[lg policy] Sri Lanka: The Tamils and equal rights or self-determination

[Harold Schiffman]

The Tamils and equal rights or self-determination

Sunday, November 22, 2009

“Tamil political leader SJV Chelvanayagam began to organize a massive
“Satyagraha” (non-violent resistance). In order to avoid even more
bloodshed, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranayaka signed an agreement
with Chelvanayagam promising to restore Tamil as the (or one of two)
official language in its minority areas. This infuriated many
Sinhalese, especially monks, and they assaulted and sometimes killed
Tamils in many areas.”
................................................................................

By Ron Ridenour

(November 23, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) “At independence, in
1948, the new political elite, in its rush for power, cultivated
ethnic support in a society whose real imperative should have been the
eradication of poverty. Language became the spark,”
journalist-documentary filmmaker John Pilger recently wrote. (12)

The Tamil people in Sri Lanka had expectations that they would achieve
equal rights and power with the Sinhalese once independence was won
from the British colonialists. As the independence movement was
winning over colonialization there was no talk of any Tamil
separatism.

Even before the defeat of the Axis powers, Britain prepared to
decolonize Ceylon. In 1943, the colonial secretary of state stated
that a constitution would be drafted will all parties involved. A
condition would be that, “The Parliament of Ceylon shall not make any
law rendering persons of any community or religion liable to
disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other communities are
not made liable ...". See Article 29 of Soulbury Commission. (15)

Britain established the Soulbury Commission in 1944. The leading
Sinhalese politician was D.S. Senanayake—a conservative, who founded,
in 1946, the rightist pro-independence and pro-capitalist United
National Party (UNP). Senanayake became known as the “Father of Sri
Lanka”. He convinced a leading Tamil politician, G.G. Ponnamblam—who
founded the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), in 1944—to partake in
independence negotiations.

Another provision of the Soulbury Commission (Constitution) was that
any bill which evoked "serious opposition by any racial or religious
community and which, in the opinion of the Governor-General is likely
to involve oppression or serious injustice to any community must be
reserved by the Governor-General". (15)

The voting in the third reading of the "Free Lanka" bill was supported
by all the Muslim members and by most Tamil and Sinhalese groups.
“Some of the other minority members who did not want to openly support
the bill took care to be absent or abstain. Finally, the debate and
the vote of acceptance on the eighth and ninth of September 1945 was
the most significant indication of general reconciliation among the
ethnic and regional groups. Far exceeding the 3/4 majority required by
the Soulbury Commission, Senanayake had 51 votes in favor, and only
three votes against the adoption of the constitution. The vote was `in
many ways a vote of confidence by all communities…and the minorities
were as anxious as the majority for self-government.´” (15)

“Senanayake's speech in proposing the motion of acceptance made
reference to the minorities and said " ... `throughout this period the
Ministers had in view one objective only, the attainment of maximum
freedom. Accusations of Sinhalese domination have been bandied about.
We can afford to ignore them for it must be plain to every one that
what we sought was not Sinhalese domination, but Ceylonese domination.
We devised a scheme that gave heavy weightage to the minorities; we
deliberately protected them against discriminatory legislation. We
vested important powers in the Governor-General... We decided upon an
Independent Public Service Commission so as to give assurance that
there should be no communalism in the Public Service. I do not
normally speak as a Sinhalese, and I do not think that the Leader of
this Council ought to think of himself as a Sinhalese representative,
but for once I should like to speak as a Sinhalese and assert with all
the force at my command that the interests of one community are the
interests of all. We are one of another, what ever race or creed.´"
(15)

The first national election was held August 23-September 30, 1947.
1,887, 364 people voted for 95 MP (members of parliament). There were
six parties and many independents. The results were: (16)

UNP with 39.8% (42 MPs)
LSSP 10.8% (10)
BLPI 6% (5)
ACTC 4.4% (7)
CIC 3.8% (6)
CPC 3.7% (3)
Labor 1.4% (1)
Independents 29%

“We are one of another, whatever race or creed,” swore the “Father” of
the new independent State. It looked good for all ethnic and religious
groups, but then the deceit became evident with the new citizenship
act.

On February 4, 1948, the new government introduced the Ceylon
Citizenship Bill before Parliament. The outward purpose of the bill
was to provide means of obtaining citizenship, but I think its real
purpose was to discriminate against the Indian Tamils by denying them
citizenship. The Ceylon Citizenship Act no. 18, August 20, 1948 denied
citizenship to 11% of the population.

