January 2009: Sri Lankan troops stand guard in the former Tamil rebel-held town of Mullaittivu. AP photo
January 2009: Sri Lankan troops stand guard in the former Tamil rebel-held town of Mullaittivu. AP photo
The fierce conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been classified as one of the sixteen major armed conflicts of the world but in intercity, brutality and bestiality it had perhaps no parallel. What had started in the force of sporadic violence by an assorted Tamil youth groups as spontaneous reaction to their perceived discrimination in 1972 when the country’s new constitution was adopted proclaiming the republic of Sri Lanka had later evolved into a full-scale war.

The war between the battle-hardened Tamil guerrillas and the standing army of the country which was beefed up to tackle the insurgency claimed the lives of about 65,000 combatants apart from 40,000 more considered to be collateral damage in the military lexicon. The country’s tradition of civil society and an unbridled democracy was seriously subverted and its booming economy lay in rains. Its claim to being the proverbial ‘Serendib’ was overtaken by numbing reality of the deep anguish of a war-ravaged country.

The initial disaffection among the Tamils during the seventeen was met with unduly harsh response from the Sinhalese authority rather than compassionately attempting to redress the Tamil grievances. The prevention of terrorism act was introduced and massive repression unleashed. Thus almost from the beginning of the conflict the Tamil minority was given an adversary image. The military was given order to ‘wipe out’ terrorism in all its forms’ by Jayawardene, the newly elected president.

The ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka was between the country’s Sinhalese majority and the Tamils, bulk of whom slipped into Sri Lanka by ferrying across Palk Strait from India’s Tamil Nadu State. Basically an issue of national integration like in most of other South Asia’s multiethnic countries, thoroughly political issue, in Sri Lanka both the sides pushed for a military solution. Some of the missed opportunities for reaching an accommodation between the two hostile communities slipped out of hands during this period and no initiative for a negotiated settlement could be undertaken in the prevailing milieu.

In its collusion course with the authority the Tamil militants thought it to be prudent to adopt a separatist hue. The first physical symptom of the fatal confrontation occurred in July 1983 when in an ambush Tamil separatists killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers triggering off a nationwide carnage against unarmed Tamil in Jaffna Peninsula in the Northern Eastern province of Sri Lanka where they were the majority. The LTTE by 1980 emerged as the most dominant Tamil militant group under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran. He now vowed to attain the ‘eelam’ through an armed struggle marking the beginning of the first phase of ‘eelam war’ with the authority in Colombo. The government response was again predictable.

Through a constitutional amendment the UNP (United National Party) government outlawed any act of separatism and started strengthening the armed forces to crush Tamil dissident military. As it would be seen that this decision was fatal for any negotiated political settlement of Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem. As the government decisively adopted a military option, after a series of ‘massacres’ enacted by both sides the Tamil dissidents almost succeeded in cornering the army within their camps and the peninsula of Jaffna assumed semi-liberated status for the LTTE.

Retaliating heavily when the Sri Lankan Army was about to flush the Tamil militants out of the peninsula ‘an Indian factor’ changed the entire equation of the conflict. After having gained locus standi in Sri Lankan conflict with the influx 2,30,000 Tamil refugees into India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu — India duly influenced by her domestic politics intervened in a peacekeeping role according to a Peace Accord signed with Sri Lanka in July 1987. Contrary to the expectation from India’s intervention, this development rendered the ongoing conflict far more complex with the advent of a third party in the scene.

The India-brokered peace in Sri Lanka during 1987-90 also witnessed the primacy of the military while any diplomatic effort shyly took a back seat. It also saw an increasing clash between IPKF’s (Indian Peace Keeping Force) and LTTE who instinctively never wanted to abdicate its freedom of action and policy before the outsiders. It knew well that Indian interests were not so much to alleviate the sufferings of an oppressed Tamil Community in Sri Lanka as it was for a strategic Sri Lanka in India’s neighbourhood. So, much earlier than it was anticipated, in a remarkable change of role the IPKF turned against the LTTE. In a reversal of the whole scenario the peace accord led to the death of Rajiv Gandhi who signed it. He was killed in 1991 in its consequence.

In its second phase the LTTE’s war with the government troops broke out as expected after the withdrawal of IPKF. The Tamil rebels reentered the Northern Peninsula and Eastern promises to reassert their dominance over what they thought was their area. This phase of eelam war started in 1990 and was mainly the consolidation of LTTE control over what it thought to be Tamil territory. It set up a parallel civilian administration both in the North and East by establishing the structures such as police force, law court, postal services, bank and administrative offices.

The LTTE was also able to streamline the military machine during this period. Its tentacles could reach out even to be able to assassinate president Premdasa in Colombo. Both sides on an even keel at this stage in their strength, Chandrika Kumaratunga for the first time campaigned on a platform of peace and emerged triumphant in November 1994 presidential election. In January 1995 president Chandrika and Prabhakaran entered into a ceasefire agreement to give negotiated peace a chance. But it was too late and little an effort to promote peace in the island. As a result inevitably the military from among the parties involved promptly occupied the driving seats to settle the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka currently has the 34th largest army in the world. Even if this army has been able to bring an end to Prabhakaran and his invincible guerrilla followers few believe that the root cause of the ethnic conflict is indeed wiped out. With a Pyrrhic victory against the Tamil tigers, the military has at the most been able to catch those tigers by tail. Sri Lanka is an apt case where crushing defeat is inflicted on diplomacy.