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.
British colonialism is often cited by many scholars to be the root cause of conflict. However, one endeavour to eschew a monocausal explanation of the conflict, and address the dynamics of Tamil militancy within the contested and multi-faceted socio-political space of Sri Lanka after 1948.
As they did throughout their empire, the British ruled Ceylon by creating an English-speaking elite from amongst the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Their favouritism engendered an opposition which took racial and religious overtones. The majority of those who had been left out of the elite spoke Sinhalese and were Buddhists, and they began to promote a racist notion of Sinhalese superiority as an ‘Aryan race’. After independence it was this Sinhalese-speaking group that gained control of the new state of Sri Lanka, and began to exclude Tamils from higher education, jobs and land mainly by making Sinhala the only official language. Not surprisingly, Tamils resented this discrimination. As the anthropologist Stanley Tambiah has argued, the island's violence is a late-twentieth-century response to colonial and postcolonial policies that relied on a hardened and artificial notion of ethnic boundaries.
The beginnings of terrorism in Sri Lanka are inextricably entwined with the activities of the State. In the 30 years from the mid-1940s, successive governments took measures to reduce the number of Tamils in the professions and the public sector. These measures interacted in diverse and complex ways with a potent Sinhala Buddhist exclusivism which gradually became the animating ideology of the Sri Lankan state. Particularly amongst the arriviste, lower caste Sinhalese, the spread of anti-Tamil chauvinism was soon perceived as a promising means of increasing economic opportunity. As time passed, the electoral promise of pandering to this chauvinism tempted even the most cosmopolitan of Sinhalese politicians.
Arguably, the most adverse legislation for Tamils came from the language policy of S.W.R.D Bandaranaike’s government. The introduction of the 1956 ‘Sinhala Only’ Act, which replaced English with Sinhala as the language of official government business, clearly disadvantaged large numbers of Tamils. Its effect was compounded by widespread protests in Tamil areas in which school principals would not allow the teaching of Sinhala while school children refused to study the language.
The final straw for Tamils, however, was the introduction in the early 1970s of communal quotas for university entrance. This led to the exclusion of merit-worthy Tamil students and it was this that set the ethnic powder keg alight. With 'standardisation', it became clear that the Tamils had lost the education and employment opportunities which had conditioned their commitment to a unitary Ceylon in the first place. Large numbers of young Tamils came to the conclusion that their socio-economic aspirations could only be fulfilled within a separate Tamil state.
The bloody terrorism that has ravaged Sri Lanka since 1983 is fuelled by the refusal of many Tamils to operate within a state system which denies them political power, employment and educational opportunities whilst engendering socio-economic disparity.
Distinction, however, has to be made between the terrorism of the LTTE and the aspirations of the Tamil people. The desire of the majority of Tamil people is to live with dignity and equality within a united Sri Lanka. The LTTE on the other hand believe a state of Eelam will best guarantee the equality and dignity of Tamils in the North-East. While the terrorism of the LTTE against the state is symptomatic of the chutzpah of the Sri Lankan state, which for decades ignored or undermined the aspirations of the Tamil people, it cannot be equated with the aspirations of the Tamil peoples, who whilst recognising the primacy of the LTTE in the North-East, do not support its modus operandi by rote.
State Religion and Conflict
Entwined with the political ideology and communitarian hagiography in Sri Lanka, is the problematic of Buddhism and its relations with the State. While Buddhist orthodoxy tends to promote the renunciation of all worldly concerns, there remains significant theological latitude for individual monks to engage in political activity which aims to reform society ‘for the good’. Since independence, Sri Lankan Buddhist leaders have been active in the political arena whenever they felt it appropriate, particularly on issues relating to the pre-eminence of the Buddhist faith and the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
On these issues, and others such as language, the Buddhist clergy have exerted a particularly powerful influence in Sri Lankan political life. In 1951, resolutions of the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress to the Prime Minister included a statement that ‘the ... government is legally and morally bound to protect and maintain Buddhism and Buddhist institutions’. It also demanded the restoration of Buddhism to ‘the paramount position of prestige which rightfully belongs to it’. Since independence, all governments have jockeyed for the favour of Sinhala Buddhists.
