Sri Lanka's Tamil separatists do little to attract sympathy to their cause, says Gamal Nkrumah Yes, it has been a traumatic week for Sri Lanka. Some 14 people were killed and scores were injured, including Sri Lanka's Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Mahinda Wijesekara, as they joined thousands of pilgrims to the holy shrine at the historic mosque at Godapitiya. No less than six ministers took part in the celebratory procession marking Moulid Al-Nabi, the Prophet's Birthday. One prediction about Sri Lankan political developments in 2009 that can be made with absolute confidence is that wanton terrorist acts of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) will not diminish. This is partly because the have-nots and in particular disgruntled elements of the ethnic Tamil minority have many grievances. Talk about incorporating the Tamil community more in the decision-making process of the island- nation nonetheless continue and the former deputy leader of the LTTE Vinyagamoorthi Muralitharan has been appointed non- cabinet minister for natural integration and reconciliation. Many Tamil separatists have come round to accept that unless they start at least to talk about their own eventual disarmament and incorporation into the Sri Lankan political establishment, they will find it extremely hard to get many of the ethnic Sinhalese majority on their side. However, many Sri Lanka analysts believe that peace is just a pipe dream. If the Tamil moderates show no sign of living up to this side of the bargain, the Sinhalese majority's resentment will multiply and will become less and less willing to agree to further power-sharing schemes. There was a time when many influential Tamils had opted for independence. Centuries of progroms and panics taught Tamils that the Sinhalese leaders always have a better hand than their own Tamil leaders. But here is a paradox. There are important segments of the Tamil community with a vested interest in preserving the unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. However wonderful in theory it is to remove the Tamil Tigers' threat once and for all, incidents such as the unfortunate terrorist attack on Tuesday denote the notion of relegating the LTTE to the sidelines like so much pie in the sky. The hard-headed practitioners of realpolitik like Sri Lanka's former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will not for the moment be joining the fray. Oddly enough what will drive the incessant talk about elevating the status of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka are the hardliners of the ruling party. Nobody in the Sri Lankan political establishment is certain that the LTTE will honour a later promise to disarm. Divisions in the ruling United People's Congress of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse do not inhibit the government's resolve to end the LTTE uprising. The Sri Lankan civil war, which erupted in 1972 when LTTE took up arms against the government, has so far claimed the lives of some 70,000 people. When historians look back on his presidency, they may well judge him most on whether he managed to quell the Tamil uprising. According to the pro-LTTE Tamilnet website, 75 civilians were killed last week as a result of Sri Lankan government army shelling of LTTE-administered areas of the island. It is estimated that around 200,000 civilians were trapped in the war zone in the northern parts of the country. The Sri Lankan government accuses the LTTE of using the civilian Tamil population as human shields, but by all accounts, the LTTE appears to be losing the battles on the ground and resorting in desperation instead to its timeworn tradition of terrorism. Tamil separatists can be said to have invented suicide bombing and hold the record, a most sorry one. The participation of senior government officials in a Muslim festival was a show of sectarian solidarity, which renders the attack all the more poignant. The suicide bombing occurred in the town of Akuressa, in Matara district some 160km south of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. The Sri Lankan government is now taking stock and looking at how these figures are adding up. Hopes are high that things will get better. The Sinhalese political establishment will have to re-sell what contemporary Sri Lanka stands for. They will be tested by the Tamils' terrorist acts. "This is a barbaric attack on innocent civilians. The LTTE had suffered a series of military setbacks in the past year and has been cornered in the northeastern part of the island. They are so desperate and are now resorting to terrorist tactics," Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Egypt Ibrahim Ansar told Al-Ahram Weekly. Ambassador Ansar explained that the bombing was supposed to cause maximum damage and loss of life. Sri Lanka has a Muslim population of more than two million, geographically concentrated in the eastern part of the country. They have generally been neutral in the war between Tamils and Sinhalese, refusing to take sides. The leader of the Tamil separatists Veluppillai Prabhakaran is still at large and sporadic armed conflict in the north of the island is expected to continue unabated even though the observers anticipate an escalation of terrorist attacks throughout the island nation and perhaps even against Sri Lankan interests overseas. Ambassador Ansar, a Sri Lankan Muslim himself, noted that peace will inevitably be a long, drawn out process. "We will need all the support we can muster from our allies overseas. The international community must extend its cooperation in face of terrorism and we must fight together."
