Burying the Ceasefire Agreement

H.L.D. MAHINDAPALA

The official termination of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) signed on February 22, 2002 was long overdue. Everyone knew it was dead as the countless number of whales killed by the Norwegians, defying the ban imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa government has rightfully concluded that it is unjust, illegal and unacceptable to let the Tigers do what the Norwegians are doing to the whales: violating international law and decimating the endangered species (Tamils in the case of Velupillai Prabhakaran). Even Ranil Wickremesinghe, one of the co-signatories, is on record saying that the CFA is dysfunctional.

Only Velupillai Prabhakaran and Erik Solheim pretend that it is still valid. Both are hanging on to the CFA not because they respect international law. No. They do it purely to tie the hands of the Sri Lankan Government to an illegal agreement (i.e, not endorsed by President, Parliament, or people) that was designed to serve only the political objectives of an armed group banned by the international community.

This is not surprising because both Solheim and Velu, two co-signatories to the Ceasefire Agreement, are paddling in the same boat, insisting that Sri Lanka should observe international law without paying the slightest respect or regard to the international laws that applies to them.

The CFA came with an “international safety net” leading the people to believe that the international community will not only play fair by both parties but also intervene, if necessary, to bring to heel any party that violates the CFA.

The significance of the CFA was in this promised international guarantee, standing way above any other moves to restore peace. Not surprisingly, it did nothing of the sort when Velupillai went on the rampage committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

That was the time when the international community should have invoked R2P and intervened to protect its own agreement and the civilian victims of Velu’s ruthless killing machine.

Instead it stood by watching with it hands folded until the Sri Lankan Forces moved to enforce R2P to save the nation from the Pol Potist regime in the Wanni.

Then, out of the blue, Western interventionists and their local agents landed here to stop the Sri Lankan Forces from marching into Pol Potist Wanni. The time to intervene with R2P was when Velu was violating every clause of the CFA.

Nothing was done then. But they all galvanized into action only when the Sri Lankan Forces began their march into the East and the North. Then they raised cries of escalating violence and human rights violations.

Now, as if he had woken up from a coma, Solheim states, according to a foreign news agency, that “the violence raging in Sri Lanka will worsen after the Government pledged to withdraw from the 2002 cease-fire”.

In saying this he pretends that violence did not “worsen” under the CFA. He and his peace monitors know the statistics that give the lie to his statement that the abrogation of the CFA will “worsen” violence.

In fact, he should be held responsible for the “worsening” of violence under his Ceasefire Agreement. He and Velu jointly and separately worked to undermine the CFA they signed separately. Velu, for his part, was cutting up the CFA into ribbons blatantly and with impunity.

Solheim was complicit in this act by lending support for Velu to consolidate his position through brutal violence. He worked on the undeclared premise that he could squeeze more concessions from the Sri Lankan Government if he strengthened Velupillai’s hands.

Velupillai was made to look like the invincible king of the Tamils even though the Tamils as a whole did not accept him as their “sole representative.” Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe too fell for it hook, line and sinker. Only Mahinda Rajapaksa had the courage to challenge it and expose Velu as a hollow man.

His policy has been the right strategy and it has worked. The leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa should be respected for taking up the challenge and producing results. He also exposed the hypocrisy of those who signed the CFA.

Leaving aside all other violations of the CFA, Norway failed in its international obligations to stop the Tigers from killing their own people just like the way Norway failed to honour its international obligations in killing the whales.

Sri Lankans which relied on Norway to do their duty was let down by Solheim who manipulated the international community to steer the negotiations away from the fundamental aim of achieving a durable peace.

He was more keen on retaining his place as a peace-maker through cutting off aid than resolving the crisis by addressing fairly and squarely the aspirations of all communities.

He, like most other pundits dabbling in the Sri Lankan crisis, committed the unpardonable crime of believing that only the issues of Jaffna Tamils need to be resolved. The Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the CFA failed primarily because it was based on this false assumption.

Solheim’s tactics were doomed to fail and in the end he has nothing left to show. Like all the big power brokers in the West, Solheim stood on the high ground of forcing Sri Lanka to adhere to what they claimed to be international law.

Solheim bent over backwards to render services to Velu, with the compliments of the Royal Norwegian Government. In return he couldn’t even get the Tigers to sit at the table to negotiate the last round of talks in Geneva.

