Photo of LTTE flag at protest by onedayforever
One wonders how the LTTE got into this mess. However, it’s clear that they had a plan. It just failed. The LTTE banned people from voting by threat of their usual violence. The disenfranchisement of northern Tamil voters ensured a win for Mahinda, the more warlike candidate. Then, expecting war, they set out on a campaign of targeted assasinations. ‘Good’ plan, in hindsight, but it failed. The Foreign Minister (incidentally, a Tamil) was killed but the Defence Secretary and the Army Commander survived. Hence they’re fucked.
This is not to say that the LTTE is done or whatever. I don’t know. I still agree with the epigraph to Frederica’s latest Sunday Leader editorial:
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent” — Mahatma Gandhi
Violence has damaged Sri Lankan democracy deeply, but I also deeply believe that we can fix it. I’m starting by voting this Saturday (Shiral Lakthilaka, number 39 UNP!). Sri Lanka has chance, we have a functioning democracy and we can all live together, Tamil, Muslim, Sinhala, half-caste, full-caste, two milk, one sugar.
The LTTE, however, is a dead end. After 26 years of suffering for no gain I think the Tamil people living here realize that. They just want to live. I just want to live. The diaspora who left about 26 years ago is still baying for separation, but the people on this land just want to live together.
I hope with all my heart that I can just live together as Sri Lankans. This can start by voting in the Provincial Council election this Saturday, and sending relief to our fellow citizens suffering in the North.
The political solution has to come from us, and it has to start with carrying for the basic life of people up north. I’m working with ACT Lanka to send more supplies to Vavuniya and now Padaviya Hospitals. With the support of the government and armed forces. So it gets delivered. We’re raising funds now, if you’re in Sri Lanka/Colombo contact me on indi@indi.ca and I can direct you. This is just a group of citizens doing what we can with people we know.
Otherwise, the Red Cross and Sarvodaya are good to work with.
I believe the LTTE has made itself irrelevant by trying to suicide bomb and assassinate it’s way to a better future. It’s failed to improve lives for anyone and it’s failed at carving out a separate state. However, we can only make the LTTE completely irrelevant by building a better Sri Lanka.
Why vote for Shrilal? that’s not the only way. Thilanga sumathipala, mohan lal grero are better candidates. Srilal is a NGO-person and a leftist out to destroy UNP.
Where the LTTE has gone wrong is that they have mutated from an organization founded on championing Tamil rights to one that is basically a big corporate entity dealing in human smuggling, drug running, etc in addition to the more legal fronts they have. Basically from a struggle for freedom it is now a way for VP and his board of directors to make huge sums of money and live good lives for them and their children on the backs of the Tamil civilians suffering under their control and the blood of the Sri Lankans they have killed.
No, I think the LTTE went wrong when they formed on the basis of conducting a violent struggle*. They became politically irrelevant when they failed to see the objective extent of what they could achieve with force and didn’t deign to seriously negotiate or compromise their goals. Militarily, though, they remain as relevant as ever. Those cadres on that fringe aren’t all that exists of the current force – we all know they’re going guerilla now – and the Tamil community remains a source of future cadres if disaffection persists or worsens.
*It’s hard to second-guess them in this way, though. There were many Gandhians in the first three decades of the Tamil efforts for self-determination (or limited autonomy) whose non-violent protests were met with violence and more violence. Gandhi was right, of course, responding with violence was never going to work in the long term and it’s cost Tamils in SL a great deal, almost everything.
But I’m not sure if I would have realized that were I a Tamil in my late teens in north/east Sri Lanka in the 70’s. Faced with the world they faced, considering the recent history (and the failure of non-violence to achieve anything) and the likely future (in light of political rhetoric from the south), I’m not sure I would have been so wise.
Maybe 30 years of violence will have killed the fight in a lot of people, but the only way to ensure that is to do what a responsible Sri Lankan government should have been done a long time ago – extend limited autonomy to Tamil areas and respect Tamils as equal citizens.
The communal rhetoric has to end, the pandering politics has to end, the division and governance of the country based on ethnicity rather than citizenship has to end. Is that possible? The words of Sarath Fonseka (“Sri Lanka is for the Sinhalese”) and the parties MR has aligned himself with indicate communalism is as strong as ever.
Now that the conventional war is over, though, MR has an enormous opportunity to set a course for SL that is beneficial in the long term, if politically unpopular in the short term. Let’s hope he takes it. I’m not sure if politics in Sri Lanka will allow for that.