Although the All Ceylon Tamil Congress opposed the bill, it had joined
with the UNP. This provoked half of its members to form the Federal
Party, led by SJV Chelvanayakam. Next year, the Indian and Pakistani
Residents Act, no.3, disenfranchised nearly all Tamils, who were
originally from India. Their seven MPs were kicked out of parliament
and there were no Indian Tamils in the 1952 parliament elections. It
wasn’t until 1988 that the Sri Lanka government granted citizenship to
stateless persons, who hadn’t applied for Indian citizenship. In 2003,
168,141 descendents of Indian Tamils were allowed citizenship.

The new government allowed Sinhalese to appropriate land on Tamil
traditional homeland in the north and east. Entire villages were
driven out—ethnic cleansing—and Sinhalese settled in, aiming to break
geographic continuity of the Tamil homeland. (17) Within time,
Sinhalese settlers had taken over 30% of Tamil lands and homes—a la
Israel in Palestine.

In 1956, “The Sinhala Only Act” became law. It mandated Sinhala as
“the sole official language”, which, at that time was spoken by 70% of
the population.

“Supporters of the law saw it as an attempt by a community that had
just gained independence to distance themselves from their colonial
masters, while its opponents viewed it as an attempt by the linguistic
majority to oppress and assert dominance on minorities. The Act
symbolizes the post independent majority Sinhalese to assert its Sri
Lanka's identity as a nation state, and for Tamils, it became a symbol
of minority oppression and a justification for them to demand a
separate nation state, which resulted in decades of civil war.” (18)

Tamils protested the discriminatory law by using Gandhian tactics of
non-violent sit-ins. Although stated advocates of non-violence,
Buddhist monks led Sinhalese mobs against Tamils.

“The Gal Oya riots…were the first ethnic riots that targeted the
minority Sri Lankan Tamils…The riots took place from June 11, 1956 and
occurred over the next five days. Local majority Sinhalese colonists
and employees of the Gal Oya settlement board commandeered government
vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils…It is
estimated that over 150 people lost their lives due in the violence.
Although initially inactive, the Police and the Army were eventually
able to re-take control of the situation and brought the riots under
control.” (19)

Tamil political leader SJV Chelvanayagam began to organize a massive
“Satyagraha” (non-violent resistance). In order to avoid even more
bloodshed, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranayaka signed an agreement
with Chelvanayagam promising to restore Tamil as the (or one of two)
official language in its minority areas. This infuriated many
Sinhalese, especially monks, and they assaulted and sometimes killed
Tamils in many areas. Buddhist monks even besieged the official
residence of Bandaranayaka demanding that he abandoned the agreement,
which he did. But, in 1958, the Sinhalese-led parliament, pressed by
the violence and the pro-Moscow and Trotskyist Sinhalese parties,
passed an amendment to the Sinhala Only Act (called “Sinhala Only,
Tamil Also”) restoring Tamil as a co-official language in their areas
of the North and East. Frustrated at the compromise, Sinhalese mobs
murdered 200-300 Tamils, including some Sinhalese who gave Tamils
refuge. Many Tamil women were raped and some Tamil boys were stripped,
bound and burned alive. This violent hatred recalled that of southern
whites in the USA lynching and burning black people alive.

Some Buddhists were angry that the Sinhalese Prime Minister
Bandaranayaka had tried to compromise with Tamils. In 1959, a Buddhist
monk assassinated him.

The language law had its intended effect. In 1955, the civil service
had been largely made of Tamils, who had benefited more than Sinhalese
from western style education provided by missionaries. This fact was
used by populist Sinhalese politicians to come to power—or retain
power—on the promise of providing more civil service jobs to Sinhalese
by demanding that their language be the only one used in public
service. By 1970, the civil service was almost entirely Sinhalese.
Thousands of Tamil civil servants were forced to resign due to lack of
fluency in Sinhala. In the1960s, government forms and services were
virtually unavailable to Tamils.

Confrontation became the modus operandi: Sinhalese the Zionists;
Tamils the Palestinians!

It is important to stress, especially with progressive-revolutionary
governments, such as the ALBA alliance in Latin America, and their
supporters throughout the world, that the Tamils’ history in Sri Lanka
is one of constant and widespread discrimination. They are also
subjects to a policy of genocide as defined by the United Nations (see
part 1, “Justice for Sri Lanka Tamils”).

