Political violence in Sri Lanka - Part Two

Link Part One

By Lionel Bopage

Anti- capitalist radicalisation and Political Violence

(August 05, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Lack of appropriate political and economic development, equitable distribution of economic benefits, and lack of equitable opportunities provided the essential ingredients for the radicalisation of youth in Sri Lanka. Political violence in the island can be traced back to the feudal age, as manifested in regular invasions by South Indian rulers, wars to expand feudal territories, and assassinations to transfer royal power, and to the colonial era, as manifested in the aggression and terror committed by colonialists against indigenous inhabitants.

When the British took control of the whole island in 1815, they introduced capitalist mode of production based on exports and imports. Capitalism required capital accumulation, wage labour, huge tracts of land and infrastructure, concentration of power in the hands of a few, and a base for administrative assistance from the locals (Samaranayake 2008). The
Colebrook-Cameron reforms of 1832 abolished the system of service tenure, established a unitary administration for the whole country and introduced English as the medium of
instruction.

By the late 19th century, a plantation economy was firmly rooted as the backbone of the capitalist economy. Land was found by evicting peasants from their land. Yet, their attempts to convert peasants into wage labour did not succeed. Traditional rural life of peasants was neglected. Felling natural forests brought with it serious problems of soil erosion, floods, droughts and other epidemics. By the 1880s, this led to the emergence of a dual agricultural economy: ‘a highly developed, organized, foreign-owned, capitalistic plantation economy producing for export in the central highlands’, and ‘a tradition-bound, primitive, self sufficing, subsistence peasant economy producing for domestic consumption in the remainder of the wet and dry zone areas of the country’ (Ponnambalam 1981). This uneven capitalist development had long-lasting effects on rural peasants, who became increasingly impoverished. The eviction of the peasantry from their lands and the creation of the plantation economy generated issues of landlessness, land fragmentation, and lack of water for irrigation due to wanton ruining of ancient irrigation systems.

The colonial rulers, however, made privileges available to the English-educated locals, while treating the rest as slave labour, thus providing a fertile breeding ground for local nationalisms. The growing influence of the left in the south and the Jaffna Youth Congress
(JYC)8 in the north delayed the emergence of these radicalisations along ethnic lines but

temporarily. The above represented the origins of the dual anti-capitalist radicalisations of the youth in Sri Lanka along class and nationalist lines.

3.1. Colonial responses

Pre-1948 Sri Lanka did not have an industrial sector except for what was required to maintain a plantation economy. This policy remained in place till 1959. This situation changed when the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union helped establish several major industries in Sri Lanka. The infrastructure that was developed to maintain the plantation economy placed the local peasantry in double jeopardy as this infrastructure was built by wantonly ruining the ancient irrigation systems, so essential to maintain their crops.

In a predominantly agricultural economy, approximately half of the gainfully employed population were non-agricultural (Samaranayake 2008). Free education was introduced in
1945, and the medium of instruction was changed to local languages, which created an expansion of higher educational opportunities for rural youth. This was welcomed by them as a means to alleviate their increasing unemployment, as the availability of land and water for
agriculture became more acute.

The state’s reaction to any socio-economic demand was often to curtail freedom, weaken political institutions, and move towards authoritarianism. So, class mobilisation in the south became totally based on opposition to social exclusion and economic deprivation. By 1948, the lack of land and water for agriculture had become the main issues confronting the rural Sinhala youth. The free importation of rice from overseas also undermined the commercial
viability of food crop production based on insecure land tenure9.

The national question, which is the basis for the political violence by Tamils, cannot be explained just as an ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil community (de Silva 1986). Post 1948 socio-economic and political changes, which were based on policies and practices implemented to alleviate the problems of the majority and to distract their attention, had an adverse impact on the Tamil people.

Role played by India

Indian involvement in Sri Lanka has been significant, particularly, when political violence due to internal conflicts in Sri Lanka occurred, indicating its strategic economic and political interests and influence in the region. Its involvement bears all the hallmarks of super power manipulations at the time and its domestic political pressures.

During the JVP led political violence in 1971, India provided moral, financial and military support to the Sri Lankan state. It had even been prepared to invade Sri Lanka, if the JVP took power (Samaranayake 2008). India also did not obstruct financial, material and military support flowing from all the political power blocs to the Sri Lankan state10. However, India’s role in the case of Tamil political violence was different. It did not wish any active involvement by external players in South Asia.

Fuelled by its concerns over the balance of power in the region and the pro-US and anti- Indian stand of the then government, India assisted the Tamil militants by providing them with training in the early 1980s. Later, India played a role of mediator in the case of Tamil youth insurrection through the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and sending Indian Peace Keeping Forces to Sri Lanka. This intervention led to a new wave of political violence in the North by
Tamil militants and in the South by the JVP.

Class based politics and Identity politics

Both the JVP and the LTTE have verbally acknowledged their commitment to socialism. However, they are politically driven by their allegiances to ethnicity, not class. They can be classified as movements based on rural youth that are driven by bourgeois nationalist ideology, the JVP representing the Sinhalese side of the coin and the LTTE the Tamil side.

