A war masquerading as a humanitarian offensive, an all out assault against an enemy stronghold teeming with desperate civilians billed as a hostage rescue operation cannot be fought in the open, under the full glare of media lights.The end phase of Eelam War IV had to be fought under a cloak of selective invisibility because the whole truth was politically unaffordable. In accordance with the Rajapakse-Fonseka law on the conduct of war, only the Tiger dead and the civilians killed or harmed by the LTTE were permitted to be visible. Official restrictions prevented the media from revealing Lankan military casualties while even the possibility of civilian casualties at the hands of Lankan forces was consistently and strenuously denied.
The myth of zero casualties was insisted on, from President Rajapakse downwards, while those questioning this irrational and impossible lie were castigated as Tiger-loving traitors. The national and international public were expected to suspend not just their moral qualms but also their intellectual faculties and critical judgement and accept at face value the regime’s fantastic version of a sanitised war which killed none but the Tigers.
“It is certainly the greatest folly to throw salt into the sea and statues into the mud….” Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra)
The regime, having interred the issue of human rights in the convenient tomb of ‘War against Terrorism’, believed itself to be safe from any inquiry. This feeling of impunity was enhanced by its victory at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in the immediate aftermath of the war. With the only eyewitnesses to the end phase of the war locked up, incommunicado, in open prison camps, the regime seemed to have concluded that it could not be held accountable for misdeeds on the part of the Lankan Forces. Moreover, the Rajapakses seemed have believed that they have the capacity to become international trend setters in battling terrorism, and that even the West would rush to fete them and learn from them.
The supposed revelation by Gen. Sarath Fonseka, about the execution of surrendered Tiger leaders, fell on these tranquil waters of conscious amnesia with the impact of a meteor. Suddenly the manner in which the Lankan side fought the Eelam War was placed on the centre stage. Candidate Fonseka’s subsequent denial of his statement did little to lessen the furore.
The regime and its supporters railed against Mr. Fonseka, accusing him of violating the Official Secrets Act (which ironically gave credence to the charge of executing surrendering Tigers, since the purpose of the Act is to protect inconvenient or damaging truths from being revealed; if Mr. Fonseka’s supposed charge is a lie, it would not come under the Official Secrets Act).
Whether Sarath Fonseka wins or loses this election, his candidacy has had an impact on the country that will reverberate beyond January 27th. Not only has the Presidential election being transformed into an acrimonious battle between the Commander in Chief and the Army Commander who presided over the defeat of the LTTE. More pertinently, the contest is bringing into light some key questions about the conduct of the war which needs to be dealt with if the past is to be relegated to the past and a future different from the past is built.
Hard Facts
The war against the LTTE became inevitable because of the very nature of the LTTE (Mr. Pirapaharan engineered a Rajapakse victory in 2005 precisely because he wanted a war). But in fighting that necessary war, did we become increasingly like the Tigers? Why is the government still denying the media free access to the Northern camps, if it has nothing to hide? What if the Channel 4 video is not a fake? After all, before the government imposed its media restrictions, there were reports that members of Lankan Forces stripped and exhibited the corpses of female Black Tigers who were killed in the raid on Anuradhapura Air Force camp.
The UTHR in its latest report makes some damning charges against both the LTTE and the government. The issue of war crimes will not go away until and unless the government is willing to permit an independent and credible investigation.
Revealing the truth about what happened, especially in the last weeks and months of the war, is important for more reasons than one. Did some senior Tiger leaders, having compelled young cadres to opt for the cyanide capsule in order to avoid captivity, tried to save their own hides by working out surrender deals? If so, their conduct symbolises a failure which is far more fundamental than mere military defeat. Since the cyanide capsule and the death affirming message it represented was a basic premise of Tiger ideology, any departure from it by Senior Tigers, even as young recruits were being exhorted to die in their thousands for the cause, morally and politically discredits the Tiger ideology, in a way that military defeat alone cannot.
Making the young Tamils of today and tomorrow aware of this paradigmatic failure would be the best way to combat the organisational or ideological recrudescence of the Tigers. A Tiger myth cannot grow if it is proven that many senior Tigers had feet of clay and more.
Most civilian Tamils would have a parent or an offspring, a sibling, a spouse or a friend who belonged to the LTTE and, more often than not, died in its service. Criminalising any association with the LTTE will therefore criminalise the absolute majority of the Tamils. Equating Tamil with Tigers was the premise on which the government fought the war; equating Tamil with the LTTE seems to be the basis on which it prefers to build peace. This was one of the reasons for the incarceration of 300,000 Tamils in open prison camps masquerading as welfare villages. This is also why the North and the Tamil areas of the East are being run like occupied territory. The peace which will result from such measures would not be a consensual peace but a peace that is based on force on one side and fear on the other. The capacity of such a peace to be stable or lasting is doubtful, beyond the very immediate term.
