Karuna: The Tragedy of a Rebel (Part II)

File Picture: Karuna seated at the meeting venue in his left Supreme Commander Pillaiyan and in his right Senior Commander Jeyam.

"Karuna, in his role as the Eastern Chieftain imposed a particularly repressive regimen on the province of his origin. When the CFA was signed this repressive rule was extended into government controlled areas as well. When Father Harry Miller compared the LTTE’s child conscription drive in the East to an ogre descending from a mountain to take away children he was referring to the handiwork of Karuna. It was in the East the ‘one family, one fighter’ policy was implemented most vigorously. Economically too the Easterners suffered under the rule of Karuna"

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Link to Part 01

by Tisaranee Gunasekara

• "We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. But the task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others."
  Camus (The Rebel)

The Rebellion

The Karuna rebellion took the LTTE, the Lankan state, the Norwegian peacemakers and the country by surprise. A bolt from the blue, it heralded the beginning of the end of Tiger’s summer. Until Col. Karuna rebelled the LTTE had things its own way, thanks to the appeasing nature of the third peace process. The anti-Tiger Tamils were on the run and the LTTE looked the only game in town when Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan did the unthinkable and raised the banner of rebellion against the seemingly unassailable Surya Thevan.

In the time between the signing of the CFA and the Karuna rebellion, the Tigers took giant steps towards Tiger Eelam, politically and militarily, under the benign eye of the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration. Arms were procured, special forces were trained and international legitimacy won. The Karuna rebellion, with its potential to seriously weaken the LTTE, was an unexpected and unlooked for break for the beleaguered Sri Lankan state. If handled correctly the rebellion could have seriously undermined the Tiger Eelam project and brought about a democratisation of Tamil politics.

When Karuna announced his rebellion, one of his first acts was to disband and deactivate Eelam Police and Eelam Courts in the Tiger controlled areas in the East. He was offering concrete proof of his abandonment of the Eelam demand. He also began to release the child soldiers in his army, thereby indicating his willingness to abide by norms of civilised behaviour and the international law. These gestures, which were of paramount importance in understanding the nature of the Karuna rebellion and in formulating responses to it, went unheeded both by the Southern polity and the international community. They ignored the sensible and moral option of opening separate negotiations with the rebels while reiterating the desire to maintain the ceasefire with the LTTE. When Karuna asked for a separate ceasefire, the UNF Prime Minister and the PA President, both taken by surprise, procrastinated. Fearing the anger of the Tiger who was busy making menacing noises and still wedded to the myth of a negotiated solution with the LTTE, both the President and the PM did not seize the opportunity presented by the rebellion. In fact there was a rare bipartisan consensus to betray the rebels in order to pacify the Tiger.

The LTTE did threaten to abrogate the ceasefire and go back to war if the regime had any dealings with the rebels; both the UNP and the UPFA seemed to have feared this outcome. What they failed to comprehend was that with Col. Karuna in control of most of the Tiger areas in the East, the Vanni leadership would not have gone back to war against the Sri Lankan state as that would have meant fighting on two fronts. Even if the Tigers did go to war, they would have done so severely handicapped. Therefore the advantages of opening separate negotiations with the Karuna rebels far outweighed the disadvantages. Unfortunately Colombo spurned Col. Karuna’s offer and looked the other way as the Vanni LTTE violated the ceasefire in their military operations against the Eastern rebels. Both the UNF and the UPFA are guilty of this criminal folly but the primary responsibility rests with the then President, especially in her capacity as the Defence Minister. Greed coupled with fatal short-sightedness and most probably the fear of Black Tigers prevented her from moving decisively to capitalise on this totally unexpected opportunity.

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"Karuna could have done without the backing of the Lankan state if he had the support of a majority of Eastern Tamils. If Karuna had made efforts to win over the Eastern Tamils during his career as a Tiger leader, he could have counted on their support during the crucial days of the rebellion. Unfortunately in his role as the top Tiger in the East he had imposed a reign of oppression and terror on the Eastern people. They were subject to child conscription and extortion in far greater measure than their Jaffna compatriots."

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The role played the SLMM in encouraging the Lankan authorities to subvert the rebellion was considerable. The Norwegians clearly wanted the Vanni Tigers (through their proxies) to win the 2004 elections in the North and the East and to defeat the rebellion by whatever means necessary. They suspended monitoring activities in the areas under Karuna’s control as soon as the Pirapaharan – Karuna schism became known. The international community was effectively taking a side, for Pirapaharan against Karuna. They, like the Sri Lankan leaders of both hues, were determined to deny Karuna any international legitimacy. As the UTHR reported "In an internal memo dated 29th April 2004 leaked to an anti-terrorism website in Norway…the General is quoted as having said at the meeting at LTTE (V) HQ: ‘SLMM stayed away during the elections and also the Karuna split deliberately. We wanted that the two parties should have space to act" (The Batticaloa Fiasco and the Tragedy of Missed Opportunities – 29.5.2004; emphasis mine).