It must be remembered, however, that Sri Lankan Buddhists strongly believe that they have a duty to protect and uphold their faith in Sri Lanka. From the tinnitus of political leaders who, in the name of preserving the hegemony of Buddhism in Sri Lanka have deferred to the Sangha and much as they have manipulated them, to the attitude of the Buddhist clergy, the primacy given to Buddhism has proved inimical to the interests and aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka. This Sinhala-Buddhist mentality, which has informed and shaped post-independence politics in Sri Lanka, has engendered intolerance in polity and society and carries a large burden of responsibility for the current ethno-politic conflict.
The Current Peace Process: An Overview
Hardly one year ago, everybody in Sri Lanka — intellectual think-tanks, the political leadership, civil society leaders, the ordinary Sri Lankan citizen and, last but not the least, the Buddhist clergy — was looking at the prospect of peace in the island with, at best, cautious optimism. The developments in the last year have been dramatic, disturbing, hopeful and resonant with the fears and concerns of communities in the South as well as the North-East.
The history of the conflict in Sri Lanka is long running and complex. For the past twenty years the conflict has been fought in the North and the East of the country in a conventional/ guerrilla style. Meanwhile, there have been regular suicide bombings in other parts of the country. Despite two previous attempts at a ceasefire in 1989 and 1994, the war has dragged on until recently.
With a change of Government at the General Election in December 2001, a new attempt was made. By 25th December 2001, the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire which was followed up by the Government. The unofficial ceasefire was then followed by a Permanent Ceasefire Agreement signed on 22nd February, 2002. Within the cease-fire agreement there were a number of commitments made by both sides. This included the vacating of schools, places of worship and public buildings by the armed forces of Sri Lanka. This process is still ongoing and proceeding in line with the deadlines as laid out in the agreement.
The Government also took on a number of initiatives of their own accord. In and around Colombo and the rest of the south of the island they have removed many military checkpoints. Two key roads leading to the North (A9) and the East (A5) have now been opened after many years of being closed. Before these roads were opened, they had to be de-mined and repaired as well as a number of military roadblocks being removed.
Critical to the people living in the North and East was the restoration of food and medical aid supplies. An early commitment of the Government, this aid has increased and has been complemented by the restoring of many buildings. The Government has promised to restore full electricity service to Jaffna, the largest town in the North. Approximately 271,000 internally displaced families have returned to their homes since the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement with many more about to follow.
Formal peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE began on September 16, 2002 in Thailand. Subsequent sessions have taken place on an approximately monthly basis in Asia and Europe and have helped further solidify the peace process.
The rapid forward movement of the Sri Lankan peace process up to the present time contrasts with the high level of warfare and casualties just prior to it. This may account for the considerable amount of international attention that is being shown to the Sri Lankan peace process by the international community. Foreign diplomats and visiting peace researchers have put Sri Lanka on par with the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland in its ability to provide a model for peaceful conflict resolution after a protracted period of conflict.
The Current Impasse
The LTTE has recently been at pains to explain that the decision to suspend the peace talks was neither a withdrawal from the peace process nor a hastily implemented action. According to the LTTE, the exclusion of the organisation from the recent international donor meeting in Washington DC, attended by the Sri Lankan government, was only one among several reasons that had prompted the withdrawal from the peace talks. The primary motivating factor, the LTTE has stated, is the absence of significant progress in alleviating the hardships of the people caused by the war.
This view is in contrast to the general belief that the LTTE’s decision was motivated only by disappointment at being excluded from the Washington aid conference held on 14 and 15 April. Indeed, the LTTE may have been hoping that by honouring the cease-fire agreement for 14 months it deserved a place at that conference. Colombo has been a successful fundraiser of late, securing USD 800 million from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The LTTE’s exclusion from the Washington meeting has demonstrated that the path to international legitimacy, in a US-dominated world in which terrorism is anathema, is going to be a difficult task.
With its refusal as yet to renounce violence, as the Irish Republican Army has in Northern Ireland, and its continuing practices of child recruitment and targeted assassinations of Tamil political opponents, the LTTE was destined to fail the US test. But the LTTE’s position is not irredeemable, and there is much that it and the government can do together in partnership to ensure that the LTTE gains the legitimacy it seeks.
