An Eastern Affair

What went on in the east just under two weeks ago? This is a question I have been asking myself since then. The established facts are, following two of the many blatant LTTE actions murdering innocent civilians their aim of instigating retaliatory attacks bore some fruit when there was ethnic rioting targeting tamils. To the credit of the government they reacted quickly and effectively to bring the situations under control. Beyond that there are accusations such as these, primarily from tamil nationalists, that the revenge attacks had a degree of pre-planning and organization to it.

The violence did not occur against a backdrop of ethnic harmony. Over the past year, besides the tiger related violence, there have been other incidents associated with singhalese extremists aimed at inflaming communal tension. There was the erection of buddha statues, thaipongal hartals and the assault on a JVP MP who opposed the said hartal. Given these incidents the obvious question is, has there been a resurgence of the singhalese ethnic identity in the east over the national identity and did it contribute to the retaliatory attacks?

Aggressive identity politics based on ethnicity always leads to communal tension and if not mitigated ends up causing a blowback in the form of organised violence, be it in sydney, bosnia, or the janjaweed. It is within this context that I find myself unable to discount the possibility of third-party organisation and/or involvement in the retaliatory violence.

Over at moju.lk sittingnut thinks that I am being irrational in engaging in such speculation.

go by facts and common sense not by wild irrational speculation

Am I being irrational and unreasonable given the recent tension and agitation in the east? The facts are thin and I haven't seen any credible investigative reports of the events that unfolded other than the news from the international media, SL related websites and the likes of DBS Jeyaraj and co (If you have any please point them out to me or email them. My profile contains the email address). Perhaps this is an indictment of state of investigative journalism coming out of the SL these days.

I suspect that I am facing a form of the information asymmetry problem given the tyranny of distance to SL. If I am having doubts, and I consider myself to be open minded on issues, how will these events be perceived by those who are sympathetic to separatism and/or do not trust the GOSL?

Events since then have stolen the limelight and given the non-conclusive nature of the issue I am going to wait a little longer before making up my mind. I await the next UTHR (J) report hoping that it will shed some light on the issues.

Also, what did the MahindaR mean in his latest speech when he said

We are also aware that several Tamil citizens have also been killed during this period. My special attention has been drawn to this.

Was it an acknowledgement or a subtle warning?

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A note on the CPA report (pdf) - I find sittingnut's concerns about the press statement to be valid. While CPA is not under any obligation to explain itself to an anonymous blogger but it’s reputation would have less damage had it released the report together with the press statement.