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Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
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Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C 

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Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > International Frame & the Tamil Eelam Struggle for Freedom > Aftermath of Kosovo: Sri Lanka Needs Dual Strategy of �Balance of Power� and �Deterrence�

INTERNATIONAL FRAME & THE TAMIL STRUGGLE

Aftermath of Kosovo:Sri Lanka Needs Dual Strategy
of �Deterrence� and �Balance of Power�

Dayan Jayatilleka in Transcurrents
(The author is Sri Lanka Ambassador to the UN in Geneva.
This article expresses the strictly personal views of the writer)

25 February  2008

"Sri Lanka must adopt a policy of self-reliance  and must not be strategically dependent upon any outside power. Sri Lanka must possess and display the political will to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty �by any means necessary� (as Malcolm X famously said) against anyone who would threaten it. However, Sri Lanka cannot rely on deterrence alone... The Tigers are dug in on their home turf..Their �home turf� advantages must be offset and their international strategies countered by us. This requires building the broadest possible domestic, regional and international united fronts: coalitions that include anti-Tiger Tamils internally, and India, China, and Russia, externally... Sri Lanka has therefore to engage in classic balancing off of those powers, Asian and European, which stand for a strong sovereign state, against those which strive to weaken the state in a reversion to Wilsonian notions of self-determination. Such a classic, realist balance of power strategy can work because we are located in Asia, not Europe."

see also Comment by tamilnation.org


�An independent Kosovo, recognised by major Western powers, is in effect the first major fruit of the ideas behind R2P (Responsibility to Protect). Appropriately Kosovo�s emergence coincided with the establishment in New York of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protest backed by the Canadian, British and Dutch governments, among others.The Organisation�s mission is the spread of R2P principles�An R2P generation is coming. The prising open of the world is slow work, but from Kosovo to Cuba it continues.�- Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune, Feb 21, 2008, p.6

The Kosovo debate contains a microcosm of all that is right and wrong about Sri Lankan society. Some argue that in order to avoid a Kosovo outcome, all it takes is to �Just Say No� to the West and the outside world in general, while the others contend that what is needed is to �Just Say Yes�, or in a more nuanced variant, �Never Say Never� to the West (especially to the Big Boys) and the outside world. The two responses correspond to the political antipodes of the xenophobes and the appeasers.

Both extremes are wrong, in twin senses: their interpretation and application of Kosovo, as well as their recommendation of what is to be done to combat such a danger.

The key to understanding the reality of the world, resides in a debate between two concepts that dates back to the year 1915. In that year, the young Leon Trotsky advocated a visionary slogan of a United States of Europe, perhaps the earliest pre-figuration of today�s European Union. He based this on an understanding of the underlying unity of the capitalist world system, a unity that to his mind superseded its differentiation.

The slightly older Lenin replied by emphasising the opposite aspect: though it may be one system, that system is characterised by underlying unevenness, and this unevenness itself develops unevenly, spasmodically. This was his theory of uneven development. Because of uneven development, the processes in each country had a high degree of autonomy, and though the world system was a single chain, that chain had stronger and weaker links.

What is the relevance of all this to Kosovo, and more pressingly, to Sri Lanka? Though the world is indeed globalised, the distribution of power is uneven. Kosovo is located in Europe, and Europe is, and has been for a very long time, among the strongest links in the chain of the world system, which is of course dominated by the USA and its European allies. Sri Lanka is in Asia, and Asia has long been a weaker link in that chain. Today, the geopolitical and economic tendencies towards multi-polarity manifest themselves more in Asia than anywhere else.

We are also aware, at least since Antonio Gramsci, that the state and society are configured differently in the East than in the West. We in Asia collectively perceive our state to have a vastly greater antiquity and continuity, to be more organic, than that of the West. The combination of old and new consciousness - this perception of a living state with an ancient lineage, together with the recent memory of colonial occupation and humiliation - make an Asian society�s attachment to the state and it response to the threat of dismemberment, a far more deeply felt and violently contested affair than in the West. This is why a wise, war weary US General, completely oblivious to Gramsci, came to the conclusion after Korea: �Never get involved in a land war in Asia.� The West forgets that lesson at its peril.

What the West can do in Europe it cannot do outside: when it was rolling back insurgents in post-war Greece, it was losing to Communists in China. This is true even today: the Shans and Karens will not have an independent state carved out for them in Myanmar.

Sri Lanka has therefore to engage in classic balancing off of those powers, Asian and European, which stand for a strong sovereign state, against those which strive to weaken the state in a reversion to Wilsonian notions of self-determination. Such a classic, realist balance of power strategy can work because we are located in Asia, not Europe.

