The Wings of the Dove - 09 November 2007

by Rajiva Wijesinha

Recently Mr Prabhakaran has described the late Mr Thamilselvam as his Peace Dove. There have been several claims to the contrary in recent articles even in newspapers critical of the government but, assuming we ignore those and, with the indulgence due to any deceased, accept Prabhakaran’s characterization, we must then wonder at the intransigence which made him clip so firmly the wings of his dove.

For the fact is, the appointed political leader of the LTTE was not allowed over the last year to function in a political capacity at all. One Sunday newspaper after his death referred to his being ‘seen in military fatigues last year when the LTTE attempted to penetrate Muhumalai’ and another noted that of late he had abandoned his ‘black and white attire…preferred military clothes and reverted to wearing the side arm again.’

The sad fate of other doves.

The first of these accounts indeed suggested how history repeats itself, except that this dove did not resist, and therefore stayed tied to his post. Contrariwise his elder brother Moorthy, it was pointed out, had been close to Prabhakaran’s former deputy Mahattaya and had ‘participated in discussions with the government in Colombo when Ranasinghe Premadasa was President’. It was because Mahattaya had been serious about those discussions, it seems, that Prabhakaran got rid of him so cruelly. Moorthy it seems ‘was detained..released after a long period of incarceration…is now a low rung cadre engaged in clerical work for the LTTE.’

The dove escaped the fate of his brother, and of Prabhakaran’s previous deputy, by wholly subordinating his purported peaceful nature to his leader’s will. Anton Balasingham, who had been prepared to compromise on the cry for Eelam by accepting federalism, also escaped Mahattaya’s fate, though he too was sidelined, and might have ended up as a low rung cadre had he not died.

What the fate of all these people makes clear is that Prabhakaran himself is really not interested at all in negotiations or in compromise. That indeed was clear enough from what happened after 2002. Even whilst, naively or otherwise, the then government prepared for peace talks, permitted massive funding to be given directly and indirectly to the LTTE, provided it with sophisticated equipment and paid duty for its acquisitions as required, the LTTE made it quite clear that war was its sole purpose.

The war strategy of the LTTE during peace talks.

There were four clear indications of this. First was the massive amount of weaponry that was brought it, as most obviously proven when a Norwegian monitor found weapons on board a ship that was then blown up by its crew, the poor man being given just enough time to leap into the sea to save himself.

Second was the concerted construction of military positions for offensives, ranging from the emplacements at Sampur that threatened Trincomalee harbour to the airstrip at Iranamadu that has the potential for such destruction if defenses are not put in place.

Third was the relentless killing of political opponents, though during this period the Sinhalese were exempt. It was Tamils opposed to the LTTE, members of PLOTE and the EPDP as their leaders have made clear, who were killed, to say nothing of obvious symbols of pluralism such as Lakshman Kadirgamar and Kethesh Loganathan. And of course there were the servicemen and informers, Tamils as well as Muslims, whose names the LTTE obtained after the infamous raid at Athurugiriya.

Fourth was the continuing relentless recruitment of more armed fodder. The Scandinavian monitors, in the period between 1st February 2002 and 31st December 2005, ruled the LTTE guilty of

1794 cases of child recruitment (Government of Sri Lanka none), 32 cases of force recruitment of adults (GOSL none), 587 cases of abduction of adults (GOSL 3), 197 cases of abduction of children (GOSL none), 18 cases of assassinations (GOSL none – there were 143 allegations against the LTTE and 13 against GOSL), 13 cases of torture (GOSL none). The list is endless, amounting to 3471 violations by the LTTE as ruled by the Monitors, as against just 162 by GOSL (out of 6751 allegations against the LTTE, 1313 against GOSL).

Despite all this, so brilliant is LTTE propaganda, so credulous the world, that it is claimed that the government is responsible for the breakdown of peace talks. It is forgotten that the LTTE withdrew from talks in April 2003, when the Wickremesinghe government was doing its best to keep them happy. And they stayed away even though President Kumaratunga, who had taken over the reins of government, also agreed to much of what they wanted, from paying duty for them on expensive vehicles to granting them almost absolute authority in certain areas under Post-Tsunami reconstruction.

2006 – the increasing intensity of LTTE attacks.

It was only after President Rajapakse was elected, almost at the end of 2005 that, while escalating their small scale attacks, they came back to talks in February 2006. After that they tried to kill the army commander, in April. Before that, in March, they – in fact Mr Thamilselvan himself - had insisted to the Norwegian ambassador when he went to Kilinochchi on March 16th along with the Head of the SLMM that ‘the issue of child recruitment does not fall with the parameters of the CFA, and should not be part of the agenda at the next round of talks’.

