Terrorist violence: The Sri Lankan experience, Norway and New Zealand

Norway is the latest country that succumbed to terrorism. It is reported that nearly 100 people have been killed either by the bomb blast or the shooting incident. As members of two organisations of Sri Lankans living in New Zealand, we would like to express our heartfelt sympathy for the victims and their loved ones. Our organisations have fought against terrorism for decades and have highlighted time and again the dangers in tolerating the extremist movements who have resorted to terrorism. The objective of this press release is to appeal the New Zealand people to be extremely vigilant in providing safe haven for the sympathizers of the terrorist organisations.
At a recent session in the New Zealand Parliament, the Green MP Keith Locke vehemently opposed the Prime Minister John Key‘s rejection of the appeals of Tamil boat people, to come to New Zealand. Keith’s point was that it was against the New Zealand character to be so heartless to people who have probably experienced great tragedy in their lives and are fleeing ongoing persecution. He has also accused the Prime Minister for violating the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.
We agree with MP Keith Locke that New Zealanders are kind hearted and compassionate people, who are willing to support others. However, the question here is whether such qualities of New Zealanders are deliberately abused by some interested parties. There are credible allegations to that effect in Sri Lanka and it is worth examining and placing the facts before the New Zealand people.
Like New Zealanders Norwegians are also kind hearted people. Like New Zealanders Norwegians also opened their doors to the asylum seekers. Like Keith Locke in New Zealand, Eric Solheim in Norway has tolerated the groups with terrorist connections and advised the respective governments to accept the sympathizers of these groups. Both countries did not believe that the terrorists could creep through their doors when left unchecked. Norwegian people may now realize the folly of the policies of their governments through this tragedy. Unless the asylum regulations in New Zealand are not tightened, New Zealanders also may have to realize it through the hard way.
That is why we agree with the Prime Minister John Key’s hard line stand to reject 87 Sri Lankan boat people, who are in Indonesian waters at present.
In Sri Lanka, hundreds of agents operate with various kinds of offers to arrange employment, education and refugee status in foreign countries. Some represent genuine agencies while many are either bogus or semi bogus entities. Some are connected to the people smuggling groups around the world. They offer “attractive packages” to take their clients to a western country and to obtain some kind of a visa for them. Destinations are mainly UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Out of these countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are considered as soft touches. Australia became less attractive some time ago due to Howard Government’s Pacific Solution policy, but it is becoming a popular destination again.
Refugees and terrorist violence in Sri Lanka
The war in Sri Lanka commenced around July 1983 and ended on 18 May 2009. Within this period the Sri Lankan community saw the Tamil Tigers ( LTTE) massacre tens of thousands of innocent un-armed civilian s - men, women, children, pregnant mothers and infants from Sinhalese, Muslim and Tamil communities. For almost 27 years the Tigers virtually controlled the day to day lives of 21 million people who were scared to step out sides their homes for fear of being shot or bombed to smithereens by them. Tamil Tigers who are known to have perfected the art of suicide bombing have carried out nearly 400 suicide bombing missions that included the assassinations of the President Premadasa of Sri Lanka, The Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India and maiming of the Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaranatunga.
During this period, more than 140,000 people reported to have fled Sri Lanka and obtained refugee status in various countries, mainly in the western world, citing fears of being persecuted in Sri Lanka. Genuine refugees who wanted to flee the violence as well as the terrorist elements who wanted to operate from safe places have fled Sri Lanka. The violent conditions that prevailed in Sri Lanka during that period generally helped such applicants to be successful. This situation opened up opportunities to various illegal groups to organize refugee status for those who desired to leave the country. It is well known in Sri Lanka that clandestine agents often resorted to several fraudulent tactics to convince the asylum seekers their capability of “obtaining refugee status for them”. That is where the New Zealand environment of lax enforcement of asylum regulations and the benevolent qualities of New Zealanders have been used or rather abused by them. The statements of some political leaders of New Zealand, which support the asylum seekers have been heavily publicized in Sri Lanka to motivate more people to come out. Most of the boat people have sold all their properties and belongings to pay the human smugglers. If failed, they have to return to the country penniless. That is the desperation for them to agree even to a highly dangerous sea journey to New Zealand and not due to any fear of persecution as portrayed by some New Zealand politicians.
