Two Years of President Rajapaksa- Col. R.Hariharan.-An Indian Assessment

Note no. 416 18-Nov-2007
SRI LANKA:
Two Years of President Rajapaksa- An Assessment
Update No. 130 By Col. R.Hariharan.
Mahinda's vision for the country: CHANGE Sri Lanka to be a
Modern State whilst Fostering the National Heritage and
Culture with Peaceful Co-existence among the Communities of
Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others, instilling Economic
Growth and Prosperity; and Maintaining Friendly Relationship
with all Nations. - Mahinda's vision for the country, ....Clever, grim and sad. These three words sum up Sri Lanka
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's two years in office this month.
These three words also present a cameo of the present, the
immediate future and the long term future of Sri Lanka and its
people. If Mahinda's vision quoted above was being
implemented, his actions during the two years of presidency did
not show it, despite some paradigm changes he has effected in
the island. It is clear that he sees 'the path to peace' through a
military prism rather than a negotiated peace process.
On the other hand, the results of his actions during the last two
years show a well-planned and executed effort to achieve a few
other macro goals. These include: make himself the
unquestionable leader and saviour of Sinhalas, take Sri Lanka
out of the morass of peace negotiations, restore military morale
by giving freedom of action, take advantage of Karuna's
breakaway from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
to gain control of the east, contextualise the war against the
LTTE to the global war on terror, and make the opposition
parties including the United National Party (UNP) and the
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) irrelevant to his strength in
the long term.
In this scheme of things, two aspects of global concern
(particularly India) that would have long term effect on Sri
Lanka as a nation did not figure. These are: creating conditions
for lasting peace, and erasing the dismal human rights record of
Sri Lanka. Despite their shortcomings, his predecessor Mrs
Chandrika Kumaratunga and the leader of the UNP, Ranil
Wickremesinghe, while in office tried to address these two
important issues.
Two years of Rajapaksa rule shows a shift in the nation's
contextual and conceptual approach, not only in handling the
war with the LTTE, but also on issues relating to political
morality, governance (including accountability and rule of law),
ethnic amity (not co-existence as his vision says), and
fundamental rights of citizens. Instead of using the CFA the
peace process as means to end the war, the President has used
their aberrations as an excuse to use the military as the means to
'end' the conflict.
Qualitatively, three clear paradigms emerge from this shift.
These are: political interests over riding national interests,
military initiatives overtaking other considerations, and trading
off human rights for political or military priorities.
As a result, the feeling of insecurity among the minorities,
particularly Tamils, increased for the first time after the ceasefire
came into force in 2002. The clock has been put back on the
so- called 'federal formula' which held so much hope for peace
mongers and the people weary of war. The peace vision has
faded under the bright glare of an emerging military vision. It is a
tragic development for the people of Sri Lanka because peace
and military visions never travel together.
Political Gamesmanship
The President, a politician more than a peacemaker, had
cleverly used the existing negative leverages in politics and the
peace process to establish himself and the Sri Lanka Freedom
Party (SLFP) firmly in the saddle. He has put the opposition
and its leader and presidential aspirant Ranil Wickremesinghe in
disarray. The UNP is now locked in a struggle to survive as a
credible alternative to the ruling party.
Rajapaksa has probably halted the run on the SLFP vote banks
engineered by the JVP, which has set its eyes on grabbing
power. While people sniggered at Rajapaksa's omnibus
expansion of his cabinet strength to 100 plus, the President had
the last laugh as the political trade offs paid. The UNP lost key
members in parliament who crossed over to the President's
ranks. Smaller minority parties, stranded and listless, have
joined the presidential bandwagon. To ensure everyone acted
upon his script, the control was passed on to the Rajapaksa
family. He appointed his brothers ? Basil and Gotabaya in key
appointments. This triumvirate of Rajapaksa brothers guide
government policy, administration, and security operations
regardless of ministerial domains.
Rajapaksa has sent clear signals that he would not forgive or
forget those who break away from his ranks or present his rule
in poor light. Smear campaigns against them have become part
of the political game. No one can accuse him of partiality in this
respect. It did not matter whether they enjoyed a cosy
relationship with him like Tiran Alles or Mangala Samaraweera.
He made it costly for them to defy or embarrass him. Tiran
Alles's business is now shattered and his future looks bleak.
Attempt of Mangala Samaraweera, former foreign minister, to
create a viable opposition party out of Rajapaksa's detractors
has not succeeded despite all the fanfare on its arrival. Media
criticism was handled with equal vehemence, regardless of
international cries over curbs on media freedom.
