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Saturday, 22 February 2003

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A year without war:
First Anniversary of the Ceasefire Agreement

Looking beyond one year of ceasefire

by Jehan Perera

One year of ceasefire has transformed the face of the country. The war that had seemingly taken on a life of its own is no more. The pitched battles that saw a thousand men perish in a single day has ended. The security barriers and watchful personnel manning them are much reduced in numbers.

True, the promised economic boom and opening up of commercial enterprises has yet to come. Sri Lanka is still in the phase of negative peace in which the absence of war is more marked than the full enjoyment of the fruits of peace. But there is a spirit of optimism in the air.

One of the most hopeful signs is the rebuilding that is going on in Jaffna. Not any big government or LTTE led development projects with foreign assistance. Of that there is little or no evidence at present, which has led to frustration on the part of the people who are eagerly awaiting the peace dividend. But in the meantime repairs to homes are being undertaken by the people themselves. A family I visited in Jaffna was rebuilding their home spending nearly a half million rupees out of their own hard earned savings and contributions from family members abroad. This meant that they were reasonably sure that the war would not break out again and destroy their house and the repairs they were making to it.

The risks taken so far cannot be underestimated. With the expansion of the LTTE into Government-controlled territory in the North-East in terms of the ceasefire agreement, the possibility of clashes has increased. But when the Government lifted the security barriers in February 2002 after signing the ceasefire agreement on the 22nd of that month,barely two months after taking over the reins of power, it was delivering on one of its election campaign promises. It removed a major inconvenience to the daily life of people that had caused hours of traffic jams and lengthy detours.

One criticism of the peace process is that it is highly top-down without much participation from the broad ranks of government, let alone direct civil society input into it. But there is also little gainsaying this has speeded up the peace process. If the people themselves had been asked, however, they might have said that the removal of the security barriers was premature, given the shakiness of the ceasefire and the past track record of the LTTE. But the barriers came down nonetheless, including the ones in front of the Prime Minister's official residence.

By taking this risk for peace, the government gave notice of its trust in the peace process and its commitment to it. Next came the lifting of the ban on the LTTE in September despite strong opposition to it from most sections of the population. And thereafter the invitation to the LTTE to sit with the Government as a partner at the Oslo meeting with international donors. Again there were protests from the opposition on the ground that the LTTE was being unduly legitimised and strengthened. But there was no going back on the part of the Government.

In taking these risks for peace, the Government has been seeking to fulfil its election pledge to end the war through political means. It is far ahead of the people in doing so. This is a quality of leadership that the country has not seen before. The Government has taken the risk and made its decisions, letting the people see for themselves that most of their fears remain unfounded. The lifting of the security barriers and the ban on the LTTE have had no adverse consequences on the country as of yet.

Opposition attitude

The attitude towards the ongoing peace process in Sri Lanka taken by the opposition parties, most notably the PA and JVP that until December 2001 formed the government, is in line with the general sentiment among governments worldwide to impose their solutions upon their opponents. The former government's position was premised upon the inequality of the two parties, with the government being a sovereign state and the LTTE being an internationally banned terrorist organisation.

Former government ministers talked down to the LTTE rather than at them and with them. But it is well known that in the past the LTTE consistently rejected this negotiating attitude of the former PA Government. Even today, senior members of the opposition repeatedly criticise the government for not bargaining hard enough with the LTTE. However, those who tried in the past to bargain hard with the LTTE failed.

Therefore an implication of upholding the opposition position is to return to war, which hardly any Sri Lankan will want.

The failure of the former government to impose a solution upon the LTTE, whether through its military or through hard bargaining at the negotiating table, may seem from a Sinhalese nationalist point of view to be a catastrophe. On the other hand, to the extent that the LTTE will represent 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 would require that the LTTE should also renounce its own self interest in monopolising power and put the interests of the Tamil people foremost at the negotiating table.

