Winning The Peace In Sri Lanka

This weekend or early next week will see the Sri Lankan army hoping to deliver the knockout punch to the remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But President Obama’s timely intervention is a signal to Colombo that its brazen disregard of international humanitarian law – even as it still claims to be mopping up the tenacious LTTE cadres – can no longer be ignored in diplomatic corridors.

It is now evident that Lankan security forces pulled some of their punches early this month, but not to minimize civilian casualties as they piously claimed. They did so mindful of New Delhi’s trapeze act between the desire to help Sri Lanka eliminate the LTTE as a military threat and the compulsions of Indian realpolitik. Any new government in New Delhi later this month cannot do without the support of either the DMK or the AIADMK, both of whom have taken public positions on Eelam.

The LTTE has lost the war on the battlefield, thanks to the absence of a political strategy for the negotiating table. Now the Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils, Tamils elsewhere and democrats everywhere will need to craft a new pragmatic strategy if they are to ensure that the Sri Lankan Tamil does not become the Palestinian of the 21st century, living perpetually in the diaspora, as the poor cousin in India, in the twilight zone of statelessness, or in Bantusans soon to be created by the Sri Lankan government.

First, form a circle

Any new strategy must have as its lynchpin a carefully crafted constitutional proposal that goes beyond the 1987 framework suggested by the Indo-Sri Lanka pact as also the now defunct 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution and the inadequate proposals of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC). The 1987 pact, which seems to be the mantra of the New Delhi establishment, belongs in the past, as do the other proposals. The new enhanced position must demand genuine internal self-determination akin to Article 370 of the Indian Constitution prior to 1953. Sri Lankan Tamils must avoid the false god of an independent Tamil Eelam. Giving up gods that failed is heart wrenching, but a maximalist position should be avoided if solidarity is to be achieved across India, with democrats in Sri Lanka and globally. In the event of the Colombo dispensation failing to read the accommodativeness of the average moderate Tamil, it will not need a soothsayer to predict a second coming.

The new campaign will need to hinge on five concentric circles of support and solidarity.

The first circle must bring together the Tamil in India and in the diaspora, whether in Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Europe, North America or elsewhere. A broad civil society solidarity committee cutting across the political spectrum will need to be created. Civil society here means political parties, trade unions, chambers of commerce, community organizations, people’s organizations, women’s organizations, media organizations, student unions, Bar Associations, the film and cultural fraternity, the Tamil literary community and voluntary organizations of every stripe.

Civil society does not mean glossy pamphlet-manufacturing donor-driven NGOs. Most have no eyesight, hindsight or foresight. Illustrations abound – for example, the head office of an Tamil Nadu NGO expresses concern for the Sri Lankan Tamils even as its sister branch in Andhra Pradesh permits the circulation of some of the most jingoistic and rabid Sinhala chauvinist propaganda against the Sri Lankan Tamils on its listserv.

The broad support and solidarity committee must have as its convener a Tamil who is above the fractious political fray in Tamil Nadu, someone who has unquestioned moral authority and gravitas. Once formed at the state level, it should be replicated at the district and block levels. The State Committee should have a small but dedicated paid secretariat in Chennai to handle the work of the committee on a daily basis. Many good causes in India are lost because in the heat of the moment everyone wants to claim ownership. In time, everybody’s baby becomes no one’s baby. The rights of Sri Lankan Tamil must be an article of faith not only for every Tamil or Indian but for every democrat globally.

As soon as the newly constituted Indian Parliament convenes, this representative body must get its act together and give a call for all parties to unanimously move and pass a resolution in the Tamil Nadu state assembly. This all-party resolution must be carefully crafted and must support the legitimate demand for self-rule by Tamils in Sri Lanka. The resolution should be formally communicated to the Central Government in New Delhi in time for the first session of the newly elected Parliament.

This committee must host an international conference of Tamils within six months of its formation to craft the outlines of a substantive political, diplomatic and media campaign on behalf of their Sri Lankan Tamil brethren, in Tamil Nadu, the rest of India and worldwide. The preparation of a comprehensive background note and a draft programme of action should precede this. A cross section of democratic opinion cutting across the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka should be invited.

