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Some timely truths

The importance of persisting with the negotiated path to peace was freshly underscore by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe when he addressed the nation on Sunday night. "Whatever situations may arise, we must not leave the negotiating table. It is time now to embark on the road to a permanent peace," the Premier emphasised. This is indeed a timely truth which this country could forget only at its own peril.

While the Prime Minister's decision to speak directly to the people needs to be appreciated in view of the importance of raising public awareness on the prime issues in the peace process, we hope earnest thought will be given to his central message. Namely, the need to continue to seek peace by peaceful means and to do so with utmost patience.

Knotty issues would continue to surface in the negotiatory process, and it couldn't be otherwise. For, it is the seemingly intractable nature of these issues which initially drove the main parties in the conflict to war.

But we have seen for ourselves over a period of 20 years, the dire consequences which war and hatred bring about. War is a vicious circle from which there is no easy escape. It foredooms peoples and countries to a slow, wasting and painful death, which indeed was Lanka's lot until the UNF administration came to power and made a radical change to the way the conflict ought to be resolved. This is the strategy of seeking peace by peaceful means and not the failed approach of bringing peace through war.

If this country is to continue to stake a claim to humanity and civilisation, it must be conceded that peace by peaceful means is the only endorsable conflict-resolution strategy. A conflict-resolution strategy based on war, on the other hand, besides condemning a country to barbarism and bloodshed, brings unthinkable suffering to the ordinary people. Negotiations are an essential tool of those who follow the path of peace by peaceful means and it needs to be handled with utmost dexterity and patience. The horrific blood-letting in the Middle-East today, should serve to remind all sections in Sri Lanka of the judiciousness of persisting with a negotiated end to our conflict, however difficult it may be to resolve some gut issues.

But here too, issues may not prove impervious to reasoned resolution if the parties to the conflict continue on the path of negotiations in a spirit of humanity and compromise. As things stand, this is the spirit which inspires the negotiatory process, the fourth round of which has got under way in Thailand. As long as this spirit persists, issues wouldn't prove impossible to resolve. This is a law of humanity which the peoples of the earth need to learn and re-learn for their well-being and for the security of the world.

However, it is all too plain that there are also sections which are intent on exploiting contentious issues and on rousing destructive sentiments among the people for the purpose of achieving some petty, political gains. By their very logic, such tragically inhuman tactics could only revert Sri Lanka to war and destruction. For evil could only beget evil.

Indeed, as the Prime Minister said, "we must all make sacrifices if we aim to keep the Tamil people with us while protecting the country's territorial integrity." It is the State's peaceful intentions which have kept the hopes of all sections of our people alive. Efforts to scuttle the peace effort by disgruntled, power-hungry elements would not only propel the country into prolonged strife once again but fully convince the supporters of separatism that there is no alternative to their policy platform.

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