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Negotiating to Negotiate
G. H. Peiris
The
Norwegian brokered Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the
Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE/Tigers)
on February 22, 2002, brought about a formal suspension of the
campaign of war and terrorism conducted by the LTTE since the
mid-1980s with the declared objective of establishing a sovereign
Tamil nation state in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka.
There
could be no doubt whatever that the LTTE’s principal impulse in
entering into a cease-fire was the global tide against terrorism
that arose in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the US. In a
dramatically changed political milieu, the LTTE’s international
operations suffered a major setback. In USA, where the LTTE had
already been proscribed, enforcement agencies intensified vigilance
over LTTE front organisations, especially after disclosures of LTTE
links with Islamic militant groups such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
of Pakistan and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front of the
Philippines. Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, important
operational bases of the LTTE, imposed a similar, albeit less
effective, ban. There was also a concurrent hardening of the Indian
government’s stance towards the Tigers.
To
the LTTE, these external changes meant, apart from all else, a
drastic reduction in the inflow of funds – a curtailment of
clandestine income-generating operations including revenue derived
through extortion from Tamil expatriates. The LTTE had also incurred
substantial losses of fighting cadres and weaponry in its 1999-2001
military offensives. The recovery from these setbacks needed respite
– time for the memory of its past atrocities to fade, time for
transformation of its image, time for its new propaganda onslaught
to take effect, and, above all, time for rebuilding its military
strength.
To
the government and the people of Sri Lanka, the need for a respite
from war and terrorism was even more intense. The country was
reeling under the impact of several military setbacks and terrorist
attacks. In most parts of the ‘north-east’, even basic social
services had been disrupted or destroyed. Foreign investment had
been reduced to a trickle, and conditions attached to aid were
becoming increasingly stringent. With the seemingly ineffective war
effort absorbing well over 40 per cent of total government revenue,
economic progress had virtually ceased, resulting in both inflation
and increasing unemployment. The only redemption, it appeared, lay
in a peace settlement with the LTTE.
The
current cease-fire is not the first of its kind. There have been
three earlier episodes – the cease-fire of mid-1985, a prelude to
the ‘Thimpu Talks’ sponsored by the Government of India;
1989-90, which accompanied a direct dialogue between the government
of President Premadasa and the LTTE; and the negotiations of
1994-95, when Chandrika Bandaranaike assumed office, first as Prime
Minister and then as the President of Sri Lanka. All these
negotiations failed primarily because of the intransigent centrality
of ‘Eelam’ as the eventual goal of the Tamil demands. This left
little space for manoeuvre towards a compromise that could be
acceptable to the country’s ethnic majority – the Sinhalese (75
per cent of the population). Significantly, all these episodes
enabled the LTTE to emerge as a much stronger force than before,
both in its capacity to mobilise support from outside Sri Lanka, and
to wage war and engage in terrorism within the country. Past
experience demonstrates, above all else, that the LTTE has nothing
to lose, but potentially much to gain, in periodic ‘peace
negotiations.’
Since
the signing of the current agreement there have been many reported
violations of its terms. By July 1, 2002, there were about 174
complaints against the government, and 340 complaints against the
LTTE, lodged with the Scandinavian Monitoring Mission that is
supervising the peace. The main allegation against the government
was that its armed forces continue to occupy public buildings in the
northern and eastern areas, which were to have been evacuated.
Complaints also occasionally include allegations of misdeeds by the
Army directed against LTTE cadres and Tamil civilians. Charges of
violations against the LTTE include fund-raising through extortion
and kidnapping, forced conscription of children into fighting
cadre’s attacks on activists of other Tamil political groups, and
persistent efforts to increase military strength. Large-scale
military training by the LTTE is still being conducted. There has
also been at least one major operation of clandestine arms
procurement from overseas sources. Perhaps the most outrageous among
these violations was the abduction, by the LTTE, of two Norwegian
peace monitors on July 14, 2002.
