.gif)
First Published: July 19961. The Significance of Mullaitivu
2. The Government Response
3. The Lessons of the Past
4. The Devolution Solution
5. Towards a Correct Solutiom
6. Conclusion
It is now six weeks since the LTTE attack on the military garrison of the Sri Lankan Army at Mullaitivu in the North-East of Sri Lanka. Within a week of that event ACSLU issued a statement not only condemning this attack but also urging the SL authorities to draw the correct lessons from this disaster. The Statement said:
"The debacle at Mullaitivu puts into question the whole strategy of the SL Government's handling of the separatist problem. It should lead to a complete re-think of the policy that has been place for a long time, and pursued alike by both the main political parties that have wielded political power in SL during the duration of this insurgency."It would appear that the right lessons have not been drawn from the disaster. This is confirmed by the events that have followed the disaster.
It is now clear that the Mullaitivu action has cost the lives of over 1400 soldiers. The Government has still not confirmed the extent of the loss of life despite attempts by the UNP opposition to raise the matter in Parliament. This ploy of the UNP however appears to be pure opportunism as they were in charge when the other great military debacle, viz. attack on Pooneryn took place. That time over 750 lives were lost. That time too the then Government did not change its strategy on the separatist problem. The inability to learn from military setbacks seem to be characteristic of both sides of the political divide in Sri Lanka.
Military disasters on this scale rarely occur in an insurgency of the kind mounted by the Tamil terrorists. Many of the Eelamist support groups, including many in Sri Lanka itself, had consistently exaggerated the capability of this terrorist group. It was hoped that the success of the Riviresa operations had punctured this myth. However disasters on the scale of Mullaitivu allow this myth to be resurrected again. While the capitulationists in Sri Lanka may once again use this setback to consider caving into the racist separatist demands this is not the right policy to follow.
The Mullaitivu action came at a time when the LTTE and its international support groups had been systematically losing ground both in Sri Lanka and internationally. The loss of the Jaffna region to the LTTE has been a serious blow to their morale, while more and more foreign governments are seeing the true nature of the LTTE. Hence there has been a desperate need for the LTTE to re-establish some of its "reputation" however questionable that reputation has been for all reasonable persons. Those foreign elements which the Tamil Lobby has cultivated for long, and who still support them, will no doubt use the Mullaitivu incident as another argument why the LTTE should be looked upon with favour as a credible force in Sri Lanka.
However the correct response is not to exaggerate the LTTE capabilities but to emphasise the political and military failures on the part of the SL Government. Of these the political failure is particularly important for it is this failure that has continually prevented the adoption of an effective military strategy to end the insurgency swiftly. Both the UNP and the SLFP and their respective coalition partners has continually touted "devolution of power" as the real solution to which all military efforts must be made subservient. The only differences that separate them relate to details about the proposed devolution of power. The military action is seen as a means to nudge the terrorists to enter negotiations for the devolution of power. Of course the Colombo-based Tamil political parties, some sections of the international Tamil separatist lobby, and crypto-Eelamists both in Sri Lanka and in the expatriate movement, have realised that devolution is an easy route to Eelam and support the devolution efforts of the Government with great enthusiasm. Only the LTTE is seeking a complete capitulation from the Colombo authorities, either on the negotiation table or on the battlefield. The military setbacks which the SL Government has faced since the Jaffna operations is thus closely related to the incorrect political solution that is increasingly being touted by the SL Government. Furthermore a revival of Tamil terrorism in the Jaffna peninsula cannot be ruled out if the conflict with the terrorists in the other parts of Sri Lanka is allowed to continue. Indeed some recent developments seem to point out in that direction.
The military response to the Mullaitivu disaster seems to have been ill-considered. First there was talk of retaking Mullaitivu just as Pooneryn was retaken in the earlier disaster. But this plan seems to have been abandoned after further casualties. Then the focus shifted to the much publicised push to take Killinochchi which had become the de-facto headquarters of the LTTE after the loss of Jaffna. There was some initial success with the capture of Paranthan only a few kilometres from Killinochchi. Since then there has been no report of a further advance even though the policy of taking Killinochchi has not been officially abandoned. But the failure to advance the short distance from Paranthan must be a blow to the credibility of the Government's capability of dealing militarily with the terrorists. Yet the crushing of the terrorists is the sine qua non for the resolution of the problem.
