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by Lynn Ockersz

The majority of Sri Lankans believe that peace could be brought about only by peaceful means and not through war. On the other hand, only nine per cent of Lankans, as at January 2002, believed that peace can be realised by the Government militarily defeating the LTTE.

These are two of the most significant findings of a public opinion poll conducted by the Social Research Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a well known local think tank, which has - in this instance - set out to study changes in public perceptions on the ethnic conflict over a period of time.

Describing the lack of such studies in Sri Lanka, as a significant void, CPA intends to continually compile a Peace Confidence Index study, as it describes this opinion poll, to meet this need.

The study which will be conducted on a bi-monthly basis to "gauge the impact of local and international political developments on public attitudes towards the peace process," is being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, under its Governance and Institutional Strengthening Program.

The study was conducted in 17 districts, using a structured questionnaire in face-to-face interviews of some 1,200 respondents. Authors of the study say that care was taken to "reflect the actual ethnographic makeup of the country "in the districts in which the poll was conducted.

The whole of the Northern Province, except some welfare centres in Vavuniya, is not covered due to the province being inaccessible and on account of logistics connected to the war. Likewise, areas with a high percentage of Tamils, such as Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Amparai, could not be fully covered.

Five "waves" of the study were conducted in May, June, September and November 2001. The latest wave was conducted in January 2002 and forms the content of the report under discussion.

The importance of the study consists in the fact that policy makers and the lay public could now avail of a set of data which reflect changing public perceptions on critical issues on the ethnic conflict. The fact that 80.7 per cent of Lankans feel that peace could be brought about only through peace talks, constitutes one of the most important findings of the study.

This public faith in a negotiated settlement, has been on an upward swing since May '01 when it was 59 per cent. The corresponding figures for June, September and November '01, have been 71.3, 68.6 and 71.9, culminating, as it were, in 80.7, when the UNF government came to power.

This revelatory pointer to the predominant hope of the people should be considered by the Government as a major inducement to continued persistence in the peace effort. It is a clear endorsement of the mandate delivered on December 5th for the resolution of the ethnic conflict by peaceful means and not through war.

The statistics pertaining to the war, on the other hand, are equally revelatory. The poll discloses a steady downward trend in public backing for a military solution to the conflict. While only 19.9 per cent of Lankans thought in November '01 that peace was possible as a result of the Government defeating the LTTE, this figure had declined to 9.9 per cent in January 2002. The corresponding figures for May '01, June '01 and September '01 were 18 per cent, 24.4 per cent and 20 per cent.

While these comparative statistics should prove a source of immense encouragement to the Government which clearly opted for a strategy of peace by peaceful means instead of a peace by war approach, which has utterly failed, it couldn't afford to be complacent about these findings.

Although those backing a military solution to the conflict are in a minuscule minority, their organisations seem to have already got into the act of stridently opposing the peace process. There is a risk of lapses and drawbacks in the peace process being exploited by these hardline organisations to steadily build public opinion against a negotiated, political settlement.

Efforts by the Government, on the other hand, to sustain, increase and consolidate public opinion for the peace process seem to be relatively weak. What is needed, right now, is vibrant, grass roots pro-peace opinion-building. Even house-to-house opinion mobilization for peace should be attempted so that the possibility of the public being misinformed and misled by anti-peace groups could be reduced.

Nothing could be left to chance by the Government at this juncture, when the popular yearning overwhelmingly is for a political settlement. The Government is obliged to proactively build an opinion climate which would facilitate the peace effort. Public awareness should be steadily raised on the merits of the current approach to resolving the conflict.

There is an urgent need to focus on the human rights dimension while engaging in these exercises. Deprivation of minority rights down the decades has played a considerable role in fuelling the conflict and the final solution to the conflict should focus on the need to promote the rights of minorities, and fulfilling their legitimate aspirations.

These points acquire increasing relevance when scrutinized in the context of the one-time hair-splitting debate on whether we are facing an ethnic problem or a terrorist problem.

In this connection too, the study is revealing and informative. It discloses that the majority of Lankans believe that the origins of the war could be traced to communal politics (33.1 per cent) and discrimination against the Tamils (34.5 per cent). The latter figure registers a significant increase in January 2002. The corresponding figures for June '01, September '01 and November '01 are 24.7 per cent, 29.2 per cent and 24.3 per cent. This points to a growing public awareness of the negative consequences of communalism.

While 59 per cent of Tamils believe that discrimination against Tamils led to the war, the corresponding figure for upcountry Tamils is 52.4 per cent. Another significant input comes in the form of the finding that 34.9 per cent of Sinhalese trace the origins of the war to communal politics and 31.7 per cent of the same ethnic group source the war to discrimination against Tamils.

The corresponding figures for the Moslem community are 32.1 per cent and 31.2 per cent respectively. Thus, a substantial number of Lankans believe that communal politics and discrimination against Tamils have led to the war.

These perceptions of Lankans on the divisive impact of communalism should come as an eye-opener to particularly policy and decision-makers of the country. Clearly, the time is ripe to forge steadily ahead with a negotiated settlement to the conflict because the military approach to resolving the problem is likely to have few takers. Besides, hardline nationalists on both sides of the divide are likely to have little appeal.

Interestingly, while only 10.8 per cent of Sinhalese thought that terrorism led to the war, the corresponding figures for the Tamils, Muslims and upcountry Tamils, were, 10.8 per cent, 2.3 per cent, 2.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent respectively.

Conditions couldn't be more conducive, then, for the working out of a political solution to the conflict. The time's ripe for positive change and the chief parties to the conflict should act fast to make full use of this historic moment. The CPA study explodes many a myth on the ethnic issue and places the onus on the peace makers for the remaking of Lanka's future.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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