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THE DEHUMANISED
ENVIRONMENT AND CONSEQUENCES FOR MUSLIM - TAMIL RELATIONS.
In
tragic life, God wot, villain need be, passions spin the plot, We are betrayed
by what is false within.
-George Meredith, From ‘Modern love.’
6.1
Muslims : Global fears and local implications
6.3
The proximity of death and its influence
6.4
The LTTE, Big Brother Politics and the East
6.5.2 Muslims
are monolithic, closed and conspiratorial:
6.6
Consequences of the Tamil outlook shaped by narrow nationalist Ideology
A leading Tamil religious figure in the East is said to have remarked privately,
“Muslims in the East feel more insecure than the Tamils”.
But there is a general reluctance to say such things publicly and challenge
myths about Muslims. Both the Tamil ideological outlook and the violence that
is being done to Muslims in other parts of the world have conspired to lend
an air of legitimacy to murder and expropriation that has been inflicted on
Muslims of the North-East. Bosnia is being carved up by two nominally Christian
powers. Bosnian Muslims see the Western initiated arms embargo as having favoured
the Serbs and the Croats. The US led Western powers now imposing a new world
order, have failed to act convincingly to restrain its protégé Israel’s
flagrant repression of Palestinians or to make it cede the territory acquired
by force - or indeed aggression hatched in 1967 with US connivance. But Western
military action against Iraq which in 1991 is said by aid workers to have claimed
a large number of lives and recent air attacks are widely seen by analysts as
having gone far beyond the ‘freeing of Kuwait’.In our neighbour
India, the Ayodhya controversy had been brewing for some years and it was a
time of great insecurity for her 100 million Muslims. The British foreign secretary
Douglas Hurd during a visit to India late last year had declared a common
cause with India in fighting Islamic fundamentalism without even understanding
the precarious internal political environment. With all the injustice, hypocrisy
and resentment that is part of the world order, there appears to be a subtle
hint that Muslims, who are being beaten everywhere are the main cause of ills.
With the recent massacres of Muslims in the Eastern Province, it is hardly surprising
if Muslims there see this as part of a global conspiracy against them, leading
to an enhanced feeling of helplessness.
In
the context of the East, a person’s politics and outlook are not influenced by the proximity and consciousness
of death alone, but more importantly by the perception of whether the future
would bring hope and healing, or the same desultory tread of death.
From the end of 1984 the Sri Lankan forces began large
scale massacres of Tamils in the East. Nearly all Tamil villages from Verugal
to Muthur in the Trincomalee District were destroyed. A resident of Thirukkovil
recounted the first army massacre in 1985. The army came along the main road
after their training,in a convoy including armoured cars from the interior jungles.
They entered the twin villages of Thirukkovil and Thambiluvil shooting at anyone
within sight. 120 mainly young were killed that day.
It was the same year that Tamil militants turned their
guns on the Muslims. From mid - 1986 the LTTE in its rise to dominance
began hunting down members of previously fraternal Tamil militant groups, excising
the larger portion of the Tamil militant strength in the East. A direct result
was the STF advance into Kokkadichcholai in January 1987 and a massacre
of 120 civilians.
Members of both communities continued
to die in reprisals during the IPKF presence. The anti- Muslim feeling
among LTTE cadre surfaced in December 1987 in a massacre of 85 residents
of Kattankudy. The redeployment by the IPKF of groups once decimated
by the LTTE made anti - Muslim feeling one of the key elements in their
competition with the LTTE, although the latter had to tactically rely
on the Muslims in order to survive. For, during the IPKF presence the
threat from the Sri Lankan state was marginalised. Killings, harassment and
extortion of Muslim farmers in the Ampari District began on a much larger scale
during the IPKF presence - albeit then by groups close to the IPKF
.
As the IPKF withdrew in late
1989, the Tamil National Army (TNA ) conscripted by pro - IPKF
groups surrendered to the LTTE in large numbers, many of whom were then
massacred. No complete record of this is yet available. Once more 150 youth
from Thirukkovil - Thambluvil went missing and are presumed killed - this time
by the would be saviours of Tamils. They were TNA conscripts. Between
80 -120 members of the TNA were massacred and buried at Amirthakali at
the end of Bar Road, Batticaloa.
