2003: The year in review

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2003, 18:58 GMT]
The widespread optimism on peace that greeted the dawn of 2003 has evaporated and the power struggle between Sri Lanka's Prime Minister and President that threatens the peace process now occupies the center stage of politics in Colombo. High Security Zones (HSZ) in Jaffna continue to deny displaced Tamils their fundamental rights. Colombo's unwillingness and inability to disburse funds stalls development and rehabilitation in NorthEast, as international aid remains blocked, awaiting concrete signs of progress in peace.

In the third round of talks held in Oslo, Norway, in December 2002, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had announced a “historic agreement,” that would “explore a solution to end the island’s conflict founded on the principle of internal self determination in areas of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking peoples, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka.”

The international community showed increasing interest in the conflict in the island, with the U.S., the European Union and Japan encouraging the peace process facilitated by Norway. Diplomats and politicians from several nations visited Sri Lanka and regularly met with LTTE leaders in Kilinochchi.

The Japanese Foreign Minister, Ms. Yoriko Kawaguchi, visited Jaffna on January 6, and surveyed the progress of resettlement and rehabilitation projects funded by her country.

The Japanese special peace envoy for Sri Lanka, Mr. Yashushi Akashi, Ms Meiko Nishimizu, World Bank Vice President for South Asia, and the country director of the WB in Sri Lanka, Mr. Peter Harold, met with the political head of the LTTE, Mr. S.P. Thamilchelvan, in Kilinochchi in mid-January, while Sri Lanka’s President, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, declined to meet Mr.Akashi.

Despite the optimism about the peace process, the people of the North East continued to face the problems caused by the occupation of their lands by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). The HSZs declared by the SLA continued to remain a major impediment to progress of peace, as there was no change in the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who lived in refugee camps and welfare centers.

Ignoring protests by hundreds of workers, mostly Sinhalese, the GOSL went ahead and leased the China Bay Oil Farm to the Indian Oil Corporation. Each of Oil Farm's 99 tanks has a capacity of 12,250 kilolitres.

The Indian presence in Trincomalee was seen in Sri Lanka as a part of the GOSL's international safety net in its peace process with the LTTE. The GOSL, however, maintained that it was a commercial decision.

The leasing of the farm was said to be an extension of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord under which the two Governments agreed that the "work of restoring and operating the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm would be undertaken as a joint venture between India and Sri Lanka.'' However, with the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) at the request of the then Sri Lankan President, Mr. R. Premadasa, the Accord was said to have questionable validity.

Even as the GOSL edged toward closer cooperation with India, poaching by Indian fishermen in the North-Eastern waters became rampant, leading to protests by local fishermen’s societies. The societies claimed that poaching affected the livelihood of the local fishermen, who were already facing several SLA and Sri Lanka Navy imposed restrictions on fishing.

As the year draws to a close, the poaching by Indian fishermen continues, fisheries sources say.

On the peace front, the fourth round of talks between the GOSL and the LTTE were held during January 6-9, in Bangkok, Thailand. On January 7, Mr. Anton Balansingham, the LTTE’s Chief Negotiator, announced that the Subcommittee on De-escalation and Normalization (SDN), set up at the second round of talks between the two sides held in Bangkok in November 2002, was defunct and would be shut down.

Gen. Fonseka demanded that the LTTE would have to first disarm its troops and decommission its heavy weapons before the SLA could act on the HSZ.

“The hardline position on the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of displaced, adopted by the SLA Commander [Lt. Gen. Lionel Ballagalle] and the SLA’s Jaffna Commander, and supported by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, has rendered the Sub-committee on De-escalation and Normalisation defunct," Mr. Balasingham said.

Though the fourth round talks were said to have been successfully concluded, in the following months, the issue of resettlement and SLA’s failure to withdraw from the occupied homes, would lead to protests from the public in the North East, who became disappointed by the absence of any tangible progress in their lives by the peace process.

In Februray, the fifth round of peace talks were held at the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin on 7-8 February. The round was shortened as a result of the poor health condition of Mr. Balasingham.

