Notes Preface 1. CHA Newsletter, Vol 6 Issue 6, December/ November 2001, p. 21. 2. It should be noted that in 2000 and 2001, that he Ministry of Defence back- tracked and refused to allow the supply of electricity into uncleared (i.e., rebel held) areas in Batticaloa – for which Rs 10.0 million was already allo- cated two years previously under the village development programme. CHA Newsletter, Vol 5 Issue 5, September/October 2001, p. 24. 3. This episode is dealt with in greater detail in the text. Similar in bizarre-ness, though not significance, was the local level truce negotiated by the Red Cross in the jungles of Amparai District in June 2000, to allow a Government veterinarian into rebel-held territory to tend to an injured wild elephant. Dilip Ganguly, Associated Press, June 14, 2000. 1 Beyond Billiard Ball Analysis 1. This introduction is the reflection of an on-going discussion with Fuat Keyman of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. It draws from Bush and Keyman (1997). 2. It is important to distinguish between conflict ‘resolution’ and ‘manage- ment.’ The former refers to the efforts to resolve or eliminate the underpin- ning grievances and irritants which sustain a conflict, while the latter applies to efforts to control or ‘de-escalate violence’ without necessarily eliminating the root causes of the conflict. Some analysts employ the term ‘conflict set- tlement’ to ‘indicate the formal ending of armed hostilities and the renunci- ation of the use of force. They believe the objective of conflict resolution to be unattainable, on the grounds that conflicts over fundamental values and needs will never be resolved to the complete satisfaction of the parties involved. In these circumstances, the best one can hope for is a settlement which ends the violence and in some small measure takes those conflicting values and priorities into account’ (Fen Osler Hampson and Brian Mandell, ‘Managing Regional Conflict: Security Cooperation and Third Party Mediators,’ International Journal, XLV, no. 2 (Spring 1990: 193). In some cases, conflict management efforts may inhibit the broader conflict resolu- tion process. This is particularly true for cases of ‘protracted social conflict’ in which antagonists interpret the world in zero-sum terms. Any perceived gain by one side is viewed as a loss by the other. While a measure may dampen overt conflict in the short-term, it may also sustain or exacerbate conflict in the long-term. 3. For example, Buzan, People, States and Fearr; Klare and Thomas, World Security; and Seymon Brown, ‘World Interests and the Changing Dimensions of Security,’ in Klare and Thomas, World Security, pp. 10–26. 204 Notes 205 4. For example, Stephen Walt, ‘The Renaissance in Security Studies,’ International Studies Quarterly, 35 (1991): 211–39; and Kolodziej, ‘Renaissance in Security Studies?’. 5. For another attempt in this context, see Ole Waever, ‘Identity, Integration and Security,’ Journal of International Affairs, 48, no. 2 (1995): 389–431. 6. Jack Snyder, ‘The New Nationalism: Realist Interpretations and Beyond,’ in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur Stein, eds, The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 180. 7. Ibid., p. 181. 8. Edward Azar, ‘Protracted Social Conflicts: Ten Propositions’, in Azar and John W. Burton, eds, International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (Sussex: Wheatsheaf, 1986), pp. 28–41. 2 Learning to Read between the Lines 1. For example, the 1987 government offensive against the Tamil north of the island was preceded by prisoner swaps between government forces and the main Tamil paramilitary organization, the (LTTE, as well as by government offers to release hundreds of Tamils interned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, in an effort to facilitate direct negotiations. A more recent example is discussed in Chapter 9 the 1994/95 peace initiative of Chandrika Kumaratunge which led to a formal ceasefire with the the LTTE. However, the high expectations and optimism of the initiative were ultimately dashed when a re-armed and reinvigorated LTTE broke the ceasefire agree- ment by attacking and destroying two naval craft and two SLAF Planes in April thereby initiating what came to be known as Eelam War III. The gov- ernment’s response was equal in ferocity and destruction, described by Kumaratunge as ‘a war for peace.’ As discussed in greater detail in the text, both examples illustrate the ways in which conflict escalation or resistance to peacemaking is a function of intra-group politics within the Sinhalese and the Tamil communities. 