Sri Lanka- the present situation and the way forward

“The emerging pressure from India must be sustained and clearly directed towards addressing the socio-political needs of the Tamil people. This cannot be allowed to be hijacked by the LTTE to enjoy the respite it needs to consolidate its position.”

(October 19, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) A public meeting themed on Sri Lanka - the present situation and the way forward organised by The Campaign for Democracy, Justice, Peace and Unity in Sri Lanka in coordination with other mainstream democratic Sri Lankan political parties and organisations was held on Saturday 18th October 2008 at Quakers Meeting House, Bush Road, Wanstead, London, E11 3AU. The meeting was chaired by S. Thavarajah.

M. Marzook (Sri Lanka Islamic Forum (UK), Cllr Paul Sathianesan – London Tamil Councillors Association, Dai Liyanage –Liberal Democrats Friends of Sri Lanka, R. Jayadevan – Tamil Democratic Congress (TDC), Mrs Rajesh Balasubramaniam – Peace and Human Rights Activist, Tilan Wijesinghe – Sri Lanka Freedom Party – UK, S. Haleem – President, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, N. Mohammed – Sri Lanka Islamic Forum – UK spoke and towards the end of the meeting an interactive discussion took place dissecting issues contributing and causing the problems in Sri Lanka.

Following is the text of the speech made by R Jayadevan, Leader of the Tamil Democratic Congress (TDC).

Mr Chairman, distinguished speakers, the organisers of the meeting and ladies and gentlemen.
The topic selected for the meeting is not a strange one.

Ever since independence of Sri Lanka in 1948, we have extensively spoken about the existing situations and were breaking our heads to find a way forward to end the stalemate in that country. The debate is on going, and the situation is progressively worsening day by day.

Both the warring government and the LTTE are only thinking of military solutions for an issue that is political and must be peaceful resolutions.

The guns, bombs, recriminations, hate, kidnaps and cold blooded murders have silenced the real voices of the peace loving people of both the divide and the thirty years of war has swept the rational thinking peace minds to the dustbins.

Unfortunately, the way the situation is progressing in Sri Lanka - as a Tamil who had experienced the adversities of the conflict since my birth like many others in a disproportionate scale, even when living in the safe western environs for nearly 30 years, the present situation is a painful frustration and that we are still unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It is my intension to present my argument as a Tamil, critical of the government and the so-called visionless violent LTTE which is giving a wrong image about the Tamil struggle for political empowerment, justice and peace for our people.

An unwilling and un-accommodative government is extending with determination as like its predecessors, not to empower the minorities to be part and claim ownership in the island nation of Sri Lanka.

Thirty years of violent history of Sri Lanka is guiding the rulers in Colombo to progress in the path of violence.

The present government is no different and is continuing with the well established policy to marginalise the Tamils on all fronts. The reward for the marginalisation process is well felt and the present status quo of the Tamils bear testimony for this.

Violence and decay has become the destiny of the Tamils caught between the brutal forces of the government and the LTTE.

The successive post independence governments of Sri Lanka, in a calculated and systematic manner have progressed to make Tamils ‘a manageable minority’.

This mission of making the Tamils a manageable minority is well conducted by the present President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime.

A President who was elected with a small margin, due to the political foolery of the LTTE debarring the Tamil people in the north from voting in the election, has paved the way for the LTTE to dig its own grave and cause greater harm for the Tamil people.

LTTE’s gun-ho politics of using the vulnerable Tamils as fodders is destabilising the Tamil community and the island nation as a whole.

The LTTE has to take the full responsibility for creating the present awful situation for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

By preventing the Tamil people from voting in the Presidential election in November 2005 and then unilaterally and clandestinely engaging in confrontations with the government forces under the pretext of Makkal Padai (peoples force) the mindless LTTE has changed the peace process initiated by Ranil Wickramasinghe when he was the Prime Minister and overseen by Norwegians into a full scale bloody war, which is seriously harming the innocent civilian Tamil population.

The innocent Tamils are paying the price for its idiotic conduct.

LTTE’s arrogance towards its own people to extend its control was meal for the government in the golden platter.

My involvement in the Tamil politics and engagement with diverse political views confirm that LTTE was not sincere when it signed the peace accord in 2001 and never wanted a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

The temporary peace, that gave some respite for the suffering Tamil people for four years since 2001 came to an end due to visionless political manoeuvrings of the LTTE.

I had the first hand knowledge from within the LTTE circles and even through my meeting with Karuna post my release from incarceration by the LTTE in 2005, that the LTTE engaged itself in the peace process in 2001 to gain some respite to fight a bigger war later.

