Problems far outweigh advantages in Karuna Alliance - Jayantha Dhanapala

The problems caused to the government by Karuna far outweigh the advantages of an alliance with a terrorist, a former head of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process said last week.
Jayantha Dhanapala also stressed that the government should be clear in its stand on human rights issues such as child recruitment, a practice for which Karuna has strongly been condemned by the United Nations. Calling on Sri Lankans to shed their “frog in the well” mentality, he urged for a realisation that the country’s problems have been caused more by faulty governance than by international meddling.
“It is a moot point as to whether my enemy’s enemy is, in fact, my friend,” Dhanapala said, speaking at the launch of the book Negotiating with the LTTE: A View from the Second Row by John Gooneratne. “I think the problems caused by the Karuna factor far outweigh the advantages of having yet another terrorist as an ally.”
Dhanapala also recalled that President Chandrika Kumar- atunga was once asked by journalists whether she would have Karuna as an ally. “She described Karuna as a terrorist at that time,” he said. “We know that the UN today regards child recruitment by the Karuna group with equal condemnation as they regard child recruitment by the LTTE. “We as a government of a democracy should have no doubt about the value judgements we make with regard to these issues of human rights.”
A former Deputy Secretary General and Secretary General of SCOPP, Gooneratne’s book has been described as the first authentic, undiluted account of negotiations between the government and the LTTE. He participated in all rounds of peace talks and was closely involved in the drafting of the Ceasefire Agreement.

Conflict continues

Participating as chief guest, Dhanapala observed that the longer a conflict continues, the more complex and difficult to solve it becomes. “This we know is something very much true of our own situation,” he pointed out. “I have the impression that we are today in a deep well and I hear a lot of croaking of frogs.... As you know, the frog in the well mentality is not a very healthy mentality to have.”
“There is a certain amount of anti-foreigner feeling,” he elaborated. “You have only to read the newspapers today to see how not one country is being spared for meddling in Sri Lanka’s affairs with very little realisation that the problems have been caused by ourselves, by our faulty governance of our country since independence, and that the solution lies in our own hands.”

Rising xenophobia

Guest speaker H. M. G. S. Palihakkara, who recently retired as foreign secretary, also commented on the rising “xenophobia” in the country. Noting that it was the first time since his retirement that he was speaking publicly - as an “unshackled citizen” - he said it was a “particularly hot political summer for us in Sri Lanka”.
“It’s marked by political turbulence, flaring fires of terrorism and counter-measures, some governance malfunctions, some human rights and humanitarian problems as well as, to be very frank, a kind of xenophobic humidity quite unfamiliar to Sri Lanka slowly enveloping us and making us quite uncomfortable,” he said.
Palihakkara opined that the country had a highly externalised peace process and third party involvement simply because Sri Lankans had failed to agree among themselves on an appropriate governance system. But, he added: “We cannot ask foreigners to make peace for us. We have to learn to be at peace with each other and we have to do it ourselves. I have not seen any negotiating process that has been publicised so much and commented upon as much as that of Sri Lanka.”
Palihakkara emphasised that the brave foot soldiers engaged in the battlefield must be supported by a solid bipartisan political platform constructed in the form of an equitable governance structure.
“The LTTE’s separatist agenda can only be dislodged through a genuine devolution agenda offered to all our people, especially to minorities,” he asserted.
“All over the world, diehard separatists fear devolution more than the armies of a unitary state. Sri Lankan separatists are no different. That is why they eliminated distinguished devolutionists like Tiruchelvam, Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and Kadirgamar.”
“It is a monumental failure on the part of our political leadership from all parties... and successive governments, that they were either unable or unwilling to do this obvious thing of which they were perfectly aware.”

(http://www.lakbimanews.lk/lakbimanews/laknew5.htm)