23.12.2007
H. L. D. Mahindapala
Amidst
all the fireworks and the drama of the unfolding events
one factor surfaces with sharp clarity: President Mahinda
Rajapakse is on a winning streak both nationally and internationally.
Col.
R. Hariharan, former head of the IPKF intelligence in
Jaffna, confirmed this when he told me at the Madras Club
in Chennai last week: "I back Mahinda Rajapaksa fully.
He has a clear cut programme. He must pursue it to the
end." In case I didn't get it right or misheard it
I went through with it all over again.
The
previous day N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious
Hindu, told me categorically that Velupillai Prabhakaran
must be removed from the political equation for peace
to dawn in Sri Lanka. His wish nearly came true when the
Sri Lankan Air Force missed a direct hit. However, the
debris of the bomb that hit his hideout in Jeyanthy Nagar
on November 28 injured Prabhakaran. This is the nearest
that the Sri Lankan forces ever got to him. Hopefully,
next time it could be near enough for the Catholic priests
who went to pray for him after November 28 to sing the
hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee!" – a popular
number at Christian funerals.
Getting
back to Ram, he did not come to the conclusion that peace
can never be achieved through Prabhakaran in the last
shower of rain. Ram is well informed and he had moved
closely with most of the key players in the Sri Lankan
crisis. He foresaw what was coming after he had interacted
with Prabhakaran who was plucked out of Jaffna and brought
before Rajiv Gandhi, India's Prime Minister. That was
the time when Rajiv was playing an interventionist role
in Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran contacted Ram and was complaining
bitterly about the treatment given to him by Rajiv. He
told Ram that he was held as "a prisoner" at
Ashok Hotel. He was virtually held incommunicado and he
had access only to a selected few like Ram. At the end
of his discussions with the caged Tiger Ram wrote a note
to Rajiv Gandhi saying that Prabhakaran will not play
ball with India.
Ram,
who is one of the ten eminent persons of India engaged
in international affairs, reflects the disillusionment
and frustration of India in dealing with Prabhakaran.
If the Indian establishment gives tacit approval for the
current military campaign against the Prabhkaran entrenched
in the Vanni Ram states it openly, endorsing the military
offensive to weaken and/or eliminate Prabhakaran. In a
recent editorial he wrote: "…… (T) he
Sri Lankan state is perfectly within its rights to respond
firmly to the military and terrorist challenge posed by
the LTTE." In another telling editorial he concluded
by stating: "The Tamil question cannot be resolved
in any just and enduring way as long as the LTTE remains
a politico-military force to reckon with – or as
long as Mr. Prabhakaran remains its supremo."
Branding
the Vanni regime as "a Pol Potist" regime, Ram
states that "Eelam is a pipe dream and the LTTE supremo
has known this for some time." Adducing reasons for
this he states: "The key factors behind this realization
are the fatal weakening of his organization in the eastern
province (following the Karuna revolt); the Indian and
western designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organization
and the increasing international isolation; the enhanced
military resources, including air power, of the Sri Lankan
state; and last and potentially the most important factor,
………the improved prospect of their (the
two main Sinhala parties) agreeing on a political settlement
of the Tamil question."
Despite
loud protestations that erupt from Tamil Nadu, Ram is
also emphatic that Prabhakaran has lost his grip in this
state – the backyard that was once the primary source
of his overseas strength. Highlighting this loss, Ram
wrote: "(S)ince post-Rajiv assassination, popular
and political sympathy for the LTTE and the Eelam cause
in Tamil Nadu has evaporated, except at the chauvinist
fringes."
Ram's
opinion is representative of the current thinking that
dominates the Indian establishment. After all the twists
and turns, India is now firmly located in the non-interventionist
mode with a slight tilt towards getting rid of Prabhakaran.
For instance, India's Out Look magazine (December 17,
2007) focused starkly on the sea change in Indian attitude
towards Prabhakaran.
Pushpa
Iyengar surveying the new mood the Tamil Nadu wrote: "In
the innocence of the '80s Tamil Nadu had a penchant for
forming human chains to show its solidarity with the Sri
Lankan Tamil cause. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), at the forefront of the liberation war in Jaffna,
northern Sri Lanka, had the backing of every political
party in the state. Fallen and living LTTE leaders were
celebrated as revolutionary icons. Not any more. Cut to
2007 and the killing of Thamilchelvam, one of the top
three rebel leaders, last fortnight. While die-hard LTTE
supporters like Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazahagam
(MDMK) chief Vaiko courted arrest there was no groundswell
of public sympathy or protest in the state."
Quoting
V. Geetha of Tara publications,Out Look states: "In
the absence of any other voices, it was assumed that LTTE
represented Tamil interests" she says but points
out that the Tigers have polarized the debate because
"no other voices" percolate down. She adds:
"People here are put off by the bomb-culture, the
lack of internal democracy in the LTTE and the forced
conscription of young boys…."
Out
Look also stated: "Social scientist M. S. S. Pandian,
visiting Fellow of Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies (CSDS), argues that there is no political space
now for those who express sympathy with the LTTE. As he
puts it: "It's treated as sedition…..."
The
hardening of Indian opinion against the Tigers is as deadly
as the bunker busters that got Tamilselvan. The Tigers
cannot get anywhere without India. And the ill-fated Tigers
have no alternative strategy to win India or any other
member of the international community. The prevailing
thrust of the national and international forces provides
only one option for Prabhakaran: expand the acreage of
graveyards, leaving some space for him to join sooner
or later to push the daisies non-violently.
