Joint Mechanism

SRI LANKA’S COALITION GOVERNMENT LOSES ITS PARTNER


The island’s ‘United People’s Freedom Alliance’ seeks new allies to stay in power


It was with resignation that I learnt of the withdrawal as of midnight 16-17 June of the Sri Lankan coalition government’s minor partner from the arrangement with its larger yoke-fellow. This seemed to me to be a re-run of what had happened while I was holidaying on the island for three months in 1976-1977 when the current president’s, Chandrika Kumaratunga’s, mother Sirimavo Bandaranayaka was prime minister.

At that time, Mrs Bandaranayaka’s ally in government, the Communist Party, had pulled out of its link with her on the grounds that its leaders were being given scant weight and consultation. This time round, President Kumaratunga’s ally, the Marxist JVP (‘Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’ – People’s Liberation Front) left because of a squabble over tsunami aid from abroad.

The point I am making is that throughout South Asia, including Bangladesh, one of our social problems seems to be that we are apparently not yet able to tackle disputes and differences of opinion without social disruptions, stoppages and hard feelings. The resulting absence of synergy puts us in the Third World with the consequences of being in that grouping.

One of the strengths of the West is that differences of approach are generally tolerated and even welcomed as enriching additions to the people, both in the workplace and in private life. ‘Out East’ it is different. One of my relatives summed up our attitude to dissent as: “If you don’t agree with me you are my enemy.” Since perfect or near perfect agreement on all matters is an impossibility, with us quarrels, fights and feuds are normal.

It was not always so. Anyone who has read one or more of the Norse sagas knows that a thousand years ago the Europeans lived like us. They used violence at the drop of a hat and fell out with over politics, land, money, women and religion. They lived in squalor and filth and in fear and trembling because everybody around them could turn against them at any time on any grounds that might come to mind.

The Europeans emerged from that miasma. Differences of viewpoint are discussed in a more or less civilised way throughout North America and Western Europe. It is only in pockets like Northern Ireland and Sicily where Irish nationalism and the ‘Cosa Nostra’ (the Mafia) are leftovers from an era when Europeans thought and behaved as we do.

To return to the matter at hand: President Chandrika Kumaratunga has declared that her government would not collapse despite the departure of its main coalition partner over her refusal to drop a plan to share billions of dollars in tsunami relief with the separatist Tamilrebels – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The head of the JVP, Somawansa Amerasinghe, predicted that the government's hold on power would "vanish within weeks," as he announced on Thursday that his Marxist party waswithdrawing its 39 MPs from the alliance. That decision reduced President Kumaratunga's ruling coalition to a minority status with 81 seats in the 225-member parliament.
The Marxists pulled out over an arrangement, supported by the president, that would establish a body (‘Tsunami Relief Council’) jointly run by the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels to ensure that aid is distributed to all tsunami-affected areas - including the Tamil-majority North and East, which are controlled by the guerrillas.
The 26 December tsunami killed more than 31,000 Sri Lankans and displaced about a million others.
"We leave with a sense of deep regret for work not completed," Mr Amerasinghe said. "Our earnest request to safeguard the integrity of the country fell on deaf ears."
Claiming that she had the backing of the principal opposition party, the United National Party (UNP), President Kumuratunga said her government would stand firm.
"I wish to say that the government will not shake because of this. There is no such instability," she said. "The government has enough strength and conviction to do it."
The UNPs spokesman, G.L. Peiris, earlier urged the president to sign the aid-sharing deal, but declined to say whether or not whether his party would support the action itself.
The LTTE began fighting in 1983 for an independent homeland, Tamil Eelam, for the ethnic Tamils in the North and East, claiming discrimination by the (majority) Singhalese population.
While a 2002 cease-fire has largely held, the rebels have complained that tsunami assistance has not reached Tamil areas quickly enough.
The Marxists last week threatened to leave the alliance if the president did not renounce the aid plan (‘Joint Mechanism’), arguing that it would ‘legitimise’ the rebels' separatist agenda and possibly ‘legitimise’ the rebels themselves. President Kumaratunga has stuck to her plan, arguing that it presents an opportunity to close the book on a war that has killed approximately 65,000 people.
Senior presidential officials said that President Kumaratunga planned to refer the aid-sharing proposal for a vote in parliament as early as next Wednesday.

