The Hindu : MORE UNCERTAINTY IN SRI LANKA

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Friday, Jan 23, 2004

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MORE UNCERTAINTY IN SRI LANKA

THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) signals a clear parting of ways between President Kumaratunga and the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led United National Front Government. It is an indication that Ms. Kumaratunga is considering an early parliamentary election to break the cohabitation deadlock between her and the UNF Government. In reaching an understanding with the JVP, President Kumaratunga has linked the political fortunes of the People's Alliance (P.A.) of which the SLFP is the main constituent, with a party that combines socialism with heavy doses of Sinhala nationalism. But the long time she took to finalise this alliance suggests it was not her preferred political route. Before making up her mind to go with the JVP, she was willing to explore ways by which she could make cohabitation with the Wickremesinghe Government work. But Mr. Wickremesinghe's insistence that the President must return the defence portfolio, one of three she took over from his Government last November in an assertion of her Constitutional supremacy, left little room for compromise. With no alternative to an election, Ms. Kumaratunga's first instinct was naturally to strengthen the P.A. For this a tie-up with the JVP is sound arithmetic, for its significant vote share in southern Sri Lanka may help tilt the electoral balance in the P.A.'s favour.

The new alliance, however, places a question mark on the current efforts to resolve Sri Lanka's Tamil question. The JVP is against devolution and believes the ethnic conflict can be resolved by administrative decentralisation. Ms. Kumaratunga, on the other hand, is the only Sinhala leader to have unilaterally put on the table a far-reaching devolution package to resolve the conflict as early as 1995. Even Mr. Wickremesinghe, who as the Leader of the Opposition forced her to abandon the proposed reforms, now concedes those reforms could form the basis for political negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The JVP's condition for the short-lived alliance it had with the P.A. in 2001 was a freeze on plans for devolution. While there is no such condition this time, the JVP-SLFP "memorandum of understanding" clearly states their differences on the devolution issue. The Norway-assisted peace process now requires the Government to provide a credible alternative to the LTTE's separatist proposals for an "interim administration" in the North-East. It is doubtful such a response can come from the deadlocked cohabitation government. The SLFP-JVP combine says it believes in a "negotiated settlement" to the ethnic conflict, but it is difficult to see how the two partners can reconcile their conflicting positions on a peace formula in case they form the government after an election.

The SLFP-JVP alliance has rightly pointed out that the February 2002 ceasefire agreement gave away too much to the LTTE. But the ceasefire has also brought a measure of peace to the island, even though this peace is only an absence of war. An indefinite drift in the peace process can only benefit the LTTE further by giving it time to entrench itself, under the cover of the ceasefire, as the de facto ruler of the North-East. It is up to the Sinhala political establishment to ensure this does not happen. The new alliance has not altered the essential challenge for Sri Lanka's political class, which is to forge a consensus among the Sinhalese for a just and permanent political settlement that adequately addresses Tamil aspirations. Ultimately, only this can thwart the LTTE's separatist designs.

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