The present peace process in Sri Lanka is based upon the learning of previous efforts to resolve the conflict through a combination of military and political strategies. But they all failed as the Sri Lankan State proved too weak to be able to perform highly on either strategy and on the two in combination. Similarly the LTTE proved unable to secure a comprehensive military victory despite its ability to eliminate individual army camps and weaken the country's economy. In today's peace process the principle of negotiations between opponents takes the primary and only place. They have also to find principled ways to deal with their differences.

Among the breakthroughs in the peace process has been the agreement to explore a framework of federal governance for the country. But federalism is not the only breakthrough in the course of the year long peace process. Earlier breakthroughs were the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in February coupled with 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 either.

Breakthroughs

The Government leaders who have been in the forefront of the peace process have explained these dramatic changes by the term paradigm shift. The rationale for the paradigm shift is that the old way of seeing 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.

It was in this desperate context that the paradigm shift occurred and the Government decided to deal with the LTTE in a hitherto unprecedented manner. The Government recognised the reality that the military option was leading nowhere but to stalemate at best. It also recognised the reality that the LTTE was in physical control of vast swathes of the North and East, and would not simply go away. Therefore the LTTE 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 as a partner in the peace process, rather than as an enemy, the nature of its negotiations with the LTTE registered a fundamental change. Previously the unstated agenda behind the negotiations was to somehow weaken the LTTE at the negotiating table. The previous negotiations were premised on the belief that politics was a continuation of war by other means. As a result those negotiations were conducted in a spirit of rivalry and mistrust, with each side trying to bargain hard with the other and extract the most it could without considering the interests of the other.

However, with the paradigm shift taking place, the nature of the negotiation process appears to have changed as well. Instead of engaging in hard bargaining and trying to outwit each other, the Government and LTTE seem to be extremely sensitive to each other's interests at the negotiating table. One of the LTTE's main interests 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.

On the other hand, the LTTE has been prepared to publicly settle for federalism, which is much less than a separate state. It could have demanded a confederation, which is like a half-way house to separation. Many analysts had expected such an LTTE stand at the peace talks. But the LTTE did not make this demand perhaps realising that it was something the Government could not grant. Due to the intervention of trusted international facilitators they may also have become aware that a confederation was not a viable solution in the modern world.

Next challenge

So far there have been five milestones that have been passed in this journey to peace: the signing of the ceasefire agreement, the lifting of the ban on the LTTE, the face-to-face talks that commenced in Thailand, the establishment of a Government-LTTE partnership with regard to three sub-committees to deal with North-Eastern affairs; and now, the announcement at the conclusion of the talks held in Oslo that the Government and LTTE had agreed on a federal framework within a united country.

This last is a major breakthrough. Although federal frameworks of governance have a range of options, they are also bounded by definite limits. With the LTTE agreeing to a federal model, they have accepted a reasonable and concrete alternative to a separate state.

But now another great challenge awaits the Government. It could be the sixth milestone or it could be a millstone that finally sinks the peace process. To create a new constitution that could accommodate a federal model, the Government needs the cooperation of the opposition. Obtaining this cooperation would require a paradigm shift in the nature of Sri Lankan politics. It would require the ruling party to see the Parliamentary opposition as a partner in building a new country, rather than seeing them as a rival for power and the spoils of office. The Government needs to be more generous in sharing the credit for the peace process with the opposition led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. This needs to be done not only in words but also in deeds.

At the Oslo meeting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged the contribution of President Chandrika Kumaratunga to starting the Norwegian-facilitated peace process. But at Oslo he also stood there alone, while the President stayed at home. Could she not have shared the same podium with the Prime Minister? And if this was not given sufficient thought for the Oslo meeting, could it not be thought of for the more important Tokyo meeting of International donors in mid 2003? It must be borne in mind that one important purpose of the Oslo and Tokyo meetings would be to demonstrate to the International community that the Sri Lankan leadership is united in the peace effort.

