Military Victories and Political Opportunities

By N Sathiya Moorthy

(February 02, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) It's easy to dismiss President Mahinda Rajapaksa's invitation for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and Opposition Leader Jayalalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka as a political gimmick – or, a master-stroke. That cannot be said of his subsequent call for the LTTE to allow civilians under its control to migrate to safer areas.

In talking about a ceasefire and civilian security, President Rajapaksa has addressed the mainline Dravidian polity in Tamil Nadu, as different from peripheral pan-Tamil groups, often identified with the LTTE. He repeated the invitation in person when India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited Colombo a day later, to discuss the emerging situation of war, peace and the humanitarian situation.

President Rajapaksa's invitation for Chief Minister Karunanidhi to lead an all-party delegation from Tamil Nadu to visit Vanni and hold talks with the LTTE is an innovative and imaginative step in finding a future facilitator for peace negotiations. In reiterating that the LTTE should lay down arms before ceasefire, and also facilitate the safe passage of the tens of thousands of civilians under its control, he was only laying down the Sri Lankan Government's conditions for effecting a ceasefire and returning to the negotiations table..

The octogenarian Chief Minister was in hospital with a recurring back problem when President Rajapaksa's public invitation became known. In the State Assembly since, the Tamil Nadu Government has since referred to the "limitations in discussing issues of another country". Jayalalithaa, as was to be expected, promptly passed on the bug to Chief Minister Karunanidhi.

There is a message in this for the LTTE and the TNA. Military realities point to the emergence of a political leadership vacuum in sections of the Tamil community given to the LTTE's sway. Karunanidhi, as an acknowledged leader of the larger Tamil community the world over, has been called upon to stand in. That it cannot be a permanent or a meaningful solution needs to be stressed.

This is not the first time that President Rajapaksa has asked the Tamil Nadu polity to get involved. During his maiden foreign visit as President in end-December 2005, he sought a meeting with Jayalalithaa, who was then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. 'Eelam War IV' was not certainly in the air at the time. Clearly, he was looking beyond the LTTE and the TNA, and more so at the 'umbilical cord' connections, for a peace initiative.

Within a fortnight after Karunanidhi returned to power in May 2006, President Rajapaksa despatched CWC leader Arumugan Thondaman, on a similar mission. Thondaman was not a Minister at the time, and President Rajapaksa added political weight by despatching the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in New Delhi to accompany him on his mission. The invitation to Karunanidhi, he has reiterated any number of times.

Minister Mukherjee's observation on "war victories offer political opportunities to restore life to normalcy in the Northern Province and throughout Sri Lanka" needs to be contextualised, thus. Nuanced, an end to the war becomes a pre-requisite for restoring normal life, as is commonly understood. Political solution and provincial elections could be part of the process, and are not substitutes.

For the Sri Lankan Government to assume that they could, and would have to wipe out the last of the LTTE cadre before ensuring the lives of civilians caught in the crossfire might be wide off the mark. If they could do so in the Eastern Province earlier, that was because the LTTE had the North to go. Not any more. Preying on LTTE cadres reverting to guerrilla tactics and suicide-bombings, more out of apprehensions and fear than out of information and intelligence, could only put off more Tamils, even more.

The 48-hour deadline that President Rajapaksa has since given for the LTTE to allow the civilians under its control to exit to safer areas thus makes sense. His promise for safe passage to the civilians implies that the armed forces would be holding fire during that period. It is thus for the LTTE to decide what it would want to do.

If the LTTE allows the civilians to make their way, then it would expose itself further to the continuing onslaught of a one-sided war. Reports indicate that the LTTE had used civilians in the newly-declared 'safe zones' as human shields all over again, causing deaths in hundreds.

If on the other hand, the LTTE held back the civilians, then it cannot escape the charge of retaining 'human shields' ad infinitum. The world may not take kindly to it, but then LTTE would have nothing more to lose. It is a tricky terrain that the Government and the armed forces would have to traverse.

Various figures are being quoted for the number of civilians in LTTE-controlled areas. There is no knowing if they are there under threat, and if so why they are unable to protest. Some reports have even suggested that most of them belonged to the 'Maveerar families' of LTTE martyrs, whom the outfit had sworn to protect and provide for all through. Whether it is love, loyalty or fear that is holding them back is anybody's guess.

There is need to extricate the civilian population from the dwindling areas under LTTE control. At this stage in the war, the armed forces can afford to wait out and 'bleed' the LTTE without causing collateral damage in the form of civilian lives. Pushed to the wall and unable to feed the teeming thousands, the LTTE had let the civilians go, in Jaffna, a decade back. There is no reason to suspect that the strategy could not be replicated in the North, now – particularly if one were not looking at deadlines and poll dates.

The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. The article originally published by the Daily Mirror, Colombo based daily news paper.-Sri Lanka Guardian