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Friday, Mar 10, 2006

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Rhetoric clouds peace process in Sri Lanka

V.S. Sambandan

Negotiations to resolve the ethnic conflict have again run into trouble with both the Sinhala and Tamil camps taking increasingly confrontationist positions.

DEBILITATING RHETORIC has been the bane of peace processes in Sri Lanka. Close on the heels of last month's Geneva talks between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, an already fluid situation has been further complicated by a rash of statements. This has raised doubts over the continuation of the negotiations. Broadly, the current rhetoric has three strands — all emanating from post-Geneva developments, after the Government and the Tigers committed themselves to "respect and uphold" a tottering ceasefire agreement. They also reflect entrenched positions of hardliners at the two ends of Sri Lanka's political spectrum: those of the Sinhala majoritarian-unitarists and the Tamil separatists.

The ink on the Geneva statement of February 23 had hardly dried when the first salvo was fired by a member of the Government's negotiating team, H.L. de Silva — a leading lawyer widely known in Sri Lanka from his characterisation of "federalism" as "a beguiling serpent." The Geneva statement, he contended, reflected an "amendment" in the ceasefire agreement. The LTTE disagreed. Its chief negotiator, Anton S. Balasingham, dismissed the interpretation as "ridiculous" and one that was aimed at "appeasing Sinhala hardliners."

Following up on the "amendment" controversy, the unitarist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the majoritarian Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) turned the heat on when they publicly distanced themselves from the Geneva statement. The JHU said it was not happy with the explanation that the ceasefire agreement was "amended" and wanted specific changes to the document. The JVP, for its part, said it welcomed the Geneva talks and the Government's position at the inaugural — that the ceasefire agreement was unconstitutional. The sting, however, was in the tail with the JVP taking the view that the Government in committing itself to "respect and uphold" the ceasefire agreement was contradicting its own stated position.

The second bone of contention was raised by the JVP when it wanted the facilitator, Norway, to be sent packing as it had "compromised Sri Lanka's sovereignty." Almost simultaneously the LTTE declared it had "no faith" in the Geneva talks.

The rhetoric can be viewed from two perspectives. Behind the cacophony of voices lie some critical issues that are central to the peace process. Viewed from one perspective the upsurge of rhetoric is also a manifestation of deeper concerns that are the political raison d'etre of the parties that raise them.

From the Government's perspective, the "amendment" argument was seen as a way of balancing out its own set of contradictions. One of the long-held positions of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party was that the ceasefire agreement was a "violation of the constitution" and that its "lop-sided" nature favoured the LTTE. In addition, President Mahinda Rajapakse's electoral allies, the JVP and the JHU want a review of the agreement. Thus the Government's Geneva commitment to "respect and uphold" the document raises political issues. It is against that backdrop that the "amendment" argument was put forward. However, this failed to serve its intended purpose with the JHU declaring that post-Geneva statement could not be construed as an amendment.

The JVP, which sees itself as a ruling party in waiting, has even deeper political and electoral concerns. In its own way, the current ruling coalition is also one in which there is a jostling for space between two left-of-centre parties — the SLFP and the JVP. If the latter is to hold its base and further expand its electoral gains in a prospective poll, it needs a rallying point. This rallying point, now, is the conflict resolution process. While there is a broad agreement on the need to avoid a full-blown military offensive, different perspectives on the approach to conflict resolution could well provide room for political machinations.

The current rhetoric is also to be viewed against the island-wide election to local bodies scheduled for March 30. A critical aspect will be how the JVP and the SLFP define their space within the ruling coalition.

A repetition

The JVP's current high pitch on Norway's role is by and large a repetition of what happened during the Indian involvement in Sri Lanka's peace process in the 1980s. In striving to catch the popular imagination, the SLFP and the United National Party and the JVP had competed to criticise New Delhi's role. This time, however, the opposition to Norway appears largely restricted to the JVP and the JHU. The consequences of the opposition to the Indian involvement are now there for the then opponents to see.

Needless to say, the LTTE's overseas travel and its frequent interaction with the diaspora, while remaining steadfast in its separatist goal, are bound to raise concerns within Sri Lanka. That the LTTE visited Oslo immediately after the Geneva talks is the latest provocation for the JVP to revive its `oust Norway' call.

What opponents of Norwegian facilitation need to introspect on is: where does rhetoric end and how do they get genuine concerns on board? Much of the onus lies on President Rajapakse who has now been vested with the leadership of the peace process. Sooner or later, the President will have to lay his cards on the table vis-à-vis a long-term solution to the conflict. His predecessors at the helm of the peace process in the recent past, President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, did so and made their contribution. If Ms. Kumaratunga's devolution package brought federalism on the public agenda, Mr. Wickremesinghe's ceasefire agreement temporarily halted the LTTE's war machine, resulting in its biggest-ever internal revolt. The current shrill political rhetoric is also a testing moment for these contributions brought in by Ms. Kumaratunga and Mr. Wickremesinghe.

One of the constraints on Mr. Rajapakse's approach to the conflict resolution process is his electoral pact signed with the JVP and the JHU in which he promised to "preserve and maintain" the unitary state. The strategies Mr. Rajapakse adopts, if at all, to overcome this will be a critical factor for a non-unitary solution to be put forward. Needless to say, the internationalisation of the peace process has meant that for the government to be seen as credible, it will have to step outside the confines of unitarism in offering to share power with the Tamils.

If the domestic polity is the main audience for the Sinhala unitarists, the international players in the peace process and the Tamil diaspora are the main target of the LTTE. Its latest assertion that it does not have any faith in the Geneva talks is as much a dampener on the peace efforts as it is fuel for the southern hardliners. Evidently one of the underpinnings of the LTTE's approach to peace talks — not just the current one, but even those preceding it — was to create a disjoint between successive negotiation processes. This serves the purpose of delaying addressing the core issues of the conflict resolution process. For instance, forgotten now is the commitment made in Oslo in December 2002 on an agreement between a unitarist Sri Lankan state and a secessionist LTTE to "explore federal options" for a solution within a united Sri Lanka.

Its latest rhetoric — that it does not nurse any faith in talks and that it is prepared to face a military offensive if required — are familiar strains from the past. However, in the current setting, with elections to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly scheduled in May, and the emerging re-alignment of the State's politics, the LTTE could well be looking for a downturn in the peace efforts in the hope of securing further leverage from across the Palk Strait.

In effect, therefore, the two extremities of Sinhala and Tamil nationalism continue to feed each other, repeating a familiar pattern from the past. Herein also is the blurring of boundaries between rhetoric and serious issues. The timing of the latest rhetoric foretells an upping of the ante by both parties in the run-up to the second round of direct talks in Geneva between April 19 and 21. The lowering of the enervating rhetoric is a critical ingredient for peace in Sri Lanka.

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