Sri Lanka Experiences: Emotional Politics, Violence, And The Future

In electoral politics, emotions have special place. They often help politicians to secure votes of economically weaken masses who have nothing to lose, but their ethnic or religious traits. Political actors understand this logic, and thus use emotional politics to win power. Sri Lanka’s experiences confirm this theoretical understanding.

Emotional politics may win votes with no trouble, but political communities may need to confront instability if marginalized groups rebel against the system. Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, which led to the brutalization of Sri Lanka and the formation of the Tamil Tigers, is a by product of emotional politics. Politicians systematically employed such strategies just to seek simple path for electoral victory. All these efforts eventually illiberalize the country. The Tamil Tigers were militarily defeated, but it is doubtful that such an end would not bring an end to decades-old emotional politics, nor  would it help liberalize Sri Lanka’s political system. The major reason is war is an evitable end of emotional politics, and it may generate further instability as long as politicians find difficulties to discharge themselves from the past.
Violence or state terrorism by the Sinhala political class against Tamils has rational roots in emotional politics, and they have a long history. Violence by the state caused thousands of innocent Tamil lives and displaced Tamils within the island of Sri Lanka and contributed to the growth of the Tamil Diaspora population. The major result of state violence against the Tamils is the growth of the Tamil violent movements, including the Tamil Tigers who exercised zero-tolerance for dissent, but effectively challenged state terrorism until its violent death in May 2009.  One should have a little bit of knowledge about the Sri Lanka’s past to understand the present.

On 5 June 1956, disturbances occurred at Colombo when about 200 Tamils led by 12 members of Parliament staged a silent protest demonstration against the introduction of the Sinhala-Only policy, outside the Parliament building. They were assaulted, even stoned, by the Sinhalese mobs led by the Sinhalese politicians. Rioting then spread through the city, many Tamils were assaulted; the shops of the Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils were looted. State and its institutions neither officially condemn nor brought the perpetrators to justice. Tamils, once had huge influence in the island’s administrations, have begun to lost the trust in state and its institutions.

The similar incidents repeated in 1958 against the Tamils when the Tamils protested the decision of S.W.R.D. Bandaranayake, an architect of Sinhala-Only language to abrogate first post-independence pact between the Tamils and the Sinhalese,   known as the Banderanaike-Chelvanayakam Pact (B-C Pact): The Tamils reacted to the surprise abrogation with a series of non-violent anti-government campaigns in the north and east. FP’s campaign generated the Sinhalese junta’s violent reactions against the Tamils. In May-June 1958, there were major anti-Tamil riots throughout the island, particularly in the Sinhalese dominated south areas. In this violence, hundreds of Tamils died and over 12,000 were made homeless.

Ethnic violence against Tamils continued unabated even after ethnic violence in 1958, because the Sinhalese leaders found that violence against Tamils was a useful strategy to divert the attention of the poor Sinhalese from the worsening economic situation. Whenever the ordinary and poor Southern Sinhalese filled with ethnic emotions, they found sense of honor in it. In fact,  symbolic appeals, as I said above, strong because they have ability to give a kind of space for the disadvantaged in which they can enjoy sense of relief. This understanding can be well understood in Arab countries, where Arab political leaders and movements often employ Islamic revivalism to win the sympathy of ordinary Arabs and Muslims.

In Sri Lanka, whenever the Sinhalese elites met difficulties to convince their constituencies, they employed ethnic emotions, a basic recipe for ethnic violence, to enjoy the fruits of power. 1983 violence was particularly important to understand the Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. Some Tamil opinions say it was genocide and killed thousands of Tamils in the island. However, Human Right Watch (March 2006) put the figure as much as two thousands. Then President J.R Jayawardena blessed the perpetrators of violence against the Tamils, and said, “I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna (Tamil) people now.  Now we cannot think of them. Not about their lives or of their opinion about us. The more you put pressure in the north, the happier the Sinhala people will be here… really, if I starve the Sinhala people will be happy.”

