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| Saturday, 6 March 2004 |
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National Question and the next Parliamentary election by Sumanasiri Liyanage Prof. G. L. Peiris, media spokesperson for the UNF, is reported to have said that if the Freedom Alliance (FA) comes to power in the next Parliamentary election, scheduled to be held on April 2004 the peace process would definitely be in jeopardy.
To substantiate his conclusion, he referred to the differences in opinion between the constituent parties of the FA, particularly between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), over the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Earlier JVP was reported to have taken the position that it was unhappy about the CFA. Many have expressed certain reservations about the CFA; and suggested that it needs to be revised. Five well-known conflict analysts in their recent publication (The Sri Lankan Peace Process at Crossroads by Tyrol Ferdinands, Kumar Rupasinghe, Paikiyasothy Saravanamuttu, Jayadeva Uyangoda and Norbert Ropers) on the Sri Lankan peace process have discussed the limits of the CFA in dealing with complex issues and recommended revisions. In my opinion, the peace process has now encountered serious problems; and these problems may be partly attributed to the way in which the process was handled by the GoSL particularly Prof. G. L. Peiris and the GoSL delegates to the peace talks. Its future has become more uncertain when the political crisis in Colombo reached its climax in the last three months. The current state of affairs related to the peace process may be attributed to six reasons. First, peace processes are complex and peace-making is always difficult so that it is natural for the process to go through hard periods. This is common to the Sri Lankan peace process as well. Secondly, the UNF government has subordinated the agenda of the peace process for the benefit of its political agenda. So the idea was to drag it on until the next Presidential election. Thus, the rhythm of the peace process was tuned to the benefits of UNF's electoral time frame; and this, after some time created disastrous results. The current political crisis in Colombo is a necessary corollary of the UNF peace strategy that included isolation of the President and also other stakeholders in the South. Thirdly, the analytical framework within which the peace talks were conducted has had serious flaws and is essentially incorrect. Norwegian facilitators do not seem to have learnt any lessons from their failed peace brokering. Fourthly, Prof. Peiris and the GoSL delegates have demonstrated incapacity in handling peace talks. The clear evidence for this was the drop of the idea of interim administration at the second round of talks held in Thailand. The inability to develop a win-win solution for the issue of high security zones was another example. It seems that their main concern was to have personal rapport with the LTTE delegates and not to deal with substantial issues. Fifthly, GoSL totally marginalised Muslims in the Eastern province and their security was not connected with the peace process. This has made the Eastern Province simmering. Sixthly, international actors, with possible exception of the USA and India, appear to be doing 'more harm' than 'no harm' because of their non-conflict sensitive approaches and activities. This shows that whichever government that comes to power in the next Parliamentary election needs to rethink the entire process; and it has to be reframed if the Sri Lankan government is serious about the success of the peace process. So, what is needed is to stop fearing the 'ne goni billas' created by Prof. Peiris and to understand and face the real threats that are harmful for the peace process. When the future of the peace process is viewed from this perspective, Prof. Peiris and his party do not fair well. In the above mentioned work, Tyrol Ferdinands et al argue that '(a)ny final solution to the conflict has to be based on a fundamental restructuring of the Sri Lankan state' (p.20). This final solution and the current state of affairs in the region should be temporarily linked by an interim rule. What is/was the UNF position on this issue? Unfortunately, UNF has put the country in absolute darkness. In the long constitutional discourse in 1995-2000, the United National Party did not make any positive and constructive contribution; rather it identified any kind of power-sharing as a proposal that would lead to the division of the country. Have the leaders of the UNP come out with a different perception in the last two years? The answer is absolutely not. The so-called Oslo Communique does not show that the GoSL and the LTTE have come to any kind of agreement on this vital issue. Similarly, in June and July 2003, the UNF led GoSL came out with two proposals on interim administration. Both proposals were understandably rejected by the LTTE and those proposals were far behind the People's Alliance proposals in 2000. Nothing substantive was included in the election manifesto of the UNF in 2001. So when it comes to the issue of state restructuring, the UNF seems to have no position, a position that can be defended via-a-vis the interests of Sinhalas, Thamils and Muslims. PA is the only major political party in the South with clear and explicit design for state restructuring. One may of course see many flaws in this design, and many positive suggestions can be made in order to improve it. Nonetheless, PA proposals delineate the boundaries within which three nations could come to some compromised solution within a one state unit. Definitely these boundaries are and should be flexible by allowing room and space for negotiations. However, it does not mean that this is the only option available. One available option that I can think is a non-violent separation since I am not convinced that the so-called confederal solution would be practical and sustainable. The option of separation may pose many problems internally (population transfer, compensation for immovable property etc) as well as regionally (disturbing regional political configuration). The positive features of the PA proposal are that it not only identified the characteristics of the 'final solution' but also outlines how to deal with the interim period. The next question that needs to be addressed is whether the PA's position on state restructuring would change because of its alliance with the JVP. Parties change slowly although individuals especially politicians, change at quite a rapid pace. In the last two-three months, the JVP has come up with two positive ideas. First, it explicitly states that Sri Lankan centralised administration should be de-centralised. Secondly, it has recently announced that the party is ready to accept the verdict of the people if people at a referendum decide on a power-sharing constitution. This shows that a party that is about to exercise governmental power has to negotiate with Thamil nationalism in order to find a solution to the national problem. So these indications and inferences show that the PA notion of power-sharing would be the determining factor in Freedom Alliance's policy formulation on the issue of international relations inside the country. Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe and his government took a bold step by recommencing negotiations with the LTTE; he and his party should be commended for taking this initiative. However, the way he and his party engaged in negotiation have shown that their mission has come to end. The authors of the above mentioned book talk about necessary paradigm shifted at the next phase of negotiation. They have also argued that '(t)he next phase of peace negotiations will only be successful if core issues are addressed, ways are found to engage all principal stakeholders as co-owners of the peace processes and all actors accept the need for a serious transformation of the political system' (p. 29, emphasis added). Principled negotiation does not mean soft engagement with the opponent. It means engaging the other party to develop new options. In this regard, we found PA approach more flexible. Its notion of interim administration, issue of merger/de-merger, re-demarcation of boundaries shows that PA's preparedness to develop new options goes beyond existing options/positions. One of the principles of integrative/principled negotiation has been that parties should convey each other their positions. The LTTE has done so; but Prof. Peiris and his party refused to respond. UNF's comments on the ISGA proposals of the LTTE are confined to a mere one page document full of banalities. On the other hand PA came up with a detailed dissection of the IsGA proposals and at the same time expressed its readiness to consider it as a basis of future negotiations. So in my opinion, the FA has placed itself in a better position as the FA, particularly its PA component, is having a better perspective for the next phase of the peace talks. (The writer teaches political economy at the University of Peradeniya) |
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