transcurrents

Peace Secretariat Chief Critiques UNP Statement on Ceasefire Abrogation

January 9th, 2008

The United National Party issued a statement critical of the present Government’s decision to abrogate the ceasefire agreement signed by a previous UNP government. Sri Lanka’s peace scretariat Secretary-General , Prof, Rajiva Wijesinha has in turn critiqued the UNP statement. We reproduce both here

THE FULL TEXT OF THE UNP STATEMENT:

During the Presidential Election of 2005 Mahinda Rajapaksa pledged to abolish the Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. Yet having understood the advantages of the CFA, by February 2006, President Rajapaksa had revised his position and the Government of Sri Lanka gave a written assurance at the talks with the LTTE in Geneva that they will uphold the CFA. This was why the UNP agreed to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the SLFP in October 2006 to cooperate on a negotiated political settlement referred to in the CFA. The CFA was also upheld by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

It is in this background that the GoSL last week informed the Norwegian Government of their sudden decision to abrogate the CFA. Up to now they have not provided a reason for this decision. The only conclusion that can be arrived at is that this was a politically expedient decision at the behest of the JVP and JHU to protect the government in parliament. It is clear then that they have worked for their own gain to rectify their precarious position in power and not for the advantage of the country.

The UNP government entered into the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE in 2002 at a critical time when we had suffered severe military setbacks, and the economy was in shambles. The LTTE had captured key military bases in the North and attacked vital economic targets such as the Katunayake Airport. The Colombo Port was not operational and the economy had recorded a negative growth. Under these circumstances, the main objective of the ceasefire was to find a negotiated settlement to the ongoing conflict and to safeguard the territorial integrity of the country.

The ceasefire was sincerely welcomed by all communities in the country as it signified fresh hope for the cessation of violence and a peaceful future. Sixty- seven countries and international organisations supported this agreement and committed themselves to its implementation. As a result of it the economy regained its momentum: the cost of living stabilised; the rupee held at Rs. 93 to a dollar; there was self-sufficiency in rice; there was an increase in investment resulting in the creation of new job opportunities; funds for development were made available from the US Millennium Challenge Account; and a further four and a half billion dollars were pledged for investment in Sri Lanka’s future at the Tokyo conference.

The international prohibition on the supply of military assistance to Sri Lanka was removed. USA, India and the UK provided us with military advice, training and arms. Increased intelligence was made available to us. Furthermore, a gift of a warship to Sri Lanka from the USA symbolised the international communities’ faith in the ceasefire agreement and their backing for the ongoing peace initiative. As the country became stronger with these measures, the LTTE agreed to explore alternatives to a separate state during the Oslo round of talks. Due to the environment created by the CFA, there was a strengthening of national unity. After years of mistrust, fragile bonds between the Sinhalese, Tamils and the Muslims of the North and South were re-established. The renewing of traffic between the North and the South led to the revival of old friendships and the establishment of new ties. The degree of normalcy created resulted in the return of migrant communities back to the country and the forging of a Sri Lankan identity that accounted for the differences of each ethnic group.

However, in April 2003, the extremists in the LTTE succeeded in getting the organisation to withdraw from the talks. Yet, due to the pressure exerted by the international community the LTTE agreed to return to the table. By July of that year ceasefire violations had been reduced to a minimum. But due to the sudden dissolution of Parliament in 2004, the UNP government could not proceed with the gains accrued on the peace front. Nonetheless, the international community stood firmly by the CFA as they understood it to be the only framework in place that bound together the government, and the LTTE and which held both parties accountable. It also provided a space for negotiations – despite its many violations.

On numerous occasions the LTTE admitted that as a result of the CFA they were caught in an international safety net. All previous ceasefire agreements between the LTTE and the GoSL resulted in the LTTE repudiating the agreements. The reason why they did not abrogate on the current ceasefire was because they realised that the international community would condemn them for not being interested in a negotiated settlement and subject them to various international pressures.

Now it is the Government of Sri Lanka that is liable for the abrogation of the CFA. And it is they who are being condemned by the international community for their racist and war-mongering policies. The country’s reputation as a democracy is gravely undermined. Friendly countries such as the US, Japan and India as well as the UN have voiced their strong disappointment and disapproval of the current situation. Many donor countries are of the same view. An added reason for this condemnation is that the government time and again misled the international community during the past few months by promising proposals for a credible political solution.

Today, Sri Lanka’s international credibility is in tatters. We will no longer get international support. Even those who advocated Sri Lanka’s cause in friendly countries will be compromised by this act. Donor assistance will be reduced, new investors will be scared to invest in a war zone. Military assistance will abate. With the abrogation of the ceasefire some countries will reclassify Sri Lanka as a country affected by civil war with severe consequences. The international setback for the nation will be so severe that it will be a strengthening of the LTTE. This is not all – the reality is even more disturbing. It is doubtful that those against the ceasefire realised that it had certain features which made it unlike other ceasefire agreements. In normal agreements, the combatants on both sides are placed on an equal footing. Under Article 1.3 of the current CFA, the right of the Sri Lankan armed forces to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka was accepted both by the GoSL and the LTTE. Thus in the talks based on the CFA, the LTTE acknowledged the special status of the Sri Lanka armed forces.

