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A chorus of international voices have in the past few days decried the heightened violence gripping Sri Lanka’s Northeast.
Calls for restraint and new talks on stabilising the fraying February 2002 ceasefire have come from key states and the international monitors overseeing the truce, amongst others. Nevertheless, the violence is continuing.
There
have been numerous attacks on Sri Lankan security forces and the
Liberation Tigers. Military reprisals against civilians, tacitly
encouraged by the government in Colombo, have also escalated. Dozens of
people have disappeared after being taken into military custody.
An
estimated four thousand families have fled Jaffna for the LTTE-held
Vanni. Thousands of people in Trincomalee have also moved – or are
being blocked by the military from moving – into LTTE-controlled parts
of the district.
It is amid this climate of fear and despair that
Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim will return to Sri Lanka next week
in yet another attempt to broker talks on the ceasefire. It remains to
be seen whether Sri Lanka will agree to hold talks in Oslo or continue
to prioritise its insistence that LTTE officials be excluded from
Europe over stopping the slide to war.
The
Tamil community, now under widespread and sustained harassment by the
security forces, is as anxious for peace as any of the observers.
But
by peace we mean a genuine return to normalcy – not just the doldrums
that the peace process was drifting in a few short weeks ago.
In other
words, we want the long overdue implementation of the normalcy clauses
of the February 2002 ceasefire: the disarming of the Army-backed
paramilitaries, the withdrawal of Sri Lankan security forces from our
homes, schools, places of worship and other public places, the lifting
of the restrictions on fishing and farming, and so on.
This is not some
radical new concept – the Tamil community has been asked for this
repeatedly for four years now, to no avail.
Amid
the international community’s expressions of concern and disapproval,
one stands out in the Tamil perspective: that of US Ambassador to Sri
Lanka, Mr. Jeffrey Lunstead.
Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka last week, Mr. Lunstead lambasted the LTTE.
Amid
what is a spiral of violence and counter violence, he singled out the
LTTE for blame. As thousands of Tamils fled military reprisals he
congratulated the Colombo government ‘for its restraint.’ Holding the
LTTE responsible for the wider failures of the peace process, Mr.
Lunstead even blamed it for the lack of ‘investment and industry’ in
the Northeast.
We wonder whether the US has - even once in the past
four years - encouraged the members of Mr. Lunstead’s audience in the
American Chamber of Commerce to invest in the Tamil territories.We do
know, however, that in all that time, the LTTE has been striving to
mobilise the Tamil Diaspora to this end.
We do not recall Mr. Lunstead
protesting last year when the PTOMS joint mechanism for sharing
international aid with the Tamil areas was abrogated by the Colombo
government – though we do recall the US refusing to put funds through
it when it was finally signed.
The
Tigers must, Mr. Lunstead said, repeating a standard US maxim,
‘renounce terrorism in word and deed.’ Then, he suggested, probably
less reassuringly than he intended, there ‘might be’ a role for the
LTTE - in Sri Lanka’s development.
But curiously enough, his
government’s attitude towards the Colombo government does not seem
contingent on its behaviour. There has been, for example, no mention of
human rights of late - even when ‘disappearances’ and assaults of
civilians are reported from the North.
Or when five students were
summarily executed in Trincomalee. Or when almost a thousand Tamils
were arrested enmasse in Colombo.
Most importantly, amid widely
expressed fears of a renewed war, Mr. Lunstead last week assured the
Sinhala nationalist government of his government’s military support in
the event of war.
The
Tamils have repeatedly argued that international support for Sri
Lanka’s military emboldens the Sinhala nationalists and buttresses
Colombo’s intransigence in the peace process.
Little wonder then that
the JVP and JHU are this week again urging a military solution to the
Tamil question.
The United States is one of the four Co-Chairs
overseeing the peace process. Mr. Lunstead’s comments have thus not
only damaged the Co-Chairs credibility as even-handed advocates of a
solution amongst Sri Lanka’s communities, but changed the dynamic
between the two protagonists at a crucial and sensitive time.
As many
amongst us are pointing out, the Tamils are receiving a lesson in
realpolitik: interests matter more rather values.
It remains to be seen
whether Mr. Solheim’s visit will end Sri Lanka’s slide towards the
abyss.
But in the meantime, the Tamils must brace for difficult times
ahead. Ambassador Lunstead has said the US ‘wants the cost of war to be
high’ and, as the unreconstructed devastation across our homeland
testifies, Sri Lanka will, with US support, ensure that.
Tamil Guardian
SiberNews
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