Talks for the sake of Talks; War for the sake of Peace

SRI LANKA: When Negotiations Fail…
Talks for the sake of Talks; War for the sake of Peace

By Hannes Siebert and Chanya Charles


I. Introduction

Located just a few miles off the coast of India, the island of Sri Lanka is widely recognized for its natural beauty, rich cultural heritage, and the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any predominately Buddhist nation. The country’s virulent civil war, however, is often what captures the attention of international news headlines. Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim ethnic communities have been engaged in a violent internal conflict for more than 30 years. Clashes between the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have led to over 100,000 deaths, more than 200,000 refugees, and up to 600,000 internally displaced persons. Despite repeated attempts at negotiations since 1985, the conflict continues.

“Democratic” Sri Lanka has a history of popular elections and was one of the first countries in the world to enjoy universal suffrage in 1931. But the inability of the political leadership representing the different ethnic communities to share power equitably led to a series of broken agreements and acute mistrust between the communities. Sri Lanka’s political history chronicles the challenges of protecting minority interests in a parliamentary system in which majority-minority relations are strained by competing ethnic nationalist agendas.

Sri Lanka has earned increasing international attention due to the U.S.-India strategic South Asia partnership, growing trade relations with Iran and China, and the designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organization. Beyond strategic interests, the international community has been heavily involved in attempting to address the war in Sri Lanka. There is a well-resourced international monitoring mission, facilitation support from Norway as a committed international partner, and active engagement by countries like the United States, Japan, India, China, and many European countries.

In addition to international efforts at peacebuilding, Sri Lanka has three peace secretariats, approximately 150 local peace forums, more than 6,000 mediation boards across the country, an active and well-trained civil society, and an elaborately structured and stakeholder-owned negotiations forum, the One-Text Initiative (OTI).

After the breakdown of the formal negotiations (Track 1) brokered by the Norwegian Government in 2003, the One-Text Initiative was established as a confidential dialogue space. The key parties’ hope was to create a stakeholder-owned safety net for the formal negotiations, rebuild confidence between the parties, and jointly generate more realistic options for the parties to consider through a “single text” methodology. Most of the key parties joined – including the LTTE as stakeholder observer. In its first two years it produced more than 89 “consensus” documents despite the absence of formal talks. The confidential dialogue forum continued its work quietly throughout the period of the war since 2006 and provided a safe space for parties to search for solutions and maintain key relationships. Some of its members were imprisoned and others received death threats, but all of them continued confidentially and publicly with their efforts to resolve the national conflict.

Sadly, despite the existence of both national and international peace initiatives, including the OTI, the conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated dramatically since November 2005. As the Sinhalese Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse came to power with a strong nationalist agenda, Tamil demands for independence grew stronger and the willingness to compromise diminished. Violence in Sri Lanka has reached unprecedented levels, with more than 11,000 people killed from 2006 to April 2008.

This chapter examines the One-Text Initiative’s impact on the country’s peace and negotiations process and why the Initiative was unable to prevent the gradual breakdown of the agreed-on ceasefire of 2002. In this contribution by one of the former facilitators and co-founding members of the “One-Text” process in Sri Lanka and the Program Director from the original donor implementing agency, the authors argue that lack of trust between the parties, the non-implementation of agreements, their competing ethnic nationalist agendas, and each group’s unrealistic and unfair expectations and demands of each other, dominated and undermined both the Track 1 negotiations as well as the One-Text process. They suggest that the absence of workable links and mechanisms between the Track 1 and Track 1 ½ (OTI) processes robbed each process of mutual benefits and disabled OTI to act as an effective safety net. The result was that Norway became the dominant story, a substitute for broken relationships and the punch bag of the parties. When negotiations failed at the top, the overall process was left with a symbolic Track 1 ½ (OTI) process in the middle of an unfolding war.

Finally, this chapter explores the mistakes of the past, ways to strengthen the “One-Text” dialogue, and identifies areas that can be addressed to re-build a peace process on the island.

(Contact hannessiebert@gmail.com for full chapter -- available in August 2009