Special Report

Will S.Africa be LTTE's new haven?

By Our Diplomatic Corr.

With the UK tightening its laws to curb the activities of foreign terrorist groups on it's soil, and other European regimes tending to think likewise, there has been speculation about the LTTE's moving out of Britain and Europe to South Africa.

And all this for valid reasons, South Africa has a huge population of Tamils or Dravidians, whose estimates vary from 500,000 to 600, 000. Having come as illiterate, indentured labour from what is now Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in South India in the 19th century, they had had to wage a long drawn out struggle against discrimination and humiliation to become a fairly prosperous community.

Cut off from their South Indian home and lumped together with others from India as "Indians" by successive South African regimes, their links with Tamil or Telugu language and culture were very tenuous.

That South Africa is governed by the African National Congress (ANC) led by Nelson Mandela, an ex-militant, is of significance to the LTTE. The LTTE had had links with the ANC when the latter was waging an armed struggle against the apartheid regime. When the ANC's intelligence wing was amalgamated with the state National Intelligence Agency (NIA) after the formation of an ANC government, pro-LTTE operatives had come into the NIA. "ANC has to pay many debts to their former friends. LTTE is not quite so, but the LTTE is in the list," an NIC operative told Rohan Gunaratna, the Sri Lankan author, in 1997.

Mandela is naturally sympathetic to the struggle of the Tamils, which, according to Hassim Seedat, Treasurer of the Natal Indian Congress, is widely perceived in South Africa as a struggle of a people for their basic rights. Mandela could well take up their cause in an impulsive moment, as he took up the Kashmir question during the recent NAM summit in Durban and jolted India out of complacence.

The LTTE perhaps foresaw all this and tapped Mandela ahead of the NAM summit. In a letter to him at the end of August, the LTTE's Political Committee appealed to him to impress upon the Sri Lankan government to abandon its military campaign and negotiate a settlement on the basis of the 1985 Thimpu proposals, a key element of which was the recognition of the Tamils' right to self- determination.

The missive was backed up by a Tamil demonstration against Sri Lanka in Durban. Fortunately for President Chandrika Kumarathunga, the Mandela government chose to ignore the LTTE's appeals.

Enquiries about the LTTE's penetration into the Tamil community in South Africa, show that it has been marginal. Gunarartna mentions six pro-LTTE organisations. Dr. Jayalath Jayawardana UNP MP, has said that a lot of money is collected. But according to Hassim Seedath, Treasurer of the powerful Natal Indian Congress, these organisations are marginal, some located in areas like Transvaal, in which the Indian population is very small, and money collection is still on a small scale.

The Tamil Federation of Gauteng and Dravidians for Peace and Justice are based in Transvaal. Seedath, hadn't even heard of the much touted "People Against Sri Lanka Oppression (PASLO)" which demonstrated at NAM.

Natal is where most Tamils live. But Seedath describes the "Tamil Eelam Support Movement" based in Durban/Kwa Zulu-Natal, as a small organisation which has not yet come out openly. The Natal Tamil Federation, which is also listed as a pro-LTTE body, is a cultural organisation not a political one. The South African Tamil Federation is also a cultural and religious body.

"There is a search for identity among all races but whether this will lead to fissiparous tendencies or not will be difficult to say now," Seedath said. But he believes that as on date, the Indian identity is more pronounced.

The strength of the all Indian organisations and the weakness of the communal organisations bears testimony to this, he said.

Seedath, however, did not rule out the possibility of South Africans, not just the Tamils, showing an interest in the resolution of the Lankan Tamil question on the basis of universally accepted principles, because of the history of their own struggle, "but we in South Africa, including the ANC, are wedded to peace.

The Indians here, including the Tamils, have a strong pacific streak in them, thanks to Mahatma Gandhi's precept and practice," Seedath said. The Indian journalist concurred, and added that the ANC and the Mandela government were too hardheaded to support terrorism, whatever the cause.

Against the South African insistence on give and take, many wonder if the LTTE would come down from its commitment to Eelam, drop the gun and opt for a democratic process marked by a spirit of accommodation and give and take.

