BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement

If  recourse to international law will not resolve the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, we may also need to learn from the failures of  'peace' talks from Thimpu to Oslo. Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it - until they learn.

Some acronyms help to focus minds on the obvious.  BATNA is one of them. It was coined by Roger Fisher, the best selling author of Getting to Yes. BATNA stands for the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement. A party to a conflict will negotiate in good faith only if it believes that such negotiations will yield a result better than its BATNA. Otherwise, it will simply use the negotiation process to either reduce its opponent's BATNA or increase its own BATNA.

The Northern Ireland peace process serves as an useful illustration. For the United Kingdom, its 'Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement', was to continue facing IRA attacks in the mainland, including London and Manchester with rising insurance premia and the costs of maintaining a military presence in Ulster. If this BATNA was preferable to anything that was achievable at the negotiating table, then the UK would have insisted that the Northern Ireland question was an internal matter and would have continued to rely on its armed forces to annihilate the IRA. Again for the Sinn Fein, its 'Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement' was to continue with the effort to rid Northern Ireland of British rule and of the better equipped and stronger British Army. If this BATNA was preferable to anything that was seen as achievable at the negotiating table, then Sinn Fein may have yet participated in the talks, but not in good faith.

Each party will need to determine for itself whether its BATNA is preferable to anything that may be achievable at the negotiating table. This means not only that each will need to make a careful assessment of each others BATNA but also an equally careful assessment of the spectrum of possible solutions which may be achievable in a negotiating process. It is only then that each may be able to make an informed decision on the question whether its BATNA is preferable to anything that may be achievable at the negotiating table.

If a party takes the view that its BATNA is preferable to anything that may be achievable at a negotiating table, then the talking process will be a sham and simply a 'tactic'. The talking process will  be  used by that party, simply to justify and secure legitimacy for the stand that it has already  taken - and reduce its opponent's BATNA.

Thimpu talks

That which happened, at Thimpu in 1985 is illustrative. At Thimpu, the Tamil militant movement secured a measure of legitimacy by participating in direct talks with a specially appointed Minister of the Sri Lanka government. Significantly, the Tamil delegation  declined to submit any constitutional proposal for the resolution of the conflict. They feared that to have done so would have meant a disavowal of the demand for an independent Tamil Eelam state and that such disavowal would be used by Sri Lanka to undermine the struggle for which so many had given their lives. The Tamil delegation suggested instead a framework for talks which have now come to be known as the Thimpu principles i.e.

recognition of the Tamils of Ceylon as a nationality
recognition of the existence of an identified homeland for the Tamils in Ceylon
recognition of the right of self determination of the Tamil nation

The Tamil delegation called upon Sri Lanka to submit proposals which recognised these principles. The Sri Lanka government by making proposals on the basis of establishing District Councils, sought to create the impression that it was acting 'reasonably', but without causing prejudice to its own objective of securing the territorial integrity of the Sri Lanka state and rule by the majority at the centre. Its concern was that any relaxation in central control will lead to eventual separation - sooner rather than later.

Both Sri Lanka and the Tamil militant movements were reluctant participants in the Thimpu 'negotiating' process. In truth, there were no negotiations, but set speeches delivered 'at' one another. The parties to the talks had been frog marched to Thimpu under pressure from Rajiv Gandhi's India. Perhaps, not unnaturally, each party  directed its efforts to ensure that when the talks failed, the other party would be blamed for the breakdown. In this way, each sought to ensure that the renewed resort to arms by each, would secure added support.

Premadasa Talks & Kumaratunga Negotiations

It was the same process that was played out again during the Premadasa talks in 1989/90. At an International Alert sponsored seminar in Switzerland in 1996,  Bradman Weerakoone who had functioned as Presidential Adviser to Sri Lanka President Premadasa was forthright in his comments about the talks:

"Premadasa realised that 'the moment of truth' would arrive when the last of the IPKF soldiers left the North East. Who would fill the law and order gap thereafter? The Sri Lanka army, who had been in barracks for the years since July 1987, or the LTTE 'boys' who had been preparing themselves for the 'liberation of their motherland' ... (Premadasa's)  final option could have been straight out of Machiavelli or more likely Kautilya. That was that after the IPKF was out of the country he would turn the refreshed and renewed Sri Lankan forces on the weak LTTE, rout them completely, eliminate Prabhakaran and re-establish law and order, good governance, peace and prosperity over the North East and the whole of Sri Lanka... I am inclined to think that in his final grand design this last option would have been very appealing... Why were.... critical political issues left to drift and not addressed in the decisive and speedy manner that was one of Premadasa's characteristics? I am now increasingly inclined to the view that he simply did not want to do so."

President Kumaratunga was equally frank about the 1994/95 negotiations  when she declared truthfully on 20 August 1995:

"I have studied and acquired considerable knowledge on guerrilla warfare when I was a student in Paris, and we knew how they would behave. We conducted talks on the basis that the LTTE would not agree to any peaceful settlement and lay down arms." (Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Sunday Times, 20 August 1995)

Later, she  talked of 'devolution' and waged  war for 'peace'  to  'militarily weaken' the LTTE  -  if necessary,  by attacking the Tamil civilian population and in this way reduce LTTE's BATNA i.e. its ability to resist the Sri Lanka armed forces. The LTTE, by its determination sought to demonstrate that the Tamil armed resistance cannot be destroyed and that the mounting cost of the war will continue to weaken Sri Lanka's material resources and the man power of its armed forces and so reduce Sri Lanka's 'Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement' i.e. to carry on the war. And it is important to recognise that it is this which led to the Norwegian Peace Process.

