The great debate on the solution

Palitha SENANAYAKE

Could somebody please explain this great debate Sri Lanka has imposed upon itself as to whether the solution to the LTTE has to be military or political? One school of thought tends to believe that a ‘military solution’ is necessary to take care of the LTTE while the other school of thought advocates a ‘political solution’.

Well, there is separatist terrorism, in different degrees of intensity, in nearly about t 100 countries of the UN’s 191 member states, but no other country seems to be embroiled in such divisive thinking as we Sri Lankan are.

In a democracy, the Government is elected by the people and in a non democracy the government is formed either by acceding, or by succeeding, to state power.

What ever the mode, every country has to have Government to run its affairs of and when a Government assumes state power, the Head of the Government automatically becomes the supreme commander of that state’s security forces.

This is necessarily so in any government because the head of government is responsible for the country’s security and parenthetically the accepted norm is that ‘the one who controls the countries security forces controls the country’.

This effectively means that the head of the Government is empowered to mobilize the security forces at a time of either internal or external threat to the peace (law and order) of the country.

If this provision is absent the country will slide in to anarchy and hence it becomes the responsibility of the Head of State to ensure that the entire length and breath of the country is under the writ of the Government.

This is why Mao Tsetung said that ‘the political power comes through the barrel of the gun!’ Even according to the Montevideo convention, which detailed the pre -requisite for the establishment of a state, the possession of security forces capable of defending the defined territory is one of the four requirements to be declared as a ‘state’.

Hence it should be clear that military power and political power of a state is one and the same thing and that they can not be separated.

Any abstract thinking on political power and control devoid of military power and control, is contrary to the concept of state!

At the moment the Government of Sri Lanka has de-jure political power over the entire territory of Sri Lanka but it has lost its de-facto political power in two of the districts i.e.the districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.

In these two districts the de-facto political power is presently enjoyed by the LTTE, but LTTE does not have de-jure political power over these districts. The LTTE nevertheless, is holding on to the de-facto political power in these districts by the strength of its rebel forces.

However since the LTTE has no de-jure political power to these districts the Government of Sri Lanka has the right to over power the LTTE by its forces and regain the de-facto political power too in these two districts.

It is not possible for the Government to give a ‘political solution’ to these two districts before it restores its writ, because the Government cannot possibly give what it doesn’t have.

The only thing the Government could do is to abdicate its de-jure political power on those two districts through constitutional means creating a separate state in the area.

Therefore on the one hand it is not possible for the government to give a political solution to Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts at present and also as the political power can not be separated from military power, there is no question of a debate ensuing as to whether the solution should be military or political Military power is only the means of exercising the Government’s political power.

Then how did this debate on ‘military solution’ Vs ‘Political solution’ ensues in to the Sri Lankan conflict scenario?

The author of this confusing juxtaposition was Jehan Perera, the Director General of the National Peace Council with his many writings to the public press on the Sri Lankan conflict.

He has introduced a few seemingly esoteric terms in his writings that were in fact intended to pull the wool over the eyes of the Sri Lankan leaders and public so that issues involved become more cloudy preventing clear thinking.

The other terms introduced by the NPC were ‘the ethnic conflict’, ‘the war in Sri Lanka’, ‘the Southern consensus’ etc. Each of these terms on their own appears innocent but they are subtly construed to blur the thinking of the decision makers precipitating a situation of anarchy: the troubled waters where the peace merchants can continue to fish.

If an average person is posed with the question whether he prefers a ‘military solution’ or a ‘political solution’ to the crisis he probably may think that advocating a military solution may appear harsh and somewhat uncivilized in the face of an availability of a thing called the ‘political solution’.

This blurring has really worked and even the present Government that has vowed to wipe out terrorism seems to get caught in the air pockets of ‘a political solution’ once in a while. Hence people get ‘led up the garden path’ by these terms and end up being adherents of hypothetical solutions which do not exist in reality.

The purpose of creating this thinking is to buy time for LTTE to consolidate itself militarily and diplomatically in the North. The sustenance of a conflict between two parties depend on the relative strength of the two parties. If one party withers and disintegrates the conflict will end. Therefore anybody interested in exacerbating the conflict should strengthen the side of the underdog.

The position that there is no ‘political solution’ as against a ‘military solution’ does not however imply that a Government can not address the grievances of an under privileged section or a community in the country by way of special concessions to that section or community: but such redress has to be necessarily brought only after the writ of the Government is imposed on those areas by deploying the State military power.

To advocate a ‘political solution’ to the present crisis in Sri Lanka ‘as a solution to the war’ is tantamount to suggestion that the Government yields to duress and undue influence brought upon by the uncontrollable violence created by the LTTE.

They do not for a moment think that yielding to unbridled violence is no solution to anything and it can only create imbalanced situations which will cause eruptions elsewhere.

The ‘political solutionists’ also seem to believe that when concessions are granted at large to the society, that will have an effect in isolating those who have taken to arms weaning the other away from them. This thinking is based on the premise that terrorist is like a fish in water who is nurtured by the oxygen in water.

Yet, what these high profile advocates fail to realise is that the hapless population of about 250,000 Tamils now living in the LTTE area is hardly the pasture of the LTTE.

The LTTE has eliminated all the Tamils capable of independent political thinking in the local Tamil polity and hence there is no possibility of opinion forming in that society. Further that this society is so clinically managed making even an armed uprising impossible.

The truth is that the LTTE is today nurtured by the Tamil Diaspora numbering 800,000 located in some 14 Western countries. Therefore if this ‘political solution is to have any relevance it has to be addressed to accommodate the needs of the Tamil Diaspora in the West. What are the concerns of this Diaspora?

They thrive on the misery of Tamils living in Sri Lanka. They have been going to the West seeking greener pastures for sometime but their case strengthened after the propaganda blitz of July 83.

After July 83 they realised that they could seek ‘political asylum’ and hence their potential to enter the Western countries depended very much on the publicity they could generate from similar events the local Tamils could enact. In this context the activities of Prabhakaran served their cause more than anything else.

Tamil Diaspora in turn contributes to the macabre coffers of the LTTE helping the movement and its leader to hold sway as the despot he wishes to be. Therefore at present there is a mutual understanding between the Tamil Diaspora and the LTTE serving each other’s interests.

Any concession granted to the North under these circumstances could only be a bonus to the Diaspora but weaning the LTTE away from violence could only be a ‘pie in the sky’ as the Diaspora would not wish an end to their principal cause of seeking economic refuge in the West.

So how could any political solution break this vicious transaction? Those who are hell bent on destabilising Sri Lanka could write pages and pages on the virtues of a political solution quite oblivious to the realities of the situation. When you are obsessed with something your thinking faculties refuse to function and hence your advocacies could be bereft of reason.

There is hardly a difference between obduracy of Prabhakaran who is obsessed with violence and the obduracy of those who press for a political solution as a panacea for all our troubles.

Asian Tribune