To quote from the aide-memoire on the Ambassador’s debriefing, and to give the Norwegians their due, ‘Mr Bratskar has pointed out that the CFA does mention of the abduction. Since a child cannot voluntarily join the LTTE military force, all recruitment will have to be treated as abduction. He had also argued that looking at the history of the six rounds of talks, there is an acknowledgement that recruitment should not be continued, and that continued recruitment was extremely damaging to the image of the LTTE at the international level’.

The insistence even of the Norwegians on this aspect may explain why the LTTE, having gone to Norway in June, surprised their hosts by refusing, on the very morning of the talks, to participate. And then, over the next couple of months, they launched two massive attacks, going far beyond the isolated incidents of claymore bombs and sniping that they had increasingly engaged in over the previous year.

Those attacks, on Mutur and Muhumalai, seem to have been intended to deal crippling blows to the Sri Lankan forces. The first, if successful, would have virtually put the port of Trincomalee out of action. That, together with success for the Tigers at Muhumalai may well have led to the fall of Jaffna. The strategy might now seem obvious, but far too little appreciation has been expressed in such a context of the efforts of the forces in repulsing these attacks.

Unfortunately the SLMM then made its worst blunder in failing to register the enormity of the two unprovoked attacks as violations of the Ceasefire. Instead General Henricsson, whom the Norwegian facilitator now tells me he cannot trace, engaged in a vicious attack replete with falsehoods on both the Sri Lankan forces and the Sri Lankan government. His thoroughly unprofessional report on the killing of 17 ACF workers is widely quoted as gospel, and he was even given prominence by ACF at a commemoration meeting in Paris, though subsequently they informed our ambassador that he had invited himself there, in total violation of his contract.

Leaving aside the obloquy that continues to be attached to Sri Lanka because of his pronouncement, his failure to comment satisfactorily on the planned double whammy, as it were, allowed the world to ignore the qualitative difference of the LTTE resumption of war at that period - which involved even, as mentioned above, the head of its political wing, the supposed dove of peace. The manifest need for the Sri Lankan forces to respond in a manner that ensured that such unprovoked attacks could not be attempted again should have been established by mature reporting about what had occurred. Instead Gen Henricsson issued a ruling that seems at best a hysterical outburst about undoubtedly a serious incident, but one that should have been placed in context.

The final refusal to talk?

As a result, the admirable conduct of the Sri Lankan forces in conducting its clearing up operations in the East, conduct admired positively by the SLMM in private and negatively in its reports which do not record any violations in the course of operations - except with regard to Kathiravelli which I have discussed elsewhere – has been ignored by the world. Meanwhile the LTTE returned to negotiations in October, negotiations that might have led to a cessation of operations had the LTTE been sincere. Instead poor Mr Thamilselvam was withdrawn after just one day by what the British have described as a simple telephone call from Kilinochchi.

The dove of peace was then rendered flightless by his master except for that brief flutter in Geneva in October 2006. He had instead to resume his military role, and not only in Muhumalai. His posthumous promotion to the rank of Brigadier then soon be seen as an attempt by his Commanding Officer to vindicate his decision to force him out of his role in the peace process, as negotiator and political leader. I now understand why, when I asked the Norwegian ambassador last June to inquire from political forces in Kilinochchi what they felt about an electoral system for Sri Lanka, what they would propose with regard to a second chamber that would empower regions at the centre, I was told that this was not something the LTTE was concerned with. In short, Mr Thamilselvam was not permitted to engage in politics.

He has been replaced now by the former Sri Lanka police constable, P Nadesan, who is said to be the Tiger police chief. On the one hand this may be seen as Prabhakaran’s determination to draw no distinction between political and security issues. Yet, paradoxically, this may suggest some hope for the future, in terms of the need for the LTTE to recognize the need to negotiate. Mr Thamilselvam, Prabhakaran’s dove, was never in a position to contradict his leader. Mr Nadesan, an older man with more experience, may be able to propose that a political solution may be preferable to the chimaera of military domination. Where Mr Thamilselvam was not in a position to argue against a military strategy, Mr Nadesan may be more inclined to try to save lives.

I realize there is not much room for optimism. Given the intransigence of the LTTE leadership when peace at almost any price seemed the policy of the Sri Lankan government, a change is not likely when genuine compromise is necessary. However where Mr Thamilselvam was not in a position to give his leader the hard political advice that was essential, and sacrificed both his position and the Peace Secretariat that worked under him to the intransigence at the top, his successor may have both the understanding and the ability to initiate change.

Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary General

Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process

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