Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha emphasises the contribution made by entrepreneurship to sustainable conflict resolution.

The international community has recently been deliberating on ways and means to bring the government and the LITE back to the negotiating table, thus resuscitating the long-dormant peace process. Against this backdrop, BENCHMARK sought the views of the new head of the Secretariat for Coor-dinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), on the Peace ! Secretariat's mandate at a time when there is no peace process.

During the course of this exclusive interview, SCOPP Secretary-General Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha said: "I think there is a peace process. I see the mandate of SCOPP lying in two directions. One is to pre­pare for negotiations  I think the government has made it very clear that it wants negotiations to go ahead. I hope the LITE will come back to discussions. The other part of the peace process is confidence building - assuring all stakeholders that there is keen interest in peace and will­ingness to promote it. I see that as my greater task at the moment - while, obviously, asking all the facilitators to encourage discussions."

So, how about the viability of a political solution at this juncture? What elements should go into such a package? "Obviously, devolution - for which a unit has yet to be decided upon. But equally so, there must be strong repre­sentation of the periphery at the centre - and that, I think, has been agreed on by all parties. The usual mechanism is a senate, whereby you actually have representation of the centre; or a third factor - which everyone has agreed on - is increasing the proportion of minorities in the pub­lic service and the armed forces," explained Wijesinha.

Asked why previous rounds of talks failed, the new SCOPP chief surmised that according to a book by Dr. John Gooneratne (a former head of the Peace Secretari­at), the entire CFA was "deeply flawed and, unfortunate­ly, the government at the time wasn't really interested in what it would call a settlement". Wijesinha elaborated: "There are two ways of looking at it. One is that the gov­ernment really wanted to hold things until the election ­that's, perhaps, unfair on former Prime Minister Rani! Wickremesinghe; but, certainly, the evidence from Goon­eratne's book is that he [Wickremesinghe] really wasn't promoting a process. The second is that he was trying, perhaps, to encompass the LITE within a sort of net which was what was suggested before the election. But the result is that the real is­sues weren't discussed. The sec­ond is that rehabilitation was disastrous as - according to a letter written by the late Dr. Anton Balasingham - the fact that nothing was going to the north and east."

Wijesinha criticised the former premier - who was chiefly responsible for the albeit-temporary cessation in the protracted conflict - and charged that he "made a great mistake in not allowing the priv.ate sector" to get involved. "Chandra Jayaratne of The Ceylon Chamber of Com­merce said that the chamber was ready to take investment forward. But the government wouldn't allow that. And, perhaps, because of pressure by the LITE - or, perhaps, because of a statist mindset - rehabilitation did not take place. It is extremely important to make sure that living conditions improve as far as possible," he asserted.

When BENCHMARK asked if such a rehabilitation process was being undertaken by the present government, he said: "Well, up to the point that it is allowed."

Citing the situation in the north as "actually interest­ing", Wijesinha then told BENCHMARK that he hadn't realised "until I saw the article in The Sunday Leader" that one of the reasons for the shortage of supplies to the north and east was due to the LITE threatening the ICRC...

However, when BENCHMARK pointed out that the private sector did venture into the north when the Cease­fire Agreement (CFA) of 2002 came into effect, he con­ceded: "Well, yes - and things improved considerably... but my point is with regard to greater programmes. There was a lot of money available in aid programmes. It should have been entrusted to the private sector for infrastruc­ture development. What we need to do is use the business community to really get engaged in a lot of people-to­people development. Peace is not about the government or the LITE, or NGOs and INGOs - it's really about peo­ple and entrepreneurship."