In a way, the civil society group that met with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa broke the their long-held belief that the ruling Rajapaksas have no use for the likes of them – be it in addressing the nation’s multiple problems or what still lingers on as the ‘national problem’.

In other ways, news reports and published analyses show that they continue to talk in the same vein as post-war decadal past, and have not found a middleground themselves. Only genuine impartiality would have helped civil society play the role of an impartial internal facilitator of meaningful negotiations between the Government and the increasingly divided Tamil polity in particular. Unfortunately, it has not happened.

 Through the postIndependence decades, in the name and form of NGOs, some took a pro-Sinhala stand, some were found wavering, hence wanting. Post-’83 and the consequent arrival of INGOs, almost all of them, where they speak out, often and at times out-of-turn, have only echoed the views of the West, the self-styled ‘international community’.

 If at the height of the decisive Eelam War-IV, the West too wanted the LTTE out of the way, for them to be able to try and usher in a political solution of Sri Lankan stakeholders’ own making, then the civil society echoed those views.

 In the post-poll era, the West began seeing the then Rajapaksa regime, headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, now Prime Minister, ‘shifting the goal-posts’. Colombobased civil society too, was seen using the same terminology – nothing more, nothing less – and making the same allegations, on multiple issues concerning post-war restoration, rehabilitation and reconciliation. 

They did not seem to have an original idea to offer. That was the time when Sri Lankan civil society could have come on their own, and played facilitator and observer to the political negotiations between the Government and the TNA, which did not actually require any mid-wife. Now, it is the second golden chance, where the Government can do with fresh inputs, not any old wine in an old, or even a new bottle. The Tamil society needs it even more for the multi-identity polity to come together on a common minimum programme. 

The civil society, as multiethnic as it could be, was and is required even more to evolve a Sinhala-Buddhist consensus first. Through the past, all attempts by the political left, then under the SLFP, while in power was ditched by the right-wing UNP as and when it came to finding a political solution. Thus, you had UNP parliamentarians burning the Chandrika Package, put forth as a required Constitutional Amendment Bill, inside the Parliament Chamber. And when President Mahinda put together an All-Party Conference to this end even as the Armed Forces were fighting the LTTE, the UNP boycotted it. Less said the better about the JVP’s obduracy on such occasions, independent of the party and alliance in power.

 Yet, the SLFP then nominally headed by President Maithripala Sirisena but actually identified with Mahinda without power, was with the UNP when they floated a new Constitution Assembly. The forum’s work included addressing the ethnic issue. Yes, the steering committee did come up with a package, but then; no one other than the TNA expected it to be passed at any foreseeable time. 

At least they cannot blame the SLFP, or the Rajapaksa faction, for the nonpassage of the new Constitution. No reason was offered, nor was the larger issue discussed, but the Government never ever made even a remote attempt to present a final draft to the Constitution Assembly.

 Yet, ask the Tamil Politicians, they will blame the Rajapaksas; ask the international community, they too would parrot the same. Neither did, or would ever ask then UNP Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe why he did not do so. The TNA has not talked about that phase in their career, but still skip it to go back to the earlier Rajapaksa regime, to blame only the latter for all the Tamils’ current ills. 

However much the TNA was convinced about the UNP’s intentions or otherwise, the Tamil community was not to be fooled. They continued to vote against the Rajapaksas in the presidential polls of 2015 and 2019, yes. But they also voted substantially against the TNA in the 2020 Parliamentary Polls that followed the 2019 Presidential Election that brought in incumbent President Gotabaya to power. 

Hunt with the hounds…

 Issues remain: And on the Sinhala side, too. Rather that of the Government, this Government in particular. Somewhere along the line, the Rajapaksas have given the impression they are using the TNA, or the larger Tamil polity, only to buy time from the international community. That has to end. So should the cause for the constant Tamil bickering about the Government taking over Tamil lands, building new Buddhist temples in Tamil areas, and also re-settling Sinhalas thereabouts. If it is a false campaign, the Government should expose it. 

If not, the Government should reconsider its position, its decision. If nothing else, it cannot expect the war-weary Tamil community and their polity with a lot of international support, to hunt with the hound and run with the hare. Tamil politics is unlike the Sinhala politics of the seventies and eighties. 

