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 11^th 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.