Sri Lanka: Mismatch Between
Multi-Ethnic Cricket Team And
The Brutal Reality Of Civil WarBy Jehan Perera
01 May,2007
New Age
At the same time as the Sri Lankan cricket team was battling against the odds against their Australian counterparts at the World Cup finals in Jamaica, the night sky in Colombo was set alight. This was not a display of fireworks to celebrate the underdog team's gallant performance, but bursts of anti-aircraft gunfire from numerous places in Colombo. In a tragic and unconscionable manner, the unity that the country's multi-ethnic cricket team had demonstrated in both victory and in defeat, was once again not matched by the protagonists in Sri Lanka's long-drawn-out ethnic conflict. In the run-up to the World Cup finals, the international media ran stories representing the hope and lack of understanding of the international community about the mutually destructive war in Sri Lanka. They speculated that the goodwill and euphoria generated by the cricket team would translate into political initiatives that would take this beautiful and talented country to peace. But the international media wrongly assumed that the positive social and cultural relationships that bind the ethnic communities in Sri Lanka together could translate into a political vision and commitment to secure a power-sharing formula to resolve the ethnic conflict.The decision of the LTTE to use its limited air power to bomb Colombo on the night of the World Cup finals was undoubtedly a carefully calculated one. There was a possibility of the Sri Lankan armed forces being more focused on the performance of the country's cricket team that night than on the strategies of the LTTE. The commander-in-chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was himself in Jamaica along with his entourage to cheer on the Sri Lankan team and to encourage them to victory. The eyes of virtually all Sri Lankans not fortunate enough to be able to travel to Jamaica were glued to the television screen. Fortunately the bombs that the LTTE's light aircraft dropped on the oil storage facilities on the outskirts of Colombo failed to cause serious damage unlike the LTTE attack in 2001. In that year LTTE ground attack squads caused a near catastrophe when they successfully penetrated the oil storage facilities and set them on fire. The wheels of the economy came to a virtual standstill at that time. Although past experience has shown that LTTE ground attacks have been much more severe in their destructive potential, the new LTTE tactic of air attacks brings with it an unprecedented dimension of uncertainty.
Unconventional warfare
The LTTE bombing raid on Colombo was unsuccessful in destroying their targets. However, they have once again been successful in demonstrating their ability to engage in unconventional warfare. The chaos in Colombo on the night of the attack, the firing on a commercial airliner by over-excited anti-aircraft gunners, and the massive international media coverage of the event will do much to harm the country's prospects. Two major international airlines have already suspended their flights to Sri Lanka with immediate effect. Neither tourists nor foreign investors are likely to be prepared to visit the country in the current circumstances.
No government or society can tolerate a situation where its capital city is subjected to periodic bombing raids by an enemy force. There is no question that such threats have to be neutralised. The manner in which the government has been approaching this task over the past year and a half of President Rajapaksa's rule is primarily, if not solely, through its military.Unfortunately, the ruling party's proposals for political reform that are to be unveiled are reported to be regressive ones seemingly designed to appease Sinhalese nationalists and that take the country back more than two decades. The government's immediate response of sending its own air force to heavily pound LTTE-controlled areas may satisfy governmental leaders and nationalist sections of the population. They would wish the LTTE to be severely punished for the unexpected exercise of bombing Colombo on the night of the World Cup finals which had united the multi-ethnic population behind the multi-ethnic cricket team. On the other hand, most of the people living in the LTTE-controlled areas would not have been able to watch the cricket match in any event. The war-related destruction of infrastructure in the LTTE-controlled areas is such that the people there live fifty to several hundred years in the past in relation to economic facilities and political democracy.
The regular air force bombing to which those areas have been subjected is of a different order of magnitude in comparison to the few small bombs dropped by the LTTE air force. At least three hundred thousand people have been displaced from their homes and live in the most wretched conditions since the commencement of hostilities between the government and LTTE in April last year. On each of the occasions that the LTTE has acknowledged its air raids, it has sought to justify them by claiming they are in retaliation for the air bombing of their areas by the government. It is this type of logic that Mahatma Gandhi totally rejected by saying that if the attitude of an eye for an eye was followed the whole world would go blind. Unfortunately the militarists on either side of the divide tend to get stronger when equivalent, if not greater, retaliation is seen as the appropriate mode of response.
Human costs
If large-scale civilian suffering and displacement can be ignored, the military strategy of the government up to now has been relatively successful in the east of the country. The government has militarily captured those parts of the east that were administered by the LTTE. The next theatre of confrontation is likely to be the north where the LTTE's military and administrative assets are presently concentrated. The aircraft and airfields that have caused chaos and apprehension in Colombo are located in the LTTE-controlled areas of the north.
The government may soon send in its ground troops into the north to seek out and destroy the LTTE's military and administrative assets there, as they have in the east. There are indications that the government's military campaign against LTTE strongholds in the north has already commenced. One of the first targets appears to the Madhu area of the north which is currently under LTTE control and where there is a large refugee welfare centre in the vicinity of the sacred Catholic shrine of Madhu. As a result, the situation there has become very tense and fearful. The Catholic Church is fearful that in the event of hostilities there will be shelling and bombing of the area and which can lead to the destruction of the shrine. The military had indicated that they wish to rescue the civilians from being under LTTE control. This sounds similar to the theme of liberating the people living in LTTE-controlled areas in the east who, now as a result are in refugee camps. Although the Catholic Church has tried to get the two sides to declare Madhu to be a peace zone, this has proven to be unsuccessful.
Adding to the woes of the people is the fact that the presence of LTTE cadres has increased substantially with recruitments and abductions of young people into their ranks taking place even from public places. Forced abductions without a sense of conscience are taking place on a regular basis and it is reported that up to 3,500 youth are being targeted for recruitment. The LTTE is also reported to be interfering with the work of NGOs and stating that they need to function under their diktat. Many NGOs are afraid of sending their staff to the field due to harassment by the LTTE.
Way forward
What this goes to show is that the human costs of continued confrontation between the governmentand LTTE are very high. The escalation of the war into the north would add significantly to those human costs. There is a desperate need for an alternative path to conflict resolution, but at the present time neither the government nor the LTTE appear to have either the political vision or commitment to carve out that path. Instead they appear to be mutually engaged in a cycle of violence from which the people have no escape. It is indeed regrettable that the ruling party's political proposals to resolve the ethnic conflict offer even less in term of power-sharing than the existing system of provincial councils set up under the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord of 1987. The ruling party proposals seek to limit power-sharing to the district level and to the village level. Even today the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, with its provisions for the establishment of provincial councils, and for the temporary merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces, stands as a reasonable model of ethnic accommodation.
The main burden of keeping hope alive therefore falls on the UNP which as the main opposition party has stood consistently for a negotiated political solution based on the federal formula of the Oslo declaration that was agreed on by the government and LTTE negotiating teams in December 2002. The left coalition partners of the government and civil society groups that stand for a negotiated political solution also need to continue voicing their commitment to a viable power-sharing framework that meets the just demand of the Tamil people for their rights.
Jehan Perera is media director of the National Peace Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He can be reached at: [email protected]
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