Introduction and Context

The SCA1 ultimately argues that the flawed state apparatus is responsible for exacerbating ethnic and political differences, which continue to reproduce the conflict. In its discussion of ethnicity in Sri Lanka, the SCA1 develops terms such as the “political economy” and “emotional economy” of the conflict; the former explains a primacy of political interests and the latter a consolidation of the “politics of passions, the processes through which hate is constructed and mobilised” (SCA1:38). The SCA1’s examination of ethno-nationalist politics articulates the interrelatedness of both the political economy and the emotional economy.

The donor community’s reluctance to engage directly with the conflict is the central basis of criticism in the SCA1. The SCA1 claims that all donor actions in Sri Lanka have attempted to work “around” conflict, (SCA1:67) – that aid is used to promote the donor’s central interests. These interests are detailed in the SCA1 and include but are not exclusive to the promotion of democracy, the facilitation of liberalisation, and the prevention of refugee outflows (SCA1:53). In part, the SCA1 is out to convince the donors that even when they choose to avoid issues related to conflict that are considered political, they cannot avoid politics: “aid is not delivered into a political vacuum and neither does it emerge from a political vacuum” (SCA1:52).

The SCA1 details a structured alternative for donors that requires a level of political engagement, which would strip them of their traditional donor role and assign them a new one as conflict policy experts. The new role assigned to donors by the SCA1 would still have them disbursing aid – but it would now be done from a sharper analytical policy perspective. The structures of action and facilitation are clearly mapped out. First, the SCA1 requests that the donors push for “greater coherence between the different policy instruments” (SCA1:83). Doing so is not only good practice in general but in addition it prevents the government from “exploit[ing] policy differences within the international community” (SCA1:83). This then leads to building uniform advocacy strategies that can be utilised in pressure sensitive moments (SCA1:87). According to the SCA1, donors should also have a nuanced understanding and communication with “meso-level” actors, institutions, and coalitions (SCA1:84). Information from these constituents would broaden the scope of donor action as well as educate donors on the convoluted nature of the conflict. The SCA1 notes that this process of engaging with the “meso-level” would require them to engage with networks outside Colombo (SCA1:84).

The SCA1 believes that donors should orient their aid and policy towards a conflict sensitive approach that is prepared to work “in” and “on” conflict as opposed to “around” conflict. The SCA1 recommends that the donors become positive catalysts for conflict resolution. The donor advantage lies in their ability to leverage aid as an incentive, which would be launched in parallel with similarly focused policy and advocacy programmes on multiple levels (SCA1:86). This process is termed by the SCA1 as working “on” conflict (SCA1:67). Working “in” conflict is similar to working “on” conflict as it takes a conflict sensitive approach; however, it is different in that the trajectory of its agenda is liberal economic development instead of conflict resolution. Therefore, working “in” conflict still tends to deal with conflict on its own terms and hence the need to work “on” conflict and end conflict itself.

The second SCA identifies a central problem in the current political atmosphere: a deadlocked peace process. In a description of one of these key areas, the SCA2 rehashes its critique of the government and applies it to the current ceasefire. This is a detailed criticism of the fundamental structure of the CFA, which essentially promotes the interests of the two key parties to the conflict and the CFA: the GOSL and the LTTE. The SCA2 then claims that the bipolar structure of the peace process has created “spoiler” elements that threaten the possibility of achieving a peace agreement. The SCA2 identifies “spoilers” as those marginalised groups whose interests are not being addressed under the current peace process. The picture that the SCA2 paints shows a cyclic and interwoven set of issues that creates serious problems in reaching a peace settlement under the current framework.

