Revolt against Karuna’s Regional Cry
by T. Sabaratnam; March 22, 2004
Weekly Review
Patience Pays
Signs that Karuna’s revolt would crumble earlier than expected are surfacing according to the reports reaching Kilinochchi and Colombo. It will speed up, observers predict, as media and political pressure mount on the president and the government to use the division in the LTTE for the benefit of the Sinhala people.
“Our leader’s strategy has begun to yield results. Patience was what is necessary. The revolt will be over soon,” Tiger political chief S. P. Thamilselvam, told a group of media personnel who met him Friday. He declined to reveal their plans but reconfirmed what he had been saying since the beginning of the rift: There will be no bloodshed.
Reports from Batticoloa and Ampara indicate that people have begun to question Karuna’s decrees, especially his direction to candidates contesting next week’s election that they should refrain from mentioning about Tamil nationalism and the Tamil homeland.
“How can we do that?” asked Joseph Pararajasingham, who heads the list of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) candidates in Batticoloa. “They are the very basis of our struggle and so far our main achievements.”
He said that in his election campaign he is asking the voters to cast one preferential vote for him. He said he is asking the voters to cast the other two preferential votes for TNA candidates who have shown consistency in supporting Tamil Nationalism.
In the Ampara district, the woman TNA candidate Yogambikai Sabapathy told the BBC Tamil Service that she has rejected regionalism.
Reports reaching Colombo from Batticoloa and Amparai indicate that most of the candidates are avoiding raising the regional cry and the anti- Pirapaharan slogan, as they are unpopular with the voters.
“Sympathizing with Karuna, the son of the soil, is something and going against the very basis of the freedom struggle is another thing,” a businessman from Batticoloa said.
War has been for the East
“We accept with gratitude that eastern fighters fought many battles and sacrificed their lives to defeat the attempts of the Sinhala army to occupy Vanni. They must not forget that the war is mainly to safeguard the east,” a Jaffna university academic said.
The original cause for the Sinhala- Tamil dispute was the colonization of the east by the Sinhalese. And it was the northerners who spearheaded the resistance against Sinhala colonization.
“Tamil nationhood and Tamil homeland are non-negotiable positions. Now Karuna, at the behest of some forces that are opposed to these, is trying to destroy all our gains,” he added.
The position that the entirety of the northern and eastern provinces, the traditional region of habitation of the Tamils, constitute the Tamil homeland and the Tamils who live in that region are a nation was achieved indirectly first through non-violent struggle and then consolidated through armed conflict, the academic pointed out.
The Federal Party under the leadership of S. J. V. Chelvanayakam made three former prime ministers to accept that position. The Bandaranaike – Chelvanayakam Pact signed in 1957 accepted Tamil as the administrative language of the northern and eastern provinces. It also accepted the setting up of district councils in those provinces with the provision to merge two or more councils. It identified state-aided colonization as one of the subjects to be allocated to the district councils.
The Dudley Senanayake – Chelvanayakam Agreement of 1965, while accepting the above arrangements, specified that settlers in state-aided colonization schemes would be firstly local residents, secondly Tamils of the northern and eastern provinces and thirdly Tamils from the other parts of Sri Lanka.
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, through the enactment of the enactment of the Language of the Courts Law, acknowledged that courts of the north and east would be administered in the Tamil language.
Then the militants, especially the Tigers, laid the north-east merger as a condition for any political settlement to the ethnic problem. It resulted in the inclusion of clauses 1.3 and 1.4 in the Indo – Sri Lanka Agreement signed on 29 July 1987. Clause 1.3 recognizes Tamils as an ethnic group with a distinct culture and linguistic identity. Clause 1.4 recognizes the northern and eastern provinces as the areas of historical habitation of the Sri Lankan Tamils. That was followed by the temporary merger of the two provinces which has continued undisturbed for 16 years.