Norwegian Peace Process - the beginnings

What had changed from 1996/1997 to 2002 was the balance of power between the LTTE and Sri Lanka.¹ The meetings of the LTTE and Sri Lanka with the  Norwegian mediators started in 2000 and were the direct result of  the military victories by the LTTE in 2000 commencing with the fall of Elephant Pass in April 2000.   The US Under Secretary of State, Thomas R. Pickering's visit to Sri Lanka and his comments at the Press Conference in Colombo on 29 May 2000 reflected the impact of the LTTE victories.

"Q: Ms. Vandana Chopra, VOA: Does the United States want India to go in for military intervention?

A: Pickering: I think that's a situation in which India has already made clear its position -- that it doesn't intend to. And I think, as I said a moment ago, we defer to India as a country of regional consequence to make its own decisions on these issues.

Q: Mr. Dilip Ganguly, AP Colombo Bureau Chief: If it comes to evacuating the (Sri Lanka) troops-- in the event it happens -- will the Indian assistance be forthcoming? Did you get that idea?

A.Pickering: I have the impression that the Indians are prepared to be helpful, provided that both parties are prepared to provide security assurances that the Indians will not become a party to fighting by doing so. And I can understand India's concern about not wanting to become a third party in the conflict, if I could put it that way. "

The US based Centre for Strategic & International Studies commented in June 2000

"The dramatic advance of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) into the Jaffna peninsula, the heart of the Tamil area, is a shattering blow for Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga and raises concerns of regional instability for India."

In October 2000, Miriam Young, of the US based Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace added 

"...it would be helpful for the U.S. to find a way to open a channel of communication with the LTTE, as it has done with other guerrilla groups in the past. The willingness of many countries to concur with the Sri Lankan government’s demonization of the LTTE will not lead to an environment conducive to negotiations, and Washington should avoid such a one-sided approach..."

At the same time the offensive by the LTTE had taken its toll on the LTTE itself.  It may not have had sufficient human resources to re capture the entirety of the Jaffna peninsula and more importantly hold it in the face of future attacks by Sri Lanka with possibly Indian intervention.

This was the background in which the  LTTE leader met with the Norwegian Peace envoy in November 2000 and the LTTE called for de escalation of  the armed conflict. This was followed by a proposal for Memorandum of Understanding presented by Raymond Johansen, Norwegian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Mr.V.Pirabhakaran, Leader of LTTE.

But even at that time Sri Lanka refused to enter into a ceasefire.  Sri Lanka Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar famously remarked in December 2000-

" As the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, I do not welcome statements made by people outside the country, even though they come from very friendly countries, prescribing remedies for our problem....The LTTE are not babies conducting a war by accident, but are capable of coming for talks while continuing fighting.."

Clearly Sri Lanka at that stage took the view that it had a better alternative than to negotiate.  In the early hours of the morning on the 24th April 2001, thousands of Sri Lankan troops of the SLA's 52, 53 and 55 Divisions, in a major show of strength, supported by heavy artillery, multi-barrel rocket fire and aerial and naval bombardment, launched a major offensive assault against the LTTE positions in southern Jaffna. The offensive was repulsed by the LTTE and the Sri Lanka army suffered yet another major debacle. And on 24 July 2001, the LTTE launched a massive attack on Katunayake Airport which destroyed 18 aircraft and the government estimated the initial damage cost at 539.3 million US dollars.

On 6 November 2001, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar  who had earlier said that he did not 'welcome statements made by people outside the country...prescribing remedies for our problem' now blamed 'a lack of political will for the collapse of a bid by Norway to end his country's 18-year ethnic war."  On 9 November 2001, he said that the military operation, launched against the LTTE in April, was a mistake  which had caused a set-back to the Norwegian- facilitated process for peace talks. He did not elaborate on whose mistake it was - and how it had came about.

Meanwhile, defections by Ministers in her Cabinet, resulted in President Kumaratunga's SLFP led government losing its majority in Parliament and in the ensuing general election in December 2001, a new government led by the United National Party with a mandate to end the war and a new Prime Minister was elected. The debacle suffered by the Sri Lanka army in April 2001 (coming on top of the earlier Elephant Pass loss) and the successful LTTE attack on Katunayake forced a rethink and 'prompted' the new (West leaning) UNP government to reciprocate the offer made by the LTTE and enter into a Ceasefire. The Ceasefire was signed between the LTTE and new Government in February 2002.

Sri Lanka was forced to the negotiating table because the Sri Lankan army had suffered severe defeats and could no longer exercise effective control of the Tamil homeland. And Sri Lanka was facing financial bankruptcy. Various estimates put Sri Lanka's military expenditure to around Rs. 55 billion. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was to remark jokingly later that the LTTE had captured weapons from the Sri Lankan armed forces which Sri Lanka had purchased on credit - and that Sri Lanka was still paying for those weapons!

Norwegian sponsored  Peace Talks & its Collapse

The Peace Talks which commenced in Thailand in September 2002 was a further illustration of operation of the BATNA principle. Sri Lanka could no longer carry on the war without more extensive support from the outside world. And that support came with a price tag - and that was to fall in line with the foreign policy dictates of those from whom you seek support.

As for the LTTE it did not have the cadres and the material resources to carry forward its military campaign and capture and hold Jaffna. At one level, it is true to say that it was because the LTTE was strong that Sri Lanka agreed to a ceasefire. At the same time it is also true that the LTTE was not strong enough to continue with the war and that is why the LTTE agreed to ceasefire.

And at that stage, the best alternative to both Sri Lanka and to the LTTE was to agree to 'negotiate'. And that is why they agreed to the Ceasefire. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango.

But each of the parties to the conflict  came to ceasefire with different ends in mine. Sri Lanka was seeking to use the 'peace process' to secure continued rule by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of the Sri Lankan state  and  the LTTE was seeking to use the 'peace process' to advance its struggle for an independent Tamil Eelam.

