{"id":212826,"date":"2020-08-25T17:41:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=212826"},"modified":"2020-08-30T18:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-30T12:37:00","slug":"fascism-terrorism-the-ltte-sri-lankan-civil-war-an-endnote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/fascism-terrorism-the-ltte-sri-lankan-civil-war-an-endnote\/","title":{"rendered":"Fascism, Terrorism & The LTTE\/Sri Lankan Civil War: An Endnote"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mark Salter<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Salter<\/p><\/div>\n

First, an apology: just when my marathon exchange with Dayan Jayatilleka<\/span><\/a> (DJ) finally appeared to be over\u2026. well goodness, here it comes again! Out of respect for your long-suffering readership, then, I will attempt to be as brief \u2013 and final \u2013 as possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

DJ\u2019s \u2018final\u2019 riposte raises four important issues. The first concerns fascism and terrorism. Here DJ alleges that my approach to the LTTE is based on the alleged category error of \u2018confusing terrorism with fascism\u2019. Ironically, however, his argument in support of this contention rests on precisely the flaw of which he accuses me. First a basic distinction between the two concepts in focus. Fascism is fundamentally an ideology<\/i>, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as \u2018an extreme right-wing political system or attitude that is in favour of strong central government, aggressively promoting your own country or race above others, and that does not allow any opposition.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Terrorism, by contrast, should be defined instrumentally<\/i>: specifically as a means of, or strategy for, using violence and intimidation to further wider e.g. political and\/or religiously-defined goals. <\/span>Viewed from this perspective it becomes clear why describing the LTTE as \u2018classically fascist\u2019 or otherwise, as DJ insists on doing, is at the very least highly problematic. Prabhakaran\u2019s penchant for the ruthless suppression of dissent \u2013 real or imagined \u2013 within (and without) the LTTE is unquestionable. Additionally, there is indeed an argument to made for the view that the argument for Tamil Eelam was at least subliminally rooted in a long-standing Dravidian view of Tamils as superior to the Sinhalese. Beyond that, however, pace<\/i> the definition noted above it\u2019s hard to see any sense in which the LTTE can realy be defined as fascist \u2013 classically or otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed in terms of the LTTE\u2019s professed ideology as expressed in, for example, the writings of its chief ideologist Anton Balasingham, there are solid grounds for suggesting that \u2018Eelamism\u2019 in its specific, LTTE variant was located at precisely the opposite end of the political spectrum to fascism. Balasingham\u2019s understanding of \u2018self-determination\u2019, for example \u2013 a key term in the Tiger\u2019s political lexicon from the 1985 Thimpu Declaration onwards \u2013 is explicitly based on the political programs of kindred \u2018national liberation struggles\u2019 of the 1970s and 80s, many of these in fact welded to some variant of the Marxist\/Maoist\/Castroist Weltanschauung<\/i> embraced by DJ himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