R. Naidoo, Director International Mediation Service, Transvaal, in an LTTE backed international conference in Canberra in 1996, debunked the pro-LTTE Tamil argument that the armed struggle would succeed.

"With superior military power of the Sri Lankan government one needs to carefully consider the prospects of this approach," Naidoo said.

Naidoo called for a patient and persistent set of negotiators, and an international mediation backed by mobilised international political pressure. But the Sri Lankan government is loath to accept third party mediation. While the LTTE might like a mediator from a country with an influential Tamil population acting as a pressure group, the Sri Lankan government would not. In Colombo's eyes, South Africa is thus disqualified. But whether or not South Africa would play a political role as a pressure group, remains to be seen.

Legal

Judge controversy: lawyers await 'Show' on Tuesday

By Ayesha R. Rafiq

Lawyers continued islandwide protest campaigns against the arrest of a High Court Judge, while the police chief was believed to have submitted a report to President Kumaratunga on a crisis that has shaken the government, the judiciary and the legal profession.

President Kumaratunga had last Tuesday called for a full report from the IGP and ordered the immediate transfer of the widely criticised CID director Bandula 'Show' Wickrememsinghe who led the team which arrested High Court judge Mahanama Thillekeratne on September 10.

On Thursday Mr. Thillekeratne's case was taken up before Kesbewa Magistrate Munidasa Nanayakkara in a packed court with scores of lawyers, including top President's Counsel being present in a show of solidarity with the judge.

Magistrate Nanayakkara during the hearing which drew unprecedented national attention said he was requesting the Court of Appeal to consider whether Mr. Wickramasinghe should be tried for contempt of court on charges that he acted against an order given by the magistrate earlier.

On September 15, when Mr. Thillekeratne appeared in the Kesbewa Court on a complaint made by an army officer's wife, the magistrate allowed him bail and withdrew the warrant against him. But a CID team led by Mr. Wickremasinghe visited Mr. Thillekeratne's home the next day and took him into custody for further questioning on a complaint that a gang including him had allegedly assaulted and caused grievous hurt to the army officer, who lived next to the judge's residence. President's counsel M.L.M. Ameen, one of the top lawyers who appeared for Mr. Thiekeratne, told court he had information that Mr. Wickremasinghe was planning to flee to Britain and would sent in his retirement papers from there.

The magistrate then ordered that Mr. Wickremasinghe's passport be impounded and issued notice for him to appear in court at the next hearing on Tuesday.

Observers said the confrontation between Sri Lanka's top lawyers and "Show" Wickremasinghe might turn out to be a high point in the battle over the judge.

Mr. Thillekeratne, his son Pathmika, their household employee and another person have been charged in this case with unlawful assembly and attempted murder of Army Sergeant Uyanahewage Chandrasoma.

The dispute between the army officer and the judge's family is alleged to have arisen some months ago over the running of a guest house. The Army officer alleged police have taken no action on his persistent complaint because they were being influenced by the judge.

Mr. Ameen said Mr. Thilekeratne's house had been searched twice. First, at the point of arrest, and then when he was in the custody of the CID.

President's Counsel Daya Perera told court last Thursday that Mr. Thillekeratna's left thumb impression was taken by the CID.

Meanwhile Attorney General Sarath Silva who has come under severe criticism for his role in the controversy said yesterday he did not wish to comment on the court proceedings as the case was underway. But he admitted that he was unaware that the warrant initially issued by the Kesbewa magistrate for Mr. Thillekeratna's arrest had been withdrawn at the time when CID raided the judge's house and took him into custody.

He said that if he had known this, he would have directed the CID to act accordingly. He said that he would also have studied the bail application, as certain technicalities in the application, may have prevented the judge's arrest.

The registrar of the Kesbewa Court has said he informed the police that the warrant issued by the magistrate for the arrest of Mr. Thillekeratne had been withdrawn. But some police sources are claiming the CID was not aware that the warrant had been withdrawn. Lawyers, however say the CID was fully aware of the situation and the arrest of the judge was more of a personal vendetta because of a recent judgment in which he had accused the top CID officer of fabricating charges.