Following the new outbreak of war in June 1990, the Sri Lankan forces set about
massacring thousands of Tamils. Anti -Muslim feeling among LTTE cadre
surfaced in massacres of Muslims at Kurrukkalmadam, Kattankudy, Eravur and more
recently in the Polonnaruwa District. Each incident claimed about 100 or more
civilians. Tamils were also killed in reprisals by Muslims in smaller numbers.
One need not be selective in moving around in the Eastern province
to discover that sudden death has been close to ordinary people- a cousin or
an uncle when not in the immediate family. Our reports have recorded statements
of people who have experienced all manner of death - widows of breadwinners
killed by the armed forces, the mother of a missing TNA conscript, a
Muslim intellectual from Eravur, most members of whose extended family were
killed by the LTTE [Special
Report 3, Reports 7 and 8]
. During normal conversation, one suddenly finds that behind a placid face there
lurks a deep tragedy.
In the case of a Muslim intellectual living in Kalmunai, closely identified
with the Tamil cause, his brother Sufian, an English teacher, his cousin
Issadeen, the latter’s wife Sithi and a young boy were abducted
by a splinter group of the PLOTE close to the IPKF in November l989.
They are now presumed dead.
In December 1989, the IPKF
was pulling out of Batticaloa and the EPRLF was getting ready to follow.
The farmer’s brother Sivaprakasam (36) and Thuraisingam
(28) came home late after guarding their crops from wild elephants,and fell
fast asleep in a hut near their house. Intruders came in the night and shot
dead the two brothers. Their sister, Balambikai (30), a law student,
hearing the noise , ran out of the house to where her brothers slept. She too
was shot dead.
When their funerals were held in Munaikkadu, the EPRLF
ordered them, ‘no luxuries’. The farmer remains a bachelor,looking
after his other sisters and the responsibilities of the dead.
These are few instances of many tragedies in the East.
In the case of the Muslims, the dominant threat was external - from a Tamil
politics gone mad. The injury to the Tamils went deeper. Apart from the threat
from the state there was a powerful element of auto - genocide, both combining
to foment a powerful destructive influence. We will take some instances of how
this works itself out.
Two LTTE members recently died
in an ambush shortly after they had eaten in the house of a widow. The LTTE
leader, Suresh, in the Kokkadichcholai area is the son of the late ayurvedic
physician Dr.Kandiah. Dr.Kandiah, Suresh’s elder brother and the husband
of the widow mentioned, were killed in the STF’s Kokkadichcholai massacre
of January 1987.
The story of Mohan who is credited with a considerable
share in the army’s recent successes, illustrated how the accumulated
evil in the history of a community is working itself out. This story is now
part of the folklore of Batticaloa’s rice wadis. It should be treated as
apocryphal. A good deal of it is factual. Parts of it may be speculative. The
reader should be able to judge.
Mohan was born in Kothiavalai,
one of the villages around Kokkadichcholai. As a young man he was described
as a vagabond, who used to steal cattle and sell them to others faraway. Occasionally,
the Vithanai (head man of the village) used to lay hold of him and give him
a thrashing. When the militancy came to the East, Mohan joined the PLOTE
and led a local group. From the end of 1986, they led a tenuous life, hunted
by the LTTE which had killed several members of other groups, and living
off the land. His group, the PLOTE, later continued to be in the East
without coming under the IPKF umbrella, but in a kind of truce with others
who had enough on their hands.
As the TNA collapsed in December 1989 after
the IPKF pull out, and as the LTTE moved in with the Sri Lankan
forces, Kalir, an ENDLF member of the North - East provincial council,
and Ganeshalingam, secretary to the provincial council in Batticaloa,
escaped into the interior with a large sum of money. They spent a night in the
village of Sillikudiaru on their way to Trincomalee through interior jungle
tracts. Mohan with a party of the PLOTE killed the sleeping fugitives
and took charge of the money. By this time Mohan was married. Mohan sent
his wife to Colombo with the money to arrange for their exit to Canada. The
wife vanished to Canada with the balance money. In the meantime Mohan
left the PLOTE. Villagers believe that the PLOTE may have sacked
him for not giving the money to his group.
