What next?

By Victor Ivan

(June 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The wiping out of the LTTE by the armed forces resembles a giant tree being chopped off like nipping a tender bud. It is a historical event for Sri Lanka bearing an utmost significance and such historical events occur only once or twice in a century. The individuals who provided the leadership for such a major event inevitably become major personalities themselves.

When Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected as the president of this country I thought a leader with a fitting counter personality to Prabakaran has come to power. This fact I have mentioned in my previous articles directly and indirectly. I had a feeling that Prabakaran would witness his end in the hands of Mahinda.

Even after the two failed attempts to assassinate the army chief Sarath Fonseka and the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa I thought that the end of Prabakaran is not far away. By those two events Prabakaran himself created two fitting leaders for the benefit of the President who were determined to crush the LTTE once and for all.

To defeat the LTTE in three years is an astonishing task considering the military might it possessed, which grew ever so stronger during the past thirty years. It can be interpreted as the most significant achievement of the country since independence from the colonial powers. It shows that there are people in this country who can perform and even achieve great things. If we can perform two or three such big accomplishments with the ecstasy circulating presently, our tiny isle can once again shine ever more brightly in the world.

There are two major tasks that Sri Lanka has to complete in order to establish the foundation for future prosperity.

It is an important task to unite the people who have divided themselves on the basis of race, religion and caste. The next important task is to build a political system that will win the support of all sections of society. Laws against corruption must be strengthened and implemented, and build national consensus on major policy issues so that there is continuity even after governments are defeated. That would set the stage for political leaders to work according to a national policy framework. A system that protects every citizen without discrimination and segregation and upholds the rule of law is the next biggest goal that needs to be achieved. Both of these are interrelated.

The most controversial issue would be the ethnic question.

The idea that the LTTE can be defeated militarily was continuously maintained by the Sinhalese political movements such as the JVP, JHU, NFF and the Patriotic National Front. Although there were people such as Dayan Jayathilake and Sumanasiri Liyanage who claimed that once the LTTE is militarily defeated a viable political solution should be provided to the ethnic question, the ones who believed that opinion were meager.

The political representatives who believed that a negotiated solution should be provided for the ethnic question vehemently opposed the idea of defeating the LTTE militarily. At the same time they did not comply with the idea that the LTTE could be militarily defeated and accepted the decree of Tamil Homeland uncritically. They did not have a fair criticism of the LTTE’s ideology nor its devastating activities.

Thus their self-confidence to participate in a dialogue which would focus on a viable political solution to the ethnic question in a situation where the LTTE is militarily defeated is extremely limited.

The power to decide on this matter now rests upon the Sinhalese forces. Tamils have also lost all their strength required to bargain, in such a situation. They are now in a position where they have to willingly or unwillingly accept whatever is offered by the Sinhalese political front.

The President has already decided on the limits of power-sharing that would be implemented to solve this age old confrontation. He has promised to provide all the powers provided by the 13th Amendment to the provincial councils. Only the JVP is opposing this measure. All the other Sinhalese organizations have supported the idea.

This scenario can be viewed as the threshold of where the issue really lies. At this moment the Tamil people cannot expect anything more than the 13th amendment, since all the nationalist forces are against a federal solution. But they agree on the need for the Tamils to be treated as equals. That would inevitably do away with some of the institutionalized discrimination such as recruitment to the government service and the armed forces and the police.

It shows that the Sinhalese nationalist forces have moved beyond the narrow point of view held by them in 1956.

If in 1956, Tamil language was allowed its rightful place and English made a link language while Sinhalese was declared as the official language of the country, the bloodshed that followed thereafter could have been averted.

On the other hand, although the policy on the official language discriminated the Tamils severely, if the struggles that were waged against this was done with a democratic framework and non violently, this question wouldn’t have shed so much of blood as an inevitable outcome and could have been solved with dignity to both parties.

More than Prabakaran, it is the Tamil leaders who should be held responsible for the devastation which was caused as they are the ones who planted the idea of a separate Tamil state when the conditions never were in place to achieve it. Prabakaran is the one who tried to achieve this dream nationally by employing brutal tactics. He started his campaign by murdering all the leaders who taught him this conventional theory. In the second round he murdered all the leaders of other Tamil militant organizations who believed in the same dream. By doing that Prabhakaran became the only representative of the Tamil people in the country. In the end he drove the Tamil people not towards liberation but towards devastation. Although at this moment the Tamils lack the ability to critically assess Prabakaran due to all the tension that is surrounding his death, it is inevitable that a seething hatred will nourish within their hearts for what he did. It can be stated that the Tamils will enjoy more freedom after the death of Prabhakaran than the Sinhalese.

The brutalities which Prabakaranlet loose eroded the self respectability of the entire Sinhalese population. He viewed the Sinhalese race as a ransom taker holding a sharp dagger at the throat of the Tamil masses. He dreamed of being the hero who would liberate the Tamils from the grasp of this tyranny.

In the end when Prabakaran was killed the Sinhalese celebrated it with utmost joy. It is probably the single event which united the Sinhalese after gaining independence in 1948. They ate milk rice and sweet cakes, lit crackers and went on parades with the national flag in their hands. Although this would have hurt the feelings of the Tamils, it did not extend into phase where the Tamils were harassed. They proved that they are a well deciplined mass and have gained valuable experience through the events of history.

It was the opportunistic leaders who created the brutal strife between these two communities who share quite similar historical shades although with considerable amount of differences. Now is the time to end that Dark Age and it is also the responsibility of the Tamils to positively respond to the hand of peace extended now by the Sinhalese.

-Sri Lanka Guardian