What next?
B. MURALIDHAR REDDY
What next? That seems to be the question Sri Lanka watchers are
asking as the defences of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
collapse like ninepins in the face of the aggressive military assault in
the Vanni.
It would be a mistake, however, to presume that the ethnic conflict
will cease once the LTTE is reduced to an entity without a defined
territory for the first time since the departure of the Indian Peace
Keeping Force (IPKF) in March 1990.
The LTTE is expected to retain its capabilities as a guerilla outfit,
though how effective it will be remains to be seen.
The ethnic conflict goes back deeper into the past than the LTTE.
Indeed, the LTTE led by Velupillai Prabhakaran came into being two
decades after the Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 deepened the
Tamil-Sinhala divide with its mandate that Sinhala was ‘one official
language’ of what was then Ceylon.
The LTTE, now notorious for its brutalities against anyone it
perceives to be an adversary, is a by-product of the real and perceived
grievances of Tamils and other minorities in the overwhelmingly Sinhala
island nation.
That a legitimate demand of Sri Lankan Tamils for the recognition of
their language on a par with Sinhala was allowed to take the form of a
movement for a separate state speaks volumes of the insensitive approach
of the parties representing the majority community in handling the
problems of a multilingual, multi-religious and multi-ethnic society.
Independence
61 years after the country was granted Independence by the British,
the ruling elite seems to have learnt nothing from the pre- or
post-colonial experiences of the island nation. Indeed, long before the
British left Sri Lanka in 1948, there were already enough indications of
the apprehensions and anxieties of the minorities in general, and Tamils
in particular, on their fate in a free country in which 75 per cent of
the population belonged to one community.
Ketheshwaran Loganathan, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Sri
Lanka Peace Secretariat who was murdered in late 2006 by suspected LTTE
cadre, wrote in his memorable book ‘Sri Lanka: Lost Opportunities’: “The
demand by the principal Tamil political party at the dawn of
independence, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress [ACTC], for ‘balanced
representation’ or the ‘50-50 formula’ [50 per cent of the seats to the
Sinhalese majority and 50 per cent to the ethnic minorities, including a
mandatory representation of the minorities in the Cabinet] was a clear
manifestation of the preference for power-sharing at the Centre, as a
means of safeguarding minority rights.”
The Soulbury Commission constituted by the British to draw up the
post-Independence Constitution took the view that a 50-50 formula would
be fatal to the emergence of that unquestioning sense of nationhood
necessary for the exercise of full self-government.
However, the commission inserted a safeguard clause that prohibited
the passage of any piece of legislation rendering persons of any
community or religion liable to disabilities. The ACTC demand could be
construed as the maximalist demand by the minorities in the hope of
securing the best deal.
Incidentally, one of the first acts of the parliament of the newly
independent Ceylon was to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Tamils
of Indian origin, or up-country Tamils.
These were the people brought by the British as indentured labour to
work on the coffee/tea plantations in the hill districts. It is one of
the ironies of history that Sri Lankan Tamils voted with the majority
community to deny citizenship rights to Tamils of Indian origin.
The moment of truth arrived for Sri Lankan Tamils when the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP) government led by S W R D Bandaranaike got
Parliament to adopt a law making Sinhala the only official language.
What S V J Chelvanayagam, founder of the ACTC, said when the second
reading of the Citizenship Rights of Indian Origin people came for up
discussion in 1948, turned out to be prophetic: “He [Prime Minister
Senanayake] is not hitting us now directly but when the language
question comes up, we will know where we stand. Perhaps that will not be
the end of it.”
The Official Language Act, No. 33 proved to be a turning point in the
ethnic conflict. It got worse with every passing year. Successive
governments entered into agreements with the Tamils parties - the
Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam agreement and the Senanayake-Chelvanayagam
agreement, for instance - to undo the impact of the ‘Sinhala only’
legislation but only to retreat under pressure from majority lobbies.
Recorded history shows that Tamil parties resorted to every
conceivable method of agitation in the democratic way from 1956 to 1976.
What the Tamil minority saw as the ‘colonization’ of the Tamil-majority
north and east by the Sinhala-dominated state emerged as another bone of
contention, apart from the language issue.
