Re-arming of the Disarmed?

By N Sathiya Moorthy

(July 20, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) APRC Chairman, Minister Tissa Vitharana’s caution against the possibility of the once-disarmed Tamil groups taking to militancy all over again if the Thirteenth Amendment was not implemented should be read in perspective. Of equal importance is his indication that the implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment was only an ‘interim solution’ for finding a political solution to the ethnic issue.

Minister Vitharana is not the only one who has been talking about a theoretical possibility of revived Tamil militancy – though he may be the first senior Minister to say so. From the other side of the spectrum, pro-LTTE groups have been talking in a similar vein, about the immortality of the militant/terrorist organisation. Such talks are mostly in private, at least thus far since the end of the ethnic war.

There are also those who claim – and want the world to share their belief – that LTTE leader Prabhakaran, and/or his aide(s) are alive still, and are waiting to hit back at the Sri Lankan Government at an opportune moment. Post-war, however, LTTE remnants headed by the ubiquitous Kumaran Pathmanathan, better known as ‘KP’, and US-based lawyer Viswanathan Rudrakumaran have disavowed militant methods to achieve their ‘Tamil Eelam’ goal. This goal however seems to remain unaltered, though in the final stages of the war, ‘KP’ too had talked about a negotiated settlement, time and again.

Independent of this are military analysts and political observers, both from within Sri Lanka and outside, who feel that half-hearted attempts by the Colombo Government to address the genuine and legitimate political concerns and aspirations of the larger Tamil community could help revive militancy – if not in the immediate future. Some Governments, particularly in the West, too seem to share this view, whatever be their motives and whatever be the way in which they word their concern.

It is in this context again that the role of the Tamil polity nearer home and the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora the world over assumes equal significance. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on record that he wants, for instance, the Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA) to help find a negotiated settlement.

The logic seems simple. Most other Tamil parties are either with the Government or are sympathetic to the Government, and have been part of the APRC process. Having stayed out of the mainstream national polity and left out of the APRC process, the TNA needs to be heard – and its views accommodated.

President Rajapaksa has also rieterated the need for arriving at a ‘Sinhala consensus’ on the other hand. Translated, it does not stop with the two mainline parties, namely, ruling SLFP and the Opposition UNP. The President has in his mind ‘Sinhala, Buddhist-nationalist’ parties like the JVP and the JHU, as well.

Where do they all get to meet? And is such a consensus of the kind at all possible? There have to be some give-and-take by all sides in any negotiations, if it is the kind of ‘home-grown’ solution that President Rajapaksa and others, including the JVP and JHU, have in mind – independent of external involvement or intervention of any kind.

The TNA needs to agree to such a possibility. So should the JVP and the JHU. For his part, President Rajapaksa should also concede the point that certain contentious issues could still be sorted out through negotiations. ‘Police powers’ for the Provinces under the Thirteenth Amendment is only one of them. Then, there is ‘Land’ and more basic issues, like the ‘unitary State’ and ‘re-merger’.

Some of these issues may have become non-negotiable with the passage of time and attendant developments on the ground. Among these could also be sub-texts on which a give-and-take approach has to be adopted. That is what a negotiated settlement is all about – and that is what all stake-holders, and not just the Government and the TNA, should accept, for starters.

Having gone through the crises of the late Eighties, the JVP in particular owes to itself honest approach to addressing the genuine concerns of the Tamil community, and in ways the latter would be able to appreciate. It is no different in the case of the JHU. It was not around when a Buddhist monk reportedly shot Prime Minister S W R D Bandaranaike, but among its ranks could be the inheritors of a clergy that suffered a persecution complex not very long ago in the contemporary history of the Sri Lankan nation.

The JVP’s 27-point suggestions for a political solution should have been prima facie welcomed. So should be the recent TNA declaration that they would come up with their own set of proposals. They would have made great sense and greater contribution when the APRC was working on the issues and options.

The APRC, according to Minister Vitharana, is getting ready to submit a summary of its draft proposals to President Rajapaksa, on advice. For counter-proposals to be thrown up at this stage, could only delay the process at best, or deny its benefits to the nation, otherwise. The right course would be for the TNA and the JVP to comment on the APRC scheme and join the negotiations process, now or later.

The TNA needs to acknowledge the changed situation, whatever its arguments. So should the Tamil Diaspora. There can be no denying the ‘contributions’ that the Diaspora had made towards the war and the ‘contribution’ that the Diaspora can make towards peace. They need to relate to the ground realities, and not confer the baggage from their distant past from afar on the future generations left behind in Sri Lanka.

It used to be said – and also felt – about the LTTE that they entered negotiations with the sole aim of breaking it at an opportune time. That cannot be the case any more, not if anyone in his senses wants the larger Tamil community to outlive the horrors of the past years and months – and return to the good old days of education and employment, peace and prosperity!

It needs two to tango – and there is no meaning if either the Government or the TNA, the Sinhala polity or the larger Tamil society keeps complaining against one another. Even for such complaints to sound genuine and reasonable, they need to play out the way the LTTE did. But then the results of the LTTE’s play-way method of problem-solving are there for all to see, and learn from, too.

(Reproduced from: Daily Mirror, Colombo)

-Sri Lanka Guardian