Feature interview with 
Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the National Peace Council in Sri Lanka, during IDEA’s Reconciliation Expert Network meeting in Stockholm, 14 March 2006.
Interviewer: Mark Salter, Senior Programme Officer of IDEA’s Democracy-Building and Conflict Management Programme.
Jehan, you were present in Geneva for the peace talks in February between the government of Sri Lanka and representatives of the LTTE. What were your impressions of the talks as it were from the sidelines?
It appeared that the talks were difficult at the beginning but at a certain stage, the government side in particular made a decision that they had to come to an agreement with the LTTE and that agreement was reached. At the conclusion of the talks, what was very exciting was the relief that seemed to be on the faces of everyone present, the Norwegians, the government delegation and the LTTE, that they had indeed reached an agreement and I think that is very positive.
During the course of the discussions in Geneva, a number of critical issues for the future of the peace process were identified. What would you say, from your perspective, are the most significant issues that have to be addressed for the peace process, in a more broad sense, to really get kick-started?
There are two main issues that must be addressed. There must be a curbing of violence. I think that both sides have to be very firm and ensure that there is no usage of violence against other sides. The second important thing, on which progress will have to be made if there is to be a continuation of the peace process, is that the government and LTTE will have to come up with a joint funding mechanism for development of the north and east. I think if these two things are done - if the violence is stopped and a joint financial mechanism is put in place whereby funding can go to the northeast via the LTTE, then I think the peace process would be secure for the short-term.
You say there’s these two big “ifs” or desirables. Do you see evidence of the likelihood of their actually occurring in the current conjecture?
At the moment, no, because what we have seen at the present time, is that the violence has continued. We have not come to a complete stop. Although the government made a pledge that it would control the violence, there has been violence against the LTTE. The LTTE also have apparently not been keeping to its word, because it assured the government that there would be no more Child soldier recruitment. There is evidence that Child soldier recruitment is also continuing. So both sides have not fully lived up to their commitment and as for the putting up of a joint mechanism for financial provisions for the north and east, at the moment there does not seem to be any indication of that at all. I don’t even know whether they are thinking about it. But I think that that is what is going to be necessary to keep the LTTE in the peace process in the future.
If these are the critical things that need to happen, and in one case you see little evidence of genuine commitment to implementation and in the other instance the economic mechanisms have no evidence, where does that leave us in terms of what needs to happen, or the likelihood of something of a return to war imminently?
The viability of the peace process to continue remains an open question. However, what gives me a measure of hope, a measure of confidence, is my belief that the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, does not wish to get himself embroiled in a war. And because he does not wish to get into a war, he will do what is necessary to keep the LTTE in the peace process. My belief is that as the date of the next peace talks comes around, the president will exert himself consummately and directly to ensure that violence against the LTTE, the activities of the paramilitary groups is brought to an end, that the activities cease. I think that would be one thing that I would see at the moment. As for whether he is going to step-up this joint economic mechanism, I am not quite sure whether he on his own would be able to generate that, because I am not quite sure whether he has that type of thinking. That will have to come out of the peace talks by the LTTE’s self-met demands and then he responds to it, but I don’t think he on his own will come up with that.
When you talk of the need for other forces or other components of the peace jigsaw to either come up with ideas or push things, clearly one of the factors at the moment constraining the government is the coalition it finds itself in, with amongst those the JVP and the JHU, two parties who publicly at least are extremely skeptical about the peace talks and even question Norway’s role as mediator and the viability of a negotiated settlement. What would you see happening or as probable development in terms of the president securing for himself the political backings required to make the moves necessary to move the peace process forward along the lines you have outlined?
My guess is that it is clear that the president would like to take the JVP and JHU, these nationalists, along with him on his journey towards peace. My guess is that the nationalists would accompany the president quite the distance, if only for the reason that they do not wish him to either fall, and his government to either fall, and thereby make way for the opposition UNP to come back and form the government, or that the president then may join up with the UNP. I think JVP and JHU do not wish the president to either fall or enter into a coalition with the UNP and therefore would pragmatically go along with the president quite the distance in terms of the peace process, even accommodating significant reforms of the polity.
This brings us to a subject that has been discussed here in the context of our meeting in Stockholm, which the former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe attended this morning. One of the questions we’ve put to him was the role of the possibility of building a more bi-partisan approach to the peace process in Sri Lanka. What do you see as the prospects or possibility for a more bi-partisan approach to develop, not necessarily just in the immediate term but more as an overarching approach to the peace process from the political parties?
