The core issues

The SLFP's Chief Campaign Coordinator for the Presidential Election, Minister Mangala Samaraweera, could not have done better than to put the record straight on some issues which had figured prominently in the talks Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse had held with the JVP and which were subjected to some serious distortions by sections of the privately -owned media.

The overall impression sought to be conveyed by these sections was that the Prime Minister and his party would be toeing an ultra-nationalistic policy on the ethnic conflict, following talks with the JVP. In this perspective, the Premier was seeking to pursue an uncompromising and confrontational stance on some issues in the ethnic conflict. For instance, the Ceasefire Agreement, we were given to understand, was in jeopardy.

However, the factual position is that the Prime Minister, on assuming the position of President, would "go the extra mile" to negotiate a just peace with the LTTE. No less a person than Premier Rajapakse had clarified recently that he would go to the extent of even negotiating peace personally with the Tiger leader, in the event of his winning the Presidential election.

According to the clarification made by Minister Samaraweera, rather than abandon the peace process, a future government headed by Rajapakse would be arriving at a solution to our conflict in consultation with all relevant parties, including the LTTE. Besides, the Ceasefire Agreement would be sought to be revised, rather than shelved, in view of its deficiencies.

From the point of view of the silent or moral majority, favouring a just peace, these are timely and vitally significant clarifications which would keep their peace hopes very much alive. We are perfectly in accord with the view of this moral majority that no debate on the future of Sri Lanka is possible without featuring the need for pursuing the peace process. In other words, it would be futile to envisage a prosperous future for this country without also envisioning a peace process which would be taken to its logical conclusion.

As we see it, these issues are central to any debate on the future of Sri Lanka and the upcoming battle of ideas for the Presidency cannot be an exception to this important rule. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, with the cogency which is typical of her, broached some of them at the recent 54th anniversary commemoration of the SLFP. She could be considered as having set the tone and direction for the SLFP's Presidential campaign with her timely words.

In her speech, the President stressed the need for a settlement based on power devolution and underscored the importance of perpetuating the Ceasefire Agreement. The President also pointed to improved material prospects the ceasefire had brought Sri Lanka.

All this does not mean that loopholes in the Ceasefire Agreement should be ignored and LTTE recalcitrance tamely given in to. Not at all. All that it means is that governing Sri Lanka would prove impossible if the ethnic conflict is not resolved by peaceful means.

Now that the terms of the future Presidential campaign have been set for the SLFP by its leadership, on the basis of the knowledge and wisdom which have been acquired by it over the past decade or more, we hope there would be no deviation from this vital, nation-building path.

One of the worst things that could happen to Sri Lanka would be for some of those claiming to back the Government's political agenda to side-track into a dangerously-divisive, landmine strewn, ultra-nationalistic blind alley.