Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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A Paradigm Shift in the Sri Lankan Peace Processfrom a paper by Jehan Perera, Media Director, National Peace Council of Sri Lanka [This account is not so much a reaction to the so-called 'war on terror' as a description of how, in Sri Lanka, there has been some recognition of the futility of relying on military might to deal with conflict. In his paper Jehan Perera also comments on the situation in Nepal. He says, 'In Nepal, where the government is confronted with a Maoist insurrection that has engulfed more than half of that country, the British government has given a substantial grant of money to peace organisations to engage in conflict resolution work. But it has also given ten times that amount to the Nepalese government to upgrade its military. Both the US attitude to Iraq and the British pattern of aid to Nepal suggest that the military option is the one preferred by governments world-wide.'] Until the until the present administration took office in Sri Lanka following the elections of December 2001, the preferred option of successive governments to the internal conflict had been a military one. The reason that governments in Sri Lanka, and in many part of the world, show a preference to relying on military force rather than negotiations is not difficult to fathom. A military solution is one that is imposed on the opponent without the need to compromise. Negotiations, by contrast, imply a willingness to settle for something less than 100 per cent of one's demands. However, imposing a military solution requires overwhelming military superiority. This is what the US has in relation to Iraq, and what the Sri Lankan government does not have in relation to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There are many factors underlying the present success of the Sri Lankan peace process. On the one hand, the highly military nature of the LTTE, the fragmented Sinhalese polity and economic vested interests put roadblocks on the path to political reform and compromise. On the other hand, war weariness among the general population, economic debilitation, and the threat of the US-led war against terrorism put pressure on the conflicting parties to compromise and resolve their disputes through negotiations. In February 2002, the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement, under the Norwegian Government's auspices which appears to offer the prospect of a final end to violence. The general election in December 2001 pitted the People's Alliance (PA) government and its Marxist ally, the People's Liberation Front (JVP), against the United National Front (UNF). Ostensibly, the general election in Sri Lanka was about the role of the separatist LTTE in a future peace process to end the eighteen year ethnic war. The powerful government-controlled media, however, made the centrepiece of the election campaign the secret deal between the main opposition party and the LTTE. But underlying the rhetoric was the grim reality of an economy that had registered close to zero percent growth in 2001. Ironically, the PA's nationalist propaganda contributed to its defeat. Over the past seven years, President Chandrika Kumaratunga was in the vanguard of those propounding the notion that the ethnic conflict in the country required a political solution. However, her government was unable to deliver on its pledges. The repeated failure of the government either to proceed with constitutional reforms or to make peace with the LTTE resulted in virtually every Tamil party contesting the December elections in the north-east speaking the language of Tamil nationalism. The most successful party, the Tamil National Alliance, even went so far as to suggest that the LTTE should be the sole Tamil representative at peace talks with the government. The PA government, following the failure of the peace talks with the LTTE at the very beginning of its term of office in April 1995, declared a full scale 'war for peace'. It had a two-pronged military and political strategy aimed at weakening and sidelining the LTTE. But this policy of confrontation failed at both levels. Initially, the retaking of Jaffna by the Sri Lanka Army through Operation Riviresa in November 1995 seemed to indicate that the military strategy of full scale confrontation would succeed. But thereafter poorly executed campaigns, such as the two and a half year Operation Jayasikuru to retake the A9 main road to Jaffna, failed at a high cost. Instead of being militarily weakened, the LTTE emerged strengthened from these campaigns. The political prong of the PA government's strategy to undermine the LTTE took the form of a devolution package. This offered considerable hope when it was first put forward in August 1995, but again failed to deliver the hoped-for results. The government fiercely confronted all political opponents of its package, even incurring the wrath of religious prelates. Ultimately the government's bid to translate the devolution package into constitutional law proved unsuccessful. In a replay of the partisan politics that have dogged all political efforts down the decades to end the ethnic conflict through negotiations, the opposition led by Ranil Wickremesinghe simply refused to cooperate. Important LessonsIt seems that the new government under Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has learned two important lessons from the former government's failure. The first is that head-on confrontation will not bring a solution to the ethnic