A Government Divided

A cart pulled by two bulls, each trying to go in a different direction - thismetaphor exactly fits the Sri Lankan Government today. President ChandrikaKumaratunga heads an executive that comprises a Cabinet dominated by her rivalparty, the United National Front (UNF), which heads a majority alliance inParliament. The result is that that governance has sadly become a matter ofconflict rather than consensus. Whether it is the peace process or state policy,the President and her party, the People's Alliance (PA), hold a position that isnot congruent with the stand taken by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's UNFGovernment.

This was illustrated, for instance, by the diametrically opposed positions thePresident and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe's administration took with regard toglobal trade. Commerce Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who represented theGovernment at the recent trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, broke ranks with thedeveloping countries and backed the rich nations, especially the United States.In sharp contrast to this position, President Kumaratunga on October 14, 2003,addressing the World Economic Forum's East Asia summit in Singapore, blasted therich nations, declaring, "The principles and underlying positions on trademust definitely be the same for the developed and the developing nations."This is not their only point of disagreement; the President and her party havecondemned the Prime Minister's United Nations (UN) speech, which gave a tacitnod to the US invasion of Iraq.

The result of this two-way governance is that confusion reigns. The politics ofconflict is not strange to Sri Lanka, but the politics of consensus certainlyis. Neither politicians nor the body politic have sufficiently matured tonurture the politics of cohabitation, which is seen as the sine qua non for theprogress of the peace process. An oft-repeated complaint voiced by the Presidentis that she has been kept in the dark with regard to the peace process. Themutual suspicion the two parties entertain towards each other is giving birth tocrisis after crisis in what has been described as a cohabitation miscarriage.

The opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent party of thePeople's Alliance, has already started a process to topple the Government withthe help of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) or the People'sLiberation Front. A section of the SLFP believes that an electoral alliance withthe JVP is the only way the UNF could be defeated at a general election.

The SLFP has never won a general election under its own steam. In the past ithad always relied on the support of leftist parties to prop up its electoralstrength. With the traditional left parties such as the Lanka Sama Samaja Partyand the Communist Party being pushed into political oblivion, it is only on theJVP - a party that derives its strength from unemployed youths and is creditedwith significant organizational capabilities - that the SLFP can rely to rideback to power. However, the hitch is that the JVP is an ardent opponent of thepeace process. It advocates a military solution to the North-East conflict andbelieves devolution of power is not the formula to solve the national question.

The first round of talks between the SLFP and the JVP collapsed recently largelydue to disagreement over devolution as a solution to the ethnic problem, thoughmoves are now underway to resume talks. However, it is still not clear how thetwo parties will iron out their differences over the devolution issue. In spiteof this fundamental disagreement, they have intensified their campaigns,together and separately, against the Government's approach to the peace process.Both parties are in agreement that the UNF Government's approach to peace willeventually lead to the creation of Eelam, the separate state the LiberationTigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been campaigning for.

The 20-month-old ceasefire, however fragile it might be, has contributed towardsthe growth of the economy. The stock market has made significant gains in recentmonths while the rupee has appreciated against the dollar. But ironically, thegains made on the economic front have not significantly buttressed the peaceprocess. This is because questions arising from the uncertainties surroundingthe peace process still remain unanswered. Fears that were expressed at the timethe UNF Government signed the ceasefire agreement in February 2002 have stillnot been allayed.

On the contrary, the apprehensions have been consolidated by the LTTE'sceasefire violations, its intransigent stand with regard to contentious issues,especially the row over the Manirasakulam camp, its continued efforts to regroupand rearm itself and its scant regard for the opinion of the internationalcommunity and rulings by the ceasefire monitors. With regard to theManirasakulam camp in Trincomalee, the LTTE has stood its ground, refusing tobow to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission ruling that the rebels had set up thecamp in a Government-controlled area, which was not long ago occupied byMuslims.

The LTTE's disdain for the international community as far as the ground realityis concerned was also seen in its continued conscription of children despite theassurances it gave to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Recently, theLTTE released about 40 child soldiers for a UNICEF-sponsored rehabilitationprogramme, but before the ink on the papers they signed was dry, some 40 parentsin Valachchenai, an eastern town close to Batticaloa, complained to the UNICEFthat their children had been abducted by the LTTE.

Besides, the LTTE is also known to have acquired modern weaponry during the20-month-old truce, a fact Defence Minister Tilak Marapana grudgingly admittedin Parliament during an adjournment debate on the security situation in thecountry.

"It is true that, with the ceasefire agreement, many opportunities havebeen afforded to the LTTE to strengthen itself. But that I believe is the pricewe have to pay if we are to pursue the peace process to a permanent solution ofthe problem. We knew that when we signed the ceasefire agreement," Marapanatold Parliament in response to an opposition tirade against the Government'ssoft approach to the LTTE's confidence-shattering measures.

The UNF Government's never-say-die approach to the peace process, in spite ofLTTE intransigence, is commendable, for it has helped keep alive the hopes ofreactivating the negotiations that were suspended in April. It is against thebackdrop of this optimism that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe this week told theForeign Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim countries that the very fact that theLTTE was presenting its counter-proposals to a Government draft on the creationof an interim administration for the Northern and Eastern Provinces was itselfan achievement in the ongoing peace process.

The LTTE's constitutional affairs committee, which met recently in Dublin, hasapparently finalized its counter-proposals to be handed over to the Governmentby the end of this month. Although the contents of the counter-proposals havenot been made public, sources close to the LTTE say that the Tigers wereinsisting that police, land and financial matters should be exclusively vestedin the LTTE-dominated interim administration.

The Government may not fully agree with the LTTE counter-proposals, but thiswill offer the two sides an opportunity to sit together and iron out or minimizetheir disagreements. One cannot be over-optimistic, however, given the otherfactors that are directly linked to the ethnic question. For instance, fearsentertained by Muslims about the interim administration have not been allayed,either by the Government or LTTE. The LTTE's continued harassment of Muslims isgiving rise to a situation that may lead to Muslims taking up arms to defendthemselves and even President Kumaratunga has warned of this eventuality.

 Ameen Izzadeen is Deputy Editor, Sunday Times and DailyMirror, Colombo. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the SouthAsia Terrorism Portal