Ranil Wickremesinghe never understood the LTTE. He believed that the Tigers would prefer to see him President so that he could deliver a de facto state to them via the ISGA. Confident of getting the entirety of the North-East Tamil vote through the good offices of the LTTE, he gave low priority to maximising the Southern vote. Pirapaharan double crossed Wickremesinghe as he did every other peace-partner. At the last moment the LTTE called a boycott thereby ensuring the victory of Mahinda Rajapakse.____________________________
Link to Part 01
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
II - The Presidential Election and the LTTE
(April 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Throughout the Eelam Wars Velupillai Pirapaharan has acted with an unfailing eye on history. Consequently the LTTE planned to celebrate the new Millennium on a lavish scale crowned with a series of history making victories.
“A 47-foot cut-out of the LTTE leader had been erected at Mallavi. Beside it were two huge maps. One showed in colour the part of Sri Lanka that was Tamil Eelam. Another map of Vanni showed the LTTE’s territorial gains in recent weeks. It was a three-day celebration to convince the people that Eelam was coming soon and to draw in new recruits” (UTHR – Information Bulletin No. 22 – 30.1.2000). The Tigers launched an offensive to capture the Elephant Pass camp and Jaffna in December 1999, doubtless with the intention of ushering in the new Millennium with two spectacular victories. The effort failed and the Tigers suffered considerable losses (reportedly around 500 combatants). The LTTE launched another full scale offensive to capture Jaffna in May/June 2000. The Elephant Pass camp fell but the LTTE failed to dislodge the Army from many parts of Jaffna.
These twin operations created a serious manpower problem for the Tigers. This was possibly one of the reasons which made the LTTE decide on the necessity of another peace process. “The possibilities for recruitment in the LTTE-controlled Vanni were close to exhaustion and resistance was building up. It was in the wake of this crisis that Commander Karuna was sent back to his home base in Batticaloa in the East to undertake a recruitment drive. This was in December 2000. The results were so disappointing that in August 2001 the LTTE went for a deliberate policy of abduction and conscription in the Batticaloa District” (UTHR Special Report No 14 – 20.7.2002).
The Tigers were also facing a novel problem around August 2000 – the Long Range Reconnaissance Petrol - LRRP. Due to the success of the LRRP operations in targeting key Tiger figures in Tiger controlled areas, “the LTTE's confidence in having total control and untrammelled manoeuvrability in its area of control was shattered. So successful were LRRPs that in spite of continuous deployment for many months they evaded LTTE interception with almost total success. It again underscored the LTTE's manpower constraints” (Ibid).
This was the vicious cycle the Tigers were trying to break when they embarked on their latest peace process. They needed more manpower resources to counter the LRRP activities and defeat the SLA to regain (and hold) key lost territories including Jaffna. They also needed a period of non-war and access to urban population centres in order to recruit and train new members. The first peace overtures were made by the LTTE in late 2000. On the 31st of October 2000, Vellupillai Pirapaharan met the Norwegians, Eric Solheim and Jon Westborg, for the first time. The Tigers wanted a ceasefire, a restoration of normalcy through de-escalation. The President was not favourably disposed towards these demands and the initiative fell through. Undaunted the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire on Christmas Eve of 2000. The government did not reciprocate officially, but avoided commencing offensive operations for four months. On 24th April 2001 the ill fated Operation Agni Keela was launched – the first act of the ongoing Muhamalai Tragedy. The 72 hour operation ended in a huge defeat for the Lankan side. Hard on the heels of this debacle came the Tiger attack on the Katunayake Air Port and the Air Base, on 24th July 2001. The economy went into a tailspin and morale in the South plummeted.
This was the context in which the UNP won the general election of 2001. The new administration promptly declared a ceasefire; a MoU with the LTTE was signed in February 2002. Three years later, in his 2005 Heroes Day Speech Vellupillai Pirapaharan itemised some of the advantages he tried to secure through the peace process (apart from a massive recruitment drive and the dismantling of the LRRP).
- “Secure legitimacy for our liberation organisation as the representative organ of our people”.
- “Internationalise our struggle and win the support and sympathy of the international community”.
“Demonstrate beyond doubt that the Sinhala racist ruling elites would not accept the fundamental demands of the Tamils and offer a reasonable political solution”.
- Legitimacy to build a parallel state structure: “Provisions defining lines of control in the Memorandum of Understanding Agreement (MoU) of 23 February 2003 on the ceasefire between the LTTE and GoSL marked for the first time in the history of Tamil struggle a territory, where sovereignty of Sri Lanka Government did not reign… Article (1.4) …and article (1.5)…have given the LTTE the space and legitimacy to continue to build its parallel state structure within the lines of control”.
Space to create the symbols of statehood: “Liberation Tigers celebrating the legitimacy acquired thorough the CFA, started exhibiting the symbolism by hoisting Tamil eelam flags, declaring a national flower, in addition to setting up more concrete administrative structures including Tamil Eelam Police force, Tamil Eelam courts and formality rich customs at Omanthai, Muhamalai check points to project an image of a de facto separate state functioning in NorthEast”.- International recognition: “Recognition afforded to the LTTE by diplomats visiting Kilinochchi to meet with LTTE leadership has been another significant development that followed the MoU. Senior leaders of LTTE also made frequent visits to Europe, meeting with European Government officials showcasing the increasing levels of diplomatic recognition international community, especially the European nations, were prepared to provide to the Tigers”.
