Paramilitary Groups and the Ever-Receding Peace

by Sabesan

This article is a translation of an analysis broadcast on Melbourne's 3CR Tamil Voice on March 27, 2006.. The full Tamil version is published in Tamilnaatham, TamilMedia. The article is written by Sabesan and translated by Pukalarasi.

The doubt as to whether the talks held in Geneva to fully implement the Cease Fire Agreement would pay divends has now risen. The conflicting activities of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) are not conducive for peace. The activities of the GoSL military-guided Tamil paramilitaries are aimed at derailing the peace initiatives. Should this situation continue, not only will the peace process fail miserably, but the probability of a war exploding will also arise. The aim of this article is to discuss the background of the GoSL-orchestrated anti-peace activities of the Tamil paramilitaries and the secret agenda of the GoSL.

The most important agreement arrived at during the February Geneva talks was  the disarming of the Tamil paramilitaries and expelling them from NorthEast. By this agreement the GoSL has indirectly taken ownership of   a matter which it had refused to accept in the past. A fact hidden and refuted all these years by the Government and its Army had come to light.

This gave rise to the hope that peace talks would move on to the next stage.

But, even after the Geneva Agreement, paramilitary attacks and activities directed against peace efforts continue unabated. In addition to this, the GoSL, its ministers and the Army have begun issuing contradictory statements and reports.

Mangala Samaraweera, Foreign Minister of the GoSL, said in an interview to the BBC in London that there are no paramilitaries operating in the government--controlled areas and that his government is unable to do anything about the Karuna group, since it is an internal problem of the Liberation Tigers. And the Inspector General of Police, Chandra Fernando, has specifically stated that the only paramilitary force in the army is the government's Special Task Force. Meanwhile, the Buddhist monk organisation has demanded that the Tamil paramilitaries should not be disarmed.

And H.M.G. Kotagadeniya, an advisor to the Defence Ministry has expressed his view from a different angle. In an interview to the Colombo daily 'The Morning Leader,' he said: 'The Liberation Tigers should lay down their weapons before disarming the Tamil paramilitaries. If the paramilitaries are disarmed then Tigers will attack the government armed forces. No other group is armed except the government forces. The Tamil Eelam Liberation Tigers is a terrorist organisation and it has no right to possess weapon.'

The different views of the above persons, the recent attacks by the Tamil paramilitaries and the agreement signed at the Geneva talks contradict and directly oppose each other. Instead of dealing with these, we wish to place certain arguments here.

The USA, in its 16 paged 2005 Country Report on Sri Lanka categorised and condemned the unlawful deaths by the government, assassinations by unidentified persons and political assassinations by paramilitaries. The report further pointed out that paramilitaries suspected of collaborating with the government continue their attacks on their political enemies. The Asia Human Rights Commission has commented that this was the first time the USA had cited extra-judicial police violations of human rights in Sri Lanka in its report.

Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Spokesman Helen Olafsdottir has strongly rejected Minister Mangala Samaraweera's saying 'No paramilitaries operate in government controlled areas,' and maintained that she has been continually stressing that paramilitaries are operating in Government-controlled areas.

Hagrup Haukland, the head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, also has said 'We have reported to the Government of Sri Lanka about the presence and functioning of paramilitary groups.' He further explained that, 'We have told the government about the paramilitary groups operating but the government rejecting the fact is a matter concerning it. We have clearly stated that paramilitary groups do operate irrespective of it being accepted or not.'

In addition PAFFREL, People's Action for Free and Fair Elections, has reported that there are evidences of paramilitaries collaborating with the Sri Lanka Army in the eastern regions of Sri Lanka. 'Conditions there are not conducive to conduct elections and we do have evidence of paramilitary operations,' said  Kingsley Rodrigo, the head of PAFFREL.

It is to be noted that, though the international community continue to expose the truth, Sri Lanka government and its administrative bodies continue to reject their statements. We wish to discuss certain views regarding this.

We have to first consider the basic reasons for the Sri Lanka government for creating and maintaining the paramilitary groups.  It has prepared an agenda and the paramilitary groups are to be exploited in the execution of this agenda. We can classify the plans in the agenda in the following manner:

Paramilitary groups are to be used to:

• divide the Tamils
• split the Tamils and Muslims
• fragmentise the Tamil Nation principle
• split the Tamils' Homeland
• split the Up Country Tamils, if needed

Beyond these,

• Blot out the Tamils

[The paramilitaries operate as the 'eyes and ears' of the Sri Lankan armed forces because it is an all-Sinhala force that does not know the terrain (geographic, cultural, political or linguistic) in which it operates. In addition, the paramilitaries can undertake all sorts of dirty tasks that would be condemned if committed by the government's armed forces, i.e. they provide 'plausible deniability' to the government. -- Editor]

We suspect that Mahintha Rajapakse's regime wishes to execute this agenda in stages. The paramilitary groups are used to lay the foundation work for this scheme. They - and the Period for Peace - also are being used to strengthen the regime's current weakened position. The paramilitary groups are well aware of this! They fully well know why the Sri Lanka government is exploiting them. Yet, they are bent on destroying their own people's future for their selfish motives. History will never forgive these men.

These paramilitary groups who are engaged in disrupting the peace efforts say that they are serving the Tamil people. They also say they are fighting the Liberation Tigers. Why don't those who profess to be serving the Tamil people, fight single handily? They are in the camps of the enemies of Tamil people. What could one say about these people who collaborate with the common enemy and yet say they serve the Tamil people? They serve only themselves.

The Tamil people living in areas where these paramilitary groups operate very well know the innermost aim of these groups. These groups will have no palce to run when the time comes when the people openly lose patience!

Paramilitary groups like the Jihad group and the Bin Laden group work along with their guides to drive a wedge between the Tamils and Muslims. Muslim leaders also have accepted the existence of these groups. There is no doubt that the growth of these paramilitary groups in the future may turn disadvantageous to certain foreign countries. We leave it to our readers to delve deeper into this matter.

Finally, we wish to place certain basic important matters before you:

• Rajapakse regime thinks of waging a major war after having weakened the Tamils.

• As one of its strategies to achieve this end, it is engaged in an indirect war with the Liberation Tigers using paramilitary groups.

• Therefore, it is no wonder that the Liberation Tigers demand the Sri Lanka government to disarm the paramilitary groups!

• Those who try to label the paramilitary issue as an internal problem of the Liberation Tigers today will have to face an international problem tomorrow!

• No one can blame the Tamil people if peace talks breaks down tomorrow or war explodes!

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