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Selected Writings
Brian Senewiratne, Australia
Peace Talks that Have Gone Nowhere
A brief comment on the
GOSL-LTTE Talks in Geneva
28 February 2006
The closing statement by the Norwegian Minister of International
Development on 23.2.2006 in Geneva at the end of the first round of talks on the
implementation of the Ceasefire, is about the weakest statement I have read.
1. �The GOSL and the LTTE are committed to respecting and upholding the
Ceasefire Agreement�.
To �respect� an agreement is to heed it, to �uphold� it is
to maintain or confirm it. Neither word indicates the need to implement the
Agreement (which is what the Conference was all about). If this was a
serious attempt to address the problem, the wording should have been, �The
GOSL and the LTTE are committed to implement the Ceasefire Agreement�. The
GOSL , in its opening statement, said that it wanted �to express our views
in a frank and forthright manner, rather than make vague and ambiguous
statements that would serve no useful purpose�� Well, this is a vague and
ambiguous statement, if ever there was one.
The GOSL has committed itself to respect and uphold the Ceasefire Agreement
(CFA). Yet, the Leader of the GOSL team, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva
opened his statement by saying that �The Ceasefire Agreement��..is contrary
to our Constitution and law� i.e. the CFA is illegal and violates the
Constitution. So, the GOSL has agreed to respect and uphold an Agreement,
which is illegal and unconstitutional! If the Conference was to continue,
commonsense required that the statement made by the Minister should have
been withdrawn publicly. It was for the Chair to insist that this be
withdrawn but it was not done. There was the absurd situation of discussing
the implementation of an Agreement which one Party had declared was
unconstitutional and illegal.
2. �The GOSL and the LTTE are committed�to ensure that there
will be no intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings�.
Given that these problems have reached epidemic proportions
all over the country, including the Sinhala South, especially Colombo, there
will have to be an extensive monitoring group. The existing Sri Lanka
Monitoring Mission (SLMM) functioning only in the North and East, can hardly
be described as an �extensive monitoring group�. It has been little more
than a �note-keeping mission�, if that. It is not possibly for the SLMM to
be more than that, given the area to be covered and the resources available.
So, the problem of ensuring that there will be no intimidation, acts of
violence etc are just words with no meaning. The words have been used
without any appreciation of the realities on the ground.
3. �The LTTE is committed to taking all necessary measures to
ensure that there will be no acts of violence against the security forces and
police�.
If there are alleged incidents, can we have an international
investigative team whom both sides can trust, to establish that the LTTE was
responsible? The SLMM is no substitute for a proper investigating team �
they simply do not have the expertise (or the resources).
4. �The GOSL is committed� to ensure that no armed group or
persons other than the Government security forces will carry arms or conduct
armed operations�.
Who are these nameless �armed groups�? The LTTE in its
opening statement listed five major paramilitary groups operating in the
Northeast and Colombo as the � the Karuna group, EPDP group, PLOTE group,
EPRLF (Varaithar) group and a Muslim group called Jihad group.�
Has the GOSL committed itself to ensure that all these armed groups are
disarmed, or is it going to be some or none (loopholes being left wide open
to enable one or all of them to slip out and continue to carry arms, perhaps
under a different name, or claim that they are outside the CFA? Who will
monitor this? It cannot be the SLMM because they neither have the staff,
facilities or ability to do so, being stretched to the limit as they are.
Moreover, the SLMM has no presence in Colombo where these groups are known
to operate.
It is of interest (indeed amusing) that the Spiegel Magazine interviewed
President Rajapakse just a day before the Talks, on 21 February 2006, in
Colombo, about these paramilitary groups and �Karuna� (the renegade from the
LTTE). Rajapakse�s response was incredible: �I would like to make one thing
clear. My government knows nothing about such paramilitaries or even Karuna
��..Still, my government is committed to disarm such groups and we have
already begun to do so�
So, here we have a President who claims to know nothing about the armed
groups in his country but is already disarming them! It has come to the
point of absurdity. � President Rajapakse playing a significant role in
this.
