Apr. 02, 1990: Sri Lanka:A Goodbye--And Good Riddance
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TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
Apr. 02, 1990 Nixon Memoirs
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<source>Time Magazine</source>
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WORLD, Page 32
SRI LANKA
Goodbye--and Good Riddance
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<p>As India's troops pull out, the nation seems relieved. But now
the Sinhalese and the Tamils must keep their own peace
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<p> When Indian peacekeeping forces arrived in Sri Lanka nearly
three years ago to try to end a brutal civil war, exultant
crowds greeted them with flowers and handshakes. But when the
last batch of 2,000 soldiers trooped onto a waiting ship at the
eastern port of Trincomalee last week, completing a six-month
withdrawal of 70,000 men, not a single civilian showed up to
bid them goodbye. If the locals had anything to say to the
"peace-keepers," whose presence brought not peace but one of
the bloodiest chapters in Sri Lanka's already violent history,
it was more like good riddance. Said A. Sivalingam, a retired
senior government official in Trincomalee: "We don't know what
the future will bring, but we are glad the Indians have gone."
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<p> The final exit of the Indian forces has defused one of Sri
Lanka's most combustible issues. But the pullout also created
a power vacuum in the island's north and east that was quickly
filled by the militants the Indians had been fighting, the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who have yet to renounce
their goal of a separate state for the country's minority
Tamils. For now, the separatists and the central government in
Colombo are working in concert for peace, but their alliance is
anything but stable.
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<p> Meanwhile, Indian military leaders were pondering why things
had gone so wrong in their rough equivalent of America's
debacle in Vietnam. Invited into Sri Lanka by then President
J.R. Jayewardene, the Indian army's original mission was to
collect arms from Tamil militants, who had been trained and
equipped by India in the first place. In exchange, Jayewardene
promised that the 2 million Tamils, who have suffered
discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese (11.8
million), would be given more autonomy over a newly created
Northeastern province, where they predominate. But when the
Tigers refused to give up the fight, the Indians became
embroiled in a guerrilla war that left 6,000 civilians, 1,200
Indian soldiers and 800 Tiger fighters dead. "It was none of
our business to send in our army, and when we did, we were so
ignorant of the realities on the ground," lamented an Indian
major general last week. Pointing to a copy of historian
Barbara Tuchman's book on misguided military adventures, The
March of Folly--from Troy to Vietnam, he said, "We can add
Sri Lanka to that."
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<p> India's presence in Sri Lanka's northeast inadvertently
brought even greater misery to the country's south. There, the
extremist People's Liberation Front (J.V.P.), a Sinhalese
chauvinist group, protested the foreign intervention with a
barrage of murders and strikes that created near anarchy. The
government replied by dispatching death squads to assassinate
suspected J.V.P. cadres. The retaliation campaign worked--since late last year the J.V.P. has been virtually inactive--but at great cost. In all, some 17,000 people died in the
attacks and counterattacks.
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<p> Pressured by Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who
succeeded Jayewardene in 1989, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
agreed last year to withdraw Indian troops. The departure was
hastened by Gandhi's ouster in elections last November. His
successor, V.P. Singh, takes a less muscular approach to
foreign policy. Said a senior aide to Singh: "We are glad to
get out. We were not wanted there."
</p>
<p> With the foreigners gone, Premadasa's government and the
Tigers are stripped of the shared mission that brought them
together last summer. What's more, the future is mined with
potential conflicts. Colombo, for example, wants the Tigers to
disarm before elections are held later this year for the
Northeastern Provincial Council. Because they have both
systematically demolished rival Tamil groups and gained
credibility for fighting the Indians, the Tigers are almost
certain to win the balloting. But they are loath to surrender
their weapons for fear of being attacked by government troops.
In addition, it remains to be seen how long an organization
that has waged a war for secession can get along with a central
government that objects to it.
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<p> One development that has improved the odds for peace is
Colombo's acceptance that it must genuinely redress
discrimination against the Tamils. "The President is absolutely
committed to devolving power to the minorities," says Education
Minister A.C.S. Hameed. Premadasa's administration is, among
other things, drafting legislation that will ensure all ethnic
groups a proportionate share of government appointments and
promotions.
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<p> The current spirit of conciliation, however fragile it may
be, has made many Sri Lankans philosophical about their
country's unhappy experience with Indian troops. "It was the
great hubris that put everybody in their place," says Radhika
Coomaraswamy, a Sri Lankan political scientist. "India realized
the limitations of hegemonistic ambitions, the Tigers realized
the limitations of armed conflict, and the Sri Lankan
government realized the danger of keeping its society divided."
Now the challenge is to make sure those lessons are not
forgotten.
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<p>By Lisa Beyer. Reported by Anita Pratap/Trincomalee.
