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Ending Ethnic Civil War: ThePeace Process in Sri LankaAmita Shastri aa San Francisco State University , USAPublished online: 09 Mar 2009.

To cite this article: Amita Shastri (2009) Ending Ethnic Civil War: The PeaceProcess in Sri Lanka, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 47:1, 76-99, DOI:10.1080/14662040802659025

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Ending Ethnic Civil War: ThePeace Process in Sri Lanka

AMITA SHASTRI

San Francisco State University, USA

ABSTRACT The ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka is one of the most intractable conflicts inthe world today. Despite numerous efforts to resolve it, no agreement has beenforthcoming between the two parties to the conflict: the Sri Lankan government andthe separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This article focuses on the peaceprocess initiated in 2002 that was led by Norway and supported by the internationalcommunity. It analyses how the process interacted with the fragmented politicalsituation on the ground in Sri Lanka to produce the contrary result of a return toand intensification of the war.

The ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka is one of the most destructive and violent

conflicts that remain unresolved in the world today. The conflict is in its

twenty-fifth year, and has resulted in over 70,000 deaths and a million dis-

placed. Despite numerous efforts since 1983, no agreement has been forth-

coming between the contending parties in the conflict: the government of

Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

(LTTE). Core issues in the conflict revolve around the structure of the state,

specifically the devolution of power between the centre and the regions.

A major attempt was made to forge peace in Sri Lanka through a ceasefire

and a ‘peace process’ in 2002. This attempt was distinguished by the fact that

it took place in an exceptionally favourable environment in which Norway’s

efforts to serve as a third party were supported by a broad phalanx of powerful

governmental and non-governmental actors in the international community.

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics

Vol. 47, No. 1, 76–99, February 2009

Correspondence Address: Amita Shastri, Department of Political Science, San Francisco State

University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA. Email: ashastri@sfsu.edu

1466-2043 Print/1743-9094 Online/09/010076–24 # 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14662040802659025

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Yet, after a period of high optimism and hopes, the peace process crumbled

and within four years the two combatants were back to intense fighting.

What factors underlay the breakdown of the peace process? Looking back

with the benefit of hindsight, can we identify aspects in the structuring or man-

agement of the process that might have forestalled such an eventuality?

The peaceful resolution of intractable ethnic conflicts is inherently a

complex and difficult process, susceptible to high rates of failure. The high

degree of hostility and distrust between two belligerent parties poses formid-

able problems relating to the whole range of logistics and details regarding

the two sides establishing communication, holding discussions, arriving at

credible commitments, to finally implementing the agreements reached. Since

conflict-resolution efforts can break down at virtually any stage of this

sequence of events, the role of a suitable external third party to serve as an

‘honest broker’ or forceful mediator between the two becomes a virtual neces-

sity. Yet, given the polarised situation, the bona fides of the third party, no

matter how impartial, are too often viewed with suspicion. In addition, even

while each of the belligerents publicly supports negotiations to resolve the

conflict; they have other motivations, some tacit, which play a powerful

role in influencing the outcome. Furthermore, even as the two sides are

engaged in talks, making concessions and ostensibly seeking to build trust;

they each remain primed to the possibility that betrayal or breakdown in the

peace effort could require them to quickly revert to violence. In a conflict

between an established state and an aspirant separatist ethnonational move-

ment, such as in Sri Lanka, the problems are multiplied by the asymmetries

in their legal and international status which favour the former. A ‘level

playing field’ has to be created for the purpose of negotiations in which the

two parties are treated in a symmetrical fashion, for the weaker party to agree

to engage in such an exercise. Albeit temporary, it usually gives a perceived

advantage in the form of added recognition and deference to the insurgent

group which is keenly resented by partisans of the state. Another formidable

set of strategic dilemmas are posed by the need for each side to reach agree-

ment and (ideally) consensus with a significant part of the ethnic group to

which they belong, in order for any settlement reached to be sustainable in

the long term. Given the range of ideological orientations, policy options

and tactical considerations likely to be favoured by rival factions or entities

on each side, this is by no means an easy task (King, 1997; Licklider, 1993;

Zartman, 1995).

Despite efforts to the contrary, the Sri Lankan peace process remained

subject to these multiple competing pressures and pulls so that the talks

broke down without agreement being reached. This article analyses how the

unfolding peace process interacted with the polarised political situation on

the ground to produce the contrary result of a return to intense war. The

The Peace Process in Sri Lanka 77

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first section of the paper lays out the background and context within which the

ceasefire came into effect. The specifics of the ceasefire agreement and

the subsequent talks are analysed in the following parts. Although the ceasefire

provided some noteworthy benefits to the population, as the section after that

lays out, the overall situation remained an ambiguous one of ‘no war, no

peace’. The specifics of the situation provided political space for a backlash

to grow amongst the rightist and moderate segments of the Sinhalese popu-

lation and, eventually, a return to war – the focus of the two succeeding

sections. The concluding section evaluates the strategy and achievements of

the peace process and what lessons might be gleaned for similar efforts to

resolve intractable conflicts in the future.

I argue that though concessions were made by the state to the LTTE in order

to get its cooperation in the peace process, there remained a substantial bar-

gaining gap between the two in the negotiations that neither side seemed to

be able or willing to overcome about the characteristics of the interim admin-

istrative structure to be set up in the north-east. On the one hand, the position

of the ruling party remained weak due to its lack of support from the other

major party in the south. On the other, the insurgents remained recalcitrant

about making the changes in behaviour and compromises necessary for the

ceasefire and peace process to succeed. Ultimately, both negotiating parties

appear to have used the respite offered by the peace process to serve more

immediate political, economic and strategic needs, in an attempt to increase

their domestic and international legitimacy and access to international

funding. As the analysis highlights, the unresolved situation did not remain

quiescent or stable, but slid gradually back to war with a greater intensity

than before.

Background

The conflict in Sri Lanka has its roots in the flawed political settlement that

was instituted at the time of independence in 1948 that set up a centralised

majoritarian parliamentary structure. After 1956, political competition devel-

oped into a pattern of sharp rivalry between two major parties, the centre-right

United National Party (UNP) and the centre-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party

(SLFP). Each sought to mobilise and expand their constituencies amongst

the majority Sinhalese to come to power, and an entrenched pattern of

ethnic outbidding for the votes of the majority Sinhalese population

emerged.1 Power was increasingly centralised by the Sinhalese representatives

in parliament. Successive legislative measures relating to citizenship, the

official language, state employment, distribution of agricultural lands, and

admission into institutions of higher education were adopted that benefited

the Sinhalese and excluded or discriminated against the Tamil population.

78 Amita Shastri

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Ethnic dominance by the majority was institutionalised in the constitutions

passed in 1972 and 1978 by governments led by each of the major parties

(Shastri, 1997).

