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'Terrorism' and negotiations

Whatever the vaunted 'global' media might say in its currently vociferous war-mongering post-New York, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has, as usual, demonstrated what political maturity means in her response to the dastardly attacks on America. Not for her the quick vengeance that is merely un-thinking anger and will only be another phase in a vicious cycle of violence.

While expressing her shock and horror at the sheer brutality of the attacks, and emphasising Sri Lanka's complete solidarity with the United States in its time of tribulation, President Kumaratunga, in her comments on Sunday, has clearly pointed to the need to deal with the root causes of such violence if such attacks are to be avoided in the future.

It would have been easy for the President to join the currently fashionable band-wagon of 'terrorism'-bashing while ignoring the origins of such violence. It is this band-wagon that, in its ham-handed, or even racist, refusal to acknowledge the social causes of social violence in our own country, that have encouraged crude, similarly violent retaliation and thereby helped perpetuate the tragedy. But in Sri Lanka, at least, such immaturity and crudity is in the past - our own murky past of authoritarian government, atrocities and 'dirty' wars.

The President and the People's Alliance introduced this country to an ethos of un-conditional dialogue although this posture of the PA Government has had to be tempered with a firm military resistance to the LTTE's ploys and aggression. Despite repeated powerful attacks by the LTTE, including personal injury and tragedy for her colleagues, the President has had the sophistication not to posture aggressively nor to resort to purely militarist responses.

Her continuing emphasis on negotiations to date is indicative of the political maturity of our current national leadership. Sri Lanka's sober, measured response to devastatingly violent rebellion may then be a beacon to the whole world as it waits tensely for America's reaction to its own tragedy.

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