A realist critique of the Sri Lankan crisis

Dayan JAYATILLEKA

WHAT the political, policy and intellectual responses to the Sri Lankan crisis lack is a Realist reading. A Realist reading would be distinct from those of idealists of liberal-left persuasion and ideologues of narrowly nationalist inclination.

Realist case for Devolution

A realist would advocate devolution not so much because of its intrinsic desirability and merits, but as a strategic imperative.

This would be completely distinct from those who see devolution or autonomy as something to be offered (except as a diplomatic ploy) to the LTTE; a product whose consumer would be Prabhakaran. That is a mistaken notion shared by both idealists and ideologues.

The idealists feel that a sufficiently generous devolution package could bring the Tigers around. They ignore the fact that had the LTTE been in the least interested in devolution, federalism or even its own ISGA (except as a demand), it would not have murdered Neelan Tiruchelvam, boycotted the Tokyo donor conference and sabotaged Ranil Wickremesinghe's presidential bid.

The LTTE's fear of devolution is at least equal to the JVP-JHU's antipathy towards it!

The idealist and painfully na‹ve supporters of autonomy are joined by opponents of generous devolution in the assumption that such reforms are meant for the LTTE.

These ideological antagonists of devolution oppose it because they are horrified at the prospect of the armed LTTE enjoying such powers.

What they fail to understand is that the question does not arise, and in any event, can be easily prevented from arising. No entity which has not undergone a verifiable process of decommissioning (apart from those who have been issued arms by the State for their self-defence) should be permitted to contest an election, and only those elected by majority vote would form the provincial council.

None of this means that the quantum of devolution needs be cut back as its opponents argue. All it means is that safeguards must be built in, which is easily done. Not even a fully federal state allows power to be assumed in any of its component territorial units, by an armed militia.

Devolution is for the Tamil people and the non-Tiger Tamil political elements. It is needed to drive a wedge between the Tamil people and the Tigers.

It is needed to strengthen the Tamil moderates.

The tough-minded Realist defence and advocacy of devolution and regional autonomy for the Tamils would be based on the following factors:

1. The distinction between federal and devolution/autonomy models of self-rule. Contrary to demagogic assertions, none of the Expert's Panel reports are for federalism. The suggestion to be silent or agnostic on the unitary/federal tag, is no subterfuge, but follows the example of Nelson Mandela's South African constitution (and the spirit of the Soulbury Constitution). It is also in keeping with President Rajapaksa's injunction not to be obsessed by such labels.

2. The widespread resort to 'self-rule' as a counter-insurgency measure to thwart or retard full independence - British colonialism's experience with home Rule for Ireland in the 1920s through to Sri Lanka, being cases in point. Regional autonomy would be a brake or solvent of the drive for a separate, sovereign independent Tamil country, i.e. Tamil Eelam. I know of no counter-insurgency practitioner or theorist who does not argue or some reform entailing self rule and alliance with locals of the area.

3. The use of provincial autonomy as a necessary device to maintain unity in diversity. How else could the Roman Empire or for that matter the Catholic Church, have functioned? Local elites MUST be coopted as allies, and that can only be done by conceding adequate political space.

As happened to the IRA with the granting of Home Rule, Tamil nationalism would be split if regional autonomy were granted and there would be a civil war between the moderates/realists and the hardline LTTE.

This would be true not only of Tamils in Sri Lanka but also in the Diaspora, and Tamil Nadu. No one in the international community would sympathise with, much less support, the separatists who would, in the context of autonomy, be regarded as fanatics.

The entire world community would support the moderates. The war would then be not one of the Sinhala State against the Tamils, as it is now portrayed, but manifestly one of the Sri Lankan State plus the Tamil moderates, against the LTTE fundamentalists.

Better still it would be a war of the Sri Lankan State in support of an allied with the Tamil moderates in order to push through a reformist solution, not "impose Sinhala Buddhist hegemony".

4. Given that we are never going to have a truly 'melting pot' society as in the US or republican citizenship as in France (no headscarves but no crosses in schools either), the only possible solution remains space at the periphery. If I may be permitted a detour, the Sinhala chauvinist critique of multiculturalism is simply misplaced.

It borrows from the Western conservative or neoconservative argument (Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara recently quoted Prof. Samuel Huntington on Anglo-Saxonism) but is wildly inappropriate, because the Western conservative critique is directed at recent migrant cultures/subcultures.

The Sri Lankan Tamils of North and East are by no means recent migrants. They are a long standing, deep-rooted constituent and co-owner of this island. What we must prevent is the break up of the country based on the single ownership of the North-east.

But we cannot deny the Tamils right to co-ownership, and such recognition is the only means to prevent separate ownership. Even the hill-country ('malayaha') Tamils are not such recent migrants as are, say the African and Arab migrants in France, the Turks in Germany, or South Asians in Britain.

The hill country Tamils are almost as old as most American families in the USA. (Colin Powell came to the US from the Caribbean at 16).

5. The economic and strategic danger of refusing to accommodate widespread international pressure for federalism or generous devolution. What of Tamil Nadu dynamics? What if India doesn't patrol the Palk Straits at a time when arms and explosives are already being smuggled from Tami Nadu to the LTTE?

In 2008, it is likely that the US Democrats will win the elections as will the British Labour party under Gordon Brown. Not only are these parties of liberal-progressive persuasion and therefore more sympathetic to minority causes (Brown is Scottish); they have been infiltrated at the grassroots by LTTE sympathisers in the Tamil Diaspora.

Sri Lanka will probably experience a decisive international shift against her and in favour of the Tigers, in such a context. This leaves just next year to implement an adequate package of devolution and defeat the Tigers.

