CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Will Devolution Make Parabakaran Irrelevant or will it Save His Project?

Dilrook Kannangara

Dayan Jayatilleka (Eelam war and the external battlefield) in his personal capacity has made a few unsubstantiated assertions in support of a political solution based on devolution. The origins of devolution as a basis of the political solution to the ‘conflict’ are weird. It was SWRD Bandaranaike who suggested it without any discussion, brainstorming, consultation, fact finding, examination, analysis, dissertation, dialogue, debate or any other political process. He came up with a devolution based ‘solution’ to appease the “Federal Party’ whose correct name was ‘Tamil State Party’! Then it was frowned upon by the masses and history has it that he tore the document which had no public approval whatsoever. This act baptised devolution based political solutions and since then all the parrots in the country and the international community started parroting what Bandaranaike parroted. We are stuck with devolution and we are unable to explore more suitable solutions. Devolution based ideologies (and their cousin ideologies) are not the absolute truth. It must be dissected and analysed.

How can devolution make Parabakaran irrelevant? He is not fighting for devolution! He is fighting for a separate Tamil nation called Tamil Elam. The Tamil Diaspora is also striving for Tamil Elam. Their liberation struggle killed more than 70,000 for Tamil Elam, not for any other settlement. Give them chicken bones when they ask for chicken and the craving will remain in tact. This is the simple reality avoided by pro-devolution activists. These shallow thinkers arrive at the arithmetic average between the two ‘extremes’ and call it the solution.

Although devolution doesn’t solve any problems, it creates safe houses for the LTTE and/or its successors. A regional council in charge of the area where the guerrillas would be active will have to either support their hunt by security forces or oppose their hunt. If they support, they get thrown to the political dustbin as the need for Tamil Elam would remain unchanged. It will produce another Vartharajah Perumal episode. If they try to block the extermination of the LTTE, then we are back to square one. A powerful regional council can rule over land and police affairs in its region and the North will remain mono-ethnic further breeding racism and race-based separatism. Terrorism will flourish again as it happened in the early to mid 1980s. The what? The extortionists will demand more power to the region going by the arithmetic solution. This will continue until Tamil Elam is on the discussion table.

Instead how about an integrative solution? How about a solution that strengthens the unitary status of the country which allows equal rights to every citizen while totally disregarding racial grievances and racial aspirations? This is the same thing that happened to previous territorial laws including the Thesavalamei law, the Mukkuwa Law, the Kandyan Law, etc. These moved away from territorial laws to personal laws. In doing so the fact of very large internal movement of people within Sri Lanka was recognised. Now they have gone to misuse altogether! This is the type of solution we need for the ‘ethnic conflict that will make ethnicity disappear. This will uproot the Tamil Elam project altogether. This solution is also compatible with national and public security interests as well.

Jayatilleka dips his theories in absurdity when he says that “the Tamil Diaspora is of course a Sinhala extremist creation”. Then why on earth thousands of Tamils migrated to Malaysia, South Africa, England, etc. during the British rule? Most of the Tamil Diaspora consists of economic refugees than political refugees. Unlike Armenians who don’t visit Turkey, Tamils living abroad regularly visit their kith and kin in Sri Lanka. Competition between families and relatives pushes more and more people to go abroad. Until the quality of life and the earnings potential of Sri Lanka matches that of the UK (for instance), mass emigration will continue. Fearing the Tamil Diaspora and their Pongu Thamil events is not the way to go. Larger the Tamil Diaspora, the smaller become the local Tamil population. In a democratic system reducing group size directly and proportionately reduces the collective influencing power of that group on decision making. A solution must be given only to Sri Lankan citizens living in Sri Lanka. The influencing power of the Tamil Diaspora should not be allowed to overrule democratic rights of the people of this country.

Jayatilleka identifies some of Parabakaran’s strategies. However, his main strategy has been omitted. What he would do when cornered is to agree to a ‘solution’ that will give him some sort of refuge until he can sharpen his teeth for a full blown attack. A regionalised devolution system would ideally suit him. He will have his henchmen as honchos and thereafter it is smooth sailing for his terror project.

Giving too much prominence to guerrilla warfare is another fatal miscalculation. Sri Lankan geography does not allow the continuity of a long span guerrilla campaign. JVP tried it and failed and LTTE too failed in it. Interestingly LTTE grew not in the jungle, but from amidst the people. Another big obstacle is the present large scale killing strategy followed by security forces. According to official figures, over 5,000 LTTE fighters have been killed for the first 6 months of this year. That is the highest in history and it shows clearly what the priorities of security forces are. Following such a strategy will not leave many combatants to resort to guerrilla warfare anyway. In a context of fast reducing overall Tamil population percentage in the country, sourcing enough number of cadres to make a big enough impact will be a challenge. Isolated and disorganised attacks cannot win Tamil Elam. Security forces have unlocked the secret to handle guerrilla and infiltration attacks successfully subject to a few human rights violations. Changing demographics of the North and the East will be the end of the terror project altogether.

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