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| Sunday, 8 June 2003 |
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Do the Tigers possess WMD? - Interim council: locking the LTTE into the peace process Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA By the time this column is published nerves may have been soothed or those guys out in the Vanni may yet be doing their nerve-racking minefield strut, keeping everyone guessing over their participation in the negotiating process. Yeah, those guys are bad. Not as bad as nuking two whole cities, though nor as bad as using armies and death squads to wipe out some 120,000 people (no one knows the exact score in these games) in two counter-insurgency campaigns, one in the North-East and one in the South (since 1971). Or, well, as bad. Even if the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam do attend the Tokyo aid talks tomorrow, Messrs. V. Pirabhakaran and Co., would yet have made their point very bluntly and strongly - and appropriately in my view. equals The point that is being made is that, if it is to participate in political negotiations, if it is to do a deal, the LTTE,that is 'the armed leadership of the Tamil People' (if I correctly recall Chandrika B. Kumaratunga's characterisation of them in her briefing of the media on the day she was first elected Prime Minister), must be regarded as and treated as, equals with all those others participating in the negotiating process. This point was initially raised by the LTTE when the Washington aid meeting, which was presented by its convenors, the government of the United States of America as the decisive precursor to the Tokyo meeting, excluded the LTTE. The US government quite formally and pointedly excluded the Tigers and, furthermore at the Washington meeting itself, went on to publicly preach to the LTTE the need to give up 'terrorism' (whatever that means) before it would be welcome. The failure of that meeting, which was considered to be a crucial stage in the negotiating process (on the economic side), prompted the LTTE to broaden its argument concerning participation to include the implementation process on the ground in the North-East they drew attention to the lack of an adequate implementation structure for the recovery process in the North-East. The social and economic recovery process,is the most fundamental 'confidence-building measure' (CBM) as far as the Sri Lankan State is concerned, especially with regard to the re-integration of the North-East with the rest of the country. concrete action Today, the LTTE argument is quite clear and simple the Sri Lankan State and its Western backers can easily substantiate their (now suspect) intention to genuinely negotiate with the LTTE as equal protagonists by concrete action to set up a practical mechanism on the ground that constructively involves the LTTE in the implementation of social and economic recovery in the North-East. It is this mechanism that is being variously described (by the Government) as an 'administrative unit' and (by the LTTE) as an 'interim council.' By boycotting negotiations, the LTTE is responding to that exclusion in Washington with an exclusion of its own the very act of boycott means the suspension of negotiations. The suspension of negotiations means very concretely and immediately, that the cease-fire continues on parallel but un-connected tracks in the North-East and in the rest of the country. This, in turn, means, as I have pointed in my last column, that the post-cease-fire normalisation process now proceeds independently in the North-East. The Sri Lankan State (and its Western backers) are then excluded from the North-East. In short, the colossal blunder by Washington has not brought Sri Lanka closer to war, but it certainly has pushed the country further towards the very thing that the peace process is supposed to prevent: secession. And it is a secession not won by force of arms! To understand the significance of my last conclusion, one only needs to take the argument a little further. Just suppose the LTTE does not go to Tokyo suppose the LTTE chooses to avoid further talks for the next six month (or, forever), and instead co-operates in every other way with the Government (and its Western backers) to absorb resources (both in kind and cash), into the North-East while scrupulously avoiding any significant military provocations (as it has done so far). What is the situation then? avoiding war With LTTE avoiding war, can the Government launch a war to compel the LTTE to come for talks? What ruse will Colombo use to legitimise a return to war even if Colombo wants a return to that awful past: that the LTTE possesses 'weapons of mass destruction' or that it harbours the Al-Queda? In the first place, Colombo has absolutely no interest in any return to war. The ending of military hostilities and the careful management of the Ceasefire for more than a year, despite numerous political obstacles (not least by the Presidency) and semi-military provocations by the LTTE, has been the historic success of the United National Front Government. The Government has no political or economic or social benefit from a return to war. In fact, just as much as the LTTE has made its point very firmly in the post-Washington impasse, so has the Government. Despite raised political tensions in the country due to the LTTE boycott, despite being put on the defensive by an irresponsible Opposition the Government has worked hard to keep Sri Lanka's image clean as far as the peace process is concerned. Whatever the LTTE has done, the Government has consistently maintained a positive posture toward the Tigers and has been seen to consider or implement every possible measure that could help bring the LTTE back to the negotiating process. Even the President, despite some postures that unfairly put pressure on the remaining viability of the peace process, has, at significant moments, categorically supported the continuity of the negotiations. Even if the LTTE remains outside the Tokyo meeting, the Government would be right to uphold that event and to proceed with its North-East recovery plans. This is the only way it can get back into the North-East. There is every indication that the Government, even if it lacks the unstinted support of the PA and the Presidency, is committed to this course of action as the most viable strategy for both peace and territorial re-integration. This strategy has been successful so far, with the only major blunder being perpetrated by Washington and not Colombo. political success This political success by the UNF government must be acknowledged as part of the professionalism this regime has so far shown in attempting to resolve the ethnic conflict. Of course, this does not imply that the UNF is anywhere near the ideal requirements for peace. But what more can one expect from a right-wing bourgeois regime that is not interested in social justice but in political management and, is partly dependent on imperial Western powers for resources and ideas? The People's Alliance, left-of centre though it appeared to be, did worse, in terms of management. Thus, the road ahead is quite clear - to me, at least, if not for those industriously drawing road-maps. The Sri Lankan State, if not its bumbling Western imperial backers, must do everything it can to include and not exclude the LTTE from the various aspects of the peace process, be it socio-economic recovery or political restructuring. This involves concrete action to set up an administrative mechanism for North-East economic recovery that will enable the full, formal, participation of the LTTE in the implementation of relief and rehabilitation work. After all, if they are not structurally included in this process, the LTTE can continue, as it does now, to informally manage the recovery process in the North-East thereby excluding Colombo and the West. If this inclusion does not occur, then, like it or not, we are stuck on parallel, unconnected, peace tracks, both politically and, inevitably, territorially. creeping secession When the Ceasefire began and talks were initiated, we saw the possibility of a negotiating and confidence-building process over a period of several years that would gradually lead to a social calming and a slow, stage-by-stage restructuring of the State; what I call "creeping confederalism." If the current impasse is allowed to continue, while we may not return to war, we could, nevertheless, experience a "creeping secession." This kind of un-coordinated process, is ripe with uncertainties, and inherent in it is the danger of a gradual return to a war that is currently desired by no one, except perhaps the Sinhala ultra-nationalists and the current regime in Washington. Who knows, Mr. Prabhakaran, even if not guilty of actually using WMD on a massive scale as the US did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Saddam Hussain is supposed to have done in northern Iraq, may suddenly be found to be "possessing" WMD. I wonder who would be in the "Coalition of the Willing" this time: India? Pakistan? Sabaragamuwa? Ruhuna? Vayamba? |
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