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| Sunday, 24 August 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Paris: decision-time for the Diaspora The East: Prabhakaran's 'Achilles Heel' Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA The somnolence of hot August in the metropolis has not been yet disturbed by the violence and protest in the 'remote' East. The mood of the school holidays has been a little spoilt, however, by the tense anticipation of the LTTE's Paris meeting.
The mainstream should largely be blamed for that tension, though, by its insistence on describing the anticipated LTTE response to the Government proposals on the interim administration as being "counter-proposals". Indeed, this nomenclature runs counter to the need of the peace process, in discursive terms, for non-confrontational language. 'Counter' implies an oppositional, even hostile, attitude. In the past, the LTTE as well as other elements of the Tamil self-determination movement, have often responded to any overture or proposal from Colombo with either rejection or outright hostility or both. This kind of dismissal has often been necessitated by the irrelevant or piece-meal nature of the Colombo overtures in the past; Colombo, that is the Sinhala elite, has a shameful record of offering far too little too late (like the Provincial Councils), or making proposals that are patently duplicitous and insincere (such as the District Council scheme). Even the early sets of ideas for the interim administration (henceforth 'IA') offered by this Government were dismissed. interim administration Not this time, however. The UNF regime's persistence (its persistence and patience indicates the relative sophistication of the UNP over the SLFP in these matters at the heart of the bourgeois State) has paid off again. The latest Government IA proposal did not get a dismissal. Thus, any LTTE response to it should not necessarily be anticipated as being 'counter' to the Government proposal. The LTTE itself, in some initial indication of attitude, has hinted that the latest proposal has substance for serious consideration. This, alone, must be considered a success of some sort for the Government (especially given the outright hostility by the Presidency; I am simply at a loss to understand the logic of the stand by the President and the arguments of her Adviser Lakshman Kadirgamar). The Government proposal seems to have been an offer that the LTTE cannot refuse. For the past month or more there has been a flurry of discussion within the Tamil movement at all levels. Indeed, the mainstream media (the much-vaunted "Fourth Estate") has even acknowledged this political-social discussion initiated by the LTTE despite this same media's general insistence, more strident in the warlike past, on describing the LTTE (and by default, the whole Tamil movement for self-determination) as being 'un-democratic', 'dictatorial', 'fascist', etc. I have long argued that the fact of a mass support base for the LTTE itself as well as the existence of larger political-social movement for Tamil self-determination, necessarily renders the Tamil struggle a democratic one, even in the armed phase of the struggle. Internationally accepted legal philosophy, after all, has not dared to claim (not yet; it may, if the Bush-Blair types have their way) that only State-initiated armed actions can be 'democratic'. Since the LTTE is taking the Government proposal seriously, there is reason to anticipate that the LTTE's formal response will be complementary and not counter to the Government proposal. Tiger leadership That the LTTE is taking it seriously is evident from the sheer extent of the mass level political discussion the Tiger leadership has conducted throughout Sri Lanka (not just in the North-East but in the Tamil community in the South) and throughout the international Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. In fact, the LTTE talks in Paris must be seen as more a kind of political 'summit' of the LTTE's diaspora leadership and support network, rather than as merely a small huddle of legal experts discussing 'counter-proposals'. Paris, it seems, may be a kind of political watershed in the movement for Tamil self-determination. In my view, the movement confronts, in evolving a response to the Government's latest proposal, some basic questions: (a) Does not the IA proposal, despite limitations, provide an institutional platform for the political ascendancy (political control, legitimacy, resource stability etc.) of the LTTE in the North-East, and, given the current real politico-military limits to the purely military secessionist struggle, should not the Government offer be taken up positively as a means of developing the long-term political struggle for secession? (b) While full secession could remain a long-term option, cannot the interim administration be a stepping stone for the moderation of the Tamil nationalist struggle into one of political stages, with the medium-term political goal being a federal or confederal form of national autonomy? (c) Does the alternative strategy, which would be to reject the Government proposal and insist on higher levels of political autonomy immediately, endanger the peace process and, can a resumed armed struggle succeed anymore than it has today given the international politico-military constraints and sheer limits to resources and strategic disadvantages (limited strategic hinterland, weaponry and troops)? I suspect that the representatives from Kilinochchi will tell those elements of the Diaspora that are ardently secessionist, that the influx of dollars alone is not enough. In terms of long term armed struggle, the lack of an in-depth fall-back area (the strategic hinterland) is a fundamental problem (among others) faced by the LTTE, now that Tamil Nadu is no longer viable in the easy way that it was in the past. Even the choice of Paris as the venue for the diaspora summit is indicative of the narrowing international location options for the LTTE in the face of the Western-led global counter-insurgency campaign. Anyway, that is another discussion. And how Colombo responds to the LTTE's stance after Paris is also another big discussion. What conclusions the Paris confab will arrive at remains a point of uncertainty and speculation; and will continue to bug the holiday mood, dammit! What is bugging Mr. V. Prabhakaran right now is not Paris but Muttur and Kalmunai. Even if, for metropolitan society, the East is remote, for Kilinochchi it is not. Paris is a necessary and important and logical part of the Tamil struggle. For the LTTE leadership, the current trouble in the East is a 'spoiler'. Metropolitan society In fact a new 'East Wind' (in memory of Gamini Yapa and his 'Peradiga Sulang Kalliya') is threatening to blow stronger than the current annual South-West Monsoon. It is an East Wind of a genuinely autonomous Islamic militancy. I say 'genuinely autonomous' because in the past, under the J.R. Jayewardene regime and the crudities of his tacticians, the State surreptitiously financed the setting up of at least two "Jehadi" armed groups in the East to stir up Eastern Moor sentiment against the Tamil militant movement. Of course, the LTTE's own crude tactic of attempting to ethnically cleanse its theatre of insurgency of Moors (especially in the North) provided the excuse for that State counter-insurgency tactic in the East in the 1980s. The East is Prabhakaran's 'Achilles Heel' in more ways than one. Firstly, it is ethnically heterogenous unlike the North. Secondly, the ethnic distribution is disadvantageous to the LTTE in that there are few contiguously settled Tamil areas and there is no geographical Tamil continuity from North to East. Thirdly, and most importantly today, there is a limit to the collective identity of the Sri Lankan Tamil, with the primary internal differentiation being that between 'Jaffna Tamils' and 'Batticaloa Tamils'. Fourthly, a critical element of this internal differentiation between Tamil North and Tamil East is the conflict between ethnic groups in the East arising from rivalry over practical socio-economic and ecological resources. Fifthly, the primary ethnic rival group in the East, the Moors, are today influenced by new exclusivist communal tendencies (e.g. Islamic radicalism) that only serve to exacerbate the ethnic rivalry, especially in view of the extreme practical insecurity of the Eastern Moors. I have, in past columns, discussed the complexity of the East. Let me emphasise here two points. One is that the Eastern Moors have one basic form of insecurity that cannot be resolved in any way other than fundamental re-structuring of the State (which is inevitable, anyway). That insecurity is the fact that while the Sinhalas have the final guarantee of possessing the Sri Lankan State and the Tamils now have a semi-State in the form of the LTTE regime for their own security, the Eastern Moors have nothing to turn to. LTTE regime The second point is that given the larger Sinhala-Tamil dynamic in the conflict at national level, and the demographic inclusion of the Eastern Moors within the Tamil-dominated emerging North-East entity, the question of the Eastern Moors must be seen as a secondary factor that is internal to the North-East. But while it is secondary, it is not a problem that can be postponed. Rather, just as much as the onus for resolving the Sinhala-Tamil conflict lies primarily on the Sinhalas who control the Sri Lanka State as a whole, the resolution of Tamil-Moor conflict in the East depends primarily on the Tamils who dominate the emerging North-East entity. Thus, current instability in the East is the LTTE's first major test of maintaining of internal stability and social security for the citizens under its regime. An important part of this test is the manner in which the Jaffna-Tamil dominated Tiger leadership caters to the genuine and peculiar needs of the Batticaloa-Tamils. In this, while the Sri Lankan Government can and should do little, there is much room for citizen's initiatives, from Southern-based social action groups and conflict resolution think-tanks, to deal with both Eastern Moors as well as Eastern Tamils to identity mutual problems, rivalries and grievances and to empower local leaderships to negotiate with each other. But, just as much as Colombo has to lead the way in terms of resolving the larger national conflict, Kilinochchi has to lead the way in dealing with the instability in the East. In fact Prabhakaran simply cannot afford to do otherwise. A deterioration in the East only serves to split the Tamil nation on the one hand, and on the other, to worsen the regional social and demographic conditions in which that nation must continue to struggle for its liberation (in whatever form). |
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