NO PEACE THROUGH WAR!!!

WILL LTTE PROBLEM END IN THE NEW YEAR?

JEHAN PERERA

At the close of the old year President Mahinda Rajapaksa has proclaimed that 2009 will be the Year of Triumph. He has also signed an electoral pact with the National Freedom Front, the breakaway ultra nationalist faction of the JVP that opposes devolution of power as a solution to the ethnic conflict. A supportive cast of the media continues to report military progress by the government forces into the remaining LTTE strongholds in the North. The names of hitherto unknown villages in the North are given as an indication of triumph. Television footage of destroyed shells of what had until recently been inhabited villages are shown to confirm the triumph.
Government spokespersons speak of a sequence in which the defeat of the LTTE is to be followed by democracy, development and devolution of power in that order. However, the visitor from Jaffna in Colombo for the New Year spoke of a worsening situation, compared to the previous year. Jaffna has been under government control from 1995. It is the cultural capital of the Sri Lankan Tamil people and should be a living testament to the economic development that accompanies normalcy. But to this day there is no sign of economic development in Jaffna. The destroyed shells of building remain as mute testaments to prior battles that ravaged the city.

One of the unique features of life in Jaffna is the Convoy. There was a time when the LTTE used to regularly ambush troops moving on the roads. The solution to this problem has been for troop movements to take place all in one go. In order to prevent the LTTE from infiltrating to the vicinity of the airport road on which the troops will be moving, the road is shut in advance and until the troop movement takes place. Sometimes this can mean that people are stuck on either side of the road for a couple of hours unable to get about on their business. As the military convoy has to outwit the LTTE, it travels at various times, without prior notice. But this means that people can never make plans in advance if this means using those roads.

Stringent security

The LTTE’s ability to penetrate even strict security measures to launch guerilla attacks is not limited to Jaffna, or the recently recaptured east. The suicide bombing in the Wattala market area that killed and injured over 25 security personnel and civilians shows the vulnerability of even Colombo to terror strikes. The need to avert such attacks has led to stringent security checking which focuses on Tamils. As virtually all LTTE cadre are Tamils, there is a special checking of Tamils as being possible LTTE agents. This has had the unfortunate consequence of making the Tamil people feel insecure and discriminated against, and makes them more alienated from the rest of society.

The threat posed by the LTTE also leads fair minded and kind people to suspect those of Tamil ethnicity. On Saturday evening I witnessed two soldiers checking a young Tamil girl near my residence as darkness was falling. There were several other people around involved in whatever was happening. It turned out that the girl’s bus had broken down. One of her fellow passengers, a mother with two teenage boys, had volunteered to help her find her way as the girl was from out of Colombo and did not know how to get to Wellawatte which was her destination. However, the lady was mindful of security issues. So she had asked two passing soldiers to check the girl’s identity documents before assisting her. This Good Samaritan then told her two boys that regardless of ethnicity, the girl was a child who needed to be helped.

Whether in Jaffna, the east or Colombo, the LTTE’s capacity to launch guerilla attacks has led to stringent security measures. These security measures impact upon the everyday life of the community. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that some of these security measures should be relaxed, but little seems to have changed in practice. Just as most people seem to be acquiescing in the rising costs of war they also give deference to security measures that cause much inconvenience. Their hope is that these costs of war will be temporary and finally give rise to permanent peace.

More tenacious

The war being fought with the greatest intensity in the North at this time is aimed at capturing territory and destroying the LTTE’s capacity for conventional warfare. On the other hand, conventional military capacity and the ability to hold territory are not the only attributes of the LTTE. Non-state military groups throughout the world specialize in unconventional warfare. The LTTE also has a capacity for guerilla warfare and terrorist strikes, which is what is being guarded against in Jaffna, the east and in Colombo.

The question is whether victory in conventional warfare by the government, and the retaking of northern territory, will also eliminate the LTTE’s guerilla and terrorist capacity. If the answer is yes, then the conditions of uncertainty, instability and the need for a military presence that accompanies life in many parts of the country will come to an end with the end of the northern battles. The military defeat of the JVP and the elimination of its militant leadership nearly two decades ago ended the JVP’s armed challenge to the state, which was by guerilla and terrorist warfare. If the defeat of the conventional military capacity of the LTTE leads to a crumbling of its guerilla and terrorist capacities, a life free of assassinations and bombings can begin anew in the New Year.

The memory of the defeat of the JVP may give hopes of a similar end to the LTTE’s challenge to the state. But international experience indicates that identity-based rebellions are more tenacious in their grip over societies than class-based ones, to which category the JVP insurrection belonged. In identity-based conflicts, on the other hand, the struggle polarizes communities from top to bottom. In the case of the Tamil rebellion a large and powerful Tamil diaspora that supports the LTTE cannot be neutralized by military methods as they live abroad. Like the past years, this New Year too is unlikely to bring peace through war.
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