Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has sworn in a new set of 76 ministers – 37 of cabinet rank and 39 deputy ministers – as against the jumbo ministry of 106 ministers in the earlier government. A few more ministerial appointments are likely in President’s bid to stitch a patchwork quilt to meet the interest of sundry coalition partners.
With 144-memeber strength in the house of 225, the President has gone about his government formation from a position of power.
The changes indicate the President’s current priorities – economic development and foreign policy as against the only earlier earlier – winning the war and eliminating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). And the two priorities are inextricably interwoven particularly after the unhappy consequences of inter-national allegations of aberrations of governance that has eroded Sri Lanka’s good will.
Evidently, the President is fully conscious that economic development is imperative to put the country back on rail after it was drained of its resources and energies both during the uncertain peace impasse and the wasteful war during the last three years. There is a huge backlog of paying for the war – the public debt incurred for the war, reconstruction of infrastructure damaged due to the war and investments to kick start normal life in Northern Province.
There is also secondary fall out of war – inflationary economy, unemployment due to dislocation in hospitality and tourism services, and the negative impact of withdrawal of GSP+ tariff concessions on exports to the European Union countries. Tertiary fall out includes conforming to conditionality of international creditors which insist on lean government and curbs on non budgetary expenditure.
So it is not surprising the President chose his brother Basil Rajapakse as the minister for economic development. He served as the President’s wartime organisational hatchet man and key member of the troika that structured the victory over the LTTE.
This is going to be a key ministry as it will be involved in planning and apportioning large resources to various projects. Translated in simple political terms the ministry will wield a lot of power. Evidently, the President is again putting his trust in his brother to show visible results in the economic front just as he had done in support of operations during the war.
The Rajapaksa family hold has been further firmed in with the swearing in of President’s elder brother Chamal Rajapaksa as the speaker. Earlier he was in a less visible appointment as minister for ports. With the President’s eldest son Namal Rajapaksa also becoming a member of the House, the third generation of the family has now been anointed into corridors of power.
Foreign ministry was Sri Lanka’s weakest link in the crucial period of war. Sri Lankan diplomacy, or lack of it, cost the country dearly. When it entered the peace process in 2002 it commanded wide respect and managed to muster support of nearly 50 nations and international organisations that were ready to underwrite the financial burden of bringing peace.
However, during the war Rohitha Bogollogama as the foreign minister could not prevent the erosion of goodwill and weather international criticism that had snowballed against Sri Lanka on issues of governance and human rights. This has hamstrung Sri Lanka’s foreign policy in a number of ways. Thus the newly appointed external affairs minister (as the foreign minister has now been rechristened) Professor GL Peiris will be starting his new job with the burden of the backlog of his predecessor.
The suave and articulate professor with impeccable academic credentials brings in the much needed intellectual input lacking earlier in the foreign ministry. As minister for international trade in the earlier government, Peiris had a good equation with India, although the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) he had tried to promote between the two countries never came through due to internal opposition. Similarly his efforts to stave off the EU’s decision to withdraw GSP+ trade concessions, though creditable, could not achieve positive results.
Given this background, his role as external affairs minister is going to be tricky. There a few external issues he would be facing. He has to work out a face saving method to get out of the mess that has been created in handling the human rights issues with the West and UN agencies. Secondly, if he can succeed in the first task, his second task will be of harmonising external affairs and international trade policies to Sri Lanka’s advantage. This would aim at restoring the economic and trade support links with the West. However, this is going to be a tough job in the prevailing climate of paranoia and suspicion of the West.
The affable Professor Peiris’ ability to steer the country away from present course and initiate a course correction to foreign policy is going to be critical for Sri Lanka’s foreign relations. Professor Peiris would need President’s policy directions in this regard; whether he can persuade the President to do so is the moot point. Unless such an initiative is taken, mere change in language and rhetoric may not help to smoothen the ruffled feathers of some the influential friends of Sri Lanka. The country needs their financial assistance and vast markets to get the economy in order.
The President assisted by his two brothers had handled Sri Lanka-India relations during the earlier government. And the war against the LTTE became central to the relations and the core issue of devolution of powers to Tamils was put in cold storage. India went along with the President’s scheme of things as it removed the LTTE as its militant methods were blocking the evolution of a peaceful resolution of the ethnic issue.
However, with the LTTE no more, India is expected to raise the devolution issue once again. As the 2011 Tamil Nadu assembly election nears, New Delhi will have no choice but to demand action rather than mere rhetoric. Geography has destined India and Sri Lanka into a closely knit strategic environment. The increasing Chinese foot print and influence in Sri Lanka is undoubtedly a matter of concern for India. So both the countries have no other option but to address these concerns. With economic development becoming a core issue for Sri Lanka, Indian help and economic assistance is essential now more than ever before.
So Sri Lanka will have to find a winning equation in handling these three inter-related issues with India. So even if the President continues to handle relations with India, he would need the hands on involvement of both Basil and Peiris in giving form to it. Will be Peiris be allowed to play an increasing role as external affairs minister in handling India? We will have to wait and see as the relations between the two countries move into domains that had never been fully explored before.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sri Lanka Armed Forces & Dynamics of Change
By Col R Hariharan
[Salient points of this article were included in a presentation the author had made at a national seminar on ‘Ethnic Reconciliation, Economic Reconstruction & Nation Building in Sri Lanka’ organised by the Indian Centre for South Asian Studies and the Centre for Asia Studies at Chennai on April 12-13, 2010.]
INTRODUCTION
Sri Lanka has undergone irreversible changes after President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s successive victories in the Eelam War IV followed by the presidential poll and parliamentary elections. After the three interconnected events, President Rajapaksa has emerged as THE most powerful head of state in the nation’s history. His vast powers as executive president are further augmented by his ten-party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) coalition’s majority in the newly elected parliament.
In addition to this he is commander in chief of an over-sized armed forces which has become a power centre after the Eelam War IV. Thus after the final victory over the LTTE, the President has emerged a modern day Dutagemmunu, the legendary Sinhala king who defeated the Tamil ruler Elara of Anuradhapura.
ARMED FORCES AFTER THE WAR
Rajapaksa’s contribution to the military victory
A symbiotic relationship between the armed forces and the President began with President Rajapaksa and the newly appointed army commander Lt General Sarath Fonseka started their terms of office with the same goal - to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For Rajapaksa defeat of LTTE was fulfilment of an electoral promise while for the army commander it was a vow to liquidate the LTTE that had heaped ignominy on the army in three earlier episode of Eelam War. In the process of successfully achieving their goals, both the President and General Fonseka became national heroes. But after the downsizing of Fonseka, after his unsuccessful attempt to challenge the President’s bid for re-election, President Rajapaksa has emerged the cock of the walk elected to rule the country for nearly seven more years.
Armed forces, particularly the army, before their transformation into a strong and powerful force, were considered a rather weak and professionally not so competent. This is not wholly correct; in the earlier Eelam War the army drove out the LTTE from Jaffna peninsula in Operation Riviresa in October 1995, and never allowed the insurgents to stage a comeback there. However, unfortunately public remembered it only for failures: large scale desertions, corruption, and some notorious debacles at the hands of the LTTE due to its stodgy leadership that failed to enlarge its victories. But the May 2009 victory has changed this; armed forces have at last gained recognition as the vanguards of Sri Lanka security.
President Rajapaksa’s contribution in transforming the armed forces into fighting machines should not be ignored. To achieve his goal he created a politico-administrative structure to help armed forces successfully reach their military objectives, unmindful of its enormous cost in terms of finance, manpower, governance and international relations.
He also provided the much needed political support for the armed forces. When he took over as President, things on the political front were abysmal. Schism between the outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the erstwhile Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had stalled the government from taking any strategic initiative to revive the negotiation at the peace process. And the LTTE which had the military initiative at the time of ceasefire now held the political initiative also.
To change this, Rajapaksa strengthened his coalition in parliament by attracting defectors from the opposition benches. Once he was politically strong he had no hesitation in discarding the Peace Process 2002 which got bogged down after 2003. While doing so, he successfully weathered adverse international reaction, particularly from the Four Co-Chairs of the Peace Process – the European Union, Japan, Norway and the U.S. At the same time, he took care to allow face saving leeway for international efforts to bring about resumption of the peace process. However, when the LTTE failed to respond to international efforts there was no stopping the President from seizing the military option.
The President’s approach to fighting the LTTE was also different from that of the earlier presidents. Unlike his predecessors, he went to war with his eyes wide open and listened to the armed forces commanders to choose a place and time to start the war. Once it started he provided all the help required to make the armed forces quantitatively and qualitatively strong. To keep a close interface between the government and armed forces he called in his two brothers – Basil and Gotabaya - from overseas and appointed them as presidential advisor and defence secretary respectively.
Though his detractors accuse him of running the government as a ‘family affair’, it helped formation of close knit executive troika co of his two brothers and Lt General Fonseka, the Army Commander to plan and conduct the war. While Basil Rajapakse provided the political interface for the war, Gotabaya Rajapakse provided the government interface for military operations. Thus the military operations had seamless political and government support. As the defence ministry also controls law and order and public security, actions of paramilitary forces, civil defence forces and the police were coordinated with army’s operational requirements.
This arrangement continued even after Basil Rajapakse became a parliament member later on. Initially, Sri Lanka’s a broad plan was probably to take on the LTTE in its own turf and seize military initiative back from the insurgents and regain control of territory under insurgent control. But the victory in Mavil Aru came in rather easily than expected in July 2006. Then onwards any pause in operation came only when the army commander wanted, mostly to induct more troops in the offensive.
Sri Lanka always felt that India had played spoil sport in its conflict with Tamil insurgents. So throughout the conflict President Rajapaksa handled India with kid gloves. He made a conscious effort to prevent any Tamil Nadu swing in favour of Tamil insurgents from interfering with his military operations. This is a significant aspect because in earlier wars. Fortunately for the President, this job was a little easy thanks to Prabhakaran’s mindlessly assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1992 made it politically impossible for India to directly intervene in Sri Lanka’s conflict. To add to President’s comfort, the LTTE made no conscious effort to mend its relations with India, and strengthen its weakened political constituency in Tamil Nadu.
