by Taraki; Daily Mirror, Colombo, May 13, 2004
ISGA: The chance to persuade Tamils to remain in United Lanka
D. Sivaram. Courtesy TamilNet.
Everyone would agree today that a bit of homework is necessary for taking forward the peace talks stage by stage. The study of the negotiating behaviour of the party or person with whom one is going to deal is an inescapably fundamental requirement for resolving conflicts.
Of late the Tigers have understood the value of having a comprehensive and historical understanding of the GOSL’s negotiating behaviour. On the other hand the GOSL and the main political parties in the south have consistently displayed an appalling lack of knowledge about the Tamil side’s approach to talks to end the conflict. Their views have often lacked coherence and consistency. This has deplorably been the case since the Thimpu parleys in 1985.
Very basic homework on the LTTE’s negotiating behaviour might have saved some trouble for President Kumaratunga and the Norwegian foreign minister who took her message to Kilinochchi.
For the last 18 years Velupillai Pirapaharan’s approach to finding a permanent political settlement to the ethnic conflict has remained consistent. He has been insisting since 1986 that there should be some form of an interim arrangement torectify the social problems and distortions in Tamil society wrought by war and to restore normalcy in the northeast before the LTTE can seriously take up the question of a permanent political settlement with the Government of Sri Lanka(GOSL).
He was only reiterating this stand last Tuesday in his response to the President’s suggestion that the LTTE and her government should start talks on a permanent settlement parallel to the negotiations between the two parties on the ISGA proposals.
Even a brief perusal of the preamble to the LTTE’s ISGA proposal would reveal the contours of a final settlement to the ethnic conflict – from the Tamil perspective of course.
The President should understand that the process of negotiating the ISGA would not be much different from negotiating the final political settlement.
Many issues considered contentious in the ISGA proposal have been addressed in her August 1995 proposals for a political settlement to the conflict.
For example on the much vexed question of land the LTTE proposal says:
“Since land is vital to the exercise of the powers set out in Clause 9 (jurisdiction of the ISGA), the ISGA shall have the power to alienate and determine the appropriate use of all land in the Northeast that is not privately owned.
The August 1995 Devolution Proposals contains the following clauses on Land Management:
Para 4.1- “Land will be a devolved subject and State land within aregion will be vested in the Regional Councils”.
The Bougainville peace proposals signed between the Papua New Guinea Government and Bougainville rebels offered land management powers to the region. The Sudanese peace agreement also offers the rebels control over land in their region.
The differences between the ISGA and the ‘95 proposals on the crucial issue of taxation and direct foreign aid to the northeast are not unbridgeable.
Para 2.2 of Chandrika’s ‘95 proposals states:
“Regional Councils will have the powers of taxation in certain specified areas, and the Constitution will require other revenue-sharing arrangements”
Para 2.3 of the 1995 devolution proposals states,
“Regional Councils will have the power to borrow as well as to set up their own financial institutions.International borrowing above a prescribed limit will require the concurrence ofthe centre.”
Para 2.4 states:
“Regional Councils may regulate and promote foreign direct investment, international grants, and development assistance,subject to such conditions as may be specified by the centre.”
The ISGA says almost the same thing albeit in a more structured manner. Yet the President seems to have her doubts. Her suggestion that talks on a permanent solution should start parallel to the negations on the ISGA appears to be based on the premise that the Interim Authority is actually a Trojan horse to achieve Eelam.
It might not be the right mindset on her part for entering the peace talks. That the President may actually be devising her negotiating strategy on the basis of this premise is evident from what her foreign minister has said in Washington on Wednesday.
On Tuesday Norway’s Foreign Minister conveys to Pirapaharan the President’s assurance that talks would be based on the LTTE’s ISGA proposal. Hardly a day had passed by when Mr. Kadirgamar declares in America: “The ISGA proposal is a blueprint for a future separate state”!
Would the foreign minister’s statement may be a reflection of the thinking in the President’s inner circle or the expression of sheer anxiety and mortification that he might be excluded from the government’s negotiating team.
