By the very nature of the two-decades-old ethnic war and the stalled peace process in Sri Lanka, the week-end LTTE proposals falls short of the doomsdayer's predictions. Or, so would it seem. For starters, it confines itself to an interim administration, without formally seeking status and powers of a sovereign State, starting with legitimacy for the LTTE's military wing, including the 'Black Tigers' suicide-squad and the 'Sea Tigers', whose case the Norwegian peace-facilitators have argued without apology.
But where the LTTE document differs from known parameters of political and constitutional arrangements among socio-ethnic groups within a sovereign State, there are enough hints to the eruption of another sovereign entity, seeking legitimacy by the backdoor. Given the LTTE's past performance and image as a untrustworthy negotiator, if the Tiger has really changed its stripes, it will now have to demonstrate it more than it is willing to do. The velvet glove that it has thrown on the negotiating table - the Sri Lankan Government has readily accepted the proposals, if only as a starting-point for reviving the talks, unilaterally stalled by the LTTE - hides a hand, and there are clear impressions of a steeled claw on it. It is for the Tiger to prove otherwise.
A masterwork in draftsmanship that incorporates every thought and concern expressed by LTTE supremo Prabhakaran at his historic Kilinochchi news conference on 10 April 2002, the eight-page document is a please-all affair that could be turned on its head if the LTTE did not get what it wanted. By not referring to the Sri Lankan Tamils' right to 'external self-determination', and confining itself mostly to aspects of 'internal self-determination', as expounded by Prabhakaran and his then advisor Balasingham, since cold-stored, at Kilinochchi, the LTTE has attached some seriousness to the negotiations process. So should be the absence of any specific reference to 'Eelam', and the specific and repeated mention to a un-hyphenated NorthEast, combining the 'traditional Tamil homeland' read.
Apologists of the LTTE would readily refer to the de facto situation, conceded both by the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987, and more recently by the Colombo Government, which has made the LTTE the sole representative of the Tamils in the island-nation. That way, the current demand for an LTTE-majority interim administration, or the 'Internal Self-Governing Authority' (ISGA), with minority representation for the Sinhalas and Muslims may be justified. The powers over land and land administration, revenue collection, river waters (maybe influenced by the 'Cauvery water dispute' involving Tamil Nadu, across the Palk Strait) that are variously enjoyed by constituent provinces in any sovereign nation-State are the basic requirements of administration.
Going beyond a point, even a 'captive judiciary' for which the LTTE now seeks legitimacy of a constitutional Government is understandable, if not acceptable, given the peculiarity of the evolving situation. In nations like the US, even judges and prosecutors are elected or vetted by politically-conscious parliamentary committees and sub-committees. Nearer home, we have had the experience of a 'committed judiciary', and judges whose political and ideological sympathies are well known. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, they are tatooed on the hands of prospective judges, after the late M G Ramachandran asked his party men to do so. Where the Tiger shows marks of a hidden steel claw behind the velvet glove, and thus hints at a solution going 'beyond the Constitution', as LTTE's Tamilchelvan said while releasing the document on Saturday, these clauses are variously distributed across the document. By seeking powers for external trade, funding and borrowing, the LTTE has silently sought powers of a sovereign State for the ISGA. The demand for the vacation of the land 'occupied' by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the Tamil areas for rehabilitating the uprooted Tamils, while seeking to give a free run for the LTTE's military wing, could also undermine the sovereignty of the Sri Lankan State, if conceded. Only alien troops, and not that of a federal or confederal State, are charged with 'occupation', and are asked to 'vacate'.
Greater, or worse, still are the implications flowing out of the demand for empowering the ISGA to control the marine wealth along the shores of the Tamil areas, and more importantly the 'access' thereof. The marine-related clauses seek indirect legitimacy of a sovereign State not only from the Sri Lankan Government, but also from third nations. It should be of greater concern to India, whose fishermen from Tamil Nadu are already facing the flak of the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly over-stepping their territory. The 'access' clause similarly implies legitimacy for a 'third navy' in the Palk Strait area, with far-reaching implications and consequences. New Delhi may want to look also at the long term, as the Sri Lankan peace negotiations proceed from here, as has already been promised.
India likewise needs to decide if even a part of the aid-flow of $ 100 millions, which is already in the pipeline, for instance, could and should flow into the coffers of the LTTE-controlled ISGA. In times of adversity inside Sri Lanka, all this could go to funding arms purchases, and not rehabilitation and reconstruction in the Tamil areas. The alternative would be to starve the Sri Lankan Tamils of the rehabilitation and reconstruction aid, even if the truce held.
Otherwise, the demand for an Election Commission at the end of five years in the absence of a final settlement, a Finance Commission to appropriate funds for the NorthEast from the Consolidated Fund (of Sri Lanka), a human rights forum without reference to any of the existing judicial or quasi- judicial authority under the Sri Lankan Constitution, could be cause for concern within Sri Lanka. Even more should be the arbitration clause, where the LTTE document wants the President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to name the Chairperson of a three-member panel - a course now available only to disputant sovereign States that are members of the United Nations. In comparison, the choice of the Chairperson of the ISGA combining in the office that of a Chief Executive with powers for summary sacking of all employees at all levels, is personality-centric. That of Prabhakaran. There are also provisions in the draft that seeks to legitimise not only the LTTE control of the administration in the Tamil areas, but also the direct control by Prabhakaran through the ISGA. The 'plenary' powers over a wide range of subjects and areas sought for the ISGA, while justified in the conduct of any legitimate administrative set-up, would thus vest in a single individual.
That way, the LTTE document seeks to legitimise a dictatorial regimen inside the Tamil areas even while incorporating strong elements of 'external self-determination'. The 'Preamble', if that could be called so, of what could be termed the draft 'Eelam Constitution' repeatedly refers to 'persecution, discrimination and State violence' at the hands of the Sinhala majority and the Sri Lankan Government in the past. There is no reference to the LTTE's military or terrorist activities anywhere in the document. Already, the Muslim community has expressed itself against the LTTE draft. It means that they do not want a 'minority role' assigned to them in the LTTE document. While their position, strength and role could still be negotiable, past actions of the LTTE, even during the truce period, has forced the Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan Muslims to revive memories of a possibly non-existent Arab lineage. Global events too may have fuelled their feelings and aspirations, at times wildly, too.
With the LTTE repeatedly speaking about two separate nationalities of the Sinhalas and the Tamils, the Muslims could be demanding a third one. Read with the LTTE's document, it could mean that Sri Lanka is sought to be turned into 'One country, two States and three nations'. That is if the Muslims are satisfied with an equivalent of a 'Union Territory' in the Indian context. That is not to mention about the politics within the Sinhala community, and the posturings of the Sinhala right, which includes not only the likes of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), credited with two failed insurrections in the past, but also the Buddhist clergy, which was said to be behind the anti-Tamil riots of 1983, which had started it all in the first place.
And having taken a position, and not unjustifiably so, that it is for the warring parties in Sri Lanka to resolve their problems through negotiations, India can only sit back and watch - but not relax, at least in the weeks and months to come - given the complications of ethnicity and economy, LTTE's capabilities and possibilities of Islamic terrorism, security and strategic concerns attending on the evolving Sri Lankan situation.
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