Vol. 73/No. 22      June 8, 2009

The central leaders of the LTTE, including its top commander, Velupillai Prabhakaran, were killed May 18 in a final assault by government troops.

“The writ of the state now runs across every inch of our territory,” President Mahinda Rajapaksa boasted May 19, adding that “we have completely defeated terrorism.”

“No longer are there Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays and any other minorities,” Rajapaksa said. “There are only two peoples in this country. One is the people that love this country. The other comprises the small groups that have no love for the land of their birth. Those who do not love the country are now a lesser group.”

As a self-styled representative of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese, Rajapaksa is one of a long line of capitalist politicians who have built a career on divide-and-rule policies targeting the oppressed Tamil minority.

As they drew their noose around the shrinking northeastern coastal area in which the Tiger forces were corralled, Sri Lanka’s generals painted the artillery, air, and infantry assault as a mission to rescue the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in their war zone. Reporters were denied access to the area.

The military monopoly on “news” in Sri Lanka was partly broken by several doctors who reported from hospitals near the front lines that government shells had killed many civilians. Several of the doctors have been arrested on charges of providing false information. Associated Press reports that 8,000 civilians have been killed since January.

The Toronto Globe and Mail reported May 22 that some 280,000 Tamils are now being held in government internment camps called “welfare villages”—mostly tent camps encircled with barbed wire.

The military is interrogating some 3,000 alleged Tamil Tiger fighters in “rehabilitation centers,” said the Globe and Mail. Even higher security facilities are reserved for alleged LTTE officials. “This is our Guantánamo Bay,” said one officer.  
 
Tamil struggle for rights
As many as 100,000 people have been killed in the war since 1983, according to the United Nations. The conflict is rooted in the discrimination of the Tamil minority by the Sinhalese-dominated ruling layers since independence in 1948.

The Tamil language and religions—Hindu, Christian, and Islam—were relegated to second-class status, below Buddhism and the Sinhalese language.

Sinhalese speakers number about three-quarters of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people. There are about 4 million Tamils. Indigenous Sri Lankan Tamils are concentrated in the north and east of the country and the capital Colombo. There are also descendants of Indian Tamils brought as laborers by the British colonialists in the 19th century, many of whom still work in the tea-growing areas in the south.

When Tamil organizations demanded equality and self-determination, they were met with systematic violence. Many turned to armed resistance in 1983 after a series of bloody pogroms.

In preparing the rulers’ military offensive, Rajapaksa was able to count on powerful allies. Washington, London, and other imperialist powers listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization and stifled the flow of funds into Sri Lanka from the hundreds of thousands of Tamils forced into exile by the war.

The U.S. government has been relatively muted in its response to the latest events, feigning an even-handed concern over the plight of civilians. U.S. president Obama said May 14, as the government’s final offensive unfolded, that he was “saddened by the desperate news in recent days.” He called on both sides to spare civilians.

Speaking one week later, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, described the military victory as a “new beginning.” He added, “Now begins the critical process of national reconciliation.”

The editors of the Wall Street Journal were less restrained. “The war on terror scored a big victory this weekend,” they said in a May 20 editorial. Victory “has not been cheap or easy,” it said. “Military spending in the 2009 budget is $1.7 billion, 5 percent of GDP and 20 percent of the government’s budget.”

The government is now reportedly seeking to recruit 40,000 new soldiers to patrol the north.

The Sri Lankan government organized victory celebrations on May 22. According to TamilNet, Sinhalese nationalist gangs “visited Tamil houses to demand money under threat to help fund the celebration.”
 
 
Related articles:
Sri Lankan assault deals blow to Tamil struggle
Tamils discuss their fight at Montreal forum
Letters  
 
 
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