The SLA has not changed significantly since the 80’s, except for an increase in manpower. Why do you think GOSL had a press censorship in place for war reporting in the North… part of the reason was to hide the high casualty rate that the SLA experienced. Let’s put this into perspective: the USA has been in Iraq since 2003, and had a total casualty rate of 4,282 over a 7 year period. The Sri Lankan military lost 3000 men during the Mullaitivu battle alone. This proves beyond a doubt that the Sri Lankan military is third-class and lacked the capability to defeat the LTTE without vast amounts of outside help. During the “early years” – early 80’s – military technology was not at all what it is today… so it does not take a genius to figure out that the incompetent SLA would have been 10 times more incompetent during that period.

Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson… all morons compared to your dazzling intellect.

All of which are irrelevant examples.

I fail to see how it is insightful. The SLA is clearly strong enough to hold the N-E and there hasn’t been a single suicide bomb since Prabakaran croaked. SLA sounds like winners to me, I’m afraid!

Assuming the SLA was even able to do so, it would have taken several years to capture the North, had there been no Karuna split. Not only did the LTTE lose 2,000 men thanks to the Karuna split, but Karuna provided valuable intelligence.

A very good point, which leads me to ask why the LTTE was not able to launch such large-scale attacks after GR was put in charge?

The LTTE ran out of weapons thanks to the Indian naval blockade as well as satellite imagery provided by the Indians to Sri Lankans, which the Sri Lankans acted on. When your supply line is cut off, you can only engage in a defensive war, as opposed to the offense kind.

“The outcome of the war and the early years are mutually exclusive. ”

Not really, if the outcome of the war could have been determined in its early years.

“Your simplistic claims do not correlate with the dynamics of the war, by any remote measure.”

I am fortunate that a military genius such as yourself is here to educate me. Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson… all morons compared to your dazzling intellect.

If only you were leading the LTTE, then we can all be smiling today with the continued suicide bombings and child soldiers.

“In fact, my second argument is still the most insightful: that, in fact, the Sri Lankan military is weak by any modern standard, and in fact, has always been weak.”

I fail to see how it is insightful. The SLA is clearly strong enough to hold the N-E and there hasn’t been a single suicide bomb since Prabakaran croaked. SLA sounds like winners to me, I’m afraid!

“It is only due to the Karuna split,”

That may explain how the SLA took the east so quickly, but how about the north?

“plus the advancements in technology, plus the assistance from many other nations,”

Could you explain the advancements in technology? Wouldn’t that contradict your argument that the SLA is weak?

“To add some context to this example, no doubt you are familiar with the attacks on Elephant Pass, Mullaitivu, etc. These sorts of attacks on big bases – where the said base was overrun – has never occurred in Afghanistan or Iraq, as per NATO. Unlike the way the SLA almost lost Jaffna in the last 90′s?, NATO has never been in danger of losing a city it has occupied.”

A very good point, which leads me to ask why the LTTE was not able to launch such large-scale attacks after GR was put in charge?

Not just federalists but anyone suggesting devolution will never be able to advance their cause unless there is a way to link prosperity with power-sharing. Rajapakse was elected by the masses in the pretext of eradicating terrorism and not with a vision of political solution – according to him, there are no minorities. For the masses, democracy and devolution mean nothing next to food, security, and money for survival. The challenge then is to link development and economic prosperity to a negotiated political settlement just like GSP was linked to human rights, which is not quite possible unless there is some international pressure in the post-LTTE scenario.

I think that another reason federalists have never been able to advance their cause is because federalism is synonymous with separatism in the minds of many people in the island.

I think you and I(and other reasonable, progressive Sinhalese people) know the answer to this is not just rooted in the concepts of nepotism and corruption. It is also rooted in the fact that many bogus upper-middle class Sinhalese nationalists in Sri Lanka(and many abroad who are, ironically, educated in the west) are paranoid that federalism=separatism and feel that federalism or, hell, any other kind of devolution(including the 13th ammendment) to the Tamil people in the north and east will be ushered in by Indian and western ” imperialists”.

You are no doubt correct. It seems as if any request for power-sharing is a request for separatism. On the other hand, I would imagine that these upper middle-class “nationalists” also benefit from the status quo as it is, support the ruling elite (read: SLFP), so as to keep the socio-economic situation the way it is.