Given this it was not surprising that something had to give. And it did. The  'negotiations'  which commenced in September 2002, collapsed seven months later in April 2003 with the LTTE suspending its participation.  The collapse showed yet again that a party to a conflict will negotiate in good faith only if it believes that such negotiations will yield a result better than its BATNA i.e. its Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement.

The decision to hold the Donors Conference in New York (where the LTTE was banned) and the plan to require the LTTE to start decommissioning its arms led the LTTE to conclude that further negotiations would not yield a result better than its BATNA.² In this instance, for the LTTE , the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Arrangement for the time being was not armed conflict but a continuation of the ceasefire in a 'no war, no peace' situation. And the resulting  'shadow war' continues to the present day and has gathered momentum (and lost much of  its shadowy character) since the election of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse.

What lessons can we learn from the failures of the 'peace talks' from Thimpu to Oslo?

What lessons can we learn from the failures of the 'peace talks' from Thimpu to Oslo?  One major lesson that we can learn is that a 'gradualist', step by step process masked as a 'confidence building'  has not worked. Unless we have agreement in clear terms as to end goals, even where one side makes ‘concessions’, the other side will perceive the shift as simply a tactic to re group and that in reality there is no shift in the final goal. Efforts are then made by each party to secure that any interim ‘arrangement’ that may be agreed upon does not provide a platform for the other party to achieve its long term goals. The fate that befell the "interim self governing authority"(ISGA) proposal by the LTTE is a case in point. Each side questions the good faith of the other and accusations are made that the other side cannot be trusted. The history of earlier broken pacts and negotiation break downs is then regurgitated to buttress the allegations of bad faith and the attempt to resolve the conflict ends in the same way as the earlier efforts - in failure.

We cannot go forward by being clever. Resort to subterfuge brings a similar response from the other side.  Peter Senge in his foreword to Adam Kahane's "Solving Tough Problems" wrote -

"...Few of us do not shudder at the prospect of a continuation of today's escalating reliance on force... We are unable to talk productively about complex issues because we are unable to listen. ... Listening requires opening ourselves. Our typical patterns of listening in difficult situations are tactical, not relational. We listen for what we expect to hear. We sift through others' views for what we can use to make our own points. We measure success by how effective we have been in gaining advantage for our favored positions. Even when these motives are covered by a shield of politeness, it is rare for people with something at stake truly to open their minds to discover the limitations in their own ways of seeing and acting.

Opening our minds ultimately means opening our hearts. The heart has come to be associated with muddled thinking and personal weakness, hardly the attributes of effective decision makers.. The path forward is about becoming more human, not just more clever. It is about transcending our fears of vulnerability, not finding new ways of protecting ourselves. ...because the only progress possible regarding the deep problems we face will come from opening our minds, hearts, and wills.

In Tamil too the word  'manam' - 'மனம்'  straddles both mind and heart.  We cannot dig deep with the mind alone. We need our heart as well.

"..The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militants are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self assertive or the self assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative syntheses of opposites in fruitful harmony.... We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart..." Martin Luther King Jr. in  A Testament of Hope : The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr

The path forward  is not about being clever. We can all be clever.The path forward is about being more human. We need to dig deep to find common ground. The Tamil people and the Sinhala people need to talk to each other.  And we need to listen to each other. Each people will need to genuinely listen, not only to the other's aspirations but perhaps more importantly to their genuine fears, legitimate concerns and vulnerabilities.

Need to look beyond stated positions to the interests of the parties to the conflict

The story about the two professors Ury and Fisher is a not unfamiliar to many. It is a story. There were these two professors in a room. One wanted the windows open and the other wanted the windows closed.  So there was this big dispute about open - and close. Ury insisting that the window be open and Fischer saying no, it must be closed.  The conflict went on for sometime and Fisher eventually said let us sit and talk about this. The response he got was  “What is  there to be talked about - I want the window open, you want it closed. So what is there to talk about?' . And then Fisher asks, 'Yes, OK -  but why is it you want the windows open?’  So, behind your stated position what is your interest?. And Ury replied 'I want it open because I like the fresh air and the breeze and so on.'  Ury then asked 'Yes, but, then why do you want it closed?' Fisher replied 'Because papers are flying around, I cannot control it.'  

And then the two of them jointly started examining ways in which they could get a win-win solution so that Ury could have the fresh air and Fisher would not have his papers flying about. They discussed the idea of positioning the tables differently, then putting up screens  and so on and so forth. But the point of the story was not  so much about the end result – it was about the fact that the two parties to a conflict were  able to jointly engage in a dialogue and the synergy  that was created resulted in solutions which neither of them may have thought of on their own. 

To point out all this is to, hopefully,  build a platform  for meaningful dialogue  from which we may go forward. The political reality is that any peaceful attempt at conflict resolution will need to secure a win-win result. However 'win-win'  is not some modern day mantra which when repeated often enough brings peace. The Tamil claim for independence and Sri Lanka's insistence on its territorial integrity appear mutually exclusive. How then do we move towards a win-win result?

In the case of the conflict in Sri Lanka we may want to look behind the stated positions of the LTTE  and Sri Lanka. Stated positions do not materialise from thin air. Behind the stated positions of the parties, are the interests that these stated positions are intended to secure. There is a need to understand these interests.

We cannot reach a win-win result without first understanding what 'win' means to the other party. Each party to the conflict needs to understand the genuine interests that the other party seeks to protect. This may take time, care and patience but clearly there is a need for each party to understand the other before attempting to make itself understood. It is only when each party to the conflict acquires a clear understanding of the interests that the other party seeks to protect that the parties can together move to examine a win-win resolution of the conflict. 

