• The irony of defending sovereignty

    Feb 19

    Amidst firework displays, stre-et parties and concerts around the capital and much of the country, the Republic of Kosovo was born on February 17, 2008.

    The long-awaited 'Unilateral' Declaration of Independence was made in concert with the United States and leading members of the European Union.

    The events leading up to Kosovo's UDI and its aftermath will undoubtedly be a source of hope for peoples around the world committed to the liberation of their homelands from oppression and tyranny.

    Over the last six months, for obvious reasons, Russia has ado-pted a 'no precedent' approach, defending the territorial integrity of its ally Serbia.

    Russia's leaders are committed to their own notion of sovereignty - one as selective as the US's, but with a different perspective.

    This was first exhibited by Moscow's anger at Chechnya's refusal to sign up to the Russian Federation, thus leading to the first and second Chechen wars and destabilization of the entire Caucasus region.
    Whilst sovereignty is key to statehood, it is not an automatically isolationist property.

    Throughout the history of the modern state, countries have, to some degree or other, pooled their sovereignty for mutual gain, be it in the form of economic or cultural cooperation or state integration/ merger as with the union between Scotland and England 1600's; German Unification in 1871; Italy's during the 1840s-1870 and, of course, the European Union itself in the past few decades.

    Thus, it is disingenuous to argue that the mere emergence of new independent states would be destabilizing; newly independent states are no more likely to create international instability than existing states.

    Rather, there is an argument that, in order to ensure their long-term futures, states, including new ones, are more likely to join the world's proliferating 'soverei-gnty pooling' organizations, thus actually increasing international cooperation - just as several post-Soviet Eastern European states have willingly joined the EU.

    The separation of Kosovo and Serbia arguably provides a period in which both can overcome their differences, address the issues that led to the conflict and build new cordial relations, whilst at the same time retaining genuine ownership of their own futures, as well as sharing a joint one in which both sides have a degree of control.

    In contrast, Moscow fears this 'break up' of Serbia will give fresh impetus to several independence movements along its own border from North Ossetia, Abkhazia and Chechnya.

    Though both the South Osse-tia and Abkhazian movements are pro-Moscow, Russian politicians have raised the possibility of recognizing these entities as states (along with Transdniesta ; a break away region of Moldova where there is a large Russian troop presence), only as a threatened response against the US and EU for recognizing Kosovo.

    Ultimately, Russia fears that as a consequence of all such declarations, Moscow's power and influence in the world will be eroded.

    This is why Russia has sullenly promised to veto Kosovo's application to the United Nations.
    During the past years of talks over Kosovo's future, leading members of the international co-mmunity came to the realization that independence is inevitable given the failure of the negotiation process to voluntarily retain the loyalty of the Albanian-majority province within the Serbian federation.

    Therefore, most European States have recognized the newly independent state, as they have with all the Balkan states which sought independence since the 1990s.

    At the same time, the international community continues to dictate the ability of less powerful states to govern or to gain access to all the institutions and powers that ought to come with international recognition.
    A classic example of this is the continuing international stewardship of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the EU's provision of 2000 judicial, police and other law enforcement 'advisors' to Kosovo.
    Sovereignty is therefore never absolute.

    Since December the US and EU have been dragging Kosovo's independence, hoping to buy time to persuade Russia to their point of view.

    Whilst vehemently insisting on the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity, Serbia's response to Kosovan independence is to threaten to recognize the independence of the Republic of Srpska (a constituent member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina).

    Whilst warning of instability in the region and elsewhere, it is Serbia itself which is also threatening an economic blockade of Kosovo and reduced diplomatic cooperation with states that recognize Kosovo.
    That there is discord over Kosovo amongst the world's states is not in doubt.

    The emerging tensions bet-ween Russia and the West will be exacerbated by the Kosovan UDI.
    Even within the EU, there are deep divisions, with Spain, Ro-mania, Greek Cyprus, Greece and Slovakia joining with Russia in stating fears other independence movements will be encouraged.

    As a result of these fears, there is a concerted international atte-mpt to define Kosovo as a 'special case', a one-off in international affairs.

    This, however, does not alter the basic premise of a people's right to self-determination.

    Nor, indeed, does it preclude the creation of future 'special cases' (i.e. transitions to independence under international stewardship) based either on model of Kosovo or Bosnia-Hercegovina or more traditional ascent to independence like Eritrea.

    Furthermore, the traditional arguments about 'sovereignty' fail to account for the very real legacy of Europe colonialism for what is disparagingly now described as the 'third world'.

