In the Course of My Researches Into the Emergence

II Wednesday 11th January, 2012 BY MICHAEL ROBERTS n the cour se of m y researches into the em er gence of Ceylonese nationalism in the Br itish per iod, I delved in consider able detail into an event that Iwas refer red to then as "the 1915 r iots" - the ter m "r iots" in South Asia being a m echanical reproduction of the ter m inology of the Br itish legal lexicon to descr ibe affr ays of all sor ts. In 1915 this shor thand phr ase refer red to the assaults on the Moham m edan Moor s (as they were called then) in the south-wester n quadr ant by elem ents of the Sinhalese population (Rober ts 1981). Am idst the com plex processes that prom oted this outbreak let m e isolate a par ticular factor: a cr itical force inspir - ing the attacks was the incitem ent by those whom I have refer red to as "stir rer s" (Kannangar a 1984; Rober ts 1981; 1994a). working secretly in LTTE ter r itor y from 2007 or 2008 and that Nick Paton The outbreak of the J uly 1983 pogrom against Tam ils living in the south-wester n and centr al regions of Sr i Lanka encour aged scholar s to redefine such events as "pogrom s." On this occasion too, anecdotal testim ony from fr iends and the ar ticle by Valli Kanapathypillai (1990) indicate that incitem ent by a diver se body of chauvinist stir rer s was one factor behind a cam paign that legitim ised the ter ror wrought by depicting these activities as acts that would "teach Tam ils a lesson." Walsh entered Sr i Lanka to com plete the final phase of this cooper ation; but was deem ed suspect and uncerem oniously tur ned out by the Sr i Lankan gover nm ent in May 2009 - a hum iliating Dwelling on som e anecdotal tales I was m otivated in the 1990s to pen a liter ar y essay of protest against the hor rendous acts of J uly 1983: The Agony a nd Ecsta sy of a Pogrom: Souther n La nka , J uly 1983, This ar ticle was wr itten dur ing a lonely sojour n in Charlottesville, Vir ginia where m y isolation prom oted reflexivity. Centr al to this inter vention was the deploym ent of two hor r ifying photogr aphs extr acted from the Ta mil Times. In subsequent year s I discovered that these im ages had been captured by a br ave cam er am an, Chandr agupta Am ar asinghe, who supplied m e with better copies and clar ified details about the m ayhem around Borella J unction that 24th/ 25th night in J uly (Rober ts 1994b, 2003). These engagem ents with ethnic extrem ism and zealotr y encour aged m e to seek com par ative m ater ial on r ace r iots in USA and pogrom s in easter n Europe; while a Research Fellowship at Teen Mur thi enabled m e to spend four m onths in Delhi in 1995 delving into "com m unal violence" in India - m ostly attacks on the Muslim s by Hindus, but also the attacks on Sikhs in 1984 after Indir a Gandhi was assassinated (Rober ts 2010a). outcom e which added revenge to the other m otivations prom oting Channel 4s com m itm ent to the Tiger cause and its tar geting of the Sr i Lankan gover nm ent for a public hanging. In early 2009, as we know, the Sr i Lankan gover nm ent was subject to pressure from som e Wester n gover nm ents, UN agencies and INGOs dem anding that they resor t to a unilater al ceasefire in order to reduce the s civilian death toll. As Sim on J enkins indicated in his str ictures on David Miliband's gr andstanding on sever al fronts in that per iod: "in Sr i Lanka a r udim entar y study of the past three m onths of fighting would have told Miliband that a ceasefire would be proTam il, not just "pro-hum anitar ian" (2009). This was precisely the position I pressed then in cr iticising Hilar y Clinton and other world leader s for their sim - pleton approach, one that encour aged the LTTE to use the im pending gener al elections in m id-May in India as well as hum an r ights vocabular y as a foundation for their Machiavellian policy of using the Tam il population of Tha milila m as a buffer and bar - gaining chip to gain som e bolt-hole (also see Tekwani 2011). ating com posite picture of a typical r iot-patter n, a constellation which I would set out in order to provoke reader s and com - m and of the situation and had taken control of m any gover nm ents into reflective counteraction. Centr al to such a pur pose was the deploym ent of photogr aphic im ager y of the type Am ar asinghe, nam ely, pictures that hor r ify and reveal m an's inhum anity towards m an. My reasoning was that it is far m ore difficult for people to tr ansfer hor rendous im ages into the nether regions of the m ind in contr ast with prose repor ts on violence. The shor