Four Nobel Prize Winners, George Wald of USA,
Malread Corrigan-Maguire of UK, Ilya Prigogine of
Belgium and Jan Tinbergen of Netherlands presented a
'peace plan for Sri Lanka' to the Sri Lanka Government
and to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in early
August.
The basic proposal of the 'peace plan' was that the
Sri Lankan government and the LTTE should invite the
United Nations Secretary General to send a special
envoy to mediate a negotiated settlement.
This agreement could include the following
provisions:
(a) A ceasefire verified by the United Nations.
Precedent for such intervention is found in Security
Council Resolution 186.
(b) The establishment of buffer zones through
mutual agreement by the disengagement of military
forces in selected areas, such as parts of the North
and East.
(c) UN observed elections in the North and
East.
The peace plan also argued for a federal form of
government as a way of satisfying the 'aspirations in
the North and East'.
The peace plan was initiated by the World Council
for Global Cooperation in Toronto, Canada. The four
Nobel Laureates have won prizes in their
specialities.
Prof. George Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize in
1967 for his insight in discovering the underlying
chemical processes of human vision. An awowed pacifist,
he campaigned against the Vietnam war and all forms of
nuclear testing. He also served on the Peoples Tribunal
established in 1985 to inquire into the genocide of
Armenians by the Turks.
Ms. Mairead Corrigan-Maguire of Northern Ireland won
the award in 1977 for her efforts to end the violence
in Belfast between Catholics and Protestants.
Prof. Ilya Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1977 for widening the scope of
thermodynamics. He was born in Moscow at the start of
the Russian Revolution. At the age of four, his parents
fled with him as exiles and wandered through Lithuania
and Germany before settling in Belgium.
Prof. Jan Tinbergen won the prize in 1969 for
Economics. He has been a pacifist since his youth. As a
matter of conscience he refused to serve in the Dutch
army.
Sri Lankan President D.B.Wijetunge's immediate
response was an attempt to play down the significance
of the Peace Plan. He reportedly told a foreign news
correspondent in Colombo that the peace plan did not
have any official status because it was from a non
governmental body.
However, President Wijetunge and his government have
enough political savvy to know that a peace plan
supported by four Nobel Prize Winners, and that too,
residing in four different countries, did not
materialise from thin air.
The state controlled Sri Lanka Sunday Observer of
8 August 1993 carried a photo of the UN Secretary
General Mr. Boutros Ghali together with Ms. Mairead
Corrigan-Maguire and Mr. James Nicholas, the
International Secretary of the World Council for Global
Co-operation. The message of the photograph was not
lost on the Sri Lanka Government.
Sri Lanka knows well enough that it cannot pursue
its war against the Tamil people without foreign aid
and the support of aid donors.
At a recent school prize giving function, President
D.B.Wijetunge declared:
''The ongoing war costs the government a
staggering Rs.25 billion every year Government
spending allocated for education was Rs.15 billion.
The government could have increased spending on
education if not for the prolonged North-East war. As
an immediate end to the war is not in sight the
government has to allocate another Rs.25 billion next
year as well.''
At the same time the General Secretary of the
opposition DUNF, Mr.G.M.Premachandra was all for the
direct 'gung ho' approach and urged the Government to
stop everything else for sometime and use all the
resources at its command to go ahead with the
north-east war.
In a statement to the press he said:
''Mrs.Bandaranaike (of the SLFP, the other Sinhala
opposition party) had also urged the government to
take this course of action. The government should
give first priority to this conflict. If anyone is
willing to do this, DUNF will support such action to
the hilt.''
This, ofcourse, was the familiar Jeff and Mutt
act of Sinhala politics. In this instance, President
D.B.Wijetunge played the soft spoken reflective Jeff.
DUNF General Secretary Premachandra was the tough
talking brutish Mutt feeding Sinhala chauvinism with
that which it wanted to hear.
Unsurprisingly, the Sri Lanka government rejected
the Peace Plan suggested by the four Nobel Prize
Winners and rejected any UN intervention. The state
controlled Daily News gave prominence to the strong
opposition by the army top brass to any UN
intervention. In tones reminiscent of ex President
J.R.Jayawardene, the Sri Lanka government responded to
the International Secretary of the World Council for
Global Co-operation:
''As you know, Sri Lanka is a country with a
strong democratic tradition. Governments have been
elected by universal adult franchise since 1931.
Therefore any proposed solution to the present
problem has a chance of success only if it is
acceptable to the generality of the people. Such a
solution can emerge only through an internal
political process. ''
President Wijetunge's reference to Sri Lanka's
'strong democratic tradition' must have raised eyebrows
in Geneva where, in February this year, 15 non governmental
organisations, including the World Confederation of
Labour, declared at the UN Human Rights
Commission:
"...the armed struggle of the Tamil people for
self determination, arose as a response to decades of
an ever widening and deepening oppression by a
permanent Sinhala majority, within the confines of an
unitary Sri Lankan state... it was an oppression
which included the disenfranchisement of the
plantation Tamils, systematic state aided Sinhala
colonisation of the Tamil homeland, the enactment of
the Sinhala Only law, discriminatory employment
policies, inequitable allocation of resources to
Tamil areas, exclusion of eligible Tamil students
from Universities and higher education, and a refusal
to share power within the frame of a federal
constitution."
