Enjoy the ceasefire, prepare for war

By Susantha Goonatilake

The advertisers were an outfit "Impact". I heard an NGO claiming on TV that Professor Hettige was behind this survey. I found from Professor Hettige that this was part of a survey whose partial results had already raised controversy during the last election.

This same survey had suggested that the PA was then ahead in the election with 35.2%; the UNF would get only 32% and the JVP 14.6%. All other parties and those undecided amounted to 18.1%. The latter also included 0.7% for Sihala Urumaya. 

The PA and the JVP which campaigned saying that the LTTE was not to be trusted, together got 49.8% — half of those surveyed. A feature of the Parivasa agreement was not to revive any negotiations with the LTTE. (And, 51% said that this PA/JVP agreement was useful, and could not have been better.) Yet, 77% (well actually it was 75.7) of the very same group was favouring negotiations.

It is clear that the results of the same survey were contradictory.

Professor Hettige's gut reaction was that answers to almost open questions like "do you want negotiations to end the war" would have every body voting for peace. His assistant who gave me a copy of the report had been embarrassed by the publicity on the Colombo walls.

Now, there is a growing body of knowledge where questions and answers are not neutral. This is broadly called stand-point theory in sociology. Some have pushed this perspective to relations between large social groups including between civilizations. Last year was UNESCO Year of dialogue among civilizations which presumes standpoint aspects. If you go to their rich website you will see many descriptions of such broad issues (including references to my own contributions to this theoretical literature, I being one of the three-key South Asian "dialogic thinkers" cited).

So much for the theoretical aside. But what does this mean to us? What is the stand point of those who plastered the walls? Are there hidden agendas which even they may not be aware of?

Professor Hettige told me that he did not know much about the person who approached him to do the study. So for the public interest, here is a sketch of the person concerned and his alleged connections with LTTE fronts.

This person has been an active member of several Christian organizations and the National Peace Council (NPC). In a meeting in 1995 at Hong Kong, he accepted as valid the traditional homelands concept of Tamils. He has also accepted the North and East as exclusive homeland of Tamils. The NPC in which this person is a key member has taken many anti-Sri Lanka stands. Its national organisers had marched in a rally in Geneva, supporting the LTTE cause (Hot Spring). Its Media Director (read propaganda chief) had at the time of the Indian incursion threatened Sri Lanka with dire consequences (Daily News August 26, 1987). While campaigning for a future sovereignty of the separatists, he has also questioned the need for Sri Lankan sovereignty and has made the case for what he has called "shared sovereignty" (January 12, 1997, The Island) and for two near-states, one for the North-East and one for the South-West (Sunday Observer May 1998). He writes a column to the Island which first appears in the separatist site "Eelam Nation".

It is not personal ill-will to the Tamils or the Sinhalese who drag on the war. It is a political conflict which no amount of singing Solo Mio or ordering employees to hold hands can cover. There is one easy step to a permanent peace. Give in to the Tigers' demand for a separate state, you will have immediate peace. 

The TELO deputy leader mentioned last week that there was no addressing of basic issues under the present ceasefire. He echoed what Dr. John Gooneratne wrote that the LTTE in none of the earlier talks had discussed the real political issues.

The Tamil separatist literature and Indian reporting on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination show that the ultimate political aim of the Tigers is to gain a Greater Eelam encompassing South India and Sri Lanka. The NGOs, the Christian lobby and the dead left ignore these facts.

But if you think the Foreign Ministry or the Interior Ministry has read this literature, forget that too. Both our hidden decision makers and the official ones are unaware of the key issues.

The LTTE has effectively got itself partially unbanned in UK by its representative holding talks with Norway in London. It was trying hard to do the same in India by trying to have talks there. Indians seems to have rebuffed the LTTE because of fears of South Indian Tamil separatism being aroused once again. Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka is a direct outcome of a nexus going back to the 19th century between South Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils. Common efforts like opposition to the official languages of Hindi and Sinhala and the demand for separate states resulted. In these, the Church played a key role. Only in Sri Lanka is Tamil separatism alive today. Hence the fear of LTTE infection by the Indians.

In the meantime both sides are reminded of the real political conflict.

A newspaper reported this week that the Bambalapitiya police discovered a Tiger bomber. There is no doubt that a large number of Tigers and explosives would have already been planted during this ceasefire. An arms ship had been unloaded, it is alleged. New Tiger networks would have been created, others strengthened. The obvious target would be apart from the already targeted President, the PM. So stakes for the government are literally life and death of its leaders.

The new Defence Minister Tilak Marapana at the Diyatalawa Academy passing out parade said the new government would provide the armed forces with "all the necessary assistance by way of weapons and other means to wipe out LTTE terrorism from this land". But a journalist close to Tiger sources reported that the LTTE had objected strongly to these statements and was disturbed by reports of military preparations like recruitment, arms purchases, military constructions etc. 

This is an unstable "peace". Enjoy the ceasefire and the no-barrier roads. (I do.) But prepare for war and ignore the mischievous Tiger front propaganda which deliberately clouds political reality. And ask Wickremesinghe-friendly media to accurately report ground political reality, not just the sunshine. His life may depend on understanding that reality.