His action have shown little concern or urgency in responding to
human rights grievances. The bureaucratic handling of cases of
abductions and 'disappearances,' mostly among Tamils and
Muslims, are examples of this. NGOs, particularly of the
international kind, who were critical of the government were
branded as anti-national or accused as fellow travellers of the
LTTE. They were probably considered inconvenient obstacles
to the military ends of the President.
Some achievements
It would be incorrect to say there were no achievements in this
period. The armed forces regained their morale, earlier
shattered by lack of direction in the past. The LTTE's self
acquired freedom to behave as it pleased in the first three years
of ceasefire has been curbed as the military was given a free
hand not only to retaliate but also act proactively. This has put
the LTTE on the defensive. As a result LTTE's ability to launch
suicide operations at sea and on land was largely reduced. The
security forces have "won" the east. It is a moot point whether
they would have planned this operation in the same fashion if
Karuna had defected from the LTTE with his followers and
helped them.
The President also paid special attention to build bridges with
countries where the LTTE networks had been operating with
impunity. Their fund collection and weapons procurement
operations had been a source of strength to the LTTE to further
the war effort. Sri Lanka's sustained efforts were instrumental in
getting the LTTE banned in the EU and Canada, particularly
after they were annoyed with the LTTE for its suspected hand
in the killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar, the foreign minister,
under Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga. That had set off a series of
actions in India, Canada, the US and the EU which are now
making the LTTE's overseas operations more and more difficult
and risky. Intelligence cooperation between Sri Lanka and
these powers has played a powerful role in crippling the LTTE's
ocean fleet of supply ships.
For the first time a Sinhala consensus of sorts, though with
negative connotations, is emerging. More Sinhala masses are
perhaps now veering round to the belief that military action
could become the magic wand in the hands of Mahinda to end
the 'Tamil Kottiya' regime. The peace lobby has been muted
and at times muzzled. War has become a better buzz word than
peace now. It is a tragic reality that is dragging the country into
an endless abyss of war.
It would be incorrect to attribute the President's achievements
were due to his charisma or excellence in governance. The
results have been reached through a strong-Mahinda centred
orientation to goals rather than the means adopted. His cold
blooded non-military strategies included political manipulations,
arm twisting of media, ignoring aberrations of corruption and
human rights, and offering political trade offs for support. If
morality was never the strong suite of Sri Lanka politics,
amorality has become the order of the day in the last two years. Note no. 417 18-Nov-2007 SRI LANKA: Two Years of President Rajapaksa- An
Assessment: Part II - Update No. 131
Col R Hariharan (retd.)
[Part I of "SRI LANKA: Two Years of President Rajapaksa-
An Assessment –Update No 131" dated November 18, 2007
is available at http://www.saag.org/notes5/note416.html]
Handling of international opinion
Surprisingly Rajapaksa has shown a Machiavellian
understanding in handling foreign powers, which have interests
in his country and the Indian Ocean region. These include the
international do-gooders club of Tokyo Donors Conference
(EU, Japan, Norway and the US), and more importantly India.
As a result he has been able to internationally run with the hares,
while hunting them at home on issues of governance – rule of
law, human rights and humanitarian concerns, and lack of
accountability. These intangible issues are difficult to quantify.
Their audit to pinpoint areas of weakness is time consuming.
And their progression in the UN is equally slow. The President
understands these nuances and has managed to prevent
concerted international action against Sri Lanka. While he
professes to be sympathetic to the cause of human rights and
cites his own record, his priorities are different. At the moment,
he knows what is good internationally does not garner populist
votes at home.
His actions have not brought any comfort to the Four Co-chairs
and India who have been supporting him all along. They have
influential human rights watchdogs which have been arm twisting
their governments into action on this question. These nations
have objected periodically to the lack of response from the
government in Sri Lanka. However, by and large, things have
continued the same way in Colombo despite some cosmetic
response and commissions of enquiry. The ongoing
confrontation in Sri Lanka with the LTTE who has ceased to be
the darling of international community, has restricted their
options. Most of their actions have been limited to discussion
and complaints about human rights violations and misconduct of
security forces and their paramilitary supporters and threat to
cut off aid. No major actions beyond that have been taken. The
President appears to have worked out a response style to
exploit this attitude of external powers. He always addresses
their concerns and takes some tentative action. Though this
band-aid methodology is unlikely to yield lasting results, it buys
him time.
