Well Known Tamil democratic political organization the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF) Condemns the LTTE leader’s Call for War and Separate State, SLDF Demands an End to LTTE’s Politics of Murder and Suicide(December, 05, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) As Sri Lanka is plunged into war yet again, and civilians face yet another humanitarian crisis, Prabhakaran's annual Heroes Day speech warrants closer attention. It reveals his continued commitment to a suicidal politics that will serve only the interests of the LTTE, even as it decimates the Tamil community, and confirms him to be one of the individuals most responsible for the failure of peace negotiations and for the repeated return to a war of attrition that is all too familiar to the civilians in the North and East.
In the current context of egregious abuses of human rights by the Sri Lankan State, which continues to persecute Tamils in Sri Lanka and to delay on producing a constitutional settlement that would recognise the legitimate aspirations of all minorities in Sri Lanka, some may find it tempting to see the LTTE in a more sympathetic light. It is, however, the Tamil and Muslim communities who continue to suffer, and this most recent Heroes Day speech makes clear that the LTTE is neither capable of, nor interested in, securing them a solution.
The Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF) rejects outright the LTTE’s call to war and is dismayed that the LTTE is on the downward spiral of further destruction and suffering for the whole country and the Tamil people in particular.
The LTTE leader, Prabhakaran’s, annual speech on November 27th continues in the same vein as his previous speeches since 2004, in being a call to war for a separate state. Prabhakaran’s speech assumes particular significance given the totalitarian structure of the LTTE, which does not allow for any other voice within it. In his speech, Prabhakaran glorifies the suicide culture of his organisation, calls for the escalation of war for a separate state, and refuses to recognise past and present efforts to find a political solution.
The leader of the LTTE has yet again set back hopes for a negotiated political solution, through both his call to arms in his speech and the LTTE's subsequent actions. The LTTE’s bombings in Colombo the following day ominously signal its determination to pursue its war agenda.
Over the last two decades, Prabhakaran has been a consistent obstacle to both local and international efforts to find a political solution, beginning with the Indian efforts in the mid-eighties to the most recent effort by the Norwegians. Despite serious deficiencies in the design of the Norwegian peace process and lack of political will all round, it is Prabhakaran who has, more than any other individual actor, consistently wrecked every effort at peace making, and has done so with complete disregard for the welfare of those whom he claims to represent.
LTTE renews commitment to a war of attrition
Similarly his vocal and unrepentant rejection of the Indo-Lanka Accord twenty years later today, which he more than any other actor was responsible in scuttling, is a reflection of his political bankruptcy, paralleled only by the political bankruptcy of the most extremist Southern political actors. He does not recognize that the political process is one of constructive and dedicated engagement, rather than an exercise in which proposals are put forward by one party simply to be accepted or rejected by the LTTE. Prabhakaran’s refusal to accept responsibility for the atrocities he ordered, including the assassination of a generation of Tamil political leaders, intellectuals and activists, and the political blunders he had committed which led to his organisation’s isolation, are clear indications of his inability and unwillingness to transform politically. Indeed, the much-vaunted but never witnessed political transformation of the LTTE is even less likely now with this new affirmation to continue the war. Prabhakaran has built the LTTE into a purely military outfit that is capable of only seeking a military solution.
Prabhakaran’s speech clearly articulates that the interests of the LTTE and the interests of the Tamil people living in Sri Lanka are not one and the same. Indeed, it is clear that he is mainly addressing the Tamil diaspora, and particularly the LTTE lobby in the West, which constitute the financial and political base of the LTTE. He is seeking to mobilise the Tamil diaspora, which is a constituency that does not have to face the consequences of his actions, whether it is the escalation of the war, or the forced recruitment of children and youth.
LTTE’s sole political objective - a totalitarian Tamil state
The LTTE leader attempts to bridge the divergent interests of the Tamil people with the LTTE’s aspirations for survival and power by continuing to evoke a form of extreme Tamil nationalism that glorifies martyrdom and the cult of suicide and that centres around the creation of a totalitarian Tamil state. The LTTE’s continued call for an independent Tamil state, the achievement of which seems more remote than ever, is imposed upon the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, even at the significant humanitarian costs this would exact from civilians who have already suffered so much. To what extent the Tamils living in Sri Lanka desire an independent Tamil state to live under the yoke of the LTTE is a pertinent question that needs to be raised. The LTTE continues to propagate the idea that an exclusive Tamil state is the only viable option for Tamils even though the idea of an independent state represents a total refusal to consider the possibility of a negotiated political solution. It is also an attempt to box the Tamil community into a corner, mirroring the ideals of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists who are also opposed to the idea of a political solution - a solution that would address the grievances and aspirations of all the minorities in Sri Lanka.
The LTTE’s prescription of an exclusively Tamil totalitarian state will not address the interests of significant numbers of Tamils and Muslims living outside the North and East. Moreover it also acquits the Sri Lankan state of its national and international obligations to its minority citizens, and legitimises the notion of an exclusive Sinhala Buddhist state in Sri Lanka.
The cult of suicide and the creation of a fascist political culture
The cult of martyrdom and suicide that the LTTE leader promotes raises grave concerns about the future of the Tamil community, which he continues to hold hostage in the interest of his own survival and his vision of a totalitarian Tamil state.
