{"id":212595,"date":"2020-08-14T21:58:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T16:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=212595"},"modified":"2020-08-18T13:36:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T08:06:26","slug":"icarus-ascending-a-further-response-to-dayan-jayatilleka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/icarus-ascending-a-further-response-to-dayan-jayatilleka\/","title":{"rendered":"Icarus Ascending? A further Response To Dayan Jayatilleka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mark Salter<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Salter<\/p><\/div>\n

To bowdlerise Jane Austin, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Dayan Jayatilleka<\/span><\/a> has a certain facility with words. For evidence of this, look no further than his latest, characteristically quick-fire response to me<\/span><\/a>. In this context, however, another Jayatillekan linguistic tour de force<\/i> is no substitute for sober, factually-rooted analysis \u2013 however extensive the range of (to quote) \u2018hesgemonic liberal-\u2018humanitarian\u2019 interventionisms\u2019 and other assorted -isms and -wasms with which it attempts to seduce the unsuspecting reader. Indeed, I find myself wondering if there isn\u2019t a distinct possibility that Jayatilleka\u2019s current flight of the political imagination, visible both here and in his latest (12 Aug) FTDaily<\/i> offering, hasn\u2019t potentially launched him on an upward trajectory that recalls Joni Mitchell\u2019s \u2018Icarus ascending, on beautiful foolish arms\u2019: here\u2019s hoping that things don\u2019t end the same way here.<\/p>\n

By contrast, for the purpose of this response I intend, as previously, to stick to historical facts and their interpretation, happily leaving discussion of weighty matters of a meta \u2013 or perhaps I mean stratospheric? \u2013 bound defence of \u2018nationalist Left populism\u2019, lengthy citation from a recent academic tome on the decay of liberal democracy to which Jayatilleka himself contributed et al<\/i> to others.<\/p>\n

Jayatilleka\u2019s opening contention that my allegedly \u2018dogmatic myopia\u2019 is \u2018completely unhelpful\u2019 to understanding the results of Sri Lanka\u2019s recent parliamentary elections in fact completely misses the point. Here, as earlier, my chief<\/i> concern is to set the facts straight in the context of both describing the ethnic conflict\u2019s historical trajectory and interpreting the same. Any further conclusions I draw regarding the critical importance of embracing an inclusive, accommodating understanding of Sri Lankan-ness in the past, no less than the current political context are precisely that: conclusions drawing on clear, past evidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With these contextual preliminaries out of the way, let us return to historical matters, specifically those raised by Jayatilleka in his latest rejoinder. First, he asserts that \u2018while a negotiated settlement with armed insurgents is a desirable option, it cannot be so in situations in which those insurgents have repeatedly turned their backs on negotiations, and murdered the negotiators including their own. Such movements leave only a military option open.\u2019 Where to start with this wholly inaccurate depiction of the negotiations-directed aspect of the Sri Lankan conflict?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to the peace process initiated with the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA)\u2019s signature in early 2002, there had been a number of efforts to end armed hostilities as a first step towards a wider peace agreement: notably in Thimpu (1985) and the \u2013 as it turned out, temporary \u2013 ceasefire initiated by a newly elected President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1995. To assert the Tigers simply \u2018turned their back\u2019 on negotiations in either instance is plain wrong. With respect to the summer 1985 Thimpu talks, hosted by the Indian government, which resulted in an important Declaration of Principles by the composite Tamil delegation (at this stage the LTTE had not yet effectively wiped out its radical Tamil competitors and thus did not enjoy a monopoly of seats at the table), a fair assessment of the negotiation\u2019s eventual collapse might be that it was the outcome of displays of intransigence on both sides: not \u2013 as Jayatilleka\u2019s analysis might suggest – a unilateral display of Tiger grumpiness and\/or maximalism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The early 1995 ceasefire effort is a more complex affair: starting in October 1994, four rounds of talks between government and LTTE teams were held in Jaffna. These talks were supplemented by a voluminous, 40-strong exchange of letters between President Kumaratunga and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Judgements as to why the Jaffna talks, and consequently bilateral ceasefire, broke down in April 1995, heralding a return to armed hostilities, vary, not least depending on the analyst\u2019s ideological disposition, ethnic identity and\/or both.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my own view it is fair to say that, in essence, the breakdown boiled down to the two side\u2019s very differing agendas. While government negotiators were keen to reach simultaneous agreement on a range of issues \u2013 chiefly meaning a ceasefire, a reconstruction package for the North and East and a \u2018political solution\u2019 to the ethnic conflict \u2013 the LTTE team emphasised the need for a step-by-step approach, including a formal ceasefire and \u2018normalisation\u2019 of civilian life in war affected areas, as a prelude to a more far-reaching political agreement. In other words, remedying the consequences of the conflict as a prelude to addressing its consequences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, to depict the April 1995 resumption of hostilities pace Jayatilleka<\/i> as a consequence of the LTTE once again \u2018turning their backs on negotiations\u2019 is simplistic bordering on the plain fanciful. Here as always in negotiations, it takes (at least) two to tango. And if neither party is willing to enter the dance, the consequences are both obvious and blame for the outcome jointly shared. It further follows that any decision to return to war in such a context is neither inevitable or unavoidable, as Jayatilleka also appears to suggest. It is quite simply a choice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more evidently the case than with the resumption of open hostilities in August 2006 after over four years of ceasefire that in its latter period from 2004 onwards, as detailed in the field reports of the Nordic Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), was increasingly observed by both sides more in breach of than adherence to the CFA\u2019s provisions. In line with by now well-established political nostrums, Jayatilleka describes the President and Prime Minister as \u2018continuing to reap the well-earned political capital of having recognized the nature of the Tigers and resolutely defeating them\u2019, offering as supporting evidence then President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s speech at the autumn 2005 funeral of assassinated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar \u2013 a despicable act the Tiger\u2019s resolute denial of responsibility for which did nothing either to stop either the EU eventually joining the ranks of countries proscribing the LTTE as a terrorist outfit, or to convince a largely sceptical world of their professed innocence in this regard.<\/p>\n

