SRILANKA: INTERN NEGOTIATED SOLUTION OR EXTERN IMPOSED SOLUTION!!!???

WORDS DO NOT MATCH DEEDS- Pirapaharan’s Heroes’ day speech.....Jehan Perera

LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan’s annual Heroes Day speech on November 27 was overshadowed by the Mumbai attacks in neigbouring India.Mr Pirapaharan’s annual speech in which he commemorates the lost cadres of the LTTE has come to be seen as setting the stage for the LTTE’s future course of action. On this occasion the speech was more subdued .
At the present time, the LTTE is on the back foot as never before. It has lost the entirety of the Eastern Province . More than a half of the Northern Province has been lost to them in recent fighting with the Sri Lankan armed forces on the doorstep of their former administrative centre of Kilinochchi. Internationally, the organization is on the run in most developed countries, with its members involved in fund raising and arms purchases being subject to arrest.

Some of the important highlights of the LTTE leader’s speech were the appeals to the international community, and in particular to India and to Tamil Nadu, to look upon the LTTE as fighting for the freedom and rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.Unfortunately, the problem with the speech, which negates the hope it probably sought to inspire, was the disjuncture between words and deeds.

Continued war

The Sri Lankan government has been able to silence many critics of its strategy by intimidating them with the prospects of punitive action or describing them as traitors. It has also used its media and allies to claim success in democratization and development in the recaptured areas of the east, when the reality is different with killings reported virtually every day.

In his speech Mr Pirapaharan said that the LTTE had never acted against the interests of other countries and had only friendly intentions towards them. By making this statement, the LTTE leader was either denying his organisation’s role in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi or was suggesting that this action was not relevant to the relationship with India. Neither of these two explanations is acceptable.

Further, in affirming the LTTE’s peaceful intentions and reluctance to wage war, Mr Pirapaharan was glossing over his organisation’s fateful role in taking the country back to war once again at the end of 2005. At the Presidential election in November that year the LTTE prevented the Tamil people from voting, votes which would have surely gone to Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who promised to revive the peace process. Not satisfied with this, the LTTE thereafter goaded the new President Mahinda Rajapaksa to war by repeatedly ambushing government troops on a large scale and finally invading and capturing towns even during the ceasefire period.

Civilian plight

Unfortunately, the moral and spiritual tone of Mr Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech appears to be only a veneer to hide a continued commitment to military struggle at the cost of human rights and the people at large. As it withdraws, the LTTE is heavy mining the land, which is taking a heavy toll on the advancing Sri Lankan soldiers.

But this will also make life impossible for civilians who will one day be returning to their homes. Mine clearing will be very difficult as the mines have been floating in the monsoon floods. The LTTE has also not taken up the issue of a humanitarian corridor for the people out of the war zone.

Reliable eye witness accounts indicate that the plight of the civilians in the LTTE-controlled areas is terrible. They have very little access to nutritious food, being limited to barely adequate weekly rations of 1.4 kilograms each of rice and flour per person and half a kilogram of sugar for a family for two weeks. But the worst part by far is to live subject to the fear of falling victim to forced recruitment by the LTTE, apart from the prospect of being killed or injured due to collateral damage from the fighting and bombardments.

After Mr Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech the prospects for peace in the near future remain as bleak as ever. He warned that the Sinhala nation would soon awaken from its dreamland of military victory. The attacks in Mumbai are likely to reduce Indian pressure on Sri Lanka with regard to the government's military operations against the LTTE due to India's own immediate experience of terrorism. This will give the warring parties in Sri Lanka a freer hand to continue with their hostilities, even at a human cost that far exceeds that of the Mumbai attacks and which further undermines existing processes and relationships.

On the other hand, the situation may change again, especially if a more nationalist government comes to power in India as a result of an anti terrorist political platform. The opposition BJP has announced that in the event of their forming a governmentthey will ensure a political solution in Sri Lanka within three months.

The change towards peace will surely come, but it awaits a new frame of mind and a change of heart within the country. Extremism and terrorism survive by generating responses that are themselves extreme.A political settlement that is acceptable to all communities is more likely to be found if internally negotiated than externally imposed.
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