Disarming Karuna

And What It Means

by J. S. Tissainayagam, Northeastern Monthly

Ever since the first round of talks in Geneva on strengthening the CFA concluded, Colombo has been preoccupied with one matter: did the LTTE outwit the Sri Lanka government delegation or not. And to feed such speculation further, attorney-at-law H. L. de Silva PC resorted to naked sophistry, claiming something which never happened – that of the CFA being amended during the negotiations.

It was amusing to note De Silva, who is often described by admiring fellow professionals as the “lion of the Hulftsdorp bar,” writhing from the stinging broadsides fired by LTTE’s chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham. In Tamil there is a pithy saying, “Mookil vizhuthum meesaiyil munn padavillai” (though falling flat on the face, pretending sand has not got into the moustache). That remains a perfect description of moustachioed De Silva’s attitude after grappling in Geneva with minds more sophisticated than those he has been accustomed to encounter at Hulftsdorp all these years!

It is perhaps typical that southern Sri Lanka should be immersed in such controversy on the semantics of the word ‘amendment.’ But while the Colombo-based media focused on these intricacies, the Tamil public and the LTTE have been worried about matters more immediately concerned with day-to-day existence in the northeast. What is uppermost in their minds is whether the agreement entered into by the government and the Tigers would pave the way for a more effective implementation of the CFA or not.

According to the statement read out at the conclusion of the meeting, “The GOSL is committed to taking all necessary measures in accordance with the Ceasefire Agreement to ensure that no armed group or person other than government security forces will carry arms or conduct armed operations.” The statement was supposed to reflect the UPFA government’s commitment to disarm all the paramilitary groups, most important of which is Karuna.

Two days following the Geneva talks however, Karuna told Reuters, “Without mincing our words we wish to tell (Prabhakaran) quite categorically that we have our resolve and moral right to hold on to our arms. No one can impose their will on us to take away our arms, which we only use for defensive purposes.” The die was thus cast.

Though this might appear mere bravado, there are a number of concerns that Karuna will have to address before deciding whether he wishes to sheath his sword or brandish it defiantly.

It has to be understood that Karuna, ever since he broke away from the LTTE, has tried not to appear a political appendage of the Sri Lankan state, nor its security forces. Unlike the other Tamil paramilitary organisations – EPDP, PLOTE, EPRLF (V) – mentioned by the LTTE in its statements at Geneva, which have not only acknowledged the supremacy of the Sri Lankan state but contested elections – parliamentary, provincial and local – to capture political power, Karuna has not done so.

Though his split from the LTTE only just managed to anticipate the revelation of his sordid doings within the organisation, his armed rebellion against the Wanni leadership was able to deflect some of the adverse criticism. Breaking away from the LTTE he set himself up as a charismatic figure and the standard around which the eastern Tamils defiant of the north could gather.

The fact he represents himself as a third force is best seen by the statements Karuna releases to the media. Even in his statement which followed the last visit of Norway’s International Development Minister Erik Solheim to Sri Lanka, where he (Solheim) was able to wrest from the two main warring parties an agreement to stop killing each other’s cadres, Karuna went on record that he was negotiating a separate treaty with the Tigers to suspend violence, and not automatically following the government’s lead on the matter.

Politically too, Karuna acted in a way where he has wanted to be perceived as being, by and large, independent of both the southern political parties as well as the LTTE. For instance at the last presidential election, he exhorted the eastern Tamils to vote for Mahinda Rajapakse. It is quite a different issue that the eastern Tamils preferred to vote for Ranil Wickremesinghe, defying Karuna’s advice. What is important is the image of himself that Karuna has systematically built up over the past two years.

The aura of independence Karuna has been cultivating makes sense when one realises that he is not without political ambition. He calls the fledgling party he heads TMVP (Tamil Peoples’ Liberation Tigers). The name itself cloaks the outfit in a distinctly populist garb. His moves have all been to be an eastern Prabhakaran, a charismatic figure around which an identity and a movement could be built.

The Sri Lanka government delegation agreed in Geneva to permit only the government security forces to carry arms or conduct armed operations. If the Rajapakse government is sincerely committed to carrying out its pledges one of three things could happen: (1) Karuna will remain defiant of becoming identified as an appendage of the state and be stripped of his arms by force, (2) accept his subservient status and be disarmed willingly. Both operations would have to be overseen by the SLMM. (3) Karuna is absorbed into the Sri Lanka security forces’ military structure and submits himself and his loyalists to the political control of the Sri Lankan state.

But if any of these three options is realised, Karuna cannot present himself as an independent leader who is worthy of the allegiance of the eastern Tamils. He will come to be seen as an impostor and a fraud who like many other eastern Tamil leaders before him, is a puppet controlled by Colombo. In other words, Karuna will be shown up as a paper Tiger.

Even if Karuna says that he is voluntarily submitting to the request of the Sri Lankan state and agreeing to disarm (and not be seen as having the decision “imposed” by the LTTE of which he appears particularly sensitive) no one will believe him.

In the final analysis, the mystique that has surrounded the LTTE and its leadership has been its steadfast refusal to submit to the dictates of the Sri Lankan state or to become a junior partner in any endeavour whatsoever. All what the LTTE has done so far on these lines has been for tactical reasons and nothing more.

Karuna positioned himself in a way so as to present the same image. But the humiliation of having to be physically disarmed would be a huge dent on the aura he has constructed. This might not mean that he will disappear from eastern Tamil politics altogether, but he will never command the same respect in the eyes of his supporters. At the most he will be another Douglas Devananda – a ruffian in politics who has sing for his supper by working with the security forces. This would give the LTTE a wonderful opportunity to reassert itself in the east politically.

The other possibility, of course, is that Rajapakse is deceptive and Karuna (as well as the other paramilitary groups) are not completely disarmed.

Though the disarmament process is to be overseen by the SLMM, the question is whether the SLMM could be trusted by the Tamils. We should not forget that the monitoring mission has been singularly reluctant to state openly that Karuna operates from government-controlled areas and a nexus exists between his loyalists and the security forces. It took almost two years of constant complaints by the Tigers for the SLMM to come up with a report confirming Karuna did operate from government-controlled areas in the east, a fact which a child living in Welikanda would have readily acknowledged.

Only last week, on the eve of his departure after being relieved of his duties as head of the SLMM, did Hagrup Haukland put the record straight when senior security forces personnel denied armed paramilitary groups operated in the east, “There is no doubt that such groups do exist. The army should be truthful about this issue.” Such forthright statements earlier might not have endeared Haukland with the Sri Lankan security forces but put on record long ago a matter that the government came to accept in Geneva.

On the other hand, even if the monitors want to do a genuine job, would they have the required wherewithal to verify whether the tasks of disarming have actually been accomplished. Wherever decommissioning of weapons becomes a sticky issue, including Northern Ireland and Kosovo verification has been a must.

If Rajapakse wants to be untruthful about disarming Karuna, it could either be a result of deliberate defiance, in which case he would be intentionally violating the agreement reached in Geneva and justifying the LTTE withdrawing from the CFA. On the other hand, Karuna could refuse to disarm leading Rajapakse to resort to deceit to cover up the fact that he is a weak, ineffectual head of state unable to impose political control on those who bears arms within the geographical area supposedly under the control of the Sri Lankan state. If it is the latter it will bring Sri Lanka one step closer to being labelled by that derogatory epithet: “a failed state.”

• View a printer-friendly version of this article