The burden of peace making is not for president alone
Coloombo, January 24, 2007 : The capture of Vakarai in the Batticaloa district by the Sri Lankan army after a tussle that lasted several weeks eliminates the last of the big LTTE administrative centres in the east. It was only a few months earlier that the LTTE lost Sampur in the neighbouring Trincomalee district to the army after another brief struggle to retain it. With the loss of Vakarai, the LTTE has ceased to an administrative entity in the east, although they retain their capacity as a guerilla force. Most of the people who lived in Sampur and Vakarai are now relegated to the status of internally displaced persons. Much of the areas in which they lived are either flattened by bombardments or are temporary high security zones.
The LTTE now faces a resurgent Sri Lankan army headed by General Sarath Fonseka, a man they tried to assassinate by a suicide bomber a year ago. His promise to lead the government forces to victory in the north seems plausible to many in both the government and society in general. Frustrated by the failure of the peace process to deliver a stable political solution, there seems to be an increasing number of people who are supportive of a military solution. In these circumstances the outlook is particularly grim for the people of the north, which is likely to be the next theatre of military confrontation.
Tragically, it is likely that many of the people living in the areas that are currently controlled by the LTTE will suffer the fate of their counterparts in the east. They could soon be driven out of their homes in the fighting that is to come. As for the LTTE too, the outlook can hardly be positive. Their continued acts of terror and human rights violations such as child recruitment and political assassination continue to deprive them of any substantial international sympathy. Their military performance in the east also suggests that they have not yet got over the defection of their erstwhile comrade-in-arms and eastern commander, Colonel Karuna and his men.
The worst possible outcome of the ethnic conflict would be the pursuit of a military solution to the bitter end. After a terrible period of over twenty five years of warfare, terrorism and human rights abuses that have seen Sri Lanka fall behind so many countries it was ahead of, the people of Sri Lanka deserve a stable and just political solution that permits development and prosperity. As against a political solution that is negotiated and will ensure justice for all communities, a military solution is likely to lead to a one-sided solution that is unilaterally enforced and in which there is no justice.
General belief
Those who urge a military solution on both sides of the divide have reasons for the positions they take. They believe that the foe they are opposed to will never change. They believe that if a person or an organization has held fast to a position for twenty five years, or for fifty years, that they will continue to stay in the same position for the rest of their lives. Those who point to the LTTE’s track record of killing all who oppose anything less than an independent state of Tamil Eelam, also may point to LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan’s admonition that he too should be killed if he gives up the fight for Tamil Eelam.
In exactly the opposite way, there will also be those who point to the failure of successive governments of Sri Lanka to implement their promises with regard to a just solution to the rights of the Tamil people, and to the manner in which the opposition has opposed whatever the government has sought to do with regard to finding a just solution. But this belief in the unchanging nature of the other, be it the LTTE or the government, goes counter to the insight of religion, psychology or even materialism, which states that all things are liable to change, if not in the short term, then in the longer term.
The present political uncertainty in the country, and shifting political alliances are an indication of the processes of change at work. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has gone against his own electoral alliances with the Sinhalese nationalist parties to work on a political solution to the ethnic conflict. He has summoned an All Party Conference, appointed an Expert Panel, and entrusted Prof. Tissa Vitarana to forge a compromise of what all have come up with. He needs political allies to support him in this task. The President’s actions are an indication of the possibility of change.
At this critical juncture it is important that the LTTE leadership in particular should re-evaluate their strategy. Instead of leaving it solely to the government to show initiative in coming up with a political solution, the LTTE need to make their ownpolitical initiatives that are relevant to the present context. But the unfortunate reality is that they are doing nothing at the present time that can be seen as constructive in political terms. Their only focus at the present time appears to be on resisting the advancing Sri Lankan army in the north east and planning what soft target they can next hit to destabilize life in the rest of the country. The LTTE attack on a cargo vessel supplying the north is to be condemned.
Accept responsibility
Often those who seek to promote peace in Sri Lanka focus their attention on the government rather than on the LTTE’s own role in reviving the peace process. The LTTE needs to accept the greater part of the responsibility for the present predicament of the Tamil people, and the peace process as a whole. When the LTTE took the fateful decision to coerce the Tamil voters in the north and east not to vote at the Presidential elections of November 2005 they effectively ended the peace process. The Presidential election offered two sharply contrasting visions of the short term future. One was internationally facilitated negotiations. The other was military and political confrontation.
