This is a story about a country where over 200,000 men women and children were displaced by war in a year; a country where 600,000 people from the minorities are confined and denied basic human requirements; a country where shelling and air raids are the only Christmas and New year fireworks for tens of thousands.
In this country nearly 5000 have been killed within a year and nearly 2000 have been made to disappear within eight months. The defence budget has been raised by 45 per cent to $1.28 billion. Western governments including the USA and Britain help this country politically, economically and militarily.
The country is Sri Lanka, once hailed as the pearl of the Indian Ocean, now reduced to the teardrop of the Indian subcontinent. YAMUNA BANDARA explains.
SINCE THE BRITISH left Sri Lanka in 1948, this island has been ruled by the majority Sinhalese. Tamils today are nearly one fifth of the population.
While Sri Lankan Tamils dominate the North and East of the country, Tamils of Indian origin, brought to the country by the British as slave labour in the plantations, live in the central upcountry. Muslims are the second minority in the country, with a significant concentration in the East.
After tolerating many decades of racial discrimination, the Tamils launched an armed uprising in the early eighties.
At the beginning, several Tamil groups were involved. Almost a decade later the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Tamil Tigers had become the major force with Velupillai Prabhakaran as their formidable leader.
After many battles with successive Sri Lankan governments as well as the Indian army, the LTTE was able to liberate a major part of the North and a sizeable area in the East.
The A9 highway that leads to the northernmost city of Jaffna held by the government runs through Tiger controlled territory and is manned by state and rebel checkpoints.
With a strong military position the LTTE unilaterally declared a ceasefire on Christmas Eve 2001. The United National Party (UNP) led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe signed a cease-fire agreement, which accepted the reality that the Tamil Tigers were in control of a de facto state.
While the major opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Chandrika Kumaratunge was highly critical of any dialogue with the Tamil Tigers, Sinhala right wing extremists led by red-clad Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Buddhist Saffron robed Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) took to the streets calling for war. With Norway as facilitator, the western powers helped the warring parties to start negotiations.
As talks progressed, an aid package of $ 4.5 billion linked to the “progress of the peace process” was pledged. To oversee the funds UK, USA, EU, Norway and Japan were appointed donor co-chairs.
Trincomalee, Sri Lanka’s largest natural harbour, is situated in the Tamil homeland. It has a massive oil tank farm, presently controlled by the Indian government. Strategically, the harbour and oil tank facilities are a key location for Bush and co as they are en route to the Middle East for the US Pacific command.
So the US wants a no-conflict zone in Sri Lanka’s North Eastern seas, and the “peace” process it wants to impose is analogous to that Bush wants to impose on the Palestinians.
After six rounds of talks, in 2003 the Sri Lankan government had a meeting with the donors in Washington excluding the Tigers. The LTTE suspended talks saying that any cash involved should be discussed with both parties.
Prior to the 2004 elections, a group led by the Tamil Tigers Eastern Commander Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, alias Karuna, broke away calling for an East separated from the North. Even before the inception of the armed struggle, the call for Tamil homeland has always been for a united North and East.
Today the Sri Lankan military is operating together with the Karuna faction. In November 2006, both the UN and the Human Rights Watch accused the government of recruiting children for the Karuna faction in the east.
These forces had a major hit in February 2005 when they killed the LTTE leader, E Kaushalyan, along with Former Tamil parliamentarian Chandranehru Arianayagam, in government held territory. No culprit has been found.
Western powers, including the UN, issued statements calling for a return to negotiations.
When the Foreign Minister Laxman Kadirgamar was killed in Colombo in August 2005 the EU imposed a travel ban on the Tamil Tigers. There was scant response from the left to the ban.
In November 2005, President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power mainly with the help of the JVP and the JHU. His battle cry was a “Unitary Sri Lanka”, opposing any power sharing deals with the Tigers. Violence escalated. The Mahinda Rajapaksa regime was preparing itself for war. The killing of unarmed Tamil political activists rose to new heights.
Tamil parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham was gunned down on Christmas Eve 2005 attending mass. Witnesses saw the killers go into a Sri Lankan Army camp nearby. Less than a month later the person due to fill his seat was also murdered.
No action was taken by international powers against the government that was implicated in both civilian murders. But when the LTTE retaliated by launching a suicide attack against the Army Commander inside the Army headquarters itself, the EU imposed a total ban on the Tigers.
The Sri Lankan government bombed the LTTE-held East by air. Since then, they have continued a campaign to oust the Tigers from the east. Air raids and shelling have become part of the Tamil people’s day-to-day life. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled. Many brave the Palk Strait to India to live as refugees.
Air raids killed more than 60 children in a school in Sencholai while over 50 died in a refugee camp in Kadiraveli in the east. The government has closed the main supply routes to the LTTE held North and East. Over a half a million Tamils in Northern Jaffna have been forced into imposed poverty while the military have occupied their land. Thousands are fleeing the eastern town of Tamil Tiger held Vakarai to escape the ever present shelling, air raids and non existence of essential items. No aid agencies or media are allowed to the region.
Over two thousand people, mainly Tamils, have disappeared within government held areas. Those campaigning against this have received death threats from state sponsored Sinhala racist forces.
The most recent assassination was of Tamil parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj, gunned down in Colombo in broad daylight in November 2006. He was a popular politician among the Sinhala majority who supported rights for the Tamils. He joined hands with the left campaign against disappearances and the atrocities committed against Tamils by the state and its paramilitaries.
Thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Colombo protesting the killing. Meanwhile the EU has banned the LTTE for but not taken any action against the Sri Lankan government. They call for them “to put a stop to the culture of impunity and to clampdown of all acts of violence in areas controlled by the government”, but threaten no sanctions when this is ignored.
The left must fight to safeguard the right to self-determination of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. That is why Socialist Resistance, together with the NSSP, the Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International have launched a petition taking up these questions and demanding that the ban on the LTTE is lifted.
Trade unionists, civil liberty campaigners and other progressive forces should join together to defeat these anti- Tamil actions world wide as well as in Sri Lanka itself. It is time to rise against the global support extended to a state hell bent on launching this genocidal war.
Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/ntwsdtp/petition.htm