Secret and open deals

Politics: The recent demands by a range of persons, that there be an investigation into an alleged secret deal with the LTTE, raises several interesting questions. Among them are the classic who, what, where, when, how and why - namely who made the deal, what it included, where and when it was made, how it was promoted and what was its purpose.

But in addition to these, of course, with regard to a deal one has also to investigate what its consequences were.

At present it seems unlikely that the Government will agree to such an investigation. Its agreement is necessary, for I believe the Speaker cannot appoint a Select Committee to go into such matters unless Parliament asks for this. Unfortunately, the Government is not as subtle in its approach as the combined opposition, and I suspect it will therefore simply ignore the matter.

What it should do, on the contrary is to take the opportunity to investigate the question of all deals with the Tigers, including formal ones. This seems more urgent now because the LTTE has gone on record, in its statement on the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement, as stating that they gained de facto recognition as a separate state through that agreement.

Unfortunately the JVP, though they were sharp enough to pick up on this, have characteristically used it as a stick to beat the Norwegians and to demand that the Government abrogate the CFA.

The general impression this creates is that they are simply beating the old drum, because of their built-in objection to compromise on the ethnic issue. What they should rather have done, is take this opportunity to demand a full investigation into the CFA itself, to seek answers to the basic questions I noted above, and in particular what were the consequences of that particular deal.

Whether anyone in the Government is bright enough to grasp the opportunity and move for a Select Committee to look into all deals with the LTTE, official as well as unofficial, is a moot point.

It would be poetically fitting if this were the response to the UNP demand, instead of trying to sweep it under the carpet. Logically, all dealings with the LTTE now, including the attempts by the Government to bring it back to the negotiating table, have sprung from that original deal, so beginning from there would be the sensible way to look at subsequent arrangements.

The investigation would have to be sequential, and should indeed go into the background to the deal. One obvious point to look at is the statement, as quoted by the JHU, of the former Secretary to the Peace Secretariat, Bernard Goonetilleke, to the effect that 'Norway had rushed Sri Lanka into signing the CFA without adequate time being given to study the implications of the pact'.

The point here of course is that once again it is not Norway that should be blamed, for Norway is not accountable to the people of Sri Lanka, but those who signed under such pressure, real or imagined.

Such a Select Committee could also look into the question of how the President was left out of the process of confirming such a pact.

Of course it is not clear how Chandrika Kumaratunga would respond to questioning on this issue now, but even in her present mood she would find it difficult to contradict the many critiques she made of the CFA and its implementation in the days when she - and this must always be granted her - stood alone against precisely what the LTTE now claims the CFA always entailed.

But there are other elements in the background which should also be looked at. Most important I think is what happened at Athurugiriya. If I might quote from my own writing, to refresh memories about an incident that certainly should be subject to a Select Committee investigation.

'This happened on January 2, the day after Athukorale's death, when a police team led by one of the Udugampolas, a family fanatically loyal to the UNP, raided an army 'safe house' at Athurugiriya.

The excuse proffered was that it had been involved in a plot to assassinate members of the UNP in the run up to the election. However, apart from the fact that it was operated by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, and that this information was available to Udugampola, the raid was widely publicised.

That the LTTE had been relying on Wickremesinghe seems obvious now. Sivanayagam, the editor of the Tiger mouthpiece 'Hot Spring', includes within the UNF in his account of the 2001 election the TNA, which suggests that from the start it was assumed that they would help Wickremesinghe set up a government.

He also makes no bones about the fact that, following Udugampola's raid, 'An army officer and five men, including a Tamil were taken in for questioning and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The men were members of a deep penetration unit that used to infiltrate Tiger-controlled areas and carry out attacks on LTTE leaders, as it happened in the case of Tiger leader Shankar.'

The names of all those involved, not just these six, were made publicly available, and over the next couple of years the Tigers, while the ceasefire was still ostensibly being observed, picked off many of them, including most of the Tamils. Sivanayagam certainly, and doubtless the Tigers, would have appreciated the irony of members of a unit dedicated to the prevention of terrorism being detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.'

The consequence of the Udugampola raid was the murder of hundreds of Tamils. But Udugampola, or those who authorised his action, cannot be blamed alone. The CFA also contributed. As I went on to say 'A significant feature of the CFA was the commitment of the Government to disarm paramilitary forces.

Though the Tigers were supposed to function without arms in Government controlled areas, they continued to function as a military force, which meant they had access to weapons as required.

So, with what seemed the full blessing of the Government, they were able to eliminate members of the EPDP and PLOTE and other groups that had been opposed to them, and whom they charged with having abetted both the Kumaratunga Government and the Armed Forces.

The Norwegians dutifully recorded such murders, but with their role restricted to monitoring rather than enforcing the agreement, they could do nothing about such one-sided violence.

Another feature of the Wickremesinghe years was the impunity with which the Tigers brought in equipment about which they had previously had difficulties. The most blatant example of this was the importation of sophisticated communications equipment for a broadcasting station, which was actually conveyed through the Norwegian Embassy.

A few months later, it was reported, the Government had helped the LTTE obtain underwater scooters, which were in fact transported to Kilinochchi in an Air Force helicopter.

