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Home > Struggle for Tamil Eelam > Sri Lanka's Broken Pacts & Evasive Proposals > Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95 > What went wrong with the peace process? M. Vasantharajah
Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95 What went wrong with the peace process?
M. Vasantharajah ex Chairman, Sri Lanka State Television
published in the Sri Lanka State Controlled Sunday Observer
25 June 1995
There are many people who would prefer to place the blame solely on the LTTE for the breakdown of the peace initiative in Sri Lanka.
But those who are serious about seeing a lasting solution in the North-East war should think again and analyse the government's handling of the peace process more objectively. In particular we should consider whether there were genuine reasons for the LTTE to mistrust the government's intentions. It did not take very long for cartoons to appear in Jaffna newspapers depicting President Chandrika Kumaratunga riding an armoured car, carrying a dove of peace in one hand and a missile in the other. But was this perception justified? I think so.
During my recent acquaintance with government circles, I clearly noticed that the new Government like its predecessor, has no conception of the historical content of the Tamil struggle.(I shall come to this point later) President Chandrika Kumaratunga, right from the start, seems to have failed to grasp the inseparable connection between the Tamil liberation struggle and the LTTE. Probably this is perhaps why the President was so easily converted to the ideology prevailing within the military establishment.
As a result a hidden agenda seeped into the government's peace effort. Instead of making a genuine effort to cultivate confidence and trust with the Tiger leadership and exploring 'common ground', the government got side tracked by a different strategy: to try and isolate the Tiger leadership from the Tamil masses so that the military could corner and defeat them. The military establishment, together with most Sinhala intellectuals and left wing politicians, as well as some anti LTTE Tamil groups had been preaching this was for some time.
This became the aim of the Presidential initiative too. In other words the peace process began to resemble a tactical episode in the government's strategy to crush the Tigers. Indeed President Chandrika even spoke about such an intention publicly.
The LTTE had certain grounds for concern: we need only look at the calibre of the (Sri Lanka) peace delegates and their very occasional visits to Jaffna for a few hours talks. Not surprisingly doubts must have arisen about whether the government was only concerned with impressing the people.
Alongside the peace process, the government did many other things which gave the wrong signals to the LTTE. As chairman of the Rupavahini, I visited Jaffna during this period and had discussions with Anton Balasingham and Thamil Chelvan about the possibility of setting up a television studio in Jaffna so that we could transmit regular programmes about developments in the North to the people in the South, at the same time as doing programmes from the south for the benefit of the Tamil masses in the North. The LTTE happily agreed. But when I brought the message back to the government, the idea was vehemently opposed.
Launching a new military recruitment campaign and ceremoniously opening up new settlements in Trincomalee did much to further undermine the trust that was imperative to any successful outcome of the talks.
Moreover, the government's behaviour gave the impression that it was quite deliberately ignoring the LTTE's constant request to arrange a formal cease fire in place of the fragile 'cessation of hostilities' so that clear terms of agreement in writing could be reached, particularly in relation to the controversial East.
Even the so called reconstruction projects, the President admitted, were aimed at hiring Tamil labour on a mass scale getting them directly on the government's payroll in the hope of changing their loyalties.
This perhaps explains why the government was not especially keen to accept the LTTE's proposal to establish an Independent Authority with representation from all sides to handle reconstruction work.
Finally the unilateral opening of the Sangupitty Road - without consulting the LTTE - must have dashed any remaining hopes of establishing trust between the two sides.
If the government was seriously trying to establish trust and avoid misunderstandings there were many measures it could have taken. For example as part of a formal ceasefire, a video link between the LTTE headquarters and the Presidential Secretariat facilitating regular talks, would have been of enormous value. Also 'peace structures' involving both sides should have been installed, like in South Africa, to back actual negotiations.
A high powered politically mature negotiating team ought to have been appointed to conduct the talks, while different levels of contact should have been cultivated to promote mutual trust and understanding. (I am speaking of cultural, academic and commercial links, for example)
In spite of all these negative signals from the government, I tried my best to hold onto my optimism. I wanted to believe that the peace process would soon develop its own momentum and things would eventually change under pressure. My optimism, however, turned out to be sheer wishful thinking. The LTTE soon became disillusioned and pulled away from negotiations suspecting ulterior motives.
In my estimation the Sri Lankan government's slack approach did not reflect the sincere intentions of the Sinhala people who put them in power - those people pleaded for, and deserved a wholly genuine peace effort. The fact that the government failed to even reveal its peace package in spite of numerous requests by Tamil groups raises doubts as to whether they had one that went anywhere near Tamil demands.
Soon after the peace process collapsed and the war was resumed, the government began putting pressure on the State media to assist the war effort. Given the circumstances I have outlined, this was not something I was prepared to go along with. The government, I felt, was ill advised in their handling of the peace initiative and rather than assist in their subsequent war strategy, I chose to resign.
