ACADEMIC HATCHET JOB AGAINST COUNTRY
From a national point of view, the characterization of the President as a hardliner on the ethnic conflict is very worrying. Unfortunately, though it is perhaps understandable from foreigners without much knowledge of our current situation, sadly it is even used or implied by those who should know much better. This in turn helps to reinforce the prejudices of international commentators.
Recently I came across a startling example of this tendency, in what is termed the South Asian Journal, published on a quarterly basis in Lahore. The publisher is the Free Media Foundation, and the Facilitator, whatever that means, is the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA). The Consulting Editor for Sri Lanka is Sharmini Boyle, whose husband Richard produced recently an in-depth study of words introduced into the English language by Robert Knox.
The article in question was written by Dr. Keethaponcalan a generally respected political scientist at the University of Colombo. I have never met him, but I am familiar with his name through his work in various courses in conflict resolution. The impression I have had of him was that he was moderate in his views and well intentioned in his outlook.
It therefore pained me that his article seemed to reinforce the impression that President Rajapakse has been hardline in his approach, with no corresponding indication of the LTTE attitude. This may not have been his main intention, but in the abstract to the article, whether prepared by him or the Pakistani Editor of the magazine, there is a reference to 'the deadlock between the LTTE and the new government of President Rajapaksa, after the latter's failure to implement the Ceasefire Agreement'.
The article itself is more circumspect in its pronouncements, but I fear that its many omissions contribute to the adverse impression of the current government. The very first paragraph sets the tone when it refers to the process of talks that began in 2002 being 'suspended because of internal political melees between the two major political parties in the south'. This is nonsense. The process was suspended when the LTTE refused early in 2003 to participate in further talks, perhaps because of pique that they had not been invited to relevant meetings in the United States, perhaps because of the inadequacies of the Wickremesinghe government highlighted in Mr Balasingham's letter of that period. The melees, as Dr. K. calls them, happened much later. It is therefore disingenuous to suggest that they caused the withdrawal of the LTTE, which seems rather to have been a strategic move, targeting a particular response from the then government.
Dr. K. goes on, in describing the December 2001 election, to claim that the UNP victory 'was considered a mandate for peace talks with the LTTE' following the UNP 'sensing general public dissatisfaction with the policy adopted by the ruling People's Alliance in relation to the ethnic conflict'. Such a formulation is avoided in the description of the 2004 elections, where instead Dr K simply states that 'The president's alliance with the radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), an anti-devolution party, led to fresh elections in April 2004. A new alliance, the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won the snap election, which effectively closed the door on the peace process'. No reference is made whatsoever to the public wave in favour of that alliance, which could reasonably be construed as indicating public dissatisfaction with the policy of the UNP in relation to the conflict/peace process.
Dr. K. then produces another take on the suspension of the peace process in 2003. Now, the 'internal political melees forgotten, he says that both parties found it difficult to move forward...The LTTE also suspended participation in the peace process due to non-implementation of the agreed provisions put forward by the government in mid-2003'. He does not describe these 'agreed provisions'. I had thought they were the Wickremesinghe proposals regarding an Interim Administration, but in the next paragraph he notes that 'In response to the LTTE's demand for an interim administration, the government presented three proposals, all of which were rejected because they did not meet the expectations of the rebels. When the third proposal was dismissed as inadequate, the LTTE agreed to present its own proposal, which was completed with the assistance of international consultation in late 2003'.
Though Dr. K. then says that this proposal 'implied a radical shift from the accepted federal principles, igniting a political crisis in the south', there is no mention that the Wickremesinghe proposal was quite similar and had also been prepared with international consultation'. Unfortunately the text of that proposal has almost been forgotten now, along with the shenanigans between GL and the Norwegians compounded by Ranil sending Chandrika the wrong version, which even the Sunday Times suggested was an attempt to trick her into an extreme reaction.
Dr. K. then introduces a red herring, by claiming that there was a tug of war between President and Prime Minister 'immediately after the UNP was elected to office'. This again is nonsense. There may have been mutual suspicion, but to give her due, Chandrika behaved fairly well for nearly two years. Dr. K. is quite wrong to claim that she 'exploited the LTTE's proposal to undermine the government'. That was not the reason she 'removed three vital ministries from the government in November 2003'. Her action followed on the Supreme Court ruling on her responsibility for Defence, a ruling prompted by her request for one after the UNP Minister had tried to bypass her. And that ruling alone may not have motivated her, had it not been for the subsequent UNP attempt to impeach the Chief Justice.
