The invitation issued by President Chandrika Kumaratunga to the Government of Norway to resume itsfacilitative services and seek to recommence the peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),offers fresh hope of a forward movement in the stalled Sri Lankan peace process. The President's action is aconfirmation that the results of the General Election did not constitute a rejection of the peace process thathas been stalled for over a year. The election-time rhetoric now appears discarded. During their electioncampaigns, the President and her allies bitterly criticised the former Government for working along with theNorwegians to 'betray the country' to the LTTE.
The latter half of the former United National Front (UNF) Government's two year period in office was marked byan increasingly aggressive display of Sinhalese nationalism, in which members of the present Government playeda prominent role. Nationalist political parties such as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Sihala Urumayatook the lead in organising demonstrations and marches against the peace process in general and the Norwegianfacilitators in particular. But President Kumaratunga and her party members also stridently criticized thepeace process, while some of them even joined in the organised mass protests by the JVP-led nationalistcoalition that opposed the peace process.
By the time of the General Election in April 2004, the peace process conducted by the UNF Government had beenthoroughly discredited in the eyes of most of the Sinhalese electorate. Emboldened by this popular response,the JVP promised to scrap the Ceasefire Agreement in its entirety or renegotiate it on a basis that wasadvantageous to the Government. They also pledged to get rid of the Norwegian facilitators, who they said werebiased towards the LTTE, and whose effigies they burnt. Mainstream opposition politicians routinely rejectedthe notion of the LTTE as sole representative of the Tamil people, criticised the absence of separate Muslimrepresentation at the peace talks and rejected the LTTE's proposal for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA)as a blueprint for separation.
It is in this context that the turnaround by the JVP, the President and the rest of the new Government isquite astonishing, if viewed in the prism of principled politics. The resurgence of faith in the peace processafter the election of the new Government has been unexpected to say the least. The condemnation of the verysame peace process reached a crescendo during the election campaign in March 2004. But the irony is that, amere three months later, the very same politicians who vociferously rejected the peace process and the way itwas conducted, are following the footsteps of those they condemned, and whose positions they have now secured.And the opposition United National Party (UNP) is pointing this out to the people.
Today, the anti-peace propagandists of the JVP, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and other parties that formthe new United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Government, are extremely quiet at a time when the peaceprocess is moving forward in full swing. The Norwegian facilitators have been flying in on a weekly basis, andat the highest levels, that includes the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The new Government has pledged to upholdthe much maligned Ceasefire Agreement, and there is no talk of either scrapping the agreement or renegotiatingit.
There are three practical reasons why President Kumaratunga and her Government are backtracking on theirelection rhetoric and getting down to business with the LTTE, even to the extent of accepting the rebel groupas the sole representatives of the Tamil people. The first is that they won the election, and being in power,they need to address the main problem that faces the country if they are to remain in power. They skillfullycriticised the former UNP Government's compromises to bring peace to the country and discredited the UNP.
The second reason is the need to tap into the donor resources pledged at the Tokyo donor conference in June2002. The donor countries, led by Japan, pledged a massive USD 4.5 billion in aid, but its release was madeconditional upon the progress in the peace process. Although some of that aid has been sent to Sri Lanka, muchof it remains to be disbursed. The new Government, which has ambitious plans for welfare economics, would liketo have its resources supplemented by those of the international community. There is no better way to do thisthan by carrying the peace process forward.
The third reason for the new Government's resumption of the peace process is the arithmetic in Parliament,which became glaringly obvious with the defeat of the Government's candidate for the position of Speaker ofParliament. That defeat sent shock waves through the Government, and it was brought to realise that it was buta minority Government. If it were to pass any legislation, it would need some of the opposition parties toeither join it as coalition partners or at least to remain neutral in parliamentary voting. For instance,should the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) remain neutral in Parliament, the Government will retain a majorityvote. Success in the peace process, and a satisfied LTTE, could do much to ensure that the TNA will not votewith the Opposition.
According to the Norwegian facilitators, both the new Government and the LTTE are eager for peace talks toresume. But the price that the LTTE will exact is likely to be high. The LTTE has been insisting that thepeace talks should be on the basis of their proposals for an ISGA that they presented to the former Governmenton October 31, 2003. These proposals called for far reaching autonomy. However, a few days after theseproposals made their appearance, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, then in the opposition, made acomprehensive critique and said that they laid "the legal foundation for a future, separate, sovereignstate."
