Who gets the money, who gets the war?
The issue about the possibility 'elite pact'' between the LTTE and the government as a solution to the conflict, and other issues about human rights and the neo-liberal project resurfaced after a seminar over the weekend.

No doubt Dharini Rajasingham Senanayake has done a lot of good work with regard to the neo-liberal project as it relates to the so-called 'post conflict industry.'' In quintessence what she says is that the people who matter in the conflict these days are largely ignored, by the post-conflict industry in which the beneficiaries are by and large construction companies, sundry savants and advocates of the neo-liberal project and everybody else but the people whose lives need to be rehabilitated.

Too true, and as is clear in Iraq, post conflict "benefits'' may have been the real reason the "conflict'' happened in the first place. The human rights dimension has also been brought into the debate, and the LTTE has been playing into the hands of all and sundry by taking out key leaders of all Tamil parties who are offering even some kind of remote resistance to LTTE hegemony in a post war Interim Administration scenario.

People are of course aghast when it is pointed out that there are no clear delineations, and that sometimes so-called civil society groups and pressure groups that play a role in conflicts might have a bigger stake in things than meets the eye. This issue was dealt with in this column two weeks ago under the topic "What do people want: War, peace or human rights?"

Since then, people have kept asking me, exactly what do you want? Now ideally that should not matter, but if any reader does read this column (!) then he or she would be interested in knowing why this column advocates what it does. So, before this column is seen as being disruptive or being impossibly cynical -- here goes: The following is perhaps the credo that people would follow if they are to make any sense out of the Sri Lankan conflict, and it is for the following reasons:

A) The top priority should be that the conflict is resolved, and there is permanent and lasting absence of war. (Somehow sounds safer than saying that there should be a permanent peace.)

The LTTE and the government should consider resolving the conflict as a joint project for the simple reason that neither party really gains in any way from the war. On the other hand they offer an opening for foreign powers to impoverish the country within its geographical boundaries. Both Tigers and the government become puppets in the hands of international robber barons be they in a legitimate guise as patrons of the neo liberal economic bounty -- or in an illegitimate guise as arms merchants or general mischief makers on the make. The LTTE seems to have come to this realisation latterly.

The top priority in other words is to stop the war so that the people can be free of disruptive foreign influences that keep the conflict on the boil. Stopping the war is also top priority considering the enormous human toll in terms of lost lives, disrupted families and unconscionable human suffering. Stopping the war should be top priority on all counts.

B) Considering that stopping the war is top priority, I do not, in the main, care by what means the conflict is resolved, as long as it does not result in the dismemberment of the Sri Lankan nation. For example, if the Sri Lankan forces can rout the LTTE militarily so be it -- even though a political solution is the ideal. If the LTTE can by force of arms establish a de facto administration in the North and the East, so be it, as long as the war ends -- permanently. But, as the resolution of the conflict is the top priority, an ideal solution is, though preferable - not mandatory.

C) If the Sri Lankan forces have not been able to vanquish the Tigers, and if the Tigers have not been able to establish a de facto administration over the North East through force of arms, there is a stalemate which translates as a situation of continued and pointless hostilities.

For better or for worse, now the Sri Lankan government has embarked together with the LTTE on a 'peace process' to resolve the conflict by non-military means.
The mechanics of a political solution may not be ideal either. Definitely the mechanics of a political solution will not be ideal in the short term. But all efforts should be made by the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka, who are the parties to the conflict, to arrive at a solution through political means, even if it is not the ideal solution -- particularly if it is not ideal in the short run.

D) Such a solution, repeat, is necessary because the top priority is to regain Sri Lanka (ah, relish the wonderful catch-all catchphrase) from the deleterious influences, primarily the deleterious alien influences of neo-liberal economic project which seeks to entrench itself here in Sri Lanka whether there is a war or not, but which will find the vulnerabilities of this country in a war situation much easier to penetrate. Stopping the war is also necessary and top priority considering the sheer homicidal lunacy of it all. Given all this, a less than ideal solution -- an Interim solution for instance, is not something that right thinking people should protest against.

It is in this context that the 'civil society' cry for a perfect human rights slate sounds a little baffling to me. When this apprehension was brought up at the seminar, there were howls of protests from NGO activists who said ''intellectuals should be allowed to say what they like - this undue personalisation is crass.'' Nice try. Leave that for the day when they can be funded by people other than NGOs which are in turn funded, more often than not, by organisations and foreign mercenary units with almost transparently vested interests.

(Having said that Darini Rajasingham's essential contestation of the neo-liberal project even within the confines of a post conflict scenario seems courageous and spunky under the circumstances -- and therefore quite laudable.) The other side of the argument is that now that the LTTE had been brought to talks, it should be made to take the next step, which is to behave itself and not bump-off everybody around the block. It is a neat argument - - had it not been for the fact that the NGOs did not attack the LTTE with half the vehemence that they are doing so now on this same issue of human rights when the war was on. It makes for a great deal of scepticism on the bona fides of the NGOs and their advocates. After all, anybody who has an elementary knowledge of the neo-liberal project would know that the NGOs are one of the primary instruments that foreign capital uses to insidiously further their project in developing countries.

Yet, by all means make the LTTE enforce a human rights regimen, and advocate this with vehemence. But if that equates to scuttling an Interim solution, then it goes closer to scuttling the mechanics for a political settlement. Frankly I do not believe in 'political solutions" at all. I believe in expediency. Use all expedient political methods to solve this problem.

All those who do not want to do so are suspect -- dubious NGO operatives more than the so called Sinhala and Tamil chauvinists who for the most part are committed to their convictions. If talks are the only way to solve this problem there can be no perfect solutions. Even an elite-pact is better than a long haemorrhaging war in which most everybody makes a killing except the people of this country. An elite-pact will become a people's pact with time, but that's another story. Maybe we can wait till Prabhakaran is ninety four years for that window of opportunity. But, in the meanwhile…..

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