Paper no. 1076	02. 08. 2004
BRINGING THE TIGERS TO THE TABLE  Guest Column-by Col R Hariharan (retd)  In the whole of Asia, tiger is a species threatened by extinction, except for Sri Lanka where Tigers of a different breed are threatening the survival of the nation as a sovereign state. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has grown into a full-fledged ‘nation’ within Sri Lanka, with its own flag, army, navy, administration and has gained recognition as an ‘entity’ of international reckoning. Successive Sri Lankan governments had tried to defeat them in the battlefields of Jaffna Peninsula as well as the jungles of Wanni at huge human cost. LTTE had bounced back after every defeat with resounding success. Even India, the biggest power in South Asia, intervened with its troops first to mediate and then to fight the Tigers for three years. It was a thankless war that nobody won militarily. In fact, when Indians left the shores of Sri Lanka, the writ of LTTE ran only in the Wanni jungles and interiors of Trincolmalee and Batticaloa districts. But for LTTE, which was mauled by Indians, it was a political victory. It was LTTE’s overtures that made the Sri Lankan Government to force the Indians to pull back. Moreover, the ill conceived overseas foray made India wish away LTTE and Sri Lanka from its world view, till LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, the defeated Indian Prime Minister who had ordered the Indian troops to hunt the Tigers in their preserves when he was in office.     Now within Sri Lanka nobody talks of waging war to defeat the Tamil Tigers, a rhetoric that died with the death of a few hundred soldiers in the operations of Elephant Pass, a sad episode in the history of Sri Lankan Army. There is a tacit recognition in Sri Lanka that Tigers have to be tackled only across the table rather than in the battlefield.  Even the ordinary citizen in Colombo calls the area under control of the Tigers as Eelam. Considering this mindset, one may be tempted to say that Eelam is already a fact and it’s a matter of time before it comes into being and gains international acquiescence, if not acceptance. But it is not as simple as that; LTTE is not the U.S. nor Eelam is Texas and Sri Lanka is definitely not Mexico. And the world’s perception of freedom struggles of all hues, including fascist, terrorist and genuine aspirations have undergone a sea change.  LTTE figures in the global list of terrorist organizations floated by USA, the world’s only super power and endorsed by most of the nations of the U.N.  More than all this, LTTE has not gained control over Jaffna - the prized possession of Eelam.   The troubled peace between the Tigers and the Government is now two years old.  In the past both Sri Lanka and India have had peace parleys with the Tigers; the past record of such forays under various dispensations had not been redeeming neither to the credibility of LTTE as negotiators nor to the cause of Sri Lanka as a nation. The pauses for peace had only enabled the LTTE to rest and recuperate and wage fresh bouts of war whenever it chose to do so.  So what is special about the spell of peace now and what has it achieved? This time around it is different because there are a number of firsts –  * For the first time, LTTE had to recognize that the world order has changed. Prabhakaram had said in the Hero’s day speech in Nov 2002, his first-ever public statement in a long time, “ LTTE cannot ignore the changing global environment and the need to adjust its freedom movement.” This has given rise to the hope that LTTE could accept the status of an autonomous federal state within Sri Lanka. * This time no other Tamil militant groups or political parties have been taken into reckoning for the talks with LTTE. In the past allowing the democratic dissent of non-LTTE elements among Tamils had been a bone of contention. * LTTE has in fact forged a political front, Tamil National Alliance, to represent its views under a political umbrella and TNA members are sitting in the Parliament as a key opposition element.  This by itself is a major departure from LTTE’s past attitude to participation in the national political mainstream. * For the first time ever, LTTE has spelt out its concept in a set of proposals for interim administration (though nobody knows whether the clauses are ‘maximalist’ or negotiables). * LTTE is fractured with its Batticaloa Commander Karuna breaking away from the organization. This imposes a lot of political and strategic limitations on LTTE and weakens its case at the negotiating table. Militarily it makes it more difficult for LTTE to take up arms in a conventional war against Sri Lankan Army. Whether LTTE can ruthlessly put down Karuna’s rebellion in its inimitable style of assaults, assassinations and mayhem mixed with weaning or winning away his Eastern cadres is a matter that time only can resolve. * On the Sri Lankan side, JVP, which has totally different views on how far Tamil demands should be accommodated, has sizeable representation in Parliament. It has become a new look political party and a partner of the ruling minority coalition. * Among all other national parties there is a broad consensus on prosecuting peace rather than war. There is a positive support for peace talks among the population as never before as no political party spoke of resuming operations in the recent election campaigns. There is a pregnant peace pause now, with LTTE sulking over the new Sri Lankan Government’s attitudes to talks with LTTE, despite repeated affirmations of the Government that they would like to resume talks. The Karuna episode (the first act of which is now on) has undoubtedly created major difficulties for LTTE to go ahead and resume the talks, without re-establishing its writ over Eastern Province.  So its priority appears to be to ‘cleanse’ Eastern region of Karuna votaries and supporters. Already action is on, with the resultant bombings and assassinations spilling out to Colombo. Inevitably, Sri Lankans are drawn in this internecine conflict, though indirectly, at present. LTTE propaganda mills are working overtime blaming the Government and the ruling faction for supporting Karuna. But for political observers the Government attitude appears benign for the time being, with LTTE killer squads being given a free run while the Norwegians peace brokers look on at the killings with a poker face.  