There’s good news and bad news
By Dayan Jayatilleka
By placing the issue of Tiger terrorism front and centre before the
two largest audiences available in international politics (UN General
assembly, NAM summit) as well as in numerous bilateral meetings and
multilateral forums, hammering home the truth of LTTE aggression and the
quintessentially defensive character of Sri Lanka’s military response,
reiterating his commitment to a multiethnic, multi religious, multi
cultural country and a political solution based on maximum devolution of
power, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has done his duty by the people and
the armed forces, and more forthrightly than any of his predecessors.
He has, in effect, bought time and provided space for the armed
forces to do the job, while preventing the LTTE from obtaining any
leverage for itself.
The limits of this highly laudable achievement must be recognised. It is
restricted to the most important component of the world community,
namely established states - through their political leaderships - but
does not encompass that which Noam Chomsky deems *the second superpower*
after the USA: *world public opinion*. And even at the level of the
interstate system and leaderships, it is dependent upon the reasonably
swift materialisation of the political promise that President Rajapaksa
made, on the record, to the international community.
Presidential paradigm
President Rajapakse’s speech to the Asia Society (New York) and his
interview given to the BBC’s Tamil Service contain the clearest
formulation so far, of his administration’s intended solution to the
Tamil ethnic question. He rejects the notion of internal boundaries or
borders *within*the island, commits himself to maximum devolution but
refuses to be trapped by labels, either unitary or federal.
This would disconcert both the peacenik/TNA and JVP/JHU ends of the
spectrum. It is however in perfect consonance with the practice of those
states which steadfastly refuse to convert to federalism but have
devolved power to the periphery and instituted a significant degree of
regional autonomy. These range from Britain to Indonesia, from South
Africa to the Philippines.
The demagogues of the JVP and JHU would say that the most sacred of
all is the commitment to a unitary state as contained in Mahinda
Chinthana or whatever, but this is an echo of their sworn enemies, the
peaceniks, who having supported Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994, accused
her of betraying her peace mandate and reform agenda by waging her ‘war
for peace’ - when she had absolutely no option but to do so after the
Tigers exploded two Sri Lankan ships in a mini Pearl Harbour attack in
April 1995!
JVP vs. SLFP
The people voted primarily for Mahinda Rajapaksa - not some
disembodied ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ - over Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2005,
just as they did for Chandrika (and only secondarily her promises) in
1994, and Premadasa over Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988. Such is the
nature of a presidential election: it is a duel.
The JVP’s current contradictions with the SLFP are a replay of its
conflict with the administrations of Sirima Bandaranaike and Ranasinghe
Premadasa. On both occasions the JVP overshot the mark and pitted itself
against nationalist democrats rather than comprador UNP governments.
The masses that had distanced themselves from the earlier Rightwing
leaders remained firmly in the political centre, leaving the JVP to
isolate itself through its aggressive arrogance. *By* *the claim that it
was responsible for the rise in morale resulting in the military’s
success and shrill warnings about a possible sell-out of the army’s
achievement by this government, the JVP (not simply by Somawansa but
also Weerawansa) seeks to drive a rift between the Rajapakse
administration (including the President) and the armed forces.
Well before his attempt at armed insurrection, Rohana Wijeweera had
been experimenting with the project of a Sinhala-Buddhist
ultranationalist military putsch, and had come to the notice of the CID
investigating the alleged coup conspiracy of 1966, if only under his
code name Dr. Tissa.
The goal of maximum devolution is adequately outlined by President
Rajapaksa but the pace has to pick up. The calendar has two dates
circled: mid-October for the SLFP-UNP talks to bear fruit and year-end
for the ARPC/APC to produce a document. That sounds reasonable enough,
if adhered to, but decision makers must be aware that at another level,
things are going very wrong, patience with Sri Lanka is running out,
pressure on us is growing and can be contained only if a reasonable
political solution, convincing to the world system, is arrived at
expeditiously.
What’s going wrong is the perception of Sri Lanka in the
international media, global civil society and therefore world opinion.
If unattended to, adverse international opinion will reverse the tacit
support we now enjoy from states, governments and leaders. While there
is a degree of bias in the international media, the media mirror however
distorting only reflects a version of what is actually happening, and
what is happening brings into question Sri Lanka’s undergirding social
contract, that between the various communities which comprise the
country.
