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Sri Lanka: The simmering Muslim factor
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Even as the Norwegian facilitators
are struggling to get the Sri Lankan government and
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to the
negotiating table, another complicating dimension has
been added to the peace process with the eruption of
violence last week between the island's Tamils and
Muslims.
Clashes between Tamils and Muslims in
eastern Sri Lanka have left seven people dead and at
least 50 injured. Curfew was imposed on the worst
affected districts of Batticaloa and Amparai in a bid to
quell the violence and to prevent it from spreading.
Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multilingual and
multi-religious society. The Sinhalese, who constitute
the overwhelming majority on the island, are, however,
predominantly Buddhist. Tamils, who are the largest
minority on the island, are a majority in the Northern
and Eastern provinces. They are mainly Hindu but a
significant number are Christian.
Muslims
constitute Sri Lanka's third-largest ethnic group.
Unlike the Buddhists, Hindus and Christians on the
island, the Muslims draw their identity from their
religion. They are scattered all over the island but are
found mainly in the east. They speak the language of the
area in which they live but the culture and political
aspirations of the Muslims who live in Tamil areas are
quite distinct and do not converge with that of the
Tamils. It was between Tamil-speaking Muslims and
Hindu-Tamils in the east that violence broke out last
week.
Eastern Province is an explosive mixture
of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims. It was once a
predominantly Tamil province. However, state-sponsored
settlement of Sinhalese has led to an alteration of the
province's demography. Today, while Trincomalee district
- the northernmost of the three Eastern Province
districts - has a large section of Sinhalese, Batticaloa
is predominantly Tamil, while Amparai is mainly Muslim.
Eastern Province has seen some of the worst
fighting over the past two decades, not only between the
LTTE and the Sri Lankan security forces but also mass
killings of one community by another. It is not uncommon
to see entire villages - Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim -
razed to the ground in the east.
What or who
actually set off the bloodshed and arson last week is
still unclear. The Muslims have blamed the LTTE while
the LTTE has pointed an accusing finger at "Islamic
extremists". The unrest began in Muthur, near
Trincomalee, after Muslims called a general strike in
protest against alleged extortion by Tigers. The unrest
quickly spread to other parts of the province.
Tamil-Muslim suspicion has existed for decades -
Muslims accuse Tamils of "collaborating" with the
Sinhalese during the anti-Muslim riots of 1915 and
Tamils believe that Muslims have betrayed the Tamil
cause by voting for Sinhalese parties.
Under the
Federal Party and later the Tamil United Liberation
Front (TULF), the Tamil nationalist movement sought to
build solidarity among all Tamil speakers by avoiding
references to symbols drawn from Hinduism. Yet, in
choosing symbols from the Dravidian past, the Tamil
nationalist parties ended up excluding the Muslims, who
had very little in common with the legends with which
the Hindu Tamils identified.
With the rise of
Tamil militancy, Muslims distanced themselves further
from the Tamil cause. Muslim extremism increased. There
were reports that money from the Middle East was pouring
into the hands of Muslims to help them arm themselves
against the Sri Lankan forces, who were then being
trained by the Israelis. In fact, it was believed that
the LTTE, too, was receiving weapons from the Israelis
at that time.
Tamil-speaking Muslims do not
support secession of the Tamil areas from Sri Lanka. An
independent Tamil Eelam is not in their interests as
they will not only be a minority there but also lack the
bargaining power they currently have in Sri Lankan
politics (the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, or SLMC, is
part of the ruling coalition today and was a part of the
previous government as well). The SLMC demand for a
territorially non-contiguous Muslim majority council
comprising all Muslim areas in the northeast - a demand
that was "tacitly promoted" by the Sri Lankan
government, which saw an opportunity to undermine the
Tamil struggle - "irritated" the Tamils, as they saw it
as a threat to their political goal. "It was as if the
SLMC was sabotaging Tamil aspirations," writes D B S
Jeyraj in the Sri Lankan weekly newspaper The Sunday
Leader.
In 1990, the LTTE drove Muslims out of
Northern Province. About 65,000 Tamil-speaking Muslims
were forced to relocate to other parts of the island.
Having failed to win the support of the Muslims, the
LTTE decided to evict them. Massacres of the Muslims
followed.
"Taraki", a columnist well informed in
Tamil affairs, wrote in the early 1990s that the LTTE's
post-1990 anti-Muslim policy was a result of the Tiger
leadership deciding to go along with the advice of its
eastern cadres that the LTTE would have to respond to
the demands of Tamils in the east to defend them from
Muslim attacks.
Since then, it appears that the
LTTE has realized the shortsightedness of its strategy,
for Muslims are an important part of its logistics
network, and that suffered. It resulted in the LTTE
being branded as a Hindu group by some sections, which
it was not. Besides, there was a realization that
addressing the Muslim question was a key to a political
solution of the crisis.
Soon after the LTTE and
the Sri Lankan government signed a ceasefire agreement
in February, the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran and
the SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem endorsed a deal, a key
component of which was that those Muslims who were
evicted would have the right to return to their homes as
part of the peace process.
Notwithstanding the
LTTE's recent accommodation of Muslims, harassment of
Muslim traders on the ground continues. It appears that
the Tigers continue to collect taxes, and the Muslims
resent this extortion.
While it is possible that
the eruption of violence last week was sudden and
spontaneous, the possibility of it being planned cannot
be ruled out. Analysts hint that sections opposed to the
peace process could have initiated the violence.
Sections within the Sri Lankan security forces are
against negotiating with the LTTE. The Muslims, it is
said, feel excluded in the current peace process. They
fear that in a rush to do a deal with the LTTE the
government will ignore Muslim concerns. They fear that
their rights will be undermined in a set up dominated by
the Tigers and if the Northern and Eastern provinces are
merged as per the LTTE's demands.
There are
Tamil armed groups who are opposed to the LTTE and
resent being sidelined in the peace process. It is
believed that within the LTTE, too, the eastern Tigers
are opposed to negotiations. Whether the LTTE's eastern
cadres are fueling the violence is a moot point.
The outbreak of Tamil-Muslim violence draws
attention to the fact that the government cannot expect
a lasting peace by appeasing the Tigers alone - it will
have to look into Muslim grievances as well.
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