This then is the Realist take on devolution.

Balance of power

All politics is about power. The wise politician attempts to balance power and virtue/ morality/ethics, because moral superiority is not only intrinsically valuable, it is a source of the augmentation of power.

The lesser politician ignores the moral-ethical dimension and attempts to rule and resolve crisis only by political and military power.

The na‹vely idealistic politician attempts to dispense with the power dimension and simply do the right thing, irrespective of the balance of forces. Such politicians inevitably fail, and usually die violently.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was presented with a JVP which had grown exponentially thanks to the policies of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the grant of 30 seats by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Anura Bandaranaike announced at a Town Hall rally that it was continuation of the bloc he forged in 1987.

Mahinda also faced the Bandaranaike conspiracy to continue on office fraudulently for a third term and deprive him of nomination. This was compounded by the collusion between Chandrika and Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Today the restorationist attempt by the Bandaranaikes continues, while international - Indian and Western - pressure mounts. Rajapaksa has had to lean on the JVP and use it as a pressure group just as Ranasinghe Premadasa did during the Indo-Lanka Accord and after, right up to his reluctant declaration of emergency in 1989 as President.

Premadasa faced the same forces: the old elite, collusion between the elitist of both major parties, and external pressures. Had the JVP permitted it, his collaboration would have gone much further; it did not, purely because of the JVP's armed fanaticism and maximalism.

A Realist critique of the Rajapaksa presidency would not rest on his relations with the JVP, but rather, on the fact that he is not being 'Bonapartist'; he is not balancing sufficiently - not juggling sufficiently dextrously - between the JVP/JHU on the one hand, and the pro-devolution forces on the other.

Ranasinghe Premadasa was adept at that as were JRJ albeit only after 1986, and CBK almost throughout except for her disastrous last year (which saw the tilt against Karuna, and the PTOMS). The truly Realist reckoning would also support the military efforts of the Sri Lankan armed forces.

The Realist analysis recognises the specific character of Sri Lanka's war and is not cluttered by incorrect analogies.

The island's North-East is not Northern Ireland. That conflict was a residue of the world's longest running colonial war, given that Ireland was England's first colony, dating back to Cromwell. Nor is the Tamil case similar to that of East Timor, which annexed by the invading Indonesian army in 1975, as Portugal (in the throes of revolution) relinquished its colonies.

The Sri Lankan army in the North and East of the island is NOT the US army in Iraq, a place in which it has no business.

The US has invaded and occupied an independent country thousands of miles away. It had by contrast waged a legitimate war against Iraq in 1991, the first Gulf War, when it spearheaded the effort to roll-back Iraq's invasion of another independent state, Kuwait. Its invasion of Iraq was illegitimate, imperialist and doomed to fail (as I predicted in print at the time).

The US is in trouble in Afghanistan today not because of anything amiss with the ideology of its troops. The war in Afghanistan was a just war, in retaliation for 9/11, and the Taliban's refusal to stop hosting its perpetrators al Qaeda.

The US scored an impressive success in Afghanistan with new tactics (approximated today - minus the Predator drones - in Vakarai by the Sri Lankans who are using the air force, navy, army and Special Forces). The US is beginning to fail in Afghanistan solely because of the stupidity of the massive diversion of resources to the Iraqi theatre.

The Sri Lankan army in the North-East is not the Israeli army either. The Sinhalese did not return to the island in large numbers in the 20th century as the Jews did to Palestine after the Balfour declaration! The Lankan State has not invaded another State and occupied their lands, as the Israelis did with all its neighbours, most recently Lebanon.

The Sri Lankan state and armed forces are not imperialist or colonialist any more than the LTTE is a national liberation movement. Sri Lanka is an independent, sovereign and democratic State fighting a war against a separatist army which uses terrorism and suicide bombers.

The structural character of agency rather than actions - who more than what - determines the character of war. The Allies firebombed Dresden (in retaliation for the Blitz on London) and committed the atrocity of dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This does not make them a moral mirror image of their Nazi enemy any more than the burning down of most of Georgia by General Sherman's armies made the Unionists the moral equal of the separatist, slave owning Confederates.

Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel's cities, deplorable though they were, do not efface the character of Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement against foreign occupation and invasion. Nothing can make the LTTE and the Sri Lankan armed forces or State, the moral equal of one another.

However, this is not to be confused with international perceptions which can in turn affect the battlefield situation. We should not indulge in any violations of humanitarian law, NOT because that will actually make us the moral equal of the Tigers. Nothing can achieve that. We should not violate humanitarian law for two other reasons: firstly, it is wrong.

Secondly, we can be widely perceived (misperceived) as morally no different from the enemy, by the world at large. This perception can translate itself into policy which can affect us adversely.

Fareed Zakaria, editor of Foreign Affairs, while recommending a radically new policy on Iraq, summed up the Realist creed: we must not base ourselves on what we like [things to be], or what could have been or what could be, but on what the situation is.

What the situation is internally, is that Sri Lanka has a polity that is 'overdeveloped' (the late Urmila Phadnis), and a democracy that is 'highly pluralistic' (International Crisis Group); Mahinda Rajapaksa is the elected President and is resisting the LTTE; the Sri Lankan armed forces are the main force in the fight against the Tigers and no army fights for anything other than its country, its nation, however broadly or narrowly that is understood (which in turn depends on demography, culture, history, geography); no political reform is possible over the heads or behind the backs of the majority of voters and the Sinhala people can be won over to greater devolution of power to the provincial councils but not to federalism or the Indian model.

For all these reasons a Realist reading would, broadly and on balance, tilt towards Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sri Lankan armed forces, combining the advocacy of devolution with support and solidarity.