The President in a strategic ploy identified his campaign against the LTTE as part of the global war against terrorism. India and the U.S. started providing regular intelligence inputs and technical support on the movement of LTTE’s shipping logistics. The LTTE was banned in 32 countries particularly after the assassination of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. With that foreign assistance to Sri Lanka in its war against the LTTE gained legitimacy.
Thus President made a substantive contribution to directly and indirectly help the armed forces not only to become powerful but achieve total victory against the LTTE after 26 years of war. Probably the armed forces feel beholden to the President for restoring its pride. And President Rajapaksa is likely to continue to command personal loyalty of commanders, who have been carefully chosen by him presumably after assessing them on this count.
On the other hand the negative aspects of Rajapaksa’s style of achieving his goals discussed in the paper titled ‘Sri Lanka: President Rajapaksa’s victory and the "power problem" – Update No 195’at: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote575.html have tarnished the image of the armed forces also. This has given rise to allegations of lack of accountability, corruption, human rights violations and war crimes against the armed forces, particularly the army, during the war. Administrative actions taken so far have neither been adequate nor convincing.
General Fonseka and expansion of army
When Fonseka took over as army commander, army was in bad shape. Between 2003 and 2005 repeated LTTE bomb strikes and pistol group attacks had taken their toll of military intelligence operatives. The navy fared no better. Repeated LTTE Sea Tiger suicide boat attacks confined the navy to its own shores. As the armed forces of a legitimate government, they could not carry out retaliatory strikes without government approval as it would violate the ceasefire agreement. (And till President Rajapaksa came to power such an approval was not given.) This sapped the morale of armed forces. This made the ambitious General angry at the way army had been made to pay the price for ineptness of politicians and the government, under the peace process 2002.
General Fonseka’s leadership significantly contributed to the following aspects in turning around the around the army to become a sizeable force with proven battlefield record. Specifically he paid attention to improve the following aspects, despite certain abrasive aspects of his leadership style.
• Force level: He expanded and refurbished the army from an under-equipped and weak force into a 190,000-strong force by 2009. In order to provide adequate force levels the army went into a recruiting spree. When the war started in 2006 he had deployed 12 divisions and by the time the war ended in 2009, he had raised and inducted four more divisions. (Out of this about 150,000 troops were deployed against the LTTE which had a combatant strength of around 20,000 apart from other auxiliary forces.)
• Exploiting the potential: The army had added 40,000 troops in 2008 to raise 47 infantry battalions, 13 brigades, 4 task force contingents, and two divisions. By any yardstick this was a colossal task and the army managed to carry it out successfully. This showed the potential strategic strength and capability of Sri Lanka to raise large sized forces in times of war.
• Training: He improved their training to address weaknesses in command and control. Understanding the need for numbers, he reduced the training duration of soldiers and put them on frontline as a military expediency. As the LTTE lacked rifle strength, overwhelming numbers proved a crucial factor. Similarly Special Forces units were well trained for optimising their use in operations.
• Conduct war: The army’s biggest weaknesses in the past were in higher direction of war, maintenance of momentum, coordination of operations on multiple axes, and use of air force and navy to support land operations. Operational planning was pedestrian and lacked innovation in execution. The LTTE exploited these weaknesses to capture Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi towns after driving out the army from vast areas in Vanni. However, when they went into Eelam War IV the armed forces, particularly the army, appear to have learnt from past mistakes and their performance was better in all these aspects.
• Higher direction of war: During the war, General Fonseka dusted up his operational planning and used multiple offensive axes to split and weaken the LTTE force levels, already depleted due to the defection of its Batticaloa commander Karuna along with his followers. Fonseka captured the Mannar coastline early in the operation to cut off the supply chain of basic essentials from Tamil Nadu coast. With advances along converging axes, the army offensive gathered more strength and fire power as the LTTE ranks were weakened with the progress of operations. Special Forces were used innovatively and deep penetration squads of commandos successfully eliminated some the key LTTE leaders.
• Holding the nerve: General Fonseka had initial failure in carrying out attacks on the Elephant Pass salient from the Jaffna peninsula side. However, he converted that an opportunity to soften up LTTE bunkers well before the final offensive to subdue the LTTE positions in the narrow strip between Muhamalai and Elephant Pass. In early stages the army was caught unaware by ‘bombing’ sorties by of the fledgling Air Tiger force. However, Fonseka refused to be overawed by it. The air defence system was tightened and the “air threat” of the LTTE could cause no worthwhile damage.
• Morale: The General’s biggest contribution was in rebuilding the morale of army. When he retired as army chief he left a force with high morale. This was mainly achieved through deliberate planning of operations with adequate force levels and fire power which resulted in successful conclusion of operations.
On the negative side, his abrasive style of leadership particularly in handling officers has created bitterness in section of army just as it also created a group of personal loyalists. This had its fall out when the General had a face off with the President and probably divided the army.
Air Force in war
The Eelam War IV saw the extensive use of air support for land and sea operations. The Air Force strengthened with acquisition of new MIG-29 fighters, supported ground operations effectively. Its bombing missions allowed no respite for the LTTE leadership. Relentless air strikes demoralised the Tamil Tigers and prevented their free movement. At sea, the air force helped the navy in operations against Sea Tiger boats. Thus air support was one of the key elements of Sri Lankan success. This is evident from the huge number of sorties the air force flew in the Eelam War IV. In the period from June 2006 onwards till January 2009, the air force carried out a total of 1345 missions flying 2582 sorties of jets and helicopters. Three jet squadrons namely Kfirs (No 10), MIGs (No 12) and F7s (No 5) undertook 1,116 missions while helicopter gun ships took part in 229 operations. However, ground defence of air bases continued to be its weakness.
Navy in war
The navy which was hemmed in the early stages along bases in Jaffna peninsula, Trincomalee Bay and Southern Sri Lanka coasts, managed to improve its performance as the operations progressed. It adopted an offensive posture; up-gunned its patrol boats, coordinated its patrolling and surveillance with Indian navy and coast guard, and improved its electronic and other surveillance with inputs from the Indian and US intelligence agencies.
It managed to suppress the Sea Tiger movements. The navy’s biggest success came when it destroyed most of the LTTE’s captive logistic shipping network sinking eight to ten ships in well planned and executed operations in international waters in 2006-08. The destruction of ships were loaded with millions of rupees worth of military supplies including light aircraft parts, artillery weapons, rockets, small arms and ammunition destined for the LTTE, reduced its sustaining power in war.
Defence coordination
The defence ministry was also responsible for internal security. This enabled the armed forces to achieve a great deal of coordination in employing police and paramilitary forces to prevent the LTTE’s notorious sabotage and suicide strikes from causing significant damage in the rear areas and cities. On the negative side, the concentration of forces law enforcement and national security under a single ministry can give rise to the emergence of yet another power centre in times of political uncertainty.
STRATEGIC STATUS OF ARMED FORCES
Sri Lanka armed forces appear to have graduated from a land bound army-dominated force to a strong multifaceted force capable of planning and executing complex operations utilising large sized forces on multiple axes. If the armed forces continue to hone their military skills in the coming years they are likely to become a first rate force supported by competent air and naval forces. Army’s higher command and leadership at various levels have shown they are capable of bouncing back with right leadership. Army has also shown its ability to integrate the air force, navy and paramilitary forces to further overall objectives of operations.
The present strength of the armed forces is about 230,000; individual strength of the three services as gleaned from open sources is as follows:
Army
The army has 12 divisions and four newly raised divisions that are probably under trained and also under strength. Bulk of these forces is deployed in north and east after carrying out the Eelam War IV. Approximately 1000 troops (a battalion+) are with the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti.
The army has seven regiments of armour (including one volunteer regiment), nine regiments of artillery (including two volunteer regiments), seven engineer regiments (including one volunteer regiment), ten regiments of signals (including one volunteer regiment), 97 infantry battalions, one mechanized infantry battalion, four commando regiments and three special forces regiments.
The divisions are slightly smaller than Indian infantry divisions. Both support arm strength and logistics would indicate the Sri Lanka army at present probably can put into operation a force of 10 to 11 fairly self contained divisions, with the rest of the troops being reserves and those under training.
Army as a potential power centre
Armed forces are conscious that their success in the war would not have been possible without Rajapaksa’s leadership and the unprecedented support extended by the government machinery. Thus at the end of the war, a symbiotic relationship between the President and armed forces that came about during the war has now been strengthened. The significance of this relationship is evident when the President’s handpicked officer Lt General Jagat Jayasuriya took over as army commander over looking the recommendation of the out going army chief General Fonseka.
Subsequently officers considered close to Fonseka were retired. The indebtedness of army to President Rajapaksa came to play in the run up to the presidential poll when the army commander and senior officers came out in his support both directly on TV and indirectly through seemingly routine actions.
Sri Lanka armed forces are a sizeable force with considerable military muscle. With subtle politicisation it is emerging as an extra political power centre in the country. Under ambitious commanders such a power centre outside the democratic sphere has the potential to dabble in politics and meddle with government actions, particularly in times of political instability. And the army could become the deciding factor in such uncertain times.
President Rajapaksa and the main political parties are probably conscious of such a possibility. The arrest and prosecution of a man of General Fonseka’s popularity and national stature is probably a testimony to President Rajapaksa’s determination to discourage such possibilities. The General’s well orchestrated campaign brought major opposition parties under a single umbrella, opening up a number of options for anti-Rajapaksa forces. Fonseka had established a network of trusted retired army officers in every district. Evidently this had triggered the President’s suspicion of Fonseka cooking up a military coup about which investigations are underway.
On the other hand, the General and many other officers considered close to him have been slandered and treated in an undignified and shabby way regardless of their loyal service and contribution to win the war. Serious allegations have been made against the retired General and he is being court-martialled. The Sinha Regiment, the parent regiment of the General had been singled out for loyalty checks. And soldiers on security duty were disarmed by police when Fonseka’s office was raided.
Such acts hurting professional pride of soldiers usually have far reaching consequences, though the situation appears normal at present. Probably the army is divided in the cavalier way General Fonseka and his colleagues were handled even though they might not consider the ambitious General free of guilt.
A sizeable section of the population sees the government action against Fonseka as vindictive one. The Fonseka affair frittered away the strategic gains made by the President and distracts the nation from the task of rebuilding. So the impact of dynamics of changes in armed forces would very much depend upon how the President handles and employs them in his second term. The more they are involved to buttress his regime the greater would be the politicisation of the army.
