Ethnic Conflict, the State and Tsunami Disaster in Sri Lanka

Developments in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami disaster of December 26, 2004 have intensified the country’s prolonged political crisis. This deepening crisis is exemplified in the continuing debate concerning the inconclusive efforts being made by the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to find a framework of cooperation to obtain and utilise international assistance for post-Tsunami rebuilding. The two sides, main protagonists to the ethnic conflict, have competing approaches to the idea of cooperation. Their differences are grounded on the specific conditions of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war. In a situation where an ethnic separatist insurgency has challenged the sovereignty of the state, the government views itself as the undisputed representative of the nation-state of Sri Lanka. In this official perspective, the state should be the primary agency of the post-tsunami recovery process covering the entire country, including the areas held by the LTTE. The LTTE on the other hand considers itself the ‘sole representative’ of the Tamil nation and the political-military-administrative embodiment of the emerging regional Tamil ethnic state. The fact that people living in the coastal areas that are under LTTE’s control have suffered almost equally as in the areas under government control has added to the LTTE’s claim that it should be treated as an equal partner with the government in the post-Tsunami recovery and reconstruction process. The dispute arising out of these two perspectives runs deep into Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. It has in fact delayed the flow of international assistance to Sri Lanka, hampered the cooperation between the government and the LTTE, intensified the politicisation of the post-tsunami recovery efforts and even threatened the continuity of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) regime.