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BANNING IS JUST WHAT THE LTTE WANTS
By Shyamon Jayasinghe,
Melbourne
You want to concede to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam? Then get
our government to do just one thing: Ban the LTTE
Two general approaches are open to us when dealing with an enemy. They
are best expressed in animal-related metaphors: the mindless action
of the bull in the proverbial china shop or the instinctual cunning
strategy of the fox. Machiavelli, renown power- game strategist of the
Renaissance era, loved the metaphor of the animal. He stated that the
effective ruler is one who would be fox and lion both. The fox meant
a mind that can 'spin' and the lion meant the brawn. The implied meaning
was that brawn should be spin-related.
The LTTE’s biggest headache now is not the Sri Lanka army. The
latter has not been able to ferret out Prabhakaran who has successfully
hidden in a small area in a small island for over two decades. The continent-nation
of Australia where I live would have dragged out a guy of his type ages
ago. The Americans got Saddam relatively easily in a vast country like
Iraq. On the contrary, the LTTE’s huge problem is to overcome its
isolation among the global community. It is only an intensely committed
diaspora that makes the LTTE live and prosper today. This is a far cry
from the past when global powers listened to the Tigers with sympathy.
Banning the LTTE will, surely, pave the way for a reversal of this global
response.
If anybody thinks that we don’t need Indian and global support
and that we can go it alone he/she is either an ignoramus or a lunatic.
We have gone it alone for a goodly part of the twenty-two years of conflict
and do we need more years to prove the point? Besides, at least India
will not let us do anything we want. They have set out the parameters
and President Rajapakse is constrained to act within them.
Let’s be clear: Indo-global leaders do not view our national problem
as a pure terrorist problem. You cannot sell that idea to them. As insiders
in a conflict situation, many of us cannot see what outsiders who look
at the broad perspective do see. The view from the top is always clearer.
We have both a terrorist problem and a Tamil - grievance problem. The
Tamil grievance problem is the one that provides the driving fuel for
the terrorist problem. As far as global powers are, they are concerned
that we offer something substantial by way of participatory self-rule
for the Tamil community in their traditional areas of living. India
has made that very clear and will not deter from that stance especially
in view of the potential for trouble in Tamilnadu The extent of devolution
and the territory are issues that need negotiation.
Political negotiation is crucial to this whole business. Banning the
LTTE will make nonsense of the idea of discussion and political negotiation
with them. It is abundantly clear that given their way the LTTE will
try and force a separate state. Were it not so, they would not have
ensured Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe’s defeat. Their rejection of Ranil
and the Mawilmaru episode are the most recent in the list of LTTE stupidities,
which cast the latter further into global isolation- a list that began
with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. On the other hand, the fact
that the other party is unwilling for negotiation is no reason not to
keep pushing that strategy on with global support. The important thing
is to force the LTTE to get to the table and accept a globally respected
settlement. Thereafter, natural democratic political processes will
flow and mature leading to openness in the Tamil political system. It
is this kind of open society that the LTTE dreads. The Karuna phenomenon
is the best by-product of the openness that had been created during
the first two years of the Peace Accord. An open society helps internal
fissures to emerge.
The second great advantage of a negotiated settlement is that the fund-swelling
huge diaspora would lose its momentum.
For all this, one needs to offer something substantial and genuine
to the Tamil community. If that be done, the gradual liquidisation of
the Diaspora would, surely, take place and the non-LTTE Tamil community
would be deterred in seeing any ‘reasonableness’ in the “boys”.
The entire first year of our new President went by without bringing
forth any proposal and this has given ample fodder for the Tigers who
keep telling the world and their local and globally diffused community
that “the Sinhalese government will never yield anything; Eelam
is the only solution”.
Time is running out for Sri Lanka and for President Rajapakse. The
Sri Lanka government has got to take the plunge and end this period
of prevarication and ambivalence. Our President took the right steps
in setting up an All-Party Conference (APC) and in securing the support
of the main opposition party. That was statesmanlike and even ‘foxy’
in approach and it displayed a lot of political maturity. The President
must now go beyond that and not go back wilting under extremist pressure.
The majority report of the APC offers a workable model on which to
develop an offer of power-sharing. Sri Lanka can function as one entity
only on the basis of a power-sharing model of democracy. India, our
huge neighbour, is a good example of this. India would have gone to
pieces after Independence had it not built a power-sharing federal constitution
that accommodates all its pluralities despite a 85 per cent Hindu majority
over there.
President Rajapakse must now invoke the image of the lion of Machiavelli;
put forward a finalised proposal to the LTTE and enlist India and global
powers into backing it. He has to realize that the electorate has given
a clear mandate for a move of this sort.
The President has brought in the Prevention of Terrorism Act. This
more than adequately provides for the legal framework necessary to deal
with the Tigers at this stage. Going further and banning them is foolish.
One cannot therefore understand the PNM, JVP and JHU trying to make
a huge issue about banning. That is an approach that disregards the
need to act with smartness and tact having regard to backlash consequences
Sri Lanka must put the past behind and move forward into the twenty
first century. When I was in the country last October-November, I was
witness to a considerable state of deterioration of basic infrastructure
facilities that can no longer continue in that way. This cursed war
of ours that has diverted all the country's resources is causing multiple
crises in the economy, in society and in governance. With the support
that the government has got from the major opposition party it must
act with clarity and resolve to see an end to the conflict. On economic
indices our once poorer neighbour, The Republic of Maldives has already
gone ahead of us
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