The Hindu 18082010 Rebuilding of Sri Lanka-book Review

8/9/2019 The Hindu 18082010 Rebuilding of Sri Lanka-book Review

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by the massive victory the coalition headed by President Mahinda

Rajapaksa scored in the parliamentary elections earlier this year, winning

nearly twothirds of the seats.

While there are some signs that the government may be considering

constitutional reform, President Rajapaksa appears more focussed, at the

moment, on economic development, including that of the Tamildominated

North and East regions, prompting the view that he is chasing Sri Lanka's

longcherished Singaporemodel dream one in which the country's

development and prosperity, rather than sweeping constitutional reform,

will be the key to coexistence and reconciliation between ethniccommunities.

On economySeveral aspects of what needs to be done were gone into at a 2009 seminar

in Colombo organised by the Chennaibased Centre for Security Analysis

along with the Hans Seidel Foundation of Germany and the Colombobased

Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, and the first of the two books under

review is a compilation of the papers presented at that seminar.

Perhaps the most interesting of the papers are the ones dealing with

economic reconstruction, because so little is known about the economy of

Sri Lanka's Tamil regions, whereas the possible range of political solutions

have been long discussed the 13th amendment as a starting point for

devolution, its full implementation, and ideally adding to it. These points

are made in the book as well.

Muttukrishnan Sarvananthan, a development economist, advocates

political emancipation through economic development. In his view,

economic development would also require a change in the political status


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quo, with greater devolution to the provinces. Unlike other Tamil

academics, he places the responsibility for the economic rebirth of the

North and the East squarely on Tamil politicians, whose leadership he

blames for having been obsessed with language, land, and political rights,

to the exclusion of economic rights.

Sarvananthan urges the Tamil United Liberation Front, the only party that

is committed to the rule of law which he thinks is a precondition for

economic development to recast itself, dropping the word liberation

from its name, and focus on securing economic rights for the people of the

North and the East.

Saman Kelegama makes out a case for overseas development assistance on

the lines of the Marshall Plan in postwar Europe and talks about even

sectorwise potential for economic development in the conflicthit regions.

It is however doubtful if the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka even with all

their hypedup geostrategic attractions for outside powers can bring in

that kind of funding, especially in these difficult times.

HistoryIf the focus of this book is on the way forward, Sri Lanka's recent history

forms the core of the second book under review. Written by Jon Oskar

Solnes, an Icelander who was chief of staff of the Sri Lanka Monitoring

Mission that supervised the Norway brokered governmentLTTE ceasefire,

A Powderkeg in Paradise deals with an important phase in the conflict,

discussing how the ceasefire broke down and set the stage for the LTTE's

final defeat.

To those who knew that the ceasefire was built on a glaringly faulty

premise that the LTTE wanted a negotiated settlement within a united


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Sri Lanka its eventual breakdown was foretold on the day it was signed.

But Solnes, like many other western observers, does not see it that way.

Hence the subtitle of the book: Lost Opportunity for Peace in Sri Lanka.

Disappointingly for an insider account, there are no major revelations in

the book; it is a faithful narrative of what is already in the public realm

about the ceasefire and written carefully, striking a balance between the

government and the LTTE, with the decisions/actions of both sides called

into question.

The author, however, provides a racy account of the happenings after the

truce had effectively ceased to exist, starting with the suicide attack on

Army Commander Sarath Fonseka in April 2006. The chapter that speaks

about how the SLMM head of mission found himself at the receiving end of

shelling by the Sri Lankan Army in Pooneryn, and the ceasefire monitors'

rift with the government, makes interesting reading. Solnes asserts that the

SLMM did not think of Ponneryn shelling as a deliberate attack. He also

provides glimpses of the temperamental personality of Palitha Kohona, the

head of the secretariat for the coordination of the peace process now Sri

Lanka's top diplomat at the United Nations, and the SLMM's rift with him.

It was a revelation of sorts, at least for this reviewer, that there were

differences within the SLMM made up of monitors from Nordic countries

on dealings with the government. Solnes also discloses that, as the

ceasefire monitors were being projected as white Tigers, they feared

attacks by Sinhalese extremists and so scrupulously avoided any open

declaration of their affiliation with the SLMM. For all his interactions with

the LTTE high command, Solnes reveals only snatches of those dealings

for example, that part of a conversation between Prabakaran and a visiting

SLMM team in which the LTTE chief says while people called him a


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dictator', the description was more apt for his wife. Nevertheless, Solnes'

factual account, in simple language, should be useful even to those

researchers who would like to study the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement as a

flawed model for conflict resolution.

THE HINDU. 2010.

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The Hindu 18082010 Rebuilding of Sri Lanka-book Review