by Dr. Victor Rajakulendran; published April 26, 2004
What the International Community cannot ignore
Re: The stalled Sri Lankan peace process
Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumarathunga (CBK) has now invited the Norwegian facilitators to restart facilitation of the negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Norwegians, who patiently and delicately facilitated the negotiations between the two sides for two years, suspended this role in November 2003, when CBK and the then Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe (RW), were locked in a power struggle. During this power struggle CBK and her junior partner, the Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, in her new coalition have frequently accused the Norwegians as being biased towards the LTTE. Immediately after CBK formed her new government following the April 2, 2003 general elections and appointed Mahinda Rajapajsa (MR) as the new Prime Minister, the first thing he did was to ask India publicly to play a more active role in the peace negotiations in Sri Lanka. This was when MR and CBK had high hopes of converting their minority government to a majority government by wooing some of the smaller opposition parties to their side, or even by attracting some of RW’s people to change sides in the parliament. But the sudden change in their stand with regard to Norway and India has raised eyebrows in several quarters. To understand the reasons behind this sudden change in heart of CBK’s government, it is imperative to understand the whole situation that lead up to the present political crisis in Sri Lanka.
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Lead up to the elections
Any hope for resumption of the then-stalled Norwegian facilitated peace process was dashed by the action of President CBK in November 2003, when she took over three important ministries of the late RW government. At that stage the LTTE had just submitted a proposal to set up an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) for the NorthEast. The ISGA proposal was submitted by the LTTE as an interim arrangement to look after the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the war-devastated NorthEast and not as an intermediate step to a final solution to the ethnic problem. This ISGA proposal was based on the already-accepted position by all the parties involved in the peace process that the Tamil people are entitled to exercise their right to Internal Self-Determination. However, several political commentators attributed the President’s actions to this ISGA proposal. These commentators reasoned that the President and her supporters saw this ISGA as an intermediate step toward creating a separate state for Tamils in the NorthEast and that is why CBK had to intervene.
The stand off between the President and the then Prime Minister RW, that followed the President’s action, resulted in the President dissolving RW’s government which enjoyed a majority in parliament. Prior to elections on April 2, 2004 President CBK’s party formed an alliance with the Marxist party the JVP in order to defeat RW’s party. During the election campaign, both CBK and RW asked the voters to give them the mandate to resume peace talks with LTTE. CBK went one step further and asked the voters to give her a mandate to bring in changes to the constitution, through the creation of a constituent assembly, particularly to get rid of the Executive Presidency and effect electoral reforms.
Election results and aftermath
Sri Lankans have failed to give a mandate to either party, although CBK’s party got more parliamentary seats than RW’s party. On the other hand, Tamils living in the NorthEast have given a mandate to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which contested in this province. Tamils gave a clear mandate to the policies of the TNA, namely:
A.) The Tamils accept the LTTE as their sole representatives.
B.) Recognise the NorthEast as Tamils’ homeland.
C.) Recognise the rights of the Tamil people to Self-Determination, and
D.) Creation of an ISGA based on the proposal submitted by the LTTE.
The President’s coalition won 105 seats, RW’s coalition won 82 seats, the TNA got all the seats (22) it could except one which went to the former Tamil militant group, the Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP). The Jathika Hela Urumya (JHU), a Singhalese nationalistic party under which banner only Buddhist priests contested, won 9 seats and a Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) won 5 seats. The President’s party or RW’s party need one or more of the smaller parties in coalition to form a majority in Parliament. The President decided to give the first chance to her party to form a minority government and then asked the new PM to show a majority in parliament.
The President faced serious problems in the first stage itself of forming the government. Although she managed to pass the hurdle of appointing a Prime Minister, she has not gotten her full cabinet sworn in yet. This is because she has already gone back on the promise she made to the JVP before the elections on the allocation of ministries. The River Basin Development Ministry (former Mahaweli Development Ministry), which has a paramilitary unit under it with a large armoury, was to be given to the JVP, but the President is holding on to most of the powers of this ministry now and has offered the JVP a very weakened ministry. The President fears that if this armoury and its paramilitary force come under the JVP’s control, the JVP could stage another insurrection like the two they have carried out in the past. As a result JVP ministers have refused to take their oaths at the time this was written.
Under these circumstances, the inaugural sitting of the 13th parliament commenced on the 22nd of April 2004. Both the government and the opposition fielded their own candidates for the position of speaker of the house. The government candidate for this important position lost by one vote margin to the opposition candidate. Therefore, in the present parliament not only is the government a minority government, but also it does not have its own speaker presiding over the parliament sessions.