Sri Lanka made world headlines in 1960 when a woman, Sirimavo RD
Bandaranaike, was elected prime minister—the world’s first female
leader. Being the widow of the martyr and founder of the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP) was an asset. She immediately brought Sri Lanka
into the Non-Alignment Movement, founded in 1961. The
originators—India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, Yugoslavia’s Tito and
Ghana’s Nkrumah—sought support for each other’s sovereignty without
aligning with either super-power bloc at that time. (20)

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka leaders of both predominantly Sinhala major
parties continued to be dependent upon economic and military ties with
India, the US, the UK, and Israel. Social welfare programs were
carried out within a capitalist economic structure. This was a cause
for radical opposition. In 1971, thousands of Sinhalese students, and
Indian Tamil plantation workers, under the leadership of a new
nationalistic and Marxist-oriented political party, Janatha Vimukthi
Peramana (JVP), translated as Peoples Liberation Front, engaged in
anti-government clashes. Fifteen thousand protestors were killed in
the uprising. (21)

Once in power, Bandaranaike’s widow did not alter Sinhalese policy of
genocide: “…an ingenious device was resorted to deprive the Tamils of
the constitutional safeguards and the characteristics of the
conditional polity. A coalition of three Sinhalese political parties,
led by Mrs. Sirimavo R.D.Bandaranaike, called upon the people to give
a mandate [in the 1970 General Elections, during her second term] for
a new Constituent Assembly to scrap the 1948 dominion polity and
create a new Republic of Sri Lanka. Whilst the voters in the seven
Sinhalese provinces gave Mrs.Bandaranaike the mandate that she had
requested, the Tamil voters in the Northern and Eastern Provinces
summarily rejected her call. In the North and East, a mere 14% of the
votes polled supported the call for a new constituent Assembly.” (22)

Laws protecting rights of racial and religious minorities were
abandoned and Buddhism was made the constitutional religion of Sri
Lanka.

Sinhalese claimed 5000 acres in the Tamil farmland “Nochikulam” as
theirs, renaming it “Nochiyagama”. Next year, 10,738 Sinhalese
families settled in Trincomalee illegally.

“The sovereignty of the Tamil people (who were ethnically,
geographically and linguistically separately identifiable and
distinct) revived.” (22)

With this setback, a reinvigorated ACTC joined with the Federal Party,
in 1972, to form the Tamil United Front (TUF). Separatism or autonomy
now became the cry for nearly all Tamils, who sought an Eelam part of
Sri Lanka. Thirty Tamil militant groups emerged.

“The operative part is Thamil Eelam and it means the Tamil part of
Eelam. The term Eelam is a synonym for Sri Lanka and has been in use
in Tamil literature right from the Cankam Period dating as far back as
200 B.C. to circa 250 A.D.” (23)

The second government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike enacted a
discriminatory double standard law for admission grades to
universities, requiring Tamil students to achieve higher grades than
Sinhalese.

Throughout the 1970s, Sinhalese mobs clashed—with impunity—not only
with Tamils but also Muslim Moors. In 1976, Sinhalese burned 271
houses and 44 shops, murdering a score of Muslims.

In 1976, the Tamil United Front Party changed its name to the Tamil
United Liberation Front (TUFP) at the Vattukottai Conference, and
adopted a demand for an independent sovereign state in traditional
Tamil homeland in the north and east to be known as the “secular,
socialist state of Tamil Eelam”. (24)

By 1975, Tamil militancy increased with the birth of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, who
considered himself a Marxist and follower of Che Guevara. LTTE engaged
in small armed clashes with the military.

The conservative UNP won a landslide victory in the July 1977
elections. But the pro-independence TULF won 6.4% of the popular vote,
winning all 14 seats in the Tamil homeland area, and four more seats
of the 168-member parliament. In response to Tamil’s peaceful struggle
and its parliamentary victory, Sinhalese mobs, led by Buddhist monks,
again destroyed many Tamil homes and shops and murdered up to 300
Tamils.

In July 1978, the UNP, led by Prime Minister Junius Richard
Jayewardene, changed the constitution and renamed the country the
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. An executive presidency
was established, allowing the president greater powers than the prime
minister, whom the president now appoints. The president is also the
commander-in-chief and head of the cabinet. He can dissolve parliament
and has judicial impunity.

Jayewardene became the first president and appointed Ramasinghe
Premadasa (UNP) prime minister. Despite the new name, “democratic
socialist republic”, the capitalist government began deregulating much
of what had been government run enterprises. Private enterprise was
priority.

On May 31, 1981, the TULF held a rally in Jaffna in the north. Police
clashed with Tamils and two policemen were killed. For three days,
Sinhalese mobs, policemen and soldiers went on a rampage. Several
Tamils were taken from their homes and killed. The TULF headquarters,
a newspaper office, presses and shops were destroyed. Worst of all was
the total destruction of the Jaffna library and its 97,000 volumes of
books and irreplaceable historical manuscripts, some made of palm
leaves. It is now well known that the fire that destroyed this unique
institution of the Tamils in their homeland was masterminded by a
handful of ministers of the Sinhala Government in Colombo, who were
present in Jaffna the night of the fire.

