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| Sunday, 11 January 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Looking beyond the Cease-fire: Society must lead the politicians Observations by Lakshman Gunasekera "Victory breeds hatred, for the defeated lie down in sorrow." If the political leaderships of today cannot hold these words of the Dhammapada firmly in their moral sights as they strategise, how can our society successfully manage the multiple tensions and contests between groups and individuals and provide the environment necessary for civilisation's continuity? That is, presuming that there is civilisation on this island. Some may say that there was, but no more. Others would insist on the challenge of recovering our civilisation. A society barely recovering from the horrors and tragedy of war in the welcome but meagre quiet of a 'cease-fire', cannot but reel in shock on hearing that the political leadership that helped establish that Cease-fire Agreement barely two years ago wishes to scrap the Agreement. After the nightmare of the past 25 years or more of insurgency and political violence how could humans bear the further shock of the prospect of a return to that nightmare? Fortunately, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who made that shocking announcement about the current status of the February 2002 Cease-fire Agreement (CFA) early last week, seems to have subsequently clarified his position. On Wednesday he told another rural audience that only some clauses of CFA 2002 "may be invalidated" by the President's take-over of the Defence and other Cabinet ministerial portfolios. It is up to the Prime Minister to explain to the people how CFA 2002 has been "invalidated". Such detailed examination of the current political situation is useful and necessary. And, here, I am not being facetious. I think that every aspect of our political problems need to be understood because our response to these problems then become adequate and comprehensive. The Presidency certainly needs to be alert to any continuing repercussions to its move to take over ministerial portfolios. Likewise, the UNP Government should also be cautious about its pronouncements on such crucial matters. The Prime Minister's first public hint about ending the Cease-fire Agreement not merely sent a general shock wave through society but specifically jolted important economic sectors. The tour operators and hoteliers, who had begun prospering again almost immediately with the onset of the Cease-fire (such is the close link between politics and economics), could only clutch feebly at their group reservation vouchers and FIT itineraries as they contemplated the prospect of cancellations. I have yet to examine the impact of the Premier's statement on the stockmarket. Hopefully, the Mr. Wickremsinghe's subsequent clarification will ease the situation. Even if some clauses may be endangered by the President's sudden move last November, the more important and more encouraging fact remains that CFA 2002 has remained stable since that dramatic shift in the balance of power at the apex of the Sri Lankan State. And that resilience is certainly to the credit of the UNP Government and the LTTE who are the signatories to the Agreement (as well as to the credit of President Kumaratunga who has done everything to keep it stable). I would rather that the Premier celebrates that strength of the Agreement rather than speculate dangerously about its possible failure. There is a far more important fact about CFA 2002 that must be understood and understood fully. The Cease-fire is only the suspension of hostilities, perhaps temporary, but it can lead to a permanent peace if negotiations could result in the establishment of a new political framework that resolves the ethnic conflict and some other important issues democracy on this island. And the establishment of a new political framework cannot be done without the full collaboration of all the significant political forces in the country. Even if Mr. Wickremesinghe had not realised it fully, the rest of Sri Lanka, the LTTE included, had realised some time ago, that no Cease-fire can be the foundation of peace unless such political collaboration took place in a systematic manner. That is why people have voted in such large numbers to place both the UNP as well as the PA in State power, one in Government and the other in the Presidency. The LTTE, time and again, had made clear their perception of the inability of Colombo to guarantee a permanent settlement because of the lack of political collaboration among the major political formations in the South. None other than leader V. Prabhakaran himself pointed this out last year in his first general briefing of the world's news media in Kilinochchi. It is indeed a great pity that the UNP Government had not taken that fact seriously in its conduct of the peace process. It is also a great pity that that fact is still being acknowledged by the UNP leadership. But it is wholly inadequate for one to merely bemoan the failings of this or that political leadership. Both the PA and the UNP have been guilty of betraying the national interest in their mad scramble to cling to exclusive state power. What is more important is to seek ways and means of pushing these two major national political formations together into a larger process for peace-making. Firstly, it is important to