Once these interests are clearly understood, the reasoning that led to the stated position may have to be revisited with a view not to judge but to discuss new frames. A win-win approach may then be directed to create, in a step wise fashion, structures where the actual interests of each party -  without exception, and without compromise - may be secured. A win-win solution is not a half way house where neither side wins. A win-win solution is directed to secure the interests of both parties - after all, that is why it is a win-win solution, and not a lose-lose solution or a  lose-win solution.

Any Tamil who seeks to persuade the Sinhala people of the justice of  the Tamil cause  must first genuinely try to understand the reasons for the stand taken against Tamil Eelam by successive Sri Lanka governments and by the Sinhala people. By the same token, any Sinhalese who seeks to persuade the Tamil people of the justice of the Sinhala stand must  first genuinely try to understand the reasons for the demand for Tamil Eelam by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Tamil people.

Here there is a need to avoid the trap of separating the Sri Lanka government from the Sinhala people and the LTTE from the Tamil people. The Sinhala people are not a foolish people misled by designing politicians and political bhikkus. The Sinhala people are as foolish as any other people. And, like any other people, they  create their leaders and are responsible for the actions of their leaders. Political leaders are not parachuted from the stratosphere. They grow from the ground.  The same is true of the Tamil people. Again, the Sinhala people are not an evil people. They are as evil and as good as the Tamil people, or for that matter any other people. And, not much is gained by either party demonising the other.

A need to understand Sinhala interests

Why then are the Sinhala people determined to resist any attempt to divide the country? From time to time, several reasons have been given and it is useful to examine these reasons, not so much with a view to 'judging' whether these reasons are 'just', but with a view to understanding the underlying interests which the Sinhala people seek to protect and the real concerns which have led successive Sinhala dominated Sri Lanka governments (without exception)  to resist the demand for Tamil Eelam.

1. Sri Lanka is a too small a country to be divided
2. Tamil Eelam will have control of more than 50% of the island's sea shores and more than 30% of the land in the island
3. The discrimination that the Tamils claim to have suffered was simply taking away the privileges they had enjoyed under the British
4. The Tamil people do not want Tamil Eelam, it is only a few terrorists and fanatics who want it
5. Historically, there is no Tamil homeland - the Sinhala people lived in the north and east as well
6. The Tamil can go to Tamil Nadu but the Sinhalese have no land other than Sri Lanka
7. The Tamils are  invaders and immigrants and cannot claim a part of the country - they are not the 'original' people
8. Tamil Eelam will link with the Tamils in the plantations and invade parts of the South
9. Tamil Eelam  will be a first step towards a pan Tamil state including Tamil Nadu
10. An independent Tamil Eelam state will threaten the existence of the Sinhala Buddhist nation

This list of reasons is not meant to be exhaustive. However, the list may be sufficient to reflect some of the stated concerns that the Sinhala people may have in relation to the demand for Tamil Eelam.

It may be instructive to examine  these reasons and determine whether they reflect an actual interest that the Sinhala people seek to protect or whether they are simply intended to serve as useful debating points in a positional propaganda war.

Take for instance the  'reason'  that Sri Lanka is too small a country to be divided. The fact is that there are many countries which are smaller than Tamil Eelam - and the Sinhala people are well aware of that fact. The real question is not whether Sri Lanka is 'too small' to be divided, but what are interests of the Sinhala people that would be put at risk, if such division took place? Would a smaller Sri Lanka put at risk the economic well being of the Sinhala people  and if so how may that well being be protected? Again, would a smaller Sri Lanka put at risk the security of the Sinhala people and if so how may that security be protected?

The concern about control of 50% of the island's sea shores and 30% of the land must be considered in the light of the fertility of the land in the south and centre of the island, the tea, rubber and coconut plantations in the south and the urban development of the capital, Colombo and the Western Province. The truth is that the equities in terms of economic resources are weighted heavily in favour of the Sinhala south. But, again, these are not facts unknown to the Sinhala people. What are the interests of the Sinhala people that would be put at risk if  50% of the island's sea shores and 30% of the land mass was in the control of Tamil Eelam? Can the percentages be made subject to negotiation? Again, is it a matter of economics or security - or both?

The argument that the Tamils do not want Tamil Eelam ignores the mandate that S.J.V.Chelvanayagam received from the Tamil people in 1975 and his short but  historic statement on 7 February 1975:

"Throughout the ages the Sinhalese and Tamils in the country lived as distinct sovereign people till they were brought under foreign domination. It should be remembered that the Tamils were in the vanguard of the struggle for independence in the full confidence that they also will regain their freedom. We have for the last 25 years made every effort to secure our political rights on the basis of equality with the Sinhalese in a united Ceylon."

"It is a regrettable fact that successive Sinhalese governments have used the power that flows from independence to deny us our fundamental rights and reduce us to the position of a subject people. These governments have been able to do so only by using against the Tamils the sovereignty common to the Sinhalese and the Tamils."

"I wish to announce to my people and to the country that I consider the verdict at this election as a mandate that the Tamil Eelam nation should exercise the sovereignty already vested in the Tamil people and become free."

It also ignores the fact that at the 1977 general elections, the Tamil United Liberation Front won a mandate for Tamil Eelam. The arithmetic of that mandate is not the real issue. The fact is that the present armed conflict exists  because  the Sinhala people do not want Tamil Eelam - and are prepared to lose Sinhala lives to secure that objective.  Again, these are facts which are not unknown to the Sinhala people. The real question that may need to be addressed is: what are the interests that the Sinhala people are prepared to defend with their lives?

It should now have become apparent that the real concern that the Sinhala people have is that an independent Tamil Eelam may become a focus for a powerful pan Tamil nationalism and that this will threaten the very existence of the Sinhala Buddhist nation in the island.

