Even before Sri
Lanka’s government withdrew in January 2008 from the
ceasefire agreement (CFA), the Norwegian-led
peace process and ceasefire on which it was built had
ceased to be relevant.
Plagued by violations, primarily by the insurgent
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the ceasefire
collapsed in July 2006. From then, both sides engaged in
the full range of offensive military actions, including
artillery and ground assaults, air and naval raids,
ambushes and use of mines, and committed many human
rights violations against civilians. The war intensified
in 2007, and the government is now pressing its
advantage in the north, hoping for a knock-out blow. The
rebels are fighting back, increasingly with brutal
attacks on civilians in government-controlled areas.
In addition to the
conflict’s humanitarian costs, Sri Lanka is
experiencing growing ethnic tensions, violence against
journalists
and dissenting politicians, and extensive human rights abuses:
disappearances, forcible child recruitment, political
killings and abductions. Democratic institutions are
under assault across the country, and dangerous trends
are emerging of more centralised power, military
autonomy and radicalisation of Muslims in the east.
This report, based on
interviews with politicians, civil servants, diplomats,
aid workers, human rights activists and military
analysts, explores the costs and likely course
of the war.
While the Tigers are under intense military pressure, a
decisive government victory remains very difficult to
achieve; moreover, were it to be achieved, the conflict would
likely continue in a new form, especially so
long as there was no genuine devolution of power to the
north and
east. The report analyses the government’s recent
proposals for limited devolution and
argues that much more is needed, both
to address the legitimate grievances of minorities and to
support the transformation or defeat of the insurgency.
Neither side is
interested in compromise, and there appears
to be no room in the near term for peace initiatives or
a ceasefire. But the government and the international
community can do much to mitigate the damage. This
report sketches an agenda for urgent humanitarian and
human rights
measures, equitable, democratic development in the Eastern
Province and constitutional reforms. It urges greater
international pressure on the LTTE’s financial and arms
networks and argues that it must undergo a major
transformation prior to any involvement in new negotiations.
Finally, it suggests the need to move beyond
the 2002 peace process and establish a new architecture
of international support for peace.
II.
The return to war
A.
The End of the Ceasefire
The return to
conflict began soon after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election
as president in November 2005. Almost
immediately the Tigers, in the guise of independent
“people’s militias”, began attacks on security forces
with the clear intention of provoking war. The
government
initially reacted with restraint.
A major military response – air attacks on
suspected LTTE camps in the Eastern Province – came only
after a failed suicide bombing against the army
commander, Sarath Fonseka, in April 2006. Full-scale
fighting began in late July 2006 in the Eastern Province
when the army’s effort to reopen an irrigation canal
closed by the LTTE sparked a counter-attack that led to
a major campaign to retake the large areas of the east
under LTTE control. After almost a year
of fighting, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians
were
displaced and tens of thousands of homes damaged, destroyed and looted, the government declared the east liberated in
mid-July 2007.
Fighting intensified
at the end of 2007 as the military sought to retake
areas in the north. Since September, Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa, the defence secretary and brother of the
president, has repeatedly said the government is
committed to defeating the Tigers militarily and seeks
to kill their
leader, Vellipulai Prabhakaran, who, in turn,
used his annual “Heroes
Day” speech in November 2007
to declare
that negotiations were pointless and call on Tamils to support a renewed military
struggle for independence.
Troops have been
pressing the Tigers from all sides – north east of
Mannar, near Vavuniya, in the north east region of Weli Oya
and in the Jaffna peninsula – probing
for weak spots. While they have yet to win back large
areas, the
shelling and aerial bombing have killed hundreds of rebels.
The government downplays its own casualties,
but most analysts suspect they are higher than reported.
The LTTE claims to
have made a “strategic withdrawal” from the Eastern
Province, but, though not a spent force, it is under severe
pressure. It has held most of its positions in the north and attacked in government areas. The most damaging was the
22 October 2007 combined land and air assault against an
airbase in the north central town of Anuradhapura, in
which 21 suicide troops destroyed at least a dozen
aircraft and damaged many others.
As it was
underway, two of the Tigers’ small fleet of propeller
aircraft dropped bombs. Though none of the four attacks
by the “Air Tigers” have produced significant damage to
date, their propaganda value – especially the 21 April
2007 attack on Colombo that provoked uncoordinated
anti-aircraft fire across the city – has been
considerable.
