23 January 2007
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| Ranil Wickremesinghe (l) with President Mahinda Rajapakse. Photo Daily News |
As President Rajapakse’s administration escalates its military onslaught against the Liberation Tigers, deliberately punishing the Tamil population in the process, one argument sometimes put forward is that the latter have only themselves to blame for their plight.
Had the Tamils cast their vote for Ranil Wickremesinghe in the December 2005 Presidential elections, the argument goes, then he would have prevailed and the present bloodshed would have been avoided; peace, even a federal solution, might have been pursued.
Particularly amid the political turmoil in Colombo, this ‘Ranil – good, Rajapakse – bad’ argument deserves close scrutiny.
Let us go back to the halcyon days of 2002; Why did the Tamils put such faith in the peace process launched by Wickremesinghe’s UNF (United National Front) government?
The answer is undoubtedly because, unlike earlier efforts, this attempt was being underwritten by an actively involved international community.
Not only was Norway facilitating, but other major international actors were rushing to pledge their political and financial support for peace.
A military solution, the Tamils were (now) told, was unacceptable. Negotiations were the only way.
The emergence of the self-styled ‘Co-Chairs’ - United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – reinforced confidence in this assertion and in international commitment to it.
The Co-Chairs further fuelled Tamils’ trust in the peace process with relatively neutral statements about the need to ‘find a solution acceptable to all Sri Lankans’ and resolve ‘Tamil grievances’, promises of ‘urgently needed’ humanitarian aid being forthcoming, and, after some hesitation, even recognition of a historical habitat of the Tamil-speaking people (remember the Oslo Declaration?)
The enthusiastic international support for Wickremesinghe and his UNF government – particularly against President Chandrika Kumaratunga (her of ‘war for peace’ fame) – also reinforced the sense among Tamils that the international community would ensure their ‘grievances’ were addressed and a return to war precluded.
The LTTE’s preparedness to negotiate with the UNF was, of course, another reason for Tamil trust in this Sinhala government.
But it was international involvement that primarily underpinned Tamil (and, arguably, LTTE) confidence in talks with the UNF.
At the outset, there was simply no reason for the Tamils to trust the UNP or Wickremesinghe.
Indeed, when Norway’s role as peacemaker was first announced in Parliament it was Wickremesinghe who stood to denounce the intervention.
With its own history of military attacks and atrocities against the Tamils, there was every reason for the Tamils doubt the right wing United National Party (UNP).
Ranil himself had questionable credentials.
Not only was he a negotiator for the Premadasa regime in its talks with the Tigers, but by many credible accounts, deeply implicated in unsavoury aspects of its murderous counter-insurgency against the JVP.
He is also the nephew of J. R. Jayawardene, architect of the 1978 constitution which entrenched Sinhala supremacy beyond the 1972 one. (Jayawardene, it should also be recalled, presided over the July 83 pogrom).
The 2001 UNP’s liberal stance on the ethnic issue lacked credibility in itself.
The Tamils had witnessed many Sinhala leaders take power pledging to address their grievances, only to turn to appeasing majoritarian sentiments once elected.
The main reason for Tamils to support Ranil’s UNP-led UNF in the December 2001 election was the LTTE’s endorsement (in Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s Heroes Day speech that year).
The placing of prominent UNPers without a history of violence against Tamils and vocally articulating a fresh approach to ethnic reconciliation also helped eased suspicions.
The UNP peace team comprised respected top academic, Prof. G. L. Peiris, and arch neo-liberal Milinda Moragoda.
Their manifest rapport in the negotiations with the LTTE delegation led by Anton Balasingham helped the UNP build bridges with the Tamil community.
But what exactly was the UNP’s subsequent record in the Norwegian peace process?
Before looking at that it is worth noting where individuals such as Prof. Peiris and Mr. Moragoda are today: both are at the forefront of the UNP rebels eager to join President Rajapakse’s militarist, Sinhala-nationalist government.
The divided UNP is, meanwhile, today also echoing the language of ‘counter-terrorism.’
