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 Clearing
the decks on the home front
By Brian
Jeganathan
COLOMBO - Barring last-minute
hitches, the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will sit down at the peace
table on Monday for a preliminary round of talks to be
held for two days in Thailand.
The road to peace
began more than six months ago when the LTTE and the
government signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU),
and worked out a ceasefire agreement as a prelude to
concrete peace negotiations.
The negotiations
are intended to end the 19-year old civil war that has
killed more than 65,000 people, and to find a lasting
political solution for the country's ethnic conflict.
The Norwegian government is facilitating the peace
process.
The LTTE's toughest demand, the lifting
of the ban on the organization, has been met by Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Front
(UNF) government, clearing the last snag on the way to
the negotiations.
Earlier, Defense Minister
Tilak Marapona had temporarily de-proscribed the Tigers
through a gazette notification. Immediately before this,
President Chandrika Kumaratunga, representing the
opposition Peoples Alliance (PA) - who has vigorously
opposed the de-proscription - challenged the government
move, saying that, as commander-in-chief and the head of
state under the country's unique constitution, she alone
had the power to lift the ban on the LTTE. Kumaratunga
insists that de-proscription and the establishment of an
interim administration in the North and East of the
country must be two of the core issues to be negotiated
at the peace talks, and not conceded before.
The
country's attorney general, however, has said that there
was no legal way to block the de-proscription of the
Tigers, who had been banned under the Prevention of
Terrorism Act (PTA). The Tigers were banned in January
1998 through a presidential proclamation under the
Public Security Ordinance when the group bombed the
country's holiest Buddhist shrine known as the Temple of
the Tooth. At the time, the country was under a state of
emergency. The attorney general made it clear that
lifting the ban was the sole prerogative of the defense
minister.
Despite the attorney general's views,
the main opposition Peoples Alliance is determined to
explore legal avenues to revoke the government decision.
The radical Marxist-Nationalist Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna (JVP) has also vowed to mobilize popular
support to topple the government for betraying the
country, accusing the "weak" Wickremasinghe government
of "wilting under LTTE pressure".
It is yet to
be seen whether the JVP can legitimately lead such a
mass campaign against the lifting of the Tiger ban as
the party itself had once benefited from such
de-proscription during its second and worst insurgency
between 1988 and 1990. The then ruling United National
Party (UNP) de-proscribed the JVP even while a killing
spree continued from both sides.
Meanwhile,
leading Buddhist prelates who claim to be the custodians
of Buddhism and the Sinhala people, have also urged the
president to use everything within her power to prevent
the eventual and permanent de-proscription of the LTTE.
The LTTE itself has welcomed de-proscription as
a very positive step towards genuine peace. LTTE
political wing leader, S P Thamilchelvan, told BBC
television that "the biggest impediment" to peace had
been removed with the lifting of the ban. He also
commended Wickremesinghe's "strength and courage to
pursue peace".
But sitting at the negotiating
table and discussing the crucial issues of power sharing
will not be as easy as adhering to the terms and
conditions of the ceasefire or even conceding
de-proscription. This will be a decisive test,
especially for the LTTE, which has spent most of its
life in the bush leading armed campaigns against the
government, and has earned a bad reputation in the past
for erratically pulling out of negotiations and
reverting to violence. The LTTE counters such
allegations on the grounds that Sinhalese governments
have always taken peace talks lightly and sent
non-significant delegations for negotiations.
This time, however, the LTTE will not be able to
hide behind such excuses. The government is sending a
high-profile ministerial delegation to open talks in
Thailand, and there is the additional pressure of the
involvement of international facilitators.
Clipping the wings of the executive president
and guaranteeing what is due to each stakeholder is,
however, still an enormous task. Already, in the recent
weeks and months, the peace process has started to feel
the travails of co-habitation between the president, who
is from the main opposition party, and Wickremesinghe's
ruling UNF.