Both the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Media have stated that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is willing to commence talks with the LTTE without the CFA. In such an instance, we will be participating in future talks on an altered basis since the GoSL has renounced the special status ascribed to the SL armed forces under the CFA. It is highly doubtful under the circumstances that either the international community or the LTTE will now be willing to re-grant this special status to the SL armed forces. Thus similar to the situation in some of the states of the former Yugoslavia. New talks would have to be in a context where all armed forces will be on an equal footing. This is a serious situation created by the short-sightedness of the current government.

We have not gained any special internal advantage by abrogating the CFA. In fact, we have lost out in terms of military strategy on the special status granted to the armed forces. A common Sri Lankan identity that amalgamated all ethnic groups in the island which was strengthened as a result of the CFA is now damaged as the government has rejected a political solution acceptable to all communities.

This self-serving decision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa weakened us both internationally and domestically; it benefits only the LTTE’s aspirations for a separate state. It does not profit the people of Sri Lanka. It is clear that not only have the blood-thirsty and war-mongering rulers of this country lost touch with reality; but they do not have the capacity to learn from past experiences – both internationally or locally.

President Rajapaksa should explain to the people of Sri Lanka why he has abandoned the framework for a negotiated settlement to the conflict in the country. And why he has placed us at an economically and internationally disadvantageous position. Moreover, he should clarify how he hopes to conduct peace talks with the LTTE from this weakened position.

The UNP reiterates its position that while security measures are required to counter terrorism, long-lasting peace is possible only through a negotiated settlement, while the eradication of terrorism is possible only through democracy.

As Lord Buddha advocated, hatred does not end hatred. Furthermore, terrorism does not end terrorism. Even at this juncture, the only way forward is a political solution to the conflict that is acceptable to all communities

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UNP HYPOCRISY REGARDING ABROGATION OF THE CFA

The Peace Secretariat views with bemusement the statement of the United National Party regarding the abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement that former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe signed with the LTTE in 2002. It is replete with inaccuracies and illogicalities, which are of a piece perhaps with the whole approach of the UNP to the CFA. But its barefaced attempt through this statement to isolate the Sri Lankan government from the international community indicates that it still believes continuing betrayal of the nation is its only route back to power.

The statement declares that the UNP entered into the agreement ‘when we had suffered severe military setbacks, and the economy was in shambles’. The statement does not mention that the most severe of those setbacks was inflicted by the UNP government through betraying the operations unit housed in Athurugiriya, which led to the decimation of military intelligence. Now that military intelligence has been rebuilt, now that the armed forces are able to perform professionally, UNP logic would demand abrogation of the CFA. However, the government continued for nearly four years after the rejection by the electorate of the UNP to abide by the CFA, under both Presidents Kumaratunga and Rajapakse, in the hope that the LTTE would return to talks. Given continuing intransigence, and continuing terrorist attacks, given the use made internationally of the CFA when many foreign governments are supporting Sri Lanka by trying to stop terrorist funding, the government has decided finally to call a halt to such abuse. But the opposition can only use this too as an opportunity to suggest to the international community that the government is ‘blood-thirsty and war-mongering’.

With regard to the LTTE withdrawal from talks, the UNP claims that ‘in April 2003, the extremists in the LTTE succeeded in getting the organization to withdraw from the talks. Yet, due to the pressure exerted by the international community the LTTE agreed to return to the talks. By July of that year ceasefire violations had been reduced to a minimum’. Evidently the UNP believes that the rest of the world forgets facts as swiftly as its leadership does. The LTTE withdrew from negotiations through a letter from Anton Balasingham, which in essence made two points. The first was that the people of the North and East had not benefited from peace, and this was unquestionably true given the hash the UNP had made of rehabilitation. The second was that the LTTE had not received political power. Instead of improving the rehabilitation process, the UNP then bent over backwards by offering to give the LTTE absolute political power through an Interim Self Governing Administration which allowed the LTTE to dominate all Pradeshiya Sabhas too in the entire North and East, whatever their ethnic composition. Far from the LTTE returning to talks, whatever private ‘agreement’ it had made if the UNP leadership gave in to all its political demands, six months later talks had still not resumed. The UNP statement, in claiming that it was ‘the sudden dissolution of Parliament in 2004′ that prevented the UNP government from proceeding with ‘the gains accrued on the peace front’, is grossly fraudulent.