“The national newspapers did not carry information about the incident
and in subsequent parliamentary debates some majority Sinhalese
members reminded minority Tamil politicians that if Tamils were
unhappy in Sri Lanka, they should leave for their homeland in India.
This is a direct quote from United National Party member MP WJM
Lokubandara:

"If there is discrimination in this land which is not their (Tamil)
homeland, then why try to stay here? Why not go back home (India)
where there would be no discrimination?” (25)

“Twenty years later, the mayor of Jaffna, Nadarajah Raviraj, still
grieved at the recollection of the flames he saw as a University
student. He was later killed by unknown gunmen in the capital Colombo,
in 2006.” (25)

Civil War and LTTE

By summer 1983, the then small guerrilla army of LTTE was well settled
in most northern and eastern areas. Their first major assault against
the State’s military took place at Jaffna peninsula, July 24. LTTE
ambushed a convoy of soldiers passing through land mines and killed
15.

This could have been in response to many random attacks upon Tamils in
various areas. One example is in Trincomalee where, on 10 April 1983,
a young Tamil died in police custody after having been held without
charge for two weeks. At the judicial inquest into his death, on May
31, the Jaffna Magistrate returned a verdict of homicide. Three days
later, the government changed the rules permitting the police to bury
or cremate bodies without a post mortem or an inquest.

Amnesty International cabled President Jayawardene expressing concern
that such a regulation could give rise to grave human rights
violations and appealed to him to rescind it. But he did not. On the
contrary, on June 3, 1983, the day that the new Emergency Regulation
was brought into effect, the attacks on the Tamils in Trincomalee
commenced in earnest.

R.Sampanthan, M.P. for Trincomalee, described that mobs of Sinhalese
went from village to village setting fire to Tamil houses and shops. A
particular modus operandi was observed. Heavily armed service
personnel would enter a Tamil area and carry out a search alleging
that explosions and dangerous weapons were hidden in that area.
Invariably nothing would be recovered other than implements that would
normally be available in any house. Sometimes Tamil youths would be
arrested on "suspicion" and taken for questioning. After a month of
many pogrom raids, the LTTE struck the army convoy.

That night and for weeks Sinhalese rampaged against Tamils, especially
in the Colombo area where some Tamils youths were stripped naked and
burned alive in petrol. Black July ended with between 2000 and 3000
dead Tamils, among them 53 prisoners, including key political leaders,
who were murdered by Sinhalese prisoners at Welikadai. One political
prisoner, Kuttimani, had his eyes gouged out and stomped upon under a
soldier’s boots.

One hundred thousand Tamils were rendered homeless and that many and
more fled to India. (26)

Even non-violent advocates of separatism or independence, such as the
TULF, were pushed out of the democratic process. The Sixth Amendment
to the Constitution, enacted in August 1983, classified all separatist
movements as unconstitutional. That meant that all its members of
parliament—16 then—lost their seats. Thousands of Tamil youth joined
militant armed groups, especially the LTTE, which became the most
disciplined and well organized.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the LTTE established a de facto state,
called Tamil Eelam, and managed a government, which provided a
judicial court system, a police force, and social assistance in health
and education and for the poorest. LTTE ran a bank, a radio station
(Voice of Tigers) even a television station. Guerrilla leaders helped
organize small cooperative farming units based on traditional methods.
LTTE dismantled the caste system and officially stopped discrimination
against women. LTTE organized a civilian administration under its
command. There was order and peace in these areas, as long as everyone
obeyed and when the Sri Lanka army did not bomb.

In the 1980s, there was much discontent in other parts of Sri Lanka.
Radical Sinhalese youths, such as the JVP, demanded going further
towards socialism. In 1987, JVP engaged in another armed uprising. But
after 1989, it entered into parliamentary politics. It participated in
the 1994 parliamentary general election and joined conservative and
liberal party coalitions in opposing equal rights with Tamils.

Ranasinghe Premadasa was prime minister from February 1978 to January
1, 1989, under President Jayewardene, and then he became president
until his assassination on Mayday 1993. Many Sinhalese elitists
thought he was too common to be their leader and too compromising with
Tamils. Controversial policies under his terms included the matter of
language, ethnic cleansing, and the role of India in internal affairs.
The first controversy was the constitutional amendment allowing
“equality” of languages in the Tamil areas: “National languages shall
be Sinhala and Tamil,” although, “The official language of Sri Lanka
shall be Sinhala. Tamil shall also be an official language. English
shall be a link language.”

This compromise spoke in double tongues. Why not just make Sinhala and
Tamil equally official, as India has done with a score of languages?

Alienated Tamils

Even a U.S. Library of Congress study characterized Tamils as
alienated. In 1988, it published, “SriLanka: a Country Study”. In the
chapter entitled, “Tamil Alienation,” the authors wrote: (27)

“Moderate as well as militant Sri Lankan Tamils have regarded the
policies of successive Sinhalese governments in Colombo with suspicion
and resentment since at least the mid-1950s, when the "Sinhala Only"
language policy was adopted…”.

