By Rajeev Sreetharan
In Lanka, the problem isn’t Raviraj, but how soon we’ll forget him. It’s not the politicized humanitarian crisis, but GoSL’s nuanced stances towards A-9 and Mavilaru. It’s not Geneva II’s failure, but its success as a mechanism to mediate international engagement. It’s not Maveerar Naal’s message, but its resemblance to the Mahinda Chintanaya’s ethnic mirror image. It’s not the PTA per se, but also our security forces’ disciplinary history, and what justice shall come of AFC, IDP camps in Vammivedduvan, Palchenai. It’s not LTTE and Serunuwara exodus, but also that SLA strategy values destabilizing Trinco-Batti over repercussions in Kanthale, Koralaipattru. And it’s not the Co-Chairs’ verdict, but also our rising co-dependence upon militarized humanism pursuant of a quasi-Faustian quest for territorial sovereignty.
Of late, it appears we’re so obsessed with history, we’re unable to move forward; in fact, we’re in reverse, sliding from post-2006 to pre-2002. Since we’re regressing, let’s revert to basics:
In your opinion, 3 sentences or less, what actually is the “ethnic conflict”? Ask the person next to you.
Whether that person’s Rambukwella or a rambutan farmer, most will hesitate, then speak. Answers will vary, some leaning ethnically, others politically. All will conclude:
• “yuddaya nevey nam, lankava paradisiyak”
• “yuththam illavittal ilankai sorkammaha irrukkum”
• “if not for war, Lanka is a paradise”
Going forward, international image may emerge as everything. When casual Western news-consumers think Lanka, they think: tsunami, tea, suicide terrorism, cricket. From recent international coverage, appended are abductions, extrajudicial killings, child soldiers, Karuna, and for some, a bit of pop culture, like Jacqueline Fernandez, Miss Sri Lanka 2006, or London based Tamil ragga/hip-hop artist, M.I.A.
However, as some contemplate permutations of Panchayat, majority opinions of the Minority Report, on the ground, negative peace erodes, a battle for the East intensifies, civilian death tolls mount, and accountability is replaced by a script of accusation and counter-accusation, interpretation and counter-interpretation.
Prabakharan’s November message was clear: Lanka’s at a crossroads; the CFA’s defunct; from past regimes to present, the “dove of peace” flutters “from one cage to another”; trust can’t be built vis-a-vis militarized peacemaking; no other option remains but pursuing an independent state.
The reinstatement of the PTA and failed suicide assassination attempt on the Defense secretary, like the Heroes’ Day speech, reflect GoSL-LTTE axis polarization on diplomatic and military fronts. To derail Lanka from it’s current path, the list of obstacles is running: monsoon season; swelling Tamil-Muslim refugee populations in the East; A-9 closure, a central artery for aid distribution to the North; deteriorating security environ; frozen funds for relief; in concert, all fan a Malthusian crisis in Jaffna where half-a-million live on one meal-a-day.
At the moment, Rock, Alston, and Coomaraswamy are more threatening to Rajapakse than Prabakharan. Post-9/11, with the emerging anti-terror regime, democratization regime, and evolution of American hegemony slowly ceding to a new geometry including China, Russia, and India, it seems internationalizing civil conflict is like playing with fire, as we see in Darfur, Iraq: as rebel, you risk isolation-cum-intervention, as semi-failed state, scrutiny-cum-isolation.
This past summer, GoSL synched with the “war on terror”, advocating Canadian/EU bans of the LTTE. This move has temporarily placed the GoSL under a humanitarian microscope. Last month, the Co-Chairs met in Washington apropos the deteriorating war environ. US undersecretary Nicholas Burns captured the international community’s overarching stance: LTTE are terrorists, “faith in the government” but also concern of its “use of military power against civilians and against aid workers,” and condemnation of “the continued and systematic ceasefire violations by the Government of Sri Lanka as well as by the LTTE.”
Alongside, the U.N. and SLMM have criticized the GoSL and LTTE, amidst a failed Geneva II, escalating conflict, and eroding commitments to the CFA. Besides leveling charges against LTTE’s conduct, the criticisms allege government collusion in a laundry list of post-9/11 no-nos: human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, child soldier abduction/recruitment, recently highlighted by links to Karuna, and SLA involvement in the French NGO Action Contra la Faim massacre, killing 17 aid workers back in August. Human Rights Watch has also urged both parties for increased civilian protection, Amnesty International, for greater international engagement in investigations, “in light of decades of impunity for perpetrators of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Sri Lanka.”
