Military victory in Sri Lanka: reflecting on contemporary trends in conflict resolution Dr. Oliver Walton Research Fellow, GSDRC International Development Dept, Univ. of Birmingham

Outline This paper uses recent military victory in Sri Lanka to reflect on broader lessons about third party interventions and mediation in a changing global environment The Sri Lankan experience raises questions about the future of the ‘liberal peacebuilding’ model and the role of ‘weak mediators’ such as Norway The analysis highlights a number of tensions with the emerging consensus from three bodies of literature – cross-country quantitative studies, practitioner literature, ‘liberal peacebuilding’ literature

Military victory and ‘illiberal peacebuilding’ in Sri Lanka Last peace process and ceasefire begins in 2002, slide back towards war begins in 2004, election of Mahinda Rajapakse in 2005 leads to resumption of full hostilities. SL govt. pursues ruthless COIN strategy – significant departure from orthodox ‘heats and minds’ approach. Willing to countenance high levels of civilian casualties, centralised political/military command. The ‘Sri Lankan model’ is being actively sold to other countries (International Defence Seminar May-June 2011).

Reflective of global trends Relied on regional powers – SL government’s engagement with China and Pakistan reverses India’s ‘hands off’ strategy. China, India and other emerging powers challenge interventionist norms at Security Council and Human Rights Council Also dependent upon post-9-11 global terrorism clampdown reduces space for LTTE funding

Commitment Growing consensus about the need for greater commitment/ more multi-faceted interventions/ greater co-ordination But the SL case demonstrates the diminishing space for a more committed/coherent model of international intervention Coordinating with regional powers challenging when these powers are pursuing new models of conflict management that challenge liberal approaches.

Capacities and co-ordination of mediation efforts Two main lessons from the literature: 1. Interventions should be based on more contextual analysis 2. Call for more co-ordinated approaches Tension between these two types of capacity building What role for ‘weak mediators’ such as Norway in this new environment? The end of the ‘lone wolf’ approach and a multilateralisation of peacemaking.

Unintended consequences of intervention Emerging finding that there are considerable costs as well as benefits associated with intervention. Tendency to see Norwegian intervention as a noble failure; but a more critical account highlights the role played by heavy internationalisation of conflict in enabling emergence of nationalist political climate Ownership model fuelling instrumentalisation