“Several issues provided the focus for Sri Lankan Tamil alienation and
widespread support, particularly within the younger generation, for
extremist movements…Sinhalese still remained the higher-status
"official language," and inductees into the civil service were
expected to acquire proficiency in it. Other areas of disagreement
concerned preference given to Sinhalese applicants for university
admissions and public employment, and allegations of government
encouragement of Sinhalese settlement in Tamil-majority areas.”

“Government-sponsored settlement of Sinhalese in the northern or
eastern parts of the island, traditionally considered to be Tamil
regions, has been perhaps the most immediate cause of inter-communal
violence. There was, for example, an official plan in the mid-1980s to
settle 30,000 Sinhalese in the dry zone of Northern Province, giving
each settler land and funds to build a house and each community armed
protection in the form of rifles and machine guns. Tamil spokesmen
accused the government of promoting a new form of ‘colonialism’," but
the Jayewardene government asserted that no part of the island could
legitimately be considered an ethnic homeland and thus closed to
settlement from outside. Settlement schemes were popular with the
poorer and less fortunate classes of Sinhalese.”

Che Guevara made no bones about the significance of alienation: (2)
“…the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration (is) to see
man liberated from his alienation.”

India’s Vacillating Role

The role of India in Sri Lanka’s civil war was a major problem.
India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, son of assassinated Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi, first supported the LTTE .His air force even
dropped 25 tons of aid in their territory in Jaffna (Operation
Poomalai). A month following this, the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was
signed between Gandhi and the reluctant Prime Minister Ranasinghe
Presmadasa, under pressure from his president, JR Jayewardene. The
July 29, 1987 accord was expected to resolve the ongoing civil war.
Colombo agreed to devolution of power to the Tamil provinces, and its
military was to withdraw in exchange for the Tamil rebels’
disarmament. The LTTE had not been made party to the talks but
reluctantly agreed to surrender arms to the Indian Peace Keeping
Force. Within a few months, however, both sides flared into an active
confrontation. Indian soldiers died in far greater numbers than Tamil
rebels: 1,500 killed and 4,500 wounded.

In January 1989, Premadasa was elected President on a popular platform
promising that the Indian Peace Keeping Force would leave within three
months. The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially
with some 50 million Tamil Nadu people. Gandhi refused to withdraw
India’s troops, however, believing that the only way to end the civil
war was to politically force Premadasa and to militarily force the
LTTE to accept the accord. But, in December 1989, Vishwanath Pratap
Singh was elected India’s Prime Minister and completed the pullout.

On May 21, 1991, in an act of revenge over India’s militarist actions,
a female LTTE member blew up Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb attack.
(28) In 1992, India became the first government, even before Sri
Lanka, to declare the LTTE a terrorist group.

President Premadasa resumed the civil war, which became stalemated.
Many forces were angry with him, including a rival Sinhalese leader
Lalith Athulathmudali, who sought an impeachment motion against
Premadasa, in 1991. Lalith was an adamant supporter of Zionism.

“When Athulathmudali, a pro-Israeli power broker, challenged Premadasa
two years ago with an impeachment motion in the parliament, Premadasa
openly accused Mossad, the intelligence agency of Israel, of trying to
topple him. In his address to the Sri Lankan parliament, Premadasa
said:

`…I had Israeli interests section removed. In such a context there is
nothing to be surprised about the Mossad rising up against me. Please
remember that there are among us traitors who have gone to Israeli
universities and lectured there and earned dirty money…´”, cited Sachi
Sri Kantha, quoting the prime minister in, “The Puzzles in President
Premadasa’s Assassination Revisited.”(29)

In April 1993, Athulathmudali was murdered. Eight days later, on
Mayday, Premadasa was murdered. The LTTE did not claim responsibility
for these assassinations but were so blamed by Sinhalese and the mass
media.

“When Athulathmudali was assassinated last April, the members of his
party immediately accused Premadasa for ordering the killing. The
murder of Premadasa could have been a return hit planned and executed
by the Mossad which had lost its major card in Sri Lankan politics.”
(29)

The second Eelam war lasted from 1989 until November 1994 when the
People’s Alliance (led by SLFP) candidate, Chandrika Bandaranaike
Kumaratunga, won the presidency. But peace negotiations broke down and
the war continued from 1995 until the end of 2001 when ceasefire
negotiations made progress. But not before the LTTE proved to the Sri
Lanka government and military, with 230,000 well armed troops, that it
was its equal. With somewhere around 5000 guerrillas—along with a
small Sea Tigers boat unit, which made some pirate hits for funding,
and even a few light civilian aircraft, the Sky Tigers, which
sometimes made damaging raids against the Air Force—the LTTE won many
military victories.

