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Need for Candour in the Search for Peace in Sri
Lanka
12 July 2001
1. As the
18th anniversary (23rd July) of the commencement of war in Sri
Lanka approaches, it is high time to identify a vitally important
factor which has been notable by its absence in the search for
peace. That factor is candour, complete, unvarnished, unequivocal,
unambiguous candour in explaining to the Sinhala people the
realities which necessitate the conclusion of the war by making
peace with the LTTE. Not only has candour been totally lacking in
the pronouncements of all government leaders; they have misled the
Sinhala people utterly into a triumphalistic fools� paradise. It is
this which has impelled important sections of Sinhala society to
draw conclusions which are completely unrealistic and to make
pressing demands based upon such illusory conclusions.
2. All four presidents who have led the Sinhala war effort �
Jayawardene, Premadasa, Wijetunga and Kumaratunga � have assured the
Sinhala people explicitly, repeatedly and without any qualification
that the war can be won. That is the incumbent president�s line
today. She has stopped setting target dates - such as �by the end of
1997� etc � for total victory but she persists in the assertion that
final and total victory is certain, if not soon, at least in the
long run.
3. As a result of this presidential consistency on the subject very
important, patriotic, national-minded elements of Sinhala society
are convinced that the proper pre-requisite for peace must be the
achievement of total military victory. Thus many leaders of the Maha
Sangha urge the government and military leaders to go out there and
win. Nationalist politicians � the JVP, the Sihala Urumaya, the
National Movement against Terrorism � all urge, with one voice, and
with impeccable logic, the same thing � �go out there and win�. When
the war is won there will be no LTTE to negotiate with � a
consummation devoutly to be desired.
4. They go further � and rightly. If the single, all-island state is
to be preserved (or restored if it no longer exists) the LTTE must
be eradicated root and branch as a military entity. There cannot be
a single state with two contending armies within it; the existence
of two contending armies within a territory signifies not the
existence of a single state but of a state of war.
5. The conclusions that the Sinhala nationalist elements draw from
the premise that the war is winnable are perfectly logical,
irreproachable and, indeed, inevitable. Even if a successful
negotiation with the LTTE were possible, the LTTE will continue in
existence with responsibility for fulfilling its part of any
settlement thus fatally compromising the existence of a single
all-island state. Such a settlement will be a fig-leaf barely
covering the nakedness of de facto separation and the sovereign
independence of Thamil Eelam. So it will be seen that on the
oft-repeated premise of total military victory lies a heavy baggage
of nationalist expectation
6. Let us turn now to another oft repeated assertion which heavily
influences Sinhala nationalist thinking, namely, that by military
pressure the LTTE can be so weakened that it will be compelled to
sue for peace on the government�s terms. This will enable the single
all-island state to be restored and will eliminate the present
threat to it.
7. Sections of Sinhala society, especially those who cling to the
forlorn hope of a constitutional settlement, invest their hopes in
this way ahead. They do not as yet, engage directly with the
question of whether a militarily weakened LTTE will disarm totally
or will continue in possession of their arms like the IRA in
Northern Ireland where the peace process consists of laying down
layer upon layer of fudge on the bedrock of irreversible armed
reality. Such wavering optimism too is based on consistent
government assertions without any qualifications.
8. Finally, there is the widely touted assertion that a
constitutional reform, going some way beyond the 13th Amendment of
1987, could be negotiated with the non-LTTE Tamil political parties
both within and outside parliament. It is asserted that that would
wean away Tamil support from the LTTE thus �marginalising� the LTTE
and compelling it to abandon its determination to secure an
independent state and to sue for peace on the government�s terms.
Six years 1995 to 2001 � of great effort have been invested in this
course and a Sinhala political consensus is sought on the assurance
of its success. The incumbent president seems totally sold on this
line of thinking and keeps on pushing it despite ever-diminishing
public conviction of its viability.
9. In this case too there are elements of Sinhala society convinced
this is the way ahead. They assume that a constitutional reform can
buy off a demand for total independence forgetting our own
experience where repeated doses of constitutional reform under
British colonial rule whetted, rather than quenched,, the desire for
total, sovereign independence.
10. Let us now examine each of these assertions rationally. First,
the certainty of total military victory. Despite unwavering
presidential consistency it has proved unattainable after nearly 18
years of war. On the contrary, under the incumbent president the Sri
Lanka army has suffered an unbroken series of severe military
defeats � Mullaitivu (1996), Kilinochchi (1998), the Wanni(1999),
Elephant Pass (2000) and the Pallai salient (2001). Despite this
ominous military record the assertion of certain military victory
remains without any rational explanation to back it.
