NOTEBOOK OF A NOBODY
Minding the end game
by Shanie....................(A HIGHLY RESPECTED WRITER BY TAMIL DIASPORA)
The war, in its current phase, is nearing its end. There was never any doubt that the security forces, with their superior manpower, superior arms and control over the skies and sea, would in the end prevail over the LTTE in conventional operations. But the question was as to the extent of lives that would be lost, totally or partially, in regaining the territory under the control of the insurgents. Many in civil society, including religious leaders, had urged a softer approach with an occasional temporary truce. That was in the hope that such an approach would result in less trauma for those affected, both combatants and civilians caught-up in the crossfire and their families, and less loss of military, LTTE and civilian lives. The end result of this soft approach, even though it would have taken longer to achieve, would have been the same. But the defence establishment preferred a hard line approach, pushing for victory over the LTTE in the shortest possible time, irrespective of the increased trauma and casualties that such a strategy would have entailed.
The bulk of the LTTE’s fighting cadres are now holed up in and around Puthukudiyiruppu. But with them are also an estimated 230 to 250 thousand civilians. The Government has announced a ‘safety zone’ into which these civilians can move. It makes sense for these civilians to move into such a safety zone and there can be little doubt that the majority of them would prefer to do so. But the LTTE’s strategy, as expected, is to keep them as human shields. If all the civilians move out, their cadres would be sitting ducks to the fire power of the security forces. So the civilians are forced to remain in the cross-fire. But it is the duty of the Government to be mindful of the helplessness of these civilians. Subjecting them to artillery fire or preventing food from reaching them should not be employed as a strategy to force the civilians to flee at immense risk to their lives. It is within the capacity of the security forces, at least at this stage, to change strategy to ensure civilian safety. After all, they have the LTTE almost surrounded and there is no possibility at this stage of the LTTE regrouping and re-arming itself. Instead of working to political imperatives and election deadlines, it will be in the long-term interests of our country and our people if the security forces now show total commitment to the welfare and safety of the trapped Tamil civilians, a commitment that the LTTE has hardly ever shown. Such a commitment by the government will not be lost on the Tamil civilians.
The future after the end game
The future for the people of the North – and the East, despite claims of its ‘liberation’ – is a matter of concern to the country. The LTTE has been a monolithic outfit, totally under the control and direction of one leader. History has shown that any non-democratic organization will quickly collapse in the absence of its authoritarian leader. That surely will be the fate of the LTTE if its leader is captured or killed. If however he is able to go (or has gone) underground and continue leading the LTTE, then the outfit will go back to what it was in its early years and operate as a guerrilla force. It is difficult to predict if they will be a more deadly as guerrilla outfit, rather than as conventional insurgents.
But even as a guerrilla outfit, the LTTE’s effectiveness would be nullified if the Government commits itself to winning the hearts and minds of the Tamil people in the North, a commitment which they have not shown during the past three years. Replacing the LTTE with another armed group is not the way to go about providing democracy to the people of the North. The Government should have by now learnt the lessons of that policy in the East, where the LTTE has now re-emerged and is now making its militant presence felt. The Government dismisses the Tamil National Alliance as a proxy of the LTTE and has not even invited the TNA to make a contribution to the deliberations of the All Party Conference or the APRC. The irrelevance of the APRC today is of course not due to the absence of the TNA, but allowing only the armed groups to represent the Tamils was a disastrous decision. The TNA remains the only democratically elected representative of the Tamil people and by ignoring them the government has shown that it prefers to do business with armed clones of the LTTE rather than with elected representatives. After all, the TNA received over 90% of the votes in the Jaffna District.
After the assassinations of the early leadership of the TNA (and the earlier TULF), over the last ten years the TNA has lost leaders with a broad vision like Neelan Tiruchelvam, Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj to the assassin’s bullet and Veerasingham Anandasangari to intra-party politics. Only R Sambandan remains. He may be surrounded by hawks and chauvinists, but he is a person respected by the Tamil people and the government would have done well to recognise him with respect as an elected leader of the Tamil people.
The fear of the Tamil and Muslim people in the North and East is of continuing to live under discrimination and authoritarianism, even after driving out the LTTE from controlling any part pf the country. The government has shown no inclination so far to implementing the provisions of the 13th Amendment in its entirety, leave alone bringing any new meaningful devolution proposals. Armed groups still go round abducting, killing, robbing and harassing people in the ‘cleared areas’ of the North and East. And there are credible reports of planned colonisation of Muslim and Tamil lands by Sinhala settlers, implemented by chauvinist and fascist groups who are part of the government. That was the same disastrous policy followed in the nineteen seventies and eighties that gave birth to the LTTE. President Rajapaksa will understand the truth of the well–known saying of George Santayana about the danger of repeating the mistakes of history. Those who cannot remember the past, wrote Santayana, are condemned to repeat it. That is, those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, are destined to repeat the same mistakes.
Post-war administration
To win over the local civilian population to the cause of peace and democracy, it is not enough to make pronouncements to that effect. In addition to the implementation of political devolution proposals in terms of the Constitution, there will be a need for a strong civilian administration. Such an administration should be manned by strong independent professionals. Even in a non post-war situation, politicians and military officers do not usually make good administrators. There have been exceptions no doubt. In the Uva, we have an ex-politician who is keeping the provincial politicians on their toes, irrespective of party politics. In the East, in an earlier era, we had an ex-military officer who provided an impartial administration. But in the current situation, we need independent Tamil or Muslim professionals who will be able to provide leadership to the people without having to be confined to their offices surrounded by security. We need professionals who will be above politics, above partisanship and who will be able to stand up both against political meddling as well as against armed groups of all types. Only such an administration can prevent militancy from raising its head once again and crucially win the hearts and minds of the civilians, who have undergone decades of harassment from various quarters.
A military presence will still be necessary but it will have to be a not-so-visible one. After years of fighting an ethnic insurgency, mindsets of the security forces will be difficult to change. A re-orientation programme will be necessary to effect a change. But there will be chauvinists and fascists who will not want that mindset to change. How the governments handles this will be crucial to the development of democracy and good governance in the region. It can be questioned how a government that has failed to build up democratic freedoms and adherence to the rule of law in the rest of the country can do in the new situation in the North.
The only hope is that political expediency will be less of a factor in the North. But we are doomed if the government succumbs to political expediency and installs an armed group there.
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