In the hour of his twilight, the Sun God’s deeds are quintessential. The virtual imprisonment of civilian Tamils in the war zone and the escalating conscription of children by the LTTE can surprise only those unable to comprehend the true nature of Vellupillai Pirapaharan and the Tigers he moulded. It is not in the nature of the man to give up Eelam or to divert from the path of war; and this all or nothing maximalism makes his elimination a sine qua non for the resolution of the Lankan crisis. But a lasting peace will still be elusive if the political conditions which turned Vellupillai Pirapaharan from a boy who tortured butterflies into a leader of a terrible host remain unaddressed. Because, contrary to the cherished belief of many a Sinhalese, Mr. Pirapaharan was not a creation of India or the West (or the Church!). He was the offspring of 1956, of Sinhala Only and the anti-Tamil riots which stemmed from it, of the dismissive attitude of succeeding Lankan governments to peaceful protests by democratic Tamils, of the two broken promises, the B-C pact and the D-C pact, would be solutions which foundered on the implacable reefs of Sinhala maximalism.

The barbarity of the LTTE towards fellow Tamils has created a window of opportunity for the Lankan state to win over that alienated community. There has never been a better time to finish off the Tigers politically by de-legitimising them. If the Tamil people are given a reasonable political solution, if democracy and the rule of law are restored in the North and East, a majority can be turned away not just from the Tigers but also from the TNA. But in the absence of a just settlement, the memory of past injustices will be reawakened by current humiliations and indignities. The young will grow up hating the state which is treating them as ‘lesser beings’ and longing for a country of their own in which they can be free. The cause of Eelam could survive even the demise of Vellupillai Pirapaharan in such circumstances.

Disappearing Devolution

President Rajapakse is on record expressing his lack of belief in the existence of an ethnic problem, repeatedly. This disbelief cannot be dismissed as a mere matter of semantics. If there is no ethnic problem, then a political solution based on devolution becomes not just meaningless and unnecessary but extremely undesirable – as dangerous as administering chemotherapy to a healthy man. This disbelief in the existence of the ethnic problem not only frees the government of the task of devolving power; it turns devolution into a false solution which the government must resist.

According to the dominant view within the Rajapakse regime, Tamils do not have any problems as Tamils. Tamils have problems only as economically poor Tamils or sociologically oppressed Tamils, as unemployed Tamils or homeless Tamils. In other words there is nothing the matter with Tamils which cannot be taken care of by economic development or social progress (If the Tamils have a specific problem it is the LTTE and that is being taken care of currently). Once these problems are addressed, there will be no need for devolution, that chimera created by fat cat Tamil politicians and international conspirators, to deceive Tamil voters and to undermine Sri Lanka. Given this mindset, it is little wonder that Devolution is last on the government’s official list of priorities, after Demilitarisation, Democratisation and Development – a perfect formula for procrastination, ad infinitum.

The President has expressed a willingness to meet all the Tamil parties to discuss the situation in the North. That meeting may happen and Mr. Rajapakse may even make some obligatory references to a political solution to satisfy India. But anything more substantial is unlikely to materialise. That meeting will be as barren as the APRC, which is being kept on life support for exhibitory purposes. In fact, the government’s approach to the APRC is remarkably similar to its approach to the 17th Amendment. Officially the government is for the 17th amendment. But in reality it uses allies such as the JHU to sabotage any consensus on the nominee from the small parties, thereby effectively preventing the appointment of the Constitutional Council. The 17th Amendment is not abrogated, but it is rendered meaningless; the same fate has befallen and will continue to befall the APRC.

The conventional phase of the war will thus end with a Sinhala peace, characterised by the seminal absence of political devolution (as distinct from administrative decentralisation). The North, like the East, will be handed over to tame Tamil warlords and their military minders, to guard and guide, to control and subdue. Sri Lanka will be one and indivisible, just as she was from 1956 till the mid 1980’s, with seeds of separation germinating behind a façade of normalcy.

The regime’s concept of ‘welfare villages’ fits in well in this post-war order. According to a plan reportedly circulated by the government "it will be compulsory for people fleeing the area to live in the camps until the army — which will guard them — has screened them, hunted down the Tigers and demined the area. The camps will be ringed with barbed wire fencing and, while those with relatives inside will be allowed to come and go after initial screening, young and/or single people will not be allowed to leave" (The Times – UK - 13.2.2009 – emphasis mine). These villages will have schools, banks, parks, post offices, community centres, libraries and other facilities. But if these installations are ‘ringed with barbed wire fences’ and people are compelled to live in them (even those with relatives willing to take them in), if the young and the unmarried will not be permitted any freedom of movement whatsoever, they will be nothing but open prisons, places of incarceration, based on the principle of collective punishment and the premise that all displaced Tamils are guilty until they are proven innocent. The presence of facilities will make life less unbearable for the unfortunate inmates but will not change the nature of the installations.

