criteria. Tensions technique of ruling and controlling popu- mounted to such an extent that Bathiudeen’s lations formulated by and generative of a political party even threatened to take legal sense of ethics, a set of actions and a mode action against the UNHCR for neglecting to of behaviour. provide support to returning Muslims.13 The UNHCR representatives in conversation The UNHCR Understanding of with me also accused Bathiudeen of under- Victimhood mining the agency’s assistance to Tamil IDPs The UNHCR representative’s position on in Mannar and other places by making claims northern Muslim IDPs was further rein- that the Muslims were entitled to the land forced in a subsequent conversation with there. This was a reference to a land dispute the head of mission in Colombo. He told in the Sannar area in Vidathalthivu, Mannar me that the prioritisation of ‘new’ IDPs was district that was just emerging in early 2012; a government prerogative and not that of the UNHCR field officer had also discussed the UNHCR, which I was told was also beset the case with me in January 2012. The case with funding difficulties. But it was also indi- of Sannar was one among many emerging cated to me that the UNHCR would actively disputes over land and livelihood opportuni- lobby against the government prioritising ties between returning Muslims and Tamils anyone other than the Vanni IDPs for assis- that still persist and require urgent redress. tance. Apparently, according to the UNHCR’s In the case of Sannar what was clear was agreement with the government, not just that – as documented later by Raheem and Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 5 of 18

Thangarajah (2013) – the UNHCR analysis foothold in both their recently opened up was insufficiently informed by the ethnicised areas of origin in the North and Puttalam complexities of the context. and other places where they had lived post- UNHCR also claimed that the northern expulsion. After 20 years of being displaced Muslims were appearing in Mannar only to they were wary of immediate return to the access the assistance package and available North, because of the destruction of their six-month supply of dry rations and were not houses and lack of infrastructure, such as sincere about return. UNHCR representatives water and sanitation, roads, public transpor- stated that when they arrived unannounced tation, schools and health services in these at resettlement locations to distribute NFIs areas. As one northern Muslim IDP stated to there were several instances when there me, ‘We don’t want to live under trees. We was an 80 per cent ‘no show’ i.e., northern don’t want to be displaced again.’ They, how- Muslims were engaged in an ‘insincere return ever, registered as returnees given that they movement’, coming to their villages or areas were no longer able to maintain their regis- of origin only to collect assistance materials tration status as northern IDPs in Puttalam, meant for returnees and take it back with and access to assistance was conditional them to where they currently lived. upon such registration.15 Therefore, some Subsequent to my research, a report by maintained a household in Puttalam while Mirak Raheem has reiterated the complexi- male members lived in shacks in villages of ties of return for protracted IDPs all over the origin in the North and began to engage in country. Observing that the humanitarian cultivation. Many returnee families that we agencies, the state and the durable solutions encountered all across the Mannar region framework sees return, relocation and local spoke of sections of the family staying on in integration as mutually exclusive options Puttalam. In one instance, an IDP in that IDPs can access, Raheem points out that spoke of the mosque there deciding that 50 many protracted IDPs regularly choose a per cent of the community would return to combination of the three: the North while 50 per cent of them stayed back; in that way, if ‘the troubles’ occur again, [W]hile Government and humanitar- they said, they could mitigate and minimise ian actors and the Durable Solutions its impact. Framework itself view return, local UNHCR’s analysis of Vanni IDPs as having integration and relocation as mutu- more immediate and urgent needs than the ally exclusive and one time choices, northern Muslims is understandable given protracted IDPs often see these the severe bombardment of the Vanni during choices differently. They see in these the last stages of the war in 2009. In doing options a combination of several so, however, UNHCR also felt compelled to possibilities and their choices often neglect the issue of protracted displacement reflect a mix of options subject to the in the country; it also had to embrace a nar- situation and an assessment of vari- rative (based on assumptions of local inte- ous factors, opportunities and risks. gration and years of assistance) that could Hence, for example, IDP families may justify or explain its neglect of the northern return in phases or even opt for two Muslims. I would like to understand why settlement choices for a period of this was so through recourse to more global time but these complexities have not discussions on the ethics and logics of con- been recognised in policy (Raheem temporary humanitarian interventions. As 2013: 6).14 Didier Fassin (2012) has explicated using Agamben’s idea of ‘bare life’, the beneficiar- Given their history, and their material needs, ies of humanitarian intervention are con- many northern Muslims sought to have a sidered a part of the nameless, faceless and Art. 21, page 6 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status voiceless multitudes defined only in terms of In his or her case, wounds speak louder their inability to act, their bodily abjection than words. Wounds are accepted and their removal from politics. These mul- as objective evidence, as more reli- titudes waiting to be ‘saved’ are only defined able sources of knowledge than the in terms of biological ‘life’ (Fassin 2012: words of the people on whose bod- 145).16 The object of humanitarian interven- ies those wounds are found. So the tion according to Fassin, following Agamben, ideal construct, the “real refugee,” is this