Within the space of weeks we have witnessed Sri Lanka’s Muslims in a
state of agitation over the killings of 11 wood cutters- with the
protests aimed, probably unfairly, in the direction of the STF; Tamil
politicians, *including those of a markedly anti-Tiger bent*, urging a
more activist and even politically interventionist role by India; Sri
Lanka being reprimanded by the United States’ Commission on
International Religious Freedoms as a violator; and Amnesty
International urging the UN to appoint watchdog to monitor the gross
abuse of human rights by both the State and the LTTE. There is a growing
alienation of the Tamils, Muslims and Christians, i.e. of all the non-Sinhala
Buddhist communities, in response to what is perceived as an
increasingly aggressive Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism. There has been an
erosion of trust and a mounting sense of insecurity.
The truth is that there are two struggles going on, which some times
intersect but can be recognised as distinct and autonomous from the
other:
1) The struggle between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE, the
centripetal centre and the secessionist periphery, in which the world
community supports the former in some modest measure.
2) The struggle between the contending collective identities,
ethno-religious nationalisms, on the island, in which the world
community is either neutral or unsupportive of perceived majoritarian
hegemonism.
*It is inevitable that a defensive war would entail the invocation of
majority nationalist and religious symbols as vehicles of motivation and
mobilisation*. The USSR’s war against Nazi invaders could not but be a
Great Patriotic War which rekindled Russian nationalism and entailed a
pact with the Russian Orthodox Church. However, that war was against a
foreign invader, while the Sri Lankan struggle is against a separatist
aggressor whose social support derives from a community that is a
significant part of the domestic social fabric. Therefore the war cannot
and must not be fought *purely *or *chiefly *on appeals to majority
nationalism.
In terms of their composition our armed forces are overwhelmingly
Sinhala Buddhist and nothing can be done about that in the foreseeable
future.
But there is a difference between composition on the one hand, and
function, dominant logic and ‘line’ on the other. If the Sri Lankan
state and especially its Armed Forces, STF and police conduct
themselves, and function, as vehicles of Sinhala Buddhist hegemony
rather than of Sri Lankan unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty
in a war on terror, international support will steadily disappear to be
replaced by international isolation, pressure and finally intervention
spearheaded by the regional hegemon. So long as the Yugoslav army
functioned with the idea and ideology of a united, multinational (and
federal) *Yugoslavia*, even Stalin who had just beaten Hitler, was
deterred, but the moment it functioned as the army of *Greater Serbian
nationalism*, it was defeated by a combination of internal separatism
and external intervention.
The swift neutralisation of a dangerous situation building up in -
and with - India, is strategically imperative. Given that we are
fighting the same man who widowed the most important single person in
India today, Sonia Gandhi, it is extraordinary that Sri Lanka has not
been able to roll-back the headway made by the pro-Tiger Tamil Nadu
politicians and the TNA.
This is even more extraordinary when set against the fact that the
Sri Lankan who perhaps has the most cordial relations with Sonia
Gandhi’s Congress is not a Tamil, is Sinhala Buddhist, sits in Cabinet
and has not yet been dispatched as a special envoy to New Delhi: Dr.
Sarath Amunugama, expert on the ethnic issue and devolution, arguably
the most literate man in our present parliament, and in whose office one
of the drafts of the Indo-Lanka Accord was drawn up!
Prophets Unhonoured
While the latest victory of the Sri Lankan navy over the Sea Tigers
and the excellent performance of the Sri Lankan air-force are symptoms
of everything that’s right about Sri Lanka especially under the present
dispensation, everything that is wrong with us is epitomised by the non-utilisation
either by the state or civil society of the two Sri Lankans who have
recently been recognised as outstanding peacemakers by the UNESCO: Judge
Christie Weeramantry and Mr Anandasangaree.
They have been felicitated neither by state nor society. Their
services have been sought and secured by no one. Together or singly they
would be invaluable special envoys, eminent persons, representing our
country’s case to the world while counselling us in the observance of
humanitarian norms, human rights, justice and fair-play in our struggle
against terror. (Justice Weeramantry presided over the Lockerbie trial).
These are truly wise men, respected by the world at large, who can guide
us in the search for a solution to our violent discontents.
However, they are not fellow travellers of either the pro-Tiger NGO
peace lobby or the Sinhala Buddhist hardliners. Those Sri Lankans who
salute Anandasangaree ignore Judge Weeramantry, and vice versa! Though
these two personalities have enormous international prestige in
*precisely* those circles and on those issues that are sources of
pressure Sri Lanka, the usual jealousies would see them un-utilised or
underutilised by the state (which may not have been so had Lakshman
Kadirgamar been alive). Home-grown though Messrs Weeramantry and
Anandasangaree may be, the Biblical saying that a prophet is without
honour only in his own land, is nowhere truer than in Sri Lanka. |