|
INTERNATIONAL FRAME
&
THE STRUGGLE for Tamil Eelam
Why Tamils face International �Shock and Awe�
Kanthavanam, Tamil Guardian
12 May 2007
"..the international campaign against the Diaspora Tamils is
an extension of the Sri Lankan state�s campaign of terror against the Tamils
there..."
Classic counter-insurgency urges states adopt a twin-track
strategy: violence against the guerillas and incentives for civilians not to
support them. When serious political dissatisfaction is fueling support for the
militants, the incentives must necessarily include a �political solution.� This
is the strategy the international community has encouraged successive Sri Lankan
governments fighting the Tamil Tigers to take.
Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga attempted it in her disastrous �war for
peace�; offering a devolution package whilst fighting a high intensity war
against the LTTE.
The strategy failed because, firstly, the package was not credible, having been
emasculated by Sinhala nationalists, and secondly, the unbridled brutality of
her military campaign sent support for the LTTE soaring.
But President Mahinda Rajapakse is following a different track these days.
As his recently unveiled �power-sharing� proposals show, Rajapakse is not
interested in wooing the Tamils. Rather he intends (in the style of President J.
R. Jayawardene) � to teach the Tamils a punishing lesson for defying the state.
In short, he is not going to persuade the Tamils to abandon the Tigers, he�s
going to cow them into submission.
This is why, despite publicly toying with the notion, he has not put serious
effort into forging a southern consensus on what to put before the LTTE at the
table. It is also why he is unabashedly following a single-minded and ruthless
war strategy, marked by mass displacements of Tamils and widespread human rights
abuses against them.
The international community has in recent times come to the realization
Rajapakse is simply not interested in their advised approach. So, whilst they
are still committed to backing Sri Lanka against the LTTE, there is considerable
nervousness that Rajapakse is unnecessarily stoking Tamil resentment with his
tactics. Which is why you sometimes get murmurs of disapproval, along with token
measures, from the US, UK and others.
But in principle the international community is committed to supporting the Sri
Lankan state against the LTTE. And they know full well that the Tamil Diaspora,
located primarily in North America, Europe and Australia, is a crucial well of
support for the Tigers.
The array of bans on the LTTE in US, (first UK, then) EU and Canada, as well as
the finance restrictions in Australia are intended to block the financial and
material support that Diaspora Tamils are providing the Tigers with.
Just as Rajapakse has given up trying to win over the Tamils, so has the
international community. And just as Rajapakse is using a campaign of terror to
browbeat the Tamils in Sri Lanka, several Western governments have launched an
aggressive campaign against the Diaspora Tamils.
In the past two months Tamils have been arrested in France, US, and Australia on
charges of providing support to the Tigers, of extorting money for the LTTE, and
so on. The media is taken along for all the arrests, with massive coverage
following.
A Tamil television station, TTN, which has viewers across Europe, was shut down
last month by French authorities. The charge was of not registering the channel
properly (though employees allege the authorities simply ignore their
applications).
In Britain, the state-owned BBC and establishment newspapers are conducting a
smear campaign alleging that Tamils funding the Tigers are the prime suspects
credit card fraud.
Many of those arrested are openly sympathetic to the LTTE. But most are not
simply canvassing for the LTTE. They were exposing the atrocities being
inflicted on the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. This violence and deprivation
is not reported by the main media organizations, which are barred from parts of
the Northeast or are not equipped and staffed to report continuously from the
other areas.
The ongoing international campaign of �shock
and awe� against the Diaspora has two objectives; firstly to pressure the
LTTE and, secondly, to demoralize and frighten the Tamil expatriate public.
The international community appears to have calculated that through such arrests
and other harassments of Tamils in foreign countries, it will able to exert
sufficient pressure on the LTTE to give up its armed struggle and go to the
negotiation table.
Thus the international campaign against the Diaspora Tamils is an extension of
the Sri Lankan state�s campaign of terror against the Tamils there.
For many states waging the self-styled �war on terror,� Diaspora communities
appear threatening and problematic. The logic of �legitimate state versus
illegitimate terrorists� is applied without nuance to all states which are
prepared to sign up to the �global� war.
Of course, international politics remains state-centric and states will
generally support each other (indeed, with the state as the most powerful
political organization around today, that is why the Tamils are seeking their
own state).