Insurgency movements are always personality oriented and as a result have internal conflicts as a rule rather than exception. And when two insurgent factions fight, the results are not neat as in conventional wars with a clear-cut winner. LTTE had not faced such an internal conflict till Karuna came out against the leadership. Thus this conflict may carry on for quite some time. Insurgent organizations always like to negotiate from a position of strength and this is what LTTE is trying to establish in the light of Karuna’s banner of revolt. So the fate of the peace talks hangs fire.  Apart from Karuna factor, there are a few other factors, which have delayed the resumption of talks. * The tussle for power between UNP and SLFP alliances to wrest the majority in Parliament is on with SLFP alliance coming on top. Till this is fully resolved LTTE may not feel confident of resuming the talks. * In the fractured polity of Sri Lanka there are three critical issues that would need an internal consensus among non-Tamil polity of Sri Lanka if another round of military confrontation were to be avoided. These are, (1) level of autonomy for the LTTE government in the federal format, (2) delineation of the areas that would constitute the Tamil province or provinces and (3) the future of LTTE’s armed cadres and their rehabilitation. While it may be too much to expect a national consensus to emerge on this, at least the two alliances should sit and work out a nationally acceptable bottom line; otherwise they may not be able to impress the LTTE that they are serious about the talks. * LTTE will require time to recoup its control of armed cadres and administrative set up, reorganize supply lines etc following the break away of Karuna as dominance of the Eastern sea board is important for keeping its external sea lanes of supply open. So it can productively use the delay in talks to resolve these issues and get its outfits ship shape to negotiate from a position of strength. * Surprisingly, Norwegian mediators appear to be in no hurry to speed up the talks. They had spoken of a long haul even when they started in 2003. (I quote an AFP report datelined Colombo, July 13, 2003: During the early days of the process, Norway's deputy foreign minister Vidar Helgesen warned that a final settlement could take up to 10 years and that Oslo as the facilitator was ready for the long haul). The reason for this is not clear; probably they are waiting for LTTE to complete its ‘cleansing’ process.         Sri Lankan options seem to have been exhausted as they have accommodated most of LTTE’s demands in the modalities for talks. LTTE is focusing on gaining control of the interim administration (so that Jaffna falls like a ripe plum in its lap, without firing a shot) before dwelling on the larger issue of the status and structure of Eelam in the national set up. Without some form of agreement on the final shape of the Northeast forming part of Sri Lanka, handing over the territory to an interim LTTE administration would amount to establishing Eelam de facto. So Sri Lankans are looking for a way to talk through this impasse to start the talk.  Thus the whole peace process appears to be nearing the point of no return. There is a real danger of it collapsing unless the talks are resumed without delay. However, Tigers priorities appear to be different and are reluctant to oblige.  How to bring the Tigers back to the table for talks has emerged as a critical question. Unless there is a dramatic breakthrough the situation is likely to drag on.  What can be the breakthrough?  Who can provide it?  The breakthrough can be a de novo approach to the concept of accommodating Tamil aspirations without breaking up Sri Lanka. And India can provide this breakthrough.  India had been a benign observer in the whole scene. As an interested power it can take up a totally new initiative to help design a confederal structure - with two entities a Tamil State and the rest of Sri Lanka under the same central parliament can be considered. After all even under Rajiv-JR Pact, the Northeast province as a single entity had its own flag and its own armed paramilitary. There had been similar attempts by individual groups that found no takers. But India can provide its expertise in working out this process in some detail, and in the process save the face of both the parties.  India, which is emerging as the largest trade partner of Sri Lanka with considerable investments in its growth, has a moral responsibility to see that the country is not torn asunder by the winds of war once again.  India wields a large but unseen influence over LTTE, which has a love-hate relationship with it. With Prabhakaran as Accused No 1 in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, how far India can sit with LTTE and hold a reasonable level of discussion is a situation no one wants to face in India. And it would be politically untenable for any Indian leadership to do so. However, in international diplomacy stranger scenes have taken place. Perhaps India can operate through interlocutors to work out a solution by thinking outside the box; a group of experts can be asked to ‘volunteer’ to do this.  Whatever be the means, LTTE has to be brought to the table. Talks themselves may not yield immediate or dramatic results. But as F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there”, at least the thought of resuming the war can be given up there. (Col R Hariharan retired from the Intelligence Corps after 28 years of service in the Army. He had been a specialist in counter-insurgency intelligence with active staff and field service in counter-insurgency operations in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Tripura and lastly in Sri Lanka with the IPKF as Head of Intelligence. The Views expressed are his own.  e-mail: colhari@yahoo.com)
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