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The need for Sinhala initiative

by Neville Ladduwahetty
Succssive governments have accommodated the demands of the Sri Lankan Tamils at the expense of the interests and security concerns of the Sri Lankan nation. These accommodations have imposed political arrangements such as Provincial Councils that are prejudicial to these security concerns and interests. The incremental escalation in the scope of these political arrangements would undoubtedly lead to the eventual division of the country. A living example of what could happen in Sri Lanka is taking place in Canada. Quebec is proposing to hold a referendum for the third time to determine whether they are to stay within the Canadian federation. Despite such evidence from around the world, and considering the misgivings expressed by a large section of the Sinhala people the political establishment has failed to realize that the interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils come at the expense primarily of the security concerns of the Sri Lankan nation.

Whether judged by norms of justice or principles of democracy, there is no question that the interests of the larger Sri Lankan nation should prevail over the interests of the few. However, it does not mean that the interests and concerns of the few are to be ignored. On the contrary, they must and should be addressed. In the process of addressing these issues, the concerns and interests of the larger Sri Lankan nation should not be jeopardized. Instead, the concerns of the few must be addressed within the framework of the interests and concerns of the larger group. This is a natural phenomenon in conformity with natural laws. Ignoring the concerns of the many would only lead to instability.

The claim by the Sri Lanka Tamils for one third of the land and two-thirds of Sri Lanka's shoreline despite their numerical strength being only 12.6 % of Sri Lanka's population (1981 census), is a reversal of this natural process because this claim is the very source of the security concerns of the larger Sri Lankan nation. Whether such concerns have a rational basis or not is irrelevant. What matters is that this territorial claim by a few is the cause for the insecurity of the larger group and therefore is the principle factor in any consideration.

Furthermore, of the Sri Lankan Tamils who comprise 12.6% of Sri Lankas population only two-thirds (i.e., 8%) live in the territory claimed by them. What is unjust therefore, is that the majority of the population of Sri Lanka is being coerced into accepting irreversible political solutions that are sources of their insecurity. When a near unanimous majority has to yield to the pressures of a few it is unnatural; it is an example of the "tyranny of a minority", and is a violation of democratic principles. In addition, when natural laws are contradicted, instability is inevitable.

A similar territorial approach is now being followed by the Muslims in the Eastern province who comprise only a third of the 7.1% of the Muslims in the country. This means that about 2% of the country's population is seeking a separate territorial entity for themselves on the grounds that it would be to their disadvantage to be incorporated in a political arrangement with the Tamils. The claim that they would have to suffer adverse consequences under the majoritarian rule of the Sri Lankan Tamils is serving them to legitimize the creation of political base for themselves.

In the meantime, the Indian Tamils of the Central Province are waiting in the wings. If the Muslims in the Eastern province realize their political ambitions, the Indian Tamils would lay claims to similar territorially based political units based on established precedents.

The rest of the Sri Lankan nation, in particular the Sinhala People are dismayed at the political drama that is unfolding before them. They realize the sheer injustice in these developments. They had no opportunity to oppose the Provincial Councils that were thrust upon them. However, they have mustered a significant protest against the proposed Devolution Package which seeks to extend the powers of these Provincial Councils. All these protests are but responses to challenges. Instead, the Sri Lankan nation must take the initiative and define what is in the best interest of the nation at large. This positive initiative would articulate and proclaim to all concerned the core values and concerns of the country and the nation.

The initiative that is called for cannot be expected to come from the political establishment because of their preoccupation with partisan politics. The initiative must therefore come from the citizens. It is only when the citizens realizes and accepts responsibility for their role in the affairs of the nation, they would be prepared to take the initiative. This is a new role that calls for new attitudes. It also calls for the active participation of the entire Sri Lankan nation. However, the mobilization of this collective effort can be best generated through the initiative of the Sinhala People, since they comprise the significant majority of Sri Lanka's population.

Since security is their primary concern, the Sinhala People are obligated to state categorically that the political structure cannot entertain within it any prospect that would entail the division of the country. This means that the Provincial Councils must be abandoned. The only form of government that would satisfy the security concerns of the many would be one where sovereignty of the people is vested in the centre with administration decentralized to the districts.

The form of the centralized government, whether it be Parliamentary, Presidential, Executive Committee, or any other, and how power is shared at the centre, would be a subject for discussion. Whatever its outcome, a centralized government would remain as the core value. Any form of government that proposes to devolve legislative power to the peripheral units would be a security risk and therefore would be unacceptable. With regard to the administrative powers of the districts, the degree of decentralization, and whether decentralization is symmetrical or asymmetrical would be of no particular significance. What would matter is that administration would be decentralized and that the necessary organizational arrangements would be created to suit this concept.

