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by Jehan Perera

If the sudden decision of the LTTE to pull out of the peace process caught most observers by surprise, it was because they had failed to heed the direct and indirect warning signals. The direct warning signals came from the LTTE which had expressed its unhappiness at being left out of the international donor conference in Washington. But ironically, the indirect warning signals came from the satisfaction of the government that it had achieved success at the Washington aid conference from which the LTTE had been barred.

Up to the time of the Washington meeting the government and LTTE had made joint appeals and programmes to appeal to the international community.

By stating that it is suspending the peace talks and will not be attending even the donor aid conference in Tokyo in June, the LTTE has sought to apply a maximum of pressure on the government. It is aware that the government is banking a great deal on the Tokyo conference to revive the economy and offer a substantial peace dividend to the people.

The consensual approach between the government and LTTE has been the key factor in the mobilisation of international aid to reconstruct the country and provide a peace dividend to the people. Any conflict between them could lead to a weakening of this international support.

However, the LTTE has also been careful in the statement it has issued regarding its decision to suspend its participation in the peace negotiations. It has said it will continue with the peace process and honour the ceasefire agreement. Therefore, it is clear that there is no danger of the ceasefire collapsing and war breaking out.

For the next few weeks, until the LTTE gets back to the negotiating table it is incumbent on the media and peace organisations to inform the people that war is not round the corner. They also need to re-affirm that the proper forum for the amicable resolution of problems, and the concerns they have given rise to, is the negotiating table.

Unfortunately there is a considerable apprehension among the people that the peace process is indeed breaking down which is being exploited by opponents of the peace process.

A peace organisation that had organised three community groups from the south of the country to visit the north found one of them refusing to go on the grounds that the LTTE has already started to kill Sinhalese in the border villages. The President's decision to put the troops on high alert may have been a legitimate use of her constitutional powers as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It was also given wide publicity in the media. This added to the agitation of the people.

Publicised success

In the last couple of weeks the media, both state and privately owned, had been giving prominence to the remarkable success of the government in raising international donor funding. The World Bank and IMF had together pledged over USD 800 million in aid for the next three years, granting Sri Lanka 100 percent of what it was able to receive.

Government spokespersons also spoke confidently of obtaining a total of USD 1 billion for three consecutive years from donor countries and multilateral agencies, exceeding all previous fund raising efforts. But a perceptive observer would have noted the absence of the LTTE from these claims of success and anticipatory rejoicing.

The government's personalising of its success needs to be understood in the context of democratic politics in which politicians need publicity and recognition. The government has been hard pressed by popular pressures about its tardiness in making an economic peace dividend available to the people. While the macro statistics show an increase in the growth rate of the economy, the benefits of this growth are yet to trickle down to the majority of people. They are left with a rising cost of living.

Coming together with the dissatisfaction of people looking in vain for the economic benefits of peace has been the highly effective campaign against the peace process by the opposition. In a country divided by competing nationalisms, the opposition has one advantage that the present government does not have.

They have fought tooth and nail against the LTTE and refused to compromise with it. Their war for peace may have brought the country to its knees. But the opposition has been levelling the charge that the government kneels before the LTTE and yields to it.

Being invited to Washington for the donor meeting at a time when the United States is focussed on the Iraq situation was an undoubted triumph for the Sri Lankan government. But in seeking to project itself as achieving great success before its voter base, the government has evidently succeeded in alienating the LTTE. In the government's highly publicised achievement in Washington, the LTTE may have seen its future exclusion from other important events and decisions; its belief in an equal partnership with the government has been sundered. The LTTE's action of pulling out of the peace talks needs to be seen in this light.

In announcing its withdrawal from the peace negotiations, the LTTE is making it clear to the government that its cooperation is essential if the government is to attain its aid target. In fact by its threat of boycotting the Tokyo donor conference the LTTE is also making the larger point that everything the country has achieved in the course of the last 16 months of peace is due to its cooperation.

And indeed, the government and LTTE have been partners in making Sri Lanka a unique and textbook case of a successful peace process up to now, that is. If the success is to continue, so must that partnership continue.

Partnership

In its letter to the government, the LTTE said, "During the early negotiating sessions it was agreed that the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE should work together and approach the international community in partnership." There are, of course, difficult questions to be asked and answered about the nature of the partnership. There are partnerships that are equal and partnerships that are not equal.

There could be equality in some aspects and inequality in other aspects of a relationship. Where the ceasefire agreement is concerned the government and LTTE are equals. They were the two parties at war and without their joint collaboration and commitment the war would not have ended.

On the other hand, when the LTTE agreed to a federal solution they recognised there would be only one central government in Sri Lanka. Foreign governments and multilateral donor agencies give their funds to the central government because they can seek repayment from it.

There is accountability when dealing with a national government. Such accountability is not possible with a militant organisation that has not yet contested an election or formed an internationally recognised government. The LTTE has to accept the reality that it will not be treated as equal to the Sri Lankan government when it comes to accessing international donor funding.

However, the LTTE's sense of being marginalised in the peace process especially in the conduct of the Washington donor conference needs to be appreciated. The LTTE said, "We view the exclusion of the LTTE, the principal partner to peace and the authentic representatives of the Tamil people from discussions on critical matters affecting the economic and social welfare of the Tamil nation, as a grave breach of good faith." The LTTE is justified in feeling that it contributed in equal part to the success of the peace process and it is unfairly being left out at the end when the rewards are being handed out.

The government should assure the LTTE that this will not happen again. In order to rebuild its relationship with the LTTE, as a part of its commitment to the partnership it has with the LTTE the government should reaffirm that the LTTE will be equal partners with it in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the north and east.

During the course of the war, the LTTE built up various institutions of an administrative and military nature. There is no denying the existence today of LTTE courts, police, administrators, and army and navy. They are a de facto reality. However, this is not the rule of law. It is important that the political negotiations should be speeded up so that a final settlement is reached, at which time democratic regional institutions could be put in place.

For its part, the LTTE needs to recognise the difficulties it puts the government into by some of its actions. It is not acceptable behaviour by a partner to a peace process to engage in a build up of it military strength by arms smuggling in the sea and by forcibly recruiting even children into the ranks of its cadre.

The LTTE's human rights record continues to be poor. Hundreds of Muslims have fled their homes after clashes with Tamils in which the LTTE has played a key role.

There is an ongoing campaign of political assassinations of members of Tamil political parties opposed to the LTTE. There are credible reports of LTTE prisons and torture camps to which no one, not even the ICRC, has access. The restoration of normal life in the north and east, that the LTTE avowedly seeks, must apply to non-Tamils and to non-LTTE parties as well.

For Sri Lanka's peace process to succeed, and for the country to be an example to the world, there is only one appropriate basis for a successful and long term working partnership. This is a commitment to transparency, human rights and democracy. Both the government and LTTE have a long way to go in their journey to such a partnership.

Civil society and religious leaders have an important role to play in exhorting and supporting them along the way.

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