Militarily it would be a dangerous policy to leave the LTTE with a substantial capability. The LTTE has demonstrated its capability of recovering from setbacks, an ability which has been enhanced by the Government policy of leaving them alone for long periods of time. The question is whether we are now seeing a similar period of grace accorded to the LTTE.
On the political front the vacillation which has characterised Government policy has continued. An AP report from Colombo dated 28-Jul-1996 (barely two weeks after Mullaitivu) reported:
"After a devastating military loss and a passenger train bombing, Sri Lanka's government offered Sunday to hold peace talks with Tamil separatists -- if the rebels relinquish their goal of an independent state. The rebels also must renounce violence, lay down arms and set a timetable for talks before the government would consider a political solution to the 13-year civil war, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar said."
Here we see no talk of punishing the terrorists responsible for a disaster of the magnitude of Mullaitivu, no talk of the military elimination of the terrorists, but yet again the offer to enter into political talks with the terrorists. The preconditions laid must surely be a joke. The LTTE has demonstrated repeatedly to be completely devoid of any principle and to think that they would abide by anything they will formally agree to is a cardinal folly. Foreign Minister Kardirgamar's statement is in fact another example of the naivete of the SL Government.
The recent debate on whether the LTTE should be banned in Sri Lanka again highlights the absurd position of the SL Government. Foreign Governments have already banned the LTTE or branded it as a terrorist group, but not the SL Government. In fact many foreign Government's have responded to the demand that they stop the LTTE fund-raising and other activities in their countries by pointing out that the LTTE is not banned in Sri Lanka itself.
Of course the banning of the LTTE in Sri Lanka will only have symbolic significance, and in due course it is possible that it may be banned. But the reluctance to do so indicates that the SL Government looks upon the LTTE as a potential partner in its so-called peaceful solution.
Apart from the status of the LTTE the status of other political groups advocating the creation of Eelam on a part of Sri Lanka should be considered. These include the Tamil parties now established in Colombo, who have the term "Eelam" in their very designations coupling it with other terms like Liberation and Revolution which have become code words for terrorism. The most prominent of these are the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the Peoples' Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the Eelam Peoples' Democratic Party (EPDP) and the Eelam Peoples' Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). Many of them have a history of terrorism not second to that of the LTTE. Even if they have suspended armed action for the moment they could resume it at any moment. Many of them have armed cadres now tolerated by the SL Government as they are considered to be allies in the conflict with the LTTE. Only the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) seems to be on the margin of political respectability, but even then only just.
Far from denying political legitimacy to these groups the Government has been entertaining their claims, even negotiating with them. [NOTE 1]
In a number of studies issued during the last decade ACSLU and its forerunner organisation had warned against the consequences of the policy adopted by the SL Government [NOTE 2] ignored. In the light of the Mullaitivu disaster it is time to re-iterate these arguments in the hope that even at these late moments there can be a change in the policies that have so far not secured any resolution to this conflict.
The Mullaitivu disaster is particularly important as it comes after the complacency that has been engendered by the success of the Riviresa operations in the North. These military campaigns did not eliminate the LTTE terrorists but merely shifted the locus of their activity further South into areas in which they had not previously been as active. There have been reports in the post-Riviresa period of LTTE atrocities being committed in a broad arc stretching in a clockwise direction from Puttalam in the central West coast to Yala in the South-East. This perimeter covers nearly three-quarters of the coastal region of Sri Lanka. The Government had been assuring the public that the LTTE could no longer engage in massed attacks, and perhaps this premature boast may have edged the LTTE to demonstrate its power in a most spectacular fashion at Mullaitivu.