    It is rarely acknowledged that the 'internal' conflicts in these regions stem to a great part from the arbitrary delineation of international borders during the post WW2 rush to 'de-colonise.'

    Some argue that the 'special case' status of Kosovo is justified because it is the final stage of the break up of Yugoslavia, an artificial construct.

    But this line of thinking could be applied to any number of post-colonial developing states on the basis their splitting into cohesive sub-entities is the simply a continuation of the process of decolonization, of dismantling the artificial constructs of the European empires.

    The irony is that, amid a 'globalising world', demands for self-rule and independence stem not from isolationist tendencies, but a desperation to escape state repression.

    Especially given the drive to sovereignty pooling in today's 'globalised' world, the most effective response to present and future independence demands is to make the status quo of a united state more appealing by ensuring equitable power-sharing.

    Rather than pouring billions into stamping out popular armed challenges to the 'sovereign' state, the international community should look at the other end of the 'problem' and forcibly compel repressive states to end their persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, accept demands for internal power-sharing and simply govern better.

  • International contradictions: lessons for the Tamils
    “…And the message should go out to anyone facing persecution anywhere from Burma to Zimbabwe: human rights are universal and no injustice can last forever.”
     
    When the new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made this declaration to the assembled ranks of the ruling Labour party last month, it sounded almost like a return to the ‘ethical foreign policy’ that his predecessor, Tony Blair called for in his first term.
     
    But listening to Mr. Brown, the country’s Tamil citizens would have though of the daily human rights abuses being committed against their brethren in Sri Lanka. Some would have wondered if this meant Britain would act to end the state terror and despotism that has become the hallmark of the corrupt, clientilist Rajapakse regime.
     
    Even if there isn’t the ‘humanitarian intervention’ conducted on behalf of – presumably more deserving – peoples elsewhere, will we see sanctions imposed on the Colombo government? Perhaps an arms embargo, or travel restrictions on regime leaders?
     
    At the very least, would we see a stop to the deportations of terrified Tamils seeking sanctuary in Britain from the state and paramilitary death squads that roam their homeland?
     
    However, a moment’s reflection tells us none of this is likely, much as we may hope – or, as citizens with belief in our adopted country, expect.
     
    Having said that a change in British policy towards Sri Lanka is unlikely, it can be seen that London remains committed to what is called the ‘Liberal Peace’ agenda.
     
    This places institutional reform of the problem state as the key priority for resolving conflicts within it while maintaining the international status quo. This is the international community’s approach to Sri Lanka.
     
    It is sustained by a belief that the wrongs being committed against our people are temporary and that in time Sri Lanka will come to accord the Tamils a place within its society and politics.
     
    This is where Sri Lanka differs from Burma.
     
    Since independence Sri Lanka has been able to pass itself off as a democracy, despite its marginalisation of the Tamils (through electoral power distribution over the regions - out of the 225 seat Parliament, just over two dozen seats are for the Northeast).
     
    This veneer of democracy, whilst demonstrably a ‘tyranny of the majority’, allows the pro-democracy West to harbour hopes for state reforms that will turn what is essentially a majoritarian chauvinist state into a Western-style liberal democracy.
     
    This belief is being cynically exploited by the Sinhala elite to maintain their positions in power and, especially, to prosecute a punitive war against the rebellious Tamils.
     
    Initially the recent Burmese protests were led by a Buddhist Sangha of equal reverence amongst the various ethnic groupings making up the country. The protests were thus seen as a pro-democracy protest; a repeat of the 1988 Burmese student uprisings. In fact, they were triggered by the ruling Junta raising fuel prices, raising cost of living to intolerable levels.
     
    But what is interesting is that, apart from howls of outrage, the response of the international community was sluggish at best.
     
    Indeed, the world powers have for decades stood by whilst the Burmese military unleashed genocidal waves of violence and ethnic cleansing against non-Burmese peoples, including the Karen.
     
    In many respects the Tamils and the Karen are in a similar position, suffering ethnic persecution by a majoritarian state and fighting for independence from it.
     
    The tardy response of the international community to the recent Burmese crisis mirrors its actions in the face of Sri Lanka’s past eighteen months of brutality.
     
    The lack of concern towards the plights of our people and theirs underlines how ‘R2P’ is merely a buzzword bandied about to elevate its proponents’ moral standing and, by placing the onus on the Sinhala state, to justify international inaction.
     
    Most importantly, international reaction to Burma’s crisis also shows that freedom has to be something we earn ourselves. There is no international ‘salvation’ coming.
     
    The British Prime Minister’s revulsion at the attacks by Burmese soldiers on unarmed civilians, especially Buddhist monks, was notable, as was his subsequent approval and attendance of pro-democracy campaigns.
     
