Perspectives on Politics and Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka
‘HASTENING SLOWLY’ : Perspectives on Politics and Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka:
by Col R Hariharan (Retd.)
The recent success of President Rajapaksa in cruising his budget proposals with a combination of carrot, stick, muscle power, rhetoric and backroom deals (ultimately they always come to light in Sri Lanka) through a divided house has underlined his strategy of ‘hastening slowly.’ This phrase, an oxymoron (a rhetorical figure of speech in which contradictory terms are used together), aptly describes not only the budget process but also the happenings in Sri Lanka, whether it is the Security Forces operations, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s leader Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day response, the elusive an all party formulation for devolution, or the government’s handling international outcry on human rights violations in the country.
All the issues in Sri Lanka appear to travel at their own pace with a Karmic lack of urgency. Undoubtedly, the country is paying a high price for not considering time as an irreplaceable resource in nation building.
Budget success and its aftermath
The marathon budget debate and the crucial voting pattern had many interesting and some disturbing sidelights. The last minute decision of the Jathiya Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) to absent themselves at the time of voting on the budget after all their sabre rattling against the President’s ‘corrupt regime’ showed their true colours. Leftists the world over have refined the art of double speak (our own Communist Party Marxist is a past master in this). So in a way the JVP’s action showing up their true Marxist credentials in this respect was not surprising. Their action to bail out President Rajapaksa showed that the President’s war agenda had the full approval of the JVP. Moreover, with the threat of a possible general election if the government was voted out must have made the JVP nervous. Already the President had been successful not only in retrieving the SLFP flock that had been migrating to the JVP but in closing the Sinhala ranks behind him. So clearly the JVP like other political parties did not want to be caught on the back foot in facing an election right now.
Perhaps the President had either uncannily assessed the JVP correctly, or had worked out an arrangement of sorts with the JVP well before the budget session. This is evident from the confidence many members of the ruling alliance showed. Moreover, this was underlined in the casual disdain with which the ruling alliance treated the ill-timed cross over of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) led by veteran politician Rauf Hakeem to the opposition benches. Even there, the ruling party appear to have done its homework as it managed to split the SLMC votes.
The SLMC is no stranger to splits which had been plaguing it regularly. Hakeem’s dispensation as the leader of party had never been unanimously accepted by all ranks of the SLMC after its dynamic leader and adroit politician Mohammad Hussein Muhammad Ashraff was done to death in 2000. The split in the SLMC thus comes as no surprise. It showed that after all these years in politics, the Muslim politicians have not regained the unity that Ashraff had forged and continued to wallow in a narrow agenda of their own gains.
Retributions in handling political dissent appear to have become the order of the day. More disturbing was the absence of strong reaction from political parties on what happened to those who oppose the rulers in Colombo. Three opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members were absent on the day of budget voting. Their relatives in the east were earlier reported to have been kidnapped by the members of Pillaiyan group of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Padai (TMVP) apparently to prevent them from participating in the voting. The innocent victims were released immediately after the parliament voted on the budget. Surprisingly the political parties’ reaction to the kidnapping and arm twisting of the TNA members did not go beyond making speeches. They appear to have accepted the nefarious act as part of the occupational risk of posing a threat to the ruling powers.
The ham handed treatment of Hakeem in withdrawing his security detail immediately after he joined the opposition ranks and the subsequent ‘visit’ of the Inland Revenue Department to an ice cream parlour run by his wife show the depth to which political antipathy has descended in Sri Lanka. Another vocal critic and parliament member Mano Ganesan is in the same boat losing his security detail. Unfortunately, Sri Lankan politics appear to be copying some of the less creditable methods practised by some of the notorious political parties of India.
Even without a budget voting crisis, the Rajapaksa government had gained an unsavoury reputation for arm twisting during the last two years. After the infamous episode of Teren Alles, the latest victim of ‘coercive persuasion’ is a non-political person. The Sri Lanka government is withdrawing the work permit of Peter Hill, the British chief of the Sri Lankan, the flag carrier airline of the country, ostensibly for not taking care of ‘majority shareholders interest.’ But it appears to be too much of a coincidence that this had come about after the airline could not download 35 passengers to accommodate the Presidential entourage flying to the UK on a private visit recently.
Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech and after
An undercurrent of Velupillai Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day address of November 2007 is his slow realisation that the world outside Vanni has changed enormously from the sunny days of February 2002. With increasing curbs on help from Tamil expatriates reaching the LTTE from overseas, Prabhakaran has suddenly discovered their value to his struggle. With the LTTE’s cavalier treatment meted out to some of its long term expatriate supporters and the arrest of key LTTE operatives in countries like France and the UK, his discovery of their contribution has not come a day sooner.