Sri Lanka State’s inability to condemn the violence or state willingness to support the violence against Tamils eventually not only weakened the Tamil moderates, but also led the Tamils to lose trust in the state and its institutions. In politics, trust is the key and it often gives hope to the political stability. In a democracy, when a particular community loses its trust in the fair delivery of the system, it is highly likely political movements/parties can win the sympathies of a particular group, if their appeals constitute similar emotional slogans.
In my understanding, the Tamil Tigers, who were ruthlessly defeated at the expenses of more than 40,000 innocent Tamils (UN report on Sri Lanka, 2011), are the by product of the policies and politics that terrorized minority Tamils since independence. When a particular political society denies justice and peace to a particular community due to its ethnic or religious origins/traits or any particular political class takes measures to satisfy the majority or dominant group, it is very likely to notice rebellion or resistance from marginalizing non-majority/non-dominant group.  Such disasters often give birth to elements like the Tamil Tigers who latter terrorized both the Sinhala and Muslim polity to consolidate their grip in Tamil society.

The key point here is use of ethnic emotion in politics more likely produce violence and blood. When leaders of the majority/dominant group, for example, the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka systematically exercise ethnic emotions to win Sinhalese votes at the expenses of minorities trust and support, the section of those marginalized groups could adopt either full or some forms of violence. The state and its institutions may gazette them as terrorists, and kill them or disable the complete leadership in war like what Sri Lanka had experienced in 2009 without any witness, but rebellion may recur, because of existence of inability to seek a political solution that would symbolically challenge the current unitary state structure and its political institutions.

Will Sri Lanka win peace? What history suggests is that when politicians employ emotional politics, which are inherently deadly because such emotional politics often favors a particular group, it is very difficult for politicians to retract those emotional polices or politics.  This is the case in Sri Lanka, where Sinhala politicians find difficulties to negotiate political comprise with the Tamil political elites. Sri Lanka’s post-war difficulties to find a political solution to the Tamil question confirm this fact.  This is a greater challenge for state reformation in Sri Lanka to seek a political solution.

There is no simple fix for any ethno political conflicts, nor do we have examples from any country in our time that searched political solutions to decades old tensions and conflicts within a short time. But such positions should not anyway guide us to put off our willingness to seek political solution to ethnic conflict that led to the formation of violent movements such as the Tamil Tigers. The problem of Sri Lanka’s political class and its politico-intellectual is they still depressingly deny the existence of ethnic conflict and vigorously rationalize the Tamil resistance as a simply terrorism.  This is just hazardous and naïve position and has been a major hurdle for conflict resolution.

Sri Lanka’s political class and its allies need to initiate genuine political discussion, in order to win the trust of the Tamil nation and other minorities. It is important to mention that such measures may well weaken global pressures and can silence legitimate critiques against the illiberal state. Sri Lanka’s choices pertaining to its future are understandably simple: live with the past without reforming state structure or embrace future with the willingness to reform the state structure where Tamils and other minorities can manage their own political autonomy. (By Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz(Plus*))

Prof. A. R. M. Imtiyaz, Ph.D.

Department of Political Science
Room, 465
Gladfelter Hall
Temple University 
Philadelphia, PA 19122
USA 


(Plus* ; holy quran says;...man was created weak....TMQ 4:28)

Home       Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK (Main Link) 

India and Sri Lanka after the LTTE

1/3
Media Releases


India needs to push Sri Lanka harder towards steps that will avert a return to violent conflict on the island.


India and Sri Lanka after the LTTE , the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines New Delhi’s ability to influence Colombo to make progress on a sustainable and equitable post-war settlement and limit the chances of another entrenched authoritarian and military-dominated government on its borders. India’s strong ties with the island, and its support to the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa during the war against the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) which ended in May 2009, should in principle give it more leeway to push for reforms. New Delhi’s aspirations to play a global role, and pressure from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the issue, are further incentives to act.


