Sri Lanka Preparing for War?

தமிழ்த் தேசியம்

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C

Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95

Tamil Eelam News Letter December 1994
Sri Lanka: Preparing for War, while pursuing Peace?.

When four months ago, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, she gave the country a new-buzz-word: PEACE. A war-weary Sinhalese electorate gave her an emphatic mandate for peace three months later which brought her the Presidency. Discovering for the first time in their history, a Sinhalese leader talking of peace ( and a dialogue with the LTTE), the Tamils too, quite naturally, got enamoured of the word Peace, and in the process of Chandrika herself. Now today, more than one month after she became President, the word Peace continues to be in currency, but the buzz is steadily evaporating!

Winning a mandate is only one aspect of the matter. Carrying forward the mandate is quite another. (After all, even the TULF got a mandate for Tamil Eelam 17 years ago) Moreover, Peace is just a word; at best. a concept. Peace means the end of war, but how does a war end without a durable political settlement? The Sinhalese electors did not have to bother at the time of voting about what kind of a political settlement it should be, because it was the responsibility of the leader to whom they gave the mandate to end the war and work it out.

But it is precisely here that the sticking point begins; where the cookie begins to crumble. Are the armed forces prepared to take direction from the political authority? Are her own electors prepared to go far enough to accept a political settlement that would give Tamils "a stable, permanent peace where their rights are protected", in the words of Tamil Eelam leader Pirabakaran? Will the war-mongers and war- beneficiaries in the South, working through three leading newspaper groups in Colombo give her time to push through whatever settlement President Kumaratunga has in view - the terms of which no one knows until now, neither the Tamils nor the Sinhalese.

The Colombo Press which had always had a black record, along with the Buddhist clergy, in preventing any kind of accord between the Sinhalese and Tamils during the past 40 years, are already at it again; mercifully though, the strident voice of the clergy is getting muted.

All newspaper groups in Colombo have been failing over each other in recent times, in creating. a mass hysteria about the LTTE. The twin objectives of the campaign appear to be:

1. To upset the peace process 2. To bedevil relations between India and the LTTE

"War clouds loom over north again", said a Page 1 headline of a Colombo newspaper on November 20. The1TTE was getting ready for a major war, it said. A large arms shipment was due any time. The Chandrika government had asked India to intercept the arms-carrying ship in mid-seas. The mystery ship, according to the editorial, was carrying "10 tons of RDX, and 50 tons of TNT, enough to blow up half of Sri Lanka." The editorial writer had evidently taken a close inspection of the cargo, even before the ship was sighted! The government-controlled Sunday Observer not to be outdone, was reported in an Indian newspaper, the Indian Express, as saying that American' ground-to-air missiles may also be in the ship's cargo!

Apparently, in an orchestrated effort, on the same day, November 20, another Sunday newspaper went to town with another 5column headline about "Air Tigers". Quoting a Colombo-based ex-Tamil armed group and some unknown Indian. intelligence sources in the same breath, the paper went on to say that "the first air target may be in Tamil Nadu"!

Then came a report that military intelligence had warned that there was "a serious threat to the life of Deputy Defence Minister Anurudha Ratwatte from the Tigers. Several heavily armed commandos in camouflage uniform now form a human wall in front of Col. Ratwatte whenever he is in public, even at cocktail parties and other formal occasions when he meets top officials and diplomats in his office", said the report. Meanwhile, the "Defence Correspondent" of the same paper achieved a new journalistic low in discussing in print the various possibilities of killing Mr. Pirabakaran!

Unloading panic merchandise about the Tigers on an unsuspecting, uncritical readership both in Sri Lanka and the outside world, may be also good media cover for the hectic preparations going on, on the government side, for what seems to be a bid by the armed forces for "the mother of all battles". Does the sudden desire of the request for a cease-fire indicate a ploy for buying time? After all, Parliamentary approval has been got for a 27 percent hike in the defence budget, raising it to more than Rs.25 billion ($ 510.2 million). The Air Force had been made a sucker by arms dealers in dumping on them defective helicopters from Russia. They have to be replaced. Fresh tenders have been called for the purchase of three large Antonov transport planes and six large helicopters. So the 72 million dollar arms deal with a Russian company seems very much in place.

Tenders have also been called for 350 sets of body armour for the army's senior officers. Each set is reported to be costing Rs.43,000 totalling almost Rs.13 million; and they have yet to arrive from the U.S. May be, the generals and brigadiers and colonels want to lead the war from the front?

In the light of all these, the LTTE leadership has a duty to inform its own people, that while their hearts may yearn for peace, their minds have to be steeled to meet any new adventurism by government forces once the monsoon recedes.

Above all, Tamils have to guard against being mesmerised by words alone. Even President Kumaratunga has to be judged not by what she says, but what she does.