By B. Muralidhar Reddy
No political solution is in sight even as the prolonged war spells misery to hapless citizens caught in the crossfire.
Reuters
An injured Tamil girl at a temporary hospital in Trincomalee on March 28.
FOR the Sri Lankan government, the final phase of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is proving to be tougher, trickier and nastier than anticipated. None had thought the Tigers would last long after the fall of their main garrison town, Mullaithivu, on January 25. But 10 weeks later, they are still fighting, much to the agony of the civilians trapped in the war zone, and the rest of the world.
The presence of a large number of civilians in the war zone is one of the main reasons for the prolonged war. Estimates of their number vary from 70,000 to 150,000. Besides, it reflects the bravado of the Tigers, which has meant unimaginable consequences for the hapless citizens caught in the crossfire. According to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, between January and March more than 57,394 civilians, including women, children and the elderly, had fled the LTTE area to the safety of government-held areas.
The LTTE is now boxed into an area of one and a half square kilometres in addition to the 20 sq km demarcated as no-fire zone (NFZ) by the government. It is a precarious situation as the military believes that the Tigers are not only hiding among the civilians in the safe zone but have also set up gun positions in the NFZ.
The consequences of the delay in the complete defeat of the Tigers as a conventional force are felt in different quarters in and outside Sri Lanka. The immediate victims are the trapped civilians, whose unending plight is pricking the conscience of the world community, particularly the Tamil diaspora. A section of political parties in Tamil Nadu are attempting to make political capital out of the miseries of the people in Sri Lanka’s war theatre.
The concerns, and pulls and pressures at various levels have had an impact on Colombo from time to time. In an obvious bid to address these concerns, President Mahinda Rajapaksa convened a meeting of all Tamil and Muslim parties on March 26.
The invitees to the interactive session included the representatives of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA). However, the TNA boycotted the meeting, citing the humanitarian crisis triggered by the war as reason. In a letter sent to Rajapaksa hours before the meeting, it maintained that utmost priority must be given to the resolution of the humanitarian crisis before it assumed catastrophic proportions and that such action was necessary for any political discussions to be purposeful and meaningful. “Since you have hitherto consistently followed a policy of ignoring the TNA in regard to all political issues in the north-east, we are glad that you now wish to engage in discussions with us, recognising, even though belatedly, that we represent the Tamil people. We will extend our cooperation to any credible political process that seeks to evolve an adequate, acceptable and durable political solution to the Tamil question. We would strongly urge that you take necessary steps to address forthwith the grave humanitarian crisis pertaining to the displaced Tamil civilian population,” the letter said.
The invitation was a first of its kind by the President to the TNA after the abrogation of the Norwegian-brokered 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) in January 2008 and the imposition of a ban on the Tigers in January this year. Ironically, the TNA’s stand is in contrast to the LTTE’s repeated assertions in recent months about its willingness for unconditional talks with the government. Signs of differences among pro-LTTE outfits over the ongoing war recently had given rise to speculation that a section of the TNA might respond to the presidential invitation.
In the second week of March, Vinodharadhalingam, a Member of Parliament of the TNA, had surprised everyone with his comments in support of the government’s efforts towards the welfare of the displaced in areas that had come under military control in recent weeks. He told Parliament that he had visited the Kadiragamapuram welfare camp and had seen the manner in which the government was taking care of the displaced persons. His absence at the presidential meeting showed that the TNA had either won him back into its fold or had silenced him effectively.
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