What lesson can Pakistan learn from the way Sri Lanka has dealt with the terrorism of LTTE

General Beg’s mess

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has stated that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, during a recent meeting in Libya, told him that “elements in Sri Lanka could be linked to incidents of terrorism in Pakistan, including the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore”. Both countries were now looking into “reports that terrorists in Pakistan had received finances from Sri Lanka,” Mr Gilani said on Sunday.

It should be remembered that Sri Lanka, subject to terrorism over decades, had always adopted a posture of “understanding” towards terror-stricken Pakistan. Despite the fact that world cricket was reluctant to visit Pakistan, Sri Lanka had sent its national team on a tour to Pakistan. The gesture was more in line with the thinking that terrorism should not disrupt normal links between countries. This was how Sri Lanka wanted the world to treat Pakistan.

The world knew the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organisation but full information about its international activities was known only to think tank experts and the Sri Lankan government. Because at one level it was also an India-Sri Lanka issue, much of the global terrorist spread of the LTTE was obfuscated. However, it was by and large accepted by all that Al Qaeda had benefited from the “technology levels” available in LTTE’s capacity to inflict damage.

For instance, a report posted on the US Council on Foreign Relations website asserts that “the secular, nationalist LTTE has no operational connection with al-Qaeda, its radical Islamist affiliates, or other terrorist groups”. It does however accept that Al Qaeda copied the Tigers’ innovation of the “jacket” apparatus worn by individual suicide bombers. LTTE did do some training in Palestine and inspire copycat terrorism in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia.

But Sri Lankan scholars have gone deeper into the LTTE activities than non-Sri Lankans. For instance, Shanaka Jayasekara, Terrorism Researcher, Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism (PICT), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, has zeroed in on the “contact” that no one talks about in Pakistan. He writes:

“Brian Joyce in an article in the Jane’s Intelligence in November 2002 on Terrorist Financing in South Asia states that the LTTE shipping fleet provided logistics support to Harkat-al Mujahideen, a Pakistani militant group with Al Qaeda affiliations, to transport a consignment of weapons to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines. The LTTE used a merchant vessel registered by a front company in Lattakia, Syria, until 2002”.

Pakistan’s own intelligence may not have been very successful in finding the connection — our old spooks now singing on TV are more interested in fighting Mossad and RAW — but there has been a constant buzz in Pakistan about the Taliban and its patron Al Qaeda taking whatever money comes their way to inflict damage on Pakistan. Foreign countries and their intelligence agencies have been often named to explain the holding power of the Taliban.

Foreign terrorists too have been reported as a part of the baggage unloaded by Al Qaeda on its minions in South Waziristan. Even warlord Fazlullah in Swat was allowing “foreigners” to fight the Pakistan Army and behead innocent local people. It is therefore not beyond the Taliban — whose side-business is nothing but extortion and killing for profit — to do “the job” for the LTTE in Lahore for money.

The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team was carried out by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi of the Taliban Tehreek Punjab, the most allied of Al Qaeda allies in the country. An officer of the Punjab police had however blamed India once again for the act of terrorism, assigning to New Delhi the motive that could very well be the motive of elements in Tamil Nadu that support the LTTE, and probably of the ruling political party of Tamil Nadu presently in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition at the centre.

Perhaps the most meaningful lesson for Pakistan to draw comes from the way Sri Lanka has dealt with the terrorism of LTTE. It tackled the long-term Indian involvement inside Sri Lanka on behalf of the nationalists of Tamil Nadu by “normalising” its relations with New Delhi, signing a free-trade treaty with it, and then confronting an increasingly isolated LTTE and putting an end to it. (Daily Times)

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Kashmiris and Tamils: Violence will get them nowhere

Violence will get them nowhere


By Kuldip Nayar

IN a way, what has happened to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka is similar to what has happened to the Hurriyat in Kashmir. Both of them, ‘freedom fighters’, have ceased to be relevant in their respective places.

This does not mean that the alienation of the people they represent, either the Tamils or the Kashmiris has ended. But it does mean that the fight to project their stance has not met with success. In any case, the violence, which has no place in the settlement of political problems, is practically over, more in Kashmir than in Sri Lanka.

This is the only conclusion which can be drawn. Anything beyond that may be wishful thinking on the part of the LTTE and the Hurriyat on one hand and the governments in Sri Lanka and India on the other. What we see is a military victory. Moral victory is still distant. Tamil Nadu cannot force its will on Sri Lanka through bandhs and hartals.