The true nature of Sri Lanka's 'strong democratic
tradition' was exposed by the comments of Senator
A.L.Missen, then Chairman of the Australian
Parliamentary Group of Amnesty International, in the
Australian Senate in March 1986 :
"Democracy in Sri Lanka does not exist in any real
sense. The democracy of Sri Lanka has been described
in the following terms, terms which are a fair and
accurate description: 'The reluctance to hold general
elections, the muzzling of the opposition press, the
continued reliance on extraordinary powers unknown to
a free democracy, arbitrary detention without access
to lawyers or relations, torture of detainees on a
systematic basis, the intimidation of the judiciary
by the executive, the disenfranchisement of the
opposition, an executive President who holds undated
letters of resignation from members of the
legislature, an elected President who publicly
declares his lack of care for the lives or opinion of
a section of his electorate, and the continued
subjugation of the Tamil people by a permanent
Sinhala majority, within the confines of an unitary
constitutional frame, constitute the reality of
'democracy', Sri Lankan style.'"
Again, whilst President Wijetunge was insisting that
a 'solution can emerge only through an internal
process', the Leader of Sri Lanka's Delegation to the
UN Sub Commission on Protection of Minorities was not
averse in seeking some outside help to further that
'internal process'. He declared in Geneva on 11
August:
''It is the view of the Government of Sri Lanka
that international isolation and rejection of the
LTTE would certainly force the LTTE to reassess its
position.''
His further complaint that ''the mediatory
efforts of the government of India '' were rejected by
the LTTE was seen by diplomatic observers as an attempt
to reinforce the bridges Sri Lanka is now building with
New Delhi as a counterpoise to the influence that
foreign aid donors may seek to wield.
The belligerent tone of Sri Lanka's statement may
have reflected the support that it has received from
New Delhi to block international recognition of the
Tamils' right to self determination.
Both Sri Lanka and India appear to have been
concerned that in February this year, 15 influential
NGOs called upon the UN Human Rights Commission in
Geneva to (a) accord open recognition to the existence
of the Tamil homeland in the North and East of the
Island; and (b) recognise that the Tamil population in
the North and East of the island constitute a 'people'
with the right to self determination.
On that occasion, Sri Lanka's Representative
resorted to bluster, dismissing the NGO statement as
'baseless propaganda'' and threatened that any action
that the Commission may take to recognise the Tamil
homeland and the Tamil right to self determination will
'put the future of the Tamil population living outside
the Northern and Eastern Provinces in
jeopardy'.
Now that President Premadasa is no more, New Delhi's
links with Colombo have grown closer. It believes that
it can go back to its influential old friends, ex
President J.R.-Jayawardene and Gamini Dissanayake with
their links in the Sinhala Buddhist Goigama
establishment.
The trouble of course is that J.R. is no longer
President and Gamini has not yet become one. But New
Delhi reasons that its clout, as a regional power, will
be an influential factor in determining the outcome of
the next Presidential stakes in Sri Lanka. Even without
Gamini, Ranil (plus the Wijewardene family including
JRJ) may also do as well, so far as New Delhi is
concerned.
At the sametime New Delhi also knows that without
the Tamil struggle to keep Colombo off balance, Colombo
may, in the end, tilt towards its aid donors. After all
it was to prevent that tilt and to push Colombo towards
New Delhi, that New Delhi and its agents secretly and
later, openly gave material assistance to the Tamil
guerilla movement in the 1980s.
That support, ofcourse, stopped well short of
recognising the Tamils' right to self determination.
Apart from any constraints that the international frame
may have imposed on its freedom to so do, New Delhi
also feared that such recognition of the Tamil struggle
may have a domino effect on other struggles for self
determination inside India.
Then Indian Foreign Secretary, Romesh Bhandari
(reputedly, the bull who carried his own china shop
with him) put it bluntly to the Tamil delegation at
Thimpu in 1985:
''How can we recognise your right to self
determination? If we do that then we will have to
recognise the right of each of the provinces of India
to self determination.''
New Delhi's preferred policy is to maintain a foot
hold in the Tamil cause through a merged NorthEast
Provincial Council and also secure Sinhala support by
taking a stand against Tamil self determination. Its
message to the Sinhala political leadership is:
'If you do not play ball, then we will back the
Tamil struggle - however, we will do all we can to
help you play ball with us, even if that means having
a Sinhala appointed executive governor for the Tamil
province(s)''
It is to put this policy into effect, that New Delhi
needs Tamil quislings willing to play the supporting
puppet role in the North-East - and Sinhala agents who
will do its bidding in Colombo.
