by T. Sabaratnam; Colombo, April 20, 2004
Weekly Review
Tamils get united to talk peace;
Fractured Sinhalese continue their wrangle
Tamil Unity
Eighteen days have passed since the April 2 parliamentary elections. In these crucial days Tamils have consolidated their unity and on Tuesday their leadership discussed at the highest level ways and means of taking forward the peace process. The Sinhalese, on the other hand, have gotten more fractured and find it difficult even to form a government.
On Tuesday all the 22 Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians from the northeast had a 2-hour working session with Tiger chief Velupillai Pirapaharan and worked out their strategy to negotiate the LTTE’s proposal for the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) with the new Colombo government.
R. Sampanthan, leader of the TNA parliamentary group, told the media at Kilinochchi, “We have arrived at two main conclusions: to pursue the path of peace and to push the ISGA as the basis for talks.”
Pirapaharan and the 22 MPs worked out their respective roles in the forthcoming peace process. The LTTE would be the sole negotiator and the parliamentarians the promoters of the peace process.
Pirapaharan told the MPs that the Sinhalese agreed to talk peace because they could not militarily defeat the Tamils. “It is our military strength that will win us our rights.” He later told Up-Country People’s Front leader P. Chandrasekaran and Western Province People’s Front leader Mano Ganeshan, who met him separately, that the UNP and the SLFP adopt similar positions on the question of giving Tamils their rights.
“If you weigh them on a balance they will weigh same. Their degree of reluctance to give the Tamils their rights is the same,” Pirapaharan said and added, “Tamils will have to extract their rights through their military strength.”
All the 22 MPs jointly gave Pirapaharan the pledge that they would stand by the policy enunciated in their election manifesto – Tamil nationalism, Tamil homeland and self rule. They added a new dimension – man (soil) and makkal (people). Protecting the soil and winning the freedom of the people, they pledged, would be their priorities.
Jaffna district MP Suresh Premachandran declared, “Our mission is to make use of the parliament to agitate for our rights. If we fail in our mission we will join the Tigers and fight on the battlefield.”
Sinhalese, especially journalists, have failed to understand the significance of the unity the Tamils have forged. They still try to project the image that the Tamil people are toeing the LTTE line through fear.
The Sinhala attitude is evident from this question a reporter asked Sampanthan last week. “Are you going to take instruction from the LTTE?” he asked.
“There is no question of taking orders. We are working in partnership. We represent unitedly the Tamil people. We are going to Kilinochchi to plan our common strategy,” an irritated Sampanthan retorted.
The Sinhalese are unable to accept the fact that Tamil people are united. They are unable to stomach the unity Tamil people exhibited at the April 2 election. Tamil people have become wiser to the divisive tactics of the Sinhala ruling class. It is that awareness that united the Tamil people, Tamil intellectuals agree.
Karuna’s Blow
A respected Tamil intellectual quoted a Hindu fable to illustrate the pain Tamil people suffered when Karuna announced his defection. The story is that of a devote pittu seller. She could not hire a labourer to fill her portion of the river bund. Lord Shiva, who came in the garb of a labourer, offered to do her work. He was playing when the King went to inspect the restoration work. He caned the labourer and the pain was felt by every living being, including the King. Karuna’s revolt pained every Tamil and made them bend their head in shame.
“It is that sense of shame that helped Karuna’s cadres to desert when the LTTE’s fighters moved from Verugal in the north and Thirukovil in the south. The fight was over before the army reinforcements massed along the Batticaloa road realized what was happening.”
Pirapaharan told the TNA MPs that he expected the operation to last longer. He said, “We were able to find a quick solution to the Karuna episode because of the help people and the cadres of the eastern province gave us.”
He said the people realized that the Karuna affair was an attempt to divide the Tamil people and destroy the very basis of their freedom struggle.
“The politics behind the Karuna revolt are becoming clear,” Suresh Premachandran said in a television discussion. “The planners of the Karuna revolt wanted to make use of the parliamentarians of the Batticaloa and Ampara districts to smash the very basis of the Tamil demand – Tamil nationality, Tamil homeland and Tamil self-rule.”
Karuna’s whereabouts are still a mistery. An unconfirmed report said he and his close associates had fled to Australia. News reports now confirm that they were brought to Colombo under army escort. Those reports say Karuna, Varathan, Nilavini and three or four others were taken first to Panagoda Camp and then to another camp. Others were checked into a hotel outside Colombo. Police who were tipped by the hotel raided it, and finding that they were Karuna’s people, they hurriedly left.
These stories suggest that Army Commander Lionel Balagalle was behind Karuna’s revolt and he was left helpless when Karuna crumbled so quickly. Now, Balagalle is left with a burden, defence authorities who requested anonymity, said. Karuna and the military had left the people they checked into the hotel unattended.
Sinhala people who made Karuna a hero are at a loss to understand his quick fall. A Sinhala journalist said he was bewildered.
Sinhala opinion, he said, is divided on its assessment of Karuna’s fall.
