Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Government must rope-in diaspora to the peace process By Champika Liyanaarachchi

How many of the 10,000 odd Tamil expatriates who gathered at Queens Park, Toronto last Saturday, carrying placards of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, will return to Sri Lanka if a final negotiated settlement is reached to the North and the East conflict?

In all probability there would not be even a fourth of them willing to leave the green pastures.

The Tamil Diaspora which finances the maintenance of both the political and the military wing of the LTTE, including the child soldiers, would always prefer to give their own children a western education and enjoy quality living standards in places like Toronto, London, Oslo or Melbourne.

For the majority of them, events like Pongu Thamil provide the necessary catharsis to vent their anger against the Sri Lankan State and demonstrate solidarity with the LTTE, the organization that has taken on their 'enemy' in a major way after they left the shores.

Those who have paid a visit to the motherland and witnessed the changes that have taken place in the centre, over the years, especially since the truce, perhaps have got over the anger and hate against the State to a certain extent.

On the other hand, for their youngsters especially for the ones who were born after Black July, Prabhakaran is a kind of a village thug who waged a war against the 'hostile' government which forced their parents to flee the country.

Though the Tiger supremo may not be their type of a hero, the influence of parents and also some of the horrifying accounts they have heard about the atrocities back in Sri Lanka, probably have made them uphold convictions similar to those held by their parents.

Ironically, despite this demonstration of solidarity with the Tigers, the reality is that, given a chance, a majority of the Tamil Diaspora will opt to remain in their host countries, especially if a predominantly LTTE administration starts ruling the North and East in a post-conflict period.

They are not prepared to forego the style of living they enjoy now and return to the 'Tamil homeland' or the federal state of the North and East which will take at least a decade to provide them with a decent standards of living.

Also, though hero-worshipped from a distance, these expatriates know for sure, that Velupillai Prabhakaran is not somebody they could trust while living under his writ especially when it comes to their freedom.

So the monies will be doled out, demonstrations will be held, but the distance will always be kept - a distance of tens of thousands of kilometres.

Apart from this, there are other trends.

For instance Sri Lankan Tamils living in the West especially those in Canada are passing through a period of transition of identity.

According to R. Cheran, Jaffna-born lecturer in Sociology at the York University, Toronto, during the 2001 census in Canada, despite strong requests from Tamil organizations to all Tamils to identify themselves as Tamils, only 96, 645 out of the 215,000 of the community had given their identity as Tamils.

It is very likely that the number would be further diminished given the penchant of the younger generation to dissociate themselves from Asian roots and identify more with the West.

Another contributory factor to this phenomenon is the hybrid Tamil identities - like Tamil- Canadian, Tamil- Dutch and Tamil- Norwegian that followed the mass exodus to these western destinations.

However, this fact in no way discounts the powerful position the Sri Lankan Tamils expatriates enjoy especially in Canada and the UK.

With a sizeable percentage of asylum seekers getting citizenship in the host countries, the Sri Lankan Tamils have managed to draw the attention of even local politicians from remote constituencies of these two countries, to the North-East conflict in Sri Lanka.

As a result, a large number of Canadian politicians from areas where there are heavy concentrations of Tamils have become champions of Tamils rights with a view to being in the good books of their constituents.

A good example of the power wielded by the Tamil diaspora was the manner they elected 86 Liberal party delegates from Ontario to support Prime Minister Paul Martin in September last year.

Therefore, given their strong presence in key cities in the West and also due to their decisive role in influencing the outcome of the North- East conflict, the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora has become a popular research subject among conflict analysts.

Numbering some 800,000 they are part of the 175 million people or 3% of the total world population, who live outside the country of birth and, along with the Irish, Kurds and Palestinians, form the most vibrant diasporas which 'fight' for the self-determination and rights of their communities back at home.

Of the 800,000 Sri Lankan Tamil migrants, about 250,000 have their applications rejected or pending appeal. However, nearly 40% of these have managed to find employment while the rest live solely on the dole.

