No Paradise: Rajapaksa’s Post-War Sri Lanka

Since the announcement last Tuesday that Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa had defeated former army chief General Sarath Fonseka in the country’s first national election since the defeat of the separatist LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) last May, we in the United States have heard little about the election’s aftermath. In the run up to the election, bits of valuable information reached our shores through The New York Times, The Phildelphia Inquirer, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor and others, but since the election’s conclusion, Sri Lanka has faded into the background behind more dramatic stories in Haiti, Afghanistan, and China.

To some, Rajapaksa’s win signaled the triumph of democracy after decades of civil war, but it doesn’t take much looking to find that Rajapaksa resorted to some decidedly undemocratic methods to secure victory. Reporters Without Borders condemned the Sri Lankan government for blocking websites, intimidating critics, and possibly being responsible for the disappearance of opposition supporters. The Sri Lankan government had been preventing foreign journalists from entering the country to cover the elections, and the situation on the ground in Sri Lanka, especially in Tamil areas, had hardly been conducive to ensuring that the citizens’ right to vote would be protected. The election day bombshell that Fonseka was allegedly not registered to vote prompted Rajapaksa’s UPFA to loudly threatened to challenge his election if he were to win. This threat came despite the fact that the election commission had declared that Fonseka’s papers were in order and that not being registered to vote had no bearing on whether he could hold office.

Since the election, Rajapaksa has made drastic moves to consolidate his power and clamp down on journalists, the political opposition, and protesters in the streets. Earlier fears of post-election violence between supporters of Rajapaksa and Fonseka seem to have given way to fears of a coup, at least according to Rajapaksa, orchestrated by military supporters of General Fonseka. In response, Rajapaksa has ordered the biggest shake up of the Sri Lankan military in decades, purging the forces of high-ranking supporters of Fonseka. Many justifiably fear that Rajapaksa’s election will worsen the state of media freedom in Sri Lanka.

During the election, Rajapaksa was strongly supported by the ethnic Sinhalese majority in the south. Rajapaksa won over 65%, while Fonseka – also Sinhalese – carried less than 35% of the vote. The largest Tamil political party – faced with the option of  supporting the president who led a brutal war against them or supporting the general who carried out the president’s orders – chose to back Fonseka, hopeful that he would do more than Rajapaksa has to bring about a Sinhalese-Tamil reconciliation. In the Jaffna district, the Tamil heartland, 64% supported Fonseka and just 25% backed Rajapaksa. Since the end of the long and devastating civil war in May, Rajapaksa has aggravated ethnic tensions and has failed to demonstrate a desire or ability to reimagine Sri Lanka as an inclusive democratic society willing to accommodate the still-legitimate Tamil demands on the Sri Lankan government that originally led the country into war. His behavior since his election victory once again appears to reflect an insecure and greedy desire to remain in power rather than a strategy for rebuilding an island destroyed and torn apart by violence and social inequality.

This shortsightedness could backfire on Rajapaksa. The International Crisis Group still sees a need for international community involvement in reconstructing Sri Lanka and making sure Tamil grievances are responded to. Rajapaksa should also keep in mind that while the LTTE has been soundly defeated militarily in Sri Lanka, its organization still exists overseas, holding up to one billion dollars in assets. Despite its wealth, this network is, for now, beset by infighting and a lack of central leadership and fighters. Yet, Tamil concerns cannot be expected to go unaddressed forever, and a continued denial of rights, opportunities, and dignity to the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan government just might provide the motivation to unify and organize that today’s overseas Tigers are lacking.

President Rajapaksa believes that “Sri Lanka’s struggle is a victory for global democracy and demonstrates that a workable model exists for eradicating terrorism.” Optimists see this peacetime election as an opportunity for Rajapaksa and Sri Lankans to put the war behind them and to get on with creating an economically prosperous, politically inclusive, and socially harmonious nation. Yet, such a project will take time and will require rebuilding a constructive Tamil political voice, not merely a relatively free electoral win by a seemingly divisive and ethnically chauvinist politician. Based on Rajapaksa’s record since the defeat of the LTTE, I doubt that he is a leader capable of forging a new peaceful political future for Sri Lanka.

And I fear for the toll that fighting terrorism takes on democracy. While Sri Lanka may provide a “workable model” for defeating terrorism, it hardly provides us with a desirable model. As a country engaged in (perhaps indefinitely) fighting terrorism, we in the United States should see Sri Lanka as a warning. We must decide if we are willing to sacrifice our democratic ideals to possibly attain an all-out victory over terrorism.

Sri Lanka: Winning the War, But What About the Peace?

A dozen years ago, while in India, I became intrigued by the civil war raging in Sri Lanka. Encouraged by my Sri Lankan meditation teacher and an Australian Buddhist monk who had resided for years in Sri Lanka, I planned a research trip to the small tropical island nation. With a book full of good contacts and a head full of warnings about being careful what I ask, how I ask it, and who I ask it of, I eagerly prepared for my trip. But just two weeks before my departure, Tamil rebels detonated a series of bombs in the Sri Lankan capital, and I was advised to cancel my trip. I wavered, but the monk’s argument won me over. Who wanted to be worried about being killed every time they got on a bus or went to the market or left their hotel room? Reluctantly, I canceled the trip, but over the years continued to follow developments there.

This week, the Sri Lankan military has finally defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after over 30 years of armed conflict, killing the LTTE’s leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and wiping out most of the LTTE leadership. In the early 1980s the LTTE emerged as the strongest and most ruthless of the Tamil separatist groups, upset with the discrimination and violence directed against the island’s Tamil-speaking Hindu minority by the Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority. Sri Lanka’s Buddhist clergy rabidly supported the war despite its high cost, heavy civilian casualties, and questionable effectiveness. The LTTE (and other armed and unarmed Tamil groups), fighting for a Tamil homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka, was supported from abroad and from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu despite being labeled a terrorist organization by the US and other nations. For decades the conflict dragged on without an end in sight, and was presumed to be unwinnable by either side. Up to 100,000 people died. But in the last few years, Sri Lanka’s government launched an all-out assault on the LTTE, and the LTTE was split by infighting. The Sri Lankan military’s final push in the last few weeks precipitated a humanitarian crisis in which hundreds of thousands of terrified Tamil civilians were caught in the crossfire between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE, and 7,000 were killed. But Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won his war.

Now that the Sri Lankan military has emerged victorious, it remains to be seen how well the government secures the peace. The struggle for a Tamil homeland has perhaps been dealt a final blow and Sri Lankans are undoubtedly weary of war. But if, in the wake of the war, the Sri Lankan government treats Tamils as conquered subjects and fails to address the conflict’s root causes, resistance may again grow. This week’s national holiday celebrating the government’s victory over the LTTE must have seemed like insensitive gloating to many of the country’s Tamils, and it makes one wonder if the Sri Lankan government truly grasps what needs to happen next.

The challenge facing the Sri Lankan government is complex and substantial – to heal the wounds inflicted over the past three decades of war, to substantively address Tamil grievances against the Sri Lankan government, and to build a new inclusive Sri Lankan state and society. Can a government that has been on a war footing for so long accomplish these delicate tasks? Can a government that has for so long demonized, distrusted, and assaulted nearly three million of its own people move towards a just and peaceful future? I fear that it will not. Without doing this, the island’s Tamils will continue to flee Sri Lanka and those left will become increasingly marginalized. This may or may not result in renewed violence on the part of Tamils against the Sri Lankan state. Either way, the future for the country’s Tamil population looks bleak unless the Sri Lankan government is pushed to rebuild their war-torn country in a manner that includes those who once rejected its legitimacy.