David Selbourne

Prof. David Selbourne, Ruskin College, Oxford#

Hon’ble Speaker, distinguished friends, Leaders of the TULF, my fellow delegates and Ladies and Gentlemen.

As you can observe for yourself it is right for me to describe myself as an outsider. But I think it is unnecessary to be a Tamil to understand the words “Aiyoo – Ammah, amah”. Every son, every mother understands such words. They are part of a universal language of grief which I know from my visits to Sri Lanka is heard in every Tamil household. This language requires no Translators. This languages requires no interpreters. It is the common languages of humanity. It is the common language of the tormented and it is mankind which must respond to the language which understands itself so well.

My presence today speaking for myself, is the least that is possible to do to exercise a human duty to stand up and to speak up for the civil liberties, for the human rights, for the human dignities of my fellow human beings. It is not difficult to be here or to speak in these terms to show that it is a level which goes far beyond the reports of Amnesty International issues such as this one. Or the reports of the International Commission of Jurists. Those are the levels which the International community understands the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Previous Speakers have spoken about the gross violations of human and civil rights in Sri Lanka, the breach of International covenants, “the inhuman and the degrading treatment” as Amnesty International described it of prisoners held in custody. And I think the international community has begun to be aware of the enormity of the July crimes and for me, speaking as a Lawyer, the equal enormity of the failure to bring those who committed those crimes to justice. The admitted involvement of the Sri Lankan State in those crimes is to me, speaking for myself, an astounding act of cynicism, that it should on the one hand admit the preplanning of those crimes. As Mr. Ananda Krishna Rao said, to point at themselves, to the systematic nature of what took place in July and yet to have failed to mobilise the ordinary processes of the law under the Rule of Law in order to bring the malefactors to justice.

Now there is another aspect of this which is truly international. It is we, the other nations of the world who have become, inpart, responsible for tackling the problems of the flight of Tamil Refugees from their own country. It is not possible for the Sri Lankan Government to wash its hands like Pontius Pilate of the crimes which it had itself committed and on the other hand to blame the members of the international community for taking a legitimate interest. Whether as civil right workers, whether as Journalists, whether as lawyers, whether as politicians, it is impossible to blame such people for responding to the fact that it is we who must share with the Tamil people, the moral obligations and practical difficulties of providing homes for those who have been driven from their homeland. In this respect, it is very much an international issues.

For myself, I have the honour as you know of being expelled from Sri Lanka. What I find unacceptable in my own treatment as a responsible Journalist working for “The Guardian” working for ‘The New Statesman’, working for the ‘Illustrated Weekly’ of Bombay; What I find unacceptable is that without having any explanation and in deeply offensive circumstances, I should have been removed from the country late at night surrounded by members of the Internal Security apparatus; removed by Jeep from my Hotel and taken in intimidating circumstances to Colombo Airport for the presumed crime of having attempted to tell the truth as far as I could judged it as an outsider. An Hon’ble profession and under obligation to seek out the circumstances of ill doing and to report them to the world which has every entitlement to know. There is a right to know.

Now in the circumstances of my expulsion I can say here for the first time that I am even more deeply offended by the export to the United Kingdom of Sri Lankan masses; of intimidation of people like myself who are carrying out our ordinary profession or moral obligation in this respect.

I have here a letter which I have not actually revealed before which I have kept to myself for my own reasons but which I think is necessary to discuss openly because it is so offensive to the norms of civilized practice. Because this kind of deep violation by the Sri Lankan authorities requires to be known. As you are aware that these are not private matters even when I received secret communications, anonymous letters, telephone calls to England in my own home for exercising the rights of a United Kingdom citizen under the British Law to speak as part of my professional occupation and to write in the British Press. Why should I and my wife or my children receive night time phone calls from within the United Kingdom ordering me with what insulting impertinence to keep my lips sealed in my own country.

I can quite understand the Sri Lankan authorities feeling alarmed at about the reporting of the Sri Lankan affairs in the Sri Lankan Press. God knows that the news is not reported in Sri Lanka but to try to extend the impediments to a free press on the other side of the world seems to be deeply offensive. “You have created” says the letters from Colombo. “You have created a very bad image of Sri Lanka by publishing distorted and misleading news. May be you have received rewards from the Tamil Tigers.” Now continues this courteous letter “because of a few dirty black dregs like you, the whole confidence in our country has broken down.” But how strong must the Sri Lankan State be that two or three articles in some newspapers can bring down the whole state apparatus. “Our Sinhalese Lions,” continues this letter, “Have the aim of Killing all those who actively support Eelam. You,” (The word you is underlined) “are one of them. We will take revenge within 3 months from today. Either we will kill you or one of your children, who is under 15 years of age, if available,” “But”, says this letter, making a special exception for women, “not your wife.” “To avoid this make a public apology in person to the President of Sri Lanka”. Militantly signed ‘Sinhalese Lions’ and I am informed my apology (which needless to say I will not make for telling the truth) must be published in the Sri Lankan Daily Newspapers. These are relatively minor matters compared with the torments which the Tamil People themselves have suffered in Sri Lanka. I don’t make a great deal of this I treat this with the contempt it deserves. No journalist will be intimidated by this kind of thing.

Nevertheless its importance is this: that in many years of reporting on Indian political affairs; in many years of reporting which included reporting often of or very hostile kind on the Indian emergency for example, about which I wrote a book, I never received such letters. Not once in India did any one seek to interfere with my freedom of movement or freedom of expression and whatever criticisms may be made of the Indian political system by outsiders a greater degree of freedom existed in that society as seen by the fact that even a bitter critic of the erosion of civil liberties emergency in India should have been allowed to say what he wished to say.

