Given the worsening of the current impasse between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE, critical questions face progressive forces both in Sri Lanka and the wider diaspora communities, particularly amongst the Sinhalese. It is worth exploring here the circumstances that have led to the reinforcement of an impasse that has its origins in President Mahinda Rajapakse’s election victory in November 2005 and the subsequent entrenchment of the Sri Lankan state within a Sinhala hegemonic frame.



The Sri Lankan state’s crisis, which since independence in 1948 has been refracted through the lens of the Sinhala-Tamil rift, has now reached the final stage of a long drawn out end game. How much blood remains to be spilled before a just and equitable solution to the Tamil national question and the wider issue of minority representation is arrived at (ideally within a federal state structure)?



This end game is being played out against the background of high stakes brinkmanship by the LTTE and the Rajapakse administration which has reduced Colombo to an amateur hour spectacle in the eyes of the international community. The background to all this is captured in the Tokyo communiqué issued in May this year by the Co-Chairs (the US, EU, Tokyo and Norway) and the formal banning of the LTTE by the EU at the same time.



It should be noted that as yet the Sri Lankan Government has failed to adequately investigate and prosecute any Sinhala officers or Tamil paramilitary cadres for the many hundreds of extrajudicial deaths of Tamil civilians since Rajapakse’s election. Consequently the campaign to have Sri Lanka expelled from the UN Human Rights Council should be intensified. Indeed, given the human rights record of successive Sri Lankan governments since 1970 it beggars belief that Sri Lanka should be on the Human Rights Committee at all.



The Tokyo communiqué reiterated the necessity of returning to commitments made by the GoSL and the LTTE in the six rounds of peace talks between 2002-2003. It states that, in the short term, “the government must show that it will address the legitimate grievances of the Tamils. It must immediately prevent groups based in its territory from carrying out violence and acts of terrorism. It must protect the rights and security of Tamils throughout the country and ensure violators are prosecuted.”



In the longer term, Sri Lanka’s government “must show that it is ready to make the dramatic political changes to bring about a new system of governance, which will enhance the rights of all Sri Lankans, including Muslims. The international community will support such steps, failure to take such steps will diminish international support.”



On June 1, Richard Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, while asking the LTTE to recommit itself to a purely political process, said that the Colombo government too had obligations – obligations, moreover, heightened by its election to the UN Human Rights Council. Boucher added that, as far as the Co-Chairs were concerned, the Government had failed to establish control over forces that were dissonant to the peace process on the Government side. In effect, the pledges made at Geneva in February by the Sri Lankan Government remain to be fulfilled.



Moreover, the Co-Chairs had expected Rajapakse to recommit his administration to a federal state structure particularly in the aftermath of the EU ban that Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera had been vociferously urging. It is accepted that the modalities of a future federal constitution remain to be worked out in negotiations between the GoSL and the LTTE. But as a minimum the external powers that guarantee Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity expected Colombo to pay more than lip service to its professed intent to solve the national question.



But what the Co-Chairs have not quite grasped yet is that this is a Sri Lankan Government like none before; it is arguably the most chauvinistic Sinhala administration since 1956, surpassing even the misguided Sinhala-Buddhist revolution that regime initiated. The Co-Chairs, if anything, have treated the Rajapakse administration with kid gloves. It is in part their failure to act in keeping with their own Tokyo communiqué that has led to a worsening of the impasse.



Their reference to “violence and acts of terrorism” emanating from government controlled territory was a pointed reference to both the EPDP and the Karuna Group. Palita Kohana, head of the Government Peace Secretariat begrudgingly conceded later that there might be ‘low-level’ links between the Army and cadres of the Karuna Group. The Sri Lankan state has long been dissembling on collusion between Military Intelligence and the EPDP/Karuna cadres – to the visible irritation of the Co-Chairs, as blunt phrasing in the Tokyo communiqué underlines.



The President, in his dialogue with the editor of the Tamil daily Uthayan, N. Vidyaharan, implicitly conceded much higher-level corporation between the military and paramilitaries, when he offered to shut down the Karuna Group’s operations “within two weeks” in exchange for de-escalation of violence by the LTTE. As far as the Co-Chairs were concerned, this confirmed both the extent and amateurish crudity of the duplicity of the Rajapakse Government. But, as yet, the Co-Chairs remain unwilling to take Colombo to task on its failure to bring the paramilitaries under control as pledged in Geneva in February.



The fact that amid the prevailing mistrust between both sides Rajapakse is seeking to bypass the Norwegian facilitators and approach the LTTE for direct talks and doing so, moreover, through the editor whose paper has repeatedly been targeted by paramilitaries must nonetheless fill the Co-Chairs with a sense of comic exasperation.



By trying to persuade the LTTE to bypass Oslo, Rajapakse has demonstrated how out of his depth he is. Boucher, in his comments on June 1, made it clear that Oslo had US backing. Furthermore, there was pointed criticism of the Sinhala-owned media (both Sinhala or English language) for its constant carping at the Norwegians.



My recent analysis was criticized for having underplayed American support for the Sri Lankan state. If anything, I didn’t underplay it enough. While Boucher encouraged the EU to ban the LTTE all he actually offered Colombo was the usual diplomatic niceties of moral support in the event of all out war. There is no evidence that in the absence of Indian support (which is not forthcoming) Colombo can count on any kind of significant military assistance from the Washington-New Delhi axis.