Unable to stymie the will of the majority representatives dominating the

unitary government in Colombo, Sri Lankan Tamils became increasingly alie-

nated from the political system. Living in the north and east of the island, they

first demanded autonomous powers for their region, and then by the mid-1970s

united behind the demand for a separate state. From a non-violent political

movement led by moderate politicians, the Sri Lankan Tamil movement for

political equality became subject to pressure and control by radicalised

militant youth who advocated violence to achieve a separate state.

The UNP regime, which came to power in the late 1970s, sought to forcibly

put down the separatist movement. The armed forces of the state were given

increasingly draconian powers to ‘search and destroy’ terrorists. Ethnic rioting

and violence against the Tamils in 1983 led to the start of the civil war in Sri

Lanka (Manor, 1984; Tambiah, 1986). Large numbers of middle and lower

class Tamils fled to India and to the developed Western countries of

Europe, North America and Australia. In the subsequent period, the Tamil dia-

spora played a powerful role in internationalising the conflict by launching

adverse publicity about the Sri Lankan government’s policies and providing

material support to armed Tamil youth organisations.

Numerous efforts have been made to resolve the ethnic conflict, but none

have succeeded. The most notable of these were the efforts by India to mediate

in the conflict between 1983 and 1987, and to pressurise the government in

Colombo to reach a negotiated agreement with the Tamils. In keeping with

the Indian experience of managing numerous ethno-national groups’ demands

through negotiations and concessions in the form of regional autonomy, India

urged the adoption of a similar policy in Sri Lanka. These efforts culminated in

the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987, under which the Sri Lankan government

promised to devolve power to the provinces, while the Indian government

promised to send an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) to the north-east to

take custody of the arms to be handed in by the Tamil militants and guarantee

the agreement. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed by the UNP-dominated

parliament, recognised Sri Lanka for the first time as an ethnically plural

society, Tamil as a national language, and devolved power to the provincial

council level. However, the provincial councils remained weak entities with

limited powers, subject to the will of the Sinhalese-dominated national legisla-

ture within the existing unitary system (Shastri, 1992). Just as crucially, the

merger of the minority-dominated Eastern province (EP) with the Northern

province (NP), keenly desired by all sections of the Tamils but resisted by

the Sinhalese, was made subject to a referendum being held in the EP to deter-

mine if it should become permanent (Kodikara, 1989; Muni, 1993).

The Peace Process in Sri Lanka 79

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The accord faced strident hostility and mobilisation against it from diverse

groups. Even while President J.R. Jayawardene’s faction of the UNP, moder-

ate left parties, and the more moderately inclined Sri Lankan Tamil groups

supported it, a faction of the ruling party led by Prime Minister Ranasinghe

Premadasa worked to undermine the agreement. The SLFP boycotted it.

Right-wing religious elements of Sinhalese society, as well as radical nation-

alist Sinhalese youth supporting the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) gave it

an angry and violent reception. It was also violently opposed by the LTTE,

the most nationalistic and militant of the Sri Lankan Tamil youth groups.

In the ensuing violence and elections for the provincial councils, the IPKF

battled the LTTE in the north-east, while the GOSL used its powers of

emergency to quell the JVP insurgency in the south of the island. Once the

Sri Lankan government (led by President Premadasa after February 1988)

succeeded in putting down the JVP insurgency, it attempted to control the

situation in the north-east by colluding with the LTTE to send the IPKF

home. The LTTE strategically used the pause in hostilities to rest its

cadres, before attacking the GOSL’s forces and starting the war again. An

LTTE suicide bomber assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv

Gandhi in 1991, while another killed President Premadasa in 1993 – two

of the most noteworthy of a long list of public figures who have been assas-

sinated by the LTTE.

Weary with the war, the people voted for the SLFP leader Chandrika

Bandaranaike Kumaratunge in the presidential election in November 1994.

Heading the multi-ethnic People’s Alliance (PA), she came to power with

an electoral landslide as the first Sinhalese leader promising to open talks

with the Tigers, and to carry out a wide-ranging devolution of powers to the

regional level. These promises, however, came to nothing as the LTTE

pulled out of the talks and ceasefire soon after and returned to war. The gov-

ernment launched an all-out military effort to subjugate the LTTE and bring it

back to the negotiating table, but got bogged down in a situation of stalemate,

characteristic of such internal conflicts, in which neither side was able to gain

the upper hand. The LTTE demonstrated its ability to hold off the armed

forces in the north-east, and inflict a devastating degree of death and

damage through suicide bombings in the south. Kumaratunge’s simultaneous

effort to draft a new constitution, instituting the equivalent of a federal struc-

ture desired by moderate Tamils, similarly ran aground. Non-participation

by the LTTE, opposition by the JVP and right-wing Sinhalese forces, and

last-minute manoeuvring by the UNP to stall voting for the draft brought

her efforts to naught. The restoration of normal governance and human

rights by Kumaratunge’s regime, however, increased international legitimacy

for the Sri Lankan state. The president and her Sri Lankan Tamil foreign

minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, also worked to get external sources of

80 Amita Shastri

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support and funding for the LTTE cut off by getting it categorised as a terrorist

organisation and banned by foreign governments.2

The situation of stalemate compelled the Sri Lankan state to try once again

to open talks to resolve the conflict. The intense fighting had become a burden

on the economy, soldiers were deserting the war front in large numbers, and it

had become impossible to recruit and train adequate replacements. In early

2001, the president sought to re-open communication with the Tigers with

the Norwegians serving as third-party facilitators. Still, she insisted on

certain preconditions before talks could proceed: that the Tigers renounce vio-

lence and their goal of a separate state, that the talks involve a discussion of

‘core’ issues relating to the distribution of powers in a united state structure

along with relief and rehabilitation issues, and that they adhere to a pre-

determined timetable within which a settlement should be reached. Opposing

this, the Tigers insisted that the ‘existential issues’ of providing relief to the

displaced population in the north-east were more urgent and should be dealt

with first, and the ‘core issues’ be discussed later. They also refused to

renounce violence and their goal of a separate state before any agreement

was reached, arguing that they were not a defeated entity. With the failure

to reach agreement in the ‘talks about talks’, both sides returned to fighting.

The government was stunned by the LTTE attack of mid-July 2001 on the

Katunayake airport, the main airport on the island. The intense fighting

caused the economy to go into a tailspin and register a negative growth rate

of 1.4 per cent for the first time since independence.

In his attempt to gain the presidential office and to rally the Sri Lankan Tamil

vote to his side, the leader of the UNP, Ranil Wickremasinghe, began espous-

ing open-ended talks with the Tigers and the devolution of an even more

generous degree of powers to the north-east than offered by Kumaratunge as

the solution to the island’s ethnic civil war. He lost the hard-fought presidential

election in December 1999, in which an attack by a suicide bomber on

Kumaratunge (which she fortuitously escaped) boosted her victory. However,

two years later, in Sri Lanka’s Gaullist-style presidential-parliamentary

system, the support of Tamil politicians and voters of the north-east – at

the direction of the LTTE – swung the parliamentary election to favour the

UNP-led United National Front (UNF) coalition and brought Wickremasinghe

to power as prime minister.