To this end, New Delhi has Provincial Council
Chief Minister-in-Waiting, Quisling Varadarajah
Perumal ever ready and willing in the wings in
Orissa, as well as the rump of the TULF and other
sundry Tamil quislings hanging around for crumbs in
Colombo.
But the supply of 'credible' Tamil quislings may
be running out. New Delhi may believe that with the
Chengleput show trial against the leader of the LTTE
being kept on the boil, it has yet another lever to
wield at the appropriate stage.
Be that all as it may, this month, individuals and
organisations sympathetic to New Delhi, including a
representative of a Tamil quisling group surfaced in
Geneva and were busy lobbying against a draft Sub
Commission Resolution which recommended:
'' that the Secretary General consider invoking
his good offices with the aim of contributing to the
establishment of peace in the island of Sri Lanka,
through recognition of the existence of the Tamil
homeland in the North and East of the island and
recognition of the right of the Tamil people in the
North and East of the island to freely choose their
political status taking note of the principles of
self determination enshrined in the UN charter and UN
covenants.''
The tactic of the lobbyists was to suggest an
alternative watered down resolution excluding the
invitation to the UN Secretary General.
That new Delhi's foreign policy is directed to
minimise, if not exclude UN (code for US) involvement
in Sri Lanka and generally in the Indian Ocean region
may be understandable. That new Delhi is intent on
pursuing Foreign Secretary Dixit's celebrated
'calibrated' approach to making New Delhi's own deals
with the US and the West, and in this way enhance New
Delhis's influence on the world stage is also
understandable. But the extent to which New Delhi,
which is not a super power, can act like one is another
matter.
The tragedy of New Delhi's
foreign policy is its continued myopic refusal to
recognise that support for the Tamils' struggle for
self determination will lead not to the break up of
the Indian Union but to a strengthened free
association, of the peoples of the Indian region.
It is a tragedy that appears rooted in the weak
political leadership at the helm of affairs in New
Delhi, concerned only with 'short termism' and lacking
the political vision to grasp the political force
generated by struggles for self determination.
However, notwithstanding the international frame and
the deals that may be struck from time to time between
the contending 'powers that be', and notwithstanding
the sayings of Sinhala political Jeffs and Mutts,
political observers have welcomed the basic proposal of
the Nobel Prize Winners' Peace Plan viz. that the Sri
Lankan government and the LTTE should invite the United
Nations Secretary General to send a special envoy to
mediate a negotiated settlement.
This is regarded as an important first step in any
move towards peace in the island. The terms of the
joint invitation by Sri Lanka and the LTTE would also
have provided the terms of reference for the UN
intervention.
But in the run up to the next Presidential elections
scheduled for end 1994, and the pivotal role of the
Sinhala army and its Goigama Buddhist political
backers, it is not surprising that President Wijetunge
should prefer to persevere in his efforts to keep
western aid donors happy with talk, whilst at the same
time securing New Delhi's assistance to isolate and
weaken the LTTE and in this way 'manage' Tamil
resistance.
Here, in the words of the LTTE International
Secretariat Press Release of 16 August 1993, ''the
Parliamentary Select Committee mechanism provides the
Sri Lanka government with a useful cover of
'reasonableness' for international consumption,
enabling it to avoid direct talks with the LTTE and
also continue its genocidal military operations against
the Tamil people.''
But it is a moot point as to how long tactics such
as these will be effective in the face of continued
determined resistance by the Tamil people led by the
LTTE. The words of Sri Lanka's own Cabinet Minister
Thondaman in a press interview on 23 March 1992, should
serve as a useful reminder to the Sri Lanka
government:
''If you mean defeating the LTTE, it could in my
opinion be equated to defeating every single Tamil in
the North-East. One thing is clear. You cannot
isolate the LTTE from the rest of the Tamil people.
Wiping out the LTTE means wiping out the Tamils.
Until there are Tamils there will be a LTTE hard
core. Remember that the LTTE... is seeking to express
the aspirations of the Tamil people... In the context
of the Tamil people, it is ultimately only the LTTE
that is holding the fort.''
Martin Woollacott's comments in the Guardian of 23
August on the Bosnian war will also help to focus the
minds of everbody on the priorities of the real
world:
''Nobody involved in this war, in fighting it or
in trying to stop it, was born yesterday. What
matters most.. is territory, what matters secondly is
international legitimacy, what matters thirdly are
constitutional arrangements...''
The last word may be, appropriately, left to
Velupillai Pirabaharan who said in December 1991:
''It is the Sri Lanka government that has failed
to learn the lessons from the emergence of the
struggles for self determination in several parts of
the globe and the innovative structural changes that
have taken place.''
