A peace dividend Sri Lanka cannot squander

By David Pilling
Published: November 25 2009 20:44 Last updated: November 25 2009 20:44

M. Chandrapala may not be your typical Sinhalese Sri Lankan. Dressed in an ankle-length lungi and standing outside his modest home in Trincomalee, on the east coast of this beautiful but tragic island, he tells me that Tamil citizens must be given political rights if the fragile peace reached this year is to hold. A former justice of the peace turned organic farmer, Mr Chandrapala is also an advocate of mixed schooling, which he says is essential to foster understanding between Sinhalese and Tamil communities cleaved by language, culture and religion. “Children should quarrel in school and learn how to get on,” he says. “If we don’t solve these problems, the war will come again.”
In May, the Sri Lankan army under General Sarath Fonseca ended 26 years of brutal civil conflict with the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war had cost more than 70,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. It had also spawned one of the most ruthless secessionist groups in the world, prepared to terrorise its own people as well as the Buddhist majority. The finality of the government’s victory was underlined when grisly footage of the moustachioed corpse of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ founder, was paraded on television. Even Tamils with little sympathy for the bloodthirsty organisation that had fought in their name could not help feeling that an era had passed.
That victory came at the cost of huge civilian casualties and human rights abuses. Nevertheless, it has kindled optimism about the island’s prospects. Everywhere, there are signs of a cautious return to normality. Ubiquitous military checkpoints are being dismantled. The government soon intends to open the A9 north-south highway to civilian traffic, a symbol of reunification to rival the fall of the Berlin Wall. HSBC even plans by January to open a branch in Jaffna, the northern peninsula that became synonymous with violent conflict.
Investors are (over)excitedly talking about Sri Lanka as the next Singapore. While that is far-fetched, the island does have economic potential. The tourist industry, for one, could reap a big peace dividend. Beyond its other mainstays of tea and textiles, Sri Lanka has deep reserves of human capital. Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Galleon, who was last month arrested in New York on suspicion of insider trading, may not be the ideal poster-boy for Sri Lanka. Yet he is an extreme example of the success Sri Lanka’s talented diaspora has achieved in finance, industry and the professions. After a quarter century of senseless bloodshed, which frightened off tourists and investors alike, Sri Lanka boasts a nominal gross domestic product of some $2,000 per head, about twice that of India. Think what it could achieve if it had sustainable peace.
That is the ten-thousand lakh question. Can Sri Lanka build lasting stability on the back of what has been a purely military triumph? The danger is that the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa – whose brothers adorn the cabinet like Christmas tree ornaments – will take power for granted after its crushing victory and embrace a crude Sinhalese chauvinism. That would risk stirring renewed conflict from the smouldering embers of peace.
To prevent that, at least three things need to happen. First, the 140,000 people still in camps need to be swiftly and justly resettled. Here, Mr Rajapaksa’s government is moving in the right direction. It has promised to allow complete freedom of movement by December 1 and says it will give non-governmental organisations, hitherto held in suspicion because of their supposed sympathy for the Tamil cause, greater access to displaced people. The authorities must also move quickly to rebuild destroyed infrastructure so that victims of the war are not left to rot without homes, schools and utilities.
Second, Sri Lanka needs a political settlement. Jehan Perera, director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, says the government is allergic to the term federalism. But whatever it is called – the preferred nomenclature is devolution – Tamils must feel that they have a political say. The seeming finality of the government’s victory must not become an excuse to crush Tamil hopes of greater political and civil participation.
The third task is the most difficult of all. As Mr Chandrapala says, the degree to which communities are segregated in an island of only 20m people is shocking. In four schools I visited this month – two Sinhalese, one Tamil and one Muslim – there was not a single child enrolled from an outside community. The government should draw up plans for an integrated, multilingual education system as a priority.
Until a few weeks ago, the prospect of such reconciliatory moves was low indeed. Mr Rajapaksa was preparing to ride his triumph to six more years in office. That certainty has now faded with the likelihood that Gen Fonseca, credited with masterminding victory over the Tigers, will run as an opposition candidate. If there is a contest, neither contender will be able to rely entirely on the Sinhalese nationalist vote. That is a development wholly to be welcomed.
david.pilling@ft.com