SRI LANKA: 'Talk of peace' banned

Forum: Sri Lanka bans 'talk of peace'

CANBERRA — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has “banned
talk of peace and for the first time in Sri Lankan history if you criticise
the president, laws are used against you”, Lionel Bopage from Friends for
Peace in Sri Lanka told a packed Green Left Weekly public meeting
on June 6.

Since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam captured Elephant Pass, the
approach to the key Tamil city of Jaffna, on April 24, Kumaratunga's government
has launched a concerted attack on democratic rights and shut down a number
of newspapers, Bopage said. The massive cost of the war is also worsening
the country's economic crisis and endemic unemployment.

Foreign powers, including the United States, Israel and India, are now
becoming embroiled in the war. Already US planes can be spotted flying
over Jaffna, Bopage said, and it is likely that US spy-satellite information
is being regularly handed to the Sri Lankan government. Israel has sold
large quantities of armaments to the government.

According to Bopage, India is concerned that if the Tamils of Sri Lanka
achieve autonomy or even independence, then this will place immense pressure
on India to grant more autonomy to the southern state of Tamil Nadu. It
could also spur on other national struggles, such as that in Kashmir.

The Democratic Socialist Party's Peter Boyle, recently returned from
meetings with leftists in Sri Lanka, said that while the DSP did not support
all the methods of the Tigers, the party unconditionally supported Tamil
self-determination.

He also praised the courageous anti-war demonstrations organised by
the People's Liberation Front, Nava Sama Samaja Party, and Muslim United
Liberation Front.

At one point, two anti-Tamil Sinhalese chauvinists attempted to disrupt
the meeting, claiming that there was no discrimination against Tamils.
The claim was rejected by both speakers, who pointed to anti-Tamil riots
in 1958 and 1983, the 1977 ban on elected Tamil representatives in parliament
and the confirmation of Sinhalese as the only official language.

From GLW issue 409