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Full Text of Address by Mr. Miguel Bermeo, the UN Resident Coordinator of Sri Lanka to mark UN Day 2006:

Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs
Acting Foreign Secretary and colleagues
Heads of UN Agencies
Partners
Children
Friends from the Media
Colleagues

On behalf of the United Nations System in Sri Lanka, I warmly welcome you all today for the flag hoisting ceremony to celebrate the 61st United Nations Day. I want to convey my special and sincere thanks to Mr. Mangala Samaraweera, Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs for accepting our invitation to be the Chief Guest here today. His presence here at the UN Compound – the 1st in his capacity as the Foreign Minister- is a symbol of the long standing and mutually beneficial co-operation between the Government of Sri Lanka and the United Nations.

I will now read out the message by Mr. Kofi Annan the UN Secretary General on the 61st United Nations Day– his last such message before he steps down at the end of the year.

“For the tenth and last time as Secretary-General, I offer friends and colleagues around the world my best wishes on United Nations Day. I have spent almost my whole professional life working for the United Nations – so this day, and the values that it stands for, will always be special for me.

Over the past ten years, we have made some big steps forward in our common struggle for development, security and human rights.

•Aid and debt relief have increased, making the world economy somewhat fairer.

•At last, the world is scaling up its response to HIV/AIDS.

•There are fewer wars between States than there used to be; and many civil wars have ended.

•More Governments are elected by, and accountable to, the people whom they govern.

•And all States have acknowledged, at least in words, their responsibility to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

But there is so much that still needs doing:

•The gap between rich and poor continues to grow.

•Very few countries are on track to reach all eight of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

•Many people still face atrocities, repression, and brutal conflicts.

•The nuclear non-proliferation regime requires urgent attention.

•Terrorism, and the reaction to it, are spreading fear and suspicion

It seems we don’t even agree which threats are most important. Those who live in small islands may see global warming as the biggest danger. Those who live in a city that has suffered terrorist attacks – like New York, or Mumbai, or Istanbul – may feel that confronting terrorism is more urgent. Others again may cite poverty, disease, or genocide.

The truth is, these are all global threats. All of us should be concerned about all of them. Otherwise, we may not succeed in dealing with any of them.

At this time of all times, we cannot afford to be divided. I know that you, the peoples of the world, understand this. Thank you for all the support and encouragement you have given me, throughout these ten difficult but exciting years.

Please urge your leaders to work with my successor, and make the United Nations ever stronger and more effective.
Long live our planet, and its peoples. Long live the United Nations!”

Like the Secretary General, this also marks my last time as RC/HC of the United Nations in Sri Lanka to celebrate UN Day with you all.

Therefore, allow me today to begin my remarks by addressing all UN personnel in the country. For the last four and a half years, I have had the privilege of working with all of you. In a world in which the UN is increasingly accused of not doing enough, being too slow, too bureaucratic, it is all of you who through your work provide daily sustenance to the principles and ideals that the organisation is founded upon.

I want to acknowledge each and everyone of you for your contributions to the United Nations programmes in Sri Lanka.
I pay special tribute to all our field staff national and international who work tirelessly in partnership and support of local authorities and the communities they serve. Many of them work long hours in tough conditions and away from families and friends. Theirs is a commitment that is truly inspiring and serves as the backbone of what the United Nations organization is today.

All humanitarian workers whether UN, NGO, national or international have a right to be protected and nothing should ever come in the way to achieve that right. It is distressing to recall the brutal and needless killings of our 17 colleagues from Action Contre La Faim. This should never happen again.

In a few days time I will leave this beautiful and remarkable island at a time when the challenges facing it can seem overwhelming. It’s with sadness that I depart not seeing the dream of peace fulfilled yet.

There is no higher aim for the UN in Sri Lanka than to work for sustainable peace and development. That is the UN’s mandate here.

Let us not forget the resilience of the people of this country who have not only had to endure long years of conflict but who also had to face one of nature’s cruelest assaults, the tsunami.

The tsunami brought out the best of the people in Sri Lanka in an outstanding display of solidarity and generosity. It is my earnest hope that these qualities expressed most vividly during the early days of the tsunami will now once again flourish and lead to the sustained peace that we all yearn for.