Stranded and hunted with nowhere to
go, Mohan came under the umbrella of the Sri Lankan forces and is said to be
attached to the infamous unit in Batticaloa prison. His intimate knowledge of
the area made him important, and it is said that he goes to operational areas
by helicopter. He is credited with a sharp nose for money. The Vithanai who
used to beat Mohan as a boy fled to Batticaloa and then to Colombo.
In the sequel to his wife’s abandoning
him, Mohan married again in Kokkadichcholai. The LTTE kidnapped
his second wife. Mohan sent a message to the LTTE saying that
if his wife was not returned before a particular time, he would kill particular
family members of LTTE cadre. Mrs. Kandiah, the local LTTE
leader Suresh’s widowed mother was assaulted by Mohan. Mrs. Kandiah
was hospitalised with a fracture and now lives in Batticaloa town.
A man from Kokkadichcholai collected
Rs.40 000/- to send his son to the Middle-East for employment. Hearing this
Mohan demanded money. The man and his wife went to Sillikudiaru with the
money. When Mohan came there in the morning,the man ran out with his
money. Mohan shot him dead. The wife came running and she too was shot
dead. Mohan kept the money. Mohan is now said to own considerable
paddy lands, including a plot which once belonged to the Society of St.Joseph
in Pattipalai.
A businessman Rasan and his wife and their
seven children lived in Kokkodichcholai. A 16 year old son of his was in the
LTTE. Mohan demanded Rs.50 000/- from him which was given. Sometime
later another 50 000 was demanded. The man told Mohan that he could not
afford the sum and instead offered to pay Rs 25 000/-. Mohan said that
he wanted this sum brought to him by his daughter within 3 days. The daughter
told the parents that if they were to go on like this they would not only lose
their money, but also their honour. On her suggestion they all agreed to take
their lives, and sat down to a poisoned meal. The three died on 8th
July 1992. A child at home whose food was poisoned escaped. The dead are survived
by six orphans.
Thus for Tamils life has been brutalised by a politics of fratricide
which destroyed the moorings provided by a sense of community. A grieving Muslim
has his next door neighbour. A Tamil cannot be sure of that. Several Tamils
in the East have observed that Tamils move around with apparent freedom not
because they believe it to be safe, but because they have reached a state where
they care not whether they live or die. They have been denied the creative possibilities
of life. Instead their anger has been mistakenly directed at the Muslims.
Accumulated anger resulting from killings
has on both sides time and again burst out in a desire for revenge. This is
not the only possible human response. Many have responded to the violent death
of persons close to them, not with hate, but by dedicating their lives to work
towards an order that will end communal and national divisions, so as to ensure
that coming generations will not re-live the same tragedy. This requires a healing
influence. We saw this at work in Kattankudy and Akkaraipattu in late January,
when the Moulana’s happy influence brought among Muslim victims
of Tamil violence the desire to help fellow Tamils. For the long term we need
to break out of the desultory and divisive politics of the present and find
a politics of healing. This is what the leadership of Konrad Adenauer provided
for many Germans following the self-destruction of Nazi rule. Where do we
begin? First we need to go beyond good sentiment and understand current realities.
Some revealing things said by LTTE
spokesmen during Bishop Kenneth Fernando’s visit to Jaffna last
January received press publicity. Anton Balasingam said that one should
not compare the LTTE and the government (in terms of holding them morally
responsible for their actions) because unlike them (the LTTE) the government
is responsible for all the people of this country. The LTTE leader made
the point that by the government restricting essential items to Jaffna and by
banning travel in the Jaffna lagoon, it was the ordinary people who were suffering
while the LTTE had what it needed.
