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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

"The ink of the scholar will prevail over the blood of the martyr," the medieval Moghul scholar, Fakhr ud-din Mubarak Shah, quotes the Holy Prophet (PBUH) as saying. This exhortation in favour of political wisdom over brute force in the 13th century scholar's treatise Shajara-yi Ansab (The Genealogies) has its echoes today as fears grow for a faltering peace process and safety catches nervously click on-and-off.

Those students of the previous peace initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s and the reasons for their failure will have noted the importance of appearances, of signals and the volatility of interpretations and 'mis'-interpretations by various sides to the conflict. The most obvious 'signal' of intentions and the one most easily 'read' by combatants in a war situation, even a suspended war, is the preparation or readiness for military action.

Indeed, the most frequent argument used by those opposed to any suspension of the State's war against the LTTE and the Eelam secessionist struggle has been precisely that: any suspension of fighting will only enable the Eelamist insurgent forces to make preparations for more war without hindrance.

It is feasible that some of the stages of the twenty-year-old Eelamist insurgency did include moments when the Eelamists' offer of a cease-fire coincided with their need for a break from fighting either due to military disadvantage (1987 and 1991) or due to exhaustion or the need to consolidate after gaining advantage (1994). While "Why should we give them a breather?" was the stock question raised by Sinhala hawks on every occasion, there is no doubt that the State armed forces too did heave a sigh of relief over the opportunity for a breather.

And when those past attempts at a politically negotiated peace began to falter and patience on both sides waned, the attitude of the combatants on both sides naturally became watchful for the slightest sign of a new military initiative. Thus, the LTTE - and other Eelamist insurgent groups when they were extant interpreted even the smallest hint of the Government's hardening of attitude as a move towards a resumption of fighting and often launched into pre-emptive military action themselves. That was how Eelam War II and III broke out.

Likewise, any similar hardening of attitude on the part of the LTTE (and other Eelamist groups during earlier stages) in the process of negotiations was interpreted by the Governmental side or by other political groups on the side of the Sri Lankan State as the beginning of the end of that particular peace initiative.

As such situations develop - that is, as negotiating processes begin to falter preparations for war would get under way. Covert readiness would become more open preparatory activity. Even before any slowing down of a negotiating process, the continuation of conventional, routine activity of military preparedness on either side has often been interpreted as signs of a shift in attitude away from negotiation and towards a resumption of military action. Routine military re-supply activity is quickly highlighted and is interpreted as re-armament with immediate hostile intent.

The current peace initiative is no different. From very early on, the issue of the LTTE's military re-supply activity came into question. The bulk of the LTTE's re-supply military hardware and munitions can be done only in one way: by means of clandestine shipments by sea and landings on stretches of Tiger-held coastline.

major strategic lapse

In fact (if I may digress little), this writer has long argued that a major strategic lapse on the part of the Sri Lankan State throughout the Eelam War has been its failure to give priority to severing or, at least squeezing, the insurgent groups' maritime umbilical cord. This immense strategic blunder, I believe, is largely due to the compulsions of the State's own ideology: the Sinhala hegemonist imperative of territorial ownership (a fantasy of empire, I call it) encouraged a focus on land warfare and prioritised the holding of territory rather than a weakening of the enemy's military capabilities by the most effective means.

To get back to my argument: the slightest hint of LTTE re-supply activity has been highlighted as a preparation for war. Meanwhile, of course, the State has been busy re-equipping itself (the recent controversy over a mortar shipment showed the on-going activity) and does not consider this as a particularly warlike activity. But the LTTE, especially if it finds its own re-supply activity under duress, would naturally interpret such State re-supply activity as a move to gain the military advantage.

Thus, as it did in the past, the LTTE would then begin to think in terms of a pre-emptive strike before the State grew too strong.

All this will indicate that a more sophisticated approach is required if a negotiating process is move forward and is to 'weather' such strains and stresses.

What is required is a 'right attitude' as is inculcated in Buddhist life style. Both sides should not adopt rational approaches and perspectives of each other's behaviour and actions but should actively develop the capacity to evolve such perspectives. That is, both sides have to develop their intellectual capacities in conducting negotiations. Hence, my recourse to the words of the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

On the side of the Sri Lankan State, this means the employment of think tanks and consultants to plot evolving political-military scenarios and develop strategy. Again, this writer has long argued for this.

When the Peace Secretariat was set up by this Government, these columns hailed it as the beginning of such a process of concentrating intellectual energies and 'intelligence', which in turn would service the concentration of political energies in a most refined and productive-effective way. The Secretariat, at the moment, however, seems to do little more than manage, in a somewhat amateurish manner, some of the public communications to do with the peace initiative.