mass of humanity – not their poli- was imagined as a particular kind of tics or their histories but only their bodies person: a victim whose judgment and and wounds. Fassin argues further that the reason had been compromised by his humanitarian transformation can in fact or her experiences. This was a tragic, be generalised to a larger governmentality, and sometimes repulsive, figure who which he calls biolegitimacy (Fassin 2009). could be deciphered and healed only I am arguing here that the UNHCR com- by professionals, and who was opaque pulsion to disallow northern Muslims a vic- even (or perhaps especially) to him- tim status results from a combination of self or herself (Maalki 1996: 384). many issues including the requirement to prioritise need in the context of a funding In treating the Vanni IDPs as ‘bare life’ not crunch; however, I am also arguing that the only are the humanitarians – UNHCR and basis on which the choice was made reflected others – leaching out the history and human- an identification of ‘need’ only in relation to ity of those whose ‘lives’ they are preserving, ‘bare life.’ As Fassin notes, the humanitarian but are also disembedding them from the relationship is based on a particular identifi- political, social and historical context within cation of life at risk. They intervene in places which they and others who are not identified where ‘life is not worth a dollar,’ focussing as similarly abject continue to function. This on those considered at risk of physical dis- decontextualisation has had damaging con- appearance and incapable of maintaining sequences for the northern Muslims and for their own existence (Fassin 2012: 23). As all IDPs in Sri Lanka whose only legitimate the UNHCR field worker stated of the Vanni claim to assistance is as abject bodies and not IDPs – ‘they have nothing.’ Further, as Fassin as political subjects. states, ‘The reasoning and speaking subject UNHCR officials stated that they con- disappears and becomes theoretically and sciously adopted a strategy of arriving unan- practically irrelevant to the humanitarian nounced without scheduling distribution aid-providing discourse’ (Fassin 2012: 145). visits due to northern Muslims’ ‘insincere The problem is not only that such victim return movements.’ They wanted to catch identification leaches the political life out the IDPs out, in the act of being absent when of the persons thus identified, but also that they had registered as returnees. UNHCR anyone who asserts a more complex identity spoke of this ‘insincere return movement’ as is considered an imperfect victim not worthy a morally reprehensible action and an indict- of assistance. The northern Muslims had cre- ment of the entire community of northern ated a political and social identity outside Muslim IDPs. I read UNHCR’s policing of IDP the category of IDP and UNHCR staff had no movements and the morality attributed to it framework to comprehend it. as part of the governmentalizing nature of Lisa Maalki also produced a similar analy- humanitarian interventions. sis of the humanitarian’s requirement of Maintaining their connections with the abjection albeit using a different more post- North while living in Puttalam was difficult colonial framework in the 1990s (Maalki for many northern Muslims and was done 1995; 1996), studying the Hutu refugees in under trying circumstances. They needed to Tanzania, states: travel to the North not just to access rations Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 7 of 18 but to access their local authorities, doing so with the large influx of IDPs (Brun 2008; at great cost and inconvenience. But many Shanmugaratnam 2000; Hasbullah 2001). persisted since it was important that they The northern Muslims’ place in the poli- were legible to the state. In addition to the tics of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) empirical reality of keeping alive multiple has also impacted their status as transients. options regarding residence I see northern Under the SLMC of M.H.M. Ashraff, the vic- Muslims as caught between multiple systems timhood of the northern Muslims took on a of governmentality (Fassin 2007). As IDPs specific political lustre. Ashraff took the posi- whose registration expires in Puttalam after tion that the northern Muslims could only more than twenty years, northern Muslims return with dignity when a comprehensive felt compelled—as efficiently subjectivised solution to the question of Muslims in the individuals—to access registration in the North and East was found–in other words, north (and access the aid that came with it). when a political settlement, for Muslims In the logic of humanitarian governmentality that constituted a Muslim administrative however, their abject status was tied to them unit in the Southern part of district living under the polythene and tin sheets of was agreed upon. Therefore the SLMC leader the NFI kits and their refusal to abide by these never campaigned for immediate northern sets of rules invited moral disapprobation. Muslim return and in fact institutionalised UNHCR officials also claimed that after 20 the claim that they could not return with- years it was ‘unrealistic’ to define all north- out a guarantee against another expulsion. ern Muslims as IDPs and that many of them Ashraff, however, recognized the possible are well on their way to being integrated protracted nature of their displacement and into the Puttalam Muslim community. They provided northern Muslims with housing also stated that after 20 years of assistance, assistance. In 1994, the Ministry of Ports, they would have that ‘plan B’ that Vanni Shipping, Reconstruction and Resettlement, IDPs lacked. Thiranagama has noted that of which Ashraff was the minister, utilised owning a house in Puttalam has helped the Unified Assistance Scheme for some restore a sense of home while in displace- displaced Muslims in Puttalam to purchase ment (Thiranagama 2011). Brun, however, land and build permanent houses. However, has documented the manner in which the within the SLMC narrative too, the north- very institutional mechanisms, and bureau- ern Muslims remained temporary residents cratic procedures that named, categorised, of Puttalam