These sentiments, though not new, were strange things to say for the leaders of an avowedly separatist war, the rationale for which being that the government had shown itself unfit and incapable of assuming responsibility for the Tamil speaking peoples, compelling them thus to take their future into their own hands. Moreover a liberation struggle is about articulating a higher morality and greater responsibility. What the LTTE’s conduct has shown is a total absence of either. Anton Balasingam said earlier in 1992 something the LTTE had often said in deed: That is if the army came into Jaffna, once the army is in they would withdraw into the jungles and there would then be many civilian casualties which the government would not like! Its message was ‘we will provoke you and do what we like, if the Tamil people suffer you get a bad name!’
Its programme was as we have pointed
out before not about giving people a healthy, morally liberated life and freedom
from fear, but to use every destructive means to secure power. Moreover its
whole history of imposing repeated death and humiliation on the people for its
survival speaks not of an assertion of sovereignty or independence, but rather
a demand for small brother status, in turn with the Indian and Sri Lankan states.
Liberation means a strong and generous people. But the LTTE’s military
record and the quotes above suggest that its credentials in opposing state power
are less convincing than those in opposing its people. As we have written at
length elsewhere, it sought a fiefdom in which big brother would let it enjoy
unrestricted power. Within this an avoidance of accountability meant that it
would not tolerate equals, but only smaller brothers.
Being unclear about what it had to
offer the people of Jaffna it was less so about what it had to offer the Muslims
and Tamils of the East. The current war began by calculatedly unleashing the
state forces on Eastern Tamils following the murder of policemen. All talk about
liberating the East has now vanished. The East is being used for recruitment
and extortion. The Tamil people are being offered no meaning for the massive
death they have endured. The dead served the LTTE’s politics. The
families of those who died in the name of liberation have been placed in a position
where they could do the dead no greater honour than to have the Grama Sevaka
certify them on a piece of paper and use it to try for teaching positions, clerical
posts in government service and jobs in garment factories. They would then in
a manner suggesting gratitude be paraded before TV cameras during visits of
state dignitaries, who themselves have much to answer for. Why did the Eastern
Tamils come to this and why all this hatred of Muslims?
The experiences of Eastern LTTE
leaders Kadavul and Francis, as we have written in previous reports,
showed early that the Jaffna leadership of the LTTE could not countenance
independently minded Eastern leaders not playing the small brother role. When
Kadavul refused to attack the TELO in mid-1986, the leadership had
to send Kumarappa and Pottu of Jaffna origin to enforce its will.
The LTTE thus developed without any strong person from the East in its
hierarchy. Once it destroyed the other groups, so weakening the struggle, the
security that people earlier enjoyed was quickly stamped under the boot of the
Sri Lankan forces. The Eastern Tamils in particular therefore generally welcomed
the IPKF. Even with occasional reprisals once the LTTE was at
war with the IPKF, the need for the IPKF presence was not doubted.
It was at this time the Muslims who helped the LTTE to survive in the
East.
Although friction between the two
communities, in earlier times resulted in isolated incidents,these differences
were quickly ironed out in order to continue the intercourse necessary for their
common existence. But after 1985 when armed militant groups began to appear
prominently on the scene, what would have earlier been minor incidents, which
would have died down with a bit of stone throwing, became serious incidents
resulting in much loss of life. Later with the Sri Lankan state kept at bay
during the IPKF presence, old prejudices against Muslims and the perceived
Muslim threat became more the dominant influence among militants in the East.
By the time the IPKF arrived in 1987 all militant groups were in many
ways discredited. Those with the IPKF actively played up anti-Muslim
feelings resulting in serious incidents at Kalmunai (September 1987) and Sammanthurai
(May 1989). The LTTE was at this time using the Muslims for its survival.
But lacking leaders of stature from the East, it was unable and unwilling to
combat anti- Muslim feeling among its Eastern cadre. Lacking in any liberating
outlook and unsure of what it had to offer the people of the East, and yet wanting
to use Eastern youth, the Jaffna leadership found it prudent to allow its weak
Eastern henchmen to use anti - Muslim feelings.
