Stop the War and Hang Peace In Sri Lanka

(November 10, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The current controversy that looms large in the Sri Lankan landscape torn by war is whether the on-going military campaign waged by the Sri Lankan government can lead to peace. In fact this issue is being canvassed today at the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSOAS), London, UK., Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu Executive Director, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo. Predictably he has chosen as his theme: Sri Lanka: Can Peace Be Won Through Military Victory?

It is noteworthy that this issue is being raised stridently and persistently by several lobbies – mainly NGOs and Churches -- that are making a bid to halt the advance of the Sri Lankan forces at this critical juncture when they are poised to breakthrough the last defences positioned at the gates of the Tamil Tigers. According to available reports the advancing forces have weakened the entrenched Tamil Tigers and driven them out all the way from the east and are on the verge of driving them out of Killinochchi – the self-proclaimed administrative and political capital of the Tamil Tigers in the north-western region.

The impending fall of Killinochchi and the capture of the northern region extending up to the neck of Jaffna would be a severe blow to the prestige, power and the political authority of the Tamil Tigers who have been claiming that they have established a de facto state. The shrinking territorial space will reduce their capacity to pose as a potential state-in-waiting for acceptance by the international community, or to receive foreign diplomats to a territory demarcated as their own. In military terms too their capacity to wage a full-scale conventional war will be diminished. They will be forced to wage a hit-and-run, low-intensity guerilla war.

By and large, this diminished power will reduce their capacity for bargaining with the Sri Lankan state for a separate state, or enhanced autonomy amounting to a separate state – an intransigent position taken by the leader of the Tamil Tigers, Mr.Velupillai Prabhakaran who has told his body guards to kill him if he fails to establish a sovereign state for the Tamils. Each advancing day seems to bring him closer to his wish. The military fortunes have reversed quite unexpectedly and he is now facing the biggest crisis of his military career. In the face of the coming defeat the last remaining strategy of the Tamil Tigers is to halt the advance of the Sri Lankan forces to recoup, rearm and then launch their next calculated offensives to capture the lost ground.

The peak of the power of the Tamil Tigers was when the former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, signed a Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with Mr. Prabhakaran and Norway (on behalf of the international guarantors) on February 22, 2002. This CFA virtually handed over on a platter the north and the eastern provinces to Mr. Prabhakaran. But before the ink could dry on the Agreement he opened fire and the Scandinavian Peace Monitors recorded that he had violated 95% of the terms and conditions of the CFA by 2005.

Mr. Prabhakaran had earlier sabotaged the first international agreement signed with India. The Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement was signed with the intention of providing a political and constitutional solution to the Tamils which came in the form of provincial councils with a large measure of autonomy. But Mr. Prabhakaran set out to shoot it down because it did not make him the head of an independent Tamil state, Eelam.

At the core of the on-going crisis is the issue of appeasing Mr. Prabhakaran insatiable appetite for power. Talks, negotiations, mediators, facilitators and even international agreements have failed because they all fell short of granting Mr. Prabhakaran his separate state.

For instance, all hopes were pinned on the six rounds of talks facilitated by the Norwegians which went on from September 2002 to April 2003. Peace activists chipped in with their theories of conflict resolution. Sri Lankan government was bending over backwards to end the violence because at the time Mr. Prabhakaran held the upper hand in the battle field. Sri Lankan negotiators were frustrated because the Norwegian facilitators were accused of being blatantly biased in favour of Tamil Tigers primarily because the Tigers were in a commanding position militarily.

It is the military strength of the Tigers that made them more intransigent. It was the reliance on their military capacity to weaken the Sri Lankan forces that gave them the impression that they could override the minimum considerations needed for compromise and insist on dictating their terms arbitrarily. Nevertheless, the talks went along until the Tigers pulled out of talks on April 21, 2004.

However, the Sri Lankan government held on to the CFA hoping to salvage it at some stage through international pressure but the Tigers kept firing at it indiscriminately until the mounting pressure forced the Sri Lankan government to abandon it in January 2008.

In the meantime, the Sri Lankan forces were advancing into Tiger-held territory, having driven the Tigers out from their strongholds in the east. The Sri Lanka forces then opened up fronts in the west and have been advancing to the centre of Tiger power in Killinochchi. It is at this critical stage that the NGOs have leapt into the forefront to stop the war. There has been no concerted or concentrated focus on stopping the war when the Tamil Tigers went on the offensive violating 95% of the terms and conditions of the CFA. The current move to stop the war when the Tigers are on the run is seen by analysts as a naked move to save the Tigers from defeat.

Dr. Paikiasothy has been a leading proponent of this lobby. Predictably, his argument today will be to stress the point that the military campaign cannot bring peace. He will also argue that a political solution should be in place to bring peace. It is unlikely that he will insist on defeating the Tigers as a primary step to restore peace.

