Prabhakaran Squandered away both Eelam and Federalism in One Stroke

By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles for Sri Lanka Guardian

(February 16, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian) The political capital that Prabhakaran squandered away during his failed insurgency killed the concept of both Eelam and as well as federalism with it. The canons of liberation he preached showed no discernible traits of federalism or any other political strategy, but a blatant one party state headed by him. The Muslim communities he dispossessed in Puttlam, Mannar and the East as well as the Sinhalese villages he attacked savagely in Kebilithigollawa and the bordering villages of Wanni were ample testimony to his complete rejection of federalism or a pluralistic society. He guaranteed that the federal solution was anathema even more so as the Sri Lanka government demonstratively sought inclusiveness as shown by results of all the provincial council elections so far. Plurality within a unitary state is unmistakably our emblem now.

Prabhakaran’s collusion with all forms of collective governance for over two decades jarred him out of any peaceful resolution to the problem in Sri Lanka. He ruthlessly assassinated all moderate Tamil leaders starting with Duraiappah and in 1975. His participation in peace talks, it could be surmised with certainty now, was a shame, a ploy to humanize terrorism but never with the intention of coalescing with any other community except his own held as captive audience.

In Aristotelian tragedy, the protagonist’s suffering must have a larger means and the result of it must be enlightenment. Eelamist tragedy was an unending process of sacrifice by Tamils both in terms of lives lost as well as millions in donations exhorted by force, for the sole exaltation and edification of the War Lord himself. When the tactics of deception failed they blamed everything on alleged chauvinism of the south and its transgressions.

The LTTE lost it all on such strategy due to the fundamental error of not trusting consensus building and compromise. Contrary to popular myth propagated by the Tamilnet the propaganda organ model by Anton Balasingham on the Joseph Goebbels that even a lie when repeated frequently would appear like a truth could not last long. Tamilnet had traced the exploits of the glob-trotting gadfly Balasingham who blithely rejiggered and re-arranged facts and chronology to suit the whims off his supremo beating hasty retreats as the Sri Lanka government started to take command of the military forces in earnest fifteen months ago. Balasingham had believed that the searing psychodrama enacted internationally by him would fool the Sri Lanka government. As the war heated up the strategy as well the so called unbeatable prowess of the Tiger cadres were exposed badly. Tamilnet’s credibility as well as the fake professionalism stumbled.

Contrary to the myth propagated by the LTTE that the southerners have very short memories, the people showed an uncanny ability to etch indelibly in their collective memory the need to wipe out ruthless dictators posing off as freedom fighters. Never will they even permit such an idea and its disastrous calamity befalls this country again. The price paid was too heavy and sacrifices tremendous. Prabhakaran ensured that. Any attempt to foist federalism would be considered an easy way of getting a territorial division of the country one more time. There would be a sober assessment of what needs to be done in order to redress the complex and polarizing issues surrounding the post-Eelam ethos. So must the abhorrence of sanity and the blind rage that surfaced during the past two decades end.

Sir Lanka with its 25,000 square-mile landmass automatically counters any argument to foist federalism on the political map. Even Prabhakaran alluded to the less than satisfactory state of federalism available to his brethren in south India. The US and Indian federal models evolved due to matters of a historical; nature. But even those are now being rejected as the automatic role models to situations elsewhere. State power suffered severe damage due to the executive presidency promoted by Bush-Cheney regime. India is no exception to the tense relations among its federated states, especially the southern situation. Prabhakaran debunked once for all that anything even resembling partition of Sri Lankan could never be permitted to rise again. Events even remotely resembling separation of the country will never be tolerated again.

Redress driven agitation can best be successful within a unitary state when the land mass is too small for division. Over four-fifth of the people in Sri Lanka practice plurality of purpose as shown by their behavior during the past decades. The Eelam movement with its absolutist tendency to arrive at partition of the country was what the doctor ordered. The chillness of the Eelam war will forever remain in our memories. Creating federal units with powers of military and trade pacts enshrined in them would not pass muster.

-Sri Lanka Guardian