The newly elected members of the Indian Parliament from Tamil Nadu must, irrespective of their party affiliation, seek to do a number of things in a time bound manner. Firstly, they should move a joint resolution in both houses of the Indian Parliament asking for a diplomatic initiative that seeks to ensure self-rule for the Tamils in Sri Lanka within a specific timeframe. The timeframe must be reasonable but not elastic. They should move another resolution demanding perpetual landing and fishing rights for Indian fishermen on the island of Kachchathivu within a year. Thirdly and most importantly, all Tamil Parliamentarians must demand an official white paper from the Indian Government on India’s engagement in Sri Lanka since the withdrawal of the IPKF. This will ensure that the initiative on policy making on Sri Lanka is returned to the legislative arena. Currently, it appears to be the preserve of a cabal of official security specialists who have only served to undermine India’s interests where its neighbours are concerned. Fourthly, they must impress upon the Indian Government that the Rs. 1 billion humanitarian aid announced by New Delhi and supplemented with Rs. 250 million from the Tamil Nadu government must be routed through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other credible humanitarian organizations on the ground in the North, such as local church groups. Nothing that strengthens the civil arm of the Lankan war machine must be permitted.

The Tamil members in the Indian Parliament must also lobby to ensure that Parliament directs the Indian Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry to instruct India’s executive members in the IMF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and all other multilateral financial institutions such as the Sri Lanka Aid Consortium to oppose any loans and credit lines to Sri Lanka unless there are iron clad conditionalities of time bound action on internal self determination for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Colombo must also guarantee non-derogable constitutional amendments safeguarding the political, language, economic and cultural rights of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The Indian government must be asked to make demarches to other countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Norway and Japan to exert their influence in this regard. The Indian government must be told to formally invite and consult the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on issues of common concern at an early date. These consultations must be held at the highest political level, not at the level of Smiley’s people and diplomats, as was the case earlier.

The Tamil Nadu solidarity committee must study the possibility of calling for a worldwide boycott of all Sri Lankan products and tourism if there is further intransigence on the part of Colombo. A small research team must look at all Indian and international companies that have invested in Sri Lanka and lobby for the divestment of their shareholding in these companies. The committee must seek the withdrawal of all Indian and other investment in Sri Lanka. Similar exercises must be conducted in Europe, North America and Australasia. And while we all love Sanath Jayasuriya’s cricket, there should be a boycott of all cricket and sporting contacts with Sri Lanka, as was done during the anti apartheid campaign.

The committee must study in particular all arms transfers that were made openly and surreptitiously by the shady merchants of death who camped in fancy accommodations on Lotus Road in Colombo, and must devise a campaign for outing these carpetbaggers. At the international level, it must track all countries that sold arms to Sri Lanka and find out the names of the companies involved. It must use the shareholder information of these companies in Europe and North America and publicly expose them in their next annual general meetings. It must urge union pension funds and sympathetic local governments to withdraw their investments in these companies.

The Tamil solidarity campaign must also start an international campaign against all Chinese products and companies based in India, since China has emerged as the largest supplier of arms and financial credit to Sri Lanka. Buy Godrej, Westinghouse, LG, Samsung, Electrolux and Siemens. Haier and Huawei must be given the 21st century version of the Boston Tea Party.

Bring in more players

The second concentric circle will need to involve a wider audience in all the states of southern India where there are affinities of language, ethnicity and kinship. One of the failures of the movement for solidarity for the Sri Lankan Tamil in Tamil Nadu was the Indian Tamil’s failure to build a wider constituency of support and solidarity for the beleaguered Sri Lankan Tamil. The New Delhi-based television and print media, with some honourable exceptions, also failed to catch on. At every stage of this conflict, Indian television news channels have unquestioningly swallowed all that was dished out to their embedded tank-mounted correspondents by the Sri Lankan military authorities. And they have fanned their delusions and misinformed the Indian viewer by bringing on air a supposed Tamil oracle, whose publication is named after an eccentric medieval ruler of Delhi and which has a minuscule readership. The professedly Marxist editor of venerable Chennai-based English daily played second violin in this orchestrated dissimulation on the Sri Lankan Tamil plight and the popular mood in Tamil Nadu. Both these worthies could hardly be called representatives of mainstream Tamil opinion.