Mr. Minister, it was very heartening to note that His Excellency, President Mahinda Rajapakse in his address to the 61st General Assembly Session re-affirmed Sri Lanka’s faith in the United Nations and its ideals enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

Likewise, on behalf of the United Nations system in Sri Lanka I too reiterate our commitment to continue to work in close cooperation and in partnership with the people and government of Sri Lanka in pursuit of that noble aim.

As I leave this wonderful country I cannot but recall the many faces that will be forever etched on my memory. Visiting Hambantota in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, we came upon an old man sitting alone amidst the rubble looking intently towards the ocean. He had the most vacant look I had ever encountered.

We asked him if there was anything he needed. “I don’t need anything,” he said. “I’m just waiting for my wife to return.”

I would like to leave Sri Lanka with the thought of another kind of look. One that looks towards the future, and away from the past. One where there is optimism and lasting hope for peace to return.

LONG LIVE SRI LANKA!

Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga who was appointed a senior consultant to UNESCO for education in Asia has asked the world body to exclude Sri Lanka from her area of responsibility, her office said yesterday.

While initially focusing on South Asia, Ms. Kumaratunga requested that Sri Lanka be excluded, her office said in a statement.

The appointment came at the invitation of UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and UNESCO Director General K. Matsura.Ms. Kumaratunga’s office refuted various news items and insulting comments and cartoons carried in the government media, as well as the private media, saying she was pleading for jobs from international organizations.

Ms. Kumaratunga said since retiring from the presidency, several governments and international organizations had invited her to attend many conferences and seminars where she delivered keynote addresses and that she had no reason to plead for jobs. [dailymirror.lk]

By Rajan Philips

A famous Canadian Prime Minister (Pierre Trudeau) once famously said: “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” The wisdom could be extended to say that the state has no business in the newsrooms of the nation either.

The recent sacking of Rajpal Abeynayake from the editorship of Sunday Observer may not be more than a storm in a Colombo tea cup. But his sacking on a directive by the country’s Head of State and Head of Government (to recall former President Kumaratunga’s titular insistence during her co-habitation with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe) is symptomatic of everything that has gone wrong and is going wrong with island’s state and its institutions.

First, it is reasonable to ask if the business of a country’s newspaper is really the business of the country’s President. Given the legion of advisers that a President has at public expense, it is also fair to ask if they are serving their boss and their country well by making newspaper business the president’s business.

Second, if the firing of the editor is performance-based, as has been reported, the question should be asked if the editor was previously advised of any concern over his performance, or given the opportunity to discuss such concern with the Board of Directors. Is not an employee entitled to a fair hearing? Was not President Rajapakse once the proud promoter of a Workers’ Charter?

Third, the government argument is that the editor of a state newspaper is free to publish criticisms of the government written by others but the editor himself is not free to write critically of the government. This is an absurd argument, for an editor who does not feel free or is not allowed to criticize the government will never publish anything critical of the government.

It is not difficult to predict that the new editor of Sunday Observer will not dare publish anything critical of the government, let alone criticize it himself. He will be his master’s voice and run an official newsletter. The readers will lose interest and the paper even the little credibility a state run paper can ever muster.

Rajpal Abeynayake may not have been the perfect editor, but could there be one ever? In terms of performance, it has been reported that during his short stint the circulation of the weekly increased significantly. Perhaps his most remarkable achievement was in providing space in his paper for a wide ranging and diametrically opposing points of view on the ethnic question. For once, independent progressive viewpoints were able to have their day in the Sunday Observer.

Unfortunate instances of his imperfection, in my view, were the personal attacks on Radhika Coomaraswamy, Nimalka Fernando, Qadri Ismail, Jehan Perera, Kumar Rupasinghe, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and Jayadeva Uyangoda. With good advice, he could have avoided this blemish on his record, but it is unlikely that anyone in the presidential entourage lost any sleep over these attacks.

