A
Plea For Help From The
Tamil-Speaking People Of Sri Lanka
By Rohini Hensman
12 January, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Recently,
there has been mounting pressure on the Indian government to intervene
in Sri Lanka in order to help the Tamil population of the North-East.
It is absolutely true that these people are facing horrific violations
of their human rights, and that they need all the help they can get.
The question is: what form should that help take?
Lessons from the
Past
It is worth looking at the
recent history of India's involvement with Sri Lanka for clues on how
to proceed in the present. After the island-wide anti-Tamil pogroms
in 1983, India trained and armed militant groups fighting for a separate
state of Tamil Eelam. One of these, the LTTE, later succeeded in wiping
out most of the other armed groups as well as unarmed critics by liquidating
them physically. In July 1987, when the government of Sri Lanka (GOSL)
was on the verge of defeating the LTTE, the Indian government intervened
again, and signed the Indo-Lanka Accord with President Jayawardene.
The Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) occupied the North-East with the
intention of keeping the combatants apart.
India was to pay dearly for
engaging with the LTTE in this manner. There was mayhem in Tamil Nadu
as the LTTE carried its war against Tamil rivals onto Indian soil. Just
months after the Indo-Lanka Accord, the LTTE started fighting the IPKF.
As a result, not only did the Indian army lose thousands of soldiers,
it also lost credibility with the Tamil people of the North-East as
it struck back with indiscriminate attacks on civilians in the same
way as the Sri Lankan army. Tamils who had welcomed the IPKF with garlands
now began calling it the 'Innocent People Killing
Force'. The army was forced to withdraw, and shortly afterwards, the
LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi.
The nature of the LTTE is
now much clearer than it was in the early 1980s. The group is a fascist
one which does not tolerate dissent internally or externally. It has
used every ceasefire, including the most recent one signed in 2002 with
the mediation of the Norwegians, to kill its opponents, including unarmed
civilians, although Prabakaran's policy of crushing internal dissent
went badly wrong when his attempt to wipe out Karuna failed. In 1990
the LTTE ethnically cleansed the Tamil-speaking Muslims of the North,
and to this day they live in refugee camps or with relatives. More recently,
the LTTE has attempted to drive Muslims out of areas in the East. It
has killed numerous Tamils elected by the people of the North-East,
such as the popular Mayor of Jaffna Sarojini Yogeswaran. As it lost
popularity and adult recruits became scarce, it stepped up its policy
of conscripting children by force. Abroad, it used threats of violence
to compel Tamil refugees to contribute to its war. There can be no doubt
that the Tamil Eelam the LTTE seeks to establish would be a fascist
state in which Prabakaran would have absolute power and ordinary Tamil
civilians would have no democratic rights whatsoever.
Given the character of the
LTTE, bans on it in India, the US, EU and Canada have actually helped
Sri Lanka Tamils to begin building a democratic movement to fight for
their rights. Since this movement is opposed to terrorist attacks on
civilians and ethnic cleansing of Muslims, and calls for democratic
rights like freedom of expression and association and the right to elect
representatives in free and fair elections, it can easily win support
both in Sri Lanka and internationally. Thus far, this movement remains
scattered and weak, because the LTTE has killed or driven into exile
all Tamils who oppose their totalitarian agenda. But it has the potential
to be in a far stronger bargaining position than the LTTE vis-à-vis
the GOSL because of its democratic credentials. Strengthening this democratic
movement for the rights of Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka is an
important way for the government as well as human rights activists in
India to help Sri Lanka's Tamils, and this would rule out lifting the
ban on the LTTE.
Changes in Sri Lankan
Government Policy
Another important factor
is the stance of the government in Colombo. Discrimination against Tamils,
starting with the hillcountry Tamils of recent Indian origin, started
immediately after Independence in 1948. It escalated thereafter, encompassing
anti-Tamil pogroms after the Official Language Act made Sinhala the
only official language in 1956. The massacres of 1983 seemed to indicate
that Tamils could never be safe in a Sinhala-majority Sri Lanka.
Yet Tamil refugees speak
with great affection of Sinhalese friends and neighbours, and there
are many cases of intermarriage. Important areas of the country are
ethnically mixed: the population of the capital Colombo, for example,
is more than 50% Tamil-speaking (including Muslims). In the absence
of political parties or governments stirring up ethnic hatred, these
multi-ethnic populations live together peacefully. Since the mid-1990s,
when Chandrika Kumaratunga and the People's Alliance came to power,
the majority of the Sinhalese population has consistently voted for
peace. However, hard-liners have once more gained ascendency under the
Rajapakse presidency, especially after the LTTE's unilateral attacks
on the armed forces in 2005.
So what prevents a resolution
of the ethnic conflict? First and foremost, it is the Sinhala nationalists
on one side, who do not wish to give people from minority communities
equal rights, and the Tamil nationalists on the other, refusing to accept
anything short of partition. Secondly, there is bureaucratic lethargy
in implementing policies that would benefit Tamils. For example, Tamil
has now been an official language for decades, yet it is common to find
government offices and police stations where no one can speak Tamil,
even in areas like Colombo where there is a concentration of Tamil-speaking
people. So marginalising the extremists on both sides, along with putting
in place and implementing policies that assure parity to the Tamil language
and equal rights to the people who speak it, would be necessary measures
if the conflict is to end.
A New Development
A recent development makes
this a very real possibility. Under pressure from the international
community including India, the government of Sri Lanka set up a panel
of experts to advise an All-Party Conference on constitutional change.
Predictably, the panel split. But the majority submitted a proposal
(available on the internet at http://transcurrents.com/tamiliana/archives/244
) which could, if elaborated, satisfy the aspirations of the majority
of Tamils and Muslims.
Of course it is, as yet,
only a draft; it would need to be revised in consultation with the people
most affected by the measures it proposes before it can be finalised.
With respect to the North-East, for example, one option out of the four
suggested would have to be chosen and fine-tuned through discussion
with the people currently living in that part of the country, as well
as refugees and Internally Displaced People who wish to return to their
homes there. And the proposed Bill of Rights would have to be elaborated
to guarantee that the human rights and civil liberties of people of
all communities are protected in all parts of the country.
However, even in its present
form, with the points in the Annexure on protection of human rights,
humanitarian measures, and promoting the use of Tamil as an official
language with immediate effect, the document could be presented to the
public for discussion. If the GOSL were to accept it as the basis for
a solution to the long-standing grievances of the Tamil-speaking minority
in the country, an end to the war could be in sight.
The importance of this report,
authored by six Sinhalese, four Tamils and one Muslim, is immense. It
proves that the war that has plagued Sri Lanka for decades is NOT a
war between Sinhalese and Tamils. It proves that where there is a commitment
to democracy, people of all communities can work together for a common
cause. It shows that the primary struggle is one between democracy and
fascism, and then there is a secondary struggle between Sinhala fascists
and Tamil fascists. While the latter are locked in struggle against
each other, they have united to reject the majority report.
In this context, where the
GOSL is under fierce pressure from Sinhala chauvinists to scrap the
majority report or dilute it so much that it no longer satisfies the
aspirations of the majority of Tamils, pressure in the opposite direction
from the Indian government could be critically important. And this pressure
needs to be applied immediately, before the GOSL concedes to the Sinhala
chauvinists, because it would otherwise feel it was losing face if it
changed its stance. There is no quick fix for the problems of Sri Lanka's
Tamils, but prompt action at this juncture by the Indian government
and human rights activists in support of the majority report could save
them decades of displacement and bloodshed in the future.
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