Editorial

Colombo's real test lies ahead

By all accounts it is a famous victory. With the Tamil Tigers on the run, reduced to a tiny proportion of their territory and no sign of their leaders, there seems little doubt that the Sri Lankan government has dealt a mortal blow to the Tamil Eelam autonomy movement. The Tigers have gained a reputation for carrying out some of the bloodiest and most cowardly terrorist attacks of an era in which the world has become almost anaesthetised to horror to the point where it becomes almost ineffective as a threat. The determination of Colombo to get rid of this monstrous threat to the island's stability is understandable but it would be a mistake to believe that this 'final solution' military campaign provides a resolution or, indeed, will see an end of the problem.

One of the most enduring negative legacies of the unlamented Bush era is likely to be the reduction of complex world disputes into simplistic 'you're with us or against us' scenarios, an extension of the 'might is right' theory of world government. The untrammelled use of force, such as the Israelis' attack on Gaza, without significant opposition from world powers has only served to give the impression that anything justifies the use of force even where the majority of those affected are going to be civilians. Just as the Israelis have not succeeded in bombing their way out of the Palestinian/Hamas standoff, Colombo too has not bought itself a resolution of the Tamil problem though it may believe so at the moment. The United States government's facile use of the word 'terrorist' to label anyone with whom it does not agree and its political devaluation of the term when a change of tack suits its temporary interests has contributed to obfuscation of issues and a tendency to lump together radicals of all stripes. It has also debased the language of international discourse making it ever more difficult to cut through to the real causes of a problem thus making resolution more difficult in the supposedly modern and enlightened era in which we live.

Perhaps the Sri Lanka government felt stung by a lack of understanding of its problems in the West as aid dried up in response to anti-Tamil operations that London and Washington felt went beyond the pale. The government in Colombo has been able to prosecute its current bloody campaign because it was able to cock a snook at the West and get the aid anyway — from sponsors in Beijing and Tehran who have now made up for the lack of western assistance. Colombo may be right in saying to the West that it no longer has moral authority to lecture South Asians on the conduct of their own domestic affairs but it risks much more than western opprobrium if it does not prosecute the next stage of the exercise properly. Having concluded its military campaign, Colombo must make certain that it takes all possible measures to ensure that it does not add to an already potentially tragic human situation and feed the fires of further unrest. The announcement that it will set up a series of concentration camps to house the residual civilian population seems certain to do just that. With an estimated 200,000 Tamils driven from their homes by the offensive the government obviously has an interest in trying to ensure that as many as possible of these civilians are not in a position once again to threaten the government. But how that is done will be paramount.

At the moment the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse plans to hold all of them in these holding centres where they will be detained under armed guard and screened for terrorist connexions while only those with relatives inside the camps will be allowed to come and go. Young, single people will be confined to the centres. Former foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera is among those concerned about this development. 'It is amazing and terrible,' he said in an interview with a British newspaper. 'A few months ago the government started registering all Tamils in Colombo on the grounds that they could be a security threat, but this could be exploited for other purposes like the Nazis in the 1930s. They're basically going to label the whole Tamil population as potential terrorists, and, as a result, we are becoming a recruitment machine for the LTTE. Instead of winning the hearts and minds of the Tamil people, we're pushing even the moderates into the arms of the LTTE by taking these horrendous steps.'

Just as the pen is mightier than the sword so ideas remain stubbornly resistant to incendiary bombs over the long term. Just because the current crop of fighters has already fled or is dead does not mean that the ideas for which they fought have gone away. Whatever the feelings of the current generation of Sri Lankan politicians about the Tamils, it remains incumbent upon them to struggle for a long-term solution to this problem which takes account of the rights of the Tamils in their midst. To do anything less would be an abdication of their responsibilities to future generations of Sri Lankans and the nature of the country they leave behind.

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