In March, the sixth round of talks were held in Hakone, Japan, and Japan deepened its involvement in the peace process. Mr. Akashi joined the delegates of the GOSL, LTTE and the Norwegian facilitators to formally open the talks.

An international donor conference was held in Washington, DC, on April 14, 2003, in preparation for the major donor conference that was to be held in Japan in June. The Washington conference, declared open by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Armitage, who had taken a special interest in the peace process and attended the second round of talks in Oslo, excluded the LTTE, saying it remained a banned organization in the U.S.

On April 20, the LTTE wrote to Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, that it would suspend participation in peace talks temporarily, while remaining committed to the peace process and the ceasefire. The LTTE cited the GOSL’s non-implementation of the agreements reached in previous rounds of talks, the non-implementation of the ceasefire agreement in regard to the HSZ, normalization and other issues, and its exclusion from the Washington Conference. The LTTE also said that it would not attend the donor conference in Japan.

On May 8, Mr. Akashi met with Mr. V. Pirapaharan, the leader of the LTTE, and urged the LTTE to participate in the Donor Conference in Japan. The LTTE leader responded that the LTTE would do so if the GOSL took positive steps to implement the agreements arrived at the six previous rounds of talks.

The GOSL asked Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, a retired Indian military officer, to study the HSZ issue and submit his recommendations. Gen. Nambiar visited Jaffna and Batticaloa and submitted his report in May.

Nambiar’s report, leaked to the press, appeared to suggest that demobilization of the LTTE should be linked to the resettlement of refugees. "In our view, any attempt to connect the return of refugees and IDP's to their own homes in the Jaffna Peninsula to the demobilisation of LTTE's fighting formations confined to barracks in Vanni jungles is illogical and ridiculous,” said Mr. Balasingham in response to the reports.

The LTTE said that given the fundamental nature of the disagreement, Gen.Nambiar’s final report would be rejected outright without discussion if it followed the lines of the preliminary report leaked to the press.

The final Nambiar report in May suggested that the long range weapons of the Liberation Tigers should be placed under the supervision of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

The report was rejected by Tamil political leaders and the LTTE as “totally unacceptable.” They said Gen. Nambiar’s report was based purely on arguments of military necessity and ignored the humanitarian dimension of the displaced people.

Speaking at a seminar in Batticaloa a few days after the release of Nambiar’s report, Mr. Ariyanayagam Chandra Nehru, the Tamil National Alliance MP for Amparai, said, “The Liberation Tigers should enhance their military power. This is the only way to ensure our rights in this country. If war is thrust on us again, every Tamil, regardless of any differences, should join the ranks of the LTTE’s armed forces. That is the only way for us to survive as a people.”

Later in May, the LTTE said that they felt "the negotiating process has moved in the direction of exploring theoretical models and road-maps towards a permanent solution, ignoring the harsh existential ground realities of a suffering population who yearn to experience a sense of peace, normalcy and decent life,” and called for “an innovative new structure with specified politico-administrative functions, vested with adequate authority and legal status and with wider participation of the LTTE,” to ensure the speedy resettlement of up to a million people.

Meanwhile, the Tamil people in the North East began to express their aspirations via Pongu Thamil (Tamil Upsurge) events held in major towns of the North East.

In June, the LTTE said its merchant vessel was sunk by the Sri Lanka Navy's gunboats in international waters, 266 nautical miles off the Trincomalee coast, and 12 LTTE seamen on board died.

A similar attack on an LTTE vessel by the SLN gunboats took place 220 nautical miles off the Trincomalee coast in March, leaving all 11 crewmen dead.

The LTTE strongly condemned both attacks and said that the attacks were a gross violation of the ceasefire agreement and would have grave consequences for the peace process.

The Japanese aid conference went ahead on June 9-10, with representatives from 51 countries and 22 international organizations participating. The LTTE abstained. The conference pledged $ 4.5 billion to Sri Lanka over 4 years.