There is no denying that Rajpal Abeynayake’s appointment as the editor of Sunday Observer was itself a political appointment. But that is something Sri Lankans have got accustomed to ever since the Lake House Papers were taken over the government in 1974. Every election causes editorial changes at the Lake House. It is reported that in the mass circulated Sinhalese newspapers of the Lake House there have been 14 editorial appointments in the last 12 years.

But firing an editor midway through a government’s tenure is rather unusual, and certainly beyond the pale insofar as journalistic ethics go. And to fire an editor on a presidential order because of a critical column is nothing less than abuse of power.

For an exemplary illustration of a healthy state-press relationship in Sri Lanka, one might recall Tarzie Vittachi’s hilariously satirical ‘Fly-by-night’ political columns in, yes, the Sunday Observer during the premiership of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. In that motley MEP cabinet of his there were many calls to punish Vittachi, but one powerful voice blunted them all.

The voice was the irrepressible voice of Philip Gunawardena, the Marxist, who respected press freedom even though the Lake House had made every effort to denigrate him and his Sama Samja twin, N.M. Perera, from the moment they made their political entrance in the State Council in 1936.

It is also inconceivable that even without Philip’s support SWRD would have done anything against Tarzie Vittachi. He was a liberal who knew how to write – a rarity among our long list of Prime Ministers and Presidents, and who picked out and encouraged journalists. Vittachi carried on – despite calling Bandaranaike the ‘Electric Eel’ week after week in his column.

All of this changed with the take over of the Lake House and the prolonged closure of the Sun group of newspapers by the United Front government of the 1970s, and the harassment, physical intimidation and even killing of journalists that has become the norm since the UNP government of the late 1980s.

On the eve of the 1974 Lake House take over, Colvin R de Silva, the United Front Government’s most voluble minister, ventured the promise that eventually the state will divest itself of the ownership of the Lake House and vest it in the hands of the people.

In contrast, S. Nadesan, the wily and redoubtable civil rights lawyer, warned that no government will ever give up the Lake House and that after each election the party coming into power will use the Lake House as its propaganda machine. Nadesan’s practicality, rather than Colvin’s rhetoric, has turned out to be true so far, with the alternating partisan control of the Lake House being in its twenty-second year.

By Rajan Philips

A. J. Canakaratne, who passed away on 10 October 2006, has been endearingly described as Jaffna’s Regi Siriwardene. AJ was a great admirer of Regi, would have even considered Regi to be his mentor and did go on to edit and publish Regi’s writings, but in the circumstances of Jaffna the role that AJ played is beyond comparison.

For almost all his life, save for his university years at Peradeniya and his short stay at the Lake House in Colombo, AJ lived in Jaffna – in fair weather and foul, in sunshine and in rain, in the good times of yesteryears and through the traumas of the last twenty years. Jaffna is nothing without its premium on schools and students and AJ belonged to a generation when Jaffna students were encouraged to take to arts and humanities unlike the later generations who were stampeded into a narrow cramming of the sciences. It was this grounding that enabled AJ to be a unique resource as a literary and social critic in Jaffna.

After his early education at St. Patrick’s College, a bastion of Catholic conservatism, AJ studied English (Honours) at Peradeniya under the likes of E.F.C. Ludowyk and Doric de Souza both effervescent and progressive intellectuals of their time and every time. From Peradeniya English, AJ took the by then well-trekked path to the Features page in the Ceylon Daily News. What might have turned out to be a lifelong career at the Lake House was cut short by AJ’s inadvertent act of non-compliance with a directive from Esmond Wickremasinghe, then the Managing Editor of the Daily News.

This was the 1960s and the Minister of Education in the first Sirimavo Bandaranike government, Badudin Mahmud, decided to open the admission to Royal Primary to all island competition rather than limit it to the children of Old Boys and other notables in Colombo. For reasons that are not difficult to surmise, Esmond Wickremasinghe wanted Mahmud’s move criticized and asked the Features Editor to assign the task to one of the feature writers. The task fell on AJ, who did his research, spoke to sources at Royal College and concluded that the Minister’s decision was a popular one and was welcomed by those who ran the school. AJ reported back to his editor that there was nothing to criticize and the two decided not to write anything on the matter.

