By Tisaranee Gunasekara
"Not withstanding the dividing sea, Tamil Nadu, with its perfect understanding of our plight, has taken heart to rise on behalf of our people at this hour of need…. I wish to express my love and gratitude at this juncture to the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu and the leaders of India for the voice of support and love they have extended. I would cordially request them to raise their voice firmly in favour of our struggle for a Tamil Eelam state, and to take appropriate and positive measures to remove the ban which remains an impediment to an amicable relationship between India and our movement". Vellupillai Pirapaharan (Heroes Day Speech – 2008)
Almost more shocking than the CPC’s 'iniquitous' hedge on oil futures was the lackadaisical official response to it. The prospect of losing US$96 million (at the least) would have galvanised any sane government into action. Not the Rajapakse administration, which reacted to the news of this massive loss with unnerving equanimity. Given this context the only hope was judicial intervention and the Supreme Court did not disappoint. Its timely intervention will not only prevent a massive financial haemorrhage but also be a warning to inept or corrupt politicians and public officials.
Why didn't the President act half as decisively as the Supreme Court? It cannot be because he did not understand the gravity, since that would be obvious even to a reasonably intelligent pre-school child. Was it because he was blasé about the loss, just as he was about the financial shenanigans of another favourite, Sachin Vas Gunawardene?
A similar attitude of careless disdain (be it about material, financial or human losses) is evident vis-à-vis the Killinochchi operation. Eventually Killinochchi will fall, because it is a war of position between two protagonists with massive disparities in firepower and manpower. That is why the Stalingrad analogue is inapplicable, except in the very short term – Stalin had massive reserves, in both manpower and firepower, which he threw into the Operation Uranus which ended the siege by trouncing the supposedly invincible German Wehrmacht. Though Mr. Pirapaharan does not posses the resources necessary to hold on to Killinochchi for a long period, he could resist until past the Heroes Day – and did. Once the government’s intention of capturing the town in time for the Heroes Day became evident, Mr. Pirapaharan had no choice but to resist, at whatever the cost.
There was no objective reason for setting such a deadline, just subjective ones; perhaps partisan political needs of the President or the personal egos of the Defence Secretary and the Army Commander. Only someone who had no understanding of the Tiger Chief would have come up with such a ludicrous idea. On Wednesday the government announced that the fall of Killinochchi was 'imminent'.
According to media reports there were grandiose plans for celebrations including an island-wide poster campaign, a flag raising ceremony in Killinochchi and a formal announcement by the President in an Address to the nation, to coincide with Mr. Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech. But none of that was to be. Killinochchi could not be taken in time for the Heroes Day; Mr. Pirapaharan’s speech was broadcast via the Tiger Radio and the Internet, despite the bombing of two transmission towers just before it began. The end result was an unnecessary propaganda setback for the Lankan side, a morale boost for the besieged Tigers and the wanton waste of young lives. Is it that the government cares as little for the lives of the soldiers as it does for the country’s finances?
The Tiger Speaks
Vellupillai Pirapaharan made it clear in his annual Heroes Day Speech - he will not give up the fight. When Mr. Pirapaharan claims the North as Tiger land with a fervour that is almost religious, it is safe to assume he means it. He would prefer to die defending that land, a martyr’s death in his own eyes, and hope to be spiritually resurrected by some future generation, than to run away to a foreign refuge and live as a failed fugitive. So the Tiger leader will neither surrender nor run away; the Tigers will not give up arms; the war will continue as long as Vellupillai Pirapaharan is alive. And killing him, in real life, will not be easy. In all probability it will require another schism within the LTTE plus assistance from India and the US. Both would be preconditioned on the government’s capacity to win over the Tamils and the international community. This would require a political solution to the ethnic problem and a marked improvement in Sri Lanka’s human rights record. Given the regime’s shortsighted obduracy neither seems possible in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately the regime’s 'Chandi Malli' attitude to propaganda and international relations has enabled the arch maximalist Pirapaharan, the only real obstacle to a negotiated peace from 1987 to 2006, to sound reasonable and flexible. Predictably Mr. Pirapaharan called for a ceasefire in his speech, safe in the knowledge that the government will shoot down the idea, crudely. The ceasefire offer will strengthen LTTE supporters in Tamilnadu and be fodder to the anti-Lankan fire that is gathering momentum in that vital state. As a result the pressure on Delhi 'to do something' will intensify. When the APC delegation from Tamilnadu meets the Indian PM, they will have an argument to make, in favour of intervention.