    However, there was no acknowledgement of the racism against minorities endemic to Burmese rule.
     
    The international community would like to take control of the opposition campaign in Burma so as to increase their influence with a future regime there. That inevitably means maintaining the integrity of Burma’s borders, and thus denying peoples like the Karen the right to self-determination.
     
    Western criticism of the Burmese Junta’s national consensus for failing to involve all parties and ethnic groups and is similar to the ‘rewriting’ of the Tamil problem as a ‘democracy deficit’ rather than ‘racist oppression.’
     
    Having said that, we have yet to see this type of condemnation being levelled against Sri Lanka, which as carried out similar attacks for the same period of time.
     
    In comparison; attempts to resolve the conflict in Sri Lanka are usually precipitated by calls for the LTTE to lay down its arms and renounce violence as if it, and not the Sinhala state, is the cause for the Tamils’ misery. It does not matter that the state was discriminating against and killing Tamils with impunity long before it occurred to the latter that taking up arms might be their only way out.
     
    But let’s for a moment think through what might happen even if the LTTE was to lay down arms. Who would protect the Tamil people from the Sinhala state?
     
    It is worth bearing in mind international responses to recent events in Burma, but also more appalling events in the Balkans and Rwanda, not so long ago.
     
    Given the international community’s tendency to respond only when their interests are at stake, we can be certain that the Tamil people simply cannot count on external intervention to protect them from the state’s violence.
     
    Even now, how many Tamils will Rajapakse’s regime be able to murder before the international community might do something?
     
    Interestingly, this ‘Liberal Peace’ policy of the Western powers and others towards the protagonists in Sri Lanka’s conflict is markedly different to that in Iraq.
     
    Ever since the ‘War on Terror’ began, the US has identified threats to the international system as coming from either rogue states, such as Iraq, Iran and Syria; states deemed to harbour ‘terrorist groups’, such as Afghanistan; or failed states i.e. states without an effective government were ‘terrorists’ can take control of the territory and make it their ‘safe-haven’.
     
    The fear generated by these new categories of states and the potential threats after 9/11 was one of the key planks of US reasoning for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
     
    In response to these attacks it will be expected given the fear of rogue or failed states, the West would seek to staunchly support the government of Iraq, as in Sri Lanka.
     
    However, whilst becoming increasing impatient at the snail’s pace of Iraqi government reform, the US has readily taken steps that reinforce the divisions within the country, both ethnic and sectarian.
     
    Not for Iraq, the ‘multicultural state building’ that everyone is waiting for Sri Lanka to undertake.
     
    In a bid to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, the US has begun arming and funding the very Sunni insurgents that it was battling furiously – in the name of protecting democracy, naturally - till recently.
     
    The policy is being widened as it has produced quick results: the number of attacks on US troops is falling in these areas and the Shia-majority government is, for the first time, faced with a serious compulsion to speed up reforms: the possibility of a well armed Sunni opposition.
     
    The point is the Sunnis are not being integrated into the ‘national’ army and police, but are being armed and supported outside these state institutions.
     
    But even before this departure from the ‘Liberal Peace’, there was another, much more profound one: soon after US forces toppled Saddam Hussein, the Kurdish guerrillas battling his racist regime were quickly institutionalised as a standing army and issued with Iraqi uniforms – along with vast quantities of weapons and systemic training.
     
    This happened soon after Iraq was occupied in 2003. Unlike in Sri Lanka, there was no talk of ‘civil, rather than ethnic politics’, no effort to have solutions ‘that have the support of all Iraqis’, no commitment to ‘one nation’
     
    There was, after all, a war to be fought, goddamit!
     
    Iraqi Kurdistan is thus now already governing itself as a semi-autonomous region, previously having had de-facto independence from 1991 -2003, courtesy of Western air power.
     
    Having said that, in a token commitment to ‘Liberal Peace’, however, soon after Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed, federalism was emphatically ruled out as not necessary– the Iraqis were all going to love each other in democratic euphoria.
     
    But still troops were needed, and the Kurds were trustworthy and tough. Ready made soldiers for the ‘new Iraqi army’.
     
    Most importantly, there was no fear of ‘Balkanisation’, of Iraq ‘falling apart’ if this was done.
     
    Indeed, the recent arming of the Sunnis and the long-running bolstering of Kurdish military capability are both underwritten by tacit international acceptance that the partition of Iraq along its ethnic and religious lines is not necessarily a crisis for the rest of the world.
     
