N Sathiya Moorthy 27 August 2019
As anticipated, the appointment of Lt-Gen Shavendra Silva as the 23rd Commander of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has raised concerns in western capitals especially, even as their ‘Eastern counterparts’, including not only China but also Japan, have looked the other way. If anything, Japan, acting alone or in consort from the traditional western ally, has despatched the forgotten peace envoy, Yusushi Y, to Colombo, and he has conferred with different sections of stake-holders to the even more forgotten ‘ethnic issue’ and ore forgotten ‘peace process’.
The immediate Indian neighbour, whose crucial vote in the 2012 UNHRC made the difference to ‘global demands’ for ‘war crimes probe’, has seemingly left it as an ‘internal affair’ of Sri Lanka. It goes beyond the recent Indian actions on the border state of Jammu & Kashmir. under the incumbent Sirisena-Wickremekesinghe’s strained dual leadership of Sri Lanka, New Delhi has left it even more to the internal systems and schemes to take charge. All including the duo and the TNA leadership of the ‘war-victimised’ Tamils have failed their nation and themselves even more.
Now ahead of the presidential polls, the TNA and also other faction-ridden Tamil groups especially want the ‘international community’ back in business. TNA’s Sampanthan particularly said as much to Japanese envoy Y, and earlier to the visiting European Union (EU) delegation and other western groups that keep calling on him and other stake-holders in the country.
Those visits and also the TNA’s appeal have become a predictable routine ahead of every election in the country and every session of the UNHRC, for a decade and more now. Only Y’s visit thus stands out. It is still anybody’s guess why he was here, and what he had to offer the various stake-holders than already, especially after Japan returned to Sri Lanka as a ‘development partner’, identified with PM Ranil Wickremeisnhe’s ‘anti-China’ political leadership than used to be the case for decades ahead of the war’s end.
‘Grant’ standing
None has challenged the official Government position on Silva’s appointment than veteran veteran-right JHU Minister Champika Ranawaka. On matters domestic politics, he has been competing with the likes of fellow-Cabinet Minister, Rajitha Senaratne. The two were close Rajapaksa loyalists when Mahinda R was President, and took the pro-UNP route via candidate-turned-President Maithripala Sirisena. With no party to call his own, Rajitha joined the UNP.
The way the likes of them condemn the Rajapaksa regime for all the wrong-doings and all that they feel have gone wrong with Sri Lanka over the decades since Independence, one would believe that they were anti-Rajapaksa since birth, and equally so viz the latter’s parent party in the SLFP. The Rajapaksas have since broken away from the SLFP. The latter used to be a ‘Bandaranaikye party’, which they had for their own for a decade, now only to create a ‘Rajapaksa mirror-image’ in the SLPP.
Already, the Foreign Ministry through a statement has told foreign nations that Silva’s appointment is an ‘internal matter’ of the nation’ and their questioning the same tantamount to challenging the nation’s sovereignty, too. Predictably, Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana has not joined the chorus, where there is only a solo voice on the subject, from Minister Ranawaka.
In contesting the western criticism of the Silva appointment, and targeting the US front-liner in particular, Champika has put his knowledge of world history to good use. As he recalled, Silva was possibly the Sri Lankan equivalent of America’s ‘Civil War’ commander, Gen Ulysses Grant. Grant did face post-war probes of the kind, so has Gen Silva now, Minister Ranawaka has said.
Ranawaka is in solitary company as for as the Government Ministers and other sections of the political leadership – at least, thus far. So is Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who has taken a pro-West stand. Having identified himself with the ‘non-elitist’ (?) UNP deputy leader, Minister Sajith Premadasa for party nomination for the presidential polls, it remains to be seen how the latter’s traditional southern Sinhala constituency is going to like the Samaraweera line on the issue.
Consequent by their pregnant silence on the issue is not only President Sirisena but also the pro-West PM in Wickremesinghe. The President, having done his ‘good deed’ for the day, can afford to keep quiet. But Wickremesinghe has to say something, whether for or against what could even afford to dismiss as ‘unilateral presidential decision’ even in this era of 19-A.
