From Kosovo to Colombo?

"If fresh talks of the kind erupt on the Sri Lankan scene this time round, it would owe mainly to the Colombo Government's hasty reaction to Kosovo. In comparison, the LTTE continued to weigh its options for long. In a way, this even contrasted with the spirit of LTTE political wing leader, B Nadesan's end-January letter to UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. In the said letter, the LTTE urged the UN chief to "recognize Tamil sovereignty as a constructive approach to end…. the violations against the Tamil people".
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by N Sathiya Moorthy

(February 25, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The temptation is too high, not to make comparisons between the 'unilateral declaration of independence' (UDI) in Kosovo and the prevailing LTTE posturing in Sri Lanka. Not very long ago, Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle claimed that the LTTE would go the UDI way a couple of days after the Tamil harvest festival of Pongal in mid-January.

Now after Kosovo, no one should be surprised if the rumour-mill begins over-working on the same score in Sri Lanka, timing it this time around the Tamil New Year in mid-April. It is the kind of talk that has gone on for years but has acquired an added vigour and relevance, no thanks to the 'Kosovo development'.

If fresh talks of the kind erupt on the Sri Lankan scene this time round, it would owe mainly to the Colombo Government's hasty reaction to Kosovo. In comparison, the LTTE continued to weigh its options for long. In a way, this even contrasted with the spirit of LTTE political wing leader, B Nadesan's end-January letter to UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. In the said letter, the LTTE urged the UN chief to "recognize Tamil sovereignty as a constructive approach to end…. the violations against the Tamil people".

It does not stop there. Coupled with the UDI by Kosovo-Albanians, and also similar demands that are beginning to emanate from Bosnian-Serbs and others, the Sri Lankan Government may have played into the hands of the LTTE and other separatist Tamil groups that may not be as militant or as committed as the LTTE. The focus of their deliberations and discourses relate to 'extra-territorial sovereignty' – or, at least the inevitable emergence of the same and its acceptance, as well.

For long now, determined, though muted voices, have emanated from the Sri Lankan Tamils for the international community to re-visit issues such as 'sovereignty' and 'territorial integrity' as the bench-marks for a 'nation-State' to be recognised as such. The voice from the Diaspora has been consistent for long. It has grown shriller with every military defeat of the LTTE in recent months.

It was easy to have shrugged off the shoulders, saying that the Diaspora discourses for re-visiting the existing definition of 'nationhood' in a 'wired world without borders' was a part of the military pressures being faced by the LTTE. In political terms, it was an academic rebuttal of the frequently reiterated Indian position on the 'ethnic issue' in Sri Lanka, which underlined the 'sovereignty and territorial integrity' of Sri Lanka, within which the Tamils needed to be given their due rights and place.

Much of the world shared the Indian view, or so it seemed – and the Indian view counted in the Sri Lankan context, whatever the JVP may have to say about it. The initial Indian reaction to the Kosovo UDI also reflected the known Indian sentiments on the subject. "It has been India's consistent position that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be fully respected by all States," the Indian Foreign Office said in this context.
In contrast, Sri Lanka's was a knee-jerk reaction, whatever the justification. For starters, waiting for a day or two for issuing its condemnation of the Kosovo UDI would not have made any difference to the situation on the ground. Even otherwise, the world would have been surprised if the Sri Lankan Government's reaction was anything but what it turned out to be. To be precise, the Colombo statement, either official or otherwise, did not add any new point to the age-old global discourse on such matters.

"The UDI by Kosovo could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations, the established global order of sovereign States and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security," the Sri Lankan Government said in a statement. In a way, it is this that may reopen the 'nationhood discourse' nearer home than the real act of the Kosovo-Albanians declaring UDI in distant Europe.

The Sri Lankan concerns about a possible, if not plausible re-enactment of the 'Kosovo act', by the LTTE in particular, however are for real. If anything, the LTTE had for long been considered a candidate for declaring UDI, long before Kosovo and Bosnia became issues of the kind.

As a nation-State known in the traditional sense of the term, Sri Lanka has been fighting off separatist politico-military tendencies for over three decades, whatever be the provocation and progress. It had begun with the 1976 Vadukottai political resolution of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), and continues still, but as a militant/terrorist movement.

That way, the Kosovo UDI has not only divided the European nation. Nor has it stopped with triggering similar tendencies elsewhere. In the post-War world of 60-plus years, it may soon threaten to divide global institutions like the UN. Russia and China, among the P-5, are clearly opposed to any UN recognition for Kosovo while the UK and Italy, France and Germany have been supportive of the Kosovo UDI. Typical of it, the US has welcomed Kosovo to the comity of nations, but is undecided as yet about backing it for a seat in the UN General Assembly.

If someone is thus reminded about the collapse of the League of Nations, he cannot be mistaken. Nor could he be ignored. Yet, greater damage may await a regional organisation like the European Union. For, there are EU member-nations that are opposed to the Kosovo UDI, what with 'secessionism' of the kind that has been knocking at their doors.

At a time when its emergence as a 'regional government' of sorts is said to be among the chief causes for a 'multi-polar world order', divisions within the EU could sent out a wrong message, all out. How the EU handles the situation, and handles itself would provide clues to the future of the organisation, and the 'new world order'.
It may be easy for the rest of the world to acknowledge the Kosovo UDI, one way or the other. So could they be handling similar issues erupting in Bosnia one day and elsewhere on another day. Sri Lanka may take its turn. That, at best, would be opening a Pandora's Box.

Otherwise, the Kosovo and Bosnian problems have spurt out of issues of ethnicity and culture. Often, culture gets identified with religion, or ethnicity, or both. The reverse is also true. In many a case, language plays its part. Sri Lanka has them all, and in full measure

Perceptions and definitions about 'nation-State' are believed to have served the world well, at least since the end of the Second World War. Yet, when such constructs begin to show strains, the international community may well have to sit up and take notce – not simply accept or reject individual cases on the basis of political expediency, particularly in home constituencies.

When it began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Europe, the West saw it as the collapse of communist ideology on the global front, and the latter's militarist approach to problem-solving on the domestic front. Today, Kosovo, if not Bosnia, have ethnic strands attaching to it.

It could be a different strain tomorrow – and much of the West, the US and the UK, France and Germany included, have one or the other strain embedded in them. Or, there could be other strains, based on the rich-poor divide, or the urban-rural hiatus. If population-centres based on ethnicity and culture are not the dividing lines, as is being argued in the case of the Kosovo UDI, it could be anything, anywhere, any time.

The Kosovo UDI is "particularly regrettable, since all efforts at reaching a negotiated political settlement on the future status of Kosovo, as envisaged by the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, have not been exhausted," the Sri Lankan Government statement said. Regrettable also is the fact that the Colombo Government has not even re-commenced the negotiated path to a political settlement on the 'ethnic issue'.Sure enough, the Kosovo UDI has triggered apprehensions in the Colombo Government, and expectations in the Tamil community. After all, what the international community could not 'do' directly for the Sri Lankan Tamils in the current context of a perceived 'militarist approach' by the Colombo Government, an international development of the Kosovo kind may have achieved.

Kosovo has proved the limitations of a non-negotiable 'militarist approach' in Sri Lanka, where again promises of a political solution has not gone anywhere. It may not be a justification, but it could not stop frustrations, either. If it leads to consequences that the Sri Lankan State and the people could do without, then the Colombo dispensation need only to look at the 'mirror, mirror on the wall'. It's written all over there.

[The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. The views expressed here are those of the writer's, and not of the Foundation.The article was originally published in Daily Mirror , Colombo based daily]