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Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Sri Lanka's Broken Pacts & Evasive Proposals > Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95 >Sri Lanka: Preparing for War, while pursuing Peace?
Tamil Eelam News Letter December 1994
Sri Lanka: Preparing for War, while pursuing Peace?.
When four months ago, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga became Prime Minister of Sri
Lanka, she gave the country a new-buzz-word: PEACE. A war-weary Sinhalese
electorate gave her an emphatic mandate for peace three months later which
brought her the Presidency. Discovering for the first time in their history, a
Sinhalese leader talking of peace ( and a dialogue with the LTTE), the Tamils
too, quite naturally, got enamoured of the word Peace, and in the process of
Chandrika herself. Now today, more than one month after she became President,
the word Peace continues to be in currency, but the buzz is steadily
evaporating!
Winning a mandate is only one aspect of the matter. Carrying forward the mandate
is quite another. (After all, even the TULF got a mandate for Tamil Eelam 17
years ago) Moreover, Peace is just a word; at best. a concept. Peace means the
end of war, but how does a war end without a durable political settlement? The
Sinhalese electors did not have to bother at the time of voting about what kind
of a political settlement it should be, because it was the responsibility of the
leader to whom they gave the mandate to end the war and work it out.
But it is precisely here that the sticking point begins; where the cookie begins
to crumble. Are the armed forces prepared to take direction from the political
authority? Are her own electors prepared to go far enough to accept a political
settlement that would give Tamils "a stable, permanent peace where their rights
are protected", in the words of Tamil Eelam leader Pirabakaran? Will the
war-mongers and war- beneficiaries in the South, working through three leading
newspaper groups in Colombo give her time to push through whatever settlement
President Kumaratunga has in view - the terms of which no one knows until now,
neither the Tamils nor the Sinhalese.
The Colombo Press which had always had a black record, along with the Buddhist
clergy, in preventing any kind of accord between the Sinhalese and Tamils during
the past 40 years, are already at it again; mercifully though, the strident
voice of the clergy is getting muted.
All newspaper groups in Colombo have been failing over each other in recent
times, in creating. a mass hysteria about the LTTE. The twin objectives of the
campaign appear to be:
1. To upset the peace process 2. To bedevil relations between India and the
LTTE
"War clouds loom over north again", said a Page 1 headline of a Colombo
newspaper on November 20. The1TTE was getting ready for a major war, it said. A
large arms shipment was due any time. The Chandrika government had asked India
to intercept the arms-carrying ship in mid-seas. The mystery ship, according to
the editorial, was carrying "10 tons of RDX, and 50 tons of TNT, enough to blow
up half of Sri Lanka." The editorial writer had evidently taken a close
inspection of the cargo, even before the ship was sighted! The
government-controlled Sunday Observer not to be outdone, was reported in an
Indian newspaper, the Indian Express, as saying that American' ground-to-air
missiles may also be in the ship's cargo!
Apparently, in an orchestrated effort, on the same day, November 20, another
Sunday newspaper went to town with another 5column headline about "Air Tigers".
Quoting a Colombo-based ex-Tamil armed group and some unknown Indian.
intelligence sources in the same breath, the paper went on to say that "the
first air target may be in Tamil Nadu"!
Then came a report that military intelligence had warned that there was "a
serious threat to the life of Deputy Defence Minister Anurudha Ratwatte from the
Tigers. Several heavily armed commandos in camouflage uniform now form a human
wall in front of Col. Ratwatte whenever he is in public, even at cocktail
parties and other formal occasions when he meets top officials and diplomats in
his office", said the report. Meanwhile, the "Defence Correspondent" of the same
paper achieved a new journalistic low in discussing in print the various
possibilities of killing Mr. Pirabakaran!
Unloading panic merchandise about the Tigers on an unsuspecting, uncritical
readership both in Sri Lanka and the outside world, may be also good media cover
for the hectic preparations going on, on the government side, for what seems to
be a bid by the armed forces for "the mother of all battles". Does the sudden
desire of the request for a cease-fire indicate a ploy for buying time? After
all, Parliamentary approval has been got for a 27 percent hike in the defence
budget, raising it to more than Rs.25 billion ($ 510.2 million). The Air Force
had been made a sucker by arms dealers in dumping on them defective helicopters
from Russia. They have to be replaced. Fresh tenders have been called for the
purchase of three large Antonov transport planes and six large helicopters. So
the 72 million dollar arms deal with a Russian company seems very much in
place.
Tenders have also been called for 350 sets of body armour for the army's senior
officers. Each set is reported to be costing Rs.43,000 totalling almost Rs.13
million; and they have yet to arrive from the U.S. May be, the generals and
brigadiers and colonels want to lead the war from the front?
In the light of all these, the LTTE leadership has a duty to inform its own
people, that while their hearts may yearn for peace, their minds have to be
steeled to meet any new adventurism by government forces once the monsoon
recedes.
Above all, Tamils have to guard against being mesmerised by words alone. Even
President Kumaratunga has to be judged not by what she says, but what she does.