But Rajapaksa is an experienced politician with an uncanny ability to time his actions; so one can expect him to act with a lot of deliberation when it comes to the army.
Air Force
The air force has limited capability to keep Sri Lanka air space sanitized. It is probably capable of providing close air support both with fighters and gun ships to a divisional front. Its air lift capability is probably an infantry battalion minus. However, maintenance of the air force fleet is likely to pose a problem as it is an expensive proposition.
Navy
The navy is capable of detecting and engaging intruders along the coast line of Sri Lanka. A coast guard force is being raised. This would further enhance costal security of the country. In tandem with friendly forces its limited off shore capability can be enhanced.
STRATEGIC TAKEAWAYS
Three issues are of immediate interest in an overall study of dynamics of change in the Sri Lanka armed forces. These are national leadership, strategic role for armed forces and India related issues.
National leadership
President Rajapaksa has demonstrated the importance of dynamic national leadership to prosecute successful war more importantly in achieving military victory against insurgents. He provided national leadership to fine tune government policies including external relations to ensure success of military operations. The President has shown his ability to leverage international environment to further his military objectives. Rajapaksa has shown clarity in preventing political interference in the conduct of military operations, allowing sufficient flexibility to the army commander in his execution.
With a massive popular mandate in parliament and second presidential term he has emerged as an unchallenged leader. His strength is augmented by a powerful army now. Such powerful leadership can enable smooth passage of the country through a difficult journey to normalcy in the post-war period. On the other hand his flaws in leadership style and governance can create divisions within the country and lead to political unrest.
He has failed to take strategic political action towards achieving ethnic amity. Despite repeated public affirmation, President Rajapaksa has not put a political package to resolve the question of devolution of powers to Tamils. Without a parallel political dispensation, military success against the Tamil Tigers in could be frittered away without consolidating the gains of war. Thus the President has left the country vulnerable to revival of such efforts in the future.
Rajapaksa government’s conduct and accountability on issues like fundamental freedom of people, media freedom, human rights, transparency governance, and war crimes has failed to satisfy civil society both at home and abroad. The abrasive style of his ministers and officials particularly in handling international opinion has eroded the nation’s image. Already this is having its effect in actions like the European Union’s withdrawal of the GSP+ duty concessions extended after 2005 tsunami strike. International support is likely to dwindle further, unless he takes concrete measures to satisfy basic norms of international conduct. Absence of international support could also affect taking timely actions to discourage revival of Tamil insurgency with the support of Sri Lankan expatriates once again.
Historically in many countries, the making of national leaders of immense popularity goes through some of the negative aspects Sri Lanka has been facing. Usually in such set ups personalised politics becomes the leader’s operational tool and they tend to use the armed forces at their command to enforce their will. In Sri Lanka there is potential for such a deadly combination. Political power combined with military power can erase the thin line bet between democrats and demagogues both of who may enjoy popularity. Normally, they end up creating life time presidents. But Rajapaksa may prove to be the exception as he has exhibited an uncanny sense of timing his moves to arrive at success during his first term. So his second term in office is going to be crucial for him as much as for the country. We can hope the country under his leadership will spend less time on rhetoric and paranoia and spend more on positive action to achieve political and economic stability sorely needed by the country.
Strategic role for armed forces:
The armed forces have the strength and potential to take a share of responsibility in regional security arrangements to prevent Sri Lanka from becoming the hunting ground for external powers. The introduction of Sri Lanka as a new military factor in the regional security spectrum has to be reckoned in future operational planning of all powers including India. It will be in the interest of both India and Sri Lanka to evolve greater strategic convergence between both countries to ensure better coordination of their security strategies to their mutual advantage. This would enable both nations to keep the Indian Ocean region sanitized from external forces.
The army has expanded too fast and the new recruits’ training had been short. As the new army commander Lt General Jagath Jayasuriya has emphasised the army needs to be trained with greater discipline and professionalism to make it fit a first rate fighting force for conventional operations. This is usually an ongoing process in the army and that should take priority.
The President and the armed forces have developed a symbiotic relationship. And this has introduced a subtle element of politicisation within the armed forces. And the Fonseka affair has introduced seeds of division within the army. This coupled with politicisation of armed forces could be used by unscrupulous commanders to act as a pressure group on the functioning of democratic governments. It would also affect the growth of the army as a disciplined conventional force to effectively take part in a regional security set up.
India
Although India had adopted a cautious policy of support to the President, he has not fulfilled his promises to India on taking action to devolve powers by implementing the 13th amendment. This has downgraded his credibility among the ruling coalition in India. Apparently for reasons of political expediency he has overlooked India’s support as an essential element in Sri Lanka’s strategic capabilities.
From Indian point of view, there are a few disturbing trends in Rajapaksa’s foreign policy dispensations. One is the slow drift towards China and possibly Iran for reasons of economic support and assistance. While a slow increase in Chinese influence in Sri Lanka is inevitable, its potential to destabilise the power equation in Indian Ocean region and India’s immediate neighbourhood (area of strategic influence in military parlance) cannot be denied. This is likely to come under close scrutiny of both India and the U.S.
A second aspect is Rajapaksa’s continued casual attitude to public sentiments in India, particularly Tamil Nadu, on devolution of powers to Tamils. Though this is no more a major political issue in India, it could be leveraged by extreme Tamil elements to keep the flame of Tamil insurgency flickering in the minds of Sri Lanka Tamils. It can also be taken advantage of by pro-LTTE politicians of Tamil Nadu when the local political climate suits such a development. With coalition politics ruling the roost in New Delhi, India-Sri Lanka relations have the potential to sour.
In view of this New Delhi will have to take a re-look at its Sri Lanka policy and approach it afresh to achieve a win-win situation for both countries.
The threat to internal stability in Sri Lanka is mainly from unresolved ethnic confrontation. For historical and geographic reasons it is closely related to the strategic relationship between India and Sri Lanka. This will involve helping Sri Lanka maintain its unity while resolving the ethnic issue to the satisfaction of all communities. As Sri Lanka now has a strong armed force, it is essential that India and Sri Lanka closely coordinate the long term strategies for security of the two countries and Indian Ocean Region. Thus it is essential India builds a meaningful relationship with President Rajapaksa’s government which is likely to rule for another seven years. This cannot come about unless the ethnic issue is resolved to create a win-win situation within a reasonable time frame.
The time for implementation of 13th amendment even with additional palliatives is well past and it is unlikely to satisfy all parties. It is essential for India to take two initiatives to bring ethnic amity and normalcy. It can use its good offices with Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora to open a positive dialogue with Sri Lanka government while prevailing upon President Rajapaksa to come up with a political agenda for implementation without any more delay. Secondly, extend large scale aid and credit for the reconstruction and development of war ravaged north and east to enable speedy return to normal life in these provinces. This would create a positive stake for Tamils in political participation to ease ethnic tensions to carry out development of northern and eastern provinces.
Although this analysis has not considered the trade and economic aspects, these are key issues that could affect future strategic relations of the country. The Sri Lankan proposal for a road bridge between Sri Lanka and India made by the late Lakshman Kadirgamar is worthy of consideration. This could help the development of backward areas of Tamil Nadu as well as Sri Lanka north.
Courtesy: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote577.html
[Salient points of this article were included in a presentation the author had made at a national seminar on ‘Ethnic Reconciliation, Economic Reconstruction & Nation Building in Sri Lanka’ organised by the Indian Centre for South Asian Studies and the Centre for Asia Studies at Chennai on April 12-13, 2010.]
INTRODUCTION
Sri Lanka has undergone irreversible changes after President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s successive victories in the Eelam War IV followed by the presidential poll and parliamentary elections. After the three interconnected events, President Rajapaksa has emerged as THE most powerful head of state in the nation’s history. His vast powers as executive president are further augmented by his ten-party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) coalition’s majority in the newly elected parliament.
In addition to this he is commander in chief of an over-sized armed forces which has become a power centre after the Eelam War IV. Thus after the final victory over the LTTE, the President has emerged a modern day Dutagemmunu, the legendary Sinhala king who defeated the Tamil ruler Elara of Anuradhapura.
ARMED FORCES AFTER THE WAR
Rajapaksa’s contribution to the military victory
A symbiotic relationship between the armed forces and the President began with President Rajapaksa and the newly appointed army commander Lt General Sarath Fonseka started their terms of office with the same goal - to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). For Rajapaksa defeat of LTTE was fulfilment of an electoral promise while for the army commander it was a vow to liquidate the LTTE that had heaped ignominy on the army in three earlier episode of Eelam War. In the process of successfully achieving their goals, both the President and General Fonseka became national heroes. But after the downsizing of Fonseka, after his unsuccessful attempt to challenge the President’s bid for re-election, President Rajapaksa has emerged the cock of the walk elected to rule the country for nearly seven more years.
Armed forces, particularly the army, before their transformation into a strong and powerful force, were considered a rather weak and professionally not so competent. This is not wholly correct; in the earlier Eelam War the army drove out the LTTE from Jaffna peninsula in Operation Riviresa in October 1995, and never allowed the insurgents to stage a comeback there. However, unfortunately public remembered it only for failures: large scale desertions, corruption, and some notorious debacles at the hands of the LTTE due to its stodgy leadership that failed to enlarge its victories. But the May 2009 victory has changed this; armed forces have at last gained recognition as the vanguards of Sri Lanka security.
President Rajapaksa’s contribution in transforming the armed forces into fighting machines should not be ignored. To achieve his goal he created a politico-administrative structure to help armed forces successfully reach their military objectives, unmindful of its enormous cost in terms of finance, manpower, governance and international relations.
He also provided the much needed political support for the armed forces. When he took over as President, things on the political front were abysmal. Schism between the outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the erstwhile Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had stalled the government from taking any strategic initiative to revive the negotiation at the peace process. And the LTTE which had the military initiative at the time of ceasefire now held the political initiative also.
