CONFLICT RESOLUTION
TAMIL EELAM -
SRI LANKA
Why a
Federal Set up is infeasible
(in the Island of Lanka)
Suntharam, 18
September 2007
Comment by tamilnation.org
Suntharam is right to point out the infeasibility of a
federal set up in the island of Sri Lanka. There is
however one matter on which we disagree. Suntharam says
that "..
the world kept believing that the island is ruled
democratically with justice for all ethnic groups simply
because elections are held, however
preordained, to bring, equally predictably, obdurate Sinhala
politicians to the seats of iron clad power which might pass
from one Sinhala party to another thus producing
another illusion of
democracy in the island..."
In our view, the world
is not stupid. It may be unwise for us to believe that the
world does not see that which we can see. It is not that the
world does not see the truth of that which the Gandhian
Tamil Eelam leader,
S.J.V.Chelvanayagam declared more than 30 years ago in 1975.
"Throughout the ages the
Sinhalese and Tamils in the country lived as distinct
sovereign people till they were brought under foreign
domination...
We have for the last 25 years made every effort to
secure our political rights on the basis of equality
with the Sinhalese in a united Ceylon. It is a
regrettable fact that successive Sinhalese governments
have used the power that flows from independence
to deny us our fundamental rights and reduce us to the
position of a subject people. These governments have
been able to do so only by using against the Tamils the
sovereignty common to the Sinhalese and the Tamils. I
wish to announce to my people and to the country that I
consider the verdict at this election as a mandate that
the
Tamil Eelam nation should exercise the sovereignty
already vested in the Tamil people and become free."
After all, the
1981 Massachusetts Resolution did
declare that "successive Sinhala governments have been
guilty of racism and acts of racial discrimination against
the Tamils in the fields of education, employment, religion,
politics, economic development and trade" and then
call for "the Restoration of the Separate Sovereign State of
Tamil Eelam." But the 1981
Massachusetts
Resolution was a cynical
exercise in real politick directed to help US keep its oars
in the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka.
"..The
rise of Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka and the Jayawardene
government's serious apprehensions about this
development were utilised by the US and Pakistan to
create a politico-strategic pressure point against
India, in the island's strategically sensitive coast off
the Peninsula of India..."
Jyotindra Nath Dixit
, Indian High Commissioner in
Sri Lanka 1985 /89, Foreign Secretary in 1991/94 and
National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India
2004/05
The harsh
political reality is that states choose to believe that
which will help them secure their own strategic interests.
It is not that they do not have the resources to ascertain
the true facts. It is not that they are misled by 'clever
Sri Lanka' (a la Lakshman Kadirgamar et al). In the case of
the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, the actions of the
so called international community are directed to secure
each of their own (conflicting) strategic interests in
the
Indian Ocean region. [see
Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom: Some Aspects of the
International Dimension ] It is this political reality
that we as a people need to confront and address.
Otherwise
we will continue to confuse ourselves by believing
that all that needs to be done is to wake up the
international community to the facts and the justice of our
cause and all will be well.
This is the limitation of some of our current discourse.
It is a limitation that we need to transcend.
Mamanithar Dharmeretnam Sivaram was right to point out four
years ago in 2003 -
"..Today it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that
India and the US-UK-Japan Bloc are trying to influence
and manage Sri Lanka's peace process to promote and
consolidate their respective strategic and
economic interests... From 1983 to 86, it was taboo
among Tamils to
propagate the truth that India was exploiting their
cause to gain a foothold in Sri Lanka. The few who
dared to speak about India's hegemonistic designs were
admonished not to be too rash lest we provoke Delhi's
ire and cause a disruption in the weapons handouts by
the RAW....The price the Tamil liberation movement as a
whole had to pay for not educating the people about the
truth of India's intentions was high. At this
juncture, even a doddering dullard would find the deja
vu inescapable...The Tamil nation cannot afford to
make the same mistake again... "
The Tamil
nation cannot afford to make the same mistake again.
