The Siege Within -By Nilantha Ilangmauwa

The Siege Within


"Now in Sri Lanka brutal acts against opposition and independent people in the South have been justified or unjustified by the War in the North rather than by the rule of law. This is a new scenario and this is very unfortunate for the future of the country as all political power is increasingly centralized in one family."
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By Nilantha Ilangmauwa

"With equal or even inferior power of destruction he will win who has the resolution to advance, who by his formations and maneuvers can continually threaten his adversary with a new phase of material action, who, in a word has the moral ascendancy. Moral effect inspires fear. Fear must be changed to terror in order to vanquish."

- Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle – Colonel Ardant du Picq, (1921)

(January 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)An expert on War, Clausewitz said "The first task… in planning for war is to identify the enemy's centers of gravity, and if possible, trace them back to a single one." (On War)

The cause of the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka will never be resolved permanently through military victories without attention to the core issues of the problem that affect ordinary people from all the ethnic groups of the nation including the Sinhalese. In the present situation, seemingly, our leaders only see decentralisation from among the core issues while celebrating victories of the military operations.Even the President and other key players of the government are waiting for the head of the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), informally known as the Tamils Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakran. Even in India too we discern greed for the head or live body of Prabhakaran, the man who took the life of India’s young and friendly leader on their own soil in 1991. However, the present military approach against the Tamil Tigers is going on in a highly energetic and moralistic way and it will soon be total defeat for the Tamil Tigers’ military power. There seems to be no alternative given to the Tigers for staying on in power and the Sri Lankan regime too seems to have no alternative to staying on in power save through defeating the Tigers. Indeed there is no evidence that the Sri Lankan regime has a plan to evict the roots of terrorism in Sri Lanka.

We can see too many crackles and whispering in the field over Prabhakaran's dead body or capture alive. Some false propaganda machine vows that he has fled the country. However his wife and two of three children indeed fled the country when the Sri Lankan Government marked what it termed the liberation of the Eastern Province many months ago. But the capture of the Big Tiger alive is impossible in our opinion, and it will also be hard to find his dead body. Going by the history of the Tamil Tigers, probably in the event of his being about to be captured alive, Prabhakaran will issue an order to his colleagues to shoot him and burn his body. The Tigers will thereupon be scattered in different directions as small groups over the entire island and India. Many analysts believe that the same things as happened in the Iraq in 2003 when American Forces captured the former President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein in an underground bunker in Tikrit, will happen here. After the US government declared financial rewards for the informers who provide any details of Saddam's hideout, information did flow and that could be repeated here. But capturing Saddam and punishing him with the death penalty has not been a solution for Iraq as we can now see. Iraq is still burning after a badly conducted US intervention. There has been no freedom or relaxation for the people in Iraq since then – until an unstable peace as in the present. It is never totally acceptable to compare the situation in Sri Lanka with that in Iraq because they are not similar. The problem in Sri Lanka is different from that in Iraq. This is an internal conflict in our island nation which has been internationalized, and it is more than thirty years old.

Is it Magic?

In Sri Lanka, there is no doubt that Prabahakaran's dead body, if it is ever to be obtained, would be icing on the government’s cake of victory because then, with that under their belt, they can pick any time for the forthcoming elections for erasing the opposition's power while taking more and more votes from Sinhalese dominant areas. The dead head of the Big Tiger will be like magic for the society. The hysterical mood is such that is possible that every part of Prabhakaran's body can soon be selling among the people in the country as well as in India and may be the USA too. That is why the government and its friends are waiting for that. It will be the main tactic of the government and its rallies for sweeping the polls in the post-war period because there are no friendly relations with ordinary Tamils.

Four mistakes are highlighted here on the part of the Government side over their mode of governance in the ongoing war situation. Those are really harmful to the country’s future. These are:

One: The government thinks the end of Prabhakaran and the LTTE is the end of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka

Two: Military victories of the armed forces are enjoyed by the state through its own Media and ruling party supporters as the Sinhalese defeat the Tamils. (But there is in his speech delivered by the President of Sri Lanka upon the fall of the Kilinchchi to the SLA, a section where he exhorts people not to think of or categorize the military victory as the North being defeated by the South. However we note that his ideas are not implemented by his own media).

Three: Government is planning to silence and stop (both physically and mentally) all opponent media using the war as a pretext. There are many reported claims by key players of the regime showing great arrogance in their comments on the media and its right to free and unbridled expression.

Four: All key players of the Regime have open doors for their personal interests to be advanced using the war. If anybody attacks the Government he/she is termed a traitor. Also anybody supporting the ideas of the Government is a patriot, according to the Government's policy.

One family politics

Now in Sri Lanka brutal acts against opposition and independent people in the South have been justified or unjustified by the War in the North rather than by the rule of law. This is a new scenario and this is very unfortunate for the future of the country as all political power is increasingly centralized in one family. The situation will remind us of monarchical rule as in ancient countries, where there is no recognition for democracy or the opposition or the concept of the balance of power. In this context anyone in opposition to the government will likely meet with an accident with or without true reason. But the more often those people who are seeking a balance of power in the Country state that fact, the more satisfied everyone at the capital is, agreeing that we must come on together as a people.

It is unfortunate that the opposition party and the leader in the country will never understand the real needs of the people. Also the opposition do not seem to have the brain to use for bargaining with the ruling party. In this situation the UNP will face heavy losses again in the forthcoming election that will be held on the upcoming Valentine’s Day (14 February). One can soon see how the President's son Namal Rajapaksha becomes President as successor to President Mahinda if this situation continues in the country.

Power that Preys

Of course the Tamil Tigers have polluted the Tamils’ freedom struggle while committing self -destruction and killings and evicting the intelligentsia of the Tamil Community. Even in the South President Rajapaksha’s regime seems to be doing the same things, while the Tamil Tigers are dominate the Tamil Community’s rowdiness. At the same time, President Rajapksha's acting seems the same way like Velupillai Prabhakstan's mentality. These regimes, Tiger and the Rajapakse, are based on preying using the power flowing from the war. “My brain is carrying too much just now; I cannot be confused by side issues. Everything must wait until my invention is completed," noted Natalie Sumner Lincoln in her book “I Spy” (1916) on espionage. It describes our President's mentality. Time will tell us more. - Sri Lanka Guardian