To change this, Rajapaksa strengthened his coalition in parliament by attracting defectors from the opposition benches. Once he was politically strong he had no hesitation in discarding the Peace Process 2002 which got bogged down after 2003. While doing so, he successfully weathered adverse international reaction, particularly from the Four Co-Chairs of the Peace Process – the European Union, Japan, Norway and the U.S. At the same time, he took care to allow face saving leeway for international efforts to bring about resumption of the peace process. However, when the LTTE failed to respond to international efforts there was no stopping the President from seizing the military option.
The President’s approach to fighting the LTTE was also different from that of the earlier presidents. Unlike his predecessors, he went to war with his eyes wide open and listened to the armed forces commanders to choose a place and time to start the war. Once it started he provided all the help required to make the armed forces quantitatively and qualitatively strong. To keep a close interface between the government and armed forces he called in his two brothers – Basil and Gotabaya - from overseas and appointed them as presidential advisor and defence secretary respectively.
Though his detractors accuse him of running the government as a ‘family affair’, it helped formation of close knit executive troika co of his two brothers and Lt General Fonseka, the Army Commander to plan and conduct the war. While Basil Rajapakse provided the political interface for the war, Gotabaya Rajapakse provided the government interface for military operations. Thus the military operations had seamless political and government support. As the defence ministry also controls law and order and public security, actions of paramilitary forces, civil defence forces and the police were coordinated with army’s operational requirements.
This arrangement continued even after Basil Rajapakse became a parliament member later on. Initially, Sri Lanka’s a broad plan was probably to take on the LTTE in its own turf and seize military initiative back from the insurgents and regain control of territory under insurgent control. But the victory in Mavil Aru came in rather easily than expected in July 2006. Then onwards any pause in operation came only when the army commander wanted, mostly to induct more troops in the offensive.
Sri Lanka always felt that India had played spoil sport in its conflict with Tamil insurgents. So throughout the conflict President Rajapaksa handled India with kid gloves. He made a conscious effort to prevent any Tamil Nadu swing in favour of Tamil insurgents from interfering with his military operations. This is a significant aspect because in earlier wars. Fortunately for the President, this job was a little easy thanks to Prabhakaran’s mindlessly assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1992 made it politically impossible for India to directly intervene in Sri Lanka’s conflict. To add to President’s comfort, the LTTE made no conscious effort to mend its relations with India, and strengthen its weakened political constituency in Tamil Nadu.
The President in a strategic ploy identified his campaign against the LTTE as part of the global war against terrorism. India and the U.S. started providing regular intelligence inputs and technical support on the movement of LTTE’s shipping logistics. The LTTE was banned in 32 countries particularly after the assassination of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. With that foreign assistance to Sri Lanka in its war against the LTTE gained legitimacy.
Thus President made a substantive contribution to directly and indirectly help the armed forces not only to become powerful but achieve total victory against the LTTE after 26 years of war. Probably the armed forces feel beholden to the President for restoring its pride. And President Rajapaksa is likely to continue to command personal loyalty of commanders, who have been carefully chosen by him presumably after assessing them on this count.
On the other hand the negative aspects of Rajapaksa’s style of achieving his goals discussed in the paper titled ‘Sri Lanka: President Rajapaksa’s victory and the "power problem" – Update No 195’at: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote575.html have tarnished the image of the armed forces also. This has given rise to allegations of lack of accountability, corruption, human rights violations and war crimes against the armed forces, particularly the army, during the war. Administrative actions taken so far have neither been adequate nor convincing.
General Fonseka and expansion of army
When Fonseka took over as army commander, army was in bad shape. Between 2003 and 2005 repeated LTTE bomb strikes and pistol group attacks had taken their toll of military intelligence operatives. The navy fared no better. Repeated LTTE Sea Tiger suicide boat attacks confined the navy to its own shores. As the armed forces of a legitimate government, they could not carry out retaliatory strikes without government approval as it would violate the ceasefire agreement. (And till President Rajapaksa came to power such an approval was not given.) This sapped the morale of armed forces. This made the ambitious General angry at the way army had been made to pay the price for ineptness of politicians and the government, under the peace process 2002.
General Fonseka’s leadership significantly contributed to the following aspects in turning around the around the army to become a sizeable force with proven battlefield record. Specifically he paid attention to improve the following aspects, despite certain abrasive aspects of his leadership style.
• Force level: He expanded and refurbished the army from an under-equipped and weak force into a 190,000-strong force by 2009. In order to provide adequate force levels the army went into a recruiting spree. When the war started in 2006 he had deployed 12 divisions and by the time the war ended in 2009, he had raised and inducted four more divisions. (Out of this about 150,000 troops were deployed against the LTTE which had a combatant strength of around 20,000 apart from other auxiliary forces.)
• Exploiting the potential: The army had added 40,000 troops in 2008 to raise 47 infantry battalions, 13 brigades, 4 task force contingents, and two divisions. By any yardstick this was a colossal task and the army managed to carry it out successfully. This showed the potential strategic strength and capability of Sri Lanka to raise large sized forces in times of war.
• Training: He improved their training to address weaknesses in command and control. Understanding the need for numbers, he reduced the training duration of soldiers and put them on frontline as a military expediency. As the LTTE lacked rifle strength, overwhelming numbers proved a crucial factor. Similarly Special Forces units were well trained for optimising their use in operations.
• Conduct war: The army’s biggest weaknesses in the past were in higher direction of war, maintenance of momentum, coordination of operations on multiple axes, and use of air force and navy to support land operations. Operational planning was pedestrian and lacked innovation in execution. The LTTE exploited these weaknesses to capture Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi towns after driving out the army from vast areas in Vanni. However, when they went into Eelam War IV the armed forces, particularly the army, appear to have learnt from past mistakes and their performance was better in all these aspects.
• Higher direction of war: During the war, General Fonseka dusted up his operational planning and used multiple offensive axes to split and weaken the LTTE force levels, already depleted due to the defection of its Batticaloa commander Karuna along with his followers. Fonseka captured the Mannar coastline early in the operation to cut off the supply chain of basic essentials from Tamil Nadu coast. With advances along converging axes, the army offensive gathered more strength and fire power as the LTTE ranks were weakened with the progress of operations. Special Forces were used innovatively and deep penetration squads of commandos successfully eliminated some the key LTTE leaders.
• Holding the nerve: General Fonseka had initial failure in carrying out attacks on the Elephant Pass salient from the Jaffna peninsula side. However, he converted that an opportunity to soften up LTTE bunkers well before the final offensive to subdue the LTTE positions in the narrow strip between Muhamalai and Elephant Pass. In early stages the army was caught unaware by ‘bombing’ sorties by of the fledgling Air Tiger force. However, Fonseka refused to be overawed by it. The air defence system was tightened and the “air threat” of the LTTE could cause no worthwhile damage.
• Morale: The General’s biggest contribution was in rebuilding the morale of army. When he retired as army chief he left a force with high morale. This was mainly achieved through deliberate planning of operations with adequate force levels and fire power which resulted in successful conclusion of operations.
On the negative side, his abrasive style of leadership particularly in handling officers has created bitterness in section of army just as it also created a group of personal loyalists. This had its fall out when the General had a face off with the President and probably divided the army.
Air Force in war
The Eelam War IV saw the extensive use of air support for land and sea operations. The Air Force strengthened with acquisition of new MIG-29 fighters, supported ground operations effectively. Its bombing missions allowed no respite for the LTTE leadership. Relentless air strikes demoralised the Tamil Tigers and prevented their free movement. At sea, the air force helped the navy in operations against Sea Tiger boats. Thus air support was one of the key elements of Sri Lankan success. This is evident from the huge number of sorties the air force flew in the Eelam War IV. In the period from June 2006 onwards till January 2009, the air force carried out a total of 1345 missions flying 2582 sorties of jets and helicopters. Three jet squadrons namely Kfirs (No 10), MIGs (No 12) and F7s (No 5) undertook 1,116 missions while helicopter gun ships took part in 229 operations. However, ground defence of air bases continued to be its weakness.
Navy in war
The navy which was hemmed in the early stages along bases in Jaffna peninsula, Trincomalee Bay and Southern Sri Lanka coasts, managed to improve its performance as the operations progressed. It adopted an offensive posture; up-gunned its patrol boats, coordinated its patrolling and surveillance with Indian navy and coast guard, and improved its electronic and other surveillance with inputs from the Indian and US intelligence agencies.
It managed to suppress the Sea Tiger movements. The navy’s biggest success came when it destroyed most of the LTTE’s captive logistic shipping network sinking eight to ten ships in well planned and executed operations in international waters in 2006-08. The destruction of ships were loaded with millions of rupees worth of military supplies including light aircraft parts, artillery weapons, rockets, small arms and ammunition destined for the LTTE, reduced its sustaining power in war.
Defence coordination
The defence ministry was also responsible for internal security. This enabled the armed forces to achieve a great deal of coordination in employing police and paramilitary forces to prevent the LTTE’s notorious sabotage and suicide strikes from causing significant damage in the rear areas and cities. On the negative side, the concentration of forces law enforcement and national security under a single ministry can give rise to the emergence of yet another power centre in times of political uncertainty.
STRATEGIC STATUS OF ARMED FORCES
Sri Lanka armed forces appear to have graduated from a land bound army-dominated force to a strong multifaceted force capable of planning and executing complex operations utilising large sized forces on multiple axes. If the armed forces continue to hone their military skills in the coming years they are likely to become a first rate force supported by competent air and naval forces. Army’s higher command and leadership at various levels have shown they are capable of bouncing back with right leadership. Army has also shown its ability to integrate the air force, navy and paramilitary forces to further overall objectives of operations.
The present strength of the armed forces is about 230,000; individual strength of the three services as gleaned from open sources is as follows:
Army
The army has 12 divisions and four newly raised divisions that are probably under trained and also under strength. Bulk of these forces is deployed in north and east after carrying out the Eelam War IV. Approximately 1000 troops (a battalion+) are with the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti.
The army has seven regiments of armour (including one volunteer regiment), nine regiments of artillery (including two volunteer regiments), seven engineer regiments (including one volunteer regiment), ten regiments of signals (including one volunteer regiment), 97 infantry battalions, one mechanized infantry battalion, four commando regiments and three special forces regiments.
The divisions are slightly smaller than Indian infantry divisions. Both support arm strength and logistics would indicate the Sri Lanka army at present probably can put into operation a force of 10 to 11 fairly self contained divisions, with the rest of the troops being reserves and those under training.