The state is the focus of determined criticism in SCA2, much as in the previous report. According to the SCA2, in the last five years, little has changed within the state. The state remains highly clientalistic and state power is allocated to constituents through patronage networks (SCA2:25). In effect, this ultra-centralised and informal structure has done the job of excluding and alienating groups and individuals peripheral to the system. These traits of government are coined in the SCA2 as “pathologies of the state” (SCA1:25), which are, in essence, counter democratic – they challenge the state’s capacity to handle the basics of effective governance, much less a national peace resolve or an effective response to the post-tsunami situation.9

According to the SCA2, the current peace process also follows a highly flawed structure that attempts to institute “normalisation” without taking into account the complex nature of the conflict. The SCA2 conceives the conflict as being made up of two divergent concepts, that which produces conflict and that which reproduces it. The SCA2 states:

What produces war, may be different from what reproduces it.Therefore the process and practice of violent conflict are important, as well as its underlying causes. Conflict is sustained by an emergent sociology and economy of war. This can be shaped by specific policies or contingent events – for example the Sinhala Only Act, or the tsunami … Conflict itself transforms these conditions and in Sri Lanka constitutional and political reforms which might have been sufficient to protect rights and satisfy the political aspirations of Tamils two or three decades ago may not longer be adequate [sic] (SCA2:28).

Specifically, the highly bipolar arrangement to peace negotiations can be understood as addressing aspects of the production of war but not its reproduction. A drawback to this structure, the SCA2 notes, is the marginalisation of other groups that have some stake in the peace process. This is a major criticism that the SCA2 makes of the peace process (SCA2:35). Moreover, the SCA2 claims that peace negotiations have ignored the conflict’s

political economy. That is, both the LTTE and the government still rely somewhat on the strategy of building economic and war resources at opportune moments: “To a large extent the new “peace time” arrangements have enabled the continued pursuit of these interests including government weapons contracts, LTTE taxation and diaspora funding” (SCA2:26-27). In a particular example, it notes that once the LTTE chartered the CFA with the government it immediately attempted to expand into the east. “There was growing extortion, human rights abuses, kidnapping and recruitment in the east…Moreover the disarming of other Tamil militant groups – on the conditions of the ceasefire – aided the LTTE efforts to concentrate both means of violence and means of extortion and predation” (SCA2:35). As for the government, the SCA2 notes that involvement in the peace process was linked closely to an economic reform agenda that planned to yield an annual growth rate of 10 per cent a year. In this sense, “the peace process was the means not the end [sic]” (SCA2:32).

According to the SCA2, the bipolar arrangements of the peace process have disaffected peripheral groups, or what the SCA2 terms “spoilers.” On the subject of peace processes in general, the SCA2 claims, “Inter and intra-group tensions are likely to be heightened during these periods of intensified political engagement … Peace processes may not lead to stability or consensus, but rather to a heightening of tensions and perversely, further conflict – particularly when groups with power to spoil feel they have been excluded” (SCA2:37). In the SCA2, “spoilers” are defined as marginalised groups (i e, Muslims, upcountry Tamils, rural Sinhalese) with the potential to disrupt and debilitate a peace settlement between the LTTE and government. Also, spoilers are usually connected to what the SCA2 describes as an “emotional” economy of the conflict, since they often display nationalist, economic, ethnic, or religious group identity themes.10 In this sense, spoilers can also be included among those factors that reproduce conflict.

One of the primary goals of the SCA2 is to argue that peace negotiations must be directed toward a process that offers transformation instead of the current state of stagnation:

There is a question of whether and how a limited peace can leadto a transformative peace – which necessarily involves tacklingthe underlying structural dimensions of conflict. And arguablythere is a central paradox, in that the dynamics generated by thepeace process play a role in freezing or even exacerbating thestructural factors underpinning conflict. The core question hereis about the relationship between structures and dynamics and howthe peace process can and should tackle both what produces warand what reproduces the conditions of war (SCA2:62).