The Ceasefire Agreement

The Norwegian-led peace process under the UNF was initiated by a ceasefire

in February 2002 in a particularly supportive international environment.

Hostility to terrorism had sharpened worldwide after the 11 September 2001

attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the US. There was a

The Peace Process in Sri Lanka 81

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tightening of laws and procedures relating to international terrorism across

Europe, and the far-flung networks of the LTTE in Western capitals came

under increasing scrutiny and pressure. The LTTE was alleged to be involved

in financial extortion, drugs and arms running to raise funds. Several Western

governments were also keen to see the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis resolved so that

the large Tamil refugee population that had been given asylum within their

borders could be encouraged to go back. It is believed that the Tamil diaspora

had a substantial role to play in urging the organisation to enter into nego-

tiations with the government (Fair, 2007). It would thereby retain its legiti-

macy as an insurgent political organisation fighting for a just cause, rather

than be targeted as a terrorist group, and hope to get the international

bans on it revoked. In late November 2001 the LTTE leader, Velupillai

Prabhakaran, temporarily withdrew his movement’s long-standing demand

for an independent homeland. Consequently, when the LTTE announced a

unilateral ceasefire on 24 December, the newly elected UNP-led government

reciprocated and pronounced itself in favour of resuscitating the Norwegian

facilitation of the peace process.

The ceasefire accepted by the UNF government was a departure from the

stance of Kumaratunge’s government. Noting the failure of the PA to set con-

ditions before talks, all preconditions were set aside by the UNF government,

indicating an acceptance of the reality of the ‘hurting stalemate’ that had been

reached by the state forces with the LTTE (Uyangoda & Perera, 2003, 46;

Zartman, 1995). Prime Minister Wickremasinghe’s effort was targeted to

attain the cessation of violence and re-establishment of peace and economic

growth as his top priorities (for his speech in parliament, see Island, 23 Jan.

2002). It thus gave recognition and predominance to the military power of

the LTTE, and set up the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) and the negotiations

that followed on a tight bipolar model to include the LTTE and the UNF

government as the sole participants.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed at separate

locations by Prabhakaran and Wickremasinghe on 22 February 2002. It was

facilitated by the Norwegian foreign office and its representatives, of which

Special Envoy Erik Solheim played a key role. As an undefeated force, the

Tigers demanded and in effect became virtually co-equal partners in the nego-

tiating process with the government. They were conceded sole power over

the territories they controlled in the north-east and could retain their arms

and military bases therein. ‘Peace monitors’, led by individuals from the

Scandinavian countries, would mark out the territories. In a deliberate effort

to facilitate the transition of the militarily organised Tigers into a civilian

political organisation, Tiger cadres were allowed to enter unarmed, in civilian

dress, into government-held areas in the Northern and Eastern provinces to

open political offices, carry out mobilisational work and political activities.

82 Amita Shastri

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Accompanying the MOU was the understanding that in the longer term the

LTTE would be ‘partners’ of the government in seeking out and disbursing

foreign aid to rebuild the island devastated by war, especially in the north-

eastern region. Just as importantly, arrangements would be worked out

whereby the LTTE would be allowed to take over the administration of the

entire north-east for an interim period of up to five years, while a permanent

framework was being negotiated.

The procedure through which the MOU was arrived at as well as its contents

provoked controversy from the very outset. Knowledge about the contents of

the impending CFA was allowed to a very limited number of people close to

the principal agents of the three sides: the UNF government, the LTTE leader-

ship, and the Norwegian facilitators. President Kumaratunge alleged that she

was informed of the contents of the agreement only after it had been signed by

the LTTE chief, a charge rejected by the prime minister (Daily News, 2 March

2002). The Secretary of Defence in the UNF government stated later that the

military was not given adequate time or opportunity to review the contents of

the agreement from a security point of view (Fernando, 2006: 45). Represen-

tatives of groups like the Muslims and civilians in the north-east, who would

be vitally affected by the terms and consequences of the CFA, were also not

consulted.

From the critics’ point of view, the agreement made numerous crucial

unreciprocated concessions to the LTTE in the interest of getting it to

cooperate and sign the document. For instance, the districts of Kilinochchi

and Mullaitivu in the north, controlled by the LTTE and in which it had its

central command and control structures, were identified as areas into which

even members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) could not

enter without LTTE permission. Yet, as a corollary to the freedom conceded

to unarmed LTTE activists to enter government-held areas in the north-east,

members of non-LTTE militant Tamil groups allied to the state, like the

Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) and People’s Liberation Organis-

ation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), would be required to hand in their weapons

to prevent internecine violence and fighting (Jeyaraj, 2002; Rupesinghe,

2006). In effect, the government accepted the LTTE demand to be treated

as the sole group representing Tamil interests in the north-east.

The SLMM was formed soon after to oversee the implementation of the

CFA. It consisted of 44 personnel from the Scandinavian countries of

Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland.

The CFA helped provide open public legitimation for the LTTE. This was

dramatically manifested within two months when the reclusive leader of the

Tigers called an international press conference in his jungle redoubt in

Kilinochchi in the NP. During the conference, Prabhakaran reiterated his

continued commitment to the 1985 Thimpu principles: of the Tamil right

The Peace Process in Sri Lanka 83

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to nationhood, a homeland and self-determination. He demanded a lifting of

the ban on the LTTE by the Sri Lankan government before talks could

begin, and refused to abandon the goal of a separate state and the use of

all forms of violence until a satisfactory permanent solution was reached.

At the same time, he did not specify what degree of devolution of power

would meet LTTE’s aspirations. Given the tight hierarchical organisational

structure of the LTTE, he implicitly remained the sole judge of what would

be considered satisfactory. The rebel leader called the killing of Rajiv

Gandhi a ‘tragic’ incident, but avoided further discussion of the issue or

an apology for it by calling on the journalists to forget the past (Narayan

Swamy, 2002).

Thus, in the eyes of its critics in the south of the island, the LTTE had

skilfully used the mechanics of the conflict resolution process to extract

unreciprocated concessions. It had gained in international acceptability and

legitimacy, without giving up its arms or the option of a separate state.

Peace Talks

Following the ceasefire, repeated rounds of talks were held in a step-by-step

process between the government and the LTTE. Subjected to support and

pressure from the international community, the first three rounds made surpris-

ingly rapid progress. The later rounds of talks, however, ran aground when a

broader range of issues relating to pluralism and human rights were raised

for discussion, with the LTTE withdrawing cooperation in April 2003.

Ultimately, issues relating to the details of an interim administrative structure

and its approval proved difficult to resolve.