Even more alarming was the complacence with which the Government viewed the indubitable evidence that the Tigers were amassing more dangerous armaments.

Though the Armed Forces were aware of this, they had to deal with a Minister of Defence and a Prime Minister who wanted the matter ignored.

It was in this context that they turned in desperation to the President who, though in theory Commander in Chief of the Forces, had been bypassed with regard to all decisions.'

Though understanding that my voice counts for nothing, I would add it then to those asking for an inquiry into the purported deal between Rajapaksa (though it is not clear whether the allegation is about Mahinda or Basil) and the Tigers, but only if it looks comprehensively also at the official deals that have led to the present situation.

Since logically the most important aspect of a deal is its consequences, the difference between the alleged deal and the one with which we now live will become even more obvious, with detailed documentation, than is now the case.

This becomes even clearer when we look at one concrete clause which Sooriyarachchi has highlighted, the agreement at the initial talks with the Tigers in Geneva that paramilitary groups be disarmed.

The allegation is that it was Basil Rajapaksa who insisted that it be agreed that 'the Karuna group' be disarmed.

Now I am glad that Sooriyarachchi evidently believes that it would be a bad thing for the Karuna group to have been disarmed, unlike those elements in the UNP who were upset after Geneva that Karuna had not been disarmed, and who claimed that was why the poor betrayed Tigers resumed hostilities.

But the point is that the Karuna group was not disarmed, and the statement referred only to paramilitary groups. That, it must be remembered, was part of the original CFA, and the Government has made it clear that it interprets the agreement at Geneva as confirming that original clause, without any reference to the Karuna group, which emerged subsequently and was indeed part of the LTTE at the time of the CFA.

Now it is conceivable that Sooriyarachchi genuinely believes that Basil Rajapaksa wanted the Karuna group disarmed, and it was someone else (perhaps Col. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa) who refused to disarm them. It would be wonderful if a Select Committee of Parliament went into this, and put paid to the idea that Colombo finds so entertaining, that Rajapaksa Bros Inc is running the country.

It would be so much more amusing, and I am sure there are those in Colombo who would believe it, if the Select Committee concluded that there are two Rajapaksa Bros Inc, one of which disarms Karuna while the other rearms him.

But the more plausible explanation, it seems to me, assuming Sooriyarachchi was right about Geneva, and his hasty escape to a toilet to warn Col. Rajapaksa and Wimal Weerawansa about what Basil Rajapaksa was up to, is that the latter is a skilled negotiator who wanted to ensure the Tigers did not break off talks, obsessed as they were about Karuna.

And the result shows that no sacrifices resulted from the Geneva statement, though sadly nothing could be done then about the poor members of the other Tamil groups who had been sacrificed in the year immediately after the CFA, when disarming was pursued ruthlessly while Tigers were allowed to wander armed around Government held territory, and when so many Tamils opposed to them were thus slaughtered by the Tigers.

A similar argument would apply to the allegation that Basil Rajapaksa made a deal with the Tigers just before the Presidential Election in 2005, on that occasion a secret one.

At that time, the allegation was that such a deal had been engineered by Tiran Alles. What exactly the deal consisted of no one could tell then, but there had to be some reason for the collapse of Ranil's expectation that they would deliver on his behalf (without a deal of course, simply because they believed in him without any commitments on his behalf).

Now too, no one seems to be able to say what the deal was about, the only advance on previous speculation being that Basil Rajapaksa was responsible and not Tiran Alles.

At some later stage perhaps I should go into the insinuation that the deal involved giving them the North, even while fighting them in the East, which we are supposed to think the Tigers have given up willingly (having failed to get Karuna disarmed despite Rajapaksa's not so secret deal in Geneva).

For the moment it is sufficient to note that, despite this alleged deal, the Tigers pretty promptly started attacking servicemen. Logically this means, if there was a deal, either that the Tigers decided from the start that they had been betrayed, or else that their attacks on the servicemen were part of the deal.

If so, it is strange that President Rajapaksa, after a short period of patience, reacted forcibly, quite unlike Ranil, who did nothing when Tamils who had helped the Armed Forces, were slaughtered.

Or perhaps again we are supposed to believe that Basil Rajapaksa agreed to pursue peace with the Tigers and Col Gotabhaya Rajapaksa reneged on the deal. Perhaps the deal involved giving the Tigers Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi, but reacting forcefully elsewhere.

Perhaps it involved allowing them to build up their strength in Northern bunkers but blowing up arms shipments that were not destined for those particular bunkers.

Perhaps Basil and Gotabhaya are in fact one person with a split personality, and the Tigers agreed way back in 2005 that one would be allowed to take what the other gave, depending on which personality was dominant at a particular time.

Or, as the philosopher Quine put it in demolishing what he called Two Dogmas of Empiricism, we can stop pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, and admit that a secret deal, the grant of something detrimental to the Sri Lankan State, in exchange for something else, is a nonsensical concept.

But, given that such allegations will be made continuously, it would make sense for the Government indeed to set up a Select Committee to go into the details of what has been agreed on that was detrimental to the Sri Lankan State.

For that the Tiger Statement on the anniversary of the CeaseFire, the detailed critique of the Ceasefire by Anandasangaree, and the multiple murders we know took place as a consequence of the Ceasefire, all offer ample justification.