DJ\u2019s own category confusion, moreover, is aptly illustrated by the fact that in a number of instances, the evidence he supplies In support of the \u2018LTTE as fascist\u2019 contention in fact illustrates what is usually considered terrorist<\/i> activity. Even the examples he provides that do not fall into this category \u2013 in particular the murder of internal opponents or competitors \u2013 signally fail to support his overall \u2018LTTE as fascist\u2019 thesis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Starting from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution \u2013 and on, most spectacularly, through the terrors of the Stalin era \u2013 the Soviet Union proved a seasoned practitioner of the ruthless persecution, purging, execution and \u2013 in the case of the 1932-33 Ukrainian Holodomor<\/i> \u2013 systematic starvation of millions of its own citizens: a macabre political quality unrivalled at the time by any bar Nazi Germany. And similar observations apply to any number of post-World War II communist regimes: Mao\u2019s China, Pol Pot\u2019s Cambodia, Mengistu\u2019s Ethiopia and the post-World War II Stalin era dictatorships of Central-Eastern Europe, to mention a few salient examples. Yet although they adopted similar practices, for example with respect to their \u2013 again, real or imagined – opponents, these regimes were surely the precise political antithesis<\/i> of fascism.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s really in focus here, I would suggest, is two things that DJ conflates, namely (gruesome) methods<\/i> and ideology. <\/i>The point is further amplified if you take into account the fact that, starting from Franco\u2019s Spain, moving on through 1960s Greece, Salazar-era Portugal, Pinochet\u2019s Chile and the whole gamut of Central and Latin American right-wing military dictatorships over the last 70 years, remarkably similar methods of intimidation, persecution and elimination have been used by regimes from the polar opposite end of the political spectrum to Stalin\u2019s USSR, Mao\u2019s China et al<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Accordingly, pointing to the LTTE\u2019s use of similar methods of suppression, intimidation etc. does nothing to prove that they were a fascist organization, everything to underline their ruthless intolerance of dissent and readiness to deploy any and every practice \u2013 suicide bombers included \u2013 in the lexicon of terrorist methodology to further their goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Authoritarian? Most certainly. Ruthless? Undoubtedly. Terror \u2013 as practised by Prabhakaran against the movement\u2019s perceived enemies \u2013 was a gruesome, murderous modus operandi<\/i>. But it was assuredly not<\/i> an ideology \u2013 fascist or otherwise. In a manner akin to the political confusions stemming from the post-9\/11 \u2018War on Terror\u2019, to treat the former (terrorism) as the latter (fascism) conflates two distinct operational categories \u2013 strategy and ideology \u2013in a manner that only serves to confuse, not clarify matters. In sum, if anyone\u2019s guilty of category confusion regarding the terrorism-fascism relationship it\u2019s DJ, not myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

How, then, to explain the enduring appeal of the \u2018fascist LTTE\u2019 trope deployed by DJ and other apologists for the underlying official rationale for the war\u2019s final phase aka Eelam War IV? A pointer is provided by Godwin\u2019s law, a popular internet adage to the effect that the longer an online discussion continues, the greater the probability of a comparison involving Hitler and the Nazis emerging.<\/span><\/p>\n

At which point enter DJ centre stage. What are the terms in which he dismisses \u2018certain Lankan politicians\u2019 and a \u2018particular political perspective for Sri Lankans\u2019 I am alleged to have defended earlier in our debate? Answer: as \u2018absurd as would have been a commendation of Chamberlain\u2019s appeasement of Hitler in Munich\u2019. Result pace<\/i> DJ: an opponent tarred with the brush of Nazi appeasement. Intellectual victory secured. Story. End of.<\/span><\/p>\n