anticipating political change located and assisted northern Muslim IDPs (Thiranagama 2011; QFR 2011; Brun 2008).18 also helped maintain their distinct status Contrary to narratives of 20 years of sus- as a community of visitors to Puttalam who tained aid provision, less than 10 years after will eventually return to the North (Brun their expulsion, international humanitar- 2008; 2003). The report of the Citizens’ ian agencies had ceased defining northern Commission (QFR 2011) has documented Muslims as abject deciding instead that they more recent post-war tensions between were self-supporting and no longer in need the IDPs and local populations in certain of assistance (Brun 2003: 390). For exam- parts of Puttalam. Many local Muslim com- ple, rations provided by the World Food munity groups have long resented the IDP Programme were phased out beginning ‘incursion’ into their lands, resources and in 1999, and by 2002 the Danish Refugee state allocations, and want them to leave Council considered the Puttalam IDPs to be (Thiranagama 2011; QFR 2011; Haniffa ‘fully integrated’ into the local community. 2008). The Puttalam area, where northern However, as Brun documents, they contin- Muslims were compelled to settle, was (and ued to be registered as voters of the north remains) one of the poorest in the country while living in Puttalam,19 and therefore una- (FLICT 2009),17 and was ill equipped to deal ble to access provincial government jobs in Art. 21, page 8 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status the areas and membership of local fisheries local populations, the condition of associations (Brun 2003: 392).20 The govern- being sacrificeable in the war. In con- ment was committed to maintaining them as temporary societies this inequality a separate population category with limited is perhaps both the most ethically rights in these areas of refuge. With the WFP intolerable, in that it concerns the phasing out, the government took over the sense given to life, and the most mor- distribution of rations but with little regular- ally tolerated, since it forms the basis ity or updating of its value until by 2010 it for the principle of altruism (Fassin was little more than symbolic. Under human- 2012: 231). itarian governmentality, meeting the ‘bare life’ requirement of being able to feed them- As Fassin explains, the world is divided into selves was considered adequate to define those who have politics and those who do the northern Muslims as having integrated not. Those who are therefore entitled to be and no longer abject in status. Political dis- political are the ‘citizens of the world’ that empowerment, lack of livelihood, exclusion must reside on the humanitarian side of the from peace processes, and non-acknowledge- hierarchy and not on that of the victim. The ment of their expulsion were not regarded, ‘political’ in the case of local populations is even then, as worthy of humanitarian inter- at best irrelevant and, at worst, wrong, mis- vention. Managing the displaced population guided, deceptive or evil. It is for this reason was left to the governmentality of a state in that the UNHCR could assert without irony the middle of an ethnic conflict. that northern Muslims, who had been reg- Let me end this section by returning once istered and recognised by the state as IDPs again to Fassin’s use of Agamben to under- for 20 years, thinking of themselves as IDPs stand humanitarian intervention in Iraq. was simply ‘unrealistic’ or wrong. Indeed, Discussing how medical practitioners and senior UNHCR officials in Colombo were the affected population were conceptual- unaware and unwilling to accept that most ised and operationalized by Médicin Sans northern IDPs were registered as voters in Frontiers within the matrix of humanitarian the North for the entire duration of their dis- medicine in Iraq, Fassin states: placement—an established, often cited and fairly well-known fact. What I would like to Physically, there is no difference emphasise is not the incompetence or the between them; philosophically, they culpability of the UNHCR officers; what is are worlds apart. They bear witness more distressing is that the philosophical to the dualism conceptualized by basis of humanitarian assistance renders Giorgio Agamben and discussed ear- such decisions and such perspectives per- lier, between the bare life that is to fectly and dangerously normal. be saved and the political life that is Humanitarians’ insistence of maintaining freely risked, between the zoe of “local a status of being non-political is relevant to populations” who can only passively this discussion. Here a recent description of await both bombs and humanitar- the differences between transitional justice ian workers, fearing the former and practitioners and humanitarian actors is mistrusting the latter, and the bios of instructive. those “citizens of the world,” the aid workers who come, with courage and Displacement actors, and humanitar- devotion, to render them assistance… ians in general, have a more imme- What it signifies is, for humanitar- diate and focused mandate than ian actors, the freedom to sacrifice transitional justice proponents. Their themselves for a just cause, and for fundamental objective is to save lives Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 9 of 18