It has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ruling UPFA. This agreement on ‘peace efforts’ is deemed to stand even as the government wages the state’s latest military campaign against the LTTE, targeting civilians as previous administrations have done.
But what of the UNP’s peace record in government?
For a start, it simply did not implement many key aspects of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) it signed with the LTTE.
True, both sides have breached the truce in terms of violent incidents.
But as part of the truce, the UNP also agreed to withdraw its forces from occupied villages and homes to enable hundreds of thousands of Tamils driven from their homes by Sri Lankan offensives to resettle. It also agreed to permanently lift restrictions on fishing and farming.
None of this happened. The military simply refused to withdraw from any of the High Security Zones (HSZs) and maintained or arbitrarily re-imposed fishing and farming restrictions.
And the UNF simply shrugged its shoulders, putting the blame squarely on President Kumaratunga.
In contravention of the CFA’s Clause 1.8, the Army-backed anti-LTTE paramilitary groups were never disarmed and were kept mobilised, soon sparking a slow-burning shadow war that would later escalate.
Before the 2001 election the UNP cut a deal with the Tigers – to set up an interim administration for the Northeast so that normalcy could be restored whilst a final solution was thrashed out in talks.
But in the first formal round of talks, in September 2002, the UNP went back on its word. Instead of an interim administration a low-powered Sub-committee (SIHRN) was created.
And even SIHRN fell apart as government bureaucrats in it simply failed to turn up of function.
Meanwhile, far-reaching changes were taking place in the foundations of the peace process.
The LTTE, eager for international engagement, agreed to explore federalism, making the first major climb-down from the (1976) TULF-led demand for Tamils’ independence.
But the LTTE came under further intense focus and pressure from international actors: accusations of under-age recruitment and political assassinations were used to deny the LTTE further political space and to constrain its role.
The ‘terrorism’ label was used (by both the UNP and its international allies) to exclude the LTTE from decision-making on aid (apart from one minor aid conference in Norway in November 2002, the Tigers were frozen out of the aid soliciting and allocation process).
The ‘normalisation’ clauses of the CFA were simply repudiated by the military (then Jaffna commander and now Army chief Sarath Fonseka refused point blank in writing to implement the CFA). Paramilitary violence against the LTTE (the flip side of the Tigers ‘political assassination’) continued.
But, in contrast to infractions by the LTTE, the international community did nothing in response to the state’s. No pressure was brought to bear on the UNF, or for that matter, on President Kumaratunga.
In contrast, a massive effort was made to stabilise and rebuild the Sri Lanka state and its armed forces.
During the tenure of the UNF government, the war-weary armed forces were reconstituted.
In comparison to 2000 levels, by 2002, the Air Force (SLAF) had doubled its manpower and acquired twenty new aircraft. The Army (SLA) tripled its tanks and doubled its artillery firepower and increased its troop strength by 20%. The Navy (SLN) doubled in size.
During all this time, the UNF portrayed itself as too weak to challenge the hardline President.
Kumaratunga took the political flak for the slow progress of the peace process and the breaches of the CFA (such as the military’s refusal to vacate Tamil villages or sinking of LTTE vessels).
But with Kumaratunga in her second and final term as President, the new military machine was being assembled for the next Sri Lankan President to either threaten or crush the Tigers.
And the UNF had every expectation that it would be Ranil who would be next in charge.
The argument presented to the Tamils was that Kumaratunga was the block to progress in the peace process, that when Ranil became President, they would get an interim solution, rehabilitation aid, even a federal constitution.
But in the meantime, the UNF and its international allies froze the LTTE out, brought greater international constrains on it, closed down its space to articulate ‘extreme’ demands (except, of course, federalism).
Even though the UNF had not formally committed to a federal solution – it was the LTTE’s bona fides that were always questioned.
In the Tokyo aid conference of June 2003, the Co-chairs and others pledged $4.5bn of rehabilitation and reconstruction aid.
The international community made this desperately needed humanitarian aid conditional on ‘progress’ in the peace process.
The long-suffering Tamils in the conflict zones thus got none of this pledged international aid.
The blame, however, was put on the LTTE (for blocking ‘progress’ in the peace process).
