Adapting a slogan from the World Social Forum, originally derived from Fidel Castro who said ‘a better world is possible’, I’d say ‘Another Sri Lanka, a Better Sri Lanka is possible’. But it is not inevitable, and cannot even be said to be probable (which is why I balance between hope and scepticism). What is needed to make it come true is determination allied to New Thinking.


The relationship between Sri Lanka and the world has changed, and changed for the better. It must not be allowed by either side, to be changed back. The prejudices against Sri Lanka and especially the majority Sinhalese have dissipated for the moment, not only due to their victim-hood but the solidarity they have shown each other, their fellow citizens of all ethnic communities in the East, and the visitors to our shores (as touchingly acknowledged by Ambassador Jeff Lunstead).


On our part, a growing insularity and the dangerous myth of national self-sufficiency have been shattered. We are being supported, and in some areas and cases surviving, precisely because of globalisation, the upside of which we are experiencing in the flesh. We have begun to understand that the country, ‘the nation’ can be rebuilt only if helped by the international, only through the help of the external. All this can change, in two ways. International attention may shift; we may go back to behaving as we did - and the old prejudices on both sides could come back with the force of added disillusion.


Sustain Global Engagement


What needs to be done is to maximise the engagement of the international community, while rendering it sustainable, durable. The more agencies, the greater the numbers of personnel and the funds, the more prolonged the presence, the wider the geographic areas of deployment and operation, the longer the commitment, the better – because the main motor force for a different, new Sri Lanka is a new internationalism: an alliance of the international factor and the Lankan state. It is primarily the external factor that can function as a change agent, making for a better Sri Lanka. Left to our own devices, we shall get back to our bad old ways.

Not everyone will go the distance, so we must weave the world in, keep it engaged, which is different from bogging it down in a quagmire. We must forge a new equation with the world, making permanent this dialectical situation in which we have been incorporated by the world community while the world community is internalised in Sri Lanka.


The Sri Lankan state has had to change, mutate, modernise, because of the exigencies of the crisis, manifested in both the demands of the people and the standards and speed of the countries/international agencies that have come to our rescue. The standards of the state, and of us all, will have to adjust upwards, while the pace will have to speed up.


I am glad that President Kumaratunga has appointed Dr. Tara de Mel as head of one of the three task forces, though the administration would put its best foot forward were an apex body created, with the latter or General Gerry de Silva in overall charge. Eric Fernando should be appointed to liaise with and brief the international media and to head a unit to monitor the internet round the clock, since there is hardly any credible counter to the dangerously damaging pro-LTTE propaganda about the Sri Lankan authorities not sending any/adequate relief to the North and East!


The President is correct to have appointed military coordinators for the affected areas, as the military is the hard drive of the state, its most efficient apparatus, which has functioned excellently in this crisis. These officers should be tasked to work with US, Indian, Pakistani, British and Israeli military units as there is considerable experience of smooth coordination between these military machines and our own. It also augurs well for future strategic relationships.


International Safety Net


On the security front, we have for the first time an international safety net. Mr. Prabhakaran would be stupid to cut loose with this massive, benign foreign presence and sympathetic global media coverage. Though he must be thinking fondly of the late Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed and ‘Black Hawk Down’, President Bush isn’t President Clinton (and this is one time I’m pleased about it). We must strive to convert this international engagement into a more durable set of security arrangements of a structural sort, especially with the USA and India (not just one).


The LTTE has lost more fighters than we have, and perhaps its material losses are relatively greater, though much of the relief funds being collected feverishly from the Tamil Diaspora will go precisely to rebuild these assets in a time far shorter than it will take the lumbering Lankan state. We should rapidly make a pitch to our foreign friends to replenish our military losses or provide easy repayment terms for their purchase.

The particularities of the East have seen a softer approach by the Eastern Tiger command after the tsunami. This must be reciprocated and maximised with the hope of neutralising the Eastern flank, while remembering that the LTTE, which sought and obtained Indian relief in mid ’87 during the Vadamaarachchi operation, was at war with the IPKF within the year, and even more starkly, took cakes into IPKF camps in July ’87 and attacked them within weeks! The Tiger does not play by civilised rules. We must be reasonable, flexible and open-minded, but never let our guard down, never be played for suckers, allowing our defences and areas to be further penetrated.


An intelligent and purposive administration would use the new situation to reoccupy those cleared areas which were encroached upon by the Tigers during the Wickremesinghe period, especially in Trincomalee, around the harbour.


We should encourage as many foreign personnel as possible to move into the LTTE held areas, engulfing these in a benign tsunami of relief, welfare, reconstruction and rehabilitation. There is no downside: human suffering will be alleviated faster and those areas and people drawn into the mainstream by such civic action, or Prabhakaran will throw the international community - especially the big boys - out and cause dismay among the populace while widening the asymmetry between his Tigers and the world.