I do not want to belittle the two struggles. The LTTE has fought for eelam (independence) and the Hurriyat for azadi (independence) for many years. Both have sacrificed thousands of their adherents. Yet, they did not realise in the midst of their fight for their ‘cause’ that the gun would never give them victory. They pitted themselves against states which had more guns.

Even the general opinion was against them. In the long run, the governments were bound to get the better of the ‘freedom fighters’. Neither the LTTE nor the Hurriyat has ever faced the fact that no nation would allow any part of its territory to break away, however emotional the call for self-determination or autonomy may be. Had the two asked for a status within their respective countries, the sky would have been the limit.

Some countries like China are unfortunate examples. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibet, has said more than once that he was prepared to accept an autonomous state within China, leaving defence and foreign affairs to Beijing. India would give its right arm if the Kashmiris were to accept that.

Maybe the solution to Kashmir lies in a similar formula whereby people of the state enjoy power over all subjects except foreign affairs and defence. Islamabad could do likewise, transferring all power, except foreign affairs and defence to the elected government in Azad Kashmir. Both New Delhi and Islamabad can give the Kashmiris a sense of coherence and integrity by making the border between Kashmir and Azad Kashmir soft. This will make the borders irrelevant. Pakistan has already said that it would agree to an arrangement which the Kashmiris accept.

Jammu will still need to be tackled. If it is assured of its identity, it would rather stay with the Valley — a ‘relationship of decades’ — than jump into the welter of India where linguistic chauvinism is taking over the centuries’ old coherent tradition. Much depends on the people living in the Valley in terms of how far they are willing to accommodate Jammu.

In the same way, it depends on the Sinhalese how far they are willing to go to win over the northern part of Sri Lanka where the Tamils abound and where the LTTE has been most active. Absorption of Tamils or those who harbour the dream of Eelam depends on the government in Colombo. A federal structure instead of the unitary system the country follows or the devolution of power to the different parts may provide a way out. But then the authoritarianism of the ruling party will have to be curbed. The spirit of democracy must defeat the sense of ethnic superiority which has come to guide the winning side.

I was shouted down when I told a gathering of students at the Srinagar University that their movement would have made far more impact if it had been non-violent. Yasin Malik, the first militant, underlines the futility of violence when he says that he has turned Gandhian.

Similarly, when I met a few LTTE leaders some years ago, they were violent even in their tone. They are as much in the wrong as the Hurriyat leaders if they believe that a principle can only be stoutly defended by the language of violence or by condemning those who do not accept their point of view.

For both of them, there are no shades, only black and white — those who are not with them are against them. This is the old approach of the bigoted, not of tolerance and feeling that others might also have some share of the truth. This approach is wholly unscientific, unreasonable and uncivilised, whether it is applied to the realm of politics, religion or economic theory. All Saarc countries must realise this.

Whatever Colombo and New Delhi may think about their respective strategies, we have arrived at a stage where an attempt of forcible imposition of policy or an idea is ultimately bound to fail. In the present circumstances this may lead to further alienation.

I wish the two would realise this and treat the defeated with dignity and care. They have to win them over and make them feel that their stake in peace is no less than that of the government. If the LTTE and the Hurriyat continue to defy reason and live in the darkness of misdoings they would be living in a make-believe world.

Similarly, there can be no victory for Sri Lanka and India. In fact, the status quo is a defeat for everyone. We have seen in the past that it is not easy for even great powers to reintroduce colonial control over territories which have become independent. Both Colombo and New Delhi have to accept that the desire for identity is strong and cannot be suppressed.

The ground is ready for Sri Lanka to have a settlement with the Tamils who harbour a feeling of denial in their own country. In the same way, the government in Delhi has to sort out things with the Kashmiris who find that the autonomy they enjoyed in 1950 has been eroded over the years.

In fact, people in all the countries of South Asia want to rule themselves without governments’ interference. They are sick and tired of violence and would like to settle down to a stable, secure future. They want democracy, but they know that it is not an end unto itself. It is the means to attain peace and equal opportunities. What has not sunk in is that wrong means will not lead to right results.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi. (Dawn)
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Fighting terror in South Asia - By Kuldip Nayar

“THERE is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,” Julius Caesar tells him. Pakistan could have told India the same thing at the meeting of the joint anti-terror mechanism: recent bomb blasts at Malegaon and Modasa were not the doing of ‘Muslims from across the border’.

Nor did the Pakistani delegation point out that India had its own Hindu terrorists, led by a woman and trained by some ex-army men belonging to an old Sainik school. The meeting, fourth in the series, was ‘positive’, although quiet.