Another aspect we need to look into is the nature of various
groups and their rhetoric. All the groups rhetorically accepted the distinctiveness
of the Muslim community’s interests and tactically understood the need
to win them over to their side. But in practice they have shown that their political
programmes were superficial and have seldom been able to guide their actions.
In the case of Muslims, the natural prejudices of their cadre determined their
behaviour in particular localities than their professions. In the early days
the groups EPRLF, EROS and PLOTE had a large number of
cadre from the East. That was reflected in their behaviour and in several incidents
where these groups were involved in activities against Muslims. The leaderships
tried to dissociate themselves from such activities and felt embarrassed, but
were unable to have much of an impact. The TELO being purely a military
organisation later became prominent in such activities (In recent times they
have been trying to harness anti- Christian sentiments growing among Hindus
partly as a result of the aggressive and insensitive approach of some of the
several non- mainline church groups present in the East). The LTTE’s
presence in the East being small in the early days, it found it tactically prudent
then to avoid overt anti-Muslim activity. The LTTE’s attitudes were
very much governed by its military and survival needs. During the IPKF’s
presence it was useful for them to have good relations with the Muslims. But
with their authoritarian outlook they could not tolerate signs of independence
from any community.
Considering the LTTE’s
intrinsic weakness and its heavy reliance on international propaganda, its international
lobbyists, both expatriates and churchmen, have undoubtedly told the leadership
in Jaffna that its massacres of Muslims is causing insuperable problems. Some
of the overtures made verbally and through hand bills to Muslims in the East
appear to reflect the leadership trying to assert some control. The fact that
Muslim residents who have returned to Mannar Island have so far been left alone
suggests some change. In another instance two Muslim boatmen trading between
Mannar and Kalpitiya got into difficulties and came ashore on LTTE controlled
territory. The LTTE men checked them and let them go saying that ‘they
had no new orders on what to do with Muslims’.
The expulsion of Muslims from the
North appears to be an act where the leadership had played to Eastern sensibilities.
A man who was taken by the LTTE into the Eastern jungles for ransom and
released said that whenever the cadre spoke of Muslims, their faces ‘assumed
a horrifying appearance’ . Having used anti-Muslim feelings, the Jaffna
leadership is on the horns of a dilemma. There have been fewer attacks on Muslims
in recent months. It also provides an opportunity for those of goodwill who
want to protect the long-term interests of the East to build bridges.
In this section we briefly elaborate observations made
in Reports 7 and
8 which we have been able to check in greater depth by talking to
people, both Tamil and Muslim.
Those successful in trade in the East have
largely been Muslims. Those accumulating money have to invest it, and these
Muslims invest in land in their neighbourhood. Tamils receiving a good price
for their land have moved out into areas where land was cheap, giving rise to
new villages. This is very similar to businessmen from the islands off Jaffna
buying up land in Jaffna town. But unlike in Jaffna when over a number of years
a whole GS’s division is bought over by Muslims, there is a visible change
of identity. Apart from this there have been some incidents of communal violence
involving a relatively small number of people in which neither party came out
clean. Tamils tend to put the two distinct phenomena together and build a myth
of Muslims intimidating the Tamils through violence and acquiring their lands
cheap.
On talking to Tamils at some length,
many of them actually blame themselves, rather than the Muslims, and accept
their weaknesses. Several of them also accept that not being traders, it was
better for them to sell their small plot of land in town, give up a menial job,
and use the money for more beneficial activity elsewhere. They also often fail
to see that the bulk of the Muslims are as poor as they are. Eravur Muslims
are among the worst hit in the East today.
6.5.2 Muslims are monolithic,
closed and conspiratorial:
Nothing is further from the truth.
Every Muslim village has its own identity and its own interests. Even when two
Muslim villages are adjacent to each other, their perceptions are often different.