In reality, the then President\u2019s position with regard to the LTTE was a good deal more malleable than that suggested by Jayatilleka. Evidence for this assertion is amply supplied in my book, and it is evidence of which Jayatilleka ought to be well aware, having claimed at the book\u2019s Colombo launch to have read it from cover to cover \u2013 and with his critical approval. On the Norwegian side, I quote ex-Deputy Foreign Minister and negotiation team member Vidar Helgesen recalling a conversation with MR sometime in early 2005 i.e. well before the November presidential elections, in which he expressed a clear willingness to explore a \u2018federal solution\u2019 with the LTTE.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s chief negotiator Erik Solheim\u2019s recollection of 2005 pre-election conversations with MR is even more explicit in this regard. In particular, Solheim recalls MR explaining that he had no time for \u2018messy\u2019 negotiations, preferring the idea of a straight man-to-man encounter with Prabakharan to iron out a total \u2018deal\u2019. In this context, MR also reportedly expressed his \u2018openess\u2019 to letting the LTTE leader \u2018have\u2019 the North and East, providing he agreed to leave the rest of the country alone. Moreover, in this context elections in LTTE-held territory were also not deemed to be a necessity by MR.<\/p>\n

In other words, where post-war hagiography paints a picture of a resolute, determined will to fight and beat the Tigers right from the political get-go of winning the 2005 presidential elections (a victory whose complex, controversial causes I analyse carefully in my book) reality, and facts, tell a rather different story. Recall, too, that, even if the motives for doing so can be questioned on both sides, MR\u2019s government also participated in two further rounds of (somewhat futile) talks with the LTTE in early and late 2006.<\/p>\n

Moving on, Jayatilleka rehashes his earlier claim that the Norwegian facilitation effort in Sri Lanka was \u2018doomed because of bad design\u2019, and in support of this view cites a statement then Irish Prime Minister John Hume is alleged to have made in Sri Lanka to the effect that it i.e the peace process \u2018may as well be shut down\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to verify this statement. Hume visited Sri Lanka in early April 2003, a time when the peace process was experiencing a major crisis on account of the failure to invite the LTTE to participate in a pre-June 2003 Tokyo donor conference meeting held in Washington DC \u2013 a failure that eventually led to the Tigers suspending their participation in the peace process. (As an officially proscribed organization in the US, the Tigers could not have been invited \u2013 to which the obvious rejoinder at the time should have been, \u2018well, hold it somewhere else then\u2019).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But whatever Hume did or did not say \u2013 and I confess to suspecting Jayatilleka of quoting him devoid of all-important context \u2013 surely more important to our evaluation of the peace process\u2019s design is that it was chiefly a consequence of the parties themselves\u2019<\/i> clearly defined and expressed wishes in this regard. In particular, Norway\u2019s relatively \u2018lightweight\u2019 facilitation role \u2013 to use Kadirgamar\u2019s description \u2013 was determined principally by the government side\u2019s wish to keep things that way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I would be the last to suggest the Norwegians got everything right in Sri Lanka \u2013 they didn\u2019t, as they themselves fully acknowledge \u2013 their involvement was a resolute, good-faith attempt to try and help move things in a positive, peace-orientated direction. Instinctively blaming Norway for the process\u2019s eventual breakdown \u2013 something at which politicians of all stripes have excelled, particularly since the war\u2019s 2009 ending – is conceptually akin to blaming the victim of a crime for their own misfortune. In Sri Lanka as elsewhere, peace processes are fundamentally as strong as the parties\u2019 determination to proceed with them. While clearly present to a significant degree, and on both sides, at the time of the CFA\u2019s signature, in practice the political will to move forward dissipated almost as quickly as it had (re)emerged. This is not the place to rehearse a detailed analysis of the factors, direct and proximate, that underlay that dissipation. If interested Jayatilleka and others will find that outlined in my book. Contra<\/i> his opening assertion, it is a narrative that is in no need of \u2018rehabilitation\u2019, as it remains in perfectly good health. It rests on a \u2018perspective and ideology\u2019 that while marginalized in current political discourse, has certainly not been \u2018disproved by history\u2019, as my analysis of pertinent historical facts above clearly indicates.<\/p>\n

As to whether it has been \u2018conclusively rejected by the electorate\u2019. The time to test that assertion will come when, if ever, a significant Sri Lankan political force opts to present an explicitly inclusivist, non-populist, non-majoritarian, political platform to the country\u2019s electorate at the polls.<\/p>\n

Any takers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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