Of course there are vast differences in the two movements. The JVP
was broadly based on class orientation while the LTTE was based
mainly on race orientation. However, there are many strong
similarities:

Both were non-elitist movements.
The working language of each was their own language, Sinhala or
Tamil and not English.
Both leaders represented socially lower strata and lower income
groups and drew heavy support from the castes which were normally
considered in Sri Lankan traditional society as low caste.
Both had no faith at all in democracy. Wijeweera, after the failure
of the 1971 insurrection, when released from prison worked for a
short while within the democratic framework. However, soon for
various reasons he opted out of democratic politics. Prabakaran did
not have any faith at all in the democratic process.
Following these considerations both believed in armed struggle with
emphasis on assassination as a tool of their strategy.
They and their followers more or less belonged to the same age group
and were mostly products of the country’s free education system.
The suppression of both movements was brutal and based on the
premise that “those things cannot be done according to the law”, as a
former Deputy Minister, Ranjan Wijeratne told parliament.
Discussions about these movements by others, particularly those
associated with the state and the status quo is more characterised by
heat and hate rather attempts to arrive at a rational understanding of
these movements.

Why did they not trust democracy?

An issue of great significance; and one which should be subjected to
study is as to why both these movements did not trust the country’s
democracy; and why there was a failure to convince them that their
objectives could be achieved within a democratic framework. The
answer is fairly obvious; Sri Lanka does not have a functioning
democracy that can make a convincing argument that all the problems
that might arise within this society could be resolved within the
framework of democratic institutions and by vigorous participation in
the democratic process. The absence of such a democratic framework has
created various mental attitudes within the country. To the
politically active young people it has created a sense of nihilism
which considers everything as permissive. In the political field it
means a belief in violence for its own sake. It is hard to believe
that either Wijeweera or Prabakaran would have seriously believed
that they would be allowed to achieve the aims they were claiming
that they were trying to achieve. It is most likely that both, as
persons who were hardened by the politics of violence, would have
known the end that they faced. That a whole young generation would
have no political aspirations except for protest for its own sake
reflects as to how deeply the dysfunctional nature of Sri Lankan
democracy has affected the entire nation and particularly the young.
Despite of the violent ends of both these leaders and many of their
followers the basic lessons of what a dysfunctional political system
does to the entire population and particularly to the young cannot be
ignored.

One of the early writers to understand the impact of the result of
dysfunctional democracy was the well known author and journalist, the
late Tarzei Vittachi, who in his celebrated book, Emergency -58/ The
Story of the Ceylon Race Riots, wrote:

"Unfortunately the Government made the mistake of throwing the baby
away with the bath water. While repressive legislation and irksome,
outmoded attitudes which had kept the masses in thrall had to be
hurled away without delay, it was vital for the peace and order of
the country, especially in times of rapid social change, to preserve
and strengthen the rule of law and the authority of the officers who
enforce the law. This salutary rule was ignored and even spurned in
the extravagant mood of enthusiasm in which the Government tried to
meet the massive problems that challenged its capabilities".

The abandonment of the rule of law and the authority of institutions
which was already visible in 1958 became a much greater problem in
the years that followed with a similar political approach by
subsequent governments and even radical experiments to undermine
democracy and rule of law in favour of the executive, particularly
the adoptions of the 1972 and 1978 Constitutions. The only time there
was a rare unanimity by all political parties in Sri Lanka was in 2001
when on the basis of the admission of the collapse of all public
institutions an amendment to the Constitution was passed to take some
limited measures to attempt to recover the authority of these
institutions. This was again abandoned after a few years. On the
issue that the entire institutional framework of Sri Lankan democracy
has collapsed there is hardly any controversy. The country is now run
by the executive president and the armed forces.

It is not possible to create faith in democracy when there is no
functioning democracy within the country. If people in general and
the younger generation in particular are to be brought up to
understand and respect democracy then there must be an actual
democracy within the country in the first place. Nobody could have
faith and trust in something that does not exist. That is the
situation of democracy within the country; it is a thing that does
not exist.

There is no need to reiterate the well known position that holding of
elections alone is not democracy. Many rogue systems have many forms
of manipulated elections for no other reason but to have some
legitimacy, particularly before the eyes of the international
community for certain regimes. However, any reading of the materials
produced by the movements lead by Wijeweera and Prabakaran,
particularly in the early periods of their inception, would
demonstrate the cynicism that their generation has for the mockery of
democracy that has been taking place in the country for many decades
now.

It is not only rebels that cannot understand democracy. The numerous
spokesmen for the government, including ministers and those who deal
with media and information, demonstrate a very clear lack of
understanding of democracy. For this it is possible to quote a large
body of literature. Just to mention one example, following the
declaration of the victory against the LTTE by the government, there
were many spokesmen who condemned the western governments for
allowing the Tamil Diaspora to have demonstrations and protests in
their own capitals. According to the understanding of these spokesmen
it is the duty of the western governments to suppress all these
protests and demonstrations. They also cannot understand how there
can be any war crimes when the government was pursuing a good cause
like the elimination of terrorism. According to this way of thinking
there cannot be any war crimes, either in wars between countries or
civil wars on the part of governments which are pursuing the good
cause, for example, the allied powers trying to defeat Hitler. If the
cause is good anything that is done, even if it is otherwise a crime,
is not a crime from this point of view. The forced disappearances of
30,000 persons in the suppression of the JVP were no crime at all.