Otherwise in the same way as the
Massachusetts Resolution sought to use Tamil suffering
to further US strategic interests in 1981, and India sought
to use Tamil militancy in the 1980s to destabilise Colombo,
we may now see a concerted effort by US and India (together
with the help of UN mechanisms) to use the suffering
and pain of the Tamil people as a lever, to secure a
more pliable Colombo in the face of the increasing presence
of China in the Indian Ocean region. And after the strategic
interests of the so called international community are
secured, we may end up with something similar to the
Comic Opera
Reforms which were offered under the
Indo Sri Lanka Accord - with a Governor appointed by the
Sinhala President, ruling the Tamil homeland.
Shyam Saran, Special Envoy to Indian
Prime Minister, & Indian Foreign Secretary 2004 - 2006
explained India's current foreign policy with forthrightness
in Singapore on 30 August 2007 -
"...We
are already in a world of what I would call "asymmetric
multipolarity" with the asymmetry progressively
diminishing over a period of time. India has an
instinctive preference for multipolarity.. On
the other hand, there will be issues on which there
could well be coalitions of powers whose interests may
be convergent on specific issues."
Suntharam
is right to point out that the struggle of the people of
Tamil Eelam is not about devolution. Devolution is about
devolving from the higher to the lower. The higher is the
ruler and the lower is the ruled. Alien rulers are not slow
to offer (from time to time) 'consultation' and
'devolution' as ways of pacifying their subjects,
perpetuating their rule, and progressing the
'peaceful' assimilation of a conquered people.The short
point is that the deliberate genocidal attacks on the people
of Tamil Eelam are directed to terrorise the Tamil people to
submit to alien Sinhala rule. The conflict in the island is
about the refusal of the people of Tamil Eelam to
submit to alien Sinhala rule, within the confines of a
single state with a Sinhala army in command in the
Tamil homeland. The
charge is genocide - but the struggle is for freedom.
And it is this twin message that we, as a people,
need to carry to the world. Each one of us is an
ambassador of a struggle for freedom. We need to engage with
those who may not agree with us on the justice of that which
S.J.V. Chelvanayagam declared in 1975 (and the State of
Maschachusetts proclaimed in 1981) and discuss openly with
them the strategic interests which their countries seek to
secure in the Indian Ocean region - and in what way those
strategic interests have impacted on the evaluation of the
justice and righteousness of the
Tamil Eelam
struggle for freedom. We may need to point out that
views such as those expressed by former US Ambassador
Lunstead in
United States Role in Sri Lanka Peace Process
2002-2006 are at odds with
the facts.
“..With
the end of the Cold War, U.S. interest in Sri Lanka
waned. As recently as 2000, the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) was planning for
significantly reduced development assistance levels. The
enhanced engagement that commenced in 2001 occurred
despite the absence of significant U.S. strategic
interests in Sri Lanka. Political-military interests are
not high, and the U.S. has no interest in military
bases in Sri Lanka."
United States Role in Sri Lanka Peace
Process 2002-2006, Jeffrey Lunstead, 15 May 2007
We may need
to express our concern that such denials are simply a cover
up for strategic interests which may be denied but cannot be
hidden -
It is true
that it is difficult to wake up those who pretend to be
asleep - but, it is not impossible. They usually wake up
when they find that increasing numbers of people find that
their sleep is no longer credible.
By
saying “infeasible” I am implying that I am more pessimistic than if
I just said it is not workable or any agreement with the Sinhala
government will not be honestly implemented or that the negotiations
will break down or that such a solution will not even be devolved to
the Tamil nation. I am in fact saying all these - based on the more
than fifty years of degenerate Sinhala attitudes.
Mr
Rajapakse, the president of Sri Lanka unequivocally confirmed and
endorsed this in his recent interview to a news organization when he
said that he was elected by the Sinhalese and the Sinhalese do not
want anything to do with a federal solution to the long drawn ethnic
conflict.
