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Exchanging
the devil for the rascal? The Norwegian role in Sri Lanka's peace bid is meanwhile under the microscope, aggravated by the murder of this country's foreign minister three weeks ago. The Norwegians must be held to account for this assassination -- for being unable to rein in the trigger happiness of the LTTE. But Oslo's hope is that the Sri Lankans' infamous ability to forgive and forget, will get them off the hook. This week, when the police formally announced that they have closed the files on the President R Premadasa and Mr. Gamini Dissanayake assassinations, the Norwegian theory that nothing can be pinned on anybody in this country earned further credence. In the southern polity, as opposed to the north and east, the Norwegians have lost credibility almost altogether. It follows as night follows day then -- should they be replaced? President Chandrika Kumaratunga's call for the United Nations to get more involved in the peace process here comes as a shot in the dark. In the last few months, she bowed to both local and foreign pressures and sidelined her late Foreign Minster for his hard-line approach, inter-alia, of holding the Norwegians accountable for the LTTE's continued refusal to show signs of entering the democratic mainstream. The LTTE continues with their prevarication and gamesmanship, among these their claim that talks should be held in Oslo or Kilinochchi. That's the same motley lot that has no qualms in coming to Colombo to take wing to some foreign destination via the Colombo International Airport. Having
said that, we still don't know if all this is just another knee-jerk
reaction by the President to her FM's murder -- or whether her current
international advisers, some of who are aspiring for top slots in
a future UN, and her political advisers, have nudged her in this
direction. But whichever way you look at it, she has shown her own
exasperation with the Norwegian pussyfooting on the peace process.
On the other hand, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga is now a lame-duck
President for all intents and purposes. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse ducked National Security Council sessions as he ducked - or was left out of -- the peace process. His was basically a hands-off approach, which was shrewdly calculated to show him up as one who had a clean slate on the issue when he got the top job. Being unable to shilly-shally anymore on the campaign trail, he now says he wants a summit with the LTTE supremo, Prabhakaran, the man himself. Not a bad approach we say -- but how realistic is it? It's vaguely reminiscent of President J.R.Jayawardene's challenge for a duel with the elusive guerrilla leader at Galle Face Green. The other possible successor, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has a completely different approach. The "international safety net" is his ongoing slogan, and its the same track on which he pursued the peace process having talks with the LTTE through Norwegian facilitation with the global community keeping sentinel. Mr. Wickremesinghe’s approach does not seem to have changed as espoused last week in New Delhi where he showed off an eight-point programme to kick-start the stalled process. During his tenure as Head of Government, he used the ' international safety net ' to egg Norway on through the US. The strategy was to ensure that Norway's efforts were to be re-calibrated, especially by India, when the process gets log-jammed. The fine balance between ' unabashed appeasing ' and diplomatic pressure on the LTTE was his way of tackling the problem, but the LTTE was adept at side - stepping, dummying and running on the blind-side. Not that the UN has played an exemplary role anyway considering the manner in which they tackled the aborted Annan visit to Kilinochchi, followed by the statement issued on the killing of a rebel area leader, Kaushalyan. Maybe the UN will also have the support of the LTTE for a peace exercise. The
new tendency will be therefore that instead of five countries running
the peace process, which is bad enough, we are going to have 150
countries and more doing it. It’s doubtful that either Presidential
candidate will endorse this kind of internationalizing of what is
essentially still a domestic dispute. The winner in the presidential stakes, will then inherit this chronic problem, with its perennial headache causing potentialities. It is axiomatic in this light that the current President bows out gracefully, without muddying the waters further, and with a mission unaccomplished. |
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