In late 2007 the
Tigers began brutal bus bombings across the country,
beginning with an attack in the north central
Anuradhapura district on 5 December. With the end of the
CFA came a 16 January 2008 attack on a civilian bus in
the remote south central town of Buttala, which killed
32 and injured more than 60; a 2 February attack on a
bus in the central town of Dambulla, which killed
eighteen and injured scores; and a 4 February attack in
the north eastern area of Weli Oya, which killed more
than a dozen and injured as many.
The Tigers showed
they can strike in and around Colombo,
with a suicide bombing at the main rail station on 3
February
2008 that killed twelve and wounded nearly 100. Other recent
attacks included the assassination of Minister
D.M. Dassanayake on 8 January, a claymore bomb used
against a military bus on 1 January and a failed suicide
bombing against their old Tamil rival, Minister Douglas
Devananda, on 28 November 2007. They have also launched
small guerrilla raids on police, military and civilians
in the Southern and Eastern Provinces.
B.
The Politics of War
Since the resumption
of offensive military operations against the Tigers in
late July 2006, the government has framed its military
actions as part of the global “war on terrorism” and
thus deserving of international support. Even as it
claimed to respect the CFA and to be committed
to a negotiated solution, it argued that it was engaged
in a “humanitarian” campaign “to liberate the innocent
and miserable masses of the north, who are in grave and
imminent danger at the hands of the LTTE”.
.
By the latter
half of 2007, it was more explicit that its goal was to
“defeat the LTTE militarily” and win back LTTE areas.
In November the president vowed to parliament to
“eradicate” terrorism from Sri Lanka,
arguing that the Tigers had “demonstrated
that they will never be ready to surrender arms and
agree to a democratic political settlement”.
“We have to defeat them militarily, we have to control the Wanni”, Defence Secretary
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told journalists the same month.
Government and
military leaders say they are confident the Tigers are
on the ropes and can be beaten. In a year-end press
release, the army, air force and navy chiefs “expressed
confidence that 2008 would be a decisive year
for … eliminating terrorism from Sri Lanka since they
were already
on course towards accomplishing this task”.
At the same time, the government continues to say it is
committed to a political solution that would satisfy
legitimate Tamil grievances. On 23 January 2008, it
announced proposals for implementing existing
constitutional provisions for limited devolution of
power to the
Northern and Eastern Provinces and promised they were
the first step toward more substantial power-sharing
when political conditions allowed.
C.
International Reaction
The government’s 2
January 2008 announcement that it was formally
abrogating the ceasefire agreement was greeted with dismay
and criticism by most of Sri Lanka’s traditional
supporters. Expressing “their strong concerns”,
the four co-chairs of the peace process – Japan, the
U.S., the EU
and Norway – repeated their conviction that “there is no military solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka, and reiterate[d]
their support for a negotiated settlement”.
The attempt to defeat the Tigers is widely seen as
undermining the possibility of a political solution, but
little has been done to make it harder for the
government to pursue the war.
Critics face a
dilemma, and the government has taken advantage of this.
Western powers, India and Japan do not believe the
Tigers can be beaten and worry about the damage to
ethnic relations and democracy from new fighting.
However, all want to see the Tigers weakened and are
constrained by knowledge that if they do not give the
government military support, others – chiefly Pakistan
and China – will pick up the slack. India in particular
worries about growing Chinese and Pakistani military
support and influence, and is widely reported to have
increased military aid in response. That even the strongest critics of
the renewed war and consequent human rights violations
continue to help the military has undercut
their public statements.
U.S. and UK criticism has lost some force due to
excessive use of “global war on terror”
rhetoric and, at least in government eyes, some
practices in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
III.
A Military Path to a Political
Solution?
A.
Will the Military Campaign Work?
The government’s
campaign in the north is designed as a war of attrition.
Having learned a lesson from earlier periods of the
conflict, the government is avoiding trying to win territory
quickly by frontal assault. Instead, massive artillery
and aerial bombing of Tiger forward defence lines
aims to
weaken defences sufficiently for measured ground
assaults. The military is confident the Tigers are short
of ammunition
and have limited capability to counter-attack.
The navy claims it
sunk seven ships carrying arms and supplies to the
Tigers in 2007, in some cases hundreds of miles from Sri
Lanka’s shores, and says this represents the bulk of
the rebels’ maritime supply network.
Military
analysts generally agree that these successes – due in
part to increased intelligence cooperation from foreign
governments – have significantly degraded the LTTE’s
resupply ability.
The Indian navy’s increased patrols of the Palk Strait,
separating Sri Lanka from southern India,
have also reportedly disrupted smuggling routes.