“India has long been the country with the greatest influence over Sri Lanka, but its policies to encourage the government there towards a meaningful peace are not working”, says Michael Shaikh, Crisis Group Senior Analyst for Asia. “Despite New Delhi’s engagement and unprecedented financial assistance, the Sri Lankan government has failed to make progress on pressing post-war challenges.”


New Delhi hesitates to push the Rajapaksa administration on governance issues and has resisted endorsing an international investigation into the atrocities committed during the last months of Sri Lanka’s civil war, in which as many as 40,000 civilians were killed. Its caution is due in part to its history of counter-productive interventions in Sri Lanka in the 1980s as well as current strategic considerations, in particular its desire to counter the growing influence of China.


However, India should take a stronger stand by pressing Colombo to demilitarise the north and rebuild meaningful democratic institutions and freedoms, all while maintaining its useful support for negotiations underway between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil National Alliance. India should also help empower local political institutions in Sri Lanka’s north and east by deepening its partnerships with them, and should monitor more closely how its generous development funds are spent. Parties in Tamil Nadu will need to use their leverage with New Delhi in consistent and principled ways, even at the risk of sacrificing potentially profitable political deals.


India needs to reinforce its coordination with other international actors such as the United States, the European Union and Japan, who together can use their political and financial leverage to influence the Rajapaksa administration. India should also publicly acknowledge the importance and credibility of the April 2011 report by the UN Secretary-General’s panel of experts on accountability. That report found credible allegations of widespread war crimes committed by both Sri Lankan government and LTTE forces at the end of the civil war, and it called for an independent international investigation. Finally, India should revive its idea of a donors conference to review post-war progress and push the Sri Lankan government to improve its transparency and accountability.


“India’s longstanding interest in a peaceful and politically stable Sri Lanka is best served by strong messages to Colombo to end impunity and reverse the democratic decay that undermines the rights of all Sri Lankans”, says Alan Keenan, Crisis Group Senior Analyst and Sri Lanka Project Director. “Without significant demilitarisation of the north, decentralisation and a return to Sri Lankan traditions of political pluralism and vigorous political debate, the risk of renewed violence will increase”.


2/3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


India has long been the country with the greatest influence over Sri Lanka but its policies to encourage the government there towards a sustainable peace are not working. Despite India’s active engagement and unprecedented financial assistance, the Sri Lankan government has failed to make progress on pressing post-war challenges. Government actions and the growing political power of the military are instead generating new grievances that increase the risk of an eventual return to violence. To support a sustainable and equitable post-war settlement in Sri Lanka and limit the chances of another authoritarian and military-dominated government on its borders, India needs to work more closely with the United States, the European Union and Japan, encouraging them to send the message that Sri Lanka’s current direction is not acceptable. It should press for the demilitarisation of the north, a return to civil administration there and in the east and the end of emergency rule throughout the country.


New Delhi’s relations with Sri Lanka in the two years since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have had four main priorities:


•providing humanitarian assistance to displaced Tamils in the north and east;


•supporting major development projects, primarily in the north, with concessionary loans;


•pressing the Sri Lankan government and the main Sri Lankan Tamil political alliance, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), to work towards a negotiated settlement of ethnic conflict through the devolution of power to Tamil-majority areas in the north and east; and


•encouraging greater economic integration between the two economies.