But certain hardy perennials like India bashing for the LTTE’s sins and maladies of Sri Lanka Tamils have continued to figure in the Heroes Day address. This year was no exception. But this year he took to task the international community also for their “partisan and unjust conduct.” Even in 1987 India’s interest in Sri Lanka and in taking up the cause of Tamils went beyond the assertion of power in its neighbourhood. By oversimplifying it as hegemonic, Prabhakaran had been making it difficult for the Tamil constituency in India to push India to regain its enthusiasm for the subject. Now with closer India-Sri Lanka ties and the indelibly etched public memory of LTTE bomber doing its former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to death, Prabhakaran’s job at impressing Indian public has become even more difficult. It is high time Prabhakaran realised that the LTTE strategies have ceased to impress not only the Indians, but also the international audience. Without changing his script it is not clear how he expected the people and government of India to bend over backward to accommodate and support his brand of “solution” for Eelam Tamils. His intransigent attitude to international concerns has made it difficult for even international NGOs to do so. The same applies to the international community.
This years Heroes’ Day speech probably had more inputs from Prabhakaran than earlier years when the late Anton Balasingham used to draft them. Considering this, the speech brings out the tragic reality that everyone had suspected-Prabhakaran remained as recalcitrant as ever. Unfortunately, this attitude is ingrained in most of the other leaders of the LTTE.
In 2005 Anton Balasingham’s comments on Heroes Day speech showed how the LTTE always looked at the world through a prism of conspiracies. “Talking is difficult than fighting. We can directly fight and destroy the enemy and achieve victories. We have done that. But talking is a different type of struggle. There will be mines. There will be entangled network of conspiracies. There will be conspiracies to trap the Tigers to take a different direction from their goal. It is now crystal clear that the Sinhala leaders will never put forward a just resolution to the Tamil national question. The uncompromising stance of Sinhala chauvinism has left us with no other option but an independent state for the people of Tamil Eelam,” he said, referring to the Sinhala majority that dominate the government and the military.
As long as the LTTE continued in this vein, with military victories becoming costlier to earn, the march to death and doomsday would continue. And the LTTE’s continued refusal to adapt its approach to a dynamic regional and global situation has only strengthened the military lobbies of Sri Lanka but also had made a mockery of all those who strive for peace in Sri Lanka. In a way it only vindicates what President Rajapaksa has been doing with his war-in-peace strategy. And the woes of the Tamil population caught between the war of the Tigers and the elephant continues.
(Col. R Hariharan, a retired Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90.He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies.)
s.k.sundaram said,
December 24, 2007 @ 8:04 am
Dear Sir
I have already sent a mail to you…………I am a regular reader of your articles not for –the content is honest ,just and is the truth but to know the inside thinking and attitude of Indian government,army and it’s intellegence wing.
That way your recent articles are clearly bringing out the same to readers like me.
I kindly request you to come out more frankly so that even a common person understands the real thinking and motive of Indian government in general and in particlular of indian intellegent agents.
thanks®ds
s.k.sundaram
surya said,
December 26, 2007 @ 9:23 am
Dear Writer
We all have to accept that Prabakaran is a
by-product from supression of Tamils by Singhalese chavunists. We can’t treat the plaque before find the cure. But what shortsighted and militaristic LTTE did is to make the Tamils much weaker position and fearful group around the world. If LTTE supporters think still they can go on with this ’suicidal’ war without finding the realities and dynamism of the 21 century it would be a disaster for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. The pity that still LTTE only rely on arms without any kind of the knowledge about world which is on the move. Look at the picture of Sri Lankan Tamils? We are reduced to dwindling numbers and scattered around the world. We have no good leaders understand the realities of the world to and can lead us.
Prabakaran’s barking to the International community and India is a stupidity of high calibre. Is this any help for our struggle to find a just solution to our problems? What we need is a soul search for why nobody want to be our friends or helping us. A man choose not to have the best safety net and accepable solution by India for his people already in 1987, today crying foul to everybody. He should never underestimate what he did for Indians and it’scoming Prime Minister.
Today Singhalese leaders been helped by the LTTE to escape to answer the atrocities commited against the Tamils. Because LTTE killed most of the capable leaders of Tamils beside committed equal cruelty against Tamils on par with the SL military. Now it’s really interesting to see what will happen in Vanni next few months. I hope in case of defeat of the LTTE, India should come back to the central stage of peace process. It’s India’s duty as a regional and coming world super power. It’s afterall help a huge way with economic progress where the bulk of it coming from It’s South.
N Fernando said,
December 26, 2007 @ 11:30 am
Mr.Hariharan,
I’m a sinhalese, but not an extremist in that. I feel the ground reality in Srilanka is totally different from views of so-called non-srilankan experts. The simple fact is that the a minority cannot rule the majority in any scenario. If I come to India & with another group of Srilankans ask for a township with our own rule, would you grant that? Over the years so-called experts have complicated a simple issue. There’s no severe discrimination in SL against Tamils, there may have been some instances which in any country would be the case. Simply because of that if someone takes up arms against the majority & go on a killing spree, what do you expect the majority to do? Just keep quiet..is it? If there’s so much discrimination to an extent that you have to take up arms..how come prominent tamil figures like Muralitharan & Kadiragamar…are worshipped by all the Srilankans….Don’t twist the reality, just keep your lively hoods running..There are chain reactions due to ill-facto comments from people like you..whereas Srilankans as a nation will have to suffer..just because you wanted keep your livelihood alive. Rgds
Sam Thambipillai said,
December 27, 2007 @ 5:05 am
While talking of carrots,sticks and the guns, it is interesting to note what was said yesterday by president Mahinda Rajapakse in the South.
