TSUNAMI POLITICS OF REBUILDING THE LTTE
If tsunami has made anything clear politically it is the end of the road sign for Ms. Kumaratunga. If she had had any plans of extending her term in the guise of an executive prime minister with or without a referendum she could now only bid farewell to all those ambitious projects. However, it is very rarely a politician gives up power voluntarily, a notable exception being Mr. D. B. Wijetunga. After tsunami there is no hope for a referendum to change the constitution and Ms. Kumaratunga has generalised the "experience", and declared that there would not be any elections for the next five years.
There were only three national "votes" that could have been held during the next five years. The first and foremost is the presidential elections. We were heading towards a presidential election either in 2005 or 2006 depending on a ruling to be given by the supreme court, in the event of Ms. Kumaratunga deciding to go on till 2006, and the UNP and/or others taking legal action against her decision. The second was a referendum to postpone the presidential election and the third would have been a referendum in order to take certain steps towards a constitutional change. There was no parliamentary election due though the president would have gone through various amendments to the constitution, and forced a referendum in order to continue for some more period after the second term of the president expires. Thus without tsunami we could have expected a referendum or even a series of referenda in order to amend the constitution rather than a presidential election. A presidential election would have been held only if all the other attempts failed.
However, tsunami has changed all the plans. It is not possible to have a referendum to extend the period of the president or to amend the constitution with so many people dead and many others left homeless in what are known as camps for displaced people. The only election that would have taken place is the presidential election with Ms. Kumaratunga supporting some other candidate of the SLFP or the "Sandhanaya". However, Ms. Kumaratunga is not for such presidential election and she is looking for some reason to postpone it. As she is unable to postpone only the presidential election, she has said that no elections would be held for the next five years and everybody should be engaged in what is called a nation rebuilding exercise. What the people should realise is that constitutionally the only national election that was scheduled to be held within the next five years was the presidential elections. There is no need to have a parliamentary election as the present parliament was elected only last year and the various referenda that could have been held were not mandatory. The president by declaring that there would not be elections for five years has only declared her intention to postpone the presidential election, and extend her office by a few more years. If she was thinking of the parliamentary election and not the presidential there was no necessity for her to state that there would not be any elections for the next five years as parliamentary elections were not due during that period. It was a classic case of "muttiya demeema" but the "muttiya" as well as the hand behind it have been identified.
The government or the PA meaning the SLFP faction of it, as there is no CP or LSSP without the SLFP, has come under criticism with the decision to involve the LTTE in relief and reconstruction work in the northern and the eastern provinces. The LTTE and their ally Norway have succeeded in drawing the government to their position that the LTTE should be a partner in the rebuilding exercise. This is nothing but rebuilding the LTTE that has lost as a result of the havoc caused by tsunami. If Prabhakaran is alive he was scared to appear in public for four weeks as the defense of the LTTE had been washed out by tsunami, and the Norwegians provided an opportunity for him to come out in the glare of western media with the protection offered by the so called international community. On the other hand if Prabhakaran is dead, as claimed by Karuna's group, then Norway and the others waited that long to produce one of his doubles. It is said that after the first appearance with the Norwegians, Prabhakaran has met them secretly. It means that either Prabhakaran is hiding if he is alive or the Norwegians had discussions with the "second" rank leaders of the LTTE on rebuilding the terrorist group.
Does it matter very much if Prabhakaran is dead or alive? Not much as the west is dictating terms to the LTTE. The LTTE has now become an appendage of the west and it is being used by them to deprive Sinhalathva its due place in Sri Lanka. The so-called academics such as Peter Schalk and institutes such as Uppsala University and the BBC are spearheading the onslaught on anything Sinhala Buddhist. (Incidently though the words Sinhala Buddhism have been used by Gananatha Obeysekere as H. L. Seneviratne and M. W. A. de Silva have mentioned last week, he is certainly not the first person to use those words. Long before Obeysekere was born the Siamese tradition had referred to Sinhala Buddhism in a different sense altogether, that is logical and consistent. If the sociologists and the anthropologists are interested I could give the reference to the literature) The existence of Velupillai Prabhakaran is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the maintenance of the LTTE in the present form. Undoubtedly there would not have been a LTTE if not for Prabhakaran as it was he who "fathered" the organisation. However it has a number of stepfathers by now and they would have preferred the death of the "father" as the latter sometimes did not listen to the stepfathers. If Prabhakaran is dead then the Sinhalas have to be very vigilant as the west is now in a position to impose its will on the LTTE without any resistance at all.
