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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

The entry into the mainstream social fold of one of Sri Lankan society's 'outsiders', the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, seems complete after ex-Comrade Lionel Bopage's speech at Colombo Rotary Club meeting.

One of the key founder members of the JVP, Mr. Bopage is in town on a visit from his new home in Australia and this one-time Marxist revolutionary of Che Guevarist bent was the star attraction last week at a social function of Colombo's bourgeois elite which is what the Rotary is.

The very people who once feared his, and his movement's political intentions and the possible threat that could have implied to their very lives (judging from the violent record of social revolutions elsewhere, except, perhaps, those ten days that shook the world in Moscow, 1917), are today vying to hear his views and even uphold them.

I am sure that the distinguished audience of Mr. Bopage last week would have put down their brandies and cigars to heartily applaud his strident appeal to the current JVP to revise its perspective of the current peace effort.

While Mr. Bopage has lived in quiet domicile (should I say exile?) this past decade in Australia, he has not forgotten the politics of his homeland and has occasionally thought fit to lend his support for certain trends in this country - especially the movement for peace and for ethnic equality.

In fact he has been a rather guarded modulating factor even in the fratricidal tensions between rival Sri Lankan ethnic groups Down Under as well. However, he seems to have steered clear of organised politics in any form, at least at the 'above-ground' level (to use old revolutionary terminology).

This caution may have arisen from the shock of the sheer efficient bloodiness of modern-day insurgency and counter-insurgency, a cold-blooded efficiency too much to stomach for the older, more romantically-minded revolutionaries.

Mr. Bopage's appeal to the JVP, though, may be more of pragmatic political intent rather than romantic or even nostalgic. He seems to want the JVP to conform to a 'political correctness' that is emerging in the mainstream of Sri Lankan society.

Of course what is politically 'correct' today, was only in the approaching margins a few years and completely on the 'outside' prior to that. I am referring here to the goal of peace-making, inter-ethnic justice and power-sharing.

In 1974, when Velupillai Prabhakaran's Tamil New Tigers (TNT) assassinated the Jaffna's SLFP Mayor for being a 'traitor' to the Tamil Eelamist cause, the TNT were not even the "handful of terrorists" they became later. They were virtually ignored and the assassination was barely registered in the mindscape of the national 'mainstream'.

What was politically correct then was the happy assumption of Sinhala ethnic hegemony over the Sri Lankan State - language, land, job priorities, symbols and all. Warnings by old revolutionaries like Dr. Colvin R. de Silva made much earlier that the imposition of one language on the State could result in two nations had been forgotten.

Even in 1977, the election promise made by the UNP to summon an all-party conference within a year of coming to power to resolve the ethnic problem (the UNP's explicit and detailed acknowledgement of the problem in its 1977 manifesto broke new ground) was taken as mere bluff and the whole issue was submerged in the new and successful endeavour by Sri Lankan capitalism to consolidate its hold on the post-colonial state here.

When the mounting frequency of anti-Tamil pogroms and the awareness, at least among the now marginalized Left movement and liberal intellectuals, of the growing Eelamist militancy prompted the founding of the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice & Equality (MIRJE) in 1979, the Sinhala-based groups which were the prime movers in this organisation were looked at by their ethnic fellows as eccentrics or worse, as traitors to the Race.

MIRJE , the first major Southern-based group calling for ethnic equality is now almost defunct, but is the proud precursor of all other organisations and groups that have mushroomed in recent years calling for peace and ethnic equality from the People's Peace Front to Sri Lanka First.

The militant movement became far more than a "handful of terrorists" long before J.R. Jayawardena recognised them as a "handful" in the 1980s. MIRJE and other such groups were either laughed at or were harassed by the CID and sometimes pro-government thugs. 'Political correctness' did not yet include power-sharing. Majoritarianism remained the mainstream.

In those days, journeys to the North, for fact-finding purposes or for dialogue or to express solidarity with an oppressed community, were not fashionable and only those marginalized groups such as MIRJE and some Left-oriented social action groups and student movements did so. The 'mainstream media' not only did not consider such exercises as 'newsworthy', but were hostile to even the statements of those groups that dared to go North or East.

Today, all that has changed. Going North is 'in' and media people, both local and foreign (well, Western) are queuing up for Ministry of Defence permits and Information Department accreditation.

It took much bloodshed, failures in negotiations and numerous errors of judgement on the part of the national political leadership (among all parties) before the flag of ethnic equality and power-sharing, raised earlier at the margins, finally reached the mainstream.

Today, both major Sinhala-led parties espouse extensive power-sharing and more than 90 per cent of the Sri Lankan electorate, which means the bulk of the Sinhala vote bank as well, are now regularly endorsing this policy.

