Sinhala Columnist Dayan Jayatilleke in the
Asian Tribune
on the Impact of the Tsunami on the Peace Process
The water this time
1 January 2005
"..Velupillai Prabhakharan threw down the
gauntlet in his
November 27th Mahaveera day speech, and if press reports and
the grapevine are to be believed, President Kumaratunga threw in
the towel at the SLFP�s Central Committee meeting on December
20th, announcing her decision to negotiate on the basis of the
ISGA. It is still possible to see some merit in her new stand:
there is a world of difference between agreeing to negotiate,
even on the basis of the ISGA, and actually agreeing to set it
up. It is possible in the course of negotiations to
advance issues such as the decommissioning of LTTE heavy weapons
under international auspices, which would be acceptable to the
international community but not so to the Tigers... The
Tsunami may have delayed or deflected Prabhakaran�s war due
to logistical considerations as well as those of world opinion,
but the separation of Sri Lanka may occur more or less
peacefully and speedily, a casualty of the earthquake in the
sea-bed that registered 9 on the Richter scale, more powerful
than a hundred thousand Hiroshimas.Who will better harness the
power of that quake - the Sri Lankan state, to build a united
country, or the Tigers, to accelerate separation? That will
determine our destiny. If relief and reconstruction are done ..
right, we can, with the international community,
restructure while we construct...We now have the world�s
unprecedented attention, solidarity, sympathy and support.
Conceived in pain and tragedy, this moment is unique, historic
and precious..."
[Note by
tamilnation.org:
see Dr.Sachithanandam Sathananthan on
A to Z of Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka, 22 September 2004
"..when a military stalemate ensues, then "talks" become the
continuation of war by other means. Having failed to disarm the
national movement through force, the State then manoeuvres to draw
the movement into "talks" with the principal objective of forcing it
to decommission weapons.This continuation of war by other means
is the so-called "peace process". If armed conflict is the power
struggle at the military level, "peace process" is the power
struggle at the political level..."
more]
James Baldwin�s masterpiece
The Fire Next Time carried on the flyleaf a verse from an old
�Negro spiritual�, from which it derived its title:
�God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water
The fire next time�.
It may well be the reverse in our case. The
Tsunami may have delayed or deflected Prabhakaran�s war due to
logistical considerations as well as those of world opinion, but the
separation of Sri Lanka may occur more or less peacefully and
speedily, a casualty of the earthquake in the sea-bed that
registered 9 on the Richter scale, more powerful than a hundred
thousand Hiroshimas. Not by fire but by water.
Who will better harness the power of that quake - the Sri Lankan
state, to build a united country, or the Tigers, to accelerate
separation? That will determine our destiny. While the Tigers are
hoping that a humanitarian crisis will develop in the North east,
the Sri Lankan state must strive to pre-empt that, manifestly
functioning as the state of the whole people, representative of all
and responsive on the basis of need, not of electoral numbers,
ethnic affinity and socio-political �voice�.
Both the state and the international community must consider the
country, the island, a single unit and the affected as people, human
beings, irrespective of ethnicity, profile, location or electoral
clout. The basis of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction must
be human need.
The state and the international community must work in tandem, not
counter-clockwise or to checkmate each other. The State must not
look after principally the South while the international relief
effort prioritizes the North-east. This could result in symmetrical
Southern and Northern backlashes, driving the tectonic plates of our
society and state further apart. We could wind up a de-facto Cyprus
or Yugoslavia.
If the international community is sagacious, it could neutralise
Southern xenophobia in one go, not simply by throwing money at the
problem, but by a dramatic, massive, prompt presence, efficacious
and hands-on assistance, engagement and commitment. The tsunami has
broken down the walls; we are ready for the world�s embrace. If it
is not forthcoming, the populist forces of vulgar egalitarianism,
which have readily mobilised in this crisis, will irreversibly gain
ground in the tsunami�s wake. Nature�s levelling down will be
followed by its social equivalent, initially among the displaced but
more generally in the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction
phase.
A Separate State of Mind
This disaster could be an opportunity for drawing together but it
probably won�t be. The catastrophe could be a full-stop to LTTE
plans to wage war but I wouldn�t bet on it. It may only have
receded, to come back with greater force, like the tsunami�s second
wave.
The dialectics of nature exacerbate the contradictions of society
and state. The fault lines in our society are as deep as those under
the sea off Sumatra. The disaster hit Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim,
underscoring our common humanity and our common destiny on a small
island. However, while the worst affected in relative terms (in
proportion to population), were Tamil and Muslim, the reportage and
reaction, the complexion of structures set up in response, have not
yet adequately reflected that reality.
In fact it reflected another reality. We died as human beings, but
mourned our dead as South, North and East - as Sinhala, Tamil, and
Muslim. Tectonic plates shift more easily than attitudes. The main
reason some of us were concerned about another community was just to
reassure ourselves that they were worse or at least as badly hit as
we were.
This natural disaster may therefore have the same effect as the
Managua earthquake of 1972, the aftermath of which ripped open
Nicaraguan society. If we, as a society, treat the North and East as
a separate country, leading a separate existence, condemned to
second class citizenship and a different destiny, a separate country
is what it will have become once the rubble is cleared. The people
there will have rebuilt their lives as inhabitants of a separate
state.
Therefore what is crucial now is how the state handles the
aftermath; how it is perceived to have handled the crisis, how
sensitive, honest, efficient, committed, ethnically non-aligned and
ethno-regionally equitable it is seen to be. What is at stake is the
moral standing of the state.