In Kattankudy, dominated by its commercial class, one finds a studied pragmatic
approach, trying to discern what the LTTE really wants from them, can
they be pacified by money and so on. In Eravur it is the helpless anger of a
peasant population, boxed in and prevented from earning its livelihood. Behind
the anger there is almost a plea, “If you get a chance, please ask
them (the LTTE) to leave us alone”. The two Muslim communities
we have come across with any decision making structure are the ones at Sammanthurai
and Kattankudy. These are not military structures. A variety of opinions are
voiced and there is a sense of decency and fair play. In most of their communities,
Muslims will be the first to admit that it is hard to get any two persons to
agree.
Among Muslims one generally finds less
prejudice and greater openness. There is less evidence of rigid slogans used
by many Tamils such as ‘every action of the Sinhalese state is aimed
at destroying the Tamils’ and trying to fit all the facts into that
framework. Even when the LTTE had massacred Muslims, a number of Muslims
try to inquire into whether there could have been a provocation such as the
SLMC leader’s most recent speech. He was even blamed for the expulsion
of Muslims from the North. The right to dissent is also evidenced by the multitude
of political parties functioning among them, launching spirited attacks on each
other. This is not the atmosphere in which conspiracies are hatched.
There is no evidence of an organised
force among Muslims, by the name Jihad or otherwise. If there was such
an organised force it would have made itself felt in Muslim politics. Even before
the Tamil militant movement became a fully organised force, the TULF
which had its backing had virtually become the only political party in the North.
By 1981 anyone challenging the TULF electorally was risking his life.
This is far from being the case among Eastern Muslims. The SLMC is not
the only political force. People living in the area do write to the national
press dissociating themselves and large sections of Muslims from the SLMC.
Muslims in general talk more freely than the Tamils.
Because of attacks on Muslims in recent
times there was a desire to set up a force to protect Muslims. At the same time,
on the realisation that Muslims have to live among Tamils, influential sections
of the Muslims regarded such a force as a potential disaster. They were not
people who could think of going to the West and sending money home for such
a force to run riot, and be shielded from the consequences by geographical separation.
They had to trade and farm in the Eastern Province and could not afford to alienate
Tamils.
It is for this reason that they accepted
home guard units to operate under the control of the state and to be disarmed
by the state. These units were given inadequate training and are now a dwindling
force. There are tensions, much anger and a feeling of powerlessness among Muslim
youth following attacks on Muslims. But the larger tendency has been not to
challenge the Tamil militant movement and to learn to live with it. This cannot
be taken for granted if attacks on Muslims continue.
Violence by Muslims has on the whole
been reactive and confined to the immediate aftermaths of attacks on Muslims.
Even the role of some Muslims as informers operating alongside the forces with
other Tamil groups was largely confined to the second half of 1990 in the wake
of provocations. Even then the large scale disappearance of Tamils cannot be
attributed to Muslims. The armed forces wanted Tamils to disappear.
At present Muslims who are confined
to their villages have hardly any information to give. But because the LTTE
created so much division among Tamils by its murders, plenty of information
reaches the forces from Tamils themselves, not just in the East, but apparently
in Jaffna itself. Branding of Muslims as informers is a refusal by the LTTE
and the Tamils to face the consequences of their own divisive politics.
Under the impact of death and suffering imposed by communal
violence the Tamils developed an outlook to the effect that the Sinhalese state
was incorrigibly evil and that anything it did was ultimately intended to destroy
the Tamils. Separation for the North-East was an outcome of the resulting outlook.
It did not allow for a rational framework in which individuals and groups could
deal with the state. Tamil government servants and Tamil members of national
parties carried with them an uneasy feeling of guilt, which was expiated in
hyper-critical rhetoric about the state uttered in private. The Tamil newspapers
and journals published from Colombo, while on one hand accepting self-censorship
about some of the worst attributes of the government, promoted the dominant
Tamil ideology in very subtle but effective forms.
The arguement for an armed group to protect the Muslims
arose from a perception that the Sinhalese had the national forces, seen virtually
their force, to protect them and that Tamils had their armed groups. It was
the experience of the Muslims that no other force, whether the IPKF or
the Sri Lankan forces, had protected them. Strangely, but not surprisingly,
the government accepted the logic of this argument. It revealed that the Sri
Lankan state instinctively saw itself as a Sinhalese state, responsible only
for the Sinhalese as did the minorities.
