Conflict in Sri lanka - Essay Example

141071 Sri Lanka had been torn between the ethnic groups of LTTE and the rest in a bloody battle for a long time. The origin of the problem is verydeep based and it was brewing intensely even in 1960s. For nearly three years, there was a lull after the ceasefire and at least no major war had escalated till recently. At the same time, the conflict and the civil war, spearheaded by LTTE are showing no signs of ending or receding. Country's natural resources and defence mechanism are diverted into this conflict and welfare measures and national improvement had been at its barest minimum in last few years. Recent absence of a full scale war and ceasefire had been of great value in this direction resulting in Government's concentrating on welfare measures and popular policies, much needed by the island country. It has also achieved the greatest goal of safeguarding quite a few innocent and misled lives. Unfortunately the violence has increased since then threatening to spread and spill over. When all other countries are marching towards better reforms, Sri Lanka had been languishing in civil war without any end or peace in sight and this aspect has literally put a stop to its further growth as a welfare state. The tropical island considered to be a paradise once is like a death trap today. There were no doubt other players earlier in the Tamil insurgency and most of them were only demanding a better deal for the Tamilians, for which they were definitely entitled to. Today, Jafna area has only tamilians, while Srilankans avoid the region for fear of LTTE. The entire region is cordoned off by LTTE and is literally ruled by them. LTTE is facing the international accusation of recruiting children to its ranks, which is true. It is either feared or loved by local Tamilians and they help LTTE, willingly or under duress, by giving them information, saving them, running errands, keeping them informed of the army movements and thus, protecting them from every disaster. It is not easy to point out an exact date for the commencement of genesis of Tamil militancy. Tamil militancy in Srilanka has taken many forms and hues. Apart from a small minority of local Tamilians, a large number of Tamils migrated from the Southern Indian State of Tamilnadu (erstwhile Madras State) during British rule to work in the tea plantations of Ceylon (now Srilanka) and over the years, there set in a feeling that they had been conveniently and systematically ignored by the Government and rest of Srilankan population, politically and socially. Srilankan population had been predominantly Buddhists, a peace loving, friendly and cooperative lot, not very prone to frequent conflicts. With the tamilian youth being frustrated and disheartened, it was left to a charismatic leader to establish his sway over them and mould them not only into a fanatic fighting group, but also to establish personal supremacy and power and this is exactly what Vellupalli Prabhakaran did. There were cries and demands for a separate Eelam and Srilankan Government had put down such demands in a rather clumsy way earlier. When a terrorist movement was launched in 1970s, Srilankan Government was short-sighted enough to inflict loss of life, property, and atrocity on not only fighting Tamilians, but also on the innocent people, who had no aspirations of political supremacy. Tamilians were a minority, asking for their rights from the majority population of the country. Government was a bit undecided on the issue, as till then, Tamilians were seen more as a lower working class, than equal partners. Understandably, their demand for a sovereign region was put down. Tamilians made the mistake of asking for their legitimate demands mixed with a free Eelam. They would have been definitely successful, if they had asked only for the right to be considered and treated in par with the rest of the population. Government, disturbed by the Eelam demand, hesitated to give in, thinking if small demands were granted, bigger ones, especially the Eelam demand would follow and this mistake from both the sides set the stage for the ongoing conflict in which neither parties nor the country had been benefited in any way. Most of the Tamilians are Hindus of Indian origin and rest of them are Muslims also of Indian origin. Tamilians even in India had been highly clannish with narrow outlook, and this unfortunate legacy had come in the way of their integrating with India completely. They are orthodox, conventional and slightly fanatic about their culture and language and the same mentality is being continued in Srilanka. Even the educated class looks at the heritage in a rather narrow way, where they feel that Tamilians of yore have contributed to the rest of the world immensely, and as one of the States in India, they always had a slight separatist tendency, which later got reflected in Srilankan struggle. Definitely the conflict is not of a religious origin, because for Tamilians it is important to be tamilians and the difference between Hindus and Muslims does not