Admittedly,  the Sinhala people have their roots in the island of Sri Lanka - and they have no other land which they can claim as their own. Furthermore, the Sinhala people are a minority in the region. This is a demographic fact. This demographic fact is compounded by the memory of rule of the Sinhala people by Tamil kings. The last King of Kandy signed his surrender to the British in Tamil (and not in Sinhalese) and reportedly the British secured the support of  Sinhala feudal lords to overthrow the  King who had come from South India.

We cannot go forward by dismissing the fears of the Sinhala people as 'irrational'  or by suggesting that they are simply the handiwork of corrupt Sinhala politicians or 'evil' Buddhist priests. Nor should these fears be dismissed simply as a consequence of the 'Maha Vamsa' mind set. 

After all, why was it that the Mahavamsa came to be written in the way it was - and not in some other way. The story about Dutugemenu reflected a certain existing political reality - it did not 'create' that political reality out of thin air.  The fears of the Sinhala people spring from geography and history and, more importantly, are related to today's demographic reality in the Indian region. The existence of one million Tamils in the plantations in central Sri Lanka and more than fifty million Tamils (separated by a mere 20 miles of water) in Tamil Nadu is no Mahavamsa myth.

The truth is that the modern Sinhala Buddhist national identity grew in opposition to British rule. But as the Sinhala people built that identity and traced their origins to their own roots, it also separated them from the Tamils who spoke a different language, traced their history and culture  to different origins.

"Nationalism ... is an act of consciousness .. the mental life of man is as much dominated by an ego-consciousness as it is by a group consciousness. Both are complex states of mind at which we arrive through experiences of differentiation and opposition, of the ego and the surrounding world, of the we group and those outside the group" (Hans Kohn: The Idea of Nationalism , A Study of its Origins and Background. New York. 1944)

Again, the Sinhala Buddhist national identity is not simply a function of economics, as some Sinhala Marxists would have it.

"Nationalism has proved an uncomfortable anomaly for Marxist theory and precisely for that reason, has been largely elided, rather than confronted. How else to account for the use, for over a century of the concept of the 'national bourgeoisie' without any serious attempt to justify theoretically the relevance of the adjective? Why is this segmentation of the bourgeoisie - a world class in so far as it is defined in terms of the relations of productions - theoretically significant?  (Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism - Verso, 1983)

"Like religion,..or any other great emotive force, nationalism is ambivalent, and can escape very completely from a prescribed political channel. Even in its origins, it was a complex phenomenon, deriving both from the solidarity and from the divisions of society... " (Anthony D Smith (Ed) Nationalist Movements - Article by V.Kiernan - Nationalist Movements and Social Classes)

The question that any meaningful attempt at conflict resolution will need to address is whether securing an undivided Sri Lanka is the only way in which the  real concerns of the Sinhala people may be protected.

And a need to understand Tamil interests

Let us now turn to the reasons that the LTTE and the Tamil people advance in support of their demand for an independent Tamil Eelam. Because as much as it is important for the Tamil people to understand the interests that the Sinhala people seek to protect, equally, in so far as the Sri Lanka government and the Sinhala people are concerned, there is a need for them to understand the reasons which led the Tamil people to demand Tamil Eelam and to take to arms to secure it. Some of the reasons that have been advanced from time to time include the following:

1. Plantation Tamils were disenfranchised to weaken Tamil influence in the legislature
2. The Sinhala Only Act discriminated against Tamils  in respect of language and diminished their employment prospects
3. The Tamil homeland was subjected to state sponsored Sinhala colonisation
4. Tamil areas have not received resources for economic development
5. When Tamils protested against discrimination, genocidal attacks were launched on them
6. Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism has led Sinhala political leaders to break agreements and pacts.
7. The Tamil people are  ruled by a permanent alien Sinhala majority.
8. Tamils are a different people, with a different language and trace their origins to different historical roots, and they have lived in the island for as long as or longer than the Sinhala people
9. If democracy means rule of the people by the people, then no one people may rule another
10. Continuance within the Sri Lanka state will lead to the destruction of the Tamil Eelam nation

Again, though these reasons are not intended to be exhaustive, the list may be sufficient to reflect some of the stated concerns that the Tamil people have in relation to continuing to live within the confines of the existing Sri Lankan state. Once again, it will be useful to examine these reasons and determine whether they reflect an actual interest that the Tamil people seek to protect or whether they are simply intended to serve as useful debating points in a hypothetical 'court of justice'.

It is true that the Tamil people seek to secure their language and employment rights. It is true that they seek to prevent state colonisation of their homeland. But, they seek to do this, in order that they may protect their separate identity as a people.  The Tamil struggle is not about discrimination but about freedom from alien rule by a permanent Sinhala majority within the confines of one state. It is this permanent Sinhala rule which is evidenced, for instance, by the fact that  in Sri Lanka, for five long decades since 1948, we have always had a Sinhala Buddhist as the executive head of government.

The question is not even whether Sinhala rule was oppressive (though, in fact it was). If the question was 'oppressive Sinhala rule', the answer would be benevolent Sinhala rule. There may have been some who regarded British rule as benevolent, but this did not prevent the struggle for freedom from alien rule. It is as a free people, that the togetherness of the Tamil people rooted in an ancient heritage and a rich language will find vibrant expression. It is as a free people that they will be able to nurture the growth of their children and their children’s children to the fullness of their potential.

The bottom line is that the struggle of the Tamil people is about their democratic right to rule themselves - and it is this right that they seek to protect. If democracy means the rule of the people, by the people and for people, then  equally, no one people may rule another.

A Need to Think out of the Box...

In an important sense, the interest that each party to the conflict in the island seeks to protect is the mirror image of the interest of the other party. The Sinhala people seek to secure their national identity against a Tamil majority in the region. The people of Tamil Eelam seek to secure their own separate national identity within the island of Sri Lanka. The Sinhala people fear rule by a dominant Tamil majority in the region. The people of Tamil Eelam fear rule by the Sinhala majority within the island of Sri Lanka.