while remaining impartial and neu- rights abusing regimes without recognising tral; while they may be explicitly com- that their presence contributes to main- mitted to particular values, including taining and legitimising such regimes. For human rights principles, they typi- instance, in the process of aiding the abject cally do not take sides in political Vanni IDPs there was little or no emphasis on debates and conflicts. Humanitarians human dignity, and the UNHCR participated must be willing to work with, or in the government’s highly problematic around, state and non-state actors to and less than transparent resettlement and deliver critical aid to those in need. the dire conditions to which the Vanni IDPs In contrast, transitional justice actors were often compelled to return. That many are often perceived as taking sides in women heads of household suffered added matters concerning state and non- indignities both from men within their com- state actors, which can create unease munities and the military was overlooked by among humanitarians. Transitional humanitarian agencies due to their preoccu- justice is inherently a political process, pation with maintaining access to communi- one that calls for public recognition ties and continuing their work. It is unclear of wrongdoing and various forms of if this need for access was really in order to accountability, including criminal jus- alleviate suffering or to maintain the agen- tice. It implicates individuals as well cies’ own relevance. as institutions and therefore provokes As I have also attempted to show in this political resistance. Notions such as paper, far from being non-political or non- protection and durable solutions, partisan the assumptions of humanitar- for example, are predicated on the ian actors regarding their neutrality are protection and restoration of human inherently political and in fact dangerous. rights. However, this rights-based Assuming local integration of northern approach is contested by humanitar- Muslims as a justification for prioritising ians because of the potential for its Vanni IDPs resonated strongly with particu- political nature to undermine neu- lar political positions. In refusing to recog- trality (Campbell 2012: 66). nise the return of northern Muslims as one worthy of assistance, and assuming local The claims of humanitarianism to being non- integration despite publicly available knowl- political are not new. However, the claims to edge to the contrary, UNHCR echoed and neutrality by humanitarians mask the effects amplified positions of local Tamil authorities of the close relationship between humanitar- who sometimes asked returning Muslims: ian agencies, governing regimes and militar- ‘Why have you come?’ (QFR 2011). Their posi- ies. At one level they are compelled to work tion also resonated with certain elements of closely with regimes and militaries at war in the Tamil leadership that claimed that the the negotiation of spaces for aid delivery. But expulsion was in fact a ‘blessing in disguise’ at another level the state’s recognition of the (QFR). While sections of the Tamil leadership logic of humanitarianism is borne out in the have accepted the criminal nature of the way it is mobilised for military purposes–the LTTE’s act (see further below), the expulsion ‘humanitarian’ military operations of Kosovo of Muslims is not an ethically clear issue to in 1999 and Mullivaikal in Sri Lanka in 2009 many Tamil nationalists. By privileging and are cases in point. restating the point about Muslims having A convenient non-political neutrality ena- been integrated into Puttalam, the UNHCR bles humanitarian actors to assume the free- was also contributing to further consolidat- dom and an ethical imperative to intervene ing ground-level discourses regarding the in humanitarian crises generated by human illegitimacy of Muslim return to the North. Art. 21, page 10 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status

The UNHCR position was not only conveni- elements relevant to the framing of northern ent for remaining LTTE sympathisers who did Muslims’ victimhood within the Sri Lankan not see the expulsion as morally reprehensi- context of war, displacement and minority ble but also for the Sri Lankan state, which marginalisation. has consistently ignored Muslim concerns in Victims are never without any agency; and relation to the conflict. today, more than ever, victim politics is rec- On the ground, these assumptions trans- ognised as playing a substantial part in the lated into specific problematic interventions. manner in which political conflict and suf- For instance, faced with competing claims fering are understood (Jeffery and Candea to land from Muslim and Tamil returnees 2006; Ochs 2006; Jeffery 2006; Yildiz and in Sannar, , UNHCR took the Verkuyten 2011). The mobilisation of the side of Tamil returnees (Interview, UNHCR international community by Tamils on the field officer, January 2012). The dispute issue of state terror against Tamils in Sri over the Uppukulam village fishing harbour Lanka, from the anti-Tamil pogrom of July (Raheem and Thangarajah 2013) was another 1983 to the end of the war and after, is illus- case in which UNHCR did little to mitigate trative of the mobilisation of victimhood. the emerging tensions between Tamil and The Citizens’ Commission and the QFR too Muslim returnees to the North over con- were instances of highlighting experiences flicting claims over livelihood resources. of victims for purposes of greater visibility. Humanitarian actors’ limited understand- Such articulations often mobilised bio legiti- ing of context and politics, and their consid- macy using the rights discourse and, given eration of these factors as irrelevant to their the nature of the Sri Lankan context, the lens mandate, caused enormous distress to the of ethnicity. Uyangoda, using Charles Taylor’s northern Muslim population. As one IDP in formulation, described the polarised posi- Kalpitiya, , who was trying tions among Sri Lanka’s three main ethnic to return to Talaimannar in Mannar district groups regarding state reform as ‘worlds of stated: ‘UNHCR – it was like they were telling solitude’ (Uyangoda 2006). I want to argue us not to go back to the North. They did not that victimhood represents yet another help us at all.’21 discursive milieu in which these worlds of solitude exist, and moreover, that they are The Politics of Victimhood informed by drastically different notions of As Fassin (2012) has theorised, victim popu- ethics and justice. lations also internalise their identities and Globally, many victims groups have mobi- are committed to the little largess that such lised narratives of victimhood to influence identification may promise. In addition to policy and draw attention to their particular humanitarian agencies’ ‘bare-life’ defini- experiences. Jeffery and Candea (2006) call tion, the victimhood of northern Muslim special attention to the manner in which IDPs has been framed and mobilised, includ- some victims groups, too, mobilise a non- ing by them, in a gamut of different ways. political ontological status