The first round of talks held in Sattahip, Thailand, in September 2002,

consolidated the ceasefire agreement and the formulation of a joint task

force to deal with humanitarian and reconstruction activities in the north-

east. Top priority would be given to de-mining explosive devices in the

war zone and resettling internally displaced persons. The LTTE negotiator,

Anton Balasingham stated that the ultimate objective of the LTTE was

‘self-autonomy’, which he clarified was a different concept to that of a ‘sep-

arate state’ and did not exclude ‘internal self-determination’. He pointed out

that the LTTE already possessed an administrative structure in areas under

its control. What it was looking for was a legal stamp for that structure, so

that it could coordinate and work with the government and attract legitimacy

in the eyes of the international community. He asserted that the LTTE was

serious about a successful resolution of the conflict this time by pointing out

that it was the first time that the international community had involved itself

in the conflict by having its members act as a third party at talks, and a cease-

fire had held for as long as eight months (Daily News, 19 Sept. 2002).

84 Amita Shastri

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The second round of peace talks at Nakhorn Pathom, Thailand, in early

November, focused on setting up the joint task force in the form of the

Sub-committee to oversee the Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation

Needs in the North-east (SIHRN), and to raise funds from the international

community. Other joint committees to review the necessity for ‘high security

zones’, and to discuss political matters relating to the long-term political

structures were also set up. The two parties issued a joint appeal to the

donor community for development assistance at the next round of talks that

would also focus on core issues related to the ethnic conflict.

The choice of the venue of Oslo to host the momentous third round of talks

in early December was intended to establish a clear parallel with the Israeli–

Palestinian accords that had been reached there in the early 1990s. It became

sharply evident that a broad range of international support was backing the

peace process. High-level delegations were sent by the US, EU and Japan –

who later became Co-Chairs of the conference at Tokyo, along with

Norway. India sent a lower level representative to the talks to show support,

and maintained a low profile since the LTTE was a banned entity in India.

In all, representatives of 37 states attended the talks and pledged around

US$70 million for reconstruction and development. At the insistence of the

donors, this support was accompanied by the announcement that the LTTE

was willing to explore some form of federalism within a united Sri Lanka.

The definition of the Tamil-speaking areas was taken from the Indo-Sri

Lanka Accord of 1987 to cover the joint North-Eastern province (NEP).

While the details of the federal structure remained to be determined, it

was expected to approximate some form of asymmetrical federalism on the

Canadian or Spanish model. Such a change would involve the drafting of a

new constitution that would incorporate a power-sharing arrangement between

the centre and the regions as well as within the centre. Other measures

seeking to consolidate the ceasefire and protect women and children affected

by the armed conflict were also agreed to. As a positive incentive, it was

projected that the donor pledges made at Oslo would be realised rapidly if

progress were made in resolving issues.

These hopes were belied as the talks proceeded less smoothly after that. In

the following period there was a growing lack of cooperation from the LTTE

to constraining its behaviour in return for promised benefits. Unconfirmed

reports in the media recounted that the Oslo agreement to explore federalism

had angered the more hardline LTTE leadership in the Vanni (Sambandan,

2003: 10). At the fourth round of talks in January 2003 in Thailand, the

issue of high security zones proved contentious. The government unsuccess-

fully tried to link the removal of its armed units and return of displaced

person to such areas with a decommissioning of arms by the LTTE. Agree-

ment was easier to reach on setting up the North East Reconstruction Fund

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(NERF), which would serve as a joint structure to which funds from inter-

national donors would be channelled by the World Bank, and dispensed to

the north-east and the rest of the island. Emerging problems with the ceasefire

on the ground (described in the next section) led to the issue of human rights

and clandestine killings, recruitment of child soldiers, and coercive treatment

of Muslims and civilians in the north-east also being taken up, despite resist-

ance from the LTTE. The next truncated round of talks were held in Berlin in

February, in the midst of action taken by the Sri Lankan navy against an LTTE

vessel caught shipping in arms clandestinely. Despite the growing tensions,

both parties reached agreement on the need to include Muslims in the subcom-

mittees related to the EP, especially with regard to land and other issues of

mutual concern. The sixth set of talks were held in March in Hakone,

Japan, amid growing security concerns following serious incidents at land

and sea between the GOSL and LTTE, and LTTE militants even threatening

monitors of the SLMM (Jayasinghe, 2002: 15; for texts of the agreements

reached, see Gooneratne, 2007: 123–181).

A working meeting was planned in Washington, DC in April in preparation

for the larger international donor conference in Tokyo in early June 2003 to

which the LTTE was not invited since it was a banned terrorist organisation

in the US. Prior to the meeting, Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of

the State, had warned, ‘Our position is crystal clear, the LTTE must unequi-

vocally renounce terrorism in word and deed if we are to consider withdrawing

the [terrorist] designation’ (Philipson, 2007). Angered by this turn of events,

Anton Balasingham’s letter of 21 April 2003 informed Prime Minister

Wickremasinghe of the LTTE’s decision to suspend its participation in the

talks because it had been excluded from the aid meeting in Washington.

Balasingham also listed the non-implementation of the CFA and the continued

hardship experienced by Tamils of the north and east as additional reasons for

the LTTE’s actions.

Despite the LTTE’s absence, the Tokyo conference took place on a high

note. Officials and representatives from 51 countries and 22 international

organisations attended. International donors made financial pledges to the

tune of US$4.5 billion. The receipt of these funds was made subject to

satisfactory progress being made by the two parties negotiating an interim

administrative structure in which they would both participate to disburse

the funds allocated by the international community. In addition, progress

had to be made with respect to the acceptance of pluralism, human rights

and democracy (Raman et al., 2006). Faced with these conditions, and

evidently unwilling to subject itself to any constraints in its functioning,

the LTTE denounced the conclave as a ‘peace trap’ and complained of

‘an excessive internationalisation’ of the peace process (see Jeyaraj, 2002;

also Rupesinghe, 2006: 366).

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The monetary pledges made at Tokyo constituted the main incentive

offered by the donors to both the parties to continue negotiations to resolve

their differences. In May, the UNF government submitted three successive

‘outlines’ of what the ‘interim administrative structure’ for the north and

east might look like. With a bare majority in parliament and a hostile relation-

ship with the powerful executive president; the UNF was sharply constrained

as to what it could offer on its own in the form of constitutional changes. As a

result, in each outline it proposed politico-administrative bodies with recon-

struction and developmental functions that would be exercised under the

direction of the Prime Minister’s Office. It made a longer proposal on

similar lines in July, after the Tokyo conference, giving the LTTE a stronger,

more clearly defined role. Each of these offered far fewer powers than had

Kumaratunge’s scheme for regional autonomy which Wickremasinghe had

promised to go beyond. Not surprisingly, each outline was unceremoniously

rejected by the LTTE (for details of the exchange, see Gooneratne, 2007:

191–233).

