Proving The Prez Right

President Chandrika Kumaratunge of Sri Lanka, who had been repeatedly expressing her unhappiness andconcern over the way the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe had been negotiating with theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and blindly trusting its promises of good behaviour, must be feelingvindicated by the LTTE's suspension of its participation in the negotiations on April 21, 2003.

A letter on this subject written by Anton Balasingham, the head of the LTTE delegation to the peace talks,to the Prime Minister, says: "The LTTE leadership has decided to suspend its participation in thenegotiations for the time being. We will not be attending the donor conference in Japan in June."Interestingly, it is silent on the next round of peace talks scheduled to take place in Thailand from April 29to May 2. This has given rise to some speculation as to whether the LTTE's decision to suspend itsparticipation  relates to the entire negotiations process or only to the negotiations with internationaldonors on reconstruction aid.

While backing the negotiations process itself, President Chandrika Kumaratunge had been vocally critical ofthe negotiating strategy of her Prime Minister, which, in her view,  was enabling the LTTE to exploit theprocess for consolidating its hold over the Tamil-inhabited areas and setting up a de facto Tamil State evenwhile proclaiming its willingness to consider a negotiated federal set-up as a solution to the problems of theTamils.

She felt that by his exhibited over-eagerness to keep the process going, however intransigent the LTTEmight be on critical issues, and by  making one concession after another to the demands of the LTTEwithout any quid pro quo on its part, her Prime Minister was giving an impression of negotiating from aposition of weakness, which could prove counter-productive.

She also made no secret of her unhappiness over the way the  Sri Lankan monitoring mission (SLMM) setup under the leadership of Norway, the so-called facilitator of the peace process, was bending backwards tohumour the LTTE and coax it to continue to participate in the process and closing its eyes to repeatedinfringements by the LTTE of the provisions of the cease-fire agreement reached by it and the Government before the talks began.

The disquieting attitude of Norway became apparent in the  manner in which the SLMM sought to give thebenefit of doubt to the LTTE by exonerating it of any responsibility or playing down its responsibility for serious incidents at sea involving ships of the so-called LTTE Navy.

In the first incident, the LTTE was thwarted by the Sri Lankan Navy while trying to smuggle ananti-aircraft weapon and other arms and ammunition. The LTTE's sea cadres chose to scuttle the ship and godown with it to avoid being captured with their consignment---similar to what Kittu, a prominent leader of theLTTE, did in 1993 when he was intercepted by the Indian Coast Guard while trying to smuggle a consignment ofarms and ammunition procured in Pakistan.

In the second incident, 15 Chinese and two Sinhalese were feared killed on March 20, when a Chinese trawler"Fu Yuan Ya 225" was attacked by a suspected LTTE naval unit off the Mullaitivu coast of Eastern SriLanka.In the third incident reported on March 31,two Sri Lankan military personnel were injured when a SriLankan troop transporter was fired upon with small arms.

No Tamil organisation of Sri Lanka, other than the LTTE, is known to have a sea-fighting capability. Therehave been no reports of any rogue elements in the LTTE's so-called navy operating on their own without theknowledge of the LTTE leadership. The seas around Sri Lanka have never had a history of  armed piratesoperating there.

In spite of this, the SLMM chose to accept at face value the LTTE's denial of any responsibility for thelast two incidents and sought to give the impression that hitherto-unidentified third parties might have beenresponsible for them. What was more shocking was the suggestion reportedly made by the SLMM for preventing arecurrence of similar incidents. In a paper prepared for consideration by the Government and the LTTE, theSLMM has reportedly suggested that the LTTE's Sea Tigers be treated as a "de facto naval unit" whilereiterating the "undebatable obligation of the Sri Lankan Navy's legitimate task of safeguardingsovereignty and territorial integrity."

"Sovereignty and territorial integrity" of what? The whole of Sri Lanka or only of those areasfalling outside the control of the LTTE? These vague formulations, even if not so designed, would have theultimate effect of conferring legitimacy on the existence and operations of the Sea Tigers and their shipsused for the smuggling of arms and ammunition and categorising certain portions of the territorial waters ofSri Lanka as falling within the jurisdiction of the de facto LTTE administrative set-up, the legitimacy ofwhich has not been recognised by the international community. Naturally, there has been strong criticism ofthese formulations in Sri Lanka.