Karuna, because he wants to free himself from disciplinary action that would be instituted against him for financial irregularities and moral misconduct, has endangered all these and subsequent military gains, the academic said.
Northerners add that they sacrificed immensely because of the affection Pirapaharan has for the easterners. They say that Pirapaharan rejected an offer by President J. R. Jayewardene in 1986 in Bangalore to give self-government for the northern province if Pirapaharan gave up his claim for the east. Pirapaharan rejected that offer which offended Rajiv Gandhi and MGR. Pirapaharan told MGR, who was flown to Bangalore to persuade Pirapaharan, that the east was more important to him than the north.
That resulted in Pirapaharan’s arrest and being marched to the police station and finger-printed like a common criminal.
Then in 1989, when the LTTE had talks with President Premadasa, the president told Anton Balasingham that he was prepared to grant even political independence to the north as a separate Tamil state, but would never allow the eastern province as part of the Tamil homeland. On President Premadasa’s request, Balasingham conveyed the message to Pirapaharan. His response was, “Please tell Mr. Premadasa that he is even prepared to give up the north, but he will not, under any circumstances, be prepared to abandon the eastern province and its people.”
Now Karuna is prepared to sacrifice the east for the sake of his self-interest, an elder journalist told me.
He said Pirapaharan is treating Karuna in a special manner even after his betrayal. “That was because of his love for the east,” he said and added,
“He is taking extreme care not to wound the feelings of the people of the east.
“But Karuna is destroying himself,” a doctor working in a government hospital said. “He is making contacts with President Chandrika Kumaratunga through Tamil elements working for the military” he said. “The talk here is that he is going to work with the military to crush the LTTE,” he added.
The LTTE, another source said, would not disturb anything till the elections are over. Its political leaders have been told to campaign hard to ensure the victory of the TNA candidates. The LTTE is also busy organizing the voters in the areas under their control to caste their votes, which is going to be a massive operation.
Tiger Priorities
Most of the top leaders like V. Balakumar are busy addressing election meetings. “Our current priority is to demonstrate to the Sinhala people and the international community that the Tamil people are united and they are with us,” Balakumar told a meeting at Palai.
He said, “This election will silence forever the people who question our credibility when we claim to be the sole representatives of the Tamil people. So make it your duty to caste your vote for the TNA,” he said.
A teenager asked: “Instead of campaigning for the TNA why can’t the LTTE contest the election?”
Balakumar answered: “We are still freedom fighters. We have not given up arms. We are talking peace while keeping our fingers on the trigger. If we take the finger out of the trigger, talks will collapse. We will never contest elections. If we contest, our freedom struggle will crumble.”
He reminded the audience of a quotation from Pirapaharan. “Men may come and men may go, but Tigers would tread their chosen path. Karuna may go, but that would not affect our struggle,” he said.
Balakumar admitted that in the Karuna affair they had suffered a great loss. “There were forces breaking their heads about destroying the military infrastructure of the Tigers. We took every precaution to prevent such a thing. This time they had succeeded and we have failed. They succeeded in making use of Pirapaharan’s most trusted lieutenant to do that.”
Kilinochchi sources said that Pirapaharan is currently busy in preventing a similar thing happening in the future. A new scheme of deployment of senior commanders is being devised. The scheme of transfer that is operational in other areas would be enforced. The command structure, too, would be altered to prevent commanders having special units attached to them.
While the LTTE is getting over the crisis, the south may face fresh ones after the election. As things stand today, the possibility of a hung parliament looms large. Large crowds are seen at the meetings of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, which has fielded Buddhist priests.
The JHU’s general secretary, Ven, Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera, told a meeting on Sunday that they would be the deciding factor in forming the next government. He said they would not join any government, but would help any party to form the government if it accepts their policy.
The JHU denies that there is an ethnic problem. It is against any solution on the basis of federalism. How the Sinhalese are going to tackle this new factor will be Sri Lanka’s major concern very soon.
Originally posted March 23, 2004