SRI LANKA: Government in crisis as Tamils advance

May 17, 2000
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SRI LANKA: Government in crisis as Tamils advance

The People's Alliance government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga is facing a serious political crisis in the wake of military advances by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on the Jaffna peninsula in the country's north.

Support for an independent homeland is growing amongst the country's minority Tamil population, morale has hit rock bottom in the Sri Lankan army, international pressure for a mediated solution is increasing and there is considerable mass opposition to government policy in the south, the home of the country's majority Sinhala population.

Yet the PA government is steadfastly refusing to enter into negotiations with LTTE to avoid further bloodshed and achieve a just solution to Tamil national aspirations.

The LTTE continues to advance towards the city of Jaffna, which was under Tamil control for five years until 1995. In the early hours of May 10, Tamil Tiger forces stormed Sri Lankan army defence positions at Navatkuli, Ariyalai and Thanankillapu, villages on the outskirts of Jaffna.

The Sri Lankan government refused an offer of a temporary cease-fire by the LTTE on May 8, which would have allowed the safe withdrawal of around 40,000 Sri Lankan army troops stranded near Jaffna, and chose instead to dig in its heels.

Kumaratunga's government announced that it would divert expenditure from "non-essential" development work to the defence budget and seek foreign military assistance. It also invoked public security legislation, giving it extensive powers to censor both domestic and foreign media reporting and outlaw demonstrations and strikes.

Cease-fire offer

According to statements by the LTTE reported by the Reuters news agency on May 8, a positive response by the Sri Lankan government to the cease-fire offer would have created "cordial conditions for a permanent cease-fire, peace talks and negotiated political settlement for the Tamil national question".

The LTTE cease-fire offer was simply the latest in a series of offers that started last year, all of which have been flatly refused. Last November, according to a report on May 6 in the Tamil Guardian, the LTTE called for peace talks with third party mediation after the Vanni offensive.

In March, prior to launching their offensive which eventually overran the strategic Elephant Pass, the LTTE suggested that the conflict could be "de-escalated by confining combatants to barracks with an internationally monitored cease-fire ahead of negotiations".

Attempts by the Sri Lankan government to enlist military assistance from India have so far failed, with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee prepared to offer humanitarian assistance only. Vajpayee is applying pressure for a negotiated settlement with Norwegian mediation.

According to the leftist Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), Kumaratunga's insistence on pursuing the war, whipping up anti-Tamil chauvinism and increasing government repressive powers is aimed not only at restraining mass unrest at the military escalation but also at silencing mass opposition to her government's economic policies, particularly in the south.

Protests in the south in recent months for a 3000 rupee salary increase and against privatisation and the policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have brought workers out against the government, 10,000 demonstrating in Colombo on March 30 and 2,000 on April 25.

NSSP general secretary and western provincial council member Dr Vickramabahu Karunarathne told Green Left Weekly that the government is in serious trouble, with the only direct support for the war effort coming from right-wing Sinhala chauvinist parties.

In a media statement released on May 9, the People's Liberation Front (JVP) and the New Left Front, made up of the NSSP and the Muslim United Liberation Front, called on the People's Alliance government to accept total responsibility for the bloodshed and resign.

According to New Left Front general secretary Linus Jayatilake, "The only way out of this juncture, to avoid all foreign intervention, is to accept the military defeat and call for an immediate cease-fire". Jayatilake also stressed the "paramount importance ... that the LTTE be invited immediately for negotiation".

A May 9 joint JVP-New Left Front demonstration against the war was called off at the last minute by JVP leaders, however, fearful of a conspiracy by provocateurs to attack Tamil shops in the vicinity of the protest and blame the JVP.

The JVP had stated on May 5 that while it opposes Kumaratunga's war in the north, it also opposes the LTTE's "dream of creating a separatist state". The JVP also warned against "foreign interventions in the guise of solving the national question".

Humanitarian disaster

Lionel Bopage, general secretary of the JVP for five years before his resignation from the organisation in 1984 and now a leader of Friends for Peace in Sri Lanka living in Australia, told Green Left Weekly that a cease-fire is needed if further loss of life on both sides of "this unjust and senseless war" is to be avoided.

"The general mood in the south has been for achieving a negotiated settlement to the war", he said. "The current government came to power on a platform of peace. This government could have made history if they wished to, but it did not do so. This government will go down in history as another government that surrendered to extremism."

Further conflict could cause a humanitarian disaster. Essential medical supplies are in severely short supply, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Despite urgent appeals, the government is refusing to allow medicines through to civilians in the north, claiming they will be used to treat injured LTTE fighters. On April 20, Sri Lankan troops prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross from taking authorised medical supplies for its mobile and primary health clinics in the Vanni region.

The Australian Council for Overseas Aid and Australian Democrats Senator Vicki Bourne have added to calls for a cease-fire and negotiations.

With parliamentary elections due in August, the People's Alliance government is under pressure from far right Sinhala forces pushing for a military escalation. Fifty small chauvinist groups launched the Sinhala Urumaya Party (Sinhala Heritage Party) on April 26. Apart from MPs and supporters of Sri Lanka's main parties, members of the ultra-right National Movement Against Terrorism and the Sinhala Veera Vidahana were prominent at the launch.

The government's declaration of a state of war and its internal security measures are likely to stay in place right up to the election, making attempts by the left to rally support even more difficult. BY SUSAN PRICE

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