The
TODAY'S
EDITORIAL
Violence
perpetrated by the separatist rebels known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam have beset Sri Lanka since the mid-1980s. The most recent cease-fire accord,
reached in 2002 with assistance from Norway, has all but dissolved as attacks
from rebel Tigers and retaliation from Sri Lankan forces have escalated. So far
this year, the death toll has climbed to nearly 800. Citing legitimate
mistreatment in the past of the Tamil people by the government in Colombo, the
Tigers demand an autonomous state in the North -- amounting to roughly a third
of the island -- for the Tamils, who comprise roughly 12 percent of the
population.
Tamil Tigers are known to recruit and train children,
indoctrinating them to accept the mentality of suicide bombers. The Tigers are
also notorious for high-profile assassinations. The deputy chief of the
government peace secretariat, a high-ranking Tamil in the Sri Lankan government,
was killed last weekend -- one year to the day after the Sri Lankan minister of
foreign affairs, another high-ranking Tamil, was killed. The brazen 1991
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister who cracked
down on the influence of the Tigers in the late 1980s, caused India to formally
ban the rebel group in 1992.
The fight against the Tigers, most of whom are Hindu,
is a predominantly regional battle, not a part of the greater war against
Islamic fascism. That said, Sri Lanka's struggle against terrorism is not
entirely isolated from the larger war. Terror tactics pioneered by the Tigers
-- most notably suicide bombings -- have been incorporated by other terror
groups. There are larger regional implications from this conflict as well.
India's opposition to the Tigers is clear: Southern India has a population of
50 million Tamils who may be emboldened by a divided Sri Lanka and push for
their own autonomy. But unpleasant memories of the bloody decision to send
peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987 kept India in a more circumspect role.
During a visit to the Sri Lankan capital Colombo in
January, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said
that "this long conflict is only going to come to an end when the LTTE and
the government sit down and find a way forward to end the violence and convince
the LTTE to stop using violence as a political weapon."
The prerequisite for any true cease-fire and productive
discussion, however, is genuine motivation on both sides. For the Sri Lankan
government, the desire to resolve a conflict that has torn the small country
for more than two decades is very real; for the Tamil Tigers, it is not. In the
past, the Tigers have entered cease-fires in a weakened state and used the
temporary breaks in hostilities to recover and refortify their position.
After India outlawed the Tigers, the United States
designated the group a terrorist organization in 1997; England did the same in
2001, followed by Canada and the European Union this year. These moves
dishearten the Tigers, but to make meaningful progress toward a permanent
resolution of the crisis, cease-fires cannot function merely as opportunities
for the Tigers to regroup. In short, the Tigers' ability to rearm themselves needs
to be curtailed, and one way to do that is to stop the flow of money to Sri
Lanka from Tiger sympathizers, particularly those in the West.