Birth pains of post-war reconciliation

•  Neville de Silva, a veteran Sri Lankan journalist and until recently Deputy High Commissioner to the Sri Lankan HC in London, presents his view of the political issues Sri Lanka still faces in the aftermath of its defeat of the Tamil Tigers and examines the country’s complex relationship with India

www.asianaffairs.in: More than five-and-a-half years after the minority Tamil separatist organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was militarily crushed by Sri Lanka’s rejuvenated security forces, real reconciliation between the Sinhala and Tamil communities still seems a distant dream. Admittedly, growing political tensions between the Sinhala and Tamil people since the early years after independence in 1948 and the anti-Tamil riots in 1983 that hastened a vicious and debilitating three decade-long war, cannot be healed overnight as Western powers urge. Even less life-consuming and resource-sapping conflicts around the world have shown that reconciliation is not a mantra that can be achieved by reciting magic words or because some extraneous power demands it. For instance, each time British Governments, which have taken a lead role in recent years in chastising Sri Lanka for the lack of meaningful reconciliation, do so, Sri Lanka turns round and asks with seeming innocence whether reconciliation has been achieved in Northern Ireland despite the Good Friday agreement. Have the sound of exploding bombs and chatter of automatic weapons ceased all together across Belfast’s religious divide they ask, quite aware that killings go on and extremist groups still exist.   International friends Finger-pointing will no doubt continue as long as Britain and other Western powers keep harrying Sri Lanka, which has powerful international friends to provide diplomatic and economic succour against what the Government in Colombo and commentators regularly refer to as the Western ‘bullying’ of small and weaker states. Within days of each other in September this year, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and China’s President Xi Jingping, the two nations that are the largest providers of development assistance to Sri Lanka, visited the country. When the US, strongly supported by the UK, moved a resolution at the March sessions of the UN Human Rights Council demanding an international investigation into alleged war crimes and violations of international law during the last days of the war against the LTTE, China unequivocally opposed it while Japan abstained. Russia has also proved to be a strong friend of Sri Lanka at international and multilateral forums.   External pressures Sri Lanka’s complicated political problem has been made even more convoluted by the external pressures of Western governments partly influenced by the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in the West, which has a vote bank that can sway electoral results, particularly in marginal seats, such as in the UK. But the more crucial external factor, one that has aroused suspicions and concerns among the Sri Lankan populace, is neighbouring India, especially the nearby state of Tamil Nadu with a Tamil population of some 70 million that largely supports the Sri Lankan Tamils — now numbering less than three million — and with whom they have cultural, ethnic and linguistic ties. Aside from the invasions from southern India in ancient times, which drove the former kings of Lanka to abandon their capitals and move further inland, the support given to the LTTE by Tamil Nadu state governments, and the bases provided for them, are recent history. It might be recalled that Indian State agencies provided the LTTE with military training on Indian soil and arms and funds in the early 1980s during the premiership of Indira Gandhi, whose son Rajiv was later assassinated by the very monster that his mother helped create. All this is well documented in books by Indian journalists and others and through official Indian inquiries.   Indian involvement This Indian involvement in Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers, whose ambition was to create an independent Tamil state, has always caused great concern — mainly among the Sinhala community, which actually sees itself as a minority because of the huge Tamil state lying just a few miles across the Palk Strait that divides the two countries. While the previous Indian Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made noises pledging support for the aspirations of the Tamil community to live with dignity as equal citizens and for equal opportunities to prosper, India abstained from supporting the US-led resolution at the UNHRC in March. This surprised most political analysts because India had previously voted for Western resolutions against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC. The surprise was that the abstention came despite tremendous pressure from Tamil Nadu to support the resolution and shortly before the Indian general election that brought Narendra Modi’s BJP-led coalition to power. Though President Mahinda Rajapaksa did meet Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi when the latter invited leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for his swearing-in as India’s leader, there has not been a bilateral meeting of any substance where there has been a meeting of minds. There was some speculation in Colombo that the two might meet in New York on the wings of the UN General Assembly sessions but nothing was confirmed. And while the Sri Lanka Government is naturally anxious to know the Modi administration’s policy towards Sri Lanka, especially because of China’s increasing stake in the island nation both in terms of economic and security collaboration, there is a bottom line to whatever nuanced approach India could take in its bilateral ties with Colombo.   