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EUROPEAN UNION & THE TAMIL STRUGGLE
History of Intransigence
J.T. Janani
4 October 2006, Tamil Guardian
Comment by
tamilnation.org
J.T. Janani is right to
point out that 'the difficulty for the Tamils is that it
is not simply that the Sinhala polity refuses to accept
Tamils have a right �to control their own lives, to rule
their own destinies, and to govern themselves� (in
Richard Boucher�s words). Rather, the problem is that
the EU and the US, while paying lip service to Tamil
rights, pointedly avoid pressuring Sri Lanka into
ensuring these are respected and institutionalised.'
Said that, we need to
ask the further question: why is it that the EU and US
have pointedly avoided pressuring Sri Lanka? When
the EU Resolution condemned 'the intransigence of
the LTTE leadership over the years, which has
successively rejected so many possible ways forward,
including devolution at the provincial level or
Provincial Councils; devolution at the regional level or
Regional Councils; as well as the concept of a
federation with devolution at the national level' was
the EU unaware of something which Professor Marshall
Singer said more than a decade ago -
"...One of the
essential elements that must
be kept in mind in understanding the Sri Lankan
ethnic conflict is that, since 1958 at least, every
time Tamil politicians negotiated some sort of
power-sharing deal with a Sinhalese government -
regardless of which party was in power - the
opposition Sinhalese party always claimed that the
party in power had negotiated away too much. In
almost every case - sometimes within days - the
party in power backed down on the agreement..." -
(Professor
Marshall Singer, at US Congress Committee on
International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the
Pacific Hearing on Sri Lanka November 14,1995)
Was the EU unaware of the
Report Prepared by Princeton University for the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in June
2004?
"In our view, resolution of the
Sinhalese political party struggle is the top priority. This
conflict�whatever the merits of the arguments�is selfish in the
short-term and self defeating in the long-term. The country is
ready for peace. The LTTE is ready to continue negotiations. The
world cannot understand why Sri Lanka does not move ahead to
peace.."...Securing
Peace: An Action Strategy for Sri Lanka - A Report Prepared by
Princeton University for the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), June 2004
The EU and the US are not
stupid. They are not asleep to the facts that stare them
in the face. They simply pretend to be asleep. They
pretend because they seek to prevent the emergence of an
independent Tamil Eelam. They see an independent Tamil
Eelam as a threat to the
uneasy power balance in the Indian Ocean region.
"On April 11, 2005,
India started a strategic partnership with China,
and, on June 29, 2005, signed a 10-year defense
agreement with the United States. Western observers,
however, have paid less attention to an ambitious
Indian move in the military field:
Project Seabird. This plan - with origins from
the mid-1980s - is to be assessed in 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...The China-Pakistan-India triangle is
more than ever the Arabian Sea's decisive
geostrategic setting. For the Chinese, this
trilateral relationship is crucial for two reasons:
from the point of view of energy security, the
Arabian Sea and Pakistan are Beijing's access points
to the oil-rich Middle East; from the perspective of
military security, Pakistan provides China an
effective counter-balancing partner in front of
India's ambitions." [see
also
1.
From "China fear" to "China fever" - Pallavi Aiyar,
Hindu, 27 February 2006; 2.
China undertakes construction of Hambantota Port,
11 April 2005; 3.
China, Sri Lanka Joint Communique
, 3 September 2005 and 4.
Sethusamudram Project ]
Why has devolution of any form not happened
already, almost sixty years since independence and thirty
years since Sri Lanka�s war began?
Ulf Henricsson, the outgoing Head of the international Sri
Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said in exasperation
recently that the European Union�s decision to ban the LTTE
was �more a high-level decision made in the cafes of
Brussels� than a considered move based on an understanding
of the prevailing situation. The same could be said of the
European
Parliament�s September 2006 resolution, which makes
sweeping assertions about Sri Lanka�s conflict.
Paragraph nine of the twenty-six paragraph resolution,
for example, says with suitable indignation, that the EU
�condemns the intransigence of the LTTE
leadership over the years, which has successively
rejected so many possible ways forward, including
devolution at the provincial level or Provincial
Councils; devolution at the regional level or Regional
Councils; as well as the concept of a federation with
devolution at the national level.�
Any reasonably informed observer of the
history of Sri Lanka�s ethnic politics would have been
struck by the sheer lack of nuance in the statement. Not
only for disregarding the widely-recognised complexities
that underpin conflicts such as Sri Lanka�s, but for
contemptuous brushing aside of the deep rooted grievances
that Tamils of successive generations have been attempting
to seek redress for.
My first point is that the EU, whilst making sweeping
assumptions about the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state, doesn�t
answer what, if you take the logic of the resolution at face
value, is an obvious omission in it: the government of Sri
Lanka could have at any time in the sixty years since
independence legislated into existence some devolution of
power to the island�s minority communities.