Wickremesinghe has since chosen silence for his comments, just now. It is not because he is too busy with the politics of presidential polls and candidate-selection within his UNP, to be able to devote time for matters administrative, that too of such a critical and crucial nature. He can’t afford to lose the traditional ‘Sinhala South’ constituency of the UNP, or whatever is there. Whoever the party candidate for the presidential polls, he also has to rebuild the anti-Rajapaksa ‘minority constituency’ almost from the scratch, after internal differences and diffidence of the past nearly five years – which he did not care to check when it was still easy and possible.
Elephant in the room
Since returning to power in 2015, whenever and wherever an occasion presented itself, PM Wickremesinghe was known to declare that the US was the ‘elephant in the room’ as far as the adjoining and faraway waters of the Indian Ocean were concerned. He would also often mouth the known US-led Western position on ‘rules-based order’ in the Indian Ocean waters.
It is one thing for Wickremesinghe for not to find new venues and avenues to repeat himself. More recently, however, Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Ariyasinghe has returned to the forgotten Sri Lankan theme of the sixties, when Colombo called for Indian Ocean as a ‘zone of peace’. At an IORA maritime discussion at Colombo, he also reportedly spoke about ‘freedom of navigation’ in the Ocean. In recent years, these were terms seen as targeting China and China alone, but Ariyasinghe did not seem to have said much beyond what he is reported to have said.
Secretary Ariyasinghe was the Sri Lankan PR for the Geneva establishments of the UN, especially the UNHRC, through much of the troubled years of the ‘war-crimes probe’ negotiations and resolution. He was PR both under erstwhile Rajapaksa regime and the incumbent Government of Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo.
It may be too early to assume that Colombo is either reviewing the recent position on IOR or was returning to the unworkable old theme of ‘zone of peace’, et al. But if the US or the rest of the West thought that they could arm-twist Sri Lanka, even into limited submission on the Silva appointment and such other violations on the ‘war crimes’ front, then they may end up receiving a rude shock, at the end of it all.
News reports have since quoted unnamed American officials that they would have to reconsider military and economic ties with Sri Lanka in circumstances like the Silva appointment. Washington and the rest of the West seems to have forgotten that in the post-Cold War, post-war (the latter, referring to the ‘LTTE war’), they were more eager to woo Sri Lanka than the other way round.
Through the war years, Sri Lanka got almost all its weapons and fighter-jets (barring in the Cold War era) from China and Pakistan. Pre-war and post-war, the Rajapaksa regime got much of all its massive development funding also from China. It is one thing to ask if Sri Lanka could have defeated the LTTE without assistance from the West and also the Indian neighbour, but it may be over-stretching their position.
With great effort and expenses, in terms of moneys, energies and time, the West, starting with the US, have been able to try and push back Colombo closer to the middle line in geo-strategic and developmental fronts, yet not pushed it to their side so very completely. If anything, in the name of ‘debt-trap’, Wickremesinghe converted the Rajapaksa era ‘Hambantota investments’ into a ‘debt-for-equity’ trap, which even the latter condemned so very publicly. The West could only wriggle their hands when it happened.
Today, they are the ones who are promising investments and developmental funding and military aid. Unlike during the Rajapaksa time, when the Wickremesinghes of Sri Lanka acquiesced to the Government’s wooing of China on the latter’s term, today there is open protest to American offer of aid and assistance, including so-called ‘military aid’, which the ACSA and SOFA are definitely not.
Buying time…
For his part, President Sirisena has declared that he required time till January 2020 to decide on the American developmental funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Going beyond the Sirisena politics of a unique way, he seems making sense, unlike Wickremesinghe, who seems to be in a hurry on everything American – at least for the record.
On paper, Sirisena seems wanting to buy time, whatever the reason. It may also be that he does not want to go ahead with the MCC proposal. Yet, by hindsight, it can also be argued that the incumbent President does not want to tie down his successor to commitments that the latter may not be keen on honouring. After all, there is no news yet of Sirisena contesting the presidential polls this time, nor is there any hope for him to win it this time, unlike earlier.