The Sri Lankan military often bombed civilian Tamils in the
LTTE-controlled zones. It claimed that they were legitimate
“collateral damage” given that the guerrillas allegedly forced them to
remain against their will. The civilian hostage charge was widely
reported as truth by the west and its mass media, as was the
allegation that the LTTE forces children into armed combat.

On January 31, 1996, the LTTE stunned the nation when it bombed the
Central Bank in Colombo, which managed most financial business
accounts. One suicide bomber with 200 kilos of explosions drove
through the main gate and exploded, wiping out many bank floors and
several other buildings. Behind him came a vehicle with two cadres
firing rifles and launchers. They escaped but were later captured.
Material damage was tremendous but more so was the loss of 53 lives
and injuries to 1,400 people, most of them not military targets.

On July 24, 1996 LTTE forces bombed a commuter train killing 70
Sinhalese civilians. By the end of the 1990s, both sides had killed
tens of thousands of people. Civilians were targeted by both sides.
The Tigers claimed that civilians were targeted only when associated
with military installations. But some attacks, such as the train, were
unjustifiable. Furthermore, the LTTE has often murdered other Tamils
who also seek autonomy but are not part of the LTTE or make public
critiques. It has, for example, killed several leaders of the TULF.
(30)

On April 22, 2000 LTTE forces surprisingly overran Sri Lanka’s
Elephant Pass military base on Jaffna. Over 1,000 troops were killed
and huge quantities of arms and ammunitions were taken.

On July 24, 2001, the LTTE again stunned the nation and the world when
it attacked the only international airport and the nearby military
base.
“Around 3:30 am on July 24, 14 members of the LTTE Black Tiger suicide
squad infiltrated Katunayake air base…After destroying electricity
transformers to plunge the base in darkness they cut through the
barbed wire surrounding the base to begin their assault. Using rocket
propelled grenades, anti-tank weapons and assault rifles, the
militants attacked the air force planes. They were not able to attack
the aircraft in the hangars but did destroy eight military aircraft on
the tarmac: three Nanchange K-8 trainer aircraft, one Mil Mi-17
helicopter, one Mil Mi-24 helicopter, two LAI Kfir fighter jets, and a
Mig-27. Five K-8s and one MiG-27 were also damaged. A total of 26
aircraft were either damaged or destroyed in the attack.” (31)

“Eight Tigers and three air force officers died in the battle at the
air base. The six remaining LTTE members then crossed the runway to
nearby Bandaranaike Airport. Using their weapons, they began blowing
up any civilian aircraft they could find, which were all empty. One
Airbus340 was destroyed by an explosive charge; an A330 was destroyed
by a rocket fired from the control tower. In addition, an A320-200 and
an A340-300 were damaged in the assault.” (31)

“All 14 guerrillas were killed, along with six Sri Lankan air force
personnel and one soldier killed by friendly fire; 12 soldiers were
injured, along with three Sri Lankan civilians and a Russian
engineer…The cost of replacing the civilian aircraft was estimated at
$350 million USD. The attack caused a slowdown in the economy of Sri
Lanka, to about -1.4%. Tourism also plummeted, dropping 15.5% at the
end of the year.” (31)

Cease Fire

During two decades of civil war, the LTTE had several times offered a
ceasefire on the condition of negotiations to establish peace and
ethnic equality. With this military victory, the guerrilla army
offered a unilateral ceasefire. Some national voices and many
international ones were also pressing for a ceasefire. Norway took
concrete steps, but it was this spectacular military victory and the
loss to the economy that forced the government to the bargaining
table.

The formal Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) was signed on February 22, 2002.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and LTTE leader Velupillai
Pirabakaran signed the agreement, alongside mediator Jan Petersen
representing Norway’s foreign ministry.

Provisions provided for each side holding their ground positions.
Neither side was to engage in any offensive military operation or move
munitions into the area controlled by the other side.

The LTTE proposed an Interim Self-Government Authority (ISGA) to
administer the Tamil homeland, pending final agreement and elections.
The ceasefire was monitored by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. It
was staffed by designees from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and
Iceland. The U.S., UK and other EU countries had observers.
Headquarters were established in Colombo, and there were 60 monitors
in six district teams and two naval ones. The SLMM monitored
violations and mediated between the two parties but could not enforce
sanctions. Many Sinhalese considered the Monitoring Mission,
especially Norway, of being partial to the Tigers.

During the ceasefire, progress was made in agricultural development
and general infrastructure in the Tamil Homeland. Many foreigners were
invited to observe and participate in building Tamil Eelam. Impressive
first-hand accounts have been written about the progress in many
areas: administrative, economic and a social welfare network. While
voices friendly to this process praised the advances made, many also
questioned the lack of civilian input in the decision-making process.

