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| Friday, 1 October 2004 |
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The LTTE and Lanka's politics Opinion
Will there be another flare-up in Sri Lanka, if the present deadlock continues? After having been used to peace for over two years, will the SL Army be prepared to fight with the same determination against the LTTE as it had done in the past? by B. Raman More than two years after the government of Sri Lanka and the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) reached an agreement on a ceasefire in their military and para-military operations against each other, with Norway playing the role of a facilitator, and embarked on a process of negotiations in order to find a political solution to the demands of the LTTE for an independent Tamil State in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka to be called Tamil Eelam, the initial hopes of a negotiated political solution stand belied-at least partly, if not fully as yet. Stalemate The process of negotiations has reached a stalemate, but has not broken down. It remains in a state of suspension since April 21, 2003. Various factors were responsible for this stalemate. The first was the unhappiness of the LTTE over its exclusion from a meeting convened by the USA at Washington DC on April 14, 2003, to discuss an international aid package for the economic rehabilitation of Sri Lanka as an incentive for the two parties to reach a negotiated solution. This meeting paved the way for the donors' conference held at Tokyo on June 9, 2003, at which pledges of assistance amounting to US $ four billion were made by the participants. The LTTE itself kept away from this conference. The disbursement of aid from this package was made conditional on the progress achieved in the peace talks. Expectations The expectations of the LTTE became clear after it released to the public in October,2003, the details of its proposal for an ISGA. It contained some disturbing features--some open, some hidden-- from the point of view of the Sinhalese majority. Firstly, its intention to retain its military and naval capability without agreeing to its disbandment or merger with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces as part of a final solution. Secondly, its determination to retain its political primacy in the two provinces and to make any role for other Tamil parties and the Tamil-speaking Muslim minority of the Eastern Province conditional on their accepting its unchallenged supremacy. It was at this stage that the hopes initially evoked by the cease-fire and the start of the negotiations started evaporating and the differences between Chandrika Kumaratunga and her then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe as to the handling of the political process by him led to a final parting of the ways between the two, leading to the exit of his government, the suspension of its felicitation process by Norway in November,2003, (since resumed after the elections of April,2004) till the political situation in Sri Lanka clarified itself, fresh elections and the coming into power of a new coalition called the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) consisting of Chandrika Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the left-oriented Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) as its principal constituents. Overtures After having successfully achieved the induction into office of a coalition led by her party, Chandrika Kumaratunga softened her anti-LTTE and anti-Norway rhetoric and made a number of overtures to the LTTE leadership in order to persuade it to come back to the negotiating table. Her efforts have not succeeded so far. The first reason for it is the as yet irreconcilable differences between her government and the LTTE as to the nature of the negotiations process. Her government insists on two parallel negotiations-- one on the formation of an interim ruling authority in the Northern and Eastern Provinces as demanded by the LTTE and the other on the main features of the final solution regarding the future of the Tamil-majority areas. Her stand that any interim arrangement should fit in into the over-all final solution enjoys the support of the government of India. The LTTE, on the other hand, is not prepared to embark on talks for a final political solution unless and until an ISGA headed by it is set up in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, with full powers and capability for the autonomous administration of the area and with an assured role in the conduct of its external economic relations in matters such as the re-negotiation of the agreements relating to the economic resources of the Tamil-majority areas entered into in the past by the SL government with foreign powers or institutions. It seems to be particularly having in mind agreements relating to the exploitation of the fisheries off the Tamil coastal areas and the lease of the petrol storage tanks in Trincomalee in the Eastern Province to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). There cannot be a negotiated political solution acceptable to the Sinhalese majority unless it has the support of Chandrika Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) and the JVP. Initiation Keeping this in view, the initiation of the political process should have been preceded or at least accompanied by an effort at reaching a national consensus among these parties on the nature of the political process, on the acceptable contours of a final solution and on how the negotiations would be conducted. Wickremesinghe made four major tactical mistakes. First, he sought to deny any meaningful role for the country's President in the political process and kept her in the dark as to how the talks with the LTTE were going on. Second, in his anxiety for peace, he embarked on the political process without first working out a road map, which would be acceptable to the Sinhalese majority. As a result, his negotiating style was more reactive than