SRI LANKA: Fresh Peace Move as War Drags On

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Sep 9 1997 (IPS) - As Sri Lankan troops battle Tamil separatist rebels in a never-ending war, the government has launched a new initiative to end the 14 year conflict.

Titled ‘Peace Caravan’, the three-month campaign is intended to satisfy the aspirations of minority Tamils while seeking the people’s backing, through public meetings and street dramas, for a package of proposals to end the fighting.

The package which will be woven into a new Constitution to be unveiled before year end, hopes to grant greater autonomy to the regions including the north and east of the country where a majority of the Tamils live.

Already it has the support of most Tamil political parties and activists. The Tamils form about 18 percent of the island’s 18 million people, and are mostly Hindus. The majority of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese and Buddhists, and their leaders are not likely to back the government’s peace plan.

“Once the Buddhist clergy and the opposition gets into the act, it would be hard to push the package through,” feels Harry Gunatillake, a former airforce commander and now political commentator.

He said the proposals, studied by a parliamentary committee comprising legislators from the government and opposition political parties, had not dealt sufficiently with the key issue of land use, the police force and the unit of devolution.

The main opposition United National Party (UNP), which is participating in the committee, has declined to publicly comment on whether it is supporting the peace package.

UNP leader and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently reiterated his party’s position that the government should talk to the guerrillas, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), while the fighting was on.

He told foreign journalists at a meeting that his party — which held several rounds of failed talks with the rebels during the UNP’s 17 year rule which ended in August 1994 — was not opposed to talks between Kumaratunga’s government and the Tigers, but added that talks and the fighting should run in tandem.

“This way there can be unconditional talks and if they succeed then it could lead to something,” he said.

The government says it would resume talks, that were broken by the Tigers in early 1995, only if the rebels lay down their arms. The rebels have rejected talks with pre-conditions.

Sri Lanka — once the paradise of the East and a much-sought after destination by western tourists — is mired in a civil war. More than 50,000 people, including combatants from both sides and civilians have died in the conflict.

The war has devastated the economy and added a huge defence bill. Tourism, once the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner, has suffered. The conflict arose in the early 1970s when Tamils said they were being discriminated against by an administration run by Sinhalese, in the allocation of government jobs, land use, education and other sectors.

Governments in the past have conceded that the Tamils have some grievances, but not to the extent claimed by them. When Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance (PA) coalition captured power at presidential and parliamentary polls in 1994, she pledged to end the war, abolish the presidential system of government and revert back to the former Westminister model, and improve the economy.

But analysts say the government, now halfway through its six- year term, has achieved little in the way of these promises with one exception, in the war zone.

Last year government troops seized control of the northern rebel city of Jaffna, seat of Tamil power, after pitched battles and heavy losses by both sides. Yet despite losing its bastion, the Tigers are far from defeated, having successfully counter- attacked government soldiers in subsequent skirmishes.

Rebel successes have also led to the downing of a couple of airforce planes and bombing of army bases.

Tamil legislator Neelan Tiruchelvam, a pro-package activist, says the governemnt proposals offer the best hope for Tamils. “The government’s new peace campaign is aimed at explaining to those at grassroots level what efforts are being made to achieve peace,” he said.

Tiruchelvam said the plan offered more autonomy to regions, including the north and the east, which the Tigers claim as their independent homeland, than the devolution of power implemented by the UNP regime under a system of provincial councils.

Still other backers of the plan like Douglas Devananda, a Tamil guerrilla leader-turned-politician whose Eelam People’s Democratic Party is the largest Tamil group in Parliament, are worried about the long delay in implementing the reforms.

“It is three years since the PA came into power, I don’t know whether they could get it done in the next three years,” a worried Devananda said.

Analysts say the government has been dragging its feet over the political package in a bid to win time to persuade the Buddhist clergy and other opponents to accept it.

Meanwhile as the government’s peace caravan rolls on, a new controversy is brewing after Kumaratunga said that if the proposals, via a new Constitution, failed to get through Parliament, she would win the people’s support through a referendum.

That statement drew a chorus of protests from the UNP with Wickremesinghe saying it would be illegal to do so since any amendment to the Constitution would by law require the approval of Parliament by a two-thirds majority.

The ruling PA has a one-vote majority in the 225-seat legislature.