Sri Lanka - after the LTTE

Early last week, it was all over the news channel that the final resistance of the LTTE was broken. Gory pictures of the LTTE leader V Prabhakaran shot at on his forehead was telecast.

Lots of questions arise in the mind of people: Was this the only alternative available for the Sri Lankan government? Were human rights abused greatly? Why wasn’t even a single LTTE commando captured alive (none swallowed the cyanide capsule that they wear around their neck)? Will this mean the Tamils minority in the island have a good future to look forward to?

This strife assumed demonic proportions post a period when the Sinhala majority and Buddhist forces alienated the Tamil minority in the 1960s and 1970s reducing the lives of the minority to the status of refugees. What started off as a small agitation became a violent and emotional movement that the LTTE spearheaded and continued for more than 3 decades.

The Sri Lankan government has in the past negotiated with the LTTE officials, and has on several occasions proposed devolution and sharing of power, in a bid to bring back normalcy to this ethnic strife. Unfortunately all the past attempts failed, and this has only intensified the war. This makes one wonder if the LTTE was at all interested in a settlement.

Caught in the crossfire between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE commandos were millions of innocent citizens in the island. To add to this severe hardship, the common man has often been suspected by both the government and the Tigers as being informers of the other group. In a bid to speed up the annihilation of the Tigers, orders to eliminate the commoners would have been given. This was despite calls from abroad for a truce; and to slow down, and be careful.

Emboldened by the support from China and Russia, the SL government has also rejected attempts by the UN Human rights convention to institute an inquiry into legitimate war crimes.

Rehabilitation is going to be a long painful and costly exercise. It has to be fiscally long term and sustainable. It also calls for emotional support to ensure a proper integration of the Tamil people into mainstream SL.