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Tigers two pronged strategy
Island International
3 December 1989
As the last Indian soldier leaves the shores of Sri Lanka and the
North east Provincial Council crumbles with the imminent
“re-induction” of his troops in the North and East, Prabhakaran has
scored another point to support his longstanding claim: the only
solution to the woes of the Tamil people is Thamileelam. Posters put
up by the LTTE in Colombo and in the North and east last week to
celebrate “the great heroes day” proclaimed the LTTE motto, “The
thirst of the Tigers is for the motherland of Thamileelam.” Dr
Balasingham and Yogi made it clear they had no hand in the actions
of the Sri Lankan forces that saw the TNA [Tamil National Army]
retreat from Ampara when they addressed public meetings at Pottuvil
and Thambiluvil last week. They were trying to counteract Perumal’s
persistent claim that they were operating hand-in-glove with the
STF. Their concern to rectify the damage done to their nationalist
image by this is evident.
From its inception the LTTE had a two-pronged strategy. One, to
militarily struggle towards separation; the other to politically
emasculate or physically eliminate those sections and individuals in
the Tamil community having a manifest inclination to compromise, who
had influence or were gaining it.
The two objectives are being strengthened once again with the
imminent departure of the Indian forces.
Firstly, the LTTE’s morale has received a tremendous boost from the
fact that it was the only force in Sri Lanka to have taken up arms
to effectively oppose the presence of the Indian forces. Secondly,
in the eyes of the Tamils, the Provincial Council- the latest post
independence ‘solution’ to the problem of Tamils- and Varatharajah
Perumal, who has spoken in the name of unity and integrity of Sri
Lanka, may now both appear ephemeral. This would appear to
strengthen the LTTE’s point that compromise does not politically
gain anything for the Tamils. (Yogi said in Thambiluvil that the
Provincial Council was nothing more than a Village Council.)
TULF’s decline:
The campaign against the DDC’s [District Development Council’s] was
the beginning of the TULF’s decline. The TULF’s compromise on the
DDCs and their decision to participate in their election was the
basis on which their general alienation began. For the LTTE, the
1977 elections were only a ‘referendum’ which confirmed the Tamil
people’s commitment to a separate state. The Tiger claim is that
they and only they have not betrayed the mandate given by the Tamil
people and that their struggle for a separate state is based on this
mandate. The latest issue of the pro-LTTE paper “Unmai” condemns the
Northeast Provincial Council as one that has shamelessly sold the
Tamils and the Tamil soil. The paper constantly endeavors to portray
Perumal as a traitor. The style and content are reminiscent of the
anti-TULF literature of the early 1980’s put out by almost all the
militant groups.
In 1983, when PLOTE was the first militant organization to warn of
ulterior and deleterious Indian designs on the Tamil issue in Sri
Lanka with the publication of a book “Vankam Thantha Padam” (The
Lesson that was Bangladesh) the LTTE had not come to face with the
so-called geopolitical realities.
The “Broken Palmyrah” says: “And it [the LTTE] was falling short by
not conceptualizing India’s needs and aspirations so as to construct
a path of accommodation of the geopolitical reality without total
dependency and capitulation.” (But on the other hand, the ‘terrorist
interpretation’ of Hegel may have it that ‘success decides the
truth’).
In early 1986 the LTTE exterminated TELO in a ruthless and bloody
massacre and told the Tamil people they had done so because TELO was
acting in the interest of India. At that time, this view came as a
surprise to many among the Tamils who continued to look upon India
as the ultimate guarantor of whatever Sri Lankan Government might
concede. From then on, the LTTE made all efforts to make it clear to
the people that India’s assistance was appreciated, but not its
interference.
LTTE’s tactics:
Despite criticism about the LTTE’s naive attitude towards India, its
propaganda continued to be directed against any compromise with the
Sri Lankan government on the basis of India’s various proposals. In
1986, the LTTE went so far as to solicit the support of the EPRLF,
PLOTE and Panagoda Maheswaran’s TEA- all of whom were extremely
suspicious of the Tigers because of what they had done to TELO only
a few months before- to organize a mass rally to protest the talks
in Colombo. By January 1987, the LTTE had created a situation on the
ground in the North and East where for either India or Sri Lanka,
there were only the Tigers to reckon with. The LTTE’s solution to
the intricacies of ‘geopolitical reality’ was to make itself the
sole representative of the Tamils so that regional hegemony or Sri
Lankan diplomacy would have no way of advancing its interests
without this being in some way tactically advantageous to the LTTE.
Nevertheless, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord opened an avenue which the
LTTE thought would never open. The Accord brought Colombo as a
direct factor into Tamil militant politics for the first time. The
Indian Army in the North and East and the training and weapons given
just before the Accord made it possible for the other groups to
function and enter into dialogue with Colombo. The LTTE was once
again faced with a threat of ‘compromise’ which they assumed they
had banished for good or exterminated.
Varatharajah Perumal remains.
If a solution put forward by the Sri Lankan government and the
Indian Government and sustained by the world’s largest army could
fall like a domino, then what will save the Tamils from their
misery? It now seems that once the Indian army withdraws completely,
only the LTTE will be around, with its ultimate remedy. Like
Amirthalingam, Perumal also has to be politically emasculated.
Therefore, effecting a legal dissolution of the Northeast Provincial
Council and a subsequent rout of Perumal- which would be guaranteed
by popular support in the North and domination on the ground in the
East- in fresh elections, would leave the LTTE as the only credible
representative of the Tamil people and its goal, Thamileelam.
Delhi’s primary objective once all its soldiers have come back home
will be to have a war going on between the Tamil militants and the
Sri Lankan government which would be the only way of justifying
India’s intervention in Sri Lanka and the Accord. Such a situation
could suit the LTTE’s basic purpose quite well since it would give
them a predominant position once again with Delhi’s blessings. They
will use this position to eliminate all possibilities that would
allow either Colombo or Delhi to apply a
divide-and-manipulate-to-one’s advantage policy."
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