As usual he played the political game of “fooling the foolish in the South”. But this time he was also trying to take the people of North East for a comfortable ride.
He said “we will first eliminate terrorism and then grant the legitimate rights of Tamils”.
He was definitely misleading the masses into a misbelief that violence arising from the armed resistance of Tamils, which he likes to call terrorism, could only be eliminated militarily.
Rajapakse is seriosly wrong. Armed resistance violence from Tamils in the North East could only be eliminated by first stopping state terror against the people of North East and granting the legitimate right to sovereignly rule themselves.
Anything else will bring poverty to the people, bankrupcy to the country and disgrace to the island, regardless of the “Budget gimmicks”.
A Tamil proverb says “it is easy to wake up a sleeping man but is difficult when he pretends to sleep”. Rajapakse may be appearing to be snoring but he is definitely not asleep !!
tulasi said,
December 28, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
Once again, we have a spokesman (in the form of N. Fernando) for the those among the majority community who fool themselves by thinking(or even pretending!) that the problem in Sri Lanka is a terrorism problem. Wake up folks, before Sri Lanka becomes another puppet state in the world arena. By stating “there is no severe discrimination against the Tamils” the writer clearly implies that there is discrimination after all. I guess, it all depends on which side of the wall one is on. As far as the minorities are concerned, EDUCATION and EMPLOYMENT were and still are, areas where there has been blatant and instituitionalized discrimination against the Tamil-speaking minority. Mr. Fernando does not have to admit he is an extremist.
One cannot see much hope for the country when those among the majority community have this kind of distorted and myopic view of the whole situation.
There is a lot of damage-control to be done before any grass roots changes are constituted.
Daran said,
December 29, 2007 @ 9:00 am
Fernando is totally wrong. I lived among the sinhalese for many years and I faced the real face of sinhalese. The sad thing of is,majority of the Sinhala people don’t understand the reality. They think that people who are fighting for freedom is from another planet. Still they try to covert their angry on innocent people.
One Man said,
January 3, 2008 @ 12:17 am
It is important to note that Rajapaksa’s Power remains
in the battle field victories. Any Major debacle could be devastative ti his Regime. On the International community, This Rajapasksa clan made great strides with deceptive promises and impressions. This Regime Uses US, China, India, UK, EU, Pakistan, Russia, Israel and Iran very cleverly for its ethnic cleansing of tamils very cunningly.
It is hard to believe everyone fall for this regime.
India is making a policy suicide by supporting the party which least likely to support India’s favor. It has proven that China and Pakistan are well established in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka openly opposed in commonwealth action to rogue regime of Pakistan. China does every thing as planned and keeps a low profile. Indians are making a historical mistake which will set them back in every thing in the future by wrong policies of Supporting the wrong hand in this Island. India also has Tamil Nadu support in helping Eelam people. This would only strength the Indian feeling by Tamil Nadu people rather
will hate the Hindi dominated Central Govt of India.
Evey way you slice it, India only gain by Supporting the Eelam in SL. If not India will lose totally in Sri Lanka.
There is no other way about it. Indian Policy makers, Think for sake of your own country…..
USA has a unique part to play as well. Do not want to
Lose the Sri Lanka to China, Russia and Iran, Support Eelam people. They will never betray you. Eelam Will be a great working partner South Asia.
This is a repetition of Jeysikuru. Politically motivated.
VP will teach again the Sinhala aggressors a lesson again. Jaya weva VP.
Thaya said,
January 3, 2008 @ 1:34 am
Mr. Fernando,
You are totally in illusion or brain washed by successsive sinhala politicans. Your are representing the sinhala mass in the south.
The ground reality is “Genocide of tamils” simply continuing by MR & Brothers. Tamil politicians, intellectuals and journalists who let the outside world know the suffering of tamils are continuously eliminated.
Tamils never took arms to protect them when they were attacked and killed by govt supported sinhala thugs in 1958, 1977, …. and till 1983.
LTTE is a product of Sinhala state terrorism.
Time is running out to protect your unitary state. Wake up!
“Every action has an equal and oppsite reaction”
Newton’s third law.
Saravanaraj said,
January 5, 2008 @ 10:03 am
N Fernando ,
Can you please explain why our Sri Lankan army Comprise 98% Sinhalese ?
Answer to Murali & Kadiragamar.
Ask Murali about the discrimination against Tamils
Do you know Kadir lived and died as a Sinhalese then Tamil? Do you want all Tamils live and die like Kadiragamar? Why Kadir denied Primership by SLFP?