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Pirapaharan’s speech, in which he commemorated the lost cadres of the LTTE, is seen as setting the stage for the group’s future course of action. However, the speech was more subdued than usual and full of moral and spiritual undertones.
Now the LTTE is on its back foot as never before. It has lost the entire Eastern Province and is left with a limited guerilla force that is capable of hit-and-run attacks. More than half of the Northern Province has been lost in recent fighting with Sri Lanka’s armed forces on the doorstep of the LTTE’s former administrative center, Kilinochchi. Internationally, the organization is on the run in most developed countries, with its members subject to arrest if caught involved in fundraising activities and arms purchases.
The LTTE leader appealed to the international community, and in particular to Tamils in India’s Tamil Nadu state, to look upon his group as fighting for the freedom and rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
He also endeavored to contrast the military focus of the Sri Lankan government with what he described as the LTTE’s peaceful aspirations. Unfortunately, the problem with the speech was the disjuncture between words and deeds, which negates the hope it probably sought to inspire.
The absence of correspondence between words and deeds suggests a political strategy that will be countered with a similar one. The Sri Lankan government has been able to silence many critics of its strategy by intimidating them with the prospects of punitive action or by describing them as traitors.
It has also used its media and allies to claim success in democratization and development in the recaptured areas of the east, while the reality is different, with killings reported virtually every day. Rather, the government persists in denying its own failures in political reforms and human rights, while discrediting the LTTE on the same score.
In his speech, Pirapaharan said that the LTTE had never acted against the interests of other countries and had only friendly intentions toward them. However, that meant the LTTE leader was either denying his organization’s role in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi or suggesting that the action was not relevant to its relationship with India. Neither of these explanations is acceptable. There was no sign of a change of heart, the first step of which would be a hint of self-criticism and honesty in facing up to the dreadful past and present.
Further, in affirming the LTTE’s peaceful intentions and reluctance to wage war, Pirapaharan was glossing over his organization’s fateful role in taking the country back to war once again at the end of 2005. During the presidential election in November that year, the LTTE prevented Tamil people from voting – votes that would have surely gone to opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had promised to revive the peace process.
Not satisfied with this, the LTTE thereafter goaded the new President Mahinda Rajapaksa to war by repeatedly ambushing government troops on a large scale and finally invading and capturing towns even during the ceasefire period.
Unfortunately, the moral and spiritual tone of Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech appears to be only a veneer to hide a continued commitment to military struggle at the cost of human rights and the people at large. As it withdraws, the LTTE is heavily mining the land, which is taking a heavy toll on the advancing Sri Lankan soldiers. But this will also make life impossible for civilians who will one day return to their homes.
Clearing the mines will be very difficult, as many of them are floating in the monsoon floods. The LTTE has also not taken up the issue of a humanitarian corridor for the people out of the war zone.
Reliable eyewitness accounts indicate that the plight of civilians in the LTTE-controlled areas is terrible. They have very little access to nutritious food, being limited to barely adequate weekly rations of 1.4 kilograms each of rice and flour per person and half a kilogram of sugar for a family for two weeks.
The worst part, however, is falling victim to forced recruitment by the LTTE, apart from the prospect of being killed or injured due to collateral damage from the fighting and bombardments. The misery of civilians caused by the LTTE and the government’s commitment to war cannot be overstated.
After Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech, the prospects for peace in the near future remain as bleak as ever. He warned that the Sinhala nation would soon awaken from its dreamland of military victory.
The attacks in Mumbai are likely to reduce Indian pressure on Sri Lanka with regards to the government's military operations against the LTTE, due to India's own immediate experience of terrorism. This will give the warring parties in Sri Lanka a free hand to continue their hostilities, even at a human cost that far exceeds that of the Mumbai attacks and which further undermines existing processes and relationships.
On the other hand, the situation may change again, especially if a more nationalist government comes to power in India as a result of an anti-terrorist political platform. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has announced that if it has the chance to form the government, it will ensure a political solution in Sri Lanka within three months.
The change toward peace will surely come, but it awaits a new frame of mind and a change of heart within the country. Extremism and terrorism survive by generating responses that are themselves extreme. A political settlement that is acceptable to all communities is more likely to be found if internally negotiated than externally imposed.
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(Dr. Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, an independent advocacy organization. He studied economics at Harvard College and holds a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School. ©Copyright Jehan Perera.)
