Opinion: Sri Lanka

As the Sri Lankan military's mop-up operations continue in what appears to be the culmination of a long-drawn-out war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a senior rebel leader has been quoted as saying that the battle has "reached its bitter end". In an apparent admission of defeat, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers' chief of international relations, also said in a statement on a pro-rebel website that they had "decided to silence" their guns.

Some observers and certainly the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse believe the Tigers had little choice, having been boxed into a tiny patch of land not exceeding a few square kilometres in the northeast of the island nation. So, few are likely to be taken in by the rebel claim that they have decided to give up fighting entirely on account of their desire "to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people."

Paradoxes in the plot

From the onset, President Rajapakse made no bones about the fact that his government sought to crush the LTTE militarily while keeping the door open for negotiations. Ironically, it was LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who was largely instrumental in the 2005 presidential poll victory for Rajapakse, already a hardliner.

The LTTE had ordered the people of the Tamil-dominated north and east of the country to boycott the polls. That directive from the rebels, who had a stranglehold on the population in the region, resulted in a defeat for incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in the absence of support from a large segment of the Tamil electorate. Again, paradoxically, it was Wickremesinghe who had pushed for a political solution and initiated a ceasefire with the rebels in 2002.

I clearly remember the bewilderment on Wickremesinghe's face as the Tigers' "decree" filtered down to southern Sri Lanka. One must remember that the capital Colombo in the south west of the country is in the midst of the majority Sinhala community, while the various Tamil-dominated parts of the country lie in the north – primarily former Tiger stronghold Jaffna, the Wanni mainland, and the eastern districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara.

In the years that I spent in the island nation, there was little doubt that there was an effective "internal border" demarcating the Sinhala and Tamil/Muslim majority areas of the country.

Wasted opportunity

Most people in the Sinhala-dominated south saw the 2002 ceasefire as a complete farce and feared that it simply afforded the Tigers the chance to re-arm and strengthen their fighting ranks.

Ultimately, it emerged that those fears were not entirely unfounded. Some analysts say the Tigers -- banned in Sri Lanka, India and the US -- also used their new-found clout and freedoms under the ceasefire to assassinate several political opponents. They did all this in total disregard for the peace efforts facilitated by Norway, which had the EU's backing.

In the end, the international community was disenchanted with the Tigers' conduct during the "ceasefire" years, and the manner in which they stymied the peace talks. Once it became apparent that neither side cared for Norway's intervention, Oslo had little choice but to bow out. Eventually the EU also listed the LTTE as a terrorist group.

For those of us who watched the events unfold in Sri Lanka from close quarters, there was a sense of dismay at the lost opportunity – not simply that the "ceasefire" wasn't for real but that the Tigers, who had time and again shown remarkable organisational and strategic skills, had failed to make use of their "ticket" to the political mainstream.

Western powers snubbed

In recent weeks, as the military stepped up the war in the north, the UN said thousands of innocent people had been killed in the conflict zone with some 50,000 others being trapped. President Rajapakse's government thumbed its nose at the international community, shrugging off condemnation of the manner in which it has pushed ahead with its military offensive.

The Sri Lankan government also angered the EU a couple of weeks ago by refusing entry to the Swedish foreign minister who had planned to accompany his British and French counterparts to the country to press for an immediate truce. The UK's David Miliband and France's Bernard Kouchner visited Colombo to urge the two sides to cease fire in order to enable the UN to evacuate civilians. However, the Rajapakse government, which was convinced that victory was close at hand, rejected their pleas.

Now it appears by all accounts that the LTTE's armed struggle has been finished off, and that the Tigers are a spent force.

Few would have believed just a couple of years ago that Asia's longest running civil war was drawing to a close. The rebels ran a de-facto state covering nearly one-third of the country. They had set up a parallel administrative and social infrastructure, complete with their own schools, a bank, courts, a taxation system, a civil service and even a border control mechanism.

And in the south, they spread terror through suicide bombings and political assassinations. Few of us who lived through the bombings in Colombo can erase memories of the carnage, destruction and the utter dread that resulted.

Post-war scenario

Now the question that's on most observers' minds is whether Rajapakse, who has won adulation from his Sinhala constituency for achieving what seemed to be a near-impossible task will also be able to persuade the large and divided Tamil community -- many in the outside world view Sri Lankan Tamils as a monolithic entity and they couldn't be farther from the truth -- that his government will provide a benevolent and constructive leadership for all.

It would seem to me that even those of the fractured Tamil community that didn't subscribe to the rebels' strategies must find the speed at which the Tiger infrastructure has crumbled extremely incomprehensible. Moreover, they must now adapt to a life without the Tigers.

That said, some caution that military victory may not spell peace, as the Tigers could well return to guerrilla warfare.

Author: Ranjitha Balasubramanyam
Editor: Andreas Illmer