The Rajpal Abeynayake Column

The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake

Looking behind the 'donor conference' façade
Never before in the history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few. In terms of hard cash that is. Last week's donor conference in Japan was the most extravagant example of that and of course there were exultant reports that a record amount of aid has been drummed up at this conference 'despite the non-participation of the LTTE."

Funny. When the first donor conference was announced a few months into the ceasefire and the peace talks, there were howls of protests that the LTTE was being allowed a look-in at the donor conference at all. The government was accused of carrying the LTTE on its lap, and conferring international legitimacy on what was a pariah organisation. In other words, the LTTE was damned for its participation at the donor conference.

Today, the LTTE is damned for its non participation at the donor conference. Their not being there is being called a great betrayal, and most of the time by people who saw their being there, in the first place, as a glaring affront.

Anyway, whatever this was, this was not a donor conference, for the simple reason that it was not all about money. There were reams written about the amount of aid received - a record 4.5 billion US dollars, it was said. But why so much money in a country which had utilized only 14 per cent of all the aid that was received in the year before last, for instance? That percentage was raised to 18 per cent last year, for example, and even that increase of 4 percentage points was heralded as a major achievement by Finance Minister K.N. Choksy.

If 18 per cent is the overall utilisation of aid, what is the major achievement in receiving an 'unprecedented' 4.5 billion USD in aid? Chances are that a major part of it will go unused, because it is not conceivable that there will be a drastic increase in the percentage of aid utilisation in one year. If a boy says his pocket money was raised from Rs. 20 to Rs. 100, it doesn't make a lollipop's difference to him if all he gets to spend out of that 100 is still a little more than Rs. 20, right?So the donor conference was not about money.

But it was an entirely different matter that the pretence was that it was about money, and that basically the country's soul was on sale, because a great spectacle was made out of the fact that we are owing to various countries, and that we want to owe more to them.

To me, at least, quite apart from the complex, if not convoluted politics that is involved with the donor conference, the spectacle of a respectable leadership having to make a great show of getting handouts, was a sorry show in itself. This is of course apart from the political needs that arose from this donor conference.

Basically, this whole Tiger business has taken us from being an owing and borrowing country into being a conspicuous 'international basket case' because our whole political leadership was basically almost having to physically genuflect at the altar of international funding in Tokyo. To a great many, this was the 'symptom' of a country's malaise. All that sickening genuflecting in Tokyo (and the "hurrah we are very successful beggars this time'' cheering squads) was symptomatic of the fact that as a nation we have been quite hard done by because of this war, and all that has followed as a result of it.

But, the real malaise in fact was the aid conference. Internationally, we are hard done by, and we have been hard done by always, and our war is often the excuse and the instrument that the so called international community has used to fix us. Now, taken as a statement in itself, no doubt that may sound like a diatribe!

The international neo liberal economic order, the World Bank and the IMF financial culture has drastically limited our options; on top of it we are saddled with a conflict that is often not being allowed to be settled on our own terms because the international community keeps getting involved.

As for direct involvement, we have of course technically had only the Indian involvement, which effectively stopped a successful push for an end to the war with the Vadamarachchi campaign. We are not talking of a specific time or a specific instance, but regional proxies we know are often made willing or unwilling proxies by bigger powers. Or the bigger powers say "let the conflict be solved according to the way the regional powers want it.''

Either way the fact remains that we cannot solve this conflict on our own terms, and if somebody says the Sri Lankan forces have been incompetent and have not been able to win the war, and that both the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government have not been able to forge a lasting peace, they are telling only half the truth.

Now, the instances may have been few and far between -- but there have been a few openings, when the resolution of the conflict was within sight, either by war or by relatively peaceful means. But international factors, international 'concerns', international 'safety nets' always intervened. It can't be documented in one or even ten articles; but the fact is that the international community always dictated such things 'as a meaningful negotiated settlement' and acted often as a safety net, not for the Sri Lankan government, but for the LTTE, that they too finally came to label as 'terrorist'.

The worst joke is that now we have to be a basket case in the international media glare, genuflect at a 'donor conference' which is supposed to be a gigantic favour being done to this nation. A jeremiad it may sound, but the truth is we have had to sell our soul and dignity, and in a very telling way at that, last week. And the even worse joke is that that's being called the symptom our troubles, when in the larger picture that is the disease.

We are not the classic international basket case even though we may appear to be -- we are the classic international victim. Which is all the more reason the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government should get together and solve this crisis -- on their own terms.

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