Various public opinion polls continue to show that popular opinion does mirror the voting patterns, but when it comes to the details of power-sharing there remains considerable ambiguity and variations in viewpoints. More than 60 per cent may easily poll in favour of a political settlement over a military solution. In fact the latest all-island (including the North-East) survey done by INPACT indicate that as much 77.4 per cent of Sri Lankans believe that negotiations and a political settlement is needed.

Political settlement, peace, are now 'OK'. 'How', though, seems to be somewhat of an open question. When it comes to the actual details of the settlement, the structures of power-sharing are a subject of doubts and suspicions on all sides of the ethnic divide.

Most Tamil people, except, perhaps for the top bourgeoisie ensconced in Colombo, would wish for the maximum devolution - certainly a federal-type solution - with police and judicial structures that would guarantee the physical and social security they starkly lacked since freedom from colonial rule.

The Muslims would want to ensure the protection of their distinctive identity island-wide with Eastern Muslims seeking some form of autonomy for their areas.

The Sinhalas are quickly becoming aware that peace has to be won in exchange for an end to the exclusive hegemony over the Sri Lankan State and this is where there is some hesitancy.

While the mainstream Sinhala political leadership, as embodied in President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, are now firmly committed to extensive power-sharing, opinion polls show that among the Sinhalas there is a considerable minority who are worried about the degree of power-sharing.

Nevertheless, only a much smaller minority (thankfully) would attribute the need for continued ethnic hegemony as the reason for a limit to power-sharing. Most of those who are yet suspicious of new power-sharing structures are those who are wary of the secessionist intentions of the Eelamist movement that will naturally hold sway over the devolved North-East region and are worried that the new structure would not be able to contain the centrifugal force of secessionism.

Others are uncertain about a new, reformed State (in effect, a new republic) simply because of the lack of understanding of political structures and their ideological subservience to the concept of centralised state power which is the dominant political discourse today, anyway.

Hence the presence of numerous small political interest groups among the Sinhalas all wanting to be heard on the national stage.

Perhaps because it has had the advantage of learning from the blunders of the previous regime, the UNP government has shown considerable sophistication in its approach to the peace process from the very day it assumed governmental power.

On the one hand it obviously has its overall objective well clarified, with no doubts or arguments about it at the level of the top leadership : peace through power-sharing and not by a mere militarist bludgeoning. Secondly, it has the sophistication to understand the need to prepare and to manage the peace process.

It is increasingly clear that the new Government is also aware of the tremendous complexity of the peace-making process.

Hence, the simultaneous initiatives on numerous parallel fronts: the Premier's visit to India, the invitation to Norway to continue its facilitation, the reciprocation of the cease-fire, the lifting of the economic embargo and other confidence-building measures, the setting up of a secretariat to oversee the negotiating process and the appointment of political authorities (Minister G.L. Peiris) and bureaucrats to take charge of the process.

All these have been done in the past month, virtually simultaneously, and indicate the UNP's traditional capacity for professionalism which must necessarily be an attribute of the political party at the very centre of the capitalist system now entrenched in our society.

The challenge to the Government is for it to ensure that that 'centre' is in equilibrium with the politico-ideological path that must be travelled if peace is to be achieved - that is, if capitalism is to enjoy at least some political stability for it to flourish.

The Government has to ensure that the 'mainstream' contains the necessary ingredients for peace and also that that mainstream is broad enough to include as many tendencies as could be accommodated on that path.

So if the JVP's old leadership can join the mainstream, why not the new JVP? Likewise, if the mainstream of society now flows in a direction which enables Lionel Bopage to accept the Rotary Club's invitation, then can the stream be wide enough to seem inviting to the new JVP. The JVP has already found Parliament inviting enough to devote most of its energies in entering it in the largest possible numbers.

How can the mainstream of peace-making - de-proscription, federalism and all be made inviting to Somawansa Amarasinghe, Tilvin de Silva and comrades?

The UNP's own emergent third generation leadership, embodied in Navin Dissanayaka and Sajith Premadasa among others also show the broad spread of their parties mobilisational capacity. Navin Dissanayaka, a scion of Kandyan clans has opted for the plantation electorate while Sajith Premadasa, the scion of urban-modern Colombo, has opted for remote, once-revolutionary, once ancient, Tissamaharama or Mahagama.

Meanwhile, the media mainstream now stars Mr. Thamilchelvam in remote Mallavi, close to ancient Mahatiththa (some historians argue, though, that the original Mahatiththa was in Jaffna).

Such is the breadth of the 'mainstream' today. But more needs to be done. There are some other groups, especially among the Sinhalas that need to be accommodated or, at least, held in dialogue, if the peace-process is to see fruition.

The infrastructure that will manage the peace process must provide mechanisms such as discussion fora, regular meeting points, media platforms and suchlike that will enable these more marginal groups to come on board or, at least feel connected and heard.

There is no other way that peace could be sustainable.

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