The UNP statement also claims that the LTTE did not itself repudiate the CFA because otherwise the international community would ’subject them to various international pressures’. This again is nonsense. Certainly the LTTE benefited from the CFA, which is why it is now illogical to claim that abrogating it ‘benefits only the LTTE’s aspirations for a separate state’. But, in part because of the seminal work done by Mr Kadirgamar before he was assassinated, and the realization by many members of the international community, after that assassination, that the LTTE was not really serious about the CFA, it began to be internationally repudiated even while the CFA continued. More significantly, its funding was restricted, at least in those countries that have been serious about the fight against terrorism. Whether or not Canada and Switzerland and the Netherlands and Germany and Sweden and of course Norway follow the admirable example of France and the United Kingdom and the United States and Australia and even Denmark in instituting prosecutions against terrorist funding will not depend on the CFA, it will depend on the will of politicians to put their mouths where the money of the LTTE is flowing.

Indeed it is to be hoped that even Norway, following the admirable example of its current Ambassador, who has at last realized that there are Tamils who are not part of the LTTE, will now acknowledge that its obligation is to all the people of this country, not to a single terrorist group. Because of the CFA, the Norwegians, and thus by extension through a sense of solidarity the Nordic countries, felt an obligation to the LTTE, which we hope can be transferred now to Tamils in general, and in particular those who need to be liberated from the conscripting, constricting principles on which the LTTE controls its own.

Finally, in looking at the CFA itself, it is necessary to point out that it was dangerously flawed from the start, as pointed out by John Gooneratne, the former Deputy Secretary General of this Secretariat, appointed at the inception by the UNP government – ‘ that the LTTE had the advantage in this process was clear from the fact that the drafts shown to GOSL seemed to have been first shown to the LTTE. So, in effect it was a case of GOSL having to often react to texts that already had LTTE approval. This was a serious shortcoming. The Norwegian argument was that this was the faster way, by consulting Mr Balasingham of the LTTE in London first. Shortness of time available was always given as a reason by the Norwegian side whenever further clarifications or changes were sought by the GOSL side’.

Admirable as is the loyalty evinced in this attempt to suggest the Norwegians rather than the government were responsible for many shortcomings in the CFA, some of which are discussed in detail lower down in the text, the fact remains that the UNP Prime Minister signed the agreement, when he could – had he wanted to – insisted on revisions. Worse, when implementation of even this flawed CFA took place, the UNP government seemed to bend over backwards to indulge the LTTE. Though there has been much criticism of the SLMM, this Secretariat has had occasion to point out that many members of the SLMM tried to do their duty insofar as they could. It was the government that failed to insist that the SLMM not only report on violations but also ensure cooperation ‘to rectify any matter of conflict’ and assist ‘in the settlement of any dispute’. A sad symbol of the appalling manner in which the then government dealt with violations became prominent after the decision to abrogate the CFA was announced in the person of the current head of SLMM operations in the East, Per Sander Skarvik, commenting on his imminent departure.

He was the gentleman who found an anti-aircraft gun on a ship which President Kumaratunga had been told was bringing in weapons. Her appeals to the then Prime Minister and Minister of Defence to prevent this met with contumacious rejection. It was only her determination and that of the navy which ensured that the ship was checked, when as Mr Skarvik put it last year in describing the incident to other new monitors at the Peace Secretariat, he was only doing his duty. He found the gun, and then had to throw himself off the ship which the LTTE arms smugglers blew up at sea.

The government of the time took no action, they took no action when a Chinese ship was attacked. It was precisely because of what might be termed such lickspittle indulgence that the LTTE found the CFA so very convenient. But to talk instead of the CFA as providing a framework for a negotiated settlement is abject nonsense, and it is childish of the UNP to assume that the world will be taken in by such ahistorical pronouncements.

Of course the UNP is right in one particular, that a ‘long-lasting peace is possible only through a negotiated settlement’. It is half right in saying that ’security measures are required to counter terrorism’, failing to realize that, if terrorism is intransigent, purely passive responses will only lead to continuing destruction. It is myopic in claiming that ‘the eradication of terrorism is possible only through democracy’, given its signal failure to insist on democratic elections during the CFA, despite the attempts of the government’s chief negotiator, Prof G L Pieris, to proceed with these, attempts vetoed by the then Prime Minister.

Reference to democracy brings to mind that terrorism emerged in Sri Lanka as a significant force primarily as a response to the anti-democratic activities of the UNP government between 1981 and 1983, when the Jaffna Public Library was set on fire and the TULF MP for Jaffna nearly lost his life to government goons (to sacrifice it before the decade was over to LTTE marksmen), when Mrs Bandaranaike was prevented from standing for the Presidency (despite which Jaffna was the only District in the country to vote against the UNP), when elections were postponed for six long years through a fraudulent referendum to alter the Constitution, when government attacks on Tamils nationwide were followed by legislation to appease racism which led to the elected TULF MPs vacating their seats in Parliament.

It was such anti-democratic practices that led to the emergence of terrorism. However abhorrent the practices of the LTTE, it must be remembered that those who spawned such practices through authoritarian indulgence must also share some of the responsibility for them. If the UNP can rid itself of the last traces of those who remain unapologetic about the practices of the eighties, it might be in a better position to deal with terrorism. Until then it should leave policy to the elected government of this country, and refrain from overt and covert attempts to undermine it both internationally and nationally.

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process

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