While Rajapaksa has shown a calibrated readiness to discuss
international concerns at the UN, he has firmly objected to the
presence of a structured UN mechanism at home. He seems to
have understood the way the UN and its creaking bureaucratic
structure works. Amidst the cackle of rival powers, the UN
takes a long, long time to translate ideas into action. On the
other hand, unwittingly the UN has helped the Sri Lanka
government by marginalising the need for the Four Co-chairs to
raise issues already discussed at the UN. This suits the
President.International mediation
The President's decision to carry out systematic military
operations without denouncing either the ceasefire agreement
(CFA) or the peace process, appears to have made the roles of
Norway and the SLMM largely irrelevant in impacting the
situation. As a result, the chances of reviving either the CFA
enforcement or the peace process have become minimal. In any
case they were rendered out of date when the security forces
redrew the map of the east after grabbing areas of LTTE
control. These developments appear to have divided the
cohesion within the Four Co-chairs that had existed in the early
years of CFA
On a five-point scale of approval for the President's current
'war-in-peace strategy', Japan with five points appears to be
wholly, though silently, supporting the President. On the other
hand Norway as a one-pointer is at the other end, disapproving
their progressive marginalisation. The EU does not appear to be
clear on how far it should go on either side of the scale as its
member-countries have their own national priorities at work.
But the EU has a clear international counter terrorism strategy;
so it precludes putting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), a recognised terrorist body in many EU member
countries, on par with a flawed but elected Government of Sri
Lanka.
The India card
India, the reluctant big brother, has been studiously avoiding any
open or close involvement in Rajapaksa style of running the
country. It is still focusing on strategic aspects of peace process
rather than contentious issues of tactical governance, because
they are the least controversial. Currently getting involved too
closely in Sri Lanka does not suit the Manmohan Singh regime
because of its survival preoccupations. His desire to hold on to
the continued support of Tamil Nadu political parties has
precluded the Indian prime minister from acting on Sri Lanka's
request for supply of arms or overtly supporting the President's
military actions. Thus India, perhaps wittingly, has opened a
convenient door for Sri Lanka to import arms from other
countries including China and Pakistan.
President Rajapaksa also perhaps assesses that in the long
term, if Tamil refugee outflow to India is kept in check, and
India's counsel is listened to India's ruling leadership will
continue the present policy on Sri Lanka. That includes silent
defence and intelligent cooperation with Sri Lanka without
publicity. India has political constraints in entering into any
defence pact at present with Sri Lanka. Except for some spares
and ammunition for Russian generic weapons, and the so called
non-lethal defence supplies, India is not going to help Sri
Lanka's appetite for weapons. The President understands this.
He also seem to know that lack of any political urgency in Tamil
Nadu and the mess over building strategic ties with the US are
other disincentives for any loud Indian intervention in the island
at present. President Rajapaksa who initially wanted India to
join the Tokyo Donors Conference has probably dropped the
idea having understood India's reluctance.
India has built strong business partnership with Sri Lanka and
the trade between the two countries has been growing fast. So
it will be futile to expect India to intervene in Sri Lanka in the
same fashion as it did two decades ago even if the
circumstances in Sri Lanka change. The Tamil leadership in Sri
Lanka should understand this and contextualise their
expectations.
V Prabhakaran's ego appears to be preventing him from taking
any initiative to reconstruct his relationship with the ruling Indian
leadership. The LTTE continues to be banned in India. Indian
security has been put on the alert against LTTE activity on
Indian soil. This suits Rajapaksa as his India policy seems to be
working, at least for him. He has used it to further his military
agenda, at the cost of the peace process, without overtly
courting adverse reaction from India.
Widening ethnic cleavages
Perhaps the biggest disservice the Rajapaksa regime has done
is to fritter away the fund of good will and understanding
between Sinhala and Tamil communities that had existed in the
first two years of peace process. The Chandrika-Ranil combine
despite their dithering over methodology, had faith in the pursuit
of peace. Most of them time their public utterances were
translated into action towards this objective. This was
responsible for the glimmer of hope that Tamils had nourished
that at last their lives would return to the peace mode.