At present, however, the problem is that the LTTE’s withdrawal is unlikely to be viewed favourably by the international community. Already, the United States and France have urged the LTTE to return to the negotiating table. The Indian government has also expressed its wish that the peace process continue without delay. Despite its protestations that its decision to suspend participation resulted from deliberations over a long period of time, the LTTE’s abrupt withdrawal has cost it international credibility. The imperative must therefore be for the LTTE to re-engage with the peace talks. If solving people’s hardships is the goal, there is no alternative to the negotiating table.
In a recent meeting with civil society leaders , the Head of the Political Wing of the LTTE, S.P. Tamilchelvan referred to three types of broken promises. The first concerned the resettlement of displaced persons and the constraints that the army’s presence in inhabited areas posed to such resettlement. The second was the lack of financial support for resettlement and reconstruction. The third was the undermining of the partnership between the government and LTTE due to the one-sided participation at the Washington aid conference.
Notwithstanding these concerns, the LTTE must recognise that there is a political price that it is paying for its suspension of the peace talks just prior to the much planned Tokyo donor conference in June. It could lead to a weakening of the LTTE's political credibility and a widening of its lack of political parity with the government. The Japanese government, which has invested its international credibility in the peacemaking sphere, is not likely to be pleased.
As such, the LTTE pull-out of the peace talks is a problem that needs to be jointly addressed by the government and LTTE in partnership with the international community, before the peace process is itself fatally weakened.
Persistent Problems
While much is written on the positive aspects of the peace process, serious problems remain. One can begin with the ceasefire agreement itself, which sought to bring an end to armed hostilities and engender an atmosphere conducive for negotiations. There is little reference to Human Rights in the ceasefire agreement - a loop hole which has given leeway for both parties to indulge in human rights violations throughout the past fifteen months. There is no reference in the ceasefire agreement to the recruitment of underage soldiers – child conscription was also raised in the 5th Round of Peace Talks in Berlin.
At the first round of peace talks, in Sattahip, Thailand, it was evident that the process would consist of piecemeal solutions with no clear roadmap to peace. One could argue however, that in these early stages of the process, both sides were hesitant to commit more than what was absolutely necessary to maintain the process.
The official Royal Norwegian Government statement at the end of the 4th round in Thailand had a surprise:
Responding to a proposal by the leadership of the LTTE, the parties agreed to explore a solution founded on the principle of internal self-determination in areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking peoples, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka. The parties acknowledged that the solution has to be acceptable to all communities.
The wording here is interesting. The impetus for a federal structure comes from a response to a proposal by the leadership of the LTTE. No mention of the Sri Lankan Government. While some have argued that this provides a convenient escape route for the government since it has not committed itself to a federal solution, others see it as an indication of an attempt to enhance the legitimacy of the LTTE. Either way, it is evident that official statements are reflective of the scepticism with which both parties to the conflict view the contours of a final political-constitutional settlement.
Adding to this scepticism is the fact that the Sub-Committee on Political Matters has never met. Unofficial meeting between the Chief Negotiators of the Government and the LTTE have taken place, but there has not been any serious discussion on addressing the root causes of the conflict. Before every round of peace talks, there has also been a crisis on the ground. The incident of the trawler being blown up on the eve of the peace talks in Berlin threatened to undermine the spirit of cordiality and progress at the peace talks. As a result of these ceasefire violations on the ground, peace talks have rarely ventured beyond the immediate necessities on the ground. The lack of a guiding vision that animates the peace process is to some observers a stark premonition of their ultimate breakdown.
Helping both parties work out a federal solution is the Forum of Federations, a Canadian group of experts who have been part of the peace process since the 3rd Round in Oslo. The Forum has facilitated LTTE study tours to many countries in Europe and the West in order to expose them to federal ideas. However, members of the LTTE who have been part of these study tours have been deeply nationalistic in meetings with the Tamil diaspora. No tangible mention of the federal idea has featured in any one of these meetings. The question begs to be asked whether the LTTE itself is sincere about its commitment to a federal solution.
Coterminous with this scepticism is the commitment of the Government itself to the federal idea. It is unclear whether there exists a polarisation within the ruling United National Front (UNF) government with regards to federalism.
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