There
are other ominous developments, including the sharply escalated
rivalry and tension between Tamils and Muslims of the Eastern
Province over the past months. These two groups constitute,
respectively, about 40 and 35 per cent of the population of the
province. There is a history of clashes here, and there was a
massive conflagration of communal violence in June-July 2000 in the
East after attempts by the LTTE to eliminate resistance to its
authority in Muslim-majority areas. The Muslim political leadership
has now become more vehement in its demands for the political rights
of their community, which have been marginalised in the
government’s preoccupation with negotiations.
Under
the terms of the MOU, the LTTE has been permitted to engage in
political activities outside its area of military control in ‘Vanni’,
the northern interior. This has been utilised by LTTE cadres to
organise spectacular pro-Eelam political rallies in several
townships of the north-east as part of a Pongu Thamil movement,
which draws its inspiration from the vision of ‘Tamil awakening’
embodied in certain poetic works written during the heyday of Tamil
cultural nationalism in India. The LTTE-directed Pongu Thamil
demonstrations have been characterised by nationalist rhetoric and
ritualistic associations with belligerence, such as the mass
performance of the ‘Nazi salute’ to Prabhakaran’s cardboard
icons.
The
LTTE has also established an almost total hegemony over Tamil
politics with the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the foremost
Tamil political party of the past, announcing that the government
should regard the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamils in
the impending peace negotiations. Leaders of various Tamil political
groups have often been summoned to LTTE headquarters in Vanni to
issue political directions or to castigate them for failures to
fulfil demands, and intimidation is employed to curb the political
activities of these groups in Tamil majority areas.
Despite
the MOU stipulation that direct negotiations between the government
and the LTTE must begin by August 2, 2002, there are no signs yet of
this deadline being kept. The Government of Thailand has evidently
indicated its willingness to provide a negotiation venue. The Sri
Lanka government has met some of the demands made by the LTTE as
preconditions for negotiations, including recognition de facto of
the LTTE as the sole political representative of the Tamils, the
total lifting of all restrictions on the movement of non-military
goods to the LTTE-held areas, and the tacit acceptance of the
principle of an interim administration for the north-east headed by
the LTTE. The government has also indicated that the existing
proscription of the LTTE would be lifted as soon as a definite date
is set for negotiations. Mainly in order to avert a derailment of
the ‘peace process’, spokesmen for the government have been
trivialising the MOU violations by the LTTE. The LTTE, on the other
hand has remained evasive with regard to the fixing of a preliminary
time-schedule for negotiation on the grounds that the government is
yet to fulfil its MOU pledges.
Meanwhile,
on April 10, 2002, the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, accompanied by Anton
Balasingham (ideologue and international spokesman for the Tigers),
Thamil Chelvam (the leader of the LTTE ‘political wing’), and
two of his senior military commanders (Karuna and Pathuman), staged
a much publicised press conference in the presence of an estimated
400 journalists from Sri Lanka and abroad – Prabhakaran’s first
appearance at a press conference after 12 years. This became the
venue for the re-statement of the LTTE’s ‘core demands’: the
recognition of a Tamil homeland comprising the Northern and Eastern
provinces; the acceptance of the Tamils as a distinct nationality;
and the recognition of the Tamils’ right to self-determination.
These, of course, are the ‘core demands’ against which
negotiations foundered at Thimpu seventeen years ago, and at several
negotiations thereafter. If formal negotiations take place at all,
it seems that the response of the Government of Sri Lanka will also
be the same as on earlier occasions. At Thimpu, in 1985, the head of
the government delegation stated that, if these demands "are to
be taken at their face value and given accepted legal meaning, they
are wholly unacceptable to the government, because they constitute
the negation of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka,
they are detrimental to the unity of Sri Lanka, and are inimical to
the interests of the several communities, ethnic and religious, in
our country." This was obviously the only possible response
then. It still so remains.
The authour is Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya, Sri
Lanka, and Senior Fellow, International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
By
special arrangement with Institute for Conflict Management, New
Delhi. (South Asia Intelligence Review)
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