Col R Hariharan
Ten
Sri Lankan Tamils, including two women and five children, from Sri Lanka who
landed Aricha Munai off the Dhanushkodi coast (Tamil Nadu) on May 5 2014, have
been arrested by police for entering the country without passports. After preliminary
questioning, they are now lodged in Puzhal jail near Chennai. The media has
questioned the decision to arrest them as they had fled from Mullaitivu fearing
for their personal safety and sought refuge in India. Previously such refugees
used to be screened at Mandapam refugee camp.
The
incident raises a number of questions including why it is taking place when the
internally displaced persons are being rehabilitated; whether it signifies yet
another influx of Sri Lankan refugees to Tamil Nadu five years after the Eelam
War; and what are its implications for India.
According
to the Tamil Nadu Police Q Branch, all the men - S Thavendran (32) from
Mullaitivu, K Thayabararaj (39) and G Sudakaran (32) were former LTTE members. Sri
Lanka authorities had detained them after the war and later released them. Both
the Centre and State have to be extremely cautious in handling against them as
they are former members of the LTTE which continues to be a banned organisation
in the country. This important information has not been highlighted in many of
the Tamil media reports.
Moreover,
they have arrived in Tamil Nadu a few days after the state security apparatus
was put on alert after a bomb alert and the arrest of a Sri Lankan Muslim
suspected of spying for the Pak ISI in Chennai. That is why probably they have
been lodged in prison after preliminary enquiry. According to the media their
families are being shifted to a Sri Lankan refugee camp now.
Tamil
Nadu has given refuge to over 100,000 Sri Lanka refugees who live both inside
and outside refugee camps for over a decade and a half. The refugees get same
benefits the average citizen enjoys in the state, including free and subsidised
rice, monthly subsistence allowance and old age pension. Over 19,000 of them
are India-born and as many as 100 are engineering graduates. In spite of all
this except for proximity and for global transit, India is not an attractive
destination for fleeing Sri Lankan Tamils. The discouraging aspects include
both restriction of their freedom to seek employment elsewhere in India and the
restriction that they cannot to stay outside the camp overnight. Added to these
irksome restrictions, camp amenities are minimal and they cannot travel
overseas for want of travel documents. Though Sri Lanka does issue passports to
them they are only meant for their one-way travel back to the home country.
So
the arrival of three Tamil families reaching Tamil Nadu to seek refuge in spite
these problems is very significant. It an insight to the problems faced by
Tamils, more particularly the Tamil Tiger veterans, living in post war Sri
Lanka. These include political, social, economic and governance issues.
The
environment in Sri Lanka, particularly in the Northern Province does not
encourage the return of refugees from India who had been living for over two
decades. Even the 11,000 plus refugees who had returned home all these years are
not a happy lot. They have painted a grim picture of the environment lacking housing
or shelter, jobs or opportunities for earning any livelihood for them. In fact,
Sri Lanka seems to give greater priority to the rehabilitation of internally
displaced persons of the Eelam War than refugees returning home after a long
stay abroad. This can be seen from the plight of Muslim families returning home
long after they were expelled by LTTE long before war.
It
is true that Sri Lanka had released as many as 13000 former cadres of LTTE
after rehabilitation training and selective skill development programmes. Sri
Lanka has also developed the infrastructure destroyed during the war in the
North. These include roads, rail, power resources, and telecommunication
facilities.
But
there is hardly any sizeable investment in projects specifically to provide
gainful employment to rehabilitated former LTTE youth. As overall rate of
unemployment is high, they have little hope of improving their prospects. There
are an estimated 90,000 war widows in Sri Lanka with the majority in Northern
Province. These women-headed families face not only existential problems but
threats of personal safety and sexual exploitation as well.
The
army continues to informally dominate the life of ordinary citizens in Northern
Province. Military intelligence has a free run to interfere in the daily life of
people under the blanket provisions of Prevention of Terrorism Act. The continued military occupation of prime
land of Tamils particularly in Wanni area and the establishment of permanent
camps for troops established indicate that things are not going to change in
the near future.