UNP will definately fail in this election……….sad to say………GOV will get more than 65% of votes………UNP did a great mistakes in ceasefire agreement, even tried to create a federal state, if praba said yes to the federal state which agreed during oslo talks today we will be paying money to build eelam nation
DBS Jeyaraj has an excellent article on the civilian exodus in his blog http://dbsjeyaraj.com/
He has been consistently unbiased in his reporting of the war, and in his criticism of both the LTTE and the SL govt. He gets his fair share of abuse for doing so. He really unloads on one commenter for criticizing his “indifference” of the Tamil cause (it is as good reading as his main article–see below):
DBSJEYARAJ RESPONDS: Dont give me this sanctimonious nonsense. Dont blame the postmen for bringing bad news. You are utterly wrong in calling me indifferent or you dont know the meaning of the word. Is there ANY journalist who has written so consistently about the Tamil cause as I have? Not LTTE but Tamil.But then how many of you supported me publicly when I criticised the LTTE openly and urged them to change course?
Dont blame others for the Tamil predicament. The current crisis is mainly due to Velupillai Prabhakaran. How many times have I written urging the LTTE to do “this” or not do “this”in the interests of the Tamil people? What did I get? Continuous bashing by tiger supporters, physical assaults, int9imidation, threats, abusive telephone calls, emails, anonymous letters, vilification campaign, the stopping of the newspaper I edited etc.How many of you sanctimonious cats expressed solidarity then?
My right of free speech and free expression was severely curtailed by the LTTE and goons. Except for a few souls (For whom I have the greatest regard) no Tamil sympathised let alone supported me. Now you guys are preaching to me about “journalism” and how to practise it.
In the open letter I wrote after my paper was stopped I stated that the LTTE is causing the greatest harm to the Tamil people and challenged tiger stalwarts to a public debate. No response but for threats, vilification and intimidation.
Yet when Anton Balasingham approached me in 2000 and requested my support to get the LTTE ban lifted I responded positively. I did so ONLY because he PROMISED me that the LTTE will enter negotiations and opt for a settlement within a UNITED Sri Lanka. So I backed the LTTE despite angering many friends. I did so ONLY because I wanted the tigers to settle politically thereby emancipate the Tamils. But they DEFAULTED and I resumed criticising the LTTE
Did I not ask the LTTE to give up an unwinnable war and go in for a negotiated settlement umpteen times? Were people of your ilk supportive then? You guys mortgage your minds and souls to the LTTE and now cry out for the people? Yet you go and demonstrate with tiger flags and chant “our leader Prabhakaran” How hypocritical and stupid.
Did I not argue strongly that the LTTE should mend fences with Karuna in the long term interests of the Tamils? Did I not repeat again and again that the LTTE should stay the course and not abandon the negotiating table? Did anyone listen? Even on Mahinda government’s ruthlessness did I not plead with the LTTE not to enforce a boycott and enable a racist regime to emerge?The shameless LTTE got just 180 million rupees from Basil.This is the price of betrayal. So who is responsible So if you are in the blame game start with Prabakharan and do so under your own name.
I am like a father who warns his son that he would crash his exam if he keeps on playing instead of studying. But he passes with flying colours. Will the father be sad that what he predicted did not happen. No he would be happy to have been proved wrong. On the other hand if the boy does crash will the father be happy that what he said came true. No he will only be sad at what has happened notwithstanding his warning coming true. I am in that position.
Even on the current crisis it was I who WARNED of a forthcoming HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE long before all the media and human rights organizations and NGO’s did. But did anyone pay heed? You tamil supporters of LTTE thought the Thalaiver was going to let the army in and whack them. Now you run around like headless chickens.
If the Tamil people are to extricate themselves from this morass they must first recongnize and acknowledge that Prabhakaran has brought them to disaster. That will be the beginning of redemption and renaissance. Instead if they persist in supporting this man who has done the greatest damage to the Tamil people I can see no way out. The comic scenes of waving tiger flags and shouts of our leader with Praba’s portrait makes me think that we have no future at all.
THE LION SHARE FOR TAMIL TROUBLE LIES WITH THE TIGER
“Theethum Nandrum Pirar Thara Vaaraa”.
Usually I keep these thoughts bottled up inside me and remain passive to all the bullshit said about me by all you so-called Tamil patriots but somehow you succeeded in making me erupt. God bless you
DBSJ
Brilliant comment by DBS, thanks Johan for posting.
The LTTE failed when they morphed from fighting for Tamils to fighting for themselves. In a word, when they thought they could be come the “sole representatives”.