A parallel Navy: “Following incidents at sea that threatened the stability of the Cease Fire, both sides agreed after the Sixth Round of Peace Talks in Japan on 18 March 2003 to work out effective arrangements for the operation of their naval units in keeping with existing treaty obligations. In a resulting discussion paper Major General (ret.) Tryggve Tellefsen, head of SLMM, wrote: "...LTTE Sea Tigers exists as a De Facto Naval Unit...to maintain their Forces’ capabilities both Parties must have the right to carry out training and exercise in designated areas." Sri Lanka's President declared Tellefsen as persona non-grata and requested Norway to replace him after local media blamed Tellefsen for violating Sri Lanka's sovereignty in maritime waters”.
Financial independence: “Sri Lanka Country Director for the World Bank Peter Harrold's alleged statement saying that the LTTE was running an "unofficial state" in Northeastern Sri Lanka, and was therefore a "legitimate stakeholder" in the reconstruction phase brought wide condemnation from the GoSL, Sinhala nationalists and media in the South. These incidents and attempts by Sinhala nationalists to block Tigers' attempt to setting up financial channels directly with funding agencies bypassing control by Sri Lanka's treasury, can be viewed as a calculated reaction to fears that Tigers are rapidly consolidating their gains towards a parallel state”.
(Emphasis mine)
But for Pirapaharan, the man who once declared, ‘I am History’ a de facto state was inadequate; he wanted a de jure state, and one which owes its birth to none but himself. In any case retaining this new international legitimacy was dependent on the LTTE moderating its conduct and this was a prospect which left Pirapaharan cold. As the peace process meandered the Tigers conscripted children, murdered political opponents and terrorised Tamils and Muslims. Initially the LTTE were given the benefit of the doubt, not just by the international community but also by Southern society and the media. However as their depredations mounted and the peace process, instead of proceeding forward, got stuck in a limbo, the criticism of the Tigers began to increase. The Karuna rebellion was a set back but it was a military one since Col. Karuna was not been able to translate his military successes on the ground into political gains. The real impediment to the Tigers’ forward march was created by the Tigers themselves – the killing of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister and the practice of child conscription – activities stemming from the very nature of the Tiger and thus unavoidable as long as the Tiger remains unchanged. As Karuna said in his own Heroes Day Speech “We lost our freedom struggle because we were stuck in terrorism”.
This was the context in which the Presidential election of 2005 was held. By this time the LTTE had lost many of the advantages it sought to gain through the ceasefire. Given Pirapaharan’s unwillingness to opt for a more moderate course, the continuation of the peace process was meaningless for the LTTE. It made more sense to help elect a President who, through his Sinhala extremism, would antagonise the Tamils and the international community. With hindsight it is possible to surmise that Pirapaharan’s aim was to create a clear polarisation along Sinhala vs. Tamil lines by electing an anti-devolution President. If Colombo becomes mired in Sinhala supremacism then the next war can take the form of (or could be depicted as) a contestation between the Sinhala state/society and the Tamil people. Such a war would enable the LTTE to regain its lost international legitimacy and pave the way for a de jure partition of Sri Lanka along Sinhala and Tamil lines.
In his annual Heroes Day Speech made a couple of weeks after the Presidential election Pirapaharan indicated why he contributed to a Rajapakse victory: “The Sinhala nation continues to be entrapped in the Mahavamsa mindset, in that mythical ideology. The Sinhalese people are still caught up in the legendary fiction that the island of Sri Lanka is a divine gift to Theravada Buddhism, a holy land entitled to the Sinhala race. The Sinhala nation has not redeemed itself from this mythological idea that is buried deep and has become fossilised in their collective unconscious.… It is because of the refusal by the Sinhala nation to perceive the existential reality of the Tamils and their political aspirations the Tamil national question persists as an unresolved complex issue” (emphasis mine). Since Pirapaharan aim was to regain international legitimacy for the Tigers by depicting the entire problem as one of Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism’s unwillingness to accept the basic rights of the minorities, he needed an obvious Sinhala supremacist as the Lankan president. Mahinda Rajapakse with his public commitment to the unitary state was thus his man.
There is a view that a Wickremesinghe Presidency would have been more dangerous to the Tigers. The potential certainly existed but given the nature of Wickremesinghe it was unlikely to be realised. The manner in which Wickremesinghe handled the ceasefire negotiations with the LTTE in December 2001 is particularly illuminating. Given the international situation (post 9/11) he could have driven a far harder bargain with the Tigers; the MoU could have been far less skewed in the favour of the LTTE and included provisions to protect the unarmed Tamil people from the armed might of the Tigers. But Wickremesinghe chose to accept a MoU which was disadvantageous to both the Sri Lankan state and Tamil democracy. The much vaunted international connections of Wickremesinghe were used not to weaken the Tigers but to gain them legitimacy. Even after the Tigers boycotted the Tokyo confab and unilaterally withdrew from negotiations, there was no attempt by the Wickremesinghe administration to put pressure on them internationally. The government kept on reassuring the world about the bona fides of the Tigers. The only international moves against the Tigers happened as a result of the work done by Lakshman Kadirgamar during the Presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
Ranil Wickremesinghe never understood the LTTE. He believed that the Tigers would prefer to see him President so that he could deliver a de facto state to them via the ISGA. Confident of getting the entirety of the North-East Tamil vote through the good offices of the LTTE, he gave low priority to maximising the Southern vote. Pirapaharan double crossed Wickremesinghe as he did every other peace-partner. At the last moment the LTTE called a boycott thereby ensuring the victory of Mahinda Rajapakse.
To be continued.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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