His
plight exposes the inescapable trap into which the Tigers
– and, of course, the hapless Tamils who follow
him - have fallen. Ever since Velupillai Prabhakaran took
the scalp of the first unarmed Tamil leader, Alfred Duraiyappah,
in 1975 he has relied exclusively on achieving his "pipe
dream" through violence. Duped by his initial successes
of acquiring power through brutal violence he went way
beyond his capacity to deliver his imagined goals with
no concept of maneuvering or strategizing politically
at international and national levels through non-violent
negotiations. His numerous declarations of unilateral
ceasefires and sending emissaries to peace talks have
been exposed as futile feints to gain time and space to
recoup and consolidate his military strength. Violence
is a double-edged weapon: the sword that lifted him up
is now cutting him down to size.
Initially
the Tamils were buoyed by the force of Prabhakaranist
violence. When Alfred Duraiyappah was gunned down by Prabhakaran
the Tamil leadership, from S. J. V. Chelvanayakam downwards
maintained a calculated silence of approval. The so-called
Gandhians did not utter a single word of condemnation.
The
"Tamil Gandhians" took the most disastrous political
step in 1976 when they passed the Vaddukoddai Resolution
endorsing violence against what they called "the
Sinhala state." What was seen then as the mighty
force of the Tamils peaked to a formidable lelvel with
the rise of Prabhakaran only to find that at the end of
three decades (since the Vaddukoddai Resolution) they
are back to square one. Prabhakaran is at a point where
he cannot sustain his violence at the same level as before,
or gain the lost ground. The signs are that day by day
his arrogant force is petering out.
The
other key strategy of the Tamil leadership was to internationalize
Jaffna-centric politics. Both factors worked in their
favour initially. But today the two major forces mobilized
by the Tamil leadership -- (1) violence and (2) the international
community -- have taken the Tamil leadership nowhere.
In fact, both have boomeranged on them. The failure of
Jaffna-centric politics to force their mono-ethnic extremism
at the expense of all the other communities was expressed
pathetically by Prabhakaran when he complained bitterly
against the international community in his last annual
speech.
"It
is an extraordinary confession of political frustration,"
wrote Ram, referring to the "2007 'Hero's Day Statement'
of its Pol Potist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. "The
2,700-word speech is a litany of grievances against everyone
under the sun – except the talented military leader
who had brought such cruelty, suffering and uncertainty
to his own people and of course to their compatriots belonging
to other ethnic communities in the island," said
Ram.
Looking
back it is pretty clear that the Tamil leadership misled
the Tamil people all the way. Of course, the uncompromising
and aggressive peninsular leadership, competing with each
other for supremacy on anti-Sinhala racism, has never
ceased to blame the Sinhala south. Focusing on the external
"other" was their way of surviving in competitive
racist politics. Any move to co-exist with the other communities
was rejected by the Tamil leadership as surrender to the
Sinhalese. Rival Tamil parties accused each other of being
"traitors" and "collaborators" when
one or the other Jaffna-based party extended a hand of
cooperation to the centre.
Whipping
up anti-Sinhala racism was their standard tactic to pursue
their narrow-minded and arrogant politics derived from
a false sense of superiority. Driven by this unwarranted
sense of superiority, which was as unsubstantiated and
fake as their "Gandhism", they led the Tamils
of Jaffna like lambs to slaughter. Velupillai Prabhakaran
continues that peninsular tradition with the blind arrogance
and intransigence common to suicidal and blood-thirsty
Hitlers and Pol Pots. With their charades of "non-violence"
and bogus cries of discrimination (example: compare their
status with that of the Tamils of Malaysia) they misled
their own people who are forced to pay with their lives,
not to mention their under-aged children. The Tamils today
are paying for the sins of their political fathers.
The
way forward is to co-exist under whatever political arrangement
that can be worked out for the benefit of all communities
and not just for those obsessed with peninsular politics.
But the modalities for co-existence cannot be worked out
until Prabhakaran is removed from the political equation.
The national and international consensus of opinion confirming
this negates the NGO-sponsored theory that a new constitutional
arrangement must be put in place first to isolate the
Tamil people from Prabhakaran. As usual the pseudo theoreticians
in the NGO circuit are barking up the wrong tree. They
know that Prabhakaran will not accept any constitutional
formula that is short of his Eelam. If they know their
history as they ought to know it, they will concede that
Prabhakaran will not allow any peace formula that is not
approved by him to gain ground.
President
Mahinda Rajapaksa is on the right track in prioritizing
the military campaign to remove the main obstacle to peace:
the Pol Potist regime in Terroristan. Despite all the
hardships, the people, by and large, are willing to go
along with him because they have pinned their hopes to
his campaign. They know that the President has to win
for them to realize their future. The anti-Rajapaksa politics
cranked up by the opposition has not worked because the
people, sick of this war, agree with President Rajapaksa
that first things must come first.
The
carping critics in the NGO circuit and the media (except,
perhaps, The Island ) focus not on the priorities of ensuring
a future filled with hopes but on the negative issues
on the periphery. Whatever the merits and demerits of
their criticisms may be they cannot take away from President
Rajapaksa his incontrovertible gains which make a Sri
Lankan watcher like Col. Hariharan say that he backs the
clear cut programme of the President. The gains he has
made so far – leave alone those yet to come -- in
changing the tide of seemingly insurmountable forces rising
against Sri Lanka will no doubt earn him an indelible
place in history. While his critics will be cast in the
dustbins of a forgotten past (remember those who scoffed
at the gains in the east?) he will be remembered as the
leader who took up the challenge and showed the way to
the future when all others gave up, surrendering the nation
to the brutal forces of terrorism.
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune