Pawns of Peace: a Norwegian synonym for monumental diplomatic failure

Norway, with the publication of the report - Pawns of Peace: Evaluation of Norwegian Peace Efforts in Sri Lanka, 1997-2009 - finally admitted on Friday, what we knew all along; its 12-year involvement in bringing peace to the island nation was a political disaster, despite the carefully-calculated spin applied over the catalogue of significant failures, in the very lengthy document.

Then, in the same breath, it went on to say that Norway cannot be solely held responsible for the final outcome which saw the elimination of the LTTE. Seasoned political analysts view it as a futile attempt to deviate the criticism from the liberal establishment for the debacle which cost many lives in the island and a colossal sum of money for Norwegian taxpayers.

The report was immediately condemned by the die-hard LTTE supporters of the Tamil Diaspora, by accusing Norway of washing its hands of what they called victims.

The caution exercised by the report in admitting the failure while highlighting its refusal to be held responsible for the fiasco, shows how nervous the Scandinavians have been over this issue, especially when the cloud of loss of credibility was a lingering presence.

The report says that Norway had been involved in mediation efforts in a few other countries as well; it cites Norway’s role in the conflicts in Israel / Palestinian, Mali, Guatemala, the Philippines and Timor Leste. However, the report does not speak of any notable success in any of these conflicts either. Instead, the report implicitly points out that the country has been on a learning curve with lessons learnt from all of them, without mentioning how steep the curve is.

In addition, Norway laments throughout the report for being a ‘weak soft’ power broker. By saying so, it, perhaps, implies its lack of military or diplomatic muscle to rein in the Sri Lankan government, especially during the last phase of the war. The report said, “Norway was not in a position to counter or transform these dynamics,” while referring to this aspect of its mediation.

The report recommended that Norway must exercise caution before involving in future conflicts in order to avoid what it called ‘unintended’ and ‘unforeseen’ consequences. Unfortunately, as far as the Sri Lankan conflict was concerned, rubbishing the sentiments of the majority community as irrelevant, belongs to neither; it was deliberate mischief-making in the short-run, and, as the events turned out, plain stupidity in the long-run.

At last, Norway has learnt that it has neither the power nor the strategies to impose its version of solutions on long-running ethnic conflicts across the globe. The fact that it took two years to produce this report with the involvement of quite a few academics – a potential thesis for future political science graduates – shows how the liberal political establishment in Norway had been rattled to the core by its ill-fated mission in Sri Lanka.

The report also highlights the potential difficulties in Norway’s traditional role in solving global conflicts – mediating between a state and non-state actor – especially while lending its support for war on terror.

It is inconceivable that Norway pokes its nose into the conflict between the US and Taliban, exactly the way it did in the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. Since Norway had a problem with the term ‘terrorists’, it is highly likely that the country would play a very passive role in modern conflicts if the recommendation of the reports were adhered to.

Otherwise, Norway is going to earn the wrath of major western powers which are hell bent on defeating the menace. The report identified another ‘excuse’ for not getting involved in troubleshooting: it has identified what it called ‘global eastward shift’ for it - a coded reference to the growing influence of China in the East and beyond with the inevitable corresponding ground realities.

To its credit, the report’s conclusion shows that hasty involvement in prolonged conflicts – and then, taking sides for short-term domestic political benefits – is not as pleasant as negotiating a difficult Scandinavian fjord, after all. However, the report can only be classified as relatively fair, if it apologized for using 20 million inhabitants of Sri Lanka as guinea pigs for the botched geo-political experiment.

- Asian Tribune -