The Ball is in TNA's Court

By N. Sathiya Moorthy

(February 09, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The days when the calls used to be made for the LTTE to let the TNA talk for it – not war, but peace – are gone. Today, there is an urgent need instead for the TNA to co-opt the LTTE if the two have to remain relevant to the ethnic proceedings in Sri Lanka in whatever way possible.

The LTTE's guns and pistol gangs had controlled the Tamil polity and the larger society over the past decades. With the superior fire-power and strategy of the Sri Lankan troops muffling those sounds, the LTTE now requires a credible political voice. The TNA fits the bill.

The LTTE has named Selvarasa Pathmanathan, better known as 'KP', as its peace negotiator. Given the vast LTTE resources that he is believed to control, KP would not want to return to Sri Lanka. Colombo would not talk to him. It would talk about him – seeking his extradition. The nomination is thus a non-starter.

KP's name is on the Interpol's Red Alert. Global nations cannot talk to him, nor can they allow him to set foot on their soil. His nomination only serves notice on the TNA to stay away. On the future course, the TNA is a divided house. The LTTE nomination tells them who the boss is – and what the goal still is. The ball is in the TNA's court. If it does play, it may be able to facilitate the mainstreaming of the LTTE, and its possible participation in the pace process. Dropping the ball does not help anyone. The TNA needs to be realistic, too, on the merger and the rest.

Individually and in groups, global nations have called upon the LTTE to free the tens of thousands of civilians holed up, and held up, in the ever-shrinking territory under its control. . The LTTE is unyielding. The international community is beginning to believe in the 'human shield' theory of the Sri Lankan Government. It is not going to help the LTTE, in the diplomatic wars overseas. .

The international community also wants the LTTE to lay down arms and join the democratic mainstream. It is an acknowledgement of the ground reality. Given their past experience, they are shy of standing guarantee for the LTTE. The TNA can do it. Its credibility is not sullied. The Sri Lankan Government to has no problems talking to the TNA.

For the Government, the accompanying appeal of the international community is to end hostilities. Sooner than later, the Government has to define military victory. Colombo needs to decide if guerrilla attacks would constitute 'war', if the LTTE reverted to its time-tested method to harass the Sri Lankan State. It was the lack of clarity on this score that contributed to the emergence of ethnic war and violence three decades ago.

The global community's accompanying call for the Government of President Rajapaksa to revive the peace process, to facilitate a political settlement to the ethnic issue, is not organisation-specific. It is goal-specific. The appeal does not ask the Government to talk to the LTTE. It wants a negotiated settlement, rather than a unilateral political solution. Again, the TNA fits the bill.

It makes sense. Sri Lanka needs to acknowledge the silent and not-so-silent contributions of the international community to the current military neutralisation of the LTTE. The latter appreciated the argument that a militarily-strong LTTE had the capability for wilful rejection of political commitments earlier made.

The world nations also realise that there cannot be permanent peace in Sri Lanka without a political settlement – in which the minority Tamil community felt equal, both in prospects and processes. A unilateral political solution would leave out the processes, which is as important as the product. Justice, in this case, should be seen to have been done – more so by the victims.

The international community has a stake in permanent peace in Sri Lanka. The ethnic issue is local but the effects are felt across the world. The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora has ensured as much.

In the south Indian State of Tamil Nadu, there is no Diaspora Tamils from Sri Lanka. But it is only here that the 'umbilical cord' relation has caused the self-immolation of at least one youth in the cause of the Sri Lankan brethren.

The Diaspora needs to know its limits, and the limitations of host-governments. They are the main source of funding and weapons for the LTTE, but they do not want to talk the LTTE into freeing the captive Tamils in their thousands. They cannot then expect their host-governments to talk the sovereign Sri Lankan State into agreeing to a ceasefire or for direct talks with the LTTE. They may be in for a double jeopardy if they continue to hunt with the hound and run with the hare.

The LTTE was running a parallel administration inside Sri Lanka – and still continues to do so in a miniscule area compared to the past -- but over a disproportionately larger Tamil population. In foreign nations, they were doing so, by collecting 'taxes', and imposing and enforcing severe penalties on 'defaulters. The game has to stop. Or, it will be stopped.

President Rajapaksa may have won the war – or, much of it, already. In the post-9/11 era, he has shown the world what concerted and coordinated action can do to stifle, if not silence, international terrorism. Now he needs to win Peace. Like terrorist war and war on terrorism, post-terrorism Peace also has global dimensions – and global reach, for global appreciation.

(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@hotmail.com . The article originally carried by the Daily Mirror, daily news paper based in Colombo)

-Sri Lanka Guardian