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Tuesday, 16 August 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Around two months ago I was on an executive programme on leadership at Harvard University and one case study that was really interesting was the one on skills to fight terrorism in today’s economy.
Given that I was the only Sri Lanka on the programme, the one question that I was bombarded with was if the LTTE was a terrorist movement or freedom fighters. Incidentally, this question was raised more by my African colleagues than the top leaders of the West, which really got me thinking.
The thought that flashed across my mind was how perception was more powerful than reality. Most believed that the LTTE was an outfit of freedom fighters rather than a terror unit, which was very sad.
There were many other cases discussed, like the situation in Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mexico, and the final conclusion was that most terrorist movements begin as peaceful movements fighting for the rights of a minority group of people, but if the leadership does not address the issue, they can become a terror movement like the LTTE.
Public Policy Professor at Harvard University Alberto Abadie went on to comment that development aid was important but it was not clear if it was an effective tool for reducing terrorism, at least not in the short run.
He was of the view that more attention should be given to political freedom because it correlated with terrorism more, which was an interesting dimension that sure stimulated debate. I guess the 2011 provincial council elections in Sri Lanka where the TNA showed its dominance must be taken seriously in this view.
Backtrack
If one backtracks to the Sri Lankan experience, the country has been under the threat of the terror group, the LTTE, for almost 30 years, and it has accounted for almost one-third of all suicide attacks that the world has seen in the recent past.
It was the only terrorist organisation that had air power capability and attacked the capitol of a country seven times, but yet failed to register globally on ruthlessness.
The pick of the attacks are the killing of 120 devotees in the Buddhist sacred city in 1985, the 110 people that died in the bomb blast in Pettah, the 70 Muslims killed in the Kattankudy Mosque attack and the Central Bank attack killing 86 people and injuring 1,338. A point to be highlighted is where the LTTE assassinated one of the greatest sons of India, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991.
Even with all these attacks, Sri Lanka could not stop the funds that were being collected by the LTTE in countries like Switzerland, France, Germany, Australia, Canada and the US. My cousin who is studying for his PhD on terrorism funding estimates that the last LTTE P&L recorded a profit of 200 million dollars and I guess it’s a challenge that needs further research given the financial melt seen in the US and EU post last week’s debt crisis we saw in the United States.
World unaware
Even if the world is unaware of the above data, one sure can highlight the economic cost of having a terror outfit, which is more newsworthy. On tourism, in 1983 Sri Lanka enjoyed 337,530 visitor arrivals whilst a country like Cambodia had around 200,000 tourists at that time. Today Cambodia has over two million tourist arrivals whilst Sri Lanka is at around 0.6 million with a revenue of Rs. 50 billion whilst actually Sri Lanka should have had around 1.8 million tourists by now if not for terrorism and earnings touching Rs. 200 billion.
The impact of FDI that Sri Lanka could have attracted is around Rs. 3,000 billion, which stacks up to the cost of the war due to terrorism. If we hypothetically take the Rs. 400 billion that has been spent on the war in the last three to four years and divert it to the investment that can be made on Research and Development (R&D), it will be almost 7% of GDP, which will be way above the 4% spend by industrialised countries like South Korea, which have produced power brands like Samsung to the world, beating brands like Sony of yesteryear. This gives us an idea of the opportunity cost that economic terrorism has had on Sri Lanka.
Six ceasefires
If we dig deeper into the Sri Lankan scenario, a case study must be written on the history of ceasefire agreements that successive Sri Lankan Governments entered into with the terror group, the LTTE.
The first ceasefire was the famous ‘Thimphu talks,’ where the LTTE came in solidarity with five Tamil groups – the TULF, PLOTE, EROS, EPRLF and TELO. It ended with the LTTE unilaterally walking out but during this time it strengthened itself and secured total control of the Jaffna peninsula, which was called ‘Operation Liberation’.
The second ceasefire was championed by Lalith Athulathmudali from 11 to 17 April 1987 as a tribute to that year’s Sinhala/Tamil New Year. The LTTE reciprocated by ambushing three buses at Kithuluttuwa in the Polonnaruwa District, separating the Sinhalese passengers from the others and murdering every one of them – in total 127.