When AJ’s finding came up at the editors’ meeting, Esmond Wickremasinghe’s face reportedly turned “crimson” although he kept his quiet. The fall out came not long after with the shoving of AJ from the Features section to the news room. AJ got the message and took the Mail Train to Jaffna, a rare return journey of the permanent kind. For over hundred years Jaffna has been an out-migration community – more people leaving the peninsula than coming in to earn a livelihood - with hardly any middle-class economic space except for teachers, who have been aplenty, and much fewer lawyers and doctors.

AJ’s father was the well known Proctor Canakaratne of Jaffna. Of his two younger brothers – Selvam Canakaratne settled down in Colombo becoming the Managing Director of Ceylon Printers besides continuing his panache for free lance writing, and Dr. S. G. Canakaratne joined the academia first serving the Chemistry Department at Peradeniya and now a Professor in Ohio, USA.

Although not a place for careers, Jaffna offers, rather it used to offer, its unique charms, customs, challenges and complexities to anyone with patience, curiosity and commitment. The source of Jaffna’s cultural and intellectual pride is its unique traditions of commentary on Tamil literature and in the practice of Hinduism both of which set Jaffna apart from the mass of Tamil speakers in South India. To its credit, the practice of Hinduism in Jaffna did not prevent the Christian and Muslim Tamils making their own contribution to Tamil literature and society, and to the creation of a truly secular political culture. Arumuga Navalar’s precept – “English for the body and Saivam for the soul” - exemplifies the source and success of this ethos.

It is no exaggeration to say that AJ created his own niche within this ethos and this tradition, and his role was well recognized during his lifetime even as he was respected and loved by everyone who came to know him. It will also be remembered and celebrated by future generations of Tamil literati. AJ’s uniqueness stems from his academic and intellectual background that was almost entirely English and not at all in Tamil classics. This enabled him to develop his own personality in Tamil prose that was closer to common usage yet rigourous and substantive in content, rather than the alliterative embellishments that provide easy titillations but leave no lasting impact on the reader.

He began and continued to be Jaffna’s main, if not the only, gateway between the outside intellectual world and its native players. His first book in Tamil, Mattu (churn-staff), a translation of well chosen English essays on literature, culture and politics, heralded his arrival on the Tamil literary scene. His later commentaries on contemporary Tamil literature created a following not only in Jaffna and Sri Lanka but also in Chennai and South India.

What made AJ lovable to his many friends and followers were his simplicity, humility and affability. He was a pedant to many and in more ways than one. In a society where those with ‘little English’ tend to think no end of themselves, AJ was the affable resource who needed help in English. AJ’s resourcefulness was institutionalized when Jaffna was finally given a university of its own and AJ was given a teaching position in the University. His wit and humour became an integral part of Common Room conversations and university life itself.

He did not give up on journalism; rather journalism in Jaffna came to him for help. For years, he edited and published The Co-operator, the journal of Jaffna’s once vibrant co-operative movement. When the Saturday Review was started, AJ was once again an automatic resource for the new weekly. The now defunct weekly epitomized the limitations and defiance of Tamil politics and nationalism. Saturday Review was the face of Jaffna’s defiance to its oppression and occupation by government forces that began in 1979 and has not been let up since.

AJ stuck with Jaffna through its years of trial and tribulation. He walked the fine line between the occupying army and the infighting militants, but without sacrificing his intellectual independence. He did not become a ghost writer or an apologist for any of the Tamil groups, as many others did. AJ was not brought up to be a supine fellow traveler of any group, although he had views – critically reflective views – on all of them. They were very well known in the grape vine of Jaffna. He dubbed the men of the cloth who slavishly support the LTTE – “white tigers.” He equally poured scorn on the so called Tamil Democrats who religiously hold that the troubles of the Tamils only began with the LTTE and can only end with it. AJ called them “stark raving nuts.”