While these incidents at sea had contributed to malaise and the consequent shadows over the peace talks,the LTTE's decision to suspend its participation in the talks had been sought to be justified on threegrounds, unrelated to these incidents, by Balasingam. These grounds are:
 

• The failure of the Sri Lankan Govt. and Norway to enable the participation of the LTTE on an equal footingat an international donors' conference held at Washington DC on April 14,2003. The letter says: "We viewthe exclusion of the LTTE, the principal partner to peace and the authentic representatives of the Tamilpeople, from discussions on critical matters affecting the economic and social welfare of the Tamil nation, asa grave breach of good faith. Your government, as well as our facilitator Norway, are fully aware of the factthat the United States has legal constraints to invite representatives of a proscribed organisation to theircountry. In these circumstances an appropriate venue could have been selected to facilitate the LTTE toparticipate in this important preparatory aid conference. But the failure on the part of your government to doso gives cause for suspicion that this omission was deliberate. The exclusion of the LTTE from this conferencehas severely eroded the confidence of our people in the peace process."
  
  
• The failure of the Government to withdraw its troops from Jaffna and other areas as part of thenormalisation process agreed to under the cease-fire agreement. The letter says in this regard: "Thoughthere is peace due to the silencing of the guns, normalcy has not returned to Tamil areas. Tens of thousandsof government troops continue to occupy our towns, cities and residential areas suffocating the freedom ofmobility of our people. Such a massive military occupation of Tamil lands, particularly in Jaffna - a denselypopulated district - during peace times denying the right of our displaced people to return to their homes, isunfair and unjust."
   
• The Poverty Reduction Strategy worked out by the Government as a basic document for seeking internationalassistance has failed to highlight the acute economic hardships and the collapse of the infrastructure in theTamil areas due to the military operations of the Security Forces. The letter says:" The conditionsprevailing in the south (My comment: the Sinhalese areas) are distinctly different from the northeast (Mycomment: the Tamil areas) where the scale and magnitude of the infra-structural destruction is monumental andthe poverty is acute. Ignoring this distinctive reality, your government posits poverty as a common phenomenonacross the country and attempts to seek a solution with a common approach. This approach grossly under statesthe severity of the problems faced by the people in the northeast."

• Its determination to project itself as an equal party with the same status as the Government of Sri Lankain all interactions with international donors whose assistance is sought for the reconstruction of Sri Lanka.
  
  
• Its resolve to secure the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan forces from Jaffna, which the LTTE regards as thecapital of Tamil Eelam, even before embarking on substantive discussions on the future political set-up of thecountry. It projects such withdrawal as an essential component of the normalisation process which has toprecede substantive political negotiations. Its repeated emphasis on this demand is reflective of itsperception that its de facto set-up in the Tamil areas would be incomplete without Jaffna as the capital.
  
  
• Its perception of the talks not as between the State of Sri Lanka and an organisation which had taken uparms against it to achieve certain political objectives, but as between the de jure State of Sri Lanka and ade facto State of Tamil Eelam on the modalities for retaining and adjusting the de facto setup,  with itsown administrative, police, judiciary and military components, as part of an overall solution based on afederal facade for the two State entities---Sinhalese and Tamil.

The withdrawal or redployment of the security forces in Jaffna and other areas even before a politicalsolution on the future set-up of Sri Lanka is reached is fraught with serious difficulties. Firstly, Sinhalesepublic opinion is unlikely to accept it. Secondly, even if it does, the Army might demur. Thirdly, even if hepersuades the Army Commanders to accept it, it has to be accepted by the President who is the supremeCommander of the Armed Forces. Fourthly, any confrontation between the President and him on this issue mightend up in the politicisation of the Armed Forces, which is not desirable in the interest of democracy in SriLanka.

Moreover, there are other important aspects of the peace process such as its impact on the Muslims in theEastern Province, which have not been given the attention they deserve by the Prime Minister. There arealready clear indications of a growing radicalisation of sections of the Muslim youth, under the influence ofthe Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan, which is a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF),due to their unhappiness over the neglect of the feelings and concerns of the Muslims and over the failure ofthe Government to put down what they look upon as the high-handed activities of the LTTE cadres in theirareas.

The lack of transparency surrounding the peace talks and the reluctance of the Prime Minister to clearlyarticulate the Government position and seek the President's concurrence for it remain major roadblocks to asuccessful outcome.

The writer Is Additional Secretary (Retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Forum,Chennai Chapter.