"Like a burning log snatched from a fire…" II

By Nalin Swaris

(April 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ranil Wickremesinghe keeps repeating with great pride that he had built an ‘international safety net’ to protect this country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. So where were these great guardians when the LTTE unilaterally walked away from peace talks with the Wickremesinghe government? Wickremesinghe was facilitating Norway’s facilitation of Thamilselvam and his team touring the West ‘to study federalism’ The Air Force was subjected to the ultimate indignity of ferrying these respectable terrorists to and from Katunayeke. On their return they brought with them large crates of cargo which were air lifted without inspection by customs or Air Force security.

The travel happy LTTE boycotted the Tokyo Talks but the Donors pretend not to notice. They were seem to have been delighted when Wickremesinghe invited them to "Regain Sri Lanka". Wickremesinghe seemed to be proud that the Donors made themselves the Co-Chairs of the peace process as well. They assumed the authority to dictate how the peace process should move. It was tied to the World Bank prescriptions for the future of this country. The Norwegian Facilitator joined the game of musical chairs and grabbed a place, even though this was against all principles of conflict resolution. Norway, the facilitator, was in a position to provide ‘inside information’ about the peace process according to its reading of events. the Co-Chairs began to mollycoddle the LTTE and arm twist the GOSL. The 4 billion dollar aid package was dangled like a sword of Damocles over the country. Their periodic declarations were scrupulously even handed. The phrase "both parties" was repeated like a mantra. Its being done today even though it must know the LTTE continuing just what it wants and the LTTE knows that the big stick will be wielded only against the ‘Sinhala State".

Whenever the Co-Chairs called "both sides" to comply with pompously cited the Tokyo Declaration, Prabakaran, Tamil Selvam and Co., could tell the Co Chairs to go fly a kite : "Sorry we were not there and we agreed to nothing". The Co-Chairs know this but use apply their Tokyo powers to threaten sanction only the GOSL with sanctions and let the LTTE go scot free. That is why they have ignored the LTTE boycott of Tokyo. What they wanted was a stick to beat the Lankan state. If the carrot is released it had to be shred equitably with LTTE. Today the Donor Co Chairs want to give the dying LTTE mouth to mouth resuscitation

Japan wants to play a role in world affairs proportionate to its economic power. It is Lanka’s biggest donor so it sent a big gun to dabble directly in the peace process. He is Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi. Japan is obviously very proud of this arch conservative elder statesman even though his name is tainted in the opinion of many because of his failure to prevent the genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica, when he was UN Under Secretary for Yugoslavia. His Japanese biographer OINO Toshiko admits that when Akashi was UN Undersecretary for Yugoslavia and Campuchea, he was strongly criticized for his style which "stemmed from his seemingly lenient attitude to parties known for their brutality." It is therefore not surprising that he seemed to enjoy the company of Prabhakaran and his cronies. Utterly insensitive to local feelings, Akashi, after a convivial meeting with Prabhakaran, beamed at a press conference in Colombo that he had never eaten such delicious crab curry in all his life as what he enjoyed with Prabhakaran and Co. But when Akashi tried to meet Prabhakaran to persuade him to return to the negotiating table, Prabhakaran refused to meet him. The grey eminence had to eat humble pie, not crab. Sri Lanka had become the stamping ground for every Tom Dick Jane and Mary. Off they went to Kilinocchiand back they came to Colombo to tell eager reporters how satisfactory their visit had been. EU Commissioner Chris to Patten timed his visit to Kilinocchi the coincide with Prabhakaran’s birthday. It seemed that Sri Lanka had already been regained.

The WheelTurns Prabhakarn could not ride high for ever. Despite NGO spin doctoring, the stench of a murderous organisation could not be covered by the perfume of foreign lucre. In 2005 the SLFP finally agreed to nominate Rajapakse as its presidential candidate. It was a concession grudgingly made by SLFP party leader Chandrika Kumaratungha. Thereafter she went on to do her damnest to prevent a Rajapakse victory. Chandrika supporters in the SLFP avoided campaigning for Rajapakse. This was when the master strategist Prabhakaran started making major miscalculations. Wickremesinghe had outserved his usefulness and Prabhakaran and Anton Balasingham made no secret of their disdain for the UNP leader. Rajapakse was the more useful candidate from the LTTE point of view. Rajapakse did not have Wickremsinghe’s westernized background. None of the ease with which the latter hob nobbed with western VIPs. The Colombo NGO painted Rajapakse as a Sinhala Buddhist hardliner and that his election would bode ill for the peace process. If Rajapakse was elected he would plunge the country into an unwinnable war; terrorist acts would intensify; Sinhala soldiers would be returning to their villages in body bags. The country would plummet into economic chaos. For the NGO wallahs with their affected English accents, the thick mustachioed Rajapakse was a country hick - a sarong Johnny, a mudalali type.

Prabhakaran made his first miscalculation. It would be easier he must have thought to provoke Rajapakse into war than the weak and indulgent Wickremesinghe. So he ordered the Northern Tamil people to boycott the elections. Rajapkase won by the big cat’s whiskers. Now he had to fall in line. In his 2005 Heroes Day Speech Prabhakaran declared: "While a new government under Mahinda Rajapkse has assumed power in the Sinhala nation, the LTTE’s administration is expanding and gaining strength as a concrete embodiment of Tamil nationalism.

The international community is fully aware of the fact that we are running an efficient, self-governing administrative structure in the majority areas of the Tamil homeland, which were liberated from Sinhala military occupation by our organisation. Our administrative structure is formidable, consisting of our controlled territories with huge civilian populations, protected by a powerful military force… since President Rajapakse is considered a realist committed to pragmatic politics, we wish to find out, first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process and whether he will offer justice to our people…. Our people have lost patience, hope and reached the brink of utter frustration. They are not prepared to be tolerant any longer. The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final appeal."