The question is whether the two peoples sitting together as equals cannot agree upon political structures which protects each of their interests. Faced with diametrically opposed positions, it is easy to conclude that the only way out is to explore the whole area  in the continuum between 'Independent Tamil Eelam' at one end and 'Unitary Sri Lanka' at the other end. This then is the path of district councils, provincial councils, regional councils, the unit of devolution, the extent of devolution, federalism, and confederation - a path which ended in failure, time and again.

We need to think out of the box. No state is 'totally' independent. We live in an inter-dependent world. But, inter-dependence comes after independence from alien rule, not before. Associations such as the European Union are associations of independent states.  Such associations do not represent a stage before independence and they rightly belong to the left of "Independent Tamil Eelam" A figurative representation more in accord with reality would be:

A meaningful negotiating process will need to address the question of working out a legal framework for two free and independent peoples to co-exist - a legal framework where they may pool their sovereignty in certain agreed areas, so that they may co-exist in peace.  There may be a need to telescope two processes - one the creation of an independent Tamil Eelam state and the other the terms in which an independent Tamil Eelam state may  associate with an independent Sri Lanka.

Admittedly, the negotiating process may be complex but if Germany and France were able to put in place such 'associate' structures despite the suspicions and confrontations of two world wars, it should not be beyond the capacity of Tamil Eelam and  Sri Lanka to work out structures, within which each independent state may remain free and prosper, but at the same time pool sovereignty in certain agreed areas. In the case of Europe, the European Union evolved over a number of years and was underpinned by NATO and Marshalll Aid. In the case of the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka, there may be a need to secure the support of both India and the United States to provide the necessary underpinning. And here, it becomes necessary to face up to the strategic interests of the international actors in the conflict in the island of Sri Lanka.

The International Frame of the Conflict in the island of Sri Lanka

In an important sense for the past 25 years and more,  it will be true to say that two conflicts have raged in the island of Sri Lanka. One is the conflict between the Tamil people and the Sinhala people. And we have already examined the interests behind their stated positions. The second conflict is the conflict between New Delhi and Washington - and it is to this conflict that we must now turn. We need to examine the interests behind the stated positions of the US and India. We need to do so despite the apparent preference of the US as well as India to advance their interests by asserting that they are disinterested good Samaritans concerned simply with bringing peace to a troubled island. But the facts belie these assertions.

We need to address the strategic interests of the US and India because the political reality is that a conflict resolution process in relation to the Tamil Eelam-Sri Lanka conflict will not succeed without  resolving the US-India conflict in the Indian Ocean Region. What are the facts?

The election of the West leaning Sri Lanka J.R. Jayawardene in 1977 and the disenfranchisement of the Sinhala Opposition leader Srimavo Bandaranaike a couple of years later, led New Delhi to train and support Tamil militant groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s. New Delhi did not create Tamil resistance to alien Sinhala rule but it exploited the struggle for Tamil Eelam to destabilise Sri Lanka and move Sri Lanka back into the Indian orbit.  Jyotindra Nath Dixit, Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka 1985 /89, Foreign Secretary in 1991/94 and National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India, 2004/05  was open and frank on Indira Gandhi and India's motivations in 1983 -

"...Tamil militancy received (India's) support  ...as a response to (Sri Lanka's).. concrete and expanded military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, Israel and Pakistan. ...The assessment was that these presences would pose a strategic threat to India and they would encourage fissiparous movements in the southern states of India. .. a process which could have found encouragement from Pakistan and the US, given India's experience regarding their policies in relation to Kashmir and the Punjab.... Inter-state relations are not governed by the logic of morality. They were and they remain an amoral phenomenon.....

(One of the factors which influenced Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) was the visits of US General Vernon Walters to Colombo in October 1983 and then again in 1984. Walters was a senior figure in the US strategic and intelligence establishment. Walters had followed up the first visit to Colombo with a visit to India also... He was known to be the subterranean architect of many of the anti-Indian aspects of US policies on matters of India's national security.  Walters gave detailed information to Mr Jayewardene about India providing training and other logistical facilities to Sri Lankan Tamil separatists in India. He also agreed to act as an intermediary between Sri Lanka and Israel to ensure Israeli arm supplies and intelligence support to the island nation. The quid pro quo suggested by Walters was that Sri Lanka should provide strategic intelligence gathering facilities against India in the proposed Voice of America broadcasting station to be established in that country. Walters also agreed to facilitate the employment of British mercenaries and Pakistani military officers to support and assist Sri Lankan security forces. India had confirmed information about the discussions Walters had on Sri Lanka, both in Colombo and in Washington. This certainly did not improve Mrs Gandhi's mood or attitudes on the Sri Lankan situation.

I must also mention that General Vernon Walters found both Mr Parthasarthy and Mrs Gandhi's Principal Secretary Dr P.C. Alexander rather "difficult and unsatisfactory", according to his assessment conveyed to Sri Lankan leaders. One is not surprised because General Walters with his sense of self-importance must have been reduced to a state of unpleasant shock that some odd Indian natives should see through his motivations, and could tell him that India would not be taken in by his sophistry and that we had assessed his mission precisely for what it was in terms of the facts gathered on what he was doing in Sri Lanka...To sum up, General Walters' shuttle diplomacy only heightened tensions and generated an adversarial relationship between India and Sri Lanka. Perhaps that was the predetermined purpose of his activities at that point of time. .."

The Indian support for Tamil militancy in the early 1980s elicited a belligerent response from the then Sinhala Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa in June 1984 in the Sri Lanka Parliament:

".. Indira Gandhi should not play hide and seek with Sri Lanka. If Mrs.Gandhi wants to invade Sri Lanka and conquer this country, let her do so openly". 