The suicide culture of the LTTE has to be condemned not only because it is morally reprehensible, but also for the fascist political culture it engenders and the destruction of pluralistic politics within the Tamil community. The cult of suicide and the cyanide capsule is built on the assurance of absolute obedience and loyalty to a leader who does not brook any dissent about his personal objectives in this war. To hundreds of LTTE cadres trained to bear arms and become suicide bombers in this atmosphere of an 'all or nothing' war, the call for peace and democracy would appear very remote indeed, however great their suffering. This is the tragic fate of several generations of Tamil youth.
On February 7 2003, during the Norwegian peace process and even while negotiations were going on in Berlin between the LTTE and government peace delegations, LTTE cadres smuggling arms who were surrounded at sea were ordered to commit suicide rather than surrender to SLMM monitors.
The LTTE leader has to publicly renounce the movement’s politics of suicide and political killings as a first and important step in establishing its serious intent towards a negotiated political solution. We have not witnessed another national liberation movement which was wedded to a similar cult of suicide and violence as that of the LTTE, and which could transform itself to join the democratic process to arrive at a negotiated settlement, such as in East Timor or in Northern Ireland.
The decimation of the Tamil polity
The LTTE’s claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people has rendered Tamils a great disservice and has systematically alienated them from the broader Sinhala community, from other minorities such as the Muslims, the neighbouring peoples of India and even the international community.
The LTTE annihilated whole generations of both armed and unarmed democratic activists, intellectuals, professionals and ordinary civilians who disagreed with their repressive measures within the Tamil community. Most notably, almost the entire Parliamentary leadership of the Tamils who campaigned for Tamil autonomy for many decades were assassinated. Anyone who was suspected of showing an iota of dissent was liquidated. Under LTTE control, there is no space for even the concept of a civil society.
During the periods of ceasefires, Tamil and Muslim civilians living in the North and East were able to experience some semblance of normalcy, in spite of continuing LTTE abuses. However, the LTTE, which pays no heed to the wellbeing of the Tamil people, has been all too ready to provoke war and to break any ceasefires, as its sole interest is to keep its war machine going, to fill its ranks through forced recruitment, and to ensure its own survival and crucially, the survival of its leadership, around which the organisation is built..
The enormity of death, destruction and displacement suffered by both Tamils and Muslims, in the last 30 years, primarily in the North and East of the island, is incalculable and they continue unabated. However, in his speech Prabakharan prescribes and calls for more violence and war, which would result in indiscriminate mass murder of innocent civilians across the country in suicide bombings and targeted killings of those individuals who express dissent.
The way forward
In the face of the resurgence of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism in the South over the last two years, coupled with a militarist mindset at the highest levels of the government, the years ahead are going to be long and arduous as Sri Lanka slips into another cycle of protracted conflict.
The Sri Lankan State has consistently let down and violated the rights of the Tamil people and other minorities in Sri Lanka. However, if the destruction of the last twenty five years has taught us one thing, it is that there can never be a military solution to this conflict and the only way forward is through a negotiated political process.
The choice before the Tamil community is the continuation of the strategy of violence and war inherent in the LTTE’s suicidal politics, or a negotiated political solution which addresses the grievances and aspirations of all the minorities living in Sri Lanka. SLDF calls on the Tamil community, and particularly the Tamil diaspora, which has greater space to survive the terror of LTTE guns, to reject the call for war, refute the idea of a separate state and to condemn the suicide politics of the LTTE.
The choice for the LTTE is also clear: it either transforms itself by abandoning the secessionist cry and its cult of suicide and works towards a negotiated settlement by joining the democratic process; or faces eventual rejection by the Tamil community, and isolation by the international community. Prabhakaran’s annual speech of 2007 makes it apparent that he is neither ready nor willing to make this transition and consequently will push the LTTE in the direction of further rejection and isolation.
The choice for the Sri Lankan State and its leadership is stark: failure to settle the ethnic conflict swiftly in an acceptable manner to the minorities will plunge the whole country into chaos and anarchy, with disaffection growing in the South. The Southern political leadership has to recognise that there will never be a military solution to the ethnic conflict. It has to accept that the minorities have grievances which have to be addressed in a just and democratic manner, through a transparent and inclusive process. Unless the State abandons its campaign of terror against Tamil civilians and makes sincere attempts to bring about a political solution, it cannot win the confidence of the minority communities.
SLDF challenges those in the Tamil diaspora and in the South to rethink their stance that the violence of the LTTE can be used as leverage against the government to demand devolution of power to the minorities. Recent history has demonstrated that the LTTE’s intransigence and violence have hardened the attitudes of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists in the South and vice versa. This will only deepen the destructive process that has been set in motion through the unleashing of extreme ethnic nationalisms. Such destructive politics will eventually cripple efforts towards achieving any kind of peace.
This critical moment calls for urgent action by the progressives who cherish democracy in all three communities to work together to find a just and sustainable political solution, which will address the aspirations of all the peoples of Sri Lanka. What remains of the Tamil polity which has escaped decimation by the LTTE, both in Sri Lanka and in the diaspora, has an important role to play in articulating a political vision that entails a negotiated political settlement within a united Sri Lanka. A political dialogue that is inclusive has to begin in order to mend the severed relations between the Tamil and the other minority communities and the progressive sections of the majority community. Only through the emergence of a principled and democratic politics arising out of this dialogue, can we guarantee a just future with dignity for the minorities in Sri Lanka and a lasting peace for the country as a whole.
(SLDF Statements are drafted by its twenty members Steering Committee.For Media Queries Only Contact: spokespersons@lankademocracy.org . SLDF Spokespersons: Rengan Devarajan and Ahilan Kadirgamar)
 Condemns the LTTE leader’s Call for War and Separate...){kind=link}
Post a Comment