However, the change of heart that the new Government appears to have undergone on the issues of Norwegianfacilitation and the Ceasefire Agreement also seem to have carried over to the LTTE's ISGA proposal. When theGovernment states that it is prepared to negotiate from where the former Government left off, and when theLTTE states that peace talks must be on the basis of the ISGA, it is evident that the ISGA will be the focusof the forthcoming peace talks. The question is whether the Sri Lankan polity will take this type offundamental reversals of position without generating a backlash. The people who voted for the parties nowconstituting the Government on account of their anti-peace process and anti-Norwegian rhetoric, are likely tofeel betrayed.
Over the past two years, the JVP and other Sinhalese nationalists demanded the withdrawal of the Norwegiansfrom the peace process. They did not suggest an alternative, other than to imply that they could militarilydefeat the LTTE if they were given the chance. Soon after assuming office, the new Prime Minister, MahindaRajapakse, said that India should play a greater role in Sri Lanka's peace process. The Sri Lankan ForeignMinister has also suggested that India could play a greater role in the economic development of the NorthEast. There will, no doubt, be much support from sections of the polity for an enhanced Indian role, tocounter-balance the dominance of Norway and other western countries in the peace process.
It is also reasonable to believe that India was not happy with the entry of so many foreign powers into theSri Lankan peace process in an area that it considers to be its area of geo-political concern. However, it isnecessary to realize that India cannot play the role that Norway is playing. India has the heavy baggage ofits past to overcome, both in terms of having been clearly partisan to one side or the other, and also inhaving tried to mediate in Sri Lanka's conflict and having failed.
Moreover, a facilitator or mediator needs to be acceptable to both parties. It cannot be acceptable to oneparty or one side alone. At the time of the President's invitation to Norway to mediate in the ethnic conflictin 2000, and over the past two years, Norway's good offices were acceptable to both the Sri Lankan Governmentand to the LTTE. It is apparent from the present invitation to Norway to resume its facilitative role that itcontinues to be acceptable to the dominant section of the Sri Lankan Government, led by the President, and tothe LTTE.
It is, on the other hand, unlikely that India, whatever its merits, will be acceptable to the LTTE as afacilitator at this time. India has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation and its courts have a warrantout for the LTTE leader for the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. While India'spresent attitude towards the LTTE is its own internal issue, it does mean that India cannot be thought of as afacilitator in the present peace process. Certainly, however, India's geo-political concerns need to be givenpriority by Sri Lanka's Governments. For its part, India is likely to feel more comfortable with the presentGovernment than it was with the last - the UNP was more favorably oriented towards the western countries thantowards India.
How the opposition UNP responds to the Government's present endeavours is also crucial. In South Asia,generally, opposition parties have not been prepared to accept their rival's victories for a fixed term inoffice. Instead, they have done their utmost to engineer a premature fall of the Government. The oppositionUNP has already been attempting to corner the new Government on its new policy on the peace process. Insteadof supporting the new Government in taking the peace process forward, the UNP is asking the Government toexplain the reversal of its position hardly a month after coming to power.
At this critical juncture, it is important that those who wish to see the peace process move forward, shouldlearn from the mistakes of the last Government. A most important lesson would be to bring the opposition intothe peace process as a willing and equal partner. This would certainly mean that the new Government would haveto give up some of its own plans in deference to the concerns of the opposition. An example would be thePresident's ambition to ram through constitutional changes without the support of the opposition, in order toensure her own political future beyond the two term limit of her presidency.
Every textbook approach to conflict resolution calls for inclusivity in the peace process, so that all themain actors in society can become stakeholders in the process. The Sri Lankan peace process, which began inearnest with the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in February 2002, has had no place in it for theopposition. To make matters worse, under the last regime, the opposition included the country's powerfulExecutive President. Despite her party's defeat at the general election of December 2001, PresidentKumaratunga continued to be an integral part of governance. Nevertheless, the Ceasefire Agreement of February2002 was signed without the knowledge of the President.
The Norwegian facilitators, as much as the leaders of the last Government, need to take responsibility forthis major flaw in the peace process. Their concern at that time was President Kumaratunga's unpredictablenature, and they feared she might have jeopardised the fine-tuning of the Ceasefire Agreement. This genuineconcern was coupled with the desire of the members of the last Government to monopolise the peace process andleave nothing in it for the opposition.
However, with nothing in it for them, the opposition went on a propaganda spree against the peace process.They mobilised Sinhalese nationalism and Sinhalese fears of a betrayal of the nation that led to theconvincing defeat of the previous Government in the Sinhalese-majority parts of the country. The Norwegianfacilitators, together with the Government and LTTE, need to ensure that, this time around, there is a greaterdegree of inclusivity in the peace process
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Jehan Perera is Media Director, National Peace Council of Sri Lanka. Courtesy, the South Asia IntelligenceReview of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
