Like Professor Cameron, I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come to speak to you about Sri Lanka.
I'll give you a little bit of background. I went to graduate school there in 1970 as a Commonwealth fellow in Buddhist civilizations. In 1971, while I was still a student in Peradeniya, the first Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna insurrection broke out, caught me completely off guard, and basically turned my focus from Buddhist studies to contemporary sociological and political studies. I've ended up in that field over the last three decades and have written fairly extensively on it. I have also visited the country on a regular basis, most recently as a Canadian member of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, which met in Sri Lanka, basically, between January 2007 and April 2008. It was 14 months. I was there six times with that particular body, which, by the way, ended up as a failed initiative.
So that's part of my background. Let me look at my text, which I sent in. You may or may not have it in front of you, but I will use it as a sort of blueprint for where I want to go.
I was impressed by the magnitude of the recent demonstrations by aggrieved Ceylon Tamils in Toronto earlier this month. They were aimed, of course, in part, at raising Canadian public awareness of the Tamil predicament in the north of Sri Lanka, where, as we all know, there are many thousands of Tamil civilians trapped in a tightening military showdown between the army of the state and the LTTE. Those demonstrations, of course, were also a cry to the Canadian government and the international community. They were an urgent request to somehow become involved in providing those civilians safe conduct, and, by extension, to further the life of the LTTE as a possible political answer to Tamil demands for autonomy, if not outright sovereignty.
It's quite clear that the war is no longer insulated from the rest of the world, nor has it been for some time. The eyes of the world are focused on Sri Lanka. Accusations are being made by the international community that can't be brushed aside. In the short term, I don't think there's too much the international community can do, but there will of course be some observations I will want to add to Professor Cameron's about what Canada might get itself involved with, however indirectly.
Direct involvement in the Sri Lankan scenario by Canada or any other government is, arguably, not going to happen, despite our international consternation over the many abuses this civil war has provoked. Unless both sides of this conflict can come to some agreement about involving an outside agent to assist in mediation, which is unlikely, Sri Lanka, I would argue, needs to bring its civil war to a conclusion by itself. The limits of international engagement in situations in which human rights are in question is a pressing topic in many places. Sri Lanka is an urgent example of a country in need of mending its miserable record and poor global image on this matter.
None of this is sufficient to precipitate outside involvement in Sri Lanka's terrible predicament. It's not as if the international community hasn't tried to assist in an equitable end to this war. Professor Cameron has just mentioned the Forum of Federations, which did outstanding work there.
We could add to this that Nordic countries, in particular, gave leadership and support to two recent attempts. Norway facilitated peace talks in 2001, directly leading to a welcome ceasefire that lasted six years, although its third-party role was severely criticized by nationalists as being partial to the LTTE and by peace activists as not being stern enough.
A second venture, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, originally composed of representatives of five Nordic countries, left Sri Lanka in January 2008, just before the last day of the six-year ceasefire agreement. Hence, I think this small but well-organized observer body did key, creditable work over a period of nearly a decade in the border areas between the warring parties. But they got little thanks for it.
A third attempt to reach out to Sri Lanka was through the Independent International Group of Eminent Persons, which in 2007 was invited by the Government of Sri Lanka to observe and monitor the deliberations of a presidential commission on human rights abuses. I will refer to it by its acronym, IIGEP, of which I was the Canadian representative. I resigned after 14 months in April of last year, having concluded that our advice was not welcome and was indeed ignored by the state. It's too bad that none of these initiatives succeeded. In 2005-06, the Aceh Monitoring Mission in Indonesia in 2005-06 produced very credible results, but this has seldom been the case in Sri Lanka.
Although the conflict is clearly one between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, it is also much more than a simple ethnic dualism—a dualism sometimes referred to as the primordial ethnic struggle, the ethnic struggle between the monolithic aggressor and the monolithic victim. That it is not. The tragedy of Sri Lanka has been shaped by historical, territorial, and socio-economic forces, including colonialism, party politics, caste issues, and religion. Religion has been swept into the drama through a revival of Buddhist nationalism. This is compounded by Sri Lanka's lack of mature democratization. Since independence in 1948, democracy and the rule of law have never been a part of the intellectual focus. Both sides of the conflict continue to experience acute frustration.
The Government of Sri Lanka faces a severe security threat, which in principle it has a legitimate right to address. This was expressed last year by Yasantha Kodagoda, Sri Lanka's Deputy Attorney General at the Human Rights Council, Geneva, when he argued: “Mr. President, at a time when Sri Lanka's very existence as a unitary sovereign state is being seriously threatened by ruthless and dangerous terror, what, in fact, would you suggest the Sir Lankan government do other than exercise legitimate military action?”
I argue that this was and is a valid question. The state argues that the current civil war is justified because the LTTE is not prepared to seriously enter into negotiations, which they are not. The LTTE claims, with some good reason, that no credible political solution has been forthcoming from the state. There is not much Sinhalese public demand for military de-escalation as a means to obtain a cooperative response from the LTTE, and the war has no end in sight. Even if the LTTE collapses as a ground force, armed cadres will carry on asymmetric action for decades. I project 20 more years at least.
This is central to the tragedy. All non-militant policies have been subverted by extremist Sinhalese nationalism and the systematic elimination, over the last 25 years, of moderate politicians, both Sinhalese and Tamil, by the LTTE. Both ethnic communities have also faced decades of their own internal insurrections, sometimes based on caste and certainly on class struggles. This has hardened hearts to now commonplace violations and atrocities. In addition, the civil war has pressed both sides of the conflict into ideological and tactical corners, which continue to severely constrain human rights on both sides of Sri Lanka's conflict.
The international community needs to criticize this human rights abuse and offer assistance when it can. For instance, there was the Tokyo Donors Conference in 2003, and there may be a chance that it will be kick-started back into some kind of performance. But it would not be prudent, in my opinion, for the Government of Canada to become actively involved in allowing the LTTE to gain time and hope for their secessionist cause.
I'll end by raising just a few points that I think could be useful in pressing in the Canadian context. Some of these actually come from a humanitarian body in Sri Lanka that is made up largely of religious leaders, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, for that matter, and I think their list of observations is pertinent to what we might also reach out to.
First, continue steady food supplies through the World Food Programme as long as is necessary.
Second, continue the ferrying of the sick and injured persons through the ICRC to hospitals that are in a position to provide the necessary personnel and medicines to treat these people.
Third, negotiate and evacuate all civilians who wish to leave the conflict zone. For this purpose, a temporary so-called humanitarian pause, rather than a ceasefire, might be negotiated to enable that evacuation.
Fourth, I would also argue that the international community, certainly here in Canada, could engage in a dialogue with the LTTE branches abroad and in that way possibly bring forward some ideas from the Tamil community right here in Canada about what they might see as the possibility of a future without the LTTE, at least in its present form.
I have some other notes here, Mr. Chairman, about confidence-building measures in Sri Lanka and the lack of them, but I think I would leave that until a possible discussion brings them up.
Thank you.