The late minister Ranjan Wijeratne
announced shortly after June 1990 that the government would recruit and train
Muslim home guards for deployment in Muslim areas and likewise for Tamil areas.
In Sammanthurai, the Trustee Board called for volunteers and only 90 came forward
as home guards. They were given 3 days training and deployed with shot guns.
When they reported for work, the STF often gave them menial tasks such
as sweeping the compound. Their small salaries of less than Rs.30/- a day were
also paid irregularly. Now there are only 29 home guards left.
On the other hand through experience, such communal
armed groups came to be detested, not least by their own community. Although
Tamil groups came into being in the early 80s when the Tamils felt threatened
and unprotected, in time they came to have deep reservations about them. In
a number of areas people came to the point of saying that they would rather
put up with the IPKF or even
alien Sinhalese state forces rather than with their own boys who took up arms
to protect them.
Although some Muslims are confident
that they could raise their own force and control them, others familiar with
the Tamil experience are far from happy about the idea. One Muslim said that
shortly after Muslim home guards were raised in Nintavur, there were six violent
robberies. Further, such communal forces have been a hated destabilising influence.
Tamil groups functioning with the IPKF used that cover for criminal activity,
particularly against Muslims. Muslim home guards under the umbrella of the Sri
Lankan forces, no sooner they were formed, came to be seen as proxy killers
by the Tamils.
This may suggest a better trained
and disciplined multi - communal force that could be expected to protect any
community as a professional task. The Civil Volunteer Force (CVF) was
formed with such an intention to assist the policing of the North-East. Although
trained by the IPKF this force was supposed to have paid by the Government
of Sri Lanka from which it had received its commission. They in fact received
their letters of appointment from Mr. Anandarajah, then D.I.G. of Police,
North-East. They were promised full recognition in time and all benefits enjoyed
by the police.
But when the LTTE took over
the North-East from the end of 1989, they were helped by the Sri Lankan Forces
to hunt down Tamil CVF members. 50 of them were gunned down in the lagoon
at Savalakkadai by an air force helicopter. Muslim CVF members were among
the policemen massacred by the LTTE in June 1990. Surviving Muslim CVF
members are presently deployed in police stations. According to Muslim spokesmen
the Muslim CVF members killed have received no recognition, nor have
their families received any of the benefits given to families of killed policemen.
It must also be pointed out that several Tamil policemen who survived the massacre
were killed by the forces in reprisals. In the final analysis what the minorities
have experienced, even as servants of the state, is that the government carries
no responsibility for them, and that they could be dispensed with according
to the vagaries of its peculiar brand of politics.
We also know that multiplying the types of forces and
the number of men under arms has severe drawbacks vividly experienced in recent
times. It could finally be said that there is no alternative to ensuring that
the regular forces not only represent all communities, but are seen to act impartially.
The problem here is that although the government has recently been calling for
Muslims and Tamils to join the regular forces, very few of the former and hardly
any of the latter have in fact joined. We thus come back to the character of
the state and the experience of minorities in the forces. Moreover when the
state goes on without reference to attributes of principle or character, making
prominent use for transient gain of figures from the minorities such as Mohan,
Munas and Suresh Cassim, seen genarally as criminals, it becomes an insult
to the minorities. There seems to be no answer to this dilemma without some
drastic reform in the character of the state.
We have pointed out that both communities,
however much they have been alienated from each other, feel an instinctive need
to reconcile and live together. It is not only the Muslims who have suffered
economic hardship because of current divisions, but also the Tamils themselves.
This was pointed out by a Muslim. About 400O Tamil peasants around Vantharumoolai
and Kaluwankerny used to go down seasonally to Akkaraipattu to harvest Muslim
fields and thus earn a substantial income. These people are now desperately
poor.
A feeling among many Tamils that they need a militant force to check
the Muslims and a Muslim feeling that they need an armed force of Muslims to
protect themselves from Tamil militants are tragic illusions that feed each
other, profiting only those who have a stake in the politics of division.