When the state came down heavily on the JVP Insurgency I & II, those that feared the law and went overseas under aliases became ordinary citizens there. Barring Premkumar Gunaratnam alias Noel Mudalige, who returned to found the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) with breakaway JVP elements, not many ex-JVP members outside the country, have shown much interest in contemporary Sri Lankan politics. 

Many of them assumed aliases overseas and have been living under those names and identities as citizens of those countries. Not the Tamil Diaspora. From the mid-fifties, in the aftermath of the ‘Sinhala Only’ law and the State’s come-down on them, Tamil youth who have been migrating overseas at periodic intervals have developed strong Diaspora identities. The periodicity of their migration, legal, illegal or whatever, was determined not by them, but by a series of anti-Tamil riots and State action through the past decades, until the end of the seperastist war and of the LTTE with that.

 It was thus that Diaspora Tamils in the UK were the ones who organised PLO training for their next-generation youth in Palestine. They were the ones who floated the TGTE, their ‘virtual Government on the virtual world’, not long after the war. The TGTE may not be powerful enough for the Colombo Government to fear them. But they are powerful enough for the Colombo Government to fear the ‘international community’. They are also powerful enough for the Colombo Government wanting to woo the TNA, off and on. 

Locating ‘missing persons’

 Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has since reopened the issue of Tamils illegally migrating overseas during the war years and assuming aliases and also acquiring foreign national identities and passports. Years after the change of Government in 2015, the Justice Paranagama Commission’s appeal for western Governments to help locate ‘missing persons’ of Tamil parentage has not received any response – favourable or otherwise. Or, so it seems. 

As was known almost openly, during the decades of war, Tamils wanted by the security agencies or those looking for ‘greener pastures’ smuggled themselves out of the country, and landed in some European nation or Canada – Australia was a later-day addition – and acquired a new identity and personality, but not politics. It is thus anybody’s guess why Colombo has not agitated the issue enough with foreign Governments or at the UNHRC or even the UNGA, if they were serious about finding an honourable closure to the issue. 

The irony of the Sri Lankan State situation in the matter is that unlike the Rajapaksas before and after them, the intervening Government of National Unity (GNU) commanded almost every western Government for friend. The latter did not try, and the former did not have to respond. Today, when the West is accusing Sri Lanka over the Darusman Report fixing the number of Tamil war-dead at 40,000, it would be fair for Colombo to seek their help to square up that figure, if they too are serious about finding a closure to this part of the political issue.

 It is even more so for the Tamil community back home, and the TNA too. They have been mourning their year after year, not only on the LTTE’s ‘Hero’s Day’ but also on the day of the war’s end. Of course, the former is to those that were known dead. It’s not so about the latter. 

And with equal periodicity and greater ferocity – and naturally so – their men and women take out protest marches for their ‘missing persons’. That issue too, can come to a closure, if and only if they two pressure their friendly western Governments to cooperate with the Colombo dispensation in the matter. 

Democratic, legal framework 

“We are committed to work with the @UN to ensure accountability & human dev. to achieve lasting peace & reconciliation,” President Gotabaya tweeted on 21 July. “We are dedicated to resolving the issues within the democratic & legal frame to ensure justice & reconciliation by implementing necessary institutional reforms,” he added. In this background, the civil society should take up their current initiative earnestly. 

They can form a common umbrella, if need be, if only to avoid overlapping civil society interests getting involved, ending up spoiling the broth. They delayed it by a decade, if not more, but no time is a better time than the present one for them to get involved. They can consider seeking out a Sinhala consensus / participation in what essentially is a Sri Lankan State effort, as different from a political initiative of a particular party or ruling alliance. 

They can also facilitated similar meeting of minds among the Tamil parties, who are divided under three main streams in the Opposition, and at least one on the Government side.

 If nothing else, such an early effort would make civil society groups to understand how difficult it is for them to be able to prescribe a one-size-fit-all solution, when compared to their easy pronouncements, proclamations and pulpit talks, targeting only the Government of the day – whoever it is. They should not hesitate until they succeed. Restricting their role to facilitation, and not negotiations, they should also know when and how to withdraw. And withdrawal is not an option for most facilitators in the past, with the result, they got themselves branded and discredited, too! 

Courtesy: CeylonToday