The GOSL team to the Conference was sent by the President. The team has
committed the GOSL to disarm armed groups, which the President says his
government knows nothing about! What if the GOSL team returns in eight weeks
and says that their President says he knows nothing about these armed groups
and therefore they must be non-existent?
5. �The GOSL and the LTTE discussed all issues concerning the
welfare of children in the North East�.�
�Discussing�, they can do for ever � but what are they
committed to do by way of addressing the problem of nearly a quarter of a
million homeless/orphan children in numerous refugee camps as a consequence
of the war and the tsunami? Or does the problem end with a �discussion�?
Where the Conference failed.
The Conference was all about the implementation of the CFA and returning the
conflict zone to normalcy. In an earlier paper, �Talks, Talks and more Talks�,
in the section titled, Improving the living conditions of the inhabitants in the
area of conflict in the Tamil North and East,� I spelt out what had to be done.
Not one of these urgent measures was mentioned in the Closing Statement. I do
not know whether they were discussed. If they were, then it should have made it
to the Closing Statement.
If they were not discussed, one wonders what was, in the two days of talks.
There was a great deal of time spent by the GOSL team running a commercial for
President Rajapakse, the Mahinda Chintanaya, what a fine democratic record Sri
Lanka had, how �mindful� the Government was of �the respective rights of the
ethnic and religious groupings� etc. If all this (or even a fraction of it) were
true, there would have been no conflict and no need for a CFA.
I have just had a report that at the end of the Conference when the Norwegian
facilitators were drafting a joint statement, the Government delegation spent no
less than three hours quibbling about one word, �Agreement�. They objected to
the opening paragraph which referred to the Ceasefire Agreement and wanted the
word �Agreement� left out! The President (and his two brothers) in Colombo at
the end of the telephone from Geneva refused to approve the word which would
imply that the CFA was valid. (I thought the Government delegation and the LTTE
delegation had agreed to the validity of the CFA. If the GOSL had not accepted
it, the LTTE would have walked out). Here they were, once again going over the
same ground. After three hours of nonsensical delay, the GOSL backed down. The
Government hard line stance was to appease the Sinhala extremists in their camp
back home, and their backdown was when they realized that this would spell the
end of the Conference and the declaration of war.
Instead of this claptrap and time wasting, what was needed was to address the
pressing needs of the civilian population in the war ravaged, then
tsunami-devastated, North and East.
If a commercial on President Rajapkse had to be delivered � I can see no reason
why this was necessary � and there was no time to address the key issues, then
the Conference should have been extended. One way or another, the Conference
should have concluded with some definite commitment and a specified time frame
to return civilian life to normalcy. Let me state the urgently needed actions
yet again.
1. The immediate withdrawal of all restrictions on fishing. Minister de Silva
could have called his President in Sri Lanka and got him to call the Navy
Commander who was there in the team and tell him that the Navy must comply
because, �I am the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces�.
2. There should have been a directive that if the Sri Lanka Army could not be
moved out of Jaffna for �Security� reasons (whose security is unclear), then the
Army had to be moved out of the most productive lands which are now in the �High
Security Zone�. There is plenty of waste land in the Peninsula (which I know
well). The Army can do whatever they are doing in this area, but to quit
agricultural land, which is one of the main sources of income (indeed, of
survival) of the civilian population, is mandatory and urgent. This was not
done.
3. All schools and places of worship must be returned for civilian use with
immediate effect � not at some distant unspecified time.
4. The harassment of the civilian population in the North and East must stop if
the area is to return to normalcy. This has to be monitored carefully and if the
SLMM has not got the numbers or the power, then it has to be doubled or trebled,
and given that power.
5. The Tsunami relief arrangement, P-TOMS must be implemented at once � whatever
the JHU and the JVP think or do. The GOSL team, in their opening statement,
boasted, ��..it is the first time in the history of this conflict that such a
consensus (among all Parties) has been reached�. Well, the JHU and JVP are part
of the Government and if Rajapakse, with the sweeping powers he has, really
wanted to fix the problem, the JHU and JVP are not in a position to defy him. If
they obstruct him and bring the Government down, then Rajapakse is in a position
to call another election and put it to the Sinhala people that he tried to seek
an �honourable peace� but his efforts were sabotaged by the JVP and JHU.