tcom ings of a great deal of the Channel 4 film footage have now been outlined in sever al productions. The m ost revealing is the visual powerpoint docum entar y assem bled by a Canadian collective associated with the Sr i Lankan gover nm ent who incor por ated Sir i Hewavithar ana's visual decoding analysis (2011a, 2011b) within their product. The m ost thorough textual cr iticism is that presented by a m edia outfit m ar shalled by the Ministr y of Defence: Appa ling J our na lism. J on Snow a nd Cha nnel 4 News on Sr i La nka . Both sources above m ay im m ediately be viewed as tainted by those hostile to the Sr i Lankan state. However, Godfrey Gunatilleka's recent sum m ar y of the findings of a Mar ga team suppor ts their thr usts in providing a m easured, yet severe, set of str ictures on the yardsticks directing both Ban Ki-Moon's Dar usm an Panel and the Channel 4 docum entar y. There are also useful insights in the rem arks of such independent analysts as Shyam Tekwani (2011) and KalanaSenar atne (2011). Because I was fam iliar with the LTTE's capacities in using pictor ial and video m ater ial, I sur veyed the fir st air ing of the open-air execution scenes by Channel 4 in August 2009 with suspicion. These doubts becam e conviction when I read Sir i Hewavithar ana's forensic analysis in ar ticle for m in the Asia n Tr ibune and local newspaper s im m ediately after wards (see Rajasingham 2010 for a subsequent over view). I reached this conclusion because Hewavithar ana's decoding repor t seem ed to be the work of a technologist r ather than a liter ar y giant - a technologist who knew his onions. The tim e discrepancy between the audio and visual m om ents in one execution scene highlighted by Hewavithar ana, and his insistence that this was video footage r ather than the work of a m obile phone (as a claim ed by Channel 4), seem ed clinching ar gum ents. This incisive work has now, in 2011, been incor por ated in power-point docum ents. buildings in the nor ther n Vanni, especially in the town of Kilinochchi, which had been abandoned by the LTTE once Par anthan fell in late Since then, after the dem ise of the LTTE m ilitar y regim e, the cam paign to cr ucify the Sr i Lankan state has been prom oted by processes that I do not have the exper tise to decipher, but which can be treated as a n a llia n ce of sor ts between five categor ies of actor s. These are Decem ber 2008. SL ar m y tor tur ing would, in m y speculative reasoning, have occur red within closed door s. On this ground I thought then that this set of im ages indicated a killing of a dissident or deser ter by the LTTE, acts which were frequent in Tha milila m from 1990 through to 2009 and which have been docum ented over the year s by the UTHR collective; and which are even stressed by Gordon Weiss him self in The Ca ge (2011: 69, 141-42). The doubts were subsequently suppor ted by the insights offered by the Tam il dissident, Noel Nadesan: "I was told by sources in the Vanni that this was an LTTE oper ation and [that these] pictures were taken for propaganda pur poses by LTTE. Have a close look and you will find am ong the so-called soldier s a m an in slipper s. Sr i Lankan soldier s never go about in slipper s when they go out on oper ations." Nadesan is refer r ing to oper ations in the late 2000s and told m e that his sources are for m er LTTE functionar ies associated with its propaganda wings. He is not free to nam e them , so this evidence is open to sceptical responses from those who believe the Channel 4 ver sion of this visual stor y. Never theless, I insist that there is reasonable ground to conjecture that this segm ent of Killing Fields is an LTTE production developed as par t of its propaganda oper ations in late 2008. The three reasons for this verdict are (a) the resor t to open-air tor - ture and execution with the use of a tree as a stanchion; (b) the presence of a soldier wear ing slipper s; and (c) infor m ation gar nered by Nadesan from wellplaced sources within the LTTE cam p. Such threads do not, of cour se, enable a definitive verdict; but they are strongly indicative. At the ver y least they indicate that the jur y should rem ain out on any conclusion about the per petr ator s of this atrocity. It is therefore of som e significance that one photogr aph from this set of concoctions by the LTTE should tur n up in the m ar quee im ages fronting - yes fronting - the web site m aintained by Gordon Weiss with the caption: "Tor tur ing a Victim , Nor ther n Sr i Lanka, 2009." <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">1. </li><li style="flex:1">The LTTE's var ious inter national ar m s - </li></ul>bolstered now by new recr uits am ong Tam il m igr ants stir red by the em otional heat of 2009. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">2. </li><li style="flex:1">UN, INGO and NGO agencies directed for </li></ul>the m ost par t by hum an r ights discour se and the either / or epistem ology that gover ns the cur rents of secular fundam entalism that are so vibr ant now in Wester n countr ies. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">3. </li><li style="flex:1">The hidden agendas (and double standards) </li></ul>Weiss has a reputation of being an idealist and his m or al passion m ay suggest that he is not the type of per son who would crop a photogr aph. However, his cam paign against hum an r ights abuses directed at both par ties in the conflict has not been evenhanded. There are sever al m om ents where his representations let the LTTE off the hook. A separ ate essay is called for if one is to evaluate the degree of par tiality and integr ity displayed in recent year s by Gordon Weiss. Dur ing this work I dwelt on the possibility of creating com posite picture of a typical r iot-patter n, a constellation which I would set out in order to provoke reader s and gover nm ents into reflective counter-action. Centr al to such a pur pose was the deploym ent of photogr aphic im ager y that hor r ifies and reveals m an's inhum anity towards m an. My reasoning was that it is far m ore difficult for people to tr ansfer hor rendous im ages into the nether regions of the m ind in contr ast with prose repor ts on violence. Thus m otivated, I even approached a Ger m an NGO in Colom bo with this idea. I got nowhere and confess that m y effor ts in this direction were not sustained. However weak m y endeavour s, it would seem that the NGO world of the 1990s did not possess the type of interest we have seen in recent tim es. From this exper ience I find it ironic that visual im ager y, whether You Tube videos, still photogr aphs or docum entar ies, have been so power ful in the m or al stor m about "war cr im es" (a controver sial concept as it is) in both Sr i Lanka and elsewhere. The controver sial apotheosis of this power of im ager y has been the Channel 4 video presented by J on Snow which bear s the title Killing Fields. Killing Fields cannot, however, be com prehended without attentiveness to one of the pr incipal forces behind som e of the ter r ifying footage deployed within it, nam ely, the LTTE and its m any ar m s abroad. Such investigative work m ust begin with awareness of the degree to which the Tiger leader ship invested in pictor ial m odalities in their propaganda and tr aining progr am m es from ver y early on. of sever al Wester n states as well as the UN agencies in their pockets. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">4. </li><li style="flex:1">The sensationalist tendencies of sever al </li></ul>m edia outlets in the West who thr ive on "chur nalism ," encour aged as they are by a pr incipled hostility to the intim idation of their colleagues in Sr i Lanka dur ing the per iod 2006-09. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">5. </li><li style="flex:1">The activities of sever al Sr i Lankan jour - </li></ul>nalists and cam er am en who were forced to flee their land in 2007-09 as a result of the assassinations and threats that sur rounded those with liber al or Left inclinations. On a pr ior i grounds one can say that ideology, m otives of vengeance and occasionally that of profit com bined to encour age such individuals to supply Channel 4 and other Wester n m edia outlets with som e of the wherewithal to cane the gover nm ent. In som e ways this could be seen as poetic justice; but the issue rem ains whether som e of the lynching evidence is fabr icated and thus contr ar y to the m or al nor m s of other s in the alliance as well as the concept of justice via tr uth. II When Channel Four chose the title of Killing Fields for its docum entar y of 2011, it cleverly deployed a m etaphor from the Pol Pot er a as a sensational sales pitch to suppor t its highly weighted and par tisan reading of the last stages of Eelam War IV, when the LTTE and its Tam il hostages and suppor ter s were caged into what can be called the "Vanni Pocket." It used the visual power of film juxtaposed with inter views in a blitzkr ieg com pilation that rever ber ated throughout the Wester n world and per - suaded m any non-par tisan viewer s - from Michael Ather ton to Peter Roebuck - that som ething awful happened in the nor