Personal, because my next door neighbours for many years were Sri Lankan Tamil exiles, and they were the among the most pleasant people I have ever met.
The LTTE have been characterised as "terrorist", but I do not know of the evidence. Did they use violence against civilians? Has the Sri Lankan Government used such violence? I suspect that the answer is that both sides did so.
We can contribute to a structural UN reform, where the UN has an office to brokering negotiations over separatist aspirations.
Secession is not a rare phenomenon. There are about 110 places in the world where the people of a region feel uncertain about whether they are living in the right country or not. Of the 37 ongoing armed conflicts in the world, one third have secession as their main motivation.
This raises the possibility that instead of responding to wars in an ad hoc way with the usual intense diplomatic activity and the rest, the international community could lay down a framework of rules to enable reason and negotiation to take place of emotion and gunfire.
Prevention is better than cure. Clausewitz’ famous aphorism was that “War is the continuation of politics by other means”. This should be updated to “War is the continuation of politics by irrational and inhumane means”. Whatever form of words is used, it is clear that politicians have a duty to agree some rules and protocols on separatism, in order to extend the reach of politics to cover this common political situation.
Democracy should have a bearing on the matter. If it is truly the will of the people of a region that they should not be governed by their present rulers, then politicians should give attention to their wishes.
Does the majority of the people truly seek independence or autonomy, or is it simply the desire of an unrepresentative political group? This is a question that can be answered by referendum. Since it is unlikely that the state will be happy to offer a referendum, the process will have to be initiated by a people’s petition, which in some cases will have to be organised in secrecy. Once the designated agency of the UN has received the petition, they can research and evaluate the situation. If they decide that there is a case, negotiations leading up to a referendum can start. If the result of the referendum shows that a two thirds majority (say) is in favour of autonomy, negotiations can start, under the guidance of the UN or regional authorities.
Negotiations will be complex. No state wishes to lose bits of itself, just as no patient likes to go under the surgeon’s knife. However, people do agree to surgery if they are convinced that it is good for them. By allowing secession, the state is avoiding a war, with all its financial and human costs. Politically, it is gaining a cooperative neighbour, instead of a hostile entity on its doorstep. By agreeing to negotiate, they may end up with an autonomous region rather than a total loss of territory.
The arguments for secession are simple: the people do not feel themselves to be citizens of the present state. They feel ethnically or linguistically different. They may feel like second class citizens, or may even point to evidence of repression and human rights abuses. The people will need a good team of lawyers, because the arguments against secession will be complex and legalistic.
The government may claim that loss of the region would make it difficult to defend the rest of the country. It may express anxieties about the safety of its ethnic minorities left behind, and guarantees for their property. They may argue that secession will have unwanted effects on the secessionists themselves. The precedent argument will be rolled out: Who will be next to secede? There will be legitimate arguments about who owns and pays for state’s previous investment in infrastructure. Any natural resources in the breakaway region will be a matter of legal argument.
These are all matters susceptible to study, discussion, debate and negotiation. The negotiations may well be difficult and protracted, but agreement is always preferable in human and financial terms than violent conflict. In the end, it is in the interests of the main state to agree a degree of autonomy rather than to wage a war that results in the end with alienation of territory and people.
There is clearly a case for the United Nations to set up a framework for discussion and resolution of separatist aspiration, and also to provide diplomatic and logistical help both for areas where separatist conflict is ongoing, and where there is a clear separatist sentiment that has not yet turned to violence. In the end, as Churchill said, jaw is better than war.
4 comments:
If you want evidence of the terrorism perpetrated by LTTE there's plenty of it Doctor.
In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tigers have followed a long programme of assassinating all the moderate politicians who were willing to have dialogue with the other side. They did this so that the extremists could then have a monopoly in politics, leaving nobody to contradict whatever they say, and terrorising the Tamil people. That allowed the LTTE to control "their" population in the way they want.
See these two web-pages for starters.
http://tinyurl.com/prseo2
http://tinyurl.com/5gtgno
One of the big problems for the future now, is that over the years many Tamils have been sent overseas by LTTE leaders, to propagandise, to keep an eye on other expat Sri Lankans and to collect from them and from host populations (by a variety of legal and illegal means, including racketeering and robbery) sums of money for weapons and other war supplies.
Questions have been asked in the British house of commons by MPs trying to stop such depredations in the UK, but the shameful thing is that the Labour government here has never done anything to effectively halt such support for terrorism.
Hi Doug
Thanks for the information and the links. As I said, I am ashamed at my ignorance of the facts of the case.
I must reiterate that my Tamil neighbours were genuinely lovely people. I am sure both sides have killed civilians either deliberately or as "collateral damage". That is what happens in war. Which should lead us to the conclusion that militarism should be terminated with extreme prejudice, to coin a phrase. Not militarists, but militarism. The idea that political disagreements can be settled by seeing who can sacrifice the most humans on the altar of belief is totally absurd. Mankind gave up human sacrifice to fictional gods about 3000 years ago. Now it is time for us to give up sacrifice of people on the altar of state sovereignty.
You seem to have a strangely simplistic view of human aggression and human will to power.
For a start, you won't get rid of the root causes of "militarism" because they are intrinsic parts of human nature, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the individual, culture, and a variety of factors. I hate to tangle with you on psychology, but social identity theory seems pertinent here. It has also been noted, I believe, that aggression towards out-groups correlates with solidarity and close bonding within the in-group.
You also won't get rid of "militarism" without taking out "militarists" - power-mongers, and political idealists like Prabhakaran and his commanders.
I'm sure your neighbours are lovely. I've enjoyed many happy months living in Tamil Nadu in India myself, and Tamils are just like any other people: there's good and bad everywhere.
Unfortunately it's the bad who so often climb into positions of power and then make the rest of us suffer in carrying out their warped ideas.
Every generation has such people and they need to be dealt with appropriately by each generation, preferably before they go too far and ruin too many people's lives as the LTTE have been doing for decades.
Hi Doug,
Thanks for raising these questions. I do not think it is accurate to say that it is simplistic to aim to get rid of militarism. I have given a long answer, so it is up as today's offering, so that it is not buried down here in the comments.
Cheers
Richard
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