The international norms that gained such force at the end of the Cold War, such
as those around human rights and protection of civilians, have proved remarkably
fragile this century.
The missed opportunities for positive international action in Sri Lanka have
been numerous. In the past couple of year, these include the failure to force
the Sri Lankan government to implement PTOMS (the mechanism to share tsunami aid
with the LTTE), to re-open the A9 and other humanitarian corridors, to observe
international humanitarian law (laws of war), to desist from using food
embargoes against Tamil population centers, and so on.
Even the recent campaign for
human rights protection by Amnesty International has not led to reduction in
international military and economic support for the Rajapakse government.
This unwavering support stems from a belief that whatever its flaws, the Sri
Lankan state will ultimately reform, drop its Sinhala chauvunism and become a
�liberal democracy� in the model of the Western donors backing it.This belief
underpinned the attachment of conditionality to aid disbursed by donors during
the Norwegian peace process. The conditions were meant to ensure aid flowed to
reward �good� behavour and was blocked by �bad� behaviour. Indeed, more often
than not, the state was given the benefit of the doubt and conditionality was
often dropped.
Most of the $4.5bn pledged in Tokyo in June 2003 was made conditional on
�progress in the peace process.� Despite the country sliding steadily into the
present all out war, most of that aid had been disbursed by 2006.
The international community approach is mainly carrot for the Sri Lankan state
and stick for the Tamils. The �shock and awe� strategy unleashed against
expatriate Tamils in the past few weeks has at least four objectives.
First, to terrorize Tamil expatriates into not extending their financial,
material and political support to the LTTE for fear of arrest or harassment.
Secondly, to frighten Tamil activists into not engaging in political activity in
their host countries against the Sri Lankan government.
Thirdly, to force expatriate Tamils to pressure the Tigers into giving up the
armed struggle and negotiating instead with the Sri Lankan government.
And lastly, perhaps most desirably, for the Tamil Diaspora to pursue their
political aspirations, not by backing the LTTE, but other actors. These could be
other Tamil actors � so called �moderates� � such as the paramilitary groups
that are allied with Colombo against the LTTE.
But, ideally, the international community would like expatriate Tamils to go
running after the host states themselves. Rather than the LTTE being the
representatives of the Tamils, the host states, citing its �own citizens,� could
instead take up this mantle instead.
International calculations figure expatriates� money and expertise could be
channeled through �official channels� to the Tamils of the Northeast. Then not
only would the LTTE be denied the Diaspora�s support, the oppressive Sri Lankan
state could perversely harness the expatriates� efforts to better their
brethren�s plight towards defeating the Tamil struggle.
This is why Western states are knowingly assisting Sri Lanka�s efforts to
terrify and intimidate the Tamils by targeting Tamil media, community
organizations and political activists in their own territories.
Whilst the international community makes much of the lack of press freedom in
Sri Lanka, France shuts down the TTN television on a registration technicality.
While media promoting the LTTE or Tamil perspective are thus blocked, Sri Lankan
government�s claims against the Tigers � such as the credit card allegations �
are propagated through mainstream Western media.
While the Sri Lankan government is chided for not allowing NGOs to operate,
Tamil expatriate organizations seeking to highlight Colombo�s human rights
abuses are harassed and investigated on charges of �supporting LTTE terrorism.�
Whilst Sri Lanka is gently urged to allow humanitarian access and provision of
shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils, Tamil expatriates are
aggressively prevented from supporting Diaspora charities and trusts that are
known to be working effectively in the Northeast.
The Tamil Diaspora must not be shocked and awed by the ongoing international
hostility. Rather than retreat from participating in politics, we should do
exactly the reverse and participate more actively.
The international community�s actions are based on perceptions of self-interest.
We should engage with key states and INGOs as part of our efforts to promote the
Tamil cause.
Ultimately, what is crucial is that the Diaspora continues to support the
Tamils� sixty year struggle for political rights.
This month sees the 31st anniversary of the passing of the
Vaddokoddai Resolution, unanimously adopted by the first convention of the
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the year before the party won a
sweeping mandate in the 1977 elections. The Resolution, concludes with a
plea to us, the Tamil people. It calls �upon the Tamil Nation in general and the
Tamil youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully in the
sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of
Tamil Eelam is reached.�
|