th easter n cor ner s of the Vanni. That such individuals were per suaded is proof of visual power when it is cleverly com piled - though in m y view it is also indicative of som e m easure of credulity and som e unfam iliar ity with the details of the context am ong those so swayed. When this execution scene was subsequently incor por ated within Killing Fields in m id-2011, m y suspicions increased - the m ore so because Killing Fields m oved on in r apid blitzkr ieg fashion to depict other gor y scenes including one ser ies where the video-docum entar y depicted a ter r ified m an tied to a tree and subject to tor ture, with the coup de gr ace for the m essage being an im age of his bloodied cor pse at the conclusion of this segm ent. This latter ser ies of im ages aroused m y scepticism im m ediately. The doubts did not ar ise from any faith in the goodness of the SL Ar m y. Anyone with exper ience of war, whether vic- This sam e im age, cropped even tighter, is reproduced in his The Ca ge with the following descr iption: "One of a ser ies of photos, video, and testim ony from Sinhalese soldier s that gr adually em er ged after the war. This one shows a m an thought to be a captured Tam il Tiger fighter being tor tured. Other photos in the sequence show him being bludgeoned to death." In the credits for his illustr ations inser ted at the head of the book we are told that this im age is from the "author 's own collection." ar iously or in real tim e, knows that frontline soldier s som etim es execute captured adver - sar ies. It is well-known that dur ing the last m onths of World War Two Allied troops killed soldier s of the Wehr m acht (Ger m an ar m y) who had killed som e of their com r ades in the cour se of continued resistance that ever yone knew to be futile. The Sr i Lankan war s of the last 30 year s have been littered with atrocities from both sides. The atrocities in the Easter n Province in 1990 were par ticularly extensive. After the LTTE executed over 600 policem en Sinhalese and Muslim who had sur rendered in J une 1990 The LTTE set up two-per son video team s within a depar tm ent that has been called "The Tr uth Tiger s" to film specific oper ations (J our neym an Pictures 2002). Their video work supplem ented the LTTE investm ents in street theatre, r adio, newspaper s et cetera . The innovative char acter of the LTTE's diver se m eans of presenting their liber ation str uggle has to be gr asped by anyone reviewing the present propaganda war. In their heyday the LTTE's use of pandals, buntings, poster ar t, billboards et ceter a was quite phenom enal. The m ost pronounced m om ent in such endeavour s occur red in the week leading up to Maaveer ar Naal at 6.05 pm on 27th Novem ber ever y year (Rober ts 2005) - a process of gr ieving, celebr ation and dedication that occur red in all the m ajor cities in the West beside the ter r ain em br aced by the de facto state of Tha mileela m from 1990 to 2007. [Tam il policem en being spared], the SL ar m y indulged in m assacres at Kokkadichcholai and other places in 1990-91. If one wanted "Srebenica" m om ents, it is here that the best exam ples can be located. Pictor ial im ager y was a m ajor dim ension of the repor tage and propaganda in such LTTE web sites as Ta milnet.com and Ta milCa na dia n.com. I was taken in once by a Tam il suppor ter who sent m e a photogr aph of the cor pses produced by the suicide bom b attack that killed J anaka Perer a in <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">However, the Channel 4 </li><li style="flex:1">Anur adhapur a as proof of killings caused by </li></ul>shelling in the Vanni pocket in 2009 (see m y illustr ative entr y in Senar atne 2011). One m ust therefore attend to the possibility that som e video footage of alleged gover nm ent atrocities was m anufactured in 2008 as the LTTE realised that it was on the backfoot. Gr apevine infor m ation indicates that Channel 4 was One of the series of photos, video, and testimony from Sinhalese soldiers that gradually emerged after the war. This one shows a man thought to be captured Tamil Tiger fighter being tortured. Other photos in the sequence show him being bludgeoned to death. footage sim ply sm elled "fake" because it pur por ted to convey events occur r ing in the last stages of Eelam War IV in 2008- 09. Dur ing that phase the SL ar m ed forces were not only well kitted, but were in Dur ing this work I dwelt on the possibility of cre- Continue d on p a g e IV

In the Course of My Researches Into the Emergence

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