As Drac so insightfully pointed out it’s only a matter of time until I get branded a subversive and an enemy of peace. So I figured I might as well accelerate the process. Currently we are waging an undeclared war against the LTTE and I’ve had to ask myself whether I support it. In truth I do. Why? Because in the short term that is the only option open to us. Some people are of the opinion that we should be angrier with the government for the alleged human rights abuses, the plight of the displaced and the general condition of the country than the LTTE.
To me that is utter nonsense. While I believe the oppressive nature of the Sri Lankan governments in times past is to blame for the rise of Tamil militancy, a cause that I have sympathy for as I have sympathy for the core reasons the JVP began their agitations there is only one group to blame for the current situation and that is the LTTE. Sometimes it is hard to see the wood for the trees, the LTTE has been given unprecedented opportunities to step up to the plate and really win the rights for the Tamil people as equal participants in Sri Lanka’s future progress both in 1996 and in 2002. Both times they singularly failed to engage in any meaningful measures to participate in any kind of process to win Tamil ‘self determination.’
Let us leave aside the Rajapakse regime for the time being and look at the measures Ranil’s administration implemented in 2002 as part of the CFA. The economic embargo to the North and the East was lifted, international monitors from a country amenable to the Tigers was invited and allowed complete access to areas occupied by the Sri Lankan forces. The Tiger’s were allowed to open offices in SLG controlled areas, the EPDP, etc were disarmed, Tiger emissaries were given Sri Lankan passports and their baggage was not checked when they entered the country after trips abroad. Conspiracy theorists might even brand the exposing of the Deep Penetration Units and their subsequent disbanding as part of Ranil’s appeasement approach, but that’s up for debate.
What the Tigers do in return, they started killing political opponents and intelligence officers in broad daylight in Colombo, prevented monitors from entering certain areas under their control and were singularly opposed to any discussion about the very matter of self determination that they have shed blood for decades over. Instead the acceptance of the ISGA proposals was a precondition for talks, yes people claimed that it wasn’t but that’s about as true as was the claim that the LTTE dropped their demand for a separate country. The LTTE’s ambiguous claims that they were open to discussion of the ISGA’s and that they had dopped their claim for Eelam was just that, ambiguous. Of course to this long list has to be added the assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar and the posturing they engaged during the last attempted round of talks. The LTTE, just like in 1996 simply used the ceasefire to rearm, retrain and realaunch the conflict, that’s the truth, short and sweet.
So in short I support the war effort now, do I think the Rajapakse regime is corrupt and tramples on human rights? Yes, but not anymore than any other of the regimes we have had in the fifty plus years of independence. The amount of money that is spent on any war invites corruption, just look at Bechtel and Halliburton’s roles in the Iraq war. War sucks, the wrong people get rich and the wrong people die while the silent majority looks on from the sidelines aghast. But the way to tackle it is not to keep asking for peace, because as nice as peace would be, with Prabhakaran at the head of the LTTE peace is impossible. War is the lesser of the two evils to tackle the short term problem, that the LTTE is intransigent to any solution that does not give their demigod his own country to run as he wants. To me Prabharan is no different from Hitler, both rose from environments of injustice and both have demanded and received unquestioned obedience and in the process have bathed themselves in blood. Trying to talk peace with Prabhakharan would be as futile as Chamberlain’s attempts to talk peace with Hitler.
So what should we do as the silent majority standing on the sidelines? I believe that instead of mindlessly agitating for peace and abstractly bemoaning the morality (or rather lack of) executing a dirty war we should be agitating for a real solution, even on paper that will look towards achieving the desires of Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslim, Burgher and anybody else who calls Sri Lanka home. A true set of devolution proposals that will give a voice and empowerment to the silent masses who have been deprived for so long in this country, that is the only way we achieve long term closure to the conflict we face now.
In the short term we should be agitating for greater transparency in military purchases, a more pointed objective of beheading the Tigers by killing Prabhakaran. We should be agitating against the purchases of MiG29s to destroy the propeller driven pieces of crap the “Flying Tigers” possess, the overt support of Karuna (covert in my opinion is fine, after all this is a guerilla war) and turning a blind eye to child conscription the latter two which hurt us immeasurably internationally.
We have to negotiate with the Tigers, make no mistake about that, we have to bring them into the political mainstream but the only way that is ever going to happen is if we eliminate the current leadership. And for that we need in the short term, an effective, ruthless response to the Tigers. After all that is what worked for the JVP and for all the horrors that Premadasa’s response to the 1989 insurrection at the end of the day it worked. Rohana Wijeweera the charismatic leader was killed and the JVP for all its wrongs and moronicness is cavorting in Parliament rather than bumping people off in the street.
Just a point aside, before anybody accuses me of being a heartless bastard who has no issues with killing I would like to point out that I find it very hard to reconcile what Premadasa did to crush the insurrection with the end result. Especially since I have seen first hand the effects of what he did and deal with almost every time I am at family gathering. Yet the fact that it worked and crushed the military will of the JVP to me seems to me less a price worth to pay but the only option available.
To be honest I’m not even sure what I am trying to say in this post anymore, the last thing I want is a war in Sri Lanka. I get no pleasure from the idea of carpetbombing the Wanni or the loss of young lives on both sides, lives that could contribute so much to what is truly a blessed country. Yet at the same time all the posturing for peace is not going to get us anywhere until we truly ask ourselves what price and what needs to be done to achieve that peace. The price will be the horrors of a short, intense war to remove the leadership of the LTTE and weaken them to the point where a military option is not sustainable for them. And that is a possibility if we don’t have corruption and we take the Tigers on in their own terms.
Of course all will be lost if the long term issues are not fixed, a secular devolved state is what we should be agitating for, greater transparency and freedom. That is where Premadasa failed, the climate of the lack of opportunity that gave rise to the JVP and the LTTE is still very much alive in Sri Lanka. That problem however seems a lot less fashionable to talk about than human rights abuses that result from the war, white vans and the death of morality. A morality that in fact did not die with the Rajapakse regime but died eons ago when man started killing man.
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