SOUTH ASIA: SRI LANKA

The LTTE era was the second phase of the Tamil struggle for self-determination.  Therefore, despite the deep disappointment on the news of the LTTE leader’s death, the Tamil people in keeping with his wishes have to carry on with their struggle. That said, now with the fall of the LTTE the struggle enters its third phase.

The immediate aftermath

Sri Lanka is apprehensive of the civilians.  They still believe or want to make out that that the Tamils are terrorists. It is convenient for Sri Lanka’s agenda of genocide to place all the Tamil refugees in internment camps, denying access to other parts of the country and even denying access to the media or any organizations including UN agencies.

The actions of the Sri Lankan state are not new to the Tamils.  Whenever the Tamil leaders petitioned for political rights through peaceful means, Sri Lanka targeted ordinary Tamils with violence.  And when the Tamil militants took up arms against oppressive Sri Lankan state, rather than capturing the militants, Sri Lanka captured and tortured civilians.  Eventually, the youths affected by this joined the Tamil militants for revenge and justice.

The issue was not the capturing of Tamil militants or seeing the civilians as terrorists, but ending the conflict through peaceful means by offering them their genuine political demands through a viable political solution.

If the Sri Lankan government is of the view that the struggle will be over by killing Pirapaharan, Pottu Amman and other senior leaders of the LTTE, they are mistaken. This will turn into chaos producing tens of thousands of militants and suicide bombers.

Sri Lankan state should be aware that Eelam Tamils are very politically conscious unlike the South Indian voters, discrete and intelligent to discern. 

However, the lies and fabricated stories by the Sri Lankan government have no validity whatsoever.  Tamils need not care about these stories.  This is propaganda to weaken the Tamil Diasporas’ active protests in the global arena demanding their countries to enter the conflict in Sri Lanka to find a peaceful solution with justice.

Delhi’s elation over the deaths

Indian central government led by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is happier than ever before with the story of Pirapaharan and Pottu Amman’s deaths because these two individuals are still accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. 

Rather than investigating Indian big bosses like Chandra Swamy and Subramaniam Swamy in connection with Rajiv’s murder, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which is the external intelligence agency and the internal intelligence wing, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) quickly came up with the statement, just within an hour of Rajiv’s death on May 21, 1991, that the LTTE was responsible for the killing their former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, Subramaniam Swamy himself in his articles has implicated Sonia Gandhi’s family in the murder and it is surprising that Sonia Gandhi has not sued Subramaniam Swamy.

Indian intelligence wings fabricated their story to show the world that they are brave and bright because they found out the culprits immediately.  However, one could argue that the job of these agencies is to prevent any attacks on their interests and even it was weak enough that they failed to save their former leader.  That’s why they came up with the story.  Further, they thought no one else other than the LTTE would launch attacks in southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  This is logical because the LTTE conducted training camps earlier in the state. The enormity of the atrocities committed by the Indian Peace Keeping Force in the north could warrant the killing of Rajiv in the minds of the ordinary Tamils, who even now have no regrets.  

Further, New Delhi wanted to favour the Sri Lankan government as they opposed creation of an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka with the mythical belief that Tamil Eelam would help Tamil Nadu to separate from India.  This was also a myth created by external intelligence wings as well as the Sri Lankan state to discredit Eelam cause.

Also, India does not want any other power in the Indian Ocean because India thinks that India would not enjoy economic and military prosperity.  India wants instability in Sri Lanka for its own gains.

But, things are getting worse for India in regard to its foreign policy, especially towards immediate neighbours after India maintained a hands-off policy towards its neighbours.  In this case, India was maintaining a hands-off policy towards the Sri Lankan conflict after the Rajiv assassination and obviously India was reluctant to take part directly in ending the conflict because LTTE as the sole representative of Tamils who should have taken part in any talks, was a banned organization in India after the Rajiv assassination.

