Tamilnation > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Conflict Resolution - Tamil Eelam - Sri Lanka > Norwegian Peace Initiative > Sixth Session of Talks in Japan & Aftermath >The American Connection

Norwegian Peace Initiative

The American Connection

Jayanath Rajepakse 
Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Island, 10 April 2003

We are now well into the first phase of the US’ project for global domination: namely, the US-UK war of conquest against Iraq. As the world watches this act of naked, aggressive state terrorism unfold, with its daily successes triumphantly proclaimed by CNN, BBC and whoever else, there must surely be many rulers and ruling elites around the world, whose minds have been wonderfully concentrated upon its implications for and likely impact on their respective agendas.

For the rich and powerful in centres of commercial and financial action such as Paris, Berlin and Moscow, not the least thought, furthest from their minds would be some share of the moolah to be had from Iraqi oil and contracts for the reconstruction of that benighted country’s infrastructure. But even in this small, poor corner of the world the outcome of this US-UK venture into realpolitik would be a matter of critical and present concern for our triumvirate of rulers - Chandrika Kumaratunga, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Velupillai Prabhakaran. For them, it is not a matter merely of tawdry moolah: it directly affects their respective political fortunes in the long-term.

For, each of them is totally dependent and reliant upon the world’s sole hyper-power, the US ‘Lone Ranger’ (along with its British ‘Tonto’) remaining sufficiently focused globally not to forget them and to be ready always to dispense that measure of geo-political benevolence and financial largesse, which is indiapendable for their respective futures. For all three of them, the worst case scenario would be for the US to run into such a spot of bother, as to make little Sri Lanka an irrelevance in their agenda of ‘other business’.

President Kumaratunga was projected into that high office in 1994 from nowhere, by a set of foreign-funded NGO handlers who successfully conned the majority of the electorate to exercise sheer blind faith, unfounded upon any known record of experience or achievement in national governance, in voting for her on an agenda of ‘no war’ and Tamil aspirations’ - the carefully crafted imagery was of ‘Mother Courage’ on one side and ‘Dove of Peace’ on the other, No sooner elected, than she was also taken in hand by another set of handlers who rounded off both agenda and image to suit the wishes and dictates of the WB/IMF and Corporate America: so, the twin-planks of the CBK edifice the first time around (1994-1999) were devolution, and globalization-friendly privatization.

Unfortunately for her, this US-centric and ‘international community’ friendly twin-agenda came unstuck simply because of her poor performance. It is neither here nor there that failure in governance stemmed from innate qualities: incoherence of political view and indecisive vacillation in political action. Suffice to say, that the US chose to shift their ‘money’ to another slot in the roulette wheel. But they had done their home-work: no more reliance just on a Sinhalese national leader, but a compact between a Sinhalese leader and the Tamil leader, sponsored and under-written by the US and ‘international community’.

For the President, this poses a two-fold problem. On one hand, her own attempt to meet Tamil aspirations in disregard of Sinhalese concerns came unstuck as it was bound to do, during the August 2000 Constitution fracas. Her predictable resort to the alleged Ranil-LTTE ‘arrangement’, in an attempt to catch the Sinhalese voters’ eye, has in hind sight proved to have been not only a good side-bet, but in fact the real McCoy, as the evolving post Ceasefire Agreement UNP-GOSL sell-out to the LTTE has amply demonstrated, through the ‘peace talks’ farce.

Meantime, however, the economic management of the PM and his colleagues Moragoda and Choksy, advised by the likes of Messrs. Paskaralingam, Ratwatte and AS Jayawardena, totally centered on fostering the links between Corporate America and their Sri Lankan private sector buddies to the total disregard of cost of living, social welfare, poverty alleviation, etc., has thrown up a major road-block for the President’s other agenda plank of unbridled, de-regulated privatization, leaving a wide play-space for the JVP.

Results: a frantic attempt by the President to run with the hare (i.e. compete with the PM and his boys on an US/Corporate America- centric economic agenda) and hunt with the hounds (be seen to be concerned with the socio-economic well-being of the generality of the people, instead of merely seeking to make the rich richer). So, too on the Tamil aspiration front: trying to convince the US that she will carry through the Ranil — Tamil compact favoured by the US/’ international community’ despite ever-increasing public apprehension about the likely consequences of that for our sovereign unity and territorial integrity, whilst trying to project herself to that public as an alternative to the Ranilian sellout.

For the PM and LTTE, the advantages from the American connection are, too self-evident to need more than the merest summary. For the PM, a US sponsored and underwritten compact with the LTTE assures his personal safety (he must surely remember occasionally his erstwhile UNP colleagues who ignored that factor), an absence of urban terrorism) by the LTTE especial1y in Colombo feeds the feel good mind-set of lotus-eating Sinhalese, distracting their attention from such vulgar details as loss of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the sell-out to international finance he believes will allow for enough rhetoric through a blinkered and pliant media to distract popular hunger and sense of deprivation and lacking as he does the wit or wisdom to work for the generality of the people, he can bask in the adulation of the rich and ruling elite to feed his own feel good factor.

For the LTTE, it’s open hunting season. Total collusive acquiescence of the GOSL in breaching the MoU and even otherwise moving to set up the political infrastructure of Tamil Eelam; collusive facilitation by the Norwegian SLMM in setting up the military infrastructure, necessary not only for Tamil Eelam’s Army but redressing a present asymmetry in relation to the SLA/SLN for the ‘rainy day’ which lies ahead ; and the full backing of the GOSL in establishing in advance, both the economic infrastructure and resource base, as well as international standing needed to round off the Eelam edifice, for UDI when ready.

Never mind the thousands around the world who stand appalled and disgusted by the US-UK crime against the rule of international law and humanitarian concern, in Iraq (for starters): there remain three personages here, who must in their hearts be hoping for US success.

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