It is clear to me that the Chandrika leadership, like all previous governments, has failed to grasp the historical content of the Tamil liberation struggle and that is why the present strategy will not succeed.
The government's ideology is based on the assumption that Tamils are an ethnic minority living within the Sinhala country. The truth however is different - Sri Lanka has historically evolved as a society consisting of two main nations, that is Sinhalese and Tamil. Although the Tamil nation is numerically smaller in relation to the Sinhala nation, it has evolved sided by side to it, retaining a distinct identity whilst closely interacting with it, and a clearly identifiable 'Tamil homeland' has emerged over a long historical period... neither the unitary state imposed on Sri Lanka by the British nor the post independence constitutions reflect the realities of Lankan society.
Whenever a unitary state is imposed in this manner, it is only a matter of time before national self-consciousness and the demand for self determination arise. Although some Sinhala politicians such as Mr.S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike understood this reality as far back as the 1920s, we have seen how, in the late 1950s, he was crushed by Sinhala racism (which ironically he whipped up himself for political opportunism).
Once the Banda/Chelva Pact was torn up under Sinhala pressure, it was only a matter of time before Tamil nationalism began to develop into full fledged separatism. This was expressed electorally in the 1977 general election in which the Tamil United Liberation Front won overwhelming support from the Tamil people, giving a clear mandate to fight for a separate state.
Once the Tamil masses developed self consciousness as a nation and awareness of their right to self determination it would be an illusion to think that a 'Sinhala' government in the South could impose a 'solution' on the Tamil nation by force. A solution can (and must) only be achieved by a voluntary agreement, and at present, such an agreement can only be reached by acknowledging that the LTTE are the incontrovertible leaders of the Tamil liberation struggle. Whether we like it or not it's the truth.
That is why I am utterly convinced that any plans to undermine the LTTE's mass base and then crush it militarily is doomed to fail. The only constructive way forward is to deal with the LTTE as the representative of the Tamil masses, because that is what they are.
Just as Sinhala nationalism was once a progressive force in history in its struggle against Western imperialism, by the same token, Tamil nationalism has a progressive aspect. It is the ideology of a nation seeking self determination. If Sinhala nationalism is directed towards preventing that self determination, it becomes regressive, that it becomes the ideology of a larger nation preventing a smaller nation's assertion of independence.
However that is not suggest that Tamil nationalism is progressive under all circumstances either. It too has its limits. We are living at a time when nation states across the globe are being forced to reconsider the value of nationalistic impulses. More and more nation states are being exposed as strait jackets obstructing the development of productive forces on an international scale.
In Europe, for example, all member nations of the European Community recognise the need to sacrifice aspects of national sovereignty for mutual benefit. Ofcourse there are still powerful nationalistic forces within those countries resisting attempts at a 'Federal Europe', but I would argue that such tendencies are regressive and ultimately futile...
There is no escaping from the fact that trends towards internationalism are getting steadily stronger in many regions of the world.... My point is that to facilitate progressive trends of this sort, we need first to ensure that there are no cases of one nation stifling the self expression of another.
Unfortunately, there still remain many places where populations have not yet attained their fundamental rights as nations. National liberation struggles are still dragging on in these countries; the Tamil struggle is just one of them...
Federal union can only follow from equality and self determination and cannot be imposed by military force. All progressive thinking people in the South who are keen to prevent Sri Lanka from turning into another Bosnia or Lebanon must finally adopt a realistic attitude towards the Tamil struggle. They must acknowledge that the LTTE are the chosen representatives of the Tamil people and therefore must urge the government to re think its strategy.
The people's Alliance Government is already facing problems with the electorate, mainly because of difficulties in delivering major election promises. The war hysteria and Sinhala chauvinism are already diverting attention from these important issues. The much trumpeted 'free media policy' also seems to be sliding backwards.
And as the government is dragged deeper into the war, the country is heading steadily towards a desperate situation where insecurity, instability, economic chaos and social unrest will be the order of the day. This in turn will jeopardise the Government's economic strategy. It is an uncomfortable but all too real possibility that the most sinister, ultra rightist forces in the South will try to 'crucify' Chandrika for all the failures on the war front and campaign to bring a military junta to power. (some tabloid papers have already begun this campaign)
As far as I can see the only way to stop such dangerous forces gaining momentum is to convince the government to end the war and put the peace process back on track. This time, however, the spirit of negotiations has to be sincere and driven by the intention to achieve a realistic solution.
Perhaps that could be starting point of a future 'Federal Union of the Republic of Sri Lanka and Eelam' (United States of Sri Lanka and Eelam would sound less controversial and more crispy).
It is the content, not the title, that matters. Such a gigantic step towards peacefully sharing this beautiful island of ours is bound to pave the way for unprecedented economic prosperity on both sides.
