Militarization or Democratization
-- Ahilan
Kadirgamar
You’ve used the expression ‘as we soldiers
say’. To a Colombian, accustomed to the way our guerrillas talk,
your language doesn’t sound very soldierly. How military is
your movement, and how would you describe the war in which you
have been fighting?
We were formed in an army, the EZLN. It has a military
structure. Subcomandante Marcos is the military chief of an
army. But our army is very different from others, because its
proposal is to cease being an army. A soldier is an absurd person
who has to resort to arms in order to convince others, and in
that sense the movement has no future if its future is military.
If the EZLN perpetuates itself as an armed military structure,
it is headed for failure. Failure as an alternative set of ideas,
an alternative attitude to the world. The worst that could happen
to it, apart from that, would be to come to power and install
itself there as a revolutionary army. For us it would be a failure.
What would be a success for the politico-military organizations
of the sixties or seventies which emerged with the national
liberation movements would be a fiasco for us. We have seen
that such victories proved in the end to be failures, or defeats,
hidden behind the mask of success. That what always remained
unresolved was the role of people, of civil society, in what
became ultimately a dispute between two hegemonies. … The world
in general, and Mexican society in particular, is composed of
different kinds of people, and the relations between them have
to be founded on respect and tolerance, things which appear
in none of the discourses of the politico-military organizations
of the sixties and seventies. Reality, as always, presented
a bill to the armed national liberation movements of those days,
and the cost of settling it has been very high.
[Interview of Subcomandante
Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) by
Garcia Marquez and Roberto Pombo first published in Revista
Cambio, Bogota, 26 March 2001 and translation in New Left
Review 9, May-June 2001. http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24304.shtml]
Subcomandante
Marcos’ words speak to the Tamil liberation struggle as well.
In the last twenty-five years of armed struggle, the “role of
people” has been problematic, where the Tamil militant groups
were unable to envision and perform a role for different kinds
of people. Many militant groups thought about how they can use
different kinds of people, but they did not go far enough in
creating a united front of the various struggles of different
kinds of people. Nor did they think in terms of mobilizing the
people to empower a vibrant civil society capable of opposing
the State. The current debates on the dismantling of the High
Security Zones (which inhibit the return of thousands of internally
displaced) and the LTTE’s new camp in Trincomalee (a ceasefire
violation which is cause for rising tension) are both part of
a larger question of militarization, armed struggle and the
“role of people.” In the last twenty-five years, the presence
of the Sri Lankan army in the North and East has meant nothing
but horror for the people. What all but few Tamils did not expect
was the same sort of horror from the Tamil militants groups.
The
record of the State’s militarized institutions (armed forces,
police and prisons) not only in terms of their brutality against
the ethnic minorities, but also in how they dealt with Sinhala
youth and dissent is a testament to the grave dangers posed
to a society by any military. To support any army of a state
that invades, colonizes and brutalizes a different people, though
that is what most armies do, is to invite fire into ones own
house. Here, I am not sure that those calling for militarization
in the South have learned the lesson even after two rounds of
horrifying repression. Now, I would like to turn to the more
difficult question of Tamil militancy, national liberation struggles,
insurrections and militarization.
A
militant movement that does not have a role for people and does
not respect or tolerate different kinds of people fails even
before it gains power. In the case of the Tamil armed struggle,
attacks on Sinhala civilians, Muslim peoples, fellow militants
and dissenting Tamils were clear and early signs of such a failure.
Once the LTTE came to dominate the Tamil armed struggle, after
decimating some and marginalizing the rest of the militant groups,
their attitude towards the people became one of contempt. Such
a failure of Tamil militancy is extremely painful and costly
not only for the direct victims, but also for the future of
the Tamil community as a whole. This failure of armed struggle,
where “the movement has no future if its future is military”,
I would see as one core aspect of militarization. It does not
consider a role for people in their struggles and their future;
it is rather focused on using people for its own ends of militarization.
Such militarization of Tamil politics has led not only to the
loss of lives, but also the crushing of dissent, scarred minds,
political apathy and cynicism. We are in need more than ever
of a democratic revolution, but we find ourselves without the
social energy and political resources to confront our future.
