Selling a Soured Dream to the Disillusioned

“The LTTE’s international elements appear to be split into two factions. The “militant faction” led by Norwy-based Nediyawan that continues to advocate an armed struggle to pursue the goal of an independent Tamil Eelam. It would like to keep up the memory of Prabhakaran to draw strength.”
………………………………..

By Col R Hariharan

(December 22, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The overseas supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been in disarray ever since the founder leader Prabhakaran and the entire insurgent leadership were eliminated in May 2009. The expatriates who had unquestioningly followed Prabhakaran's orders are now trying to come to terms with the reality of decision making on their own.

They appear to have a major dilemma in deciding the future course of action, particularly as they do not want to carry out an impartial analysis of the LTTE’s course of action in the past. If they had done it, by now its positives and negatives could have provided useful pointers to the direction for taking the struggle back to Sri Lanka. But that would be a sacrilege as Prabhakaran and his leadership continue to be treated as holy cows beyond the pale of public scrutiny.

In the absence of a united leadership to lead them, the pro-LTTE expatriate Tamils appear to have pitched upon ‘referendum’ as the democratic method to find out popular opinion on the future course of struggle. Had they adopted this method earlier, when the war was nearing the point of no return, lives of thousands of youth who perished in the war could have been saved. But unfortunately, that was never an option open to them in the LTTE lexicon.

They held a series of “referendum” first in European countries. The organisers probably knew that if they had carried out a referendum on continuing the LTTE's armed struggle for Tamil Eelam, not many might have voted as it would be inconvenient to remain in their adopted land.. So they appear to have pitched upon the Vaddukoddai Resolution adopted in May 14, 1976. It holds a nostalgic appeal for expatriate Tamils as it represented the united and assertive Tamil political opinion of that time calling for the creation of independent Tamil Eelam. It formed the basis for the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF)’s overwhelming electoral victory in the general election that followed. It is an irony of fate that expatriate Tamils have to fall back on this resolution after the LTTE had systematically hunted down TULF leaders out of existence. The fact that this resolution was dusted up shows the pro- LTTE expatriate elements have indirectly acknowledged the failure of the way the LTTE conducted the struggle. Of course Vaddukoddai Reslution has been made irrelevant in the course of subsequent history of blood and gore.

The recently conducted “referendum” in Canada was also a part of this exercise. According to Tamil expatriate media (which have turned their colours from the bright red of LTTE to Sri Lanka blue immediately after ‘thalaivar’s death) most of the 48,000 plus people who turned up (out of an estimated 300,000-350,000 Sri Lanka Tamils) voted for the Vaddukkoddai Resolution. Some of the media have dubbed it as a minority vote and hence of no consequence.

It would be incorrect to look at it only from the point of view of total expatriate population. The organisers of the referendum, by and large, were pro-LTTE elements or its fellow travellers. Referendum is important because it provides a barometer of existing potential support for the revival of LTTE. It should come as a relief to the organisers that 13 to 15 % of the Canadian expatriates voted and still subscribed to the notion of an independent Tamil Eelam. This comes even after the LTTE itself had given up hope of an independent Eelam and accepted Tamil autonomy within a federal Sri Lanka when it opted to negotiate the peace process 2002. Of course, the referendum also helps in establishing the legitimacy of organisers as inheritors of the Tamil leadership that fell vacant after the demise of LTTE leadership in Sri Lanka.

However, the referendum would have been more meaningful if there had been an honest soul searching among expatriate Tamils who had supported Prabhakaran.That would have revealed glaring short comings in the way he operated which has now left the Tamil community in Sri Lanka disunited and weak. As this had not been done, the purpose of the referendum would appear to be only to garner expatriate help to revive the old cry of an armed struggle for Tamil Eelam. And that may not come through in the near term as there are neither any takers nor a foothold in Sri Lanka. So it will continue to be in the realms of emotion for sometime unless the revival is helped by Sinhala obscurantists in Sri Lanka.

While tasking the army in the north and east after the war ended, the Sri Lanka government and the security forces appear to have gone on the premise that the revival of the LTTE was possible. So the process of eliminating the LTTE from its internal and overseas roots is going on rigorously. This is evidenced by the Sri Lanka navy’s recent seizure of MV Christina, said to be the largest ship of LTTE’s tramp fleet. Of course chances for LTTE’s revival diminishes as more of its caches of arms and military equipment are recovered and cadres eluding arrest are rounded up and identified. Already 12,000 LTTE cadres of various kinds are in custody.

Tragically the war also displaced around 280,000 Tamils living in areas under the LTTE control. They had to undergo a grim process of screening at the hands of Sri Lanka army. They now face a bleak future as they have lost their livelihood and homes. This is more so in the absence of charismatic and assertive leadership of Prabhakaran.