The LTTE then came under pressure to present its own ideas. After some

delay, it came forward with its proposal for an ‘Interim Self-Governing Auth-

ority’ (ISGA) in October 2003 that in effect amounted to a confederal unit

which was subject to virtually no controls by the centre. The ISGA would

consist of a governmental structure in which the LTTE or its nominees

would hold absolute powers in the north-eastern region for five years. Either

a permanent settlement would be negotiated in that time, or elections under

a commission nominated entirely by the LTTE would be held after that.

The ISGA would participate on an equal footing with the central government

in seeking out and receiving foreign funding and aid through the NERF and Sri

Lanka’s central financial structures. Disputes between the central government

and the ISGA would be resolved through reconciliation facilitated by the

Norwegian government or, failing that, arbitration by a tribunal in which

the president of the International Court of Justice would play the key role.

Although the proposed structure was a step down from the LTTE’s previous

goal of a separate state, it still remained far outside the domain of the existing

constitution, a federal structure such as the LTTE had promised to explore at

Oslo, or concessions that any political group in the south was conceptually

ready to make.

The ISGA proposal precipitated a crisis in the south. Since the UNF did not

have a majority to initiate any constitutional changes on its own, the LTTE

urged acceptance and adoption of the ISGA by the government outside the

constitution. The president and her party insisted that any agreement with

the LTTE had to be an integral part of a final settlement. They referred to

their previous draft proposals for a virtual federal structure, which the UNP

had rejected previously, as a suitable place to start (Kumarasinghe, 2003).

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Compelled to make the next move, the UNP reluctantly expressed its willing-

ness to engage in further talks in which the LTTE proposal would be discussed

along with its own. Reacting to this, the president and her coalition, along with

the right-wing Sinhalese parties of the JVP and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU),

and large segments of the media categorically denounced the LTTE proposal

as the penultimate step to secession, and accused the UNP of following a

passive policy of appeasement towards the LTTE. The rhetoric between the

leadership of the two major parties escalated in the closing months of the

year, and ended with the president taking over the defence, interior, and

media ministries from the prime minister’s appointees. While this was well

within her powers as the country’s executive president, the prime minister

expressed his inability to run the government if the portfolios were not

returned. This brought the peace process to a standstill. The Norwegian

facilitators suspended their participation in the process due to a lack of

clarity regarding the lines of authority in the government that they would be

working with. With the withdrawal of the various parties from the nego-

tiations, all that was left in place of the peace process was the CFA and the

SLMM created under it. To resolve the deadlock in the government, the

president dismissed the parliament and called new elections.

The ISGA proposal did not have to result in the fall of the government.

As an informed participant in the proceedings has pointed out, the major

weakness in the government’s position was that it went into the negotiations

regarding the interim administration without a consensus proposal with the

other major party in its pocket (Gooneratne, 2007).3 Given that the ruling

UNF did not have the parliamentary seats and popular support to carry out

major political and constitutional changes on its own,4 the wisdom of it enga-

ging in a process that did not explicitly incorporate in its ambit the powerful

executive president (and implicitly her party and support base) in Sri Lanka’s

Gaullist-style system raises questions. Most immediately, the lack of such

support weakened the government’s hand in its negotiations with the Tigers,

something the latter were only too aware of.5

The politics at the elite level critically affected and were in turn affected

by the developments on the ground, to which we now turn.

A State of Negative Peace

It was envisioned by the architects of the process that the cessation of fighting

and engagement of the two sides in ‘building peace’, with the strong diplo-

matic and financial backing of the international community, would generate

a powerful and popular dynamic in favour of peace. Such a momentum

would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the leadership of either party

in the conflict to opt for a return to violence and war.

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Initially the cessation of fighting and the rounds of talks and agreements seemed

to be doing just that. The removal of barricades, resumption of ‘normal’ life,

and the prospects of increased security and peace were welcomed with widespread

relief and enthusiasm by the population.

However, problems soon became apparent with the ceasefire situation. Each

side reported violations of the MOU to the monitors who attempted to resolve

the conflicts at the local level. By 1 July 2002, as many as 270 violations had

been reported against the LTTE and 110 against the government forces

(SLMM, 2002; reproduced in EPDP, News from Sri Lanka, 8 July 2002,

email). Most of the reported violations consisted of complaints of harassment,

kidnapping and abductions, extortion, violence and killings. The Tigers ran

into resistance to the expansion of their hegemony in the north-east on two

fronts. In the NP, the non-LTTE Tamil militant groups, that had bases of

support on Delft island and around Mannar, refused to surrender the area to

Tiger control. In the EP, efforts by the Tigers to raise particularly onerous

‘taxes’ from Muslims ‘to pay for the homeland they would be part of’ led

to violence and riots. In some particularly serious incidents in late June

2002, there were six dead, about 100 wounded, and nearly 90 houses and

businesses damaged or gutted (Northern Light, 25 June 2002; cited in

EPDP, News from Sri Lanka, 2 July 2002, email). This led to demands in

the civil society for human rights to be considered an integral part of the

peace process, along with separate representation being necessary for the

Muslims in the talks.

The Norwegian facilitator, Erik Solheim, and the Scandinavian monitors

went about their tasks conscientiously, but got little appreciation for their

efforts. They worked hard to keep relations between the two sides on an

even keel, all the while emphasising that it was the GOSL and LTTE which

had ‘ownership’ of the process. Still, segments of the local opposition and

media fostered the popular perception that the monitors were biased in

favour of the LTTE and treated its violations of the MOU in an indulgent

manner. They were also accused of unfairly balancing criticism in domestic

and international forums of LTTE behaviour with the failures of the GOSL.

This evoked increasing resentment in the Sinhalese population in general,

and right-wing Sinhalese groups in particular.

It was similarly felt in sections of the public in the south that while import-

ant concessions had been made by the government to the LTTE as goodwill

measures, the LTTE had offered very little in return besides the ceasefire.

It seemed to come back to each round of talks with further demands and com-

plaints of a strategic nature. For instance, proclaiming the need to rehabilitate

the civilian population as being of the greatest priority, the LTTE demanded

that the government remove and dismantle key ‘high security zones’ in the

Jaffna peninsula to allow the displaced population to return to their homes.

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It similarly demanded that fisher-folk in the north be allowed in coastal waters

that the navy had deemed of strategic value and therefore ‘no-go zones’. It also

demanded access to international aid and investment funds, without laying

down its arms or guaranteeing not to return to fighting and war.

What emerged instead was a state of ‘negative peace’ – a continuation of

fear and hostile actions despite the formal state of ceasefire. In the deteriorat-

ing situation from early 2003, the two sides traded allegations, charges and

counter-charges, sniping and killing on an increasing trajectory. Of the two

sides, the LTTE was identified as being more clearly at fault. The SLMM

determined that by the end of 2005, 3,471 of the complaints made to it

against the LTTE had been violations of the CFA. In contrast, 162 complaints

were ruled as violations committed by the GOSL (SLMM statistics, listed in

Gooneratne, 2007: 250, appendix 9).

The support and pressure of major powers, representing the ‘international

community’, was designed to be an integral part of the ‘international safety

net’ in the course of the peace process. Strategically, while Sri Lanka had

lifted its own ban on the Tigers to engage them as co-equals for the purpose

of the negotiations; international pressure – and implicitly a warning – was

maintained on the LTTE with major powers like the US, UK, Australia,

Canada and India retaining their bans. Individually and collectively, they

repeatedly emphasised the importance of a negotiated political solution, and

proclaimed their support for a satisfactory devolution to the ethnic minority

areas of the north-east. They clearly voiced their opposition to an exclusive

reliance on a military solution by the GOSL, or a separate state attained

through violence by the LTTE. Along with the extensive political and diplo-

matic exertions of the co-chairs, the peace process depended crucially on the

lure of economic incentives to induce the belligerents to compromise. Despite

the magnitude of these efforts, they failed to draw the two parties into forging

an agreement, and to restrain the LTTE from engaging in violence.

The violence grew to undermine the positive popular perception of the

peace process and provided support for a rightward swing in politics in the

south of the island, on which more below. This also translated into a shift

away from support for Western intervention through the peace process.

Faced with this situation, the co-chairs tried hard to keep the momentum

going through pressure on both sides, attempting to get them to return to the

negotiating table, but to little avail.

Swing to the Right

The general election of April 2004 changed the balance of forces in a direction

adverse to the peace process, and brought a more polarised and fragmented set

of forces to power in parliament. It resulted in the victory of the opposing

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coalition, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), consisting of the PA

in alliance with the JVP. It also strengthened the presence in the parliament of

the extremist right-wing Sinhalese party, the JHU, on the one hand and the

Tamil representatives banded together into a pro-LTTE alliance, the Tamil

National Alliance (TNA), on the other.6 Given their antagonism to what

they perceived as excessive foreign interference in domestic affairs, the JVP

and JHU had been mobilising opinion against the peace process. As the elec-

tion results showed, fear of the consequences of ‘pandering to the LTTE’ had

spread to moderate Sinhala segments of the society and undercut the mass base

of the SLFP. Yet the UPFA remained in a weak position, having won only a

minority of seats.7 It had to seek the support of the Ceylon Workers Congress

(CWC), which had eight seats, to muster a majority lead of one seat. In con-

trast to the Sinhala right-wing parties, the CWC was sympathetic to minority

and Tamil interests.

Constrained by the election results and her right-wing allies, the president

announced that the UPFA would work for devolution under the Thirteenth

Amendment, the political arrangement introduced following the Indo-Sri

Lanka Accord. At the same time, urged by the co-chairs and India, the presi-

dent and her new prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, remained willing to

encourage the peace process and requested the Norwegians to continue to

facilitate negotiations with the LTTE. However, with the JVP totally

opposed to discussing the ISGA, and the LTTE rejecting the discussion of

any other proposal but the ISGA, the prospects of any advance being made

on the peace process remained moot.

The swing to the right was strengthened by an unexpected development.

A faction of the LTTE led by Colonel Karuna broke away in March 2004,

just before the parliamentary elections, and directly threatened the LTTE’s

position under the CFA of being the sole spokesperson of the Tamils in the

region designated as the Tamil homeland extending over the NP and EP.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, aka ‘Colonel Karuna Amman’, had emerged

as the acknowledged LTTE leader and commander of the EP, a position he

had strengthened after the CFA. His split from the ‘Vanni Tamils’ of the

LTTE (or Prabhakaran and his core supporters drawn from the NP), followed

by one-third of the LTTE cadres, posed a severe challenge to the hold of the

LTTE in the EP and its claim to represent the Tamil population there.

Karuna’s defection added another dimension to the fragmented and murky

politics of the EP. According to reports, after an initial period of resisting the

LTTE, he sought to escape the latter’s wrath with covert assistance and arms

from the government’s security forces and other Tamil militant groups coop-

erating with the government. The LTTE threw its cadres against Karuna’s

forces in the EP. Internecine killings by Tamil militants, often of civilians

suspected of supporting an opposing group, took place relentlessly through

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2004 and 2005.8 The spillover effects of these hostilities made themselves

evident in killings carried out in other parts of the country, such as the NP

and even the capital, Colombo.9

The tsunami tragedy of 26 December 2004 provided a major opportunity

in which the government and LTTE might have worked together, but were

prevented from doing so by the right-wing parties and the judicial branch.

Following the tragic event in which over 30,000 people died in Sri Lanka,

there was pressure from the domestic and international community for the

government and LTTE to create a ‘joint administrative mechanism’ through

which they could utilise the US$3 billion of aid pledged in different parts of

the world. Kumaratunge pushed through the development and approval of a

Post-Tsunami Operations Management Structure (or P-TOMS) proposal,

acceptable to the LTTE. Yet the JVP and JHU opposed it on the grounds

that funds channelled to the LTTE would be used to build up its war machine.

The JVP withdrew its support for the ruling coalition on this issue and reduced

it to minority status, compelling the president to depend on the support of the

UNP and TNA in the opposition to get the measure passed in parliament. The

whole matter ended in a debacle for Kumaratunge, when in a case lodged

by the JVP the Supreme Court put a stay order on the part of the P-TOMS

structure to be located in Tiger-controlled territory. It would not be accessible

to all the local people belonging to different communities, and would thus be

discriminatory in effect, in the view of the court.

The deterioration in the situation continued subsequently with vengeful

killings and murders. Leading these was the assassination of Sri Lanka’s

73-year-old Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in his residence at night

in August 2005, which generated widespread shock and condemnation. He

was the most prominent political figure to be killed since the CFA. Blame

was ascribed to the LTTE, in spite of its denial, since he had worked closely

with Kumaratunge in getting the LTTE proscribed in Western capitals (Tamil

Times, 5 Aug. 2005: 3). The same month, the superintendent of police of

Jaffna was brutally hacked to death, a crime that was also ascribed to the

LTTE. He was the most senior police officer to be killed since the CFA was

signed. According to a knowledgeable commentator, with his killing a green

light was given for ‘unofficial operations’ by government forces and allied Sri

Lankan Tamil militant groups in the north. The ‘shadow war campaign’,

which had been going on in the EP, moved its focus to the NP. ‘Tit for tat’ kill-

ings of even ‘soft targets’ (unarmed civilian sympathisers) of the opposing group

became commonplace (Tamil Times, 5 Aug. 2005: 15; also Jeyaraj, 2002: 21).

The rightward shift in Sri Lankan politics became marked with the victory

of Mahinda Rajapakse in the presidential election of November 2005.

Rajapakse led the UPFA coalition of 24 parties against Wickremasinghe

and the UNP with its coalition of minority parties. In the lead-up to the

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election there had been divisions within the SLFP over the party manifesto.