Meanwhile, military spokesman Brigadier Sunil Tennakoon also commented on this controversy at the weekly media briefing where war related matters are referred to. He said the complainant, Army Sergeant Uyanahewage Chandrasoma, a soldier attached to the Fourth Engineering Regiment, had suffered six fractures as a result of the alleged assault on him.

In what is turning out to be one of the most sensational legal crises in recent years, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka has accused the government of insulting and threatening the independence of the judiciary by violating a judge's basic rights.

This principal body of lawyers has called on its members to join the protest campaign. Hundreds of lawyers from Colombo and suburbs have turned up for the protest while their colleagues from other areas such as Kandy and Teldeniya have also joined the campaign.

World News Analysis

How strong is China

By Jonathan Power

In the 1970s it was Brazil that was going to be the superstar of the decade - - and perhaps for ever more. In the 1980s the talk was of Japan. In the 1990s China. Brazil and Japan came unstuck in different ways - - Brazil, after decades of being the century's fastest growing economy (along with Taiwan), because it overspent and, in its massive state and social sectors, chronically underperformed. Japan because its quasi feudal company and ministerial structures too well protected the dross as well as the gold in a system that never could bring itself to embrace capitalist meritocracy in all its parts.

Now the indications are increasing that China will be the third big falling star of the latter half of the twentieth century. China perhaps after all "is not a miracle about to be performed". In China the veneer of end-of-the-century technology and know-how is eggshell thin.

China, since the days in 1793 of the mission of Lord Macartney, emissary of King George III, has kept its distance from the West, preferring to be as "self-contained as a billiard ball", to quote the great historian Alain Peyrefitte. It was Peyrefitte who argued in "The Collision of Civilizations" that Macartney's decision not to kowtow to the emperor gave the Chinese the impression that their civilization was denied. Thus they withdrew into their bunker and have remained for the last 200 years prickly, ultra-sensitive, quick to take offense and too ready to assume the worst of the West's motives.

Thus among Sinologists has developed a strong school of thought that there is only one way of dealing with China - - a sort of delayed, reversed, kowtow, always leaning over backwards neither to provoke nor annoy China, even allowing China to re-write whatever language it is negotiating in. This is combined with the propensity of many in the West, both in politics and business, to project the economic growth rates of the Deng Xiaoping era right into the distant future, while taking little note of its paucity of legal and institutional framework (unlike its rival India or Hong Kong) to contain such endeavour. Reasoning of this kind, assuming China will soon mature into a superstate, seems to blight good sense. "It encourages China", as the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, has written in his provocative new book "East and West". "to think it can become part of the modern world entirely on its own terms. Were that to happen it would make the world a more dangerous and less prosperous place."

Patten who with this book demonstrates that he is certainly the most literate and perhaps the most thoughtful of contemporary western practising politicians, draws on his experience of playing an inherited bad hand to try and secure some sort of democratic security for the city state he was charged to hand over to the communist mainland. "Hong Kong deserved better of Britain" he writes. "It was a sad way to go". A modicum of a redeeming feature is Patten's appraisal of lessons learnt and how to deal with China in the future.

The decision earlier this year by both Europe and the U.S. not to censure China at the UN Human Rights Commission marked the low point for contemporary western policy. Engagement is one thing. Blindness, timidity and forsaking the root-essentials of what western society has achieved after its own painful evolution is another. Patten has it right: "I'm not scared witless of the People's Republic of China, nor mesmerised by China's might and majesty. I am on balance more scared of things going wrong in China - - the splintering of China, the breakdown of governance. China is at the end of an era. Marxism and Maoism are dead. What does the communist party have to offer other than cynicism and decadence?"

Sometimes, as Patten concludes, one has to pinch oneself to remember who needs who most. Perhaps, to begin with, we should never forget the simple but important fact that China represents only 1.7% of all western exports added together.

It is quite pathetic, it is laughable, but above all distasteful that western countries regularly betray each other, and in so doing the human rights activists inside China, in an effort to better position themselves in this quite modest market place.

(This column is syndicated to The Sunday Times and appears today also in Bangkok Post, Boston Globe, Dawn, Japan Times, Los Angeles Times, Manila Chronicle, New Straits Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Statesman, Toronto Star and many other leading newspapers of the world.)

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