President Kumaratunga and her advisors may have felt that if the LTTE can be persuaded to commit itself on a final political settlement then it would preclude the Tigers from turning the ISGA into a separate state. Herein lies the rub.
A final political settlement has to necessarily deal with the question of the armed forces of the state. The LTTE cannot and will not make any sort of commitment regarding its armed forces that would inevitably be required at some point in negotiations towards a final settlement. Why?
The ceasefire agreement (CFA) is only a temporary suspension of hostilities. It is not an end to the war. Only a permanent political settlement would legally bring the war to an end. Therefore the CFA will have to remain in force during the period in which the Interim Self Governing Authority would be in operation.
In other words it would be necessary to maintain the balance of forces throughout the period of the ISGA. The balance of forces is not merely necessary to sustain the CFA but it is also the basis of the LTTE’s position as an equal partner in the negotiations.
The LTTE is mindful of the deplorable fate that be fell Palestinians, Kurds, Nagas and scores of other peoples who entered negotiations before establishing equality of status with their respective oppressor states by achieving strategic parity of military power through ‘precisely calculated’ asymmetrical means.
(From the LTTE’s perspective one cannot achieve balance of forces with the military of a powerful state when the tools of asymmetrical warfare are not deployed in a precise and sustainable manner to critically affect the strategic political, economic and military assets which provide the foundations of that state) Parallel negotiations on the ISGA and a permanent settlement would entail, at least in principle, a commitment by the LTTE regarding the future of its armed forces in a “radically restructured” Sri Lankan state.
The balance of forces between the LTTE and Sri Lankan state is not only based on the array of troops and military assets on either side, it is also based on the real and tangible threat of the Tigers’ ability to unleash their military power in a manner untrammeled by any political commitment regarding the nature and eventual status of their armed forces.
Let us assume hypothetically that during parallel talks with the Sri Lankan state towards finding a permanent settlement to the conflict, the LTTE makes a commitment to dismantle its Black Tiger Commando Regiment when the solution is implemented. The LTTE considers the Black Tigers, among other things, as the chief component of the politico-military system of ‘asymmetrical deterrence’they are striving to achieve with a view to discouraging possible foreign military interventions against them in the future.
Therefore a commitment to dismantle the Black Tigers would detract from the LTTE’s asymmetrical deterrence strategy. Above all in making such a commitment,the LTTE would be paying the highest price it can ever afford politically for a permanent settlement that President Kumaratunga and her government are not in a position to deliver at all.
I say the highest price because for the LTTE it would be tantamount to giving up its strategic parity with the Sri Lankan armed forces in principle before achieving anything tangible on the ISGA and a permanent settlement to the conflict through negotiations with Kumaratunga’s government.
War is the alternative to the ISGA. No one wants war. Barring a full-scale and long term foreign military intervention, there appears to be little to prevent Pirapaharan from significantly augmenting his territorial control in the northeast in the event of war breaking out again. By rejecting the ISGA, the Sinhala polity would convince him that he should get Jaffna and Trincomalee before holding out the olive branch to Colombo again.
Hence it is better to grapple with the ISGA, to look at it as a window of opportunity for convincing the Tamil people that it is better to remain within a united Sri Lanka rather than to secede.
Sri Lanka’s constitution, despite the myriad of its demerits, is based on the fundamental republican principle that the country’s sovereignty is vested in the people and that their right to freely exercise that sovereignty is inalienable.
A truly democratic state stands on the consensus achieved when all the people who are expected to be its citizens feel that their sovereignty can be exercised freely. Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict can ultimately be traced to its failure to achieve this consensus by peaceful means.
The ISGA might be the last but best chance to persuade the Tamil people and the LTTE that it is better to remain united than secede.
If the Sinhala polity as a whole does not muster the political guts to avail itself of the ISGA with a firm view to making the unity of Sri Lanka attractive to the Tamils of the northeast inclusive of the LTTE then nothing can prevent the conflict entering a new phase.
Originally published May 16, 2004