that considers Moreover, persons affected by conflict may suffering somehow prior to politics (Jeffery mobilise their stories of victimhood for polit- and Candea 2006; Jeffery 2006). They too ical purposes, towards memorialisation or seem to be cultivating the ‘bare-life’ defini- healing, to access aid and to seek justice for tion of victimhood described above to max- atrocities. Such mobilisation may be under- imise possible advantages. Laura Jeffery stood in terms of different forms of subjec- (2006) documents the manner in which tivisation in response to different modes of representatives of the Chagossians displaced governmentality. Informed by this literature from Diego Garcia embrace a notion of vic- on victimhood and theories of governmen- timhood that is disengaged from the larger tality, this section will discuss some further politics of the Chagossian archipelago in Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 11 of 18 order to simultaneously maintain patronage accompanied by acts of ethnic cleansing res- relationships with the British state, displaced onate with the claims and counterclaims put community groups in the Seychelles, and also forward by the Italian and Slovenian groups. anti-imperialist and anti-militarisation activ- Groups that embrace a particular form of vic- ists in Mauritius. While each of these three timhood are also often blind to other forms groups have their own politics and are often of victimhood or commensurate experiences oppositional to one another, the Chagossian of suffering that do not recognise their own victims group studied by Jeffery persists in as primary (Biner 2006; Ballinger 2004). maintaining a stance that endorses none of Constantly defined as not quite victims in their claims, keeping engagement with all of comparison, first, to Tamils living in the war them open to ensure that any possible ben- zone prior to 2009 and, second, to survivors efits that may accrue to the Chagossian com- of the bombardment of the Vanni in 2008– munity are not undermined. Another way in 2009, the northern Muslims have a history which victimhood gets mobilised is evident of struggling to articulate their suffering in in the way the Turkish Alevi community in a manner that is acknowledged by both state Europe draw upon a common experience of and inter- or non- governmental bureaucra- oppression to assert both a collective Alevi cies. Although they were suddenly and sum- identity and commonality with other minor- marily expelled, impoverished, stripped of ity communities (Yildiz and Verkuyten 2011). their possessions, and their claims to home, Julianna Ochs (2006) notes the manner in the northern Muslims have long been con- which two spatially and temporally discon- sidered the ‘better off’ IDPs. The reason for nected modes of victimhood are mobilised the distinction is that they found themselves in support of the actions of the Israeli state in a situation of displacement outside the and the Zionist project when Israeli victims conflict zone implying greater access to aid of the Intifada are framed and described as from humanitarian agencies and state ser- being similar to victims of the Holocaust. vices alike (Brun 2008). Their necessities for Ochs describes also the manner in which ‘life’ were seen to have been provided for by such mobilisation is critiqued for incommen- humanitarian agencies and later the state. surability within Israel, pointing to the many In the contest over commensurability, there- discourses and counter-discourses prevailing fore, the northern Muslims constantly lost within the same polity. out, with serious political effect. 22 Ballinger (2004) discusses the commensu- In the East, when the Sri Lanka Muslim rability of victimhood in the context of memo- Congress was articulating the need for rialising a history of atrocities and violence in stakeholder status to Muslims in the peace the Trieste region of Italy during the Second process that began in 2002, the Tamil World War. Two communities—the majority National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Italians and the minority Slovenians—com- R. Sampanthan opposed it arguing that pete for the status of ‘most affected’ during Muslims did not participate in the armed the last phases of the war. Memorialisation struggle and therefore did not deserve of the war is contested around two incidents a stake in the settlement (Haniffa and of extreme violence during the war: the mas- Raheem 2006). In 2009, when the Citizens’ sacre of mostly Slovene anti-fascist activists Commission was conducting its inquiries, the and the ethnic cleansing of non-Slovene Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, stated Italians by occupying Yugoslav troops. While that the Muslim expulsion by the LTTE was the overthrow of fascism is celebrated, some in fact a ‘blessing in disguise’ because they claim that this silences the many reprisal kill- did not have to live through the multiple dis- ings by communist forces. Both the Shoah– placements, loss of limbs, and disappearance the Jewish experience of the holocaust of family members that the residents of the – and the breakup of the former Yugoslavia North had to go through. According to the Art. 21, page 12 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status

Bishop, the Tamils suffered far more on these have sometimes asserted their own victim- counts (QFR 2011). Then, more recently, hood as exclusive. speaking in relation to the conflict over the The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation use of a fishing harbour between displaced Commission (LLRC), despite all its faults, is Tamils and Muslims returning to Mannar, the valued by northern Muslims for finally being Bishop refuted the returning Muslims’ right a state mechanism that acknowledged their to the harbour by claiming that the Muslims experiences. Although problematic in its were in fact not fisher people, but well-estab- composition and widely criticised by human lished business people coming to Mannar rights groups for the limitations of its man- from Puttalam,23 a claim that was echoed by date as well as findings, the LLRC surprised a Tamil NGO and peace activist in Mannar.24 many by the manner in which its