Will MR make the same mistake as Prabhakaran?

| by Upul Joseph Fernando

"If the LTTE chooses to abandon peace, however, we want it to be clear they will face a stronger more capable and more determined Sri Lankan military. We want the cost of a return to war to be high."

Jeffrey Lunstead, former US Ambassador,

American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka

11.01.2006

"You have probably seen the headlines expressing our government's concern over the impeachment of the Chief Justice. Action that undermines an independent Judiciary in Sri Lanka may also undermine Sri Lanka's ability to attract foreign investment."

Michele J. Sison,

US Ambassador

Matara, Chamber of Commerce

17.01.2013

( March 6, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Quoted above are two excerpts of addresses made by two American Ambassadors to Sri Lanka, at two different Chambers of Commerce events in Colombo and Matara. Though the addresses were delivered years apart, they are nonetheless substantially and uncannily identical in content. The first statements was made by Jeffrey Lunstead, the then US Ambassador, while addressing the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka in 2006, and the other was made by the current US Ambassador, Michele J. Sison, while addressing the Matara Chamber of Commerce in 2013.

Both statements are in no uncertain terms, warnings; the first of which was directed at Prabhakaran and proved to be prophetic, in hindsight.

Lunstead's warning to Prabhakaran came at a time when the LTTE supremo was acting in breach of the Ceasefire Agreement and impudently killing members of the Security Forces in the North and East. Prabhakaran, the egoist, had no use for the Tokyo donor's conference. He rejected participation in it and continued to blatantly violate the Ceasefire Agreement in spite of repeated American warnings to get back to the negotiating table.

At the 2005 Presidential Elections, America tried to influence Prabhakaran to allow voters in the North and East to cast their vote. He did not budge from his strong resolve to not give into American influence, and continued to disregard American efforts to persuade him for a more pragmatic and saner course of action after the 2005 Presidential Election, to bring him back to the peace process.

All its efforts were in vain. An exasperated America had visibly lost its patience when it said, "What kind of leader blocks his people from realizing their most fundamental democratic aspirations....?" Along with the broadside delivered by America came the all too obvious assertion it would help Sri Lanka to prosecute the war to a finish.

Prabhakaran, the obstinate, petty despot he was, did not care two hoots for the steady stream of American warnings. According to his muddled process of thinking, neither America nor the international community would allow an unrestricted and prolonged war in the North and East. His oversized arrogance was obvious when he forbade the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) drawn primarily from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, from doing their work on account of a European ban on the LTTE. He criticized European countries in the most vituperative terms, accusing them of disrupting the Tamil people's aspirations.

Terrorism reached obnoxious apex

By these acts, Prabhakaran pushed himself into a corner. He failed to correctly read the shattering repercussions of 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. In the eyes of the world, terrorism had reached its obnoxious apex. Armed guerrilla groups operating in any part of the world had been given an ultimatum with the message armed conflicts were not tolerated anymore.

LTTE theoretician, Anton Balasingham, had read the new trend correctly and warned Prabhakaran to soften his stance on the armed struggle, finally convincing him to change his mind and take part in the peace process. But shortly thereafter, angered by the provocative and even overtly threatening remarks made by the US Under Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, who said the LTTE should give up the armed struggle and settle for negotiations, Prabhakaran changed his mind.

However, his decision to take on the United Sates and teach it a lesson, followed an omission by the US which invited only the Sri Lanka Government to a pre-donor meeting. This obviously made Prabhakaran livid. He decided to boycott the Tokyo donor meeting and abstain from peace negotiations altogether.

When Prabhakaran's actions at that stage are objectively viewed and analyzed, the issues that motivated him assumes enormous clarity. He wanted to teach a lesson to America. That fateful mistake was his downfall, that led to his destruction and the annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE).

With the cry for reconciliation from the US and the international community gaining momentum, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a repeat of what Prabhakaran did, acts as if the US and the international community does not matter that much to him.

When India is demanding the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, Rajapaksa is trying to water it down with changes. When America is exhorting him to go for full scale reconciliation, he rushed through an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice and dislodged her from the position. These are sure signs Rajapaksa does not care a whit for the pressure brought to bear on him and tries to dismiss it as irrelevant.

After the 9/11 terror attack on America, world opinion on armed guerrilla movements had undergone an unprecedented metamorphosis. Prabhakaran was wrong in how he read the situation.

After the end of the Bush administration, Barack Obama took over on a strong plank on human rights; in fact it came to occupy top priority in the Obama administration. Mahinda Rajapaksa had misread the situation as badly as Prabhakaran did after 9/11.

When Rajapaksa, enroute to address the UN in 2006 met Bush, the latter encouraged the former to annihilate LTTE terrorism at any cost. But when Obama came to power, championing human rights over everything else, Rajapaksa could have used more restraint in many areas in his administration. He was absolutely correct in his decision to finish off the LTTE militarily, but one wonders whether he could have given a little more consideration to international concerns, without caving under them.

Extremely prudent

It would have been extremely prudent if the reconciliation process followed immediately after the war. The difference between the Bush and Obama administrations, if assessed wisely, could have been used to his advantage. Michele Sison's warning to Mahinda Rajapaksa about the possible loss of investment to the country, unless human rights and democratic governance are not ensured, leaves the President with a Hobson's choice.

The question is, what will be in store for Mahinda Rajapaksa's non-conformist government in the days ahead?

( Upul Joseph Fernando is a senior Sri Lankan journalist works with the Ceylon Today, where this peice was originally appeared)