The
feeling of gloom and doom among the Tamils has increased particularly after the
much promised election to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) failed to
improve their plight. Through a dubious mixture of bureaucracy and naked power,
Colombo has not allowed the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) government to function
effectively to fulfil its election promises that would have addressed issues of
employment, personal safety and security. And the continuing friction between
Colombo and NPC has dissipated the positive climate generated after the
election. The clouds of suspicion vitiating improvement in ethnic relations
have become even more opaque strengthening the hands of extreme factions both
in Colombo’s ruling coalition as well as the TNA. This become worse after the
TNA supported the UNHRC resolution seeking an international probe into Sri
Lanka’s alleged war crimes.
Since
last year, overseas LTTE elements and acolytes are staging a comeback in Canada
and Europe. They talk of Tamil Eelam and glorify Prabhakaran. There increasing
political clamour in Tamil Nadu for support to separate Eelam has encouraged
overt activity of pro-LTTE elements who have stepped up inflammatory propaganda
publicly. To Sri Lanka was basking in the glory of triumphalism at ending
LTTE’s 25-year long threat the nation, these developments are causing a lot of
unease and even suspicion at India’s intentions in Sri Lanka. Using the
information gleaned from interrogations and recovered LTTE documents Security
forces have started rounding up former LTTE cadres and sympathisers suspected
of helping the revival of LTTE activities in the North and East with assistance
from the overseas LTTE supporters.
Suspiciously
close to the time the UNHRC was debating the resolution on Sri Lanka, security
forces hunted down and killed three ex-LTTE members allegedly working for the
LTTE ‘revival’ project. Incriminating documents relating to arms and explosive
caches have been recovered from them.
In
the follow up operations, hundreds of suspects including a number of women have
been rounded up. Many are languishing in prison. As many as 17 Tamil Diaspora
organisations have been black listed as pro-LTTE. Over 472 persons have also
been individually blacklisted. Any contact with them would attract criminal
action. This has crushed the opportunity for involving the Tamil Diaspora
leaders inclined to work with Sri Lanka politicians for evolving a win-win
solution to benefit the community. The black listing notification and the
rounding up of suspects has created panic not only among former LTTE cadres and
sympathisers but others as they also can be hauled up anytime by the police. They fear for their own and their families’
lives is particularly high among former associates of the LTTE. Their fears are
realistic as the army seems to have become the final arbiter of many things in
Sri Lanka and more so in the North.
So
the latest arrival of the three families of Sri Lankan Tamils has to be
understood in this larger, complex context. It is not merely anti-Tamil moves
by the Rajapaksa government. So it is high time the Tamil media started
analysing issues more objectively to evolve positive results to benefit the
harassed Tamils in Sri Lanka.
However,
former LTTE cadres are unlikely to seek refuge in large numbers in Tamil Nadu as
does not welcome them but rounds them up and houses them in controlled
environment. But their families can find
safety either inside or outside refugee camps in Tamil Nadu. So it is more
likely that former cadres prefer to use India as a refuge for their families
only. They would probably use India more as a transit point to join their
brethren living elsewhere. But as they are LTTE veterans, their potential for using Tamil
Nadu as springboard to create mischief in Sri Lanka should never be
underestimated.
As
the general elections are coming to the close, we hope both the Centre and the
Tamil Nadu government will quickly get their act together to alleviate the
plight of Sri Lanka Tamils. It will require an overall game plan with a series
of actions by both India and Sri Lanka to achieve positive results for the
benefit of minorities without loss of face to either their country or their
people.
(Col.
R Hariharan, a retired Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, served
as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka
1987-90. He is associated with the South Asia Analysis Group and the Chennai
Centre for China Studies. E- mail: colhari@yahoo.com Blog:
www.colhariharan.org)
Courtesy: Chennai Centre for China
Studies C3S Paper No.2095 dated May 9, 2014
http://www.c3sindia.org/india/4010
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