PACTS AND TALKS
With Mr. Mangala Samaraweera together with Mr. Sripathi Suriyaarchchi taking a back seat in politics as well as in the Parliament, Sri Lankan politics is back to normal with talks with the LTTE taking the centre stage. Mr. Mangala Samaraweera the well known federalist and the organizer of sudu nelum and thavalama wanted to take up the cause of Tamil racism, but he was not sure of what he should do. Unlike Ms. Chandrka Kumaratunga who supported Mr. Samaraweera in his campaign for a federal state the present President is not sympathetic towards such politics. His strategy appears to be defeating the LTTE militarily and finding a solution to the so called ethnic problem. In effect the President wants to dissociate terrorism from the so called problems of the Tamils. It appears that many Tamil parties including the TULF and EPDP are in support of this view. Recently Mr. Anandasangaree said very clearly that the government should not have any talks with the LTTE. It is only some parties such as the LSSP rejected by the people at elections would want the government to talk to the terrorists based on any outcome of the deliberations of the APRC and the APC. If that is the case the terrorists will attempt to get more than what is presented by the APC, if and when it presents its proposals, and the cycle of demands and talks will continue until the government offers a separate state.
However, before we deal with talks with the LTTE, there is one important question that has to be resolved. The sacking of Messrs. Samaraweera and Suriyaarachchi raised two important issues. The first is the "war" with the LTTE. Mr. Suriyaarachchi says that the "war" is fought according to a pact between the government and the LTTE, and tries to give the impression that the LTTE is leaving the eastern province according to this pact. He wanted to find out why Killinochci is not attacked. We have to wait and see if Killinochci is attacked, and the government and the armed forces including the special task force are not expected to divulge their strategy to the public. It is far fetched to assume that the "war" is fought according to a script that has been written behind the back of the people but the issue of a pact between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE is yet to be answered. While the pact is not with respect to the "war", it is clear that at least Mr. Mangala Samaraweera is aware of some kind of pact between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE.
Neither Mr. Samaraweera nor Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is prepared to come out with any information regarding a pact between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE. If there was such pact it is likely that people such as Mr. Wimal Weerasinghe who was very close to the machinery that directed the Presidential election campaign of Mr. Rajapakse knew the details of the pact. However, nobody is expected to reveal to the public these details as it would expose the nature of politics in the so called democracies. If we think that these "pacts" could take place only in Sri Lanka then we are mistaken. In democracies from USA to India so much is hidden from the public though it is proclaimed that the people are the supreme. It appears that this pact is one of the reasons for the dissociation of Mr. Samaraweera from the President. The pact between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE may not be a fact for many people, but everybody knows that the LTTE decided to boycott the Presidential elections at the last moment. It only helped Mr. Rajapakse who won with a thin majority. If not for the decision of the LTTE there was a possibility of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe becoming the President. The LTTE would not have taken such a decision unless there was something in return for them. Mr. Samaraweera's name is mentioned in connection with the pact, and it is believed that Mr. Tiran Alles who is a good friend of Mr. Samaraweera was the go between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE.
In the absence of evidence or statements by the people involved with the pact, we can only speculate. If Mr. Samaraweera was the main actor on behalf of the "sandhanaya" in respect of the pact is he now finding it difficult to stomach the fact that the pact is being abrogated? It is unlikely that the politicians are very much worried about not honouring the word but in the case of Mr. Samaraweera it may be that being a federalist, sudu nelum and thavalama campaigner, with a little bit of so called postmodernism (it is Mr. Samaraweera with his friend Mr. Ruwan Ferdinads who has given a hand to the "postmodernists" to publish in Sinhala whatever rubbish that they acquired through reading English books, in newspapers and magazines from "Mathota" to "Mavbima") he found it difficult to oppose the demands of the LTTE. It is too early to say that the government has decided on a unitary solution to the so called ethnic problem, but Mr. Samaraweera would not have supported the Mahinda Chinthana that spells out a unitary state whole heartedly. Like the LSSP, the CP and some other parties in the PA he would have thought that having come to power they could get back to federalism.