More effective air
attacks are another source of the government’s increased
confidence the Tigers can be beaten. It controls
the skies and has improved its air support
for ground operations.
Better intelligence and new weapons allow more accurate
attacks. The 2 November 2007 killing of the leader of
the LTTE’s political wing, S.P. Thamilchelvan, resulted
from a targeted strike on a bunker, and the
government has since repeatedly boasted of its ability to hit rebel leaders. A number of other senior LTTE
leaders have been killed recently by “deep penetration
units”,
and the government claims to have injured Prabhakaran
with a bunker busting bomb in late November.
According to a
humanitarian worker with experience in the north, “the
government’s strategy is to make life more
and more uncomfortable in the Wanni. While targeting
Prabhakaran
and the top leadership, they would like there
to be an internal collapse in the north. This would
allow them to avoid invasion and major casualties. The
Tigers’ strategy is simply to survive beyond 2008”.
Signs abound that
the LTTE is under significantly greater
pressure than at any recent time. It is reportedly short
on fighters and forcibly and extensively recruited,
including among children, throughout 2007.
Many front-line
casualties are thought to have been recent recruits and
underage
The government’s military spokesperson says the LTTE lost more
than 4,800 fighters in 2006 and 2007,
as against 1,241 government military and police. Published
defence ministry figures claim more than 1,200
rebels and 100 soldiers were killed in the first six
weeks of 2008.
Nonetheless, a
variety of factors could derail the government’s
strategy, and the military’s slow but steady pace may be difficult to maintain if it fails to produce noticeable
results within six to nine months. At present, the war
is backed by a large majority of Sinhalese, but much
support is predicated on the belief the Tigers are on
the verge of defeat.
If the sense of imminent victory wanes, public
willingness to accept the burdens of war could also
flag.
The financial cost
is already significant. The 2008 record
$1.5 billion military budget is blamed for a significant
fraction of the 26 per cent annual inflation rate, as
the government prints additional money to cover a large
deficit.
The war and Tiger terrorist attacks in the south have
taken a toll on tourism.
If the Tigers hit economic targets in the south, as they
threaten, the pressures would worsen.
Domestic support
also depends on holding down casualties and limiting
the ability of the Tigers to strike in the south.
Because the LTTE is dug into well-fortified and
heavily-mined defences, the military has been reluctant
to launch large assaults, but “at some stage this year,
they’ll have
to move forward, if only for political reasons. And at
that point, government
casualties could mount significantly”.
The bus bombings and
other rebel attacks on civilians since the government
announced its withdrawal from the ceasefire seem aimed
at expanding the sense of insecurity throughout
the Sinhalese south, which earlier smaller attacks
in Colombo had not done. They also suggest the LTTE
is less
concerned with international opinion and is willing
to risk increased criticism if it can weaken Sinhalese
support for the war or provoke reprisals against Tamil
civilians that will hurt the government’s international
standing.
The government will
need to carefully contain or cover up the humanitarian
costs if it is to retain India’s de facto support for the war.
Tamil Nadu opinion is unhappy with
the military approach but not yet sufficiently inflamed
to cause
problems for the Congress-led government in Delhi.
If an attempt to recapture the rebel-controlled area of
Wanni produces many refugees to south India, as in the
past, or if
there is news of large-scale death and destruction, however, the
Indian government will come under increased
pressure from its Tamil Nadu political allies to act.
This could result in reduced intelligence or other
assistance.
For all these
reasons, a long war will be hard to sustain, both
economically and politically. The Tigers need only
to hold on
and maintain their ability to fight. After nearly
six months of intense fighting, the government has yet
to advance more than a few kilometres. According to many
analysts, the LTTE may well still be keeping its best
fighters in reserve.
In the event the
Tigers were defeated on the battlefield and their de facto
state in the north dismantled, the conflict would be far from
over. Some form of violent resistance is almost certain.
Until the underlying political grievances
were addressed, the north could likely be governed only
with a massive security presence and much repression.
Analysts believe the military would need many more
troops to keep control of the Northern and Eastern
Provinces while also protecting Colombo.
There are perhaps one million Tamils in the Northern
Province alone, many of whom have lived under Tiger rule
for a decade or more and have received weapons training
and/or fought
with the rebels. Evidence from the counter-insurgency
operations in Jaffna and the Eastern Province,
especially formerly LTTE-controlled areas, suggests
government forces have difficulty trusting such Tamils.
