 The unprecedented violence in Sri Lanka’s Northeast is forcing the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse to abandon its hardline stances on the peace process.
The unprecedented violence that has gripped Sri Lanka’s Northeast lately has alarmed observers of the island’s protracted conflict and sparked fears of a return to all out war.
Apart
from the continuing cycle of targeted killings in the shadow war
between the Liberation Tigers and Sri Lankan military intelligence,
there are two new aspects to the violence. One is the violent public
protests in Jaffna against Sri Lankan security forces (and the latter’s
heavy handed responses).
The other, and for many, the most alarming, is
the series of devastating claymore attacks which have killed over sixty
soldiers and sailors since mid December.
Despite
the LTTE’s formal denials, for many it is the only actor capable of
carrying out such lethal attacks – a point underscored by the
destruction last Friday of a Sri Lanka Navy gunboat in which another
dozen sailors were killed.
Moreover, these attacks are taking amid a
general campaign of harassment gun and grenade attacks against military
positions and patrols, particularly in Jaffna.
The
sudden and unpredicted escalation in the violence last month and, in
particular, the heavy casualties have convinced many observers that a
full-blown war is only a short time away. The escalation, many also
feel, is part of a general buildup towards such an eventuality that the
LTTE is pursuing – the Tigers are, it is argued, attempting to goad the
Sri Lankan military into a truce-shattering retaliation.
Perhaps. But a
closer look at the dynamics of the Sri Lanka’s peace process lends
weight to another view: the LTTE is driving the new government of
President Mahinda Rajapakse not to war, but to the table.
To
begin with, compared to the attacks which characterized past LTTE
guerrilla campaigns, the recent attacks are neither as sustained nor,
for that matter, as lethal as they could quite easily be. Whilst
undoubtedly raising the strain on the military, the recent attacks are
not yet inflicting unbearable casualties nor seriously disrupting
military operations in the localities where they are taking place.
A
cursory study of the campaign the LTTE unleashed in the eastern
province (of which the Special Task Force suffered the brunt) in the
wake of its retreat from Jaffna in 1995 reveals its true capability for
guerilla warfare. And that was ten years ago.
However,
alongside the degrading security situation in the Northeast, a number
of crucial, albeit begrudging, policy changes in Colombo over the past
few weeks suggest a slow drift towards, not away, from talks.
Of
course, both the government and the LTTE both regularly assert their
commitment to negotiations. But in the latter part of 2005, President
Rajapakse came to be seen - for a variety of valid reasons - as a
hardliner opposed to compromise and a negotiated peace - so much so his
very election to office, assisted to a great degree by a controversial
Tamil boycott, plunged many peace advocates into despair.
But now,
despite his tough positioning before the polls, President Rajapakse is
being steadily impelled down the path to negotiations with the LTTE.
Amongst
the most clear-cut positions on the peace process that Mr. Rajapakse
and his Sinhala nationalist allies, the JVP and the JHU, adopted before
the November 17 polls were: (1) a rejection of Norway as peace broker
(2) an immediate redrafting of the February 2002 ceasefire agreement
(CFA) and (3) a restriction of future talks to Sri Lankan soil – a
long-overdue reassertion of sovereignty, in their view.
Mr.
Rajapakse’s manifesto was unequivocal: “The [ceasefire] agreement had
been reached without the consensus of the people of the country.
Attempts were made to forcibly put this agreement on the public.†As a
consequence, Mr. Rajapakse said, “I will readjust the CFA in a manner
that terrorist activities have no place.
I will take remedial action
after reviewing the CFA monitoring process.â€
As
for peace talks, he declared: “I will give the LTTE a specific time
frame and a specific agenda [for talks].†That agenda moreover, could
comprise, “Ending separatism, Disarming, Entering the democratic
process [and] Final solution and its implementation.â€
As
for international involvement: “[The crisis] has spread throughout the
country, without being confined to the north and east. It has spread
over the region and even internationally.
