International engagement in Sri Lanka

BY V.S. SAMBANDAN

BEHIND the LTTE's seemingly conciliatory gesture its stand is unchanged: nothing short of what it has already placed on the table. INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT is a buzzword in Sri Lanka's conflict resolution process.

Within days of a new President, Mahinda Rajapakse, assuming office, the two sides to the conflict - the Sri Lankan State and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - have indicated how they plan to engage with the outside world.

President Rajapakse's intent - evident from his manifesto, Mahinda Chinthana (Mahinda's Vision), his inaugural address on November 19, his Statement of Government Policy (November 25), and his address to diplomats (November 28) - appears to be a policy of continuity with change, symbolising an eagerness to broaden the global involvement.

In sharp contrast is the discomfort of LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran with the present mode of internationalisation, evident from his 2005 Heroes' Day speech.

Sri Lanka's civil conflict has engaged international attention since the early 1980s. While India mediated between the LTTE and Colombo in the 1980s, it is Norway that is facilitating the peace process now.

In both instances, the LTTE cut loose when it felt the international presence was forcing it away from its separatist endgame. Indian mediation came in the wake of the 1983 pogrom against the Sri Lankan Tamils, which led to an influx of refugees to Tamil Nadu.

The visible component of the process was the international perspective of a Sinhala State versus the Tamil victims. Espousal of the Tamils' cause by the main political parties of Tamil Nadu was one clear outcome of the internationalisation of the Sri Lankan conflict.

Afterwards came the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber in India, and a string of assassinations in Sri Lanka including President R. Premadasa.

By the time the Norwegian facilitation started in the late 1990s, the tables had been turned on the Tigers. Nations starting with India had listed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

The domestic peace offer by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and the international image change pushed by the late Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, had redefined the LTTE as terrorist and the Sri Lankan state as the victim.

The choice of distant Norway as facilitator also brought in an international player from outside the region - a move both Colombo and the LTTE were comfortable with.

That the LTTE was uncomfortable with the current mode of internationalisation - as with the Indian mediation - was evident when it unilaterally pulled out of talks in April 2003 citing two broad reasons.

One was "excessive internationalisation" of the conflict resolution process - a reason it cited after it was kept out of the Washington aid-support conference by the U.S., which had listed it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. The second reason was what it called failure by the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration to deliver.

In the joint communique at Oslo in December 2002, Colombo and the Tigers agreed to "explore" solutions within a "united Sri Lanka" based on "federal" models.

For the LTTE, which had never proposed an alternative to its separatist project, this was the biggest bind placed on it by the peace process.

Rather than tether itself to a path that could lead to a non-separatist endgame, the LTTE cut loose. The next LTTE proposal was an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA), put forward in October 2003. That the LTTE wanted this to be the starting point of its negotiations was made clear in last year's Heroes' Day speech.

This year too, the message was loud and clear with Prabhakaran saying the LTTE had decided to "wait and observe" President Rajapakse's "political manoeuvres and actions."

Prabhakaran's apparent compliment - "President Mahinda Rajapakse is considered a realist committed to pragmatic politics. We wish to find out, first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process and offer justice to our people" - is laced with a firm reiteration of an old demand: the ISGA.

The LTTE's characterisation of Rajapakse is not complete without referring to how it described the ISGA on January 19, 2004. Its political wing leader, S.P. Thamilselvan, told representatives of the international community: "Our proposal for an ISGA contained within it pragmatic modalities to upgrade the devastated lives of our people, create an environment of normality and thereby take them along in the path to a political resolution through peaceful means."

The concluding note in Prabhakaran's speech also reinforces the LTTE's insistence on the ISGA as the starting point for resuming negotiations. "If the new Government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland."

The rebel assertions, however, run counter to the world's view of the LTTE. The continued ban on the organisation by several countries - read along with the recent European Union statement that "delegations from the LTTE will no longer be received in any of the EU member-states until further notice" - are clear signals that the LTTE is being judged by the parameters set during the last round of peace talks.

Renounce terrorism to achieve a political objective and abandon separatism. Behind the LTTE's seemingly conciliatory gesture lies its unchanged stand that pitches for nothing short of what it has already placed on the table.

(The Hindu)