Kumaratunge remained committed to a substantial devolution of power as a

solution to the ethnic problem, a policy she had done much to propagate

and which had brought her rich electoral dividends in the form of victories

in 11 out of 13 elections after 1994. It had become the dominant vision for

the future of the society, to the extent that even the UNP under her rival

Wikremasinghe had attempted to outbid her in that direction. She backed

Rajapakse as her party’s candidate. However, while Rajapakse publicly prom-

ised to safeguard the party’s policies, he struck a personal agreement with the

JVP and JHU to protect the unitary nature of the state. The LTTE virtually

ensured the victory of Rajapakse and his right-wing allies by imposing a

forced boycott in the north-east, preventing Tamils from voting for Wickrema-

singhe. The latter had remained publicly committed to re-starting talks with

the LTTE about the ISGA. Thus, in the election that was decided very

narrowly in Rajapakse’s favour on the basis of the southern vote, the LTTE

engineered the victory of the more hardline group of political forces on the

ethnic question in the south (Tamil Times, 5 Oct. 2005: 9; 5 Nov. 2005).

Return to War

Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech in November 2004 had contained an ulti-

matum to the government to deliver an acceptable political arrangement

within a year, or the Tamils would be compelled to seek their rights

through their own efforts. The projected deadline was extended for a year in

his Heroes’ Day speech of 2005 to overcome the ravages of the tsunami.

The sniping, assassinations of individual operatives, sporadic bombings and

killings escalated after December 2005 into incidents of rioting, overt conven-

tional attacks and even battles. The deteriorating situation led the government

to adopt an increasingly hardline response towards the activities of the LTTE,

which was now routinely labelled as ‘terrorist’. The LTTE suicide bomb

attack on the Sri Lankan army chief at the entrance of the army headquarters

in Colombo on 25 April 2006 was one of the most visible of these. The Sri

Lankan navy retaliated with attacks on the naval crafts of the Tigers. A blast

in the marketplace in Trincomalee led to a backlash by Sinhalese in which

over 100 houses and business establishments were destroyed and 3,000

persons were left homeless in the city. The killing of Major-General Parami

Kulatunge, the deputy chief of staff, by another LTTE suicide bomber on

26 June 2006 led to retaliatory air strikes by government forces in Mutur

East, adjoining Trincomalee.

These events contributed to a strengthening of hardline positions and extre-

mist forces on both sides. The government increased its defence expenditure

by 23 per cent for 2006 over the previous year, and by 40 per cent in 2007

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(Hindu, 2 Aug. 2005). The multi-ethnic EP, especially the strategically crucial

area of Trincomalee, came in for particular attention. The Tigers sought to

clear the Muslim and Sinhalese population from the area: the government

forces were accused of targeting the Tamil and Muslim population to

enable the settlement of Sinhalese ex-servicemen. This raised fears of

ethnic cleansing and a deliberate effort to change the ethnic demography of

this critical district linking the NP and EP, which formed the fulcrum of the

demand for a joint NEP by the Tamils. The hardline position of the right-

wing forces in the ruling coalition was reinforced by the judicial verdict of

the Supreme Court negating recognition of the temporary merger of the NP

and EP that had taken place under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The verdict

undermined the basis on which the peace process and the eventual resolution

to the conflict as supported by the international community were founded.10

These trends emphasised the marginalisation of the peace process, efforts

by the international community, and the position of moderate forces within

the political spectrum in Sri Lanka. The chief losers were the civilians and

the mass of the people in the north-east caught in the violence and destruction

caused by the fighting. They were terrorised by the armed groups of both sides,

and subjected to extortion, abductions, injuries and death. By the end of 2006

more than 200,000 persons, overwhelmingly Tamils and Muslims, were

forced to flee their homes in the north-east. Another 16,000 persons sought

asylum as refugees in Tamil Nadu in neighbouring India.

The four co-chairs and India continued to call upon and pressure the two

sides to adhere to the CFA and return to talks, but failed to have an impact.

At a belated round of talks held in Geneva in February 2006, the LTTE

insisted that the government disarm all its ‘paramilitaries’ as it had promised

in the CFA, before it would talk about any other issue. This was a reference to

Karuna’s forces. The government, however, denied all culpability for the

actions of the Karuna group; and insisted that the LTTE needed to enter

into discussions about creating a federal structure, as it had promised to do

in Oslo in December 2002. In a second meeting held in May in Geneva, the

Tigers refused to meet with the government delegation, and raised questions

about the neutrality of the monitors from the EU countries. They demanded

that EU citizens be removed from the SLMM. This was in retaliation for an

incident involving the endangerment of two monitors by the LTTE, in

response to which the EU had slapped a ban on the LTTE. Reluctant

implementation of the LTTE’s demand and removal of the monitors from

the EU countries of Sweden, Denmark and Finland weakened the limited

capability of the SLMM to monitor the situation. Only 29 of the monitors,

drawn from the non-EU countries of Norway and Iceland, remained to

oversee the tattered ceasefire on the ground. Last ditch efforts to save the

peace process led to talks in Geneva once again in October 2006, with the

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GOSL having a stronger position for the first time. These talks also came to

nothing.

Faced with recalcitrance from both sides in the ceasefire, the international

community became less sympathetic and toughened its response towards

them. Such measures were initially applied to the LTTE, and then to the gov-

ernment as well. Kadirgamar’s killing was taken particularly seriously and led

to a number of leading LTTE front organisations, officials and functionaries

being arrested or detained in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and

Thailand. The EU placed a travel ban on LTTE leaders in October 2005,

and banned the organisation altogether in May 2006. Human rights organis-

ations repeatedly called on both sides to stop the violence and abuse of civi-

lians. They also emphasised the responsibility of the state to implement the

CFA and to investigate any violations, if need be through independent com-

missions or international bodies. The co-chairs and India were particularly

concerned at the escalation of the military effort by the Rajapakse regime to

the exclusion of any significant moves towards a political solution involving

devolution acceptable to the minorities in the north-eastern region.

The peace process seemed to have effectively ended on 27 November 2006

when Prabhakaran called the CFA defunct, and announced that he was resum-

ing his struggle for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka’s north-east. Both

the belligerents, however, continued to claim acceptance of the CFA and

justify their acts of armed violence as defensive measures. The de facto

return to a state of war was formally marked by the GOSL’s announcement

in January 2008 that it was withdrawing from the CFA. The disbanding of

the SLMM as a consequence removed any internationally recognised obser-

vers of the situation in the north-east.

Conclusion

What conclusions can be drawn from this effort to create peace and end ethnic

civil war in Sri Lanka? What were its achievements and failures? How does it

compare with similar intractable conflicts elsewhere?

The cessation of fighting for an extended period of time was the biggest

achievement of the peace process. However, it proved to be temporary and

unstable before violence picked up momentum and there was a return to hos-

tilities and war. As seen, the promise of talks with the LTTE to work out a gen-

erous scheme of devolution for the north-east got the UNF elected with ethnic

minority support, and procured it diplomatic and economic support from the

international community. The pressures emanating from the external environ-

ment compelled the LTTE to participate in the peace process. It was able to

successfully leverage its position as an undefeated entity to strengthen its pos-

ition in the north-east and gain in international acceptability for a while. Both

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parties went as far as expressing a willingness to explore a federal model of

government to allow internal self-determination.

Yet the peace process failed to deliver an agreement that would help resolve

the conflict. A couple of reasons stand out as being important amidst the inevi-

table uncertainties of such an effort. Prime Minister Wickremasinghe’s efforts

were targeted to attain the cessation of violence and peace as his top priority.

The strategic design of the peace process therefore gave predominance to the

military power of the LTTE, and set up the negotiations on a tight bipolar

model to include the LTTE and the UNF government as the sole participants.

The LTTE was accorded the status of sole representative of the Tamils, and

concessions were made to get it to negotiate. Yet when it used its position

to attack unarmed opponents and strengthen itself through extortion and

abductions, the GOSL found itself helpless in taking effective action against

it for fear of endangering the ongoing negotiations and peace process.

Efforts to change this behaviour through the peace process itself met with

resistance and complaints from the Tigers. The lack of emphasis on and mech-

anisms for the protection of individual and human rights, as well as a pluralist

inclusion of other significant ethnic groups and political opinions weakened

popular support for the whole initiative. The rising climate of fear and vio-

lence culminated in a broader backlash to what was seen as appeasement of

the LTTE. The secrecy and lack of public debate about the end results of

the negotiations also aroused fear and suspicion in those who were vulnerable,

excluded or sidelined by the effort; especially the moderate unarmed Tamils

and Muslims living in the north-east and the major opposition party, the

groups most supportive of a negotiated solution favouring devolution within

a united Sri Lanka. The UNF regime and the peace process faced a decline

in its legitimacy to the benefit of the right-wing forces in the south opposed

to any concessions to the minorities in general, and the LTTE in particular.

The lack of consensus and continued rivalry between the two major parties

proved even more deleterious. It culminated in hostile exchanges between the

two most powerful officials in the state, the president and prime minister, and

critically weakened the support they had individually built up for devolution

as a whole. In the longer term, the UNF left itself open to segments of the

opposition party seizing the political initiative by making common cause

with the mobilisation of nationalist Sinhalese against what they saw as a

foreign-sponsored peace process. In effect, the old bane of Sri Lankan political

life of sharp political rivalry between the two parties reared its head once again

to sabotage yet another effort to resolve the ethnic conflict. The ensuing pol-

itical violence underlines once again the need for the two major parties to work

together to evolve a sustainable political solution to the ethnic problem.

The divisions within the Sri Lankan Tamils provided other obstacles to the

peace process. These were manifested in the exclusivist military ideology of

96 Amita Shastri

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the LTTE intolerant of moderate dissenting views; the efforts of members of

the diaspora willing to settle for some kind of federalism as opposed to those

of the hardliner separatist leadership on the ground; and the factions in the NP

versus the EP within the LTTE. These have resulted in the tragic decimation

and displacement of the Tamil community in the north-east, with no solution

in sight.

In comparative terms, the Sri Lankan experience highlights one point of

commonality and one of distinction with other such cases of intractable con-

flict that are noteworthy. Similar to other such situations, it highlights the dif-

ficult challenge that overcoming political divisions and fragmentation on one

or both of the combatant sides poses to forging a political consensus to resolve

an ethnic conflict. In Sri Lanka, neither the major parties in the south nor the

various Tamil groups in the north-east were able to come together. Distinctive

about the Sri Lankan case is the high level of motivation, commitment to their

goal, and organisation displayed by the insurgent group, when compared to

other long-drawn-out situations of ethnic civil war such as in Aceh, East

Timor, Guatemala, or even Northern Ireland. In contrast to these cases in

which compromises were successfully forged with the rebel group, the

peace process in Sri Lanka demonstrated that the LTTE, as an organisation,

was not willing to reorient itself to adhere to non-violent modes of functioning

and give up on its goal of a separate state. This portends difficulties for the

government in easily or completely overcoming militant activity in the fore-

seeable future. It also underlines the necessity for a political solution in the

direction of significant devolution to win over the rest of the alienated

Tamil and other ethnic minority population.

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences,

San Francisco State University, for a summer stipend to support this research.

The author also wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments of the editor and

anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. The Sinhalese, who form the largest ethnic group on the island, constitute 74 per cent of

the population; the Sri Lanka Tamils form 12 per cent of the population; and the Muslims

7 per cent. The Upcountry Tamils, often also referred to as the Indian Tamils, now form 6

per cent of the population.

2. Sri Lanka banned the organisation in 1998 after it attacked the most venerated Buddhist

temple on the island in Kandy. The US and Canada banned the LTTE in 1997, and Britain

and Australia did so in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. India had already banned the LTTE in

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1994 and declared its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and other top figures to be criminals

wanted to stand trial for the murder of Rajiv Gandhi.

3. John Gooneratne served as Deputy Director General of the Secretariat for Coordinating

the Peace Process, part of the Prime Minister’s Office, and was closely involved with

all aspects of the peace process from its inception in January 2002 until May 2006.

4. Such amendments of the constitution in Sri Lanka require a two-thirds majority in parlia-

ment, and a majority vote in a popular referendum.

5. See Anton Balasingham’s exchange of letters with Ranil Wickremasinghe over the

interim administrative structure (Gooneratne, 2007: 231–245).

6. The JHU won nine seats for the first time, and TNA got 22 seats, up from 15 seats in 2001.

7. The UPFA won 105 of the total 225 seats in the parliament, of which the JVP accounted

for 39 seats. The UNP won 82 seats compared to the 66 won by the SLFP.

8. By mid-2004, of the 321 persons killed, about 94 per cent were Tamils: Asian Tribune, 4

Sept. 2004, 29 Aug. 2004.

9. Amongst the most important of these was an attempted suicide attack by the LTTE in

Colombo against the Sri Lankan Tamil politician, Douglas Devananda, as a message to

the EPDP not to help Karuna and the government forces in the EP: Tamil Times,

28(6), July 2004, pp. 4–5, 31–35. On another occasion, several of Karuna’s key com-

manders were killed with poison in a house in the suburbs of Colombo, raising acute

fears about the degree of penetration of the capital city by Tiger operatives: Island, 1

Aug. 2004. See also Tamil Times, 24(3), March 2005, p. 12. In turn, the LTTE leader

in Batticaloa, Kousalyan, and five others were allegedly killed by Karuna’s forces

(Hindu, 2 Aug. 2005).

10. This was reiterated officially by both India and the US in public comments.

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