The interference of outsiders
has complicated the issue.†Criticising his opposition, Mr. Rajapakse
added, more pointedly: “I believe that the intervention of foreign
countries into our problems have been unnecessarily created [by the
UNP].†Briefing reporters at the manifesto launch, Mr. Rajapakse’s
chief election campaigner – and now Foreign Minister – Mangala
Samaraweera declared: “The role of Norwegian facilitation and the Sri
Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will be reviewed immediately. They are
not actually doing what they should be doing and we will review it.â€
Indeed,
in his key speeches soon after winning the November 17 polls, Mr.
Rajapakse pointedly ignored Norway’s offer – issued within hours of his
victory being announced - to resume peace brokering. Instead, he made
it clear that he preferred India to take over - and, essentially,
coerce the LTTE to the table on Colombo’s terms.
But even as Delhi -
for a number of domestic and international reasons - deftly avoided
becoming mired once again in Sri Lanka’s quagmire, events on the ground
took a turn for the worse.
Whilst
the violent protests – and the numerous gun and grenade attacks - that
erupted in Jaffna in late November startled many observers, the two
claymore attacks of December 4th and 6th - each of which killed at
least six soldiers and wounded many more - sent shockwaves through Mr.
Rajapakse’s government.
On December 7th, Colombo issued a statement:
“President Rajapakse [has] invited the Royal Norwegian Government to
continue its role as facilitator to the Peace Process in Sri Lanka.â€
Furthermore, the statement said, he had met with the four Co-chairs -
US, UK (EU Presidency) Japan and Norway - “to brief them on his
on-going consultations and preparatory work for the continuation of the
peace process.â€
Amidst
the uproar over the blasts themselves, many missed the significance of
not one, but two u-turns that Mr. Rajapakse had made – on Norway, in
particular, and international involvement in general. But there was
more to come.
The
vexed issue of the venue promptly surfaced – just as it had three
months earlier amid international pressure (renewed in the wake of the
assassination of Foreign Lakshman Kadirgamar )for talks on stabilizing
the CFA.
The problem was quite simple: Sri Lankan did not want talks
outside the island, the LTTE did. This, moreover, was because an
international venue, Colombo argued, would accord the LTTE undue
recognition and legitimacy.
Instead the government – of outgoing
President Chandrika Kumaratunga, in which Rajapakse was Premier -
suggested no man's land. Rejecting this on security grounds, the LTTE
insisted on talks either in Kilinochchi, which it controlled, or in
Norway - “a neutral venue and one of few countries where we are not
banned.â€
The government rejected both. Oslo’s rather desperate
‘compromise’ suggestion of Colombo airport as a venue was rejected by
the LTTE. Amid disagreement over the venue, Norwegian peace efforts
promptly foundered anew.
However,
a few days after the first two claymores exploded (as well as a couple
of near misses and the discovery of more unexploded mines), there was
another u-turn in Colombo. On December 11, Japanese Special Peace
Envoy, Yasushi Akashi, who was visiting the island declared - out of
the blue- that President Rajapakse’s government was prepared to hold
talks “outside Sri Lanka.â€
Japan, he added, was placing an offer to
host the negotiations on the table. The LTTE - for reasons many
observers feel are linked to a threatened European Union ban - has
again said it wants talks to be held in Oslo and the wrangling
continues. But amid the imbroglio, the significance of yet another
retreat by Mr. Rajapakse and the Sinhala hardliners was lost.
There
is also, in contrast to pre-poll tub-thumping, a noticeable prudence in
Colombo. Despite undisguised anger and customary rhetoric, the
government is demonstrably wary of further escalations.
This week a
claymore tore through another military vehicle, killing ten more
sailors. But in contrast to the dismissive, even contemptuous attitude
laid out in his manifesto, Mr. Rajapakse is shying away from excessive
vitriol.
Indeed, as government spokesman Nimal Siripala de Silva told
reporters Thursday, “the president has asked the armed forces not to
provoke the LTTE and to abide by the cease-fire agreement.â€
Colombo’s
reversals on key positions are arguably impelled by the sharp rise in
violence over the past few weeks. No doubt Delhi’s pointed refusal to
get involved in Sri Lanka’s peace process – and the Co-chairs repeated
insistence even now that talks must be held with the LTTE are factors,
but then these are not newly adopted positions.
