- Sundaram
T he more things change, the more they look the same. Or so it certainly seems in the lost paradise of Sri Lanka. Early November Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga dramatically escalated tensions in the island country – just recovering from two decades of civil war – when she sacked the defence, interior and information ministers, prorogued parliament and nearly declared an emergency. The three ministers were part of Prime Minister Wickramasinghe’s United National Front (UNF) government that won the last general elections against Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance (PA).
Soon after coming to power in early 2002, Wickramasinghe initiated peace talks with the LTTE, which has been fighting for a separate Tamil homeland within the country. The talks, despite their ups and downs, have enabled the implementation of an effective ceasefire and started negotiations on the devolution of powers to the Tamil minority population in the country. The Sri Lankan civil war, which began in the early eighties, has claimed over 100,000 lives and resulted in a military stalemate with the LTTE able to hold its territory successfully in the face of repeated onslaughts by the Sri Lankan army.
The Sri Lankan President, who is conferred with considerable powers under the country’s constitution, has all through opposed the current peace talks as being ‘too soft’ on the LTTE and compromised the nation’s integrity and security. Sri Lanka’s prime minister and president are elected separately, and tension between them has grown since Wickremesinghe forged ahead with a peace process.
Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance, which is the main opposition in parliament, along with its allies like the Marxist-turned-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has been whipping up chauvinist sentiments against the peace deal for weeks together now. A catalyst for Kumaratunga’s sacking of the UNF ministers seems to have been a new proposal for an interim administration in the north and east of the island released by the LTTE recently, which the PA has dubbed as a plan for ‘division’ of Sri Lanka.
Ironically, a decade ago Kumaratunga rode to power precisely with the promise of striking a peace deal with the LTTE and was opposed on the same grounds of ‘selling out’ national interests by the United National Party (UNP), the main component of Wickramasinghe’s UNF government now. The PA government initiated peace talks at that time but was unable to strike a proper deal with the LTTE, leading to a resumption of the civil war.
Ever since independence from British colonial rule over five decades ago Sri Lanka’s mainstream Sinhala political parties, dominated by a few feudal families, have constantly stoked majoritarian and communal passions against the Tamil and sometimes Muslim minorities to make cheap electoral gains. However, this time Chandrika’s playing of the nationalist and racist card does not seem to have gone down well with either the Sri Lankan population or even the country’s business elites.
Wickramasinghe, who was away in the United States for a meeting with US President George Bush when Kumaratunga dismissed three of his ministers, returned home to a tumultuous welcome. Indicating the depth to which most Sri Lankans, both Tamils and Sinhalese, are fed up of the civil war thousands of people lined the streets of Colombo to greet the Prime Minister and indicate their support for continuing peace talks with the LTTE.
Wickramasinghe’s real backing to go ahead with ending the civil war however comes from big business interests, both domestic and foreign, as well as from the governments of the United States and its junior south Asian partner India all of whom want a powersharing deal with the LTTE to end the conflict and facilitate the island’s integration into the global economy. Immediately following Kumaratunga’s power grab the US, Japan, the European Union and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan all expressed concern about the consequences for the so-called peace process. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee held a 20-minute telephone conversation with Kumaratunga urging her to avert a constitutional crisis.
Wickremesinghe himself, on returning from Washington, proudly claimed that he had ‘President Bush’s support’ for his government and its negotiations with the LTTE. Significantly even the IMF’s representative in Colombo, Jeremy Carter, jumped into the fray, warning that the first US$80 million tranche of US$567 million in financial assistance was in doubt if the peace process did not go ahead.
While imperialism and global finance are not particularly known for their love of peace in the case of Sri Lanka it seems they have other designs in mind. After having done nothing at all to stop bloodshed on this island country in the past twenty years, the US, after September 11, does not want ‘petty’ localized conflicts to come in the way of its grand designs to ‘reorder’ the world.
The US is quite keen to use a stabilized Sri Lanka in the future for military and strategic purposes and hence their strong backing for the peace process. In fact, even as the Sri Lankan political soap opera was being played out in Colombo US troops were carrying out joint military exercises with local counterparts.
“We have no reasons to believe that these exercises would be affected by recent political developments in Colombo,” US embassy spokesman Bruce A Lohof told media in Colombo. The Sunday Island newspaper reported that about 100 US military personnel were already in the country attending to various training programs.
Sri Lanka’s business elites, both Tamil and Sinhala, are also backing the peace process with a view to reap the rewards of fresh investment and influx of donor money that will come into the country once a proper peace deal is finalized. The civil war has badly damaged the economy and domestic businesses have been stagnating for many years now though some sections have been making profits from the conflict itself supplying arms, various material and services to both sides.
Given all this pressure both at home and abroad it is not a surprise that the Sri Lankan President in recent days has been desperately trying to control the damage done by her rash political moves. Just a week after plunging the country into an acute political crisis Kumaratunga was forced to meet with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss ways of ending the current standoff. The Prime Minister has cleverly trapped Kumaratunga by publicly asking her to take over the peace negotiations knowing fully well that the LTTE would be much tougher with her and any such talks will end in absolute failure.
Amidst all this the LTTE itself has been quietly consolidating its political as well as military hold over the northeast of Sri Lanka. According to reports from the Tamil areas of the country the militant group is warily watching the political theater in Colombo and whether war or peace – it is preparing for either eventuality.