In July, Dr. Rocky Williams, retired South African army officer and a member of the African National Congress (ANC), visiting Jaffna said that Nambiar recommendations were unacceptable. “The problem of the Tamils is distinct and unique. Developing countries should not blindly follow the political models of developed countries in resolving their conflicts,” he said.

In response to the LTTE's call for an Interim Administration (IA), the GOSL submitted its IA proposals to the LTTE in July through the Norwegian facilitators. The LTTE said the GOSL's proposals fell far short of the Tamil people’s aspirations, but added that for the first time in the history of the conflict in Sri Lanka, they would provide counter proposals, delineating the powers of the Interim Administration that they would consider acceptable.

The Sinhala nationalists in the South intensified their campaign against any solution along the lines of Federalism for the North East. Mr. H.L.de Silva, the Constitutional lawyer close to the President, called Federalism a ‘beguiling serpent.’ Implicit in the Sinhala nationalist’s protest campaign was the belief that Sri Lanka should never compromise on its unitary structure and that war against the LTTE and its eventual military defeat—not a political solution to the Tamil people’s problems--was the only solution to the conflict.

The year saw intensified resistance to the peace process--and the United National Front government’s agreement in principle to consider an Interim Administration for the North East--by the Sinhala nationalists in the South. Influential Buddhist monks, the Marxist and Sinhala Nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Ultra-nationalist Sihala Urumaya, hardliners in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and private individuals came together under the Patriotic National Movement banner and conducted several protest campaigns across Sri Lanka.

The year also saw periodic clashes between Tamils and Muslims in the East. In April, clashes in Muttur left hundreds of civilians from both communities refugees. Curfew was imposed repeatedly in Muttur and its suburbs to contain the situation. In August and later in October, renewed clashes erupted in the Trincomalee and Amparai districts between the two communities. The LTTE appealed for harmony and cooperated with the SLA, police, civil society groups and parliamentarians to defuse the crisis.

The SLFP and the JVP held talks on forming an alliance throughout the year, with Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, the brother of President Kumaratunga, and Mr. Mangala Samaraweera, a confidante of Ms. Kumaratunga, spearheading the talks on behalf of the SLFP..

As the year comes to a close, the alliance talks are still bogged down by differences between the parties, though the hardliners of the SLFP and the JVP have been advocating a similar brand of Sinhala nationalism.

In late October, President Kumaratunga wrote to Norway, and asked the Norwegian government to withdraw the head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Tryggve Tellefsen, saying he had shown partiality to the LTTE in an incident at sea on October 16. Norway invited Gen. Tellefsen for consultations in Oslo and the Norwegian Foreign Minister sent a sharply worded response to Ms. Kumaratunga.

Gen. Tellefsen is still grounded in Oslo, and his status remains uncertain.

Several LTTE officials, led by Mr.Thamilchelvan, visited Paris, France and later Ireland and other Western nations to consult with constitutional and legal experts from the Tamil Diaspora. After an exhaustive study of several political systems, the LTTE came up with its response to the GOSL’s IA proposals. The LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) for the North East with plenary powers and submitted the proposals—described by Mr. R.Sampanthan, the Tamil National Alliance leader, as ‘historic’-- to the GOSL on October 31.

The ISGA proposals drew wide acclaim internationally as a significant and workable proposal. Though some western nations, including the U.S., contended that the proposals went beyond the boundaries of Federalism as agreed during the second round of talks in Oslo, they welcomed the proposals as a significant milestone for the LTTE and said that it could form the basis for further negotiations.

However, in Sri Lanka itself, the SLFP, the JVP, SU and other Sinhala nationalists slammed the proposals, saying the ISGA would lead to the separation of the North East from Sri Lanka. Only the ruling United National Front (UNF) and some smaller groups like the LSSP and the National Peace Council argued that the LTTE's proposals were constructive and could form the basis for further talks.