In an astonishing gamble that now seems to have made no rational sense, the LTTE clearly rejected the option of peace through negotiations. It is difficult to understand how the LTTE expected the Tamil people to benefit by rejecting the option of continuing with the internationally facilitated peace process. The results on the ground over the past year clearly show that the LTTE’s calculation, whatever it was, has gone badly wrong. The LTTE also needs to recognize that their claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people and their welfare seems unreal in the light of the suffering they have brought upon the Tamil people by their decisions.
There is an unhappy parallel from Bangladesh that those who are engaged in the ethnic conflict can learn from and hopefully seek to avoid. In 1995 the government of Bangladesh and a militant organization of the mainly Buddhist Chakma people, the PCJSS/ Shanti Bahini, signed a peace accord. The problems of the Chakmas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are similar to those faced by the Tamils of the north east. The Chakmas allege discrimination against them by the ethnic Bengali majority-led government and seek self rule in their own areas, which the government of Bangladesh has been resisting.
When it was signed in 1995, the peace accord between the government and militants of Bangladesh was hailed locally and internationally. A group of Sri Lankan politicians went to the Chittagong Hill Tracts to study the peace process there and to meet with Shantu Larma, the militant leader. But today, many Chakmas see Shantu Larma as a block to progress. He and his organization are seen as stubbornly being locked in conflict with the much more powerful Bangladesh government. The Chakma people are frustrated as they want progress and not a continued confrontation with the government that is getting them nowhere. So they wait for Shantu Larma, who is now 72 years old, and not in the best of health, to pass away, so that constructive change may occur in the future.
LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan has been praised in the past by those who supported him on account of his unchanging and unyielding nature. But this praise too has to change, along with Mr Pirapaharan’s attitude to a negotiated peace. He needs to make a positive response to President Rajapaksa’s political initiatives for a final political settlement. The LTTE needs to sincerely and publicly commit themselves to a process of negotiations for peace in which they, together with the government, mutually renounce the use of violence in the search for a just political solution. If there is no such change on the part of the LTTE, the people of Sri Lanka can expect is to fall back further in comparison to other rapidly developing Asian countries, while those people directly affected by the conflict continue to suffer more than others, like the Chakmas of Bangladesh.
Coloombo, January 24, 2007 : The capture of Vakarai in the Batticaloa district by the Sri Lankan army after a tussle that lasted several weeks eliminates the last of the big LTTE administrative centres in the east. It was only a few months earlier that the LTTE lost Sampur in the neighbouring Trincomalee district to the army after another brief struggle to retain it. With the loss of Vakarai, the LTTE has ceased to an administrative entity in the east, although they retain their capacity as a guerilla force. Most of the people who lived in Sampur and Vakarai are now relegated to the status of internally displaced persons. Much of the areas in which they lived are either flattened by bombardments or are temporary high security zones.
The LTTE now faces a resurgent Sri Lankan army headed by General Sarath Fonseka, a man they tried to assassinate by a suicide bomber a year ago. His promise to lead the government forces to victory in the north seems plausible to many in both the government and society in general. Frustrated by the failure of the peace process to deliver a stable political solution, there seems to be an increasing number of people who are supportive of a military solution. In these circumstances the outlook is particularly grim for the people of the north, which is likely to be the next theatre of military confrontation.
Tragically, it is likely that many of the people living in the areas that are currently controlled by the LTTE will suffer the fate of their counterparts in the east. They could soon be driven out of their homes in the fighting that is to come. As for the LTTE too, the outlook can hardly be positive. Their continued acts of terror and human rights violations such as child recruitment and political assassination continue to deprive them of any substantial international sympathy. Their military performance in the east also suggests that they have not yet got over the defection of their erstwhile comrade-in-arms and eastern commander, Colonel Karuna and his men.
The worst possible outcome of the ethnic conflict would be the pursuit of a military solution to the bitter end. After a terrible period of over twenty five years of warfare, terrorism and human rights abuses that have seen Sri Lanka fall behind so many countries it was ahead of, the people of Sri Lanka deserve a stable and just political solution that permits development and prosperity. As against a political solution that is negotiated and will ensure justice for all communities, a military solution is likely to lead to a one-sided solution that is unilaterally enforced and in which there is no justice.
General belief
Those who urge a military solution on both sides of the divide have reasons for the positions they take. They believe that the foe they are opposed to will never change. They believe that if a person or an organization has held fast to a position for twenty five years, or for fifty years, that they will continue to stay in the same position for the rest of their lives. Those who point to the LTTE’s track record of killing all who oppose anything less than an independent state of Tamil Eelam, also may point to LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan’s admonition that he too should be killed if he gives up the fight for Tamil Eelam.