By running to the Pakistan-China axis, Colombo has only succeeded in further irritating New Delhi than it has is with the punishing air strikes on some of the most marginalised sections of Tamil society. In the event of a return to all out war (which admittedly is looking less likely than it did four weeks ago), Colombo will most probably be left to wither on the moribund vine of Sinhala chauvinism. In the event that Colombo ignores international concerns and causes heavy casualties amongst ordinary Tamils, Washington will simply back whatever interventionist approach New Delhi adopts to stop it.



President Rajapakse has shown himself to be utterly paralyzed since the shortsighted banning of the LTTE by the EU. In a piece that appeared in the Norwegian press some time ago, the first head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the late Maj. Gen. Trond Furvohnde, noted that the LTTE were far more astute strategic players than was the Sri Lankan state.



While the LTTE has in the eyes of many commentators made strategic errors in their dealings with the international community, these pale into insignificance when compared to those made by the Rajapakse administration. The launching of air strikes against not only Killochchi but also Mannar and other areas of Tamil civilian habitation on repeated occasions since May has earned the ire of the Co-Chairs and New Delhi.



The latter in particular has made its displeasure felt in Colombo as more than three thousand Tamil refugees have fled to South India. R. K. Narayan, the Indian National Security, read Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samareewera the riot act in New Delhi on the disproportionate response by Colombo to attacks by the LTTE. It seems that on this score Colombo has for now come to grips with the limits of its capacity to act independently of the international community.



Rajapakse must, if he has a scintilla of pragmatism, rue the day that he decided to don the attire of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. Some Sinhala commentators (who ironically happen to be pro-federal) have never tired of saying that Ranil Wickremesinghe, during the course of his premiership and the 2005 Presidential campaign put all his eggs into the LTTE basket. But into which basket did Rajapakse put all his eggs into?



While Rajapakse may have been a pure opportunist in articulating the rhetoric of Sinhala chauvinism as a vehicle for carrying him to victory he is now a hostage to the whim of the JVP and JHU. It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that it was Wimal Weeerawansa, the Propaganda Secretary of the JVP who said during the Presidential campaign that the election was a battle between patriotic forces and the traitors of the (Sinhala) nation. He declared that a “line has been drawn between these two forces and there is no place for moderates”. This is self-evident given the vitriolic campaign against the voices of Sinhala moderation such as Jehan Perera and Kumar Rupesinghe.



Given the reality of parliamentary arithmetic, Rajapakse remains beholden to the forces of Sinhala reaction in the JVP and JHU. However the screws are tightening on the hardliners in Colombo. Unfortunately, many of the more vocal Sinhala hawks have dual nationality with Western countries. They can always up sticks and leave if the brutal war they are creating the conditions for does erupt. It is the ordinary Sri Lankans of all ethnicites who will have to stay behind and endure its ravages.



With the threat to withdraw aid (aid that is critical for the functioning of the public sector) and with Japan (Colombo’s biggest bi-lateral donor) also reconsidering its position given the worsening ground situation in the Northeast, Rajapakse has truly boxed himself into a corner. A question mark remains as to whether he can wriggle out of this self made corner.



Ironically as the Sunday Leader noted, by killing Major General Parami Kulatunge, the de facto first in command of the Sri Lankan Army, the LTTE has in effect forestalled the possibility of the military launching a full scale offensive in the East. What Rajapakse and the coterie around him fail to understand is that the killing of Kulatunge was a direct response to the killing of Colonel Ramanan a senior LTTE commander in the East. Rajapakse needs to grasp that the logic of tit for tat strikes between the Armed forces and the LTTE is real and will not abate until deep penetration operations by the Army and collusion with the Tamil paramilitaries is ended. It is up to the Co-Chairs to impress this logic on Rajapakse.



If Rajapakse is serious about a two-week moratorium on hostilities between the opposing forces then the offer he made ‘quietly’ to the editor of Uthayan can be made again, formally, through Norwegian facilitation. Whether this will happen very much remains to be seen.



The appointment of a committee on constitutional reform headed by the prominent Sinhala hardline lawyer, H.L de Silva hardly inspires confidence. Many will rightly ask if Rajapakse takes the Co-Chairs communiqué that Sri Lanka needs a whole new framework for radically devolved governance seriously in light of H.L de Silva’s continued role as a spoiler of genuine powersharing.

More recently, interestingly, the Government indicated that it would be looking at federal options such as the one offered by the Indian Union. However at a wider level the current Government has completely failed to take any kind of progressive message to the Sinhala masses regarding the merits of a federal solution to Sri Lanka’s crisis of governance.



Given that under international pressure Rajapakse is having to give serious thought to an outline federal model the general existential hostility of the Sinhala Right to negotiate with the Tamil social formation has opened up a space for the Tamil polity and the wider Tamil community, both pro-LTTE and non-LTTE, to engage with the South. It is vital that progressives of all ethnicities hold firm against the latest onslaught of the Sinhala Right.



If Sri Lanka’s crisis is to end, the Tamil and Sinhala social formations need to engage with each other on the merits of a federal constitutional settlement as well as other mechanisms of mutual assurance which can be embedded in order to ensure a non-discriminatory future for all Sri Lankans. Alas that ideal, but much desired, possibility remains a long way off.



Dr. Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne teaches law at the Griffith Law School. He is currently working on a research project on Sri Lanka.