report Further, sections of the Tamil leadership stayed true to the testimonies of those that also assumed that the northern Muslims appeared before it (de Mel 2013). The fact are ‘well settled’ in Puttalam and should not that the story of the northern Muslims fea- be coming back to Mannar or the North in tures with minimal distillation and more or general. All of this indicates a refusal to rec- less as it emerged before the LLRC means that ognise Muslim victimhood, let alone admit the northern Muslims figure substantially in commensurability.25 the LLRC’s report. There is recognition of As documented in the QFR, the lack of their suffering and specific recommenda- adequate state acknowledgement and the tions are made to rectify and address it. The Tamil nationalist justification of the expul- government, under pressure from the UN sion were issues that impacted northern Human Rights Council in 2012, committed Muslims’ victim narrative and influenced itself to the implementation of the LLRC’s their strategies. In a context where local recommendations, and policy formulation to civil society activists have been skeptical of address problems of the northern Muslims state-sanctioned commissions or fact-find- as recommended by the report is also part ing exercises in relation to human rights of the larger action plan adopted.27 However, violations, the northern Muslims have, in despite the fact that it finally acknowledges fact, wanted very much to have the state northern Muslim victimhood, there is an ele- acknowledge their experience of victim- ment of ethnic specificity that is problematic hood. Research into prior attempts to con- in its approach. Sri Lanka lacks specific legis- duct inquiries into the expulsion revealed lation to safeguard rights of IDPs and in such that the government of former President a context formulating policy with reference Chandrika Kumaratunga had considered the to northern Muslims alone is problematic institution of such a state commission, but and can only be read as symptomatic of the that it had been shot down. The basis yet overly ethnicising imperative of the state. again, was another competing claim to vic- timhood; state representatives had wanted Conclusion to have the victimhood of the Sinhalese, The ‘northern Muslims’ have been named, such as the LTTE’s expulsion of Sinhalese framed and formed by their experience of communities from in the aftermath expulsion (Thiranagama 2011). However, the of the July 1983 riots, too reflected in the political mobilisation of their victimhood mandate of any such commission. The status by northern Muslims has not moved northern Muslim representatives in turn beyond a repeated articulation of the expul- were reluctant to consider these two experi- sion experience and the protracted displace- ences as commensurable and had rejected ment narrative. Most media attention on the such an initiative.26 Northern Muslims, then, northern Muslims has been limited to artic- disallowed from other victim narratives ulating their predicament as just this one Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 13 of 18 story: displaced since 1990, they languished within a narrow field of possibilities. Two for nearly 20 years in abject conditions in decades of being forced to adjust to the Puttalam. Even northern Muslim cabinet vagaries of humanitarian aid and its ad minister Rishard Bathiudeen is not calling hoc nature has given rise to a ‘take what for overturning ethnic cleansing but resettle- you can get when you can get it’ mentality. ment for the northern Muslims who are in Many therefore–activists included–remain abject poverty and thus anticipating a better trapped within a discourse of claiming vic- life after return.28 Unfortunately, there is no timhood–a consequence of humanitarian discourse in Sri Lanka of their return as a pro- governmentality of the state and are wary cess of transitional justice. Return is under- of moving beyond it. stood only as resettlement and not as an The northern Muslims constitute a popula- issue of justice and reconciliation. Muslims tion of over 200,000 and many are indeed in therefore are trapped in repeatedly asserting need of assistance but the point, however, is the need for return and resettlement as also, that there is little space today to speak of the ironically, as an issue of ‘bare life.’ different experiences within the community. Arguably, the difficulty faced by northern Circumstances have compelled northern Muslims in getting an adequate hearing for Muslims to side-line narratives of resilience their own suffering has resulted in some of and strength; even in the QFR this informa- them becoming blind to the suffering of oth- tion appears almost in spite of itself. With ers. The Tamils in the North are, for the most victimhood being the preferred mode of part, seen only as those that benefitted from engagement with the outside, not only are their expulsion; people returning today–20 northern Muslims compelled to identify as plus years later–speak of recognising their a collective, leaving little space for a more furniture in Tamil neighbours’ houses and nuanced discussion of victimhood and sur- their cattle in the neighbours’ herds.29 One vival and undermining more positive repre- Muslim NGO worker said that he did not sentations of the community. see why Tamils were being helped in Jaffna Moreover, the manner in which the transi- because every family in Jaffna had remit- tion from war to post-war is being managed tances from the diaspora, whereas Muslims in Sri Lanka’s North and East has foreclosed had nothing.30 Further, while Muslims see the positive role northern Muslims could the high visibility of the Tamil predicament play. For instance, as a community that has in the international media and the priority weathered displacement and exhibited resil- given to ‘new’ IDPs who are invariably Tamils, ience and have had the benefit of access to the fact that over 60,000 Tamils displaced education infrastructure in Puttalam during from the High Security Zones of Jaffna are the war, returning northern Muslims have also ‘old’ IDPs living in extremely abject con- skills that can be utilised for the economic ditions often escapes their