A
split In The LTTE Heightens
Danger Of War In Sri Lanka
By K. Ratnayake
19 March 2004
World Socialist Website
A
major split has erupted between the northern and eastern wings of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that has the potential to undermine
the current ceasefire in Sri Lanka and plunge the country back to civil
war. While at this stage no fighting has broken out, an extremely tense
standoff continues between the two LTTE camps that could be exacerbated
by any intervention by the Sri Lankan military.
On March 3, the
LTTEs eastern province military commander, V. Muralitharan, also
known as Karuna, wrote two letters effectively formalising the rift.
The first to the LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran requested that the LTTEs
eastern wing be allowed to function independently and called
for a separate administration structure in the eastern Batticaloa-Ampara
districts. The second to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which
oversees the current ceasefire, called for a separate truce arrangement
with the Colombo government.
The central LTTE
leadership, based in the northern Wanni area, first attempted to downplay
the crisis describing it as a temporary episode. But on
March 6, political wing leader, S. Thamilchelvan, announced that Muralitharan
had been removed and replacing by his deputy, T. Ramesh, and that other
Prabkakaran loyalists had been appointed to eastern regional posts.
He declared that Muralitharans move had been instigated
by some malicious elements opposed to Tamil liberation struggle
and that he had acted traitorously to the Tamil people.
In an organisation
that is well known for violence against its political opponents, Thamilchelvans
statement amounted to a virtual death sentence. Muralitharan, however,
has an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 guerrilla fightersabout one third
of the LTTEs total military forcesunder his control. Ramesh
and the other new appointees, who fled to the Wanni after the split,
have not been able to return to the east to take up their posts.
Far from backing
down, Muralitharan had publicly aired his grievances and sought to consolidate
political support in the Batticaloa and Ampara districts. He told Associated
Press: There is no question of reconciliation, everything was
beyond reconciliation. In future we will have a full self-administration
(in the east). Speaking to Reuters on March 11, he repudiated
the LTTEs longstanding claim to be the sole representative of
the Tamil people and declared that Prabhakaran had no positive
leadership qualities.
In the last two
weeks, both sides have sought to tighten their grip. Hundreds of LTTE
cadres suspected of harbouring loyalties to the rival camp have reportedly
been rounded up and detained in the two areas. Last week Muralitharans
supporters organised demonstrations in several parts of the Batticaloa
district at which effigies of Prabhakaran and the LTTEs intelligence
chief Pottu Amman were burned. A number of university students and businessmen
from the north have either fled or been expelled from Batticaloa and
Ampara.
According to the
Situation Report in last weekends Sunday Times, Muralitharan
has sealed off the entry points into the areas under his control. The
flashpoint for a possible confrontation appears to be the border between
the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa. In Trincomalee south, more
than 1,500 cadres loyal to Mr Prabhakaran are said to have amassed themselves.
The eastern commander had responded by sending another 300 fighters
to Batticaloa north to reinforce checkpoints and build new bunkers.
Until now Muralitharan
has been one of Prabhakarans loyal lieutenants. The longstanding
eastern commander sat alongside the LTTE leader during the organisations
first public press conference in the Wanni in April 2002. He was also
part of the LTTEs delegation to peace talks with the Colombo government.
Among his grievances,
Muralitharan told the media that he had been ordered to send 1,000 fighters
to the Wanni and claimed that this move represented the preparation
for a renewed war. He also accused Pottu Amman of being behind the murder
of two United National Front (UNF) candidates for the countrys
April 2 election. He has provided no evidence for either claim, both
of which appear to be aimed at gaining a sympathetic hearing from the
UNF government. The Prabhakaran leadership has denied both accusations.
The nub of the dispute
centres on complaints by the LTTEs eastern faction that it has
been left out of the spoils of the peace process. A pamphlet
issued on March 4 by its political wing declared: Thousands of
LTTE cadres from the Batticaloa-Ampara districts participated in the
fighting in the north...But their home district has continued to be
neglected.
According to the
pamphlet, none of the heads of the LTTEs 30 administrative bodies
comes from the east. The cadres from the eastern district provide security
for top northern functionaries who move about in their luxury
vehicles. Referring to the LTTEs proposed interim administration,
it continued: Our people doubt if they will get justice under
the Interim Self Governing Authority, which the LTTE is to set up in
the north and eastern province.
In an interview
with the Sunday Times last weekend, Muralitharan accused the Wanni leadership
of an unequal distribution of resources. Eastern soldiers
are used as cannon fodder. Already we find it difficult to maintain
our organisation in the east and to carry out development activities
for the benefit of the people. We cannot understand what is happening
to the money in the Wanni. They earn about 500 million rupees a month
through taxation alone, he said.
Growing hostility to the LTTE
These sentiments
clearly reflect growing resentment among broader layers of the population
both in the east and the north towards the LTTE. Two years after the
ceasefire was signed between the government and the LTTE, the majority
of people in the countrys war zonesTamil, Sinhala and Muslim
alikeare still living in poverty. Many homes and business have
been destroyed. Others have not be able to return to their land and
houses that have been commandeered by the Sri Lankan military as High
Security Zones.
