NOT long after President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory on Sunday, a spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) indirectly admitted defeat. Events in Sri Lanka have for months been moving inexorably towards a denouement along these lines, amid repeated warnings of a massacres. With the media long barred from the battle zone, reports have relied on sources such as aid workers and local residents: the result is a somewhat blurred picture, although the patches of red are unmistakably bloodstains.

With the government in Colombo obsessed with controlling the flow of information and the Tigers adept at generating propaganda, it’s hard to say when, or even whether, a clearer picture will emerge. There can’t be much doubt, though, that the cost of the government’s military triumph has been high in terms of human lives, with Tamil civilians – trapped between the ruthless LTTE and the relentless armed forces – paying the biggest price.

The Rajapaksa regime would probably respond to such concerns by claiming that the end justifies the means. That is seldom, if ever, the case. But in this instance even those who might initially be inclined to accept such an argument would turn sceptical in the event of a subsequent return to violence. Such violence is not inevitable, but nor is it unlikely, given that the authorities have succeeded in tackling a major symptom of the affliction without addressing its underlying causes.

Rajapaksa may assume he has proved wrong all the analysts and commentators who have been contending for decades that the Tamil issue could not be resolved exclusively through military means. In fact, they are almost certain to be proved right if Colombo chooses to do little more than bask in the glow of its achievement on the battlefield. The sensible alternative would be to immediately launch a political initiative aimed at addressing legitimate Tamil grievances and redressing long-standing woes.

The history of the conflict is generally traced back to 1983, when the Tigers declared war in the wake of anti-Tamil pogroms by Sinhalese extremists, or to 1976, when the LTTE was launched. The origins of many of the differences and suspicions between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority are rooted in the colonial era, however. The British, as was their wont, relied on a divide-and-rule policy to facilitate their governance. In the case of Ceylon, as the island was known until 1972, this involved privileging the more educated Tamils and thereby breeding resentment among the Sinhalese.

The lineage of Ceylonese Tamils stretches back at least to the 10th century, although it may well go back much further. Their numbers were swelled in the 19th and 20th centuries by Indian Tamils, who were encouraged by the British to cross the Palk Strait and, among other things, become labourers on tea, coffee and rubber plantations. The two groups of Tamils did not have much to do with each other until they were more or less compelled to make common cause in the 1980s.

Following Ceylon’s independence in 1948, it wasn’t long before the majority community sought to correct the pro-Tamil colonial imbalance – and, as often happens in such cases, went too far. A substantial proportion of Indian Tamils were repatriated to India, and many of those who remained did not obtain Sri Lankan citizenship until decades later. Meanwhile, an effort in the 1950s to institute Sinhala as the only official language, in place of English, was intended effectively to exclude Tamils from government posts. Inevitably it led to riots – and spawned a demand for Tamil autonomy or independence that, after more than half a century and the loss of over 100,000 lives, remains unfulfilled.

None of the foregoing is intended to suggest that the LTTE’s methods were by any means justified, notwithstanding the liberal use of state terror in combating it. Its ostensible cause, on the other hand, has always been defensible. The word ostensible is used advisedly, given that all too often dedicated purveyors of violence fall prey to a dynamic whereby the use of force becomes an end in itself. And the LTTE’s repertoire, in this context, was extensive: the Tigers not only pioneered the gruesome art of suicide bombing but were adept at the use of gunboats and even managed the occasional air raid, relying for its resources chiefly on the vast Tamil diaspora. However, whatever empathy the organization may occasionally have stirred invariably diminished sharply in the face of random acts of terror such as bomb blasts on public transport or in the marketplace, where the primary victims were ordinary Sri Lankans. A penchant for high-profile assassinations, meant to intimidate politicians and military leaders, instead cemented their antagonism.

Such tactics undoubtedly damaged the Tamil cause. But then, the question of employing them may never have arisen but for the obduracy of the Sinhalese-dominated state. The reluctance to sufficiently respect the aspirations of minorities is more or less a universal phenomenon, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense. There are cases in which the demand for independence is demonstrably absurd; in those circumstances, the appropriate course would be to demonstrate its absurdity rather than crush it by force. More broadly, however, nations would do well to abide by the principle that human beings always count for much more than pieces of land.

In the Eelam context, a meaningful degree of autonomy and effective anti-discrimination legislation would have sufficed, at more or less any stage of Sri Lankan history, to assuage Tamil woes. Negotiations mediated by Norway have floundered time and again, but although that track has now been rendered superfluous, but even at this stage Colombo could do a world of good by setting in motion a process of devolution whereby Tamil aspirations could be satisfied.

The ideal outcome for Sri Lanka would be a single, non-discriminatory multi-ethnic, multilingual and multi-religious nation. But that may be too much to hope for in the short term, given the security state that has evolved in recent decades. As demonstrated last January by the assassination of the fearless Sunday Leader  editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, the establishment remains reluctant to brook criticism or dissent. Top Tiger Vellupilai Prabhakaran was often accused of being a mini führer, but the gun-slingers in Colombo were invariably willing to match him.

Sinhalese chauvinism has been bolstered in recent years by assistance from China and, somewhat more surprisingly, Pakistan – which, two years ago, increased its annual military assistance to Sri Lanka to $80 million. That might help to explain why Colombo restrained its outrage when the Sri Lankan cricket team faced an existential threat in Lahore earlier this year. But it’s harder to understand why a nation that itself ostensibly relies on American largesse to fund its so-called war on terror should be generous beyond its means in subsidizing a neighbour’s civil strife.

Email: mahir.worldview@gmail.com

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