by T. Sabaratnam; Colombo, March 15, 2004
Weekly Review
Karuna – a tool for Sinhala Chauvinism
Karuna is the new found hero of the Sinhala people. They are thrilled about his advent. They know his real name, the tongue-twisting Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan. They are aware that he is from Kiran. They also know that the 38-year old former eastern commander is married to Nira and is the father of three children.
Sinhala media gives him top spot. They feed the Sinhala people all the facts in their news, features and editorial comments necessary to make him the first topic of their conversation. The Sinhala people talk more about him than the April 2 polls. Karuna has stolen the thunder from the violent Sri Lankan election campaign.
“That is not without reason. Karuna, single-handedly, is destroying the basis of all the demands Tamil people had fought for since independence. He is demolishing, one by one, all the gains the Tamil struggle – the democratic non-violent and the subsequent armed struggle – won for the Tamil people,” said a Sinhala political analyst who wanted anonymity.
The analyst added that Karuna is also targeting the gains Tamil people hoped to win in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
The demands that Tamils are a separate nation and the northeast is their homeland were won indirectly by Thanthai Chelva through his pacts with former prime ministers S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayake and through legislation enacted by another former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
The Bandaranaike – Chelvanayakam Pact of 1957 indirectly admitted both the demands by making Tamil the administrative language of the north and east and by admitting that district councils of both the provinces could merge beyond provincial boundaries. The Dudley Senanayake – Chelvanayakam Agreement of 1965 extended this admission by laying down a scheme to prevent Sinhala colonization. The Language of the Courts Act of 1973 enacted by Sirimavo Bandaranaike government decreed that the language of the courts in the north and east should be Tamil.
The armed struggle fortified these gains through the Indo – Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 and the subsequent merger of the northern and eastern provinces.
Karuna is now demolishing these gains. He has questioned, in most of the interviews given to the local English and Sinhalese language papers and to the international media, the basis of the Tamil nation and homeland. He said Sri Lankan Tamils do not constitute a nation. There are only regional groups. He said, “Batticoloa Tamils are different from Jaffna Tamils. Both differ from Vanni Tamils.”
He also said that the eastern province is not the homeland of the Tamils. It is the homeland of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims. He said, “The Eastern Province is not the homeland of the Tamils. It is the homeland of the people who live there – Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese.”
Sunday Times seized with glee on Karuna’s comments and launched an attack on the gains the Tamil freedom struggle has won the past half a century. It wrote, “Ask any Tamil and he will tell you the chronic differences in the community- Trincomalee Tamils, Batticoloa Tamils, Jaffna Tamils, Colombo Tamils and Tamils of the plantation sector who were not tolerated in Jaffna once upon a time.”
Karuna, naturally, became a darling of the Sinhalese. His statements are helping the Sinhalese to wrest back whatever their leaders had reluctantly conceded.
Tamils are naturally pained. Senior Tamil academics and intellectuals who know the history of the Tamil freedom struggle are hurt. They are aware of the amount of trouble Thanthai Chelva took and the amount of legal skill he used to win those basic positions.
Prof. K. Sivathamby gave expression to the feeling of hurt when he told the BBC that the present conflict should not be permitted to disturb the accepted realities that Tamils are a nation and the northeast is their homeland. He said. “It is now a political reality that the northeast is the homeland of the Tamil people. Nothing should be permitted to disturb it.”
Karuna also attacked the two gains Tamils hope to win through the April 2 election: Tamil unity and the Tigers as the sole representatives of the Tamil people. Both are essential to present the Tamil case with firmness and with one voice at the forthcoming peace negotiations. Victory in the elections will help the Tamil demand to win international support.
Karuna says Tamils are not united. Northern Tamils and eastern Tamils are two distinct groups. He adds that eastern Tamils should have separate representation in any peace talks. By saying so is he not playing straight into the hands of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar who enjoy quibbling with words?
