Basis for a new peace process

THE news that President Mahinda Rajapakse would be consulting with political parties represented in Parliament, as early as next week, with the aim of laying the basis for a Southern consensus of opinion on resolving our conflict, should warm the hearts of the majority of our citizenry who are desirous of seeing an end to the country's suffering.

The way forward, apparently, would be for the President to talk first to the political parties on a bilateral basis and then conduct a multi-party consultation for the purpose of arriving at a Southern consensual solution.

This proposed solution would then be put to the LTTE in a direct negotiatory process for the purpose of hammering out a final solution to the conflict.

Admittedly, we have "miles to go" before we could finally clinch victory in this tortuous effort to resolve our conflict. However, it is a cause for immense satisfaction that the President, true to his word, is getting down quickly to the task of evolving a political solution the National Question.

Ideally, the negotiations should be conducted within a specific time frame. Already, a valuable and substantial amount of time has been allowed to slip past.

Wasted time breeds frustration and discontentment on both sides of the divide and this could already be seen in the mounting ceasefire violations. If the State had continued since late 2003 to engage the LTTE in negotiations, the chances are that ceasefire violations would have been minimal.

Accordingly, we hope this time round the negotiatory process would be conducted in a highly time-conscious manner. While we cannot afford to be hasty in arriving at agreements on account of the weighty nature of the issues at hand, prolonged delays cannot be allowed in working out solutions either.

Much will depend on the magnanimity and fair - mindedness of the parties to the conflict. Over the years, a fundamental stumbling block in the negotiations has been the inability of the main sides to view the central issues from each others standpoints.

While many in Southern Sri Lanka have failed to see that the Tamil community has suffered discrimination in a variety of ways at the hands of past central administrations and would, therefore, prefer to exercise a degree of control over their own lives, the Northern side has failed to appreciate that power devolution could be countenanced by Southern Sri Lanka only within firmly defined limits.

The LTTE, for instance, has repeatedly failed to perceive that a continuous harping on a separate state would only stir Southern anxieties over an eventual bifurcation of Sri Lanka and render the task of arriving at a North-South consensus enormously difficult.

Therefore, appreciating each others basic viewpoints and anxieties is an essential input to arriving at a lasting solution to our problem. There is simply no question of one side having its way and say over the other. The sides would need to negotiate in a spirit of compromise and mutual accommodation.

Accordingly, the numerous parties to the talks would first need to appreciate the need for a change of heart on their part before getting down to the hard bargaining process.

Meanwhile, the peace process should be pursued on a multi-track basis and as observed by Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in his talks with the Indian political leadership, priority should also be attached to pushing forward the development process in the North-East.

As often said by us in the past, the Tamil people need to get the feel that they are equal citizens in this country. Development could encourage them to feel that way.