Karuna leaving was a major blow to the LTTE and the rudimentary and abhorring campaign against him post his departure made Karuna more than determined to deny the LTTE the eastern fields for its violent campaign.

Opening the road and the air routes to the north, following the ceasefire agreement made people of all walks of lives to visit the war torn area.

The diaspora Tamils too flooded these areas to see their kiths and kin.

All what they heard from their dear ones about the LTTE and its terror tactics to raise funds from the visiting Tamils, caused serious damage to its image within the diaspora Tamil community.

The peace agreement signed in 2001 inflicted collateral damage to the LTTE. My and my colleague Vivekananthan’s incarceration was another mindless work of the LTTE.

Both of us have contributed heavily for the political cause of the Tamils and have supported the LTTE.

The Tamil Guardian newspaper, former LTTE head office Ealam House in the Burroughs and bringing Mr Anton Balasingam with the help of the British government to the United Kingdom are some of the work I undertook to help the LTTE in the United Kingdom.

Whatever the accusations levelled against the LTTE, I considered it as an evil necessary to confront the evil mission of the government to marginalise the Tamils.

I must thank the LTTE for holding me captive for 62 days. My captivity without facing the ultimate penalty of death, gave me better understanding of the real LTTE.

It is sad to see the war being fought behind an iron curtain in the north. The NGO’s and the media are prevented by the government to report the true situation in the war front.

We have to swallow and digest all what are dished out by the warring parties. The government will report daily deaths of the Tigers and the LTTE will claim their share of the killings of government forces. Within these claims remain the unreported casualties of the innocent civilian population.

According to the claims, innocent civilian population seems to be safe and both military machineries seems to be advanced in preventing any civilian casualties.

The intriguing facts are that the aggregate 70,000 death toll in the war, claimed by the media three years ago is remaining static and have not moved a point even while both warring parties have made claims running into thousands of deaths since three years ago.

I can put forward interesting factual account of the shenanigans of this terrible war for hours and hours.

But we are sick and tired of these and deeply feel for the people caught in this terrible war.

The tragedy Sri Lanka facing is that it never produced a national leader who believed in nation building through proper political process by empowerment of the cross section of its people.

In the name of democracy and by distorting that the government has to fight a war to defeat terrorism, the government is continuing to ignore the real political process needed to resolve the conflict.

The way forward for Sri Lanka is to break the political deadlock created by the present governments’ manipulative and highhanded manoeuvrings to weaken the opposition political parties. This has made the government unable to implement any amendments to the constitution.

In order to hold on to power, it has done extensive damage to the opposition parties and all these parties including the main opposition UNP are aggrieved and it will be difficult to establish a bi-partisan approach to passage through any amendments to the constitution to devolve power as a result.

The so-called All Party Representative Committee (APRC) headed by Dr Tissa Vitharane is an unfeasible and a wasted effort. It is only aimed to portray the government is involved in a political process to devolve powers.

According to well known sources in Colombo, the government is planning to put forward a substandard district level devolution package to break the current concerns of the international community.

I consider this is another time wasting exercise to extend the war policy of the government.

Unless substantial international pressure is put on the government there won’t be any meaningful changes in its direction.

The emerging pressure from India must be sustained and clearly directed towards addressing the socio-political needs of the Tamil people. This cannot be allowed to be hijacked by the LTTE to enjoy the respite it needs to consolidate its position.

The LTTE is an exclusively military organisation and it cannot understand the meaning of real politics and democracy.

Due its violent dictates, the Tamil people have become a degenerated lot and every effort must be made to prevent this decay progressing any further as the consequence will be very dangerous for the people yeaning for peace.

Let me conclude with a simple statement about the way forward for the conflict.

1) The government, the LTTE and all the armed paramilitary groups must be made accountable for their violent conduct. The international community must progress to open the doors of the International War Crimes Tribunal to hear charges of war crimes committed against the people by these warring parties.

2) The international community must work with India to bear upon Sri Lanka to end the conflict by political means. Sri Lanka is not politically matured enough to play consensus and accommodative politics to empower its people. The international community cannot give its open cheques indefinitely without imposing some punitive sanctions on Sri Lanka.

Unless and until Sri Lanka is included in the proactive international agenda, we cannot find a lasting resolution to the conflict. All efforts to find solutions within Sri Lanka have failed and this stalemate cannot be allowed to continue for ever.

Thank you. - Sri Lanka Guardian