Ethnic conflict, the state and the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka

This paper examines how the Tsunami of 26 December 2005 re‐defined some key dimensions of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict and peace processes. It first shows how the contending perspectives on the post‐tsunami recovery strategies had brought back to the centre of Sri Lanka's political debate issues of power sharing, regional autonomy, and national sovereignty. It demonstrates that the responses to Tsunami disaster and the advancement of the stalled peace process are closely interwoven and that they cannot be de‐linked. It then argues that the post‐tsunami recovery process has been intensely politicized in a context of the unresolved ethnic conflict and an incomplete, stalled peace process. The paper argues against the approach of ‘reconstruction from above.’ It also shows that the post‐tsunami reconstruction is not about constructing buildings, roads and economic infrastructure, but that it involves rebuilding communities, community lives and livelihoods while enabling nearly a million of people who suddenly found themselves in absolute poverty and destitution. It argues that unless the affected communities are active participants in the exercise of re‐building their lives, livelihoods and communities, the rebuilding process will be thoroughly undemocratic. It makes a case for re‐building local autonomy in the South as well in the North and East in order link the peace process with the tsunami recovery process. The paper concludes with two arguments. Firstly, Sri Lanka's post‐tsunami recovery process necessitates new ways for constructive handling of the ethnic conflict as well as the peace process in a ‘conflict and peace sensitive’ recovery framework. Secondly, a sustainable recovery process can productively be linked to a programme of state reform conceived in a framework of ‘deep federalization.’