The legacy of British imperialism, as well as class conflicts and exploitation, are the major underpinnings of the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka.

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Asymptotic Life ponders what it could mean.

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It happened in Sri Lanka, not Iraq.

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I received a strange and disturbing report today from one of my contacts: Eyewitnesses say that Tamil civilians in the North of Sri Lanka have attacked the LTTE (Tamil Tigers).

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AsymptoticLife is there, and blogging regularly about the Sri Lanka peace movement.

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Sarodaya organized it, and will have a live webcast starting Monday 3 pm in Sri Lanka, (GMT +4.5) or 2:30 am PDT.

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Illinois congressman Danny Davis travelled to Sri Lanka last year, a trip paid for by the Tamil Tigers, a group designated as terrorist by the U.S.

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US authorities just arrested 8 for conspiring to buy surface-to-air missiles and assault rifles for the Tamil Tigers as well as trying to bribe US officials to get the Tigers removed from the list of terrorist organizations.

The ceasefire in that country has broken down almost completely, with major offensives happening now on both sides. Truce monitors have pulled back after the Tigers ordered all observers from Europe out of the country by Sept. 1.

Their civil war is now over two decades old, with tens of thousands already dead. Yikes.

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From DJ Mitchell

The One-Party Solution

It’s been quiet in Sri Lanka for the past few days.  Some people fear it’s been too quiet.  Nevertheless, things are happening.

First, the President empanelled the inaptly named All Parties Representative Committee (APRC).  This is ostensibly a committee representing all the parties of Sri Lanka, which will seek “a Sri Lankan political solution… to the ethnic problem” (See http://www.dailynews.lk/ - “Priority for home grown solution”).  While a nice idea, the Committee is somewhat handicapped.  First, it included only political parties, so the LTTE was left out.  Second, I’ve been informed that the UNP—the major opposition party—boycotted the Committee.  So the Committee has the support of only one of the three major players.  That’s not very representative.

If history is any indication, it is likely that the Committee will produce a proposed solution which the UNP will abrogate and the LTTE will reject sight-unseen.  The government will declare the LTTE intransigent, and will thus create a mandate for military action.  It may also declare the UNP intransigent and use this as an excuse to consolidate power.  These are events that have happened before, and they are not unexpected in the current state of affairs.

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Most don’t know the history of Sri Lanka, and what led to the civil war which has raged for over twenty years. Western media generally focuses on what’s happening now, with little, if any, historical background.

Now

Sri Lankan forces, shooting indiscriminately, stormed a church where hundreds of Tamils were taking shelter, and then opened fire in the surrounding village, killing five people and wounding dozens, witnesses said.

The government denied the accusation and blamed Tamil Tiger rebels, but numerous witnesses and an international aid worker said Sri Lankan forces were responsible for the deaths as the island nation appeared to stumble even closer toward all-out war.

The players

The government.

The insurgent Tamil Tigers (LTTE) have an estimated 8,000, well-trained and equipped soldiers. They are engaged in a nationalist war for independence, and are considered skilled and ruthless.

The Karuna Faction consists of a few hundred, however they are seasoned. Karuna was one of the top three Tiger generals until 2004 when he split with them. He’s Hindu and eastern, the Tiger leadership mostly Christian, northern, low caste (although it’s not about religion.)

The history

450 years of colonialization by Portugal, Holland, then England. The Sinhalese are in the majority, with Tamils a minority.

The Brits gave high caste Tamils important roles, knowing they wouldn’t revolt as things were made better for them. They were used as a foil against the majority Sinhalese. Divide and conquer was a favored tactic used by England in their colonies. They also created a Sinhalese merchant class in opposition to traditional Sinhalese leadership. More divide and conquer.

After independence in 1948, elite Tamils wanted to maintain their favored position, while the Sinhalese majority want in. Since Sinhalese had the majority vote, they ended up ruling. Sinhalese leadership then wanted to take the vote from estate Tamils (virtual slaves.) Elite Tamils agreed. It was a class thing. About 50% of estate Tamils, some who had been there for generations, were denied the right to vote. Many returned to India.

In ‘56, the nationalist movement among Sinhalese forced the Sinhala language to be mandated as the only national language. Tamils began to be restricted in what they could do.

1960. Tamil leaderships call “satyagraha”, a non-violent protest. It lasted several months and was successful enough to trigger violent reaction from military. Many were shot. The protest was put down brutally.

Tamil militancy began. It faded out until ‘72, when the Indo-Pakistan war and independence for Bangladesh inspired Tamils. Then came the first JVP armed rebellion in South. They were Marxist Buddhists, supported by deep South, educated but unemployed Sinhalese. It failed and the government executed thousands.

Tamil youth became inspired by rebellion. By ‘76, there were several Tamil rebel groups, including the beginning of LTTE.

July 1983. The Black July riots. The Government killed an LTTE leader. The LTTE retaliated with a mine attack on an army patrol, killing several. The Sinhalese population of Columbo erupted, with mobs killing between 400-3,000 Tamils. The Government tolerated and may have encouraged this.

Many Tamils then decided they could no longer trust the government.

Most date 1983 as the beginning of the war.

1986, LTTE had out-maneuvered, absorbed, or eliminated most other Tamil militant groups.

1987, to appease India the government invited 200,000 troops from the India Peacekeeping Force, supposedly to protect Tamils and provide a buffer. LTTE attacked them. IPKF responded with atrocities. JVP launched a second rebellion. This one gets off the ground. For two years, there is a second cvil war in the south. Thousands were killed by both sides. (The JVP currently has renounced violence and is part of the ruling coalition. Without their support, the government would fall.)

The government arms private militias.

1989. JVP brutally put down. The government negotiates IPKF withdrawal. Rearms LTTE as hedge against India. Why is India interested? Several reasons, including, 1) There are many Tamils in south India who don’t want Tamils in Sri Lanka to become more oppressed. 2) India doesn’t want the LTTE to win as it could trigger more separatist movements in India. 3) India doesn’t want Sri Lanka overly successful and becoming economic competition. 4) India does not want a foreign power getting control of Trincomolee harbor in Sri Lanka, as it could then become a naval base, possibly threatening them.

1990. LTTE rules Jaffna. Order restored by the government by brute force in the south.

1990-2001. War rages, with few interruptions.

2002. Cease-fire.

2004. Karuna splits from Tigers. There are unconfirmed reports he might be backed by India. Reports that the government supports him are probably exaggerated although they clearly have a common interest.

Today. Cease fire no longer in effect.

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Heavy fighting has broken out between government forces and suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka.

That’s an odd phrase, “suspected Tamil Tiger rebels” I mean, who else would the government be attacking?

On Friday the air force pounded rebel positions for a second day in retaliation for a bus blast in which 64 died.

The Tigers denied involvement in the bus attack, saying the bombing might have been the work of a paramilitary group linked to the government.

This could be true. Or not. There’s no real way for an outsider to tell. The cease-fire there exists only on paper now, with major violence expected soon in this two decades old civil war.

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Amnesty International has urged the Sri Lankan government to investigate fully a spate of killings of civilians.

The human rights group noted “a disturbing pattern of incomplete or ineffective investigations by the government” into such violence.

The appeal came after 13 Tamil civilians, two of them young children, were shot dead near Jaffna on Saturday.

Things are tilting seriously towards civil war. There are three players; the government, the Tamil Tigers, and the Karuna Faction. The Tigers are considered among the best equipped and trained insurgents anywhere, not to mention a well-deserved reputation for being ruthless. The Karuna Faction is headed by a former high ranking general who split from the Tigers and now operates on his own. Both the Tigers and Karuna have several thousand troops, control parts of the countryside, and engage in guerilla warfare.

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Sri Lankan rebels appealed to the international community to pressure the government against taking further military action in Tamil areas, saying the raids in response to a suicide bombing amounted to genocide.