We have argued that the greatest failure of successive SL governments has been their political failure from which the military setbacks have arisen. The failures in these areas are particularly alarming in the light of the history of terrorist atrocities. Must of the world attention has been grabbed by terrorist bombs in Colombo and other places, aimed at vital economic targets like the Central Bank and Oil Storage Depots. Then there have been the spectacular assassinations using human bombs. And there has been no let-up in the systematic ethnic cleansing aimed at territorial aggrandisement of the claimed Eelam region. But what has been most galling has been the massive attacks on the security personnel, and the insidious attrition of service personnel. Few nations would have tolerated such attacks on its armed forces. Yet the politicians of Sri Lanka seem not only to ignore them but are also ever ready to forgive the authors of these atrocities as seen in their numerous amnesties, and to parley with them as if they were combatants fighting for a legitimate cause.
There have been previously two particularly serious attacks on security personnel. The first was at the conclusion of President Premadasa's negotiations with the LTTE in 1989. Then under the cover of the cease-fire observed by the security forces well over a thousand policemen and soldiers were treacherously captured. They were then massacred in cold blood to the cheers of Tamil civilians in the Eastern Province, the very "civilians" whose interests are constantly espoused by the so-called human rights groups . No other nation would have forgiven such a cowardly atrocity. But the Premadasa Government turned a blind eye, and the victims of this massacre were quickly forgotten. The second was the attack on the Pooneryn military base. At this time some 750 soldiers were killed some of them executed after capture. Once again there was a deafening silence from the Premadasa Government and the international bodies supposed to be concerned with norms for the conduct of military exercises. When the new Government of Kumaratunga came into power its first act was to pay homage to the same terrorists who had been responsible for the killings of 1989 and the Pooneryn attack (not to mention their numerous other atrocities). At that time while many Sri Lankans were hailing this "peace initiative" ACSLU condemned it as a policy that will only lead to disaster. True to form it did not take long for this to happen.
After the collapse of the negotiations with the LTTE the Government launched the Riviresa operations to wrest the Jaffna peninsula from terrorist control. This was the first time that the terrorists were challenged in their own region since Operation Liberation was halted due to Indian intervention in 1987. The success of the Riviresa operations destroyed many of the myths about the LTTE and it gave a much needed boost to the morale of the SL nation. However the failure the pursue the terrorists into their new lair has been a serious mistake. While the Government commenced the reconstruction of Jaffna it forgot that any real reconstruction can only be done when the terrorists are totally eliminated. This did not happen and it may well be that the reconstruction of Jaffna may once again be undone. Certainly the Mullaitivu event must convince the Government that the military defeat of the terrorists must take precedence over all the other activities including the reconstruction of Jaffna.
Overshadowing its military errors is the policy of the SL Government which it calls its "political solution" to the SL problem. The devolution package has been analysed elsewhere by ACSLU [NOTE3] devolution proposals amount the transformation of Sri Lanka into a federal state based on the principle of racism and apartheid, and will not only create the preconditions for the final disintegration of Sri Lanka, but also institutionalise racial conflict and even Eelam were to eventuate create an international conflict similar to that between India and Pakistan.
The support for devolution comes from several sources. It is understandable that Tamil racists should be the staunchest supporters of devolution. They rightly see in it the opportunity to the final dismemberment of Sri Lanka. This is the main motivation for the non-LTTE groups. The LTTE have not directly supported the proposals as they hope to secure their Eelam objective by military means, their ambitions for Eelam extend far beyond the Northern and Eastern Provinces which the Government's proposals seem to be conceding as the basis of the Eelam Region.
Quite apart from the Tamil racists there seems to be considerable support for devolution from Sinhalese and the Muslims. The Muslims see the grant of "autonomy" to the Tamils as providing the framework for autonomy for themselves in another part of the SL nation. But what needs to be explained is the support which devolution seems to be enjoying amongst the Sinhalese.
