Political assassinations and violence do not just happen in a vacuum; they usually are the precursor to something ominous.
We all know how two bullets fired on a Sarajevo street, killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand — heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — and his wife Sophie, on a sunny June morning in 1914 set in motion a series of events that shaped the world we live in today.
And when Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, a similar paroxysm sprang out in anti-Sikh violence that resulted in the deaths of thousands. So the killing of Gen. Kulatunga, the 3rd highest-ranking officer in the Sri Lankan armed forces, will now almost certainly take Sri Lanka into its next bout of senseless violence — something unseen since a Norwegian-brokered peace initiative ushered in a fragile truce.
What is left now is some fast evaporating residue of optimism unleashed by the short-lived Norwegian mediation. The Oslo peace initiative, in the oblique words of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) political chief, is now a “dead letter” for all practical purposes.
“It is just a piece of paper and has no meaning at all”, said Tamilselvam in an interview with Associated Press.
The Tamils are in a life- and-death situation over the preservation and survival of their identity. Dispossessing that sense of being reduces the entire essence to being called Tamil — to do so makes it appear like a sham in all but name. The Tamils, in short, are freedom fighters. Indeed unlike the Irish republicans or Basque separatists in Spain, the Tamils with their organized leadership in a Diaspora numbering in the hundreds of thousands provide a real forum for the internationalization of their grievances.
From Canada to Europe, the Tamils have successfully raised funds for the cause of their fighting brethren.
And in so doing, they have kept alive the hopes of retaining their identity they feel is under assault since Sri Lanka’s independence in 1957.
However, by continually remaining in global consciousness, the Tamil question is also attracting enough attention for international mediators. Some like the EU feel disgusted by Tamils’ obstinacy .
Yet others feel that their sense of human fellowship should take on a more direct involvement in the Tamil-Sinhalese dispute.
Though it may not be hard to figure out, the only reason why the conflict has festered for too long has been the lack of the emergence of political moderates like amongst the Palestinians, or within the ranks of the Irish republican movement.
Political moderates are key, as was shown in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Their accommodation of grievances and openness for dialogue plus the moral high ground they command makes all the difference between peace and war.
That key difference gives moderates what they seldom expect but usually get: The role of power brokers. And power brokers, being what they are, have a formidable ability to change the complexion of a conflict.
It is for this reason that the Sri Lankan question has had foreign intervention, all courtesy of a politically moderate force among the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
Though Norwegian diplomacy had helped create a temporary climate of peace that Indian peacekeepers could not, hints emanating out of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu about declassifying the Tigers as a terrorist group would almost open a fresh new bout of thinking.
For one, the Indian move will run counter to the May 19 classification by the EU of what should legitimately and justly be viewed as terrorists.
But the larger question is what may consequently happen as a result of Tamil Nadu having a rethink?
It is an aphorism that no nation could sit out and be oblivious to a recrudescence of warfare happening just next door. As it creates opportunities it also comes with some deep-seated worries. And when those worries are about the kindred ties to those that are killed next door the situation becomes acute.
Perhaps the last thing India may ever need is a reprise of the times when East Pakistan turned into Bangladesh in 1971, following a similar war with Islamabad — also over the question of identity and freedom. And like that war, this one too happening next door is beginning to look eerily similar, with the threatened arrival of boatloads of refugees at India’s shores. It will also create a continual clamor on New Delhi to act. But more than the social strains such a prospect lends, opportunities extend just beyond India getting a foothold in Sri Lankan politics.
An Indian military intervention, though no doubt taxing and perhaps nightmarish because of the high casualties India suffered in 1991, will propel New Delhi to regional power status.
And if the peace process does falter further for the nation to slide into all-out war, a foreign solution to the conflict arising out of a lack of moderate forces cannot just be ruled out.
With the EU ban effectively ruling out any further Norwegian participation, India will be left to face and sort out the situation in its backyard.
But before India could do anything like that, it would first need to declassify the Tigers as a terrorist group. Now that it has happened more developments will soon follow.