 In 1987, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi felt that India's strategic objectives were secured by the Indo Sri Lanka Accord and the Exchange of Letters between him and President J.R.Jayawardene.  The exchange of letters ensured that "Trincomalee or any other ports in Sri Lanka will not be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India's interests", and that "Sri Lanka's agreement with foreign broadcasting organisations will be reviewed." Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi declared in the Indian Parliament in early November 1987:

"The Indo Lankan agreement would also meet some of our important security concerns and ... therefore the Government of India is fully committed to the full implementation of this agreement" (New Life,13 November 1987)

The circumstance that the 1987 Indo Sri Lanka Accord (and Indian armed intervention in the island) did have the overt support of the US was intriguing. On the surface, it was surprising that the US supported an Accord which called for the dismantling of the Voice of America installations in the island and increased potential Indian influence in the Indian Ocean - an Accord which was hailed by Rajiv Gandhi as having secured India's strategic interests in the region. Was the US actually supporting a resolution of the conflict which secured New Delhi's hegemony? The events after the induction of the IPKF in 1987 exposed the political reality.

The US appears to have have taken the view that India's overt involvement was a way of ending the less manageable covert support that India had extended Tamil militancy during the period 1981 to 1986. The US was mindful that should India's influence in the island tend to become stabilised, President Jayawardene (who for many years was called 'Yankee Dick' by his political opponents) and US supporters in the Sri Lanka cabinet (like the then Sri Lanka Prime Minister Premadasa and National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali) could always be encouraged to delay or even sabotage the implementation of crucial terms of the Accord.

In the event, the arrest of top ranking LTTE leaders including Kumarappa and Pulendran did provide National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali with that opportunity. His insistence (backed by President Jayawardene) that the arrested LTTE leaders should be brought to Colombo for questioning despite the amnesty proclaimed in the Indo Sri Lanka Accord, forced Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to choose - and Rajiv Gandhi chose to support Sri Lanka (in an attempt to salvage India's role in the region). The subsequent suicide of Kumarappa, Pulendran and others was the final straw that broke the fragile peace that the Accord had secured.

Many may conclude that Rajiv Gandhi was entrapped in the snare that had been laid for him (not by President Jayawardene but by the United States) and in the end succumbed to forces bigger than those that India could manage.  A US diplomat once remarked to a Tamil activist in Washington in 1984 "You know, India is not a super power - it should not try to behave like one."

Eventually a West leaning Sri Lanka President Premadasa (who was a significant absentee at the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord) demanded the removal of the IPKF from Sri Lanka and in that way ended that particular Indian adventure. New Delhi's attempts to hang on with Varadaraja Perumal failed. The exchange of the letters between Sri Lanka President Premadasa and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 showed the extent of the acrimony.

"...It has been our practice to maintain the confidentiality of official correspondence particularly between Heads of State or Government, unless otherwise agreed upon. However, the gist of your messages to me was more often than not made available to the media before they reached me. Now I find that all our recent correspondence has been officially made public by the Sri Lankan Government. I may thus be constrained to depart from tradition by authorising this communication being made public, after you receive it.." Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Sri Lanka President Premadasa, 4 July 1989

That was twenty years ago. Since then much has happened but not much has changed. The twin issues of  Trincomalee and US broadcasting stations on Sri Lanka soil continue to divide India and the US. Here Dharmeratnam Sivaram's study in 2005 of US Strategic Interests in Sri Lanka remains essential reading for anyone concerned to understand US actions in relation to the conflict in the island. 

"..Central to the US strategic objective in Asia is the desire to “preclude the rise of a regional or continental hegemon.” The objective is considered important for two main reasons:
- To prevent the United States from being denied economic, political and military access to an important part of the globe.
- To prevent a concentration of resources that could support a global challenge to the United States on the order of that posed by the former Soviet Union.”  US Strategic Interests in Sri Lanka -  Taraki, 30 July 2005

Stated broadly, US foreign policy is directed to build on its current position as the sole surviving super power and secure a unipolar world (with a 'multi polar perspective' - a la Condoleezza Rice) for the foreseeable future. And this means, amongst other matters, preventing the rise of independent regional hegemons. On the other hand, the central plank of New Delhi's foreign policy is to deny any independent intermediary role to extra regional powers in the affairs of the Indian region and also to further the emergence of a multi lateral world.  In this latter objective, New Delhi may count on the 'calibrated' support of the European Union, Russia, China and Iran amongst others. 

Given the difference in the end goals that US and India have, it should not be surprising if  the policies of the United States and New Delhi in relation to  Sri Lanka and the LTTE are not always congruent. But that is not to say that the United States  will not cooperate with India. It will. It will seek to cooperate 'as a super power' - and the US believes that it has sufficient instruments in its armoury to do just that. One such instrument is the Norwegian sponsored Peace Process. This explains the consistently enthusiastic support that the Peace process has received from the United States and the more muted  (and calibrated) support from India.

This also helps us understand the covert operations of RAW in Tamil areas in the island of Sri Lanka and the material support extended by India to Sinhala governments and Sri Lanka political parties. In the 1980s, RAW gave covert material and financial support to the Tamil militants to secure the same end - Indian hegemony in the Indian Ocean region. It appears that New Delhi's  interests  remain permanent, though its 'friends' may have changed from time to time. Because New Delhi does not have the clout of a super power, it seeks to manage the Tamil struggle to progress its own ends by infiltrating the Tamil struggle - both in Tamil Eelam and abroad. That is what it did in 1980s and that is what it is doing today.

Today, both India and the US state openly that they are intent on securing the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. They do not do so because of some generalised statist disdain for the emergence of new states. Did the international community have the same 'statist disdain' in the case of  Croatia? Or for that matter in the case of Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine? The reason is to be found in the specific strategic concerns the US and India in relation to the Indian region. And we need to understand the inter play if we are to progress the conflict resolution process in Sri Lanka.