The transformation started in the mid to late eighties when still riding the manpower and material boost following 1983, they started eliminating alternate Tamil voices. It happened in a small way before but accelerated in the lat eighties with the virtual elimination of all other armed groups as well as other independent voices.
The tragedy is that in the absence of other voices, excepting a very few like DBS and Rajan Hoole, the mainstream opinion equates the LTTE position with the Tamil position.
MLG is a gr8 guy, but, Thilanga…..
I think the Tamil cause failed when it allowed the LTTE to become the ‘sole represantatives’ and stood by while it massacred the competition. However, I think the LTTE failed when it underestimated the determination of the present regime, overestimated its own conventional military capability (something they’ve done before), and failed to understand the worldwide shift in psyche after 9/11. There are many points where the LTTE’s failure can be clearly detailed, but I think that’s it in broad strokes.
Becoming the ‘sole reps’ was good for the Tigers, and hasn’t anything to do with their defeat. It just defeated the purpose.
We have to keep in mind that post-1983, the Tamil community was victimized and the new diaspora especially felt like losers (I would too if I lost everything to a bunch of thugs, had to live in a refugee camp, and then flee the land of my birth). Prabhakaran gave them someone to root for: he was daring and he made the SLA and the IPKF eat humble pie for a long time. In their eyes he was a winner. He was to the Tamil cause what Arjuna Ranatunga was to the Sri Lankan cricket team. In the face of overwhelming odds, he won. He could do no wrong. And even when he overstayed his welcome, even when his ego got in the way of the future progress of cricket in SL, we cut him some slack because he made us feel like winners. The team had to hit rock bottom before the public turned on him and Arjuna was dumped. But whereas cricket has come back under new leadership, I don’t see any capable and inspiring captains for the Tamil cause. Prabhakaran’s vacuum must be filled if the end of the war is to become a real peace.
As you say, it’s not cricket. You can’t resurrect Neelan Tiruchchelvam or any of the other possible Tamil leaders. I also agree with your rationale for why the Tamils backed VP. However, they shouldn’t have let him decimate the opposition. The thing is the cause didn’t really shape the LTTE, but the other way around. Perhaps, in one way, Jack is right about the fact that the ‘sole rep’ status contributed to defeat — today, if the Tamil cause was represented by a coalition or alliance of militant Tamil factions instead of a single terrorist group, perhaps those protests in London and Ottawa would have some weight.
Perhaps DBS Jeyaraj should take to politics. Everyone else who is credible is dead–mauled by the Tiger.
I second this! Don’t know if he would want to though. So many risks.
Nothing went wrong with LTTE. Instead kids grow up. Old ppl died. Seasons changed. People stop getting crazy when every time LTTE did something. They stop harassing Tamil people for it. The country moved forward for better, even with all her faults. Once the necessity fades away, everything becomes theater. In this case an expensive theatrical for an audience in tribal belts of UK and mountains Canada. LTTE could have keep on using force to maintain a system that is not really necessary, but things like that always bound to sap. So i dont think there is anything went wrong wtih LTTE.
But I don’t deny the fact, which LTTE always tried very hard to engineer a necessity for them to exists, like attacking on sensitive places such as Temple of tooth or bus full farmers and kids, hoping something may ignite. May be if they have done a better job in that…
DBS Jeyaraj in politics. hmm.. I don’t know how much of race base politics there will be once we get sober after all those “victories”. Or at least I wish not to be much.
Great post Indi!
Yes, the LTTE has indeed made themselves irrelevant. One can’t help but wonder whether were the LTTE’s existence not played out for this long, the ethnic crisis in its current proportions still exist. A settlement may have been reached between the Tamil politicos and the Sinhalese ones for a somewhat better future (anything is better than been trapped in 7 sq km). And yes, I really do hope that the grievances are addressed and the cause of the strife that created Prabhakaran is finally laid to rest. That would require a change in this war mentality especially in the South and much more trust between the ethnicities.
Great choice to vote for Shiral! I hope he wins!
hee hee, DBS fled because the Tigers were after him as a journalist, he would have had even less chance of survival as a politician.
Not sure if a good journalist can be a good politician though, might turn out to be a case of the Peter Principle.
how could a settlement was possible by sinhalese and tamils. the sinhalese were totally indifferent for peace / are indifferent to peace / will be indifferent for peace. sinhalese would be agreed for peace under the condition of a subjugated tamil race / under the condition of tamils a secondary citizen of srilanka.
prabhakaran took up arms because of this adament attitude of sinhalese.
What was the attitude of all srilankan prime ministers – apathy towards tamils.