Thoughts from London

Norway: Facilitator or agent provocateur
The LTTE leadership has said it quite plainly. Norway is the Tigers’ chosen facilitator. In the final days of the presidential election campaign and later when voices were raised against the continued participation of Oslo as the facilitator of the peace process the LTTE remained adamant. Norway or bust, that’s the name of the game.

Why on earth should the LTTE want a change when Oslo has been far more than a mere facilitator since the peace process was kick started in the final days of 2001 and the first months of 2002.

Norway has not only acted as the LTTE’s ambassador-at-large but also its money bags, providing financing and other assistance to built the infrastructure and services that have led to a quasi state in the Wanni.

Long before Oslo was handpicked for the role Norway had been engaged in the Jaffna peninsula and elsewhere in the north-east through some dubious non governmental agencies. That umbilical connection has remained and so when Norway was picked in preference to multilateral organisations such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, Oslo and the LTTE would have been jumping for joy.

With oil money burning a hole in its coffers but having little or no weight in the international arena commensurate with its financial clout, Norway went in search of a place in the sun.

Though it had engaged in development economics, Oslo still lacked international recognition. Sweden had its Nobel Prize awards to give it recognition. What did Norway have to match that? Nothing really.
So Oslo entered what it perceived as the lucrative market of peace politics-trying to resolve long-standing conflicts in the developing world. It did so in two ways. One was founding and funding non-governmental organisations devoted to conflict studies -- conflict management and conflict resolution.

The other role was entering conflict areas as peacemaker. So it poked its nose into Africa, West Asia and Sri Lanka. Its persistent efforts to remain as facilitator in Sri Lanka is not only because its record elsewhere has not been particularly noteworthy and needed some kind of success if it was not to deposited in the dustbin of international failures.

The LTTE, possibly egged on by Norway, wants it to remain engaged because the loss of Oslo would mean the loss its international advocate, an often clandestine donor to Tiger coffers and a conduit to Europe.
So there is a symbiotic relationship that needs to be recognised and countered.

The way to do it is not as the JVP and the JHU suggest. That is to kick the Norwegian peacemakers into the long grass and replace them with a more acceptable facilitator.

The Tiger dissident Karuna in his own “Heroes Day” message given on his former leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s birthday, suggests that Sri Lanka make use of the good offices of India and the UK.

However much Karuna, and indeed President Rajapakse and his allies might wish, New Delhi is not going to accept such a role. It is not that what happens in Sri Lanka, especially if Mr. Prabhakaran starts beating the war drum and daubs himself with war paint, is not of concern to the regional superpower.

Some have suggested that since New Delhi has proscribed the LTTE it would not be possible for it to act as facilitator or mediator or whatever the acceptable term.

There is that too. Unlike servants of the British Crown who could have low-level contacts with banned organisations, the Indians do not permit that, especially when the Indian courts have convicted Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief and they are sought by India.

As for the United Kingdom, there is a prevailing view that London under its EU presidency applied increasing pressure on EU member-states to take tough action against the LTTE on being urged by Sri Lanka after Lakshman Kadirgamar’s assassination.That is a mistaken view. Except at the first meeting of EU officials in Brussels when the UK presented evidence against the LTTE at subsequent meetings it was largely lukewarm and merely ‘presided’.

When the British High Commissioner in Colombo Stephen Evans (thankfully due for transfer next April) and the acting head of the European Commission met high officials of our Foreign Ministry they seem to have given the impression that everything was hunky dory in the EU.
But did Evans also suggest that the EU appeared to be heading towards a total ban on the Tigers misleading Colombo?

If British conduct in all this has been spurious, to say the least, Norway has been duplicitous from the very start. It is unfortunate that Sri Lanka did not have the political leadership or perhaps the courage to call into question Norway’s behaviour that far superseded its role as a facilitator.
As far back as late 2001 when some nondescript Norwegian politician called Erik Solheim appeared as our saviour and his now trying like Lazarus to rise again, he has been playing a perfidious part. Solheim once rushed off to Washington and tried to convince officials there that the only solution to Sri Lanka’s conflict was federalism.

Whether that is the answer or not is a matter for the Sri Lankan people not for some potty politician who had emerged as a gift from some Norwegian deity to travel to other countries offering solutions, like Colombo-based diplomats offering pooja in the Wanni.

When Colombo urged the EU to act against the LTTE in the aftermath of the Kadirgamar assassination, Norway tried to pre-empt sanctions by having its ambassadors in the 25 EU member capitals to plead caution, thereby undermining collective action against the Tigers. Only France told the Norwegian ambassador where to stick his advice.

All this is partly our own fault. During the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration Norway and other western nations were allowed to do as they pleased as though Sri Lanka had been mortgaged to the west.
The lack of political will and immaturity seems to have rubbed off on our Foreign Ministry too. When the Norwegians launched their diplomatic offensive in the EU capitals and elsewhere we seem to have done little to counter this and show up Oslo’s pro-LTTE endeavours.

Curiously, a few days before the crucial Brussels meeting where charges against the LTTE were to be made, President Kumaratunga and Foreign Minister Anura Bandaranaike who were at the UN sessions met with the Norwegian prime minister.

Thereafter a Sri Lankan press statement was released thanking the Norwegians for their role as facilitator etc. This was so badly timed that foreign diplomats say that it confused some members of the EU. Here was the Sri Lanka Government applauding Norway at the highest level while at a lower level in another forum they are asked to condemn the LTTE and those turnng a blind eye to its violations of the ceasefire, killings, child recruitment et al.

No, Norway cannot be dismissed as a facilitator now. That would cause deep concern in Europe and elsewhere damaging Sri Lanka’s cause.
But if Oslo must remain, then the remit of the facilitator should be clearly defined and it must not be permitted to play both facilitator and agitator.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission should also be reconstituted and its composition not confined to Scandinavian countries, particularly when we know what Sweden and Denmark did at the Brussels meetings.
The facilitator’s role must be circumscribed. The SLMM’s composition broadened. Let’s have some ground rules.

One more thing. Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera should quickly visit Austria, the next EU president, particularly since the EC’s External Relations Commissioner who is not particularly amenable to Colombo, is Austrian. Do not depend on Britain. It is past its shelf life.

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