Before the Tsunami
What if you throw in the towel but the other side declines to pick
it up?
Velupillai Prabhakharan threw down the gauntlet in his
November 27th Mahaveera day speech, and if press reports and the
grapevine are to be believed, President Kumaratunga threw in the
towel at the SLFP�s Central Committee meeting on December 20th,
announcing her decision to negotiate on the basis of the ISGA.
[Note by
tamilnation.org:
see Dr.Sachithanandam Sathananthan on
A to Z of Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka, 22 September 2004
"..when a military stalemate ensues, then "talks" become the
continuation of war by other means. Having failed to disarm the
national movement through force, the State then manoeuvres to draw
the movement into "talks" with the principal objective of forcing it
to decommission weapons.This continuation of war by other means
is the so-called "peace process". If armed conflict is the power
struggle at the military level, "peace process" is the power
struggle at the political level..."
more] |
It is still possible to see some merit in her new stand: there
is a world of difference between agreeing to negotiate, even on the
basis of the ISGA, and actually agreeing to set it up. It is
possible in the course of negotiations to advance issues such as the
decommissioning of LTTE heavy weapons under international auspices,
which would be acceptable to the international community but not so
to the Tigers.
In other words it is possible to win the battle of the
negotiation having entered it, allowing the Tigers to break off the
talks but on an issue that is unfavourable to them and favourable to
Sri Lanka.
However, will Prabhakaran give Colombo that chance? What we are
about to learn is that there is no point is throwing in the towel
when the other side doesn�t pick it up. And the other side doesn�t
pick it up only because it is headed for war- which we should have
known to start with.
This is why Prabhakaran pre-emptively cut off President
Kumaratunga�s avenue of retreat by insisting that the UPFA
administration declare a common stand on his demand to open
negotiations on the basis of the ISGA. He is counting on the JVP,
hoping that even if Chandrika and the SLFP become ultra-flexible (or
cave in, depending on your take), the JVP will remain rigidly
opposed, and therefore the UPFA will not be able to adopt a common
stand.
This gives Prabhakaran two advantages. He can go to war on the
grounds that the UPFA govt refused to negotiate on the basis of the
ISGA. And he can go to war against a government that is internally
divided, thereby dividing even its anti-LTTE Sinhalese base, and
perhaps the Armed Forces.
There are those intelligent Sri Lankans who have figured that
Prabhakaran may not really want to resume talks, and thus keeps
shifting the goal posts, but they are not intelligent enough to have
figured why that is. They implicitly assume that he wants to freeze
the situation, which assumption could be ruled out by any careful
reading of his Mahaveera speech. The continuance of the status quo
is precisely what he wants to avoid, change, and overturn. That
leaves only one other logical possibility: he does not wish to
resume talks because he intends to make war.
This is borne out by his (pre-tsunami) moves on the ground: the
accelerated campaign of leaflets, loudhailer addresses and video
screenings in schools and tutories in the North-east, the injunction
to Mahaveera families to move to the Wanni, the instructions to the
public what to do in the event of war, the collections and storage
of rations. Having ratcheted up the war machine in this manner,
Prabhakaran would find it difficult if not impossible to unwind it
except at the loss of face among his cadre, which he can ill afford
with Karuna still in the wings.
Second Wave
All this was of course before �9� on December 26th. Right now Mr
Prabhakaran must be doing the math: which side, which military
machine was most affected? Which side can absorb the shock more? How
many fighters should he deeply for relief and reconstruction efforts
and for how long? Dare he go for it or should he wait for a decent
interval? Would that mean passing up a great advantage, given that
the Sri Lankan armed forces are wholly preoccupied with rescue and
relief? Can he use the disaster to reinforce his propaganda, and
should he wait for that propaganda offensive to unfurl? Prabhakaran
will rethink, making a detour through the rubble of the tsunami,
reinforcing his claim to the ISGA, reaching out even further, to the
world.
I think that Prabhakaran will seek to use this disaster in
five ways:
1. Permit a humanitarian crisis to develop which can reinforce
the argument of the need for an ISGA
2. Use the absence of the ISGA and the travails of the Tamils as
moral argument for a final leap to separation
3. Establish stronger ties with the international community
especially international civil society, and attain de-facto
recognition.
4. Siphon-off funds and relief materials for his army.
5. Use the issue of resettlement of the now vastly greater
number of displaced, as a battering ram against the high
security zones.
This can be prevented or minimised if the Sri Lankan state steps
into the vacuum and is the engine of relief and rehabilitation for
all its citizens, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, in a transparently
fair, equitable and efficient manner. Right now the state is facing
two contending gravitational pulls, emanating from two power
centres: egalitarian-populist demands on scarce resources from/for
the sensitive South, and an internationally sensitive North and
East. This historic disaster has not obliterated our essential
bipolarity. The waves having receded, that reality is more starkly
visible.
If relief and reconstruction are done wrong we shall end up with a
more populist-xenophobic Sinhala South and an even more domestically
alienated and internationally networked Tamil and Muslim North-east.
Done right, we can, with the international community, restructure
while we construct, not simply re-construct: we can construct a
new country and its precursor, a new consciousness, or at least
remould and reform the old.
We now have the world�s unprecedented attention, solidarity,
sympathy and support. Conceived in pain and tragedy, this moment is
unique, historic and precious. It is also fragile, and will never
come again. Meanwhile our ethno-regional tectonic plates are moving.
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