According to researchers on the subject, the LTTE's international fundraising through the Tamil Diaspora ammounts to about US$ 80 million per year while the Tigers continue to deny this figure.

September 11, 2001 has seen a shift in the outlook of certain western countries towards Diaspora communities. Those who are from conflict- ridden countries are often viewed as potentially dangerous groups which bring their 'home' conflicts to the host countries.

Nine months after 9/11 Sri Lanka too rushed to enter into an agreement with the European Union to repatriate illegal asylum seekers in Europe in May 2002.

The agreement came into being at a time when the UNF government was marketing the peace process among the donor nations in order to help salvage the economy which by the time they came into office had reached its nadir with the public debt stock at Rs. 1,450 billion in 2001 surpassing the GDP.

The same period also saw fears of mass repatriation on the rise in Europe with a strong wave of nationalism sweeping across the continent especially with far right wingers like Le Pen in France taking a strong hostile stand on Asian and African expatriates.

As expected the repatriation agreement signed by the European Union's External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten and then Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka Tyronne Fernando, earned strong reactions from the Tamil Diaspora as well as local Tamils.

Immediately after the pact, the Uthayan newspaper quoted a Belgian Tamil news agency claiming that the purpose of the agreement reached in Brussels was to seek financial assistance to overcome the crisis the Sri Lanka government was saddled with.

One may not forget that almost half of the Sri Lankan Tamils in European destinations are not really the victims of Black July, but those who made use of the opportunity to improve their economic prospects and later got their families too to join them.

So these will continue to live where they are now - notwithstanding the improvements in the conditions in Sri Lanka.

In fact the majority of those who really suffered due to the riots, are the ones who fled to India and still continue to live there under extremely trying circumstances.

The repatriation agreement also saw the domestic Tamil population expressing their fears about the potential destabilizing effect that a large influx of refugees from abroad without proper plans for their welfare, would have on the North and the East.

From the LTTE point of view the deportation of illegal immigrants meant Tigers losing a chunk of their funds.
One did not hear much about the agreement afterwards and now with the spate of killings carried out especially in the East, and with the UNHCR still maintaining the position that the situation is not conducive to repatriation, the asylum seekers in the greener pastures have ample excuses to stay back.

Though return is still not an option considered by a majority of them, the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora is making a meaningful contribution to help improve the condition in the North and the East through legitimate financial assistance and capacity building measures. This is besides the financial assistance to the Tigers.

This is especially so in the health sector with organizations like - the Medical Institute of Tamils (MIOF) and TamMED which send their doctors to the Wanni and Jaffna to help the local doctors and also to impart knowledge. Besides, there are several individual physicians who do voluntary work.

Unfortunately other than the LTTE network there is no other strong set-up by the Sri Lanka government or the civil society to get the Diaspora, be they Tamil, Muslim or Sinhala, involved in the peace process or development work in Sri Lanka.

The African countries have set a very good example for the Asians in this regard.

The South African Diaspora agencies in the West, the programmes launched by the Nigerian government to maximize the involvement of its Diaspora in developing the country and the special departments created by the Ivory Coast to get the assistance of the diasporas are among them.

In addition, other countries like Uganda, Mali and Senegal are now following suit.

In the case of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, the historical reasons may deter a vast majority of them from getting involved in the development work in the Sinhala areas for some time. The absence of institutional mechanisms however has made it difficult for those who want to make their contributions outside the LTTE network, to do so even in Tamil areas.

Following the ceasefire agreement we witnessed how thousands of Tamil expatriates paid visits to Sri Lanka and made investments even in Colombo in an obvious sign that there has been a marked shift in their attitude towards the South.
It is high time that the government and the civil society opened a forum for them to get involved in a dialogue and push the peace process forward in a more meaningful way than simply carrying placards in far away destinations.