Lasantha Wickremetunga was murdered, in broad daylight at a busy junction, less than forty eight hours after the wanton attack on the Sirasa/MTV studios. These twin crimes against an editor and a media organisation, reputed for their strident opposition to the Rajapakse administration, denote either an unforgivable dereliction of duty on the part of the security establishment or official complicity. The President, as always, has condemned these atrocities in the strongest terms and has promised the widest possible inquiry. There is always a gap between the words and actions of any politician. With some the gap is abyss-like. It would take a great deal of gullibility to believe that the police will identify, let alone bring to justice, Mr. Wickremetunga’s murderers.

Lasantha Wickremetunga performed a function that is indispensable to a healthy democracy. He exposed unpalatable truths about powers that be. He had an uncanny capacity to discover (with proof) what those in power committed in secrecy and he exposed these acts to public scrutiny unhesitatingly, and baldly. His style may not have been in the best of taste; but without his exposes, politicians would have got away with many more misdeeds, at the country’s expense. At times his paper played the role that would have belonged to the UNP under a more dynamic leader. Without Lasantha Wickremetunga, political and military leaders would be able to face their Sundays with much less misgiving. His murder has left a void which will not be filled. No wonder he had to die.

Two years ago there was an unsuccessful attempt by the CID to arrest Mr. Wickremestunga; when asked about it Minister Keheliya Rambukwella indicated that the reason was a report in the Sunday Leader entitled, ‘President to get Rs. 400 million luxury bunker’. "Minister Rambukwella said if the report for example was to divulge security sensitive details relating to the weight of the metal plating to be used for such a bunker it would educate the LTTE on the weight of explosives needed to successfully target the bunker. ‘It may not be direct but it may aid terrorism’" (Lanka e newspapers – 3.1.2007). In the light of the assassination of Lasantha Wickremetunga, this proclivity of the Rajapakse regime to label opposition/dissent (including judicial intervention) ‘terrorist’ seems ominous (the timing of the killing is fascinating – in the aftermath of Killinochchi and in the midst of the battle for Elephant Pass and Mullativu). As Umberto Eco points out (re Italy), "When you hear on television members of the government who in different ways…suggest that people who make accusations against the government…are armed terrorists (morally, morally they specify), then you are hearing the expression of a dangerous political principle" (Turning Back the Clock). A political principal based on the belief, ‘if you are not with us you are with the terrorists’; a political principle redolent of violent intolerance; a political principle completely at variance with media freedom, civility and democracy. Is this the future awaiting Sri Lanka under Rajapakse rule?

Killinochchi and the Divided Nation

The different Sinhala and Tamil reactions to the fall of Killinochchi were symbolic of an unpleasant and unwholesome reality: Sri Lanka is still a psychologically divided country. The day Killinochchi fell Sinhalese rejoiced; Tamils did not. For a Sinhalese, elation came unbidden (I know). Conversely, for a Tamil, worry and fear would have predominated. For a Sinhalese, the possibility of a victorious end to the war made the future seem more hopeful. But for a Tamil, that same future, peace sans a political solution, would cause not hope but foreboding. Sinhalese long for a return of peace and normalcy. For Tamils, those happy days before the war was the time their language was downgraded; their modest demands and peaceful protests were met by scorn and violence; their youth learned to hate and to yearn for revenge; and Vellupillai Pirapaharan metamorphosed from an indifferent student to a deadly warrior.

Killinochchi was President Rajapakse’s moment of glory and his desire to savour it is but human. He, his government and the military deserve to be credited for this victory (just as they deserve to be blamed for the defeats and the setbacks). His desire to make political capital out of the fall of Killinochchi is also comprehensible and indeed normal. Still, instead of totally succumbing to Sinhala triumphalism, an effort could have been made to reach out to the Tamils, to reassure them about the future. In the absence of this necessary effort, the fall of Killinochchi, paradoxically, furthered the geographical unity of Sri Lanka and worsened her psychological disunity.

Sinhalese and Tamils hold diametrically opposing views about the war. In opinion polls Tamil respondents express a clear preference for an immediate ceasefire while Sinhala respondents want the war to continue. A ceasefire with the LTTE, so long as Vellupillai Pirapaharan is alive, will be an exercise in futility and stupidity. Still the Tamils’ overwhelming desire for an immediate ceasefire is understandable, for it is they who bear the brunt of the war and it is they who suffer most at the hands of both the LTTE and the Lankan state. When a Sinhalese hears of air raids, the vision is of dead Tigers; but for a Tamil the images are of devastated villages and terrified civilians, hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamil men, women and children who live in dread of bombs and shells, with no roof over their heads or enough to eat. These differences constitute a key challenge to Lankan unity and they cannot be dealt with by treating Sri Lanka as a Sinhala country and Tamils (and other minorities) as enemy aliens.

