BETA

Two weeks ago the Sri Lankan Air Force carried out the assassination of Mr Thamilselvan. He was the chief peace negotiator who represented the Tamils. Most Tamils agree that his killing was a targeted decapitation act by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL).

Last week the Sri Lankan President presented his budget. He allocated more than twenty percent of his budget to war. During the presentation he vowed to ‘completely eradicate terrorism’ and dubbed his war as purely ‘humanitarian’.

While he was uttering these words a huge military onslaught was underway in the Tamil North. This was beaten back by the concerted effort of the Tamil fighters.

Thus political observers, both inside Sri Lanka and outside, predict doom and gloom in the coming years.
 
We, in the Tamil Diaspora are not so excited about these predictions. Simply because the doom and gloom scenario has been there in the Tamil Homeland since Mr Rajapakse and his brothers took control of the levers of power in Colombo. Our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters have been living in this nightmare for more than two years now.

But still they successfully resist all the efforts of the Sri Lankan government’s pacification programmes. This resistance was evident in the way our people celebrated one of our famous son’s life.

‘Humanitarian’ War & War for Peace

Pro GOSL pundits and the Sinhalese press are wishing an overwhelming success for Mr Rajapakse’s ‘humanitarian’ war strategy. They dream about crumbling Tamil resistance and a dictated peace. They predict a war in the Northern front with no strings attached and a historical victory for the Sinhalese.

But the underlying military reality is that the GOSL has long since lost the war in the Tamil Northeast. As many neutral military and intelligence analysts recognise, Mr Rajapakse’s war is not winnable in any normal sense of the word. Sending tens of thousands more Sinhalese troops into the Tamil Heartland of Vanni only guarantees a high body count.  And it will increase the historical enmity between the Tamils and Sinhalese.

To get a sense of the inevitable disaster ahead, just envision the conditions for the Sinhalese troops stuck in the hot and humid Vanni jungles stalked by the home grown resistance fighters who know the terrain like the backs of their hands.

The death toll in and around the Vanni that Mr Rajapakse’s ‘humanitarian’ war is creating, is only at its beginning. In the months ahead, as more Sinhalese troops are exposed in less protected positions the likelihood is that the casualty rates will grow further.

But the basic reason that Rajapakse’s “humanitarian war” plan is doomed to failure is that the GOSL lost the heart and minds of the Tamils long time ago. That is exactly why Mrs Kumaratunge- Mr Kadirgama duo’s “war for peace” failed too.

Some observers interpret these acts of war by the Sinhalese leaders against the Tamils as a cynical political tool. We do not consider Mr Rajapakse’s ‘humanitarian’ war as a political tool to be in power. It is much more deep and meaningful than that. It is the naked expression of exclusivist Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. This is the primary ideology which underpins every thing in Sri Lanka. Mr Rajapakse can not be bothered with sugar coating his aggressive ideology with woolly liberalism unlike Mrs Kumaratunge and her ilk. That is the only difference.

At every key juncture of their wars, Sinhalese leaders have pointed to a new mirage of expected success as the GOSL staggers deeper and deeper into the quagmire. First, there was the expectation of victory after the Tamil East was occupied. Two weeks ago it was the assassination of Mr Thamilselvan.

Last week while presenting his war budget Mr Rajapakse wanted to tell the people of the good news from the battle front. Then his plan was spoiled by the Tamils.

Turning-point after turning-point, conditions only get worse for the GOSL.

Macabre Fantasy

What is now underway in Colombo is the playing out of a macabre fantasy.

The GOSL seeks to sustain the fiction of progress in its ‘humanitarian’ war. Rajapakse brothers, for instance, “stroll” through a market in the Tamil East surrounded by hundreds of soldiers and protected by helicopter gun ships. They claim that the East is free and fully pacified.

When the happy talk brings derision – as occurred with the “stroll” – Rajapakse’s backers turns their strategy around and predicts an apocalyptic future for the Sinhalese instead– armed Tamils running wild in Sinhalese towns and villages if the GOSL do not carry out this war.

Few days ago a learned and liberal Sinhalese professor described the GOSL’s position as ‘even if the President for some unforeseen reason wants to even slow down the much promised military campaign into Vanni, he will not be in a position to do so.’ This gentleman usually likes ‘to offer sober advice in public to the President or his advisors as to how to politically manage the war with the LTTE without alienating the Tamil citizens from the state, or subverting democratic norms, institutions and practices.’

Thus it remains easier for Sinhalese politicians – and pundits – to maintain the pretence of future war victories in the Tamil North than to risk accusations that they are “defeatists” or that they have lost faith in “the troops.”

Almost no one wants to tell the Sinhalese people the hard truth: that the Vanni War will be one of the worst military debacles in Sri Lanka’s history.

Yet, in the marble halls and the dinner parties of Colombo, it makes more sense, career wise, to “keep an open mind” about Mr Rajapakse’s ‘humanitarian’ war and give him a blank cheque.