Deepening Crisis

All indications are that Sri Lanka is drifting into the final turbulent stretch of Chandrika Kumaratunga's tenure as President of the country, and that her bid to remain in office until the end of 2006 is unlikely to succeed. The Constitution provides for a presidential tenure to last up to a maximum of six years, and a person to remain in that office for no more than two such consecutive tenures. 

Kumaratunga's second spell as President was based on her victory at the elections conducted in December 1999 - about an year ahead of the scheduled termination of her first term as President - and her formal swearing-in at a public ceremony soon thereafter. If this is considered as representing the commencement of her second term, there is clear constitutional stipulation for fresh presidential elections to be held at the end of 2005. 

She, however, has taken the position that the end of her first term of office was marked, not by the formalities that followed the polls of December 1999, but by an unpublicised swearing-in she claims to have made about an year later coinciding with the end of the first six years from the date of her initial electoral success in 1994. 

This claim has been fiercely contested by United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, and several other political groups, mainly in the form of massive public demonstrations against thegovernment. The weight of legal opinion also appears to favour the stance of the Opposition; and, according to media disclosures, those empowered to arbitrate over this dispute - the Commissioner of Elections and the Supreme Court - are likely to call for the next presidential poll to be held in December 2005.

Within this milieu of bickering and uncertainty there are other ingredients of escalating unrest. The routine affairs of administration are being frequently crippled by strikes and other forms of protest, which invariably succeed in mobilising a high level of not entirely peaceful popular support (and, often, retaliatory repression by the security forces). These reflect, in part, the eroding credibility of thegovernment, and partly the worsening of economic conditions in the form of soaring inflation and unemployment.

Far more significant in disruptive impact is, of course, the increasing recourse to violence by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE ) in the form of both innumerable violations of the terms and conditions of thegovernment-LTTE ceasefire agreement of February 2002 as well as the increasing belligerence that accompanies its demands. As a mass of evidence hitherto unearthed indicates, the assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, is the latest and the most destabilising episode of this latter process. Late in the evening of August 12, 2005, Kadirgamar sustained serious injury within the precincts of his own home, targeted by gunmen operating from the upper floor of an adjacent house. He succumbed to his injuries at Colombo's main hospital a few hours later.

Lakshman Kadirgamar is the latest in the long list of leaders of the Tamil community here murdered by the LTTE in the course of its campaign aimed ostensibly at liberating the Tamils of Sri Lanka. In fact, earlier in the same day, in another part of Colombo, Senathurai Sellakumar, the owner of a communication centre and a former member of People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and his wife, a Thamil announcer of the state-owned TV network, were killed, allegedly by LTTE gunmen. 

This carnage has been going on and on, the number of Tamil civilians killed at the behest of the Tiger Leadership since the declaration of the on-going 'ceasefire' being well in excess of two-hundred (not counting those who have perished in the confrontations between the LTTE and its own rebel group since March 2004).

Many informed persons here would admit to being aware that Lakshman Kadirgamar has all along been vulnerable to an assassination attempt. Indeed he has himself confided to his associates time and again that he is at the top of the LTTE 'hit list'. This awareness and the forewarning, however, have not cushioned us from the shock, grief, despair and heartrending sense of loss. 

There is hardly any doubt that Kadirgamar has earned the gratitude and admiration of almost all segments of the Sri Lankan population to a much greater extent than any other living leader of the country. There was the personal charm he possessed in abundance, and his incisive mind. He also remained one of the very few in the political elite of recent times who has never been accused of any transgression of ethical norms. Apart from these, what really endeared him was his unmatchable contribution of effectively representing the interests of his beleaguered country in the community of nations. 

He took over the reins of office of Foreign Minister at a time when Sri Lanka was being seen almost as an outcast of the international community, the country's image abroad having being severely tarnished, by its own failures and lapses, and through the campaign of denigration conducted by the LTTE and its sympathisers in their secessionist efforts. Meeting this propaganda challenge, and presenting the bewilderingly complex ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka in an impartial, persuasive and humane manner, often to audiences that had been literally brainwashed into their unyielding positions of prejudice and hostility towards the country, was the essence of what Kadirgamar accomplished over a period of almost ten years.

Lakshman Kadirgamar was undoubtedly the principal architect of Sri Lanka's foreign policy over a greater part of Chandrika Kumaratunga's presidential tenure. There were certain special features in his policy stances which made them acceptable to a wider spectrum of political opinion than those of any other leader of the country. 

Kadirgamar was more forthright than other spokesmen for the government of Sri Lanka in his condemnation of both terrorism as well as the duplicity inherent in the approach of many powerful nations towards the terrorist menace. He placed priority on promoting greater harmony and concert in relations among the countries of South Asia, in particular, Indo-Lanka relations. He campaigned relentlessly (but with meagre success) for an enhanced Indian role in Sri Lanka's search for peace. 

In this, admittedly, he found a receptive President to work for. But the distinguishing element of his own personal policy stance was his barely concealed disinclination to succumb to pressures exerted by certain western powers in the form of prescribing ill-conceived and short-sighted measures as compromises in thegovernment's negotiations with the LTTE. This was due, in part, to reservations he had about the motives of such external interventions, and in part to his firm convictions regarding the danger of capitulation in the face of threats of terrorism.

Kadirgamar's assassination signifies a clear message from the Tiger leadership to all concerned, that it is unwilling to abandon terrorism and its total contempt towards international opinion in that regard. As it was in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, it is a crude act of revenge, and not a pre-emptive move against a development unacceptable to the LTTE, for which Kadirgamar was killed. There is no other plausible explanation for the timing of this barbaric act, given the prevailing tide of world opinion against terrorism in the aftermath of the London bombings.

Nevertheless, the assassination will resonate powerfully in Colombo-based politics over the coming months. It will, for instance, obviously harden the attitude of scepticism prevalent among the large majority of the Sinhalese community about the need for and the benefits of further negotiations with the Tiger leadership. This, however, is unlikely to have an impact on the stance of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the UNP candidate in the forthcoming presidential election. He has continued to pledge support for the concept of devolution within a federal framework, and persisted with the charge that the presentKumaratunga-led government has imperiled the peace process, which he as Prime Minister initiated in December 2001, conveniently forgetting the fact that his 'peace process' stalled an year before his party's defeat at the parliamentary elections of April 2004. 

This stance, however, will enable Wickremesinghe to add to the hardcore vote-bank of his party among the Sinhalese, an overwhelmingly large share of the Tamil vote. He is also likely to obtain a sizeable portion of the Muslim vote regardless of his standpoint on thegovernment-LTTE negotiations. 

The options available to Mahinda Rajapakse, the contestant for the presidency nominated by the Kumaratunga-led United Front (UF), are far more uncertain. He has, on the one hand, to cater to the wishes and demands of the President, who will continue to lead the UF insisting, among other things, on the continuation of negotiations with the LTTE based on a devolution package similar to that being purveyed by Wickremesinghe. 

If Rajapakse does, it could well mean that he will fail to mobilise the support of a fairly large segment of the Sinhalese electorate, specially that represented by the radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Nationalist-Buddhist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), without which he will not be able to offer a serious challenge to Wickremesinghe at the presidential polls. On the other hand, if Rajapakse, with approaching elections, leans towards the JVP-JHU policy stance, he will make headway but would offer himself to the same tragic fate that befell the presidential candidate, the late Gamini Dissanayake, at the hands of the LTTE eleven years ago.

G. H. Peiris is Professor Emeritus of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal