EDITORIAL: Canberra Times:

Truce hope as Tigers defeated

After 25 years, Sri Lanka's civil conflict looks likely to end soon with the total defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tigers. At present the remnants of what was once a formidable military force are trapped in a tiny strip of land in the north-east of the country (along with about 100,000 Tamils) and surrounded by vastly superior Government Forces.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called on the rebels to lay down their weapons and surrender, but the offer is unlikely to be accepted. This, after all, is a group which pioneered the practice of using women as suicide bombers, employed child soldiers and assassinated its political opponents without compunction.

Not that Rajapaksa's Government was keen on offering quarter either. It says the Tigers have been using Tamil civilians as hostages and human shields, and that it has prevented them from leaving the war zone, a claim that has been verified by some eyewitness reports. A two-day ceasefire to allow the Tigers to free civilians has ended, without, the military says, any significant exodus.

Credible information about the extent of the fighting, and of civilian casualties, is hard to obtain, but Human Rights Watch estimates about 3,000 civilians have been killed since January. Anecdotal evidence is that the fighting has been both savage and bloody which, combined with the rejection of a rebel demand for a truce, suggests the Government is aiming for total military victory.

But hunting the Tigers to extinction, while ignoring the issues that led the Tigers to take up arms in the first place, is unlikely to achieve a lasting peace in Sri Lanka.

Indeed, by its disregard for the safety of these civilians, the Government is almost certainly ensuring that the Tamil minority and the majority Sinhalese population will continue to hate and distrust each other.

It was not always the case. Though they have only ever made up about 12 percent of the population, Tamils lived peacefully enough with the Sinhalese for centuries. However, the arrival of the English in the 19th Century altered the social dynamic.

The colonists' preferred treatment of the Tamils in the civil service inevitably led to Sinhalese resentment (and to ethnic riots in 1939).

The enmity was given practical effect at Sri Lanka's independence in 1948 when the Sinhalese majority made certain that employment and education laws favoured them rather than the Tamils. More bloody riots followed in the 1960s and 70s, stoked by strident ethnic nationalist rhetoric from both sides. Tamil demands for the creation of a separate State in the North of the country were ignored by the Government in Colombo, and by 1983, the dispute had descended into open warfare.

The Tigers, who were only one of a number of separatist groups when they were founded in 1976, soon came to embody the struggle, having eliminated their rivals, and co-opted the support of the Tamil population with a mixture of virulent propaganda and crude stand-over tactics.

Few will mourn their demise. Nevertheless, President Rajapaksa should exercise restraint in dealing with the remnants of the Tigers, as it is likely that many of the civilians who remain trapped with them will be caught in the crossfire. Indeed, it is fears for their safety that have prompted protests by the Tamil diaspora in Sydney, Canberra and elsewhere in the world.

If the Sinhalese hope to live peacefully alongside their Tamil neighbours again, then Rajapaksa must give quarter. He must then embark on reconciliation, beginning with a commitment to ensuring that Tamils enjoy the same political, economic and social rights as the Sinhalese. Failure to do this will condemn Sri Lanka to yet more decades of division and hatred.