    The argument that Shias and Sunnis ‘will always fight’ has emerged recently not because it is necessarily true, but because the US can’t be asked to linger any longer trying to build a nation-state. It has other issues to attend to.
     
    Curiously, this contrasts with US actions in Sri Lanka, where they train the military and emphatically insist on the need to maintain the country’s territorial integrity.
     
    The point here is that nothing is absolute – not even international commitment to another state’s territorial integrity. We know that international commitment to Sri Lanka is self-interested and calculated, not heart-felt.
     
    The Tamil struggle, as we have been patiently explaining to the world for decades now, is resistance to the Sinhala state’s genocidal violence.
     
    But the more we resist and the more the Sinhala state strives to destroy us, the greater the political and economic cost of international commitment to its hegemonic project.
     
    Unlike the Sinhala leadership, the world does not believe wiping us out is worth any price. Thus, despite international refusals to heed our arguments and pleas, we must continue to resist the Sinhala state’s efforts and assert our right to life.
  • What ‘Responsibility to Protect’ means for Tamils
    Recent calls, such as outlined in a International Crisis Group (ICG) report setting out the case for international intervention in Sri Lanka, couched in the language of the doctrine ‘Responsibility to Protect’ or ‘R2P’, is a far cry from its embryonic use in Serbia where the wishes of the Kosovan Albanian community have been taken up by the most powerful states.
     
    As an emerging doctrine in international relations R2P defines the responsibility of states as protecting populations from grave crisis and to react to them wherever they occur.
     
    R2P was formerly adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2005 in the midst of the crisis in Darfur, following its emergence as the doctrine behind NATO’s assault on Serbia in 1999 to protect the Kosovans.
     
    However since Kosovo, the architects responsible for framing the legality of the R2P doctrine have aimed to limit such intervention to “tackling the crisis by formulating responses and solutions” that work by nevertheless maintaining the territorial integrity of the offending state.
     
    R2P sets out in international law the primary responsibility that states have in protecting their own populations, whilst conferring an onus on the international community to act when these governments fail to protect the most vulnerable.
     
    However, though only recently invested in international law, the world is already facing a rhetoric-implementation gap on R2P.
     
    Put loosely, states wishing to implement the doctrine are too often likely to do so for divergent and self-serving reasons, so whilst the theory is sound, implementation is often weak or skewed.
     
    Countries like the US may cite its obligation under R2P to intervene to overthrow regimes which it cites as ‘harbouring terrorists’ or to ‘protect’ a government at threat of loosing a war to ‘terrorists’ or that has extremist views.
     
    The same policy however, was not used against governments similar to the Pinochet regime in Chile which killed large numbers of people conveniently labelled as communists. The regime was warmly supported by the US and UK.
     
    The US and other western states, without irony, condemn China which has until recently opposed high-level external intervention in Sudna’s Darfur where killings, which many described as genocide, are still ongoing, years after the crisis began.
     
    Therefore opposition to and manipulation of international law and binding UN resolutions means that questions of intervention become more politico-legal and are not as clear cut as advocates of external intervention on behalf of human rights might hope.
     
    Despite the responsibilities of states and the obligations of the international community being clearly stated in the resolutions permitting intervention under R2P this still occurs.
    Consequently intervention by the UN or other UN authorized forces often becomes bogged down in the political dynamics of the offending state.
     
    In other words, it depends on what current international paradigm the state in question invokes as its defence. These days it is usually the ‘War on Terror’ – during the Cold War it used to be ‘fighting communism’’
     
    It also depends on the state’s allies - if particularly influential or UN veto holding states are friendly with the accused government- and how long the state resists pressure to consent to a UN presence in their country.
     
    Under most aspects of international law the UN may not enter the country unless the recognized government grants permission. Which is why action without the state’s consent is termed ‘intervention.’
     
    Therefore, if as some are arguing, the time has come for R2P to be used in
    Sri Lanka, the question becomes which organization or nation(s) would intervene; what are their motivations, and what would the outcome be?
     
    It is well known and documented that successive Sri Lankan Governments have and continue to undertake acts of violence against the Tamil community. Most manifestly the state not only failed to protect Tamil civilians from Sinhalese mobs in ‘Black’ July 1983, it actively supported the pogrom.
     
    It did so whilst receiving undisturbed political and financial support from the international community.
     
    Contrast this to Pakistan which was promptly expelled from the Commonwealth when President Musharraf overthrew the elected government of the day – whatever effect that had.
     
    In the Sri Lankan context, the rhetoric-implementation gap is clear.
     
    With the mountain of evidence strongly showing the extra-judicial violence undertaken by Sri Lankan security forces; the proliferation of paramilitaries, ethnic cleansing and colonisation, etc, intervention can be argued under international law as necessary.
     