The earlier ones generally ended up with New Delhi demanding the custody of criminals who had taken shelter in Pakistan and Islamabad asking for more evidence. New Delhi has given ‘more evidence’ of the ‘involvement of the ISI’ in the attack on India’s embassy in Kabul. Yet, the purpose was not to put Pakistan on the mat because it was conceded at that very meeting that there could have been ‘some other elements’ involved in the incident. The matter was left at that pleasant note. It was a new beginning of sorts.

On the day the representatives of India and Pakistan met in Delhi the prime ministers of the two countries discussed terrorism in Beijing. Both reiterated that they were committed to work together to clamp down on terrorist forces. “Terror is a common enemy of both India and Pakistan,” said Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani concurred with him. The equation between the two holds promise for the future.

What creates doubts is that a similar exercise was done more than a year ago. But that wasn’t translated into a joint anti-terror mechanism. The Musharraf-led army dragged its feet. However, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has put terrorism at the top of his agenda. This may mean the end of infiltrators into India. But if the policy has changed the reasons are not difficult to comprehend.

One, the terrorists have become a menace to Pakistan itself. But the most important development is the change in the attitude of the rulers. President Asif Ali Zardari is at the helm of affairs. His approach to Pakistan’s problems with India is different from that of the earlier regimes. He wants to befriend India.

I saw this happening from close quarters when I heard the national security advisers of the two countries. At a small dinner given by the Pakistan high commissioner in Delhi, they said certain things which were unbelievable. India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Nayaranan admitted that he was a hawk but had come around to believe what Manmohan Singh told him: “India and Pakistan were destined to be together.” I do not know what transpired between the two during official meetings but Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani told me that the talks were more successful than he ever expected.

It looks as if the clouds of hostility that loomed over India and Pakistan are thinning. Both Manmohan Singh and Zardari reached some understanding on how to fight terrorism in the two countries when they met at New York. Both Narayanan and Durrani were asked to prepare the ground which they did at Delhi. The joint mechanism will be built on it in the days to come. It is obvious that the different agencies operating in the two countries will have to fall in line, stopping what they are doing within and without. In the next few days, the Pakistani training camps which are a sore point with India may be dismantled.

All these measures are laudable. But they are only the means, not the end by themselves. The end is to normalise relations between the two countries. This is not possible until both curb radicals, Hindus and Muslims, in their own territory and stop efforts at mixing religion with politics.

India, a secular polity, is under pressure. Hindutva is gaining ground. Despite their anti-national activities, New Delhi is reluctant to take action against the Sangh Parivar which has spread all over, opening Hindu Jagran Manch offices in every state. The members recruited are getting training and weapons. With its eyes on the forthcoming assembly elections and later to the Lok Sabha, the Congress is found too timid, too faltering.

It is already a bit too late because the politics of hate is spreading as has been seen in Bihar and Maharashtra where the lumpen are fighting on the streets. Hindu terrorists want an ethnic purity in the areas where they live. A new avatar of the Shiv Sena, Raj Thackeray, has created his counterparts in Bihar. One of their leaders came to Mumbai this week and killed four persons while looking for Raj Thackeray to wreak vengeance.

This trend is reminiscent of MQM’s violence in Karachi and it is tearing apart the society in both countries and creating fear in the minds of ordinary people. How will the joint mechanism check those who have communalised terrorism in India and politicised it in Pakistan? Both are contaminating the liberal and democratic atmosphere as the Tamil extremists (the LTTE) are doing in Sri Lanka and the Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami (HJI) in Bangladesh.

The entire South Asia requires a common mechanism to fight against the growth of disruptive tendencies. India had kept them in check with some courage and determination. But lately it looks as if politics has taken over because of the impending elections. India cannot fail South Asia when liberal, democratic values are beginning to matter in the region.

For that reason, Islamabad cannot afford to talk to the Taliban in the NWFP and Fata. This would look like buying peace. It makes no sense to New Delhi if the Taliban are won over for the time being. They will resume pushing their archaic thinking after having consolidated themselves.

It is a pity that Nawaz Sharif, who is all for a strong viable Pakistan, favours a settlement with the Taliban. He should have drawn a lesson from what has happened to Asfandyar Wali Khan. Wali, along with his family, has taken refuge in London because the Taliban tried to kill him and threatened to eliminate the entire family. They are against any liberal thought. Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League should stand by the Pakistan People’s Party to eliminate the Taliban who have a dream to rule both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The region’s dream is different.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi
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