Now he is making feeble noises to cover up his failures. Without accepting responsibility for his misguided role he is now passing the buck to the Sri Lankan government warning that the decision to withdraw from the Ceasefire Agreement could lead to further escalation of violence.

Having gone along with the Tiger violations of his Ceasefire Agreement he has the gumption to say now: “This (abrogation of the CFA) would weaken efforts to protect the civilian population, which would be most regrettable.” This was quoted on the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s Website last Wednesday.

Before preaching to Sri Lankans about honouring international agreements, or protecting living beings, should not the Norwegian Foreign Ministry set the example to Sri Lanka by observing its obligations to international law, particularly to those gentle giants of the sea ?

Another positive aspect of the decisive move of the Rajapaksa Government to withdraw from the Ceasefire Agreement is to indirectly get rid of the Norwegian peace monitors now, and in time the Norwegians.

They would have been respected and honoured if they played their dutiful role with even a modicum of impartiality.

Solheim’s role as a peace broker has been one of the most pathetic charades in international conflict resolutions. Throughout his performance he has been acting as a political greenhorn who set out to achieve goals way beyond his capacity to come anywhere near the envisaged objectives.

Assuming that the Tigers were invincible he arrogantly dismissed the presentations and claims of the Sri Lankan Government.

Western diplomats who are ill-trained and ill-equipped to read the ground realities in their ex-colonies, too were waxing eloquent at cocktail parties that the Sri Lankan Forces would fall like flies if they encountered the Tigers.

President Kumaratunga ignored the warnings given to her by the field commanders about the Tiger cadres encroaching and occupying the east, violating the CFA. Besides, her Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe, took the cowardly way out by signing the Ceasefire Agreement promising peace in our time.

The Ceasefire Agreement was essentially a product of both Balasingham and Solheim. It was also hailed by the NGO pundits who claimed it to be the ultimate solution to the national crisis.

They were over-reacting with an unwarranted euphoria, forgetting their misplaced euphoric antics when the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement was signed.

This time they were cock sure because it came with the guarantee of the “international safety net.” They were wrapped in their futile theories and analyses which never took into account the basic fundamental that dominates the political equation: violent Velu.

To the credit of Velu it must be said that he was successful in taking the whole bunch - India, the international community, the pseudo-intellectuals in the NGO circuit etc - for a jolly good ride.

Simultaneously, they have been striving to halt the Mahinda Rajapaksa campaign advancing to liberate Tiger-held territory.

Preventing the advance of the Security Forces, in the name of a peace they could never guarantee, was their sole means of retaining the Ceasefire Agreement that primarily defined the borders of a future Terroristan. Their last gamble was to threaten the nation with Right to Protection (R2P) - the neo-colonial instrument of the West to interfere in the domestic affairs of Sri Lanka.

R2P is an instrument promoted by the Western powers on the presumption that they have the power, the knowledge and the skill to put things right if small nations fail to address the human rights violations within its territory. They would not dare to preach that to China or India.

But pundits like Gareth Evans would step into Sri Lanka and utter their high-sounding principles though he would resist with all the muscle power at his command if Sri Lanka steps into Australia to correct human rights violations against the Aborigines.

Oddly enough, he made this statement when the Sri Lankan State was already moving in to arrest and prevents the gross human rights violations in the one-man Pol Potist regime in the Wanni.

ICES, which played a lead role in waving the stick of R2P, was expecting a Rwanda-scale blood letting as the Forces advanced into the East and the North. But Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has moved in stealthily into the East and the North without committing the mistakes and the horrors of Iraq, Afghanistan or even Palestine.

He is an exemplary soldier who has moved skilfully and intelligently to complete a task which was considered impossible earlier. And he has done it in style - an achievement that should be the envy of every American general in the battle fields of combating terrorism.

He has led the Sri Lankan R2P Forces to achieve goals which a foreign R2P Force could never have achieved. Sri Lanka is the only country that has proved its capability to fight and win against a formidable terrorist group dreaded by the international community.

The successes of the Sri Lankan R2P Forces gathering momentum leaves space only to bury the CFA. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is only performing the funeral rites to a corpse that has no chance of resurrection.