    Take instances such as the denial of food for three months to the people of Vaharai during the Army’s siege of the region last year, reminiscent of tactics from the Balkans in the 1990s. It took massive international pressure to get one convoy in – and only half the trucks got through then.
     
    Therefore, it should be theoretically possible to gain a UN resolution backing intervention to protect Tamil civilians.
     
    However, there have not been any serious follow up by the international community with credible explorations as to the implementation of R2P.
     
    Instead international support for Sri Lanka is continually extended under the rubric of the ‘War on Terror’, not least through new proscriptions of the LTTE and the arrest of Diaspora Tamils as ‘terrorist supporters.’
     
    By contrast, NATO, even without a UN mandate in Kosovo, was willing to bomb Serbia to stop the genocide, in effect supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in its fight against the Serbian military.
     
    On the whole though, given in the current international climate around the ‘war on terror’, the containment policy of the US and others towards the LTTE specifically, obtaining any UN Security Council approved intervention to safeguard the Tamil people is an impossibility.
     
    In any case, what we are seeing is a strong resistance to external pressure on human rights by the Rajapakse regime and indeed other Sinhala parties, such as the UNP, who are either seeking to delay foreign intervention for as long as possible or restricting it to minor ‘reforms of the state’.
     
    This is clearly evident in Sri Lankan ministers’ confident attacks on leading UN officials, including denouncing them as ‘terrorists’, whenever they protest human rights or humanitarian breaches by the government.
     
    The stark difference between rhetoric and implementation of R2P and opposition to intervention by key states is not uncommon - UN intervention in Kosovo was vetoed by Russia, citing opposition to UN interference in the ‘internal affairs’ of its friend and long time ally, Serbia. This continues to today with Serbian-Russian opposition to an independent Kosovo.
     
    Rather than coming to champion the rights of the Tamil people to self-determination, as with Kosovo, the most generous international intervention will be the imposition of a minimal solution that will maintain the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, whilst militarily defeating the LTTE.
     
    This can be seen with the suggestion by the European Union that, despite the Rajapakse regime’s unabashed rejection of a negotiation process, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) should come up with its own proposal for a solution to the conflict.
     
    This is nothing more than another attempt to isolate the LTTE from any future peace process or settlement and further weaken the Tamil polity.
     
    In any case, if the Sinhalese establishment is sincere about undertaking the type of reforms the international community envisages, would it not have done so by now?
     
    If the international community sincerely wanted an inclusive peace process and a federal solution that, whilst maintaining the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka also gives Tamils a genuine stake in and ownership of the political process, why did they continue to aid the state despite its refusal to honour the PTOMS agreement or continue negotiations on the interim administration for the Northeast?
     
    Sri Lanka’s post-independence history shows that Tamils have no stake in the Sinhala project that is the Sri Lankan state. This is why the Tamil struggle came about.
     
    Amid the multi-faceted brutality being visited on our people, the time has come to realise our right to rule ourselves in an independent state.
     
    If international intervention is to take place in Sri Lanka it should mirror the Kosovo intervention, recognizing the crimes being committed against our people and accepting that independence from Sinhala rule is the only solution for the Tamil question.
     
  • Independence in today’s world
    An interesting dynamic is underway regarding the future of Kosovo amid United Nations Security Council debates on a lasting solution to a conflict not dissimilar to that in Sri Lanka.
     
    The United States, Britain and France, due to opposition from Russia, China and, of course, Serbia, have been working on a resolution that will quietly yet effectively re-write the criteria for eligibility for independence.
     
    The world’s powers are effectively the ‘gate keepers’ to Statehood. They are well aware that they are not bound by international law to recognise declarations of independence, however justified the demand might be.
     
    This attempt to make Kosovo a ‘special case’ due to the break up of the former Yugoslavia clearly shows the degree to which the ‘War on Terror’ (like the Cold War before it) has profoundly affected international relations.
     
    “International stability” is now the order or the day, overturning genuine and legitimate arguments over denied rights and freedoms
     
    This is the logic, which by criminalizing violence against a state – no matter how repressive the state might be - that leads to organisations like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) being viewed primarily as destabilising elements in the world order. It also ensures increased international support for the state such movements confront.
     
    At the same time, the leaders of the international community dictate the ability of less powerful states to govern and gain access to all institutions and powers which come with international recognition.
     
    This form of patronage ultimately distorts the international system as governing elites in post-colonial states distort the reality of their politics, fitting it into the policy aims and concerns of the leading members of the international community.
     