Not that the Tiger Chief would really want Indian intervention this time, any more than he wanted it in 1987. He would know that such a development will not be in his favour, even if it is helpful to the Tamil people. For Mr. Pirapaharan what really matters is his own glory, his place in Tamil history. He wants to be (and be remembered by posterity as) the sole leader and saviour of the Tamil nation. Consequently even if India is willing to set up a Tamil Eelam, Mr. Pirapaharan would not want it because he does not want 'Mother India' to be the leader and protector and deliverer of the Tamil people. What he would want to achieve via Tamilnadu pressure is a removal of the ban on the LTTE. He would know that this would pave the way for similar measures in Washington, London and Brussels. Mr. Pirapaharan would also know that even if the Congress is unwilling to de-proscribe the LTTE, a future BJP government may.
Ironically the horrendous terrorist assault on Mumbai may actually help rather than harm the Tiger. That one nation’s terrorist is another nation’s freedom fighter is an obvious truth. As of now Delhi believes that the perpetrators of the Mumbai outrage were Islamic terrorists with links to Pakistan. If there is even an iota of proof confirming this suspicion, Indo-Pakistan relations are likely to take a nosedive. Matters would become infinitely worse if the BJP manages to form a government next year (a distinct possibility given the Congress administration’s failure to deliver on any of its key promises). In any case for policy makers in Delhi 'terrorism' would denote Pakistan. In this context Sri Lanka’s image as a friend of Pakistan will be unhelpful to us. Incidentally if there is anything the Tiger Chief can do to convey the impression that he is Pakistan’s enemy and thus India’s friend, he will do so.
Mr. Pirapaharan has also highlighted Sri Lanka’s weakest point – the regime’s adamant refusal to offer a political solution to the Tamil people until the Tigers are defeated. The government "is now continuing with the war, offering to submit its plan to offer a solution only after the LTTE is defeated. Does Sinhala nation want to offer a solution only after the Tamils are suppressed and killed? Does it want to wipe out the true representatives of the Tamils and their bargaining power before offering a solution?" It is a point that would sound eminently reasonable to many, not excluding the incoming Obama administration.
Given its financial and political vulnerabilities, the only way the regime can avoid the negotiations trap is by offering Tamil people a reasonable deal, along the lines of the Oslo Declaration and softening its stand on human rights. Why not accede to the Human Rights Watch request to permit selected international NGOs to deliver relief to people affected by the Northern cyclone and floods? If the regime refuses it will play right into Mr. Pirapaharan’s hand by proving his charge that the Lankan state is "burdening the Tamil people with immeasurable suffering?" Quite apart from the propaganda fallout such a refusal would be unjust and unethical - and extremely anti-Sri Lankan.
Mirror Images?
What if Vellupillai Pirapaharan did not antagonise the Muslims? What if he did not make an enemy of India by killing Rajiv Gandhi? What if he achieved a modus vivendi with non-Tiger Tamils, instead of turning them into vengeful foes? What if he did not alienate the West by conscripting children What if he settled for optimum devolution instead of aiming for de jure Tiger Eelam, at any cost? If Vellupillai Pirapaharan eschewed maximalism, wouldn't Tamils be in a better, stronger state today? What lessons can Sri Lanka and the Rajapakse administration draw from the trajectory of the LTTE and the personal Odyssey of its leader?
Many of Mr. Pirapaharan’s victories contained within themselves the seeds of their own unravelling. His unbalanced worldview blinded him to the self-defeating nature of extremism. He failed to comprehend that wars are decided not on battlefields alone and that political and economic means can become paramount in preserving military gains. He was violently intolerant of diversity and dissent, with an 'if you are not with me wholeheartedly you are the enemy' attitude. His extreme fidelity to the Eelam goal translated into an 'ends justify means' approach to war-making, paving the way for abhorrent practices. Now, all the norms he violated, all the enemies he made, all the promises he broke are coming back to haunt him. And the Rajapakse regime, in its fanatical determination to win the war at any cost, seems to have embraced many of these Tiger errors. How many times must history repeat itself before sense intervenes?