The central issue facing the nation now is precisely this: Since the Tigers have been historically the main stumbling bloc for the restoration of peace (having violated international agreements) isn’t the removal of the belligerent and implacable Tigers from the political equation a necessary prelude to peace?

The Sri Lankan reality is that all communities are tired of the war. The only political entity that relies exclusively for survival on war is the Tamil Tigers. Besides, Mr. Prabhakaran cannot achieve his goal of a separate state through peaceful negotiations for the simple reason that neither the Sri Lankan government nor the international community will bend to his will. Since he cannot settle down to an agreement short of his grand political ambitions war becomes a necessary instrument for him to pursue his political goals. It is also indispensable to him because peace must result, if it is to come through an international agreement, in the Tamil community rejecting him as “the sole representative of the Tamils” and returning to mainstream democracy.
He is averse to pluralism and democracy because that undermines his authority as “the sole representative of the Tamil people” – a position questioned by the Tamils who have experienced his Pol Potist oppression. Furthermore, his political power is derived exclusively from his authoritarian, one-man regime. Without that oppressive machinery Mr. Prabhakaran is a zero – not a hero. Such a regime can be maintained only by oppressive power and war is a necessary bogey to point to the enemy at the gates as the reason for Prabhakaran to bring down his fascist fist on the Tamil people. Without a war and without the temporary victories that elevate him as the “Sun God” he has no future either in the Tamil community or the world at large. No emissary from the world is going to visit him if he is stuck in a hole like Saddam Hussein in his last days.

This is the reason why negotiations and agreements have failed. The international community and the Sri Lankan government have virtually exhausted all other avenues to bring him into the mainstream of non-violent and democratic politics. The last option available is for a regime change and the Sri Lankan forces have been advancing to introduce that regime change as seen in the east.

Dr, Saravanamuttu who argues to stop the war cannot guarantee that Mr. Prabhakaran will stop the war from his end. if the Sri Lankan government stops the war from its end. He knows that despite international agreements promising to end his violence he has never stopped shooting. He is accused by Tamil leaders of killing more Tamils than all the other forces put together. He has not stopped killing Tamils ever since he assassinated, in cold blood, the mild-mannered Tamil Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duriappah in 1975.

Nevertheless, Dr. Saravanamuttu will argue to stop the war on humanitarian grounds. That is a valid argument if he can make Mr. Prabhakaran to honour international humanitarian law. But how does he propose stopping the unstoppable tendency of Mr. Prabhakaran violating human rights, without remorse or willingness to end his war crimes or crimes against humanity?

Besides, the Sri Lankan government has repeatedly invited the Tamil Tigers to talks on the norms set by the Western democracies. The primary condition laid down in dealing with terrorists involved in violent conflicts is to lay down arms. It will be surprising if Dr. Saravanamuttu advocates. Most likely, he will go round it by insisting that only the government of Sri Lanka should stop the war which, he knows, from past experiences, has not produced peace to any community.

The known record of the likes of Dr. Saravanamuttu, parading as peace merchants, is to mouth platitudes about making peace without taking into consideration the hard realities that have obstructed the path to peace. The last option available is to give peace a chance of flowering from non-violent forces rather than those forces committed to war crimes and crimes against humanity. This can be achieved by a regime change in the Vanni – a task that requires a calculated military strategy.

In the end, Dr. Saravanamuttu needs to answer major questions to prove his bona fides as a peace-promoter:



1) IF HE INSISTS ON THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT HALTING THE WAR WILL HE ALSO INSIST ON THE TAMIL TIGERS LAYING DOWN ARMS? IF NOT WHY NOT?

2) CAN HE GUARANTEE THAT A HALT TO THE WAR AT THIS STAGE WILL PUT AN END TO PRABHKARAN UNLEASHING FUTURE ROUNDS OF VIOLANCE WHEN IT SUITS HIM?

2) SINCE THE WAR IS WAGED TO OPEN UP SPACE FOR NON-VIOLENT ACTORS TO NEGOTIATE A PEACE SETTLEMENT THAT WOULD ADDRESS THE GRIEVANCES AND ASPIRATIONS OF ALL COMMUNITIES – JUST NOT ONE ARMED COMMNITY – ISN’T A REGIME CHANGE IN THE VANNI THE FIRST REQUIREMENT FOR PEACE?

H.L.D.Mahindapala: Editor, Sunday and Daily Observer (1990 - 1994). President, Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association (1991 -1993). Secretary-General, South Asia Media Association (1993 -1994). He has been featured as a political commentator in Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Special Broadcasting Services and other mainstream TV and radio stations in Australia.) - Sri Lanka Guardian