If this concept of a centralized government where administration is decentralized to the districts is endorsed by religious leaders, leading citizens, and recognized organizations, and confirmed by a referendum, the political establishment would realize that it reflects the wishes of a significant segment of the people. The initiative would result in an expression by the people of what concerns them most. It is within this framework of security for the many that the security concerns and other matters that affect the well-being of the few can be addressed.

The Sri Lankan Tamils have expressed their interests and concerns unequivocally. The rest of the Sri Lankan nation expected their elected representatives to protect their unstated interests and concerns. When such expectations are not fulfilled satisfactorily, the responsibility of articulating them falls on the citizens. In this respect it becomes the manifest duty of the Sinhala People to assume a leadership role and to articulate the political arrangements that would address the security concerns to their satisfaction; the needed leadership cannot come from any other group. If they do not take the initiative the country and the nation would continue its unstable path under conditions of persistent insecurity.

It is universally accepted that the security of a few can only be found under the blanket of security for the many. For instance, it is unnatural and foolish for Sri Lanka to hope to seek political arrangements that would jeopardize the security concerns, rational or otherwise, of India. Similarly, the few in Sri Lanka cannot hope to find sustainable political arrangements at the expense of the security concerns of the many that constitute the Sri Lankan nation.

This simple fact must be realized by the Tamil leadership in order for them to accept that they have misled the Tamil people and for the war to end. This terrorist war is being waged by the LTTE in the hope that eventually a negotiated settlement could be reached with the political establishment, since the LTTE is aware that wresting one third of the country militarily and holding it is not a practical reality. However, any settlement that entails the division of the country is detrimental to the security of the Sri Lankan nation. Therefore, the only way in which the Sri Lankan nation can protect its security is to make it known that it would be political suicide for any political party to consider any settlement that would jeopardize the nation's security. It is only by a massive public expression of these security concerns that current political trends can be reversed. The message must also state unequivocally that this security can only be ensured under a centralized government.

L E G A L W A T C H
An end to conflict resolution by cliche

by Nayana
"In the search for solutions to basic social problems É the lawyer represents a human resource of the most immense value".

These words were spoken by Sir Sridath Ramphal, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth. Admittedly he was addressing a gathering of lawyers - the Commonwealth Law Conference - and some gracious words were called for. Nevertheless, beneath the hyperbole there probably were some grains of truth.

Despite the criticisms levelled at lawyers, some of which no doubt are deserved, there are times when the analytical capacity of a properly trained legal mind can be useful even in matters outside the court room.

A discerning listener or reader will probably notice this difference if they compare, for instance, H. L. De Silva P.C. or S. L. Gunasekera or Kumar Ponnambalam voicing their opinions on Sri Lanka's internal conflict, as against the cliche-ridden sameness that seems to emanate from the majority of peace/conflict resolution organizations.

Whether or not one agrees with the views of any of those three learned gentlemen, there is no doubt that they have the capacity to sustain an analytical argument even in the face of opposition, in a way that is not even attempted by conflict resolution organizations whose usual response is to keep such persons off their invitation lists to the numerous seminars and workshops that have been held on the subject.

It is not the purpose of this column to tell readers what they should think with regard to what is undoubtedly this country's most pressing and complex problem. Instead we will attempt to illustrate what we mean by the need to apply analysis in place of clitches.

Let us start with that current popular clitche: "Talk to the LTTE".

Firstly, any meaningful consideration of whether to talk must necessarily include a dispassionate analysis of the no-talks option as well. Thereafter, anyone who advocates talks should make it clear on what basis such talks are to be founded, as there are several options, each with different consequences.

For instance, it is necessary to decide whether one treats the LTTE as (a) the sole representative of the Tamil people (as they claim); or (b) one of several representative Tamil groups whose views are to be sought in reaching a settlement; or (c) a group who may not be particularly representative in a democratic sense but who cannot be left out of the reckoning simply because of their proven military capability.

It is clear that both the procedural and substantive aspects of any talks will be significantly different depending on which basis they are conducted.

Any government which seeks to negotiate on the basis of option (a) above would be morally bound to explain why, in such case, courageous Tamil citizens like Sarojini Yogeswaran, Pon Sivapalan and a host of others were asked to risk the wrath of the Tigers in order to provide the people of the North with a democratic alternative,

Option (b) envisages a Northern Ireland style round table discussion among many groups, but this immediately requires one to address the numerous points of difference between the Irish situation and the Sri Lankan political scene.

Furthermore, neither the IRA nor the armed Protestant groups actually sat round the table. The British Government only negotiated with democratically elected MPs of Sinn Fein and other parties, and it was left to those parties to pressurize their militant wings to cease their campaigns of violence.