The 600 civilians who went missing when the army
captured the Jaffna peninsula in 1995-1996 suggest the
scale of a potential catastrophe.
The government’s
offensive, together with its attendant security measures
and human rights violations, has already generated renewed support both within Sri Lanka and among the diaspora
for the Tigers, whom many Tamils see as their only
protectors.
A diplomat said, “the government needs to realise this
war can be won only if they have Tamils on their side.
But the government has done everything to push them
away….The LTTE are now being seen as good boys by many
Tamils”.
So long as there is widespread support for separatism
and militancy
in the diaspora, peace in Sri Lanka will be hard
to come by. Money for weapons and explosives will likely
continue to reach Sri Lanka, even with tightened
international controls.
What of the argument,
advocated by less hawkish members of government and
their supporters, that sustained military pressure can
weaken the Tigers and persuade them to return to
negotiations in a more reasonable frame of
mind?
Such a strategy might work
only if the government was prepared to implement
political proposals offering Tamils a realistic chance
of sharing power and administering their own affairs.
Without the pressure on the Tigers that such proposals
would generate from Tamils themselves, it is hard to see
the rebels making real concessions, even if weakened
militarily. There are no signs the government intends to
make such proposals. Instead, it seems determined to
extend its eastern strategy to the north. A veneer of
democracy would be created by deeply flawed elections,
and Tamil armed groups would be used to police the
local
population, while real political power would remain
with the
central government.
There is also no
sign the government would be willing to shift tactics and
start negotiations if it felt it was making military
progress. The military would not want to stop if it
believed it had the Tigers on the run. There would
instead be strong political and institutional pressure
to “complete
the job”, especially from the Janatha Vikmukthi
Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU),
Sinhala
nationalist parties whose support the government
needs to survive.
A triumphant military and its political allies are also
not likely to be a force for a fair settlement of
underlying grievances. If negotiations with the Tigers
are to be possible again, the attempt to defeat them
will likely
have to fail. But the cost of the war to civilians can be expected to reinforce Tiger control over Sri Lankan and diaspora
Tamils, thus making them less interested in concessions.
The government’s
commitment to defeating the LTTE militarily is thus a
major gamble, whose limited chance of success is already
being purchased at huge cost. Any battlefield successes
would be sustainable only if accompanied by a
credible plan for devolution and power sharing, backed by
clear commitment to implement them. Despite repeated
government assurances that a political solution
is an essential part of its strategy, recent developments suggest that the necessary political will is still lacking.
B.
The APRC and a Political
Solution
Since October 2006,
the government has been promising the imminent release
of proposals from the All-Party Representative Committee
(APRC), tasked by President Rajapaksa that July with
“formulating a political and constitutional
framework for the resolution of the national question”. Lacking
clear procedures or timetables, the APRC has been used
to buy time and reduce international
pressure for a political solution.
Repeatedly, as the proposals seemed about to appear,
however, the government has engineered delays or put new
hurdles before a consensus document.
The APRC is known to
have nearly completed a plan for the full revision of
the constitution, including enhanced devolution for the
north and east, power sharing at the centre, a new upper
house of parliament and elimination or weakening of the
executive presidency.
A strong majority is said to favour a system that goes
beyond the present unitary state. But members
representing the president’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP), the JHU and the equally Sinhala nationalist
Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) have
consistently blocked finalisation.
As the APRC neared a
new promised delivery date in late January 2008, reports
and government statements suggested it was being
pressured to delay announcement of reforms and instead
propose full implementation of the existing Thirteenth
Amendment to the constitution as an interim step.
Ratified in 1987 as part of the Indo-Lanka Accord, that
amendment made Tamil an official language and
established the provincial council system in most of the
country. Due to the war, political opposition,
and the central government’s reluctance to relinquish
power, however, the councils have limited authority.
They have
never properly functioned in the north or east,
the areas they were designed to address.
The president and other officials argued it would be
simpler and more realistic to begin with the amendment
than with full constitutional revision, which would
require two-thirds approval by parliament.
On 23 January 2008,
the APRC sent “interim” proposals to the
president, recommending that “the Government should
endeavour to
implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in
respect of legislative, executive and administrative powers, overcoming
existing
shortcomings”. Elections to
the Eastern Provincial Council should be held
immediately and an “interim council” for the Northern
Province appointed by the president until conditions
permitted elections.
It also recommended full implementation
of the constitution’s official languages provisions,
so all in the north and east can do business with the
state in their own tongue, and said its “consensus
document” on
new constitutional reforms “is being finalised” and
would reach the president “in the very near future”.
