Tigers gone, time for reconciliation

By Shobori Ganguli

(May 21, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Adolf Hitler, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Saddam Hussein, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Megalomaniacs all who scripted some of the most violent chapters of 20th century history, their ends bearing an uncanny similarity — all incredibly powerful men with an equally incredible and loyal following, hounded to lonely and violent deaths when their fortune and time ran out. Indeed, history may take a more benign view of Hitler at some point, Bhindranwale may be immortalised as the first martyr of the Khalistani movement, Saddam’s ignominious death by hanging may yet get him sympathy and Prabhakaran may remain a legendary symbol of Tamil aspiration. Yet, none of these men will ever be able to shake off the bare truth that theirs was an ideology of violence that clearly foretold their deaths.

As with all megalomaniacs, Prabhakaran too comes with a degree of romance attached to him — a shy, soft-spoken man, devoted husband, dedicated father, loving and caring, lighting candles for his children on their birthdays. This, matched with a mesmeric leadership skill to steer the Sri Lankan Tamils to their promised land, his hero none other than Subhas Chandra Bose. Except, reality must rule as a harsher judge. While Prabhakaran may have presided over an ideal, that of a separate Tamil Eelam, his modus operandi incessantly crept towards terrorism since the LTTE’s inception in 1976. By the time the LTTE secured control over much of Sri Lanka’s north and east in the late-1990s, it was evident that human life was not at a premium for the Tiger supremo. Although the LTTE, much like a de facto state, had opened ‘offices’ across world capitals, it had come to be known as a dreaded terrorist organisation proscribed the world over, including in India where it once enjoyed clandestine patronage. By the time Prabhakaran’s end came, the LTTE chief had lost his magnet of idealism and the Tamils cheated of their promised land.

To that end, Prabhakaran’s death must be welcomed by all those who sincerely believe that terrorism cannot be employed or accepted as a tool of legitimate political negotiation, whatever be the cause, ‘root’ or otherwise. Why must Prabhakaran’s death be celebrated? Well, because Prabhakaran has the dubious distinction of being the world’s first and most dreaded terrorist, the original author of suicide bombings and human shields, his LTTE a full-fledged terror outfit militantly lording over large swathes of Sri Lanka’s north and east, holding an entire state to ransom even as a young Osama bin Laden in another part of this world was experiencing the first stirrings of Islamic radicalism within him.

With three high profile assassinations — Rajiv Gandhi, Sri Lankan President Premadasa and Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar — and more than 90,000 casualties, the LTTE has claimed far more victims than Islamic jihad. That it has been able to militarily fight back the Sri Lankan Army for all these years only proves how dangerously battle-efficient the LTTE had become. Perhaps it required the determination of a Mahinda Rajapaksa to take the offensive deep into Tiger territory and finish the war once and for all. While international opinion may have turned against the Sri Lankan President on the humanitarian crisis issue, Prabhakaran’s death promises a new beginning and spells hope of a fresh political engagement for the Tamils.

Arguably, this is not the end of Tamil disenchantment nor does it signal a dramatic change of Sinhalese heart. Both the Tamil cause and the Sinhalese apathy towards the Tamils are part of this island nation’s unfortunate legacy. However, with the elimination of a militant face of that legitimate political aspiration there is hope that Mr Rajapaksa will now deliver on his side of the promise. He did make a rhetorical start by opening his address to Parliament on Tuesday in Tamil. He also made all the right noises about Sri Lanka being a united country with equal rights for all, asserting that he only meant to free Tamils from the “cruel grip” of the LTTE. He declared, “We all must now live as equals in this free country.”

Clearly, this is the biggest uncertainty — of being able to live as equals — that stares the Tamils in their face today. Admittedly, their legitimate right to claim political space in their country, an aspiration that has been suffocated by Sinhalese chauvinism for decades, has been acknowledged by Mr Rajapaksa, a known Sinhalese hardliner. While scepticism may only be natural, it is also clear to the Tamils that with suicide bombings, political assassinations, civilian shields against the Army, kidnappings and forced conversions of innocent Tamils into the militant cadre, the LTTE too has not been able to provide the Tamils a credible option. For the present, therefore, they must take Mr Rajapaksa at face value while it is for him to ensure that his Government is able to take constructive advantage of this local disenchantment with the LTTE.

That disillusionment was running deep among the Tamils first came to the fore in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami when the calamity’s worst-hit areas had no access to relief and rehabilitation, deep in the heart of LTTE territory as they lay. It was only after the Army got back control of these areas earlier this year that reports trickled out of how militants prevented relief work from reaching these areas, waylaid aid deliveries and picked up tsunami orphans for induction in the LTTE cadre. This, coupled with the LTTE’s split the same year, had put Prabhakaran’s outfit on notice. Also, in the last few months when the Army was closing in on the Tigers, the latter extensively used civilian shields as protection, thereby losing the last vestiges of moral right to uphold the Tamil cause. After Prabhakaran’s death, Sri Lanka’s political establishment will now have to address long-standing grievances of the Tamils in a manner that will prevent the latter from reinventing a post-Prabhakaran brand of militant insurgency.

Here, there are some lessons that India needs to remember from history. Having once clandestinely backed the LTTE in the 1980s, even playing host to Prabhakaran for three years, India was singed by the same militant outfit when it turned its fire on the Indian troops posted in Sri Lanka following the India-Sri Lanka pact to end Tamil separatism back in 1987. Prabhakaran’s crowning act of ingratitude came in 1991 with the brutal assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a man known to have had genuine concern for the Tamil cause. With Prabhakaran’s death the messy business of demanding his extradition has been taken care of. India can now drive a clean wedge between a terror outfit’s ostensible struggle for the Tamil cause and the genuine need for devolution of power to the Tamils within Sri Lanka’s Constitution and work on the latter to help Colombo walk away from what has indeed been one of the world’s most savage insurgencies.

-Sri Lanka Guardian