Sadly, as far as the situation in Sri Lanka is concerned, it has become a lucrative business for certain interested groups. Some of the so called “humanitarian organizations”, people smugglers and arms suppliers have invested large sums and reaped huge profits in return at the expense of innocent victims of terrorism in Sri Lanka. Their main sponsor, LTTE, rained terror on the Sri Lankan people, by resorting to suicide bombing, summary executions, ethnic cleansing, recruitment of child soldiers, drug smuggling, piracy, international money laundering etc. The LTTE resorted to these brutal tactics to perpetuate violence for years and years. Vast amounts of money that started flowing into their coffers by their illegal businesses have been used to coerce the influential people including some politicians around the world to support “their cause”. Violence, Asylum Status and Human Smuggling combined to be a well organized, inter connected cycle that benefitted all parties involved. Human smuggling emerged as a highly lucrative business that was linked to obtain refugee status. In fact, it became a shortcut to obtain resident visas to some countries. John Key’s statement on “queue jumping” should be considered in that context.
For the refugee business to be flourished, unfortunately, the violence should have continued in Sri Lanka. Suicide bombings, land mines, mass killings with high explosives etc. were used by LTTE to kill thousands of innocent civilians. The successive governments had to use force to curb such violence. Thousands died at the hands of terrorist attacks by LTTE and at the same time thousands claimed refugee status in western countries citing violence and fear of persecution.
Change of the situation
After a relentless and determined operation against the military might of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Government forces finally annihilated them in May 2009. That was the culmination of the hopes of overwhelming majority of Sri Lankans who wanted to lead a peaceful life in their life time. Sri Lankans were fed up with the regular news of executions, bomb blasts and mass killings of innocents by the LTTE for the last 30 years. Violence perpetuated in Sri Lanka but the help of the world powers to curb it limited only to mere statements. Of course USA, Canada, EU Countries declared the LTTE as a terrorist organization, but did not go further than that. Even those declarations were merely to protect from spilling of the seeds of terrorism into their countries.
Sri Lanka had not sought to end the conflict militarily but was compelled to do so after being rebuffed repeatedly as it tried to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict with LTTE. Finally, the military defeat of the LTTE on 18 May 2009 paved way for the hopes and aspirations of all Sri Lankans to come true.
The organizations and political establishments of some countries who advocated to adopt a soft policy on the LTTE terrorists have now started a campaign to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka citing a few flimsy, unsubstantiated charges that related to a couple of incidents during the last stages of war. They claim that Sri Lanka has violated humanitarian laws and has committed war crimes. As a community group that belongs to a nation that suffered at the hand of terrorism for 30 years, we vehemently condemn such claims.
The primary purpose of International Humanitarian Law is the protection of civilians. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces carried that duty during the last three decades by protecting its people from terrorists. They have been exposed to one of the deadliest terrorist groups the world has ever seen who have used child soldiers unconscionably; who have used suicide bombers to cause mindless destruction of property and deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and who have used hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields. Therefore, as a conventional army of a nation state they had to deal with a multitude of complex situations. They had to face a ferocious group of combatants, when killed the blame comes for “civilian deaths”.
Majority of Sri Lankans honestly believe that the rules of war as exist today do not cater for a situation like that in Sri Lanka. Therefore, they value the honour of its security forces and do not wish to see the reputation of over 200,000 honest and decent men and women and who fought a brutal terrorist group bravely and at immense cost in lives to achieve peace, tarnished. That is why Sri Lankans have chosen to ignore the attempts by few interested parties to bring charges on alleged war crimes against the members of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces.
Post war Developments
With the annihilation of LTTE, the real peace dawned to Sri Lanka. There has not been a single terrorist attack in since May 2009. After nearly 30 years, the people of Sri Lanka, irrespective of their ethnicity, have started enjoying the real sense of security. They value the peace achieved by them against all odds.
The dividends of peace are visible through most of the social indicators which turned positive since the war. The Per capita Income rose to 2,399 US dollars in 2010, up 16.6 percent in dollar terms from 2009.
Colombo Stock Exchange ( CSE) indices increased rapidly creating new records. Market capitalization at the CSE reached record high on 06th October 2009 when it reached the Rs. 1 trillion mark for the first time in Sri Lanka’s history. All Share Price Index (ASPI) broke the record for its previous high by marking 3549.27 points on 11th January 2010. According to Wikipedia, CSE was the best performing stock exchange in the world in 2009 as it jumped 125.2 percent during that year.
The Sri Lankan society is slowly but surely raising the head now. When compared to the situations in neighbouring India, Pakistan and Afghanistan etc, Sri Lanka is free from terrorism and its people can proudly claim that they have eliminated the terrorism from their soil. It is interesting to note that Sri Lanka is the only democracy to have defeated a terrorist organization in recent memory.

