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Overview of the Peace Process in Sri Lanka: 2002 - 2003
Paper by Sanjana Hattotuwa for conference on Strengthening Cooperation and Security in South Asia-Post 9/11 organised by
Bangladesh Enterprise Institute
1-3 July 2003, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Introduction
In his annual Heroes Day message on 29th November 1999, the leader of the LTTE Vellupullai Prabhakaran pledged “we have not abandoned the path of peace. We want to resolve the conflict through peaceful means, through civilised methods, without recourse to a bloodbath and the destruction of life”. Furthermore, Prabhakaran added that “peace talks should be held in a cordial, peaceful atmosphere of mutual trust and goodwill with…international third-party mediation”. As Prabhakaran was speaking from a position of relative strength, following a string of military successes, his remarks carried increased significance for close observers of the conflict.
The signing of an indefinite ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in February 2002 ushered in the most secure and promising period in the island's troubled recent history. For the remainder of 2002, and until the time of writing, these two protagonists have been negotiating a permanent political settlement. Despite the progress to date, much remains to be done to transform this period of non-war into a sustainable peace – particularly as some of the most contested and potentially disruptive political and military issues (e.g. disarmament, minority rights and the design of appropriate political institutions) have yet to be addressed, let alone resolved.
In 2003, fifteen months after a ceasefire agreement between the Government and the LTTE, the essential fragility of the peace process is still very evident. The ceasefire per se has held, and several hundred lives have been saved. But the process itself remains volatile, an unwilling pawn in partisan politics.
The suspension of peace talks by the LTTE in earlier this month, following its exclusion from the Washington donor conference, has once again shown the fragility of the Sri Lankan peace process and the need for constant efforts to keep it on track. Furthermore the peculiar political configuration in Sri Lanka –for the first time since its independence, the President and the Parliament belong to rival political parties – has also undermined the stability of the peace process. This is a political power equation with profound significance for the peace process, government and governance. It will invariably, as it has in the past one year, make for political uncertainty and be punctuated with the possibility of governmental change either through dissolution and elections or through changes in the political allegiance of legislators. Available evidence in addition to the “co-habitation” relationship points to the likelihood of the current situation of No War/ No Peace holding throughout this period, with negotiations towards a final political and constitutional settlement nevertheless proceeding, but not to a definite conclusion.
In this respect, the immediate future for Sri Lanka will not constitute a post-conflict situation in terms of formal political and constitutional structures confirming this, but rather a post cease-fire period. In this period, the prevailing emphasis on rehabilitation by the negotiating parties and donors alike will continue. It will be accompanied by incremental progress in the determination of a final political and constitutional settlement, as well as in the establishment of robust safeguards for democratic governance and human rights in the interim. Consequently, there is a danger that this pre-eminent emphasis on realising a ‘peace through development’ rationale in practice, will fatally compromise the former and stymie the latter. Accordingly, the ensuing three years will be a crucial period in which the need for:
1. Galvanizing and consolidating public support and legitimacy around a power sharing constitutional settlement,
2. Research and informed public debate on the new political architecture it entails and,
3. The acknowledgement in policy terms of the crucial linkage between the democracy, human rights and movement towards a political settlement on the one hand with rehabilitation and economic development on the other, will be critically reinforced. This challenge will persist and be of overarching importance irrespective of the party composition of the government.
Roots of unrest
An examination of the current peace process must inevitably address the history of ethno-political conflict in Sri Lanka. In a global context, while successive regimes have tried to address and then root out the evil of terrorism, the latest efforts spearheaded by America show that many who engage with the problematics of terrorism do not really know what they are dealing with, or the implications of what they are doing to address it. Fighting against terrorism has become the facetious couture of a seemingly bi-polar world which is either with terrorists or against them. However, rhetoric and action that claim to root out terrorism often disguises the vacuity of anti-terrorism’s greatest exponents, who, like weathervanes in a storm, like to self-importantly spin and rattle largely in a world of their own imagination, where the causes of terrorism are ignored in the battle against its manifestations, where arrogant self-interests define the borderlines of conflict, and where the difference between an ally or an enemy is judged by the degree of subservience to a soi-disant coalition against terror.
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Sanjana
Sanjana Hattotuwa is a Rotary World Peace Scholar presently pursuing a Masters in International Studies from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be contacted at hatt@wow.lk.
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