What does everybody want? Peace, war, human rights?
The LTTE used to kill during the fighting. The LTTE continues to kill. But the LTTE's peacetime killing of civilians has turned the tables as far as some other matters are concerned. In time of hostilities, the government attacked pacifists and peaceniks for 'defending'' or at least apologising for LTTE killings.

Now, the government is the apologist for the LTTE killings, and the 'pacifists' and the 'peaceniks' that were ridiculed by the government during peacetime for their pacifist role, have suddenly turned activist.

Within this complete turning of tables is a Sri Lankan truism. There is never any agreement really. There is also always an apologist for the LTTE, and it does not matter whether at a given time this apologist is the government or the vast spectrum of civil society groups that come under the umbrella of non-governmental organisations. There is always somebody to take up the cause of the LTTE, and there is always somebody prepared to keep the divide within the Southern Sri Lankan polity on the burner -- to keep it alive.

The LTTE's peacetime killings of members of Tamil political parties and of Sri Lankan army Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP) operatives, has not helped the LTTE's peacetime bona fides. It is almost as if the civil society groups are saying that it is allright for the LTTE to kill when there are open hostilities (war) whereas it is abhorrent for the LTTE to kill during a ceasefire. The government's position is almost the exact reverse of the coin.

The government sees wartime killings as 'terrorist' but sees peacetime killings as inevitable and therefore tolerable behaviour by an essentially militarist organisation. (Therefore the often articulated expressions of empathy with the LTTE by Ministers of government, such as 'people cannot expect an organisation that is essentially a military outfit such as the LTTE to transform itself in an instant into a political outfit. The leadership also may not have full control over some of its cadres.'')

The leadership of the LTTE may probably be perplexed by the mood swings of the Colombo decision-making elite. There might be a time, the LTTE might think, that there is some kind of comity between the principal actors in the South. But, it never materialises. Just when they seem to be given a break by their enemy, they find that others such as NGOs who seemed to be tolerant previously are now doing the dirty on them -- or at least making life difficult.

Today, the non-governmental organisations are almost emphatic that the LTTE should stop killings if there is to be an Interim Administration with LTTE participation. This was evident at a seminar I attended over the weekend titled "The Home and the World, changing Ethnic Identities in Sri Lanka.''

Many speakers expressed dissatisfaction that this 'armistice between the two armed groups''' is leading to a lopsided solution in which these two actors will conspire to some kind of arrangement that leaves other stakeholders totally marginalised. It left me wondering what "others'' meant? Are the "others' non-governmental organisations, such as those that are represented by these people who were holding these views? Were they feeling marginalised; are they losing the currency that they used to enjoy when the war was in total motion, and when there was no threat of a "peace dividend'' of 'marginalisation'' of NGO actors due to the diminished need for their services?

No I am not holding a brief for an Interim administration that does not have human rights of ordinary people on the agenda. There is no apology here for that kind of thing. But what is curious is this sudden turning of tables.

One thing that is clear is that there is no cry for preservation of human rights at a given time that is independent of a particular agenda of any of the actors. The government has not even paid lip service towards ensuring the human rights of those groups falling foul of the LTTE.

But civil society voices are keen on preservation of human rights, but their implicit position seems to be that human rights are a factor as long as there are no open hostilities, whereas a war is open season for all. The NGO community and the rights groups may dispute this, but this is the reality because there wasn't a single rights group or a non governmental functionary that raised the human rights cry with regard to LTTE actions during the fighting with even half the strength with which they are doing so now (save perhaps for the UTHR.)

The cynical or the incurably cynical will say that the rude reality is that the government does not want to go back to war under any circumstances, while the NGOs are risking a relapse into war by their insistence on a human rights regime for the militarist LTTE. The non-governmental organisations will accept this interpretation of facts over their dead bodies. But, a cynical view may sometimes see through their cover?

Of course the NGO's do not want to go to war, but it is as if the NGOs are retracting their stated positions at the last moment. Wasn't it the NGOs and the civil society groups that wanted an end to hostilities in exchange for a gradual incremental rapprochement between the government and the LTTE?

But the NGOs now seem to take up the position that the process is never going to be incremental. The NGOs or NGO champions are heard to say these days that the LTTE should stop all killings this instant, or else even an Interim administration will be illegitimate and unacceptable.

This leaves me blown for one. The government's cringing culture of apology for LTTE excesses during the ceasefire is galling, and this is expediency and spinelessness at its most glaring. But then -- the about turn of the NGO's does not seem to be in direct proportion to that. I mean -- it can't be that the NGO's are taking the hardliner attitude towards LTTE human rights violations, just because the government is being spineless on the same issue?

Civil society may always be an errant government's bugbear, but yet to say that the NGOs are reacting to the government's attitude will be to take rationalisation too far. Then how does one begin to explain that the NGOs have suddenly become very insistent on a strict human rights regime for the LTTE; a position quite inconsistent with their stated views before the ceasefire?

It is easy to say there is more to all this than meets the eye. One might even say that an NGO cannot be pragmatic or problem oriented like a government - an NGO had to be idealistic? So the NGO's idealism is "during a war to call for peace and during peace call for human rights?'' (…which may lead to war again, because the LTTE might not like the idea.) The government's pragmatism is "during a war violate human rights and rant against the LTTE for violating human rights, because that helps the war effort, but during peace ignore all human rights violations by the LTTE because that helps the peace effort?''

And governments in this country don't strike a mean between pragmatism and doing the right thing. NGOs in this country don't seem to strike a mean between doing the right thing, and ensuring that there is peace and a peace effort intact despite all the difficulties. Either that or the government wants desperately to retain the peace at all costs, while the NGOs desperately want to go back to war. I think a total cynic will buy the latter argument -- are you sure that you are not one?

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