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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

"Even Homer nods", as the well known European adage goes, and so does the seemingly politically astute LTTE also fail. Round 4 of the Government-LTTE peace talks was marred by a most politically inept and un-diplomatic move by the LTTE chief negotiator to emphasise the current internal political conflict within the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Notwithstanding this faux pas, the Fourth Round may be seen to have further consolidated the on-going peace process.

This is the kind of behaviour that lends support to the misperception, in some quarters, of the LTTE being a military organisation that is yet to gain political maturity. It is a false perception in my view, since, firstly, the LTTE did begin, over two decades ago, as a political faction (no doubt, with militarist intent) within the larger Tamil political movement for self-determination and, secondly, its politico-military success has been due to its successful political mobilisation and organisation (often using brutally authoritarian means) of the Tamil people in secessionist war.

But such gauche behaviour by someone often described (never in these columns, though) as 'chief theoretician' is useful to remind those, at the opposite end of the spectrum, who idolize the 'Tigers' and have deified the Tiger leader, that even 'theoreticians' and 'Great Leaders' (or 'Dear Leader' if you like the North Korean style) can fail to reach standard. Divinity, after all, should be attributed solely to the transcendental and not merely be a convenient label according to human whims.

public and semi-public discourse

The remark made during the peace talks in Thailand last week by Dr. Anton Balasingham about the internal conflict within the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Minister Rauf Hakeem's status and political credibility is singularly out of place in the formal, public and semi-public discourse that constitutes the Government-LTTE talks.

If such a remark is to become relevant to the formal peace talks, then the LTTE exposes itself as well to remarks and criticisms about its own internal cohesion (where is Mr. Karikalan these days?), credibility or degree of representativeness etc. But that is not how one conducts formal political negotiations.

More importantly, the Balasingham remark also reflects a major weakness not only in the LTTE's current political strategy but also in the very nature of the politico-military mobilisation of the Tamil movement for self-determination.

This is to do with the way in which the LTTE has been attempting, and failing, to deal with the Muslim factor; to be precise, with the position of the Moor community in the North-East. And this major political failure has its origins in the singular failure of the Tamil movement for self-determination to build what should have been regarded as a necessary alliance with the next most significant minority to be oppressed by the Sinhala supremacist State, the Muslims.

religious element

The early attempt by Tamil political groups to subsume the Muslims as a part of the 'Tamil-speaking' people was found to be unviable. That is because this early strategy ignored the reality that, just as much as the Tamil people regarded themselves as a distinct politico-cultural community (a 'nationality', if you like), so did the Muslims. The Muslims had no desire, whatsoever, to be merely defined as a 'Tamil-speaking' people.

That early Tamil political conception ignored the religious element in our ethnic conflict. But no alternative strategy was found to relate to the Muslims in the course of the self-determination struggle. And this failure not only has had tragic outcomes in the course of the struggle but also has now led to the creation of a major hurdle on the road to a political settlement.

The exclusion of the Muslims from the self-determination struggle and the emphasis on a pure Tamil nationalism naturally estranged the Muslims as a whole. From the very beginning of armed struggle, the Muslims became caught between the two sides in conflict. Unlike the Hillcountry Tamils, the North-Eastern Moors in particular, were enmeshed in the conflict because of their very demographic location in the geographical theatre of the war.

While on the one hand, the Northern Moors became victims of ethnic cleansing by the LTTE ( a crude extrapolation of the Sinhala supremacist State's own ethnic pogroms), the Eastern Moors became victims of a cold-blooded counter-insurgency strategy of the State which deliberately encouraged antagonisms between the local Tamil and Moor communities and actually armed Moor factions in opposition to the Tamil militant groups in the region. Worse, the Moor factions so armed by the State were those that had mobilised on Islamic-fundamentalist politics.

There has been no looking back since then with atrocity and counter-atrocity affecting both Tamils and Moors resulting today in a deep reservoir of inter-ethnic suspicion and hatred that is a major obstacle to the ethnic co-existence that is necessary for a political settlement of the overall conflict.

Notwithstanding the failure of the Tamil leaderships to correctly engage with the Sri Lankan Moor community in general and with the North-Eastern Moors in particular during the struggle phase of the self-determination movement, in the on-going phase of political negotiations too there is a singular strategic failure to be observed.

And this failure is not limited to the Tamil leaderships alone. Neither have the Sinhala political leaderships successfully addressed this question.

This is partly due to the dynamics of party-based competitive politics engendered by the system of capitalist democracy that has been colonially imposed. But it is also due to the very conceptions of the ethno-political configuration of the island's population. The tendency has been either (on the side of Sinhala hegemonism) to conceive the state of political community as being ethnically homogenous or majoritarian or, to conceive it in terms of a simplistic configuration of rival nationalisms or contending 'nationalities' (a typical Sri Lankan Marxist view). Both basic conceptions, of course, derive from the model of European 'nation-statism' imposed on our political culture over five centuries of colonial triage.

current ethnic conflict

As these columns have consistently pointed out previously, while a 'nationalist' element is a very significant part of the current ethnic conflict, to leave our conception of the configuration of our island political community simply at that level is far too simplistic. But then, a tendency to simplicisms seems to be a hallmark of the Sri Lankan political culture, especially that of the Sinhala intelligentsia and elite (whether Right or Left) that has dominated our politics and led us into our current social crisis.