Domestic politics apart, the Silva appointment may have raised a crucial question for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans to address. Post-appointment, UNHRC boss Michelle Bachelet declared that such actions might force the UN to reconsider induction of Sri Lankan troops for peace-keeping work elsewhere.
Is it not the job of someone else in the UN system to talk about peace-keeping forces? Or, is it yet another preparation, on the lines of the Darusman Report, which is what the West continues to refer to ‘la affaire Silva’ – forgetting for once that the General was also the Sri Lankan deputy PR at UN headquarters in New York, for close to five full years, 2010-15, and they did not object beyond the perfunctory!
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)
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What do the Tamils want?
N Sathiya Moorthy Colombo Gazette 26 August 2019
As with all post-war elections especially, the nation’s Tamil community remains confused – as much as what they want of the Sri Lankan State system as whom to vote for. Their political leadership(s) are divided and guilty, but neither seems to have touched them or the captive sections of their declining constituencies.
Topping the list of course is the TNA, whose parliamentarians met and repeated one more time their vague demands and vaguer posturing one more time. They want to negotiate with main presidential candidates, but are already resolved against Gota Rajapaksa. Yet, Mahinda R has named leftist leader Tissa Vitharana, the famous author of the infamous ‘APRC Report’ on power-devolution, to talk to the Tamils on his behalf. EPDP’s Douglas Devananda, after a meeting with Gota R, says he is the only candidate the Tamils should vote for if they want a political solution, and that the latter has promised something closer to the moon. Neither has said that where that moon is located, in the mind or in a more material way – not that either of them used the term in their conversation or public statements.
JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake is the only one who has been consistently saying that the majority Sinhala community cannot ‘real freedom’ without resolving the ethnic issue – but the Tamils too do not take him and his party seriously. Nor that the JVP has any concrete proposals going beyond whatever has been made by others – or, purported to have been made. Anyway, in their deep hearts, the JVP used to be the Tamil community’s ‘enemy number one’ before the Sri Lankan State and armed forces first, and the Rajapaksas later on, replaced them.
After the JVP’s massive presidential poll rally at Colombo’s Galle Face Green, the speculation is about whose vote the party would split – that of the SLPP camp or Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP-UNF-DNF combine, which is still in the making. But no one is giving the JVP even the remotest chance to win the presidency. Yet, imagine the situation in which Rohana Wijeweera’s ‘insurgency-prone’ JVP has been mainstreamed and consumed too! In Tamil polity, the two travelled in parallel lines, and the twine has not met, despite the exit of the LTTE and the continued existence electoral elements and identities.
Ironies of ironies
The post-war Tamil ironies keep beating one to the other and one better or worse than the other. The TNA leadership which seemed to have had a season ticket of sorts to New Delhi, began forgetting India once the US offered a prop-up in the form of the UNHRC resolution on ‘war crimes probe’. Today, half the time they talk about ‘accountability issues’, and the other half they don’t talk at at all.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who would often rush to Delhi, reportedly/purportedly at the ‘invitation of Government of India’, stopped doing so once ahead of Elections-2015, he patched up with the Sajith and Karu factions within the UNP. That was when they were all in the Opposition. Today, as Prime Minister, Wickremesinghe should not be seen as doing so. Yet, whenever he keeps travelling to Delhi, he seems to be talking more about development funding and China, not the Tamils and the ethnic issue. Not that the TNA cares, either.
Less said about C V Wigneswaran, who retired honourably as a Judge of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court the better, He left without anyone shedding a drop of tear when he exited as the worst-performing chief minister of any Province in the country. He left in near-disgrace as the post-war Northern Province, which could have done with an effective and efficient chief minister, not a demagogue, which he ended up becoming.
Today, Wigneswaran wants India-facilitated 13-A, for starters. As chief minister, while visiting New Delhi on what was dubbed a ‘private visit’, he seemed to have thought that his Diaspora followers (or, mentors?) would not approve of it if he met with the Indian political/diplomatic leadership. Amen!
