Requiem for truce

Nordic ceasefire officers outside the head office of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Colombo, on January 4. The ceasefire monitors began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka after the government scrapped the truce with the Tamil Tigers.-BUDDHIKA WEERASINGHE/REUTERS

However flawed, the Cease Fire Agreement of 2002 had benefits that were not visible to many.

Nordic ceasefire officers

Sri Lanka is notorious for its failed peace talks and ceasefire agreements. There have been many since the Tamil national liberation struggle became militarised in 1983. The first one was signed prior to the talks in Thimphu in 1985. Then came the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in July 1987. Thereafter came the rather carelessly worked out ceasefire agreement in February 1990, and yet another one in January 1995. The latest, the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) of February 2002, is now unilaterally done away with to suit the convenience of the powers that are. The abrogation of the CFA will also automatically terminate the functioning of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) tasked to monitor violations of the CFA by its signatories.

The CFA of February 2002 has been the most elaborately drawn up so far and lasted (however imperfectly) for the longest period of time almost six years. During this period of ceasefire there were six rounds of talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There were also four sub-committees set up (of varying life-spans) on military, economic, political and gender issues.

There are many people in Sri Lanka who regard the CFA, born to the incompatible parentage of the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka and mid-wifed by the peace facilitator, Norway, as much-maligned, abused, and totally retarded. Some political parties see it as the most damaging of all ceasefire agreements foisted upon the country.

In the nearly six years of its existence, the CFA has gone through varying operating political climates. The period between February 2002 and December 2003 was its most productive six rounds of talks, four sub-committees, and a much-reduced level of violence under a United National Front (UNF) government. April 2004 to November 2005 was a period of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government under President Chandrika Kumaratunga. While the signing of P-TOMS (Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure) after the tsunami in December 2004 was a substantive achievement, on the peace front the results were minimal.

Post-November 2005 presidential election saw a sharp escalation in violence, with both signatories to the CFA violating it at will. Some of the more extremist coalition partners of the ruling government started demanding the abrogation of the CFA and the dismissal of the Norwegian facilitator.

The CFA, which was intended to be a platform for a negotiated political solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict, did not achieve its goal, but seemed to have suited the LTTE objectives to a tee. The government at the time was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea with the country having suffered enormous military setbacks and the economy being in the doldrums.

The CFA was seen by many as the last straw for an ever elusive negotiated settlement to the ongoing conflict. However flawed, it had benefits that were not visible to many. The euphoria was short-lived and the rest is history.

With the signing of the CFA, there was a need to institutionalise the peace process, and, therefore, the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) was established on February 6, 2002, with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Government of Sri Lanka.

As an insider in the form of the Director, Communications, of SCOPP, which came directly under the purview of the Executive President of Sri Lanka, I gained my share of insights, between July 2004 and December 2006, into how a peace process is coordinated in Sri Lanka.

Many were the frustrations and drawbacks we had to live with in trying to tame the incorrigible LTTE, which violated the spirit of the CFA with impunity, while all we could do was change the adverbs in the condemnation template, that is, The Government condemns/ strongly condemns/unreservedly condemns/vehemently condemns/condemns in the strongest possible terms the killing of and dish out media releases which the LTTE could not care two hoots for.

There were many out there among the general public who regarded SCOPP as some sort of an institution mandated to mollycoddle the LTTE. One can hardly blame them given the fact that we were most of the time bending over backwards while trying not to appear to be doing so, to appease the cold-blooded LTTE.

The Operations Division of SCOPP, manned by the three armed forces and the police, was tasked with coordinating the safe passage of LTTE cadre be it on land, sea or air, while their own men out there were being brutally gunned down by the LTTE. In keeping with the true spirit of the CFA, which was sine qua non to the peace process, they ensured safe transportation of LTTE terrorists for medical treatment in Colombo without getting any of them killed. They were also safely flown to the Colombo International Airport whenever they decided to talk and sometimes not talk. They were also safely flown back from the Colombo International Airport to Tiger territory, whether they talked or not.

Soon after the devastating tsunami in December 2004, we at SCOPP yet again tried to extend our hand of goodwill to the LTTE. We collectively gathered food, clothing and medicine and sent them to the LTTE Peace Secretariat in Kilinochchi via the SLMM. They returned our goodwill by brutally gunning down Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and then SCOPP Deputy Secretary-General Kethesh Loganathan, among many others.

Then there was P-TOMS, a joint mechanism to attend to post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation, negotiated and signed by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. This was the first time an agreement of its kind was signed on a functional subject. The Supreme Court put paid to it.

Many were the times we accompanied the Secretary-General of SCOPP each time he visited Jaffna, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Mannar and Ampara where the district offices of the SLMM are located. As we interacted with civil society, religious heads, the armed forces and people in the resettlement camps, we could not help but notice the expressions of hope and relief on the faces of people as they regarded us as the ultimate bearers of a long-lost peace.

The peace process also proved to be a very lucrative source of income for some. With the signing of the CFA, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) mushroomed and some even tried their best to legitimise their overloaded wallets through SCOPP. They came up with such ludicrous ideas in the name of peace. The workshops on peace that these NGOs conducted in five-star hotels attracted a fair number of people, most of whom left or fell asleep after a sumptuous lunch.

Eminent personalities from the international and local arena, specialising in Peace Making/Peace Building, were frequent visitors to SCOPP. A few spoke on matters with substance and the rest spoke a lot but said nothing.

A case in point was a gentleman who gave us a long and arduous lecture on the LTTEs secularism. He took great pains to explain to us the significance of garlands carried by LTTE suicide cadre, with special reference to Rajiv Gandhis assassination. We were told that garlands made of sandalwood signifies one thing (painless and swift death), while garlands of flowers implied something else. From this I gathered that one must be extremely cautious of garlands, because if you accept one, especially the sandalwood kind, you will end up dead and kill most of those around you as well.

At the end of this long and painful session, the Secretary-General very aptly summed up our sentiments with just one question/statement: So what about it.

Yet another gimmick in the name of peace was a workshop on peace making/building for all staff at SCOPP, including the Secretary-General, who made a short appearance and disappeared. One had to be present to believe what we went through, and for the life of me I could not comprehend what its objective was.

With the CFA practically sacrificed at the altar of short-term political gain, those of us who suffered much for the sake of a permanent peace in Sri Lanka can only sit back and wonder, if it was all for nothing?

Sharmini Serasinghe was Director, Communications, of SCOPP from July 2004 to December 2006 and is currently a freelance writer.