War resumes amid government's broken promises
On April 19th the Tamil Tigers unilaterally ended their neither side is interested in peace with dignity and fragile three-month cease-fire with the Sri Lankan freedom for the minority Tamil nation. Bala government. The broken promises and missed Skanthakumar argues that the way to stop the war is opportunities of the centre-left Peoples Alliance a mass movement for peace now, and against the coalition have had the predictable result. In fact, government's anti-poor and neo-liberal policies.
The Peoples Alliance (PA) victory in
August 1994 was greeted with relief and great expectation, especially after seventeen years of right-wing and authoritarian United
National Party (UNP) government.!
The fight against the "separatist menace", or in other words the war against the minority
Tamil nation, was perhaps THE key election issue. The military option had been tried and had visibly failed. UNP-sponsored anti-
Tamil riots in the (mainly Sinhala) south in
1983 actually increased support among
Tamils for an armed struggle against the Sri
Lankan state and for an independent homeland in the mainly
Tamil north-east.
Waging war on a guerrilla force which knows its terrain and can melt into the population inflicted greater casualties on the government side. And the human rights abuses committed by the Sri
Lankan army, its treatment of every Tamil as a terrorist and the racism of the Sinhala political establishment served only to embitter are refugees and asylum seekers around the world.
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has dragged her feet over proposing a devolution package for the northeast ever since she was elected in October 1994. Several rounds of peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE), but even the secret correspondence between Chandrika and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakharan has proved to be fruitless.
It was hardly surprising that the LTTE would eventually tire of talking peace and launch an audacious attack on the Sri Lankan
Sri Lanka navy (merely two hours after formally ending the cease-fire). The LTTE has only one ideology - militarism. Its narrow and parochial brand of nationalism seeks only to replace the tyranny of the Sri Lankan state with that of its absolute leader over the Tamil people. In 1983 there were a dozen militant
Tamil groups. Today, in the north-east of the island, there is only one. The LTTE has systematically assassinated the leaders and massacred the cadres of rival organisations.
When it finished with them it killed leaders of non-militant Tamil parties and leftists, including comrade Annamalai of the Nava
Sama Samaja Party, Sri
Lankan section of the
Fourth International.?
The Tamil " Tigers tolerate no dissent in the areas under their control.
No other parties may operate. The press reflects only LTTE views, and there is neither free speech nor free assembly. Those who oppose (or even mildly criticise) them are imprisoned and tortured.
There are currently 4,000
Tamils further.
Some 50,000 civilians have been killed. The
TAMIS NEED northern Jaffna peninsula lies in ruins, its people living a pre-industrial existence.
There is no electricity, and
Tamils in the prisons of the
Tamil
Tigers.
An independent state (Tamil
L
Eelam) ruled by the LTTE would rival the Cambodian
Pol Pot regime in its
SELF-TERMIN TIC limited supplies of food and
The only medicine.
functioning hospital relies on power an emergency generator and the dedication of a handful of health workers. Hundreds of thousands of people are internally displaced: living in temples, churches and barbarity towards its own people.
The LTTE stems from, and draws its support from a real opr ssion and a wi sense of inju in its methods and luciugy it has become a mirror image of the very monster that spawned it-
SELF DESTRUCTTO schools. Over two hundred thousand people have taken refuge in southern India, and hundreds of thousands more
Sinhala nationalism. There is no social content in the
TAN
Tigers' politics. The LTTE has no vision of a society
15
International Viewpoint #268 July 1995
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NOT
Sri Lanka which can liberate the worker and toiler from the everyday violence of hunger and poverty. Nor would it uproot the oppression of women and lower castes within Tamil society. Minorities in the North
How can the Tigers convince non-Tamil minorities that they will be safe in "Eelam" when they expelled 75,000 northern Muslims, who now live in refugee camps? On 26 May 1995 the Tigers murdered 42 Sinhala fisher-folk. And how to reassure minorities of their place on the territory controlled by the LTTE when democracy, human rights, and self-organisation are not even tolerated within the Tigers' own
But attacks on non-Tamils in the ethnically mixed East will continue. They are central to the LTTE political-military strategy in two ways. First, these attacks serve the short-term purpose of keeping the army in the East, to protect villagers. This prevents the armed forces mounting a combined assault on LTTE forces in their northern stronghold. The second purpose of these attacks is more long term. Chasing out Sinhala and Moslem residents will change the demographic balance of the East, making it a clearly Tamil
Of course, simply pointing to the LTTE's long record of atrocities will not weaken Tamil support for the Tigers. Nor will the Sri Lankan government's promise to defeat the LTTE "within one year". We have heard this threat several times since 1979, and it has yet
The LTTE fear only one thing: an end to the war and a durable, genuine solution to the national question. Because once they become irrelevant to the Tamil nation, the Tigers will lose their credibility and support. But as long as the Sri Lankan Air Force rains bombs on civilians, as long as people in the north starve though an economic blockade on food and necessities, and as long as Tamils in the mainly Sinhala areas live in daily fear of death and destruction of their property, the LTTE will continue to enjoy the support of the Tamil nation.