11. There is no open, public examination of the reasons for such
colossal military failure. Neither the government nor the Sinhala
public seem to want to know why this has happened. The Press
indulges in shallow surmises that it is due to corruption in
military purchases and/or the pusillanimity of our generals. Both
the incumbent Prime Minister and Deputy Defence Minister have
hazarded military predictions which have been confounded by events.
Neither has thought it necessary to explain to the listening public
how they came to be so wrong. Nor has the public held these
officials to account. There is no serious analytical study of any
kind about the underlying fundamental reasons for such persistent
and shattering failure.
12. There is now an whole canon of published literature on the
subject of nationalist wars of secession waged against individual
states commencing with the magisterial work by Stanley Karnow
�VIETNAM �A HISTORY� (Viking books 1983) containing information on
costs, ratios of troops to guerillas,strategy and tactics, military
psychology, political motivation etc all of which militate against
victory by the conventional army of even a rich and large state
under attack from small bodies of nationalist guerillas fighting on
their home ground. The Sri Lankan state is one of the poorest facing
such a threat. Judging from the world�s consistent experience it has
not the slightest prospect of military victory over the LTTE which
is now universally acknowledged as the most formidable guerilla
force anywhere in the world.
13. Both government and Press seem not even to have dipped a toe in
this large body of literature or to have researched the world�s
comparable experience. Both seem to be totally insulated from the
lessons of recent history. Sinhala military leaders are even worse
judging from their gung-ho assurances to their political masters.
The war was pronounced �96% over�, victoriously no doubt, days
before the army suffered a resounding defeat and expulsion from a
large area � the Wanni � which it had held.
14. International experience of the very high costs of such wars and
of the very high troops-to-guerillas ratios, (in the region of 100
troops to 1 guerilla) required for them indicate with crystal
clarity that the Sri Lankan state has not the remotest possibility
of military victory. It is, therefore, vitally important even at
this late stage and before further battlefield disasters are
experienced, that the president and her advisors should read and
begin to understand the relevant international literature and begin
to reverse candidly, openly and unambiguously the oft-repeated
certainty of military victory.
15. If it is made absolutely clear to the Sinhala people that
military victory over the LTTE is beyond the competence of the Sri
Lankan state, regardless of the political complexion of its rulers,
the entire Sinhala discourse on war and peace will be dramatically
turned around thus setting the groundwork for attainable and
sustainable peace on the island. Clearly this will entail a
two-state island, a condition already in existence, and the prospect
of prosperity in a context of good neighbourly relations between the
two states.
16. The Sinhala people have proved over the last 50 years that they
are as pragmatic as any in the world. They seem intransigent and
uncompromising now because of the false premises on which they have
been assured of military victory. Once the scales fall from their
eyes in that respect the stage will be set for realistic
peace-making.
17. The second assertion � weakening the LTTE militarily to the
point at which it will sue for peace on the government�s terms � is
as egregious as the first. Far from the LTTE being weakened by
nearly 18 years of war it has emerged stronger than ever. All such
movements have displayed the same trait � the longer the war lasts
the stronger they become, not the weaker. The international
literature on such wars bears eloquent witness to this paradox. It
is due to ignorance of that literature and the world�s experience
that the president and all Sinhala politicians hold this erroneous
view and feed it to their unsuspecting people. It is high time to
advance from ignorance to knowledge and to be forthrightly candid in
admitting earlier error and making it quite clear that the longer
the war lasts the stronger the LTTE will become exactly as it has
done over the last 17 years. This will re-inforce the re-thinking by
the Sinhala people of the realities of their situation and help them
take a realistic attitude towards peace with the LTTE.
18. Of the three flawed premises fed to the Sinhala people by far
the worst is the last. The worst because it flies in the face not
only of the world�s experience but also , and flagrantly, of our
own. The theory that a constitutional change can buy off an armed
nationalist secessionist movement, persuading it to disband its
forces, is pure and undiluted myth. It failed abysmally in 1987 with
the 13th amendment. The huge effort invested in it from 1995 onwards
has been a pure waste of time and a futile raising of expectations.
It has been rejected by the LTTE and all the Tamil political parties
except, perhaps, the Tamil party in the government. The manner in
which its first draft of August 1995 was watered down at the behest
of successive waves of Sinhala extremist objections demonstrated
what little faith the Tamil people could repose in it. Some sections
of Sinhala opinion are opposed to it on the ground that it concedes
too much to the Tamil people; other sections oppose it on account of
its unviability due to it having been rejected already by nearly all
Tamil political parties. It is not backed by a parliamentary
majority nor has it a societal consensus in its favour. It is just
another example of the incumbent president�s inability to recognise
manifest reality and of her propensity to believe that the
impossible is possible.