The politicians and upper-middle class Sinhalese nationalist ” intellectuals” exploit this feeling–not to mention the paranoid notion of the north and east breaking off and joining with Tamil nadu and creating a chain-effect of chaos in Delhi–amongst voting Sri Lankans and they don’t want to see any power-sharing in place. To them, power-sharing is synonymous with separatism and the death of the Buddhist-Sinhalese nationhood as they know it(or, so they think). Heshan, to get an idea of how paranoid some of these people are, please read this article and the conclusion it reaches about the 13th ammendment and read the even more ridiculous comments at the bottom(please take notice of how, apparently, Mr. Dayan Jayathilake is an evil, Catholic sadist bent on destroying Sri Lanka)

Politicians are strange creatures. In fact, they don’t care what the masses think, except insofar as it wins them the next election. In an odd sort of way, acquiring massive amounts of wealth and power somehow liberates you from silly nationalist ideologies. Take the example of Hitler. In prison, he was quite the revolutionary – he wrote a long book outlining his arguments against Jews. Hitler the politician was different – he was obsessed not with Jews, but architecture and the military. He let other people handle the “Jewish question.” I think that that is what being a politician is really about – knowing how to use and exploit people using other people. So let me ask you, do you really think the Rajapakses are paranoid about Tamil separation? I don’t think so. But it is convenient for them if the masses are. One stupid person is not very useful. 10 million stupid people, however, can win you an election. So if the island is to be “saved” from its own grave, it is not enough to go after just politicians. The people themselves have to be educated.

That is not what Dayapala said. He clearly said the outcome of the war would have been entirely different. The outcome of the war and the early years are mutually exclusive.

In other words, if not for Indian intevention the LTTE would have been defeated at a much earlier date (1987, or 1982 if the Indians had extradited Prabakaran). Military power has little to do with the argument, which unfortunately makes your second generalization irrelevant.

Your simplistic claims do not correlate with the dynamics of the war, by any remote measure. In fact, my second argument is still the most insightful: that, in fact, the Sri Lankan military is weak by any modern standard, and in fact, has always been weak. It is only due to the Karuna split, plus the advancements in technology, plus the assistance from many other nations, plus the total disregard for civilian casualties (a relic of ancient wars), that the Sri Lankan military was able to do what it did. To add some context to this example, no doubt you are familiar with the attacks on Elephant Pass, Mullaitivu, etc. These sorts of attacks on big bases – where the said base was overrun – has never occurred in Afghanistan or Iraq, as per NATO. Unlike the way the SLA almost lost Jaffna in the last 90’s?, NATO has never been in danger of losing a city it has occupied.

V T Thamilmaran was a rather poor choice to cite in support of federalism. He was the primary legal luminary behind the ISGA and was a hardcore separatist going back to his involvement in the Suyatchi Kazhagam in the 1970s.

Involving people like him in their project is one reason among dozens others why the federalists have never been able to advance their cause. They simply live in a different world.

“Given the opposition to the devolution of power to the Tamils in the Sinhalese community, this process has to be gradual and should be able to shift the Sinhalese mind set.”

But what would the Tamils think about this “gradual” approach? From their perspective, their gains may be too slow to be even be perceptible by them. As for the Sinhalese, after conceding a little they may say that the political solution has been delivered and that any further demands would be proof that the Tamils are inching towards separation. The Tamils undoubtedly are aware of this which is why they distrust a minimalist solution like 13th Amendment.

The alternative would be to grant a radical solution- the dream of Colombo civil society “dreamers”- where an enormous amount of devolution is granted to a war devastated area with no clear leadership, and things become even more unstable than they already are.

The point I’m trying to make is that we are in a lose-lose situation. Whatever we do, the Tamils will feel cheated and that we did not deliver enough (and again, I really want someone to prove me wrong). That is why I argue for focusing on the basics of rebuilding instead of complicating things with a poorly-thought out “political solution.”

“Since Independence if you look at the Tamil grievances, what they have gone through, you will have the answers and that does not need a “focus study”.”

I’m afraid that I disagree. We need a “focus study” because we clearly have different views on how the war started.

The commonly-argued “civil society” answer trotted out for Western consumption is that the war started because there was no devolution of power, blithely ignoring the fact that there was no condition of war in SL from 1949 when the Federal party was established all the way up to 1983. If this “civil society” notion of history were accurate, the war should have started in the 1950s or 60s not the 80s.

My argument is that the war started because the Tamils increasingly lost their basic security in the 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in the 1983 riots which started the war. I believe the blame for this primarily falls on JR Jayawardene’s govt although some Tamils argue that the trend had started with Mrs. B. I see the basic problem not in terms of “political solution” but rather security. Today when I hear about the high crime rate in Jaffna that is guarded by tens of thousands of soldiers, I see that there is a very fundamental problem with the govt’s definition of security.

“Why don’t we give them the opportunity to organize these basics through the devolution of power?”

Good question, which deserves another question: where will the war-devastated North and East find the resources to deliver their own goods and services to rebuild? The TNA itself appears to be focusing more on getting Mahinda to deliver the basics rather than trying to win power through devolution.