Disaster politics

When the tsunami struck, it initially brought out the best in people, both Sinhalese and Tamil — and then came the equal disaster of war politics

M R Narayan Swamy Delhi

Tsunami or no tsunami, the irrepressible Vellupillai Pirabhakaran remains committed to an independent Tamil Eelam.

Tsunami has, however, postponed a fresh conflict that had seemed imminent. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been belligerent ever since the humiliation of a split in its ranks in March–April 2004. That event was followed by escalating violence in Sri Lanka, with the Tigers claiming responsibility for some killings in brazen defiance of the February 2002 ceasefire pact. By December 2004, both LTTE and Sri Lankan troops had advanced menacingly towards one another in parts of the east. The Tigers had also deployed their artillery in frontline areas, and Western diplomats in Colombo were wringing their hands in despair.

That was when tsunami struck, shattering the war plans and Sri Lanka alike.

The December 26 disaster that ravaged Sri Lanka, claiming in just 30 minutes more than half the number of lives lost during two decades of ethnic conflict, unsettled both the government in Colombo and the LTTE. In the immediate aftermath, even as a numbed Sri Lankan government desperately sought international assistance, the LTTE showed an uncharacteristic nervous streak. As residents fled their homes in the thousands, aid workers in Sri Lanka's eastern province of Batticaloa reported that visibly-shaken LTTE cadres had stopped their vehicles and pleaded with them to do something. The cockiness was gone.

International aid poured in as the scale of devastation came to be known. As it normally happens in any disaster, the tsunami brought out the best in human beings. In the worst hit eastern province, as Tamils and Muslims reeled under the impact, ordinary Sinhalese citizens, Buddhist monks included, rushed in from adjoining areas with relief material. Even local LTTE leaders and at least one pro-LTTE Tamil Member of Parliament (MP) admitted as much. Stories from the tsunami-devastated east spoke of Sinhalese soldiers — whose camps along the winding coast were as badly hit as the LTTE bases — doing what they could to save civilian lives.

A paralysed government in Colombo, however, did not wake up immediately. When it did, its concentration was more on the Sinhalese-majority areas in the southern shores, although it would be an exaggeration to say that it neglected the Tamil region.

By then, the LTTE had recovered from the initial shock and, as is its wont, launched a diatribe against Colombo. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Tigers asserted themselves in the areas of the north and east they controlled. The LTTE quickly made it clear to Colombo and the world at large that no one else would be allowed to call the shots in that region. It unleashed a massive effort to dispose of bodies, treat the wounded, and provide succour. The government was accused of discriminating against the Tamils in the relief effort. LTTE-fronted "youth clubs" soon took control of places sheltering displaced Tamils, even as the government deployed soldiers in other camps. In the LTTE's ideology, Sri Lanka will always comprise a Sinhalese nation and a Tamil nation, and an ethnic rapprochement is out of question, whatever misplaced faith the international community might have on Norway's ability to arbitrate the end of two decades of conflict.

When Colombo announced a "state of emergency", the LTTE echoed a "national emergency". In tune with its ultimate secessionist goal, the Tigers insisted that foreign governments and international aid agencies would have to deal directly with it and not via Colombo. It made the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), an LTTE front, the nodal body for relief and rehabilitation in Tamil areas and forbade anyone else, even the LTTE-backed Tamil MPs (because they are paid by Colombo), to intervene. When Sri Lanka denied UN Secretary General Kofi Annan permission to make a trip to the LTTE-held north, the Tigers deployed counter-pressure to ensure that at least a special representative of Annan's visited Kilinochchi, where the LTTE maintains its administrative headquarters.

The LTTE also launched a massive fund-collection drive from the Tamil diaspora. However unfortunate the tragedy, LTTE chief Vellupillai Pirabhakaran (whose death turned out to be a rumour) had exploited the tsunami to show that he was the undisputed head of a de facto separate nation. The Sri Lankan government's aid to Tamil areas did not matter: if help came from Colombo, it would be treated on par with assistance coming from any other country. After the initial burst of helplessness, the LTTE leader called the natural disaster "another tsunami" for the Tamil people. Nothing, he meant, has happened to alter the ground realities in the Tamil north and east.