The third concentric circle will have to enlist the average Indian in other parts of India. Indians must be reminded that Indian governmental policy since the unceremonious withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the dastardly murder of Rajiv Gandhi has oscillated between masterly inactivity and the helplessness of an aged puppet master whose puppets have acquired a life of their own. The Rajapakse brothers, the Chinese, the Pakistanis and a few other interlopers have brilliantly exploited this. The official Indian establishment now croons to Cliff Richard’s “Outsider, that’s me”.

The first official policy initiative by the new government at the Centre must be to underline the rights of Indian fisherfolk. Those in Temple Trees will know that New Delhi still wields clout when they are compelled to recognize the perpetual landing and fishing rights of Indian fishermen on the island of Kachchathivu on which negotiations between the Sri Lankan and the Indian Government last took place in September 2008 and have made little progress. Remember that an establishment that screams blue murder at any suggestion of giving up any “ atoot anng” (‘inseparable part’ in the Queen’s English) of India, had generously gifted away this island in 1974 to Sri Lanka, much against the wishes of every shade of political opinion in Tamil Nadu. All extant historical records conclusively prove Indian ownership of the island.

Raising the game

The fourth concentric circle will need to involve Tamil diaspora groups which must lobby in their respective countries and network in international fora. The diaspora, left rudderless in its impotent rage, has been blocking roads in London and Toronto, losing the sympathy of the average Londoner or Canadian and causing little sweat to the Brothers Grim (pun intended) in Colombo who have been enacting so many horror stories in the North. A more nuanced lobbying policy will need to be devised to harness the understandable and legitimate sense of helplessness and anger of diaspora groups. This is a tragedy that affects their kith and kin. But they find themselves in a global clime where even uttering Article 1 of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has come to mean high treason.

The fifth concentric circle will need to encompass all democratic Sri Lankans, Jaffna Tamils, Colombo Tamils and also the poor hill Tamils. It must actively seek to encompass the democratic Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. An exclusivist Jaffna Tamil position will be music to the hegemons of Colombo 7. Further, there must be open contrition and a public apology expressed to the Muslim community by the Sri Lankan Tamil. Tamil Muslims were hounded out of eastern Sri Lanka by the Quisling Karuna at the behest of a myopic LTTE leadership and used cunningly by the Sinhala ultra nationalist Buddhist fundamentalists, who in other circumstances would have had little time for them.

Fair and square

This plan is not exhaustive. It is only illustrative. There is a need to be resolute and determined, yet there must be none of the rhetoric that has been the bane of Tamil and Sinhala politics. The Tamil Robespierre is part of history. Many a good Tamil Danton, well meaning Sinhala and Muslim have died needlessly in that reign of terror. The Rajapakse brothers have unleashed a new ethno-religious authoritarian order and appear keen to usher in a militarized state. Lasantha Wickramatunga is dead, and a Vichy-like enclave is being led by a Tamil Pétain in the Eastern province. Alarmist, one may think, but read the portents and stand up now and speak out loudly in protest or forever remain silent in shame.

Summer Winds Augur Ill For The Sri Lankan Tamil

It is only a matter of time before the last redoubt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) falls. Armed resistance in the conventional sense of positional warfare will soon come to an end. But for all the triumphalism of the Sri Lankan army, it is instructive to remember that since the fall of Killinochchi in October 2008, a small band of 2000-plus LTTE cadres held out against three divisions of the Sri Lankan army for over eight months. The Sri Lankan army was armed by China and Pakistan, helped by radars from India manned by Indian personnel, and also supplied with weapons euphemistically called “non-offensive” by India and half a dozen other countries. It was trained by the Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis and the Chinese. The LTTE for its part was blockaded by the Sri Lankan and Indian navies and tracked by spy satellites from a few other countries that passed on information to Colombo.

This article is no paean to the LTTE, as for all their courage they were bereft of a political strategy for many years. And while their heroic Masada-like last stand will enter the annals of Tamil folklore and mythology, it is also a classic case of the failure that awaits those who rely on armed strength alone without realising that politics must always control the gun.

