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| Sunday, 20 October 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Will Bali be 'worth the price'? : Peace vs. contests for governmental power Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA Sri Lankans have little time to worry about such happenings as the continuing tragedy of Israeli-occupied Palestine, or the Western military threats against Iraq, or, most immediately, of the bombing horror in Bali, Indonesia. We are too pre-occupied with our own prolonged tragedy of civil war and the political convolutions in the attempts to end it.
The civil war in Palestine-Israel may have lasted longer, but our own war has caused far more casualties in sheer numbers as well as more destruction of physical infra-structure although the Israeli bulldozers and main battle tanks are working hard nowadays to make up for the shortfall. Despite such relative differences of scale, the impact of war on the Israeli-Palestinian and Sri Lankan societies must be regarded as equally overpowering. Indeed, in those terms, the Tamils have been luckier than the Palestinians, having enjoyed the major regional power's backing at crucial moments (beginning with the provision of bases for, as well as arming of, militant groups) and the active diplomatic sympathy of the globally dominant Western powers. If the Sri Lankan State had enjoyed the massive financial subsidizing of its military, and the active political and covert military backing of the Western powers (the USA in particular) that the Israeli state enjoys and many other strategically valuable states have enjoyed (such as Indonesia, The Philippines and, the Central American countries, to name a few), the Tamils and the LTTE may not be sitting so pretty as they are doing now. This is not to say that such massive support as that enjoyed by Israel would have rendered the Sinhala-hegemonic State any less vulnerable to armed resistance and retaliation than the Israeli State has been. In fact, the continuing inability of the mighty Israeli State to effectively counter the Palestinian insurgency is an excellent lesson in politico-military struggle and the possibilities and limitations of counter-insurgency for our armchair Sinhala extremist warmongers. Countering ethnic insurgency And if countering an ethnic insurgency here, even with the advantage of different linguistic identification, has been difficult (impossible?), imagine what it is going to be like in Indonesia, where there is no ethnic difference of any sort (neither linguistic nor religious) between those who are militarily and politically active in Indonesian Islamic-nationalist struggle against the current State and also against the Western big powers and those who are non-active. You bet the US and British intelligence and counter-insurgency experts now reportedly descending on Bali must be exercising their imaginations in this regard. Maybe, our own counter-insurgency expert, Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, currently getting some airplay on Australian TV on the ramifications of the Bali bombing, can offer them some advice deriving from our own counter-insurgency experience. I hope it would be more than the bali-cum-bloodbath rituals practised here in the Premadasa era. Not that the Indonesian State lacks any experience of counter-insurgency. The problem is that Indonesia has not been a counter-insurgency success story, if one considers the East Timor example (the Aceh and West Irian situations are also still simmering). The success against the Communist movement in 1965 was that of politico-military repression and not of an actual counter-insurgency - there was no communist insurgency, as such. The 'success' of 1965, of course, was due to the killing of about a million people and the isolation of captured leaders on a remote island for life. Counter-insurgency experts, nor their political superiors, however, are not bothered by casualty rates. None other than Ms. Madeline Albright, former United States' Secretary of State, when asked on the very popular American TV show '60 Minutes' about the deaths (at that time) of up to half a million children in Iraq due to the UN economic sanctions, declared bluntly that "the price was worth it". That is the kind of calculation that is made in State policy, which in that case did not even involve direct war but stringent, crippling, economic sanctions. Cold blooded rationalisation If governments (and so-called 'democratic' governments, at that) can rationalise a child death toll of 500,000 in implementing economic sanctions, obviously there are no limits to "permissible" casualties in the conduct of war which, in any case, would involve 'permissible' casualties on all sides of the conflict. The US is not alone in this kind of cold blooded rationalisation. In fact it is no different from Stalinist USSR and the Chinese Cultural Revolution when the death of millions was justified in the name of socialism and the workers' and peasants' State. I presume that if the bombings in Bali, in which the vast bulk of foreigners killed were Australians, does result in swinging public opinion in Australia in favour of the US military stance against Iraq (Aussie opinion is unsympathetic to the US right now), I wonder whether those who seek Aussie support would feel that the price in dead and maimed Australians was "worth it". Likewise, if the bombing succeeded in further hardening Australian public opinion against an US invasion of Iraq then, I suppose those who seek that result would consider the price "worth it". Fortunately, in Sri Lanka, many Sinhalas have realised