proactive. He unwittingly created an impression that it was the LTTE, which was calling the shots. Third, he kept his eyes closed to the violations of the cease-fire accord by the LTTE lest open articulation of his concerns make the LTTE even more recalcitrant than it was. His reactions to the various demands and proposals made by the LTTE either at the negotiating table or through the media after the LTTE withdrew from the talks were ad hoc and ill-considered. So long as he was the Prime Minister, he even failed to openly express the position of his government on the LTTE's detailed proposal for an ISGA. Complicating factors Fourth, he believed, mistakenly as it has turned out to be in retrospect, that international pressure on the LTTE would make it more amenable for a compromise acceptable to the Sinhalese majority. Two new complicating factors have arisen since the beginning of this year, which do not bode well for the success of the political process in the foreseeable future. The first was the revolt in March, 2004, of an unestimated number of the cadres of the LTTE in the Eastern Province, led by "Col." Karuna (real name Vinayagamoorthy Muraleetheran), a legendary leader of its military wing in the Batticaloa district of the Eastern Province, against the allegedly discriminatory policies of the organisation's North-dominated political leadership towards the Tamils of the Eastern Province. Ever since the inception of the militancy in the early 1980s, the LTTE has had two faces--as a ruthless and dreaded terrorist organisation and as a well-motivated and well-trained conventional army, which has had many successes to its credit in its military operations against the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. While Prabakaran has the dubious credit for the creation of its terrorist face, considerable credit for the creation of its conventional military capability should go to Karuna and his Eastern recruits. Revolt triggered The revolt was triggered off by the feeling among large sections of the Tamils in the Eastern Province that their valour and sacrifices in the conventional battles of the LTTE against the SL Army have not been adequately recognised by the North-dominated leadership and reflected in the decision and policy-making organs of the LTTE, where they were under-represented. For Prabakaran, the real heroes were his suicide bombers and others who participated in spectacular acts of terrorism, and not those who fought in conventional battles against the SL Army. Moreover, while more than two years of the ceasefire have brought a certain peace dividend to the Northern Province in the form of a flow of funds from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in the West and non-governmental organisations for its economic reconstruction, the Eastern Province has not had the benefit of any such peace dividend. Exodus of Tamils After the LTTE's insurgency against the SL Army started in the early 1980s, there was a large exodus of Tamils from the two provinces to foreign countries. The majority of the Tamil refugees from the economically better off Northern Province fled to West Europe, North America and Australia, where many of them have since prospered. After the ceasefire came into force, they started contributing to the economic reconstruction of their insurgency-ravaged Province. The Tamil exodus from the economically and educationally backward Eastern Province was mainly towards Tamil Nadu in India, where many of them languished in refugee camps. Economically, they have not prospered in the same way as the Tamils from the North who fled to the West have. Consequently, they have not been able to make much contribution for the reconstruction of their home Province. The result is that while the Northern Province has shown at least some signs of economic recovery during the last two years, the Eastern Province continues to be in a dilapidated state. Eastern Tamil The revolt of the Eastern Tamils led by "Col" Karuna as a result of their accumulated grievances came as a surprise and a shock to the North-dominated LTTE leadership. While Prabakaran and his associates seem to have succeeded in putting an end to this revolt forcing Karuna to flee from his Eastern Province, one does not know where, the scars left by the revolt show no signs of healing. This could be seen from frequent incidents of violence involving the LTTE and the supporters and sympathisers of Karuna, reported not only from the Eastern Province, but also from Colombo. Even if Prabakaran is able to re-establish effectively his military control of the Eastern Province, winning over the hearts and minds of the much alienated Tamils of the Province would be a much more difficult task for the North-dominated LTTE leadership. Karuna's revolt provided, for the first time, a possible opportunity to Sri Lanka and India to work towards an alternate LTTE leadership, which would be more amenable for a reasonable political compromise acceptable to the Tamils as well as the Sinhalese. India's dilemma India faces a dilemma vis-a-vis the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka due to some factors. Firstly, whether India likes it or not, the LTTE is bound to emerge as the supreme leader of any ruling dispensation in the Northern and Eastern Provinces as a result of an interim or a final solution. Secondly, so long as his health remains good, Prabakaran would be the head of any such ruling dispensation. Thirdly, in view of his orchestration of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, India's former Prime Minister, at Chennai in May,1991, and his figuring as an absconding accused in the case in India relating to the assassination, the governments of India and Tamil Nadu would find it difficult to do business with any ruling dispensation in the Northern and Eastern Provinces led by him. (B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt.of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.) (To be continued) |
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