Conflict in Sri Lanka: Ground Realities - Tamil Nation & Beyond

Short Fuse in Sri LankaAppendix AWesterners are kept aware of post colonialist conflicts in Kashmir,Israel-Palestine, Rwanda, and Sudan, but the decades-longconflict on the island nation of Sri Lanka between a SinhaleseBuddhist majority and the Tamil minority often seems a tragedy theWest would rather ignore. Recent events there suggest, however,that Sri Lanka desperately needs help from international peacebrokers if it is to avoid lapsing back into a bloody internecine warthat has been suspended since a 2002 ceasefire.The outcome of last month’s presidential election has stokedfears that the war between the Sinhalese-dominated governmentand the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will resume in comingmonths. The new president, Mahinda Rajapakse, won a narrowvictory in alliance with two hard-line Sinhala nationalist partiesthanks to an election boycott by most Tamils in the north of theisland.In Rajapakse’s initial address to Parliament Nov. 26, he warnedominously that he will reject self-determination for the Tamils,that he is committed to a ‘’unitary state” controlled by the Sinhala-Buddhist majority, that he wants to dissolve the current jointTiger-government administration of post-tsunami relief, and thathe plans to terminate a peace process that has been mediated byNorway.Two days later, the Tigers’ leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran,delivering his annual Heroes’ Day speech, restated the Tigers’familiar aim of self-government in a Tamil homeland, noted a‘’vast” policy difference between the new president and the Tigersand warned that Tamils are losing patience. ‘’The new governmentshould come forward soon with a reasonable political frameworkthat will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people,” hesaid. If no such offer is forthcoming, Prabhakaran said, the Tigerswill in the next year ‘‘intensify our struggle for self-determination.”This either-or threat, seen alongside Rajapakse’s own hard-linestance, presages an imminent renewal of civil war.54