In other
words, the approval of the LTTE is not needed for Sri Lanka
to roll out �devolution at provincial level or provincial
councils or devolution at the regional level or regional
councils or federation.�
Indeed, the Sri Lankan
constitution allows amendments to be made to it provided
there is the backing of two thirds of the 225 seat
Parliament - which the Sinhala majority easily has.
In other words, the Sinhala people can legislate any
devolution, with or without the support of the Tamils or
Muslims� MPs.
Assuming, as the EU Parliament�s
resolution does, that the Sri Lankan state is keen to
implement devolution, why has it not done so, either in the
Sinhala south and/or in the Tamil north?
Surely it
does not fear that the Tamils will rise up in open revolt if
they are offered some part of their fundamental rights? I am
not saying they will necessarily settle for what Colombo
doles out, but surely no one expects an uprising if
devolution is unilaterally rolled out?
My second
point concerns the European Union�s perception of what the
Tamils are entitled to politically � and, by extension, what
they think of the Tamils. Whereas all the major
international state actors have now conceded that the Tamils
have �legitimate political aspirations� to manage their own
lives, none of these actors have called for Sri Lanka to
begin implementing any measures towards devolving power
(though there are occasionally some feeble calls for
�language rights� to be respected).
In June 2006,
for example, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and
Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher stated pointedly that
Tamils �have a legitimate desire to control their own lives,
to rule their own destinies, and to govern themselves in
their homeland.� His sentiments have since been echoed by
other US officials and those of other countries.
Well and good. But neither the EU or, for that matter, the
US have as yet used their considerable leverage over the Sri
Lankan state to bring about any political reform and
devolution.
In theory at least, as argued above,
there is no reason why such reform needs the buy-in of the
LTTE or, for that matter, the Tamils to be implemented.
Devolution need not therefore await the outcome of
negotiations with the LTTE even.
But instead of
pushing for the institutionalisation of Tamils aspirations
(i.e. rights), far too many international actors focus
instead on the LTTE�s disarmament as an unstated
pre-condition for the Tamils to get their rights.
Which comes back to the original question: why has
devolution - of any form - not happened already, almost
sixty years since independence and thirty years since the
war began?
The fact is, the EU assertion that the
governments of Sri Lanka have been willing to make genuine
offers of powersharing to the Tamils is a patently false
one.
At no point since independence have the Sinhala
people made a genuine offer of power sharing to the Tamil
people. I say Sinhala �people� deliberately, referring to a
broader base than just the ruling political party, to one
that truly encompasses other institutions of the Sinhala
collective � including the Buddhist clergy.
From the
outset of the war, no Sinhala government has taken up
devolution with any seriousness (i.e. to the extent of
overcoming Sinhala opposition to push it through).
Meanwhile, the history of Sri Lanka�s ethnic relations is
punctuated by a series of pacts for power sharing struck
between the representatives of the minority Tamils and the
majority Sinhala.
Yet each and all of those pacts
have been abrogated after being signed. And they have been
torn up by the Sri Lankan government due to pressure either
by the Sinhala opposition or by influential forces such as
the Buddhist clergy.
And many of these double crosses occurred well before
Tamil militancy began smouldering in the 70s. These include
the
Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam (�B-C�) pact of 1956 and the
1965 Dudley- Chelvanayagam agreement. Both were
unilaterally annulled by the government.
The
Provincial Council concept of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987
was never implemented properly amid the JVP era
bloodletting.
The LTTE, it should be noted, was not
party to that deal � which neatly lumbered India with the
unenviable task of disarming the Tigers - anyway.
In
any case, the North-East Provincial Council (encompassing
what the Accord calls the �historical habitation of Sri
Lankan Tamil speaking peoples�) is likely to be dismantled
by the Supreme Court shortly, given that the present
government�s ally, the JVP, has filed a case towards this.
Even in the late nineties, the government of
President Chandrika Kumaratunga, long the darling of the
international community, claimed it could not get the 2/3
majority in needed to amend the constitution (though when it
came to extending the President�s term, a cosy arrangement
between the Supreme Court and her office was quickly
reached).
And so it is again this year. The two main Sinhala
parties are talking, but the third, the JVP, is already
mobilising against any possible �concession� to the Tamils.
The path behind Sri Lanka�s present crisis is littered with
wreckage of broken deals and ignored offers. Even the
tsunami failed to shift Sinhala intransigence. The P-TOMS
tsunami aid sharing deal, which was much lauded by the EU,
no less, was neatly crushed through the Supreme Court by the
JVP (whilst the other Sinhala parties simply forgot about
it).
The difficulty for the Tamils is that it is not
simply that the Sinhala polity refuses to accept Tamils have
a right �to control their own lives, to rule their own
destinies, and to govern themselves� (in Richard Boucher�s
words). Rather, the problem is that the EU and the US, while
paying lip service to Tamil rights, pointedly avoid
pressuring Sri Lanka into ensuring these are respected and
institutionalised. Indeed, paragraph nine of the EU�s
September 2006 resolution could have just as easily have
insisted the Sri Lankan state do just that.
Assuming
these are rights, rather than concessions, that is.
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