The price of peace for the Sinhala rural poor

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 December 2004, 19:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s recent massive defence budget allocation, whilst preparing the military for a renewed war against the Liberation Tigers, has another vital role in domestic politics: the economy of the Sinhala rural poor is three times more dependent on military remittances than official poverty alleviation schemes. Earlier this month, Sri Lanka’s ruling party and the main opposition party, in a rare show of unity, joined together to vote in favor of the country's defense allocations for 2005. Only the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, opposed the defence budget.

Deputy defence minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake made a jingoistic speech in parliament supporting a further increase in the defence budget, press reports said.

“We will strengthen armed forces in terms of men, material, idea and weapons... We are ready to meet any threat to this sovereign nation,” he declared.

The outlay of little over 56.2 billion rupees (about 536 million US dollars), up 8 per cent compared with the allocation for 2004, continues Sri Lanka’s tradition of “bloated and unaffordable” defence spending, as one academic, Prof. Kenneth Bush of St Paul University, Ottowa, describes it.

Amidst the continuing deterioration of the Norwegian peace process, the expansion of the offensive capability of the 250,000 strong military – including army, navy, air force and police - is being interpreted by Tamil observers as evidence of Colombo’s preparations for renewed war.

But why is the massive expenditure on the military by this and preceding Sri Lankan governments not opposed by the Sinhala populace, despite the soaring cost of living which is exacerbated by a defence levy?

Some analysts suggest the ideological framework of "defending Buddhism" and the need to protect the Sinhala "heritage" – i.e. the island, as per the Mahavamsa mythology - enables an identification of Sinhala sentiment with the state’s duty, thereby ameliorating what would otherwise be a heavy political cost.

Other observers add an economic logic to this "just war" rational.

"Army recruitment and compensation have become the primary source of resources transferred into the economy of the rural poor in the Sinhalese-majority regions of the South," says Prof. Bush in his recent book "Learning to read between the lines: the intra-group dimensions of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka."

The rural economy of the rural poor in the South is “three times more dependent on 'military remittances' than official poverty alleviation programmes (Janasaviya and Samuradhi); and more dependent on Army recruitment and compensation than on overseas remittances," he says.

"In effect, successive governments [have] been using military employment as a grand youth employment cum poverty alleviation programme," Prof. Bush argues.

As a percentage of the World Bank-defined rural poverty line, ‘military remittances’ had in increased from 5 per cent to 32 percent between 1985 and 1997, he says. The army alone quadrupled from 30,000 to 129,000.

Figures from 1982 to 1996 show that defence spending, as a percentage of total government spending had risen from 3.1% to 21.6%, even by then, before the high intensity fighting of the late nineties.

According to another academic, Saman Kelegama, disaggregated analysis shows that “approximately 45 to 50 percent went for wages and the remainder for military hardware and equipment.”

Prof Bush’s observations gain further emphasis from another looming watershed: “analysts are predicting that the end of the textile quota system next year would lead to the likely collapse of 50-60% if the garment industry – one of the principle sources of foreign earnings.”

Commenting on the shifting dependencies within the rural economy, two other academics, David Dunham and Sisira Jayawardene, writing in 1998 observed: “the emerging picture is one of a fragile and brittle peasant economy where poverty [is being] staved off by (for the moment) by transfers and remittances.”

“But … there is no identifiable and sustainable way out of poverty,” they warned.

The key implication, according to analysts, is that demobilisation and demilitarisation of the overwhelmingly Sinhala armed forces could have far-reaching – and negative – implications for the rural economy in the south.

"Any lasting cessation of militarised conflict [would be accompanied] by acute economic dislocation" Prof. Bush says.

Kelegama warns that "several factors are likely to hinder the absorption of the demobilized armed forces into regular work."

"Firstly, the Sri Lankan labour market is highly inflexible. Secondly, youth employment is already a significant problem in Sri Lanka."

"Those in the age group of 16 to 25 years – to which the bulk of the demobilized soldiers would belong – are least likely to find ready employment," Kelegama pointed out in an article in 1999.

"Thirdly, most soldiers have very few educational qualifications," Kelegama says.

"The minimum qualification for entering the armed forces was four GCE O-Level passes , which was further lowered in 1994."

Citing the ongoing crime attributed to Army deserters, Kelegama pointedly notes: "demobilized soldiers can heighten micro-insecurity, that is, fear of personal violence and theft caused by economic hardship."