    We can, for example, see Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse’s framing Sri Lanka’s conflict as part of the ‘global war on terror’ an argument the US has readily and unquestioningly accepted.
     
    Therefore, perversely, nationhood and the right to govern are not, as some would have it, a right to be earned by a people through taking specific steps in a process. It is apparently as a gift to be handed down from the leading states, out of the latter’s largess.
     
    This can especially be seen in the creation of the ‘special case’ of Kosovo, through the handling of which the United Nations is attempting to set a criteria that will limit the number of new states that are likely to appear in future.
     
    In this logic, Kosovo is being treated as a special case because of the break up of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and should not be seen as setting a precedent.
     
    The UN here is clearly attempting to stem any encouragement that other peoples already fighting for their independence might take from the Kosovan case.
     
    The international community hopes that the communities supporting independence, such as the Tamils will be dissuaded and eventually give up the cause.
     
    The point about the ‘special case’ logic is to undermine the possibility that there might be unrecognised legitimate cases for external self-determination.
     
    At the same time, movements like the LTTE are branded a terrorist organisation and its leaders prohibited from raising the debate in international fora.
     
    Conversely, the Sri Lankan President and his ministers are able to travel the world unhindered and garner continued international support and protection for their state’s territorial integrity. Their continued persecution of the Tamils is no bar to international access.
     
    The special case logic also dissuades other states from taking up the independence causes of suffering communities. To champion independence in another state is deemed by this logic to be bad citizen of the world order. To do so where armed struggles is underway would be tantamount to ‘supporting terrorism.’
     
    This would also fit with underlying themes of the report authored by former Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead and titled ‘The United States Role in Sri Lanka’s Peace Process 2002-2006.’
     
    It is a thinly disguised attempt by the US to reclaim its image as a protector of rights and freedoms committed to defending the world’s downtrodden.
     
    At a fundamental it merely reiterates the ‘rightness’ of the dynamics above: armed struggle is not acceptable irrespective of the oppression it resists, independence is not an option, also irrespective of the oppression.
     
    The report is thus simply a continuation of the ‘war on terror’ and the policy of containment of the LTTE by other means. We should not be duped by its ‘soft’ positions.
     
    The LTTE, for example, is condemned as not being democratic. But compare US policy towards Sri Lanka where the Tamil voice is silenced by law, by censorship, by state intimidation and, more effectively, by murder and abduction.
     
    Lunstead’s lament about the lack of US ‘engagement’ is intended to suggest that Tamils may be able to yet secure the international recognition we have long sought whilst actually drawing concrete Tamil support away from the cause of self-determination.
     
    The projected international concern for Tamil well-being is a sham. If they care for us, the first thing they should commit to is our right to self-rule.
     
    Indeed, if the US was serious about engaging honestly in Sri Lanka’s peace process and genuinely wanted the LTTE to participate in Washington and Tokyo Donor conferences, then the necessary legal undertakings to reverse the proscription in the US would have been easily lifted. Which is more important – the war on terror or the search for peace?
     
    Moreover, if they prioritised the pursuit of a just solution above the containment of the LTTE, the US and the other Co-Chairs would not have allowed so many missed opportunities slip by.
     
    Instead they would have ensured the Sri Lankan government implemented its obligations under the P-TOMS and ensured Colombo negotiated an interim administration for the Northeast.
     
    Instead the US administration undertook the complete opposite policy, no doubt, partly, on the assessments provided by their embassy in Sri Lanka.
     
    Thirdly, if the US was genuine about its concerns for a lack of a place for Tamils in the current political setup in Sri Lanka and the international community they should have openly placed the blame for a failure of the peace talks on the Sri Lankan Government, as the saying goes: it takes two to Tango.
     
    Instead, as is evident by their actions both in relation to Sri Lanka and elsewhere, the US and the wider international community, appear more concerned with maintaining the international status quo than with righting the wrongs inflicted on the Tamils.
     
    Was there really no scope under an interim administration for the Northeast to lead to a peace process that could have delivered a federal solution? Why was an interim administration not worth pursuing, but a federal solution was?
    Or, rather, was it all a sham to buy time for the containment of the LTTE to run its course?
     
    It is not the US alone, of course. The ‘war on terror’ and misguided notions of ‘standing together’ have clouded the thinking other leading states too.
     
    Therefore one can only surmise that American and European concerns for Kosovo’s well being are not the result of general sympathy for oppressed minorities, but rather the pursuit of geopolitical and geoeconomic interests.
     
    For some Europeans the major pre-occupation is preventing return of war to the continent, a reaction to the horrors of the Balkan conflict.
     
