Srilanka

LTTE and Sri Lanka after Balasingham

V.S. Sambandan

The current phase of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict is marked by clearly discernible changes in the terms of engagement at both the domestic and international levels. In the post-Balasingham phase, the LTTE will find it more difficult to explain away its actions to the international community.



THE DEATH of Anton S. Balasingham — the public face of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — applies formal closure to one phase of the separatist group's engagement with Sri Lankan governments and the international community. Balasingham's passing is, in its own way, an epilogue to a phase that was ended by the LTTE when it pulled out from negotiations with the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government in 2003.

Balasingham's death is also a moment to recapture the trajectory the Sri Lankan separatist conflict has taken. More particularly, his importance was in the publicly stated political path trodden by the LTTE and his attempts to provide it the space needed for international acceptance and domestic political engagement.

Balasingham's longevity with the LTTE was marked by certain characteristics. First, and most importantly, he knew where he stood in the scheme of things. He knew the nuts and bolts decisions — military aggressions punctuated by calls for truce — were beyond his call. His moments, it was evident to both the international community and the Sri Lankan state, came when the LTTE's military machine needed to pause for a lap of negotiations. "Bala's life is extremely crucial," a former Sri Lankan military chief confided during the late 1990s when Operation Jayasikuru — the Sri Lankan state's futile attempt to bisect rebel-held Vanni — was in its final days. "Without him, where is the chance for negotiations?"

It was this critical link he provided for negotiating with the essentially militarist LTTE that gave him a certain licence to put a gloss over many an incident. For instance, when an LTTE naval craft was sunk off the northern Sri Lankan waters during the negotiations with the Ranil Wickremesinghe government, Balasingham's explanation was that it was a "fishing vessel." Never mind the fact that an anti-aircraft gun was being ferried in the same vessel!

The second attribute of Balasingham was his skill in communicating to the international community the raison d'etre for the Tamil separatist movement, more particularly the role of the LTTE in the "fight for a Tamil homeland." His long spells interacting with the LTTE's leadership variously and often simultaneously as "spokesman," "advisor," "ideologue," and "chief negotiator" gave him the means to sell what was becoming a largely un-sellable proposition. This was particularly so after the pull-out of the Indian Peacekeeping Force and the subsequent assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

As one who knew India's critical role in the resolution of the Sri Lankan conflict, Balasingham came up with this opening gambit when the mood for negotiations was set in 2000 — he pushed for India as a possible venue. He knew it was mission impossible, but he set about it in earnest, citing his failing health and the need to hold consultations with the LTTE leadership (which would be facilitated by the geographical proximity between India and the rebel-held parts of Sri Lanka). Although the LTTE made no headway in this effort to claw its way back into New Delhi's good books, this was Balasingham's effort at political correctness.

It was this ability to make politically right-sounding noises that gave Balasingham his raison d'etre within an essentially militarist LTTE. This was the singular attribute that would mark his ascent and subsequent fading from the centre stage of LTTE politics.

A third attribute of Balasingham was the one that gave him and the LTTE the most leverage. Media-savvy Balasingham, once a journalist and subsequently an official in the British High Commission in Colombo, knew the right time to come up with a clever sound-byte. An added strength was the spontaneity and ease with which he would interact with the media even under the most trying circumstances. Barring moments during Prabakaran's April 2002 press conference in the Vanni when he chided Indian journalists who tenaciously pressed for answers on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Balasingham's judgment of the importance of trying to keep the media on his side never abandoned him. This he would do with carefully articulated positions and lending a rather personal touch to his answers.

As chief negotiator at an impromptu press conference during the Thailand talks, he replied to a question on the fate of a crucial sub-committee on de-escalation and normalisation by asserting that it had failed. When pressed with a supplementary question about the Government's version being different, Balasingham, tired and in failing health, turned, looked into the journalist's eye, and said in a softened tone: "we have to say the truth no." His comment caused a furore at the negotiations. When talks collapsed with the LTTE's unilateral pull-out in March 2003, Balasingham blamed "excessive internationalisation" of the peace process, chided the international community's continued classification of the LTTE as a "terrorist organisation," and said it was "suspending" negotiations.

Within the LTTE's scheme of things, however, Balasingham's political decline became apparent from early 2003. At Oslo on December 5, 2002, Balasingham and his government counterpart, G.L. Peiris, agreed that the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government would explore solutions within a federal model. According to an official statement issued by the Norwegian government: "Responding to a proposal by the leadership of the LTTE, the parties agreed to explore a solution founded on the principle of internal self-determination in areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking peoples, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka." This was unpopular with hardliners on both sides of the ethnic divide, more so to Tamil hardliners who felt the chief negotiator had "given up" separation as an option and "compromised."

The post-2003 phase was also marked by the eclipse of London-based Balasingham by the Kilinochchi-based political wing. The LTTE, it seemed, had started preparing for a "post-Balasingham" phase of political and international engagement. Nonetheless, he was not officially sidelined or rendered non-est. The trajectory of the LTTE's endgame, particularly after October 2003 when it submitted its proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA), had led to his political eclipse. This endgame, if any more evidence than the ongoing blood letting in Sri Lanka is needed, is to continue along the separatist path, unmindful of what the international community says or expects.

The last three years have provided plenty of indications of what the post-Balasingham phase would be — one marked by political intransigence and calculated nonchalance.

Becoming insular


With the peace process stymied, the prospects for its resumption would seem to hinge entirely on how the international community and the Sri Lankan state deal directly with the Vanni. In its own way, the post-Balasingham phase has made the Sri Lankan conflict resolution process more insular — a sharp contrast to the days when internationalisation was the buzzword. It is likely that the next phase of negotiations, whenever it happens, will reflect the LTTE's reading of its own prowess to deal with the international political climate in a post-Balasingham setting.

For three decades, Balasingham was the international face of the LTTE — a fledging militant outfit which he politically mentored. This mentoring and his subsequent rise to the role of chief negotiator took place in different domestic and international settings. The first was a period when several militant groups were vying for politico-military leadership of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Subsequently, the LTTE, having consolidated itself through internecine conflicts and fratricide, had to engage with a succession of Sri Lankan governments and also the international community.

The current phase, particularly since the ascent of Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Sri Lankan presidency, is marked by clearly discernible changes in the terms of engagement at both the domestic and international levels. Colombo's changed terms of engagement are that the phase of "non-retaliation" to the LTTE's militarism has ended and that the "unitarists" mode of political resolution of the conflict is a real option. Internationally, the trajectory points to an increasing insularity in the conflict resolution process, with both sides more than ever before wanting the international community on their own terms. This creeping insularity points to a more militaristic phase ahead.

In the post- Balasingham phase, the LTTE will find it more difficult to explain away its actions to the international community. This will also mean that the international facilitators and the Sri Lankan Government will have to negotiate directly with the decision-makers in the Vanni on how to move out of increasingly entrenched positions. The task appears more difficult given the volatile cocktail of unending militarism and hardened political talk.

The Hindu