Eastern Tamils tend to feel that they need the North-East
merger and hence the Jaffna Tamils to protect them from the Muslims and Sinhalese.
This too is an illusion. It has never happened in the past and is not happening
now. The crux of the problem is poor organisation and the economic weakness
of Eastern Tamils. The Eastern Tamils see the Muslims as using this weakness
of theirs against them today. Equally, dominant interests in the stronger society
in Jaffna have used it in the past. Unless there arises a vibrant introspective
politics in the North matched by one in the East that ceases to be passive,
the very same thing could happpen again. Jaffna folk have seen their interests
not in terms of trade or cultivation, but in finding avenues of employment for
their educated. For this reason they never clashed with Muslim interests. An
added cause for a feeling of insecurity among Eastern Tamils is the poor performance
of their children in recent A.Level examinations, particularly in outlying areas.
This is an area where graduates from the North could have helped both Muslims
and Tamils by improving teaching standards. The current war has seen a high
exodus of young graduates to the West.
On the other hand, particularly because
of recent attacks on Muslims, Muslims feel uncomfortable with the North-East
merger. The militant group that has been conducting large scale massacres of
Muslims is after all one that is led from Jaffna.
Many of these problems will vanish
or appear in a different light if the Tamils and Muslims of the East re-establish
good relations. This must be seen as the principal task. If not they have every
thing to lose. They hold much in common including the crucial problem of state
sponsoerd colonisation. The fate of the North-East merger will depend on whether
the Tamils, particularly those in the North, can articulate a new politics that
will give confidence to the Muslims, Sinhalese and and Tamil dissidents. The
LTTE has spurned every opportunity it had of doing this. Antipathy between
Eastern Tamils and Muslims should never become a reason for the merger. On the
other hand if the Eastern Tamils gain confidence, they themselves may feel that
a separate Eastern Council is workable. To gain such confidence the Tamils should
work out a viable economic role for themselves. To try to compete with the Muslims
in trade may be unprofitable and frustrating. But there is so much more that
could be done in the East.
We have said that the greater responsibility for re-establishing
good Tamil-Muslim relations lies with the Tamils. The happy events in Kattankudy
and Akkaraipattu during late January have given a strong hint of what is needed.
Both communities have remained studiedly ignorant of the horrors and the experience
the other community has been through. The other community’s area is thought
of at best as a mysterious land on the horizon which mother told you never to
stray into. They need to talk to each other about their experiences so that
illusions can be dispelled and wounds healed.
In Sammanthurai and Eravur which now
face some isolation, there is a great desire to have Tamils come and talk to
them as human beings rather than from behind a gun.
An organised institution that is in
a position to take an initiative is the Church. For a start groups of church
leaders with lay persons and leading Hindus could visit Muslim areas frequently
and just have informal discussions. Next avenues could be found where ordinary
people from both communities can become involved in common activities which
benefit both communities. There would always be a threat of disruption. A mechanism
must be evolved where leaders of both communities together will condemn and
expose any disruptive activity or violence done to any one community. There
is some risk, but this may be the right time to begin - a time when international
human rights pressure is beginning to bite.
If there is no initiative, the tragic
and fatal drift apart of both communities with separate AGA’s divisions,
separate hospitals, post offices and MPCSs, will continue. The East instead
of a community would then become a patchwork of armed ghettoes with the Sri
Lankan forces keeping a strange kind of peace.
We have been using the term Muslim as one that is well understand in
this country in terms of its context. Those who practice Islam in this country
broadly fall into three ethnic groups - the Ceylon Moors, Indian Moors and Malays.
The Ceylon Moors are descendents of Arab traders who settled in this country
from the 8th century A.D or earlier. They form 7% of the country’s
population. The Indian Moors are Moor immigrants from India whose proportion
declined from 0.8% in 1911 to 0.2% in 1971. The Malays came here mostly during
Dutch rule (17th and 18th centurys A.D.) from the East
Indies and mostly reside in the Western Province. Muslims in the North-East
are nearly all Ceylon Moors.
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