What about the peace process?
Ostensibly, during the election campaign, both CBK and RW professed to be keen on continuing the peace process. RW asked the people to give him the mandate to continue the peace process he started. CBK asked for the mandate to continue the peace process in a transparent and more efficient way. The only difference between the two was that RW was very clear on talking to the LTTE, while CBK was very ambiguous about with whom she would be talking. She suggested that her party would be talking to all the ‘relevant parties.’
Both CBK and RW have welcome the decision made during the peace talks in which both the SL government and the LTTE agreed to consider a federal solution based on the principle of internal Self-Determination of the Tamil people. However, neither of them made any attempt to use the election platform to educate the masses and prepare them for this type of change in the political structure of the country. Both of them know very well that this preparation is essential for such a change to be implemented because the word “Federalism” is anathema to the Singhalese masses. This is because most of the Singhalese politicians have created the impression in the minds of the Singhalese masses that federalism is the first step toward the creation of a separate state. This lack of willingness in both CBK and RW to educate the masses casts doubt on the genuineness of these two individuals with regard to the peace process.
RW’s majority government, which initiated the peace process, has been ousted and CBK has now installed a minority government with the help of the Marxists JVP. The JVP is opposed to even devolution of powers to the regions and they believe decentralisation of administration from the lowest level is more than enough to solve the ethnic problem. But the LTTE is talking about power-sharing with the Singhalese government, after demonstrating their parity of status in military strength with the Sri Lankan security forces. Therefore, one has to be optimistic to hope CBK’s minority government will take a pragmatic view about the peace process. The presence of 9 Buddhist priests of the JHU sitting in parliament makes things difficult for the future progress of the peace process. The JHU is more extreme in its view about the peace process than the CBK government. The JHU disapproves of any government that talks with the LTTE alone. With a minority government that depends on minor parties such as the JHU for its survival, it is almost impossible for this government to have any meaningful approach to continue the peace process, for that matter to even resume the peace process.
Role of the International Community
The present peace process was initiated under pressure from the International Community (IC). If the IC is really keen on bringing the ethnic conflict to a just end, the IC should understand the motives of the current Sri Lankan leaders. RW, who initiated the peace process through economic compulsions and pressure from the IC, particularly from the US, was dragging his feet to buy time. He did not want to make any major decisions on the peace process until President CBK’s current term of Presidency comes to a natural end and he is able to occupy that seat. He wanted to avoid any decision that could be used against him in a future presidential election.
On the other hand, CBK wants to remain in power and she could do this only by changing the presidential system of governance to a Westminster-style system in which the Prime Minister has executive power instead of the President. This is the reason why CBK decided to bring the parliament under her control through a fresh election, even at the expense of the peace process. She wanted to convert the parliament to a constituent assembly and bring in the necessary changes to the constitution by a simple majority to keep her at the pinnacle of power. Now, after losing in the election for the speaker of the house, not only is she unable to accomplish this, but also CBK faces a real threat of being impeached by the parliament.
Only this threat has made CBK change her mind and call the Norwegians for help. CBK thinks that if she could restart the peace process, then she can justify the importance of her government staying in power and make any attempt by RW’s opposition to impeach her be seen in the eyes of the IC as an act against the peace process. CBK also needs at least a portion of the $4.5 Billion pledged by the IC to start flowing, to keep her election promises fulfilled. Can CBK succeed in fooling the IC like RW tried to fool it for two years?
The US administration seems to have made a decision to intervene in Sri Lankan conflict for reasons of its own interest. If not, the US, which turned a blind eye to this conflict for the last 50 years, would not have gone to the extent of Colin Powell calling CBK immediately after the elections, to ask her to restart the stalled peace process. The US administration, which is behind the Norwegian peace initiative in Sri Lanka, seems to be prepared to support a settlement that is short of a separate state for the Tamils, but which they think could satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamils. They would like to accomplish this by twisting the arms of both the administration in Colombo and the LTTE. The US administration should not have any ambiguity about dealing with the Tamils through the LTTE as their representatives, particularly after the just-concluded elections. The US administration’s dilemma now is whether to deal with the Singhalese through a confused CBK’s leadership or to wait for a future RW’s new, revamped leadership. Whatever they do, the IC should not repeat the same mistake the British administration made when it gave independence to Ceylon and installed a unitary type of constitution.