Along this argument, the SCA2 delineates two methods of political interaction in the peace process: “Peace-making is defined as political, diplomatic and sometimes military interventions directed at bringing warring parties to agreement. Peace-building is defined as the promotion of institutional and socio-economic measures at the local, national level or international levels to address underlying causes of conflict” (SCA2:30). In this sense, achieving high-level political negotiations is the immediate goal of peace-making, regardless of whether the negotiations have a substantive impact or not. Making peace through this model does not at all ensure that a sustainable peace is attained and moreover, does not ensure an end to the reproduction of conflict. This focus on the root causes of the conflict and its reproduction fall instead on peace-building’s immediate agenda.

the formation of a parliamentary block, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), as an ascent into a legitimate state structure. The SCA2 even understands the LTTE’s extraction, forcible or otherwise, of internal and external resources with organised data collection methods as workings not unlike that of state bureaucracies (SCA2:51).

Next, both in terms of inclusivity and for peace-building, the SCA2 delves into a discussion on civil society in Sri Lanka and makes recommendations for its expansion. The SCA2 (p 84) claims: “As noted in SCA1, civil society has been as much part of the problem as the potential solution to conflict in Sri Lanka”. The SCA2 (p 85) recognises the need to promote a “more politically active and autonomous civil society sector that goes beyond elite, Colombo based NGOs…for example, private voluntary and civic organisations…labour unions, and business associations and chambers of commerce.” Such a broader and active civil society, the SCA2 claims, would be better suited to support peace building.

Finally, the SCA2 recommends and develops methods for making conditionalities that can support the peace-building agenda. In a carry-over of criticism from the previous SCA1, the donors are once again criticised for over-emphasising their development agenda. The SCA2 (p 79) brings up the example of the Tokyo donor conference where the donor community attempted to rigidly apply conditionalities to the $ 4.5 billion aid package under “their own time frames and agendas.” In the SCA2 (p 88), this is a matter of the donors putting the “development cart before the political horse,” which ignores the fact that the cause and consequence of the conflict is rooted in governance and the shortcomings of the state.

Some of the SCA2’s recommendations for donors to address the “crisis of the state” include “focusing more on governance at the provincial and local levels in order to improve delivery and accountability at the community level”, engaging “political parties in a range of areas including policy dialogue and institutional development”, addressing issues of poverty alleviation and social exclusion, as well as the revitalisation of civil society. And similarly, there are a range of recommendations for the peace process such as “including Muslim representatives in the peace process…beyond merely including a Muslim delegate in the government representation”, “need to consider extending the scope of the CFA to cover the full range of military actors and strengthen its human rights component” and developing a more “inclusive approach to conflict resolution” (SCA2:12-14). These are only a sample of the recommendations in the SCA2.

The SCAs are valuable documents for policy-makers working on Sri Lanka. Their value lies in their unique perspective that the conflict is the consequence of failed governance in Sri Lanka and furthermore, that this failure of governance continues to reproduce and sustain the conflict. The SCAs claim that without addressing the issue of governance through democratic revitalisation of the institutions responsible for governance, it is difficult to conceptualise a sustainable peace. The production and reproduction of conflict is not limited to the role of the state

– the various political formations, the absence or cooptation of “civil society”, minority and marginalised communities, and the international community – all play a role in either reproducing or resolving the conflict. As such, a peace process that is focused merely on conflict resolution between the two warring parties may not necessarily address the causes or the consequences of the conflict. Indeed, the SCAs suggest, a “non-inclusive” peace process may freeze or even strengthen the forces that caused conflict during the span of the ceasefire. As is evident from the discussion above, the seminal contribution of the two SCAs is this unique perspective on conflict and governance coupled with a set of pragmatic and detailed recommendations for a conflict transformation approach.

While recognising the seminal contribution of the SCAs, in this section we explore some of the points we find controversial. The arguments that follow have to be debated widely, as they are central to the future of the peace process and governance in Sri Lanka.

Inclusivity: ‘Spoilers’ and Civil Society Participation

Important contributions within SCA2 include a critique of the two-party Norwegian facilitated peace process and a recommendation to fix it by greater inclusivity. SCA2 correctly analyses the “radicalisation of other peripheries” over the last two decades leading to “other key ‘intra-core’ (UNP-SLFP), ‘inter-periphery’ (Tamil-Muslim) and ‘intra-periphery’ (LTTE and Karuna faction) relationships” (SCA2:62). Such tensions inevitably challenge a peace process that is focused on the two principal armed actors (the GOSL and the LTTE). While the SCA2’s call for an inclusive peace process with a transformative agenda is commendable, in many of its discussions, inclusivity is seen as a pragmatic way of co-opting or deflecting the impact of “spoilers”.

