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US muddies the waters
By Sudha
Ramachandran
 BANGALORE - The Sri Lankan peace
process seems to have hit choppy waters. While the
threat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to
pull out of a crucial donor meet scheduled for June in
Tokyo has set alarm bells ringing, it is the
international community's declining interest in the
peace process that is perhaps reason for greater
concern.
The Tigers are miffed that they were
kept out of a preparatory aid conference convened by the
US early this week in Washington. The Tigers were not
invited to the Washington conference as the LTTE is
listed as a foreign terrorist organization in the US.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
who hosted the talks, said that the US would consider
withdrawing the designation of the LTTE as terrorist if
the organization would "unequivocally renounce terrorism
in word and in deed". "The way the current negotiations
are going, the United States can see a future for the
LTTE as a legitimate political organization, but it is
still up to the LTTE to change this situation," he
added.
Responding angrily to the "deliberate
exclusion", the LTTE leadership in an official statement
issued from Kilinochchi threatened to "review its
decision" to participate in the forthcoming Tokyo talks.
It has charged the Sri Lankan government of trying to
marginalize the LTTE at the Washington conference and
accused the government and the Norwegian facilitators of
failing to ensure the LTTE's participation in the
conference by selecting "an appropriate venue". It has
accused the government of "gross violation of pledges".
It has pointed out that both sides had agreed to "work
together and approach the international community [for
funds] in partnership".
This is not the first
time that the LTTE has threatened to pull out of the
talks since direct negotiations between the government
and the Tigers began in September last year. The
participation of the Tigers in the last round seemed
doubtful as the talks were preceded by a marked cooling
in relations between the two sides. At that time too,
the LTTE had threatened to boycott the talks. That the
talks did take place eventually was seen by some as an
achievement in itself and a sign of the new maturity of
both sides in dealing with each other.
What
makes the LTTE threat seem more worrying this time is
that it has come at a time when the process does not
seem to be making progress and against a backdrop of
mounting Tiger impatience with Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe's government. Hitherto, the Tigers had
reserved their criticism for President Chandrika
Kumaratunga and the armed forces. They had avoided
disparaging Wickremesinghe’s administration. Now the
Tigers have turned on Wickremesinghe as well.
Accusing the Wickremesinghe administration of
'impotence', the LTTE has questioned the efficacy of the
negotiation process as "decisions and agreements reached
at the peace talks are not being implemented".
Even as the Tigers were venting out their anger
at the Lankan government, the Norwegian facilitators and
the US, Kumaratunga was in India discussing the peace
process with Indian leaders. Kumaratunga is a bitter
critic of Wickremesinghe’s peace initiative. She has
been accusing his government of giving in too much to
LTTE demands.
India has been expressing support
for a negotiated settlement of the Sri Lankan conflict.
However, its own bitter experience with the Tigers in
the late 1980s and the fact that the LTTE is a
proscribed organization in India, with its leader
Velupillai Prabakaran wanted for the assassination of
former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, has made Delhi wary,
limiting its involvement in the ongoing negotiations.
While Sri Lanka's experience with Indian involvement in
the conflict has been far from pleasant, it recognizes
that the peace process cannot succeed without India's
blessings. Both Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe have made
several trips to brief New Delhi on the peace process
During her visit to India last week, Kumaratunga
expressed her serious misgivings about the way the
process was going. She told The Hindu that the LTTE is
running a de facto state and that it is using the
ceasefire to build its arsenal, and recruit and train
new cadres. She blamed Wickremesinghe for letting the
LTTE do whatever it wants.
Since the start of
the talks, analysts have been pointing to two threats to
the peace process – the LTTE and Kumaratunga. Given the
LTTE's history of walking out of talks, its militarist
nature and its commitment to an independent state and
armed struggle to achieve it, few have faith that the
Tigers will accept a political settlement to the
conflict. Skeptics maintain that the LTTE is taking what
it can from the negotiations and will go back to the
battlefield at an opportune time.
The other
threat is the one posed by the president. The president
has the power to dissolve parliament. This is possible
given her hostile equation with the prime minister.
Should she do this, Wickremesinghe's peace initiative
will be in tatters.
Both threats to the peace
process are real. In her interview to The Hindu,
Kumaratunga, while saying that she would not scuttle the
peace process, did warn that she would take "action" to
stop any move that would threaten Sri Lanka's integrity
and sovereignty.
However, the immediate threat
to the peace process appears to be that from the
international community's declining interest in the
Lankan peace process. It was the solid support that
process got from the international community so far that
made a negotiated settlement to the decades-long
conflict in Sri Lanka within the realm of possibility.
Now with international attention diverted by the
Iraq crisis, it does seem that the Sri Lankan process
has been put on the backburner. Sri Lanka, it seems,
will have to compete with Iraq for funds from donors.
The US, UK and Japan are among the key prospective
donors to the rehabilitation of the war-torn Sri Lankan
northeast. But these countries are already making plans
for the reconstruction of Iraq.
This is
triggering anxiety and insecurity among the Lankan
leaders. Minister of Economic Reforms and a member of
the Lankan government's negotiating team at the talks,
Milinda Moragoda, pointed out, "The key players at the
Tokyo donor conference happen to be the same as those in
the coalition to rebuild Iraq. So we have to fight for
attention to ensure our share." His fears were echoed by
Japan's special peace envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi
Akashi, who admitted that the war in Iraq might have a
negative impact on the Tokyo donor conference.
If the international donors' contribution
towards the rebuilding of the strife-scarred Tamil areas
is affected adversely, the resettlement of the
internally displaced and other rehabilitation programs
would be further delayed. That would erode popular
support for the peace process in the Tamil areas. It
would enable the LTTE to stoke the resulting Tamil
disenchantment with the negotiations and mobilize the
Tamils on the issue.
Above all, it would give an
LTTE yet another stick with which to beat up the
government for failing to live up to its pledges.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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