After Jaffna?

On the 5th of December 1995 the Lion Flag of the Tamil king of Kandy, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, was raised in the Jaffna city's Duraiappah Stadium by the Sinhalese Deputy Minister of Defence, Mr Anuruddha Ratwatte, to signify the "fall" of the Tamil heartland of Jaffna. While the Deputy Minister announced in Jaffna the annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the LTTE attacked a Special Task Force (STF) camp in Batticaloa on the same day with characteristically devastating effect.

The "victorious" flag-raising took place at the conclusion of the most recent set of armed operations which began with Operation Leap Forward on 9 July and ended with Operation Riviresa on 5 December. The arrogance with which the Lion flag was planted in Jaffna and other ceremonies were conducted in Colombo to celebrate the "conquest" of the Tamil heartland smacked of a FOREIGN military campaign. Leading members of the Peoples Alliance Government (PAG) made political statements in support of a political solution and underlining the unity of the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim peoples as one nation. However, the military actions of the PAG reveal that Tamils (and Muslims) in Sri Lanka are viewed as aliens to be subjugated by the force of arms; and the military campaign exposed the PAG's hidden agenda of a military solution to the Tamil Question.

Further evidence for the hidden agenda is provided by two major shifts in the PAG's approach to the Tamil Question after 5 December. Firstly, President Kumaratunga raised the stakes by changing the conditions for a dialogue between the PAG and the LTTE. She reportedly insisted that the LTTE must "accept" (not negotiate over) her 3 August Devolution Proposals and agree to a "substantial" (instead of the previous "symbolic") laying down of arms (The Island, 9/12/95). Thus the PAG made an offer it knows fully well will be rejected. Because even a casual observer of the Sri Lankan conflict (and similar wars in Palestine and Northern Ireland) will know that it is impossible for the LTTE to hand over weapons in the absence of negotiations. Moreover the established norm is to link each phase of the laying down of weapons by militants to each stage in the implementation by government of a mutually acceptable negotiated solution. The PAG intends to exploit the LTTE's predictable rejection of its escalating and unrealistic demands as a justification for avoiding negotiations with the LTTE and pursuing the military campaign in the North-East Province (NEP). The PAG sought to mask this pursuit of the military solution by the offer of an amnesty to the LTTE cadre.

The second shift in the PAG's approach is the move away from "negotiation" and toward "implementation" (read "imposition") in its dealings with the Colombo-based Tamil political parties. This change of course became increasingly palpable as Operation Riviresa advanced closer to Jaffna city. And it was confirmed at the meeting between the representatives of the Tamil parties and President Kumaratunga on 11 December. The Tamil parties urged the PAG to negotiate with them, to submit the Kumaratunga Proposals to them to make "certain changes" before finalising the PAG's peace proposals. But the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Prof G L Peiris, bluntly rejected negotiations because, he alleged, the Kumaratunga Proposals had to be "only changed into legal form" and so "there would be not much changes to its original form". The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader Mr M Sivasithambaram pleaded virtually on his knees that "the Tamil political parties were in consensus that the unit of devolution, a matter of great importance, should be discussed before it was included in the [PAG's] political package draft proposals". President Kumaratunga contemptuously dismissed his plea by reportedly replying that "the unitary and sovereign nature of the country would be taken in for consideration on the unit of devolution" (The Island, 12/12/95). This was the first time the President regressed to the term "Unitary", which had been abandoned in favour of the federalistic term "Union" in her Proposals. In retrospect the PAG's intransigence substantiates LTTE's assessment that the PAG seeks only a military solution and more importantly it amply justifies the LTTE's resumption of hostilities on 19 April.

In summary President Kumaratunga reportedly explained helpfully that "technicalities involved in the presentation of the Proposals to Parliament did not permit the government to present them at any other forum". In simple language, it means that negotiations with Tamil parties are out. And the rejection of negotiations was underlined when the unveiling of the PAG's peace proposals was once again postponed, this time to an unspecified date beyond January 1996 (The Island, 17/12/95). Clearly the military campaign has enormously strengthened the Sinhalese right wing, including the armed forces, and has dealt a fatal blow to hopes of reaching a negotiated political solution.

The editorial of an influential independent Tamil newspaper reflected the intense sense of betrayal: it deeply regretted that the PAG sent the Tamil politicians away "empty-handed" on 11 December (Virakesari, 13/12/95). However, going home "empty handed" is a practice well established among collaborationist Tamil politicians over the past four decades. They cover their impotence with the usual explanation on each instance, beginning with the 1957 Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam (BC) Pact, that they "trusted" the "assurances" of the incumbent Sinhalese leader but were "let down". Their crass opportunism will allow them to be "saddened" again by yet another "let down" but permit them to continue to prop up the PAG.

What then of the scenario for Jaffna conceived by the PAG? A reading of past reports indicates that the strategy was to take Jaffna city militarily and then to politically legitimate the capture. This was to be achieved in the following stages.

1) The city of Jaffna to be captured together with its Tamil population.

2) The LTTE to be driven out, preferably into the Vanni jungles.

3) A temporary administration manned by Tamil collaborationist politicians to be imposed upon Jaffna.

4) Elections to be held under the temporary administration to put in office Tamil collaborators, the so-called "representatives" of Tamils, in the Provincial Council and other political institutions.

5) The dictates of PAG to be imposed upon the Tamil nation through these Tamil collaborators who are ready and eager to accept the political crumbs thrown at them by the PAG.

6) The Tamil Question to be declared resolved peacefully.

But the LTTE did the unexpected. It denied the PAG control over Jaffna's Tamil population by relocating the Tamils in refugee camps set up in other northern areas under LTTE control. The LTTE also moved its operational centre from Jaffna to Kilinochchi and on its way out, it removed all food stocks remaining in Jaffna. Perhaps the LTTE leader, Mr Velupillai Prabhakaran, is borrowing from the experience of Stalin's strategic withdrawal against Hitler's advancing army.

Nevertheless, the political legitimation planned for by the PAG cannot now materialise until the Tamil population returns to Jaffna. And the population is unlikely to voluntarily return fearing counter-insurgency actions by security forces - the segregation of males (now even females) between stipulated ages, their interrogation (and even torture), and the inevitable quota of rapes, deaths and disappearances. Thus, in a blatant violation of human rights, the PAG is coercing the former and present public sector Tamil employees back to Jaffna by withholding the payment of salaries and pensions unless the recipients "come physically" to collect the money (The Island, 9/12/95). It goes without saying that those who do turn up would be prevented from returning to LTTE held areas.

Meanwhile the shortsighted assault on Jaffna has introduced a qualitatively new dimension to the conflict. The armed operations have created an unprecedented Tamil refugee population, of between four and five hundred thousand. And if the PAG continues its military campaign, as it probably will, the Tamil populations in other parts of the peninsula will also join the refugees. For the first time the majority of Sri Lankan Tamils are likely to be living in semi-permanent refugee camps. The armed forces would probably attack the refugee camps alleging that LTTE guerrillas have secured a foothold in them. In turn these camps will nurture a new generation of embittered Tamil youth, who will be infinitely more radical than anything the governments have encountered so far and who will flock to join the LTTE.

Thus the capture of Jaffna can only further strengthen the LTTE and intensify the struggle for Tamil Eelam.

Dr S Sathananthan Ph D
Secretary
20 December 1995