As we have seen both political parties support devolution in some form. These political groups are only interested in the spoils of power for themselves and in search of these are willing to sacrifice the interests of the nation. Since they rely on "democratic" elections to hand over to them the spoils of power they are motivated by a crude political arithmetic. They see that the votes of the Sinhalese are divided between the two main protagonists, so they see the votes of the minorities, especially the Tamils, as making the crucial difference. Hence the unseemly scamble to secure the support of the Tamil groups, both Sri Lankan and Indian. Since the bulk of the Tamil electorate has always demonstrated that they were interested in purely communal politics it is inevitable that the communalist Tamil policy informs the Government of SL whether it is from out of one political grouping over the other.
But the blame cannot be laid entirely on the political parties. They also articulate the demands of the a section of the Sinhalese are coming to be called the neo-Sinhalas. [NOTE 4] Sri Lanka has in the past produced traitors to the national interest, and the neo-Sinhalas mere carry on this trait. It is surprising how much the ideology of Tamil separatism is espoused by these segments of the Sinhalese. There is no lack of spokespersons from this group who can be relied to grace Eelamist conferences and argue the case why "autonomy" should be given to the Tamils.
The neo-Sinhala ideology is particularly strongly represented in the recent Sinhala migration to the West. There they are joined by JVP-minded persons who between them provide strong support to Tamil separatists. Indeed they form a crypto-Eelamist movement which is no less inimical to the real interests of Sri Lanka than the Eelamists proper. A full study of this phenomenon is being undertaken by ACSLU and will be published soon.
Whether the Mullaitivu operation will increase the support for devolution in Sri Lanka it is hard to say. Certainly the neo-Sinhalas and other pro-Eelamists will argue that there is no "military solution" to the conflict. This ignores the fact that the devolution solution, whose ultimate destiny is the divide the Island of Sri Lanka into at least two fully armed military camps, it itself the ultimate military solution. Instead of the SL Government having to deal with a terrorist band it will have to deal with a fully armed Eelam which will even try to adopt a nuclear posture. If this were to happen the threat to the rump of Sri Lanka that will remain for genuine Sri Lankans will be far greater than the threat they now face from the LTTE.
Unfortunately there is every chance that the success of the LTTE at Mullaitivu will not open the eyes of Sri Lankans, both at home and those abroad, into the real implications of the separatist threat. They might foolishly persevere in the belief that there is a political solution to what they never cease to describe as Sri Lanka's "ethnic problem".
It must be emphasised that a real political solution exists which must be contrasted with the sham political solution usually described as "devolution"
The real solution involves the very opposite of devolution. It involves the intensification of the centrifugal forces and an increase in the degree of political and economic centralisation. The historical experience of SL has been that it has always prospered when there was a strong central government in place. This has been demonstrated both before and during the period of colonial rule. On the other hand periods of disintegration when a number of "kingdoms" ruled parts of Sri Lanka there had been a general disintegration with no achievements in any area. On the contrary these periods of disintegration have inevitably led to foreign invasion and domination.
On of the urgent measures that must be taken is to be abolish the so- called provinces as units of administrative decentralisation. These provinces were drawn by British colonialists for no rhyme or reason other than pure administrative expedience. That these "provinces" have been allowed to survive, and even their status enhanced by the creation of the Provincial Council system is one of the absurdities of SL politics. There is an urgent need to abolish the provinces completely and make the Districts the units of administrative decentralisation, not political devolution. The powers of District Councils should be confined to the powers normally delegated to local government units in a unitary state.
The principles that must guide the real political solution have already been identified by ACSLU [NOTE 5]. They need not be argued here at length. Briefly stated the five principles are the following:
1. The principle of the Unity of Sri Lanka. This affirms that Sri Lanka must at all times remain a unitary state with no concession to devolution of power in any form, least of all on the basis of racism.
2. The principle of non-Racism. This affirms that no weight should be given to racism of any form, and all individuals should be treated alike irrespective of ethnic, racial or religious affiliation.
3. The Principle of Democracy. This means that the ballot and not the bullet should be the basis for decision making. Despite the obvious abuses of the democratic process in Sri Lanka it is still far preferable to the military tactic resorted to by the Tamil separatists and even other terrorists like the JVP.