The total amount of money gifted by international donors to Sri Lanka is approximately three billion US dollars. As observant users of London’s underground may have realised by now, the Tamils were dubious about benefiting from that through the Singhalese from the earliest post-tsunami days and set up their own mutual assistance organisation called ‘White Pigeon’.

President Kumaratunga said over state radio: “The JVP should bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions” and over the island nation’s television: “(the) LTTE will not gain any legal status through this (‘Joint Mechanism’) administrative arrangement.”

Meanwhile, a magistrate has authorised the police to forcibly remove a pro-JVP Buddhist monk called Dambara Anila who had been on what was described by local media as a ‘death fast’ outside Colombo’s Fort railway station in that city’s business district.

The background to all the above is that during colonial days the British, who were the overlords, had the impression that the Tamil minority were collectively more content with colonial status than the Singhalese majority. Accordingly, they naturally favoured having Tamils in high and responsible positions – in the civil service and in leadership roles in the senior professions such as those in the legal system.

When independence was given in 1948, the Singhalese were tugging at the reins to take over at the top. So much so in fact that many if not most locals think methods outside the rules were employed. The Tamils, during the late 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, suspected that their young people’s examination results had been adversely tampered with, with a view to keeping them out of the more lucrative professions and career paths. The Singhalese acted the ‘raw prawn’ but few were convinced. Finally, after many protests, in approximately 1976 the Tamils finally used violence.

The Tamils’ almost legendary leader, the charismatic Prabakharan, demanded a homeland for his own people, which he called Tamil Eelam. This intended nation would occupy the entire North and North East of the 25,000 square mile island. Neither of the nation’s two major parties in government, the Sri Lankan Freedom party (SLFP) nor the UNP (sometimes nicknamed ‘Uncle Nephews’ Party’ on account of alleged widespread nepotism) would have any of that and the situation deteriorated into outright civil war. At this time, the war is thought to cost a quarter of the country’s GDP and Sri Lanka receives foreign aid to the tune of about $ 700 million every year.

The island has come down to a level which is not too far from being a deeply tropical hell. There is a ‘tit for tat’ relationship between the two largest communities. Typically, the Tamils would kill government soldiers and when news of it leaks out Singhalese mobs would go on the rampage, attacking Tamils and Tamil homes and businesses. Whole populations have been displaced and sometimes the government has laid on ships to transport Tamils from Singhalese areas to safer places.

For the last few decades, there have been numerous Tamil ‘refugee’ communities residing all over the West including the United Kingdom. Many Tamils fled for safety to India where in Tamil Nadu state they are the majority community. It is important to note that the bulk of these ‘refugees’ are single young men. They leave their womenfolk, children and elderly men to the tender mercies of the Singhalese and live in relative safety abroad.

Since Sri Lanka is a strategically important country, lying on the route to Australia from Europe and (very) close to India it is not surprising that foreign governments take an interest in its domestic problems. The Norwegian government has provided an arbitration service between the quarrelling islanders and from time to time patches up a peace deal, which invariably frazzles out in the course of time, and the process has to be repeated in an apparently endless cycle.

All this is fairly typical of the region as a whole: Bangladesh has Bangla Bhai. Pakistan has the lawless tribal region of Waziristan. India has ‘Hindu Power = National Power’ scrawled over walls the length and breadth of the country. Nepal has its own Maoist revolution.

Like the Iceland of Njal’s Saga, which was based on apparently factual happenings in the 11th century when Christianity was displacing the Scandinavian pagan gods, we have difficulties in regard to resolving social problems and, all too often, violence is used as a first resort.

The result is that while we may well be individually worth as much as the Europeans, collectively we are struggling to survive in the modern fast changing world. Our economies are propped up by donations from foreign sources who, not surprisingly, set their own terms and conditions.

The foundation of the malaise is mutual distrust, which is the end product of bitter experience. Patients spend their countries’ scanty foreign currency reserves on routine surgical operations abroad. Some parents do the same thing in order to buy foreign education for their children in popular subjects such as basic accountancy and the syllabi of undergraduate medical courses. Part of the reason may well be that they do not trust local medical practitioners and teachers to be fair – so they send their offspring abroad.

The Sri Lanka of prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranayaka and of her daughter President Chandrika Kumaratunga is essentially the same. Many of the troubles that set off Bangladesh’s Liberation War of 1971 are still extant in slightly altered form. Time may be running out. If the West, who are in practice the rulers of the world, run out of patience they may give us something other than foreign aid to cure our problems.