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Sri Lanka: what happens next?

By Jake Lynch - posted Tuesday, 1 December 2009


There’s a difference, of course, between asserting the right to self-determination, and exercising it. The latter has, almost by definition, to be done through negotiation, since it inescapably affects the rights of others. The creation of a new state may be the eventual outcome of such negotiations - or it may not. Johan Galtung’s elegant idea of “non-territorial federalism” may gain in salience, bringing with it, as it does, a reminder that the conflict is not, at root, “about” land but about rights and freedoms, as Jegan indicated.

With the demise of the Tigers, the “don’t-talk-to-terrorists” excuse is removed. The record shows that when assertions of self-determination are met with attempts to quell them, by force and/or administrative fiat, they gain in strength, and are apt to find expression in violence. When they are met with negotiation in good faith, they can produce a sustainable improvement in the outlook for all concerned. For hopeful precedents - albeit with different outcomes - look no further than the two ends of Indonesia, Aceh to the west, now enjoying a high degree of autonomous self-government within the state, and East Timor to the east, now embarked on a new chapter as an independent nation state.

The Tamil community in Sri Lanka must be allowed to elect credible leaders who can negotiate meaningfully on political arrangements for a shared future of justice and equality. So they must be allowed to speak and organise freely, with full access to International NGOs and - in the case of alleged Tamil Tigers now being arrested - to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

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Indictments, for the war crimes documented in the State Department report, can be held over the Colombo government as a means to incentivise co-operation, along with the financial squeeze through the EU and IMF. Unless there is an early move towards recognising and treating with the Tamils’ legitimate right to self-determination, the whole dismal cycle will, sooner or later, start again. That must therefore be the urgent concern of the international community.

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First published by Transcend Media Services on November 23, 2009.



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About the Author

Associate Professor Jake Lynch divides his time between Australia, where he teaches at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies of Sydney University, and Oxford, where he writes historical mystery thrillers. His debut novel, Blood on the Stone, is published by Unbound Books. He has spent the past 20 years developing, researching, teaching and training in Peace Journalism: work for which he was honoured with the 2017 Luxembourg Peace Prize, awarded by the Schengen Peace Foundation.

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