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Characteristics, Issues and Challenges in

Post-War Conflicting Situation

Sumanasiri Liyanage

(University of Peradeniya)

1. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was comprehensively defeated by security forcesof the Sri Lankan Government (GoSL) by mid-May, 2009. This had become in fact a

shock to many conflict resolution experts as well as to NGOs and INGOs. The countries

in the Global North tried their best to postpone the defeat of the LTTE by calling for a

humanitarian ceasefire, but they failed to budge the GoSL from its path of military

victory.

2. Military victory was in fact a costly one as its human casualties must have reachedsomething like 25,000. From the beginning of the Eelam War iv in mid-2006 to the defeat

of the LTTE in mid May 2009, it was reported that more than six thousand security

forces personal were killed. According to the estimates of the GoSL, the security forces

killed more than 10,000 LTTE cadres during the same period. The usual pattern in

modern wars (wars of the third kind) is that the number of civilian deaths exceeds the

number of combatants killed in fighting. These figures indicate the level of destruction as

a direct result of the Eelam War iv.

3. Armed conflicts may end in many ways. In Sri Lanka armed conflict was temporarilystopped in number of occasions through an agreement between main contending parties,namely, the GoSL and the LTTE. The past governments used the war with the objective

of weakening the LTTE and pressurising it to come to the negotiation to reach at a

compromised negotiated settlement. But none of these attempts were successful due to

multiple reasons. The difference between the present government and the past

governments is that the former wanted to defeat the LTTE rather than weaken it. For

many reasons, the strategy became successful.

4. How could the current situation be defined and described? I will call it post-warconflicting situation. War has definitely to come to an end. As the main leadership of the

LTTE was physically decimated, there is no possibility of LTTE remobilization or an

emergence of new armed groups in the near future. So the current situation is

undoubtedly POST-WAR. Does it mean that the national conflict has also come to an end?

I answer this question in negative. If the conflicting issues are not satisfactorily

addressed in coming years, always there is a potential danger of re-emergence of armed

groups and armed confrontations. Hence, although war has come to an end, the latent

conflict continues to exist awaiting re-emergence in a future day.

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5. The tasks of the post-war conflicting situation are basically three-fold. These tasks can besequenced as immediate (maximum 180 days), short-term (6 months to 12 months) and

medium term (six months to 18 months).

The Immediate Tasks

6. The immediate tasks in the post-war conflicting situation include upgrading the IDPcamps to internationally accepted levels by providing food, shelter, clothing, medical

requirement, and ensuring education of school going age children. Since there is an issue

of security of which the state is usually worried about, screening to separate the former

LTTE combatants may be necessary. However, that process should be completed as fast

as possible. At the moment, one of the serious issues that is not satisfactorily address is

the provision of adequate sanitary facilities for IDP camps.

7. One of the major flaws in the conventional mechanism of providing humanitarianassistance to IDPs is the conventional mechanism makes IDPs dependent on outside

structures. So it is imperative to weaken the dependent mentality of the IDPs by makingthem as far as possible empowered. So people in IDP camps should be encouraged to

form their own organizational set-up (camp welfare committees) to organize their day-

to-day requirement so that their dependent mentality that can be increased by an

excessive involvement of NGOs and INGOs can be gradually reduced. The CWCs can

decide what the priority requirements of the camp are. NGOs and INGOs may provide

necessary materials and services for the IDPs, but the way they are used should be in the

hands of IDPs themselves.

8. It appears some camps are unmanageably large, (for example: Manik Farm). A divisionof large camps into smaller manageable units may be considered.

The Resettlement and Rehabilitation Tasks

9. IDPs have an absolute right to return back to their villages. So the period of time thatthey are kept in IDP camps should be minimised. As there is a possibility of the presence

of land mines in many villages, removal of mines should be given a priority. As there

may be villages that are free of land mines, those villages can be identified and the IDPs

who came from those areas can be resettled soon. In this regard, it would be helpful in

preparing a resettlement map with a time-frame attached to it.

10. In case, the houses that the IDPs used to live were damaged as a consequence of the war,the state should take the responsibility of rebuilding the houses. As far as possible,

reconstruction of houses and other public buildings (schools, dispensaries etc) should be

done with the participation and the supervision of respective owners. As proposed by

Mahinda Chinthanya, a compensation of Rs. 250,000 per family should be paid when the

IDPs are resettled so that they could use that money as seed money in re-starting their

life.

11. Parallel to the resettlement process, re-building of formal and informal local politico-cultural institutional structure should proceed. In this respect, the key institutions

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should be local government bodies as they have legal authority over many issues of

great importance to village re-awakening. In addition to local government bodies, local

reconciliation committees (Ministry of Justice), cultural and sport associations, libraries

etc should be encouraged.

12.Empowering local government bodies is key to the grass-root level democracy.International donors should move away from their conventional practice of funding

through NGOs, especially INGOs and Central Government and focus more and more on

these formal local bodies especially when they finance local level development and other

projects.

13.Data shows that the incidence and the level of poverty in the Northern Province issignificantly higher than the other areas of Sri Lanka (horizontal poverty). Poverty is loss

of entitlements. Entitlement loss occurs when markets were made inoperative and when

public provisions were restricted. Hence, this dimension of poverty has to be given a

serious consideration in the re-settlement period.

14.The other important dimension in the short- and medium term is how to rehabilitate ex-LTTE combatants thus making them enable to re-start their lives as useful and

productive citizens.

Task of Building an Inclusive Sri Lanka

15.The armed conflict was a direct consequence of the way in which the post-colonial statein Sri Lanka was built and maintained. Through many legislations, including two

autochthonous constitutions, the participation of Tamils and other nations and ethnic

groups were restricted. As a result of this marginalization and discrimination, the post-

colonial state has been under continuous contestation since independence. In order to

address this long term issue, steps should be taken to restructure the Sri Lankan state on

the basis of the principle of power-sharing.

16.Military defeat has definitely weakened the Tamil demands for inclusion in spite and because of the fact the LTTE fought for separate state, in a way, for formalization of

exclusion. In my view, Tamils should have now worked for incremental reforms (My

article on, Reformist Perspective for State Restructuring in Sri Lanka). Everyone

agrees that the 13th Amendment is not adequate. It has many flaws; inadequacies; and

contradictions. The Amendment has never been fully implemented. However, it also

gives room for limited autonomy over many issues that are of great importance to

provincial development. Hence, as its legality cannot be questioned, it may be a goodstarting point. So the setting up of the Northern Provincial Council can be considered as

a step towards making Sri Lankan state more accommodative and inclusive.