In exactly the opposite way, there will also be those who point to the failure of successive governments of Sri Lanka to implement their promises with regard to a just solution to the rights of the Tamil people, and to the manner in which the opposition has opposed whatever the government has sought to do with regard to finding a just solution. But this belief in the unchanging nature of the other, be it the LTTE or the government, goes counter to the insight of religion, psychology or even materialism, which states that all things are liable to change, if not in the short term, then in the longer term.
The present political uncertainty in the country, and shifting political alliances are an indication of the processes of change at work. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has gone against his own electoral alliances with the Sinhalese nationalist parties to work on a political solution to the ethnic conflict. He has summoned an All Party Conference, appointed an Expert Panel, and entrusted Prof. Tissa Vitarana to forge a compromise of what all have come up with. He needs political allies to support him in this task. The President’s actions are an indication of the possibility of change.
At this critical juncture it is important that the LTTE leadership in particular should re-evaluate their strategy. Instead of leaving it solely to the government to show initiative in coming up with a political solution, the LTTE need to make their ownpolitical initiatives that are relevant to the present context. But the unfortunate reality is that they are doing nothing at the present time that can be seen as constructive in political terms. Their only focus at the present time appears to be on resisting the advancing Sri Lankan army in the north east and planning what soft target they can next hit to destabilize life in the rest of the country. The LTTE attack on a cargo vessel supplying the north is to be condemned.
Accept responsibility
Often those who seek to promote peace in Sri Lanka focus their attention on the government rather than on the LTTE’s own role in reviving the peace process. The LTTE needs to accept the greater part of the responsibility for the present predicament of the Tamil people, and the peace process as a whole. When the LTTE took the fateful decision to coerce the Tamil voters in the north and east not to vote at the Presidential elections of November 2005 they effectively ended the peace process. The Presidential election offered two sharply contrasting visions of the short term future. One was internationally facilitated negotiations. The other was military and political confrontation.
In an astonishing gamble that now seems to have made no rational sense, the LTTE clearly rejected the option of peace through negotiations. It is difficult to understand how the LTTE expected the Tamil people to benefit by rejecting the option of continuing with the internationally facilitated peace process. The results on the ground over the past year clearly show that the LTTE’s calculation, whatever it was, has gone badly wrong. The LTTE also needs to recognize that their claim to be the sole representative of the Tamil people and their welfare seems unreal in the light of the suffering they have brought upon the Tamil people by their decisions.
There is an unhappy parallel from Bangladesh that those who are engaged in the ethnic conflict can learn from and hopefully seek to avoid. In 1995 the government of Bangladesh and a militant organization of the mainly Buddhist Chakma people, the PCJSS/ Shanti Bahini, signed a peace accord. The problems of the Chakmas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are similar to those faced by the Tamils of the north east. The Chakmas allege discrimination against them by the ethnic Bengali majority-led government and seek self rule in their own areas, which the government of Bangladesh has been resisting.
When it was signed in 1995, the peace accord between the government and militants of Bangladesh was hailed locally and internationally. A group of Sri Lankan politicians went to the Chittagong Hill Tracts to study the peace process there and to meet with Shantu Larma, the militant leader. But today, many Chakmas see Shantu Larma as a block to progress. He and his organization are seen as stubbornly being locked in conflict with the much more powerful Bangladesh government. The Chakma people are frustrated as they want progress and not a continued confrontation with the government that is getting them nowhere. So they wait for Shantu Larma, who is now 72 years old, and not in the best of health, to pass away, so that constructive change may occur in the future.
LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan has been praised in the past by those who supported him on account of his unchanging and unyielding nature. But this praise too has to change, along with Mr Pirapaharan’s attitude to a negotiated peace. He needs to make a positive response to President Rajapaksa’s political initiatives for a final political settlement. The LTTE needs to sincerely and publicly commit themselves to a process of negotiations for peace in which they, together with the government, mutually renounce the use of violence in the search for a just political solution. If there is no such change on the part of the LTTE, the people of Sri Lanka can expect is to fall back further in comparison to other rapidly developing Asian countries, while those people directly affected by the conflict continue to suffer more than others, like the Chakmas of Bangladesh.
posted by Ven. Pragya Jyoti at 8:49 PM
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