The so-called peace
process has benefitted only a tiny layer of the LTTE leadership that
has not hesitated to use threats and thuggery against any opposition.
The killing of two UNF candidates is just the latest in a long line
of political violence and assassinations. In 2002, local LTTE leaders
on Kayts island off the northern Jaffna peninsula issued death threats
against Socialist Equality Party members after they refused to hand
over the funds of a fishermens cooperative to the LTTE.
Far from representing
any fundamental ideological break with the LTTE, the Muralitharan split
is based on the same logic that underlies the LTTEs separatist
program as a whole. In the 1970s, the LTTE diverted the legitimate anger
of Tamil youth, workers and farmers over the discriminatory measures
and economic hardships imposed by governments in Colombo into the communal
demand for a separate capitalist statelet of Tamil Eelam in the north
and east.
Now Muralitharan
is using the present and past grievances of eastern Tamils
against northern Tamils to demand a separate administration
in Batticaloa and Ampara and a seat of his own at any peace talks with
the government. Neither he nor Prabhakaran have any solution to the
social crisis confronting Tamil workers or the oppressed masses. Rather
each represents the interests of different sections of the Tamil bourgeoisie
who are seeking to maximise their own advantages in any peace deal with
Colombo.
The split underscores
the reactionary character of the peace process itself. Far
from addressing any of the underlying political and social issues that
produced the 20-year civil war, the peace talks are aimed at a powersharing
arrangement between the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim elites for the mutual
exploitation of the working class. The various plans that have been
tabled all seek to entrench communal divisions, thus paving the way
for endless new tensions, divisions and conflict along ethnic, religious,
and now regional lines.
At this stage, the
eastern faction of the LTTE has received no official recognition either
from Colombo or the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). The Norwegian-led
truce monitors have suspended their activities in areas under Muralitharans
control. The Sri Lankan defence ministry has rejected Muralitharans
call for a separate ceasefire agreement covering the Batticaloa and
Ampara districts. He in turn has warned that his forces no longer regard
themselves as bound by the previous truce.
The LTTE split has
added another inflammatory factor to any already highly volatile political
situation. President Chandrika Kumaratunga in alliance with the Sinhala
chauvinist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) ousted the elected UNF government
last month, declaring that the peace process was undermining national
security. In this political climate, the reaction in ruling circles
in Colombo to Muralitharans moves has been divided.
The LTTE rift clearly
has the potential to disrupt the so-called process, which the UNF government
has promoted on behalf of big business and the major powers to open
up the island to global investment. Any step to open up separate talks
with Muralitharan would provoke an angry response from the Wanni leadership,
which has warned Colombo not to meddle. Yet if Muralitharan consolidates
his control in the east, he cannot be simply ignored.
The LTTE infighting
also throws another wild card into the April elections. A grouping of
Tamil parties known as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is standing
in the poll as a virtual proxy for the LTTE. Previously, the TNA backed
the UNF and its talks with the LTTE. What may emerge now, however, is
a TNA divided along regional lines. The Muralitharan faction laid down
the law to eastern TNA candidates this week declaring that they had
to break with the Wanni leadership and pay more attention to problems
in the east.
One faction of the
ruling elite is playing down the divisions in the LTTE and hoping to
salvage the peace process. The UNF has declared the LTTE split to be
an internal matter to the organisation. For the time being, President
Kumaratunga has also kept her distance from the dispute. The Defence
Ministry, which is under her control, has put the armed forces on full
alert in the eastern province to prevent any clash
between the two groups.
An editorial in
the Sunday Times on March 14 urged caution. The best option may
be to leave the warring factions to their own devices to sort [out]
their differences. This need not be viewed as seeming indifference on
the part of Colombo. But lending a helping hand to one against the other
might needlessly precipitate a situation that is detrimental to the
painful process towards peace in Sri Lanka.
Other sections of
the Colombo elite insist that the LTTE split has to be exploited to
maximum advantage. An editorial in the Island on March 5 entitled The
beginning of the end? declared: If there is a split in the
LTTE, which has been holding this country in the grip of terror for
over two decades, it will be in the interest of all communities to work
towards its total destruction. It urged Wickremesinghe and Kumaratunga
to work together to seize what could be an historic opportunity.
JVP leader Somawansa
Amarasinghe has praised Muralitharan as a reasonable voice
and declared that he had to be made into the voice of the entire
Tamil community. He denounced the UNF and local and international
conspiratorial forces for trying to reconcile the two factions,
saying that attempts to do so, are sending danger signals to the
people, the President in particular. His comments amount to an
appeal, particularly to Kumaratunga, to support Muralitharan, including
militarily, in an all-out effort to crush the Prabhakaran faction in
the Wanni.
These statements
clearly reflect the thinking of sections of the military and state apparatus.
Any attempt to intervene in the spliteither openly or covertlycarries
the real danger of fighting not simply between the two LTTE factions,
but a return to open civil war.