The cessation of combat by the Sri Lankan army in mid April 2009 meant little. This is something the army could have done in early April, if not earlier, once it had boxed the remnants of the Tigers in a 10 square mile area. It could have easily starved out the Tigers, who also had civilians to feed, by a virtual siege, which it had already done through the encirclement from the land and sea. It is evident that the purpose was not the surrender of the LTTE, Colombo’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, but the elimination of the fighting capacity of the LTTE.

Meanwhile, ultra nationalist Sinhala jingoism cared little if a few thousand innocent Tamil civilians also died in the process.

The Sri Lankan government statement, on the basis of which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi called off his fast, was another brilliant smokescreen – it merely said that the army had stopped using heavy weapons. In further dissimulation, it claimed that the security forces would confine their attempts “to rescuing civilians who are held hostage…”

Clearly this did not preclude the use of weapons such as mortars, anti tank weapons, bazookas and rocket propelled grenade launchers along with heavy machine guns firing tracers, which in any case were the only weapons that can be used in combat of such close proximity as the combatants found themselves in during the second half of April 2009.

This was no concession at all. If the Sri Lankan forces did not go in for a major push until late April 2009 into the encircled area, it was only because such close combat would have resulted in major casualties on their side. This would be a liability for the Rajapakse brothers when they do their victory lap on the Galle Face Green.

The Indian government, the European Union and most of the international community are complicit in this strategy. An alive and captured Prabhakaran would be a very big problem politically for India. In fact, the Sri Lankans, advised by their Chinese and Pakistani friends, were considering capturing Prabhakaran alive and handing him over to the Indians.

For India, this would stir the political pot not just in Tamil Nadu but also in terms of India’s projections on the anti-terror war and the consequences it would have on the domestic political scene. India would not benefit in any way with Prabhakaran being alive. And he could not be kept in Sri Lanka as a prisoner without India making a formal request for extradition due to the judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

With the Sri Lankan government victory, neutral humanitarian intervention from India, either official or unofficial, will become even more difficult as the Sri Lankan state will be presenting a fait accompli to the rest of the world. All other states, including India, while being critical will come to terms with the new diplomatic reality even if they do not like it. All humanitarian relief will now have to be channelised through the Sri Lankan government umbrella.

In the post-conflict situation, the Sri Lankans will keep conditions in the camps barely livable, without going to extremes. They will, through their subtle propaganda, actively encourage the displaced to leave Sri Lanka for India or join the Tamil diaspora elsewhere and in a sense depopulate part of the north of that island. They will then in the long term seek to implant Sinhalese settlers in that area over a period of time, as they did successfully in the east where there is now a sizeable Sinhalese population in what was once a predominantly Tamil area.

The present ‘IDP camps’ are a euphemism for open prisons, and in any event, given the cordon sanitaire laid down by the Sri Lankan and Indian navies, none of the IDPs will be able to come across to India. Now that the Tiger resistance is part of history, the Sri Lankan government attitude in the camps will see a change after they have completed the process of ‘screening’ of the IDPs to isolate any residual LTTE cadres. Their naval blockade will disappear and they might even conveniently furnish a number of small boats to encourage the screened IDPs to go to India.

Well-meaning Tamil politicians on the Indian side would be well advised to give up fanciful schemes of bringing the IDPs to India. This would be playing into the hands of the Sri Lankan government. If they come to India, they will not go back to Sri Lanka and that will be a double victory for the Sri Lankan government. Having won the military campaign, the Sri Lankan government will also win the political peace, albeit for a decade or two.

Any exodus of the Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka, voluntary or otherwise, to India, for good reasons would be inimical to the long-term interests of both the Sri Lankan Tamils and India – it will mean the end of the Sri Lankan Tamils as a historical community, as deeply rooted in the island nation as the Sinhalese.

The Rajapakse brothers are devious but also farsighted. The Indian, and the Tamil in particular, is more emotion-driven. The Sri Lankans are not merely looking at the military defeat of the Tigers; they want to write a new and final chapter of the Mahavamsa, which will conclude that the Sinhalese finally settled the 2000-year struggle with the Tamils under the Rajapakse brothers by sending the Tamils back in boats towhere they originally came from.

Having lost the war, the Sri Lankan Tamils must win the peace, but the how of that in the next article.