Angels And Demons Of Democracy – In Lanka

By Suren Rāghavan -June 11, 2014

Dr. Suren Rāghavan

In any society that is drawn into a protracted civil war, there are three curtail conditions for the future. 1 ) How to end the war with minimum damages 2) How to make sure such war is not repeated and 3) Fast socio- economic recoveries to fill the years of lost opportunities.

In Sri Lanka, where South Asia’s longest civil war of modern history took place, one is still debating on all three frontiers, perhaps with even deeper disagreements. The regime loyalists and ultra nationalist southerners believe President Mahendra Rajapaksa solved the conflict – the best possible way by destroying world’s most text book terrorist group with the same techniques they thrived on. Tamil nationalists (separatists or otherwise) firmly argue that Mullaivaikaal produced a ‘Rajapaksa Doctrine’ on civil war which is a genocide of minority rights groups. They continue to ask justice from the International Community.  The military nature of the conflict has ceased. While peace and social justice are far from realities, one can agree that there are no urban suicide missions blowing off caught up school children. Similarly there are no indiscriminative carpet bombing on targets killing all civilians in between. In the balance of games, southerners may be bit luckier than the Tamils of the North who still painfully live in the most militarized land mass in South Asia[1] That is the reality of war. The victor has more benefits. It is up to the morale conduct of the victor to be magnanimous.

The way the conflict ended is irreversible. Future historians will write the judgment. It is on the other two remaining factors that Sri Lanka, as a collective society could still make a difference however challenging or demanding a transformative moral imagination from all actors.

Risk of Recurrent (armed) Conflict

The GoSL has sold the war theme at every election during the last 25 years. And the southerners have more or less bought such thesis and mandated the parties those  promised to bring peace by ‘defeating’ the Tamil demand more at the military front and less at the negotiating table. It is a fact that even PresidentKumaratunga and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe who campaigned on ‘peace’ platforms were equally ready with military options. They maintained that such strategy is fundamental for the balance of power formula. President Rajapaksa had no such doubts. Well supported by his ethno centric political partners, he campaigned on a military solution and delivered a bold – bloody end. Since then he also has successfully used war victory rhetoric to consolidate and recentralize power at all structural and intuitional level. Perhaps this president above everyone knows that peace as much as war is a political decision. William Zartman (2001)[2] assumed that ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ is the ripen conditions to end protracted wars, enabling a genuine desire to address the fundament reasons for the war and its collateral damages.

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