Army as a potential power centre
Armed forces are conscious that their success in the war would not have been possible without Rajapaksa’s leadership and the unprecedented support extended by the government machinery. Thus at the end of the war, a symbiotic relationship between the President and armed forces that came about during the war has now been strengthened. The significance of this relationship is evident when the President’s handpicked officer Lt General Jagat Jayasuriya took over as army commander over looking the recommendation of the out going army chief General Fonseka.
Subsequently officers considered close to Fonseka were retired. The indebtedness of army to President Rajapaksa came to play in the run up to the presidential poll when the army commander and senior officers came out in his support both directly on TV and indirectly through seemingly routine actions.
Sri Lanka armed forces are a sizeable force with considerable military muscle. With subtle politicisation it is emerging as an extra political power centre in the country. Under ambitious commanders such a power centre outside the democratic sphere has the potential to dabble in politics and meddle with government actions, particularly in times of political instability. And the army could become the deciding factor in such uncertain times.
President Rajapaksa and the main political parties are probably conscious of such a possibility. The arrest and prosecution of a man of General Fonseka’s popularity and national stature is probably a testimony to President Rajapaksa’s determination to discourage such possibilities. The General’s well orchestrated campaign brought major opposition parties under a single umbrella, opening up a number of options for anti-Rajapaksa forces. Fonseka had established a network of trusted retired army officers in every district. Evidently this had triggered the President’s suspicion of Fonseka cooking up a military coup about which investigations are underway.
On the other hand, the General and many other officers considered close to him have been slandered and treated in an undignified and shabby way regardless of their loyal service and contribution to win the war. Serious allegations have been made against the retired General and he is being court-martialled. The Sinha Regiment, the parent regiment of the General had been singled out for loyalty checks. And soldiers on security duty were disarmed by police when Fonseka’s office was raided.
Such acts hurting professional pride of soldiers usually have far reaching consequences, though the situation appears normal at present. Probably the army is divided in the cavalier way General Fonseka and his colleagues were handled even though they might not consider the ambitious General free of guilt.
A sizeable section of the population sees the government action against Fonseka as vindictive one. The Fonseka affair frittered away the strategic gains made by the President and distracts the nation from the task of rebuilding. So the impact of dynamics of changes in armed forces would very much depend upon how the President handles and employs them in his second term. The more they are involved to buttress his regime the greater would be the politicisation of the army.
But Rajapaksa is an experienced politician with an uncanny ability to time his actions; so one can expect him to act with a lot of deliberation when it comes to the army.
Air Force
The air force has limited capability to keep Sri Lanka air space sanitized. It is probably capable of providing close air support both with fighters and gun ships to a divisional front. Its air lift capability is probably an infantry battalion minus. However, maintenance of the air force fleet is likely to pose a problem as it is an expensive proposition.
Navy
The navy is capable of detecting and engaging intruders along the coast line of Sri Lanka. A coast guard force is being raised. This would further enhance costal security of the country. In tandem with friendly forces its limited off shore capability can be enhanced.
STRATEGIC TAKEAWAYS
Three issues are of immediate interest in an overall study of dynamics of change in the Sri Lanka armed forces. These are national leadership, strategic role for armed forces and India related issues.
National leadership
President Rajapaksa has demonstrated the importance of dynamic national leadership to prosecute successful war more importantly in achieving military victory against insurgents. He provided national leadership to fine tune government policies including external relations to ensure success of military operations. The President has shown his ability to leverage international environment to further his military objectives. Rajapaksa has shown clarity in preventing political interference in the conduct of military operations, allowing sufficient flexibility to the army commander in his execution.
With a massive popular mandate in parliament and second presidential term he has emerged as an unchallenged leader. His strength is augmented by a powerful army now. Such powerful leadership can enable smooth passage of the country through a difficult journey to normalcy in the post-war period. On the other hand his flaws in leadership style and governance can create divisions within the country and lead to political unrest.
He has failed to take strategic political action towards achieving ethnic amity. Despite repeated public affirmation, President Rajapaksa has not put a political package to resolve the question of devolution of powers to Tamils. Without a parallel political dispensation, military success against the Tamil Tigers in could be frittered away without consolidating the gains of war. Thus the President has left the country vulnerable to revival of such efforts in the future.
Rajapaksa government’s conduct and accountability on issues like fundamental freedom of people, media freedom, human rights, transparency governance, and war crimes has failed to satisfy civil society both at home and abroad. The abrasive style of his ministers and officials particularly in handling international opinion has eroded the nation’s image. Already this is having its effect in actions like the European Union’s withdrawal of the GSP+ duty concessions extended after 2005 tsunami strike. International support is likely to dwindle further, unless he takes concrete measures to satisfy basic norms of international conduct. Absence of international support could also affect taking timely actions to discourage revival of Tamil insurgency with the support of Sri Lankan expatriates once again.
Historically in many countries, the making of national leaders of immense popularity goes through some of the negative aspects Sri Lanka has been facing. Usually in such set ups personalised politics becomes the leader’s operational tool and they tend to use the armed forces at their command to enforce their will. In Sri Lanka there is potential for such a deadly combination. Political power combined with military power can erase the thin line bet between democrats and demagogues both of who may enjoy popularity. Normally, they end up creating life time presidents. But Rajapaksa may prove to be the exception as he has exhibited an uncanny sense of timing his moves to arrive at success during his first term. So his second term in office is going to be crucial for him as much as for the country. We can hope the country under his leadership will spend less time on rhetoric and paranoia and spend more on positive action to achieve political and economic stability sorely needed by the country.
Strategic role for armed forces:
The armed forces have the strength and potential to take a share of responsibility in regional security arrangements to prevent Sri Lanka from becoming the hunting ground for external powers. The introduction of Sri Lanka as a new military factor in the regional security spectrum has to be reckoned in future operational planning of all powers including India. It will be in the interest of both India and Sri Lanka to evolve greater strategic convergence between both countries to ensure better coordination of their security strategies to their mutual advantage. This would enable both nations to keep the Indian Ocean region sanitized from external forces.
The army has expanded too fast and the new recruits’ training had been short. As the new army commander Lt General Jagath Jayasuriya has emphasised the army needs to be trained with greater discipline and professionalism to make it fit a first rate fighting force for conventional operations. This is usually an ongoing process in the army and that should take priority.
The President and the armed forces have developed a symbiotic relationship. And this has introduced a subtle element of politicisation within the armed forces. And the Fonseka affair has introduced seeds of division within the army. This coupled with politicisation of armed forces could be used by unscrupulous commanders to act as a pressure group on the functioning of democratic governments. It would also affect the growth of the army as a disciplined conventional force to effectively take part in a regional security set up.
India
Although India had adopted a cautious policy of support to the President, he has not fulfilled his promises to India on taking action to devolve powers by implementing the 13th amendment. This has downgraded his credibility among the ruling coalition in India. Apparently for reasons of political expediency he has overlooked India’s support as an essential element in Sri Lanka’s strategic capabilities.
From Indian point of view, there are a few disturbing trends in Rajapaksa’s foreign policy dispensations. One is the slow drift towards China and possibly Iran for reasons of economic support and assistance. While a slow increase in Chinese influence in Sri Lanka is inevitable, its potential to destabilise the power equation in Indian Ocean region and India’s immediate neighbourhood (area of strategic influence in military parlance) cannot be denied. This is likely to come under close scrutiny of both India and the U.S.
A second aspect is Rajapaksa’s continued casual attitude to public sentiments in India, particularly Tamil Nadu, on devolution of powers to Tamils. Though this is no more a major political issue in India, it could be leveraged by extreme Tamil elements to keep the flame of Tamil insurgency flickering in the minds of Sri Lanka Tamils. It can also be taken advantage of by pro-LTTE politicians of Tamil Nadu when the local political climate suits such a development. With coalition politics ruling the roost in New Delhi, India-Sri Lanka relations have the potential to sour.
In view of this New Delhi will have to take a re-look at its Sri Lanka policy and approach it afresh to achieve a win-win situation for both countries.
The threat to internal stability in Sri Lanka is mainly from unresolved ethnic confrontation. For historical and geographic reasons it is closely related to the strategic relationship between India and Sri Lanka. This will involve helping Sri Lanka maintain its unity while resolving the ethnic issue to the satisfaction of all communities. As Sri Lanka now has a strong armed force, it is essential that India and Sri Lanka closely coordinate the long term strategies for security of the two countries and Indian Ocean Region. Thus it is essential India builds a meaningful relationship with President Rajapaksa’s government which is likely to rule for another seven years. This cannot come about unless the ethnic issue is resolved to create a win-win situation within a reasonable time frame.
The time for implementation of 13th amendment even with additional palliatives is well past and it is unlikely to satisfy all parties. It is essential for India to take two initiatives to bring ethnic amity and normalcy. It can use its good offices with Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora to open a positive dialogue with Sri Lanka government while prevailing upon President Rajapaksa to come up with a political agenda for implementation without any more delay. Secondly, extend large scale aid and credit for the reconstruction and development of war ravaged north and east to enable speedy return to normal life in these provinces. This would create a positive stake for Tamils in political participation to ease ethnic tensions to carry out development of northern and eastern provinces.
Although this analysis has not considered the trade and economic aspects, these are key issues that could affect future strategic relations of the country. The Sri Lankan proposal for a road bridge between Sri Lanka and India made by the late Lakshman Kadirgamar is worthy of consideration. This could help the development of backward areas of Tamil Nadu as well as Sri Lanka north.
Courtesy: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote577.html
Saturday, April 10, 2010
SRI LANKA: President Rajapaksa’s victory and the "power problem"
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has scored a double whammy with his thumping success in the parliamentary elections April 2010 after his triumph in the presidential poll in January 2010. With this Rajapaksa has emerged as the most powerful man in Sri Lanka. Already he enjoys wide powers of executive presidency. This is further boosted now by the majority his ten-party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) enjoys in the new parliament.
Nine months after the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, President Rajapaksa has emerged as unchallenged national leader with the massive public support demonstrated in the two elections. The opposition is now more muted than ever before although United National Party (UNP) despite its internal wrangling has not performed as badly as the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the parliamentary poll. The JVP rout has shown the limited political appeal of General Sarath Fonseka, projected by the JVP alliance’s Prime Ministerial candidate.