Rehabilitation and Reconciliation Programme in Sri Lanka

It is well known that over 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes at the end of the war. Majority of them had been forced by the LTTE to move along with them when they retreated against the advancing Sri Lankan Forces.
Today, after two years, almost 95% of those people have been resettled. Only about 15,000 are still in the IDP camps and they will also be sent to their villages once the demining operations are completed. The massive task of de-mining over 3900 of 4600 square kilometers of land, including roadways, where the LTTE had laid almost two million landmines, has been achieved and UNHCR safety certifications have been issued for the people to move in.
About 11500 LTTE cadres that surrendered after the war had been provided with opportunities while in custody to further their education or vocational training that would give them new skills without having to wield AK47 guns again. Already, about 7500 of these cadres have been rehabilitated and allowed to rejoin with their families. Hundreds of LTTE cadres were even given the opportunity to get married while in custody and most of them have achieved their freedom now. Several cadres have sat for the exams and got selected for higher education in Universities.
People in the Northern and Eastern provinces had the opportunity to participate in several elections held after the end of the war. Eastern Province elected a former LTTE leader as their Chief Minister. He is supporting the Sri Lankan Government now. Northern Province had their local Government elections on 23 July 2011 and elected their representatives with out any incidents. During the Parliamentary elections held in ……… the main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance won majority of the seats in the Northern Province. It is interesting to note that at the presidential election which was the first after the war, President Mahinda Rajapakse who provided the political leadership to the war against terrorism and his opponent Sarath Fonseka, the Army Commander who led the armed forces during the war, received …. of the votes in the northern province, where more than 95% are Tamil speaking.
Although it is slow, the national reconciliation process has started in Sri Lanka after the bitter but decisive intervention of armed forces. If Sri Lanka heeded to the calls of various advisers, specially from Norway, all communities would be still suffering from barbaric terrorism of LTTE.


Conclusion
We invite all New Zealanders to look at the above facts and see whether there is any justification for the arguments of the people like Keith Locke who says the boat people are fleeing for on going prosecution. If the Sri Lankan Government is not interested to prosecute ex combatants of LTTE who were in the custody for nearly 2 years, what is the motivation to prosecute the boat people including women and children.
It is interesting to note that on 23 July 2011 the people in Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka, who suffered from terrorism for 30 years, peacefully went to polls to elect their own representatives democratically. On the same day, the people in Oslo in Norway, who had never experienced violence in their history had to face barbaric terrorist attacks. The irony is that Norway is a country that advised Sri Lanka for decades to tolerate the terrorist LTTE while Sri Lanka is a country who decided to go against the advises of Norway and crushed the LTTE militarily. Norway allowed the people with LTTE connections to move freely in their country while Sri Lankans restricted their movements. Today all Sri Lankans enjoying their democratic rights while Norway has to start a war against the terrorists.
We earnestly appeal the New Zealand people and its political leaders to exercise utmost caution when granting asylum to people who sympathesize with terrorist movements as it is one of the prime sources for the undesirables to enter a country. Once entered , although they may not resort to violence themselves, they can influence others.
Last week we heard Canada claiming that they identified about 30 people with crimes against humanity have entered their country. This week we heard Norway, who tolerated the terrorist LTTE and their sympathizers, was attacked by terrorists. If New Zealand does not harden their asylum policies, tomorrow it could be New Zealand.

New Zealand Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights in Sri Lanka
United Sri Lanka Association ( Auckland Branch)