LTTE did not emphasize an international political solidarity movement.
It did appeal for economic donations, which poured to it especially
from Tamils in the Diaspora. The LTTE stopped speaking of Marxism or
building a socialist independent state. It emphasized winning
militarily—if Sri Lanka continued preventing an autonomous Tamil
homeland—and constructing a social welfare state with cooperative and
private enterprises. The Tigers became so respectable it could openly
purchase weaponry from some countries not directly under the thumb of
US-EU-Israel or their partial antagonists: China, Iran and Pakistan. A
May 29, 2009 Times Online piece quotes the editor of Jane’s Terrorism
and Insurgency Centre, saying that the LTTE used 11 merchant ships to
deliver weapons, many of which they got from Bulgaria, Ukraine,
Cyprus, Thailand and Croatia. Even the World Bank recognized the LTTE
as an unofficial State, according to its representative in Sri Lanka,
Peter Harrold, in 2005.

LTTE was even building a Tamil University where Tamils in the Diaspora
would have taught. I spoke with one of them, a man who had earned a
doctorate degree in environmental science and taught in European
universities. He frequently visited the Homeland he had left three
decades previously. He hoped that he would return and teach once the
university would be opened.

An activist in independence forces using peaceful methods, he wished
to remain anonymous. His impressions were that the Tigers were the
dominating factor in civilian administration but that as long as no
one objected one felt safe in the Homeland areas whenever Colombo’s
armed forces were not bombing. He was critical that LTTE armed forces
had resorted to terrorist methods in their history, such as
assassinating political critics. The professor, however, did not think
LTTE forced children into combat or used civilians as human shields,
generally.

“Tigers were good people, intelligent and sensitive to people and
nature. But contradictions did exist. They were a strange animal.”

Cease Fire Ends

On December 26, 2004, the greatest earthquake-tsunami ever recorded
(9.3) hit Southeast Asia. Eleven countries were deeply affected:
230,000 were killed or missing. Sri Lanka was one of the worst
disasters. About 40,000 people were killed or missing; 1.5 million
were displaced from their homes. International aid poured in but did
not arrive in the North and East due to Sinhalese political party
opposition. The LTTE organized all the aid it could muster for
hundreds of thousands in the Tamil homeland. Foreign volunteers and
emergency relief organizations praised the LTTE for its effective and
caring work. There are many accounts of this. (32)

Mahinda Rajapakse was appointed prime minister April 6, 2004, and then
elected President on November 19, 2005 with just 50.3% of the vote. He
was the pro-war candidate of a new coalition, the United People’s
Freedom Alliance (UPFA). (33) Tamil political parties and many foreign
relief groups accused Rajapakse of diverting Tsunami relief funds
designated for their homeland. In this complex reality, those parties
most adamant about refusing aid to suffering Tamils and who demanded
an end to the ceasefire with the objective of launching an all-out war
were those claiming to be either hard-core
Marxist-Communist-Trotskyists or self-proclaimed non-violent
Buddhists.

“United People's Freedom Alliance [is] undoubtedly the broadest
coalition of progressive forces in the country. This coalition, which
came into being in 2004 upon a platform of new liberal socio economic
program and a resolve to defeat separatist terrorism, has since
mobilized people around a social democratic agenda.” (33)

This coalition is not just made up of alleged “progressives” but of
“social” capitalists and self-styled “democratic socialists”. At the
start, the coalition parties were: Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna, Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya, Muslim National Unity
Alliance, Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, Democratic United National Front,
and Desha Vimukthi Janatha Party.

The Communist Party of Sri Lanka and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party
signed a memorandum of understanding with the SLFP so their candidates
would take part in parliamentary elections in the new coalition. They
also joined the UPFA. On April 2, 2004, the alliance won 45.6% of the
popular vote and took 105 out of 225 seats.

A Buddhist political party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), was
founded in February 2004 and participated in the 2004 parliamentary
elections, winning 6% of the vote for nine seats. In 2007, it formally
joined the hodge-podge UPFA coalition government and was given a
ministry post.

On April 3, 2008, JHU’s leader gave his reasons for warring against
Tamils to the United States government financed Voice of America radio
station.

“Athurliye Rathana, a Buddhist monk who heads the Jathika Hela Urumaya
party in Sri Lanka's parliament, wants to end the suffering by putting
a quick end to the war. Speaking with VOA at a seaside hotel in this
former tourist haven, Rathana says he supports the government's latest
military offensive to quash the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam.