The Tamil parties alleged that successive governments in Colombo were
systematically settling Sinhalese people in the north and the east in
order to alter the demography in favour of the majority community.
The parties in government reasoned that 12.5 per cent of the
population inhabited the two regions which together accounted for 30 per
cent of the island’s landmass and 60 per cent of its coastline and it
was unfair for this small percentage of the population to lay exclusive
claim to the resources of the two regions.
The Tamil parties’ argument that local residents should be given
preference in allotment of lands brought under new irrigation facilities
amounted to the ‘son of the soil’ theory, according to them.
Indeed, the Tamil parties’ argument on the alleged ‘colonization’
does not hold water because of two factors. Though there are no precise
figures, most political observers agree that over 50 per cent of Tamils
in Sri Lanka live outside the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Besides, even according to the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA),
despite the ‘massive colonization’ schemes of successive governments,
the total percentage of Sinhalese people in the North and the East is
below three per cent. Actually there are no Sinhalese people living in
the North barring a dozen who married Tamils and settled in the Jaffna
peninsula.
The procrastination on the part of successive governments over
granting equal status to the Tamil language, and over other grievances,
including that on the question of devolution of powers, led to two
important developments in 1976. The Tamil parties, under the banner of
the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), articulated the demand for a
separate state of Tamil Eelam. Around the same time, Tamil militancy was
taking root. The LTTE was among the dozen-odd militant outfits that
emerged.
The Vadukodai Resolution, adopted at the first National Convention of
the TULF on May 14, 1976, said:
Possession of Ceylon
“Whereas, throughout the centuries from the dawn of history, the
Sinhalese and Tamil nations have divided between themselves the
possession of Ceylon, the Sinhalese inhabiting the interior of the
country in its Southern and Western parts from the river Walawe to that
of Chilaw and the Tamils possessing the Northern and Eastern
districts...”
Bandaranaike repudiated the agreement in April 1958 in view of a
campaign led by the Buddhist clergy and sections of the Sinhala
political leadership, including Jayewardene, who was then Leader of the
Opposition.
That the State of Tamil Eelam shall consist of the people of the
Northern and Eastern provinces and shall also ensure full and equal
rights of citizenship of the State of Tamil Eelam to all Tamil-speaking
people living in any part of Ceylon and to Tamils of Eelam origin living
in any part of the world who may opt for citizenship of Tamil Eelam.
General elections
The TULF participated in the 1977 general elections on the basis of
that resolution. The LTTE has consistently stuck to the demand for Tamil
Eelam, and the only occasion on which it indicated a willingness to
explore the possibility of a solution within a united Sri Lanka was in
December 2002, nearly 10 months after it signed a Cease Fire Agreement
(CFA) with the Ranil Wickremasinghe government.
The Oslo Declaration, as it is known, read: “Responding to a proposal
by the leadership of the LTTE, the parties agreed to explore a solution
founded on the principle of internal self-determination in areas of
historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking peoples, based on a federal
structure within a united Sri Lanka. The parties acknowledged that the
solution has to be acceptable to all communities.” But the LTTE
distanced itself from the Oslo Declaration within a few months.
The early 1980s saw indirect Indian intervention in the conflict as
several training camps were set up for the Sri Lanka Tamil militant
groups. The perceived pro-Western tilt in the J R Jayewardene
government’s foreign policy was cited as justification for Indian help
to the militant groups by the Indira Gandhi government.
Sri Lankan Tamils
The 1983 pogrom, in which 2,000 Tamils were killed in Colombo alone,
not only left a deep scar on the psyche of Sri Lankan Tamils but also
triggered unprecedented waves of emotional outbursts among the diaspora
in general and in Tamil Nadu in particular in support of the Tamil
cause. (The brutal murder of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 by an LTTE suicide
bomber in Sriperumbudur marked the end of the enormous goodwill that the
Sri Lankan Tamil cause enjoyed in Tamil Nadu.)