India’s approach has so far paid only limited dividends. Deepening militarisation and Sinhalisation in the northern province have increased the insecurity and political marginalisation of Tamils and are undermining prospects for inter-ethnic reconciliation. The government continues to resist any investigation or accounting for mass atrocities in the final months of the war. Democratic governance is under sustained assault throughout the country, as power is concentrated in the president’s family and the military; attacks on independent media and political opponents continue with impunity. Even on Indian-sponsored development projects and economic integration, the Sri Lankan government has dragged its feet; for example, construction has begun on only a handful of the 50,000 houses India has offered to build in the northern province.
While officials in New Delhi admit they are frustrated, India remains hesitant to press President Rajapaksa’s regime very hard. This is due in part to its history of counter-productive interventions in Sri Lanka. India’s misguided policy of arming Tamil militants in 1980s significantly expanded the conflict, and its decision to send peacekeepers to enforce the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord ended in disaster as the LTTE fought them to a standstill and later took revenge by assassinating former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. India’s interventions have made Sri Lankans of all communities suspicious, limiting India’s room for manoeuvre. Many Sinhalese see India as favouring Tamils and as wanting to weaken or divide the country, despite its crucial role in destroying the Tamil Tigers. For many Tamils, on the other hand, India is seen as having repeatedly broken its pledges to defend their rights and protect their lives, especially during the final phase of the war in 2009.

India’s reluctance to put serious pressure on the Sri Lankan government is also due to strategic considerations, in particular its desire to counter the growing influence of China, whose financial and political support the Rajapaksa government has been cultivating. India’s own growing economic interests in Sri Lanka have also tempered its political activism. New Delhi’s traditional reluctance to work through multilateral bodies or in close coordination with other governments – due in part to its fear of international scrutiny of its own conflicts, particularly in Kashmir – has also significantly weakened its ability to influence Sri Lanka.


India, nonetheless, has strong reasons to work for fundamental changes in Sri Lanka’s post-war policies. It has a clear interest in preventing either a return to violent militancy or the consolidation on its borders of another authoritarian government with an overly powerful military. India’s own democratic values and successes in accommodating ethnic diversity should also encourage an activist approach, especially as it seeks recognition as a rising global power with hopes of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. India’s own restive domestic Tamil constituency, to which the central government needs to respond for electoral considerations, is pressing for stronger action. After decades of actively supporting minority rights and devolution of power in Sri Lanka, India has its reputation on the line. With the much-hated LTTE defeated with Indian assistance, New Delhi should, in principle, have more leeway to push for reforms.


If it is serious about promoting a stable and democratic Sri Lanka, India will have to rebalance its priorities and press more consistently and in concert with other powers for major political reforms in Sri Lanka. Parties in Tamil Nadu, in turn, will need to use their leverage with New Delhi in consistent and principled ways, even at the risk of sacrificing potentially profitable political deals.


India’s support for negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil National Alliance, which belatedly began in January 2011, has been useful and should be maintained. But the immediate focus of the talks and of Indian influence should shift from pressing for effective devolution of power to demilitarising the north and east and rebuilding meaningful democratic institutions and freedoms. This would require:


•re-establishing the authority of the local civil administration in the north and east to oversee development and humanitarian assistance without interference by the military or central government;


•holding the long-delayed election for the Northern Provincial Council;


•publicising the names and locations of all those detained on suspected involvement with the LTTE (including those in “rehabilitation” centres);


•expediting the release of land currently designated as (or operating as de facto) high-security zones; and


•removing arbitrary restrictions on political activities and on the humanitarian activities of local and international NGOs.


India should monitor its projects in the north more closely and insist, along with other donors, that they effectively empower local people. India should insist on working through the newly elected local governments and, eventually, with the Northern Provincial Council. To make this possible, India will need to coordinate more closely with Japan, Western donors and international development banks. Together they have the political and financial leverage to influence the Rajapaksa administration should they choose to use it. India should revive its idea of a donors conference to review post-war progress and to push the government to demilitarise the north, lift the state of emergency and relax anti-terrorism laws.


In New York, Geneva and Colombo, India should publicly acknowledge the importance and credibility of the report by the UN Secretary-General’s panel of experts on accountability and should support an independent international investigation into allegations of war crimes at the close of the civil war in 2009. At the same time, it should send strong, public messages to the Sri Lankan government on the need for domestic action on accountability. It should also work towards the establishment of a truth commission that would examine the injustices and crimes suffered by all communities, including those committed by all parties during the Indian army’s presence in northern Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. Acknowledging the suffering of all communities will be necessary for lasting peace.