What is important for the purpose of this reflection is that there is
a mentality that has developed within the country that while using
words like democracy there is no need at all to worry about the
institutional foundations of democracy. However, it is through the
institutions that democracy is achieved practically. Democracy is
just a word to justify whatever a ruling regime does and nothing
more.

This particularly affects the approach to the media. Discussions by
government spokesmen including the military spokesmen with media
channels such as the BBC, Aljazeera and the like clearly demonstrate
that in the view of these spokesmen the sole function of the media is
to give publicity to the government’s point of view. These spokesmen
understand the media only as propaganda. The idea that for a
democracy the right to information and freedom of expression is
fundamental is a concept that does not make sense to these spokesmen.
Simply everybody should live by whatever the government tells them. As
it was written in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, if Comrade Napoleon
says it, it must be true. One of these spokesmen told the media that
the allegations of abuse in the IDP camps are untrue because he has
personally investigated them and found them to be untrue. This is
like a defence lawyer telling the court that according to his
judgement his client is innocent and that everyone should act on his
opinion. Independent inquiries are a primary aspect of a democracy.
In a democracy people are not told to believe what the government
says simply because the government has said it. The idea of
accountability and transparency does not make any sense if people
must accept what the government says without independent sources to
confirm it.

The mentality of this distrust of democracy will remain so long as
democracy itself does not exist by way of functioning institutions
within the country. Dysfunctional institutions will confirm every day
to the population, and its younger generation in particular, that
there is no way to have any problem resolved within a framework of
democracy in the present context of Sri Lanka.

Writers such as Hannah Arendt have made extensive studies on the
impact of the dissolution of the structural framework of democracy on
political systems (of particular importance is her book the Origins of
Totalitarianism, which is considered a political classic). All the
authoritarian regimes in Europe in the 20^th century relied on the
mentalities that arise with the undermining of the state structures
within each country. Destruction of the institutional framework of
the democratic state provides the ethos for the development of mob
support for political movements with authoritarian ambitions. Those
who are seriously concerned with understanding the political
developments in Sri Lanka, including also the rebel movements, need
to pay attention to the way in which Sri Lanka has become a
dysfunctional democracy.

Exactly what made both movements represented by these two leaders
(The JVP and the LTTE) abandon the struggle for democracy and rule of
law altogether and resort to violence reflects on the limitations of
other political movements within the country. At no time was there a
single political party or tendency in Sri Lanka which made it their
aim to construct and improve the institutions of the rule of law and
democracy. In this the Sri Lankan experience differed from that of
India where the National Congress Party, which was started in 1885
had two programmes which were both pursued vigorously for a long
period of time; the programme of emancipation of India from British
rule, and what was called the social programme, which was to prepare
people for the democracy that would come after independence. This
preparation for democracy meant fighting against entrenched
prejudices within the country such as views on women symbolised by
such practices as sati, (burning of widows) dowries, child marriages
and above all, the segregation of people on the basis of caste. Part
of this preparation was forums and meetings which were held even in
the remotest parts of the country where people had the opportunity to
express themselves and listen to others. Leaders that came in later,
like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, brought the element of democratic
participation to the poorest and most oppressed sections of Indian
society: the untouchables.

Many decades of such democratic practices among the people prepared
them for the exercise of their franchise in the future and also for a
high degree of participation. However, the greater achievement was
that all over the country an intellectual element emerged that was
able to keep an enlightened and fiery discourse on democracy going
under all circumstances. This was also reflected in the making of the
constitution, discourses of which are well documented where, the
leaders of the country from different political spectrums, agreed to
have provisions in the constitution in order to prevent some of the
worst practices of the British colonial power in India, such as the
arrest and detention of political opponents. Since then India has
gone through many trials and tribulations but the belief in democracy
has remained as strong as ever. The last election in the country which
was held this month (May 2009) was seen by even the defeated
opposition as a free and fair election.

This however, was not the case in Sri Lanka. Among the movements that
came to light in Sri Lanka first was the labour movement which, by the
1930s was under leftist leadership. While these leaders contributed to
democratisation in some way, their main goals were more utopian. World
revolution was the cry and democracy and rule of law were seen, for
the most part, as an imperialist ploy. This utopian vagueness
remained in these parties through the years of their decline which,
coincidentally, was the time when both the JVP and the LTTE had their
origins. The parties of the elites such as the UNP and the SLFP never
had a programme for improvements and the consolidation of the
institutional framework of democracy. We have earlier quoted Tarzei
Vittachi, who in 1958 observed how these political leaders abandoned
the need to maintain the rule of law and uphold the authority of the
public institutions. The same can also be said of the Tamil political
parties. The concern for the country’s total democracy, as the basis
for achieving the rights of the minorities, was never advocated by
anyone. As against the political opportunism of the majority based
parties the minority parties made demands for respect for the
minority purely as a separate issue. That the existence of a
functional democracy for the whole country is the basis of the
protection of minority rights was never understood by these parties.
Of course there were some parties which called themselves the
liberal party’ etc, which were on the one hand too insignificant to
be worth a mention and on the other hand some of the leaders of such
parties changed their views, to coin a colloquial saying, as easily
as changing pillows.