Finally, Dr. K. ignores completely Chandrika's attempt to strike a compromise. He moves straight on to the alliance with the JVP, forgetting the period in which she, the international community and many members of the UNP were urging Ranil to compromise, whereas he kept insisting that he wanted all three ministries back before he would talk. Meanwhile the JVP, which had initially wanted the ceasefire abrogated before it joined Chandrika, backed down when she stood firm. An article that purports to be about the Peace Process should surely have included all that had it been at all concerned with balance and scholarship.
So much for the background. Dr. K. then moves on to the Presidential Election, drawing attention first to the 'pro-minority outlook' of the UNP under Ranil. He then draws attention to Mahinda's alliance with the JHU and the JVP. The latter is characterized as 'a Marxist socialist entity that tried capturing power by violence, first in the early 1970s and then in the late 1980s. Since both rebellions failed miserably, the group transformed itself into a political party'. Now this may all be true, except possibly for the adverb 'miserably', but it presents a distorted picture in omitting the JVP's entering the democratic process after 1977 and being driven out of it by the 1983 proscription by the UNP government of that day.
It is also nonsense to claim that, to get the endorsement of 'these two Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist parties' (a distortion as far as the JVP is concerned, whatever the main focus of their election campaign might have been), Mahinda 'had to accept many of the conditions they put forward'. Contrary to the general impression Dr. K. tries to create, Mahinda's agreement with the JVP was critical of the LTTE rather than the Tamil cause, while there was no such formal itemized agreement at all with the JHU.
I will refrain from a critique of Dr. K's analysis of the reasons for Ranil's defeat, except to suggest that it is naïve in the extreme. I have given my own analysis elsewhere, and in any case that is not germane to his distortion of the President's role. What is germane is his claim that the LTTE 'wanted to give the new administration some space to prove its will and capacity to deliver'. This ignores completely the savage attacks on servicemen immediately following the election, which led to so many deaths. Since he seems blind to those, clearly he could not have registered the possibility that the LTTE was counting on Mahinda initiating a backlash on the lines of 1983, and thus playing into their hands with the support of the international community and commentators such as Dr. K. himself.
And so, that little flourishing of terrorist activity being conveniently forgotten, we move to the Geneva talks. Dr K. seems to realize that the main reason the LTTE, instead of revitalizing the Peace Process, wanted to talk only about implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement, was its worries about the Karuna faction. With outrageous panache, Dr. K. declares that 'Following allegations of financial irregularities by the LTTE leadership, Karuna declared his intention to operate independently'. That hegemonic attitudes might have led to this reaction from yet another oppressed minority is obviously not conceivable by Dr. K.
Dr. K. sticks to his assertion that the LTTE has refused to participate in a second round of talks only because the government has 'not fulfilled its promises made in Geneva', ie. disarmed Karuna. The fact that it produced other reasons, regarding safe conduct for its delegates, that it finally did go, to Oslo, which the government had conceded on, and then failed to turn up on the very date of the meeting, passed Dr. K. by. And, though some of this may have transpired after he wrote his article, since he incorporates a reference to an article published at the end of May, it would be astonishing, if by now Dr. K's partialities were not clear, that he fails to mention the attack on the Sri Lankan army commander.
The lack of scholarship in this article is sad, but I suppose this is not unusual today, even within the university community. What is sad is that, since Dr. K. is Tamil, his approach will serve to reinforce the prejudices of those who believe that Tamils in general are Tigers, while also strengthening their equally preposterous prejudice that those in favour of the peace process are hypocrites. On the contrary, though Dr. K. is indulgent to Prabhakaran, and insensitive at best about other Tamils (Karuna for instance, and Lakshman Kadirgamar, whose assassination is not mentioned, though his 'campaign to have the LTTE banned in the West' is), he is equally if not more indulgent to Ranil.
Rather, it would seem that, in his anxiety for peace, he is anxious and willing to forget facts and arguments that go against his predilections. Perhaps he may well feel that, in the world of Prabhakaran and the monstrous Sinhalese government of the eighties that created him, only relentless reiteration of one's own viewpoint will get one anywhere. He may be right, but he should perhaps reflect that such an approach can only lead to the triumph of the extreme - and the extreme that triumphs may not be the Prabhakaran and Wickremesinghe combine.
Written By: Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha
WS, 9.10.2006