Can the LTTE be blamed for this lapse?
Can the LTTE be blamed for not having these issues addressed? Yes, they can be
blamed because that is the reason why they went for a Conference to address the
implementation of the CFA. Of paramount importance was to return the North and
East to normalcy.
However, the �mitigating circumstances� is that the LTTE had nailed the GOSL on
some crucial issues (accepting the validity of the CFA and the disarming of the
paramilitaries) and further �nailing� would have made it impossible for the
Government team to return home. They would have been lynched. Balasingham, a
shrewd negotiator, perhaps felt that it could be better left for a later date.
Some nonsense claimed by the GOSL team.
The GOSL team did talk some arrant nonsense. I will site just a few.
The democracy
of Sri Lanka.
The opening statement of the GOSL team leader, Nimal
Siripala de Silva, refers to Sri Lanka as being �one of Asia�s most
long-standing democracies. The people have enjoyed universal franchise since
1931�.
He is referring to a country where in 1948, 1,000,000, yes, one million,
Plantation Tamils were disenfranchised and decitizenised in one of the worst
acts of political savagery in the civilized (or even uncivilized) world.
This is the country where in 1972, the Constitution, which had a specific
section (Section 29) which prohibited discrimination of any community, was
scrapped and a new Constitution enacted which did not contain a similar
clause. This essential safeguard for the protection of minorities was
scrapped by the former leader of President Rajapakse�s own party � Prime
Minister Sirima Bandaranaike, who had the temerity to change the name of the
country from Ceylon to the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka!
This is a country where in 1977, Prime Minister J.R.Jayawardene from the
other side of the Sinhala political divide, installed an Executive
Presidency and then promoted himself to the position giving himself absolute
and sweeping powers, reducing Parliament to a rubber stamp and the Prime
Minister to a clerk. Sri Lanka is only a little short of a Presidential
dictatorship and President Rajapakse, who has these powers, should know
that. So should his Ministers, including the one who spoke this nonsense.
This is the country where in 1983 some 3,000 Tamil civilians in the Sinhala
South were butchered and their homes and businesses burnt by government
sponsored Sinhalese hoodlums, for no reason other than that they were
Tamils. Were they �democratically butchered�?
There is no purpose in going on with this abysmal history of a blatant abuse
of democracy in Sri Lanka which I have dealt with extensively in a separate
publication. For the GOSL delegation, attending a Conference to discuss the
implementation of the CFA, to boast about democracy in Sri Lanka, is a bit
rich.
The problem of Law and order
Minister Nimal de Silva rambled on about � the Government of
President Mahinda Rajapakse�s commitment to maintaining law and order �.in
every part of the country� and his administration �initiating a program that
extensively cracked down on organized criminals, underworld gangs, armed
groups and narcotic dealers�. This is loose talk and vagueness which he
decried at the start of his presentation. Whom is he referring to? The most
notorious underworld gangs and organized criminals are in the Presidential
Security Division (PSD) that �looked after� President Chandrika Kumaratunga
and presumably now looks after President Rajapakse. This has nothing to do
with the CFA. The murders by the PSD and their underworld associates who
were responsible for the murder of the Tamil political leader Kumar
Ponnambalam, among many others, has nothing to do with �undermining the
ceasefire�.
The President certainly has a problem with gangsters and underworld
characters in Colombo, but it is a problem of the making of Sinhala
politicians who have institutionalized violence as a means of governance. It
dates back to President J.R.Jayawardene (1977) whose armed thugs terrorized
the Sinhala South from 1977 to 1994. President Kumaratunga�s PSD took over.
The GOSL team does not need to wail about this in an international arena.
A fresh approach
The Minister Nimal de Silva in his opening statement
stressed, �Let me at this stage assure all, that it is the desire of
H.E.President Rajapakse to look at issues from a fresh perspective���
There was no evidence at the Conference that it was a �fresh approach�. In
fact, it was the same old approach. The GOSL arrived in the Chateau de
Bossey with a large number of government-sponsored demonstrators and the
jingoistic Sri Lankan media. This is not �a fresh approach� but a well-worn
one of trying to apply pressure on the participants using orchestrated
demonstrations and the partisan media.