His strength is further increased as he has at his disposal an oversized armed force that could help his power projection in the region. Considering this, the successive electoral victories have also created a first rate ‘power problem’ for the President – how to wield the enormous power?
President Rajapaksa’s journey to the top had been mired in controversies on many counts. Although this is not uncommon in politics, a few ‘unhealthy’ trends have been seen in his style of wielding power. These could set a dangerous precedence.
Systematic image building
There had been a systematic effort to build Rajapaksa as the SOLE national leader responsible for the victorious war against the Tami Tiger insurgents. Well planned national campaign to build up his image as a modern day Dutugemunu came to fruition with the deaths of Prabhakaran and the LTTE leadership. There is nothing wrong in projecting a national leader in the image of such historical heroes. But such projection, in an ethnically split and sensitive society, can provoke divisive tendencies.
The nearest modern day contender for this haloed status was General Sarath Fonseka, who led the army to victory. As army commander he successfully overcame the problems that had been dogging the army all these years and systematically planned and executed the military operations. His public image as a national hero had been growing ever since the war. However, his military success would not have been possible without President Rajapaksa’s total support of the government to the military effort.
After the war, President Rajapaksa saw the enormous popularity of Fonseka as an inconvenient obstacle to his own elevation as the sole national leader. So the process of dethroning of the General from the pedestal of a national hero started taking a firm shape with the non extension of his term as the Chief of Defence Staff .The President’s fear was strengthened when Fonseka rallied the support of the UNP and the JVP to emerge as the common opposition candidate against Rajapaksa in the January 2010 presidential poll. After winning the election, Rajapaksa continued with the process of cutting Fonseka to size with arrest and prosecution. As many as 37 associates of Fonseka including retired army officers have been rounded up. Serving officers considered close to the retired General have come under scrutiny.
In the bargain, Rajapaksa has courted a lot of criticism from not only civil society organisations, but also from international community for practising vindictive politics. And these accusations have been piled up on the President’s long list of aberrations of governance that include human rights violations, lack of humanitarian policies, war crimes etc. It has also led to avoidable embarrassment for the country in some of the UN forums. And these are likely to increase.
Flawed policy prescriptions
The President has fulfilled his electoral promises, made in 2005, as far as ending the peace process and the ceasefire, and elimination of the LTTE are concerned. However, he has chosen to ignore his own promises in acting upon some others like enforcing some of the amendments to the Constitution. For instance, he has not fulfilled his repeated promises to implement the13th Amendment (devolving powers to provincial councils) and the 17th Amendment (for providing the Constitutional Council and Independent Commissions). Similarly he had put into cold storage the recommendations of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) he had formed with a lot of fanfare to work out a frame work for devolution of powers to minorities.
As a result of such acts of political expediency, the President’s credibility has suffered. His policy prescriptions on a number of contentious issues including rule of law, freedom of the press, violation of human rights and acts of political violence have become skewed suspect. Without bothering about the niceties of credibility, the President appears to have adopted political opportunism as the only criterion to achieve his ends.
Downsizing international opinion
President Rajapaksa had been consistently ignoring international opinion on many key issues of governance and public conduct of his government discussed earlier. This started with the dismantling of the peace process which was enjoyed the support of 48 nations and international bodies. Such issues of international sensitivity include alleged war crimes, human rights violations, threat and intimidation of free media, short circuiting rule of law, and lack of transparency in commissions of inquiry. As a result, Sri Lanka which had once enjoyed a fairly high international reputation has repeatedly come under criticism in international bodies like the UN High Commission for Human Rights and even the UN Security Council.
In spite of this, Sri Lanka’s attitude had been aggressive rather than conciliatory towards international community. On more than one occasion diplomats, foreign dignitaries and have been brusquely handled by bureaucrats without even conventional diplomatic norms.
The developments leading to the European Union’s non renewal of the GSP+ tariff conditions extended to Sri Lanka in the wake of the 2005 tsunami strike is a case in point. The European Union did not take kindly to Sri Lanka continuously ignoring its pleas for greater sensitivity and accountability in handling human rights issues. Although the withdrawal of the GSP+ concessions had struck at Sri Lanka’s exports to the European Union, the President had been defiant on this issue. He had said the Government would never bow down to conditions detrimental to the wishes of people in order to get financial or other support from outside.
Even after the turbulence of war, Sri Lanka has continued to orchestrate a strong propaganda campaign seeing an international conspiracy to downgrade its achievement in the ‘war against terror.’ Evidently these are targeted against some of the Western nations which demanded greater Sri Lankan accountability to international concerns on war crimes and human rights issues. Repeatedly Sri Lanka ministers have spoken on this. In particular the U.S. and Norway have been singled out for such criticism.
There had been other irritants as well. During the course of war, President Rajapaksa took initiative in meeting countries known for their strong anti -American stance like Iran, Myanmar and Venezuela. This was probably his way of sending a "hands off Sri Lanka" message to the U.S. which he perceived as meddling in the war to bale out the LTTE leaders. While this might have helped projecting the President as a leader of international status at home, the move was ill timed. The only fall out was negative: it probably soured the first contacts with the President Barak Obama and his U.S. administration that had just taken over.
Even after the war, Sri Lanka has continued to be vocally belligerent towards the U.S. The latest in the series is the comment of the Sri Lanka Defence Spokesman made on Aril 6, 2010 following a U.S. air force video splashed in international media showing the U.S. planes strafing a group of persons alleged to be innocent civilians, including Reuter’s photo journalists. While diplomacy had never been Sri Lanka’s strong suite, such a provocative comment from a government official to an embarrassing news story about another nation was neither warranted nor helps international relations.
President Rajapaksa, riding the crest of popularity with success after success, does not appear to be fully conscious of the importance in maintaining a cordial, rather than confrontational, relationship with the U.S. In the emerging strategic setting in this region, U.S. and India are the two important players, with China breathing down their necks to get into this league. Big power play is likely to increase in the Indian Ocean region after the U.S. lessens its commitments in Afghanistan. Once the U.S. sheds the shackles of its skewed Af-Pak policy as unworkable, there could be increased strategic security convergence between the U.S. and India increasing further. If Rajapaksa does not give a course correction to his foreign policy prejudices, it could affect Sri Lanka’s strategic security.
Uncertain future
President wields enormous powers under Sri Lanka’s executive presidency system. With his re-election for a second term (to commence in November 2010), Rajapaksa will rule the country for a total duration of 11 years. Added to this the UPFA coalition led by the President has a majority in parliament now. On the positive side this provides him an unprecedented opportunity to take positive action including constitutional amendments, if necessary, to resolve the vexing issue of devolution of powers to Tamils. Thus he is at the helm at an important stage in Sri Lanka’s political with the muscle to extinguish the simmering ethnic confrontation and unite the nation as a whole.
The future of Sri Lanka now depends upon how President Rajapaksa exercises power authority during these years. The armed forces give him added muscle. The problem in wielding this kind of enormous power is the tendency to ride rough shod over contrarian opinions from the conscience keepers of nation. As a result the temptation to misuse armed forces to further political power increases. However, the President has become so powerful that he has no need to do so. But as the cliché says ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
Rajapaksa thrives on divisive politics that has created a lot of distrust both at home and abroad about his intentions. So there is a feeling of uncertainty about how he is going to perform in his second term particularly when he has no military agenda to pursue. The leadership style and highly personalised politics he had been practising does not encourage positive expectations for the future. His first tenure as president has been marked by gross violations of norms of governance and human rights and lack of accountability.
As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake puts it, "it is important for the administration of President Rajapaksa to reach out to the Tamils… It is important that they feel that they are going to be able to live a future of hope and of opportunity." But will he do it, amidst other pressing political priorities?
Unless he builds bridges with all sections of people and take deliberate action improve his governance, economic recovery is going to be difficult as assistance from the West could dry up. If that happens Sri Lanka is likely to face a difficult passage. This could make him move closer to the Chinese. Though India is an equally important and economically powerful entity for Sri Lanka and has excellent relations with the country increased Chinese role in Sri Lanka could change all that. And such a development coupled with the unfulfilled promises in resolving the ethnic issue has the potential of affecting India-Sri Lanka relations during 2011, when Tamil Nadu goes to polls.
So we come back to the question how will the President handle his "power problem"? Only the President can answer this; but will he?
Courtesy: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote575.html
Nine months after the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, President Rajapaksa has emerged as unchallenged national leader with the massive public support demonstrated in the two elections. The opposition is now more muted than ever before although United National Party (UNP) despite its internal wrangling has not performed as badly as the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the parliamentary poll. The JVP rout has shown the limited political appeal of General Sarath Fonseka, projected by the JVP alliance’s Prime Ministerial candidate.
His strength is further increased as he has at his disposal an oversized armed force that could help his power projection in the region. Considering this, the successive electoral victories have also created a first rate ‘power problem’ for the President – how to wield the enormous power?
President Rajapaksa’s journey to the top had been mired in controversies on many counts. Although this is not uncommon in politics, a few ‘unhealthy’ trends have been seen in his style of wielding power. These could set a dangerous precedence.
Systematic image building
There had been a systematic effort to build Rajapaksa as the SOLE national leader responsible for the victorious war against the Tami Tiger insurgents. Well planned national campaign to build up his image as a modern day Dutugemunu came to fruition with the deaths of Prabhakaran and the LTTE leadership. There is nothing wrong in projecting a national leader in the image of such historical heroes. But such projection, in an ethnically split and sensitive society, can provoke divisive tendencies.
The nearest modern day contender for this haloed status was General Sarath Fonseka, who led the army to victory. As army commander he successfully overcame the problems that had been dogging the army all these years and systematically planned and executed the military operations. His public image as a national hero had been growing ever since the war. However, his military success would not have been possible without President Rajapaksa’s total support of the government to the military effort.
After the war, President Rajapaksa saw the enormous popularity of Fonseka as an inconvenient obstacle to his own elevation as the sole national leader. So the process of dethroning of the General from the pedestal of a national hero started taking a firm shape with the non extension of his term as the Chief of Defence Staff .The President’s fear was strengthened when Fonseka rallied the support of the UNP and the JVP to emerge as the common opposition candidate against Rajapaksa in the January 2010 presidential poll. After winning the election, Rajapaksa continued with the process of cutting Fonseka to size with arrest and prosecution. As many as 37 associates of Fonseka including retired army officers have been rounded up. Serving officers considered close to the retired General have come under scrutiny.
