Thoughts from London

Off to the land of the cuckoo clocks
I had hardly returned London after a brief five days in Colombo when I received an email from a friend whose business is to keep an eye on foreign affairs and developments round the world.

He said that my “prophecy” about our striped friends going to cuckooland made shortly after the EU clamped some restrictions on the LTTE had indeed come true.

So those in the Swiss cantons, be they German, French or Italian speaking, would be jubilant they won over Oslo and Tokyo, the two capitals touted by the contending parties to the conflict.

Even happier would be the Berghof Foundation (some derisively call it the Buggeroff Foundation) that has been rather accommodative of the striped kind and believe they could teach that menagerie in the Wanni the goodness and greatness of democracy.

That, of course, is rather rich coming from a foundation in a country that had disenfranchised women for years and gave them the right to vote at the federal level only in the 1971, forty years after Sri Lanka.

That too was not easily attained. At a referendum on the question of granting women the franchise, 621,403 of an all-male electorate voted in favour while 323,596 voted against.

Back in 1959, when almost all of Europe had granted women universal franchise, Switzerland held a referendum and women were refused the right to vote by a majority of 2-1, largely because of a cultural perception, particularly in the German-speaking cantons that the role of a woman is kinder, kirche, kuche (children, church and kitchen).

The prophecy that my friend mentioned was a reference I made to the EU travel ban on LTTE delegations. I said at the time that despite the EU ban the Tigers would travel to Europe — either at the invitation of the Norwegians who would like to teach the Velvettithurai boys how to fish or the Swiss, who would be glad to instruct them on how to make chocolates balls, courtesy of the Berghof Foundation.

Lo and behold! Hardly had I set foot in Old Blighty when Erik Solheim who gave VP a hearty hand shake (or was it the other way round?) while young Thamilselvan stood by grinning like the cat that had swallowed the canary and Balasingham looked as dour as ever, struck a deal on a venue.
It must have hurt him no end and probably cried on Velupillai’s broad shoulders, wetting his new safari suit (material from Chennai courtesy of Vaiko someone told me).

After all, there was Thamilselvan standing firm like Horatius across the Tiber and refusing to back down on an Oslo meeting. Oslo or no go, was his battle cry.

On the other side of the barricades President Rajapakse and his aides were saying Asia or nowhere. Just before I left Colombo, I heard a JHU spokesman saying any meeting outside Sri Lanka would be only over their dead bodies or words to that effect. So now it is settled. Both sides compromised. The government moved west and the Tigers moved south and will now meet in Geneva some time next month, thanks to the efforts of the much-berated Solheim who had to show some sense of impartiality after all the brickbats that hit him.

On the flight back from Colombo I had the opportunity of exchanging views with Nicholas Burns, the US Under Secretary of State who was seated in the next row. Readers will recall that Nicholas Burns held talks with President Rajapakse and others government and non-government persons on his way back from Pakistan and India.

Burns was rather pessimistic about the situation in Sri Lanka and he thought we were edging towards war. That was the general feeling in Colombo too and it would not be hyperbolic to say that one could cut with a knife the thick air of apprehension that enveloped the capital.
Now they would probably agree that we have stepped back from the brink, and only just.

Yet it would be foolish to let this palpable sense of relief turn into euphoria. A few days back I received a statement from the Tamil Democratic Congress, the London-based pan-European organisation that is opposed to the LTTE’s way of conducting affairs and fighting the Tamil cause.

Let us be clear on one thing. The Tamil community has legitimate grievances that need to be addressed if our society is to be a multiethnic community in the real sense of the word. That is, a community in which all sections could live and function without a sense of fear and discrimination grounded in ethnicity.

Having said that, there is then the need to recognise that what the LTTE expects from the rest of the Sri Lanka community, it should also be prepared to extend to the Tamil people as a whole.

It would be crassly ironic for the LTTE to expect equal status for the Tamil people while at the same time denying those within its territory the same rights of free expression, political freedoms and privileges that it demands from the State.

The Tamil Democratic Congress in its statement welcoming the decision to return to the negotiating table said: “Any lasting solution progressing from adhering to temporary ceasefire must be a democratic process and must include cross section of the political representation of the Sri Lanka society.”

Herein lies one of the major obstacles for the LTTE. The Tamil people in general and the world community would wish to see not only devolution of power to the provinces but also a birth of a political structure that encompasses the key elements of democratic governance.

Without such a structured polity the peace makers and problem solvers would be handing over a vast section of the Tamil people to an organisation that many have labelled fascist in outlook and intent.
Is that what the Tamil people and the international community want? Surely not.

Yet democracy throws up political groups and governments that advocates of universal democracy hardly anticipate. The recent Palestinian election is a case in point. Neither the United States nor the European Union anticipated a victory for Hamas, which is banned by both.
Yet the Palestinian people, except some of those in Jerusalem who were prevented from voting by the Israelis, freely elected Hamas, doubtless a terrorist group that has been responsible for some 40-odd suicide bombings and the killings of civilian non-combatants.

Why then was Hamas elected by the Palestinian people? One major reason is that the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party had become corrupt and did little for the people as was expected when the Palestinian Authority was established.

One must remember that Fatah , like the LTTE, considered itself the genuine representative of the Palestinian people, a once militant organisation that was in the forefront of the Palestinian struggle. The LTTE faces the same problem of doubt and apprehension. Today it rules with the gun. But supposing a negotiated solution produces a self-governing territory. Could the LTTE afford to allow democracy to function? Could it hold free and fair elections where all shades of Tamil opinion are permitted to compete in the political marketplace?

Just as Washington and Brussels miscalculated the mood of the Palestinian people, the LTTE could very well overestimate its own popularity.

Could it then afford to open the doors and windows to fresh political winds or must it continue to dominate the Tamil community in the name of the sole representative of the Tamil people?

This issue must remain uppermost in the minds of those who negotiate a solution and those who facilitate it.

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