Kumaratunga will not sacrifice power for peace
by Tamil Guardian editorial, December 22, 2004
Fear of a renewed war has become all pervasive. Tamils, both in the homelands and the diaspora are closely following developments in the Norwegian peace process, albeit with deepening pessimism. Even the usually upbeat Norwegian Special Envoy, Erik Solheim, could not conceal his anxiety this week, observing “we cannot deny that the peace process is at the most critical point since the ceasefire agreement was signed in 2002.” It is not only the smouldering violence in the eastern province that has contributed to the serious breakdown in trust between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. Colombo’s hasty, even desperate efforts to sign a military cooperation agreement with India, and its substantial build-up of its military – a doubling of its navy and air force and a tripling of its armour and artillery capability – in the past three years of ceasefire, is another.
But the most serious immediate impediment to resuming talks is arguably the political character of the government in Colombo. The tie-up between President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) was a self-evident marriage of convenience to topple the United National Front (UNF). But it has given the JVP a vise-like grip on the peace process. As the LTTE’s Vellupillai Pirapaharan argued last month, President Kumaratunga – herself a Sinhala hardliner – “has embraced this racist political party as the most important ally and partner in her coalition government. [Thus] This government is constituted by an unholy alliance of incompatible parties articulating antagonistic and mutually contradictory views and policies on the Tamil national question. The JVP has vowed to bring down the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government rather than permit it to hold talks with the LTTE in its proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) for the NorthEast. There is no doubt that the radical Marxists mean what they say.
JVP protestors in Trinco burning the Norwegian flag and an effigy of Head of Mission of the SLMM, Nov. 26, 2004 (Photo courtesy TamilNet)
But for several months this obvious obstacle to resuming negotiations has been ignored by the international community, which has instead sought to pressure the LTTE to resume negotiations, as if the problem rested with the movement’s bona fides. The Tigers’ robust response to the covert war unleashed against them by Sri Lanka military intelligence-backed paramilitaries in the eastern province has, for example, been incorrectly interpreted as an indicator of the LTTE’s lack of commitment to a negotiated settlement. In the meantime, the JVP has waged an unashamedly open campaign against the Norwegian peace process amongst the Sinhala public. And, as this newspaper has argued before, the international community’s silence has emboldened the ultra-nationalists.
Which is why the blunt criticism of the JVP this week by the co-chairs of the international donor community is welcome. So is the donor’s implicit criticism of President Kumaratunga’s twin track policy of calling for peace while encouraging her parliamentary ally to prepare the Sinhala people for war – the representatives of Japan, EU, and US who met with President Kumaratunga this week “expressed bewilderment that a member party of the UPFA could engage in such a campaign in absolute contradiction of the clearly stated position of the President and the government.” The question, though, is whether any options which can allow a resumption of the peace process are possible under the present circumstances. The donor co-chairs have urged the President “to address the [JVP] problem.” But it is highly doubtful that Kumaratunga is going to risk the collapse of her government for the sake of the peace process.
To begin with, President Kumaratunga – who single-mindedly waged a ruinous, bloody seven year military onslaught against the LTTE – shares the JVP’s pathological aversion to sharing power with the Tamils. Her fiery rhetoric against the UNF’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict, build trust with the Tigers and strengthen the fledgling peace formed the mainstay of her election campaign earlier this year. Nor should it be forgotten that it was her seizure last November of three ministries from the UNF – barely days after the LTTE submitted its ISGA proposals – that decisively broke the Norwegian initiative. Secondly, as the Sinhala nationalist press pointed out recently, the anti-peace UFA did win the April elections – Sri Lanka’s dubious electoral credentials notwithstanding. The JVP, in particular, startled observers by its electoral success (it is now the third largest party in Parliament), which would have been greater if not for the last minute emergence of the radical monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya.
In other words, while the JVP may obstruct talks and risk plunging the island back into renewed war, it does so from a popular support base that has been nurtured and pandered to by politicians since independence from Britain. President Kumaratunga, whose prime concern is her own political future, is not going to upset this constituency. In short, there is no reason to be optimistic about Sri Lanka’s prospects for peace.