“Barring a few strategic analysts, most of them from within the country, Sri Lanka watchers seemed to have discontinued following the 'ethnic war' on a daily basis. . This again was not comforting news to the LTTE.”
by N. Sathiyamoorthy
(July 28, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) "Heads, I win. Tail, you lose." At a time when the Sri Lankan armed forces are making marked and acknowledged progress in the conventional war against the LTTE, the latter seems to have taken the Government off-guard on a matter of political tactic. Whether the LTTE strategy is the same as the tactic suggests remains a matter of speculation, and is thus indicative of the 'trust deficiency' that the outfit commands.
If someone thought that the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa would overwhelmingly welcome the LTTE offer of a 10-day unilateral ceasefire, from 26 July to 4 August, coinciding with the SAARC summit, it was not to be. Sure enough, security threat from the LTTE at Summit time had become a concern of the Sri Lankan Government, and of the nation as a whole.
The Sri Lankan media has been full of news and views on the security arrangements for the Summit. Yet when the LTTE's announcement came, the Sri Lankan population as a whole – both Sinhala and Tamils, living in the country and outside – did not seem positive or optimistic about the ceasefire, which they had otherwise yearned for.
It may not be an accurate assessment of the public mood, but the number of 'hits' that the LTTE's declaration and the Government's initial responses recorded in news websites was not of a tall order. Either the people did not believe that the ceasefire would hold or that a sustainable political solution would flow out of it – or, they had become totally indifferent to the events around them, seeped as they are by price rise and inflation. Neither is good news for the LTTE first, and the Tamil community, next.
Barring a few strategic analysts, most of them from within the country, Sri Lanka watchers seemed to have discontinued following the 'ethnic war' on a daily basis. . This again was not comforting news to the LTTE.
The end of the war in and for the Eastern Province, followed by the installation of a 'democratic' Government, became a further pointer. The expansion of the national political agenda to focus overmuch on the incidents of human rights violations allegedly involving the Government only took the focus further and farther away from the ethnic issue, war and violence.
The constant reference to global oil price rise, the 'impending' US war on Iran, and the threat of the European Union withdrawing GSP-Plus duty concessions for Sri Lankan apparels have not helped matters. If anything, all this have only conspired to render successive strike-calls by the political Opposition – comprising an unsure UNP and otherwise assertive JVP – insular and ineffective.
As is known, the LTTE offer is accompanied by a threat to retaliate, which should put the Government on the back foot during the SAARC summit. The latter would thus have to take the blame if 'unilateral military action' in the North 'provoked' the LTTE into launching commando/terrorist strikes in Colombo, the venue of the SAARC Summit during Summit time.
Conversely, if the armed forces silenced the northern guns for those 10 days instead, well, it could be the beginning of a process that could re-rail the derailed political process. That should be a good augury but then a lot of hard work needs to be put in, by the LTTE in particular, to reverse the gears and permanently so.
It is here peace facilitators like Norway could help, even if their role would be limited in the changed context. There are other Tamil groups wanting to be heard – and whom the Government is keen on hearing, too. For starters, the LTTE needs to come around and accept that no one need be the 'sole representative' of the Tamil people, after all.
Sri Lankan Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva and Rohitha Bogollagama, both inside Parliament, and Defence Secretary Gothabayya Rajapakse, outside, were quick to retort when the LTTE offer came. Their refusal to take the LTTE offer seriously flowed not just from the current successes on the military front. The 'trust deficiency' on the part of the LTTE has remained a genuine cause of concern for peaceniks, as well.
Maybe, the orders did not go out in time but then the Tamil Nadu police in neighbouring India busting yet another LTTE supply network around the time the ceasefire offer came did not go unnoticed, for instance.
At the same time, the more studied responses to the LTTE offer from Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohonna and Government Peace Secretariat chief Rajiva Wijesinha were less political and more circumspect. They indicated that the Government would evaluate the LTTE offer on merit – but once again the ball was in the LTTE's court.
If the LTTE lives up to its promise, the ceasefire offer could become yet another high-point of July, which is already marked by incidents and events in the 'ethnic calendar' of the island-nation. In the normal course, not just the Tamils but the nation as a whole could be celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the India-Sri Lanka Agreement, which was aimed at facilitating power-devolution. Instead, references have often stopped with the 25th anniversary of the anti-Tamil pogrom, which had started it all.
Power-devolution remains still on paper and successive Governments alone are not to blame. A group of ministers, including EPDP leader Douglas Devananda, have reiterated the Government's pious intention to implement the Thirteenth Amendment for starters. President Rajapaksa's nomination of a Tamil-speaking leader as the district organiser of the ruling SLFP, that too for Kandy, too should be taken at face-value.
The Tamils needs to acknowledge that the 'international safety-net' that former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was talking about for keeping the LTTE under check militarily, could cut both ways. The Tamils need to respect the Provincial Councils that they very badly sought – and continue seeking. Learning from the experiences of the nations where the Tamil Diaspora is active, they need to acknowledge that such systems provide for dynamism in democratic evolution and power-devolution. After all, reports have indicated that 'pro-LTTE groups' run parallel administrations even in host nations, 'collecting taxes' and threatening opponents with repercussions that would visit their dear ones left behind in the war-torn homeland. For the Government, 'cautious optimism' should be the watch-word, not just a unilateral militarist approach of the all-American kind.Having 'neurtralised the LTTE militarily, as was needed, the Government needs to look into the mirror – and offer the hand of negotiations to the LTTE. It would then be left o the LTTE to demonstrate to the world at large and to the Tamil community in particular, as to how they wanted to use it – to climb, or what.