In the bargain, Rajapaksa has courted a lot of criticism from not only civil society organisations, but also from international community for practising vindictive politics. And these accusations have been piled up on the President’s long list of aberrations of governance that include human rights violations, lack of humanitarian policies, war crimes etc. It has also led to avoidable embarrassment for the country in some of the UN forums. And these are likely to increase.
Flawed policy prescriptions
The President has fulfilled his electoral promises, made in 2005, as far as ending the peace process and the ceasefire, and elimination of the LTTE are concerned. However, he has chosen to ignore his own promises in acting upon some others like enforcing some of the amendments to the Constitution. For instance, he has not fulfilled his repeated promises to implement the13th Amendment (devolving powers to provincial councils) and the 17th Amendment (for providing the Constitutional Council and Independent Commissions). Similarly he had put into cold storage the recommendations of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) he had formed with a lot of fanfare to work out a frame work for devolution of powers to minorities.
As a result of such acts of political expediency, the President’s credibility has suffered. His policy prescriptions on a number of contentious issues including rule of law, freedom of the press, violation of human rights and acts of political violence have become skewed suspect. Without bothering about the niceties of credibility, the President appears to have adopted political opportunism as the only criterion to achieve his ends.
Downsizing international opinion
President Rajapaksa had been consistently ignoring international opinion on many key issues of governance and public conduct of his government discussed earlier. This started with the dismantling of the peace process which was enjoyed the support of 48 nations and international bodies. Such issues of international sensitivity include alleged war crimes, human rights violations, threat and intimidation of free media, short circuiting rule of law, and lack of transparency in commissions of inquiry. As a result, Sri Lanka which had once enjoyed a fairly high international reputation has repeatedly come under criticism in international bodies like the UN High Commission for Human Rights and even the UN Security Council.
In spite of this, Sri Lanka’s attitude had been aggressive rather than conciliatory towards international community. On more than one occasion diplomats, foreign dignitaries and have been brusquely handled by bureaucrats without even conventional diplomatic norms.
The developments leading to the European Union’s non renewal of the GSP+ tariff conditions extended to Sri Lanka in the wake of the 2005 tsunami strike is a case in point. The European Union did not take kindly to Sri Lanka continuously ignoring its pleas for greater sensitivity and accountability in handling human rights issues. Although the withdrawal of the GSP+ concessions had struck at Sri Lanka’s exports to the European Union, the President had been defiant on this issue. He had said the Government would never bow down to conditions detrimental to the wishes of people in order to get financial or other support from outside.
Even after the turbulence of war, Sri Lanka has continued to orchestrate a strong propaganda campaign seeing an international conspiracy to downgrade its achievement in the ‘war against terror.’ Evidently these are targeted against some of the Western nations which demanded greater Sri Lankan accountability to international concerns on war crimes and human rights issues. Repeatedly Sri Lanka ministers have spoken on this. In particular the U.S. and Norway have been singled out for such criticism.
There had been other irritants as well. During the course of war, President Rajapaksa took initiative in meeting countries known for their strong anti -American stance like Iran, Myanmar and Venezuela. This was probably his way of sending a "hands off Sri Lanka" message to the U.S. which he perceived as meddling in the war to bale out the LTTE leaders. While this might have helped projecting the President as a leader of international status at home, the move was ill timed. The only fall out was negative: it probably soured the first contacts with the President Barak Obama and his U.S. administration that had just taken over.
Even after the war, Sri Lanka has continued to be vocally belligerent towards the U.S. The latest in the series is the comment of the Sri Lanka Defence Spokesman made on Aril 6, 2010 following a U.S. air force video splashed in international media showing the U.S. planes strafing a group of persons alleged to be innocent civilians, including Reuter’s photo journalists. While diplomacy had never been Sri Lanka’s strong suite, such a provocative comment from a government official to an embarrassing news story about another nation was neither warranted nor helps international relations.
President Rajapaksa, riding the crest of popularity with success after success, does not appear to be fully conscious of the importance in maintaining a cordial, rather than confrontational, relationship with the U.S. In the emerging strategic setting in this region, U.S. and India are the two important players, with China breathing down their necks to get into this league. Big power play is likely to increase in the Indian Ocean region after the U.S. lessens its commitments in Afghanistan. Once the U.S. sheds the shackles of its skewed Af-Pak policy as unworkable, there could be increased strategic security convergence between the U.S. and India increasing further. If Rajapaksa does not give a course correction to his foreign policy prejudices, it could affect Sri Lanka’s strategic security.
Uncertain future
President wields enormous powers under Sri Lanka’s executive presidency system. With his re-election for a second term (to commence in November 2010), Rajapaksa will rule the country for a total duration of 11 years. Added to this the UPFA coalition led by the President has a majority in parliament now. On the positive side this provides him an unprecedented opportunity to take positive action including constitutional amendments, if necessary, to resolve the vexing issue of devolution of powers to Tamils. Thus he is at the helm at an important stage in Sri Lanka’s political with the muscle to extinguish the simmering ethnic confrontation and unite the nation as a whole.
The future of Sri Lanka now depends upon how President Rajapaksa exercises power authority during these years. The armed forces give him added muscle. The problem in wielding this kind of enormous power is the tendency to ride rough shod over contrarian opinions from the conscience keepers of nation. As a result the temptation to misuse armed forces to further political power increases. However, the President has become so powerful that he has no need to do so. But as the cliché says ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
Rajapaksa thrives on divisive politics that has created a lot of distrust both at home and abroad about his intentions. So there is a feeling of uncertainty about how he is going to perform in his second term particularly when he has no military agenda to pursue. The leadership style and highly personalised politics he had been practising does not encourage positive expectations for the future. His first tenure as president has been marked by gross violations of norms of governance and human rights and lack of accountability.
As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake puts it, "it is important for the administration of President Rajapaksa to reach out to the Tamils… It is important that they feel that they are going to be able to live a future of hope and of opportunity." But will he do it, amidst other pressing political priorities?
Unless he builds bridges with all sections of people and take deliberate action improve his governance, economic recovery is going to be difficult as assistance from the West could dry up. If that happens Sri Lanka is likely to face a difficult passage. This could make him move closer to the Chinese. Though India is an equally important and economically powerful entity for Sri Lanka and has excellent relations with the country increased Chinese role in Sri Lanka could change all that. And such a development coupled with the unfulfilled promises in resolving the ethnic issue has the potential of affecting India-Sri Lanka relations during 2011, when Tamil Nadu goes to polls.
So we come back to the question how will the President handle his "power problem"? Only the President can answer this; but will he?
Courtesy: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote575.html
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Growing Pains
Written by Col (retd.) R Hariharan Courtesy: SouthAsia Magazine, March 2010
Almost four decades down the road since independence, Bangladesh is still groping for visible socio-economic progress and a viable regional role. On March 26 Bangladesh celebrates its independence. Its was on this day 39 years back, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of the nation, proclaimed independence, severing the umbilical links of the eastern wing with Pakistan. The blood bath and war that followed has made the birth of Bangladesh the most emotive issue in South Asia, second only to the Partition of India in 1947. This makes it a bit difficult for many in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh to make an unbiased analysis of Bangladesh as a nation.
Bangladesh's growing pains rooted in its polemical politics and quirks of geo-strategy gained more attention than its achievements. Henry Kissinger's condescending description of the birth of the nation as an 'international basket case' is often quoted while talking about it. But it has evolved its own style of handling problems.
Bangladesh dealt with a crisis of governance when politicians ran amok in 2007 in its own ingenious way. An oligarchic 'care taker' government of intellectuals and bureaucrats took charge with the help of the army to restore order and some discipline in two years. But even more extraordinary was the smooth return of power to multiparty democracy after holding parliamentary elections in 2008. Similarly, in spite of the creaking political hiccups and corrupt structure, the nation was able to clock an average GDP growth of 5% per year.
Four decades mark the start of middle age in humans. But in the history of nations it occupies a small space. In the case of Bangladesh which has a hoary cultural and social history of hundreds of years, it would just be a footnote. However, it was a difficult journey all these years for a people determined to take charge of their own lives. The nation's journey to adulthood continues to traverse hotbeds of geo-strategic, ethnic, religious and economic sensitivities, aggravated by vagaries of climate.
Broadly, the 39 years of independence divides itself into three distinct parts - a brief period of euphoria of independence, a longer period of dominant military leadership in government and the reassertion of democracy. It was the strong trait of nationalism that enabled the politically savvy Bangladeshis to reject the monolithic single party system that started with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's unwise transition from populist democracy to the BAKSAL concept. Their spirit was not crushed even under two military dictators - Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman and Maj. Gen. HM Ershad - who doled out democracy in small doses.
The hazards of obscurantist extremism and incipient terrorism generated in the wake of dictatorships, while the rise of global terrorism were other problems the nation had to contend with. They triggered the move to push politics out of polemics and make a fresh beginning in coalition politics.
The nation's experience in parliamentary democracy had nothing much to recommend it. It failed to deliver because successive autocratic rulers tinkered with its original secular, multiparty framework. These arbitrary changes paved the way for religious obscurantism and political sycophancy and idolatry to flourish. Cronyism and corruption relegated accountability of the rulers to the sidelines. Political opposition and a free press faced the wrath of political henchmen.
The Battle of the Begums - the personalized conflict between Sheikh Hasina Wajid, daughter of Mujibur Rahaman and leader of the Awami League, and her bete noire Begum Khaled Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had scuttled nation-building for quite a few years. The conflict became a fertile ground for these anti-democratic tendencies.
In the same period, global and regional power equations changed. The Cold War ended and globalization and free market were back in fashion. The knowledge revolution has changed the lifestyle of people everywhere. Consumerism is flourishing. China has become an economic powerhouse next only to the U.S. and Japan. India has taken advantage of the knowledge and communication revolution to become a major economic power. It has struck a strategic relationship with the U.S. and is reaching out to Southeast Asia to expand its trade and commerce.
