Will TNA get thrashed?

by Rajasingham Jayadevan

(March 14, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is widely reported that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has reached a cosy working relationship with the government to engage in talks to reach a political resolution to the Tamil conflict. Both the government and the TNA are tight lipped on issues discussed so far, whilst the government is making use of the opportunity to publicise the efforts to mollify the adverse international opinion on several war and post war related issues.

The present talks are another prelude to the ever failed talks of the past and there are no indications lesson learnt from the failures of the times of yore are assessed and mechanisms established to prevent such failures recurring this time around.

Then the talks are taking place without the engagement of an independent and experienced middle man that is historically anathema for the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and very little can be expected from this effort.

One of the issues that failed the talks in the past is the parties did not set out a road map with the time scale for negotiations and proceeds through the implementation of the agreement reached. This must be absolute priority. Further both parties have taken on the suicidal mission to talk about political resolution without undertaking a risk assessment to deal with the concerning issues collectively and how the hardened attitudes that caused the negation of the efforts in the past can be managed to reach the point of success in this round.

This time the government’s attitude to conflict resolution and its expertise to play silly games cannot be underestimated. Government partners JHU and Weerawanse clubs are in preparedness to give a hammer blow at an opportune moment with the blessing of the President to derail the talks and any resolution reaching its conclusion.

The onus is on the TNA to demand for a road map that includes a time scale for talks and discussions thereon to arrive at an agreed resolution that should go through the process of wider political engagement to passage through the parliament. For the government, limiting the agenda of any political resolution through just a chatting process will be advantageous to extend its policy of not resolving the conflict by negotiations. Government is an expert in the game of procrastination.

Structured talks, time management through a road map and engagement of a strong mediator/negotiator is historically anathema to the government. It is an ongoing saga involving the successive governments. Excuses and skulduggery takes the upper hand and the decision makers will sit and wait for events to unfold to methodically fail the effort.

TNA must realise the fate of the Minister Prof. Tissa Vitharane’s APRC report and timely action must be taken to prevent recurrence of such stalemate arising with the unfair and dishonest practices carried out in a secretive manner by the President with his rightwing allies.

The current talks have faced two major strains already. Temporary unilateral cancellation of talks by the government on a trivial ground of electioneering for the local government election has caused disappointment for the TNA. If a road map and mechanisms had been set up for talks, such derailments could have been handled in a responsible manner.

Then the issue of assassination attempt on a TNA parliamentarian Sivagnanam Sritharan confirms the extent of the powerful intelligence agencies of the state is embedded in the protection of the ultimate hegemonic interest of the Sinhala state. It is a strong politicised establishment than before and will play its part to prevent any compromises with the minorities. Attempt on Sritharan MP is clearly a message to the TNA not to push too much with the government.

So far both parties have not said anything about the issues discussed except for TNA’s Sumanthiran giving some indication about agreeing to disagree on each ones stands and demands without spelling out the issues in detail.

The talks have come about following TNA agreeing to compromise on not advocating a campaign on war crimes against the government. It is also understood that India is playing its part to bring some fusion between the parties to proceed with the talks ( Previous Story).

Finding a resolution to the over six decades old burgeoning Tamil conflict for proper devolved political accommodation has seen many failed talks between the conflicting parties. All the efforts between the parties did not produce any results but formidable efforts brought few outstanding proposals for resolutions. Political perversion and lack of will on the part of the government reduced these into documents to be archived for historical reference for analysts.

In the negotiation process, we have seen two major international involvements to resolve the conflict. With the proactive Indian involvement post 1983 state sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom, the Indo-Lanka agreement came to being. Without the direct involvement of the parties to the conflict, the 13th amendment was introduced to devolve powers to the provinces. The merger of the northern and eastern provinces was part of the highlight of the Indian engagement.

Over sixty years of post independence history, whatever shortcomings of the outcome of the Indian intervention it was the only resolution passaged through the constitution and still administered insincerely by the government. Whilst the LTTE must take the responsibility for the failure of the Indian effort, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) in particular the Rajapakse government must take the full responsibility for reducing the agreement reached with India to make it a reduced process.

The Norwegian effort that brought about the respite of a ceasefire with the LTTE failed because of the hardened attitude of the government and lack of political acumen on the part of the LTTE.

From this history of compounding failures and the mini success with the Indian intervention come the present talks between the government and the TNA. But one wonders whether lessons have been learnt from the past failures and adequate measures taken to avoid recurrence of those failures.

The fundamental failure of talks so far is, parties concentrating on the resolution than focussing on the determination to conclude the process methodically within a time scale. When a clear agenda and time scale is not set, the negotiation process itself becomes cause for the failure and this is what the objective of the government too.

TNA has started to swim. Whether they will reach the other side by swimming the turbulent waters is not a difficult one to guess for any punter.