We appear to have no equivalent of Sinn Fein at the moment. The very fact that the Tamil parliamentary parties sit in Colombo and call on the Government to initiate talks, rather than using their own initiative to bring round the LTTE, is proof of their lack of influence with the latter.

Option (c) - taking the LTTE into the reckoning simply because their military capability makes any settlement without them unworkable - bears some relation to the "no talks" option because it would require the Government to bargain from a position of strength if it is to convince the Tigers that they cannot achieve their goal through armed struggle.

It will be seen that a decision on the above options is different from, and would have to be preliminary to, deciding that other question of whether such talks should be "conditional" or "unconditional".

Thus anyone who seeks support for their call for "talks" should first be asked to specify where they stand on these complex issues. Otherwise innocent peace-loving citizens may find that they have lent their support to an exercise quite different from what they may have had in mind.

Let us now turn to that other cliche, the "peace package". It is remarkable how many well-educated persons use this phrase knowing full well that the package they are referring to brings no guarantee of peace as long as it is rejected by the major warring faction.

Indeed, a disturbing feature of the post-1994 scene has been the apparent disdain shown by "intellectuals" both for the facts of a problem and for the intelligence level of the less well- educated citizens who usually form their audience.

Finally let us take the call for consensus and cooperation between the major national parties. This is undoubtedly a prerequisite for any lasting solution, but the question is how to achieve such consensus and cooperation between parties whose members have got used to street warfare at every election, and a culture where political control over the Police even at such times is taken for granted.

These thorny sub-issues are not addressed in the declarations and petitions calling for consensus and talks. Yet it must be remembered that jerry-mandering with the electoral process has been the cause, not only of much bitterness between the mainstream political parties, but also the alienation of the Tamil population at the time of the Jaffna Development Council election in 1982 which paved the way for the rise of the LTTE.

The wish of this column for 1999 is that those Sri Lankans in a position to influence opinion will eschew the convenient cliche's that we have been hearing upto now and devote themselves to finding specific solutions to specific problems.

The Wye River Agreement

by Dr. Stanley Kalpage
Despite his growing domestic difficulties and the looming threat of impeachment by the House of Representatives, President Clinton spent much time in October 1998 trying to put the stalled Middle East peace process back on track. The promise of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 had not been fulfilled.

The brutal assissination of Prime Ministr Itzhak Rabin in November 1995 and the narrow defeat at the 31 May 1996 Israeli general election of Rabin's successor, Shimon Peres, had brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power.

Stressing the need for Palestinian guarantees for the security of Israel, Netanyahu had cleverly blamed the Palestinians for delaying the implementation of the Oslo Agreements, signed on the lawns of the White House on 13 September 1993 and symbolised by the famous handshake between Yasser Arafat and Itzhak Rabin. The Palestinians were demanding land for peace. The Israelis insisted instead on security before peace.

Clinton's mediation
Throughout 1998, Clinton invested much time and effort in bridging the gap between the divergent Israeli and Palestinian positions. In January he had hosted Netanyahu and Arafat at separate meetings in Washington to try to jump-start the stalled peace negotiations. The Israelis agreed to withdraw from just 9 percent of the West Bank territory held by them, while Arafat had demanded 30 percent.

In March, amid fierce pressure from his party's right wind, Netanyahu turned down a US compromise proposal that Israel withdraw from 13.1 percent of the West Bank. A month later, Arafat accepted the US proposal. By August, after much prodding from the US, Netanyahu reversed himself and announced for the first time that he agrees to turn over 13.1 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians, as long as 3 percent of it was designated as a nature reserve.

The negotiations at Wye, Maryland
On 15 October 1998, President Clinton opened meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat at the Wye River Conference Centre on Maryland's rural Eastern Shore, 70 miles east of Washington. The talks aimed to break a 19-month deadlock in peace negotiations based on the 1993 Oslo Agreements. Netanyahu and Arafat had last met on 15 January 1997 and agreed on an Interim Arrangement to move the peace process forward. Not much headway could be made because of sporadic extremist violence and Israeli intransigence.

King Hussein, in the United States in October for cancer treatment, was also present at the Wye meetings. Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, and Hussein is viewed by both Israelis and Palestinians as a peacemaker. Not least because of the large number of Palestinians among his subjects. Hussein has pushed continually for a peace settlement in the West Bank and Gaza.

The models for the Wye summit were the marathon Egyptian-Israeli negotiations at Camp David, Maryland in September 1978, that led to a peace treaty, and the 1995 talks at an Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, that led to a pact to end Bosnia's civil war.

Main points under discussion
At Wye the Palestinians insisted that the Israelis withdraw from another 13 percent of West Bank territory, which would give them full or partial control of 40 percent of the West Bank. Pre-occupied as they are with security, the Israelis demanded that the Palestinian Authority should crack down harder on Muslim extremist groups, especially Hamas.