How
prescient and what an astute observer of the Sinhala nature
Prabakharan
was! And what a smart gambit it was when he admonished the Tamils
about the futility of voting for a Sinhala President! He wanted the
interested world to know the mentality of the Sinhala South, what an
unblended Sinhala electorate is like and what kind of ‘supreme’
leader they would elect. He has been amply confirmed in his
expectations.
The
two nation situation is the reality; the Sinhala nation in the south
and the Tamil nation in the north/east; that in the government the
Sinhala nation unilaterally and arbitrarily decides and acts as to
how much oppression that the Tamils should be subjected to, how the
resources of the Tamil nation are be appropriated for the benefit of
the Sinhala nation among other deprivations and depredations of the
Tamil Nation.
And
the world kept believing that the island is ruled democratically
with justice for all ethnic groups simply because elections are
held, however preordained, to bring, equally predictably, obdurate
Sinhala politicians to the seats of iron clad power which might pass
from one Sinhala party to another thus producing another illusion of
democracy in the island.
While
the JVP and JHU are avowedly anti-Tamil, sworn to the destruction of
the Tamil Nation, because of its pro-west policies, the UNP
leaderships’ Tamil-baiting history was ignored by the international
community.
By
joining last week the rest of the Sinhala parties in expressing firm
support for the destructive war against the Tamils the UNP has not
only displayed its true historic proclivities but also has proved to
the world the unbridgeable and intrinsic divide between the Tamil
Nation and the Sinhala nation. Therefore, the “unitary state” of Sri
Lanka is an imperial idea pervading the minds of the Sinhala and
finds no correspondence in the islands ethnic reality.
Understandably, the “unitary state” is absolute anathema to the
Tamil nation and will be resisted tooth and nail; lest it should in
all probability result in the crystallization of the present the
subjugation of the Tamils and a loss of all they value and possess
and rapid extinction as a nation.
What
then, one thinks of the proposal of a pseudo federal solution,
evidently unauthorized by those in power, which is touted, off and
on, as is the practice just as the half-hearted and muted “concern”
expressed by the international players? It is more a red-herring
than a sop and it is going nowhere for the reasons that I produce in
the following.
1.
The politics of Sri Lanka is, in practice, an ethnic dictatorship by
the Sinhala in democracy’s clothing. The dominant characteristic of
a dictatorship is, by definition, to not even deign to devolve
power. Holding on to power, absolute power, is its
raison d'être. Absolute
power entails all the power not only in the minutiae executive
matters of the state but also in every other area such as
legislative, judiciary, financial, defence, etc. Controlling is the
means to forestall any diminution of power, perceived or real. Thus:
i. Tamils
have to be strictly controlled
ii. All
institutions of legislation, finance, defence, etc have to be
answerable to the Sinhala
Individual dictators eventually die and the dictatorship may die
with him; but not so with ethnic dictatorship. Dictatorships get
more oppressive with time as is the case in Sri Lanka. Dictatorships
normally do not concede power voluntarily; they have to be ended
forcibly.
2.
Polls in Sri Lanka confirm the fact of ethnic dictatorship. In the
last poll only 5% of Sinhala support a federal constitution, even
that with caveats. Thus, changing the existing constitution through
a referendum by two-thirds majority is a political impossibility.
3.
Even if one assumes that by discarding the existing constitution and
making a fresh start one obviates the need to observe the provisions
of the old constitution, the decision to dispense with the existing
constitution has to be taken by the Sinhala legislature and
sustained by the Sinhala judiciary, not to mention the referendum.
4. If
by some miracle a constitutional change is made accommodating a
“federal” form of government, in any such arrangement the fact of
the almost unique “bi-state” configuration in which one member of
the federation (the Sinhala south) which in the present unitary
government having exercised hegemonic power which has been the root
cause of the conflict the federal form is meant to heal, must be
kept uppermost in mind. That is, the North East should have
indefeasible protection, constitutional and otherwise, from the
South reverting to the current practice either through default or
ambiguities latent or otherwise in the constitution or by reneging
as the South is famous for. Therefore, constitutionally
i. There
must be equal representation of the two federal states in all
institutions of the central government
ii. The
weaker of the two states, viz, the North/East should maintain its
armed strength in order to protect its constitutional rights being
violated or vitiated by the other state.
