Why World Bank can't 'buy' peace
The view of the Japanese is that there must be peace before they pump in the buckshee for the development of this country. The World Bank is now echoing (though it's not a new song) the view of the Japanese that there must be peace in the country before they pump in the dollars or the yen and the kroners to develop it, especially in the battered and impoverished areas of the North and the East.

This argument is based on the carrot and stick approach, which is that the LTTE will get the bucks (carrot) only if they are willing to be good boys, lay down their guns, and embrace economic rehabilitation (stick). This is the modus operandi by which the Japanese and the World Bank hope to get the LTTE involved in the economic recovery of the areas that the organisation says it wants to politically control.

The Japanese aid meeting in June this year was to be the climactic one in terms of adopting this approach, but suddenly the LTTE pulled back from what they thought was an international conspiracy to capture them in a honey trap. It shows if there needs be any confirmation, that the LTTE does not necessarily operate from the same mind-set that the development wizards of the World Bank and the lending institutions do.

For the LTTE, economic development and the upliftment of the people they claim to be the sole representatives of, are not necessarily priorities, because it is an organisation that's driven by a culture of guns as opposed to a mercenary one that the lending institutions and donors are wedded to.

All of which does not necessarily mean that this carrot and stick approach is bad. It seeks to make the majority people of the north and east Sri Lanka feel that they are being deprived of a better life purely because the minority LTTE just cannot come to terms with economic development of the areas they say are their ' traditional homelands'.

Another approach may, however be, to actually embark on economic development of these areas and let the people see for themselves the ' dividend of peace' - in real terms - and not in terms of a mirage built on the illusory promises of the World Bank. The people could have more employment opportunities, there will be money in people's hands, the usual capitalist trickle down theories of market economics will come into play, and the option of going back to war will find even greater resistance in these improved circumstances.

The Prime Minister, for instance, stakes his political future in the South on the peace dividend. Similarly, if a peace dividend is there in the concrete in the North -- it might be the best way of holding the LTTE to its peace pledge.
The World Bank must know that their reputation as saviours of world economies is very much up for argument. Guerrilla groups don't really get attracted to these kinds of neo-liberal pledges, especially when they (as opposed to the people they claim to represent) are quite well-heeled as they are, through the imposition of taxes on these unfortunate folks back home.

At the risk of throwing some good money down the river in the greater cause of the pursuit of democracy and the rule of law in a nation, the World Bank as well as the ' international community' may just as well re-think its strategy from one of "peace first, money later' to make it one of 'money first, peace - hopefully'.

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