attention. development of the North. The northern The government and international actors Tamils, after decades of dealing with bru- must share some responsibility for their fail- tal militaries and negotiating with a reluc- ures to ensure a process of transition that is tant state have their own sets of skills and just and empowering in post-war Sri Lanka. resources that may complement those of the This includes failures with regard to over- returning Muslims. Both communities’ dif- turning ethnic cleansing, reconciliation, ferent experiences of the war bring different reparations, mourning and healing, demili- capabilities that maybe of great benefit to tarisation, and development in war-fatigued one another. However, the manner in which communities. The northern Muslims, then, development of the North is conceptualised have been compelled to assert their vic- is not in keeping with enhancing the qual- timhood in order to qualify for assistance ity of life of the people but instead focussed Art. 21, page 14 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status on large infrastructure projects, which have the Norwegian Refugee Council-Internal been documented as promising little for the Displacement Monitoring Center. local people (Thahir et al. 2013).31 One recurring trope in northern Muslim Author‘s Note accounts of the expulsion that needs to This paper is part of a Special Collection be capitalised on is that of good relations of papers on Conflict, Transition and between Muslims and their Tamil neigh- Development emerging from a Symposium bours prior to the expulsion. In the Muslim convened by the Centre for Poverty Analysis narrative, the perpetrators of the expulsion (CEPA), Sri Lanka, and the Secure Livelihoods were not the Tamils but the LTTE, often Research Consortium (SLRC) in September cadres brought in from outside (QFR 2011; 2014. Thiranagama 2011). While the challenges outlined above have somewhat muted this Notes narrative today, it could provide a basis to 1 An armed group that fought the Sri enable Muslim and Tamil communities to Lankan state for an independent Tamil continue to find ways of peacefully resolving state for some 30 years. their differences in everyday settings. 2 The Vanni is a general term for the area Post-war Sri Lanka has been character- in the northern province of Sri Lanka ised by widespread disquiet connected with consisting of the districts of Kilinochchi, labour strikes, student unrest, deterioration Mannar, Mullaitivu and . An area of law and order, extreme political corrup- that was largely LTTE-controlled, virtually tion and malpractice and heightened ethnic its entire population was displaced dur- political polarisation. Additionally, the rise ing the final phase of the war. of hitherto dormant fringe elements, such 3 See Shanmugaratnam 2000; Zackariah as the rampaging monks of newly-formed and Shanmugaratnam 2001; Hasbullah Buddhist nationalist groups and their spec- 2001; Brun 2008; Haniffa 2008; tacular targeting of Muslims, poses more Thiranagama 2011; Quest for Redemption challenges to contend with. As this paper (QFR) 2011. goes to press presidential elections have 4 Following Fassin 2012; and Maalki 1996. been held in Sri Lanka, a new president and 5 The old vs. new IDP distinction and the prime minister are in office and the future problems it entails are not new to Sri holds much promise. It is hoped that this Lanka. Similar situations prevail in Georgia change will result in a more democratic (see http://www.unhcr.org/4ad827f59. and egalitarian space for all citizens in the pdf); Kenya, where there is a category country. called Integrated IDPs (see http://www. brookings.edu/~/media/research/ Author Information files/reports/2013/05/kenya%20dis- This paper is based on a longer research placement/idp%20municipal%20 paper ‘Competing for Victimhood Status: authorities%20kenya%20may%20 Northern Muslims and the Ironies of Post-War 2013%20final.pdf); and the Democratic Reconciliation, Justice and Development’ Republic of Congo (see http://www. published by the International Centre for irinnews.org/in-depth/70996/41/drc- Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, in July 2014. peace-deals-fail-to-improve-the-lives-of- This work emerges from my long engage- 2-2-million-idps). ment with members of the northern Muslim 6 The institution that supported the pro- community, including as part of the Citizens’ ject – the Law & Society Trust – the group Commission project and from research I did of commissioners who were activists and in 2012 for the Law & Society Trust and for academics from different ethnicities, the Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 15 of 18

advisory group of northern Muslims and 14 A durable solution should, according to the funders were all convinced both of the IASC framework, be understood not the suffering and the politically abject just as a process of emerging from a state status of the northern Muslims, and the of ‘bare life’, but should ideally include importance of highlighting their history elements of community and politics that (QFR 2011; Haniffa 2011; Thiranagama contribute towards making life socially 2011; McGilvray and Raheem 2007). meaningful to a person or community. In 7 The latest problem is the manner in which the northern Muslims’ experience with the Sinhalese extremist group Bodu Bala humanitarian actors the mere provision Sena labels housing projects for northern of assistance for existence was considered Muslims as a Middle Eastern colonisation sufficient for ending people’s needs. project of a wildlife reserve. 