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Ceasing the Ceasefire in Sri Lanka

The government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has blinked first by officially abrogating the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) it signed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) nearly six years ago with effect from 16 January 2008. The GOSL's unilateral withdrawal from the CFA has not only increased chances of all out war, but has also dwindled hopes of peace process in the Island. Why did the government withdrew from the CFA at this juncture although it has been opposing the Agreement for over two years? What are the implications?

The official reason given by the government was that its patience ran out. President Rajapakse said "the final decision to abrogate it [the CFA] was taken only after the LTTE showed it would continue to kill civilians to achieve its goal through terrorism, enjoying the advantages
it had from the CFA". He openly declared that he was "consistently opposed" to the Agreement. There are many other reasons, however.

First, the government believed that CFA stood as an obstacle for its ongoing military thrust against the LTTE. Given the present gains to its security forces, the government wishes to sustain it. Sri Lankan Army Chief had already declared that "the LTTE will be wiped out by 2008." His calculation is it needs to "kill 10 Tigers a day" to finish off 3000 odd LTTE cadres by this year. Killing of some of the high-profile LTTE leaders like Tamilselvam by the Sri Lankan Air Force has boosted the confidence of Sri Lankan military leadership. Biggest ever defence
budget passed in December 2007 attest to this.

Second, President Rajapakse has been under tremendous pressure from hard-line parties like JVP and JHU ever since he signed MoUs with them during his bid for presidentship in 2005. One of the conditions laid by the two parties for supporting Rajapakse as President was abrogation of CFA. Rajapakse successfully evaded the promise for nearly two years, but not any more when he needed JVP's support to pass the budget last December. Rajapakse gave a firm deadline for CFA abrogation in return for JVP's abstention from voting of budget at its final reading.

Third, the government felt that the international community might not care much about formal termination of the CFA. Even if there was criticism, the government was confident of handling it.

It is true that the CFA has long been dead. However, its official abrogation has pushed the process towards peace a few steps back. Statistics since 16 January indicate mounting incidents of violence. An 'undeclared' war' that existed thus far has now turned into a "fight to the finish".

Though relegated to paper over the past two years, the CFA acted as a check on both the antagonists from escalating violence beyond a point. The presence of ceasefire monitors in the island made a difference. According to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that was tasked to monitor the CFA, "10000 lives may have been spared" due to the Agreement. The CFA at least kept alive the hopes of a genuine peace process returning some day or the other. Assuming there will be a military stalemate, both sides have to repeat the whole tedious exercise as they did in 2001-2002 to get back to the negotiating table. The abrogation of the CFA has also dented the image of the GOSL. While the international community understands the compulsions of Colombo, the basic and unanswered question is that an abrogation of the CFA was not the only remedy. Now the government's seriousness in finding a negotiated settlement to the ethnic crisis is not being taken seriously. To disprove this point, GOSL has hurriedly asked the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) to submit a long-pending report. The substance of the report, however, is not promising. Despite taking two full years, the Committee has suggested "full implementation of 13th Amendment" of the Constitution made to give effect to the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of 1987. The process has come back to square one after 20 years, despite there being numerous problems in implementing this archival solution. On the one hand, hard-line groups like JVP and JHU will oppose this solution, and on the other, the LTTE will not accept what they had opposed in the past. Most importantly, the government does not posses a clear road map on going ahead. The present move seems eyewash to conceal its 'war for peace' programme.