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Spirit of Muslim inclusion augurs
well
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
SATTAHIP, Thailand - The presence of Rauff
Hakeem, leader of Sri Lanka's largest Muslim political
party, among the negotiators at the talks between
Colombo and separatist Tamil rebels places this round of
peace negotiations in a league of its own.
Until
today, the seats at the negotiating table to strike a
peace deal in Sri Lanka's two-decade long ethnic
conflict had been reserved for representatives who
articulated the concerns of the country's two main
communities - the Sinhalese, the majority community, and
the Tamils, the largest minority.
The
protagonists during the peace talks in 1985, 1987, 1990
and 1995 were the Sri Lankan government, seen as
defending the Sinhalese position, and the Tamil Tiger
rebels, who articulated the Tamil cause.
The
current shift has, on the one hand, succeeded in
underscoring the spirit of inclusion in this fifth
attempt at resolving the island nation's conflict. On
the other, it offers a clear signal that the concerns of
the Muslims, the second largest minority, have to be
factored in from the outset if the country is to achieve
a lasting peace. Muslims make up 7 percent of Sri
Lanka's 19.6 million people, while the Tamils account
for 18 percent, and the Sinhalese comprise 74 percent.
G L Peiris, head of the Sri Lankan delegation at
the talks, made specific mention of Hakeem's presence.
"This arrangement would no doubt ensure the continuance
of a constructive and meaningful dialogue. We are
mindful that any substantive structural and
institutional arrangement that may be evolved should
provide for the rights of all communities," Peiris said.
"It [Muslim representation] will give the talks
more credibility, more legitimacy," Rauff Hakeem, leader
of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and a cabinet
minister, told Inter Press Service on the eve of the
peace talks at Sattahip, a Thai naval base 20 kilometers
east of the popular tourist seaside destination of
Pattaya. "There wasn't such a spirit of accommodation
before, and Muslims felt their concerns were ignored,"
Hakeem said.
"The Muslim question has to be
factored into the talks, particularly in relation to
matters such as their security and identity," agreed
Kethesh Loganathan, a peace and conflict resolution
analyst at the Center for Policy Alternatives, a
Colombo-based think tank. "Multi-track approaches to
negotiations are essential to ensure durable peace,"
Loganathan said.
While there was little doubt
about including Hakeem in the Sri Lankan government's
three-member negotiating team, the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the rebels are officially known,
had sent out mixed messages on this issue until the last
hour.
So when the Tigers finally agreed to a
Muslim presence, they succeeded not only in ensuring a
new dimension to the talks, they also helped the Tigers
earn credit as a separatist movement willing to be
flexible on some fronts - a sign that augurs well for
the negotiations. The announcement of Hakeem's inclusion
came on September 3, following a discussion Hakeem had
with Anton Balasingham, the LTTE's chief negotiator, in
London.
But Hakeem and the LTTE negotiators
still have a long road to travel in order to make the
Muslim presence at the talks meaningful, particularly
for Muslims in the country's eastern and northern
provinces, where the Tigers have been waging a
separatist war with the Sri Lankan forces to create the
state of Tamil Eelam. Muslims have been subject to Tiger
attacks during the past 12 years of the Sri Lankan
conflict, which since 1983 has resulted in over 64,000
deaths.
The latter half of 1990 was the worst,
when the Tigers gunned down and killed over 100 Muslims
at prayer in two mosques in the eastern province, and
when the Tigers drove away at gunpoint over 70,000
Muslims from their homes in the northern province.
Because conflict between the Tigers and Muslim
civilians is often overshadowed by bloodletting between
the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan state and the armed
Tamil minority, negotiators at the previous peace talks
have spent most of their efforts on finding solutions
that largely address the concerns of the two main
communities.
But since December 24 last year,
when the Tigers took the first step toward initiating
the current peace process by unilaterally declaring a
ceasefire, Sri Lanka has been given steady reminders
that marginalizing the Tiger-Muslim dispute will be
counterproductive to achieving a comprehensive peace
deal for the country.
In mid-April, LTTE leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran stepped in with his own
contribution on how to accommodate Muslim concerns in
the current peace efforts. During an unprecedented
meeting in his jungle hideout with Muslim political
leaders, including Hakeem, Prabhakaran said that the
Tigers are now encouraging the thousands of Muslims
driven out from the northern province to return home.
That announcement was accompanied by the Tiger leader's
assurance to Hakeem that the LTTE cadres would not
extort money from Muslims in the eastern province.
Shortly prior to that, Prabhakaran issued an
apology to the Muslim community for the manner in which
they had been victimized in provinces where the Tigers
have been fighting to establish the state of Eelam, a
Tamil homeland.
While these recent actions add
to other overtures by the Tigers to suggest that they
are sincere in pursing peace this time around, they do
not address a key concern of Muslims in Sri Lanka's
eastern province. Muslims are a third of the population
of the eastern province, home to the greatest
concentration of Muslim in the country.
Sri
Lankan Muslims fear becoming a minority - and thus open
to persecution - in a future political administration
controlled by the Tigers, not least because of proposals
that the rebels run an interim administration in the
north and east. Addressing these fears is precisely
where the inclusive spirit of the current peace process
helps.
The door has been opened for Hakeem, as a
Muslim leader, to play as pivotal a role as the other
negotiators representing Tamil and Sinhalese interests,
in securing a peace deal that is meaningful to all three
of Sri Lanka's main ethnic communities.
(Inter
Press Service)
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