The international community to which I was referring before is well aware of the kinds of facts that Mr. Sambandan has produced. The nature of the prevention of Terrorism Act is well understood to be what the International Commission of Jurists has called it ‘an ugly blot on the Statue book of a civilized country’.

Even in Northern Ireland where 2300 people not 230, but 2300 people have lost their lives since 1969; we do not have a prevention of Terrorism Act which contains provisions of the kind which are on the Statute Book in Sri Lanka. There is a bitter struggle going on in Northern Ireland: deeply offensive in similar ways to what offends us in Sri Lanka, deeply offensive to civil liberties and human rights in the United Kingdom also. Yet the prevention of Terrorism Act only permits the detention in custody without being brought before a magistrate for 7 days. Not 18 months but 7 days when there have been 2300 deaths since 1969 in a country whose population is a fraction of Sri Lanka’s. So, I think the International Commission of Jurists is right to argue that the prevention of Terrorism Act, more wide ranging in its provisions than even the legislation of South Africa, is far in excess of what would be required for the Sri Lankan authorities to deal with their admittedly difficult internal problems.

The secret burial of bodies to which the previous speaker referred is a provision which exists no where else in the World, even in those countries facing much more severe internal political problems than Sri Lanka. It is a provision which lawyers and civil libertarians know is a license to murder. Churchmen, Jurists, human life activists find provision 15….. deeply repugnant to the most basic canons of civil liberty. It is offensive to religion as well as offensive to law. It offends some of the deepest cultural commitments of a people that insist on the respectful treatment of the dead. The abusive treatment of the living is one thing but contempt for the dead insults a people such as the Tamil people with deep respect for the proper observation of those rites which will be fitting for the dead to every society.

Now I want to end by making reference to two other features which seen to be important. The failure of the Sri Lankan Government to hold a kind of serious inquiry into the events of July; the failure to make amends for the killing of so many innocents who included my friends, which included the cruel killing of one of Sri Lanka’s noblest sons Dr. Rajasundaram. Such kind of atrocity of a man whose efforts in defence of the most down trodden in Sri Lanka were truly noble and heroic, a Gandhian, a man dedicate to the cause of redeeming and relieving human sufferings, that he should have been so brutally done to death without remedy and without redress and without an inquiry. If such a man can be done to death without inquiry, without the bringing of the guilty to justice, then it will probably fall to International Tribunals to carry out an inquiry into the July events. One of the positive suggestions that I intend to make during these discussions will be some kind of Tribunal on an international basis with distinguished judges, or ex-judged and juries from other countries should take evidence on what transpired in those days and hold their hearings in a place where those who give evidence and testify to what took place, can be heard, and arrive at some conclusion as impartially and objectively as possible. I hope this proposition might be discussed.

I end with a plea to the distinguished political prisoners. Presently in Sri Lankan jails such as Fr. Singarayer and Mrs. Nirmala Nithiyanandan, who cannot be left forgotten in Sri Lankan jails. It appalls me as an outsider that more is not being done in forums of India and outside to focus upon the plight of people such as they who have been caught up in a net of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. There are many others, thousands may be of Tamil Youth who are now in custody and it is in a sense, wrong to pick on particular individuals to high light their particular plight. Other matters of a more political kind are not for me to discuss. Nevertheless it seems to me that as in the case with political prisoners in the jails of other detentions, there are certain individuals whose integrity and dignity requires them to be made a focus of international attention. And I would urge on this meeting to consider this proposition also.

But one thing does strike me. President Jayewardene has recently told the Indian press that he is continuing the preserve democracy in Sri Lanka. We in the international community in whose countries are refugees from this democracy, who finds this democracy strangely undemocratic. We in the international community are entitled to reply to President Jayewardene. ‘If you are continuing to preserve democracy in Sri Lanka, will you please use different methods.’ He has also said (and I keep my files carefully) that he is stuck. ‘I am stuck’ says President Jayewardene. Stuck is the word he uses. ‘I am a prisoner of circumstances’. He is not a prisoner in Pangoda or Elephant Camp. He is a prisoner of circumstance. ‘I am a prisoner of the law’, he says ‘I am a prisoner of the constitution’ and ‘I am prisoner of the political party.’ ‘I cannot throw my weight about’. And yet consider a moment. President Jayewardene is prisoner in his own country. He is head of State: President Jayewardene is head of State. President Jayewardene the prisoner who is stuck is the head of the executive. The prisoner President Jayewardene is head of the Government. President Jayewardene the prisoner is head of the party. Minster of Defence, the prisoner President. Jayewardene appoints the heads of the armed forces, the Ministers of his government, President Jayewardene, the prisoner, head of the government, the had of the party, the C-in-C of armed forces and the Minister of Defence all rolled into one figure. What is it that prevents him from assuming responsibility in his own country for the action of his own executives and security forces? And it is the failure on the part of the Sri Lankan government to accept responsibility for their own deeds and misdeeds which has brought us here. Because it is us; we and many others who are not here, who now bear the responsibility in their terms for dealing with those who have fled from this Sri Lankan democracy.

Let me end by saying that it is an honour to be here in Madras, and I am sure that I speak for the rest of the delegates. I am grateful to you for your hospitality, for the warmth of your friendship. And I individually salute you here in your absence and thereafter call you my Tamil brothers.