No Compromise in Sri Lanka
Sabil Francis
Research Scholar, JNU
No matter who comes to power there is little chance of peace in
Sri Lanka
. What is happening in
Sri Lanka
is a war of the races. The LTTE began its struggle against the Sri Lankan state with the aim of creating a one-party socialist Eelam. Today it has become an army of Tamils. Ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese, Muslims and even Tamils, who do not agree with its views, is the ultimate aim of the LTTE. The LTTE will never compromise on its ultimate goal of a Tamil Eelam. That is why any offer of talks from either the Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunge, or UNP leader Ranil Wikramsinghe, is doomed to fail. If at all the LTTE responds, it responds only to recoup its strength.
This is because the LTTE has changed. It saw its struggle in Marxist terms in the beginning. The LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham used these terms to define its struggle; thus in its early literature emphasised the fight against the ruling classes, and not against the Sinhalese.
Today, Velupillai Prabhakaran, a fanatic Tamil nationalist, has defined the LTTE’s strategy as a drive for total and complete victory. Both the ideology and tactics of the LTTE reflect this. The LTTE sees any lull in the fighting as an opportunity to recoup its forces. The LTTE first came to the negotiating table at Thimpu in 1984, due to Indian pressure, even as Tamil militants imposed a three-day strike in
Jaffna
to protest against the talks. When they were at a crucial stage, on August 22, 1984, Tamil representatives walked out of the talks, claming that the government was not sincere in its negotiations.
Though Eelam was not on the agenda, the LTTE was adamant in Thimpu on the question of independence, showing that the organisation had only Eelam as its ultimate goal. Again, in 1987,
India
and
Sri Lanka
brokered a peace agreement that promised the Tamils a merger of the eastern and northern provinces, and substantial autonomy. The accord resulted in the Sri Lankan forces withdrawing to its pre-1987 positions when the LTTE was having the worst of the battle. The LTTE, broke the accord and attacked Indian forces sent to keep the peace on the island. To defeat the IPKF, the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE co-operated with each other. After the IPKF left the island in 1989, the LTTE broke off its bonhomie with the Sri Lankan forces.
Ten years later, in 1997, the LTTE refused the devolution package offered by President Chandrika Kumaratunge which promised the best deal possible for the Tamils. The Chandrika offer met all the major grievances of the Tamils. Considerable autonomy was promised to the regions, “equality of status” was accorded to the Tamil and Sinhala languages, and the demarcation of boundaries in the north and the east was in the interests of all the communities. The LTTE reaction was along predictable lines. It argued that the government was trying to impose a “shoddy political settlement through military means” and refused to negotiate.
The LTTE seems to be in tune with Maoist thought. Mao had argued that it was best for the people’s army to retreat when it was hard pressed, and pay attention to the material base (men, material, and environment), such as the strengthening of local defences, godowns to store food and the attempt to win back the support of the people. This is what the LTTE does whenever there is a lull in the fighting.
In other words, there is no point in bringing the LTTE to the negotiating table unless the organisation lays down its arms first. In 1996, after the offer of talks was spurned by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan President ordered the attack against the LTTE. Pushed to the wall, the LTTE tried to secure Indian intervention. The LTTE is not interested in the problems of the Tamil people, it is interested in absolute power for itself. Therefore, it is unlikely that it will agree to any kind of accord with whoever forms the government in
Colombo
.
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