2. Newcomers to Sri Lankan politics sometimes find it surprising that despite the escalating violence, which characterizes the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic divide, an array of Tamil paramilitaries have now allied themselves with the Sinhalese-dominated government – the same paramilitary groups which previously had been warring with the Sri Lankan security forces. The point made here is that the funnelling of resources across the inter-ethnic divide to sub-groups within the Tamil community has had a profound effect in the Tamil intra-group arena as these paramilitaries jostle to build a support base and increase their influence. Conspicuously, this process has included the terrorizing and brutalizing of other Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims by Tamil sub-groups. Personal interviews, Sri Lanka, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999/ May-July 1992. See also Bush (1993), Hoole et al. (1992), and most publications by UTHR (Jaffna). 3. The perennially problematic issue of causality in the social sciences is increasingly being challenged and recast. For example, in a unique study of reforming an irrigation system in Sri Lanka, Norman Uphoff draws on chaos theory which ‘explores different kinds of order and causation which 206 Notes are nonlinear and only loosely determinant, finding surprising patterns in the dynamics of open systems that match human realities better than the closed system reasoning of classical physics’ (1992: 14). 4. See Chapter 6, Critical Juncture III: 1971 JVP Insurrection and 1987 JVP Resurgence. 5. For example, the confrontation between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front in mid-1990. 6. The distinctions between and within these groups will be examined in Chapter 3. At this stage it is sufficient to note that the Sinhalese are pre- dominantly Buddhist and Sinhala-speaking; they constitute 74 per cent of the total population. The Tamils are predominantly Hindu and Tamil- speaking; they constitute 18 per cent of the total population. All demo- graphic data is based on the most recent (1981) census. 7. In Sri Lanka, this would include the strong inter-communal ties among English-educated elites, particularly in the early post-colonial period. In the arena of violence it would include the episode discussed later in this book when former President Premadasa supplied arms, money and materiel to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (see Chapter 8 on the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987). 8. For such chronologies of events in Sri Lanka, see INFORM Sri Lanka Information Monitor (Colombo), and Anton Philip (1991), ‘Sri Lanka: Chronology of Events’ produced by the Sri Lanka Resource Centre in Oslo, Norway. 9. Sources of information are similarly varied and include: newspapers; archival sources; government reports; chronologies of events; human rights reports; reports of fact-finding missions; and interviews. 10. In this study, as in Allison’s essay, the use of the term ‘model’ without qualifiers should be read ‘conceptual scheme.’ 11. Refer to summary tables at the end of Chapter 9. 12. The identification of ‘mediating’ factors of ethnic conflict may prompt the question: what is being mediated? In general terms, these factors mediate and condition the social, economic and political relations between and within ethnic groups. 13. For two useful discussions of the primordial-instrumentalist debate, see James Mckay, ‘An Exploratory Synthesis of Primordial and Mobilizationist Approaches to Ethnic Phenomena,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 5, no. 4, (1982): 395–420; and George M. Scott, ‘A Resynthesis of the Primordial and Circumstantial Approaches to Ethnic Group Solidarity: Towards an Explanatory Model,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13, no. 3 (1990): 147–71. 14. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 66. 15. As suggested in extreme instrumentalist arguments, for example, Eugeen E. Roosens, Creating Ethnicity: The Process of Ethnogenesis (California: Sage Publications, 1989). 16. Donald Rothschild, Ethnonationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 8. 17. This was the case in India when the state boundaries were redrawn in the 1950s (Horowitz 1985: 66). Lebow asserts that this was also the case in Northern Ireland (1974: 208–9) and, as discussed further below, Sri Lanka, Notes 207 too, reflects this shift in the politically salient axis of identity (Nissan and Stirrat 1990; Spencer 1990). 18. Personal interviews, Colombo, Kandy, Batticaloa, May–July 1992; 1998; 2000). See also ‘Scott’ (1984). 19. Uphoff (1990), building on Uphoff and Ilchman (1969) and (1972), pro- vides a useful basis for conceptualizing and operationalizing political resources. He develops the following resource categories: economic resources, social status, information, force, legitimacy, and authority. The utility of this approach is that it incorporates both material and non-mater- ial resources within a single analytical (resource-exchange) framework. 20.