13th Amendment That is the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution, which emerged from the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, an agreement which most Sri Lankan and some other observers believe was forced on then President Junius Richard Jayewardene when the Sri Lankan military was on the verge of defeating Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive leader of the LTTE, having cornered him in the Vadamarachchi area of the Jaffna peninsula, which might well have ended the war years earlier. India, using its far superior military machine, flew Mirage fighter jets that provided air cover for Indian cargo planes that dropped ‘humanitarian’ aid to the people of Jaffna, violating Sri Lankan airspace and international law. Following the signing of the accord in late August, Indian troops landed in Sri Lanka’s north a few days later, presumably to end the fighting and disarm the separatists while Government forces were confined to barracks. The fact that Indian troops got embroiled in pitched battles with the LTTE, losing nearly 1,300 soldiers and with some 6,000 wounded in the years before they were asked to withdraw by President Ranasinghe Premadasa (who succeeded Jayewardene in Colombo), is yet another dubious chapter in the chequered history of Indo-Lanka relations. But to this day the 13th Amendment to the Constitution spawned by the Indo-Lanka Accord — under which powers were to be devolved to a provincial council established in the north and east which Tamils claim as their ‘homeland’ — remains a major bone of dispute.   TNA A delegation from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which swept the board at last year’s provincial council elections held in over two decades, visiting India last August for talks with Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Modi, complained bitterly about the Sri Lanka Government’s procrastination over implementing the provisions of the constitution. Rajavarothaayam Sampanthan, the leader of the TNA — which the Sri Lanka government accuses of being a proxy of the LTTE — told Modi that during the past five years President Rajapaksa had given different promises to the Indian Government that he would implement the 13th Amendment and even ‘go beyond’ it. Sampanthan complained that those promises had not been kept. He also explained why the TNA was not participating in the Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to formulate a package to resolve the political problem, pointing to the heavy military presence in the north and military interference in civil administration. In response, Modi, saying he was conversant with the issues, turned down a request from the TNA Leader for India to appoint a special emissary to deal with the Sri Lanka matters. According to Modi the Indian diplomatic mission was quite capable of handling it. The Indian Prime Minister, however, agreed that President Rajapaksa had given assurances to the Indian Government that he would implement the 13th Amendment and go beyond it. A statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office after the talks with the TNA said: ‘The Prime Minister stressed the need for a political solution that addresses the aspirations of the Tamil community for equality, dignity, justice and self-respect within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. In this context, the Prime Minister urged all stakeholders in Sri Lanka to engage constructively, in a spirit of partnership and mutual accommodation, towards finding a political solution that builds upon the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lanka Constitution.’   President Rajapaksa’s dilemma President Rajapaksa’s dilemma is that the 13th Amendment requires that police powers be devolved to the provincial administration, something which he does not want to do. He is acutely aware that the movement to break up Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity started in the north and to invest a police force there with law and order powers and arm them could be to court trouble in the future. Instead he is ready to implement the 13th Amendment with curtailed powers. After all, the Indo-Lanka Accord was foisted on Sri Lanka by the use of Indian military might and on a previous Sri Lanka Government long before Rajapaksa came to power. Subsequent events have shown the danger of allowing an armed police force to operate in the north of the country, the birthplace of the separatist movement. But for India any diminution of the 13th Amendment would be to go back on an internationally-legal agreement. Therein lies the rub. Perhaps emboldened by Narendra Modi’s response to the TNA delegation, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), the TNA’s main partner, threw down the gauntlet at its annual convention, where one of its resolutions said that unless the Sri Lanka Government mends its ways before the end of the year, they will launch a Mahatma Gandhi-style non-violent struggle and appealed to all progressive forces and the international community to support it. With a presidential election early next year, when Rajapaksa will contest for a third term following a Constitutional amendment lifting the two-term limit, it is unlikely that any dialogue with the Tamils will ensue before that.   Imbroglio In an interview to The Hindu newspaper in September, President Rajapaksa said he was ready to talk to the TNA about the 13th Amendment but the TNA refuses to talk to him. During his meeting with the TNA, Modi had urged the Tamil group to begin a dialogue with the Sri Lanka Government. Yet Sampanthan appears wary because he insists that Rajapaksa has not kept his promises and is calling for the presence of an international observer at any bilateral talks. Such a pre-condition is unlikely to go down well with Rajapaksa, who has already refused to permit UN investigators to dabble in Sri Lankan internal affairs. Despite all the loquacious talk of Sri Lankan diplomats in London, constantly repeating their weathered chorus on reconciliation even at the most ludicrous moments, the current imbroglio will continue with nothing positive expected in the near future. (Source: http://www.asianaffairs.in/november2014/sri-lanka.html)