The challenge of uniting the political opposition with the Government in the forging of a united front regarding the peace process, and to design a new constitution, is not one that is beyond Ranil Wickremesinghe. Both the 1972 Republican Constitution and the 1978 Presidential constitutions were unilateral efforts by the ruling party in which the support of the Opposition was not obtained. The challenge for Ranil Wickremesinghe is to ensure that the peace constitution of 2003 is a truly bipartisan and National endeavour. Sharing credit with political rivals in a true sense, as opposed to mere words, is not the practice of ordinary politicians.

Evolution

Much credit for the continuing success of the peace process needs to go to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. As Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe experienced defeat as no other opposition leader had done, with the party he led losing some eleven successive local, provincial and national level elections. But even during the period of his worst defeats, perceptive observers would have noticed a change that he had brought to national politics.

As the Leader of the Opposition, he would not help the government of a rival party to take its programme forward. In this respect he showed himself no different from the others. He did not give support to the PA government constitutional reform exercise by which it proposed to devolve a greater measure of power to the regions as the solution to the ethnic conflict.

His party MPs even burnt copies of the draft constitution in the Parliament chamber. But they did not take the battle to the streets as previous opposition leaders had done when facing a government that was trying to compromise with Tamil separatism.

The other new feature that Ranil Wickremesinghe brought to national politics was his commitment to the political platform he espoused. When he said that he would negotiate a ceasefire and an interim administration with the LTTE, he stuck to this platform although defeat after defeat followed him. His political opponents fully exploited his words to say that he would divide the country by these measures. But Ranil Wickremesinghe did not change his stance.

He demonstrated the patience that his uncle, the late President J.R. Jayewardene had once demonstrated in waiting some 40 years in the wings as a subordinate to lesser leaders, before becoming the supreme leader of his party and the country.

As the first year of ceasefire is celebrated Sri Lanka has a real prospect of realising its full potential, a potential that existed at the time of its independence in 1948. The country then stood only second to Japan in the whole of Asia.

But it failed to capitalise on its promise. The key to success in any endeavour is a spirit of cooperation, partnership and sharing. Having changed one paradigm so well, the Government led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe now needs to change another. It needs to generate a paradigm shift in the nature of Sri Lankan politics in which the ruling party and the opposition see each other as partners in building a new country, instead of seeing each other only as rivals for power and the spoils of office.

(The writer is the Media Director of the National Peace Council).

The rights of national minorities

In contrast to ethnocultural minorities, national cultural or religious minorities are historically settled communities, moreover, their inclusion in a country with a majority population different from themselves usually is the result of developments beyond their control.

While people who immigrate into a country can reasonably be expected to adapt, no such expectation is justified regarding people who simply continue to live where their ancestors lived, and who have often played a vital role in building a pluralist society. Their right to maintain what makes them different from the majority cannot reasonably be questioned, and consequently any attempt on the part of the majority at imposing uniformity, or any pressure towards assimilation, is illegitimate.

The way the rights of national minorities can be organised and exercised depends to a large extent on the form of settlement they live in: in the case of compact settlement areas, with few or no members of the majority living there, territorial autonomy is the obvious answer; where minorities live dispersed among the majority, not forming a majority in any substantial area, other forms of institutionalising these rights are called for, which may include non-territorial, functional variants of autonomy.

From the importance the form of settlement carries for the exercise of the rights of a minority, it follows that there must be safeguards against manipulations in this respect. While the right of free movement and settlement within a country is so important for all citizens that it should not be restricted except in favour of indigenous peoples in their hereditary lands, its misuse by deliberate resettlement policies aimed at subverting the position of minorities in their own areas is unacceptable, as is the manipulation of administrative borders aiming at the same end.