Opting, again, for the non-democratic/armed path to win their rights would be suicidal for the Tamils and destructive for Sri Lanka. But if such a return is to be avoided, a consensual peace is necessary. And a consensual peace is impossible so long as Tamils are not allowed to come to terms with their past. The survivors of this war need the time and the space to mourn their dead, including children and spouses, siblings and parents who were members of the LTTE.
Another necessary task is to uncover the truth about the fate of civilian Tamils during the war, including the kith and the kin of Tiger leaders who were not members of the LTTE. For instance, there should be attempts to uncover and make known the fate of Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s wife Madhivadini and his younger son Balachandran, neither of whom were Tiger cadres. Treating family members of Tigers as terrorists is wrong, morally and legally; it is an archaic practice, a residue from an uncivilised past which has no place in the modern world.
Tamil consent to a Sri Lankan future cannot be ensured by destroying Tiger cemeteries and building memorials to the Lankan Forces in their stead. Nor can the Tamils be weaned away from their past by building Buddhist temples through sheer force. Sullen silence should not be mistaken for loyalty. The JVP and the Tigers banned those they deemed to be traitors from being remembered, post death. Now the Lankan state, under the auspices of the Rajapakses, seems to be following in the same direction. It is one thing to ensure that there are no memorials to senior Tiger leaders but it is both inhuman and uncivilised to destroy the last resting places of every Tiger cadre. Such conduct does not behove a civilised nation in general; it is particularly unsuitable for a race reputed for not dishonouring even dead enemies.
Such acts of petty revenge would also anger and alienate the surviving family members of LTTE cadres and help those who dream of resurrecting the dead Tiger, in a more heroic and holier guise. If the only future the Tamils can realistically expect reduces all their problems and concerns to the malignity of the Tiger, criminalises even mourning dead family members and denies their war related losses, what else can they do but cling to the past, which would become less objectionable and more alluring with each passing day?
A Bad Deal
The case of Dr. S Murali is symbolic of the Sinhala supremacist, anti-democratic and intolerant future the Rajapakses are building. Dr. Murali was an acting Consultant Community Physician attached to the Ministry of Health. He had been critical of the conditions in the Northern internment camps and had expressed the need for an open debate on the issue among medical practitioners, in a private e mail to a Sinhala colleague. For sending a private message, expressing his private opinion, he was accused of bringing ‘disrepute on the Government of Sri Lanka’ and interdicted with immediate effect.
Dr. Murali’s fate not only reveals the surreal lengths to which the regime is willing to go in order to prevent the country and the world from finding out the manner in which it treats civilian Tamils. It also demonstrates the subordinate position accorded to the Tamils in a Sinhala supremacist Sri Lanka. The Rajapakses may have relaxed some of their stringent rules and regulations in a vain attempt to obtain the GSP+ facility and to win over Tamil voters. But for how long this relatively more relaxed attitude would last is open to question. The Rajapakses are trying to present the best face to the country and the world, with deeds ranging from reducing taxes on essential commodities to withdrawing objections to senior journalist Tissanayagam being given bail. Is this a thaw which will lead to a less punitive and oppressive rule? Or is this just eyewash, which will not outlast the parliamentary election?
The regime’s sudden decision to relax travel restrictions on Tamils is instructive in this regard. The step is indubitably positive but its timing is rather curious, and raises disturbing questions about why these restrictions were imposed in the first place (especially the regulation banning plantation Tamils from coming to Colombo without a special permit). If these measures were motivated by security considerations they should have been relaxed/ removed when the war ended. But for six months these restrictions were maintained, until they were removed suddenly, a week ago. Their removal in the context of a closely fought election indicates that they were motivated not by security considerations but by other factors such as the Rajapakses’ Tamil phobia. What if post-election, the Rajapakses revert to this old form?
The Tamils need a leader who will treat them with some consideration and justice. The country needs a leader who will not undermine the democratic system from within, who will not abuse the state limitlessly for the advancement of his family. That Mahinda Rajapakse is incapable of acting justly and democratically is evident from the manner in which he led the country in the last four years. It could be argued that Sarath Fonseka cannot do worse than Mahinda Rajapakse. Perhaps; perhaps not; he can be better or worse than the incumbent or as bad.
Whatever the choice we make in this election, it carries with it an uncommon amount of risk and danger to the future of Sri Lanka
- Asian Tribune -
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