However, no outside power can guarantee that which we ourselves are unwilling to protect. Therefore �balance of power� alone will not do, it has to be backed up with a version of �deterrence�. It must be clear that we shall not withdraw our forces, we shall not capitulate, we shall not permit any alien forces upon our soil, and any one who hopes to will face a fight, more unconventional than conventional, from a two hundred thousand strong armed force and many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of radicalised youth.

The problem arises with those who would resort to such strategies of �deterrence� without its concomitant of the �balance of power�. Sri Lanka can leverage its Asian location, balancing off certain powers against Western interventionism, but it can balance off the entirety of the outside world, West and East, far away and near, and base itself on a strategy of domestic deterrence, nor can it balance off certain Asian powers against others at the same time that it has to balance off the West!

Let me translate: Sri Lanka must adopt a policy of self-reliance and must not be strategically dependent upon any outside power. Sri Lanka must possess and display the political will to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty �by any means necessary� (as Malcolm X famously said) against anyone who would threaten it. However, Sri Lanka cannot rely on deterrence alone, unlike Cuba in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR. Until the USSR existed, Cuba combined deterrence with balance of power, but after it collapsed, Cuba was safe only because it was far too hard a nut to crack, with an armed people, and hundreds of thousands who had fought successfully against South Africa, in Angola.

Sri Lanka, another island in the tropical sun, can gain inspiration from Cuba but cannot imitate it. The primary reason is the difference in the internal political and economic systems. These differences correspond to the different histories, characteristics and collective consciousness of our respective peoples.

The reality of Sri Lanka is that it is a divided society, with an entrenched multiparty democracy and an open economy. As the fate of the SLFP government of 1977 proves, the electorate will not long tolerate an economic model which makes for public privation. The Sri Lankan electorate is so protean that it also elected in 2001, an appeasing, Chamberlain-like Prime Minister, and gave him a sizeable vote at the last Presidential elections - though recent opinion polls render almost indubitable his defeat at the next one.

One sharp difference between Sri Lanka and Cuba is that the latter does not have an internal war (though it did have to combat counter-revolutionary bands for years), and certainly not an internal war of an ethnic-separatist character. Cuba�s armed forces could concentrate its energies on fighting the external enemy.

If Sri Lanka inevitably has to resist on two fronts, internal and external, so be it. However, it cannot resist on the �internal -external� and �external - external� fronts. In other words, Sri Lanka cannot abandon a policy of balancing some powers against others, in favour of a policy of taking on all comers, far and near! If it is to be argued that in the 1980s Sri Lanka fought cross-border separatist terrorism and eventually retrieved its sovereignty, rolling back a regional intervention, it must be recalled that in the 1980s Sri Lanka was not facing the concerted pressure it is today, from the West.

In the minds of some, the answer would be not merely a regime change, but a system change, which renders Sri Lanka economically �self-sufficient� (actually autarchic), and mobilises its people to fight the separatist enemy, domestic traitors and reactionaries, and all external comers. This strategy, in which patriotic or national liberation struggle and social revolution combine, is but a collapsible fantasy, which overlooks economic and geopolitical reality. Few Sri Lankan ultra-nationalists know that Cuba has more than five hundred foreign companies doing business there (since it is one of the world�s most stable and peaceful investment climates) and also enjoys an inflow of over a million tourists per year. A Hobbesian Sri Lanka, locked in a war of all against all, will be unable to sustain itself. Internal discontent and repression, external isolation and cross-border intervention, will constitute the conditions for Tamil Eelam and its recognition.

Sri Lanka must never take as axiomatic the notion that India will never countenance a Tamil Eelam because it will be a danger to India itself, given the proximity of Tamil Nadu. India helped in the birth of Bangladesh irrespective of any threat of West Bengal breaking away from India to join with Bangladesh! India is rightly confident that no one will want to break away from a quasi-federal economic superpower with a secular state.

Sri Lanka must also understand that there is a limit to the assistance that India can give us, given the fact of 50 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu, and the coalitional-regional character of governments in Delhi.

These two factors mean that Sri Lanka cannot take India for granted, it cannot put all its eggs in the Indian basket, but it cannot afford to antagonise or lose India. At the minimum it has to keep India on a spectrum of supportive to benignly neutral. While being realistic about the possible limits of Indian support, and not acquiescing in any �Dog in the Manger� attitudes from anyone or anywhere, Sri Lanka must strive all the time to maximise the support it can obtain from India.

The Tigers are dug in on their home turf, taking heavily casualties but playing for time, hoping for a mini-July 83 which, in the YouTube age can trigger a Kosovo; hoping to influence the Indian elections; or hoping to influence a possible change in Washington DC, which can indeed transform the entire terrain on which the game is played. Their �home turf� advantages must be offset and their international strategies countered by us. This requires building the broadest possible domestic, regional and international united fronts: coalitions that include anti-Tiger Tamils internally, and India, China, and Russia, externally.