In
such a historical flow, the moment now is even graver with the
LTTE again turning its guns on its Tamil political rivals. As
an ethnic politico-military organization ruthlessly committed
to its version of a national liberation struggle, it has taken
the peoples hostage through its path of militarization. This
extreme militarization will not stop short of regimenting society.
This is the second aspect of militarization, it leads to the
control, ordering and disciplining of the people’s social and
political life in a military fashion, or what I would like to
call regimentation. The forced recruitment of children into
its ranks, the “taxation” of what little production in the North
and East, and the engineered uprisings of Pongu Tamil, particularly
during the last eighteen months of ceasefire is unquestionable
proof of such regimentation of society even during “peace times”.
Militarization
of this ethnic politico-military organization does not end with
those it can regiment; it ventures to cleanse those who refuse
to be regimented. The forced removal in forty-eight hours of
eighty thousand Muslims in 1990 from the North (the bulk of
whom continue to live in refugee camps in the Puttalam) was
a horrifying example of such “ethnic cleansing.” The many massacres
of Muslims in the East in the 1990’s, including the bloody massacre
in the Kaathankudy Mosque, and the more recent provocations,
attacks and displacement of Muslims in the East are consequences
of a military organization’s attempts to mobilize its cadres
and the population at large by promoting ethnic cleansing. Next,
the murder in the last few months of numerous active and former
members of political groups reflect the LTTE’s project of “political
cleansing.” Ethnic and political cleansing by this ethnic politico-military
organization is indiscriminate. It sanctions the targeting of
all those that refuse to be regimented. Such is the logic of
recent murders of former political activists quietly making
a living for their families and of Muslim farmers and fishermen
targeted while at work.
In
looking at the recent attacks on Muslims and dissenting Tamils,
each individual act is worrisome, but the central problem is
the ideology of militarization, characterized by “regimentation”,
“cleansing” and a future that is military. Yet, the LTTE’s very
ideology of militarization is often cynically justified as its
strength; that it is such military power at any cost that has
enabled it to negotiate with the Sri Lankan state. This logic
brings up a question when we look at the LTTE’s reasons for
pulling out of the peace talks, pointing to the “existential”
and humanitarian crisis facing the people because of the lack
of rehabilitation and relief, particularly resettlement of internally
displaced peoples inhibited by the Army’s High Security Zones.
If the LTTE were serious about the people’s interests, it would
have to think seriously about the democratic interests of the
people as well, which are opposed to regimentation and cleansing.
It should be noted however, that the LTTE’s cynical appropriation
of the people’s concerns and struggles should in no way lead
us to dismiss the interests of the people.
Therefore
when addressing the debates on High Security Zones and the LTTE
camps in Trincomalee, I can only respond by calling for demilitarization.
That means not only the disarmament of the Sri Lankan army and
the LTTE, but also the dismantling of militarized structures
controlling Lankan society as a whole. Progressives following
the peace process and addressing the issue of an interim administration
have demanded the need for it to adhere to international standards
of human rights. I would say that the interim processes should
come out of a political solution based on inter-ethnic justice.
Furthermore, any interim process should embody the principles
of the political solution, which would include human rights,
democratic participation and demilitarization. Hence the demilitarization
of society should enhance democratization and certainly an end
to both the reality and ideology of regimentation and cleansing.
That
is the route to open room for people’s politics, a path abandoned
in the North and East in the early stages of the Tamil liberation
struggle. If the LTTE’s project of militarization is inward
looking, the State’s immediate trajectory seems to be in the
opposite direction, to find a safety net of international military
support and to open training camps for “UN Peace Keepers” in
Sri Lanka. In the post Sept 11th environment, it
is all too clear that this is how militarization is imported
and exported – stooges and mercenaries for empire. Past experience
reminds us that militarization, whether inward looking or outward
looking, whether imported or exported will ultimately turn the
guns on the people. We should be opposed to any military culture
that does not have a “role for people” and perpetuates an “armed
military structure.” If as Subcomandante Marcos says a “soldier
is an absurd person”, then a society such as ours that is militarized
is a tragedy. The way out of such a tragic history would call
for our political resources to be focused on democratization
and demilitarization.
