Making The Best Of The Second Best Solution

By Jehan Perera -April 28, 2014

Jehan Perera

Five years after the end of the war, Sri Lanka remains a post-war society that has yet to make the transition to a post-conflict society.  While the violence has ceased, the political roots of the conflict that gave rise to war remain to be addressed.  There continues to be extreme political polarization between the government and the Tamil and, more recently, the Muslim polity.  The government has in recent weeks being talking in terms of the revival of the LTTEand Tamil separatism.  In recent months, a new front has opened up with therenewed targeting of the Muslim minority, which shows that the build-up of extremist Sinhalese animosity against them, has not stopped.  The attacks against the Muslims have not enjoyed popular support, but they are becoming regular enough to sow seeds of fear and apprehension within the Muslim community.

The anticipation that presidential elections will be held early next year, or sooner, has received a boost after a government minister made an announcement to this effect in parliament.   However, this announcement does not bode well for those who wish to see more devolution of power or a focus on the rights of the ethnic minorities.  The recently held provincial council elections made it starkly evident that the ethnic minorities are not voting for the government.  This will strengthen the resolve of the government to look to its Sinhalese voter base to prevail at the forthcoming elections.  This may account for the lack of deterrent and punitive action against those who attack the ethnic and religious minorities.  But there is a danger here.  The government’s policy is to gather all Sinhalese under the banner of ethnic nationalism.  It may lose out with more moderate Sinhalese who have spoken out against the actions of the nationalists who attack the minorities.

Instead of politically addressing the grievances of the ethnic minorities, the government has preferred to follow a conflict management strategy.  At its heart is to co-opt the opposition parties, by offering them positions in the government and thereby seeking their acquiescence.  A second strategy is to use the military to suppress any possibility of public agitation.  The third, and most benign, is to emphasize its achievements in terms of economic development.  The government has been able to show macro level statistics which show unceasing progress in per capita incomes, high rates of economic growth, especially in the North, and visible infrastructure.   This has led the population at large, especially those living in the South of the country, to believe that the needs of the war-affected people are being adequately taken care of by the government.

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