Unity of cricket should inspire war torn in Sri Lanka

Unity of cricket should inspire war torn in Sri Lanka

By G.S. Edwin

JAKARTA (JP): The decade-old ethnic war in Sri Lanka no longer
makes front-page headlines. The amorphous battlefront is not quiet,
with the sporadic fighting being either mopping-up operations or
rearguard actions.

Sri Lanka did make the headlines with its recent triumph in
World Cup cricket. Its victory was so impressive that the Asian
Wall Street Journal ran the March 19 headline "Caps off to the
Lankans". The Journal is no cricket fan, but it clearly saw what
could be accomplished if both the Sinhalese and the Tamils worked
together. For a few weeks Sri Lankans witnessed what can be
accomplished when the country's majority Buddhist Sinhalese and
the minority Hindu Tamils work together instead of tearing each
other apart.

As much a lesson as it may seem, the cricketers' teamwork is
reminiscent of Sri Lanka's British-colonial period.

The British ruled Sri Lanka (Ceylon) from 1796 to 1948. During
this period there was no ethnic strife or discord. Both
communities worked together, and made the island a paradise.
Sinhala opinion even accepted that both the Sinhalese (70
percent) and Tamils (15 percent) could be equally represented in
the Legislative Council.

During the struggle for independence, the Tamils also felt
that the future of the country depended on both communities
working together. That is why, even though the Tamils could have
stretched equal representation in the Legislative Council to mean
that Tamils were a separate nation, and made much of the fact
that the British recognized them as such, they did not do so.

As Mohamed Ali Jinnah pushed his two-nation theory to form
Pakistan, the Sinhala and Tamil freedom fighters fought the
British on the single plank of independence for Ceylon.

With independence came universal suffrage, which increasingly
brought the passionate and shortsighted majority versus minority
confrontations into politics. The Tamils felt vulnerable and
excluded from the main stream. They demanded equal status
perforce for Tamils as well as for some measure of autonomy to
practice politics in their northeast homeland.

The Sinhala leaders found the Tamil demands reasonable and in
the national interest. The demands were all agreed, but to be
later undone by street politics. The Tamil demands therefore went
unfulfilled.

Unfortunately, in as much as the Tamil perspective and
confidence were based on their experiences during the British
rule, the Sinhala perspective and profound misgivings were also
based on the historical experiences of Sri Lanka, predating the
British.

Prior to the arrival of the British, the Tamils of South India
frequently invaded Lanka, and the Tamils of Lanka aided the
invasions. The Sinhalese thought of Tamils as a fifth column,
with their minority status in Sri Lanka a standing invitation for
Indian interference in the island's internal affairs, and the
Tamil territory in the northeast a potential bridgehead for an
Indian conquest. Although colonial India was no threat, the
historical proclivity was not exorcised. This underlying fear,
unfortunately confirmed by the Indo Sri Lanka Accord of 1986-
1987, harried the Sinhala-Tamil relationship.

The Sinhalese felt that the accord was an Indian imposition,
thrust on Jayawardana, president of Sri Lanka, whose position was
deliberately weakened by India's open aid to Tamil
insurrectionists.

Fearing India as a covert Tamil supporter, the Sinhalese felt
that given the magnitude of inequalities between Sinhalese and
Tamils -- the Sinhalese have both 70 percent of the land and the
population -- the Tamil claim for equal status was a challenge,
not a demand.

After casting off its colonial moorings, the ethnic issue
caused more than a decade of bloodshed, with more than 50,000
dead and the total loss of trust.

Kumaratunga, the president of Sri Lanka, has the bold and
imaginative view that all national problems can be addressed with
wider diffusion of political power and an attuned political
climate. Accordingly, she proposed a package to devolve extensive
powers (now held by Colombo) to six regions, one of which is the
Tamil majority area in the northeast.

The Tamils would be a given the political framework to realize
their legitimate aspirations, just like their Sinhala neighbors.

Aware that trust had been obliterated, the president committed
Sri Lanka to the proposed reforms by announcing them to the
world. Her charisma, and 62 percent voters' mandate to resolve
the ethnic issue peacefully, give weight to her plan and imbue it
with realism.

Undertaking a broad-based political structure to create
mainstream, effective political participation ropes in all
communities to participate in the balancing process.

The timing is right. India is regarded as a friendly neighbor
and the Tamils are feeling the loss of support for their extreme
cause. The Tamil's battle losses have denied them the opportunity
to make war an extension of politics. Kumartunga has achieved a
lot in a short time.

The president, however, faces two major hurdles: to protect
her package from erosion and ferrying it across a two-thirds vote
in parliament and in a referendum. Tamil trust is bound to grow
in proportion to her success in protecting and delivering the
devolution package.

It would be unwise for Tamils to ignore reality. Their
position has been weakened, yet they are offered autonomy,
official status for Tamil and US$ 700 million to mend war
damages. Actually an invitation to prove their worth in peace. So
the challenge for the Tamils is for all Tamil parties to drop the
word "Liberation" from their party names, and gear up to face
political participation.

Arjuna Ranatunga, the captain of Sri Lanka World Cup cricket
team, told International Herald Tribune before the finals with
Australia that revenge is a word that has no place in cricket.

Revenge is as much out of place, if not more so, in the
affairs of a nation, especially one in need of trust and healing.

The writer is a business consultant based in Jakarta.