"When we were brought face to face with tyranny.... our political science failed to recognize it."
— Leo Strauss (On Tyranny)
It is time Tamil nationalism does some stocktaking. The LTTE is at an impasse, able to go to war but unable to be sure of the external repercussions, not least from India and especially with Karuna in the running. It is unwilling to settle for a federal peace. The Tigers are in this situation, and have led the Tamils into it, because they did several stupid things, which they would not have if they adhered to the Peoples War doctrines and practice of Mao, Ho, Fidel and Amilcar Cabral.
By being brutal to the Sri Lankan army, they prevented any sympathetic current in its ranks (Amilcar Cabral’s policy towards the Portuguese invaders eventually generated a revolution within the Portuguese army, which in turn liberated its colonies!). By murdering fellow Tamil fighters, they thinned out the ranks of a liberation movement and an ethnic minority. By massacring Sinhala civilians they made sure that there was either no wave of support and sympathy in the South, or even if they had an ally such as the UNP of Ranil Wickremesinghe, that party would be at an electoral disadvantage, vulnerable to the charge of appeasement.
Reds’ Blues
The anti-Tiger tendency of Tamil nationalism made its own share of mistakes.
The biggest of the non-Tiger groups in the 1980s, the PLOTE, discredited itself by torture and execution within its own ranks. (D Sivaram alias Taraki alias the editor of TamilNet was a leading member of the PLOTE, and close to the murderous Uma Maheswaran-Manikkadasan duo). It also hunted with the hounds and ran with the hare: when it was close to Vijaya Kumaratunga it was also consorting heavily with the JVP, leading me to wonder who tipped off the latter about Vijaya’s moves.
The ‘doctrinaire Marxist’ EROS perpetrated horrific terrorism against Sinhala civilians, mostly in 1986-7: the bombs at Elephant House, the CTO and on a commuter train, the attempt to blast the Kolonnawa oil pipeline, and the Pettah car bomb which was intended for Gasworks street.
The other major error was the incorrect use and non-use of the united front tactic. The ENLF was formed in 1984, leaving the PLOTE out and bringing the LTTE in. Had it been the other way around the Eelam Left would have been powerfully united, and its Southern allies would have by consequence, been similarly united.
As it was, the potentially strong anti-racist Southern left, both reformist and radical/revolutionary — SLMP, CPSL, LSSP, NSSP, Vikalpa Kandayama, Independent Students Union, SJV, NJVP, Red Soldiers, Janatha Sangamaya — were split along pro-PLOTE and pro-EPRLF (and even pro-EROS) lines. This split in the Eelam Left not only prevented it from countervailing the Eelam Fascist Right, the LTTE, but also prevented, through its polarising effects, the formation of an antiracist Southern Left bloc (until it was too late, December 1986), which could have countervailed the JVP.
The anti-racist Sinhala Left paid with the lives of its finest leader and militants, and with its political space and viability, for its principled rupture with Sinhala nationalism. However, the internationalist Tamil Left did not make a commensurate sacrifice at the time. For instance though the PLOTE criticised it, the EPRLF refused to break with the LTTE over the Anuradhapura massacre. Certainly the Tigers used the Eelam Left’s affiliations with the South as a stick, but the extermination drive was irrespective of that fact: the first victim, TELO had nothing to do with the Southern Left. But the JVP’s extermination of the anti-racist Southern Left was organically linked with and legitimised by the charge of betrayal of the nation by affiliation with Eelam groups and support of the Indo-Lanka accord. (Nandana Marasinghe, veteran of 1971, as brave as he was sensitive, was murdered for distributing pro-Accord leaflets in Anuradhapura). And while it is true that the non-LTTE groups came into the democratic mainstream with the Indo-Lanka accord, this was because the Tigers had mauled them, not because of an ethical conversion.
The divided and enfeebled Southern Left had no choice but to ally with the State against the JVP, just as the anti-LTTE Tamil groups, similarly enfeebled, allied with the IPKF and later the Sri Lankan state. Thus it is that the JVP emerged as the sole representative of the anti-systemic Lankan Left, which has given a veto to an anti-federal, anti-devolution Southern political formation!
In 1986, at time that the Tigers were devouring the EPRLF, PLOTE and TELO, the anti-Tiger ENLF rejected the December 19th proposals of P Chidambaram, which were placed before it by MGR Ramchandran, and what is more, tried to outflank the LTTE by accusing Prabhakaran of trying to sell-out Tamil Eelam. It didn’t seem to realise that there is no space on that flank: Prabhakaran has too much historic credibility to be outflanked on the Eelam issue. The only space is this side of him: as a more responsible, moderate democratic alternative.
Karuna must take this to heart, and not make the same political errors of utopianism and adventurism as even so fine a man as K. Pathmanabha. This error reached its zenith under the lesser man, Vardharajaperumal and it took place during the major achievement of the Tamil struggle: the North East Provincial Council. The EPRLF didn’t know how to safeguard that gain. At a time when the Sri Lankan state was threatened in its rear by the powerful JVP insurrection, surfing on a wave of anti Indianism, the stance of the EPRLF, of entrenching the IPKF and escalating pressure on the Colombo administration, proved suicidally unrealistic.