While India maintained their distance, China and Pakistan were poking their nose into Sri Lankan affairs. Pakistan supplied military hardware. China aided the Sri Lankan government through monetary and military aid and set up a deal to construct Hambantota port, which is crucial to China who wants safe passage between the Middle East and the South China Sea. China is an energy hungry country and most of its energy comes through the Indian Ocean from the Middle East through the Arabian Sea by passing Hambantota, Trincomalee, Mullaitivu and Point Pedro.  Most of these ports are located in the Tamil homeland except Hambantota, which is the village of the Sri Lankan president who offered the location to China as a starting point for political gains  and perhaps financial. China was supplying arms to Sri Lanka to defeat the LTTE because China then could demand that Sri Lanka offer other ports based in Tamil areas since no enemy would oppose China once the ethnic strife ended.

So, once New Delhi realized this, they quickly jumped into the fray to counter China to keep the Indian Ocean in the control of India. With this in view, India moved its strategies to counter the Chinese influence in Sri Lanka and so it provided weapons to fight the Tamils in order to win over the Sinhala polity. Actually India, in their stupidity and short sightedness, helped China in its strategy and fought the LTTE and defeated them only to help China to emerge as the most important ally of Sri Lanka along with Pakistan.

So what next?

India however seeks to maintain stability in Sri Lanka so that no other country will intervene.

In this changed atmosphere, Delhi  is happy that its accused  in the Rajiv case, which prevented India from playing a direct role to end the conflict in Sri Lanka, namely Pirapaharan and Pottu Amman, are dead.  So, soon after the counting in the elections was over on May 16, India sent its foreign secretary Shiva Sankar Menon, and national security advisor, Narayanan, to Colombo. Once they returned home from Colombo, they issued statements that Colombo would issue death certificates for Pirapaharan and Pottu Amman, so then they can move to Indian judicial courts and appeal to close the Rajiv assassination case since the main accused are dead.

So, India is apparently pleased with the death of the LTTE leaders.   Now, the obstacles are removed and India could take a more direct action in Sri Lanka instead of continuing their current hands-off policy. However, the Tamils are the victims of the game.  Already Tamils are mourning the deaths of over 30,000 civilians in the war zone just between January to May this year, in addition to well over 80,000 civilians since the war started in 1983.  Further, over 25,000 sons and daughters the most generous of the Tamil nation who joined the LTTE to defend their community have attained martyrdom.  Also, nearly a million Tamils have been moved out of their homeland and nearly 300,000 Tamils are displaced without adequate accommodation and are dying every day in the hands of the Sri Lankan state who have been put into the Nazi-style concentration camps in Vavuniya.

It is in this context, Tamils around the world should stay alert and stay focussed and away from false and fabricated stories.  The Tamil people should not be distracted over futile debates as to whether the LTTE leadership are dead or not, but instead, concentrate on their struggle ahead. They should mobilize the political movement across the world to put pressure upon the external powers that matter to obtain freedom for the Tamils of Eelam.

REFERENCE 

Tamils tried on numerous occasions to gain their rights through democratic means -- but to no avail. The 1957 Banda-Chelva Pact, the 1965 Dudley-Chelva Pact and proposals put forward in 1970 by the Tamil Federal Party, a plan that included a federal form of government with an autonomous Tamil-Muslim state and three autonomous Sinhala states: All were unilaterally rejected or abrogated by the government of Sri Lanka.

Tamils tried again on May 15, 1976, at the first National Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), and passed a resolution that was adopted unanimously by all Tamil political parties. The goal was to find ways to end the incessant persecution of Tamils by successive governments ever since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948.

The TULF went into the 1977 general elections with this resolution and received an overwhelming 82% support from Tamils for the establishment of a Tamil nation. But the high expectations of Tamils were dashed yet again as the government, true to form, reneged on an agreement to respect the vote, and unleashed violence to terrorize and subjugate the Tamils. On Aug. 12, 1977, less than a month after the election, Sinhala mobs organized by the government killed over 300 Tamils.

- Roy Ratnavel, National Post, May 04, 2009