These two provisos should be held as non-negotiable in any
political modus Vivendi
both parties agree upon. Even as we recognize that “federal” is not
inscribed in stone and that it is a political term and as such it is
amenable to the “art of the possible”, Tamils must strive to ensure
that the sins of the Sinhala unitary state are not smuggled into the
federal arrangement too.
There
is talk in the Sinhala political hierarchy about “power sharing”
without change of structure, a kind of amorphous trickle-down vision
in which all power is dispensed from high above by the Sinhala
overlords and the Tamils squat down cupping their hands to accept
the drip. That is “for the birds” of the feather like Anandasangree,
“Douglas” and Karuna. We Tamils have experienced that travesty of
democracy for more than fifty years!
This
is not to say even if the above strictures are adhered to that I am
advocating a federal form, without further delineation of the
configuration of political powers as between the two states. What
one must bear in mind is that the Tamils, at this stage of the
struggle, are not asking to be associated with the Sinhala state in
a federal arrangement and most certainly not in the opprobrious
unitary, almost colonial relationship.
Thus
I consider the condescending term “devolution” objectionable. It is
the Sinhala state that wants an association with the Tamil Nation
and the question that naturally arises is, “for whose benefit-quo
bono?” Clearly if there is to be a sanction by the Tamil Nation for
any political relationship with the Sinhala nation it is neither to
satisfy the hegemonic craving of the Sinhala nation nor to surrender
the Tamil Nation’s ancestral land and heritage to a rapacious race
of people.
It
would be only because there would be secure, tangible benefits
accruing to the Tamil Nation. For that to be the case the following
matters have to be resolved in the context of two autonomous nations
sharing the island territory. Namely,
1.
Restitution of land of the Tamil nation in the East
colonized by the Sinhala at the expense of the Tamils as part of the
GOSL schemes since independence
2.
Control of the sea and air of the national territories
3.
Raising of Finance externally
4.
Economic Policies and development
5.
Control of immigration and emigration
6.
Status of Sinhala in the Tamil Nation and Tamil in the
Sinhala nation
7.
Status of Buddhism in the Tamil Nation and Saivaism in
the Sinhala nation
8.
Existing GOSL debts
9.
“Disappeared” Tamil civilians
10.
“Reparations” for destruction of property and
degradation of the environment in occupied territory
11.
Compensation for civilians killed in occupied
territory
12.
Compensation for civilians evicted from areas for the
purpose of the so called High Security Zones
13.
Extraction of minerals, including oil from land and
sea bed
14.
Existing international agreements affecting each
nation
15.
Currency
16.
Aviation (civil and military)
17.
Borders and border control
18.
Foreign Investments
The
Muslim factor: The Muslims now are getting along famously with the
Sinhala, some Tamils say ruefully, on the backs of the Tamils. Well,
so are some non-Muslim Tamils. Not only that these non-Muslim
Tamils, in association with the Sinhala army, are committing on a
daily basis large scale murders of their own brethren. But as far as
the Muslims are concerned, to the extent they are willing to be part
of the Tamil Nation, which the rest of the Tamils consider they are,
there is a niche for them in the Tamil Nation. Historically they
have played their political cards adroitly and, if anything, they
are very flexible.
Any
model of federal or quasi federal form of government which is
practiced in a multi-state political environment such as in India as
touted by such bankrupt politicians as Anandasangaree will not work
for the Tamils in a two-state milieu such as would be in the island
of Sri Lanka considering the numerical preponderance and the history
of intolerance of one of the two nations. The Sinhala nation, as
they are now, would be the judge, jury and the executioner. |