(The writer is the Director of the Chenmai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
by N. Sathiyamoorthy
(July 28, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) "Heads, I win. Tail, you lose." At a time when the Sri Lankan armed forces are making marked and acknowledged progress in the conventional war against the LTTE, the latter seems to have taken the Government off-guard on a matter of political tactic. Whether the LTTE strategy is the same as the tactic suggests remains a matter of speculation, and is thus indicative of the 'trust deficiency' that the outfit commands.
If someone thought that the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa would overwhelmingly welcome the LTTE offer of a 10-day unilateral ceasefire, from 26 July to 4 August, coinciding with the SAARC summit, it was not to be. Sure enough, security threat from the LTTE at Summit time had become a concern of the Sri Lankan Government, and of the nation as a whole.
The Sri Lankan media has been full of news and views on the security arrangements for the Summit. Yet when the LTTE's announcement came, the Sri Lankan population as a whole – both Sinhala and Tamils, living in the country and outside – did not seem positive or optimistic about the ceasefire, which they had otherwise yearned for.
It may not be an accurate assessment of the public mood, but the number of 'hits' that the LTTE's declaration and the Government's initial responses recorded in news websites was not of a tall order. Either the people did not believe that the ceasefire would hold or that a sustainable political solution would flow out of it – or, they had become totally indifferent to the events around them, seeped as they are by price rise and inflation. Neither is good news for the LTTE first, and the Tamil community, next.
Barring a few strategic analysts, most of them from within the country, Sri Lanka watchers seemed to have discontinued following the 'ethnic war' on a daily basis. . This again was not comforting news to the LTTE.
The end of the war in and for the Eastern Province, followed by the installation of a 'democratic' Government, became a further pointer. The expansion of the national political agenda to focus overmuch on the incidents of human rights violations allegedly involving the Government only took the focus further and farther away from the ethnic issue, war and violence.
The constant reference to global oil price rise, the 'impending' US war on Iran, and the threat of the European Union withdrawing GSP-Plus duty concessions for Sri Lankan apparels have not helped matters. If anything, all this have only conspired to render successive strike-calls by the political Opposition – comprising an unsure UNP and otherwise assertive JVP – insular and ineffective.
As is known, the LTTE offer is accompanied by a threat to retaliate, which should put the Government on the back foot during the SAARC summit. The latter would thus have to take the blame if 'unilateral military action' in the North 'provoked' the LTTE into launching commando/terrorist strikes in Colombo, the venue of the SAARC Summit during Summit time.
Conversely, if the armed forces silenced the northern guns for those 10 days instead, well, it could be the beginning of a process that could re-rail the derailed political process. That should be a good augury but then a lot of hard work needs to be put in, by the LTTE in particular, to reverse the gears and permanently so.
It is here peace facilitators like Norway could help, even if their role would be limited in the changed context. There are other Tamil groups wanting to be heard – and whom the Government is keen on hearing, too. For starters, the LTTE needs to come around and accept that no one need be the 'sole representative' of the Tamil people, after all.
Sri Lankan Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva and Rohitha Bogollagama, both inside Parliament, and Defence Secretary Gothabayya Rajapakse, outside, were quick to retort when the LTTE offer came. Their refusal to take the LTTE offer seriously flowed not just from the current successes on the military front. The 'trust deficiency' on the part of the LTTE has remained a genuine cause of concern for peaceniks, as well.
Maybe, the orders did not go out in time but then the Tamil Nadu police in neighbouring India busting yet another LTTE supply network around the time the ceasefire offer came did not go unnoticed, for instance.
At the same time, the more studied responses to the LTTE offer from Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohonna and Government Peace Secretariat chief Rajiva Wijesinha were less political and more circumspect. They indicated that the Government would evaluate the LTTE offer on merit – but once again the ball was in the LTTE's court.
If the LTTE lives up to its promise, the ceasefire offer could become yet another high-point of July, which is already marked by incidents and events in the 'ethnic calendar' of the island-nation. In the normal course, not just the Tamils but the nation as a whole could be celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the India-Sri Lanka Agreement, which was aimed at facilitating power-devolution. Instead, references have often stopped with the 25th anniversary of the anti-Tamil pogrom, which had started it all.
Power-devolution remains still on paper and successive Governments alone are not to blame. A group of ministers, including EPDP leader Douglas Devananda, have reiterated the Government's pious intention to implement the Thirteenth Amendment for starters. President Rajapaksa's nomination of a Tamil-speaking leader as the district organiser of the ruling SLFP, that too for Kandy, too should be taken at face-value.
The Tamils needs to acknowledge that the 'international safety-net' that former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was talking about for keeping the LTTE under check militarily, could cut both ways. The Tamils need to respect the Provincial Councils that they very badly sought – and continue seeking. Learning from the experiences of the nations where the Tamil Diaspora is active, they need to acknowledge that such systems provide for dynamism in democratic evolution and power-devolution. After all, reports have indicated that 'pro-LTTE groups' run parallel administrations even in host nations, 'collecting taxes' and threatening opponents with repercussions that would visit their dear ones left behind in the war-torn homeland. For the Government, 'cautious optimism' should be the watch-word, not just a unilateral militarist approach of the all-American kind.Having 'neurtralised the LTTE militarily, as was needed, the Government needs to look into the mirror – and offer the hand of negotiations to the LTTE. It would then be left o the LTTE to demonstrate to the world at large and to the Tamil community in particular, as to how they wanted to use it – to climb, or what.
(The writer is the Director of the Chenmai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
Post a Comment