I am about to address some Parliamentarians in Europe on the serious
problems facing Sri Lanka. I have been promised a similar welcome by the
well-organised Sinhala �patriots� in Europe.
President Rajapakse�s real agenda
The assumption that President Rajapakse genuinely wanted to
fix the problem may not necessarily be correct. If he did, he would not have
gone into a coalition with ethno-religious Sinhala extremists in the JVP and
JHU. He could, of course, have done that just to get into power, as S.W.R.D
Bandaranaike did in 1956 when he solicited, and got, the support of the most
extreme of the Sinhala extremists in Sri Lanka, sections of the Buddhist
clergy (one of whom later assassinated him).
Rajapakse�s eye might not be on solving the ethnic problem but on the Local
Government elections due on 30 March 2006. If he can claim in the Sinhala
South that he has succeeded in bringing the Tamil Tigers to the Conference
table which the UNP from the other side of the Sinhala political divide
could not do (the CFA not withstanding), and prevent an almost certain war
with economic ruin and the prospect of Sinhala youths returning in
body-bags, he hopes he can eat into the voter base of the JVP whose policies
would have most certainly resulted in war.
This game will be over on 30 March 2006. It might result in the GOSL
adopting a more reasonable posture after this. Time will tell.
The next round
The next round of talks is scheduled for 19-21 April 2006,
also in Geneva. After the �difficulties� the GOSL team had at the February
Talks, President Rajapakse would be well advised to get some competent
negotiators � approaching the UNP Opposition, if necessary, for help e.g. a
loan of some of the negotiators they sent for the 2002 Peace Talks. It would
be better to do this than to send pathetically inexperienced people. At
least the cartoonists will not be able to have a field day.
What happened in Geneva was presented with accuracy by a cartoon in the
Daily Mirror of 25 February 2006 titled �President remote controls Geneva
talks�. It shows Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva at the batting crease, bat
in hand and mobile phone in the other. Anton Balasingham is speeding in with
the ball. The Minister in a state of obvious panic, calls President
Rajapakse, �He is trying to send another bouncer! What can I do sir?� That
just about sums up the Conference.
It is important to look at Sri Lanka�s serious economic state and the
impending disaster if the CFA is not implemented and war breaks out.
The Sri Lankan Economy
The downturn in the Sri Lankan economy has been
catastrophic. The ranking of Sri Lanka by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has
dropped from 63 (out of 101 countries) in 2004, to 73 (out of 104) in 2005
and now (2006) to 98 (out of 117 countries). The economy has been described
by the WEF as �very poor� and is currently on par with Albania and Rwanda. A
ranking of 98 out of 117 countries does not leave too many countries in a
worse economic mess than Sri Lanka. The deterioration in the economic rating
is due to poor macro-economic stability, the poor quality of its state
sector and the deteriorating security situation. Of these, the major factor
since the middle of last year (2005) has been the possibility of the armed
conflict restarting. If the conflict restarts, Sri Lanka would almost
certainly be looking at bankruptcy.
President Rajapakse could well be out of his depth in this area but he is
the one who is running the country and has an obligation to appreciate this
critical situation.
Sending a disastrously inexperienced team of negotiators to a Conference
that will determine whether there will be war or peace in Sri Lanka is
utterly irresponsibility. At the conclusion of the Talks, in an interview
given to the only Sri Lankan newspaper worth reading, the �Sunday Leader�,
Anton Balasingham, the leader of the LTTE team, had this to say �I said,
the moment you claim that the CFA is incorrect, then you are coming out of
the CFA. That means you are giving two weeks notice for the resumption of
hostilities. You better think very carefully, I said�. He went on, �So they
(GOSL team) kept quiet� � which is perhaps the most intelligent thing the
GOSL team did in the two days. Had they continued to be �advised� by the
�legal expert� they took with them, who had passed his �use-by-date�, the
LTTE would have walked out of the Talks and there would have been war �in
two weeks�.
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