The Indian government
called the proposals “a welcome first step … to the
extent … [they] contribute to … a settlement acceptable
to all communities within the framework of a united Sri
Lanka”.
Domestic reaction has been almost uniformly critical.
The turn to the Thirteenth Amendment was widely seen,
with good reason, as capitulation to the president.
The APRC admitted the interim recommendations were
unrelated to the discussions on major constitutional
reform which dominated its 63 meetings over eighteen
months. Many commentators and politicians noted the
president could have implemented the amendment at any
time without need for the APRC.
Advocates of
devolution and supporters of the APRC process consider the
return to the Thirteenth Amendment
a betrayal of past presidential promises to respect the
APRC’s
deliberations and accept power sharing that goes
beyond the existing constitution. Devolution supporters
point out that even if fully implemented, the amendment
is unlikely to satisfy longstanding Tamil demands for
autonomy. The constitution’s unitary state and powerful
executive president make any devolution under its terms
problematic, since the central government would retain
authority to retake virtually all powers by presidential
decree or a parliamentary majority vote. Indeed, that is
why devolution proponents have argued for decades that
the basic state structure must change first.
There are widespread
doubts that the government will actually implement the
amendment in full. The APRC gave few specifics as to
what “full” implementation involves; details
were reportedly deleted at the last minute on the president’s
orders.
It seems unlikely that police powers and control of
finances, education and land – the central points of
contention under the amendment – will actually be
granted to
the Northern
and Eastern Provinces.
To implement the
amendment at all, the government would have to counter
strong opposition from the JVP, which argues that the
provincial councils in the north and the east could
easily become the springboard for separatism once
controlled by Tamil nationalist parties.
To date the government has been unwilling to oppose the
party on any conflict-related policies and has curried
support from it and the JHU in a way that gives to both
power well beyond their level of popular support.
Despite the hostile
political terrain, all parties with a declared
commitment to meaningful devolution – the United National
Party (UNP), the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA) and all Tamil, Muslim and left parties – should
call the
government’s bluff and insist that the amendment
be implemented in a way that “assures provinces the
fullest degree of autonomy within the constitutional
framework”
by granting the financial, police, education and land
powers needed for devolution to be meaningful.
They should also continue to insist on the necessity of
broad
constitutional reforms, call on the APRC to conclude
deliberations
before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year (mid-April
2008), and make public its proposals for new constitutional
arrangements. If the SLFP, MEP and JHU
refuse consensus, the minority and left parties should
publish their own preferred reforms.
The test of the
government’s political will will come quickly. For implementation
of the Thirteenth Amendment to have
positive effect, there must be free and fair elections in the east
(and ultimately the north), with all parties able
to campaign unhindered. Devolution can succeed only if
Tamil politics in the north and east is demilitarised.
Otherwise, it will merely formalise the power of armed
groups.
Given the Sinhala
nationalist forces the government has allied with, its
determination to pursue the war at all costs and its
continued reliance on Tamil armed groups, however, the
prospects for devolution under the Thirteenth Amendment are hardly
positive.
IV.
The Costs of war
A.
The Human Toll
There are no
independent and reliable sources for statistics
on killed and wounded since the CFA began to collapse.
The figure cited most often in media reports – 5,000
troops and civilians killed – may well be too low. The
military claims more than 6,000 combatants killed since
the beginning of 2006. There are no accepted overall
statistics for civilians over the past two years, but it
is clear that hundreds have died in shelling and
bombing. Many hundreds more have been deliberately
targeted by the Tigers and the government’s
counter-insurgency campaign. A conservative estimate for
total civilian deaths would be at least 1,500.
The humanitarian
costs of the fighting in the north have been largely
hidden from the public. Concerns among aid workers are
mounting, however. Government figures as of 31 December
2007 published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) show more than 148,000 displaced by renewed
fighting in the north, roughly half of whom are within
the LTTE-controlled Wanni, which is increasingly
difficult for humanitarian groups to access. Hundreds of
thousands are vulnerable
as the military tightens its grip on the Northern
Province. An aid worker with experience in the north
said that:
The future in the
Wanni doesn’t look bright in the coming months. It’s
going to be difficult to respond effectively. Any form
of humanitarian response is now felt to be assisting the
Tigers’ war
strategy. There are more and more restrictions
from the government’s side, even on the kinds and
amounts of drugs that can go to government hospitals.
It’s an ongoing struggle for all of us to get approval
for what is required. It’s going to be a very unpleasant
year.<