The LTTE, in the name of Eelam, has caused the Tamil society to erode, politically, socially, economically and culturally. Its total war strategy has beggared the Tamils, forcing many into exile and others to become unwilling cannon-fodder; it has also undermined the educational, cultural and health standards of the next generation of Lankan Tamils. It has made Tamil synonymous not with academic achievement and cultural excellence but with suicide bombing and child soldiers. In the name of protecting the Tamil nation, the LTTE has destroyed the future of the Tamil people.
The Lankan Armed Forces are doing very well, but these victories are based on unsustainable political and economic foundations. Let us remember that the US and allies 'won' the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq – or so it seemed at that time. Conservative ideologist, Richard Perle once famously claimed, "And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." After all George W Bush, the most unpopular president in America since polling commenced, was very popular just a few years ago, winning a second term resoundingly. It took eight years for the logical conclusion of Mr. Bush’s illogical policies to bear fruit.
Though it is hard to see for the sheen of many victories, the Rajapakse administration has already extracted a very high price from Sri Lanka for the war. The economy and public health and the education systems have been damaged structurally and development deferred. Given the global economic crisis continuous borrowing from international money markets is not an option. We are already in the grip of a financial scissors crisis and soon the regime will run out of palliatives. Most Sinhalese support this outstandingly inept and outrageously corrupt regime, in the hope of a victorious conclusion to the war. This is exactly the choice most Tamils once made, because they thought the Tigers could win them a state, faster. That dream turned out to be an illusion of epic proportions. Is the same fate awaiting the Sinhalese?
- Asian Tribune -
Comments
This is the problem with a
This is the problem with a myopic perspective, one jaundiced with prejudice.
Even though India's views of the Sri Lankan problem and its preferred solution may not have a complete about face as a result of the Mumbai massacre, there will not be a 'the friend of my enemy is also my enemy' perception of sri lanka in New Delhi. This is simply because the Indians and the rest of the world already know that the Pakistani political establishment does not have complete control over its powerful intelligence outfit, the ISI.
India, US and other nations can be expected to exert pressure on Pakistan to overhaul the shadowy outfit, while watching carefully to prevent a potential military take over. In any case, India can be expected to act with restraint and resolve to investigate and identify the perpetrators of the massacre. The big question is 'then what?'..After all, the killers of Rajiv Gandhi and a large number of Indians are alive and well, just a mere 20 miles from Indian shores for the past decade and India has not been able to do anything about it.
No matter what they do, Indian leaders of present day are not as amatuerish politically as this writer seems to surmise. Indira Gandhi made the mistake of making enemies of all of her neighbors and found Indian unpopularity on the global stage to be a stumbling block to her own nation's progress. The present regime will not consider Sri Lanka as an adversary for wanting to rid itself of a horrifying terrorist group, which India now has first hand experience of.
If this is a contest of who has the most illusions, the author of this article would easily win.
TG is full of imagination of
TG is full of imagination of the wrong kind. She starts with an attack on the Rajapakse govt and goes on to make various accusations.
Oil hedging is quite a normal thing. Sri lanka achieved a consideraable amount of savings in the past. The world entered into a finacial crisis almost over-night and most governments in the world were taken by surprise. Finanacial markets crashed world-over and the demand for minerals, metals and crude oil dropped dramatically over a period of one month. This time, Sri Lanka's hedging contract made a loss. No one can always win in hedging. GOSL has done nothing wrong and the Supreme Court will find the facts when they go into the details later. One a hedging contract is entered into President Rajapakse has no right to cancel the contract without paying a penalty. TG is completely wrong in her accusations against the President.
I do not wish to comment on the rest of the article because it is TG's usual attack on GOSL and Prabakaran both.
She has to start writing facts rather than fiction.
TG always wants to project
TG always wants to project her as a brilliant writer who could predict the future .... always see Sri Lanka is doomed within days .. She has been writing along these lines for years without anything she predicted happening ... But, she never gives up the "SL failed/fails/will fail" project. She has no brilliance or any other skills to predict anything except her hatred towards Sri Lanka. There is one thing she is good at .. finding quotation of others including pathetic killer Prabhakaran.