India should broaden its political agenda from focusing solely on devolution and ensuring the rights of Tamils. Without a reversal of the Sri Lankan government’s growing authoritarianism, centralisation of power and continued repression of dissent, any devolution will be meaningless and the risks of renewed conflict will increase. India’s longstanding interest in a peaceful and politically stable Sri Lanka is best served by strong messages to Colombo to end impunity and reverse the democratic decay that undermines the rights of all Sri Lankans. By raising political concerns that affect all of Sri Lanka’s communities, India can also counter suspicions among Sinhalese and eventually strengthen its hand with the government. This will take some time, but the work should start now.


1/3
Read Full PDF Report from here

Home          Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK

Sri Lankan ex-lefts promote illusions in Tamil National Alliance

The pseudo-radicals of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) in Sri Lanka are engaged in a new and utterly opportunist campaign to promote the bourgeois Tamil National Alliance (TNA) as a party—indeed the only party—representing the interests of ordinary Tamils.
In doing so, the NSSP is not only providing much-needed political assistance to the discredited TNA but also lining up with US and European imperialism, which are seeking to pressure the Sri Lankan government to negotiate with the Tamil organisation.

Interviewed this month in the Tamil newspaper, Uthayan, NSSP leader Wickremabahu Karunaratna insisted the government had to negotiate with the TNA as “the sole representative for the Tamil people” and provide “a political solution” to the country’s protracted civil war that ended with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

Referring to the outcome of national elections last year, Karunaratna declared: “People in the North and East have already established the TNA as their sole representative through their vote.” In fact, in the parliamentary elections of April 2010, Tamil voters stayed away in droves. In the northern, predominantly Tamil district of Jaffna, the voter turnout was just 23 percent, of which the TNA received less than half.

The low turnout expressed a general disgust with the entire political establishment, including the TNA. Many Tamils were outraged at the TNA’s support for the opposition candidate, Sarath Fonseka, in the earlier presidential election in January, against the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapakse. Fonseka was the army commander who directed the final offensives against the LTTE that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and, along with President Rajapakse, bore responsibility for these war crimes.

In the aftermath of the war, the army detained around 300,000 men, women and children in detention camps for months before sending them back to their devastated villages and towns with virtually no assistance. Thousands of young people were sent to undisclosed re-education centres for “LTTE suspects.” Much of the north and east of the island is under permanent military occupation. Murders and disappearances by pro-government death squads continue—with at least 30 in the past six months. Joblessness and poverty are rife.

The TNA, which previously functioned as the LTTE’s parliamentary representative, has done nothing to defend the rights of ordinary Tamils or alleviate the terrible conditions in which many live. Its negotiations with the Rajapakse government for “a political solution” consist of haggling over a power-sharing arrangement between the Sinhala and Tamil ruling elites, involving the devolution of limited powers to the North and East.

The NSSP’s support for the TNA’s “political solution” based on devolution seeks to keep Tamils straitjacketed within the framework of communal politics that has already produced a disaster. The LTTE’s collapse in 2009 was not primarily a military defeat, but was a result of its bankrupt perspective of a separate capitalist state of Tamil Eelam. Facing a relentless military offensive, the LTTE was organically incapable of making any appeal to the working class either in Sri Lanka or internationally. Instead, the LTTE leaders spent their final days making futile appeals to the “international community” to intervene—that is, to the imperialist powers that had backed Rajapakse’s criminal war.

With a state of Eelam off the agenda, the TNA, with the NSSP’s assistance, is promoting the illusion that a Tamil province with limited powers would help end the suffering of the Tamil masses. With such a “solution,” the TNA would simply function as a loyal provincial policeman for the Colombo government, in order to facilitate the joint exploitation of the working class.