The mass media talks up war fever. Journalists report every rumour from the front as if it were fact. But the media is silent about the renewed reports of human rights abuses on the part of the Armed Forces. There are confirmed instances of the abduction and torture of Tamil youth in the ethnically mixed eastern areas. The "disappearance" of Tamils has resumed. There are reports that the army forces Tamil civilians to walk ahead of its patrols in heavily mined areas, so that soldiers will not lose their limbs. Whenever the LTTE attack an army base or police station, the security forces retaliate against any Tamil or 16
International Viewpoint #268 July 1995
Muslim village or refugee camp in the area. Dozens have died in this indiscriminate violence against unarmed non-combatants. Thousands flee the area rather than risk becoming the target of either side.
Cordon and search operations in the south continue to take place. The aim is to "flush out" LTTE cadre. Thousands of young Tamil men and women are arrested, and questioned without legal advice or a translator. They are released, only to be picked up again a few days later. Sometimes the aim of this President Chandrika'... has said that her devolution could go beyond that of the Indian constitution. We are weary of such rhetoric. Former President J.R. said that his 'democratic socialism' would be 'a step beyond Marxism'. We are still suffering under his brand of 'socialism'. The continuous delay in coming out with concrete proposals has given ample ammunition to LTTE extremism... [The President] rejoices that "we moved fast to fulfil our pledges. What pledges, one may wonder. Certainly the known and secret pledges to foreign capital and their agents are fulfilled beyond limits. Yet the workig masses and progressive forces are living in shock, wondering what happened to the promises of the leaders they supported in three consecutive elections in 1994. V. Karunarathne, General Secretary, Nava Sama Samaja Party, 24 May 1995 harassment is to persuade the parents to bribe the police to release their sons and daughters. Even long-time Tamil residents in the south fear travelling. Most live in a self-imposed house arrest: returning directly from work, and never going out when it can be avoided. Sinhala chauvinism
The outbreak of war in April has given a new lease of life to Sinhala chauvinist forces. One newspaper even carried "Kill Tamils" as a banner headline. Posters everywhere carry emotive slogans about the suffering of soldiers at the front, or calls like "Save Our Country — Save Our Race" and "Annihilate the Tigers". But there are of course no identified LTTE members in the south. So such posters are in fact a virtual invitation to attack local Tamil civilians instead
Media space in the south is dominated by hard-line anti-Tamil pressure groups, mainstream political parties and Sinhala fundamentalists and nationalists. The southern peace movement is the victim of a
The current government faces more difficulty with the military hierarchy than with the UNP opposition. Military leaders have amassed fortunes through kickbacks on arms contracts and commissions on the transport of goods through military checkpoints. They would not like to see this situation change.
As for the United National Party, they give relative support to a "popular" government which is realising the 'dirty work' the UNP began, but could not realise thanks to popular opposition. This is not just a matter of war policy, but also the implementation of antipoor neo-liberal economic policies.
Protests have broken out in the tea estates over the privatisation of the management of the plantations. The cost of living spirals upwards, leaving staple foods too expensive for the very poor. The new outbreak of hostilities has been an excuse to increase the defence levy on many goods. Meanwhile, this allegedly left of centre government faithfully implements International Monetary Fund and World Bank diktats, so as to continue receiving aid loans from the Paris Club of western donor countries. Stop the war!
While the current government cannot solve the national question, it can stop the war against the Tamil people. But breaking the government from its present course needs a mass movement based on the real anti-war sentiment among Sinhala people. This movement must demand an immediate lifting of the economic embargo on the north, and respect for human rights. It must also demand that the government stop treating the war as a private dispute with the LTTE, but recognise the interest of the Tamil people as a whole.
Secret negotiations should be replaced by a public debate on the future relationship between the two nations. The starting point is the Four Point prosal recently accepted by all Tamil parties except the LTTE. While this proposal falls short of accepting the right to secession, it is a starting point for negotiations on peace with dignity. The government must spell out its proposals for a political package answering the demands of the Tamils, or step aside and let others do so. The Nava Sama Samaja Party fully supports all efforts to forge such a mass movement, which could deliver not only peace, but also the possibility of an alternative workers' government. *
Bala Skanthakumar is Secretary of the London-based Committee for Democracy and Justice in Sri Lanka and a regular contributor to the Socialist Outlook newspaper.
Notes
1. Intemational Viewpoint #264, March 1995 p. 16
2. See The Broken Palmyra by R. Hoole et al. (1990)
3. See the author's "New directions for Tamil Struggle" in Tamil Times, London, July 1993. The Four Point Proposal adopted by all the Tamil parties except the LTTE comprises i. The unit of devolution shall be a newly created permanent province in the North and the East i. Devolution of power must ensure meaningful autonomy to this unit ili. The cultural identity and security of the Muslim community within this unit will be the subject of institutional protection iv. Sinhalese in the north-east will have the same rights as minorities in other parts of the island.