The finest political strategist of modernity, Lenin, concluded at the tail end of his life, in an article published in Pravda on March 4th 1923, that: � In the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that Russia, India, China etc account for the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe�. This is the decisive weight that Sri Lanka must leverage and bring to bear, to avoid a Kosovo, on behalf of our fighting men and women in the battlefield, and future generations. Neither China nor Russia will support Sri Lanka in a manner and to an extent which runs contrary to the view of India. If it is a choice between India and Sri Lanka, they will choose India, as of course will the USA, and anyone I can think of.

The unravelling of Yugoslavia began with the abolition in the late 1980s by Slobodan Milosevic, under pressure from Serbian ultranationalists, of the autonomy of the Province of Kosovo which had been instituted by Tito in 1974. When Serbia offered the fullest autonomy in the last round of negotiations a few months ago, there was no one accept it. The refusal to defend and retain provincial autonomy resulted in the loss of a whole country (Yugoslavia) and finally, part (Kosovo) of the successor state (Serbia).

The lesson of the break-up of Yugoslavia is clear: federalism along ethnic lines is dangerous but those who reject an autonomous province may contribute to an independent state. Both ethno-federalism and centralised unitarism are dangerously centrifugal, while the most safely centripetal seems to be a unitary state with adequate devolution of powers making for autonomy.

While it is the armed forces and youth of Sri Lanka, backing our political will and our sense of a unique historical destiny, that that stand between us and a Kosovo outcome, it is not only those factors that do so. It is also India that stands between us and the Kosovo/R2P interventionism, as our outer perimeter. Those Sri Lankan elements which block or delay the minimum degree of devolution on the ground that is needed to make India tilt to the maximum towards us and our military effort, are as unpatriotic and helpful to the cause of Kosovo type interventionism as those elements in the Tamil Diaspora who openly advocate such an outcome.


Comment by tamilnation.org

"...Ambassador Jayatilleka's analysis will hopefully persuade broader and broader sections of the Tamil Diaspora to recognise that it is a similar 'balance of power' approach that Tamil Eelam itself  has adopted during the past several years.  Tamil Eelam, for many decades, has adopted 'a policy of self-reliance'  which was not 'strategically dependent upon any outside power'... All this may partly explain why Tamil Eelam has encouraged  'a thousand flowers' to bloom in the Tamil Diaspora, knowing that each flower may have its use..."

It is refreshing to read the views of Sri Lanka ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Dayan Jayatilleka though he has taken care to say that they are his 'strictly personal views'. We have long held the view that President Rajapakse's Sri Lanka has adopted a 'balance of power' approach in relation to the international frame so that it may create the political space to continue its genocidal attack on the Tamil people. It is refreshing therefore to have confirmation from the 'horse's mouth' so to speak.

Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka is ofcourse right to point out that

"Sri Lanka must never take as axiomatic the notion that India will never countenance a Tamil Eelam because it will be a danger to India itself, given the proximity of Tamil Nadu. India helped in the birth of Bangladesh irrespective of any threat of West Bengal breaking away from India to join with Bangladesh! India is rightly confident that no one will want to break away from a quasi-federal economic superpower with a secular state. Sri Lanka must also understand that there is a limit to the assistance that India can give us, given the fact of 50 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu, and the coalitional-regional character of governments in Delhi."

It has to be said that many lobby groups in the Tamil Diaspora may find Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka's analysis instructive - no less instructive than the recently expressed views of the westcentric International Crisis Group. The Tamil Diaspora may find that a careful study of Ambassador Jayatilleka's analysis together with the International Crisis Group Report rewarding.

Ambassador Jayatilleka's analysis will hopefully persuade broader and broader sections of the Tamil Diaspora to recognise that it is a similar 'balance of power' approach that Tamil Eelam itself  has adopted during the past several years.  And, perhaps Tamil Eelam too has understood that which Malcolm X famously said but, more importantly, understood that it was said in the context of an oppressed people struggling for freedom from an oppressor. Tamil Eelam, for many decades, has adopted 'a policy of self-reliance'  which was not 'strategically dependent upon any outside power'.  All this may partly explain why Tamil Eelam has encouraged  'a thousand flowers' to bloom in the Tamil Diaspora, knowing that each flower may have its use.

Said that there is one fundamental difference between Sri Lanka's approach and that of Tamil Eelam.

On the one hand, President Rajapakse's Sri Lanka is intent (in the name of territorial sovereignty) on creating the international space for the continued rule of one people by another alien people - alien because the Sinhala people not only speak a different language but also trace their origins to different roots.