I have known AJ for forty years, from my school days when AJ was editing the Co-operator, later trying to start a political periodical in Jaffna, and finally when I was on the Board of Governors of the Saturday Review. I last saw him in Jaffna in 2004, and previously in 2002, soon after the ceasefire, in the company of Rev. Paul Caspersz, Dr. Kumar David, Marshal Fernando, Dr. Vijaya Kumar, and Jayaratne Malliyagoda – some of us returning to Jaffna to commemorate our visit twenty three years earlier as part of the first fact finding the delegation of the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) during the Emergency Rule of 1979. AJ had translated into Tamil the MIRJE publication: Emergency ’79.

In 2002, he gave us the most penetrating analysis of the situation in Jaffna and the prospects for a permanent peace. As he put it, it called for a leap of faith for a Tamil to believe that the UNP that burnt the Jaffna Library in 1981 and burnt the PA’s Constitutional Draft in Parliament in 2000 would deliver a lasting solution to the Tamil question. In the musical chairs that is Colombo politics, it really does not matter who is in power, and the echo from Colombo is anything but music in Jaffna.

AJ left Jaffna earlier this year for medical treatment in Colombo. That became his last journey out of the peninsula. He died and was buried in Colombo, but he will live in the collective memory of Jaffna’s literati wherever they are.

By A. Kandappah

“Sri Lanka and India are two countries whose golden beaches are washed by the waters of the same sea.”

I used the immortal expressions of the Bard to welcome you only the other day when a large group of friends hosted you at that Farewell Luncheon. I chose poetry and literature because that is the dominating part of your versatile personality. What is not - those close to you would ask?

I am sure there are many in this country who will agree you conquered many a heart for you and for India in your tenure here through your able but quiet diplomacy, you willingly sharing your literary talents, poetry and your social grace. But to you, pretty lady - as friend and “friend” rush to describe you. What indeed is not? History - ancient, modern, Indian or Sri Lankan. The past few weeks have been a crowded itinerary of lunches, teas, dinners and. the like - convincing evidence - if indeed evidence is required at all - of the vast reservoir of friends you have gained for you and India during your stay.

The political health of Sri Lanka continues to engage the up and down curves as in the recent past decades - a consequence all of our making and which I fear, will spill over for sometime - unless we learn to come to terms among ourselves. The remedy, as is suggested by our friends and well-wishers, must come from within or, if you prefer the overworked cliché - “home-grown.”

From the proximity I am sometimes said to enjoy, I know you have done as much as any of your predecessors for this country to regain her lost racial equilibrium. Indo-Lanka ties were taken to loftier heights and higher serenity by your labour of love, if you will allow me. It is this feature that enabled President Rajapaksa, and - before him President Chandrika, Foreign Ministers the late Lakshman Kadirgamar and the incumbent Mangala Samaraweera as, indeed other Lankan leaders both here and in New Delhi, to claim almost in unison “Indo-Lankan relations are at their warmest and most cordial”. A predictable query will be - what makes such a relationship possible despite the turbulent political complexities of our time in the region? To deny conceding it is surely due to the dedicated work of those distinguished men and women chosen as envoy in Colombo to India - the largest democracy in the world - will not only be unjust but equally unbecoming.

In a more personal angle, I recall with gratitude and happiness the many moments you provided me with - at the expense of more pressing State business - both at India House and the Chancery - to reflect on a wide variety of topics on which our mutual interests converged. The changing scene in the world of the English Language where Indian writers and poets now make a strong showing; the sights, sounds and culture of Kerala; the relationship of our two countries in the recent past, the present and the future - outside the rocky terrain of real politick.

Your continued emphasis that both countries are “equal partners” in their quest to usher in a better tomorrow for both our peoples was touching. That there was hardly any hint at the asymmetry between our two countries - in size, population, economic strength and place in world affairs in the process of discussion - was not merely pleasing but also sans that Big Brother syndrome that is said to have occasionally soured mutual relations whenever they cropped up now and then to be forgotten quickly. But isn’t such temporary downturns inevitable even in the most personal and precious attachments - even between nations? how many will know the deep concern and your assurance at that lunch “you will always have, deep in your head, the peace, the well-being and the happiness of all Sri Lankans in mind” - carefully structured words that generates so much comfort.