understand the process itself cannot be limited to formal political parties alone. The fact that the general electoral process, through the popular vote, has been helpful in edging the two major political blocs towards collaboration by placing them in 'cohabitation' is itself indicative of the positive general political dynamics that can be mobilised. Simply put, the people generally want a nationally consensual peace process. The electoral action also indicates the high level of elector political awareness. This indicates the possibilities of an elector participation that can go beyond the mere casting of votes. What I am talking about is the possibility of the social mobilisation of people for the peace process. Society will have to lead the politicians. This mobilisation is helpful to serve three ends: (1) pushing the political parties together for a systematic collaboration in negotiations and political reform, (2) ensuring the representation of social group interests through non-party civic organisations and movements so that the political reform process itself is influenced by a whole variety of social and cultural voices and, (3) building a general social will towards long term ethnic community reconciliation and pluralism rather than rivalry and exclusivity. Secondly, it is important to understand that while such a social mobilisation is vitally needed, it cannot take place in some singularly coordinated manner but is inevitably piecemeal and somewhat spontaneous. Not all of the civic groups and networks of civic organisations that are emerging or that already exist are likely to be in complete agreement with each other. But there can be confluence of some group interest on certain key issues. Even if there is not, these disparate groups can operate on their own and parallely (and they do) in pursuit of the common end of peace. The best example and, perhaps the most important example and one that needs to be developed, is that of the big business groups and the trade unions. Both groups have, in recent years, parallely campaigned for an end to the ethnic conflict by means of inter-party collaboration for the purpose of reform of the State. Today we have big business represented in the Joint Business Forum. We also have a number of peace support movements at mass level that have the backing of the leadership of these trade union networks. The New Left Front, for example, is a political leadership that heads a powerful trade union bloc and is linked in political empathy on peace issues with similar working class forces. It is vitally important that both big business and these working class forces, even acting independently, fine tune their separate acts. They must evolve strategies to push the major national political parties together into not merely a loose 'cohabitation' as we have had so far, but a far more elaborate, functional political collaboration framework. What we need is independent actions by both big business and the working class forces to propose mechanisms for such collaboration. And we need actions by numerous other networks of non-party civic movements from as many social layers as possible. Eminent cultural and social leaders need to come together in their own pressure group to express the expectations of the people. Civic organisations already active in supporting the peace process must facilitate such new pressure groups. Finally, all or at least of these diverse networks and organisations need to meet in some form of national collective movement. Or, there could be two or three layers of collective movement. While one immediate purpose of this non-party political endeavour is push the main political parties together into systematic collaboration for peace, the other purpose should be to build a parallel non-party process of peace-making. This is where different layers of the collective social movement could function. One could be the group of eminent citizens, another could be a people's 'constituent assembly' that could be forum for 'brainstorming' over formulae for restructuring the Sri Lanka polity for ethnic power-sharing. Yet another layer could be groups of experts on matters of constitution, law, politics, state economic management and administration etc., who could service these different fora. The immediate political alternative to the current impasse at the apex of Sri Lankan State is the holding of a general election. Whatever the results of that election, it is merely a continuation of the political competition process and does not bring the country any closer to urgent task of political collaboration. Whether the PA or the UNP wins such a general election is immaterial to the peace process. Whether the PA and UNP cohabit in power whether one is wholly in State power and the other is in Opposition, the peace process cannot go forward unless there some form of equitable participation and sharing of responsibility in the conduct of that peace process. It is ultimately up to Sri Lankan society to ensure that these two political blocs move towards that collaboration. That is why it is important for social sectors to mobilise outside the immediate political sphere for the purpose of influencing the political sphere in a significant manner. This is a moment of national crisis which clearly shows the need for action far beyond the formally 'political'. |
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