Today we celebrate tomorrow we must work

By Malinda Seneviratne

(May 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is all over now. That which was deemed impossible has been proved to be possible. The cry for negotiation, based on the premise that the LTTE cannot be defeated militarily, will not be heard again. Those who predicted a bloodbath where thousands of civilians would perish as the security forces launched the final battle to take out the LTTE leadership so vociferously that it seemed this is what they really wanted will have to acknowledge that things don’t always unfold the way they think they would.

What has just ended was not just an extraordinary military victory but an unprecedented humanitarian initiative. The numbers tell it all. Over 200,000 persons held hostage by the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit were rescued. Yes, civilians died in the process. The vast majority of them perished when the LTTE fired on them to stop them from fleeing to the safety of areas controlled by the Sri Lankan security forces. Some would most certainly have died in the crossfire. A bit of perspective would be pertinent here.

Compare this to the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world’s most powerful armies together invaded Iraq, accusing that country of possessing weapons of mass destruction. A decade later, that country is embroiled in anarchy, close to a million have died in the war and war-related activities and this does not include the half a million children who died in the sanctions imposed by George Bush (Snr). Only a fraction of the dead were combatants. Yes, the vast majority were civilians. The word ‘catastrophe’, Barack Obama’s current favourite, comes to mind.

These very same forces invaded Afghanistan. They were looking for one man: Osama bin Laden. They have killed some 35,000 civilians, displaced half a million persons and several years into the invasion still don’t have a clue about Osama’s whereabouts. Yes, it is a catastrophe. A humanitarian catastrophe!

Hypocrisy among certain sections

There is hypocrisy among certain sections of the international community. I am willing to put it down to ignorance and envy. Perhaps, the USA, UK and France, never having successfully executed a military operation with such professionalism, honestly believed it was impossible. They may have honestly believed that the only way to ferret out Prabhakaran or to eliminate him would be to do what they have tried in Iraq and Afghanisan: thousands of air strikes. Such a strategy would no doubt have resulted in the bloodbath that some predicted.

Wars are never fought in ideal conditions. There are always intangibles, things beyond one’s control. On the other hand, there are things one can control. These have to be employed judiciously. In this case, what made the difference was total self-belief, absolute commitment, a political leadership that allowed the military to dictate direction and a population that overwhelmingly supported this leadership. Above all this, there was professionalism. Those who screamed ‘genocide, ’bless their ignorant souls, failed to understand that if the intent was genocidal, then the war would have been over in January and moreover do not account for the fact that a considerable size of the island’s Tamil population live among the majority Sinhalese. They would be hard pressed to explain the abysmally low figures pertaining to civilian casualties considering the enormity of the task at hand. A simple comparison might help clear the cobwebs that hinder the rationale in their minds. In Mumbai, just seven months ago, a handful of terrorists held a city to ransom. All of them were killed eventually, but the final count showed that over 200 innocent civilians had died.

What Sri Lanka showed is that professionalism, combined with the utmost humanitarianism towards fellow citizens and the absolute backing of a population that decided it would suffer whatever depravation necessary to ensure that the job gets done quickly, can work wonders.

The execution did not leave gaping wounds, did not result in terrible scars, but in fact precipitated an embrace of communities that few would have expected given the horrors of a 30 year war. The stories of those who escaped the LTTE stand testimony to all this. They, moreover, serve to indict all those ‘academics’, so-called ‘civil society activists’ and others who make up the NGO and INGO community in this country and elsewhere who were determined through the ISGA and P-TOMS to permanently subject the Tamil community to Prabhakaran’s tyranny.
The international community can now do a serious re-think. A bit of humility on the part of the Gordon Browns and David Milibands of the international community would help at this point. They don’t have to praise Sri Lanka’s security forces for a job well done; all they need to do is to keep a close check on their envy.

The war is over. The larger and more challenging task of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction begins now. The government should understand that the virtues which gave us a day we could celebrate must be fostered and allowed to direct the post-conflict development work, not just in the North and East but in the entire country. Professionalism. Professionalism. Professionalism. That’s the mantra if one was needed. We can achieve much with similar self-belief, a similar commitment and discipline on the part of the leaders and the people.

Now that the war is over and the LTTE is not going to be a factor in the national discourse, the entire country can focus on the two things that got sidetracked by the war: development and political reform. Again, some faith in things local would be useful. Local competencies, local resources and local models must be nurtured and brought to the fore in all development activities.

We have won the space to seriously reflect on the efficacy or otherwise of our political structures so that the best people find themselves in the right place to do what they do best. The nation would hope that the Rajapaksa regime would show the same enthusiasm, professionalism and the same trust in our people to come through and triumph in the matter of overall national development and political reform. As for those sections of the international community that were wont to treat this regime and this legitimate and sacred effort to rid the country of the terrorist menace, they can now sit back and engage in deep self-reflection. They can conclude that they were dead wrong regarding Sri Lanka. They can perhaps applaud or at least silently acknowledge that something significant was achieved by a small country with big heart. They can now help in the arduous process of rebuilding and development of these communities that have suffered untold hardship for decades now.

Raise the flag

Today, we can all smile, raise the national flag high and legitimately entertain in our hearts the conviction that our children are safe. Tomorrow will bring a different set of challenges. We have proved we are a nation with great heart. We can say, not so much in the rhetorical sense that Barack Obama uttered the words, ‘Yes, we can!’ Indeed, we can say ‘Yes, we did!’ Let us resolve to say over and over again, ‘we will continue to do, for nation and community, for our children and theirs; with commitment, self-belief, tenderness and compassion’. I am convinced we can do little wrong in this.

-Sri Lanka Guardian