High Security
Zones
26 March 2002
1. High security zones which have become such a
vexed subject of contention between the GOSL and the LTTE lately
have received only a passing mention in the Agreement on a Ceasefire
of 23rd February 2002 ( loosely called the Memorandum of
Understanding ). Article 2.2 of The Agreement provides for places of
religious worship falling within high security zones to be returned
to civilian control by 25th March 2002. That is the only mention of
high security zones. Article 2.11 ( I ) refers to “security forces’
camps on the coast” but high security zones are mentioned only in
Article 2.2 in the very limited way mentioned above.
2. However, it is now known that in the thickly populated Jaffna
peninsula the 30,000 or so troops of the GOSL stationed there are
located in “high security zones” comprising considerable extents of
private residential and agricultural property from which their
owners and occupiers have been evicted . The present imbroglio is
about having some of these lands released from military occupation
and returned to their former use. The GOSL’s military commanders in
Jaffna seem to be reluctant to release any land and, instead, have
asked the LTTE to disarm or redeploy its forces in the near vicinity
as a precondition for any release of these lands. The army
commander’s letter to the LTTE on this subject contains the word
“terrorist” which does not appear anywhere in the Agreement between
the GOSL and the LTTE. Perhaps with a view to defusing some of the
tension built up already the GOSL has engaged a retired Indian
military officer, Lt.General Satish Nambiar to look into the matter
and recommend a compromise. He has met with GOSL officers in Jaffna
and civilian organisations in Jaffna who have an interest in a
solution but the LTTE has had no meeting with him so far. He has
made it clear that there are both political and practical aspects to
the problem and that his remit is only to the practical aspects and
not to the political.
The practical aspects of the problem
3. From some commentaries in the English language press in Colombo
it is possible to deduce that there is a triumphalistic feeling
about the presence of such a large GOSL military force in the Jaffna
peninsula. It is said that however hard it tried the LTTE was unable
to expel these GOSL forces from its heartland . On the other hand
the forces in question find themselves surrounded by an hostile
population in a thickly inhabited area.
Until the Agreement was concluded the food , fuel
and supplies needed by these forces were transported by sea and air;
now though a land route is open it passes through a considerable
mileage of LTTE held land. It is a very precarious situation for any
military force to be in and in the event of a resumption of
hostilities its plight could be dire indeed. So its desire to see
the LTTE disarmed or ,at least, relocated so that its long-range
artillery could not reach the high security zones is understandable.
In short, the “security” in the phrase “high security zones” is the
security of the GOSL forces in the virtual state of siege in which
they now are.
The understandable apprehensions of the GOSL forces
can be dispelled only if the surrounding population becomes well
disposed towards them. Not only is this an impossibility so long as
they are excluded from their homes and agricultural lands but on the
contrary the very peace that has been established by the Agreement
promotes an ever growing pressure for the return of the lands in
question which when frustrated by refusal raises the level and
intensity of hostility. The situation may be likened to a powder keg
which far from being defused is, instead, being primed for an
explosion.
4. The other side to the practical aspects of the problem is the
unenviable, indeed intolerable, situation of the people whose
properties have been forcibly requisitioned by the GOSL forces. Many
of them languish in indescribable conditions in squalid refugee
camps supplied with meagre hard rations by NGO’s both foreign and
local. Nor have they been told of what compensation will be paid to
them for the deprivation they have suffered and continue to suffer.
This has been their plight for the last seven years and the
government which is responsible for their welfare has not evinced
the slightest interest, let alone sense of urgency, in restoring
their homes and lands to them.
On the contrary, the government admits virtually
that it is unable to deal with the problem which is why Satish
Nambiar had to be called in. Any compromise recommended by Satish
Nambiar could well be acceptable neither to the GOSL forces nor to
the evicted landowners throwing back on to the government the hard
decision of what should be done. Which brings us directly to the
political aspects of the problem which Satish Nambiar has said,
quite rightly, is not a matter for him.
The political aspects of the problem
5. There are very fundamental issues that lie at the very heart of
the problem. Thirty thousand Sinhala troops find themselves besieged
in the Jaffna peninsula as the direct result of the policies of a
succession of Sinhala governments which had only one answer to the
secessionist demands of the Tamil people, namely, the military
answer. It was relied on long before the LTTE came into being.
Indeed, it was that policy that brought the LTTE into being and
fashioned it into the powerful entity it now is. This is not a
phenomenon peculiar to Sri Lanka. In many other countries military
force has been relied on to deal with political issues unpalatable
to the government in power. Some of them are governments which
should have known better on the basis of their own history.
Today, British troops patrol the towns and villages
of Northern Ireland and its challenger, the IRA, grows in strength
and influence all the time, unvanquished and unvanquishable. The
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia depended on military force to
suppress the nationalistic urges of its several nations which strove
for a looser bond. Just this week it vanished finally from the
international scene, to be replaced by the joint state of
Serbia-Montenegro which has a few common institutions and in which
referenda will be held in each state in three years time to decide
on complete sovereign independence. The high security zones are the
result of massive policy failure and the urgent, dangerous
possibilities they pose can only be dealt with by a fundamental
change of policy abandoning the military route for an attempt to win
the hearts and minds of the Tamil people.
6. We must begin to understand that the people of the Tamil nation
inhabiting the northeast of the island have a perfect right to rule
themselves in a state of their own. They do not deny that right to
us. They acknowledge that we have a perfect right to rule ourselves
in a state of our own where we live. It is our refusal to recognize
that right in them that has led to 18 years of war and our
ignominious defeat at the hands of the LTTE. In the sonorous
rhetoric of the Vaddukoddai Resolution, exactly 200 years after the
American Declaration of Independence, the Tamil nation opted for
complete independence in 1976. An year later, at a general election
conducted by the Sri Lankan government, they voted overwhelmingly
for the aspirations of that Resolution. In 18 years of relentless
war and heroic sacrifice against the Indian Army and the GOSL army
they have won the right to self rule in their homeland.
7. It is we, not they, who desire that the Tamil nation should dwell
in the same state as ourselves. At our unremitting urging for a
single state their leader. Mr.Pirapaharan, has now expressed his
willingness to accede to our request on the basis of complete
internal self-rule within a single state. He has made it quite
unambiguously clear that if that proves unattainable the alternative
will be complete, separate independence. There can be no more sure
and certain way of demonstrating to him and his people the
impossibility of living together in peace and dignity in a single
state than insistence on the maintenance of high security zones
amongst his people not only in the Jaffna peninsula but also
elsewhere in the northeast of the island. The time has come for the
tectonic plates that have underlain our failed policies to undergo a
seismic change. The military option has to be abandoned root and
branch for a rational accommodation with our heroic neighbours on
the basis of equality and good-neighbourliness. Then, and only then,
can they and we sit down together to fashion a new state which will
satisfy the rights and aspirations of our two nations.
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