conflict. Accordingly, political and structural reforms might have to be instituted de facto rather than de jure, and acquiesced in by the general population on the basis of minimal information. The alternative of explaining everything in detail to the people in order to get them to vote in favour of the settlement would be likely to result in the process getting bogged down in controversy. The second lesson evidently learnt by the new government is that all outstanding problems cannot be resolved in one go, but require a stage by stage approach. The two-pronged approach of the former government was aimed at achieving knock-out victories, militarily with the Jaffna campaign, politically with the devolution package. But even when the immediate objective was achieved, as with the retaking and successful holding of Jaffna, the resilience of the LTTE ensured that the victory was incomplete. As regards the political aspect, it is likely that even if the devolution package had been passed with the support of the opposition its implementation would have been impossible due to resistance by the LTTE. Having witnessed, and contributed to, the failure of the former government's confrontational strategy, the new government appears to have opted, for the time being at least, for a non-confrontational approach. The attitude to the peace process of the opposition parties - which prior to the December 2001 elections had formed the government - is in line with the general approach of governments world-wide, namely to try to impose solutions upon their opponents. The former government's position was premised upon the notion of an unequal status between the two parties; it saw itself as representing a sovereign state, and the LTTE as an internationally banned terrorist organisation. The LTTE consistently rejected this view as a basis for negotiation. The implication therefore of the opposition's stance is a return to war. The failure of the former government to impose a solution upon the LTTE may seem, from a Sinhalese nationalist point of view, to be a catastrophe. However, to the extent that the LTTE succeeds in representing the interests of the Tamil people at the negotiating table, an outcome more favourable to justice is possible. For the first time since Sri Lanka obtained independence in 1948 there will be an opportunity for a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict in which the interests of all the communities are met, rather than the interests of only the majority community. But this will require the LTTE, too, to renounce its own self interest in monopolising power, and to put the interests of the Tamil people foremost at the negotiating table. Main BreakthroughsOne of the breakthroughs in the peace process has been the agreement to explore a framework of federal governance for the country. However, this is not the only breakthrough that occurred in the course of the year long peace process. Earlier ones were the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in February 2002, the swift and equally unexpected removal of security barriers in Colombo, and the joint government-LTTE participation in the Oslo aid donor meeting in November last year. Few political analysts anticipated events of this nature. The government leaders who have been in the forefront of the peace process use the term paradigm shift to describe the dramatic change in their approach to the problem. They realised that the old way of viewing the situation was not leading to conflict resolution but to conflict escalation. Indeed, by the time of the general election of December 2001 the country was close to economic collapse. Many commercial establishments were being shut down. Even big corporate leaders began to publicly warn that their companies would collapse unless there was a change. This was the context in which the paradigm shift occurred, leading the new government to deal with the LTTE in a hitherto unprecedented manner. The government recognised the fact that the military option was leading nowhere. It also recognised that the LTTE was in physical control of vast swathes of the north and east, and would not simply go away. It had to be accepted as a solidly entrenched reality and dealt with on that basis. Once the government made the decision to consider the LTTE a partner in the peace process, rather than an enemy, the nature of its negotiations changed fundamentally. Previously negotiations were conducted in a spirit of rivalry and mistrust, with each side trying to extract the most it could. After the paradigm shift this changed, and both the government and LTTE showed sensitivity to the interests of the other party. One of LTTE's main concerns has been to be accepted as a legitimate actor and not as a terrorist one. The government acknowledged this by lifting its ban on the LTTE, and by referring to it as a partner and taking it to the Oslo donor meeting on that basis. For its part, the LTTE has been prepared to state publicly its willingness to settle for a federal arrangement, a step which means accepting something less that a separate Tamil state. It could have demanded a confederation - a kind of half-way house to separation - and many analysts had expected it to press for this at the peace talks. But the LTTE did not do so, perhaps realising that it was a demand the government could not grant. The willingness of both sides to compromise and take account in the negotiations of the interests of the other, offers the best chance to date of a lasting peace.
Jehan Perera
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