CEASEIRE NOW!!!POLITICAL SOLUTION NEXT!!! REHABILITATE TAMIL YOUTHS!!! NOT KILL THEM!!!

CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRE CHANGE IN APPROACH

JEHAN PERERA

There is a need for balance and a time for everything. For those involved in the task of statecraft, there is a time for war and a time for ceasefire. The government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown commitment to a military course of action tat previous governments did not and were not prepared to take. In militarily confronting the LTTE and recapturing virtually all of the territory it once controlled, the government has achieved what many thought was not possible. There was a belief that the thick northern jungles, the mono-ethnic nature of the north with its nearly 100 percent Tamil population and the effectiveness of LTTE fighters were an impossible challenge to overcome.
The latest development is that the LTTE has issued an appeal to the international community to support a ceasefire that will safeguard lives and create an environment for political negotiations with the Sri Lankan government. This call has come even as the Sri Lankan government is on the threshold of capturing the last remaining LTTE territory. The government has rejected the appeal for a ceasefire unless it is accompanied by unconditional surrender by the LTTE

However, in trying to root out the LTTE 100 percent by military means, as the government appears to be doing at the end stage, the government may be going to the domain of what is counterproductive. The LTTE is not only a military machine but a state of mind which is being reinforced by the brutality of the present war. States of mind cannot be destroyed by military means, even as hatred cannot be destroyed by hatred but only by love. From a humanitarian perspective, a ceasefire that saves lives is always preferred to continued warfare and the bitter human suffering it generates. The current phase of the war in particular has inflicted enormous suffering on tens of thousands of civilians who continue to be trapped in the shrinking pocket of LTTE controlled territory.

Change occurring

The plight of the trapped civilians of the north, among whom the LTTE fighters presently are, and who are being killed and wounded in large numbers every day, points to the need for the government to come up with a new strategy and set of principles to guide it. What is necessary today is an equivalent commitment by the government to politically address the root causes that set the Tamil militancy in motion. There is a need to recognise that military means alone cannot eliminate the LTTE, which is not only a military machine, but an outcome of a state of mind amongst the Tamil people. Dealing politically with the issue of the trapped civilians, rather than relying on military force alone, can be the start of a new political process aimed at final conflict resolution.

Necessity can compel change. The overflowing welfare centres into which the fleeing people of the north are entering has highlighted the need for the government to seek assistance from other organisations, both local and international. The government is hard pressed for financial resources to meet the costs of supporting the tens of thousands who are displaced. The government also does not possess the trained personnel to take up the challenge of caring for so many traumatised people. As a result the doors that were once closed to international and national humanitarian organisations in the welfare centres are slowly being opened.

The government had taken precautions to insulate the ongoing war from the international community. There is sensitivity within the government to the international interventions of the past that were deemed supportive of Tamil militancy. For the past two years the government took a variety of measures to limit the possibility of international intervention. This included severe measures such as ordering almost all international humanitarian organisations to quit the LTTE controlled areas and war zones. The government also tightened the entry and visa restrictions on foreigners working in Sri Lanka, including both humanitarian and media workers.

Past failures

However, the continuing plight of the civilians trapped in the last remaining territory controlled by the LTTE, and the shortcomings found in the welfares centers set up outside of the LTTE controlled areas, has proved to be too big an issue to be suppressed. UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes who visited Sri Lanka recently has briefed the UN Security Council about the situation prevailing in the north of the country. He had said that estimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups. The civilians were stuck in a no-man's land spanning around 14 square kilometers. He is reported to have said that "They now face very great danger from fighting between the Sri Lankan government forces and the LTTE. And there is strong evidence that the LTTE are preventing them from leaving."

He urged "all those with any influence on the positions of the LTTE to use that influence now to persuade them to let the civilian population go. There is no time to lose." He also called on the Sri Lankan government to "hold back from any final military battle in order to allow time for the civilian population to get out safely." Although the Sri Lankan situation was not formally listed as an agenda item at the UN Security Council meeting, the fact that it was taken up at all indicates that adverse reports about the human rights and humanitarian situation in the country are beginning to take their toll. The commercial world's international risk assessor, Fitch Ratings has downgraded Sri Lanka further, which will make international credit more expensive to the country, and will be another blow to its economy.

At present the powerful countries of the world are seeking to work together with the government. The government needs to reconsider its decision to end the conflict on its own terms through a military solution. The fact that ceasefires in the past did not last and were used by the LTTE to rearm and launch surprise attacks surely need to be kept in mind. But the failures of ceasefires in the past must not stand in the way of another attempt, as the circumstances at the present time are entirely different from the circumstances that existed when the ceasefires of the past were broken.

There are signs of hope and redemption even in the present moment. One is the advertisement being carried in the mass media by the government in association with UNICEF. This advertisement shows an LTTE child soldier and gives the message that a child must not be doomed but can be rehabilitated to enjoy a new life and to be a useful citizen. In the last remaining LTTE territory where fierce fighting now takes place are tens of thousands of people who include LTTE child soldiers and many multiples of that number of civilians. The war needs to be strategised to come to an end by a process that includes rehabilitating all of them, not killing many of them.
dailymirror.lk