Yet the state got the international aid anyway (Japanese Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi declared in 2006 that most of the pledges had been met). It just wasn’t spent on the Tamil areas.
It is in this context that many Tamils argue that the Norwegian peace process was not an exercise in conflict resolution but rather the containment of the Tamil struggle.
That the international community was not providing ‘good offices’ for peace, but continuing its counter-insurgency objectives by means other than war.
Nothing underlines this more than how the military balance was rapidly altered in favour of the state in the early stages of the peace process.
Apart from assisting the massive rearmament program, the international community simply allowed the state (i.e. the UNF and Kumaratunga) not to implement much of the CFA.
Under the claim the balance of forces ‘must be maintained’ the Sri Lankan military was allowed to remain in occupation of the occupied High Security Zones (HSZs) and the navy’s blatant attacks on LTTE supply ships were ignored. The Army was also allowed to retain its paramilitary forces.
In economic terms also, the international community was swift to stabilise the state and weaken the LTTE.
The UNF (and later Kumaratunga’s UPFA) was provided with substantial amounts of international funding (relative to its economic capacity). Efforts were made to choke off the LTTE’s own funding raising.
All this, of course, occurred amid the mantra that ‘it was up to the parties’ to forge peace; that the international community could only play a ‘supporting’ role.
The point is that the UNF and the international community worked closely to destabilise the parity of forces that had forced the Sri Lankan government to negotiate with the LTTE in the first place.
The overall objective was to constrain and de-fang the primary challenge to the Sri Lankan state’s unity and territorial integrity – the LTTE.
The idea was not, however, to force a return to war (though if necessary that would have to be done). Ideally, the project was to be pursued in the confines of the peace process itself.
As such, the international community’s fury and distress at Rajapakse’s victory in 2005 was genuine.
Unlike Ranil, Rajapakse had no loyalty to the Co-Chairs’ economic and political agenda for Sri Lanka (indeed, his politics suggests loyalties to other geopolitical actors and his own politic-economic vision is quite unhelpful to the neo-liberal agenda).
Had Ranil become President in 2005, the shared international- Sri Lankan project of containing and dismantling the LTTE could have been conducted more smoothly and sophisticatedly.
The same techniques as before would have sufficed:
Ranil would have continued striking deals with the Tigers and failing to implement (this time citing the JVP and other Sinhala-nationalist opposition).
And whilst promising the Tamils the earth, even signing a temporary deal on federalism, he would have insisted on the LTTE’s disarming as a precondition for implementation.
If it resisted, the LTTE, trapped in the international dynamics of ‘seeking legitimacy’ would have been vilified as the intransigent party and penalised - while the state would have continued to expand its war-fighting capacity and expand its economy generously supported with foreign aid and investment.
That strategy collapsed when the LTTE’s boycott in 2005 denied Ranil the Tamil vote and Rajapakse swept to power on a Sinhala nationalist wagon.
But the international community got over its outrage and disappointment soon afterwards.
The overall shared project of constraining and dismantling the LTTE continues, admittedly with some distaste as to the methods available (the preference was to use coercion rather that outright force).
Even though Rajapakse has launched now a major war, indiscriminately killing Tamil civilians whilst attacking the Tigers, the international community is standing by him nonetheless.
Despite occasional, ineffectual criticism, international military, political and financial aid continues to be forthcoming to the Rajapakse regime.
The fundamental point is this: irrespective of whether Ranil or Rajapakse is at its helm, the overall objective is to defend the Sri Lankan state by blunting the Tamil struggle for autonomy and destroying the LTTE.
Had Ranil been President, a more subtle program of undermining and dismantling the LTTE would have been pursued. With Rajapske, a cruder set of tactics are being used.
There is only one lesson the Tamils can draw from studying the conduct of the Kumaratunga, Ranil and Rajapakse along with the international community since 2002:
Unless and until the LTTE is proven to be too resilient to destroy without unacceptably high levels of international investment (military, political and financial), resolving Tamil ‘grievances’ will remain a peripheral issue in comparison to ensuring the stability and viability of the Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan state.
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