In reality, however, DJ\u2019s argument is one more example of an intellectual slight of hand with a long, wearily familiar history: and one chiefly deployed by hawkish types everywhere attempting to undermine opponents of any given war via smear tactics involving the resort toGodwin\u2019s law or some variant of it. From my own experience I well recall how the UK\u2019s Thatcher-era government tried to dismiss peace activists like myself, along with hundreds of thousands of others opposed to the early 1980s deployment of a new generation of US nuclear weapons in Britain and other European NATO countries, via the mechanical application of the \u2018Munich-like appeasers\u2019 canard. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then we were depicted as a new generation of Chamberlains bent on appeasing the existential threat to the \u2018free world\u2019 posed by the Soviet Union. Nearly 40 years on, and in a very different context, DJ suggests that in defending the efforts of \u2018certain Lankan politicians\u2019, in particular \u2018our local Chamberlain and his co-thinkers\u2019 to negotiate with the LTTE (we all know who he means here), I can once again be summarily dismissed for having joined the ranks of another, more recent bunch of supposed \u2018appeasers\u2019. (In passing, note that while the vocabulary <\/span>changes from context to context, the \u2018appeal to Godwin\u2019 type argument\u2019s essential grammar and syntax remains essentially unchanged, irrespective of the contextual particularities.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Lankan case, as used by DJ et al<\/i> this argument\u2019s supposed strength is twofold. First it is (wrongly) believed to see off arguments in support of any attempt(s) to reach a negotiated settlement with the LTTE. Second, by the same token it supposedly provides retrospective vindication for a strategy premised on the wholesale military defeat of the Tigers: a strategy pursued with vigour by the Sri Lankan armed forces under then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa: initially with a modicum of caution (2006-2007), subsequently with all guns blazing, an approach culminating in victory i.e. the spectacularly bloody military endgame of May 2009. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, and for reasons outlined above, the \u2018\u2019fascist appeaser\u2019 argument against efforts to negotiate with the LTTE amounts in other words to little more than an ineffectual, misplaced attempt to close down discussion of the alternatives to war via a narrow, highly partisan interpretation of the dynamics of the Sri Lankan conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, DJ moves onto another error of interpretation, to wit his contention that my use of the examples of Afghanistan and N. Ireland provides another example of my alleged descent into category confusion. In support of this view, in both cases DJ notes some (obvious) contextual differences from Sri Lanka. But in doing so he appears to have missed my main point, which was to note that in both the examples cited as in Sri Lanka, making peace of necessity involves talking to one\u2019s enemies, not one\u2019s friends \u2013 irrespective of their ideologio-political hue or geographic provenance<\/i>, I should perhaps have added for the sake of clarity. Regardless of DJ\u2019s misdirected response, moreover, I firmly believe this perspective constitutes an central point of departure for any serious analysis of the dynamics, ethics, outcomes \u2013 and yes, pitfalls \u2013 of \u2018Talking To Terrorists\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, DJ claims that, allegedly in support of the \u2018old trope\u2019 that the Norwegian facilitators \u2018kept the Indians in the loop\u2019, my account of the early 2000s stage in the Lankan peace process omits or otherwise glosses over some important historical details. Why, he wonders, did the Indian government pull the \u2018dove\u2019-like Gopalkrishna Gandhi out of the Colombo High Commissioner position in 2002? And why did the Norwegians not talk to \u2018Indians who had talked to Prabhakaran\u2019 in the 1980s?<\/span><\/p>\n

On the first query my response, as detailed in my book, differs significantly from DJ\u2019s. From Colombo Gandhi was relocated to Oslo in 2002 as his country\u2019s Ambassador\u2013 a move interpreted by the Norwegian facilitators as intended to strengthen India\u2019s Lanka-related lines of communication with them. On the second, while I cannot vouch for the details of every individual with whom the Norwegians met in Delhi, I can definitely testify to the fact that from the beginning of their Lankan peace facilitation role, Solheim and colleagues were regular visitors to the Indian capital, typically meeting with their principal Indian Foreign Service interlocutors and others immediately before and\/or after every visit to Colombo. This they did in order either to brief the Indians on the outcomes of their visits, or to elicit their views on current issues of importance in advance of their upcoming meetings with Lankan officialdom. <\/span><\/p>\n

If there were significant omissions in the list of officials they met in Delhi, moreover, I would suggest this was as much down to their host\u2019s own thinking and priorities as the Norwegians themselves. Certainly, from first-hand experience I can testify to the fact that Gandhi\u2019s successor as High Commissioner in Colombo proved to be just about the only significant Indian official involved in the peace process with whom, even despite Oslo\u2019s best efforts, it proved impossible for to secure an interview for the purposes of my book (for whatever reason, no response to those sustained communication efforts was forthcoming).<\/span><\/p>\n

DJ goes onto provide an at best inaccurate, at worst distorted version of the circumstances leading up to President Kumaratunga\u2019s and Foreign Minister Kadirgamar\u2019s mid-2001 criticism of Erik Solheim\u2019s conduct as chief facilitator, ostensibly on the grounds of \u2018biased\u2019 remarks he was reported to have made when visiting Washington in May 2001. Again the facts, and again as laid out in my book on the subject that DJ assures us he has read carefully, tell a rather different story. <\/span><\/p>\n

First, contra<\/i> DJ Solheim was not and indeed could not have been replaced by Vidar Helgesen, who at this point in time was yet to assume office as Deputy Foreign Minister, something he only did following his H\u00f8yre Party\u2019s agreement to participate in the three-party Centre-Right coalition government formed in the aftermath of October 2001 general elections. In reality, then Foreign Minister Thorbjorn Jagland\u2019s response to the criticisms levelled at Solheim in a bilateral meeting held with Kumaratunga and Kadirgmar in Colombo in early June 2001 was to announce both that Norwegian engagement would be officially \u2018upgraded\u2019, and that consequently he himself would be assuming a more hands-on role in the peace facilitation process – without, however, suggesting that Solheim was to be removed, as DJ contends. <\/span><\/p>\n