The Israelis wanted the Palestinians to refrain from unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state when the Oslo Agreements expired in May 1999, if no negotiated accord had been reached by then. They also asked the Palestinians to amend their national charter by deleting clauses calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Palestinian officials replied that they had already annulled these clauses.

Extremists intervene
More than once during the negotiations the talks were on the brink of collapse. Two hand grenades thrown into a crowded bus stop in Beersheba near Hebron on 19 October while the Wye negotiations were proceeding, had injured several Israelis. Arafat called the attack "regrettable" and promptly promised to investigate.

The Israelis reacted by demanding from Arafat detailed and firm security guarantees on how the Palestinian Authority wanted to crack down on terrorist activities in light of the latest attack. "We now need a detailed security plan from the Palestinians", Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, told reporters.

The Palestinians countered that militant extremism was not confined to militants within their fold and that there were militants on both sides. "After all", said Arafat, "terrorists killed my friend, Itzhak Rabin".

The formal announcement of the Wye agreements, and the expected signing ceremony were postponed due to a last-minute snag - a request from the Israelis that the United States release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Pollard had been apprehended by US officials in the mid-1980s, and was convicted in 1987 on treason and espionage charges for giving US intelligence information to the Israelis. He was sentenced to life imprisonment 12 years ago. Several hours of tense discussions ensued between Clinton and Netanyahu after which Clinton promised "to review the matter seriously".

Importance of the Wye talks
The Wye talks were crucial to the long-stalled Middle East peace talks because of the political capital Clinton had invested in their success. Also because the parties faced a 4 May, 1999 deadline after which the final phase negotiations on issues like the status of Jerusalem and the borders of a possible Palestinian State would begin. If no West Bank deal emerged, Arafat had said he would unilaterally declare a Palestinian state - a move of potentially explosive consequences for the region.

Moreover, Arafat's patience was running thin. He was a man in a hurry as the time available to him was also running out. His health was causing concern and he had said that he would not live much longer. After Arafat's exit, the Arab militant groups were bound to confront Israel once again with increased terrorist attacks and be less flexible than the veteran Palestinian leader. In fact, on the eve of the opening of the Wye summit talks, a poll by the Nablus Research Institute showed that 51 percent of Palestinians supported terrorism and an armed struggle against Israel.

Israeli and Palestinian commitments
On 23 October, after more than a week of tough negotiations, Netanyahu and Arafat signed what has been called the "Wye Mills Memorandum", which Clinton characterised as "an agreement to rebuild trust and renew hope". The memorandum has addressed the main issues to move the stalled peace process forward and to embark on the final phase negotiations before 4 May 1999.

According to the Agreement, a concrete security plan has been designed to curb violence in the region - from both Palestinian and Jewish extremists. CIA director, George Tenet had been invited to draw up a viable security plan for implementation by the Palestinians to ease Israeli fears.

The leaders have agreed that a further 13 percent Israeli redeployment in the West Bank, should take place over 90 days. The Israelis have made a commitment for a third-phase redeployment of Israeli troops from the West Bank; with agreement on both sides on the size and scope of the redeployment;

The Israelis have agreed to the opening of a Palestinian airport in Gaza and an "in-principle" agreement for a seaport and an industrial zone in Gaza. They have agreed to grant safe passage for Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank.

The Israelis have also agreed to the release of 750 Palestinian prisoners, to be completed in three phases, and to the formation of a committee to study releasing other Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Palestinians have agreed to revoke 26 anti-Israeli clauses in the Palestinian National Charter.

The Wye document also states that unilateral actions - such as the building of settlements, housing demolitions and a possible declaration of a Palestinian state by Arafat - should not occur.

Looking toward implementation of the agreement, Clinton agreed to go to the Gaza Strip six weeks after the Wye agreement to attend a ceremony at which the Palestinians were to formally revoke provisions in their national Charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

Extremists defiant
The leader of the militant Moslem group Hamas reacted sharply to the Wye Agreement by saying that stronger Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation could limit its attacks against Israel "maybe for some time, but would not stop them or destroy our effectiveness".

A Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters the land-for-security deal forged at the Wye summit was "worthless" because Israel would still occupy territory claimed by the Palestinians.

"Whoever thinks they can destroy the activities of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades and Hamas is deluding himself", Yassin said referring to the movement's military wing. "Hamas will remain living and fighting".

On the Israeli side, Jewish settlers in the West Bank and extreme right wing politicians felt that Netanyahu had caved in and that a Palestinian state could not now be avoided. Their bitterness has forced Netanyahu to call for national elections in mid-1999. What happens in that election might well determine whether there will be peace or continued violence in the Middle East.

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