that the price of war has not been "worth it". That is why they are happy to broadly concede extensive devolution and territory to the Tamil people today, the very thing that the Sinhalas have been fighting and killing to prevent these past two decades. Today, the Sinhalas, and all other Sri Lankans (except that tiny minority of warmongers), are thankfully marking the eighth month since the end of the fighting and preparing for the first Ramazan, Christmas and New Year festivities in a period of extended peace in decades. Even if the prospects for peace remain bright, the current troubles in the Eastern Province remind us that a lot more homework must be done if we are to genuinely enjoy the fruits of stability and relative freedom ('relative' because ethnic freedom is only part of the battle with class and gender inequities awaiting resolution). If the Sinhalas are to truly achieve peace they must pay that price of peace: there has to be a profound re-structuring of the Sri Lankan State in a way that will enable the Tamil people enjoy the kind of political community that the Sinhalas have enjoyed since freedom from colonial rule, while the Muslims are provided the political space to ensure their own identity and security and the minority communities in all ethnic majority regions and sub-regions (Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim) are provided with guarantees of equality of identity and security. Complexity of task The very length of the previous sentence indicates the scale and complexity of the task. That current politics is a hindrance, few will deny. While the UNF Government can now proudly claim to have gone further, in practical terms, than any previous government in bringing about peace, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his colleagues are in danger of being bogged down in political conflict at a secondary level that would inevitably delay the peace process and, worse, even compromise the commitment of the regime to the kind of genuine conflict resolution work that is needed. Peace and stability the priority While much of the media is focusing on the tensions in the East and some analysts may worry that the problem between local Tamil and Muslim groups could unravel the overall peace process, neither Colombo and Kilinochchi nor Batticaloa have made any moves or given any signals that even hint that they would allow anything to undermine the overall process. Very clearly the larger objective of peace and stability has been recognised at a 'national' (Colombo and Kilinochchi) level and also at a regional (Batticaloa) level as being the priority. Thus, to quote the Batticaloa LTTE commander, Sinniah Karuna, who in turn seems to have been quoting V. Prabhakaran himself, no incident would be allowed to disturb the peace process. Obviously, given the death toll among Tamils in Trincomalee, even such casualties will not block the peace negotiations. In the East, however, that commitment must be translated into firmer action to prevent a further deterioration of Tamil-Muslim relations due to mere ad hoc local rivalries. Kilinochchi, though, must resolve the emerging differences in strategic-tactical perception between the Northern and Eastern Tamil leadership. So far, not only has Prabhakaran retained his overall control, but the Batticaloa leadership is also reluctant to directly undermine the broader ethnic unity that has been the foundation of the success of the Tamil self-determination movement. Government and Presidency In the South, Colombo has a far more difficult problem in resolving the differences between the Government and the Presidency. If the North-East difference is indicative of 'sub-national' differentiation (caste, sub-ethnic) between Jaffna Tamil and Batticaloa Tamil, the political conflict in the South is also a manifestation of a conflict between sub-national groups (class, caste, sub-ethnic). The Sinhala-hegemonic Sri Lankan state is the established polity and therefore has been prone to this sub-national political contest for the fruits of governmental power for decades. In that sense this contest if firmly entrenched in the Southern political system and, hence, cannot be wished away nor easily changed. What is needed is not an end to the contest by means of defeat of either of the two major Southern political formations, but some moves by both sides as well some facilitating processes that would circumvent or side step the contest for the specific purpose of resolving the ethnic conflict. Just now, the Supreme Court having stymied its effort at an 'instant' solution to the problem of a wayward Presidency, the UNF Government is groping - but not for a means that would circumvent the rivalry, but rather, for yet another stratagem to defeat or weaken the PA. Hence, the Government is now compelled to talk of doing something that it was, till recently, arguing should be avoided dissolving Parliament and going for a third general election in less than three years. That is because of the compulsions the UNF faces to compete with the PA for absolute governmental power. On its part, the PA, as it is manifested in the Presidency, has also done little else than compete for this absolute control of the Government. If the UNF thus, rightfully distrusts the President's promise not to dissolve Parliament, neither can the PA trust the UNF's intentions in diluting the powers of the Presidency. How far both sides are willing to go will indicate the price we, Sri Lankans, will have to pay for this contest for power. Will it be more costly than the price of peace? |
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