From what Mr. Wickremesinghe has said, it appears that his idea of bi-partisanship is that he will not oppose the positive initiatives to a peace of the government. He also said that he would support the government if it became necessary, in terms of support wanted by the government. So I think there is a certain bi-partisanship already existing in the sense that there will be no opposition by Mr. Wickremesinghe’s party to positive initiatives of the president. What we probably will not have from Mr. Wickremesinghe, however, are positive effects on the part of Mr. Wickremesinghe and his party to assist the president to go forward. His support will be more in the nature of not putting opposing obstacles.
You work for an NGO, a civil society organization that’s been actively engaged in peace issues in Sri Lanka for decades now. In the current conjecture, how do you see the role of civil society, not just civil society organizations but see civil society broadly construed in taking the peace process to the next step, taking it forward?
I think civil society needs to put forward the ideas regarding what the items on the agenda should be in the future, because such assistance to the idea of economic mechanism where the LTTE and government would jointly ensure that development takes place in the north and east. Now those ideas are not being internally generated within the political system, therefore I think civil society needs to bring that idea out and lobby for it. Likewise, I believe ideas regarding human rights, protection of the peoples’ interest which political parties and the government and the LTTE may not bring forward very forcefully because they are looking at their own interests. So civil society may need to come forward and represent the peoples’ interests, create international awareness and let the international community, which is standing ready to assist Sri Lanka and to give lots of assistance to Sri Lanka, to be able to utilize the case being made by civil society and thereby put pressure on the government and its duty.
You refer to the international community. There are some who would say that the Sri Lankan peace process suffers precisely from having been over-internationalized, while others would maintain that a more robust engagement and commitment from the international community is precisely one of the elements required to help the peace process, to revive the peace process. What would your own view be on that?
I think the international community role has been extremely positive and if the international community had not been showing so much support and interest in Sri Lanka, we could have headed for a break down; there could have been a break down. To give an example, it was the Norwegian mediation lead by Erik Solheim that helped to divert a very rapidly deteriorating situation when violence between the government and LTTE forces in December 2005 and January 2006 seemed to be degenerating into a popular war. It was because Erik Solheim’s visit to Sri Lanka that suddenly reversed that process. So, that’s an example of the positive role created by the international community and then the Swiss government and the Norwegian government effectuating the talks at Geneva, again, set-back the prospect of war, offered up the hope that once again the peace process could get back on track.
You are here visiting International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization whose mandate is the promotion of democracy and we’ve been holding a meeting you’ve attended which has been looking at issues of reconciliation, but very much within the framework of democracy and what democracy can do for management and attenuation of conflict. Are there any ideas or concepts or proposals on the table, for example coming from experiences in other countries within the democracy framework, which you think might be of relevance for helping to resolve Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict?
I think one of the very good ideas that came out of the discussion was the need to set up some sort of human rights mechanism and reconciliatory mechanism that was not directly dependent on the peace process that could be nevertheless legitimized by the government and LTTE, but which are not tied to the facts of their continuing to engage in peace talks themselves, but which have their sanction and the sanction of the international community and civil society, and could function independently to create a conducive environment.
Again, just within the broader question of democracy, one of the key discussions not being so present here but which we know in Sri Lanka, is the question of what form of democratic governance would be appropriate as the framework for the resolution of the ethnic conflict. So we hear a little talk about federalism, consociationalism, the unitary state, the different models, the different options. From your perspective, what role do you think that the structuring in a democratic framework of the Sri Lankan polity plays in the resolution of the ethnic conflict?
Well, the challenge in Sri Lanka all along has been how to accommodate a majority and smaller and minority communities and ensure that there is power-sharing. But there is no unilateral decision-making nor imposition of one community or one nation’s vision upon the others, so this means that there has to be some scheme of power-sharing, and in that scheme of power-sharing there should be safe guards so that decisions that are taken by the regional majorities are not arbitrarily overturned by the national majority and that the institutional frameworks that are developed cannot be again unilaterally changed by the national majority. Now usually we call that a federal system where the national majority cannot unilaterally change parts of the constitution or parts of the system of government, but it requires the consent of the minorities if changes are to be made. I don’t know what I would like, but I think that we can take a lot of lessons from the northern Ireland and the idea of weighted majority of parallel consent.
Final question, as I mentioned, you have been here for the Reconciliation Expert Network meeting. Any impressions of this meeting, of things that you’ve learnt from it, or just comments or impressions on the meeting itself?
Well because there was such a diversity of experiences I realize that reconciliation in a way is imprecise and so subjective. It’s like an art, not a science, so it is kind-of hard to get a grip on it. One has to study it in a much deeper sense of the whole before one gets a sense of the whole arena in order to feel confident about making pronouncements. Everything can be argued one way and the other way. So I think one needs to focus more and look more at perhaps case studies in depth because some of the views of different situations I will be scared to grasp.
OK, Jehan, thank you very much.
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