transcurrents

Gigantic task of winning the hearts and minds of Tamils in East

July 30th, 2007

by M.S.M. Ayub

Days back the Government website had carried an interesting news item on much talked about liberation of the eastern Province. Here are some paragraphs of it.

“High ranking military officials in the East said that Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces proved their dedication and capabilities in liberating the innocent Tamils from the jaws of terrorists with the capture of the East including its nerve centre – Thoppigala. They said it is now the responsibility of the Government to give the Tamils a solution to end the national conflict.”

“The officials said it was high time for the Government to win the trust of the ordinary Tamils by providing them with their basic needs and ensuring their right to life .”

“The facilities in the East should be upgraded to win the hearts and minds of the Tamils. We know that the majority of them do not want war and they are sick of war,” said a high ranking army officer.

So many questions may be raised politically as well as journalistically on this news item. Who these military officials are is one question that might be raised journalistically, because it has not been attributed to any specific source, while in a political sense one might question the right of the military officials to talk politics by calling upon the Government to bring about a political solution and to ensure the people’s right to life.

Whether military officials have a right to talk politics or not the essence of the message given in the news item is not only interesting but also vital. Merely taking the Eastern Province by military means will not serve the Government’s effort in uniting the country and solving the ethnic problem. In other words not only a part of the country was held by a group of rebels, but also a majority or a sizable section of the people in North and East are in the psychological clutches of anti- establishment thinking and secessionism. They have to be won over by the Government.

Unless this happens heavy infiltration into or sometimes recapture of the areas in the east currently held by the Government, by the Tiger rebels is imminent as the people disgruntled by lack of facilities and the feeling of being neglected and alienated is a fertile cultivating ground for any insurgent movement. The situation in the East is far worse with tens of thousands of refugees languishing in camps and various armed groups haunting the areas.

In a legal perspective military officials may not have right to talk politics, but as the human beings who shed their blood to keep the country united, they have, or they must have the moral right to express their views on the conflict as well as the solution to the problem.

Government calls the clearing of the Eastern Province of LTTE control as “liberating the innocent Tamils from the jaws of terrorists”. But do the very same ordinary innocent Tamils in the province presume that they have been liberated by the security forces from the jaws of terrorists? Or have they been offended by the defeat of Tamil rebels by the “Sinhalese Security forces”?

This is a matter very difficult to understand by the people outside the eastern Province for it is not demonstrated in any print or electronic media. The general Tamil thinking seems to go against the Government’s official thinking. Not a single Tamil newspaper has carried so far any news item or feature article that hails the “liberating of Tamils from the jaws of Terrorism” or that manifests any endorsement of it by the ordinary Tamil people.

It is true that the Tamil political parties such as Douglas Devananda’s Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP), and former LTTE Eastern leader Vinayagamoorthi Muralidharan alias Karuna’s Tamil Makkal Vidudalai Pulikal (TMVP) which are arch enemies of the LTTE praised the capture of Thoppigala by the security forces a few days ago. But given the fact that their very survival necessitates the defeat of the Tigers, their applause to Government’s military victories does not necessarily amount to be that of the ordinary Tamils.

A refugee child in an advertisement placed in newspapers probably by an NGO last week questions as to why “we are still languishing in camps if they (Govt.) celebrate our liberation”. Liberating the eastern province does not equate with resolving all woes of war overnight, therefore the contents of this advertisement is incorrect in practical sense, but it calls the immediate attention of the Govt. towards the plight of the people affected by the war. And it may represent for some extent the psyche of the ordinary Tamils in the east.

Although the war in the North and East is carried on between Government troops and the Tiger rebels the underlying ethnic representation of the two belligerent parties is undeniable, and it sometimes manifestly surfaces. For instance, almost all who have come down to Colombo all the way from Jaffna to escape the horror of the war or sometimes even to protect their children from conscription by the LTTE, hope that the Tigers have the upper hand in a particular battle against the Govt. forces.

This is partially due to the alienating- attitude of some security personnel and the Government officials towards them and more so due to their inner urge based on being members of a particular race-Tamil. This is the case with the Sinhalese except for those who are possessed with party politics. And it may apply to the Eastern Tamils as well.

But some might argue that the regional differences between Northern and Eastern Tamils would make it easier for the Government to win them over. These differences had been overshadowed for decades by the fact that Northern and Eastern Tamil leaders voiced and fought together against the state.

When the issue of merger of Northern and Eastern provinces was being hotly debated in mid eighties the then Minister of Home Affairs and Member of Parliament for Kalkudah electorate in Batticaloa district KW Devanayagam said at a press conference that the easterners would be “drawers of water and heavers of wood” to the Northerners if the two provinces would be merged. This was again raised after two decades by Karuna when he parted with Pirapaharan’s leadership in April, 2004. He charged that out of the thirty top positions in the LTTE hierarchy none has been conferred to an Easterner and he said that eastern rebels have to sacrifice their lives in the North whereas only a few Northern rebels have died in clashes in the East.

However, people usually don’t come to conclusions on the basis of facts alone, they try to understand the world through their presumptions and perceived ideologies. Tamils would not initially accept whatever the Government’s services and solutions would be. They will see them through their perceptions and ideologies. The three decades of anti- Sinhalese and anti- Government separatist campaign may definitely have its impact on the ordinary Tamils in the East. Furthermore the innate communal feelings may mix with it culminating in infusing the people the impression of a “conquered people” as SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem said last week in the face of soldiers standing in every nook and corner in their towns and villages.

Therefore winning the hearts and minds of the Tamil people in the East is going to be a gigantic task which the Government would not be able to accomplish merely by providing them with their basic needs and ensuring their right to life or upgrading facilities or giving the Tamils a solution to end the national conflict. Government must have the support of the people even to provide them with their basic needs and to upgrade facilities.

Initially people in the areas that were under LTTE control for a considerable period of time, will fear to be branded as stooges of the Government by the Tiger supporters and then the Government will face the problem of selling its services and solutions to the people in the language that could be understood by the people. Winning hearts and minds of the people has to be carried out in the language of the people concerned. This is a challenge in which almost all Governments have failed.
[Courtesy: Daily Mirror]

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