Thus the political and the intellectual heritage of the leaders of
the JVP and the LTTE was paltry. The JVP made a revolution with
Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, Che Guevarist rhetoric but in fact there
was nothing worthy of any intellectual exposition of its political
philosophy. Nothing in that literature indicates any interest in
democracy and the rule of law. In fact, almost childish rejection of
these as tools of repression was the more general approach.

As for the LTTE its expressions were based on race alone which of
course could never be the basis of democratic discourse. Its avowed
goal as a separate state achieved by force alone left no room for
democratic discourse even within the Tamils themselves. In fact, the
killing of all Tamil opponents was one of the central components of
the LTTE’s ideology. Driven by militaristic necessity to have one
military front against the Sri Lankan military it was mortally
opposed to any form of democratic discourse within the Tamil
community. This was noted very early by leaders such as Rajani
Thiranagama, who was one of the first Tamil intellectuals to be
assassinated by the LTTE.

Rajani Thiranagama assassinated by the LTTE on September 21, 1989

By 1970 all the major political parties in the country had expressly
rejected democracy as a suitable form of government for the country.
The government of Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike, which included a
coalition of three major parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Lanka
Sama Samaja Party and the Communist party embarked on a new
constitution spoken of as a home grown constitution, which was
incongruously called a socialist constitution. It abandoned the
separation of powers as the basis for the constitution to the
detriment, particularly, of the judiciary. In 1977 J.R. Jayewardene’s
United National Party was elected and in 1978 abolished liberal
democratic constitutionalism altogether in favour of creating a
monster called the executive president who had more power than anyone
under any government. This constitution was noted as having the worst
of all the elements of common law tradition and civil law tradition
and none of their better elements. In fact, a leading constitutional
lawyer of the time stated that the constitution was made following
the example of that of the Central African Republic of Jean Bedel
Bokkasa, a comic figure with unlimited appetite for abusing power.
All subsequent governments, to date, have followed the same model and
with time the collapse of the entire fabric of rule of law and
democracy has taken place.

This was the political ethos within which these two rebels, Wijeweera
and Prabakaran, had their movements. To a great degree reaction to
this overall political system conditioned their political strategies
and actions. The overall system unleashed terror on all political
dissidents and particularly on the members of these two movements.
They in turn attempted to outdo the state apparatus in terror. A
terror v terror situation developed and the ultimate consequences are
now a known fact.

Reacting to the undemocratic nature of the overall government
structure negatively by way of violence was a self destructive course
for the members themselves and their leaders, as well as to the whole
country. The politics of violence that both leaders exposed lead them
to opt for secretive political groupings and that also removed them
from the community, including the very constituencies they were
claiming to espouse. Wijeweera’s JVP was far removed from the
underprivileged groups of the country and Prabakaran’s LTTE removed
itself completely from the Tamil community. Such developments are
natural judging from the studies of similar movements from different
times in many countries.

Rooting of the country’s political system on the rule of law and
democracy is the only solution the country has to move itself out of
the self destructive course that the established political parties,
as well as the rebels, have lead the country into. As there is
enormous anxiety and deep reflections within the country of finding a
new path to peace and stability, all reflections should move towards
the sole ambition of creating a functional democracy. Even the
solution to the minority problem can only be realistically found
within a functional democracy.

While there are discussions about solutions to the minority problem
all such discussions will come to naught if they are confined to the
pure rhetoric of federal state or the implementation of the 13^th
Amendment, and the like. None of these things are of any practical
use as long as the country’s democracy remains dysfunctional. Thus,
for the discussions taking place in the country and internationally
today the problems of the rule of law and democracy should be
deliberately brought up and emphasized.

The present government is based on the same dictatorial model as J.R.
Jayewardene’s government. With over 31 years of the operation of this
constitutional model, the country’s situation has dissolved into one
without any viable public institutions. The present government, like
the previous governments, has benefitted from movements such as the
JVP and the LTTE because the overall situation of terror allows the
central problems of a failed system to be swept under the carpet. The
President’s speech on May 19 did not indicate in any way that there
was any attempt to address the country’s dysfunctional system. As
long as the government makes no move to abolish this system in favour
of a separation of power based democratic system, the government will
continue to contribute to the destruction of the nation, even after
the LTTE’s capacity to do so has been brought to an end by the
military. It is the task, above all of the youth, and the thinking
elements of the country to address the problems relating to rule of
law and democracy within the country and thus to create new energies
which are of a positive nature that are capable of offering a path to
peace and stability.