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.