Very often national minorities - particularly if their minority position in one country is the result of a redrawing of international borders - are connected by ethnic, linguistic and/or cultural or religious ties with the population of a neighbouring country. No government has a right to interfere in any way with the cross-border contacts and exchanges which are natural in such a situation (as, indeed, no government has the right to interfere with the normal international contacts of any of its citizens).

There are two categories of rights which constitute the absolute minimum of any fair deel for national minorities: cultural self-determination, and full participation in the decision-making on central/national level. Where conditions permit, i.e. where minorities settle in geographically contiguous areas, further powers should be devolved to them: such as running their own administration, police, social institutions, etc.

Cultural self-determination

Every national minority has the right to sovereignly manage the most central factor of its identity: its culture. This includes matters of language, education, cultural traditions, and religion, which is often a critical factor in their identity.

In the first place, cultural self-determination means that everybody has the unrestricted right to his or her own native language. This includes unconditionally the right to learn one's own native language

* the right to use one's own language in public

* the right to use proper names in the minority language version and to have this version used in all official contexts

* total absence of restrictions on publishing or broadcasting printed or electronic media in the minority language

* unrestricted access to such media and publications; subject to being warranted by sufficient numbers, either country-wide or in specific regions, it further includes

* the right to be taught one's own native language and its being employed as the prevalent medium of instruction in schools.

This right shall not prejudice the learning of the official language

* the use of minority languages in administrative authorities and public services, law courts, and parliaments

* the availability of laws and other important public legal texts in the minority language

* where publicly owned media exist, adequate space for broadcasts etc. in the minority language or, where applicable, regional stations broadcasting exclusively in the minority language

* public sign-boards, place and street names etc. using the minority language at least additionally to the official language.

The numerical requirements to warrant these rights must be fixed by law. They should be defined in both percentage absolute figures, and meeting either requirement should be sufficient. The central principle in determining the numerical requirements should be the avoidance of pressure to assimilate.

The second essential field of cultural self-determination is education. Members of national minorities have a right to be educated in their own culture. This implies:

* Primary education (including pre-school education where it is obligatory) in their mother-tongue must be available to all children.

* National minorities have the right to run primary and secondary schools of their own, which are entitled to at least the same public subsidies (per pupil) as the schools of the majority as long as they comply with the appropriate minimal standards. This does not prejudice the right to run any other type of private schools.

* Where numbers warrant it, the same applies to institutions of tertiary education (universities); otherwise adequate provision for teaching and research in minority cultures must be made at least one of the existing universities.

* Where small numbers and/or dispersed settlement of a national minority renders boarding schools or other specialised schools (e.g., after-hour schools) the only feasible form of minority schools, subsidies to help covering the additional costs are warranted. The same applies to regular schools in minority areas which are viable but more expensive per pupil because of their inevitable smallness.

The other two areas which are essential to cultural self-determination are cultural traditions and religion. The fundamental duty owed in these areas is non-discrimination: national minority must enjoy the full and unrestricted rights that go with citizenship. Normally this only requires non-intervention on the part of government. To the extent, however, that cultural and religious institutions and activities of the majority are actively supported, non-discrimination is the obvious additional requirement.

Participation in decision - making at central level

Being full citizens of their country members of national minorities have every right to participate fully in the politics of their country - politics which, after all, affects their lives as much as those of the majority. If they want to do so, they obviously also have the right to practice such participation as a minority, i.e. as a group with distinct common interests vis-a-vis the majority, by, e.g. maintaining and voting for special minority parties.

Factors specific to the minority situation, such as small numbers or disadvantageously dispersed settlement, but also such factors as regional and constituency boundaries or unfavourable electoral systems, frequently tend to adversely affect their chances of participating on an equal footing with the majority. It is therefore the duty of the politics and legislation on the national level to remove, or mitigate the effect of, such obstacles.

The measures and provisions required to secure effective participation of national minorities include the following:

* The easiest way to secure minority representation at central government level is the electoral system of Proportional Representation (PR). Where such systems are combined with the requirement of a certain minimum electoral support ('threshold clauses'), minorities should be exempt from such clauses. Where other electoral systems than PR are chosen, minority representation must be secured by other devices, some of which follow.

