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by Jehan Perera

The pledging of USD 4.5 billion over the next four years to Sri Lanka at the Tokyo donor conference on June 9-10 came as an unexpected surprise. The absence of the LTTE from what had been promoted as a joint government-LTTE appeal to the international community had led to reasonable apprehensions that donor interest in the event would diminish. But the total pledged was 50 percent larger than the USD 3 billion that was anticipated as the target figure.

More striking, it was the equivalent of the funds pledged for the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan. The international support to Sri Lanka was also manifested by the presence in Tokyo of representatives of 51 countries and 22 international organisations, with the Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi and US Under Secretary of State Richard Armitage in attendance.

Apart from the massive pledge of economic assistance, there was another significant development at the Tokyo conference. This was the acceptance of a federal system, supplemented by appropriate democratic and human rights safeguards, as the appropriate framework of governance for Sri Lanka. A consensus on federalism was evident in what Sri Lankan and world leaders had to say.

Both the opening and closing speeches of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, as well as the speech by the US Under Secretary of State Richard Armitage referred to a federal system containing the principle of internal self-determination. The final conference statement stated that it "commends both parties for their commitment to a lasting and negotiated peace based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka."

Therefore, five decades after it was first put forward as the main political demand of the Tamil political parties, a federal system has become internationally accepted as the appropriate framework of governance for Sri Lanka. This was a major achievement for which the two very important parties not present at the Tokyo conference should have been there to take the credit. Both the opposition People's Alliance and the LTTE itself could have taken a measure of satisfaction in the entrenchment of the federal consensus to which they had contributed so greatly, albeit in very different ways.

From the time it was first raised as a political demand by the Tamil parliamentary parties, federalism was fiercely opposed by the Sinhalese polity as being a precursor to the final division of the country. But in its draft constitution of August 2000, the former PA government headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga braved its critics to present before Parliament a quasi-federal constitutional arrangement.

And it was the LTTE's single-minded military campaign for a separate Tamil state that forced both the former and present governments to accept the reality of a Tamil dominant north and east that could not be ruled by unilateral fiat from Colombo.

Bringing these parties into the peace process alongside the government and international community would constitute the two prongs of the post-Tokyo agenda for peace.

Main challenge

Ironically, after the Tokyo donor conference the main challenge for the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will not be so much to spend the foreign assistance expeditiously, but to woo the LTTE back into the peace process. Most donors who pledged aid, and notably Japan which pledged a massive USD 1 billion, said that the disbursement of their funds would be conditional on the satisfactory progress of the peace process.

And if a final political settlement were to be the objective, the government would also need to find a way to woo the PA to give its parliamentary support to legalising the final peace agreement, and even interim settlements of which there are likely to be many. Regrettably the success of the government's fund raising efforts at the Tokyo donor conference was not matched by equivalent gains with regard to these two parties.

The PA could not rise above its pettiness to congratulate the government on raising USD 4.5 billion but instead bemoaned the increased indebtedness of the country. As for the LTTE it ignored the matter of the funds raised and instead focused on what the government had failed to do. But with its mantle of sole representative of the Tamil people, the LTTE needs to show more interest in ensuring that this vast sum of money is made available to transform the lives of the poverty-stricken Tamil people and others in the north east.

In order to safeguard the peace process, which underpins the aid that was pledged, the government and LTTE need to speedily recommence peace talks which now stand suspended for almost two months. Unfortunately, the prospects for an immediate breakthrough on this score appear to be dim. In its first public response to the Tokyo conference, the LTTE appeared to be unfazed by the magnitude of the international community's generosity to Sri Lanka.

Instead, it reiterated its justification for not attending the Tokyo conference. It said, "While our leadership has proposed an interim administrative framework, a politico-administrative structure for the Northeast with wider participation of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government has offered a council with a structure and mechanism for the development of the region."

The LTTE also rejected the final declaration of the conference, noting that it was not a party to the deliberations in Tokyo. It said, "The Colombo government, with the active assistance of the facilitator and its international 'tactical' allies has formulated this strategic paper to superimpose its own agenda on the LTTE. This is unacceptable to us."

The LTTE's suspicion that it is being cornered by the Sri Lankan government in concert with the international community is reflected in its assertion that there is a bid to pressurise it into agreeing to unacceptable terms and conditions.

Inadequate proposal

In the week prior to the Tokyo donor conference, and in its last ditch effort to get the LTTE on board for the conference, the government came up with a design of an interim apex authority.

This was a mechanism based on existing law and administrative practices that could cut through layers of bureaucracy and address the LTTE's complaint that the government machinery in the north east was not delivering economic results to the people. But by emphasising only the economic aspects of the LTTE's call for a new and innovative structure, the government failed to satisfy the political aspiration and self-image of the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil people.

