The War of Tamil
Independence
The Severance of Parliamentary Government
from Democracy and War as a Result
29 November 1995
The near-48-year history of independent Sri Lanka
presents an unique, challenging and ominous paradox. Here is a state
which secured independence from imperial rule without a shot being
fired or a single life lost; and yet, its first 35 years of
parliamentary government has produced an internal war of
independence by the Tamil nation, a war which grows in intensity by
the day and already has cost thousands of lives, produced a million
refugees and caused massive destruction of property mainly of the
Tamil people. The peaceful imperial disengagement seems to hold no
lessons for the successor government.
The tragedy shows up in poignant relief the difference between
parliamentary government and democracy. They may coincide and
produce a cohesive state based upon the consent of the governed.
Contrariwise, parliamentary government may exist without democracy
and produce oppression and war. This difference is perfectly
illustrated by the former imperial ruler (the UK) and the successor
state of Sri Lanka.
In the UK it is the universally accepted principle that if, by a
majority vote, any of the constituent nations of the UK (English,
Irish, Scottish or Welsh) decides to secede from the UK and become a
totally independent, separate, sovereign state, there would be no
let or hindrance to its doing so. Indeed such a separation actually
took place in 1922 when 26 counties on the island of Ireland seceded
to form the free, independent, sovereign state of Eire (now The
Irish Republic).
The principle of freedom to secede is repeatedly re-iterated at
every general election in the UK as there are political parties
contesting such elections with precisely that stated objective of
secession. The sanctity of the vox populi of a nation is the bedrock
of democratic life in the UK; it is a basic principle of public
morality to which British nationals of Sinhala and Tamil origin
residing in the UK subscribe without reservation. The coincidence of
parliamentary government and democratic principle produces a
cohesive state based upon the consent of the governed.
In Sri Lanka precisely the opposite is the case. It has been made
perfectly clear to the Tamil nation, after it voted overwhelmingly
in 1977 for secession, that under no circumstances will they be
allowed to secede. The will of the Tamil nation in that respect will
be crushed by the military might of the successor state. The
majority wish of a nation, expressed in a free vote at a general
election, counts for nothing if it is unacceptable to the wish of
the larger nation. That is how parliamentary government has operated
in independent Sri Lanka. It is parliamentary government at a
distant remove from democracy. It is that disjunction that has
produced war.
Nor is there the slightest prospect of a remedy in the various
constitutional reforms that have been produced from time to time by
the government. All of them, without exception, aim to preserve the
paramountcy of the single all-island state. That supersedes all
considerations of democracy or the majority will of a people to
secede. The utmost care is taken to eliminate the slightest vestige
of a right of secession. The paramountcy of the single all island
state, to be clamped on unwilling subjects by military force if
needs be, is the basic principle of political Organization. The
freely-given consent of the governed is seemingly unheard of and
unknown.
It is a classic disjuncture of parliamentary government and
democracy. It has produced not a cohesive, let alone harmonious,
society but one riven by rancorous discord and finally plunged into
war.
RELEVANT MORAL ISSUES
In every war both parties regard themselves as
endowed with moral justification. It cannot be otherwise for war
requires the killing of the troops of one's adversary and encourages
the sacrifice of the lives of one's own. So the doctrine of the
casus belli includes an essential element of moral justification.
Much has been, and continues to be, written on the subject. I urge
everyone troubled by the deep anguish about the moral righteousness
of the positions of our respective nations in this war to read and
reread Michael Walzer's JUST AND UNJUST WARS Basic Books,
Harper/Collins, USA, 2nd edition 1992 ).
For the Sinhala people the moral justification for the war goes
something like this. "It is the Tamil people who are trying to split
up the single all-island state and usurp, even in part, the
sovereignty which that state now possesses. Such an extreme step is
not warranted by the grievances they profess to have, all of which
could be amicably settled by negotiation and secured further by
constitutional change. It is they who have taken up arms against the
state. We have both the right and the duty to protect the state from
subversion and final subdivision".
The position of the Tamil nation is best stated by the Tamil people
and, indeed, only by them. Nevertheless, as far as I can understand
it, their basic position is that they can secure their physical
safety and the integrity of their homeland only by establishing a
state of their own in the area in which they are domiciled as the
majority of the resident population. The only means by which this
end can be secured is by armed struggle and war.
The weakness of the Sinhala case lies in its arrogating to itself
the right to decide that Tamil grievances can be amicably settled.
That is a matter for the Tamil people, not the Sinhala people, to
decide - it is the victim, not the offender, who has the right to
decide on the nature and adequacy of the redress. The end result of
the Sinhala position is the totally immoral denial to the Tamil
nation of the right to rule itself in a state of its own comprising
the area inhabited by it and where it constitutes the majority of
the present population.
The conclusion is inescapable that the Sinhala position in respect
of the casus belli is devoid of moral justification and is based on
a culpable folie de grandeur.
