IT is a proud Tamil Tiger boast that their waterborne suicide attacks, developed 20 years ago, inspired Al-Qaeda to undertake its deadly boat assault on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 that was but a rehearsal for the far greater carnage the following year. The Tamil rebels’ pleasure in being associated with Al-Qaeda says much about their own intractable approach to 25 years of confrontation with the Sri Lankan government.
It is patently clear that negotiation and compromise is entirely alien to Al-Qaeda thinking. Can this also be true of the Tamil Tigers? Will they stop at nothing until they have an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka, whose people they will presumably then rule with the same unyielding ferocity they deploy today?
If that is correct, then in the finest Maoist tradition, the three years of Norwegian-brokered truce were merely another stage in the conflict and the resumed peace negotiations slated for Geneva at the end of this month will simply be a fresh front in a war that never went away. Successive Sri Lankan governments have fumbled and bungled the Tamil independence issue. Hard-line tactics have only reinforced the Tiger’s hold over the Tamil population while the softer approach espoused by Ranil Wickramasinghe, who after his overwhelming 2001 general election victory, signed a truce with the Tigers, has proved similarly fruitless.
When the fighting stopped in 2002, after the death of more than 60,000 people in a conflict where it was proved conclusively that neither side could win a decisive victory, it was assumed that both had come to their senses. Some form of Tamil autonomy was on the table, which would not violate Colombo’s insistence that there should be no physical breakup of Sri Lanka.
Hard-liners, particularly in the Sri Lankan military, refused to trust the Tigers and only accepted the peace talks with bad grace. Tragically these people were proved right. It is now clear that the Tigers used the three years of peace to tighten their grip on the Tamil population. The civil rights record in the territory they control has been appalling. The internationally condemned use of deeply indoctrinated child soldiers has continued. Political moderates who have questioned Tiger rule and policy have been murdered or intimidated. Children have been taught to inform on their families. Tamil areas are ruled by a handful of senior Tiger commanders who have no interest in any democratic consultation. The few independent journalists who have visited the region have all commented on the all-pervading climate of fear and repression.
This is a profound tragedy for the Tamils and the Sinhalese majority. The tireless efforts of international peacemakers, principally by the Norwegians and Japanese, have given three years of precious peace but have produced no enduring advance toward a settlement. Has the time come for the international community to intervene by interdicting the Tigers’ material and financial support? Should the international community demand that all Tamils be allowed a genuinely free voice in their future?
