The Only Option

by Haris Hulugalle

(March 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Sri Lankans have been fighting each other, sporadically, for two thousand years. These same people have at times married among themselves and integrated permanently. Some castes in Jaffna, notably the ‘Koviyars’, which sounds resoundingly , like Goviyas, and the Nalavas, have Sinhalese histories long ago. Prabakaran himself is from a community who have been migrants in the Island for thousands of years from various parts of Asia and beyond. They look no different physically nor behave distinctively, in their normal lives from similar Sinhalese.

The Sinhalese, who are the only linguistic group to have incised their presence on our rock faces before the birth of Christ ,have had Tamils of ‘noble’ family often in their royal courts, as commonly as the English have had Germans in theirs but for far longer periods. My own father , was descended from people mentioned in the Buddhist Chronicles such as the Sadammalankara, as exemplary Buddhists. Yet, he , had, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century , a great Aunt called Sittamma, as Tamil a name as could be found, living under a tank and beside a temple near Nikaweritiya in the Wanni.

The peace that is being proposed has frail prospects because it is not a reconciliation of two ethnic groups, as is assumed. It is an accommodation of a coterie of ruthlessly ambitious people. They have on this occasion perverted the psyche of the poorer section of the Tamils in this country to believe that the Sinhalese, who are as deprived as they are, to be the cause of their degradation. Equally intelligent people were similarly misled during the second world war by Hitler and his men with minds similarly askew.

The arrogant statements which men like Balasingham continues to make, ‘Prabakaran is our President’, and irrational clamour for the administration of the North and the East, without democratic election, are indicators of things to come.

Us people in the capital . Colombo, have little hope of a peaceful settlement and believe that a swift end to the war by professional soldiers is an only option. In our view, the failure of the military to defeat the rebels and restore them to civilised ways has been due to the interference of corrupt politicians and their immediate associates among the Sinhalese.. The armed forces do not appear to have been allowed to devise their strategy without such interference.

A sensible political instruction would have been to give them broad objectives such as to secure critical territory to marginalise the enemy and to destroy its morale while demonstrating to the civil population that peace and unity with the Sinhalese made a far better life for them and their progeny.

No such effort was ever made. The civilians in the war zone are destitute through neglect. The excuse is a lack of resources. We do not see this around Colombo where Jaguars around the Clubs are not uncommon and brash buildings continue to rise. The hotels teem, over weekends, with affluent people driving in big cars to distant resorts. Night clubs rock with vulgar displays of indifference to poor people at war. Expensive restaurants abound. The free economy lets in any luxury we care to import.

During the second world war the British who ruled us then, ensured that the country’s wealth was equally spread. No cars were imported . Food was equally rationed among the rich and the poor. Petrol was issued only for ‘essential use’. At every corner in Colombo, there was a wholesome meal, affordable , at that time, for twenty five cents, probably five rupees in these times. As children, we were given one exercise book per subject per term. Pencils were similarly restricted as was cloth for our uniforms or for wear among our parents. This type of list could be continued indefinitely with more about our food at boarding schools, to which we were evacuated, fearing Japanese invasion. It seemed little more than bread with pieces of meat made of soya flour, floating in dishwater. Yet these hardships were accepted for a simple reason A special effort was made to bring the mass of people into the mainstream of activity through effective communication and propaganda and convinced of a need for a total commitment to the war effort until victory was finally achieved. ‘Dig harder for you larder’ we civilians believed, naive though it may seem now, out of context.

This is how war is fought and won and peace restored.
- Sri Lanka Guardian