15 The state no longer supported IDPs in 8 See Sarvananthan (2014). Also see Thahir Puttalam after December 2010. Circulars et al. (2014) for an account of northern to that effect were sent, discontinuing and eastern people’s negative perceptions the allowances to grama niladharis who regarding ‘development’ in their areas. were previously tasked with attending to 9 For example, during our visits to Puttalam IDP needs. in 2012 we encountered an entire vil- 16 In Homo Sacer (1998 [1995]: 4), Agamben lage in Nuraichcholai that was originally interprets Aristotle’s use of bios and zoe driven out from Illanthaikulam, Mannar to make this distinction foundational of district, who had not received housing his theory of bio-politics. Reformulating assistance. Of 85 families in the village, Michel Foucault’s concept, he writes that only 20 had permanent housing. Very ‘the entry of zoe into the sphere of the few had their own toilet and most were polis – the politicization of bare life as compelled to share facilities with 4–5 such – constitutes the decisive event of families. There are of course many stories modernity and signals a radical trans- that are similar to those of the people of formation of the political-philosophical Illanthaikulam. categories of classical thought. What 10 For a more effective delineation of north- becomes important then is not “man” ern Muslims’ relationship to ‘home-place’ as a social and political animal but as both in Puttalam and the North, see constitute of “life”. The saving, protec- Thiranagama 2011. tion and care of this life becomes para- 11 One middle-class northern Muslim mount and often the only concern. The stated that most of the Mannar peo- reasoning speaking subject disappears ple owned large amounts of property – and becomes theoretically and practically either in terms of land or buildings, due irrelevant to the humanitarian aid provid- to Muslims’ reluctance to keep money ing discourse.’ in banks. Therefore, they invested their 17 Kalpitiya and Mundel, where there are earnings in property, much of which they large concentrations of IDPs, are classi- lost or could not use due to the expulsion. fied as two of the ten poorest DS divisions 12 In fact, the Erukkulampiddy mosque in the country. committee in Mannar district informed 18 The political importance of the north- us that if they received compensation ern Muslims shifted after Ashraff’s death for the losses that they suffered due in 2000. After the Ceasefire Agreement to the expulsion, they would not need of 2001, the LTTE presence in the any resettlement assistance from the Eastern Province and their attempts to government. undermine Muslim economic activity 13 See Abeywickrema (2012) increased. During that time the northern Art. 21, page 16 of 18 Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status

Muslims faded from the SLMC’s politi- have been such that the issue remains on cal agenda. In 2002, during the SLMC’s the government agenda. meeting with Pirapaharan, the SLMC 28 This is not to reduce the experience of failed to insist that the northern Muslims northern Muslims who continue to be be exempt from LTTE taxation. They won in difficulty, remain destitute and have such an exemption for the East, but not fallen through the cracks in various assis- for returning northerners. (Haniffa 2011; tance programmes. Haniffa and Raheem 2006). 29 Interviews in Mannar, 2011; and Puttalam, 19 They were still registered as voters in 2013. I see these testimonies as an indica- their places of origin in the North. tion of Muslims claiming both a continu- 20 This was a pre-requisite to undertake fish- ity with their past experience in the north ing in the area. and of course a suspicion of narratives of 21 Interview in Puttalam, February 2012. Tamil victimhood. The point therefore, is 22 The importance of Muslim refusal of not whether the furniture ‘actually’ sur- Tamil nationalism on this particular ques- vived or if the cattle were ‘really’ from the tion regarding commensurability should herds of twenty years ago. be taken in to account. For an account 30 While there are northern Muslims work- of Muslim and Tamil nationalism, ing abroad who send back money, there see Haniffa 2011; Thiranagama 2011; is very little evidence of large migrant McGilvray and Raheem 2007; Haniffa and networks from among the northern Raheem 2006. Muslims. Unlike for ethnic Sri Lankan 23 Meeting with Bishop Rayappu Joseph, Tamils, mass migration has not been an October 2012. At this meeting Bishop option pursued by Muslims. Joseph acknowledged that the Muslims 31 See, for instance, a recent article by econo- were affected materially by the expul- mist Muthukrishna Sarvananthan, 2014. sion, but insisted that nevertheless Tamils were affected to a far greater extent. References 24 Meeting with peace NGO in Mannar, Abeywickrema, M I 2012 Legal action October 2012. against UNHCR. The Sunday Times, 25 Sharika Thiranagama’s work on the expul- 8 January. Available at http://www. sion is a powerful indictment of Tamil thesundayleader.lk/2012/01/08/legal- silence on the issue (Thiranagama 2011). action-against-unhcr/ Some salutary recent developments are Ballinger, P 2004 Exhumed Histories: Tri- also promising. M.A. Sumanthiran, TNA este and the Politics of (Exclusive) Victim- MP, recently spoke of the necessity of hood. Journal of Southern Europe and the acknowledging the expulsion as a crime. Balkans, 6(2): 145–59. DOI: http://dx.doi. Additionally, acknowledging the findings org/10.1080/1461319042000242038 of the Citizens’ Commission and the QFR, Brun, C 2003 Local Citizens or Internally a group of Tamil intellectuals released a Displaced Persons? Dilemmas of Long statement that took the incommensura- Term Displacement in Sri Lanka. Journal bility crisis head on and even apologised of Refugee Studies, 16(4): 376–397. DOI: to the Muslims for the expulsion (See http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jrs/16.4.376 Island, 5 January 2012). Brun, C 2008 Finding a Place. Local Inte- 26 Interview with northern Muslim activist, gration and Protracted Displacement in October 2011. Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists’ 27 The policy has yet to be formulated and Association. it is unclear if the government will see Campbell, B 2012 Addressing Concerns it through. However, the circumstances about Transitional Justice in Displacement Haniffa: Competing for Victim Status Art. 21, page 17 of 18

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How to cite this article: Haniffa, F 2015 Competing for Victim Status: Northern Muslims and the Ironies of Sri Lanka’s Post-war Transition. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 4(1): 21, pp. 1-18, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.fj

Published: 29 April 2015

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