Karuna did all he could to gain some political and international legitimacy. He took a stand against both Eelam and the ISGA and condemned the killing of Rajiv Gandhi. All to no avail. The LTTE had warned the South and the world that this was an internal problem which did not warrant any outside involvement and interference. The South and the world decided to heed this warning. It did not matter that by letting Pirapaharan deal with the Karuna rebellion as he thought fit, we were treating the North and the East as a separate country under Tiger sovereignty. It did not matter that by tacitly admitting Pirpaharan’s right to deal with the Karuna rebellion as he thought fit, we were taking another fateful step towards legitimising Tiger Eelam by conceding the right of the Sun God to do whatever he wills in the North and the East and with the Tamil people.

As the Lankan state’s willingness to do a Pontius Pilate became obvious the killing spree, which had ceased briefly with the rebellion, recommenced. On 24th March K Thambaiyah, an academic of the Eastern University was murdered. On 30th March Rajan Sathiamoorthy, President of the Batticaloa Traders Association and a TNA candidate backing Karuna was shot dead. Obviously in response, the Karuna rebels ordered some of the Jaffna born traders in Batticaloa to leave until the election was over.

The Karuna rebellion happened when the country was in the throes of 2004 election campaign. The Tigers were officially backing the TNA (contesting under the name and symbol of ITAK – Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi) in the North-East. With the rebellion most of the TNA candidates representing the Eastern districts declared their support for Karuna. At the election the candidates supported by Karuna swept the slate in the East just as the candidates supported by the LTTE swept the slate in the North. Once the election was over the Karuna faction issued a statement expressing willingness to work with the newly elected UPFA government and to accept a ministry dealing with Eastern development. The new UPFA government had an elected anti-Tiger Tamil partner to deal with, if it so wanted. If the President accepted this offer it would have conveyed some legitimacy to the rebels and created a political impediment to the campaign of annihilation Pirapaharan was preparing for his erstwhile acolyte.

However the UPFA decided not to accept Karuna’s offer. Cowed by Tiger threats and swayed by SLMM blandishments, the new administration decided to opt for the Tiger offer – the backing of the TNA parliamentarians representing the North. Doubtless the argument would be made that officially the pro-Karuna parliamentarians from the East came under the control of the ITAK and thus there was a legal impediment in seeking their support. This is not the real reason but a convenient excuse. After all if a group of UNPers offered to cross over to the government side, the UPFA would not have wasted time in such hair splitting but would have extended a warm welcome to them. This in fact was what the PA did when a group of UNPers (led by Messers Wijepala Mendis and Sarath Amunugama) crossed over to the government in the run up to the 1999 Presidential election. The non-acceptance of Karuna’s offer was thus due not to any legal problems but to the fear of antagonising the Tiger Supremo. Another factor may have been the mistaken notion that a grateful Tiger will back the UPFA, having dumped the UNF. The government decision not to accept the rebels’ offer of support effectively doomed the rebellion.
Karuna could have done without the backing of the Lankan state if he had the support of a majority of Eastern Tamils. If Karuna had made efforts to win over the Eastern Tamils during his career as a Tiger leader, he could have counted on their support during the crucial days of the rebellion. Unfortunately in his role as the top Tiger in the East he had imposed a reign of oppression and terror on the Eastern people. They were subject to child conscription and extortion in far greater measure than their Jaffna compatriots. As the token Easterner among top Tiger leaders, Karuna may have felt the need to actively demonstrate to his master and his Northern peers that he had no truck with regionalism and made no special favours for Eastern Tamils.

Karuna, in his role as the Eastern Chieftain imposed a particularly repressive regimen on the province of his origin. When the CFA was signed this repressive rule was extended into government controlled areas as well. When Father Harry Miller compared the LTTE’s child conscription drive in the East to an ogre descending from a mountain to take away children he was referring to the handiwork of Karuna. It was in the East the ‘one family, one fighter’ policy was implemented most vigorously. Economically too the Easterners suffered under the rule of Karuna. He and his trusted colleagues – including older brother ‘Reggie’ – created an economic empire which worked tirelessly to squeeze the maximum revenue and profit out of the Eastern Tamils and Muslims.

According to the UTHR, "The two main groups that supported his (Karuna’s) rebellion were eastern traders and the educated classes, particularly a significant section of the Eastern University. These groups resented the LTTE-backed Jaffna domination most. But political backing for Karuna did not extend much further; the peasantry in particular was lukewarm….. Karuna had not prepared himself for the rebellion by over a period of time showing a distinctively more compassionate face to the local Tamils and Muslims whose support he needed. Perhaps he could not build such a constituency without arousing suspicion. Once he rebelled, he was overtaken by other preoccupations - such as evading the LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman" (ibid). Before the rebellion Karuna lacked either the opportunity or inclination to win over the people; after the rebellion was announced he lacked the time to do so. Bereft of that protective buffer, Karuna was vulnerable to the machinations of the Lankan state and the murderous intent of the LTTE. This is the backdrop against which President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga took the shameful decision to geographically enable the LTTE’s Good Friday offensive against the rebels.

To be continued ...............