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Abstract
When the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) entered into a peace process in 2002, the term “peace dividend” was often used, both in and outside the peace negotiations. The need to reconstruct and normalize war-torn areas was identified as a shared interest between the parties. It was believed that if ordinary people could reap the harvest of peace through improved living conditions, they would also support the peace process. Curiously, the link between a peace dividend and popular support for peace was never critically scrutinized. This article argues that far from being a “neutral” shared interest of the two parties, reconstruction of the war-affected areas was high-voltage politics, intimately interlinked with security and political structures. Both the LTTE and the government wanted to control and use reconstruction efforts to “win the hearts and minds” of the people. While the political struggle for control over reconstruction was fought at the elite level, grassroots people in the war zone — the supposed beneficiaries of a peace dividend — were engaged in their own everyday life struggles and had concerns that were quite different from those brought up by their self-proclaimed spokespersons. Villagers interviewed in northern Sri Lanka, for example, had few expectations of outside assistance. Their support for the peace process was not conditional upon visible, material benefits. An end to violence was sufficient inducement for them. And thus, the idea advanced by donors, diplomats, and peace negotiators that reconstruction was needed to build support for the peace process, proved to be more rhetoric than substance.
Notes
* “North-East” is used in this article to refer to the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka (see map on p. 210). This is the area that has been most directly affected by the war and that Tamil nationalists consider to be the “traditional Tamil homeland.”
1. The article is based on field work in Sri Lanka carried out during 2005 and 2006 as part of the research project “Reconstructing Peace in Northern Sri Lanka,” funded by Sida/Sarec. Interviews were conducted with key actors in the peace process and reconstruction efforts and with a limited number of inhabitants of two villages in government-controlled Jaffna district and guerrilla-controlled Kilinochchi district.
2. Goodhand and Klem 2005, 25.
3. Polity 2005.
4.The Sinhalese make up about three-fourths of the close to 20 million population of Sri Lanka, while the Tamils are about 18 percent. Although the conflict in Sri Lanka is often portrayed as an ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils, with the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE being the two sides, intra-group tensions — between Sinhalese political parties and between Tamil nationalist groups — are crucial for the conflict dynamics. Muslims, who make up a third ethnic group (7 percent of the population), have been caught between the lines of conflict. Figures taken from the last all-island census in 1981: www.statistics.gov.lk.
5.See Tennekoon Citation1988.
6.The government later used Karuna's faction to weaken the LTTE.
7. Bhatt and Mistry 2006.
8. See Bastian Citation2005, 276.
9. Sriskandarajah Citation2003.
10. Quoted in ibid., 10.
11. Balasingham Citation2004.
12. ADB, UN, World Bank 2003.
13. Interview, Colombo, April 2006.
14. While this article is concerned mainly with the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka, the peace dividend logic was applied also to the south of the country. Given the majority population's opposition to the Norway-facilitated peace process, making the development gains of peace viable to them was seen to be particularly important. For an excellent analysis of the development-peace nexus in the south, see Bastian Citation2005; and Kelegama Citation2006.
15. Centre for Policy Alternatives 2005.
16. See Uppsala Conflict Data Base, www.pcr.uu.se.
17. Sarvananthan Citation2003, 13.
18. See UTHR-J 2006.
19. Global IDP Project 2005.
20. Bhatt and Mistry 2006, 55.
21. Kelegama Citation2006, 219.
22. See ibid., 213; Abeyratne and Lakshman 2005, i.
23. See Kelegama Citation2006, 213.
24. Fernando Citation2006, 72.
25. The armed labor force in Sri Lanka can be counted in the hundred thousands. The government forces (excluding the police) consist of about 150,000 men and women, while the LTTE is estimated to have about 10,000 cadres (although most of them are not paid), plus innumerable informants (Bhatt and Mistry 2006, 16-17). In addition, there are paramilitary groups, more than 17,000 so-called home guards, and a substantial number of army deserters.
26. See Shanmugaratnam and Stokke Citation2006.
27. Quoted in Kelegama Citation2006, 215.
28. Ibid., 225.
29. Interview, March 2006
30. Stokke Citation2006, 1021-40.
31. Field notes, March 2006.
33. Interview, March 2006.
32. Balasingham Citation2004.
34. One government representative expressed his criticism of the LTTE discourse in these strong words: “It is like the beggar's wound — it is good to cultivate.” Interview, March 2006.
35. Interview, aid worker, October 2005.
36. Interview, international donor representative, Jaffna, October 2005.
37. Shanmugaratnam Citation2006, 1.
38. Interview, October 2005.
39. Interview, October 2005.
40. Interview, October 2005.
41. Interview, October 2005.
42. Interview, October 2005.
43. Interview, March 2006.
44. Interview with the director of social indicators, Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 2006.
45. Centre for Policy Alternatives Citation2004.
46. See Duffield Citation2001.