Summer winds augur ill for the Sri Lankan Tamil

By Ravi Nair

(May 11, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is only a matter of time before the last redoubt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will fall. Armed resistance in the conventional sense of positional warfare will soon come to an end. But for all the triumphalism of the Sri Lankan army, it would instructive to remember that since the fall of Killinochchi in October 2008, a small band of 2000-plus LTTE cadres held out against three divisions of the Sri Lankan army for over eight months. An army armed by China, Pakistan, helped by radars from India, manned by Indian personnel, armed with weapons, euphemistically called, “non-offensive”, by India and half a dozen other countries. Trained by the Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis and the Chinese. Even as the LTTE was blockaded by the Sri Lankan Navy and the Indian Navy, tracked by spy satellites from a few other countries, which were passing on this information to Colombo.

This article is no paean to the LTTE, as for all their courage they were bereft of a political strategy for many years. And while their heroic Masada-like last stand will enter the annals of Tamil folklore and mythology, it is also a classic case of the failure that awaits those who rely on armed strength alone without realising that politics must always control the gun.

The cessation of combat by the Sri Lankan army in mid April 2009 meant little. This is something that they could have done in early April if not earlier, once they had boxed the remnants of the Tigers in a 10 square mile area. They could have easily starved out the Tigers, who also had civilians to feed, by a virtual siege, which they had already done through the encirclement from the land and sea. It is evident that their purpose was not the surrender of the LTTE, Colombo’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, but the elimination of the fighting capacity of the LTTE.

Meanwhile, ultra nationalist Sinhala jingoism cared little if a few thousand innocent Tamil civilians also died in the process.

The Sri Lankan government statement – on the basis of which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi called off his fast, was another brilliant smokescreen – it merely said that it had stopped using heavy weapons. In further dissimulation, it claimed that the security forces would confine their attempts “to rescuing civilians who are held hostage…”

Clearly this did not preclude the use of weapons such as mortars, anti tank weapons, bazookas and rocket propelled grenade launchers along with heavy machine guns firing tracers which in any case were the only weapons that can be used in combat of such close proximity as they found themselves in the second half of April 2009.

This was no concession at all. If the Sri Lankans had not gone in for a major push until late April 2009 into the encircled area, it was only because such close combat would have resulted in major casualties on the Sri Lankan side. This would be a liability for the Rajapakse brothers when they do their victory lap on the Galle Face Green.

The Indian government, the European Union and most of the international community are complicit in this strategy. An alive and captured Prabhakaran would be a very big problem politically for India. In fact, the Sri Lankans advised by their Chinese and Pakistani friends were considering capturing Prabhakaran alive and handing him over to the Indians.

For India, this would stir the political pot not just in Tamil Nadu but also in terms of India’s projections on the anti-terror war and the consequences it would have on the domestic political scene. India would not benefit in any way with Prabhakaran being alive. He could not be kept in Sri Lanka as a prisoner without India making a formal request for extradition due to the judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

With the Sri Lankan government victory, neutral humanitarian intervention from India, either official or unofficial, will become even more difficult as the Sri Lankan state will be presenting a fait accompli to the rest of the world. All other states, including India, while being critical will come to terms with the new diplomatic reality even if they do not like it. All humanitarian relief will now have to be channelised through the Sri Lankan government umbrella.

In the post-conflict situation, the Sri Lankans will keep conditions in the camps barely livable, without going to extremes. They will, through their subtle propaganda, actively encourage the displaced to leave Sri Lanka for India or join the Tamil diaspora elsewhere and in a sense depopulate part of the north of that island. They will then in the long term seek to implant Sinhalese settlers in that area over a period of time, as they did successfully in the east where there is now a sizeable Sinhalese population in what was once a predominantly Tamil area.

The present ‘IDP camps’ are a euphemism for open prisons, and in any event, given the cordon sanitaire laid down by the Sri Lankan and Indian navies, none of the IDPs will be able to come across to India. Now that the Tiger resistance is part of history, the Sri Lankan government attitude in the camps will see a change after they have completed the process of ‘screening’ of the IDPs to isolate any residual LTTE cadres. Their naval blockade will disappear and they might even conveniently furnish a number of small boats to encourage the screened IDPs to go to India.

Well meaning Tamil politicians on the Indian side will be well advised to give up fanciful schemes of bringing the IDPs to India. This would be playing into the hands of the Sri Lankan government. If they come to India, they will not go back to Sri Lanka and that will be a double victory for the Sri Lankan government. Having won the military campaign, the Sri Lankan government will also win the political peace, albeit for a decade or two.

Any exodus of the Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka, voluntary or otherwise, to India, for good reasons would be inimical to the long-term interests of both the Sri Lankan Tamils and India – it will mean the end of the Sri Lankan Tamils as a historical community, as deeply rooted in the island nation as the Sinhalese.

The Rajapakse brothers are devious but also farsighted. The Indian, and the Tamil in particular, is more emotion-driven. The Sri Lankans are not merely looking at the military defeat of the Tigers; they want to write a new and final chapter of the Mahavamsa, which will conclude that the Sinhalese finally settled the 2000-year struggle with the Tamils under the Rajapakse brothers by sending the Tamils back in boats to where they originally came from.

Having lost the war, The Sri Lankan Tamils must win the peace, but the how of that in the next article.

Writer can be reached at rnairsahrdc@gmail.com

-Sri Lanka Guardian