If this was not clear enough, the Sun God, in his final sentence issued a dire warning.

"If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland."

While the NGOs were busy trying to throw sand in peoples’ eyes assuring them there was no cause for alalrm, Dayan Jayetileke and I could read the writing on the wall – "That’s it, he is going for the big one, the final solution – the independent state of Eelam", we wrote.

Prabhakarn called into existence a so-called ‘People Force’, supposed to be a spontaneous uprising of the Northern Tamils. Pistols gangs and claymore bombers began targeting the Lankan army. The soldiers were sitting ducks and the Rajapakse seemed impotent to do anything about it. An army officer told me that parents begged their sons, home on leave, "Don’t go back puthe, gihilla nikan merila vedak nehe ne"- ‘child, no point going and just getting killed’. In December 2005, I was on a Christmas visit to my brother in New York. He showed me a report in the December 28th issue of the New York Times. "One could be forgiven for thinking Sri Lanka is at war," the report began. "On Thursday, a land mine attack killed 11 soldiers on the Northern Jaffna peninsula and a policeman was killed patrolling the eastern town of Kalmunai…. On Friday in the biggest strike since the signing of the ceasefire between the government and the Tamil Tigers, 13 sailors were killed in an ambush in the Island’s northwest. Just two days before that Tamil Tigers and the navy clashed at sea, leaving three sailors dead. All told, 45 Sri Lankan soldiers, sailors and police officers were killed in December alone". To whom could a foreign correspondent turn for enlightenment about what was happening? You may have already guessed. In a telephone interview Eric Solheim said "It’s very worrying. It’s a kind of shadow war". He was careful not to mention who was waging the shadow war. The NYT correspondent had also called Norway’s ‘outsourced diplomats’ in Colombo. Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu had his spin ready: "The reality on the ground defies the ceasefire agreement. The atmosphere is of a slide to war". Saravanmuttu too was careful not to say who defied the ceasefire or who was responsible for the slide. It was a summa slide. The other authority consulted was Jehan Perera. Perera uttered his usual platitudes. "The only way to cope (sic) with the LTTE is to politically engage with the LTTE and if they are insincere, to call their bluff in the air of international publicity, For them international legitimacy is tremendously important". Strange advice. The LTTE kills and the GOSL must cope! But after the LTTE walked away from the peace talks and continued to violate the ceasefire, Perera did not protest "in the air of international publicity", but continued with his pro LTTE spin. But the NYT correspondent was better informed than the local spin doctors. He had little difficulty in pinning down the responsibility for the ‘slide’ into war.

He wrote, "Indeed, in a speech in November, the Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakran threatened to return to war, if the group’s demands for greater autonomy were not met".

Despite continued provocation the Rajapkse government participated in two peace talks with the LTTE and then it walked away. Norway thereafter engaged in a despicable humiliation of the Sri Lankan government. On the eve of the Vesak Poya, Thursday 11 May 2006 a flotilla of Black Sea Tiger speed boats attacked MV Pearl Cruise II which was transporting 735 unarmed servicemen returning to duty after home leave.

Nordic Monitors were on board Pearl Cruise and on one of the Lankan Navy’s Dvoras, FAC 421.

Stunned by the attack, the Swedish acting spokesperson of the SLMM said the SLMM would be temporarily suspending its operations in order to discuss e what measures need to be taken to ensure the safety of the monitors. Erik Solheim, now a ministerr in the new socialist government, came up with a strange proposal. He wanted a GOSL and LTTE team to come to Oslo to discuss future security of the SLMM. Amazing. The SL armed forces were attacked. 11 navy men were killed. But Norway wanted ‘both parties’ to guarantee the safety of their monitors. Not even a teenie weenie rap on the paws of the Tigers. Instead, the

victim and the perpetrator of the crime were held equally responsible. Thamiselvam and his men arrived in Oslo two days before the meeting, obviously to discuss a joint LTTE-Norwegian strategy, because the Lankan team was bound to insist that it is the LTTE that must give the guarantee. . On the morning of the 8th June, Palitha Kohona and his team arrived a half hour early for the meeting.

Snatched from a Fire…

At the appointed time substitute special envoy Hanssen-Baur walked in to say the LTTE will not be attending. Why? Thamilselvam had decided that Palitha Kohona is not equal in status to him. One would have imagined that the Norwegians who funded the LTTE trip would ask them to get back immediately as they had sabotaged the meeting. No, Thamilselvam stayed on in Oslo for a couple of days for more advice and a made trip to Switzerland where he was invited to pay a visit to the Foreign ministry. The Europeans were treating the Sri Lankan state as a joke.

The Stars Abandon the Sun God

Prabhakaran was preparing for war and now we know how terrifyingly ready he had been. He made two preemptive strikes, to debilitate the armed forces. But the stars were turning against the Tiger Chief. The attempted assassinations of the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and the Army Chief Sarath Fonseka were both unsuccessful. Fonseka was seriously injured but made a remarkable recovery. He returned to fight the Tigers with even greater determination. When he was appointed Army Chief, the ideologue of the NPC was deeply worried. In his weekly column to a English daily he wrote that all previous army chiefs had stated that the LTTE cannot be militarily defeated. Sarath Fonseka is the first Army Chief, our man worried, to declare that the LTTE can be militarily defeated. The two legged Tigers would soon become a threatened species.
(to be continued)

-Sri Lanka Guardian