The government of Sri Lanka has “openly declared war” and other countries are “turning a blind eye” to the assaults, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said in a statement late yesterday after the air strikes on rebel positions. “We call on the international community to strongly condemn this genocidal attempt on the Tamil-speaking people.”

India loathes Tigers, fears impact of Sri Lanka war

No country mistrust the Tamil Tigers more than India but when Sri Lanka began bombing rebel positions this week its giant neighbour got nervous.

The air and artillery strikes, which followed a suspected Tiger suicide bomb attack that killed 10 and wounded the army commander, halted on Thursday, with the government under international pressure — not least from New Delhi — to stop.

In just a few weeks, things in Sri Lanka have gone from peaceful to nearly out of control.

More from DJ Mitchell, who lived in Sri Lanka for several years, working with Sarvodaya, an organization working to end the civil war.

In the past few weeks, violence has been increasing in the area of Trincomalee. LTTE attacks on the one hand, and Sinhala extremist attacks on the other, had already (according to BBC reports) driven several hundred people from their homes. The military appears not to have been involved in these attacks, although there are reports (also through BBC) of disappearances and extra-judicial killings at the hands of the security forces.

On Tuesday this week, a suicide bomber attacked Army HQ, seriously wounding the top general and killing 8 bystanders. On Wednesday, the military responded by bombing LTTE positions around Trinco, and the LTTE also used mortars against Navy ships. The LTTE reported 40,000 refugees were driven out, though my sources put that number closer to 15,000, and a smaller number around Batticaloa (which has not made the news).

On Thursday, there was a lull in the violence. Public gatherings in Colombo were banned “for public safety.” Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has been working urgently to get the two parties back to the negotiating table.

Is this a return to war, or is it two sides jockeying for better position in prelude to further talks? My sources think it is the latter, though I am not completely convinced. What is most troubling to me about the events of this week is not the inter-party violence, but a return to the indiscriminate killing of civilians: by the LTTE’s suicide bomber and by military’s the shelling.

Everywhere I have gone in the war affected areas, Sinhalese people have told me, “We do not want to fight Tamils,” and Tamil people have told me, “We do not want to fight Sinhalese.” In my opinion, this is a war perpetrated by the leaders of both sides on the people of Sri Lanka. The challenge is getting the voice of the people to be heard.

How can the peace movement respond to this upsurge in violence? The plans we had continue to move forward, but clearly a new and significant response is called for if we are to have any effect on the situation. What that response will be we do not yet know. For now, it is back to the planning stage.

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40,000 flee Sri Lanka violence

Some 40,000 civilians fled homes in northeastern Sri Lanka to escape government airstrikes on Tamil rebel areas in recent days that have killed at least a dozen people, the rebels said Thursday.

DJ Mitchell blogged here eloquently earlier today about the collapsing cease fire in Sri Lanka.

40,000 refugees in one day. Hard to grasp, isn’t it.

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From DJ Mitchell.

Today’s suicide bomb attack in Sri Lanka appears to mark the return to business as usual. It was bad enough that certain officials were targetted by snipers. The resumpton of suicide bombing indicates a disregard for collateral damage– in other words, innocent bystanders.

It must be noted that the LTTE is not alone in its march to war. The government has used paramiltaries, such as TELO and EPDP, to harrass LTTE supporters. Ethnic violence between LTTE-supporters and hard-line Sinhalese groups has increased daily in Trincomalee, and schools are beginning to fill with refugees. There have been reports of Tamils being abducted by the security forces and found dead the next day. The number of disappearances on both sides has increased. While the army has so far been reluctant to re-enter the war directly, there has been plenty of violence conducted on the government’s behalf.

Also the so-called Karuna Faction of the LTTE, the breakaway group that has sided (more or less) with the government, has attacked the LTTE regularly. Led by LTTE’s former top strategist, the Karuna Faction is effective and deadly. The LTTE claims that Karuna is supported and armed by the government, as well as India, but I have not had any independent reports indicating that this is true.