A less noticed aspect is the shrinking reaction time of nations to take decisions and act on them due to advances in information management. To prosper, nations have to build strong structural frameworks for decision-making to take advantage of global opportunities. South Asian nations, including Bangladesh, have inherited an insensitive bureaucratic colonial administration. So progress in South Asia as a whole has come from individual initiatives of enterprising classes rather than the structured approach of the Chinese. This has to change.
A second impact of global changes is the growing sensitivity of people to basic human issues like human rights and freedom. These issues are no more limited to national boundaries. Real time global communication through the Internet has raised people's level of awareness on these issues, particularly among the younger generation. They now expect the government to look beyond party politics and provide the right structural and policy framework.
The third aspect is the problem posed by free market economies invading national shores. Trade and commerce have become instruments of national power rather than mere military strategies. This has compelled nations to shed protectionism to access global markets and seek regional alliances of nations to take advantage of geography. In South Asia, this process is yet to come to fruition. The SAARC endeavor is bogged down due to mutual suspicion and political pressures. The eastern part of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar can develop only through multilateral cooperation.
In spite of this, India has shown that building bilateral relations through Free Trade Agreements (FTA) can yield handsome dividends as evidenced by its FTAs with Thailand, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Unfortunately Bangladesh, due to its inward looking political preoccupations, has not been able to take full advantage of its location as the eastern gateway of South Asia to the huge markets of Southeast Asia. She has to come out of the shell of thinking only locally and should act globally. It has shown little interest in regional development initiatives forming part of India's bid to access ASEAN region and Southeast Asian countries.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the victorious Awami League-led 14-party coalition that has gained a strong mandate from the people, carries the burden of meeting the people's high expectations. At the same time, she will have to think out of the box to ensure that Bangladesh takes advantage of global changes. These demands will require her to change not only the style but also the form and content of leadership to take the people and polity along the extra mile. So March 29 is going be a day of soul-searching for the nation as a whole - people, polity and government - if they have learnt from the past. Can she do it? That is the moot point.
Skirmishes of the Battle of the Begums appear to be still on. The BNP has been boycotting parliament and the AL appears to be still in a mood of retribution. Sheikh Hasina has no choice but to go for national reconciliation and bring back Begum Khaleda to function as a constructive opposition. If Sheikh Hasina fails to do so there is a real risk of the nation sliding back into political chaos once again.
Other difficult issues facing her include the handling of Bangladesh's love-hate relationship with India, handling the growing Chinese influence in South Asia and playing a more proactive role in bringing India and Pakistan to come to terms with their regional responsibilities.
The uneasy India-Bangladesh relations are a product of their geography and history. India's sheer size and economic clout coupled with its physical dominance of almost the entire 4000 km border has created a 'small nation syndrome' in Bangladesh although it is the seventh most populous country in the world. On top of it, India's Pakistan-centric foreign policy framework has not given the recognition Bangladesh deserves in building a relationship. As a result Bangladeshi politicians tend to use India as an issue to kindle local passions for narrow political gains rather than building a winning relationship in the larger national interest.
Both Bangladesh and India have to handle problems created by their unnatural borders. It has left in its wake a number of disputes of claims and counter claims, and disputed enclaves and islands. Sheikh Hasina, conscious of her responsibilities has taken the first step in mending the fences with India with a visit to India.
Thus on March 26, Begum Hasina's job is to turn challenges into opportunities. She has successfully weathered the internal challenge posed by the mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles early in her term. Now she has to make Bangladesh look outwards. There is no other option.
URL:http://www.southasia-online.com/growing-pains.html
Almost four decades down the road since independence, Bangladesh is still groping for visible socio-economic progress and a viable regional role. On March 26 Bangladesh celebrates its independence. Its was on this day 39 years back, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of the nation, proclaimed independence, severing the umbilical links of the eastern wing with Pakistan. The blood bath and war that followed has made the birth of Bangladesh the most emotive issue in South Asia, second only to the Partition of India in 1947. This makes it a bit difficult for many in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh to make an unbiased analysis of Bangladesh as a nation.
Bangladesh's growing pains rooted in its polemical politics and quirks of geo-strategy gained more attention than its achievements. Henry Kissinger's condescending description of the birth of the nation as an 'international basket case' is often quoted while talking about it. But it has evolved its own style of handling problems.
Bangladesh dealt with a crisis of governance when politicians ran amok in 2007 in its own ingenious way. An oligarchic 'care taker' government of intellectuals and bureaucrats took charge with the help of the army to restore order and some discipline in two years. But even more extraordinary was the smooth return of power to multiparty democracy after holding parliamentary elections in 2008. Similarly, in spite of the creaking political hiccups and corrupt structure, the nation was able to clock an average GDP growth of 5% per year.
Four decades mark the start of middle age in humans. But in the history of nations it occupies a small space. In the case of Bangladesh which has a hoary cultural and social history of hundreds of years, it would just be a footnote. However, it was a difficult journey all these years for a people determined to take charge of their own lives. The nation's journey to adulthood continues to traverse hotbeds of geo-strategic, ethnic, religious and economic sensitivities, aggravated by vagaries of climate.
Broadly, the 39 years of independence divides itself into three distinct parts - a brief period of euphoria of independence, a longer period of dominant military leadership in government and the reassertion of democracy. It was the strong trait of nationalism that enabled the politically savvy Bangladeshis to reject the monolithic single party system that started with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's unwise transition from populist democracy to the BAKSAL concept. Their spirit was not crushed even under two military dictators - Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman and Maj. Gen. HM Ershad - who doled out democracy in small doses.
The hazards of obscurantist extremism and incipient terrorism generated in the wake of dictatorships, while the rise of global terrorism were other problems the nation had to contend with. They triggered the move to push politics out of polemics and make a fresh beginning in coalition politics.
The nation's experience in parliamentary democracy had nothing much to recommend it. It failed to deliver because successive autocratic rulers tinkered with its original secular, multiparty framework. These arbitrary changes paved the way for religious obscurantism and political sycophancy and idolatry to flourish. Cronyism and corruption relegated accountability of the rulers to the sidelines. Political opposition and a free press faced the wrath of political henchmen.
The Battle of the Begums - the personalized conflict between Sheikh Hasina Wajid, daughter of Mujibur Rahaman and leader of the Awami League, and her bete noire Begum Khaled Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, had scuttled nation-building for quite a few years. The conflict became a fertile ground for these anti-democratic tendencies.
In the same period, global and regional power equations changed. The Cold War ended and globalization and free market were back in fashion. The knowledge revolution has changed the lifestyle of people everywhere. Consumerism is flourishing. China has become an economic powerhouse next only to the U.S. and Japan. India has taken advantage of the knowledge and communication revolution to become a major economic power. It has struck a strategic relationship with the U.S. and is reaching out to Southeast Asia to expand its trade and commerce.
A less noticed aspect is the shrinking reaction time of nations to take decisions and act on them due to advances in information management. To prosper, nations have to build strong structural frameworks for decision-making to take advantage of global opportunities. South Asian nations, including Bangladesh, have inherited an insensitive bureaucratic colonial administration. So progress in South Asia as a whole has come from individual initiatives of enterprising classes rather than the structured approach of the Chinese. This has to change.
A second impact of global changes is the growing sensitivity of people to basic human issues like human rights and freedom. These issues are no more limited to national boundaries. Real time global communication through the Internet has raised people's level of awareness on these issues, particularly among the younger generation. They now expect the government to look beyond party politics and provide the right structural and policy framework.
The third aspect is the problem posed by free market economies invading national shores. Trade and commerce have become instruments of national power rather than mere military strategies. This has compelled nations to shed protectionism to access global markets and seek regional alliances of nations to take advantage of geography. In South Asia, this process is yet to come to fruition. The SAARC endeavor is bogged down due to mutual suspicion and political pressures. The eastern part of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar can develop only through multilateral cooperation.
In spite of this, India has shown that building bilateral relations through Free Trade Agreements (FTA) can yield handsome dividends as evidenced by its FTAs with Thailand, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Unfortunately Bangladesh, due to its inward looking political preoccupations, has not been able to take full advantage of its location as the eastern gateway of South Asia to the huge markets of Southeast Asia. She has to come out of the shell of thinking only locally and should act globally. It has shown little interest in regional development initiatives forming part of India's bid to access ASEAN region and Southeast Asian countries.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the victorious Awami League-led 14-party coalition that has gained a strong mandate from the people, carries the burden of meeting the people's high expectations. At the same time, she will have to think out of the box to ensure that Bangladesh takes advantage of global changes. These demands will require her to change not only the style but also the form and content of leadership to take the people and polity along the extra mile. So March 29 is going be a day of soul-searching for the nation as a whole - people, polity and government - if they have learnt from the past. Can she do it? That is the moot point.
Skirmishes of the Battle of the Begums appear to be still on. The BNP has been boycotting parliament and the AL appears to be still in a mood of retribution. Sheikh Hasina has no choice but to go for national reconciliation and bring back Begum Khaleda to function as a constructive opposition. If Sheikh Hasina fails to do so there is a real risk of the nation sliding back into political chaos once again.
Other difficult issues facing her include the handling of Bangladesh's love-hate relationship with India, handling the growing Chinese influence in South Asia and playing a more proactive role in bringing India and Pakistan to come to terms with their regional responsibilities.
The uneasy India-Bangladesh relations are a product of their geography and history. India's sheer size and economic clout coupled with its physical dominance of almost the entire 4000 km border has created a 'small nation syndrome' in Bangladesh although it is the seventh most populous country in the world. On top of it, India's Pakistan-centric foreign policy framework has not given the recognition Bangladesh deserves in building a relationship. As a result Bangladeshi politicians tend to use India as an issue to kindle local passions for narrow political gains rather than building a winning relationship in the larger national interest.
Both Bangladesh and India have to handle problems created by their unnatural borders. It has left in its wake a number of disputes of claims and counter claims, and disputed enclaves and islands. Sheikh Hasina, conscious of her responsibilities has taken the first step in mending the fences with India with a visit to India.
Thus on March 26, Begum Hasina's job is to turn challenges into opportunities. She has successfully weathered the internal challenge posed by the mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles early in her term. Now she has to make Bangladesh look outwards. There is no other option.
URL:http://www.southasia-online.com/growing-pains.html
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