The process of selecting the guilty from innocent is not going to be easy since most of the inmates would have (or have had) at least one family member in the LTTE and would have (or have had) some dealings with the Tigers since they lived in Tiger areas for a long period. Would that make them guilty – by association? Would the young be deemed guilty, simply because they are young and Tamil? Isn’t this the same attitude which helped the insurgency to come into being and grow in the first place? Will the Rajapakses alienate the Tamils (yet again) and push them back into the arms of the waiting Tiger?

It would be inapposite to call these ‘Welfare Villages’ concentration camps, given the specific connotations of that term. It will be more accurate to compare them with the failed Strategic Hamlets Programme in South Vietnam which in turn was based on the Briggs Plan in Malaysia. Called ‘Agrovilles’ (Khu Tru Mat) the main purpose of these villages, according to a declassified CIA document, was to counter the Vietcong appeal "by proving to the peasants that they can help organise the defence against the VC while at the same time giving them tangible benefits which will convince them that they have a stake in the support of the GVN and the defeat of the enemy" (Analysis of the Strategic Hamlets Program and the Montagnard Situation in South Vietnam – 11.7.1962). These hamlets were "designed mainly to isolate the rural population from the communists… The Agroville near Vi Than looked magnificent… Flanking a canal it was enclosed by a bamboo fence and neat rows of thatched-roof huts had been laid out… In reality it was a disaster…peasants assigned to the agroville had been uprooted from their native villages…." (Vietnam: A History – Stanley Karnow).

As the results of the latest round of PC polls demonstrated, a majority of Sinhalese back the government but not a majority of the minorities. This lacuna can become extremely significant in any national election. The Rajapakse regime is in existence because Vellupillai Pirapaharan imposed a boycott on the Tamils at the last Presidential election. If the North-Eastern Tamils are permitted to vote freely, President Rajapakse’s chances of getting re-elected can diminish. After all, by the time the next Presidential election is held, the glow of victory would have faded and people would be more focused on matters economic. Though the UPFA is bound to outperform the UNP at the next parliamentary election, its majority will be reduced substantially given the nature of the PR system. Its current majority is made up mainly of UNP defectors many of whom would lose their seats at the next poll. These electoral considerations may render the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in the North-East undesirable in the eyes of the regime. Driven by an understandable need to win at any cost, the regime may seek to create a state of abnormal normalcy in the Tamil areas of the North-East, in which the people live tightly controlled lives and will not be able to vote as they will (the absence of foreign observers and the presence of the Armed Forces will further guarantee this). The LTTE used terror and intimidation to ensure vote en masse for its TNA stooges, in elections past; the Rajapakses may follow that example in all future elections. And the ‘Welfare Villages’ are likely to play a crucial role in this vote garnering exercise.

Rule of Law vs. Law of the Rulers

Some crises cause eruptions, which results in transformative changes; others just create a rot which permeates every part of society, as in the case of Myanmar and Zimbabwe. In Sri Lanka, a change for the better may happen if the 17th Amendment becomes functional and the independent commissions are empowered.

The government, for obvious reasons, do not want to see this happening (the President once castigated it as an attempt to take away his powers). For reasons less obvious, the Opposition (especially the UNP) is indifferent to its fate. If the Constitutional Council is not in place by the time the present Chief Justice retires (and is replaced by a less contentious figure) the 17th Amendment will be consigned to political oblivion.

There are indications that even in the South the rule of law is being gradually displaced in favour of the law of the rulers. A recent statement made by Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, when asked about the killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga, is demonstrative in this regard: "Who is Lasantha Wickramatunga? There are so many murders in everywhere; in the whole world there are murders. Why are you asking about Lasantha? Who is Lasantha? He is somebody who was doing a tabloid. Why are people so worried about one man?" (Interview with Chris Morris of the BBC). According to media reports even lawyers appearing in human rights cases can be unsafe: "The office of Amitha Ariyaratne, Attorney-at-Law…. at No. 53, Temple Road, Horapay was burned down yesterday at around 9pm….. On the 27th January 2009, Mr. Ariyaratne was threatened inside the Negombo Police Station in front of several officers by an officer named Bandara who struck him on the shoulder and threatened him with death three times" (The Mindanao Examiner – 31/1/2009). Mr. Ariyaratne had provided legal representation at the inquest of Sugath Nishanta Fernando, a witness in a torture case, who was assassinated last September.