A part of a sophisticated approach to a process of political negotiations should naturally include a posture on military activity. It must be recognised that even while hostilities have been suspended, the military forces on both sides remain in place and must, inevitably, maintain themselves. And what else does a military force do but maintain its 'total readiness' to carry out its stipulated mission? And does not such a readiness require constant military activity of a non-aggressive nature?

The forces on both sides must maintain, among other things, (a) the security of the territories they hold (b) their 'intelligence' or knowledge of the enemy's status (c) their fighting capabilities in terms of munitions and hardware, in terms of infra-structure, logistics, communications, command and control systems and, (d) their fighting capabilities in terms of a peak fitness of their troops and units. These are only some aspects of military preparedness held up as examples of the very wide range of military activity that must go on even if hostilities have been suspended. And these considerations apply to both the Sri Lankan military as well as the LTTE.

A sophisticated approach to negotiations will acknowledge the practical reality that such activity would have to continue on both sides of the frontlines. A crude, aggressive approach may envisage a constant effort to restrict the enemy's capacity to maintain a military readiness using every tactic - political, legal, diplomatic. While both sides will, no doubt, have this as a consideration, a simplistic emphasis on such tactics to the detriment of the negotiating process is self-defeating.

It must be understood by both sides that the negotiation process at least the current Sri Lankan one - is not merely a political means of weakening the military capability of the enemy. While that objective too can be relevant in other circumstances, any emphasis on that aspect in the Sri Lankan context will only serve to limit the goal of the negotiations initiative to something less than a comprehensive peace.

parroting peace mantras

In the Sri Lankan context, we have gone far beyond such limited objectives as both sides should have realised by now. Both sides have given categorical indications (reiterated ad nauseam nowadays) that the objective of negotiations today is to achieve an end fighting and a comprehensive political settlement of the ethnic problem. Indeed, there are many political leaders who, till recently, insisted on 'war' as the solution to the problem and denigrated and even physically and politically harassed those who thought otherwise. Even such politicians are today eagerly parroting the peace mantras of their political betters.

A sophisticated approach to negotiations, on both sides, should then systematically ensure that that goal of a comprehensive peace remains as the guiding factor in all aspects - political and military of the negotiating process.

While one long term goal of the negotiations initiative is, most certainly, for a military stand down and, ultimately a disarmament and de-militarisation of society, the short term must envisage a peace process that incorporates military postures within the political. It must be recognised that neither in the short term, nor in the medium term, will the military aspect lose its significance.

In fact, it must be acknowledged that both sides to the conflict actually depend on their military capacities - their own and their allies - to ensure that peace.

This is because peace in Sri Lanka is coming about as a result of a military stalemate. A military stalemate implies that each side has actually been compelled to resort to political settlement due to the military durability of the other side. Logically therefore, such stalemate should require that each side actually respects the military capability of the other. This is an important part of that 'right attitude'. On the Sri Lankan side such sophistication is essential if there is to be successful political engagement with the LTTE. The LTTE too has serious deficiencies in its linkage of the political and the military, but in a way that is different to that of the Sri Lankan State.

The principal strategic blunder on the part of the LTTE has been its failure to maintain its own elaborate political movement as an entity distinct from its military organisation. This is why, for example, there are mistaken perceptions by analysts, as well as the Southern society in general, that the LTTE is purely a 'military' and militaristic enterprise. That is why there is a perception today that the LTTE is converting from being a purely military organisation to a political-military one.

The reality is that, like every other successful insurgent movement, the LTTE has, all along, maintained its political organisation. After all, it is such an organisational layer that is the principal instrument among other things of mobilising the populace for its secessionist war. And who will deny the LTTE's success in that?

The LTTE, however, unlike several other Tamil militant groups, failed to give an EQUAL importance to the 'political' alongside the 'military'. In fact the almost ridiculous single-mindedness with which it has proceeded to physically eliminate virtually every one of its perceived political 'rivals' - and politico-military rivals such as TELO and the EPRLF - betrays the LTTE's major weakness. It does not (or, did not) have the capacity to engage, in an elaborate and sophisticated manner, politically with other actors, even those who were/are fighting parallel to it for a separate State.

I say 'did not' in brackets because today, in its new alliance with a whole range of Tamil political and politico-military groups, the LTTE is indicating an expansion of its political configuration. I discussed it in my column last week.

However, the LTTE has to go far beyond such ad hoc political adjustments. Simply politically bludgeoning former perceived rivals and military foes into becoming its reluctant allies is not the way to build a broad political movement. The LTTE itself must give birth to a distinctive political organisation that is firmly rooted in the populace (the nature of that 'democracy' is for the Tamil people to work out) and is not merely the conscription and administrative tool of the Tiger armed movement.

Such a transformation is essential if the Tamil national movement is to equip itself for the long and tortuous process of negotiating peace and building a nation.

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