The Hindu editorial: Neither new nor heroic

THE Sri Lankan state is perfectly within its rights to respond firmly to the military and terrorist challenge posed by the LTTE, the prestigious Indian daily The Hindu stated in its editorial yesterday.

Eelam is a pipe dream and the LTTE supremo has known this for some time, The Hindu editorialist wrote.

It said: "The 2006 'Heroes Day' address by Velupillai Prabhakaran leaves those who have followed the ways of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with a sense of deja vu. When he says "we are at a crossroads in our freedom struggle," this is the nth in a series of crossroads.

When he lambasts the "deceitful handling" of the peace process by "three successive Sinhala regimes," it is a tired, played-out apologia for secessionism backed by militarism and terrorism.

When he denounces the Sri Lankan President for his "dual war and peace approach," he needs to explain why the LTTE, in effect, elected Mahinda Rajapaksa by forcing a mass boycott of the November 2005 presidential election in many of the Tamil areas.

Sinhala chauvinists will be tempted to read Prabhakaran's scolding of "the countries that preached peace" for maintaining "silence without conscience," and his appeal to "the international community and the countries of the world that respect justice to recognise our freedom struggle," as a sign of political weakness, if not desperation.

When he expresses his "gratitude to the Tamil Nadu people and leaders for voicing their support," the LTTE supremo shows he is out of touch with reality since, post-Rajiv assassination, popular and political sympathy for the LTTE and the Eelam cause in Tamil Nadu has evaporated, except at the chauvinist fringes.

When Prabhakaran concludes his oration on the note that uncompromising Sinhala chauvinism has "left us with no other option but an independent state for the people of Tamil Eelam," LTTE-watchers will recognise this as extremist tautology since the LTTE has never pretended, at any time in its history, that it was not going for a separate, Pol Potist state through the force of arms.

However, Eelam is a pipe dream and the LTTE supremo has known this for some time.

The key factors behind this realisation are the fatal weakening of his organisation in the Eastern Province (following the Karuna revolt); Indian and Western designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and increasing international isolation; the enhanced military resources, including air power, of the Sri Lankan state; and last and potentially the most important factor, the political entente between the two main Sinhala parties and the improved prospect of their agreeing on a political settlement of the Tamil question.

On the other side, the Sri Lankan state is perfectly within its rights to respond firmly to the military and terrorist challenge posed by the LTTE. However, it needs to show greater sensitivity to civilian welfare and to humanitarian issues than it has done in the recent period.

Most important, the Rajapaksa Government must demonstrate that it is sincerely committed to a just solution to the ethnic conflict which can only be a federal devolution of power to a merged North-East within the framework of a united Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did well to clarify India's perspective on the ethnic conflict and to reiterate its humanitarian and political concerns during his recent discussion with the Sri Lankan President in New Delhi."