    But it should not be forgotten that it was the successful exercise of the right to self-determination by Bosnia and Croatia that ultimately ended the bloodshed.
     
    However that lesson is quietly dropped in the rush to stabilise ‘failed’ or ‘weak’ states like Sri Lanka. Instead, whole communities, like the Tamils, are condemned to await international salvation from their oppression.
     
    In short, such peoples are expected to accept the interests and priorities of the international community as naturally more important than their own freedoms.
     
    If this were not the case, how do we explain international attitude and actions towards Sri Lanka until today?
     
    If indeed there really is an international commitment to the lofty ideals of democracy and freedom and so on, would we not have seen active international intervention, not to protect the Sinhala state from the Tamils, but rather the Tamils from the state?
     
    The point here is that international commitment to these principles is merely rhetoric, it is futile, even suicidal, for the Tamils to await liberation by the international community.
    Ultimately, to be free, to be independent, we must first be self-sufficient, self-reliant.

  • Why Tamils face international ‘shock and awe’
    Classic counter-insurgency urges states adopt a twin-track strategy: violence against the guerillas and incentives for civilians not to support them. When serious political dissatisfaction is fueling support for the militants, the incentives must necessarily include a ‘political solution.’

    This is the strategy the international community has encouraged successive Sri Lankan governments fighting the Tamil Tigers to take.

    Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga attempted it in her disastrous ‘war for peace’; offering a devolution package whilst fighting a high intensity war against the LTTE.

    The strategy failed because, firstly, the package was not credible, having been emasculated by Sinhala nationalists, and secondly, the unbridled brutality of her military campaign sent support for the LTTE soaring.

    But President Mahinda Rajapakse is following a different track these days.

    As his recently unveiled ‘power-sharing’ proposals show, Rajapakse is not interested in wooing the Tamils. Rather he intends (in the style of President J. R. Jayawardene)– to teach the Tamils a punishing lesson for defying the state.

    In short, he is not going to persuade the Tamils to abandon the Tigers, he’s going to cow them into submission.

    This is why, despite publicly toying with the notion, he has not put serious effort into forging a southern consensus on what to put before the LTTE at the table.

    It is also why he is unabashedly following a single-minded and ruthless war strategy, marked by mass displacements of Tamils and widespread human rights abuses against them.

    The international community has in recent times come to the realization Rajapakse is simply not interested in their advised approach.

    So, whilst they are still committed to backing Sri Lanka against the LTTE, there is considerable nervousness that Rajapakse is unnecessarily stoking Tamil resentment with his tactics.

    Which is why you sometimes get murmurs of disapproval, along with token measures, from the US, UK and others.

    But in principle the international community is committed to supporting the Sri Lankan state against the LTTE.

    And they know full well that the Tamil Diaspora, located primarily in North America, Europe and Australia, is a crucial well of support for the Tigers.

    The array of bans on the LTTE in US, (first UK, then) EU and Canada, as well as the finance restrictions in Australia are intended to block the financial and material support that Diaspora Tamils are providing the Tigers with.

    Just as Rajapakse has given up trying to win over the Tamils, so has the international community.

    And just as Rajapakse is using a campaign of terror to browbeat the Tamils in Sri Lanka, several Western governments have launched an aggressive campaign against the Diaspora Tamils.

    In the past two months Tamils have been arrested in France, US, and Australia on charges of providing support to the Tigers, of extorting money for the LTTE, and so on. The media is taken along for all the arrests, with massive coverage following.

    A Tamil television station, TTN, which has viewers across Europe, was shut down last month by French authorities. The charge was of not registering the channel properly (though employees allege the authorities simply ignore their applications).

    In Britain, the state-owned BBC and establishment newspapers are conducting a smear campaign alleging that Tamils funding the Tigers are the prime suspects credit card fraud.

    Many of those arrested are openly sympathetic to the LTTE. But most are not simply canvassing for the LTTE. They were exposing the atrocities being inflicted on the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. This violence and deprivation is not not reported by the main media organizations, which are barred from parts of the Northeast or are not equipped and staffed to report continuously from the other areas.

    The ongoing international campaign of ‘shock and awe’ against the Diaspora has two objectives; firstly to pressure the LTTE and, secondly, to demoralize and frighten the Tamil expatriate public.

    The international community appears to have calculated that through such arrests and other harassments of Tamils in foreign countries, it will able to exert sufficient pressure on the LTTE to give up its armed struggle and go to the negotiation table.

    Thus the international campaign against the Diaspora Tamils is an extension of the Sri Lankan state’s campaign of terror against the Tamils there.