India’s policy towards Sri Lanka changed dramatically under Rajiv
Gandhi’s prime ministership. India’s efforts were now directed towards
helping Sri Lanka to find a political solution to the ethnic problem,
and the result was the 1985 Thimphu talks. A joint statement issued at
the conference on July 13, 1985, by the Joint Front of the Tamil
Liberation Organizations, a platform under which for the first time all
the political and militant outfits came together, laying down what was
termed as ‘four cardinal principals’ for the basis of any meaningful
solution, brought to the fore the growing determination of Tamils to
attain a separate state.
Tamil recognition
The four cardinal principles were - ‘Recognition of the Tamils of Sri
Lanka as a distinct nationality, recognition of an identified Tamil
homeland and the guarantee of the territorial integrity, based on the
above, recognition of inalienable right of self-determination of the
Tamil nation and recognition of the right to full citizenship and other
fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils, who look upon the island as
their country.’
The Jayewardene government saw them as the first step towards
formation of a separate Tamil Eelam and rejected them outright. India
concurred with the Sri Lankan government’s view but continued its
efforts to bring about a political settlement acceptable to all
sections.
After two years of tortuous and intense negotiations came the 1987
India-Sri Lanka Accord, signed by Rajiv Gandhi and Jayewardene in
Colombo on July 29, 1987. The accord, for the first time, laid down a
comprehensive framework to redress the grievances of Tamils and other
minorities. The LTTE, which is believed to have given its tacit approval
when the accord was being crafted, did a U-turn at the last minute and
became the only militant outfit to reject it.
The accord acknowledges the unity, sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Sri Lanka and the multi-ethnic and multilingual character
of the island nation, recognizing that each ethnic group has a distinct
cultural and linguistic identity which must be carefully nurtured.
Historical habitation
The accord bound the Sri Lankan government to the position that the
Northern and the Eastern provinces had been areas of ‘historical
habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking peoples’ and paved the way for a
temporary merger of the North and the East into a single province,
subject to a referendum within a year.
The agreement on the merger and the referendum was based on the
assumption that all militant groups would lay down arms and create the
right atmosphere for peace and the rule of law. India, which guaranteed
the provisions of the accord, sent the IPKF to the island, only to end
up as the villain of the piece. The IPKF left the island two and a half
years later after losing some 1,300 soldiers and officers in the fight
against the LTTE.
Ironically, Ranasinghe Premadasa’s government joined hands with the
LTTE to secure the withdrawal of the IPKF. India chose to adopt a
hands-off policy with regard to Sri Lanka after the assassination of
Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. The 1987 accord and the 13th Amendment to the
Sri Lanka Constitution flowing out of it remain unimplemented to this
day. There have been all kinds of experiments and formulas since that
accord, but none helped to end the conflict.
Humiliating defeat
Now, with the Tigers on the verge of a humiliating defeat, the
Mahinda Rajapaksa government is faced with the challenge of winning the
hearts and minds of the minorities. In the immediate and medium term,
the challenge is to rehabilitate the hundreds of thousands of displaced
people. These people belong to several categories. There are, for
instance, some 80,000 Muslims who were exiled by the LTTE from the
Jaffna peninsula in the late 1990s at less than 24 hours’ notice. They
have been languishing in makeshift camps for 18 years.
In the long run, Rajapaksa must work on a political solution that is
acceptable to all parties. Given the politics of opportunism and blind
opposition practised for decades by various parties representing the
majority community, it is not an easy task.
The vacuum created in the north with the imminent decline of the LTTE
will probably be filled by a number of Tamil militant-turned-political
outfits that were hounded by the Tigers after the latter took control of
the north in 1990. As Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi observed
at his party’s Executive Committee in Chennai on February 3, disunity
and fratricidal politics have been the hallmark of Tamil militant groups
and parties.
For the record, President Rajapaksa is talking of his intention to
move as quickly as possible to implement the 13th Amendment. He told
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was on an unscheduled
visit to the island on the evening of January 27, that he would explore
the possibility of going further and improving upon those devolution
proposals.
The deep wounds of the conflict will not be healed easily. The
process will require a serious and sincere effort to reach out to the
minorities, including the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, and reassure them
that their dignity and honour, language(s), culture and ways of life
will be protected and nurtured. Triumphalism will be disastrous.
Courtesy: Frontline |