Another news item seemed to capture events in essence. "Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers - from battlefield to boardroom" says the headline. The LTTE's quest for legitimacy is officially over.

The coincidence couldn't be more eerie though. The LTTE's coming out party is almost totally in synchrony with the first anniversary of the September 11, attacks on the World Trade Centre which are being remembered with paroxysms of outrage against those who led the attacks and their like. Incidentally, Richard Armitage looks a solid slab of granite. He is also the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, and the highest ranking US official who visited this country since John Foster Dulles was in Colombo in 1955.

I asked Armitage at the Temple Trees, when he was flanked by the Prime Minister and his Secretary, the following question: "The US government will not negotiate under any circumstances with the Al Qaeda (which your government has branded a terrorist organization) but why does your government encourage our government to negotiate with the LTTE, which has also been branded a terrorist organization by your government?''

A quick double take, and Armitage is back at the lectern. "The United States will not negotiate with the Al Qaeda - and the United States will not negotiate with the LTTE….your government has initiated talks with the LTTE… and even though we do not encourage talking to the LTTE…. We are supporting the efforts taken by your government which has begun a peace process and we are helping the Norwegians.''

So now we know. The official position of the United States is that the Sri Lankan government initiated talks with Tigers and brought them from the battlefield into the boardroom. The inference at least is that the US government would have been prepared to help Sri Lanka take on the Tigers in the battlefield. Though it is well known for several reasons that US help for the Sri Lankan government to take on the Tiger on the battlefield wouldn't have amounted to much, it is clear that (a) the US considers the LTTE a terrorist organization and will have nothing to do with it and (b) that under circumstances, since it is the Sri Lankan government that has undertaken the peace initiative, the US government has not much choice but to support these initiatives.

This at least is the stated position. A reluctant backer may not offer much of an insurance policy against a possible decision by the LTTE to abandon talks and attack. It is paradoxical however that the international community had not previously given the Sri Lankan government much of a choice except to get the LTTE into the boardroom.

Whether this position would have changed after September 11, is never really known because the proof of the pudding would have been in the eating. If the Sri Lankan government took on the Tiger with some alacrity after September 11, last year, does it mean that Armitage would put his money where his mouth is - and along with his boss - help the Sri Lankan government? We'd never rally have any answer to this as the Tigers have already been ushered into the boardroom.

History may probably give more credit to Ranil Wickremesinghe than the present does. He probably read it correct that either the US or any other Western power will not help the Sri Lankan cause in the battlefield. But he probably calculated that the international community will be obliged to give Sri Lanka some assistance in the September 11 mood, if the peace initiatives with the Tigers failed.

But yet all that is in the realm of conjecture. Perhaps since politics is the art of the possible there is no politics without conjecture.

But yet again, conjecture is one thing - instinct is another - and the facts are vastly different. The facts are that the Sri Lankan government decided to wage peace and not wage war, even though the US says "we will not talk to the Tigers''. Ergo, several things. a) It is not possible to expect the US to insure the peace moves and bail out the Sri Lankan government if the Tigers attack. b) Perhaps the Sri Lankan government could have come by international assistance if there was a decision made to wage war after September 11, and there would have been, perhaps, a good chance to militarily defeat the LTTE.

Having said that, the least that can be granted to Ranil Wickremesinghe is that there may be more to these facts than meets the eye, and that perhaps the US is being hypocritical when one of its highest ranking officials say "we will not talk to the LTTE'' while at the same time, pushing the Sri Lankan government towards negotiations either by acts of commission (by goading the government to talk despite the rhetoric) or by acts of omission (by not helping the Sri Lankan government to take on what the US brands a terrorist organization.)

If the peace succeeds, they will say Ranil Wickremesinghe trusted his instincts despite the facts staring in the face, and that he succeeded. But if the peace fails and the LTTE attacks, they will say Ranil Wickremesinghe had the facts staring him in the face - but dragged the country down a disastrous path of destruction, in spite of it. If the peace succeeds and the Tigers still establish a separate state some will say "Ranil had no choice' yet others will say "he had the facts on his side but sold the country.' We the people will never really know where the truth lies on that one, because, well - we are talking about the Americans mainly….

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster