Sri Lanka’s protracted and violent conflict, indeed much of politics on the island since late colonial rule, can be seen as a struggle to re-constitute and re-arrange space, identities and demographics in keeping with two different understandings of the ‘right disposition’ of people things; one seeing the island as the home of two equal ‘founding races’, the other seeing it as the motherland of a people entrusted with a duty to protect and foster Buddhism in which others may remain as guests provided they abide by this natural order. Both rationalities recognize Tamils and Sinhalese as historical collectives, albeit ones bearing very different constellations of status, rights and responsibilities. Consequently, since well before independence in 1948, these rationalities have confronted each other in territorial, legal, political, cultural, social and military spaces. The enactment of laws and constitutions that give Sinhalese and Buddhism ‘first and foremost’
places are part of the right disposition of things in Sinhala-Buddhism terms, but constitute a crisis in Tamil Freedom terms. The Tamil aimed struggle and the demand for self-determination are programmatic solutions in terms of Tamil Freedom, but in Sinhala-Buddhism terms these represent a problem, a terrorist challenge that warrants, not compromise and sharing of power, but a ‘just war’ in defense of the redoubt of Buddhism. It is across the terrain in which these two govemmentalities are clashing that a third ‘external* govemmentality has
increasingly sought to conduct conduct in terms of establishing a liberal peace on the island. Before a detailed examination of how exactly liberal peace was pursued in Sri Lanka, especially after 2002, this chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how the elements and assumptions o f ‘Liberal Peace* conflict and overlap with those o f ‘Tamil Freedom’ and ‘Sinhala-Buddhism5.
Liberal Peace considers ‘multi-ethnic* Sri Lanka as a viable arena for establishing a liberal democracy and market economy in the island. Elections are held for local and national government and Presidency, with high levels of participation, and there are thriving, albeit factional and polarized, media and non-governmental sectors. Overall social indicators - health, education, etc - are considered high. Moreover, despite being gripped by armed conflict for three decades, the country has demonstrated consistent economic growth (ADB 1999:1, World Bank 2001:1, 2003:1) and despite the strong welfarist traditions of all post-independence governments, the country has since 1977 been a model economic reformer, complying, albeit at a slower pace than demanded, with international neo-liberal demands (Shastri 2004, see also ADB 1999:15, World Bank 2001:3).
Appreciation of all this has not been dulled by awareness that patronage politics, electoral malpractice and corruption are common (Dunham and Kelegama 1997, Rampton and Welikala 2005:58) or that the island’s communities are sharply polarized along ethnic lines that cut through electoral politics (De Votta 2004), media (Nadarajah 2005) and civil society (Oijuela 2003): the basic elements of a market democracy are held to be already in place.
By unqualifiedly holding the state’s territorial integrity (and - rhetorically, at least - sovereignty) inviolable, rejecting armed non-state challenges to the state as an anathema, shunning the sharing of power on ethnic bases, rejecting the notion of
ethnic homelands (unless, perhaps, these are accepted as such by all within the state) and privileging the procedural aspects of democracy (i.e. majority rule), the terrain of Liberal Peace has considerable overlaps with that of Sinhala-Buddhism. By rejecting any ‘inherent5 superiority of one set of individuals over another, insisting the state must be secular and indifferent to ethnicity and that race or religion should not define individuals’ life chances, insisting (individuals’) economic, social and cultural progress should be encumbered unless these impact negatively on other individuals, Tamil Freedom and Liberal Peace have overlaps too. However, whilst Liberal Peace deems the people of Sri Lanka’s Northeast to be rightly aggrieved about their states of poverty and underdevelopment (but not to the extent to justify resort to violence), Tamil Freedom considers the Tamils not as simply individuals unfortunately left behind by the march of progress, but a collective deliberately chosen to be excluded. Beyond these largely self-evident aspects, however, it is in how Liberal Peace seeks to establish its vision of ‘peace’ in Southern warzones that the contradictions and overlaps between these three govemmentalities come especially to be highlighted.
Whilst both Tamil Freedom and Sinhala-Buddhism see conflict as a meaningful social act -as armed struggle against Sinhala state oppression or a just wax* against Tamil terrorism, respectively - Liberal Peace sees it as a lamentable condition or a
7 0
state of being characteristic of problematic Southern sites. In other words, rather than a strategy or project by the protagonists, ‘conflict’ here is the collective
condition of the country that incorporates the entire gamut of violence (including,
say, election-related violence, crime by military deserters and clashes between caste groups) and is at variance from liberal peace. Moreover, it is the
responsibility of the state to maintain law and order and to protect citizens from each other - though it is worth noting here how, in contexts such as armed
uprisings against state oppression, the line between the state upholding the rule of law and persecuting the rebellious minorities is decidedly indistinct. In Liberal Peace terms, conflict as a condition, notably, is apolitical. It is also a problematic
79 An important DFID study on Sri Lanka argues, for example: "although the so-called ‘ethnic conflict’ in the north east is spatially defined, ... militarized violence has become an island-wide and endemic feature o f Sri Lankan society and ... it has to be responded to in these terms” (Goodhand 2001:24, emphasis added).
that includes both violence that is underway and that which could potentially erupt in future: with its own understandings as to why violence breaks out and the faultlines along which this is likely, Liberal Peace thus identifies its own range of
potentialities which must be addressed in any process to resolve ongoing conflict.
With poverty cited as a primary cause of conflict in the South and radicalizations of all sorts deemed immanent to underdevelopment, Liberal Peace sees a limitless range of ‘stakeholders’ who must be ‘included’ for a peace effort to be successful. If violence is a condition, and a single market state and democratic polity is the goal, then ideally every armed group, every faction, every community must somehow be part of the peace effort, not least lest they become ‘spoilers’ of it. Thus, just as Liberal Peace dismisses all non-state actors as equally illegitimate, it also holds all ‘armed groups’ to be equally entitled to participate in shaping ‘peace’. In effect, the status of the main armed non-state actor is the same as the smallest, irrespective of their political values, popular* support or motivations.
In Sri Lanka, the armed stakeholders that Liberal Peace deems necessary to seat at the table include, at a minimum, the state (albeit with a special status of
legitimacy), the LTTE and the Army-backed Tamil paramilitary groups. In Tamil Freedom terms, the paramilitaries are quislings working with the state oppressor who consequently have no claim to represent Tamil interests or to be involved in a bilateral dialogue between two nations. In Sinhala-Buddhism terms, however, the government-allied paramilitaries are the genuine representatives of the Tamils (i.e. they recognize the Tamils’ proper place in Sri Lanka), unlike the ‘extremist’ terrorists of the LTTE, and are the ‘moderates’ with whom a ‘solution’ must be reached. Even though the Muslims have not been involved as a distinct collective in Sri Lanka’s war, they are (as one of the country’s three ethnic groupings), held in Liberal Peace terms to require a place at the peace table to resolve ‘the
conflict’. Tamil Freedom sees the Muslims as already represented at the table, whether the latter consider themselves part of the Tamil speaking people and residents of the Northeastern homeland or instead accept the sovereignty of the Sinhala-dominated state. Sinhala-Buddhism accepts the Muslims must be involved in any solution, provided they, as must the Tamils, ultimately accept their subordinate status and the primacy of the Sinhalese and Buddhism. For Tamil Freedom, which sees the conflict in Sri Lanka as an armed struggle for
national liberation from an oppressive state, the resolution of the conflict must take place between the Sinhala nation (represented by the state) and the Tamil nation (represented by the LTTE). The inclusion of other actors or communities
outside this bilateral arrangement between collectives is a rejection of the
fundamental basis of their grievance i.e. national oppression. For Sinhala- Buddhism, which does indeed reject this fundamental basis, the inclusion of all entities in a negotiation, whilst distasteful, is acceptable as long as the supremacy of the state is untrammeled, as is the first and foremost position of Buddhism,
The three rationalities, informing very different problem-definitions of Sri Lanka’s conflict, see very different sets of victims and aggressors. For Tamil Freedom, the Tamil nation is the victim of Sinhala state aggression. For Sinhala- Buddhism, the Tamil collective’s uprising against its subordinate status is an affront to the natural order of things and, thus, the state - and indirectly Buddhism and the Sinhalese - are the victims. For Liberal Peace, everyone - except the armed groups, the self-serving instigators of wholly unnecessary violence - are victims: those who are suffering are ‘all Sri Lankans’ and ‘all communities’, especially ‘women’ and ‘children’. This denial of a fundamental ethno-political logic to the war, support for the state, and the pointed faulting o f the LTTE overlaps neatly with Sinhala-Buddliism’s characterization of the conflict. Moreover, the three rationalities see very different difficulties for ensuring
‘lasting’ peace between the island’s residents. Tamil Freedom sees recognition of the Tamils and Sinhalese as equal collectives and, now, of the distinct homelands as sine qua non. Sinhala-Buddhism sees the acceptance by all of the primacy of Buddhism and the Sinhala as fundamental. Liberal Peace sees recognition of the equal worth of all individuals and thus ‘reconciliation’ and amity - i.e. ending of ‘polarizations’ - between all communities as essential. Liberal Peace does not seek the eradication of ethnic identities, but their reconstitution as subordinate to a shared civic identity of the ‘Sri Lankan’. Tamil Freedom requires a reconstitution of Sinhala (collective) identity to one that sees itself as equal to the Tamil
(collective) one. Sinhala-Buddhism requires the reconstitution of Tamil
(collective) identity to one that accepts its position as a ‘minority’ with a lesser belonging than the Sinhalese.
It is in the above senses that three governmental rationalities - three different conceptions of the ‘right disposition5 of people and things, three different visions of what constitutes a ‘better world5 - have been clashing in the Sri Lankan space since well before the international ‘peace5 engagement began in 2002. Having set out the rationalities that were competing during the 2001-2006 international intervention in Sri Lanka, the rest of the dissertation examines how two of these, Liberal Peace and Tamil Freedom, informed the conduct of various international and local actors during the international peace effort in Sri Lanka, and how the differences and overlaps between these rationalities consequently played out. In particular the chapters examine the production of specific objects, behaviours and subjects within the Sri Lankan space. They also seek to demonstrate how the ‘realities5 visible on the terrains of Liberal Peace and Tamil Freedom both inspired and were constituted by specific practices. In other words, they examine problematizations - failures of government - and the programmes - ‘proposed solutions5 - that emerged in terms of these two rationalities, and how these programmes were consequently turned into practical efforts of government i.e. ‘rendered technical5.