The conflict sharpened with the
cabinet moving to introduce the 19th amendment to the
constitution to curb Kumaratunga's powers, specifically,
the power to dissolve parliament. Currently, the
executive president can dissolve parliament after one
year of holding a general election - in the present
instance, after December 5, 2002. The UNF fears that
Kumaratunga and the PA will exploit these provisions to
destabilize the government and derail the peace process.
If the new amendment, scheduled to be taken up in
November, goes through, Kumaratunga will not be able to
dissolve parliament unless a majority in parliament so
requests. Interestingly, Kumaratunga came to power in
1994 promising to abolish the executive presidency.
Equally important is the proposed 18th amendment
to the constitution, which will allow MPs to ignore
party affiliations when voting on an issue of national
importance, which would strengthen the UNF in its
efforts to muster the votes of several opposition
members who are willing to support the government in its
efforts towards a negotiated peace settlement. The
amendment would prevent any form of disciplinary action
against an MP who voted contrary to the party line.
A two-thirds majority is required to pass the
amendments. However, the president has the power to
refer the constitutional change to the Supreme Court to
determine whether it should be put to a referendum. UNF
leaders have publicly expressed confidence that a
section of the opposition will vote for the amendments.
Their defeat, however, could hasten a crisis in the
government, and force early elections.
On the
ground, the UNF seems to have steadied its position, at
least temporarily, by exploiting the infighting within
the opposition. A faction led by Kumaratunga's brother,
Anura Bandaranaike, is allied to the JVP and its
chauvinistic campaign against the government-LTTE peace
talks. Opposed to it is a faction led by former PA
minister A H M Fowsie, who is backing the negotiations.
The Fowsie group maintains close connections with UNF
ministers who defected from the PA last year.
Kumaratunga has also been desperately fighting a
threatened split in the party.
The government
itself is not free of factionalism and disgruntled
members. Recently, there were reports of opposition PA
and JVP parliamentarians holding secret talks with seven
members of the government, to explore the possibilities
of defection from government ranks. Wickremesinghe has,
moreover, not received the unreserved support of one of
his coalition partners - the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
(SLMC). The SLMC enjoys a substantial constituency in
the East, where the country's Muslim population is
largely concentrated.
On an earlier occasion,
SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem, who is also the Minister of
Shipping, laid down nine conditions for support to
Wickremesinghe's peace efforts, including the revision
of the current memorandum of understanding and inclusion
of Hakeem himself in the peace negotiations. He has
demanded that the government guarantee a political role
for Muslims in a settlement with the LTTE. Recently,
Hakeem held separate talks with chief LTTE negotiator,
Anton Balasingham, in London to discuss SLMC
representation in the peace talks. According to the
agreement reached, Hakeem would be part of the
government delegation and, in future talks, he will lead
a separate Muslim delegation, which will convert the
peace negotiations into a tripartite exercise.
The LTTE also has its own quota of worries. A
month ago, it had to take the tough decision of demoting
Karikalan, a top eastern leader, without explanation.
Karikalan's statement that the north and east belonged
exclusively to the Tamils irked the Muslims, who said
the statement implied that there were no rights for them
in the region. However, politically, the LTTE's hegemony
is well defined and established. The former moderate
Tamil politicians are now well within its fold, with the
formation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The
Tamil Alliance has been exerting a lot of pressure on
Wickremesinghe's government to accept the LTTE as the
legitimate representative of the Tamil people.
Wickremesinghe has launched a drive for economic
reforms, parallel to the peace campaign. Through a
fire-sale privatization and restructuring campaign, he
is trying to haul the country out of a massive debt
crisis. More than 30 pieces of legislation are slated to
go through parliament to support the economic reforms,
which could also be controversial.
The days
ahead will determine the fate of both the economy and
Sri Lanka's polity. The toughest challenge for
Wickremesinghe will be to keep the peace process on
track until it reaches satisfactory results - working
out a political arrangement that will keep the nation
intact.
Brian Jeganathan is a
journalist and communications consultant based in
Colombo
Published with permission from the
South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism
Portal
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