As opposed to this, the President's often repeated statement
that while his government "remains determined to fight terrorism,
we are equally committed to seeking a negotiated and
sustainable solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka," has been belied
by his actions on ground. There had been a lot of foot dragging
in handling the subject itself. Little has been done to revive the
peace process. The war lobbies are in the forefront. Right from the time Rajapaksa issued his manifesto, it was clear
that his overwhelming desire to win over the Sinhala vote banks
and emerge as the sole leader of Sinhalas overrode other
priorities. His subsequent passive response to Tamil sensitivities
only re-emphasised the importance of being a member of the
majority community in Sri Lanka. The endless security checks,
mysterious white van disappearances, and sudden appearance
dead bodies in what appeared so much like Mafia killings have
heightened the latent sense of insecurity among Tamils.
Undoubtedly, the callous disregard of the LTTE to observe the
CFA in both letter and spirit had provided sufficient
provocation for the government to act. However, on a number
of issues affecting Tamils the government had shown equal
callousness. The abandoning of the P-TOMS, the plan for
aiding tsunami victims in north and east, is a typical example.
With the Eelam war heating up once again it is going to take a
long time to regain the faith of Tamils in getting what they expect
as 'fair play' – autonomy for the areas where they live in
majority. The President's much heralded All Party Committee
(APC) to work out southern consensus on the Tamil question,
like many other committee and commissions is tied in knots. It
has probably been put on the backburner because of other
urgent military and political priorities of the President. It is no
wonder that Tamils are now feeling that their concerns are no
more a national priority.
Future portends
When Rajapaksa came to power there were a lot of political
loose ends: the national leadership was at a dead end and
military objectives goalless and merely reactive. The
government was on the defensive in dealing with the
Norwegians and Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). The
LTTE was dictating both political and military terms. Karuna's
break up with the LTTE had created a new paradigm in the
east. All these issues required policy directions and deft
handling by the government to turn them to its advantage.
President Rajapaksa has used them cleverly to his military ends
in freeing the Tamil areas from the LTTE control and build up
his case for 'liberating the north' from the LTTE.
At the end of two years of office with political parties tied in
knots, and India sidelined in his policy horizons, the President is
probably working out strategies to take him through his term
with success. That would enable him to make it easy to extend
it to a second term in office.
After all said and done, the President has come out a clearly
goal oriented person, though some of the goals appeared
parochial. He has managed to get hold of most of the Sinhala
constituency at home, impressing them with the heavy handed
military option instead of pursuing a slow and tedious peace
process with a recalcitrant LTTE. To handle international
opinion, the President has projected Sri Lanka as another front
line country in the global war on terror. This has also quietened
them down.
The nation is paying a huge human and economic cost in men
and material in pursuing a war that holds the promise of victory
to the war lobbyists. Counterinsurgency wars without political
solutions are always diminishing economic propositions, tuning
productive national efforts into ephemeral gain of territory with
unclear end results. Sri Lanka is no exception to this rule.
Already the cost of living is hitting the roof and tourism, the main
source of employment and income, is suffering. World Bank's
caution notwithstanding, the President appears to be bent on his
singular pursuit of war in preference to peace.
The LTTE's record of CFA violations, arms procurement and
trafficking, killings and human rights excesses when the peace
process was alive, has left it internationally high and dry. Even in
countries that had lent a sympathetic ear to Tamil grievances
during the last two decades, the LTTE is being shunned. In fact,
these countries are involved in the process of dismantling the
LTTE support network. That probably makes the President and
his military lobby think that after a bloody battle or two in the
north, the Tamil issue would become a historical aberration
rather than a struggle of minorities for their rights.
They cannot be more mistaken. The quest for democratic rights
of Tamils has continued because successive governments have
dithered on the issue during the last two decades. Even the first
three years of comparative peace from 2002 has not
qualitatively made a difference to the Tamil grievances. Military
action alone is not going to make the ordinary Tamils participate
in the democratic exercise in Sri Lanka. They will continue the
fight in some form or other till they are satisfied, whether the
LTTE exists or not. After all, the LTTE thrives only on Tamil
grievances. That is the bottom line. The President has shown a
great deal of political alacrity in handling issues at home and
abroad. He has to handle the Tamil issue with the same alacrity
if he has to emerge as the President who makes a difference.
In any case the President is far from routing the LTTE in its
home turf in the north. If the second failed attempt of the
security forces to make headway in Muhamalai last week is any
indication, the LTTE continues to remain strong in the north
despite its losses. The security forces and the nation will be
required to sacrifice more men and material before military
victory of sorts comes in the near future. And that is not going
to be the end of the agony of the nation and its people.

(Col. R Hariharan, a retired Military Intelligence specialist on
South Asia, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian
Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90.He is associated
with the Chennai Centre for China Studies.)