Thoughts from London

Donors, kroners and so much bull
Those who have seen the LTTE calendar that has been doing the rounds might well have thought it bluster and baloney. Not so Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who was at the centre of that carefully crafted page.

Surrounded by pictures of visiting foreign dignitaries to Wanniland, VP’s photogenic visage did not tell as much as the quote from his own Red Book.

VP’s thoughts might not have had the electrifying effect of Mao Zedong’s on China, paving the way for a cultural revolution that was a great leap back instead forward as Mao predicted.

But had somebody paid attention to the simple thought on that page Milinda Moragoda would not have been gloating over the international safety net that Ranil Wickremesinghe and he supposedly built to catch the Tigers.

They should have known that generations before Prabhakaran, people in that part of the northern coastal belt have been using nets for and it was certainly not to catch Tigers.

VP’s thought, to put it crudely, was this. The international community might tell us what to do. But we do as we like.

Now if some of those pundits and chattering heads that appear in print and on television displaying an intellectual power enough to blow the fuses, pay heed to these little things instead of those heavy tomes on conflict resolution and the rest of the impedimenta that is part of this profitable industry, they might have gained some insights into the mind of the man.

Prabhakaran has not got the experience of Swiss business schools like Moragoda or the Colombo university law faculty’s hair splitting abilities that Wickremesinghe might have acquired.

The LTTE leader is a suspicious man. He believes that he has been let down by those who he thought were his friends -- India, as represented by the Mani Dixits and the Hardeep Puris. He does not trust this so-called international community.

Right now he might trust Norway. But for how long, one might ask.
Despite the ceasefire, the LTTE has continued to absorb child soldiers by whatever means. This violation of the ceasefire agreement and of UN treaties has been documented by UNICEF and the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The LTTE has been warned by the UN and by the European Commission, as then External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten did two years ago.
These organisations have increased the tenor of their criticisms over recent months but has it had any real impact on the behaviour of the LTTE? True, the other day the UNICEF head in Colombo reportedly said that child recruitment has dwindled. But it has not stopped.

After the Lakshman Kadirgamar assassination when Sri Lanka raised the stakes, calling for a ban on the LTTE, the European Union finally reacted, applying some pressure on the LTTE.

It may not have been all that Colombo wanted. But the EU declaration did carry a threat of further action if the LTTE continued to engage in unacceptable activities.

Except for accusations of bias and one-sidedness, did the Tigers change their stripes? No. Possibly because they were sure that any moves to ban the LTTE by the EU would meet opposition from Sweden and Denmark, two members of the Nordic Council that includes Norway. Conveniently they are all on the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

Even after the EU’s travel ban and threat of further sanctions, the Tiger leadership has cocked a snook at the international community. The EU sanctions did not stop the Tigers from blowing up some 15 soldiers and thirteen sailors in three incidents in the north or killing other soldiers and civilians.

After the December 19 meeting in Brussels the Co-Chairs castigated the LTTE not only for depriving “Tamil voters of their right to vote” but also condemned “in the strongest terms the recent escalation in violence in the North and East.”

“The Co-Chairs call on the LTTE to put an immediate end to their on-going campaign of violence and again urge the LTTE to demonstrate their commitment to the Ceasefire Agreement and the peace process.”
Then came the admonition, as grave perhaps as the EU warning itself.
“Failure to demonstrate a willingness to change would not be without serious consequences.”

What the “serious consequences” are, one could only speculate. But banning the Tigers in individual countries, cracking down on fund raising and on front organisations and travel through any of the countries involved would indeed be on the cards.

Prabhakaran and his advisers cannot be unaware of what consequences would flow. They would have thought this through and weighed the consequences.

Even the serious admonitions of the Co-Chairs that includes Norway (facilitator but more importantly a major LTTE financier) have not diminished the ardour of the Tigers to do as they please -- conduct a war of attrition in the north and east in the hope that it would lead to retaliation and prospects of a real war.

Surely it was sheer brazenness and a show of their collective fingers to the international community that made the Tigers fire at a helicopter that was to transport the Italian deputy foreign minister and her delegation from the east.

The Tigers denied responsibility but the SLMM was quick to point the finger at the LTTE, possibly because a senior politician of a EU member state could have been the victim.

A few days after the Co-Chairs statement, Benita Ferraro-Waldner the EC External Relations Commissioner, suspected by some to be sympathetic to the Tigers, herself declared that despite the EU travel ban the LTTE’s attitude had not changed and expressed frustration and dismay over the Tiger-imposed boycott that deprived some 700,000 Tamils of their vote.
If all this western pressure -- unless all this is a carefully constructed façade to mislead the Sri Lankan political leadership -- has not mattered a jot and the LTTE went to the extent of attacking the navy after all this, how could the Tiger be brought to heel?

Has the international community asked the question?
Unfortunately we are not privy to the discussion India had with the Co-Chairs at a separate meeting in Brussels. One thing is very clear. India will not involve itself directly as a facilitator or as another co-chair. The stage is already getting crowded.

It is equally clear that Tiger activities that impinge on India’s security such as reports of the LTTE training of Maoist suicide squads in the Bihar-Nepalese border and its involvement with an Indian Tamil separatist movement would be assessed very carefully. Such news cannot bring joy to New Delhi.

Interestingly the Co-Chairs referred to a settlement “based on a united Sri Lanka” -- a view doubtless shared by India. President Mahinda Rajapakse’s talks in New Delhi next week might clear some of the air on where India stands. Whatever the hue of the government in New Delhi, there is a common thread that runs through Indian policy today. Sri Lanka is a friendly country.

India must necessarily be a key component of any strategy that Colombo now formulates to build on the increasing frustration of the international community against the Tigers.

The LTTE leader’s calculation is that as long as he could enthuse his cadres and expand his militarily-trained base and the Tamil diaspora keeps the wheels of the Wanni running, he could continue to thumb his nose at the world.

From Colombo’s standpoint it has to persuade the international community to structure a policy that goes beyond mere threats and bluster and actually clamps meaningful sanctions, collectively or individually, that really hurt?

That would now have to be the fall back position if talks do not materialise.

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