This perspective directly blocks the unification of workers—Sinhala and Tamil—around their common class interests in the struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government and a socialist program. The NSSP is peddling this communal line precisely at the point when the widespread disaffection among Tamils is meeting up with growing unrest among workers in the south of the island over rising prices and deteriorating living standards.

The NSSP is not only serving the interests of sections of the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie, but those of US imperialism. The US and its European allies backed Rajapakse’s war against the LTTE only to find that China, a rival power, had gained significance influence in Colombo through its provision of military and financial aid with no strings attached.

In the final months of the war, the US began to raise limited concerns about the fate of Tamil civilians being bombarded by the Sri Lankan military and subsequently supported an investigation into Sri Lanka war crimes. This campaign had nothing to do with defending ordinary Tamils. Rather Washington was once again employing the phony banner of “human rights” to advance its own interests, using the threat of a war crimes inquiry to encourage Rajapakse to distance himself from Beijing.

Subsequently, the US, along with India, has thrown its weight behind the TNA’s negotiations with the Rajapakse government and its call for a “political solution.” Washington is clearly looking to the TNA to provide some additional leverage in Colombo. For New Delhi, support for the TNA is also designed to head off criticism in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu that it has failed to defend the rights of Sri Lankan Tamils.

Far from exposing these machinations, the NSSP is promoting the dangerous illusion that Tamils should put their faith in the US and India. In his interview with Uthayan, Karunaratna declared: “If the government tries to postpone a political solution indefinitely, the US and India will push Mahinda’s government out. The US and India brought Mahinda to power, they largely contributed to bringing the war to an end. Therefore they are in a position to intervene in the Sri Lankan issue.”

The NSSP’s open support for an intervention by US imperialism in Sri Lanka parallels the backing given by various pseudo-radical outfits for the NATO bombing of Libya, also carried out under the guise of defending the civilian population.

While the US and its European allies are not at the point of intervening militarily in Sri Lanka, their manoeuvres in Colombo are just as predatory. Underlining the strategic significance of the island and its proximity to key Indian Ocean shipping lanes, a 2009 report by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee declared the US could not afford to “lose Sri Lanka.”

The US and India tacitly supported the Rajapakse government’s renewal of the war against the LTTE in mid-2006, ignoring the Sri Lankan military’s open breaches of the 2002 internationally-backed ceasefire. Right up until the final months before the LTTE’s defeat, Washington and New Delhi not only remained silent about the army’s gross abuses of democratic rights, but provided military assistance.

The NSSP, however, shamelessly presents the latest human rights posturing of the US and its allies as good coin. In a column late last month in Virakesari, Karunaratna declared: “Today the international pressure is very high [on the Sri Lankan government]. The hope of the international community is that in the war-devastated north and east the priority should be given to due rights of people including democratic activities.”

The NSSP is playing a similar role internationally. During a visit to Britain late last year, Karunaratna reached an agreement to form “a left front” with the British Tamil Forum (BTF), a bourgeois Tamil exile organisation that is openly courting the support of the Western imperialist powers for its separatist agenda. The BTF played a key role in the inauguration of the Global Tamil Forum that took place in the British parliament building in February 2010 with the blessing of the then Labour government, the Tory opposition and the Obama administration. Keen to put a left face on their pro-imperialist orientation, the BTF feted Karunaratna as a special guest at their annual heroes’ day event last November and he readily obliged.

The NSSP has a long history of opportunist alliances that have always served the needs of various sections of the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie. In 2009, the party joined a “platform of freedom” with the right-wing United National Party, helping it to posture as a defender of democratic rights against the Rajapakse government. Now, without a word of explanation, the NSSP is seeking to revive illusions among the Tamil masses in the TNA.
Workers and youth must reject the NSSP’s opportunist manoeuvring and the communal politics on which it is based. The social needs and democratic aspirations of working people—Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim alike—can be defended only through the independent mobilisation of the working class in the struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies. That is the perspective for which the Socialist Equality Party in Sri Lanka fights. (WSWS)

Home          Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK