Number 89 December 1, 2005

Sri Lanka: Peace Process on the Ropes

The election of Mahinda Rajapakse as Sri Lanka’s presidentputs the country’s already fragile peace efforts at a watershed.By engineering a boycott of the election, the Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE) virtually guaranteed Rajapakse’selection, but also served notice that their position has hardened.In post-election statements, Rajapakse gave a conciliatory toneto some tough positions, while LTTE chief Prabhakaranrepeatedly said that he had given up on Sri Lanka’s Sinhalesepoliticians. Both said they wanted to maintain the cease-fire,but the wide gulf between them could not be clearer. TheNorwegian facilitator is reported to be planning a trip to SriLanka. He will need to start what amounts to a whole newpeace process.

A local politician with deep Buddhist roots: A Sinhalesefrom Southern Sri Lanka and a Sri Lanka Freedom Party(SLFP) stalwart, Mahinda Rajapakse first entered parliament in1970 at age 24. Chandrika Kumaratunga, the outgoingpresident, named him labor minister in 1994. After a stint asopposition leader, he became prime minister in April 2004. Heis at heart a local politician, close to his home constituency ofHambantota, an area known for a depressed economy andradical politics. His political style is long on tactics and thepopular touch. His guiding political principles have chieflyinvolved government economic benefits for the poor and closecontact with the Buddhist clergy.

A polarizing campaign: Rajapakse’s platform promisedgenerous economic benefits to farmers and public-sectorworkers. Its peace policy drew heavily on pacts Rajapakse hadnegotiated with two strongly nationalist political parties: theJanatha Vimukthi Perumuna (JVP), a former insurgent groupwith 39 seats in parliament whose name translates roughly as“People’s Liberation Front,” and the Jatika Hele Urumaya(JHU), composed mainly of Buddhist monks. Theseagreements led him to jettison most of the principles behind theoutgoing government’s peace policy. This came as a shock toKumaratunga, who had selected Rajapakse as her successorbased largely on his energy and tested vote-getting ability.More importantly, it made the fundamental basis forpeacemaking into an election issue, unlike the last presidentialand the last two parliamentary elections, when the core ofpeace policy was widely accepted.

The defeated candidate, opposition leader and former primeminister Ranil Wickremasinghe of the United National Party

(UNP), campaigned on a platform of mild economic reformand continuity in the peace process that he had launched duringhis stint as prime minister. His campaign style was no matchfor the fire coming out of the SLFP-led camp.

The LTTE’s decisive boycott: A key ingredient inRajapakse’s victory, ironically, was the LTTE’s successful callfor a poll boycott by Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. Tamilvoters would almost certainly have voted overwhelmingly forthe UNP; with their support, Wickremasinghe would havewon. The boycott was undoubtedly intended to show theLTTE’s power. It was also touted by LTTE spokesmen both inSri Lanka and elsewhere as a way to clarify the Sinhalesepopulation’s warlike attitudes. If the Sinhalese population leftto its own devices would elect a man with Rajapakse’scampaign platform, the argument went, this proved that theLTTE had no choice but to insist on a separate state.

Peace process on lifesupport: Even before theelection, the nearly four-year-old cease-fire was in trouble,particularly after lastsummer’s assassination of Sri

Lanka’s foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. A Tamilclosely integrated into the Colombo establishment, Kadirgamarearned the LTTE’s ire not only for his strong anti-LTTE stancebut especially for persuading other countries to designate it as aterrorist organization. The LTTE denied any role in hisassassination, but its denials were widely disbelieved. Thisassassination, increasing violence against anti-LTTE Tamilsand between government and LTTE intelligence operatives,and repeated clashes between the LTTE and the internationalcease-fire monitors were all signs that the cease-fire existedmainly in theory.

The negotiation process too was barely alive. Talks had beensuspended since April 2003. The only recent dialogue had beena lengthy negotiation to create a post-tsunami relief mechanismthat included both the LTTE and the government. The reliefmechanism, known locally as P-TOMS, was challenged bySinhalese opponents in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, whichin July found parts of it incompatible with the constitution.Several donors, including the United States, had in any caseannounced that they would not use this mechanism to routetheir aid funds. This left the outgoing government with the

worst possible outcome: an unfunded and unimplementablearrangement, branded as too generous to the LTTE by thepolitical opposition, and a Supreme Court ruling thatconfirmed the LTTE’s suspicions that the Sri Lankan politywould never agree to give them meaningful participation inrunning the country. Popular attitudes toward the peaceprocess, hopeful at the start and fairly patient as recently asmid-2004, had become sour and disillusioned. By the summerof 2005, pessimism and finger-pointing were the order of theday in both the LTTE camp and the Sri Lankan politicalmainstream.

After the election, Rajapakse stresses peace… : PresidentRajapakse’s postelection statements stressed the importance ofbringing peace to Sri Lanka. Some policies he outlined, such asstrengthening human rights protections in the cease-fire andbringing the opposition and the Muslim community into thepeace process, would be highly desirable. But others wouldchange key features of the peace process. He reiterated hisdetermination to renegotiate the cease-fire agreement andpledged to safeguard the “unitary nature of the state,” rejectingthe previous government’s willingness to negotiate a federalframework. He rejected the concept of self-determination, evenin the qualified form that the previous government hadaccepted it. He welcomed facilitation by the United Nations,friendly countries, theinternational community, andIndia—conspicuously avoidingany mention of the one countrythat has actually been involved infacilitation, Norway.

All these positions had beenforeshadowed in his electionplatform, and all will be seen bythe LTTE as indications thatRajapakse is not serious aboutnegotiations. And his designationof Ratnasiri Wickremanayake asprime minister, a politician known

Tamil Tiger LeaderVelupillai Prabhakaran

for his hard-line nationalist views, will be read all over SriLanka as an indication that Rajapakse is faithful to the toughtone of his campaign platform.

…and Prabhakaran says time is running out: Prabhakaran’smajor postelection statement was his November 27 speech onHeroes’ Day, the annual commemoration of the LTTE’s fallenwarriors and an occasion that usually elicits warlike language.The punch line of the speech was that the LTTE would wait tosee what the new government could produce. If the results fellshort, he pledged to “intensify our struggle for self-determination…for national liberation…in our homeland.”Most of the speech was a carefully crafted argument about howSri Lanka’s Sinhalese politicians had undermined every chancefor peace in the past two decades and more. He declared thatthe LTTE’s participation in the peace process was intended toshow the international community that it stood for peace. “We

wanted to demonstrate beyond doubt that the Sinhala racistruling elites would not accept the fundamental demands of theTamils and offer a reasonable political solution,” he asserted.“It was with these objectives we participated in the peaceprocess.” The warlike tone fit the Heroes’ Day norm, but theunrelenting argument about how both major Sri Lankan partieshad failed to keep their promises offers little optimism that abreakthrough is likely.

Economic uncertainty: Sri Lanka’s near-universal literacy,strong health performance and relatively low average povertyrate should be important assets for economic performance.Unfortunately, political uncertainty and significantconcentrations of rural poverty in parts of the country haveprevented Sri Lanka from taking advantage of its strong trackrecord in investing in its people.

Sri Lanka’s economy had been growing at 5 to 7 percent peryear since the cease-fire took effect, and investment had begunto revive. In recent years, the major drag on the economy hadbeen high defense expenditures coupled with the depressingimpact of security threats. Both of these issues could become afactor once again. The cost of Rajapakse’s extravagantpromises of subsidized agricultural inputs and payenhancements for the public sector will threaten the relativefiscal stability of the past three years. The new governmentwill be presenting a new budget, so its intentions will becomeclearer quite soon.

Shake-up in Sri Lankan politics: This election also led to thedeparture from their positions of authority of two major figuresin Sri Lankan politics, representing the two big families thathave dominated the political scene for most of Sri Lanka’sindependent existence. Ranil Wickremasinghe resigned asleader of the opposition, preparing the way for a possibleleadership change in the UNP. Chandrika Kumaratunge is outas president. There are already rumors that she may come intoparliament, and that will keep alive speculation that she wantsto come back as prime minister if she can get the constitutionchanged to a parliamentary system. But for the present, therewill be an unaccustomed fluidity in Sri Lankan politics.

Adding to the uncertainty are the apparently strained relationsbetween Rajapakse and his campaign allies. Both the JVP andthe JHU have decided to sit with the opposition, though theysupport the government. The decision not to include any JVPministers in the new cabinet has raised questions about how thecoalition will function. This means that Rajapakse’s majorityin parliament is shaky. He will need to decide whether to callfor a new parliamentary election, a move that would beunpopular with most of his group’s parliamentarians and, intoday’s polarized Sri Lankan setting, might not clarify verymuch.

The key—peace and leadership: The ethnic question remainsthe key issue for Sri Lanka’s future. The peace process thatbegan with such hope in early 2002 cannot be revived. SriLanka needs to reinvent both the cease-fire and the peacedialogue. The government and LTTE need to committhemselves fully to peaceful means for finding a peaceful

solution. The outlook is not promising. When cease-fires breakdown, violence often resumes at a higher rate than before. Andthere is no time to waste: violence is already going up, and theLTTE is at least considering whether a military option makessense.

Against this backdrop, one of the key Norwegian facilitators istrying to put together a trip to Sri Lanka, and the cochairs of

the aid group plan to meet. The international friends of the SriLankan peace process need to proceed with bracing realismand appeal to the most urgent self-interest on both sides.Without a new commitment to a real cease-fire and a seriousdialogue, all of Sri Lanka’s communities stand at the brink oftragedy. Posturing for international support is no substitute forgetting on with that extremely difficult job. The inclusivenessRajapakse has promised could stand him in good stead, but thekey quality he will need is leadership.

—Teresita Schaffer

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South Asia Monitor is published by the Center forStrategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private,tax-exempt institution focusing on international publicpolicy issues. Its research is nonpartisan andnonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policypositions; accordingly, all views, positions, andconclusions expressed in this publication should beunderstood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2005 by the Center for Strategic and InternationalStudies.