What these columns have long argued is that, in addition to the larger 'nationality' contours of our island political community, there are also equally significant ethno-social groups that are sub-national but are of equal importance to the 'nationalities' in our on-going post-colonial struggle to evolve a suitable larger political community or State on this island. If the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress came the closest to a 'national' articulation of Sri Lankan Muslim political interests and aspirations, it was very clear from its inception that the SLMC never represented ALL Muslims, let alone all Moors.

If the electoral patterns are any indication, the Western Moors largely remained politically mobilised under the All Ceylon Muslim League which is the oldest Muslim political body and which has always maintained a shadowy presence firmly linked to the United National Party. Indeed, in electoral terms, it is possible to argue that the UNP has always been a political formation that included the ACML as a minor partner more less structurally internalised. Senior ACML leaders have always held positions in the UNP leadership and regularly held ministerial posts.

UNP policy and power strategy

This is perfectly reasonable and goes to show the correct political instinct of the UNP leadership in incorporating whatever ethno-social-based political group that is amenable to UNP policy and power strategy. No doubt social class dynamics also had a say.

But if the Western Muslims (both Moor and Malay) were so mobilised, it was the N-E Moors who were most affected in the ethnic war and whose powerful political articulation then became the SLMC. M.H.M. Ashraff's political genius in founding the SLMC was to ensure that the interests of hitherto poorly represented central region Moors were also drawn into the largely North-East-based SLMC. That is why Rauf Hakeem, who comes from the central region, gained such prominence in the SLMC.

Unfortunately, after Ashraff's death (an act of evil genius if that death was engineered), Hakeem, coming as he did from the central region, was, and is, in no position to credibly represent the far more urgent and crucial interests and needs of the North-Eastern Moors.

Poor Rauf Hakeem. All he can (and should) do is to carry out his own politics within the framework of competitive capitalist democracy and cater to the needs of his immediate political constituency, the central region Muslims while, if possible, manoeuvre his way into North-Eastern constituencies in order that he enhance his political bargaining power.

competitive capitalist democracy

If he can help resolve the urgent issues of the North-Eastern Moors even as he does his politics, I am sure Mr. Hakeen will endeavour to do so. But he simply cannot be expected to be the primary or solely credible representative of some amorphously identified community called "Sri Lankan Muslims" which, in my view, does not exist in the same politically significant way as do the Sri Lankan Sinhalese, Tamils or even the Hillcountry Tamils.

This is why it is vitally important for all political leaderships to look beyond Mr. Hakeem, while giving him his national due (and prize collection of cabinet portfolios after all, he is one of the most intelligent and competent political leaders we have). This is why it is important not to conceive of some amorphous, hardly extant, "Muslim community", but to precisely and specifically look at the interests of the relevant ethino-social groups in relation to a given aspect of our large and complex problematic of political community and 'nation-building'.

Right now, in relation to the peace process initiate under the 2002 Cease-fire Agreement, what is needed is a conception of the configuration of the ethno-social interest groups in the North-East. Here it is the interests of the North-Eastern Moors and Sinhalese that must be addressed.

That is why these columns have argued that both the Government as well as the LTTE, nay, especially the LTTE, must negotiate directly with representatives of the North-Eastern Moors. Political processes, formal as well as non-formal, that could help identify such regional ethno-social leaderships must be utilised for this purpose.

Here, the recent work done by Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, an internationally reputed conflict resolution expert, is most valuable. His recent report on Human Security in the East is, I believe, the most valuable input that we have had in decades on this aspect of the ethnic conflict.

challenge the LTTE faces

I argue that it is especially important for the LTTE to directly negotiate with the N-E Moors and Sinhalese because that is the challenge the LTTE faces if it is to prove its credentials as the most competent political formation to politically manage the North-East in the interim between secessionist war and a new State structure that enables peaceful ethnic co-existence on the whole island. After all if ethnic co-existence cannot be managed in the North-East, how can we achieve it for the whole 'country'?

That is why it is ridiculously inept for Anton Balasingham to bleat about Hakeem's political problems. That kind of rhetoric only smacks of confrontational politics and do not indicate any serious interest in negotiating a solution to the problem of ethnic co-existence in the region to which the LTTE lays claim.

If the LTTE is a competent political organisation (as I think it is), what is it doing to identify or help form, regional level political leaderships among the North-Eastern Moors and Sinhalese with whom it can negotiate that region's political future? Can it demonstrate the necessary capacity to build some form of democratic framework (not necessarily European-style democracy) that will enable a genuine popular participation, among all communities, so that the struggle for self-determination can proceed in its non-military phase?

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