[ Peace in Sri Lanka ]

The president’s curse

Sri Lanka has a higher average life expectancy than Portugal, a higher literacy rate than southern Italy and a higher per-capita income than Latvia. With economic growth running at three percent, there even are labour shortages in the low-wage sector. Tourism is booming. Sri Lanka is becoming an emerging economy. The truce signed by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam) and the government is holding.

So much for the good news. On the down side, thousands of factory workers in free trade zones earn less than a dollar a day, Sri Lanka is an El Dorado for paedophile sex tourists from Europe and the United States – and the country is once more on the brink of war.

It is widely accepted that the chauvinist nationalities policy of the 1950s created the problems that led to war in 1983. Measures such as resettling Sinhalese families in areas traditionally inhabited by the Tamil minority and the introduction of Sinhalese as official language for the whole of Sri Lanka were designed to underpin the dominance of the Sinhalese elite. The island’s most numerous ethnic group marginalised the Tamils who had been favoured during British colonial rule. Because of the injustices suffered, the LTTE chose the path of armed resistance.

Today, the Liberation Tigers govern a fifth of the country’s territory, which is more than just the area in which the majority population is Tamil. The LTTE controls taxes, military security, public administration, the legal system, education and the arts. The rebel area is a state within the state. The USA approves of the LTTE peace plan, although Washington still classes the rebels as terrorists. This, however, is just one of many contradictions of Sri Lankan and international politics.

The peace process in Sri Lanka is stagnating. Talks between the government and the rebel movement have stalled. The eccentric views and unpredictable actions of President Kumaratunga are becoming a risk to security. For Kumaratunga it is of little interest that the majority of Sri Lankans long for peace and want a fair deal for all. Nor is she bothered by the fact that she is cooperating with extremists at home and becoming increasingly isolated internationally. Kumaratunga is stubbornly holding on to power.

Democratically legitimised political institutions are generally regarded as basis for peaceful progress. In the case of Sri Lanka, however, whether the country can take the road to peace or will return to war seems to depend on a feud between two dominant political clans. President Kumaratunga no longer backs Prime Minister Wickremasinghe’s peace plan. She has the constitutional power to veto and revoke agreements made by the government. In late 2003, the president sacked three ministers, suspended parliament and severed contact between the government and the LTTE. She has also accused the Norwegian facilitators who monitor the cease-fire of siding with the LTTE.

By forging alliances with radical opposition parties, the president is undermining the island’s chances of federal self-determination and is causing positions to harden. Her bizarre conduct is probably meant to blacken Wickremasinghe’s name and to stir up fears of a sell-out to the Tamils. Kumaratunga hopes she will win a new majority in parliament in the elections, which, at her discretion, will be held on April, 2. The end of her second and last term as president is drawing near, so she can now only stand for the office of prime minister.
“Don’t let the nation fight the battle of those in power.” This appeal by a Catholic priest reflects the mood of the country. Many Sri Lankans are concerned about the touchiness of the top Sinhalese politicians and the political isolation of the LTTE. They see a risk of the cease-fire talks collapsing and the country plunging back into war after nearly two years of truce. And that is not all. In eastern Sri Lanka, another crisis is looming with divisions between Muslim, Evangelical, Buddhist and Hindu fundamentalists. Tensions have already led to violent attacks on the civilian population.


Peace is profitible

Despite twenty years of war, despite untold atrocities on both sides and despite widespread devastation in violence-torn northeastern Sri Lanka, human development indices are impressive. Sri Lanka's economic miracle is the result of a favourable mix of socio-economic factors which include prodigious inflows of capital from the diaspora, the restriction of the conflict to the northeast and the steady stream of well-heeled tourists. Experts reckon, however, that the average Sri Lankan citizen would be about a third better off today if the country had not been embroiled in war – not to mention the untold suffering caused by 60,000 deaths.

Since the cease-fire started two years ago, peace has proven profitable. This statement may seem obvious but in many war-torn regions the continuation of conflict actually makes economic sense for the elites and sometimes even for the population. Fortunately, this is not the case in Sri Lanka. Unlike other countries (as, for instance, Sudan, Congo or Liberia), the island has no natural resources, which might turn out to be a curse because they tempt profiteers to prolong warfare.

The fact that the peace process could be launched at all after twenty years of war is due to several factors. Among them are the resilience of representative democracy, the high literacy rate, economic success stories, Norway’s adroit performance as a mediator, the prospect of massive debt relief and the fact that the population is increasingly weary of war. All this has paved the way for a peace movement driven by civil society. There is a new sense of national unity among Sri Lankans, who increasingly see ethnic and religious differences as potential socio-economic and cultural assets rather than as insurmountable cause of violence.

The Christian churches and moderate representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic communities endorse the view that there is no sensible alternative to peace. Neither side can win the war by military means. Sadly, however, there is a vested political interest in keeping the war in progress. This is where the international community needs to act. Further debt relief and support for development programmes should unequivocally depend on the following conditions:
– the adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding,
– the systematic implementation of the external truce-monitoring process,
– re-starting the peace negotiations,
– respect for human rights (which should be monitored internationally),
– drafting a new constitution to incorporate the results of the negotiations, and
– a referendum on the new constitution.

For obvious reasons, German and European foreign, security and development policy demands good governance in developing countries and emerging economies. Accordingly, the international community is duty-bound to exert pressure when representative democracy has been hijacked by personal ambition and is likely to introduce a new round of bloodshed.

Inter-religious reconciliation efforts by representatives of all communities are starting to bear fruit, especially when targeting youth. Nonetheless, the Sri Lankan parliament seems increasingly divided along tribal and religious lines. A referendum on a peace mandate for Prime Minister Wickremasinghe would certainly produce a bigger majority in favour of the proposal than any vote in parliament. One cannot help thinking that civil society has advanced further on the road to reconciliation than the politicians have. This poses both an opportunity and a risk: an opportunity because politicians cannot use war indefinitely to advance strategic interests against the will of the nation, a risk because even a brief resumption of hostilities would cause poverty and suffering as well as undermine upbeat development projects.

The Church has an important role to play as a force of reconciliation. In eastern Sri Lanka, a new centre of conflict is forming. In this region, muslims make up a bigger and more self-assured minority than elsewhere on the island. Their exclusion from the present peace process could have explosive consequences. In Sri Lanka, it has always proven disastrous to make crucial political decisions without taking into account the interests of major population groups. The Catholic Church, itself a minority community, could – and already does – play a valuable placatory role in negotiations and conflict transformations.