The dominant sections of the state and the Rajapakse regime regard the war as a Sinhala on Tamil conflict, as does the LTTE. Consequently many ordinary Tamils cannot be faulted for seeing the defeats and setbacks of the LTTE not as Sri Lankan victories but as Sinhala victories. For the Sinhalese, the army is ‘our army’. But can we expect the Tamils to feel the same way? Given the non-existence of a Sri Lankan nation, it is unrealistic to expect a Lankan response from the Tamils. This is particularly so since the only kind of patriotism that exists in this country is of the ethnic or ethno-religious variety – an inevitable consequence of the non-existence of a Lankan nation. This problem must be acknowledged as a problem and dealt with politically; indeed, doing so is a necessary precondition for the creation of a Sri Lankan nation.

So long as Vellupillai Pirapaharan is alive, the LTTE will neither give up Eelam nor give up arms. A military response to the LTTE is thus unavoidable. But this unavoidable military response must go hand in hand with a political response to the Tamil people. It is necessary to convince the Tamils (and the international community) that the state cares about their safety and wellbeing; that Sri Lanka is committed to the defeat of separatism as well as to evolving a peaceful modus vivendi with Tamil nationalism. Unfortunately such a dual approach is conspicuous by its absence. Mr Pirapaharan depends on this critical absence to justify both the Eelam demand and the recourse to arms; to create the next generation of Tigers and Black Tigers. Given this seminal absence, all the LTTE has to do is to explode a few bombs in the South now and then. The regime will overreact with retaliatory bombing and shelling in the Vanni and with mass arrests, abductions, extra-judicial killings and attempted deportations elsewhere – responses tailor made to suit the Tigers’ politico-propaganda needs.

The battle for Killinochchi was expected to be over in weeks; it took months. The battle for Vanni will be infinitely harder and harsher as with its back to the wall the Tiger will fight more ferociously than ever before. The LTTE’s strategy would be to prolong the war, making it unsustainable politically and economically. That danger is a real one though it would seem inconsequential in the present hubristic climate. The obvious pitfall is the economy. Sri Lanka is no stranger to Bernie Madoff type financial scandals; In the 1990s there was the collapse of NU Jayawardene’s Mercantile Credit Ltd though it happened when the economy was sound and the financial system robust. The Golden Key debacle is taking place in a context of local and global crises and thus can have wide and deep repercussions on the entire financial system and the already debilitated economy.

Israel has a carte blanche from the US to kill Palestinians; Sri Lanka has not the same leeway where the Tamils are concerned (fortunately or we may fully emulate the Israeli military). With President Obama in the White House and Hilary Clinton in the State Department, Sri Lanka will feel more pressure to go for a ceasefire or, at the least, to improve her human rights record. India will make similar demands as election nears. More irresistible will be domestic pressures resulting from economic hardships and military casualties. That the Lankan forces have suffered high levels of casualties is obvious; why else would the government refuse to divulge numbers? Most of the foot soldiers killed and injured in this war come from the countryside; therefore the policy of concealment will work for a while in the cities, though not indefinitely. Is this why the media must be cowed into compliance and dissent silenced?

Gaza and Palestinian Untermenschen

If George W Bush killed the War against Terrorism with his Iraqi invasion, Israel has buried it with the Gaza offensive. The brutal Israeli assault is turning Gaza into a fecund breeding ground for future terrorists and suicide killers. ‘Palestinian lives are so cheap’: according to Al Jazeera this is an oft repeated refrain in Gaza and the West Bank. Such a mindset is the ideal psychological basis for the creation of future suicide bombers; after all, if the world does not care about dead Palestinians (including babies) why not end such expendable lives not as cowering victims but as deadly avengers?

With the new Obama administration there was a real possibility of isolating the extremists and strengthening the moderates in the Middle East – a precondition for any lasting peace. Israel has destroyed that potential with its brutal offensive. Irrespective of the degree of real damage Israel manages to inflict on the Hamas, the invasion will not bring about peace or stability but fury and hatred sufficient to turn Middle East into an inferno. Each bomb, each shell, each death will become a seed of hatred sown in soil made fertile by the blood, tears and curses of the innocent. And the ranks of organisations such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah will be filled by the young and the frustrated from all over the Islamic world thirsting for revenge from Israel and its US ally.

There is no comparison between Israel and Hamas, in terms of military prowess. Hamas cannot destroy Israel and to say it is a threat to Israel’s survival is a lie of Gobbelsian proportions and ingenuity. To use large scale aerial bombing on a small city of 1.5 million souls is a crime by any standards, legal or moral. It is as if a giant is using a siege engine, repeatedly, against an anthill - the powerful against the powerless; Goliath against David. Israel of all countries should know that a people cannot be destroyed by the force of arms; that violence cannot kill the spirit of a nation. If wars and massacres, persecution and injustice can destroy a people, Jews would have become extinct centuries ago. Killing and injuring civilians, imposing unjust blockades on them, pounding fleeing women and children from the air will not catalyse peace but more violence and more suicide bombers. That is a lesson valid across the globe, from Gaza through Afghanistan to Sri Lanka – especially when victory seems within grasp and hubris overrules not only humanity but also commonsense.