* The drawing of constituency boundaries must avoid the inclusion of large numbers of the majority population within constituencies in minority areas ("Gerrymandering").

* Where the minority population is so dispersed around the country that they cannot reasonably be expected to win any geographically defined single member constituency, one alternative to proportional representation could be an adequate number of special, additional designated constituencies reserved for the minority electorate. Adequate provision must be made in this case that voters who do not wish to vote on ethnic or religious lines can do so.

* Wherever regional autonomy operates in areas of contiguous settlement, especially if this is part of a general system of devolution also including majority areas (e.g., federalism), the representation of regional political institutions at the central/federal level must be organised in a way that rules out any discrimination against minority regions.

* Positions in the central administration (particularly army, police, judiciary, and intelligence services) of countries comprising national minorities must be accessible to members of the minority without any discrimination, selection being based on grounds of job-appropriate qualification. Attention should be paid to the recruitment of national minorities into these positions and eliminating systemic barriers against their employment.

Further autonomy rights in areas of contiguous settlement

Many of the rights of national minorities enumerated in the previous sections of this Declaration, especially those in the cultural field, imply a limited autonomy that is not necessarily defined in terms of a certain territory, but operates for a certain group of men and women irrespective of their place of settlement within a given country. While some autonomy rights are not dependent on any particular pattern of settlement, in cases where minorities do settle in contiguous areas, minorities should have the option of territorial self-government. In some cases, this can be achieved through a scheme of general devolution or regional self-government. In other cases, it will require a special regime of territorial autonomy.

In order to be an efficient and effective instrument of safeguarding minority rights, autonomy dispensations should meet the following requirements:

* Along with historical, topographic and economic criteria, ethnicity should be accepted as a legitimate criterion when borders are drawn, so that minority populations can be the majority in the areas in which they settle.

* Where members of the (national) majority population are living in an area of regional self-government or territorial autonomy, this "minority within the minority" is entitled to precisely the same rights as the "minority of the first order" is within the country as a whole.

* Self-government should be exercised in accordance with human rights norms, including gender equality.

* Areas of responsibility that next to cultural affairs particularly lend themselves to being exercised by autonomous institutions are policing, administrative organisation, infrastructure, and a considerable part of social security provision.

* No regional self-government or territorial autonomy is complete without a considerable degree of financial autonomy. The power of taxation must, therefore, be an integral and indispensable part of any autonomy dispensation that deserves its name.

* In no case should a central government have the right to abolish or substantially infringe an existing autonomy status of a national minority.

Those who argue that autonomy for national minorities constitutes either "a new form of apartheid", or the first step towards secession, or both, are wrong. As long as "non-ethnic" nationwide parties can compete on an equal basis in the minority areas (which should be a matter of course), and as long as the rights of minorities within the minority are secured, autonomy in minority areas simply constitutes an option of practising self-determination on the basis of voluntary association, which is the exact opposite to apartheid (which was based on compulsory association).

Likewise, having a larger say in their own affairs will facilitate the accommodation of minorities in the countries they are part of, and thus, while it will not necessarily preclude secession, will considerably reduce its probability. Autonomy is not only consistent with, but also conducive to, the construction of a cohesive country in which all members, majority and minority alike, can participate as equal partners.

Clearly, nobody owes allegiance to a country that denies him or her the most fundamental rights, and communities whose members are denied these rights within a certain country cannot reasonably be blamed for seeking them outside that country. Therefore, while we hope and believe that if the minority rights specified in this Declaration are respected, the threat of secession will recede, we deem it necessary that the international community formulate clear rules on the subject.

(Extracted from a Declaration of Liberal Democratic Principles concerning Ethnocultural and National Minorities and Indigenous Peoples)

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