The third ceasefire came into effect with the so-called Indo Lanka Accord. The LTTE, which pretended to surrender arms [while surrendering only their defective and unusable arms], used the confinement of the Sri Lankan troops to barracks in terms of that ceasefire to engage in an anti Sinhalese/Muslim pogrom by murdering 200 Sinhalese and Muslim civilians along the eastern seaboard between 1 and 7 October 1987.
The fourth ceasefire was orchestrated by the then President Premadasa from 1 June 1989 and ‘peace talks’ commenced. The LTTE once again used that ceasefire to strengthen itself and then abrogated the ceasefire by attacking all Police stations in the east on 11 June 1990 and murdering about 678 unarmed Police officers who had laid down arms and surrendered to them.
The fifth ceasefire came into effect under the leadership of President Kumaratunga in January 1995, which once again resulted in the LTTE sinking two naval gun boats anchored at Trincomalee, murdering 12 sailors and thereafter murdering 264 members of the security forces and 57 civilians in 27 separate attacks over the next 39 days. Subsequently the LTTE with surface to air missiles brought down two Avro aircraft on 28 and 29 April 1994, murdering 99 persons including two journalists, which once again the world watched, with the Sri Lankan economy reeling. The sixth and last ceasefire that Sri Lanka saw was in 2002 under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, which once again the LTTE violated, murdering Sri Lanka security force personnel, informants and political opponents and led to the act that the LTTE will never forget.
Turning point
I guess the shutting off of water at the Mavil Aru anicut in August 2006 was when the LTTE atrocities in Sri Lanka came to a grinding halt. Today, as we speak, the LTTE has become a piece of history of the changing landscape of Sri Lanka.
The performance has earned Sri Lanka the right to be a country that fought terrorism effectively. But the provincial council election sweep by the TNA indicates that a burning issue still exists, which needs to be solved so that we will not see another uprising in another 30 years.
We have to build the Northern Province economy through tourism, agriculture and the dairy industry so that we can be a US$ 4,000 per capita income earner boasting a GDP growth of 10 per cent plus. If we do not, we can fall into this new term called economic terrorism.
Key issue: Marketing
I guess the challenge that the country is faced with internationally is the we have failed as a nation to market to the world the atrocities of the LTTE, which killed over 70,000 people in Sri Lanka and wiped away almost $ 20,000 billion out of Sri Lanka’s economy.
Due to varied reasons, these facts have not registered with the key policymakers of the world, which is one of the key reasons that Sri Lanka is up against the international community today. This must be a lesson to the world in the years to come.
Language policy:
Private-sector driven
The private sector needs to play a stronger role in the reconciliation process. The key initiatives that can be pursued are the telephone operators being fluent in all three and all circulars/notices being in all three languages.
We need to make the minorities feel that they are part of the country. This needs to be implemented at all Police stations and Government institutions so that as a nation we are friendly to every community of the country. This should be ideally highlighted in the world media.
North east economy: New model
May be its time that we come up with a new model of development in the north and east, so that the US$ 168 billion stacked as cash in the bank can be attracted to this part of the country. For some reason the economic boom expected in the north east has not happened, which may be the reason why we see marginal growth in real GDP value even though as a percentage it is exciting.
Marketing is king
In conclusion, we see that marketing is a key element when a country is dealing with a terrorism outfit. In Sri Lanka the campaign ‘Api Wenuven Api’ sure helped change the perception of the forces by the general public of Sri Lanka, but what is required is more of a holistic marketing approach from all fronts to ensure that the global perception is on the ground-based reality.
May be we could have a multifaceted communication campaign on the themes economic terrorism, history of the ceasefire violations and the Government’s peacemaking efforts.
If a nation does not have a strategy at play in dealing with a terrorist outfit from a perception point of view just like Sri Lanka today, one can be up against many challenges from an international dimension.
(The writer has a double degree in marketing and an MBA and is currently reading for a doctorate in business administration. He is an alumnus of Harvard University, USA. The thoughts expressed are his own, based on his doctoral research studies and not the views of the organisations he serves in Sri Lanka or overseas.)