While it is true that Karuna and the government have a common enemy, Karuna’s claim that they arm themselves with captured LTTE weaponry appears (so far) to be true. Nevertheless, today’s bombing indicates a turning point, perhaps a tipping point beyiond which a resumption of war is inevitable. While I offer my condolences to Gen. Fonseka and his family for his grave injuries, my sympathy goes out to the Sinhalese and Tamil civilians, for they are the ones who will bear the brunt of the renewed violence.

And yet the quest for peace is not over. (I pray that it will never be over.) More on that when I have current details on what’s been going on.

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From DJ Mitchell, who has spent considerable time in Sri Lanka, and knows the politics well, comes this report of the ominous situation there.

The BBC report “Sri Lanka: Talks or War?” conveys the underlying confusion in the current situation since the LTTE announced earlier this week that they were pulling out of the Geneva talks. Observing from a distance, even with local contacts, doesn’t put me in a position of better understanding.

What is clear is this: violence in the Trincomalee area has escalated. Forces on both sides are targetting homes and civilians. There are both casualties and refugees, though the numbers of each are not yet available. My contacts say it’s getting worse each day. What is less clear is where it’s going.

The LTTE on the one side, and the Sinhala extremists on the other, appear committed to more violence, The government has been holding the military back, though recent statements of support by the U.S. appear to be giving them confidence. The BBC reports that neither side wants to go back to war.

But my sources suggest that both sides believe they can win if they do go back to war. The government is not yet ready. The Tigers, it appears, are. Yet appearances on both sides may be deceiving. The LTTE is known for feints and brinksmanship. They may not want war, even though it appears that that do. OTOH, the Sinhala extremists are allied with the government. In January, the President was able to call off the JVP’s hartal with a phone call. With the extremists engaging in this increased violence, the question arises, is it with government approval, or is the President politically too weak to stand up to them?

In my view, the age old truth remains at the root of this situation: politicians gain power in times of war. Few politicians can resist the opportunity to gain power, and fewer still will vote to reduce their power. Once again, the leadership on both sides moves toward war– and the people suffer. Roughly 65,000 people have died in the Sri Lankan civil war since 1983. Two thirds of them have been civilians.

Some view the conflict as being between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people, others view it as between the government and the LTTE. I prefer to view it as leaders of both sides committing violence against the people of Sri Lanka. And once again, the people are losing.

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DJ Mitchell concludes his trip to Sri Lanka, working with Sarvodaya, an organization working to end the civil war there.

“Note: Peace events cost money. At the million-person Spiritual Gathering, Sarvodaya will provide transportation, food, lodging (in tents), and sanitation for many more people than the city’s infrastructure is prepared to handle. I have not yet received an estimate of the cost. For the Initiative for a People’s Constitution, Sarvodaya will train 20 facilitators and hold 250 village-level gatherings, at a cost of about $41,000. Those who wish to can make tax deductible contributions to Sarvodaya U.S.A. via Paypal.

I reach the bus stand at 6:00 am. Nothing is open, not even a place for “short eats.” I’m running low on both rupees and food—I had two spoonfuls of peanut butter for breakfast, and am down to my last Clif bar. I hope the bus stops for lunch.

At six there are no soldiers in the streets, but by dawn they begin to appear. Clusters of them gather near the bus stand. I see two tractors pulling soldier-filled trailers.”

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DJ Mitchell continues his reports from Sri Lanka (Here’s Parts 1 and 2)

Photo: A member of the Tamil pro-government paramilitary group EPDP and one of the Sinhalese soldiers providing security for the EPDP compound. A second soldier stands guard behind.

Several people had told me that if I wanted to understand the Karuna Faction and its effects, I should talk to the people who were working in Karuna’s territory. The contact turned out to be a woman I’d had previous email contact with, but never met, so I was looking forward to going to see her.

The organization was in Vallachennai, about 30 km (18 mi) north of Batti. I managed to catch a ride with two of their workers, so I didn’t have to take the bus. The plan was, I’d meet my contact, have some discussion, stay for dinner, and then catch a 3-wheeler back to Batti.