In a recent interview to the Daily Mirror, Colombo, Dr Rohan Gunaratne, Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, had said the LTTE has been “dismantled” in Sri Lanka. This is probably correct as no worthwhile leader is in the horizon to collect the remnants, marshal the assets, unite supporters and coordinate their activities to rebuild the organisation either at home or abroad. Given this internal environment, the revival of the LTTE within the island does not appear feasible in the near future.

In this context, a recent report of The Times, London, about the formation of a new Tamil militant outfit - the Makkal Viduthalai Ranuvam (People’s Liberation Army) – is interesting but not credible. In an interview of a self styled commander Kones (pseudonym) of the new Tamil militant group claimed the PLA comprised mostly of ex-militants with Marxist ideology and opposed to the LTTE brand of militancy was formed four months back. At present it was 300-strong and it hoped to raise a force of 5000. Sri Lankan Tamil media considers this as a Sri Lankan intelligence ploy politically motivated to keep the Tamil militant threat in the public eye. This may well be true.

However, as Dr Gunaratne said in the same Daily Mirror interview, the LTTE international presents “a challenge to Sri Lanka progress, ethnic harmony, and unity. Future peace in Sri Lanka can only be sustained, if the LTTE is dismantled comprehensively, both at home and overseas.” There is no doubt about it.

The LTTE’s international elements appear to be split into two factions. The “militant faction” led by Norwy-based Nediyawan that continues to advocate an armed struggle to pursue the goal of an independent Tamil Eelam. It would like to keep up the memory of Prabhakaran to draw strength.

The “political faction” led by Viswanathan. Rudrakumaran, New York based attorney, wants to carry o on the Tamil struggle politically. In June 2009, LTTE sympathizers and remnants overseas put together an advisory committee for the formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (PTGTE), with V Rudrakumaran as the coordinator, in a bid to keep the quest for self determination alive. It swore to follow a fundamentally democratic path. It opened its platform for those who accepted the tenets of “Tamil Nationhood, a Tamil homeland as recognized in the 1987 Indo- Sri Lanka Agreement, ……and the Tamils’ right to self-determination” as per the 1976 Vaddukoddai Resolution, the 1985 Thimpu Declaration and the LTTE’s 2003 Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal.

Although Rudrakumaran has in his Heroes Day message of November 27, 2009 reiterated the PTGTE would wage “a non- violent political struggle”, it is clear that the PTGTE has close connections with the LTTE international This is evident from the display of the LTTE’s Heroes Day message 2009 sporting images of Prabhakaran and LTTE flag in the PTGTE website. It is not clear how the PTGTE had wished away three decades of LTTE’s armed struggle which sacrificed nearly 300,000 Sri Lankan lives of all ethnicity, and decided to adopt a non-violent strategy without a critical examination of the earlier strategy. Of course there are also other political contradictions in this stand; but that only shows the dilemma faced by the political faction in trying to talk of peaceful means without disowning the history of Prabhakaran.

Apart from diehard supporters of the Eelam Cause and faithful followers of Prabhakaran, majority of expatriates probably realise that an independent Tamil Eelam would continue to remain a distant dream. So Rudrakumaran’s prescription appears to be pitched to attract support from this majority.

At present Sri Lanka Tamil political parties, including the political conglomerate of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) are looking for financial and political support from this majority expatriate segment. The expatriate Tamils are divided into small groups with their own personal and political agenda just as the Sri Lankan Tamil parties are. So how they can be convinced to extend support for political campaigns in Sri Lanka remains to be seen.

In this context, the conference of Tamil speaking people under the theme “The role of the elected representatives of Sri Lanka’s Tamil and Muslim population in a process of national reconciliation, reconstruction and reform” jointly organized by the Tamil Information Centre (TIC), the International Working Group on Sri Lanka (IWG) and the Initiative on Conflict Prevention through Quiet Diplomacy (ICPQD) at the University of Essex from 20 to 22 November 2009 is of significance.

More importantly the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the All Ceylon Muslim Congress representing the Muslims of Sri Lanka as well as three Tamil parties representing plantation Tamils also participated in the deliberations .The conference hosted by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs appears to be only a beginning. It had carefully treaded the common ground, recognising the difficulties in forging unity.

The conference has set the modest goal of committing “to the engagement by all segments of society towards a just and durable political solution” through a dignified, respectful and peaceful process. However whether the well intentioned effort would politically result in concerted action for the promotion of interests of Tamil speaking minorities in Sri Lanka remains a big question mark. This is going to be a long and tedious process as evident from the vertical divide among them in supporting the rival candidates in the presidential poll.

With the Tamil ethnic issue still remaining wide open, it is doubtful whether the expatriate actions as of now would help in resolving the problems of Tamil speaking people in the island. The only way they can contribute would be to strengthen the process set off in the November 2009 conference for a unified movement inclusive of all Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka. Resurrecting separatism either politically or militarily would require selling a soured dream to the disillusioned. That would be embarking on another self defeating proposition.

(Col. R Hariharan, a retired Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90.He is associated with the South Asia Analysis Group and the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Blog: www.colhariharan.org E-mail: colhari@yahoo.com)