National Political Scene


Both President Kumaratunga and to a naturally lesser extent Prime Minister Rajapakse have acquitted themselves well, not least internationally, by their handling of the crisis. The healthily competing Rupavahini and Sirasa performed splendidly. Organised religions have played a fine role, providing shelter and solace. The multi-religious note is welcome though it tends to be a tokenistic, decorative presence of the non-Buddhist faiths, rather than genuine representation and full participation (unlike in the Premadasa days). Mr. Wickremesinghe has cancelled himself out, his surgical mask and gloves symbolic of the gulf between him and the people. His entire game-plan, which was based on Prabhakaran imposing a world of pain on the South with a devastating war, is either on hold or has gone with the waves. He has appointed a committee for North-east relief with Mr. Bradman Weerakoon in charge, and called for relief work to be handed over to the Tigers (The Island, Jan. 05, p 1). It is regrettable that Milinda Moragoda’s excellent suggestion has not been taken up. A broad coalition government for national reconstruction could provide the consensus for restructuring the state. Why not replicate the party leaders meetings that the President and PM have been hosting, at all levels, Provincial and Pradesheeya Sabha, thus sustaining national consensus from below?

At this time of an apt Presidential call to set aside or surmount partisan identity, it is the height of irresponsibility for the state to permit or worse, facilitate, one party to virtually monopolise refugee relief work, flaunting its banners and logo in the South, functioning pretty much as the LTTE/TRO does in the North-east. By this, and lopsided coverage in the state media, the SLFP is committing political suicide, as is the UNP by its lacklustre performance in relief and reconstruction efforts at the grassroots.


Gaps


I fail to understand why Rauf Hakeem and Ferial Ashraff who have been working admirably on the ground, have been unable to reach out to and secure the large scale, hands-on support of the Islamic and Arab world for their affected brethren in the East and South. Nor can I understand why Cuban doctors and health workers, tens of thousands of who have helped countries in dire need, have not been requested by our government. Nor can I claim to understand why the Israeli contingent was downsized. It need not have been sent to the East or Galle: the full team could have been deployed in Hambantota, Matara and Jaffna. 150 soldiers plus two field hospitals can alleviate more suffering faster than can two doctors! This is not a time for politics. Since we have bitten the bullet and have full DPL relations with the Israelis we should use it to the fullest. The only criterion should be humanitarian; the optimally efficacious alleviation of human suffering. Whatever and whoever gets the job done faster - so the more boots on the ground, the faster, the better.


If the runways at Katunayaka and Ratmalana need to be lengthened, let’s get it done right now. There are militaries capable of laying an airstrip in a few days (the Cubans did so during the battle of Cuito Cuenevale against the South African invaders in early 1988). I’m sure the Americans or the Israelis can do it, and it would be a worthwhile long-term investment, in case we need a military air-bridge someday.


The sooner the refugees are found decent alternative accommodation the better. Nobody constructs (or demolishes) buildings faster than the Israelis, usually in the worst of causes. This time they can do it in a good one. The longer the refugees stay in camps, the greater the growth of a brutalised refugee culture - and as Colin Powell noted sagaciously, the greater the long term security problem, as ideological extremists recruit among the uprooted and pauperised. This goes for the South as well as the North and East.


The Crisis and the Conflict

The Tigers will try to create or exacerbate contradictions in the international coalition which is helping Sri Lanka. They will get their proxies, including the Southern peaceniks, to do so. The LTTE’s main targets are the US and the Indians. They prefer ‘international civil society’ and the EU and the UN agencies, so that they can have direct relationships, bypassing the Sri Lankan state and achieving de-facto recognition. Anton Balasingham would remember that it is precisely Europe that first recognised the breakaway Yugoslav republics. But we shouldn’t be too anxious: we are in the Indian Ocean, not the Balkans.


The international presence can change the Southern mindset: how to protest against neo-colonialism credibly in the quincentenary year 2005, when many of us would have starved or died of disease if not for the (white, Western, Christian, NGO-loving) ‘neo-colonialists’? Thus the greater the projection of the international community in terms of input and presence in the Southern province, for longer, the better.


From crisis management to conflict management and transformation in one uninterrupted process: that should be the agenda. The LTTE is no longer in any position militarily to insist on its ISGA and talks solely on its basis, while the Sri Lankan armed forces are far too overstretched to take on the LTTE! An autonomous structure, i.e. an – not the - ISGA, shorn of its strategically threatening aspects and within the Oslo and Tokyo parameters (including those of human rights) should be permissible so as to facilitate and expedite the tasks of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction.


The unmatched global attention and involvement in Sri Lanka should be leveraged for the purpose of conflict management and transformation. The Norwegians alone couldn’t do the job of preserving the peace. As peace lobbyist Air Vice-Marshal Harry Goonetilleke rightly said, if not for the tsunami, we would have had war in the New Year! Now is the time and the chance to multi-lateralise the peace effort. Those countries and agencies involved in helping us should be welded into a new consortium which can link relief, reconstruction and conflict transformation in a holistic mega-programme, constituting a safety net and providing security guarantees, helping restructure the polity in a federal direction, and unlocking the Tokyo funds. The LTTE’s heavy weapons can be decommissioned by an international coalition. Perhaps former President Bill Clinton or outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell can be tapped to spearhead the next, decisive and conclusive phase of the search for peace.