Kadirgamar, who announced that the newly forged United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) would commence negotiations with the LTTE without conditions soon after it forms the government and that the government and the LTTE would be the only parties to sit at the negotiating table, watered down his position following Karuna’s revolt. The UPFA’s election manifesto lays down that the government may present ‘reasonable conditions’ for talks and that other parties also should be involved.
Sinhala chauvinism has begun its campaign to weaken the Tamil side. The Sunday Times editorial to which we adverted earlier begins, “Velupillai Prabahaharan, the undisputed leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)is now its disputed leader.” The Sinhala campaign is to show the world that the LTTE is split and Prabhaharan is no more its undisputed leader.
The campaign had gone further. It says that, since Karuna had rejected the LTTE’s Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal, it should not be the basis for talks.
The Sinhala people, though glad about Karuna’s revolt, supportive of his actions and hero-worshiping him for challenging Pirapaharan, are still reluctant to discard the LTTE as a major factor in the peace process. That is the reason why JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe’s views about exploiting Karuna’s revolt to the advantage of the Sinhalese failed to evoke support.
The United National Front government of Ranil Wickremesinghe has taken a definite decision not to make use of the split in the LTTE for its benefit. President Chandrika Kumaratunga also has adopted that stand till now. She instructed Defence Secretary Cyril Herath to reject Karuna’s request to sign a separate Memorandum of Understanding with him. But there are rumours that the army is secretly helping Karuna.
Whether that is true or not, Karuna has failed so far to win the support of the Sri Lankan president and the government. He has also not won the acceptance of the international community. British and German envoys visited Kilinochchi and not Batticoloa. Norway, the facilitators, and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) have refused to have any dealing with Karuna. The agencies of the United Nations also are pulling out of the area under Karuna’s control.
Political analysts now pose two questions. Will Karuna be able to sustain his revolution? If he succeeds to sustain it for some time, what will be the fate of the Tamil National Alliance?
P. K. Balachandran of the Hindustan Times, who carried out a survey in the Batticoloa – Ampara district last week, feels that Karuna will not be able to sustain the revolt. He said the regional feeling that swept the province in the wake of Karuna’s revolt is ebbing. Voices that question the advisability of Karuna’s revolt are becoming louder. “Karuna loyalists stage-managed the protests, effigy burning and Jaffna bashing,” a trader had told him.
“Does Karuna have the money to feed the 6000 cadres he has under his control,” a Catholic priest who belongs to the east, had asked.
Karikalan, Karuna’s former deputy now in Kilinochchi, told the media on Sunday that it costs Rs. 200 to feed and maintain a cadre each day. The LTTE’s Finance Department sends Rs. 10 million a month to Karuna to maintain his men and carry on his administration. That has been stopped.
“He could not carry on unless some outside force provides him that money,” Karikalan said.
Is he getting that money? The only possible providers are the Indian RAW and the American CIA. That suspicion has been voiced in Kilinochchi. These are mere speculations.
Indications reaching Colombo show that Karuna has begun to feel the pinch. Financial difficulties are surfacing. And the corruption and other charges leveled against Karuna have also begun to disturb Karuna’s loyalists. The LTTE leadership is prepared to wait until these pressures make Karuna’s men revolt.
The Batticoloa – Ampara problem would not affect the election in three of the five electoral districts in the northeast- Jaffna, Vanni and Trincomalee. The Jaffna peninsula elects nine members, Vanni six, Trincomalee four, Batticoloa five and Ampara seven, Of these the TNA is trying to win all the nine seats in Jaffna, four in Vanni and two in Trincomalee. In Batticoloa the TNA may bag four and in Ampara one.
Karuna will not disturb the poll in Batticoloa and Ampara where TNA candidates had taken a pro – Karuna stand. Karuna, if his revolt does not crumble before the election, would have four to six MPs under his control, while 12 to 15 MPs would be supportive of the LTTE.
Kumaratunga’s political strategists are talking about attracting Karuna’s MPs in case they need numbers to form the government. That would complicate matters more.
Originally published March 16, 2004