The majority blame the government for its failure to make use of the Karuna revolt for the benefit of the Sinhalese. ‘The army should have helped him’ was their stand. A small group of Sinhalese people have become Pirapaharan fans. They say he is clever and cannot be defeated.
The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a party of Buddhist monks that won nine crucial seats in the April 2 election, accused Kumaratunga of a ‘great betrayal’ by not exploiting the split between the northern and eastern factions of the LTTE to weaken the Tigers.
”It was a historic opportunity to use the split in the LTTE to crush terrorism,” JHU lawmaker-monk Omalpe Sobhitha told reporters Tuesday.
The JHU’s stand had further fractured the Sinhala people. They have been split into UNP and SLFP camps for over fifty years and did their politics at the expense of the Tamil people. These parties came to power by showing the Sinhala people they could perform better in the contest to deny the Tamils their rights. The JVP entered the fray a few years ago. Now, the hard-line Buddhist monks are going to dictate terms to the other three groups.
The Dispute
The politics of the Sinhala people are in a complete mess. President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who contested the polls in alliance with the JVP, is unable to form a complete cabinet even 18 days after the election. Her group – the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) – won 105 seats in the 225 seat parliament. With the support of the the former Tamil militant group the EPDP, which works with the army, she has 106 seats. The JVP has 39 of these seats. It refused to accept the four cabinet portfolios allocated to it, charging Kumaratunga of not honouring their agreement. The dispute is over the important department of the Mahaweli Development Authority.
The JVP says that it was entitled to the Authority under the agreement which created the UPFA. Kumaratunga denied it. She says that was not specifically stated in the agreement. The JVP says ‘word is word’ and even the president cannot go back in it.
Though outwardly it looks that the dispute has been over the wording of the agreement, the real reason is different. The JVP sought Mahaweli Development as it wants to build its influence over the agriculture sector of the country, especially over paddy cultivation. The JVP, which has infiltrated the educational, state employment and industrial sectors, wants to bring the agricultural sector also under its influence.
The SLFP, which in the last election suffered at the hands of the JVP in the urban centres of the country, does not want to lose its rural base. As of today the JVP and the SLFP are holding firm to their positions. Kumaratunga, who was unable to hold cabinet meetings because of her dispute with the JVP, has decided to hold the first meeting tomorrow (Wednesday).
Cabinet formation is not the only headache Kumaratunga is grappling with. She has to find a majority in parliament by Thursday. She has only 106 MPs with her. By Thursday she has to find another eight. Her effort to woo the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, which has 5 MPs on its own and another 4 MPs within the UNF, has failed. So has her effort to win over the Ceylon Workers Congress which has 8 members, all within the UNF. The attempt to draw in the JHU, too, has not succeeded.
Almost frustrated, Kumaratinga is trying to break the SLMC, CWC and JHU and drag in one or two from the UNF. There were rumours that two members of the SLMC and one from the CWC and two from the UNF have met her. This evening the JHU held a hurried press conference and announced that one of its MPs had been abducted.
Parliament is meeting on Thursday and it will elect the Speaker and Deputy Speaker. The UNF has nominated a former minister and is working hard to get him elected. The UPFA has not yet decided on its candidate. The UNP leader, former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, predicts that Kumaratunga would collapse within five months. The promises Kumaratunga had given the people during the election would be her main undoing. Kumaratunga announced the reduction of fertilizer prices – one of her promises – today and it would cost the treasury Rs. 1 billion a year. Her promise to increase the salaries of the government servants by 70 percent would require another Rs. 6 billion. Similarly other promises also would be costly. The Treasury just has no funds to meet all these burdens.
And Kumaratunge’s promise to restart the peace process is also going to be a difficult task. The Karuna revolt would have given her a breathing space and the opportunity to put the Tamil side in a corner. Pirapaharan’s sharp and short operation upset all her plans. Tamils are pleased that bloodshed was avoided. They praise Pirapaharan for the magnanimity he had shown to the cadres under Karuna’s command. Pirapaharan instructed the new commander of the Batticaloa- Ampara region, Thambirajah Ramesh, to take back all who want to rejoin the LTTE.
“We will not punish or victimise or persecute anyone who has been associated with Karuna in his traitorous activities,” Ramesh said. Some of those who were with Karuna were rejoining the LTTE.
“Our leader has instructed us to take a strictly humanitarian approach in dealing with this issue,” said Ramesh, who was Karuna’s deputy before the split.
Political analysts say the LTTE’s suspicion about the role played by the Army Commander in the Karuna revolt would be a hurdle to the resumption of peace talks. LTTE sources said General Balagalle would not have gotten involved with Karuna without President Kumaratunga’s consent. They point to the appointment of EPDP leader Douglas Devananda as Minister of Hindu Affairs as another attempt to dilute the role of the LTTE in peace talks.
The TNA in a resolution passed on Friday said Devananda’s appointment to the cabinet was an insult to the Tamil people.
“She appointed a person rejected by Tamils at the last general election in charge of a ministry important to Tamil people…The President’s action has caused doubt in her sincerity in resuming peace talks with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam),” the resolution said.
In brief, the Tamil side has consolidated its position while the Sinhala side is in disarray.
Originally published April 21, 2004