Then you have Ananthi Sasitharan, once a flavour of the season, a creation of the UNHRC politics. According to Tamil media reports – yes, hold your breath – she has joined hands with President Maitripala Sirisena’s SLFP, ahead of presidential polls. It has come in the midst of the SLFP continuing with unending talks with the breakaway SLPP on forming an alliance for the presidential polls. Mind you, the SLPP is owned by the Rajapaksas, against whom alone Ananthi commenced her politics in the post-war era, aided, abetted and assisted by the Diaspora and the ‘international community’ (read: West).
Constitutional cover-up
At recent meetings with visiting international players, TNA’s Sampanthan was reported to have repeated the old Tamil lines — that the community has been ‘once again cheated’ by the Sinhala-led Government in the country. He and the rest of the TNA leadership want the West to ensure that the Tamils are given their due.
In between, you had the game of ‘Constitution Assembly’, which at inception and even long earlier, the players knew would not take off after just doing that. The TNA knew it better than the rest, from the collective Tamil experience. They also knew that CA was not the way to political solution to the promises made to them.
Whether in negotiations with the post-war Rajapaksa regime or in the early days of the incumbent government, which everyone knew would split before you said ‘cheers’, the TNA allowed itself be distracted by the West’s talks of ‘accountability issues’. With the result, even the apolitical Sinhala street-mind became as defiant as it was at the height of LTTE terrorism. Today, after the Easter blasts, other than a few in urban Colombo, very few Sinhalas would even bother about the ‘long forgotten’ ethnic issue.
If the Constitution Assembly provided the cover-up for the Sinhala polity on the political solution, it became even less for the TNA leadership. They never ever bothered to talk to the Sinhala community, going over the head of their divided political leadership. They did unto the Sinhala polity what they wanted the rest of the world to do to them – treat them as the ‘sole representatives’ of the Tamil people.
The right had come the TNA’s way by default after the exit of the LTTE. A creation of the LTTE was the closest that the Tamil community could relate to. A creation of the LTTE was also the one that the Sri Lankan State structure refused to trust. The distrust and mistrust went beyond political leaders and leaderships – whether it was a Rajapaksa, a Sirisena or a Wickremesinghe, whoever was at the helm. It would refuse to go away if a Sajith Premadasa or a Karu Jayasuriya or a Champika Ranawakka were to take their place at the nation’s helm.
The problem for the pre-war Tamils was the Tamils themselves. The problem for the war-time Tamils was the LTTE. In the post-war era, the problem of the Tamils is the Tamil polity, starting with the TNA. The latter not only failed to give a unified leadership to the community now that the LTTE was no more there. Instead, it had its own standard for measuring ‘my anti-LTTE Tamil, and your anti-LTTE Tamil’….
Thus, one-time anti-LTTE Suresh Premachandran was fine, but not Douglas Devananda or other EPRLF factions. Now, they know where Suresh P is also – outside the TNA and against the TNA. If Suresh has not succeeded in bringing together Wigneswaran and Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam, it’s also because their personal egos are bigger than his. The collective ego of the institutionalised TNA is even bigger.
Playing mind-game
The unfortunate irony of the Tamil politics is that leaders with come and leaders may go, but the problem would remain. The reference is not only to the Tamil leaders and leaderships, but also those of the mainline Sinhala polity and political leaderships. As the nation moves away from the era of LTTE, they would find new locus standi to sustain a new status quo. The past would be there for ready reference for ready reckoning at future Constitution Assemblies, future international interlocutors, and possibly a future Indian Government and leaderships! Nothing more, nothing less…
There is an unsaid message in all this from the Diaspora Tamil groups. They have a virtual government in the TGTE, they have a virtual presence in the form of a ‘TGTE government and parliament’, whose members are second only to UN member-nations, in terms of global spread, presence and participation. They are playing a mind-game for mind-space, which the present-day players in Sri Lanka and elsewhere just do not understand – nor have the time to comprehend, either. Where then is the question of their addressing future threats from a position of relative strength and better cooperation than in the LTTE past?
The article appeared in the Ceylon Today on 27 August 2019