really matter. "Tamilnadu was extremely conscious of its cultural heritage and its role vis-a-vis Tamil communities in the other parts of the world. It had also been the scene of separatist demands for an independent state in the 1960s. Although these demands died down, the embers of Tamil nationalism were kept alive by the "Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam"(DMK) which was in power between 1967 and 1977. [Kodikara 1983]" http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/issues/kumari.html#f It is impossible to get any evidence that they disliked Srilankans because Srilankans were non-Hindus. In addition, Buddhism has already been incorporated into Hinduism. As is well-known, Gautama Buddha, the originator of Buddhism, has already been considered widely as the 9th avatar or incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the main deity of Hinduism. He is worshipped as the later incarnation of Ram and Krishna, and this means, Hindus have taken Buddhism into their fold, giving Buddha the same status that had been accorded to the main Gods of Hinduism. So, Buddhist Srilankans definitely would not be targeted because they are of another religion. Instead they are considered to be part of Hindu religion. At the same time, there is no demarcation between Hindu Tigers and Muslim Tigers, though Muslims being lesser in number are also very less in the LTTE ranks. The 'Satyagraha' staged by the earlier leaders of Tamil movement had failed and the disillusioned Tamil youth got swayed by Prabhakaran, who was clever enough to use the situation to his political ambitions. There were many land mark events like establishment of Pulip Sadai (army of tigers), influenced by Exodus, its Manavar Manram (student wing) backed by two Federal Party leaders, and the later Tamil Liberation Organisation, Tamil Manavar Piravai, all resulting in President Bandaranaike's taking a hard line by cutting aid for students going to India for further study, banning import of Tamil media material including films from India. Naturally this escalated the persecution mania of Tamilians leading to many unpleasant bomb explosions, bank robberies, general strikes, cyanide deaths, conflicts, arrests, and political misunderstandings. A legitimate fight for minority demands has turned into a terrorism history. Prabhakaran, after a successful bank robbery, had established credentials by then and LTTE came to the forefront of the struggle, edging others out of it. Outgoing moderate leaders were either helpless or disgusted with LTTE culture. Even though Buddhism preaches non-violence as a way of life, irritated by the Tamil militancy to some extent, the Buddhist youth took up arms against LTTE and hardened their stand by saying that Srilanka is for Srilankans. Even though Srilanka today is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic state, moderation and understanding were ignored in favour of ethno-nationalism. 'Sinhala only' and Swabhashi agitations of monks did not help the situation either. The language movement claiming place for Tamil in the official language region was another badly handled area that led to a kind of Sinhala chauvinism and this resulted in a non-mending barrier between the two ethnic groups. The language issue has given birth to a much stronger division based on ethnic origins leading to ethnic clashes. "The provisions governing the use of the Tamil language make it clear that it is also an official language though only in a limited sense. They leave no room for doubt that the Tamil language will have a dinstinctly inferior position in the country's administrative and legal set-up," Wilson (1974, p.247). Here too, there is no evidence to prove that any of the happenings had anything to do with religion. The economic blockage of Jafna by President Jayavardhane led to misery and Indian Government had to intervene by Para-dropping essential commodity packages in Jafna, prior to the entry of IPKF that ended in another disaster. At no point of time, the conflict had been on religious grounds and it was only ethnicity, a very strong version of it, that ruled the situation. "As newton Gunasinghe has observed, in both the Sinhala and Tamil ethnic formations "class contradiction are overdetermined in the Althusserian sense, by ethnic conflict", while among the Tamils, "class contradictions are softened and even submerged" in the face of a perceived "danger to its collective social existence"; among the Sinhalese masses, "dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs has taken a false external direction against what is perceived to be the unreasonable demands advanced by already privileged Tamils." [Abeysekera and Gunasinghe 1987 : VI] http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/issues/kumari.html#f After the Indian Peace Keeping Force getting involved in the 1980s, Indian popular Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber on 21st of May 1991 and the entire world recoiled in horror and that point onwards, LTTE had been regarded with revulsion. Indian