The offering of portfolios to the UNP members led by Mr. Karu Jayasuriya meant that the President is prepared to ignore the demands by the international community at least when his survival is under threat. The MoU between the UNP and the SLFP was, as we have argued, only an extension of the Fox agreement, at the insistence of the "international community" It is now known that the western powers in the form of their ambassadors in Colombo have applied pressure on the President not to abrogate the MoU between the UNP and the SLFP, but the President did not listen to them and appointed the UNP MPs, who joined the government as ministers. More than anything else the "international community" would have been displeased by this act, and it did not take much time for the President to show the door to Mr. Samaraweera. If there was a pact between the "sandhanaya" and the LTTE, it can now be assumed that that pact too has been abrogated.
However, it appears that the President is inclined towards negotiating with the LTTE. It is clear that there is pressure from the "international community" to start talks with the LTTE, and stop military action against the terrorists. The President is not prepared to abrogate the CFA, which can be compared to the hymen of a sex worker, though there is pressure from the JVP to do so. The President may be thinking that it is tactful to attempt to keep the CFA intact at present though it is a futile exercise. However, it is the pressure from the "international community" to start negotiations with the LTTE that is going to demoralize the armed forces more than even Mr. Sripathy Suriaarachchi's proclamation on "war"
There is nothing that can be gained by negotiating with the LTTE. The LTTE wants Eelam and nothing but Eelam. The LTTE is there not to negotiate with but to be crushed. However, there are some Tamil parties who are of the view that if the LTTE is crushed they may not get anything from the government. There are some others, especially the NGO pundits who voice the opinion that the LTTE and the Tamil parties who took up arms were driven to that position by the "Sinhala governments" that did not concede to the wish of the Tamils to sharing of power. These people think that history began after 1948, and Mahavansa is there to be bashed. The history of the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka, with or without Mahavansa began in the aftermath of the so called Colebrook Cameron reforms when the Tamils were given power at the centre and in the professions and other fields in excess of the proportion of their population, turning a Nelsonian eye in the typical British imperialist tradition on the contribution by the Sinhalas to build a unique culture in this island. As we have argued when the Tamil elite began to lose these privileges they interpreted the losses as injustices caused to the Tamils in general. The Tamil elite propagated this myth and misled the innocent Tamils to believe that the Sinhalas are monsters who have established an empire and that the Tamils have to liberate themselves. The western powers were behind these myths and they manipulated the Tamil elite to weaken Sinhalathva in the country. It is the Tamil elite of yesteryear who are responsible for the emergence of the LTTE and not the so called Sinhala governments.
During the colonial period the Sinhala Buddhists were the most deprived and the Sinhala Catholics and the Christians in general were able to understand that their elite had been given privileges by the colonial masters. Some of the Sinhala Christian and Catholic elite also understood the repression of the Sinhala Buddhists, and had no objection to losing the privileges given to them by the British colonial powers. Thus the attempt by some Sinhala Christian and Catholic elite to instigate the ordinary Sinhala Christians and the Catholics against the Sinhala Buddhists failed. The Sinhala Catholic and Christian elite who opposed the losing of their privileges got their last chance with the schools take over. However, they failed even then and had to attempt a coup in order to preserve their privileges. The ordinary Sinhala Christians and the Catholics in this country live as happy (or unhappy) as the Sinhala Buddhists, in spite of their elite losing the privileges that they enjoyed under the British. Even today we can see some of these disgruntled elements trying to win back those privileges supporting Tamil racism, and indirectly and sometimes directly giving a hand to the LTTE. However, they cannot succeed as the ordinary Sinhala Christians and the Catholics, especially those who do not speak English, are with the Sinhala Buddhists opposing Tamil racism in general.
The government has a lesson to learn from this. The ordinary Sinhala Christians and the Catholics could not be misled as they had access to Sinhala newspapers and other materials that exposed the elite who were interested only in preserving their privileges. On the other hand the ordinary Tamils could be misled due to the fact that they had no access to material in Sinhala. It is the duty of the government to tell the ordinary Tamils what has happened in the past, and to liberate them not only from the claws of the tigers but also from the propaganda of the elite.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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