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Editorial
Tamils’ Cry
Freedom
 Sri Lanka
is using war to usher in peace, and the world is missing the irony
of it. The separatist LTTE is on the cusp of a defeat, but is Sri
Lanka on the doorstep of a viable solution to the ethnic conflict?
Sikhs had watched the ongoing struggle in
Sri Lanka
closely. The Sikh aspirational struggle was hazy, at times confused,
pretty uncoordinated and many think, not thought through, but it too
met a peculiar fate when New Delhi decided that battle mode is more
preferable to a political settlement.
Lankan struggle was much more better theorized, and has been on for
a quarter of a century. Its fate will be of interest to students of
political and people’s movements across the globe. If
Nepal held lessons in strategic political adjustments combined with
aspirational struggle and ability to make sacrifices,
Sri Lanka’s
Tigers had their own mix. But now, the tables on the military front
have been turned. Even those closer to the scene thought that the
latest twists in the war theatre will not result in an outright
victory for the military in the harsh terrain of the Vanni in
north-east Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan army might have belied those
expectations by managing to take Kilinocchi, the administrative
headquarters of the LTTE, but the costs pervaded the country,
attacking anyone seen as a dissenting voice. The brutal killing of
the respected journalist and editor of the newspaper Sunday Leader,
Lasanth Wickramatunga, a known critic of the Mahinda Rajapaksa
presidency and of the war trajectory followed by the government, is
just one such inglorious example.
Sri Lanka
today figures at the bottom as regards press freedom in any
democratic country in the world by the organisation, Reporters
Without Borders. Colombo has decided that vanquishing and
obliterating the LTTE could be a route to re-establishing a peaceful
democracy. Island nation will be a fool’s paradise if it were to be
true.
At
a time when the world is shunning violence as a political
instrument, the LTTE would have done better to re-strategise. Use of
child soldiers and similar disrespect for dissent as displayed by
Sri Lanka government took away some of the credibility. But is that
excuse good enough for Colombo to deny after 60th years of
independence a genuine federal solution to the ethnic conflict that
has ravaged the country?
It
is well understood why Indian leadership is silent about the fate of
the Tamils in
Sri Lanka. Suppressing true federal demands has been a hallmark of
the way Indian politics has functioned. Neither the BJP nor the
Congress are any different in this regard. No wonder, the decibel
level on the Sri Lanka violence in India is hardly in the audible
spectrum.
Tamil newspapers and people may be full of Lanka talk, but across
the country, the media too has played a poor role in
India, failing to bring to the fore the fate of the Tamils. Sri
Lanka will be well advised to adopt a liberal regime of rights and
respect civil liberties and democratic dissent. The ruling Congress
is also missing a major opportunity by focusing more on its hatred
of the LTTE and less on the fate of the Tamils.
If
external affairs minister Pranab Mukerjee has rushed to
Sri Lanka, it was not because he was worried about the ethnic
minority there but because Sri Lanka was showing signs to take its
weapon purchase list to Islamabad. Pakistan army chief had already
made a visit, so Mukerjee had to rush even though he was an
emergency stand in for his Prime Minister who is ecuperating
in a hospital.
Meanwhile, the displaced Tamils in the Vanni remain cannon fodder,
subjected as they were to
forced recruitment and conscription by the LTTE, and now caught in a
humanitarian catastrophe.
28 January 2009
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