Why is it that New Delhi is against the emergence of an independent Tamil Eelam? It was the threat of 'politico-strategic pressure' by the US (and Pakistan) which led India to see an independent Tamil Eelam as a threat to its territorial integrity and for Dixit to conclude-

" It was.. my considered opinion that the LTTE's insistence on the creation of a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, based on ethnic, linguistic and religious considerations, would have far-reaching negative implications for India's unity and territorial integrity..." 

And here let us be clear. The threat was the potential rise of Tamil separatism in Tamil Nadu per se (by itself) but the threat that such potential may be used by the United States as a 'politico-strategic pressure' point to secure US foreign policy objectives. This bears emphasis.

New Delhi was not unaware that despite the support that the Tamil Eelam struggle received from some Tamil leaders from Tamil Nadu from time to time, caste divisions and parochial loyalties within Tamil Nadu had prevented the rise of any serious separatist threat in Tamil Nadu itself. Periyar had failed to deliver on the promise of Dravida Nadu and Annadurai and the DMK gave up the demand in 1961. Again, New Delhi had every reason to have confidence in the influence it wielded within Tamil Nadu through a centralised administrative service and expanded economic links across state boundaries whilst at the same time nurturing Tamil language and culture through the symbolism of a Tamil linguistic state.  New Delhi has always recognised that without US and foreign involvement, separatism within its boundaries can be managed. The real concern that India has is that an independent Tamil Eelam may become a staging post for the US  "given India's experience regarding their (US & Pakistan) policies in relation to Kashmir and Punjab".

New Delhi was not persuaded by LTTE protestations to the contrary.

"..We have no objection whatsoever to India's strategic aspirations to establish her status as the regional superpower in South Asia. We always functioned and will continue to function as a friendly force to India. We would have extended our unconditional support to the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord if the Agreement was only confined to Indo-Sri Lanka relations aimed to secure India's geopolitical interests..." - Tamil National Struggle and Indo Sri Lanka Accord  paper presented by the Political Committee of the LTTE at the World Tamil Conference in London, 30 April 1988

New Delhi was not persuaded not because it did not trust the LTTE - after all if it was a question of trust, New Delhi may have explored entering into appropriate treaties with an independent Tamil Eelam to secure and enforce India's strategic interests. New Delhi was not persuaded because even a trusted friend may not continue in office. New Delhi was not unmindful of that which happened to the friendly Mujib Abdul Rahman in Bangladesh. There was also a further and more important concern - and this was crucial.

Support for an independent Tamil Eelam would lead Sri Lanka to align itself even more closely to the United States and thereby enhance US presence in the Indian region rather than reduce it. New Delhi's foreign policy was therefore directed, (at every stage during the past 30 years, since the advent of the President Jayawardene to power in 1977)  to secure a friendly Colombo government. In Chandrika Kumaratunga (with her left of centre politics) , New Delhi believed that it had found the right partner - and this belief may be held more firmly by a Congress (I) led government than by a BJP one. New Delhi may be less sure with President Rajapakse with his greater reliance of the JVP.

If these are some of New Delhi's concerns, what are the concerns of the US?  What then are the reasons for the US to oppose the emergence of an independent Tamil Eelam? What are the interests behind the stated position?

"..Central to the US strategic objective in Asia is the desire to preclude the rise of a regional or continental hegemon. The US seeks to do this by, among other things, propagating the impression of and/or by actually developing close relations with, India. Eventually convince New Delhi that its interests are best served by letting the US look after the overall strategic stability of the subcontinent."  US Strategic Interests in Sri Lanka -  Taraki, 30 July 2005

The US seeks to adopt a gradualist approach to relations with India and is at all times more than  mindful of the opportunities afforded by the huge Indian market. It also sees India's usefulness in the broader balance of forces in the world  - in particular the Muslim world and China. Stated broadly, US foreign policy is directed to build on its current position as the sole surviving super power and secure a unipolar world (with a 'multi polar perspective' - a la Condoleezza Rice) for the foreseeable future. The US is concerned to have New Delhi's support in relation to the conflict in the island. But at the same time the US is unwilling to give New Delhi a free hand because to do so may create a regional hegemon. US fears that support for the establishment of an independent Tamil Eelam may lead New Delhi to take the view that the US is building a 'strategic pressure point' and New Delhi may then be less willing to support US initiatives for instance in relation to Iran, on nuclear non proliferation and the opening up the Indian market to foreign investment. And China has shown that it is no  distant bystander. The uneasy power balance in the Indian Ocean region must be assessed in the light of

"...two geopolitical triangles juxtaposing on the Indian Ocean's background: U.S.-India-China relations and China-Pakistan-India relations. In this complicated geopolitical configuration, New Delhi is not simply a partner of China or the United States: India is emerging as a major power that follows its own grand strategy in order to enhance its power and interests..." India's Project Seabird and the Indian Ocean's Balance of Power - PINR, 2005

The US and India may find common cause in weakening the LTTE but they seek to weaken it in such a way that thereafter each of them may successfully secure their own strategic interests.  And herein lies the conflict - and the difficulty.

New Delhi will not support a resolution of the conflict which secures US hegemony in the island. And so it will seek to create Tamil dissidents and build support among them as a way of keeping its foothold in the island. It sought to do so with TELO, it sought to do so with EPRLF and Varadarajah Perumal, it sought to do so with EROS, it sought to do so with Amirthalingam, and now it seeks to so so with Karuna and Anandasangaree.

It is within the interstices of this international frame that the struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam to be free from alien Sinhala rule continues under conditions of excruciating agony and suffering . And it is this same international frame which Sinhala Sri Lanka seeks to use to continue its genocidal onslaught on the Tamil people.