Irony & Integrity
The lesson of the past is very simple: Tamil nationalism has to arrive at a modus vivendi with the Sinhalese, while it must not sell-out Tamil identity and interests. Unfortunately, the anti LTTE groups, having failed to break with Tamil Eelamism early enough, has now swung to the opposite extreme of remaining mute in the presence of the JVP’s antifederalism. I have watched with amusement, as those who rejected the Chidambaram proposals, and pushed the North East Provincial Council into a UDI, try to sweep under the rug the JVP’s opposition to regional autonomy! This in turn helps the LTTE, because it can capitalise on the historic aversion of the Tamil people to the JVP.
Douglas Devananda remains a pillar of integrity in that, going against demonising of Premadasa even among his own advisors, he consistently attends Premadasa commemorations (as did S. Thondaman and MHM Ashraff), because he recalls that his and the EPDP’s reincorporation into the mainstream was not due to the Indo-Lanka Accord but was facilitated by the Tamil Eelam Left’s favourite villain, President Premadasa. (Thus, no Premadasa, no EPDP jobs for some of the advisors). Similarly the PLOTE’s D Siddharthan still recalls with gratitude the promptness and efficiency, unmatched since, with which Premadasa gave them access and attended to their requests.
Coconut republic?
If Tamil nationalism opts for Tamil Eelam in the manner of the Tigers, the Sinhalese will cooperate with India and the USA in resisting it. If it attempts a Cyprus/Bangladesh with the support of India, the Sinhalese will support the Tigers and secure the support of other regional and extra regional powers to countervail it, as in 1987-90. The competitive democratic character of Southern politics gives the Sinhalese options and flexibility: there are pro and anti-Tiger, pro and anti-Indian, pro and anti American parties/formations. This is amply suited for power balancing, given changing Southern threat perceptions of who at that moment is principally The Other.
Tamil nationalist ideologues must eat their hearts out at the great advantages conferred on the Sinhalese by the preservation (sometimes violently) of a competitive democracy: the South elected Chandrika who took Jaffna from Prabhakaran and didn’t let him take it back. Then it elected Ranil, who in his own despite created the conditions in which the Karuna breakaway took place. And now the South has Chandrika back again, who will not support, but whose mass base gives her no choice but to tolerate, the Karuna resistance. Is democracy great or what?
All viable Tamil strategy has to be in the explicit context of an independent, sovereign, united (but not necessarily unitary), democratic and free Sri Lanka. These are non-negotiable core values and attributes of the State, which the South must not, cannot and in the final instance will not compromise on. The Tamils must realize this. What is negotiable is the form of the state: federal, quasi-federal, silently agnostic, devolved and regionally autonomous. The Sinhalese must recognize that unity can be preserved only at the cost of the unitary.
It is to be hoped that brother Karuna has understood this, just as it is to be hoped that the UPFA leaders will not do a Ranil Wickremesinghe in reverse.
Ranil, like JR before him, thought he could blindside India, ignoring its strategic interests. The UPFA seems to mistake a strategic alliance with India (highly desirable) with turning Sri Lanka into a ‘mango republic’ or "coconut republic" (equivalent of a Latin American ‘banana republic’) of India. We must be India‘s friend and ally, and should even give it an economic stake in our security, but not degenerate into its economic or cultural semi-colony; and in the defence realm, we cannot have any Guantanamos! As Vijaya Kumaratunga, a great friend of India said in his last speech, at Campbell Park (boycotted by party president, Chandrika) we must oppose being turned into either a satellite of the United States or the 26th state of the Indian Union!
You Got Options
The non ‘Tiger Tamil movement today is at a crucial point. It has scored significant successes: the ability of the Karuna rebellion to sustain itself, the resoluteness of Douglas Devananda who has gained sympathy with each killing of his activists by the Tigers, the offshore dissent in the form of the TBC in London and the platform afforded by the Asian Tribune, the voice of veteran Tamil politician Anandasangaree.
In this new conjuncture, both the Sri Lankan State and the non-Tiger Tamils have viable strategic options.
All the State really has to do is (a) sincerely offer to discuss the ISGA but on the basis of Oslo and Tokyo, not on its own basis (b) rebuild its military strength so it can contain the LTTE (hopefully the Indo-Lanka defence pact will achieve that) and wait for Karuna to do his thing, taking the battle to Prabhakaran and (c) augment Tamil autonomy so that Karuna has an alternative to offer the Tamil people, thereby undermining the Tigers.
The non-LTTE Tamils have three tasks.
Firstly to join or incorporate into the dormant Tamil Democratic Front (TDF) the new political front that Karuna has inaugurated.
Secondly to push it to an explicit platform of federalism, not Tamil Eelam: Federalism will secure international support while the latter will not, and may antagonise the Sinhalese, pushing them to tilt tacitly to the Tigers, just as Vardharajaperumal’s UDI did.
Thirdly hold an international conference bringing together all the anti Tiger strands of Tamil opinion (of course security has to be watertight, and the top leaders must not attend, because Prabhakaran’s Black Tigers may strike even in Boston). Such a conference must have as its objective the unification of a general political line, manifested in a joint declaration, platform and programme. It must also project a unified, collective political leadership as a visible alternative to the LTTE: a joint leadership around which international support can be built.