4. The Fundamental Rights Principle. This affirms that all claims of discrimination and the like should be treated within the context of an established charter of fundamental rights. Of course these rights adhere to individuals as individuals, not as members of any racial group.
5. The Principle of Independence. This affirms that Sri Lanka should not bow to foreign pressure groups in making vital decisions. Many of these foreign bodies whether governmental or NGO are now infiltrated by the LTTE.
All five of these principles are violated in the devolution concept now supported by both the main political parties in Sri Lanka, as well as by racist Tamils and the neo-Sinhala and JVP elements amongst the majority community. But a real political solution is possible on the basis of the five principles enunciated about. The construction of such a solution must be the imperative of the times.
The Dayton Agreement which saw the partition of Bosnia into racist enclaves shows that the arbiters of the New International Order (a neo-colonial arrangement) will not shrink from adopting racist solutions to ethnic problems if it suits them. This Agreement has ominous implications for Sri Lanka. It international intervention were to happen in Sri Lanka there is little doubt that some form of federal arrangement may be favoured by the external powers. This may suit the suit the ideology of neo-Sinhala advocates of devolution in Sri Lanka. But it would be a disaster for Sri Lank. It should not be allowed to happen in Sri Lanka.
From current indication it would appear that the Mullaitivu incident is already forgotten and the Government is hell-bent on following its of path to the disintegration of Sri Lanka. While there are many critics of Government policy very few of them articulate an alternative to the policy of devolution. We have argued that the right course of action is the very opposite of devolution, i.e. a strengthening of the centralist structure. This may not suit the politicians who in the proliferation of political entities a greater change to advance their own self interest.
The real "political solution" must embrace the five ACSLU principles. If the debate in Sri Lanka is turned towards the development of an alternative kind of political solution to that touted so far by both sides of politics in Sri Lanka, then some good may still eventuate from the carnage at Mullaitivu. If not all this massive loss of life would have been in vain, and those that perished will be betrayed as has been the case with all those who have perished so far.
1. It has been reported that at the end of June 1996 the leaders of the Tamil parties met the President and Minister Pieris to urge that the unitary character of Sri Lanka be changed. The Government had agreed to this in its devolution proposals but the position of the UNP (without whom a two-thirds majority was not possible) was not clear. President Kumaratunga is reported to have told the Tamil groups that the Chairman of the Legal Sub Committee of the UNP (R.N. Choksy) had suggested that Article 2 and 76 of the Constitution be amended. She claimed that it was the first time that the UNP had brought forward an "interesting suggestion" and commended it to the Tamil parties. The TELO representative had even had the hide to suggest that "the Government could always go for fresh elections asking for a 2/3rd majority mandate from the people", so sure was he that the neo- Sinhalas would support the plan to divest SL of its historic unitary status. Prof Pieris is said to have asked the Tamil parties to "meet with UNP leadership in a bid to persuade it" to support the Government position. That a Government should be engaged in such a dialogue when Tamil separatists are committing horrendous crimes is inconceivable. [Return]
2.In January 1995, shortly after the commencement of the negotiations with the LTTE ACSLU issued a publication entitled Sri Lanka's Capitulation to Separatist Terrorism. The following quotation, made at the very commencement of the cease-fire which accompanied the start of the negotiations is worth repeating: "To judge by the euphoria of the capitulationists and the foreign expatriate supporters one might well be forgiven for thinking that the cease fire announcement has `solved' the separatist problem in Sri Lanka. This is far from the case." Return
3. See the ACSLU Publication The Devolution Proposals of the Sri Lankan Government for an analysis of this Package. Return
4. The term "neo-Sinhala" was coined by ACSLU to denote a new breed of Sinhalese who grew up under the dispensation of Solomon Bandaranaike and who have abandoned the positions of the classic Sinhalese of old who had build the Sri Lankan and nation and maintained it over two millennia. The neo-Sinhalas are little more than apologists for Tamil racism and accept their myths like the discrimination myth and the homeland myth. Return
5. These principles were set out in the very first document issued by ACSLU: The Manifesto of the Australian Centre for Sri Lankan Unity. Return