It is interesting to note that in his opening address to the donor conference, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe utilised the LTTE's own terminology of "a new and innovative structure" to describe the government's proposed new administrative structure for reconstruction and development in the north east. But his presentation of a more detailed version of this structure does not reveal anything new or innovative that meets the LTTE's stated objective of a politico-administrative framework.

The new "provisional administrative structure" would include "rebuilding the war damaged economy, reconstruction, resettlement and prividing effective delivery of essential services so as to uplift the lives of the people." It would also be "based on four principles specified; namely to be efficient, transparent and accountable; safeguard the interests of all communities in the north east; enable the LTTE to play a significant role, and not be in conflict with the laws of Sri Lanka."

In its first response to the Tokyo conference, the LTTE rejected the government's offer as unacceptable and insufficiently specific. The LTTE appears to be prepared to sit out of the USD 4.5 billion development process indefinitely just as it was prepared to sit out of the Tokyo donor conference despite all the local and international efforts to persuade it to go to Tokyo. And if history is any guide, the LTTE has reason to be confident that little that is positive can happen in the north east over its objections. The fact is that all previous efforts by Sri Lankan governments to solve the ethnic conflict while marginalising the LTTE failed disastrously.

In responding to the LTTE, and persuading it to re-engage in the peace process, the Sri Lankan government needs to recognise more explicitly that the ethnic conflict did not arise simply due to economic or bureaucratic infirmities, but due to the deliberate political marginalisation of the Tamil people.

The interim authority proposed by the government in its effort to convince the LTTE to attend the Tokyo conference failed to give adequate consideration to the LTTE's political needs. What the LTTE really seems to want is a provisional government for the north east that would wield political authority, and not simply be an efficient administrative structure to ensure rapid economic reconstruction.

Bridging gap

One challenge today is to find a way to bridge the gap between what the government is prepared to give and what the LTTE wants. The LTTE's strategy since it suspended peace talks is to keep on asking the government to give more, but without engaging the government in direct negotiations. The LTTE needs to reconsider this strategy of communicating its dissatisfaction via the written word and expecting the government to come up with the proper answer. If the government fails to come up with satisfactory solutions, then it is the duty of the LTTE to supply its own concrete proposals. And the answer can only come through give and take, interaction and engagement at the negotiating table.

Further, the LTTE needs to realise that if the government is to grant it powers of governance over the north east, it should behave in a manner that enables the government to entrust such enormous powers and responsibilities to it. Providing the people with peace and human rights is not only the government's responsibility. It is also the LTTE's shared responsibility. Unfortunately, from the time of the signing of the ceasefire to the present time, there is much to be desired in the conduct of the LTTE in relation to the human rights of the people.

Several civil society statements issued just prior to the Tokyo conference laid out a framework of human rights and pluralism that must surely guide the efforts of the government, LTTE and international facilitators. One civil society statement said that "Because interim arrangements have the power to help shape long-term political and social developments, we believe that human rights guarantees must be built into any new administrative structures for the north and east from the very beginning. Clear and enforceable human rights benchmarks must be made central to the process of monitoring the disbursement of reconstruction funds."

These human rights safeguards are important because over the past 18 months of ceasefire the LTTE has sought to intimidate the political opposition in the north and east in an unacceptable manner, in which political assassinations are a terrifying instrument of eliminating the opposition. It has abducted children for its army and has been smuggling in arms into government-held areas. Such actions cannot continue if the peace process is to enter its next stage, which will see federalism take root in Sri Lanka in the interim period in the form of an interim administration that is controlled but not monopolised by the LTTE.

While the government needs to find a way to provide the LTTE with a politico-administrative structure for the governance of the north east, the LTTE needs to start demonstrating that it will use those powers as a trust for the sake of the people and not for its own dominance. What the LTTE appears to seek is nothing less than an interim government. But democratic governance of any society is about politics, and a willingness to accept pluralism and give and take.

It is not about digging in one's heels, resisting further changes and expecting the other to come up with all the answers.

The second challenge after the Tokyo conference is for the government to bring the opposition PA as a partner into the peace process. The PA's contribution to bringing the principle of devolution of powers on federal lines into the mainstream of public debate needs to be appreciated and utilised at this critical juncture. At present it is clear that the PA is being gracelessly pushed into an oppositional position due to its exclusion from the peace process.

Such an environment in which the peace process is politicised is not conducive to achieving its success. The best way out of this impasse is to get the President and the People's Alliance aboard as active participants in the peace process. The LTTE's support for this move will itself be a major contribution to the ultimate success of the peace process.

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