Black July 25 years later
 And
that must bring us to the two ultimate questions: has the psyche of the
majority community changed sufficiently over the past twenty five years
to accommodate the concept that minorities should be equal partners in
this nation? And, has the thinking of the LTTE changed to accommodate a
negotiated, reasonable political settlement? The answer to the latter is
a resounding ‘no’. However, it does appear that the majority of
Sinhalese—quite apart from a few radical elements who will always be
sabre rattling—now accepts that devolution of power to the minorities is
the key to resolving the ethnic issue. However, where the present regime
has been found wanting is not promoting this concept sufficiently while
efficiently prosecuting the war
On Wednesday, July 23, exactly twenty five years ago, thirteen
soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army were ambushed on the outskirts of Jaffna.
A day later, as the bodies of the dead servicemen were being prepared
for a discreet burial at the general cemetery in Colombo, violence
directed at the Tamil community erupted.
That violence was to spread countrywide and end in a pogrom of the Tamil
community and gave impetus to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
to wage war with the Sri Lankan state—a war which continues to this
date, and the loss of a conservatively estimated 60,000 lives.
Twenty five years is an opportune moment for introspection: it is a
period of time sufficient for an entire generation of Sinhalese and
Tamils to emerge; it is also adequate enough to examine whether Sri
Lanka as a nation has made headway in its attempts to address the
country’s most vexed question.
Both positives and negatives have emerged in the quarter of a century
since ‘Black July’. On the plus side, the country’s majority community
has learnt the lessons of July 1983 well. Apparently they now realise
that any indiscriminate retaliation against the Tamil community—distinct
from the LTTE—would not only be irrational but also be
counterproductive.
This explains why the Sinhalese in the south have been passive observers
in the face incidents far greater in their atrociousness: the Central
Bank bombing, the Arantalawa massacre, the Katunayake airport attack and
more recently the Habarana attack not mention the numerous bus and train
bombs exploding in Colombo and its suburbs. In as much, the Tigers’
strategy of provoking the South has been a failure.
Militarily, the war has had its ups and downs both for the government
and the LTTE. There have been great military victories as well as major
losses. At present, the current regime has given the armed forces a free
hand to prosecute the war and asserts that the Eastern province has been
cleared.
This is no doubt a significant achievement but it must be remembered
that in the early nineties too, the entire East was brought under
government control, only to lose that stranglehold later. The
involvement of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) led by
Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman now makes such a
possibility less likely, but the TMVP too needs to be disarmed at some
point in time.
As for the LTTE, it may have taken a beating from government forces in
recent times but over the past twenty five years, it has evolved to
become arguably the most ruthless and efficient terrorist group in the
world. The Tigers may be cornered and hemmed in to a few areas in the
Wanni but they now command a global network of business interests,
sympathisers who are also financial contributors and an international
diaspora willing to support their cause—a far cry from the band of young
men who took up arms in the late seventies and early eighties.
However, at times the Tigers have displayed inexplicable overconfidence
in their tactics and committed serious blunders, the killings of Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadiragamar
among them. As a result, they are now considered terrorists in many
countries such as the United States, India, United Kingdom and Canada.
It is politically thought that the conflict is at a stalemate.
Successive heads of state have attempted to offer autonomy to the
minority Tamil community but perhaps it has always been too little, too
late, confounded by the intransigence displayed by the LTTE and its
leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
J.R. Jayewardene’s Provincial Councils are still in place; Ranasinghe
Premadasa was killed before he could evolve anything concrete ,and D.B.
Wijetunge famously said there was no ethnic problem—only a problem of
terrorism. Chandrika Kumaratunge was genuine in her offer of a series of
sweeping constitutional reforms in August 2000, but the UNP withdrew its
support and they were a non-starter.
The Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) worked out by the Ranil Wickremesinghe
administration in 2002 was the closest Colombo came towards achieving a
political settlement to the crisis. But the Agreement had two
fundamental flaws: it allowed the LTTE to exploit the CFA to regroup and
re-arm and when that happened Wickremesinghe failed to convince the
South that it was the way forward, a mistake that was to cost him the
Presidency in 2005, where the CFA was clearly rejected by the southern
electorate.
And that must bring us to the two ultimate questions: has the psyche of
the majority community changed sufficiently over the past twenty five
years to accommodate the concept that minorities should be equal
partners in this nation? And, has the thinking of the LTTE changed to
accommodate a negotiated, reasonable political settlement?
The answer to the latter is a resounding ‘no’. However, it does appear
that the majority of Sinhalese—quite apart from a few radical elements
who will always be sabre rattling—now accepts that devolution of power
to the minorities is the key to resolving the ethnic issue.
However, where the present regime has been found wanting is not
promoting this concept sufficiently while efficiently prosecuting the
war.
The present Mahinda Rajapaksa government clearly does not believe in
negotiating out of fear, but its reluctance to offer a substantial
package of devolution to the minorities—as evidenced by offering
districts as the unit of devolution at the All Party Representative
Committee (APRC) — sends the wrong signal that it fears to negotiate as
well. As a result, Colombo’s bona fides are now being viewed with
suspicion by the international community and this is to the advantage of
the Tigers.
Then, after twenty five years, is there a solution to the ethnic issue
on the horizon? One cannot answer that question in the affirmative with
any degree of confidence. Alas, after a quarter of a century of bloody
and brutal conflict, Sri Lanka’s circumstances would have to get worse,
before it gets any better.
**** |