Government, followed by most of the World administration, declared LTTE a terrorist organisation and since then, LTTE lost all the world support and its finances were frozen. "The assassination of Rajiv swung the pendulum to the other extreme. Indian support for the LTTE dropped to near zero. There is a sense of revulsion against Velupillai Prabakaran and the ideology of the LTTE throughout the country, but much more so in Tamil Nadu" http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol2.html At the same time one could say that even the bombing of Dalada Maligawa (Temple of tooth) in Kandy in 1998, by LTTE, though caused anguish and outrage, true to Buddhist tradition, there was hardly any retaliation, other than a small mob attacking a Hindu temple, to be dispersed immediately. But it caused the political reaction of LTTE being banned by Srilankan Government. Since then, it is only a desire to put down LTTE, because people have realised that there will not be any peace either for tamilians or for the rest, as long as LTTE pursues its violent ways. "In 1994, the non-violent and accommodating dimensions of popular Buddhism blossomed in Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people gave an overwhelming democratic mandate for a just and honourable settlement to the ethnic problem. Since then, their support for the war has been partial, reluctant and motivated primarily by exasperation at LTTE intransigence" http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/sri-lanka/buddhism-politics.php Talking about the economic rivalries and fears of minority group, we come to the conclusion that Tamil minority has been definitely ignored, but not the extent of their imagination, which is controlled by a certain political paranoia. It is all a combination of myth and truth from both the sides. It is also true that Srilankan population minus Tamilians are equally prejudiced in their view points. "They complain that the Ceylon Tamils have a disproportionate share of jobs in the public and private sectors, and when taken with the one million odd Indian Tamils they tend to regard the total Tamil population as a threat to the existence of the Sinhalese race especially when viewed in the context of neighbouring south Indian's Dravidian millions," Wilson (p.15). Even though it expressed regrets many times for having assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, it has failed to garner any support from any country in the last fifteen years and has remained a conflicting terrorist organisation, aided by suicide bombers and suicide attacks, instead of being a champion of poor. There had been arguments that both Indian and Sri Lankan Governments had unwittingly aided and popularised the Tigers by unwise policies. When IPKF was at the verge of defeating the combatant tigers so that they could return to the discussion table, Srilankan President Premadasa, pursued a disastrous policy of providing money and arms to Tigers to withstand the attack of IPKF, a move which spelt doom not only to the country, but also to him personally, as he was murdered by the same Tigers, whom he had helped. "In the 1980s and 1990s, successive Sri Lankan Governments officially revoked some of the discriminatory policies, recognising Tamil as an official language and introducing a district based quota system for university admissions with Tamil majority districts having the lowest cut-off points. Srinhalese and Muslims today claim they are reverse discriminated. Tamils deny the latter claim, and see the changes that have been made as too little too late," http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol/india.htm Even though it is only the ethnicity that is pronounced in this struggle, unfortunately, instead of bringing it down to a compromise, tamilians seem to be taking a sterner path. Recent Norwegian efforts did not work, mainly to ethnic Tamil priorities and very hardened, uncompromising attitude. Tamil people are very vocal and vociferous about their demands. In a rather biased work of Ponnambalam (1983, p.250), the writer signs off by saying: "The Tamil people are without a state and government to promote, protect and safeguard their interests of "life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness".The old state must, therefore, be ended, and the new state of Tamil Eelam must be created so that the Tamil people can safeguard their interests." It is difficult to find a meeting point when one of the parties had been so stubborn and unbending. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Ponnambalam, Satchi (1983), Sti Lanka: National Conflict and the Tamil Liberation Struggle, Zed Books Ltd., Surrey. 2. Wilson, Jeyaratnam (1974), Politics in Sri Lanka 1947 - 1973), MacMillan, London. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol2.html 2. http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol/india.htm 3. http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/issues/kumari.html#f 4. http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/sri-lanka/buddhism-politics.php Read More