"`Anytime a militant group is harmful to peaceful people, then
government should have the right to exercise constitutional law and
order,´ Rathana said. `And, LTTE is unlawful and so, under our
constitutional law, anyone cannot exercise militancy. But [with] the
LTTE separatist movement, the government has some duty to control
their military activities. I say only one thing: Please do your
duty.'"

”For comments like that, the Sri Lankan media has branded Rathana
the`war monk´,... his sentiments are common in Sri Lanka's majority
ethnic Sinhala community.

“Rathana is a celebrated figure in this predominantly Buddhist nation,
where monks are cherished for their spiritual guidance. The pro-war
activism of Rathana and others has spurred as many as 30,000 Sinhalese
young men to join the army in the past few months.” (34)

The UPFA alliance of apparently conflicting ideologies and economic
policies is so strange that one can easily be confused about who is
who and why their politics are such that they are. After a month’s
research, having begun as a total novice to this region, I am unclear
about why various political forces take the position they do not only
about the Tigers but about the entire Tamil ethnic group. For many
Sinhalese, an engrained racism is clearly a major motivation. But how
can one explain that a Tamil group, Eelam People’s Democratic Party,
also takes part in this coalition of Sinhalese racists? The EPDP is a
paramilitary group fighting against the LTTE alongside the government.
It even has one member in parliament. EPDP also assassinates
civilians, including BBC reporter Nimalarajan Mylvaganam. (35)

The Cease Fire Agreement was a thorn in the side of the new ruling
coalition. Although the government claimed that the Sri Lanka
Monitoring Mission favored the Tiger guerrillas, its monitors had
lodged 3006 violations committed by the LTTE and only 133 by the
government, as of June 30, 2005. From May 2006 onward to its
termination in January 2008, the Monitoring Mission was hampered by
worsening hostilities, especially following a Sea Tiger boat attack on
a navy convoy, May 11, 2006.

The European Union then placed the Tigers on its terrorist list, while
appearing to be even-handed by calling upon the Sri Lankan government
to end its “culture of impunity” and to “curb violence” in its areas
of control.
Sweden, Finland and Denmark, as members of EU, also considered the
Tigers to be terrorists, and the LTTE objected to their membership on
the Monitoring Mission. They withdrew leaving only Norway and Iceland
with 20 monitors. The reduced Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission disbanded
in 2008. The path for a full war was clear.

Notes:
12. Ibid “Distant Voices, Desperate Lives,” The Guardian, May 13, 2009
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulbury_Commission
16. LSSP=Ceylon Equal Society Party comprised of Sinhalese
Trotskyists; BLPI=Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India also Trotskyists;
CIC=Ceylon Indian Congress, which soon changed its name to Ceylon
Workers Congress, represented the Indian Tamils of the Estates Workers
Trade Union; CPC, the Communist Party of Ceylon, with a pro-Moscow
line; Labour was fashioned after Clement Attlee-led British Labour
party. The Marxist parties later colluded with capitalist Sinhalese
parties in opposing equality with Tamils. The CPC is now the Communist
Party of Sri Lanka, which is part of the United People’s Freedom
Alliance that includes the Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led government of
Mahinda Rajapaksa.
17. “The Unspeakable Truth,” British Tamil Forum (www.tamilsforum.com
), 2008, p.8.
18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_Only_Act
19. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal_Oya_riots
20. In 1976, Colombo was the summit site. In 1979, the Havana
Declaration ensured “the national independence, sovereignty,
territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their
struggle against “imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and
racism.” In 2006, there were 118 member nations, representing 55% of
the world’s population. Many of these nations have been at war with
one another, and many have aligned with one or other of the previous
super-powers.
21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janatha_Vimukthi_Peramuna
22. www.tamilnation.org/selfdetermination/tamileelam/9202reversion.htm
23. www.sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/05-03_Eelam_Ilankai.php?uid=1707
24. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_United_Liberation_Front.
My reading of Tamil history shows many discrepancies in dates and
events. Different writings on the LTTE contend it was created at
different times, either in 1972, 1975 or 1976.
25. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Jaffna_library
26. http://www.blackjuly83.com/FurtherReading.htm
27. http://countrystudies.us/sri-lanka/71.htm
2. Ibid: “Socialism and man”, Marcha, Uruguay, March 12, 1965.
28. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_Gandhi
29. http://www.sangam.org/2008/05/Premadasa_Assassination.php?uid=2906
30. http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/ltte-a02.shtml
31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandaranaike_Airport_attack and
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir010903_1_n.shtml.
32. http://www.tamilnation.org/diaspora/tsunami/sampavi2.htm
33. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111022131146 and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_People's_Freedom_Alliance
34. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-04/2008-04-03-voa19.cfm
35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eelam_People's_Democratic_Party and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2340433.stm

http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2009/11/tamils-and-equal-rights-or-self.html
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