For students of
international politics, however, the dynamic at play in Sri Lanka could
be captured by the notion of coercive diplomacy (or compellence as it
is sometimes referred to): the use of threats or limited force to
persuade an opponent to call off or undo an undesirable course of
action.
It
began on November 27 with an explicit statement by LTTE Vellupillai
Pirapaharan. “The new government should come forward soon with a
reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political
aspirations of the Tamil people,†he said.
“If the new government
rejects our urgent appeal, opts for a hard-line position and adopts
delaying tactics, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people,
intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for
national liberation to establish self-government in our own homeland.â€
Notably,
although the LTTE leader criticized Colombo’s rejection of the interim
self-governing authority (ISGA) and the Post-Tsunami Operations and
Management Structure (P-TOMS), he did not demand their revival,
insisting instead on ‘a reasonable political framework that will
satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people.’
President
Rajapakse – who even earned a compliment as ‘a realist, committed to
pragmatic politics’ – thus has been offered a very wide door to walk
through.
But,
from the LTTE's perspective, the President has an immediate
responsibility before that – to end Colombo’s ongoing support for
anti-LTTE paramilitaries and their shadow war against the Tigers.
As
Mr. Pirapaharan made clear, “disarming the Tamil paramilitary groups is
an obligation of the state under terms of the Ceasefire Agreement.â€
Theorising
the practice of Coercive Diplomacy in 'Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic
Problems of Our Time', academics Gordon Craig and Alexander George list
the three essential components of an ultimatum as: “a specific, clear
demand, a time limit for compliance, and a threat of punishment for
non-compliance which is both credible and sufficiently potent to
impress upon the opponent that compliance is preferable.â€
All three
elements can clearly be seen in the LTTE leader’s Heroes Day speech.
But
for coercive diplomacy to work, Craig and George argue, the coercer
must create in the opponent’s mind: “a sense of urgency for compliance
with its demand; a belief that the coercer is more highly motivated to
achieve its stated demand than the opponent is to oppose it, and a fear
of unacceptable escalation if the demand is not accepted.â€
It can be
confidently argued that the intermittent, but devastating claymore
attacks of the past six weeks are arguably doing just that.
Coercive
diplomacy must be distinguished from pure coercion, Craig and George
point out: the former “seeks to persuade the opponent to cease his
aggression, rather than bludgeon him into stopping.†The combination of
threats and exemplary uses of force are intended to persuade the
opponent to back down - rather than stopping it with brute force.
Coercive diplomacy thus calls for “just enough force to demonstrate
one’s resolve and the credibility of one’s determination to use more
force is necessary.â€
It also demands “one gives the opponent an
opportunity to [comply] before escalating.â€
The
intermittent, yet persistent attacks on Sri Lankan security forces can
be seen as fitting such a pattern, rather than one of an inexorable and
deliberate build up to a major confrontation with Sri Lanka’s military.
For almost two years, the LTTE has been engaged in an escalating shadow
war against Army-backed paramilitaries which international ceasefire
monitors say has killed hundreds of people - LTTE cadres,
paramilitaries, intelligence officers and civilians.
The escalation of
the past few weeks can thus be understood as a shift by the LTTE from
using sheer force to deter Colombo to using a phased series of
compelling pressures instead.
That
Colombo must end its support for the paramilitary groups is not, in
itself, a new demand. But there undoubtedly is, now, a sense of urgency
that has galvanized the major actors in the peace process.
Following
this logic, the trajectory of Sri Lanka’s violence can be judged from
the likelihood or not of whether President Rajapakse’s government will
heed the advice of the Co-Chairs, who last September declaring they
“deplore the activities of paramilitary groups, which fuel the cycle of
violence and unrest,†demanded Colombo “disarm or relocate these groups
from the north and east.â€
Source:TG
Suren Manoharan
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