For his part, Solheim ascribes Kumaratunga\u2019s and Kadirgamar\u2019s vocal displeasure with him to a combination of two factors: first, the Lankan Army\u2019s decision to launch what proved to be a disastrous new military offensive – dubbed \u2018Agni Kheila 1\u2019 \u2013 in late April 2001, thereby breaking an earlier commitment from Kumaratunga to refrain from hostilities while a ceasefire was in place and wider negotiation modalities were being explored with the LTTE. <\/span><\/p>\n

Second, and in Solheim\u2019s own estimation, most significantly, were his behind closed door comments in the US Congress during a May visit to Washington: these \u2013 according to him \u2013 being to the effect that while the Agni Kheila offensive was both an unhelpful and militarily disastrous development, the LTTE remained committed to a ceasefire. These essentially correct observations had later been relayed back to Colombo, eliciting an incendiary response from Kumaratunga. An exemplary case, in other words, of a leader responding to a messenger bearing unpleasant but truthful tidings by aiming to shoot him: not, as DJ insinuates, as a consequence of any bias \u2013 perceived or otherwise – on Solheim\u2019s part.<\/span><\/p>\n

With regard to history, DJ also reasserts an earlier claim that the result of every round of negotiations with the Tigers was the same viz. what he dubs a \u2018unilateral return to war by the LTTE\u2019. Since I both examined the relevant evidence and debunked this claim in a previous contribution, I do not propose to repeat the same here. I would, however, suggest that DJ perhaps revisit Einstein\u2019s definition of lunacy when considering his own repeated, factually inaccurate assertion regarding the causes and consequences of breakdowns in Lankan peace negotiations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth and finally, DJ wheels out \u2013 or more accurately, name-checks \u2013 \u2018Just War\u2019 theory in support of what he calls \u2018the war of the Sri Lankan state and its military\u2019. In response it\u2019s worth recalling the ethical and practical conditions specified by just war theorists, conventionally divided into two categories: those governing the \u2018right to go to war\u2019 (jus ad bellum<\/i>) and those<\/a> covering the \u2018right conduct of war\u2019 (jus in bello<\/i>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Key elements of the former include the presence of a just cause; right intention i.e. only in a genuinely just cause, and solely for that purpose; and war as last resort i.e. only after all available peaceful and\/or viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted. On this count, the \u2018last resort\u2019 principle is precisely one of the key points at issue in this debate: DJ clearly appears to believe this criterion was met in full, notably in the war\u2019s final years. I, like others, however, seriously beg to disagree with him in that respect.<\/span><\/p>\n

With respect to jus in bello<\/i>, key criteria include the principle of distinction,<\/i> meaning that acts of war must be directed specifically and uniquely against enemy combatants: proportionality<\/i>, i.e. combatants must ensure that harm caused to civilians is not excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage from an assault; fair treatment of prisoners of war<\/i>, meaning that torture or other forms of mistreatment of PoWs are expressly prohibited: and finally malum in se<\/i>, meaning that combatants are forbidden from using weapons that necessarily involve contravening international humanitarian law. Examples often cited in this respect include mass rape, forcing enemy combatants to fight against their own side or using weapons \u2013 for example biological or chemical agents – whose disproportionate effects cannot be controlled.<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a genius to see that the presence \u2013 or absence \u2013 of all these criteria remains a deeply contested feature of continuing debate on the rights and wrongs of the Sri Lankan civil war, notably (but by no means exclusively) in connection with its final stages. DJ may feel it\u2019s sufficient simply to invoke Just War theory to establish its successful application and observation in this context. I by contrast would suggest that invoking the theory is only the beginning, not the end of the relevant discussion. <\/span><\/p>\n

To proceed further along that path would, however, to be drawn into a further, wider debate. And if for no other reason than that I suspect I have already tried the reader\u2019s patience too far, I think I\u2019ll rather elect to end. Right here.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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