In SCA1, Goodhand correctly identified the need for inclusivity in terms of responding to and accommodating the interests of the various parties. However, in SCA2, the focus on “spoilers” deflects attention away from a transformative agenda. In part, this is because the “spoilers” are conceived of as forces outside of the two-party peace process. At no time, however, does the SCA2 recognise the LTTE, with its CFA violations or refusal to resume talks on core issues other than its ISGA proposals, as a “spoiler.” Similarly, the GOSL is also not seen as a ‘spoiler’ of the transformative agenda for its failure in pushing for human rights mechanisms, an inclusive process, and a consensus for a permanent political solution.

The use of the term “spoiler” is dubious because any critical support for the peace process (i e, criticisms on the weakness of the CFA or the lack of human rights mechanisms) could also be seen as spoiler behaviour. The SCA2, while calling for an inclusive and transformative process, falls into the trap of the “spoiler” discourse because of its lack of commitment to a principled approach. Such a principled approach would have focused more on the transformative agenda and a clear roadmap, which would have clarified the distinction between those who are scuttling a sustainable, inclusive and just peace process, and those who are raising their genuine concerns about a peace process that is undemocratic, unsustainable and marginalising their interests.

The issue of “spoilers” also relates to the issue of critical support to the peace process and a genuinely transformational peace process. The Norwegian approach12 has been one that calls on all actors to uncritically support its two party approach. Here, even civil society participation or support is seen as a way of merely strengthening the agenda of the two parties and the facilitator, regardless of whether it is principled and without contributing to redirect the peace process towards a transformative agenda.13 Lack of clarity about what constitutes a “spoiler” could lead to the unfortunate consequence of undermining the critical support necessary to move towards the transformative approach. This was the case in the aftermath of tsunami when Muslims – the community that suffered the most from the tsunami – were excluded from negotiations on a joint mechanism for tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction (PTOMS). The internationally supported PTOMS agreement marginalised the Muslims leading to their alienation from the peace process, as well as paving the way for them to be labelled a “spoiler”. A principled approach that is based on the needs of the victims rather than the wishes of powerful political actors would have ensured a sustainable and just process of tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Questions also arise about the possibility of civil society participation and support for a transformational agenda, particularly when the crisis of the state seems to be mirrored by a crisis of civil society in Sri Lanka. The lack of participation on the part of civil society in the peace process is indeed a function of the overall decimation of civil society in Sri Lanka as well as the cooptation of the idea of civil society by elite NGOs. The donors have become very comfortable funding and promoting a “civil society” that serves their agenda. The lack of critical participation in the peace process or a more active role in rejuvenating governance by civil society relates also to the issue of neoliberalism in Sri Lanka discussed below.14 While the SCA2 recognises some of the problems with civil society in Sri Lanka, its framing of “spoilers” unfortunately conflicts with the dire need for critical participation by civil society in the peace process.

A consistent criticism throughout the SCA1 is the international community’s failure to develop a framework for engaging with non-state actors and its lack of experience with such engagement. By default then, the SCA1 claims the international and donor communities tend to focus their energies on engaging with the state, even though this is to the detriment of the needs of those living in the conflict zone and the effects of the conflict in general. We would argue that the SCAs themselves lack a framework to conceptualise an engagement with non-state actors, which leads the writers of the SCA2 to conceptualise engagement with the LTTE as being no different from engagement with a state-like organisation. While the SCAs recognise the LTTE as a military outfit, they assume that it is in the process of transforming into a state-like structure.15