Within barely 3 days of the submission of ISGA proposals, President Kumaratunga struck, taking over the UNF ministries considered key to the peace process—Defense, Interior and Information-- and proroguing parliament, while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was away in Washington, DC, on an official visit to meet with President George Bush and other U.S. officials.

Mr. Laxman Kadirgamar, the former foreign Minister of Sri Lanka and a close advisor and confidante of President Kumaratunga, responding to the ISGA proposals said that “We [the SLFP] can in no way consider the LTTE’s proposal. It is totally unacceptable that they would have access rights to 2/3 of Sri Lanka’s coast. This is not negotiable.”

The President’s power grab has created a constitutional crisis. The LTTE has said that it needs clarity in regard to who in Sri Lanka would be responsible for the peace process and for implementing any agreements reached.

Norway suspended its facilitation, saying it saw no role to play until the PM and the President could come up with a clear understanding about who would hold responsibility for the peace process.

Mr. Rauff Hakeem, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader, said he would submit alternate proposals to address Muslim issues.

In November, the European Union’s External Commissioner, Mr. Chris Patten, visited Sri Lanka and met with Mr. Pirapaharan, the LTTE leader in Kilinochchi on Mr. Pirapaharan’s birthday. The visit provoked a hysterical response from Sinhala nationalists, who burnt Mr. Patten’s effigy. Before Mr. Patten visited the country, ‘The Island,’ the English daily controlled by President Kumaratunga’s uncle, Dr. Seevali Ratwatte, and which espouses a brand of rabid Sinhala nationalism, in a front page editorial called Mr. Patten’s planned meeting with Mr. Pirapaharan “a pig headed act.” The newspaper went on to say, “This is bloody European gumption [sic] and insolence of the highest order.”

In his Heroes’ Day message on November 27, Mr. Pirapaharan reiterated the LTTE’s commitment to the peace process.

“There is no coherent structure in the form a government in the Sinhala nation. The power of the state is torn between the heads of the two most powerful Sinhala political parties. The Presidency and the Parliament are in conflict with each other. Ranil Wickremasinghe’s administration is severely weakened and paralyzed following the President’s take-over of the Ministries of Defence, Interior and Media. The power struggle between the two leaders has resulted in the de-stabilisation of the state and the peace process has come to a standstill,” said Mr. Pirapaharan.

“Frustrated by the confused situation, the Government of Norway has suspended its facilitatory role,” he said. “Because of this sudden development in the south, the conditions of peace are endangered. The peace talks as well as the peaceful resolution of the ethnic conflict are threatened. The Tamil speaking people and the international governments committed to peace are concerned and disappointed over this crisis.”

In early December, as talks in Colombo to resolve the crisis were deadlocked, Sri Lanka promoted Mr. Kadirgamar's candidacy for the post of Secretary General of the Commonwealth. The challenge to Mr. Don Mckinnon, the incumbent Secretary General, was defeated, with only 11 of the 52 nations in the Commonwealth voting for Mr. Kadirgamar. Sri Lanka faced embarrassment as the challenge was made at short notice and went against Commonwealth tradition, and Mr. Kadirgamar's chances of winning had been hyped up by the Sri Lankan and Indian media.

The talks to resolve the crisis between the Prime Minister and the President have failed. The PM insists that he needs the control of the Defense Ministry to take forward the peace process.

On December 29, Mr. Armitage, the U.S. Deputy secretary of State, reiterated the U.S. view that the President’s actions and the political crisis in Sri Lanka would undermine the peace process, and the U.S. looks forward to the resumption of the peace process between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.

Mr. Armitage said that the current cohabitation crisis “will have a negative impact on the peace process until a clarification of responsibilities that would allow the Prime Minister to resume peace negotiations can be found.” Political observers say that Mr. Armitage's statement implicitly endorses the LTTE’s position that it needs ‘clarity’ from Colombo to take forward the peace process.

As 2003 ends, political power struggles in the South that have consistently frustrated resolution of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka appear set to continue. As LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingam is expected to re-enter the peace process after his absence due to illness, new elections may be called in an attempt to break the political impasse in Colombo.

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