On the other hand,  Tamil Eelam seeks to enlarge the international space within which it may continue its struggle for freedom from rule by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of a single state.  Tamil Eelam is a nation that does not fear to speak its name. But the Sinhala nation fears to speak its name and seeks to masquerade as a 'multi ethnic', 'civic Sri Lankan nation' albeit with a Sinhala Lion Flag, with as yet unrepealed Sinhala Only Act, with Buddhism as the State religion, and with an occupying Sinhala army in the Tamil homeland. It should not be a matter for surprise that the mask is wearing thin and the masquerade is taking on a schizophrenic dimension.

We ourselves would prefer to call the Tamil Eelam approach to the international frame,  a principle centered approach rather than a 'balance of power' approach. It is a principle centered approach because it is founded on the fundamental principle of democracy and in the knowledge that in the end democracy will prevail. If democracy means the rule of the people, by the people, for the people, then the principle of self determination secures that no one people may rule another - and herein lies its enduring appeal not only to the people of Tamil Eelam but also to the peoples of the world, including the Fourth World.

Given that Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka regards Lenin as 'the finest political strategist of modernity' the  Ambassador's disdainful dismissal of 'Wilsonian notions of self-determination is understandable'. It was Tom  Nairn who declared in 'The Modern Janus' in 1975 that 'the theory of nationalism is Marxism's greatest historical failure'. And that was Lenin's failure as well. It may be that Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka may want to revisit the words of Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities - Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1991 

"...Nationalism has proved an uncomfortable anomaly for Marxist theory and precisely for that reason, has been largely elided, rather than confronted. How else to account for the use, for over a century of the concept of the 'national bourgeoisie' without any serious attempt to justify theoretically the relevance of the adjective? Why is this segmentation of the bourgeoisie - a world class in so far as it is defined in terms of the relations of productions - theoretically significant? ... A nation is an imagined political community... It is imagined as a community, because regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings."

Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka may also want to visit something which Raj Swarnan wrote in Tamil in ManNin Maintharkal - more so, because the cultural roots of the struggle for Tamil Eelam will be found amongst those who spoke in Tamil and who may not have had much understanding of English and much is often lost in translation -

உங்கள் உடல்கள் சாய்ந்ததால், எங்கள் தலைகள் நிமிர்ந்தன.. இன்று.. நாங்கள் வெறும் கவிதை பாடிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறோம்..
நீங்களோ.. காவியமாகி விட்டீர்கள்..
 

A struggle for national liberation is a nuclear energy and Sri Aurobindo said it all in Bande Mataram, more than one hundred years ago in June 1907 -

"The mistake which despots, benevolent or malevolent, have been making ever since organised states came into existence and which, it seems, they will go on making to the end of the chapter, is that they overestimate their coercive power, which is physical and material and therefore palpable, and underestimate the power and vitality of ideas and sentiments. A feeling or a thought, the aspiration towards liberty, cannot be estimated in the terms of concrete power, in so many fighting men, so many armed police, so many guns, so many prisons, such and such laws, ukases, and executive powers. But such feelings and thoughts are more powerful than fighting men and guns and prisons and laws and ukases. Their beginnings are feeble, their end is mighty. But of despotic repression the beginnings are mighty, the end is feeble... But the despot will not recognise this superiority, the teachings of history have no meaning for him. ..He is deceived also by the temporary triumph of his repressive measures.. and thinks,

�Oh, the circumstances in my case are quite different, I am a different thing from any yet recorded in history, stronger, more virtuous and moral, better organised. I am God�s favourite and can never come to harm.� 

And so the old drama is staged again and acted till it reaches the old catastrophe..."

See also  International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka - Paper presented by Nadesan Satyendra at Seminar on International Dimensions of the Conflict in Sri Lanka organised by the Centre for Just Peace & Democracy (CJPD) in partnership with TRANSCEND International in Luzern, Switzerland, 17 June 2007-

"Sri Lanka seeks to use the political space created by the geo strategic triangle of US-India-China in the Indian Ocean region, to buy the support of all three  for the continued rule of the people of Tamil Eelam by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of  one state. The record shows that Sinhala Sri Lanka seeks to engage in a 'balance of power' exercise of its own ... We have India in the Trincomalee oil farm, at the same time we have a Chinese coal powered energy plant in Trincomalee; we have a Chinese project for the Hambantota port, at the same time we have the attempted naval exercises with the US from Hambantota (to contain Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean); we have the grant of preferred licenses to India for exploration of oil in the Mannar seas, at the same time we have a similar grant to China and a 'road show' for  tenders from US and UK based multinational corporations;  meanwhile we have the continued presence of the Voice of America installations in the island and the  ten year Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) was signed by the United States and Sri Lanka on 5 March 2007"

 

 

 

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