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Pitfalls in Peace-making

Just yesterday we were celebrating the early fruits of peace-making, in the form of a temporary halt to violence and the lifting of embargoes and security restrictions.

Now there has arisen the possibility of an obstacle to further progress in the peace process in the apparent gap between the LTTE's pre-negotiations posture and that of the Government's. There also seems to be a gap between the LTTE's posture and that of the international community.

While the Government has moved very quickly, even risking politically adverse criticism, to meet virtually all of the LTTE's "pre-requisites", there seems to be a sticking point. A demand that the LTTE had muted in recent months, has cropped up again: its de-proscription.

At the same time, the government of Norway, which spearheads the role being played by the international community to help resolve the national crisis, has to deal with a new demand by the LTTE leadership: that India hosts the LTTE chief negotiator Dr. Anton Balasingham while these three-way preliminary talks proceed.

It is possible to argue that to insist on de-proscription when the Government has already risked much by reciprocating the cease-fire and easing so many restrictions, is excessive. Similarly, to try to compel a another government, India, to accommodate an organisation it too has fought and then banned for having fomented ethnic extremism within its borders and assassinated one its major political figures, also seems to add to the complications in an already complex matter that is the Sri Lankan peace process.

We must hope that these matters will not be allowed to obstruct the forward movement of the overall peace process. After years of failure due to intransigence on both sides, neither side will wish to bear the responsibility of scuttling the latest initiative, especially when the domestic as well as international political situation is conducive to peace-making and is hostile to both state repression as well as non-state militancy.

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