I can’t really think of a more apt phrase than this, primarily, North American expression with which to warn Sri Lankans about what is going to happen once Kilinochchi is taken, Prabhakaran knocked off etc.

A public that has done little except clutch at straws insofar as any optimism about Sri Lanka’s future is concerned, has been only too ready to buy the theory that, "once the war has been won," the land will flow with milk and honey. This might, under saner circumstances, with a government that has demonstrated even a smidgen of principled, honest behaviour, be considered a reasonable expectation. After all, given the stupendous military expenditure of recent times, any cessation or even reduction in hostilities should free up money to go back into the essential social services that a country with as poor a population as Sri Lanka needs rather than just wants.

Given the fact that the conduct of any person or government can best be predicted on the basis of past conduct, this is not going to happen. While there is going to be money made available to the Tamil quislings of the North just as there has been to the government’s TMVP proxy in the East, this is going to be only sufficient to ensure that those individuals stay on side. "Hush money," not to put too fine a point on it. There is not going to be enough for any of the development that that part of the country has been starved of for so very long.

This, of course, is not going to cause any heartburn among the Sinhala triumphalist majority inhabiting the southern part of the country. Initially at least, they will expect that they will be the sole beneficiaries of the "savings" that will flow from Prabhakaran and his hordes being defeated. And, make no mistake, there will be some crumbs from the table for them. However, by the time they wake up to the fact that the milk and honey is not going to flow in their direction, it will be way too late. The country will have an authoritarian government very firmly ensconced, the enforcement elements of which can concentrate on the so-called "Southern Majority" without the distraction of Tamil Tigers. This will also take care of another serious problem – what to do with a huge security establishment with no Tigers to engage in battle. The reason that will be put forward for maintaining something akin to a "war-time services cadre" will be that the price of defeating the Tigers is eternal vigilance, a vigilance that can only be guaranteed by maintaining, for the foreseeable future, the services at around the same strength as during "the war."

As for sophisticated weaponry, fighter aircraft etc., the same reasons will be adduced: "We can’t let down our guard," with insinuations that Sri Lanka needs to guard against an invasion from Tamil Nadu where the Tigers’ relations reside in very large numbers. That all purchases of military hardware have, all over the world, generated huge amounts of under-the-table payments is something that everyone except the absolutely doltish are aware of and to expect those who’ve grown accustomed to substantial dollar incomes in a rupee economy to suddenly develop pangs of conscience and give up a standard of life to which they’ve become accustomed, is unrealistic to say the very least.

An added cost to the country will be that of keeping the servicemen happy. You can’t demobilize those who are surplus to a peace-time force without giving them an income that they have been accustomed to. While their salary levels never had promise of making millionaires of them, the average infantryman or sailor is going to be hard put to generate the kind of income that he/she has grown accustomed to during the conflict, on "civvy street." Very often, in rural Sri Lanka, whole families, outside the nuclear one, have existed on the pay drawn by one serviceman. You deprive these individuals of that (often meagre) standard of living at your peril particularly since you’ve already trained them to use weapons and to kill.

There is a previous Sri Lankan example to consider in this connection. At the end of World War II, when the colonization schemes in places like Polonnaruwa, Minneriya and Hingurakgoda were launched, there were separate colonies set up for ex-servicemen only. For a significant period after these came into existence, they were best known for having extremely high rates of violent crime. It is only reasonable to anticipate a similar state of affairs, particularly since there will be many more ex-servicemen than there were in 1945 and a much higher percentage will have seen combat than was the case with most of the Sri Lankans who served in World War II and were in "support" units.

The Sri Lankan populace is going to be lulled into a sense of false complacency by the withdrawal of a few restrictions under which they’ve chafed for a quarter century. This will be done with a great deal of fanfare, particularly in the media which has already rolled over and is playing dead, giving the government of the day the breathing space it needs to ensure that it puts in place laws that are even more draconian than those under which we live now. Considering the status quo as far as human and civic rights are concerned, this might not really be necessary. But it will be done "just in case!"

And for those that hope for intervention from the "Great Democracies of the 21st Century?" I have a word of advice, you’d be better off whistling "Dixie" than waiting for their intervention to ensure your rights! After all, haven’t they given ample indication of the manner in which they ensure the Responsibility to Protect is practiced in places like Sri Lanka? To expect them to do more than accelerate their "Tut-Tut-ing," would be unrealistic in the extreme.

The reader might well ask, "But what about our opposition parties and Civil Society groups?" As that gangster expression has it, "Fuggedaboutit!" They will do the "Tut-Tut" routine and work towards taking on the mantle of the government in power, so that once they are the government, they can keep the people under control as well. As I view this state of affairs, I am reminded of what the old "Che Guevara" Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna of the late sixties and early seventies had to say: "The only difference between the UNP and the SLFP is the names of their leaders. They are, essentially, the same, one in green garb and the other in blue."

A doomsday scenario? Perhaps, but a realistic one given the post-conflict histories of many countries in the so-called developing world and given the fact that Sri Lanka has moved from being a liberal democracy to the status of a Banana Republic of the type that was so common in South and Central America not so long ago.