The workers were in Batti to talk to a man who had been kidnapped three days earlier and released that morning. He had not told them anything about his ordeal, not even who had abducted him.
“It must be the LTTE, don’t you think?” said one of them.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said the other. “It could be anyone.”
“He seems to be under a threat of violence if he talks.”
“Of course he’s under a threat of violence.”

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More from DJ Mitchell in Sri Lanka. He’s volunteering with Sarvodaya, an organization working to end the civil there. You can make tax-deductible donations to support their new peace initiative. (Pt 1. of his report is here)

Photo: View across Lake Street in Batticaloa. Life goes on despite the razor wire of an army installation (left) and a soldier guarding the intersection (right)

Batticaloa, Day 2. A thunderstorm rolled in about 1:30 am, and I listened to the rain and thunder for about an hour. I’m told it’s unusual for the rains to last past the end of January. These are unusual times.

It rained most of the night, and while I enjoyed the sound, it is sure to make the mosquitoes thick and the day hot & sticky.

I had planned to do a little walking while I’m here. The Butterfly Garden is nearby, a sanctuary for kids that uses art to help children from the conflict areas deal with their experiences. Run by a Catholic monk, in 1998 it was a welcome bright spot in a city occupied by one army and surrounded by another. There’s also a large Hindu temple that in 1998 was closed for renovation. Today it’s open for business. But my schedule has become so full that it’s unlikely I’ll get to see the sights.

There is much I could see and do if I had the time, but my primary mission is to gather information. I interview people, and use what they tell me to broaden understanding of the conflict. I’m scheduled to interview several NGO workers, all people who work regularly in the conflict area.

My goal this time is to better understand the schism that has arisen between the LTTE and the so-called Karuna Faction. Karuna Amman was the Eastern Commander of the LTTE until 2004, when he declared himself and his troops independent. Naturally this did not sit well with the LTTE leadership in Jaffna, and there has been prolonged violence between the two sides. Karuna himself is described as an able commander, and is said to have survived five assassination attempts. The LTTE has driven Karuna and his cadres into the jungle, where they fight a guerilla war against the LTTE—which itself began as a guerilla organization.

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More from DJ Mitchell in Sri Lanka

“If you’re wondering what I’m doing in Sri Lanka, you’re not alone. I wonder myself sometimes.

I’m in the midst of an 18-day visit in support the latest Peace Initiative of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. You may know Sarvodaya from its tsunami relief work—it rebuilt thousands of homes, dug wells, and provided food, water, and sanitation for tens of thousands of victims throughout Sri Lanka. It’s a grassroots organization that has been helping the poorest of the poor in Sri Lanka since 1958, and has thousands of volunteers throughout the island. Sarvodaya has since its inception worked to relieve the underlying conditions that led to war, and in 1999 it began to take an active role in the peace process.”

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DJ Mitchell, an American, has been volunteering with Sarvodaya, a Sri Lanka organization working for peace and to end their civil war. He is currently there, and sends this report.

“I’m in Sri Lanka again, helping on a peace initiative, and trying to stay current on the latest conditions. The situation in the East had become complicated, and I wanted to understand it better by seeing it firsthand. I rode with Sarvodaya’s Executive Director, my friend Vinya, as far as Anuradhapura, up in the dry zone in the central part of Sri Lanka. Along the way, we marveled at how things had changed. The last time I’d been here was 1999. At that time, checkpoints with alert soldiers and automatic weapons abounded. The hospital had been filled with wounded soldiers, and I’d been denied entrance to visit a friend. The city had seemed hushed.”

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Sri Lanka pro-rebel MP gunned down at midnight mass

Sri Lanka has had a long, bloody civil war, with the Tamil Tiger insurgents considered among the most ruthless and best-trained insurgents anywhere. A friend who knows the terrain says this was probably done by a break-away faction of the Tigers. When I asked if the government might secretly be backing that faction, he said, it’s certainly possible.