The JVP is supportive of forming a partnership with the capitalist state and disregards the just and fair demands of the Tamil people. It is supportive of the military, the capitalist state and its bureaucracy, and the religious hierarchy. The JVP’s original aim in the seventies was to overthrow the Sri Lankan state through an armed insurrection. However, this stance appears
to have changed since the 1990s. Their current aim is to establish government under a capitalist setup.

The LTTE disregarding the necessity to unite and work with the Sinhala and Muslim people,, intended forming a partnership with the capitalist state in governing the north east. The LTTE’s alleged aim in the past was to force out the occupational forces of the ‘Sinhala’ state from their traditional homeland through a protracted armed struggle, not the overthrowing of the Sri Lankan state.

In the 1990s the LTTE had become a conventional armed force with the capability to challenge the forces of the state, and its fighting cadres formed into the many apparatus of a state. It was able to acquire state of the art equipment, technology and training, introduced a system of taxation and established a wide Diaspora network to support its many activities and fronts. The LTTE had the capability to assemble large units and launch surprise attacks to overrun highly fortified military facilities of the state in the north and east. In the south, it was able to operate deep penetration units, suicide attacks and bombings to assassinate political and military leaders. The LTTE vied to become the sole representative of the Tamil people by physically eliminating all its political rivals.

Response of the state and counter-responses

Political violence has posed a serious challenge to the existing socio-economic order and the political institutions of the country. Therefore, successive governments have more often ruled the country under state of emergency. The state has used strategies of brutal counter-violence to neutralise and discredit its opponents. It has also used state privileges and material incentives to get groups and factions of its opponents to side with the state. Generally, the state has made use of supremacist or chauvinist ideologies to divide and distract the people.

Successive governments have carried out colonisation schemes on a mass scale. Tamil groups objected to these schemes, as large numbers of Sinhalese are settled in what they consider as their traditional Tamil areas. The state maintains that Sri Lanka is a single country, its citizens may freely move into any area as they wish, and relocating some people to more productive areas is necessary. The Tamil groups respond by stating that they are not opposed to
individual migration but only to large scale government colonization schemes aimed at changing the ethnic composition of an area.

Following the communal riots of July 1983, the government rushed through legislation to exclude from the parliament, any party that refused to swear allegiance to the unitary state. This effectively disenfranchised Tamils in the north east and significantly weakened and isolated the democratic Tamil opposition. This provided the Tamil militant movement with fertile ground for new recruitment. In the late 1980s the LTTE emerged as the dominant Tamil militant group.

The LTTE is characterised as an armed group led by one person, enjoying broad support from local and Diaspora Tamil communities (Lewer and Williams 2002). It maintains a culture of martyrdom, and has consistently stood for the right to self-determination, while running a parallel government. It has consistently demanded that the government offer an alternative to
Tamil Eelam based on Thimpu Principles11. Successive wars and policies launched against

the LTTE in the past for weakening, or isolating them had always boomeranged by further strengthening it.12 However, in the current phase of the war, the state security forces have significantly weakened the LTTE.

From the hartal of 1953 to the general strike in 1981, through the ‘satyagraha’ campaigns in
1956, the general political work in the seventies, protest action against the 1972 Constitution and election violence since the eighties, repression has been the state response to any demand for justice and equality13.
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7 Ethnic conflict may occur between aggregations of people that share a collective view of themselves as being distinctively different from other aggregations of people because of their shared inherent characteristics such as their race, religion, language, cultural heritage, clan, or tribal affiliation.

8 JYC was a dominant political force in the North in 1920s and 1930s and appreciated the harmonious and tolerant relations that existed at the time between Sinhalese and Tamils, Moors and Burghers (Nesiah 1945)

9 A system of agricultural production where the landowner allows the tenant to use the land for a share of the crop produced.

10 Assistance was obtained from the U.S. and Chinese camps by indicating that the JVP was KGB sponsored, from the Soviet camp by indicating that the JVP was CIA sponsored, and from India by indicating that the JVP was anti-Indian and PRC sponsored.

11 The demands of the Tamils are summarized in the four Thimpu Principles articulated by Tamil negotiators with the government at the Thimpu talks of1985: Recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nation; Recognition of the existence of an identified homeland for the Tamils in Ceylon; Recognition of the right of self-determination of the Tamil nation; and Recognition of the right to citizenship and the fundamental rights of all Tamils in Ceylon

12 The ultimate result of the new military assaults is yet to be seen in light of the recent setbacks of the LTTE.

13 The common features of this repressive policy comprised of detention of youth for extended periods of time in jails, maltreatment, torture and death while in custody, high handed action to disrupt civil activity, prolonged solitary confinement and holding people incommunicado without legal or family access, enforced disappearances, killing youth in a ratio of one to ten or more to terrorise civilians, aerial bombardment of villages and scorched earth policies.

-Sri Lanka Guardian