SL: WAR AND ELECTIONS!

War and Elections..............by Tisaranee Gunasekara
The Prime Minister, in a blatant electoral lure to the voters, declared that Killinochchi may fall just before the PC polls of August 23rd. The Rajapakse administration can hardly be faulted for selling the war in the electoral market-field; after all what else can it sell? The leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe has been a blessing to all his opponents, but from the degree of pre-election violence in the two provinces it is obvious that the regime does not believe this factor alone can guarantee victory. Thus the necessity to keep on winning every battle on the Northern front, even at the cost of socio-economic debilitation, alienation of civilian Tamils, loss of international goodwill and the antagonising of Tamilnadu (and eventually Delhi). The war is a potent politico-electoral weapon in a country with a majority Sinhala populace and as the economy goes from bad to worse, the government’s dependence on it will become all-consuming.

The President has placed all his eggs in the war basket, creating an indissoluble link between his political survival and the fortunes of the war. The government has a reasonable chance of clinging to power, as long as a majority of the Sinhalese entertain a reasonable belief in the President’s capacity to beat back the LTTE. Consequently the Rajapakse regime cannot survive without a victorious war any more than Vellupillai Pirapaharan can survive without some war. This dependence on a continuously successful war is what is new (and distinct) about the Rajapakse conjuncture.

Economic conditions are likely to worsen as 2008 wends its way to 2009. Of the two most dangerous pitfalls, the first is the approaching debt crisis, driven by short term high interest foreign currency loans from the international money markets. The other is the fate of GSP+. "According to an unpublished paper by economists at the University of Sussex losing GSP Plus would lead to a 4% cut in Sri Lanka’s garment exports. Overall it could cost 2% of GDP" (The Economist – 14.8.2008). If GSP+ is lost, the effect will be manifested in the closure of factories and in substantial lay offs. If this retrenchment happens before the all PC polls are over, the government’s dependence on the war, as the sole means of attracting voters, will increase.


A DANGEROUS DEPENDENCE

So the regime must keep on winning, irrespective of the cost. This pressure to produce marketable victories increases exponentially when an election is in the offing (incidentally news from the battlefront must be controlled and moulded in order to sustain the Southern hopes of a short, sharp, victorious war). The dangers of such a dependency are many. It might compel political leaders to push the military into waging battles before the necessary conditions are present, simply because an election is in the offing. It can also render acceptable a high level of civilian casualties, if that is seen as unavoidable in ensuring the politically imperative string of fast victories. This danger becomes particularly acute as the war moves into the more populous areas of the North. For the Tigers, with their desperate need for dead civilian Tamils, this is a situation rich with opportunities; they have announced that all civilians will be given a military training, a useful method to further blur the necessary distinction between Tiger and Tamil and turn civilians into ‘targets’.

Its dependence on the war will also make the government even less inclined to investigate cases of alleged human rights violations by the Lankan Forces, which, in turn, will cause a further reduction in international support for Sri Lanka. "A senior EU official familiar with Sri Lanka thinks it currently looks unlikely GSP Plus will be renewed. At a minimum, he suggested, the government would have to make real progress on a case in which 17 aid workers employed by a French NGO was killed in 2006 and another in which five high school students were executed, allegedly by the security forces also in 2006." (ibid).

Why is the government willing to risk the well being of the country, the economy and the people to protect a few miscreants in the Armed Forces? Is it that the President has not understood the gravity of the problem (an incapacity demonstrated by his tolerance of the antics of some of his more bovine ministers)? Does he believe that ‘His Men’ (in or out of uniform) should have the right to act with impunity towards the rest of citizenry? Is it that the President is reluctant to punish servicemen for killing Tamils, because this war is seen as a war against not just Tigers but also Tamils?

The harrowing story of Ms. Maheswari, a Tamil garment factory worker who was detained simply because of her ethnicity, (see The Sunday Island of Aug. 19th) indicates that in the minds of some the dividing line between Tamils and Tigers does not exist. What is most worrying about this incident is not that it happened; even in the most tolerant land there will always be some misfits who think and act bigotedly. The problem is the sequel or the lack of it; the security personnel who acted in such an appalling manner are yet to be taken to task by higher authorities. So far no one has investigated what happened that day or apologised to Ms. Maheswari and other victims. This absence of an official reaction indicates that such incidents are neither rare nor frowned upon by the powers that be. If this is the way Tamils are treated by their state and their government, can they be expected to feel very Sri Lankan? How can they be blamed if they feel that a country which treats them so unjustly and so humiliatingly cannot be their own country?