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From DJ Mitchell, who ived in Sri Lanka for several years working with Sarvodaya, an organization working for peace.

Mahinda, Chanrika’s choice for successor, won the election.

Interestingly, he won because the LTTE forced a boycott of the election by Tamils. He is seen as a hardliner whose position is the opposite of what the LTTE wants.

The media suggests this is a defeat for the LTTE.

I suggest the LTTE wants the cease-fire to end, and this is their best way of saving face. Elect someone who will be intransigent. Then they have an excuse…

This is not all that different from the Bush Administration/Al Qaeda relationship. They may be enemies, but they need each other.

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Contacts knowledgeable about the areas tell me the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the Tamil Tigers insurgency in Sri Lanka are both backed at least in part by India.

Both insurgencies are well equipped and funded. Of course, insurgencies can not exist without the support of those within the country itself, but why would India be involved?

Anyone know more about this? True, the Tamils are an ethnic group from southern India, but that doesn’t fully explain the possible involvement of India, and I’m clueless about Nepal, except that the two countries share a common border. Imperialism India-style?

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From DJ Mitchell, who just returned from 2 weeks in Sri Lanka volunteering with Sarvodaya, an organization working towards peace.

I flew out of an ultra-modern airport with excellent amenities. The bathrooms were clean, the airport was pleasant and well-lansdcaped, and there was even free internet for passengers. My destination was a bit different. The lines to get in were long. There were plenty of service windows, but most of them weren’t staffed, and bureaucracy slowed everything down. Inside, I found a dingy airport facility with dirty bathrooms. There were janitors on duty, but they didn’t seem to have much appreciation for sanitation. There were flies in the fast food restaurant, and I knew from experience that I might get sick if I drank tap water. And there were no clocks in the airport; as a traveler, that really bothered me. The short-hop to my final destination, flown by a domestic airline with notoriously poor cabin service, was an hour late departing. Maybe they figured people wouldn’t get upset if they didn’t know how late they were.

There’d been a natural disaster, a terrible thing that had killed many and left tens of thousands homeless. Pictures of hungry brown faces were still in the news. But that wasn’t why I’d come. The country was at war, and I hoped that I could somehow help to do something about it. Yet I was saddened when I arrived to see how much lower the standards were than in some other places in the world.

OK, that last part isn’t strictly true. It was a country at war. But the reason I went was because it was my home. My description is not of my recent trip to Sri Lanka, but rather my arrival at Los Angeles from Singapore yesterday. The country with the lower standards is my own, the United States. There were indeed flies in the McDonald’s, and my United flight was over an hour late. (Not surprising, since four out of my five United flights this year have left late.) In a terminal wing of eight gates, there was a single clock, and it had tiny numbers that were not readable from a distance. And lets just say that the restrooms at LAX won’t be getting any awards this year. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture.

What saddens me is that when I was in Singapore in 1987, they were trying hard to match us. We were still one of the best in the world. Now, that little one-party democracy near the equator has better
infrastructure, more modern technology, more efficient systems, and far more cleanliness. Singapore has advanced. America has declined. And we don’t seem to notice.

There was a time when we Americans looked askance at countries with lax sanitation. Bureaucratic holdups were a thing for banana republics and corrupt dictatorships. Stories of brutality and anarchy after a disaster were frightening tales we told each other to remind ourselves of how great our nation was. And our nation was great. But those were different days.

Sonehow we become comfortable with standards that we used to believe were restricted to the Third World. Can we blame it on a political party? Conservatives and liberals? Immigrants and multinationals? How far will we allow it to go?

The sad answer is, we are a nation in decline. And though we have the resources to stop that decline, the odds are we won’t. Because, like a balding fat man who thinks the college girls still want him, we think we’re still the greatest nation in the world, the one that can do no wrong. We look in the mirror, but we see what we want to see.

Sri Lanka helped their people far better and far faster after their tsunami than the US is doing after Katrina. And they declared a cease fire in a raging civil war to do it too.

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