22 January 2008
The Sri Lankan government decided to abrogate the Ceasefire Agreement and President Mahinda Rajapaksa has stated that his strategy is to achieve `Peace through War in Sri Lanka`. This article aims to assess Sri Lankan government`s present strategy, the War of Attrition, against the LTTE in terms of achieving Peace and challenging the idea of Eelam which aims at secession.
Given the liberal democratic framework of governance as the basis of Sri Lankan government it is government`s political obligation either to consider secession or to provide evidence for why it is not an option. In this regard, the public declaration made by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa which categorically denied 'An Eelam' as an option in Sri Lanka can be seen as a fulfilment of this political obligation to some extent.
Nonetheless, when declaring secession is not an option, the government has an additional political obligation to provide weighty evidence to prove government`s claim against secession. Both the claim and the evidence should be presented especially to the international community which in this case is instrumental in recognising or refuting Tamil Eelam as a new state.
In this respect, the Sri Lankan government has neglected its additional political obligation and this negligence is deemed to be problematic at least for two reasons. First, it implies government`s inability to assess international community`s decisive role, power and authority in recognising or refusing Tamil Eelam as a new State. Second, it implies government`s erroneous assessment that secession is an unlikely objective to be achieved in contemporary international legal context.
As Dr. Karsten Frey (Institute Barcelona d`Estudis Internacionals [IBEI]) observes, `successful secessions are always, [in broader terms] enforced by creating political facts but not by meeting legal requirements`.
His observation precisely mirrors two fundamental factors of secession: First, the absence of a consensus definition under international law on secession. Second, despite this absence, many forms of secessions have been emerged and recognised by the international community.
The growth of the United Nations membership, for example, elaborates this point. The increase of the membership from 151 in 1990 to 191 at present has been essentially due, broadly speaking, to secession. In other words, international community`s recognition and their attitude with regard to a new entity are important factors than to international law in recognising a new state.
Therefore, any declarations to be made and evidence to be produced against Tamil Eelam should essentially have the ability to shape international community`s recognition and their attitude against Eelam. For this reason, an ideal socio-political reality should mirror a sincere and honest context where co-existence exists and is possible in Sri Lanka.
In this international backdrop, the President Mahinda Rajapaksa made another declaration via Al Jazeera Television to emphasise the government`s aim, `Peace through War in Sri Lanka.` His declaration created a paradox at least due to two reasons.
First, the on going war of attrition against the LTTE which aimed at weakening them before talks will not make them weak because a war of attrition against terrorism is counterproductive. Second, it will make the socio-ethnic polarisation wider and deeper. Therefore, the situation will not allow government to portray a socio-political context where co-existence exists and this will degrade government`s claim against secession.
The objective of a war of attrition is to destroy an adversary`s `will` to fight by bringing destruction to his fighting or combat `capability`. Nevertheless, the process creates undesired effects (such as collateral damage and casualties, human rights violations, destruction of democracy, socio-ethnic polarization) as its by products and they are counterproductive especially, against terrorism.
The UK Joint Doctrine and Concept Centre (JDCC) that gives strategic guidance to the British military in May 2003 concluded, `An attritional campaign may have an increasingly negative effect in terms of achieving a strategic goal.`
After the 9/11 New York World Trade Centre attacks, the United States Government adopted an attritional approach, in Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime that hosted Al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London found that the campaign made the Al-Qaeda a more virtual and protean organisation and, therefore, even harder to identify and neutralise.
The impact of an attritional campaign on public opinion also is counterproductive. A White House panel in October 2003 reported, `Muslim hostility towards the USA has reached shocking levels, and is growing steadily.`
Furthermore, a survey released by Euro RSCG Worldwide in September 2003 showed, `Two years after the 9/11 attacks, most Americans felt no safer from terrorist threats, more distrustful of many longstanding allies, and increasingly anxious about the future.`
In addition, the Strategy deepens socio-ethnic polarization and spreads hatred. The `operation eviction` which carried out against ethnic Tamil lodgers in Colombo is a fine example. It indicates government`s polarized mind-set especially Defence Ministry`s polarized mind-set which led them to categorise Tamils lodged in Colombo as terrorist suspects. It can be seen as a culmination point of a LTTE strategy which aimed at polarizing the Sri Lankan society into two main ethnic groups: namely Sinhalese and Tamils.
The present socio-political context which emerged as a result of on going attritional war against the LTTE is creating a sense of fear, a sense among members of Tamils that their cultural, political, socio-economic situation and fundamental rights are getting deteriorated by the actions of Sinhalese government (as well as affiliated Forces) and within the existing union with the South (as they believe), and a sense of rejection, a sense of being discriminated by Majoritarianism which creates a belief that Tamils have no equal position with Sinhalese majority.
In regard to this, two recent statements made by two Southern politicians (one of them are a government Minister and the other politician is a Parliamentarian and both of them are strong allies of the government) can be seen as symbolic representations of the sense of rejection and fear that are in creating. One of them stated, `Only Sinhalese live in Sri Lanka` and the other stated, `Tamils do not belong to Sri Lanka and they should fight in Tamil Nadu.`
The undeniable consequence of all these statements is strong sense of confidence among Tamils that they can perform better on their own and that secession is not too risky, and a sense of acceptance, a sense that the Tamil Eelam is the only option which could restore their ethnic integrity.
The attitude of international community with regard to the worsening conflict situation as well as human rights violations in Sri Lanka is not positive. All theses negative effects (such as collateral damage and casualties, human rights violations, destruction of democracy, socio-ethnic polarization) are inevitable by products or undesired effects of the war of attrition against LTTE. The problem lies underneath the attritional strategy and, therefore, there is no temporary solution except abandoning the attritional approach against the LTTE.
Therefore, any strategy which aims at a permanent solution to the North-East problem should immediately bring the country back to normalisation at least as it was between 2002 and 2004. Then it should aims at creating a socio-political context where co-existence is possible through a period of reconciliation. Then only the Sri Lankan government can make claimss and provide evidence against any form of secession to the international community since there is no need for secession.
However, we need lots of patience, courage and wisdom and our fundamental focus should be stand against secession. In order to achieve this aim, perhaps we lack Abraham Lincoln`s cool ability to separate ruthlessly the issue (in his case) of slavery from that of secession. He stated,
`I would save the Union...My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save the union.` [Abraham Lincoln,Works, 5:338-39]
The author, a journalist and lawyer, is reading for a PhD on Terrorism at the Centre for Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He holds an MSc on Defence Management and Global Security from the British Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University
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