Your illustrious predecessors Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Shiv Shankar Menon, Nareshwar Dayal et al - to name just a few - shared with their friends here similar thoughts to underline the inexhaustible fund of goodwill Indians have for this land and all her people. Some of these distinguished diplomats - now elevated to higher realms of the Indian State machinery - keep in touch with some of us insisting they be kept posted of events here. To me this wish cannot but be symbolic of their love of Sri Lanka and their oft-declared wish to see a peaceful and united Sri Lanka. In our talks on the nature and content of the relationship between the two countries, I recall referring to the considered thoughts of leaders of yester-year. Specifically, the inspiring thoughts of the Mahatma himself.

“It is, as it should be, impossible for India and Sri Lanka to quarrel.”

I felt the Mahatma was taking upon himself the role of a family elder - passionately feeling for that relationship and expressing horror even at the painful thought of a minor quarrel among the two parties. That is the eloquent message that greets visitors honoured with a visit to you at the Chancery conveyed in that expressive statue of Gandhi in your office foyer. And now, Beijing beckons you and you must go for Mother India’s sake to China, the economic powerhouse of today and tomorrow; a nation whose fortunes will reflect on the fortunes of the world. You being carefully chosen by your leadership to man that vital post, to many of us, in high-school language, will be “a double promotion” as I mentioned that day.

Mani Shankar Iyer expressed it best when he said “We wanted to send the best we have to that coveted Post in the Indian diplomatic service” and that tells it all. Indo-Lankan friendship has long survived time, the elements and occasional man-made challenges. The sacrosanct bond withers them all and remains stronger than ever before. Doubtless, like in all close relationships there are bound to be “muddy patches here and there” as charmingly described by your erudite predecessor Lakhan Lal Mehrotra but they vanish into obscurity as fast as they come. It is also said though we are two different countries and two different peoples, in many ways, we remain one as poignantly described by Poet-Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, when he visited Sri Lanka in the late 1970s in the capacity of a Union Minister:“Sri Lanka and India are two countries whose golden beaches are washed by the waters of the same sea.”

By Jehan Perera

The high cost of the military battle on the northern forward defense lines at Muhamalai could lead to a re-appraisal of the government’s strategy in relation to the LTTE. The past several weeks saw the government utilizing the military to inflict substantial losses on the LTTE. Many accolades were bestowed upon President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bold leadership. But the severe losses suffered by the army at Muhamalai, in which about 500 soldiers were either killed or incapacitated in a few hours of fighting might induce the government to reconsider its strategy. It might motivate the government to take the forthcoming Geneva talks with the LTTE more seriously.

On the other hand, there would be pressure on the government to make another attempt to secure a military victory elsewhere to be a morale booster prior to the talks. Great leaders in world history have made the mistake of over reaching themselves in seeking military conquest. Great victories give them confidence that greater ones were possible. Napoleon Bonaparte made this mistake when he decided to send his victorious French army fresh from the conquests of Europe into the vast deepness of Russia. On a much smaller scale was Anuruddha Ratwatte’s bid to open up the A9 highway to Jaffna through the LTTE-controlled Wanni. After the initial success came over-reaching, over-confidence and finally disaster.

During the past few months the Sri Lankan armed forces notched up significant victories against the LTTE. They captured LTTE-held territory in the east that had posed a security threat to the Trincomalee harbour during the period of the Ceasefire Agreement. These victories were not easy, but they were significant, and the inability of the LTTE to hold on to territory suggested a weakening of the organization. From the pro-war perspective this seemed to be the worst time for the government to stop its military action and to start talking. This accounts for the feelings of scepticism about the forthcoming Geneva talks that mounted after the government announced that the talks would not prevent the Sri Lankan military from taking necessary military actions.

It is to be hoped that the humility that comes from tasting the fruits of both victory and defeat will imbue the peace talks that are expected to be held in Geneva at the end of October with a seriousness of purpose. Over confidence from repeated military victories could have doomed those peace talks from the outset. It is basic that peace talks have to be about accommodating each other’s interests. But those who are over confident because of their imagined strength are likely to be less inclined to be accommodative to the concerns of others, which is necessary for the conflict resolution process to be successful.

