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The Oldest English Newspaper in South Asia
Founded 4.2.1834
P. O. Box 1217,
35, D.R. Wijewardene Mawatha,
Colombo 10, Sri Lanka.
Telephone: Editor - 94-1-429226; Fax: 94-1-429230

Waging war, talking peace

For the fifth successive year, thanks to his own strategic bungling and the Sri Lankan armed forces heroic military effort, LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has to make his birthday speech, that also commemmorates Thileepan and all other fallen LTTE fighters, in the depths of the Vanni forests. For the fifth year, the blood of Tamil people mobilised in the LTTE forces - as well as that of the Sri Lankan troops and civilians in general - is being spilt to regain what the LTTE so tragically lost when it unilaterally broke the cease-fire in April 1995.

Ever since the withdrawal of the Indian forces, the LTTE had lorded over most of the Northern Province and Mr. Prabhakaran sat pretty in Jaffna, the capital of his de-facto Eelam. It was the apex of autonomous Tamil politico-military power in centuries, when peace emissaries had to pilgrimage to Yalpanam in the effort to end the war.

Today all that is lost. The LTTE's aggressive reneging on the peace process launched by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and the People's Alliance, promptly on coming to power in 1994, has resulted in a tragic betrayal of the Tamil people's dream of self-determination. From being in the most strategically powerful bargaining position, the LTTE has been reduced to hiding out in the jungles with the bulk of the Tamil community outside its direct control.

Of course, given its capacity for clandestine armed coercion - the list of assassinated Tamil leaders and activists alone runs into hundreds - it can still mobilise much of the community for its totalitarian purposes, even if reluctantly.

But peace is not brought about merely by repressive hegemony - as the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan State has learnt after years of warfare. President Kumaratunga's systematic efforts to negotiate, to build a Southern consensus and, to formulate a settlement package are expressive of that lesson well learnt. How much more destruction and death must take place before the LTTE too learns this lesson?

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