19. All three assertions by the government - first, that the war can
be won; second, that the LTTE can be weakened into accepting the
government�s terms; and, third, that a constitutional reform could
end the war - have not the slightest relationship to reality. All
three are pure and simple myth and the political discourse based
upon the acceptance of any of these myths is itself a snare and a
delusion. The Sinhala political discourse has been stultified by
adherence to these fallacies. No peace effort can be founded upon
such egregious misconceptions which have separated the Sinhala
people from existential reality. This is the basic reason for the
difficulties that presently beset the peacemaking effort and also
contribute very largely to the political turmoil now undermining any
prospect of sane and sober government. It is inevitable that any
society so thoroughly suffused with irrationality and ignorance must
come to great grief. 18 years in a fools� paradise have exacted an
heavy price and portends even worse unless the Sinhala people and
their government return to reality and rejoin the world and partake
of its experience.
20. It is imperative now that fundamental changes which will return
both government and people to the real world need to be undertaken.
The rationale on which such changes are based needs to be clearly,
courageously and unambiguously explained to the Sinhala people to
overcome the initial bewilderment of a public fed for 18 long years
on absurd triumphalistic hype devoid of any validity.
21. First and foremost the government needs to understand that
Sinhala society can marshal neither the colossal financial resources
nor the immense increase in manpower (itself having a further
escalatory effect on costs) for an effort at outright military
victory. It must point out to the Sinhala people the failure of much
stronger nations and their governments to withstand secessionist
challenge from foes weaker than the LTTE. It must acquaint itself
of, and then clearly communicate to the Sinhala people, the
underlying systemic factors that have already resulted in massive
military defeat at the hands of a numerically smaller foe, factors
that are not only irreversible but which will be exacerbated with
the passage of time. It must understand, and then explain, the
immense gap that is opening up in financial muscle between the
800,000 strong Eelam Tamil diaspora now resident in the world�s
richest countries and the abject poverty of the 15 million Sinhala
people condemned to live in one of the world�s poorest countries �
Sri Lanka. It must understand, and then explain, that a country
whose population has an annual per capita income of US$ 800- is in
no position to wage war using modern weaponry purchased from the
developed world in hard currency. It must understand, and then
explain, how and why the steep decline in the value of the country�s
currency and the evaporation of its meagre foreign exchange balances
militate against the continuance of war. Thus every single one of
the triumphalistic assumptions on which the certainty of military
victort was trumpeted will need to be stood upon its head. Only thus
will the Sinhala people understand their true plight and be
delivered from the land of make-believe in which they have lived so
long.
22. It is exactly the same with second flawed assertion �namely, the
military weakening of the LTTE to the point of capitulation. The
worldwide history of nationalist independence movements provides
ample and eloquent reasons for the paradox of the success of the
seemingly weaker over the seemingly stronger. The reality is that
such wars strengthen, rather than weaken, the secessionist
challenger to the state. Here too it is not merely empirical
evidence but fundamental systemic factors that produce such a
surprising result. The LTTE is one of the clearest exemplars of this
phenomenon. The time has come for the government to understand, and
then explain candidly, the great error in its assumption and the
manifest reality that the very opposite is the case, namely, that
continuance with the war will only strengthen rather than weaken the
LTTE exactly as it has done over the last 17 years.
23. Finally, the grievously misconceived strategy of constitutional
reform, so manifestly unviable on every conceivable ground, needs to
be abandoned root and branch. It is a pretence and a delusion to
imagine that the Sinhala people have both the right and the power to
determine and then order the form of governance of a nation which
has opted repeatedly and openly for sovereign independence. Just as
much as we can determine the form of our own governance, so can the
Tamil nation determine theirs. This is a reversal in thinking that
the government needs to undertake and then explain to the Sinhala
people the moral imperatives on which it is based.
24. Few governments are confronted with the need for a volte face of
this magnitude a mea culpa to end all mea culpas. It has only itself
to blame for finding itself in such a predicament, a predicament
brought on by seizing on unthinking triumphalism in preference to
serious analytical studyof its own shattering experiences in the
context of the contemporary world�s reality. There has to be a
return to reason sometime. For any government worthy of that name
and which cherishes the interests of its people, that time is now.
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