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Norway and Britain: Mistakes of Peace Making
in Sri Lanka
By Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
Courtesy transcurrents.com
I am not sure how and why Norway got involved in the Sri Lankan conflict.
However, I have read in a couple of academic articles that peacemaking
in internal conflicts is a cornerstone of the foreign policy of the
Royal Norwegian Government.
It has been involved in several peacemaking exercises in Guatemala,
Palestine, Sri Lanka and Sudan, inter alia. However, none seem to have
borne fruit in a durable manner, except perhaps Guatemala. It is high
time for the Norwegian Government and the people to realise why their
efforts to make peace around the world have failed.
From the experience of Norway in Sri Lanka, this article postulates
that the diaspora communities and the so-called Norwegian and Scandinavian
experts on different conflicts around the world have misinformed the
Norwegian people and the government, and therefore misunderstanding
(or misreading) of the conflicts and their key players have become the
norm in the Norwegian-brokered peacemaking efforts around the world.
Norway's involvement
Norway has been vigorously involved in the development process in Sri
Lanka since the 1970s through its financial sponsorship of Integrated
Rural Development Programmes (IRDPs) in different backward districts
of Sri Lanka. IRDPs became the vogue in the developing countries by
the mid-1970s with the ascendancy of the 'Basic Needs' approach to development.
Norway has been involved in Northern Sri Lanka even before the IRDPs
with the setting up of the CEYNOR foundation to help the fishing community
in the Jaffna peninsula. It is important to note that there were no
IRDPs in the Eastern and Northern Provinces. Except the CEYNOR project,
I cannot remember a single project that Norway funded in the Northern
Province during the 1970s.
In the east, I cannot remember a single Norwegian funded project in
the 1970s. However, I am aware that Norway had funded resettlement of
hill-country Tamils affected by the 1977 ethnic riots in the Wanni through
local NGOs such as Gandhiyam.
I have also learnt from academic literature that Norway's peacemaking
role is facilitated by the development work it sponsors at the grassroots
level through various local NGOs, which gives them access to local information
and knowledge. However, in the case of the Sri Lankan conflict, I doubt
Norway had adequate (a critical mass of) knowledge of the Eastern and
Northern Provinces and the problems it faced at the time of the beginning
of the armed conflict in the early-1980s.
Even afterwards, until today, I doubt Norway has adequate knowledge
of the Tamil community in particular, and the Eastern and Northern Provinces
in general.
This applies to various other international players in the Sri Lankan
conflict as well, except of course the Central Government of India.
Even in the case of India, not a single chief minister or political
leader of the Tamil Nadu State has ever visited Sri Lanka or the Eastern
and Northern Provinces, and therefore lack adequate knowledge about
the problems faced by the Tamil people.
This is reflected in the often-idiotic statements made by fringe political
party leaders of the Tamil Nadu state, and at times at chief ministerial
level.
Sources of information
To the best of my knowledge Norway's primary sources of information
and knowledge about the Sri Lankan conflict in general, and about the
Tamil community and the Eastern and Northern Provinces in particular,
are the diaspora communities and the so-called Norwegian experts on
Sri Lankan conflict. Both of these sources are dubious.
The Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora communities living in Western countries
(including Norway) are overwhelmingly from northern Sri Lanka, particularly
from the Jaffna peninsula, and are by and large conflict-induced.
The so-called Norwegian experts on Sri Lankan conflict in turn largely
depend on diaspora communities for information, data, etc. Therefore,
what the Norwegian Government gets is the peninsular view of the problem
of the Eastern and Northern Provinces, which is partial and often partisan.
Moreover, conflict-induced diaspora communities cannot provide an objective,
non-emotional, and balanced picture of the nature, causes and effects
of the conflict back home. Because of this partial view, Norway fails
to understand the diversities and intricacies within the Tamil speaking
communities in the Eastern and Northern Provinces, particularly of the
Muslims, Vanniars and the Eastern Tamils and the diversities within
each of these sub nationals (class, caste, religious, etc).
This partial worldview is a major fallacy in the understanding and
study of migrant communities in the Western world. The overwhelming
majority of the Bangladeshi migrant community in the UK, for example,
is from a particular region called Shylet. The British people's view
of Bangladesh and Bangladeshis is formed on the basis of their knowledge
and understanding of Shyletis, whereas the actual Bangladesh is much
more diverse and complex.
Fallacious worldview
The same fallacy is repeated in the case of other migrant communities
and in other countries as well. This fallacious worldview is greater
in the case of conflict-induced migrants because of emotional and scarred
representation of their tragic experiences back home (real, perceived
and contrived), in addition to the useful class, caste, regional origin,
and religious representations.
The same Tamil diaspora community also feeds the so-called Norwegian
experts on Sri Lanka. The Tamil diaspora community itself fails to realise
and understand the changing dynamic of their community back home, over
a period of time. Therefore, most of their representation of the home
community/region is often dated.
The Sri Lankan conflict has gone on for a quarter century and has never
been the same and static. The Norwegian experts on Sri Lanka, along
with the Norwegian government and the people, fail to realise and understand
the outdated representation of the conflict back home. Even when the
Norwegian experts seek local knowledge on the conflict in Sri Lanka,
it is the diaspora community that refers the local contacts to them.
It is important to note here that this author was part of the conflict-induced
Tamil diaspora community in the UK for about 13 years during the 1980s
and 1990s, having earned three postgraduate degrees in three British
universities. Therefore, the writer understands the diaspora communities
well.
It is also important to note that the entire members of diaspora communities
are not part of the ill-informed lot. Numerous people within the diaspora
communities (the silent majority) are well informed, open-minded and
balanced, but are silenced by the goon squads. Similarly, not all Norwegian
or Scandinavian experts on Sri Lanka are misinformed or partisan, but
the few who are balanced appear to have little influence on Norwegian
policy.
