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Sri Lanka: uncertainty as de-merger nears

B. Muralidhar Reddy

With a war-like situation and no prospects for talks in the near future, the timing for effecting de-merger of the North and the East could not have been more inopportune.

AS THE adage goes, those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The Mahinda Rajapaksa Government in Sri Lanka appears bent on proving this. The sequence of events leading from the so-called "Heroes' Day" speech of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabakaran on November 27 — that Sinhala duplicity has left Tamils with little option but to pursue the goal of Eelam — best illustrates the point.

The immediate response of the Government was to dismiss the speech as an "old song on a stuck gramophone record." True, there was nothing new in Mr. Prabakaran's outburst. However, it all changed with the daylight attempt on the life of Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa (a retired military officer of the Sri Lanka Army and brother of the President) on December 1 in the heart of Colombo.

The Government hit the panic button. Within hours of the attack, the President presided over a Cabinet meeting to consider a possible ban on the LTTE. In the face of sharp differences within the Cabinet, the meeting was postponed to December 4 to reconsider the issue.

Colombo did not stop there. A day after the inconclusive Cabinet meeting, Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was told his proposed visit to the LTTE headquarters would not meet with the approval of the Government. The reason proferred was that the Government was reviewing its `relations' with the LTTE. Implied in the directive was a drastic change in the Government policy of engagement with the Tigers through the Norwegians and the 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA).

The damage was compounded by the manner in which the Government sought to articulate the response formulated by the Cabinet to the Tigers' challenge. At the briefing to explain the Cabinet decisions, asked whether the LTTE qualified as a terrorist outfit under the revised definition, the off-the-cuff response of the Chief Negotiator of the Government and Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva was "yes, by all means." Much to the surprise of the journalists present, more than a dozen Ministers present, including Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, promptly denied this. One after another, the Ministers were at pains to emphasise that under the new laws not only was there no ban on the Tigers but they would not come in the way of either the CFA or Norwegian mediation.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera (who reportedly argued vehemently in the Cabinet against a ban on the LTTE) pointed out that Sri Lanka had been down that road in 1998.

The term terrorism is being re-defined by borrowing from some of the provisions of the dreaded Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), suspended after the 2002 CFA. But the Government did not want to advertise this as it would be in violation of the CFA. However, the same night in his address to the nation, President Rajapaksa referred to the PTA and in so many words said it was being re-introduced to deal with the threat from the LTTE.

The subsequent visit of Mr. Hanssen-Bauer to Kilinochchi was a sheer waste of time. The LTTE cried foul, saying the new measures contemplated by Colombo were a further violation of the CFA. It argued that its leader was after all right in saying talks with the Sri Lankan Government were a futile exercise.

According to diplomatic sources, the Norwegian envoy left Colombo a very disappointed person and reportedly said Oslo had decided to keep a low profile for the next few weeks before considering any steps towards another round of mediation.

Relations between the Rajapaksa Government and Norway have hit a new low. The Government considers Norway to be `pro-LTTE' despite the overwhelming backing from the international community for its mediation efforts. A campaign is on in the Government-run media against the Norwegian International Development Minister, Eric Solheim.

With the virtual declaration of war by Mr. Prabakaran, the belligerent mood in Colombo, and the marginalisation of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and Norway, the East is all set for a bloody battle in the coming days and weeks with disastrous consequences for the civilians caught in the crossfire. A sign of things to come was evident in the second week of December in the killings of civilians in the villages bordering the battleground. Estimates suggest that about 50,000 civilians are caught in the conflict.

Even as the confusion over the Government response to the LTTE challenge was being played out, another drama was on in the corridors of power in Colombo. It came in the form of the `majority report' of the multi-ethnic experts' panel (excerpts of which appeared in The Hindu on December 6). The 17-member committee is a creation of the President to aid him and the All Parties Representative Conference (APRC) to find a solution to the ethnic conflict. Eleven out of the 17 members agreed on a common report and others gave three separate reports. Ironically, the `majority report' has caused a storm and the Government cannot escape responsibility for the controversy.

There is nothing extraordinary in the recommendations of the report, which has called for maximum devolution of power. Four days after media published excerpts from the `majority report,' the Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa in a statement took exception to the "leakage." He said it could be an attempt to "belittle" steps taken by the Government to effectively deal with the "fascist designs" of the LTTE.

Why can the Government not look at the brighter side as nearly two-thirds of the panel has agreed on one report? The charge that those who leaked the report could be undermining government measures against terrorism does not make sense.

The real reason behind the outburst of the Government became evident on December 12 when the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) walked out of the APRC. The cause for the JVP's withdrawal was apparently the `majority report' of the multi-ethnic experts' panel.

Political observers in Colombo believe the JVP, which is unhappy over the recent memorandum of understanding between the ruling party and the United National Party, has used the multi-ethnic experts' report as an excuse to put pressure on the Rajapaksa Government.

India's stand

Amid all this came the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians in New Delhi. Colombo appears clearly displeased at the audience granted by Dr. Singh to the LTTE's representatives. However, what is conveniently being missed is the assertion by Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Chennai the same day that New Delhi favoured resolution of the ethnic conflict within the framework of a united Sri Lanka and had no intention whatsoever of direct intervention.

Within three days of the New Delhi meeting, it was made known that the troubled Northern and Eastern provinces would be administered as separate provinces with effect from the new year. Rear Admiral Mohan Wijewickrema, currently Governor for the merged North-Eastern Province, has been appointed Governor of the Eastern Province. President Mahinda Rajapakse will soon appoint a separate Governor for the Northern Province.

The Sri Lankan Government cannot but be aware of the sensitivities on the subject of not only the Tamils but also of India and the rest of the world. The two provinces were merged in July 1987 as part of the India-Sri Lanka agreement. The Sri Lankan Supreme Court on October 16 ruled that the 1987 order by the President of Sri Lanka merging the two provinces was not in keeping with the country's constitution and that they should, therefore, be separate provinces. There were assurances from the highest level that while the Government would not `interfere' with the apex court verdict, nothing would be done to complicate matters. With a war-like situation and no prospects for talks in the near future, the timing for effecting de-merger could not have been more inopportune.

The political pact between the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the principal opposition United National Party to work towards resolution of the ethnic conflict was considered a watershed in the history of Sri Lanka's partisan politics. It was believed that the pact with the UNP provided an opportunity for the Rajapaksa Government to distance itself from the JVP. For whatever reasons, the Rajapaksa regime has repeatedly demonstrated little enthusiasm to embrace the pact wholeheartedly. By this, it only seems to be strengthening the JVP and the LTTE.

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