A New Beginning

Tamil Nadu's maverick Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi last week had a lot to smile about. He was able to have the governments of both India and Sri Lanka concede to the plethora of demands he made -ranging from fishing rights for Tamil Nadu fishermen to food and medical aid for Sri Lanka's growing refugee population - without so much as turning a hair. Summoned to the India capital, Basil Rajapakse painted himself very much as the supplicant, with nothing to show by way of concessions from the Indian side save that New Delhi would not, at this juncture anyway, interfere militarily in Sri Lanka.

But Rajapakse's visit has seen a sea change in the attitude of his brother, the President, towards the war. Mahinda Rajapakse's attitude towards Tamil militancy has hitherto been that it must be quashed militarily, after which he would allow a Pillayan-type provincial regime to be established in the North, within the framework of the 13th Amendment. That, given Rajapakse's grasp of history, is his answer to the Tamil Question that has bedevilled Sri Lankan politics since 1948.

Now, however, the prospect of inflicting a crushing military defeat on the LTTE unpalatable though it maybe seems little more than a pipe dream. The Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has already said as much by talking of the insurrection continuing forever and in today's issue, the Director General of the Media Center for National Security Lakshman Hulugalle is following suit.  It was more than two months ago that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told the country that the army was within sight of Kilinochchi, the fall of which was imminent. The President went further, telling the nation that the forces were "within hooting distance" of the Tiger stronghold. Hooting, for anyone who remembers Rajapakse's jana goshas of the 1990s, is something the President knows a thing or two about.

For the past nine weeks, we have been given daily reports of the forces inching their way towards that much sought-after target. A reservoir here, a bunker there, all signs that the end of the rainbow was but a stone's throw away. The Rajapakses have staked their reputations on the capture of Kilinochchi and are unlikely to back down now: capitulate now, and their political future may well be in jeopardy. Thus, even as the forces inch their way northward, the government has been compelled not only to cease releasing the distorted casualty figures it was given to publishing until then, but to threaten the electronic media with revocation of their broadcasting licenses should they publicise news embarrassing to the regime.

Meanwhile, for their part, the Tigers have been giving the Rajapakse Administration a bit of cheek by flying their little toy aircraft with impunity on bombing raids into the Sinhala heartland, as they did last Tuesday in bombing the Kelanitissa power station. Amazingly, despite having the most sophisticated radar systems (that correctly detected the plane heading south well in advance of their arrival), the Air Force, despite the multimillion-dollar technology at its command, was left looking not a little nonplussed. When the LTTE launched their initial attacks, the excuse of the Sri Lankan Air Force for not downing the Air Tigers was that the 2D Indian radar system was inadequate and that the need of the hour was the Chinese made 3D radars. That requirement President Rajapakse provided without hesitation knowing fully well it will antagonise India but still the Air Force failed to deliver having had, courtesy the Indian radars, at least 45 minutes advance notice of the in flying Tiger aircraft even as Colombo waited with bated breath in the dark last Tuesday night.

That is not to say the LTTE cannot be defeated militarily. Any war can be won if one simply has the resolve to kill enough people. The problem that the Rajapakses up until now have failed to grasp is that the resolution to the Tamil Question does not lie in defeating the LTTE, capturing Kilinochchi or in overcoming terrorism: it lies in addressing the grievances the Tamils have as a result of being treated as unequal 'visitors' living among Sri Lanka's Sinhala majority.

In choosing a purely militaristic solution to the Tamil Question, Rajapakse missed a historic opportunity to take the higher moral ground, by offering a draft political solution to the Tamils on the one hand, while prosecuting the war on the other. Had the President done so, he would have been above the reproach of the world community, and the LTTE would have been under immense international pressure to negotiate and if they failed to do so in such circumstances the Government would have received unstinted cooperation to crush their local and international networks. By refusing to do so, Rajapakse has pinned his success on militarily defeating the Tigers, which shows, if nothing else, his imperfect grasp not only of history but of current affairs.

Take for example the US invasion of Iraq. It took the United States just 40 days - from March 20 to May 1, 2003 - to inflict a crushing military defeat on Saddam Hussein's forces and capture the territory of Iraq. The Sri Lankan forces have not even got to that point in their battle against the LTTE yet, viz. the 'liberation' of territory under their control. And there is no question that our armed forces can, at the risk of enormous loss of life and limb, capture the territory of the Northern Province. But the Rajapakses have not stopped to ask, "What then?", any more than George W. Bush did, much to his cost. We should learn from the US invasion of Iraq, in which the Americans suffered only 139 dead, compared with the 4,000 who have been killed in the insurgency that followed. Should the army succeed in taking the Northern Province, the Tigers will simply disappear into the civilian population and resort to an insurgency, which in turn will call for even more repression by the government. Mahinda Rajapakse is treading the same path trod by his UNP predecessors, J. R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and D. B. Wijetunga that if you throw enough bombs and bullets at a problem, it will go away. As countless insurgencies have shown, no dice.

It would be a mistake for Rajapakse to imagine that he can establish a TMVP-style Quisling Administration in the North. Even in the case of the TMVP, the Chief Minister can barely step onto the road without fearing for his life. Just five months in office, he is so deeply unpopular that he is able to visit his native Batticaloa only about once a month, and even that, surreptitiously, by air or sea! Indeed, just about the only supporter this terrorist-turned-politician (still surrounded by his illegal armed militia) has been able to muster is the World Bank's country director, Naoko Ishii, one of the most influential apologists for the Rajapakse regime. Yes, the very same one whose husband has been granted a plum government job.

Although the futility of a military victory over the LTTE appears to have dawned on Rajapakse, he is surrounded by a glee club comprising the likes of  diehard Sinhala chauvinists of the ilk of Champika Ranawaka and Wimal Weerawansa. With them cheering him on, it has become increasingly difficult for the President to look seriously at a political solution. He also has the comfort of knowing that the broad majority of his Sinhala constituency - believing that a victory is imminent - support his militarism, just as 64% of Americans supported the invasion of Iraq in the glory days of 2003.

In consequence, Mahinda Rajapakse has been reduced to a Jekyll and Hyde kind of existence, wherein he beats the war drums to his Sinhala-extremist support base, while preaching a negotiated political settlement to foreigners, especially Indians, naive enough to listen or so he believed until Basil Rajapakse's visit to New Delhi last week.

Such it was last week when, in an interview with N. Ram, editor of the influential Chennai-based newspaper The Hindu, Rajapakse claimed that "The current military operations are being carried out to build the environment required to free our own Tamil brothers and sisters from the cruel grip of terror and implement a just and enduring political solution based on the four 'Ds' -  Demilitarisation, Democratisation, Development, and Devolution." Sri Lanka's Tamil community, however, might well have an altogether different set of four 'Ds' to associate with Rajapakse.

But Rajapakse has to be credited for coming to terms with the ground realities even at this late stage with brother Basil Rajapakse getting a full dose of those realities in New Delhi last week and it is this new dawn that compelled the President to tell The Hindu on Monday that there can only be a political solution to the problems faced by the Tamil people and such solution will be in an 'Undivided Sri Lanka.'No doubt the hardliners in Government and their fellow travellers will shout their voices hoarse about a sell out and the great betrayal of the President having little grasp of the wages of war and the economic nightmare confronting the country which could well defeat the entire strategy of weakening the LTTE militarily leave alone defeating it. But if he stays the new course as articulated in The Hindu interview, Rajapakse can still put things right and emerge the true hero of Sri Lanka by not only securing the goodwill of the international community but the hearts and minds of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people of the country barring a few extremists.