Norway has commissioned very little research studies on the Sri Lankan
conflict in general and on the Tamil community in particular, either
in Norway or in Sri Lanka, which is publicly known. Whatever little
it has (some are publicly known, most are not), were undertaken either
by Norwegian or Swedish academics. Although most of it is based on fieldwork
on the ground, it is with limited local input and partial coverage.
This is totally inadequate for a peace facilitator.
British mistake
To the best of my knowledge, Norway has tapped very little local expertise
either at the national level or at the sub-national level in the conflict
region. In fact, there is a tendency to castigate local expertise as
polarised and therefore non-objective. It is this kind of paranoia of
local and intimate knowledge that makes peacemaking around the world
a tale of failures, inter alia.
Norway is not the only country that is relying on diaspora sources
and their own academics to investigate and understand the conflict in
Sri Lanka. Britain is making the same mistake.
The British All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils is one other ill-informed
lobby group around the world. The All Party Parliamentary Group for
Tamils Head is Keith Vaz (Labour Party MP for Leicester East) and one
of the members is Andrew Pelling (Conservative Party MP for Croydon
Central).
Vaz was suspended from Parliament for a month on the allegation of
financial impropriety few years ago. Coincidentally, the birthday of
Vaz and LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is the same, i.e. November
26, though the former was born in 1956 and the latter in 1954.
Pelling had a majority of just 75 votes at the last general election
and is fighting to retain his seat at the forthcoming election. Croydon
Central constituency has considerable Sri Lankan diaspora population,
mostly Tamils. Pelling was arrested in September 2007 for beating his
second wife and suspended from the Conservative Party for the same offence.
Both these MPs (and most likely others in the All Party Committee as
well) do not have genuine concern for the Sri Lankan Tamils. Their only
concern is getting the emotional votes of the Tamil diaspora communities
and perhaps large donations for their electoral campaigns from proxies
of a banned organisation. Could such a fraud and a violent person cum
opportunist meaningfully and effectively contribute to conflict resolution
in Sri Lanka?
Political party funding issue
Most of the champions of the LTTE cause in the British political establishment
are of South Asian origin (Vaz, Virendra Sharma (Ealing Southall)),
Sadiq Khan (Tooting), et al).
Moral and ethical aspects of political party funding in general and
by immigrant communities in particular has become a hot topic of debate
in Britain recently with a pro-Israel lobbying group donating money
to the ruling Labour Party (see an article by Steve O'Brien entitled
'What the funding scandal tells us about Britain, its Jews and immigrants
in general' in The Economist of December 6).
With the next general elections not too far, British politicians (particularly
in the Labour Party) can expect large donations from Tamil diaspora
communities to campaign for the cause of the LTTE (largely mobilised
through illegal activities). This has become more realistic with the
LTTE Leader in his annual Great Heroes Day speech on November 27 urging
the diaspora communities to seek support for a separate state for the
Tamils in Sri Lanka in their host countries.
It is not only the foreign governments and politicians who are making
this mistake. Even foreign non-governmental organisations involved in
conflict transformation efforts and based in Sri Lanka are making the
same mistake by bringing experts from their home countries and sometimes
hiring from the diaspora community in their home countries.
These efforts are self-defeating and cannot make meaningful contributions
to conflict resolution or transformation in Sri Lanka. It is high time
Norway and other international facilitators of peace in Sri Lanka realise
this folly.
Generally, developed countries have played dubious roles in the conflicts
in developing countries. Most of the dictators, extremist governments,
and violent anti-government movements in the Third World have been protégés
of one or the other government of the Western world.
France was the protege of Ayatollah Khomeni, who established the Islamic
Republic of Iran against which the entire Western world is waging a
proxy war today. Saddam Hussein was a protégé of many
Western governments including the USA. The United States was the protege
of the Mujahedin in Afghanistan that created the Taliban regime.
Whither justice?
All the foregoing extremist governments/forces have bitten the hands
that have fed them. Moreover, dubious roles played by Western governments
in other countries' conflicts have now begun to nurture indigenous extremist/violent
forces within their own countries (Britain is a prime example).
In the same way, today many Western governments are harbouring members
of state and anti-state movements who have perpetrated violent acts
and crimes against humanity in their home countries.
While the perpetrators and instigators of conflicts in their home countries
are provided sanctuary, innocent victims of such conflicts who are attempting
to flee the violence are castigated as 'economic migrants' and barred
by iron curtains of Western countries. What justice is this?
Several perpetrators of violence and crimes against humanity in the
Sri Lankan conflict and their families are provided safe heavens (even
diplomatic passports) in many European countries (particularly Britain),
Canada and Australia, while innocent victims of the conflict are refused
entry to these countries for visiting family, relatives or friends,
for studies or for migration.
Moreover, perpetrators of the Sri Lankan conflict (particularly the
LTTE and its proxies) continue to make death threats in public forums
in their host countries on democrats and intellectuals in Sri Lanka
(particularly those of their own community), against whom no action
is taken by the host countries.
It won't be too long before the extremist/violent forces within the
diaspora communities bite the hands that feed them. Let the Western
world learn a lesson from India's role in the Sri Lankan conflict during
the 1980s and its consequences. Comment is ours, choice is yours! [Courtesy:
Nation.lk]
(Muttukrishna Sarvananthan Ph.D. (Wales) is a Development Economist
by profession and is the Principal Researcher at the Point Pedro Institute
of Development, Point Pedro, Northern Sri Lanka. He is the author of
The Economy of the Conflict Region in Sri Lanka: From Economic Embargo
to Economic Repression, published by the East-West Centre Washington
(forthcoming). Further details about the author and his work can be
accessed at http://pointpedro.org)
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