If international attention persists, prospects of the GoSL realizing post-EU ban polarities, a fully isolated LTTE and fully democratization-regime-aligned GoSL, may give way to post-AFC polarities, a fully isolated LTTE with increased international empathy, and a GoSL whose democratization-regime alignment is jostled by international perception. If sustained, this could catalyze power balance, the conflict cycle, and peace negotiations to gradually shift focus from GoSL-LTTE politico-military parity, to an emerging symmetry of international isolation: for the LTTE, terrorism, the GoSL, human rights.
In mainstream discourse, some issues should be addressed. Firstly, the SLFP-UNP MoU is a consolidation of the southern consensus, which granted, would create clearer lines of bipolarity on the GoSL-LTTE axis. However, SLFP-UNP détente or escalation at the moment, has negligible impact on the militarized North-South tension and humanitarian crisis, which dominate the conflict cycle, define platforms of international engagement. Secondly, from India in the short, beyond recent reportage of Gandhi and Singh apropos privation and the de-merger, expect little more than Aishwarya Rai/Vedivel on your cinema screens. India has recapitulated “diplomatic distance” for months, justifiably preoccupied with its greater stake in a changing world order and the challenge of meeting surging domestic energy demands. As long as Dehli can pump capital to its periphery, stabilizing its domestic economy, the pull of Rajiv Gandhi’s ghost on Manmohan will counterbalance Karunanidhi. Thirdly, the desired LTTE ban, is less about GoSL’s position towards the LTTE, more about it’s position towards the negative peace dividend and how it foresees the option of peace talks as a means for realizing its ends vis-à-vis management of domestic/international actors.
From Vijaya-Ellalan to Rajapakse-Prabakharan, the ethnic conflict is a narrative of neglect. And from neglect, asymmetry. From asymmetry, grievance. From grievance, identity. From identity, ethnolinguism. From ethnolinguism, politics. From politics, militancy. And from bloodletting, the necessary illusion of military necessity.
If Iraq’s the new Vietnam, Lanka’s a trailer for Cambodia on time lapse, a tit-for-tat slow-motion genocide, with echoes of self-determination in East Timor, Palestine, Kosovo, state failure in Sudan, Iraq, Congo. If there’s Democracy in Lanka, it’s like Iraq’s – a “democratic Monet”: democracy from afar, atomistic ethno-democracy up close, in Lanka’s case, hued with ethno-populist brushstrokes.
What’s ahead? Arguably more violence. The polarized GoSL-LTTE axis illuminates a darker side to the conflict cycle, a shadow peace process’s de omnibus dubitandum, a shadow state’s casus belli. Given the predisposition to pursue political compromise on the battlefield, in the coming weeks as war escalates, we may see certain political epithets morph to political oxymorons: “military solution,” “national security,” “public order,” “united Lanka.” Building peace will become messier, semi-axiomatic of evolving international images of the parties, agendas less humanitarian, more Hobbesian, a warpath less Clausewitz, more Gueverra, and a conflict cycle less Kriesberg, more M.C. Escher given the cyclical and labyrinthine soul of constructive conflict de-escalation in Lanka.
As the international community idles, peace talks fall apart; the center holds; quasi-anarchy is loosed upon civil society. In light of the Maveerar Naal manifesto and Rajapakse Administration’s gahuwoth gahanawa policy, the parties momentarily in unison chant si vis pacem, para bellum.
Not everyone can see war, but its winds have arguably settled in the ethos like chicken koniya in our mosquitoes. In places like Kolpitya the writing’s on the wall. In other places like Vakarai, it’s on their skulls. It seems the CFA, was less conflict transformation, more the war holding its breath.
We must remember peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice. What we feel today, coastal villages have felt for months, Lanka’s children for years, the diaspora for decades in their memories. It’s that seeming certainty of uncertainty, insecurity of human security. It’s Machiavelli whistling Mozart on a Monet.
Despite present dispositions, the peace process isn’t a peacenik’s pipedream, and returning to the negotiating table is still in the cards.
So, to answer – what is the ethnic conflict – we must first answer, how are we governed where we live? Does Lanka want peace or war? Does Lanka want sons to bury their fathers, or fathers to bury their sons?
Rama never claimed to be an erudite lawyer. However in Ranasinghe v Wijendra, reported in 74 New Law Reports, Justice Weeramantry, after an exhaustive review of the relevant case law, accepted Rama’s submissions. This case still stands as one of the leading authorities on criminal misappropriation.