A few honeyed words by the
A few honeyed words by the LTTE leader, and he thinks he can gloss over the brutal killing of Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi! The absolute cynicism in his thought process wherein his logic seems to be that a few saccharine sentences and a little grovelling can wipe out the horror of his deed, and that he can expect the Indian government to believe him, is what is most revealing of his delusional, and perhaps senile dementia.
All he has done is add insult to injury, and the LTTE should be ashamed.
But what this is even more revealing of is the simplistic and wishful mind-set of the anti-Rajapakse people of whom Ms. TG is one of the standard bearers, who think that India will take the LTTE leader's overtures of friendship seriously!
Ms.TG's problem appears to
Ms.TG's problem appears to be that the underlying desire to make the present SL government look bad takes over her thinking, and makes her connect the dots in a way that makes sense to her. It matter little or none, whether the dots have any relativity to each other and/or which way such relativity works. She makes them align any which way it would serve the purpose of making the government look bad.
Intellectual myopia is a bad thing, and in persons such as these who are obviously intelligent and literate, only a very difficult paradigm shift would allow them to percieve things even later. The fact that all her previous rantings proved to be incorrect will not matter, since people like these always move onto the next available opportunity to launch an attack.
The fact that there are no tangible consequences to her for relentlessly attacking someone, while being guarded by the protections available to the media, encourage such behaviour. She will never acknowledge the fact that she has so far been able to make invalidated, yet derogatory statements against the state and its people only due to the existance of the freedom to do so in Sri Lanka.
There will not be any overt conflict between India and Pakistan over what happened in Mumbai, for a number of reasons.
firstly, India will not win anything, and will only suffer potentially grave consequences of distancing herself with Pakistan, when the need is to do exactly the opposite.
Secondly, they understand the need to nurture the almost infantile present Pakistani civillian govt. This attack could have been orchestrated by the ISI and Pak military conspirators to cause a threat from India so that the military can yet again capture power. A more destabilized Pakistan is bad news for India, when they are looking up to the US to work through a de-nuke deal there and disarm Pakistan of nuclear weapons. Re-starting a cold war with Pakistan will only embolden the hawkish elements in Pakistan and be counter-productive to the de-nuke initiatives.
Thirdly, US and other big nations will be pressurizing India not to do anything rash. They will succeed.
Fourthly, India lacks capacity and the will to go after anyone. case in point; LTTE.
Instead, they will make speeches and sit around and lick their wounds, while demanding Pakistan take action.
Sri Lanka's relationship with Pakistan is well understood by India. Ms TG may not know it, but SL's major arms purchases from Israel,Pakistan and China were done with a nod of approval from India.
One of the points in the
One of the points in the above article is the current GoSL's "adamant refusal to offer a political solution to the Tamil people until the Tigers are defeated". First of all, the Rajapakse Administration's desire "to offer a political solution" gives the lie to the opinions of many any this site that there is no problem to solve. People in the current GoSL do not pause to think why there should be a political solution if there is no problem to solve.
Secondly, the GoSL is wallowing in the mistaken notion that a military solution will actually solve this problem. And now the London 'Economist' has editorialised on the GoSL's lack of a total understanding of the simple basic fact that a lasting miltary solution is non-existant to this problem.
The latest issue of the London 'Economist' makes this fact clear: that it would be, in effect, a pipe-dream to assume that marching into Kilinochchi will solve the problem. Prez Rajapakse and all the government ministers would do well to read this editorial in the London Economist.
Thus the fact comes down to why Prez Rajapakse and his government are willing to sacrifice the lives of Sinhala soldiers and Tamil civilians if the current approach will not produce a LASTING SOLUTION. The answer, clearly, is SHORT-TERM political gain. But though you can fool the people some of the time, this will not be possible all of the time. And the chickens are going to come home to roost.
There are many steps toward a political solution that are now not opposed by the majority of the Sinhala electorate: Issues such as power-sharing, a second-chamber with equal representation for the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, etc. Prez Rajapakse would do well to introduce changes such as these through Constitutional Amendments. And he will be surprised to find how steps such as these could provide the needed momentum to reach an overall settlement through negotiations.
Prez Rajapakse's current approach is only making even the non-LTTE Tamils extremely suspicious of Prez Rajapakse and his hardline cohorts. And this situation is not conducive to moving toward a solution.
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