    For many states waging the self-styled ‘war on terror,’ Diaspora communities appear threatening and problematic. The logic of ‘legitimate state versus illegitimate terrorists’ is applied without nuance to all states which are prepared to sign up to the ‘global’ war.

    Of course, international politics remains state-centric and states will generally support each other (indeed, with the state as the most powerful political organization around today, that is why the Tamils are seeking their own state).

    The international norms that gained such force at the end of the Cold War, such as those around human rights and protection of civilians, have proved remarkably fragile this century.

    The missed opportunities for positive international action in Sri Lanka have been numerous. In the past couple of year, these include the failure to force the Sri Lankan government to implement PTOMS (the mechanism to share tsunami aid with the LTTE), to re-open the A9 and other humanitarian corridors, to observe international humanitarian law (laws of war), to desist from using food embargoes against Tamil population centers, and so on.

    Even the recent campaign for human rights protection by Amnesty International has not led to reduction in international military and economic support for the Rajapakse government.

    This unwavering support stems from a belief that whatever its flaws, the Sri Lankan state will ultimately reform, drop its Sinhala chauvunism and become a ‘liberal democracy’ in the model of the Western donors backing it.

    This belief underpinned the attachment of conditionality to aid disbursed by donors during the Norwegian peace process. The conditions were meant to ensure aid flowed to reward ‘good’ behavour and was blocked by ‘bad’ behaviour.

    Indeed, more often than not, the state was given the benefit of the doubt and conditionality was often dropped.

    Most of the $4.5bn pledged in Tokyo in June 2003 was made conditional on ‘progress in the peace process.’ Despite the country sliding steadily into the present all out war, most of that aid had been disbursed by 2006.

    The international community approach is mainly carrot for the Sri Lankan state and stick for the Tamils. The ‘shock and awe’ strategy unleashed against expatriate Tamils in the past few weeks has at least four objectives.

    First, to terrorize Tamil expatriates into not extending their financial, material and political support to the LTTE for fear of arrest or harassment.

    Secondly, to frighten Tamil activists into not engaging in political activity in their host countries against the Sri Lankan government.

    Thirdly, to force expatriate Tamils to pressure the Tigers into giving up the armed struggle and negotiating instead with the Sri Lankan government.

    And lastly, perhaps most desirably, for the Tamil Diaspora to pursue their political aspirations, not by backing the LTTE, but other actors. These could be other Tamil actors – so called ‘moderates’ – such as the paramilitary groups that are allied with Colombo against the LTTE.

    But, ideally, the international community would like expatriate Tamils to go running after the host states themselves. Rather than the LTTE being the representatives of the Tamils, the host states, citing its ‘own citizens,’ could instead take up this mantle instead.

    International calculations figure expatriates’ money and expertise could be channeled through ‘official channels’ to the Tamils of the Northeast. Then not only would the LTTE be denied the Diaspora’s support, the oppressive Sri Lankan state could perversely harness the expatriates’ efforts to better their brethren’s plight towards defeating the Tamil struggle.

    This is why Western states are knowingly assisting Sri Lanka’s efforts to terrify and intimidate the Tamils by targeting Tamil media, community organizations and political activists in their own territories.

    Whilst the international community makes much of the lack of press freedom in Sri Lanka, France shuts down the TTN television on a registration technicality.

    While media promoting the LTTE or Tamil perspective are thus blocked, Sri Lankan government’s claims against the Tigers – such as the credit card allegations – are propagated through mainstream Western media.

    While the Sri Lankan government is chided for not allowing NGOs to operate, Tamil expatriate organizations seeking to highlight Colombo’s human rights abuses are harassed and investigated on charges of ‘supporting LTTE terrorism.’

    Whilst Sri Lanka is gently urged to allow humanitarian access and provision of shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils, Tamil expatriates are aggressively prevented from supporting Diaspora charities and trusts that are known to be working effectively in the Northeast.

    The Tamil Diaspora must not be shocked and awed by the ongoing international hostility. Rather than retreat from participating in politics, we should do exactly the reverse and participate more actively.

    The international community’s actions are based on perceptions of self-interest. We should engage with key states and INGOs as part of our efforts to promote the Tamil cause.

    Ultimately, what is crucial is that the Diaspora continues to support the Tamils’ sixty year struggle for political rights.

    This month sees the 31st anniversary of the passing of the Vaddokoddai Resolution, unanimously adopted by the first convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the year before the party won a sweeping mandate in the 1977 elections.

    The Resolution, concludes with a plea to us, the Tamil people.

    It calls “upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular to come forward to throw themselves fully in the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam is reached.”
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