THE PRACTICAL ASPECT
In respect of practical possibility too the Sinhala
position is in equally egregious error. A modern state, headed
willy-nilly for the rigors of economic competition in the 21st
century, requires to be founded upon the freely-given consent of its
citizens. it is impossible to found a modern state upon the
continuous application of military force to a section of its
citizens to repress their desire to secede. Eric Hobsbawm in his
"The Age of Uncertainty" refers to the "democratization of the means
of violence" i.e. the ease with which dissident elements in a state
can arm themselves with a formidable array of weapons, explosives
etc. in support of their objectives. The state's exclusive monopoly
of military force is now a dead-letter. Modern states, existing with
ever-diminishing controls over the movement of goods and information
and people and funds, are more and more vulnerable to urban
guerrilla warfare (demonized as "terrorism"). Even so hallowed a
precinct as Downing Street in the heart of London has had mortar
fire rained down upon it from a small passing van firing through its
sun-roof !
No state, not even the richest and most powerful, can protect all of
its physical assets 24 hours a day 365 days of the year due to the
crippling cost of such an effort. For a desperately poor country
such as Sri Lanka such an attempt would precipitate financial ruin
in the short term.
It is an absolute sine qua non for a modern state that it should be
founded upon a minimally cohesive society in which secessionist
tendencies are marginal and are contained on the periphery by
political means long before they even aspire to' armed struggle,
leave alone resort to open, organized warfare. It is perfectly plain
that in Sri Lanka the situation has long passed that point and now
poses the unthinkable and palpably impossible prospect of continuous
military suppression. The limits of the practicability of such a
course will soon become apparent and could undermine the very
existence of civil government.
There is now no viable or rational alternative to bringing the
dimensions of the state into line with a society from which it can
derive freely-given consent. Only then can the long march to
modernity and progress and self-fulfillment begin.
CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE WAR
For the Sri Lankan government and its armed services
as well as for the Sinhala people this is their first experience of
modern war. All of them display the naiveté of primitive
magnitudinism - the belief is universal that since the Sinhala side
is larger in every physical element, since it has vastly greater
financial and economic resources to back its war effort, it is a
foregone conclusion that victory will be theirs however long
postponed. No account is taken of the numerous instances in recent
world history where precisely the opposite has occurred.
Just at present large sections of the Sinhala people and many of its
leaders believe confidently that victory in the battle for Jaffna,
now in progress, will mean the end of the war. Their own very recent
history is forgotten. That the IPKF took Jaffna in October '87 but
that their war with the LTTE continued for a further 18 months with
ever increasing ferocity until the IPKF withdrew in April '89 is
forgotten. Wishful thinking has replaced realism.
Little is known about the true and deadly nature of nationalist
guerrilla wars of secession; that their duration is to be measured
in decades rather in years; that the guerrillas are strengthened
instead of weakened by the prolonged duration of the conflict; that
nationalism thrives on military reverses and cannot be extinguished
by military force - all of these repeatedly proven factors of the
world's recent experience are unknown.
The new stage of the war could well include the dreaded element of
urban guerrilla warfare waged in the populated centers of Sinhala
society. Colombo has already had its first taste of it. Other cities
and towns in the Sinhala heartland could experience for the first
time the devastation that such attacks could cause. The IPKF could
not be attacked in this way for the urban centers of its origin lay
in another country and beyond the LTTE's reach. The opposite is the
case now. Furthermore, when repressive defensive measures begin to
affect the Tamil plantation population on a large scale their
present cautious, pragmatic leadership could be undermined. The
policies of the Sri Lankan government at this juncture could well
produce a Prabhakaran in the hill country exactly as they did in the
north.
The recent enormous increase in refugees is a factor of great
military and tactical importance in a guerrilla war. Israel has
learnt to its cost how the squalid refugee camps of Lebanon and the
Gaza strip became a fertile recruiting ground for all the numerous
Arab guerrilla movements, not just the PLO. It is not too
exaggerated to say that as long as there are refugee camps, so long
will there be guerrilla warfare. The battle for the hearts and minds
of the young men and young women who languish in refugee camps can
never be won by the forces that put them there; it is those who
offer them the challenge of winning their security and dignity by
the force of their own arms who have won their allegiance time and
again.
The military offensive that commenced in October '95 marks a
watershed in the war of Tamil independence in a manner undreamt of
by the Sinhala government, its armed forces and the Sinhala nation.
FEATURES OF THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT'S MILITARY EFFORT
Earlier in this paper it was stated that a war of
this type is essentially a war of attrition. In all such wars it has
been the government fighting to preserve the status quo (in Sri
Lanka the single all-island state) which suffers attrition before
the nationalist guerrillas. How long such a war will last in Sri
Lanka depends upon several factors peculiar to this particular
conflict.