Inducting Change

The difficulties in the way of a shift from a militaristic to a political approach to conflict resolution at this time must not be under estimated. Although the government and LTTE have agreed to meet for talks in Geneva, the agenda for the talks has yet to be set. At the last round of talks in June this year in Oslo, the LTTE refused to meet with the government delegation on the grounds that it was not a ministerial delegation. Although the LTTE has shown flexibility in accepting to meet once again in Geneva without conditions, they also served a warning that any more fighting would mean that they would pull out of the talks. Their recent military success in Muhamalai might add to their own sense of power and confidence.

So far it has seemed that both the government and LTTE were only agreeing to talks due to the pressure being put on them by the international community. There is evidence for this pressure in the form of three top international trouble shooters coming to Sri Lanka this week. They are Jon Hanssen Baur, and Yasushi Akashi, the Norwegian and Japanese government’s special envoys respectively to the peace process, and Richard Baucher of the US Department of State. However, these international messengers of peace have been here in the past as well, without any noticeable impact on the peaceful intentions of the two parties. They can only be effective if the government and LTTE are responsive to the need for talks.

On this occasion, however, there is the possibility that the recent military setbacks suffered by both the government and LTTE in different parts of the country and at different times might induce them to change their approach to the conflict resolution process.

In particular, the induction of the opposition UNP into the government could contribute significantly to a fundamental change of approach on the part of the government. During its brief but eventful tenure of government, the UNP adopted a non-military approach that relied on open boundaries, market-led economic development and international support to weaken the impetus to war.

Among the different approaches that Sri Lankan governments have used in the past, it is the UNP’s approach to conflict resolution that it started to implement at the end of 2001 that had the greatest degree of success.

On the other hand, there were major weaknesses in the UNP’s approach. The UNP government did not give a positive response to the demands of the Muslim community for separate representation at the peace talks and failed to act effectively on the pleas of non-LTTE Tamil parties to stop their murder and decimation by the LTTE.

The UNP government also failed to set up an interim administration for the north east, even though its election manifesto promised this. It is to be hoped that these shortcomings will be rectified in the future especially if the UNP joins with the government in taking forward the peace process.

UNP Dilemmas

The UNP’s willingness to work together with the government in six areas, primarily of the peace process, good governance, electoral reform, nation building, economic development and social development is a potentially very positive development for which there is overwhelming public support as well. A successful collaboration will mark the first time that a bipartisan government that includes the major opposition party has come into existence. There is a mutual understanding that their joining together should not mean that the small radical and nationalist parties should claim the mantle of being the democratic opposition. This accounts for the unique feature that the UNP will continue to sit in the opposition benches.

But this unique feature also contains a disadvantage. It can lead the UNP to not commit itself fully to the success of the bipartisan venture. It is evident that sections within both the government and UNP are not in favour of the two parties working tgether. Some within the government may be apprehensive that the government’s vision may be diluted as a result of the entry of the UNP, and that the UNP will withdraw from the partnership at the first sign of trouble. At the same time, some in the UNP may be apprehensive that they will not be able to implement their own vision and instead be railroaded into being part of the government’s approach.

There is a perspective that the UNP should support the government in the six areas that have been agreed on, but without accepting ministerial portfolios. Many honourable and valid reasons can be given for this position. These include not violating the people’s mandate to confine the UNP to the opposition, not putting a further burden on the public purse, not doing good for personal gain, and so on.

But the bottom line is that an agreement to support from outside only, will put less responsibility upon the UNP. Such a limited partnership is unlikely to yield a fundamental change in the government’s approach to conflict resolution because the UNP will not have the moral or political right to demand such a change.

In these circumstances the best guarantee of mutual commitment to the new partnership would come if the UNP is prepared to accept a significant number of cabinet positions, as offered by President Rajapaksa. This will ensure that the UNP’s perspective is effectively represented within the government, and also that the UNP will make a sincere effort to ensure the success of the partnership, as they too will be held responsible for its failure.

At the present time there seems to be no better hope than a full and genuine partnership between the government and UNP to generate a new approach to conflict resolution that can save the country and its people from more death, destruction and despair. [dailymirror.lk]