Donors pledge $3bn, push peace process

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2005, 16:19 GMT]
International donors wrapped up a key conference for Sri Lanka pledging $3bn in aid, but stressing the importance of progress in resolving the island’s protracted ethnic conflict to pave the way for its disbursement, press reports and officials said. The onus is on Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who has promised donors she would overcome Sinhala nationalist opposition to negotiate and sign a joint mechanism with the LTTE, to deliver. But amid escalating Sinhala right wing pressure, Tamil optimism is tempered by deep sceptism

Over 200 delegates from over fifty donor states and agencies deliberated Sri Lanka’s post-tsunami and post-conflict aid requirements and related issues Monday and Tuesday in the hill country town of Kandy.

At its conclusion, AFP quoted Mr. Praful Patel, the World Bank's vice president for South Asia, as saying donors were keen that Sri Lanka's faltering peace process be revived.

"For many development partners, the peace process is at the core of their interest in Sri Lanka," Patel said, adding international lenders were also backing the initiative as it was the only way to ensure economic development.

Mr. Patel noted that despite talks being stalled since 2003, both sides have abided by the ceasefire agreement signed in February 2002.

"We feel a joint mechanism (between the government and Tamil Tigers) will make it quicker to deliver aid and also make it easier for donors to give more," the Dutch ambassador to Sri Lanka, Susan Blankheart, was quoted by AFP as saying.

She said European Union countries backed moves to swiftly establish a proposed "joint mechanism" that President Chandrika Kumaratunga promised Monday after saying she would do it even at the risk of her life from Sinhala extremists vehemently opposed to a deal with the Tigers.

Although Sri Lankan officials have hailed the two-day conference held in the ancient Sinhala capitol of Kandy, as a successs, AFP quoted diplomats as saying the aid review was not meant as a pledging conference.

"We have received assurances that up to $3 billion will be made available for reconstruction,” Sri Lanka's Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama told reporters.

He said with Japanese and Chinese pledges, the conference “has exceeded our expectations."

Diplomatic sources, however, told AFP there were no new pledges but merely a "rounding off" of numbers.

Diplomats said donors were generously offering help in the hope of boosting the island's faltering peace process and strengthening the fragile ceasefire.

"Money has never been a problem, but the main issue is implementation," AFP quoted a diplomat who declined to be named as saying. "We're also keenly awaiting the government's new development plan to see how we can help."

Sri Lanka's Treasury Secretary, P. B. Jeyasundara, said the pledges included $745 millions in bilateral assistance, $631 millions by multilateral agencies and $853 millions by NGOs, according to The Hindu newspaper.

A further $300 million is likely to accrue in the form of debt-relief, Mr. Jeyasundara said, lauding India, which recently announced a three-year debt moratorium as the "first country" to provide debt relief.

The challenge now, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Nirupama Rao said, was to transform pledges into projects "equitably and on the basis of objective needs assessment."

The Sri Lankan government has estimated it will cost around $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion to rebuild towns, schools and other infrastructure destroyed by December's tsunami, a Reuters report Tuesday said, adding it was not immediately clear what any excess aid would be used for.

A separate 4.5-billion-dollar pledge by donors in June 2003 to help rebuild Sri Lanka’s conflict areas was directly linked to progress in the Norwegian peace process and remains largely on hold amid the talks stalled in April 2003.

Diplomats told AFP Sri Lanka's tsunami recovery money could face the same fate as the pledges for the peace process unless the government can overcome political difficulties and press ahead with reconstruction work.

A key parliamentary ally of Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) is threatening to exit the ruling coalition and bring down the government if it signs a deal with LTTE.

The JVP and Sinhala right wing civil society groups have been waging a protest campaign denouncing the joint mechanism.

And delegates at the conference got a taste of Sinhala sentiment Monday when the parliamentary group leader of a hardline monks party, the JHU, interrupted proceedings to make an unscheduled statement slamming the LTTE and the proposed joint mechanism.

Ven. Athuraliye Rathana Thera told startled delegates that a joint mechanism would “give legitimacy to one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world, thereby undermining the global struggle against terrorism.”

“No country or organization that has any regard for democracy and the upholding of human rights would under these circumstances recommend such a mechanism with an organization of this nature,” he said. “We are certain, for example, that none of you would argue that a joint mechanism of this nature should be established.”

But in an apparent reference to the Sinhala right wing hostility, Kumaratunga told donors Monday she would strike a deal with the LTTE despite threats to her life from "within and outside" her government.

"A vociferous minority," she said, could not be allowed to "hinder the forward march of a nation towards economic peace and prosperity. … Governments have been elected by the people to take decisions, sometimes difficult decisions, sometimes dangerous ones."

"On this issue [of a deal with the Tigers] we are fully aware that the lives of some of us are in extreme danger," Kumaratunga told donors, adding her commitment to create the joint mechanism with the LTTE was "steadfast" despite objections from the ultranationalists.

But Tamils are sceptical.

“[President Kumaratunga] has demonstrated her duplicity many times in the past eight years,” the Tamil Guardian newspaper said in its editorial last week.

“Kumaratunga must be compelled to call the Marxists’ bluff,” the paper said. “Donors must remain resolute on the principle that aid given to Sri Lanka must be shared equitably with the people of the Northeast.”

Whilst meeting Norwegian diplomats last week LTTE officials expressed serious doubts about Kumaratunga’s sincerity.

The head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan dismissed President Kumaratunga’s claimed readiness to share aid with the LTTE, if it were not for the JVP as an effort to mollify the international donor community.

He told Norwegian Ambassador Mr. Hans Brattskar that there was a serious lack of normalcy in the Tamil areas due to continuing military occupation and restrictions on civilians’ livelihoods, even three years after the mutual ceasefire agreement was signed,

“An attitudinal shift is needed in Colombo, not placating positive statements that are politically expedient,” Mr. Tamilselvan said.

“Apportioning the blame [for the problems with the joint mechanism] on the JVP is not helpful because the President was aware of the JVP’s opposition to the peace process when she invited them to be a partner in her coalition,” he said.

Reuters reported that Sri Lanka's rupee firmed on Tuesday on expectations that aid pledges will be spent in the economy as cash, and Central Bank Governor Sunil Mendis said the flow of aid could help offset the tsunami's original impact on the bank's growth 2005 forecast.