A war for Sri Lanka cannot be a war of Sinhalese against Tamils or a war of Buddhists against non-Buddhists. The racial war is already here given the beliefs and stances of the LTTE and the Rajapakse administration. If the JHU has its way it will become a religious war as well (in the eyes of Sinhala hardliners only a Buddhist is a real Sinhalese), as the speech by Minister Champika Ranawaka at a recent seminar (‘Rathu Magada? Bodu Magada?) demonstrates yet again: "Warning of an imminent destruction of the Sinhala civilization, policymaker of the JHU Patali Champika Ranawaka has called for a struggle on the footsteps of King Dutugemunu to safeguard Buddhism. ‘Today, Tamil chauvinists are questioning as to how Buddhists could wage war. It is only the Buddhists who had not committed a single murder to promote their religion. But, no one should be allowed to test our patience and fish in the troubled waters,’ he said. The vision of Buddhism will be no more if we lose the power of the state, the JHU policymaker said" (Lanka Dissent).

Defeating the LTTE is necessary but it should not be attempted at the risk of causing irreparable damage to Sri Lanka’s future. The economic hardships imposed on the country, the neglect suffered by essential services and unintelligent governance – all done or defended in the name of the war – are undermining the health and education standards of future generations. Such damages cannot be redressed even if the war is won and their effects will be felt for decades to come, if not more. They will undermine Sri Lanka’s capacity to hold its own in the murderously competitive international market, exacerbate national economic woes and undermine political stability, leaving us poorer and more fractious.

The damage caused to Sinhala-Tamil/Tamil-Sri Lanka relations by the regime’s one dimensional worldview is even more substantial and longer-lasting. When a government is determined to win either an election or a war at any cost, the horrendous becomes unavoidable. This can be seen in the PC polls campaign which is threatening to turn into another Referendum or another Wayamba. Similarly the regime’s desire to win the war at any cost can make it tolerant of the most appalling human rights abuses, especially since any victim can be passed off as a Tiger. If it happened to Ms. Maheswari in Kesbewa, it (or worse) can happen to those Tamil civilians caught like an arecanut between a barbaric LTTE and a brutal regime in the war zone.

Kosovo and South Ossetia


Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia - despite their many differences they have a fundamental similarity. They are all examples of a new international conjuncture characterised by the interference in the internal affairs of small sovereign nations by regional/international powers, in order to ‘protect’ a minority community ‘threatened’ by the majority. The events in Serbia and Georgia cannot but promote separatism and the principle of humanitarian intervention. In Kosovo the R2P (Right to Protect) was formally invoked; in South Ossetia Russia claimed as a fundamental goal of her military action the protection of South Ossetian people from Georgia. Both cases are bad news for any small country with a separatist problem, especially if there is a global/regional power with an interest in how that problem is dealt with. "What it comes down to is simple: being in the right place at the right time and having the right friends with the right guns and interests" (The Guardian – 13.8.2008).

So the signals emanating from India must be taken seriously, such as the recent remarks by India’s National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan. It is not pleasant to be lectured to by an outsider; when that outsider is the regional power it is even more galling. But the identity of the messenger should not make us reject the message itself. The message is timely, as borne out by the experiences of Ms. Maheswari and innumerable other Tamils treated like enemy aliens in their own country: "The (Sri Lankan Army) has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks. But even if they win the battle I am not sure they will win the war. I think they haven’t got the Tamil population on their side….. What we are telling them is get the Tamils on your side with greater devolution of power. … What the Sri Lankans are not factoring is the great deal of sullenness in the Tamil man" (IANS – 12.8.2008).

Big powers, which stridently oppose separatism within their own borders, do not hesitate to undermine the territorial integrity of others, as the Russian example particularly demonstrates. India, a regional power, is likely to find this new trend intriguing. As Colombo, driven by electoral compulsions, step up the war, electoral compulsions may compel India to intervene, though in a less spectacular way than last time. A possible scenario is for India to step in when the Tigers’ back is truly to the wall and the Tamils, here and abroad, are despairing. Mr. Pirapaharan can still snatch a stalemate (heralded by a few spectacular victories) from the jaws of defeat; we are yet to see his Black Tiger units (including Black Air Tigers) in action. But if he fails to make this comeback, some of the senior Tiger leaders might be willing to do a deal with Delhi – the replacement of Mr. Pirapaharan with a pro-Indian leadership in return for a more proactive Indian policy to ‘protect Lankan Tamils from the brutalities of Colombo government’. In such a context India and the West will be able to back Tamil demands for autonomy (up to and including de facto separation) without the odium of supporting a terrorist. If the regime persists in its one-dimensional perspective of the war, if it fails make adequate distinction between Tigers and Tamils, if it sides with its Sinhala hardline allies and sabotage the APRC, if it continues to exploit the war to win elections, it will be undermining not just the unity of Sri Lanka but also its capacity to sustain the war, economically, politically and militarily. And if we treat Tamils as enemy aliens when we think our victory is nigh, why should they feel Sri Lankan, once the tables are turned?

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