Such assumptions about the transformation of the LTTE are not clearly substantiated, and may also be dangerous. Indeed, the SCAs acknowledge the LTTE’s military structure and the absence of an independent political wing, the thousands of ceasefire violations it has committed, the elimination of Tamil dissent and its attempt to control all civil society organisations. They nevertheless advance a “transformation of the LTTE” thesis, the strongest argument for which is Tilly’s claim that emerging states can be protection rackets. Tilly’s theory of the rise of early modern European states itself is controversial, but to transpose that theory onto the north and east of Sri Lanka in the 21st century is even more worrying. The authors of the SCA2 should have heeded Tilly’s warning in the very essay to which they refer: “The third world of the 20th century does not greatly resemble Europe of the 16th or 17th century. In no simple sense can we read the future of third world countries from the pasts of European countries”.16 The important question for those concerned about governance is whether a non-state actor may continue in a cycle of such abusive practices or even worse, transform into an even more totalitarian or fascist structure, if it is given legitimacy without accountability.17 Without assuming the transformation of the LTTE, the authors of the SCA2 are unable to conceptualise engagement with the LTTE, and for this they make problematic use of Tilly’s theory.

and active role of the international community in light of the 2002 CFA and the peace process. Their sharp analysis recognises that the international community’s actions could either positively or negatively impact the conflict by exacerbating existing tensions within the Sri Lankan polity. Both the SCAs are critical of the neoliberal bent of the donors and the international community. The SCAs provide a welcome critique of the neoliberal process that assumes free markets and downsised efficiency of the state will lead to good governance. Furthermore, SCA2 critically examines the coupling of the peace process with neoliberal reforms by the international community and the Wickramasinghe government, which initiated the 2002 peace process. This coupling of neoliberal reforms are rightly identified as not only substantively problematic, but also pragmatically questionable. For example, it was the opposition from the economically marginalised and rural constituencies to such a coupled process that resulted in the defeat of the Wickramasinghe government in the 2004 parliamentary elections.18

While we are indeed in agreement with both concerns about the unsustainability of a neoliberal peace process and the SCAs’ focus on the crisis of the state, we are nevertheless concerned about the larger framing of both these issues. It is our contention that neoliberalism and the crisis of the state are not independent phenomena. The SCAs have rightly pointed to flawed governance at the inception and early decades of the post-colonial state as the root causes of the conflict. However, the SCAs fail to see the centrality of neoliberalism during the last three decades in transforming and reproducing such a crisis of governance. The problem of such a neoliberal crisis of the state raises important questions about reforming the state. The crisis after all is very much linked to the neoliberal promoters (donor governments and multilateral donors), the very actors that are supporting state reform. As highlighted by many scholars in Sri Lanka, it is no coincidence that the open economy policies of 1977, which led to the transformation of Sri Lanka’s relationship with the donors and the international community, was indeed a turning point in the exacerbation of ethnic tensions and further deterioration of governance in Sri Lanka.19 The same could also be said of the crisis of civil society in Sri Lanka, in terms of the rise of the neoliberal NGO industry and weakening of civil society. In other words, perhaps there is a need to not only transform the Sri Lankan state and civil society, but also its relationship to the donor and international community.20 And here, we would argue that neoliberalism is fundamental to the relationship of political, economic and social spaces of Sri Lanka to the donor and international communities.

The problem of the SCAs’ framing, then, has to do with looking at the Sri Lankan state as independent of a neoliberal international political economy. The SCA2’s criticism of the international community’s role is characterised as an issue of sequencing, that is they had put the “development cart before the political horse”. However, we would question the role of the neoliberal development cart itself. This does not absolve the responsibility of the Sri Lankan state to address issues of governance, but calls for a critical look at the role of the Sri Lankan elite, their links to the neoliberal centres of power and their local systems of patronage. Without a critique of the nexus of local and international relationships that form the neoliberal political economy of Sri Lanka, it will not be possible to address the crisis of governance in Sri Lanka.

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Email: cenan.pirani@gmail.com ahilan.kadirgamar@gmail.com

Notes