LTTE which is a spent force is trying to make an impact with the support given by the Norwegians. Why should the LTTE be a partner in the relief and reconstruction work. It is for no other purpose than to reconstruct the LTTE. The recognition given to this spent force would confirm its claim to be the "government" in the so called uncleared parts in the Northern province and the Eastern province. The LTTE may have an international network thanks to the western countries and the Tamils living in those countries. However, in Sri Lanka they do not have even a fishing net at present. The international network, the governments in the western countries and the Sri Lankan government are the bodies that keep the LTTE going.
The government should be able to carry out the relief and reconstruction work in the Northern province and the Eastern province with the help of the Sinhala people, Tamils, Muslims and the armed forces. Soon after the tsunami it was the armed forces and the Sinhala volunteers who went to the aid of the Tamils in the Eastern province. The Tamils in these areas know the work done by the armed forces and the Sinhala people and there is a cordial relationship between these groups. It was amusing to read the reports on Mr. Martin the Prime Minister of Canada proclaiming that they could build up a cordial relationship between the Sinhalas and the Tamils living in the eastern province. Even without Martins that relationship is there, and if not for the LTTE and some power hungry politicians in the east who have now succumbed to LTTE pressure, meaning murder threats as that is all that they can do, there would not have been any problem between the Sinhalas and the Tamils living in the eastern province. Also if not for the western powers, and a Sri Lankan government that has no foresight, by now the LTTE would have been washed out from the eastern province as well as the northern province. The SLFP (and the LSSP and the CP) faction in the government by agreeing to allow the spent force LTTE , which is now capable only of individual killings like any underworld gang, has done an irreparable damage to their election campaign. If the LTTE is to be included as a partner, then by the same logic the government should incorporate all the underworld elements also in the relief and reconstruction work.
However, this whole episode brings the role of Norway to the forefront. It ceased to be a mere facilitator long time ago and today it is openly helping the LTTE to reorganise for the next battle with the government, the armed forces and the Sinhala people. The "Sandhanaya" came to power on a platform of opposition to the obvious partition role played by Norway and many of those who voted for the "Sandhanaya" wanted to see the back of Solheim and others who represented Norway. However, after coming to power the SLFP leaders seem to have forgotten the promises given to the people and today they are being controlled by the "Norwegians" and not the other way around. If a country like Myanmar could stand up to the pressures applied by the western world why is it that Sri Lanka, another Theravada country cannot do the same? How lucky is Myanmar not to have Olcott Buddhists among the leaders of the government? The trouble with the Olcott Buddhists is that they try to emulate the Buddha, without themselves achieving Buddhahood, instead of following the Bodhisathvas. The so called intellectuals of the west as well as their lap dogs in the country whether they live here or abroad try to teach us Buddhism as "practiced" by the Arhats and not by the "prthagjanas". To these lap dogs and their masters and mistresses all that we have to say is that we are not Arhats.
It is true that the LTTE had been telling the western world, through the help they get from the BBC and other media that no relief and reconstruction work been done in the northern and the eastern provinces. The government could have easily countered these propaganda through the embassies in the western countries. As long as the government does not take any effective measures the LTTE that gets the support of the western countries and the media would have a field day. The myth that the west and the Tamil racists have propagated in the western countries to the effect that the northern province and the eastern province have been neglected since independence was never challenged by our embassies which ironically were very often headed by Tamils whom were supposed to be a neglected set.
The NGOs are having a field day importing luxury and other vehicles, and equipments from motor cars to helicopters, and only God knows who would be using them ultimately. The money collected from the cricket matches (whether it is cricket to play cricket to raise funds is a different matter) has been handed over to "world vision" that has been accused of providing with a common vision to all the "children of God", including those who do not admit the "parentage" of somebody without parents. If the government cannot keep track of the activities of al these organisations then the people will have to put an end to the track of the government.
It is clear that while the Norwegians are engaged in an exercise of rebuilding the LTTE, they are also concentrating on a campaign by which they want to draw the Sinhala Buddhists towards them. They are now going round the country helping to reconstruct the temples affected by tsunami, with the help of the Palli Nikaya. Only a western social scientist would not understand what the Norwegians are up to. The Lutheran Norwegians who have been anti Sinhala Buddhist have all of a sudden developed a "karuna" for the Sinhala Buddhists, and especially for the Sangha. The Bhikkus will have to think carefully and come out with their own scheme of reconstructing the temples that were destroyed by tsunami without the blood stained Norwegian money.
The visit of Ranil Wickremesinghe to Norway should not be viewed as a trip made by him to stop "tsunami aid" to Sri Lanka. He is not capable of convincing the Norwegians that they should not support the "Sandhanaya" government. What is happening is the converse. The Norwegians want to remind him that he should shed sectarian politics and support the government to establish the ISGA, and dump the JVP. It is said that the JVP had thought of quitting the government few days ago, but they had at the last moment decide against it. If the JVP quits the government they would be only playing into the hands of the west and the LTTE.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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