Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

Lessons for LTTE/Lanka

by Rajan Philips

The pairings or the quotients in the title are meant to indicate that one (i.e. ETA, Hamas and the LTTE) cannot be understood or change without the other (i.e. Spain, Israel and Sri Lanka).

In Spain, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom) the nearly fifty year old Basque separatist movement, has declared a permanent ceasefire. The news prompted calls for the LTTE to unilaterally declare a permanent ceasefire and give up its guns. .

In the Middle East, Hamas, the Palestinian organization that is proscribed by the West as a terrorist group, won a convincing victory in the January elections to the Palestinian Parliament. With 76 out of 132 seats, Hamas has formed a majority government that will cohabit with President Mahmood Abbas of the rival PLO and Fatah groups. No one appears to have suggested that the LTTE should join the democratic process and should be allowed to contest elections to a regional parliament in Northeast Sri Lanka.

We can draw useful lessons by comparing ETA/Spain, Hamas/Israel and LTTE/Lanka, if we avoid superficial comparisons and keep in mind the different contexts.

The Basques in Spain and the Tamils in Sri Lanka

ETA is the last survivor of the student rebellions that arose in Western Europe in the 1960s, the most dramatic of which was the Paris uprising of 1968 that led to the fall of Charles de Gaulle. The ETA is perhaps the only one with ethno-nationalist inspiration and objectives and that explains its longevity.

The Basque crisis in Spain had long predated the ETA, however, and its origins go back to the establishment of the brutal dictatorship of General Francisco Franco in 1937. Franco rode to power in the Spanish civil war, survived the world war and ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

The Basques bore all the heavy burdens of his dictatorship. He ruled their region like an occupied territory, suppressed their language and cultural rights and denied any kind of regional autonomy.

So the ETA emerged to fight an old battle but as part of a new political manifestation - the political mobilization of university students whose swelling numbers in spreading campuses after the war provided the ideal hothouse for radical thinking and even more radical action.

ETA played its part in fighting Franco and its most spectacular moment was the 1973 killing of Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco's intended successor. The death of Franco was the dawn of a new Spain and an autonomous Basque region. The new constitution of 1978 devolved Spain into 17 regions, and 2 non-contiguous regions, with directly elected authorities and different degrees of autonomy.

Affirming the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation", the constitution enables the State to be "organized territorially into municipalities, provinces and Autonomous Communities". The Basque Country, along with Catalonia and Galicia, is recognized as a historic nationality and is at the apex of the asymmetrically autonomous regions.

There are continuing debates around the centralist and decentralist interpretations of the constitution but these are creative tensions and the positive facts of life in a federal set up. A set up that takes away the reason for the continuation of organizations like the ETA. Two significant set backs also contributed to ETA's final enlightenment.

ETA's kidnapping and killing, in 1997, of a popular Basque municipal politician, Miguel Angelo Blanco, enraged the whole country and six million Spaniards poured onto the streets in protest triggering a sustained pursuit of ETA by law enforcement agencies not only in Spain but also France, where ETA had found sanctuaries thanks to the ethno affinities between the Basque country and Southwest France.

The March 2004 Madrid bombing by Islamic fundamentalists was the final writing on the wall for the ETA.

Interestingly, in making up its mind on a permanent ceasefire the ETA took the advice of their older Irish cousins - the IRA and its political arm, the Sinn Fein. The IRA has already renounced violence and has turned in its arms which were among the main obstacles to implementing Northern Ireland's power sharing agreement. But other benefits of the peace process, security of life, economic growth, and the dismantling of the hated British police structures in Northern Ireland are becoming increasingly evident.

In comparison, Spain and the Basque country are streets ahead of the Northern Ireland situation and Sinn Fein would have had no problem convincing ETA that the prudent thing to do was to renounce violence permanently.

Who will take the onus of convincing the LTTE to make a similar renunciation? There is no question that at some point the LTTE has to renounce violence permanently and turn in its arms. But is Sri Lanka in a situation comparable to Spain's 1978 constitutional change and Northern Ireland's 1998 power sharing agreement? Sri Lanka's constitution, although it is of the same vintage, is not at all possessed of similar consensus or success.

The onus, it would seem, is on the Sri Lankan state to indicate at least a willingness to make changes comparable to those in Spain and Northern Ireland before demanding a virtual surrender by the LTTE.

The Hamas and the LTTE

This is not to let the LTTE off the hook, but to point to the new challenges facing Hamas which is all the more appropriate now that Canada has decided to add LTTE to its list of banned organizations that already included the Hamas.

The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections and its forming the new Palestinian government has thrown up new challenges not only to Hamas but also to Israel and the Western countries including the 'quartet' - the UN, USA, EU and Russia.

The West and the quartet cannot ignore a democratically elected government but have indicated that they will withhold all financial aid until Hamas renounces violence and accepts Israel's right to exist, conditions that the PLO agreed to as part of the Oslo Accord.

Hamas came into being during the first intifada - the 1987 Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - operating on two fronts: social programs focusing on education, health and religion, as well as violent attacks against Israel. Israel's prime reason for reaching the Oslo agreement with the PLO then in exile was to bring an end to the intifada.

Hamas was opposed to it from the beginning and did everything in its power to provoke Israel against the Accord.

But now faced with the task of exercising power in a democratically elected government, Hamas is being forced to renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist or risk its government go into bankruptcy. Without foreign aid - $ 1 billion a year - the Palestinian economy cannot sustain itself, cannot even pay the monthly salaries of 140,000 public servants. On top of this, Israel is refusing to give its monthly grant of $50 million from tax revenues to the new government.

There are signs of flexibility on Hamas's part. Its Palestinian opponents have argued that taking part in the election itself is a de facto acceptance of the Oslo Accord by Hamas. Hamas's new ministers, some of them educated in the US, also recognize the difficulties involved in going against international opinion.

But Hamas's flexibility alone is not enough, and Hamas will resist international pressure as blackmail if there is no corresponding movement on Israel's part. Both Israel and the Palestinians are groping for a new equilibrium after Arafat's death and Ariel Sharon's incapacitation. Last month's Israeli elections saw the ouster of the extremist Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party rump that he now leads. But the electorate did not give Sharon's new Kadima Party and its leader Ehud Olmert and his allies a clear victory.

To what extent Israel is prepared to retreat on the Jewish settlements in occupied territories, the construction of 670 km long wall in the West Bank, and the de facto occupation in many parts will have a direct bearing on Hamas's responses. But the fact of the matter is that by entering the democratic process directly, first in municipal and now in parliamentary elections, Hamas has changed the dynamic in the Israel-Palestine peace process.

Drawing a parallel to Sri Lanka, the first priority is for the LTTE and the government to continue to honour their ceasefire commitments and avoid ceasefire violations either directly or through proxies. The second priority is for the LTTE to enter the democratic process and participate in free and fair elections in Tamil areas, and for the government to restructure the state and create autonomous authorities as it has been done in Spain, Northern Ireland, and in a fledging way in Israel/Palestine.

Without these foundations calling for the decommissioning of the LTTE or the withdrawal of the army will be pointless and ineffectual.

| News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security |
| Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries | Junior Observer |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.