Sri Lanka has no armaments industry worth the name. Nearly
everything required by its armed forces has to be imported and paid
for in scarce foreign exchange. The purchase of new, state
of-the-art, equipment is completely beyond the limited funds
available so used and/or obsolete items being jettisoned by
desperately cash-strapped East European countries e.g. the 2 Antonov
transport aircraft which plunged into the sea shortly after being
received in Sri Lanka) are purchased. The IPKF, on the other hand,
was backed by India’s large armaments industry some of whose
factories are located in Tamilnadu state, north of Madras.
In addition Sri Lanka suffers from a very precarious foreign
exchange balance. It is able to service its foreign loans largely
from the annual foreign exchange transfusions from the international
aid consortium. The garment export industry, which is the largest
foreign exchange earner, requires a great deal of foreign exchange
for the import of its raw materials. Tourism too entails foreign
exchange outgoings though on a lesser scale. Both these industries
are very vulnerable to the hazards of urban guerrilla warfare. The
needed defensive counter-measures themselves will affect tourism
adversely even if there are no guerrilla attacks on tourist
facilities. In the UK , which has a full-blown armaments industry,
the government was able to sustain the 26-year anti-guerrilla war
against the IRA but was unable to crush the guerrillas. Even without
any imports of armaments that effort cost the UK E 3.5 billion per
year to contain a mere 300 guerrillas of the IRA. That enormous
drain on its resources has contributed in no small measure to the
UK’s current lowly standing in the world's prosperity league.
The recent escalation of the war in Sri Lanka, entailing increased
imports of military hardware of all types, will swallow up foreign
exchange earnings and reserves on a scale that cannot be long
sustained. Already the scarcity of foreign exchange is being
reflected in the steep decline in the exchange rate of the Sri Lanka
rupee and this will add to the inflationary impetus of
local-currency military expenditures.
It is extremely unlikely, therefore, that the present high-intensity
military operation can be sustained at this level for another 12
months. This could result in a reversion to a low-intensity holding
operation which could drag on for decades.
STATES IN THE MODERN WORLD
In a fast shrinking world every state becomes
enmeshed willy-nilly in ever-closer, and ever-more. competitive,
relationships with its trading and investing fellow members of the
comity of nations. To build up such relationships on a reasonably
equitable basis competitive capability needs to be constantly
upgraded. This can be done only in conditions of peace. Every state
engaged in a long-drawn-out war falls back in relative terms. Sri
Lanka is one of the best examples of this. In 1948, when Sri Lanka
became independent, it had a g.n.p. per capita per annum of around
US$ 200 - the same as another British colony, The Federated Malay
States. Today the figures are Sri Lanka US$ 580-, Singapore US$
18,200 and Malaysia US$ 3200. In 1962 The Federated Malay States
split up peacefully without a shot being fired or a single life lost
into two independent, sovereign states.
As the world progresses primitiveness acquires a new connotation
with every passing decade. Long-continued war will unquestionably
relegate Sri Lanka ( as it has already done Myanmar now in the 47th
year of an exactly similar war ) to the lower levels of
primitiveness as the new century dawns and progresses.
THE TAMIL STATE ON THE ISLAND
A state is, in the last resort, a state of mind. In
that sense the Tamil state already exists in the hearts and minds of
the Tamil people. The assumption of the overt forms of a state is
delayed. by the continuance of the war of independence. That delay
is unavoidable for a war of independence must necessarily be a war
of attrition, not one in which a military victory can be secured.
That is the essence of nationalist guerrilla wars of secession. The
continuance of such a war day by day is a daily victory which
contributes towards the final objective of independence.
THE ROLE OF A NATIONAL DIASPORA
In many wars of independence a national Diaspora has
played an important part. The classic examples are the Jewish and
Irish Diaspora, both of which contributed towards the establishment
of an independent state for each of their nations and continues to
participate in the work of nation-building. Both followed courses.
First, financial, logistical and moral support for their emerging
states locked in war. Then the clear explication to host nations and
the international community of the raison d’etre of the war of
independence. Next the long and patient endeavor to secure their
foothold in the host country, obtain citizenship and voting rights
and through them influence public understanding and secure media
support for the struggle of their compatriots back home. Finally,
when the time is right, the build-up towards securing the
sponsorship of the host state for the international recognition of
the emergent state. There is no doubt that the Tamil Diaspora, which
shares so many characteristics of the Jewish, will tread this
well-worn road until the independence of the Tamil state is achieved
and it joins the comity of nations.
CONCLUSION
Wars of independence, like other wars, come to an
end some day. All wars of independence (save the Biafran struggle
which was not a guerrilla war but a conventional war fought by
regular army units of Biafran extraction ) have ended by the
securing of independent statehood by the nation fighting for it. In
Sri Lanka the stage is now set for a long-drawn-out guerrilla war,
the total impoverishment of both nations, the demise of civil
government among the Sinhala people and the eventual establishment
of the state of Eelam. The best efforts of the Sinhala state can
only postpone this sequence of events - they cannot avert the final
outcome. |
